That was the end of First Kanarsmot.
Chapter Seven
“It would perhaps have made better sense,” said Delia as we sat in the tent and looked at the maps, the casualty returns ugly and horrible on the table, the sounds of an army at rest all about us in the mellow evening. “Perhaps, to have sent the Light Cavalry instead of the Heavies in the flank force.”
“As it turned out, it would have been. But they were late.” I yawned. “Mind you, my heart, by this time a man should have learned to expect delay in any plans he makes.”
“And a woman, also.”
“And what plans are you fomenting?”
“For the present situation, why, that we must take Kanarsmot as quickly as possible. Drak should be back by now and I want to go home to Vondium.”
“And I.” I looked at her, and I smiled. “You could always go-”
She did not say anything; but before I could go on she took off her slipper and threw it at me. I caught it. It was warm and soft.
“Very well. You won’t go home by yourself.”
“You could go. Nath can handle affairs here.”
“That is true. But I feel responsible. I want to clear the area this side of the Great River. After all, the villains to the east seem to have settled down in our country. If they respect the line of the river it will prove valuable.”
“You are, Dray Prescot, as cunning as a newborn infant.”
“Ah, but,” I said. “There is no one more fitted by nature to work cunning than a baby.”
She smiled at this, and I knew her memories mingled with mine, and the warmness enveloped us. Presently we had to get back to work. The army had not suffered the ghastly scale of casualties I had at one time envisioned. But we had not got off scatheless. The final nikvove charge, slap bang through the middle and to hell with anything that got in the way, had relieved a lot of pressure. Karidge and his zorcamen had behaved splendidly. The cavalry was pursuing; but the enemy were not a fleeing force for they had withdrawn onto a further considerable body of reinforcements and then presented a front. They were still in play. The cavalry harried them, and parried their cavalry probes. We had not been worried by their flying machines but in the successful accomplishment of that our small saddlebird force had been fully stretched, so that no aerial cavalry had played a part in the battle. Nath was most wrought up about the late arrival of the flank force. When I pointed out to him that if they had been too early they would not have had an exposed flank to charge into, he sniffed, and agreed, and said with devastating logic: “But had they been on time, as you ordered, majister, the flank would have been there and we would not have been so hard-pressed.”
We had not grown hard and callous over casualties. We mourned good men gone. But more and more the truth, unpleasant at first glance and then, with greater acquaintance, acceptable with a kind of glow of abnegation, was borne in on us that for what we sought to do even death had its part to play. These murky philosophical waters led us on, inexorably, to a continuation of the heady and almost intoxicated feelings the people of Vondium had felt during the protracted Time of Troubles and later, when we were penned up in the city. No one wants to die in the ordinary course of things, but if death comes to us all then a fighting man may choose his going over into the care of the gray ones on a battlefield. That, surely, is his right. And, do not forget, we were an all-volunteer army.
The arguments against this kind of thinking, involving manic pressure and self-hypnotism and twisted logic that goes against the grain of life-enhancement, were well known to the sages of Kregen. There is no proprietary right to life-thinking. But we all felt that our lives were well spent in the attempt to provide a free land for our children.
So I was able to read the casualty returns and see the familiar names leap out at me from the long lists with a calmness that no longer surprised me. No, we of Vallia are not callous in these matters. Nath said as I lowered the last list: “We lost Yolan Vanoimen, I am sorry to say.” Yolan Vanoimen was
— had been — Jodhrivax of the Second Jodhri of the Kerchuri. “A stinking Rapa bit his throat out.”
Nath looked down at his hands. I said nothing.
After a space he went on: “The Rapa was brave, you have to say that. He went down with four pike heads piercing him and a Hakkodin axe severing his wattled neck.”
“I am sorry that Yolan Vanoimen has gone,” I said at last. “He was in line for Kerchurivax of the Eighth. We have to pay a heavy price for what we believe in.”
The mineral oil lamps glowed and the camp tent was crowded with our familiar belongings. But I felt the chill. I tried to shake it off. The Eighth Kerchuri would have to find a new commander. We were forming a new Phalanx in Vondium, the Fourth. The Kerchuris were numbered throughout the whole Phalanx force. The Jodhris were numbered through their Phalanx, the First to the Sixth and the Seventh to the Twelfth. The Relianches, the basic formations of a hundred and forty-four brumbytes and twenty-four Hakkodin, were numbered through their Kerchuri, the First to the Thirty-Sixth. Later we made adjustments to this numbering.
The aftermath of battle is not kind. Useless to dwell on that. We gave the army a breather of four days during which time the additional units I had summoned from Vondium flew in. After that we pursued the campaign. From information received from the local people, who rallied wonderfully after the battle, we learned that the commander of the enemy army was one Ranjarsi the Strigicaw. He was a Rapa, one of those beaked and vulturine diffs of Kregen, and he showed great skill in fending us off and leading us a dance. But, in the end, with our enhanced forces, we pinned him against the Great River. The Fourth Kerchuri of the Second Phalanx had joined us, so we had a full phalanx in action. More bowmen and archers and cavalry swelled our ranks. Second Kanarsmot was a fearful debacle for the invaders and Kapt Ranjarsi the Strigicaw was lucky to escape across the river with the remnants. The waters of She of the Fecundity rolled red.
We did not pursue across the river, and we trusted the invaders got the message. Larghos the Left-Handed, a spry, clever, completely loyal Pallan, came up from Vondium to take over the command in the area. I trusted him, along with his comrade, Naghan Strandar, to deal with many of the higher details of the government, the army and the law. They worked with the Lord Farris and made a capital team.
Leaving sufficient forces to ensure that any fresh attempts to invade across the river would be crushed swiftly, we turned toward Kanarsmot itself. This still held out against the small screening forces so far pitted against it, the garrison, of mercenaries, commanded by a Fristle called Fonarmon the Catlenter. He had dubbed himself, no doubt with Ranjarsi’s blessing, the Strom of Kanarsmot. We disabused him of that idea.
The plan I outlined was to take the place by a
Over the southeastern walls of the town the citadel had been built with its footings in the waters of the river. The mercenaries fought well, earning their hire, and slowly withdrew to the citadel. The massive gates closed with a couple of ranks of our bowmen trapped inside. We knew we had seen the last of them. Other bowmen dropped with yells into the moat or withdrew from the hail of arrows that sprouted from the battlements. By that narrow margin had we failed to take the citadel. I said: “I regret the men we lost there. But as for the citadel, well, the cramphs are mewed up inside and we can leave them to rot. I will not lose more good men in unnecessary attacks.”
That seemed sound common sense, by Vox.
Dawn was breaking and illuminating the clouds with fringes of gold and ruby, orange and jade. Someone let out a high excited yell. We all looked up.
High against that paling sky the rope arched. It curved like a whip. It fell all quivering down the wall and its length dangled an invitation at the end of the bridge which the mercenaries had been unable to draw up. The next
