Golden Scorpio [Dray Prescot #18]

by Alan Burt Akers

  So we celebrated.

  The next morning there was not a radvakka to be seen. All the tents unburned had vanished. The cooking fires were cold.

  The Iron Riders had gone.

  Therminsax had been saved.

  * * *

  Eighteen

  Nath Nazabhan

  Over the next period of my life upon Kregen I had best tread lightly. Much of what immediately followed stemmed from the facts surrounding the besiegement and Battle of Therminsax. While I had been mewed up there and in the period following when, with a choice band, we traveled from city to city along the old frontiers and pressed on into Hawkwa country, many great events had taken place in Vallia.

  My orders from the Star Lords, to be obeyed, necessitated the complete overthrow of the Iron Riders. So I took the matter.

  To accomplish this in a short time was patently not possible, lacking a plentiful supply of infantry capable of standing against the armored cavalry charge, and lacking a powerful cavalry of our own. With that choice band—a group that grew together in times of adversity as well as of success—we moved from city to city instructing, exhorting, demanding in the name of Vallia. Where the radvakkas were too strong we bypassed the place. Then, in the fullness of time, we would return and cleanse one more spot of Vallia.

  The Iron Riders were slow to counter our measures. We had to make absolutely sure that each province and city we liberated was capable of defending itself against further attacks. With a strong cadre from Therminsax, by expertise that grew with every fresh successful drill no less than encounter, we developed speed in our methods. But, all the same, it was a lengthy business.

  To arouse a nation to arms is one thing; to train them to win wars is another.

  Our first task, which we successfully completed, was to clear Thermin back westwards to the Great River. On the day we reached The Mother of Waters, I recall, we looked across and saw on the right bank a massed group of totrix cavalry, wearing the checkerboard ochre and umber of Falinur. I suppose, thinking of it, it was fortunate that a bridge was not nearby and the river ran broad and deep here. A smashed and routed band of radvakkas lay in our rear, and we were still more concerned with them than with the rebels over the river. For, make no mistake, rebels they were, Falinurese who had sided with Kov Layco Jhansi and taken up arms in his struggle for the imperium. His kovnate province of Vennar marched with Falinur to the west. Beyond him lay the long range of heights known in their northern sections as the Black Mountains and in that immense amphitheatre to the south, the Blue Mountains.

  No good sitting dreaming. We had work to do to the east. Sitting there with the standards and banners about me, I gave the orders, and the cavalry moved out, and the phalanx swung into their dwabur-consuming stride. Oh, yes, these days we marched about the country as a phalanx, made up from men of many tiny villages as well as towns and cities. We trained as we marched, and we picked up fresh recruits every day, it seemed. Mind you, our strength as yet was short of a complete phalanx, and I intended to regularize the numbers out logically. We had almost a full Kerchuri with us, of which four Jodhris were fully trained. Despite my powerful arguments that he should stay with his father and in his city, Nath Nazabhan had elected to march. He was the Kerchurivax. A fine man, a fierce and loyal fighter, he did much to lighten the hearts of the brumbytes, despite his strict adherence to the codes of discipline we enforced.

  And, believe you me, the discipline in the phalanx was strong.

  We cut south following the river and opened up Eganbrev and then swung sharply east in that broad double-hook of She of the Fecundity and so cleared our way through Aduimbrev. I am making this narrative abbreviated here. We successfully liberated Thiurdsmot and Cansinsax, and, by this time, we had four Kerchuris with us. They amounted to twenty-five thousand men. We had a cavalry arm, also, by this time, mounted on totrixes and nikvoves, and these were organized in the usual system, squadron and regiment. They were all heavily armored cavalry, with kax, spear and sword. In addition we possessed a small scouting force of zorcamen. Gathering men and animals together from everywhere, we at all times observed the proprieties and I signed countless assignats. Well, that is a lie my staunch comrade Enevon Ob-eye would strongly object to.

  Enevon—One-Eye Enevon—served as my chief stylor, and he kept scrupulous accounts of every assignment we issued, as well as the army lists. He was from Valka. He had seen me and opened his mouth and I had run him into my tent under the crimson and yellow flag, and cautioned him. He called me Jak the Drang.

  He'd been on a trading mission and become caught up with the revolts in their various places and phases and so could give me no late news from Valka.

  That reminds me of the day we marched into a ruined town having driven off a wispy attempt by a handful of radvakkas to halt us and found in a tumbledown barn the sad remnants of an airboat. Well, between us, we patched the thing up. So we had ourselves a flier. I called Korero to me. His great shield, and often two shields at once, had interposed between me and the arrows and sword-strokes of the enemy. I looked sternly at him.

  “Korero the Shield. You can fly an airboat. You will fly to Valka. You will enter the Heart Heights and there perform a certain function."

  He did not want to go. He was from Balintol, a weird, exotic place, if ever Kregen sprouts such mysterious lands, by Vox. But he could fly and he could read a map and he was of great heart and courage. I entrusted a sealed message to Delia into his four capable hands—not forgetting his equally capable tail-hand—and saw him off with many Remberees.

  To finish that story anachronistically, as is not my wont, he returned in the fullness of time, finding us easily enough by reason of a burning city and radvakkas lying strewn in their own blood, and reported that he had seen the Princess Majestrix of Vallia, whom men now called the Empress of Vallia, and that she had opened the letter addressed to her by Jak the Drang and had read, and grown pale, and pressed the paper to her heart, and had then treated Korero the Shield with great kindness.

  “She was well?"

  “Aye, Jak. She commands an army there of the bonniest fighters I have seen in a long time. They are re-taking Valka for the Strom of Valka—wherever he may be, for men did not know."

  I read Delia's letter in answer to mine. I cannot repeat its contents; but it was as Korero had reported with his sharp eye. Valka was being won back from the mercenaries who had thought the Prince Majister's Stromnate easy pickings. She understood I could not join her for the moment: she would join me when it was possible, although she sounded a warning note. Her thoughts were with Delphond and the Blue Mountains. As to Zamra and Veliadrin, our people resisted there; but waves of aragorn and mercenaries from all over, drawn by the news that Vallia was in turmoil and there were easy pickings, were flocking in like warvols.

  And that reminds me that I had continually to remind my great-hearted brumbytes that they might overtopple mailed cavalry, but that they could not go up against the iron legions of Hamal. The information was not welcome; but I pressed the point and, also, against possible evil, increased our missile force. We were a national army—or almost so. We had a few mercenaries in our ranks and could pick up more as we progressed. We had a detachment of Bowmen of Loh—and none of them had served in the Crimson Bowmen. This corps I did not resuscitate, having strong ideas on the subject of what I intended in that direction.

  Time had flown by and we were well into the North East—well into Hawkwa territory. Now the campaigns we waged changed in character. There was no longer the pressing need to recruit and train men to form phalanxes. We marched and we were the phalanxes. As we liberated areas and towns and cities we destroyed the bands of Iron Riders who opposed us, and rolled up in a receding tide those who fled. The operations took on more and more the guise of campaigning warfare. Gelkwa was freed. With the pikeheads of the host slanting against the suns at my back I appointed a Hawkwa noble, Strom Hafkwa, to be the new Trylon of Gelkwa. He accepted; but he did ask: “By what
right, Jak the Drang, do you do this thing?"

  I relished the moment for its parallels.

  I pointed at the phalanx, at the serried files and ranks of pikes.

  “There is my mandate."

  Of course, I then added that I bore a commission from an imperial Justicar, and was using that to ratify my actions. He was one of those—and there were many of them as there had been many to sing a similar tune in Djanduin—who raised the call, cautiously at first but with growing volume, that we should all march to Vondium and chuck out this traitor Seakon and install me, Jak the Drang, as emperor.

  I smiled.

  “One day, one day, perhaps. But I seek no personal aggrandizement.” That was true, by Krun! “First we must cleanse all Hawkwa country of the radvakkas."

  The Hawkwas clustered about in this moment, as a new Trylon of their province was installed, nodded. They said, in effect, and I do not repeat their words: “Much favor is yours, Jak the Drang. All Hawkwas will stand in your debt, for you do not impose alien rulers on us when you might, seeing you have the strength. We accept your rulings.” That is more or less it.

  I took some pains to make sure I did not come into contact with any who might recognize me from those hectic days I had spent here previously. That was unlikely, really; but it was a chance I was not prepared to take—not just yet.

  I think, now, that Korero the Shield put two and two together and came up with the right answer. But he respected my wishes and kept his own council. Also, Nath Nazabhan knew. It popped out one day, and enquiry determined that his father the Justicar had told him, so that he would mind his manners with me. I smiled—again, I smiled.

  “Then you have kept silence, Nath, and will continue to do so. But I can tell you that an imperial province lies in your hands once we have this mess sorted out."

  And then he surprised me. He said, this tough, limber young fighting man: “I follow you, emperor, for two main reasons. One is to clear Vallia and to flex my arm against her enemies. And the other is because of yourself."

  I did not pursue the matter, as we turned to details concerning the new swarm of irregulars who now followed us as we marched. Nath had been promoted to command a phalanx, the other being in the hands of Nev who was a Therminsaxer and who had risen through the ranks being a man of exceptional ability. He had once been known as Nev the Bottle; but now he never touched a drop and my orders said he was now Kyr Nev ti Rendonsmot, a title taken from the town where he had been instrumental in holding his Jodhri firm against almost insupportable numbers, and then of advancing at the double and flinging the Iron Riders back in confusion.

  Yes, yes, there were many battles and many campaigns and sometimes the arm grew weary and the brain dizzy; but we persevered, clearing Vallia of the radvakkas.

  The irregulars, and I call them that only because they were not as yet integrated into the army, posed problems. Men of Vallia from farm and town, they followed us. They aped our ways, and built themselves shields of wickerwork, and carried long spears, and perched vosk-skull helmets on their heads. On more than one occasion they raced in with a whoop and a yell on the flanks of the radvakkas and materially assisted us in the victory. I had issued orders that the irregulars were to be given the full assistance of our ambulance and medical services, and the doctors with us attended to the irregular wounded in the same way they attended the brumbytes and the Hakkodins. Although we had provided an ambulance and medical service from the very beginning, and little enough they had had to do on that never-to-be-forgotten day of the Battle of Therminsax, the fact remained that once the shields locked and the pikes came down, our men suffered relatively few casualties. This heartened everyone.

  So many vivid and burning memories of those days of marching and campaigning and battling rise up before me now as I speak. Would that I had the time and a thousand cassettes to speak of them; but always my thoughts pressed on feverishly to the accomplishment of what I had set my hand to, the liberation of Vallia and then the return to Delia and the surcease from strife.

  When men march together and fight on from year to year they change, their characters alter, in subtle and gross ways they become different men from those who set out. The histories of Napoleon and Alexander demonstrate this with stark and pitiful clarity. We were not troubled by desertion. If a man did not wish to march with us, then he was free to leave. We were, after all, not a conscripted army but a national army of liberation, fired by the zeal to cleanse our country. So I deliberately instituted a policy of maintaining a turnover in the files. By this method men would be sent home as others pressed forward, after training, to fill the gaps. I did not wish my little army to become tainted, sour, as happened to other armies of the past.

  One bright day after a smart little dustup when a wing, having advanced perhaps a little too far against two strong bands of radvakkas, and having formed a schiltron, pikes out, to resist, was smartly relieved by a cavalry charge in the flank of the Iron Riders, I looked up into the air and saw a flier circle and land nearby. We used our own single flier to recce; I daresay that was the only airboat for a thousand miles or so. And, now, here was another. She bore flags the colors, gray, red and green, with a black bar, and so I knew she was from Calimbrev, that Stromnate island south of Veliadrin, and also I knew who this was who came leaping over the coaming and racing over the torn-up grass toward the group of riders about the crimson and yellow banner of Vallia. I'd have known that slender, smooth-faced, respectable young man anywhere.

  If he yelped out my name before my gathered officers...

  But in those hectic days we had spent together in the Kwan Hills and Gelkwa, and, as well, in that harum-scarum chase from Drak's City in Vondium, something must have rubbed off on him, for as he came running toward us, waving his arms, almost tripping over his rapier and clanxer—I half-smiled when I saw his armory—he bellowed out: “Jak! Jak! It's me!"

  Mind you, young Barty Vessler, the Strom of Calimbrev, still shouldn't have yelled any name. It was lucky for him I was using the same address alias as before, except that I was not Jak Jakhan but Jak the Drang. I urged my zorca out front and center and then hauled up as Barty arrived, red-faced, panting, overjoyed. He was a supple, bright, eager young man, filled with ideas of nobility and chivalry a little rough-hunting with me had not knocked out of his noodle.

  “Barty!” I said, speaking warmly, for I felt pleasure at the sight of him. “Strom. You are right welcome. Lahal."

  “Lahal and Lahal, Jak. I am here. I will fight. I have heard—Del—that is, a message—” He floundered.

  I lowered my voice. “I am Jen Jak the Drang. See me in my tent in a bur. And, Barty, for the sweet sake of Opaz, keep your trap shut."

  He nodded, and that wickedly sly grin of the ingenuous at their awed realization they are involved in skullduggery passed over his smooth, polished face, making him look like an apple set out in the front of the greengrocer's stall.

  “Quidang, Jen Jak the Drang!"

  Names, names ... They conceal and reveal all, and can sometimes lead to very messy deaths...

  Before I could see Barty the aftermath of the little action had to be tidied up. The Kerchuri that had advanced with somewhat too great precipitancy had done well to form their schiltron, in this case a circle of bristling pikes, and resist successfully until relieved; but I wanted a word with their Kerchurivax, stubborn old Nalgre ti Fomenoir. He would shake his head and agree with what I said and then, the next time, would as lief lead on his Kerchuri in that hard, heavy, pounding advance, the brumbytes all advancing with helmets forward and pikes thrusting. We had become used to charging forward and hurling down all who opposed us. We must not become complacent.

  And, after Nalgre ti Fomenoir had been spoken to there was the matter of the Love Story to be attended to.

  A certain brumbyte had become enamored of a little lady in one of the towns we had liberated. A fine girl, strong and well-built, she had captivated this pikeman, Nath the Achenor. When the army marc
hed out, Achenor could not bear to part with his ladylove, fair Sarfi. Equally, he conceived that his duty lay with the phalanx and he would not desert. So—so the pair of them stood before my tent and I glowered on them.

  They stood to attention with their bronze and vosk-skull helmets gleaming, the barred visors lifted, the crimson plumes lofting. They held their pikes at the regulation position, vertically, the heads stained with blood. Their bronze kaxes shone, and Sarfi's had been cunningly adapted so as to fit her interesting shape. Their shields rested on the ground, leaning against their left legs. I looked at them, this pair of brumbytes, one male and the other female, and I sighed and wondered what on Kregen to do with them.

  “So, then, Sarfi, you fancy yourself as a Jikai Vuvushi?"

  “No, Jen. I am a brumbyte and I march in the phalanx."

  “She carries her pike with the best, Jen,” broke out Nath the Achenor. He threw her a swift, fond glance, and then snapped back to glare to his front. “I love her dearly and she loves me and we will not be parted."

  “I do not argue with that. I believe she is trained, for your Relianchun would not have tolerated anything less."

  “She is well-trained, Jen."

  I did not say that I had spoken to Relianchun Anror ti Aventwill, the commander of their Relianch who was due to be promoted to Jodhrivax. I looked on these two lovebirds and I said: “You will return to Sarfi's home. There, no doubt, you will be married and begin to raise fresh brumbytes. That is your concern. I request—request and do not order—that you drill and train the younger men of the town in our methods. You would have made Laik-Faxul very soon, Nath. You have the training. Make sure it is not wasted."

  Nath the Achenor started to argue, clasping his pike and shield, saying that he did not wish to leave the phalanx. But I pointed out to him that the phalanx was no place for a girl. Mind you, that was a long time ago and things changed on Kregen, as you shall hear.