A Sword for Kregen

went quietly to our seats in the Half Moon, an old theatre of Vondium and one in which many famous actors and actresses had trod the boards and spoken their lines. The building was mainly of brick and stone and only the roof had burned in the Time of Troubles. The seats were arranged in a horseshoe fashion, tiered one above the other, and the acoustics and vision were alike first class. As I sat down on the fleece-stuffed cushions and looked about at the black and ugly burn marks high on the walls, and the licks of fresh paint, and saw the stars glittering high and remote, I reflected that the times of troubles were not over yet, by Vox. An awning had been erected over the stage. During the performance a light rain began. The performers were shielded, and as they were the important part of the night’s proceedings, we in the auditorium perforce sat and got wet. Only a handful of people left. Watching the play absorbed us, and a little rain was nothing.

The play was a new one, recently completed by Master Belzur the Aphorist, called The Scarron Necklace. Although my mind was filled with Army Lists, and the problems of supply and transportation, and the natural concern for the morrow, I found I was held by the action of the play. Of one thing I was pleasantly sure: there were still playwrights left in Vallia.

As was often the case, a purely entertaining middle section had been incorporated, in which choirs sang the old songs of Kregen. On this night a new touch had been added. I sat up, and I heard Delia’s delighted laugh at my side.

For, onto the stage pranced files of half-naked girls clad in wisps of crimson and wearing fluffed out felt helmets that might, if you did not look too closely, pass as the bronze-fitted vosk-skull helmets of the Phalanx. The girls all carried wands — and then I realized they were intended to represent the pikes of the pikemen. They were only some five feet long; but the girls made great play with them, marching and countermarching and singing a foolish, lilting, heart-lifting ditty. The words were something to do with a soldier being always able to command the vagaries of a girl’s wayward heart. This was the song that was afterward called the “Soldier’s Love Potion.”

“They march well, majister,” said Nath, leaning across and not taking his gaze from the spectacle. “I could do with a few of them in the Phalanx, by Vox!” And he laughed. The girls weaved patterns across the stage, their wands circling and rising and falling, and thrusting. I found it extraordinarily difficult to laugh. By Zair! I approved of this flummery, for it did a power of good for morale — but in the reflected radiance of the mineral oil lamps limning those slender girls out there I seemed to see the clumped and solid ranks and files of the Phalanx and heard the awful clangor of battle. Playacting, make believe, a light-hearted evening’s entertainment — why should I make such heavy weather of it and refuse to take the joy? Why this continual questioning of my motives, when I had made up my mind, grimly, and intended to unite Vallia once again and then hand all over to Drak? Why? Why torture myself with regrets? Life is life, and it whirls along and we all get dragged with it willy-nilly no matter how desperately we cling to the deceptively substantial acts of everyday. I half-expected to see that damned Gdoinye come sticking his arrogant scarlet-feathered head out over the proscenium arch and summon me off to jump about for the Star Lords. By Krun! But that would stir the old blood up.

Delia sensed my mood, half-desperate, half-defiant, and she pressed my hand, and so I turned my fingers over and gripped hers.

“We sail in the morning.”

“I think I shall be glad to shake the dust of Vondium out of my head.” I felt her fingers in mine, warm and trembling slightly. “I wish Drak were here.”

“He will come home with Queen Lush,” she said, and I caught the amused puzzlement in her voice. “I have invited Silda to visit us. Her work — well, she will have news of Lela.”

“When that young lady deigns to return home to give a Lahal to her father, I shall have a few words to say-”

“Now, then, you grizzly old graint!”

Then the mock-soldiers on the stage, their crimson draperies swirling and their bodies gleaming splendidly, performed their final triumphant charge, and vanished into the wings, and the rest of The Scarron Necklace began.

So, here we were, a little army flying off with the wind across Vallia toward Bryvondrin to meet these upstart foemen who would not leave us alone.

The wind held fair and we bowled along. Standing on the quarterdeck I looked around on the empty spaces of the sky. How odd, how weird, thus to see an armada of sailing ships billowing grandly through the air! Their sails did not gleam, for they were patched brown and pale blue, dappled with camouflage. But the sight of massive ships upheld in the air, bowling along with all sails spread… incredible. A sniff at the air and a closer look at the cloud formations ahead gave me unwelcome news. The captain came over at my call and he agreed that we were in for a change in the weather.

“In for a blow, majister — and the breeze will back, I think.”

“Aye, captain. I am not as sanguine as I was that we will reach Kanarsmot before the gale strikes.”

“We can but pile on all canvas and trust in Opaz, majister.”

“Aye.”

The plan had been to land near Kanarsmot, a town on the Great River situated where, on the southeastern bank of the river, the boundaries of Mai Makanar to the north and Mai Yenizar to the south marched. By this stratagem we would array our forces in rear of the invaders, cut their supply lines, free the town, and then be in a position to hit them in flank and rear and dispose of them with little hope of escape.

But the wind gusted and freshened. And, as we feared, it backed.

Well, weather is sent by the Hyr-Pallan Whetti-Orbium, the meteorological manifestation of Opaz, and we must do what we could. We battened down. There were no seas to come leaping and crashing in over the bulwarks; but as the breeze blew with ever greater strength and backed around the compass, our yards were hauled farther and farther around. Soon we were facing a stiff easterly. The rushing roar of the wind stuffed our mouths and nostrils and half-blinded us. On the ships staggered, lurching as their invisible keels gripped into the lines of force. At last, when we were within only three dwaburs of the town, it was apparent that we could make no further headway.

The twin suns were sinking, flooding the land below with their mingled streaming lights. The jade and ruby cast long tinted shadows. The country here was tufty, cut up by small hills and gullies, scrub country and yet being well-watered festooned with traceries of forests. The clouds sent racing shadows leapfrogging across the grass.

“Down, captain,” I shouted, my words blown away. I pointed down and stabbed my hand urgently. If we continued aloft we’d be blown miles off course.

So, in the last of the light, we made our landfall.

We came down fifteen miles short of Kanarsmot and we knew the enemy was in force somewhere between us and the town.

Thus are the grandiose plans of captains and kings foiled by the invisible breeze. A pretty bedlam ensued as the reluctant animals were herded from the capacious interiors of the ships. The men disembarked and set about bivouacking. The wind tore at cloaks and banners. We pitched a dry bivouac, no fires being lighted. Cavalry patrols, zorcamen, were sent out immediately. When I gave firm orders that the flutduins, those marvelous saddle birds of Djanduin, were not to be disembarked, Tyr Naghan Elfurnil ti Vandayha stomped across to me, raving. His flying leathers were swirled about his legs by the breeze. He had one hand gripping his sword and the other outstretched, palm up, as though he was begging for alms.

“Majister! My flyers can scout that Opaz-forsaken-”

“Come now, Naghan — look at the weather!”

“My flutduins can fly through the Mists of Sicce itself.”

“I don’t doubt,” I said, dryly. “However, I shall need your aerial cavalry for the morrow. The breeze will drop by then.”

Naghan Elfurnil was a Valkan, and he had been trained up by expert flyers from Djanduin. An aerial detachment was with us; but I was not going to throw them away in weather like this.

“The jutmen will be our eyes tonight, Naghan.”

“They’ll be outscouted, you mark my words.”

“It would perhaps be best if Jiktar Karidge did not hear you say that, Naghan. He has a temper-”

“Oh, aye, majister. Karidge is a fine zorcaman, I’ll give you that.” Naghan gave a huge sniff that was instantly