A Life for Kregen dp-19

by Alan Burt Akers

  “Come the day, Nath, and they’ll do as well as we did with the old Phalanx of Therminsax.”

  “They will, by a Brumbyte’s Elbow! They will!”

  The next day it was the turn of the churgur infantry, long flexible lines of sword and shield men, splendid in their crimson and yellow. By example and exhortation we were gradually dinning into their heads that shields were not cowards’ weapons, and the success of the Phalanx at the Battle of Voxyri had done much to impress all. These men were organized into regiments under a Jiktar, four hundred eighty strong, although some were still short while others contained as many as six hundred in their ranks. This situation I tolerated; time would straighten all that out. And every minute of every live-long day was spent in training these men and drilling them and turning highly individual citizenry who were habituated to working together when profits were involved into that fierce, demoniac, cutting machine of an army that would be vital to our survival.

  Also, at this time, members of the Order of Kroveres of Iztar began to trickle in from wild adventurings around the country. I welcomed them with the utmost warmth, for these were the men with whom I sought to change the ways of a world. I shall have much more to say of the KRVI later; but suffice it for now to say that they formed a powerful if small band of devoted comrades, beautifully complementing that choice band who had followed me in the Times of Troubles. And, from time to time, when a man proved himself, fresh candidates were taken in and, slowly, the strength of the KRVI grew. The Grand Archbold of the Kroveres of Iztar did not put in an appearance in Vondium which saddened me mightily.

  So, events were happening thick and fast every day; but the events I hungered for did not happen. Delia did not return. Dayra and Barty did not return. The damned ghost invasion remained invisible. And my friends did not show their faces in Vondium, as I would have wished. As for the rest of my family -

  enough for them that I wished them well and, indeed, messages had been sent to Zeg, the King of Zandikar.

  Jaidur, of course, was prancing around running errands for the women. The sailing fliers were built with the utmost urgency and the yards turned them out by the handful. Mere clumsy wooden boxes, they seemed, square-ended, blunt, and yet purposeful, designed to do a job and adequate for the demands that would be placed upon them. The silver boxes were readied and installed. The masts were raised and all the complicated rigging of the sealanes was dispensed with; we rigged them, with foremast, main and mizzen, courses, topsails and royals only with spinnaker and jib. I had decided it was scarcely worth the complications to rig masts extending from the sides at right angles, as we had done in the past. With these sailing boxes stuffed with varters and catapults and gros-varters, aswarm with aerial sailors and fighting men, I fancied we would give another nasty shock to the invading armies, as we had trounced the army of Hamal at the Battle of Jholaix. The silver boxes lifted the skyships only. The lines of force — ethero-magnetic force, old San Evold sometimes called them — which crisscrossed the world, were gripped onto and held by the power of the silver boxes, as though a keel was extended. By this means the skyships could tack against the wind, unlike free-flight balloons which are helpless in a breeze.

  I went to see Jilian on the day of the departure of part of the army in a fleet of skyships. It was an evolution only, to see how quickly we could transport and disembark a Phalanx into battle. The ships were not all the same, naturally, being the work of individuals; but they were of a size. There were the smaller vessels, sloops of the sky, and the medium sized frigates of the air. And there were the mammoths. These were four and five decks high, with towering superstructures studded with varter ports. Flung together, they were cross-beamed and buttressed, their knees sturdy, their scarphs rudimentary and reinforced with bronze, their planking coarse and heavy. Without the need to combat the hogging and sagging motion to which a ship is subjected in the sea, without the need for fine lines, they could be built cheaply and efficiently as hulking great boxes stuffed with fighting potential. Each of the larger ships could carry a Jodhri from the Phalanx or two regiments of churgur infantry or a regiment of cavalry. I needed to know how swiftly the whole force could be brought into a concentration, landing and disembarking and the troops forming. This kind of exercise was vital to our planning. We took that Third Phalanx that had looked so fine on parade, two brigades of churgurs, and four regiments of cavalry, two of zorcas, and one each of totrixes and nikvoves.

  At the last minute, by design to test the men, I added the Fourth and Sixth Regiments of Totrixes. That, at the least, gave a more equable balance as between infantry and cavalry. With the bedlam going on as the two regiments frantically loaded themselves into their ships, I went to see Jilian. She looked up from the yellow pillows and she did not smile.

  “So, Jak the Drang, Jikai — you are the Emperor of Vallia.”

  “You are feeling better? The wound has healed?”

  Her claw was removed; but the end of the balass box stuck out from under the bed. The scent of roses overpowered in the room. The quietness fell soothingly after the uproar outside.

  “Yes. You bound up my wound — and the doctor says you sucked out the poison.”

  “Yes.”

  Her hand moved under the yellow sheet, across her breast, and was still. Still she did not smile.

  “And — the emperor?”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “To you — or to me?”

  ‘To either of us.”

  “Nothing.” And then she smiled. “No difference at all.”

  “When you are fully recovered I want to talk to you about Lancival, and other things.” I licked my lips.

  “About a girl called Ros the Claw-”

  She half sat up. Her dark hair shimmered in the light.

  “Ros? How do you know her?”

  I felt the leap in me. I kept my face composed. “I have met her.”

  “Well, steer clear of her. She has a leem temper.” Jilian lay back, and I could see she was still very weak. “It is something to do with her father. A right cramph, by her account. But she is good with the-”

  Here Jilian halted herself again, and then said, “With her claw.” And so I knew she had nearly told me the secret name these women called that vicious weapon.

  “The people here will look after you well. Get strong again. The poison weakened you-”

  She saw the way I was clad, the harness, the colors, the weaponry. “You march out to war?”

  “No. An exercise only.”

  She laughed. It was a small, pale laugh; but it reminded me of the way she threw her head back and laughed, fine and full and free, as we rode across the grasslands.

  “You look as grim as though you ride out to confront the legions of Hodan-Set.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Of Lahals After Battle

  Fifty immense sailing skyships lifted out of Vondium and spread their wings and with a good breeze set course southeast. I had a mind to find out what was going on in that corner of Vallia. Crossing Hyrvond, the imperial province which extends a finger to the south alongside the Great River, we were over friendly territory and the people, looking up in wonder and seeing our flags, waved in greeting. Next came Valhotra, of which Genal Arclay was Vad. Continuing on with the breeze backing a trifle and making us slant our yards to catch the best of it, we crossed the Vadvarate of Procul. Procul, and the Vadvarate of Gremivoh to the southwest of it, lies at the heart of superb wine country. But our thoughts were not on fine wines as we neared the border with Mai Yenizar. This kovnate, which was then fairly large, extending from a wide loop of the Great River southwards to the coast, was firmly in enemy hands.

  That enemy, we had reliable reports, consisted of a multiplicity of fortresses set up by the aragorn, lordly slave masters terrorizing the districts under their heels. They descended on weak and undefended places and set up their centers and decimated the countryside. The border had been patrolled by us and defended as best we cou
ld with the forces at our disposal, as I have related. I fancied we might drop down on an aragorn fortress or two, near at hand, and give the men a taste of real action. At the least, that operation would relieve some of the pressure.

  North of that wide-ranging loop of She of the Fecundity, Vallia’s chiefest river, lay the imperial province of Bryvondrin. Over the River again and north and eastward lay lands held by our foes that interposed a buffer between us in the provinces around Vondium and our allies in the northeast. A goodly stroke might be brought about here if we did not become entangled. Always, the fear that mighty hosts converged on us had to be lived with, making my days, at the least, dark with the forebodings of coming disaster. We in Vondium were like blindfolded men who are attacked from out of the darkness and do not know in which direction to strike, for fear that a blow one way will expose the back to the deadly stab from another.

  I had told Jilian this was a mere exercise, and the men believed that, and here was I already planning a miniature campaign in which real blows would be struck and real blood shed. From such shoddy stuff are emperors made.

  Nath, who as the Kapt of the Phalanx, had insisted on his right to fly with us, said to me: “We fly well to the east, majister. Aragorn down there.”

  “Aye, Nath. A visit from us might tone up their muscles.”

  “Amen to that. But, I would suggest, before the suns set.”

  “Assuredly. Have the captain signal preparation for descent.” I pointed over the rail. “There is a wide swathe of land all set out for us. And the trees are far enough away. There is not a sign of a habitation anywhere.” I looked at Nath as I spoke, and he braced up, knowing I summed him up.

  “With respect, majister. I would prefer to land nearer the target.”

  “When you see a damned aragorn fortress, Nath, you may descend. Be prepared to have your men disembark smartly. I am going below. Call me the instant anything happens.”

  “Quidang, majister!”

  As I went down the companionway I reflected that the exercise would reveal faults in the most glaring way. We proposed a disembarkation in sight of the enemy. Interesting. Most. The deep end is very often a capital way of learning to swim. Not always, though, and so as was to be expected I merely fretted and fumed in the stateroom, and could get scant comfort from a pot of superb Kregen tea.

  The hails, floating in with a joyous raucousness, came as a blessed relief. But I waited before going on deck for Nath’s report.

  When I stepped onto the quarterdeck with the wind blustering the canvas and the busy activity of bringing the ship in to land, I was struck by the similarities and the differences in this sailing ship of the air and all those other ships I have sailed on the seas of two worlds.

  “Not so much a fortress, emperor!” sang out Nath, mightily pleased at his discovery. “More a whole stinking town of ’em!”

  And, indeed, as I looked over the rail there was a town spread out below, slate-roofed, granite-walled, huddled behind battlements. Smoke rose from the evening meal cooking fires. A bell sounded, faintly, borne away by the wind. We could see flocks of cattle being driven along white roads toward the gates. The smells rose up, some appetizing, some bringing a gushing memory of slaughterhouses. I frowned. We had determined to drill the men in the evolution of disembarking as speedily as might be contrived. Then I had thought it would be salutary to teach the aragorn the lesson that Vondium still survived. And now Nath was bringing us down onto a town, where a full-scale battle could be expected, and where his beloved Phalanx would be of little use.

  I expressed these thoughts to him.

  He smiled triumphantly, and pointed past the long gray walls of the town below. Men rode toward the town. They were aragorn, haughty in their armor, proud with weaponry, and there were many of them. But the miserable crowds of slaves who lurched and staggered on numbered many many more, and we watched the end result of a slave drive here, a successful slave round-up that brought in the miserable wights from a very large area. I nodded, convinced.

  “Churgur infantry to the town with a regiment of zorcas,” I said. “The Phalanx and the rest of the cavalry to form ready to stop those cramphs down there. Move!”

  The signals hoisted away from the yardarms, scraps of colored bunting in true-blue navy style. I had taught my own aerial sailors much. Signaling, even then, was smart and accurate. The sword and shield infantry ships wheeled away, their canvas swinging free as they slipped sheets, heading down to the gray confusion of the town. The Phalanx ships dropped ponderously to a long sloping meadow. I watched the aragorn.

  Their confusion must be expected to be immense. But in a very short space of time they had shaken out into line, formed, their spears all slanting, and their helmets catching the light of the suns. Whoever ran this town was a man who knew what he wanted and made damned sure he got it. The ships were touching down, massive argosies landing as light as thistledown. The men leaped out, running to form their files on their faxuls, their file leaders, each file of twelve men forming in twelve ranks to give the one hundred forty four brumbytes of the Relianch. The Relianchun stood at the head of the right hand file. As the Relianches formed they joined with others, so that six Relianches formed the Jodhri. Flanking them the Hakkodin fell in, and the archers took up their places in the intervals. It was all done with a smartness, a panache, a cracking sense of style and occasion. These men had never been in action before — only a few in positions of command — and so that had to be taken into consideration. All the same, they handled themselves well, and the solid bulk of the two Kerchuris was wonderfully reassuring.

  I had the oddest feeling that I would have liked Delia to see the Phalanx in operation. Not fighting, but in maneuver.

  “Send a totrix regiment back up to the town,” I yelled. “Volodu — signal Jiktar Karidge to keep his men back.” For that intemperate commander was edging forward and forward, ready to get a good smack at the aragorn before anyone else could get in. Volodu put his silver trumpet to his lips and blew Karidge’s Regiment and Hold Fast, and I saw the distant figure astride the zorca, all a glitter of gold and crimson, turn indignantly in the saddle and glare back. And I smiled.

  It was quite clear that the aragorn, who are always completely assured of themselves, arrogant past arrogance, did not quite know what to make of this sudden descent from the sky. They were abruptly confronted by a thick body of men forming up into solid masses, and carrying damned great long spears. They were, by Krun, highly perplexed. They could understand the wings of cavalry, and being sensible fighting men would give great care and caution to the movements of our nikvove regiment. But, as for the stolid brumbytes, no. No, they didn’t know what to make of them.

  One thing the aragorn did understand. If they attacked they won. Or, to be more accurate, those aragorn who had not so far lost had won. I fancied it was the turn of this little lot to experience defeat. The notion seemed pleasing to me to see what our new archers might do. Volodu blew Archers Forward and Log Logashtorio led his men out. The new Chodkuvax rode a zorca and gave signals with his very own Lohvian longbow. The bowmen spread out and, at the signal, drew and loosed, sweetly, as they had been taught.

  The shafts glinted against the sky like shoals of barracuda. Up and over and down, they plunged, volley following volley. Chodkuvax Logashtorio’s Third Phalanx Archers shot five smashing volleys, and then they were running back, haring between the intervals of the Phalanx, pelting out to their new positions on the flanks. As a sheer demonstration of textbook drill and controlled shooting, it was masterful. But it did not stop the aragorn.

  As that avalanche of cavalry smoked down the hill toward the Phalanx it was the turn of the brumbytes. The aragorn rode the usual mix of saddle animals, but they modified speeds and kept together, rank on rank, so I judged they had been fighting drilled troops at some time recently. That was not altogether a marked trait among the aragorn. They liked to raid and slave and pen their captives in barracoons. If they met drilled and disciplin
ed opposition they would decamp and set up shop elsewhere. I sweated, suddenly.

  Had I made a ghastly mistake? The onrushing host of aragorn were almost on the Phalanx now. The Phalanx was composed of green troops. Were these aragorn different from the usual? Were they about to topple my massed brumbytes into bloody ruin? I sat my zorca and I trembled. Pride, pride, what a stupid thing to do — and I had done it. I, Dray Prescot called Jak the Drang, Emperor of Vallia -

  Emperor of Nothing!

  But how splendid the Phalanx looked…

  With fierce down-bent heads, their helmets all in line, plumes nodding, the pikes thrust forward into a glittering hedge of steel — yes, yes, the old words, the old words. But, by Zair! How they stood, clamped to the earth, like a primeval cliff face, adamant against the sea. A song rose from their packed ranks, a paean, a soaring battle hymn. The words were the old words, and they set the blood to pulsing. With the front rank pikes firmly bedded in the earth, the next thrust over the first, and the next in two-handed grips, shoulder high, twelve men deep, the Third Vallian Phalanx took the shock. As the rolling thunders of the ocean break in spume and fury against those weathered cliff faces, so the aragorn foamed against the pikes. A welter of uprearing steel, of screaming animals, of blood, of noise and bedlam and then of a receding wash of sound, as the recoiling waves break and flow and surge away, rippling, spreading, so those Opaz-forsaken aragorn, damned slavers to a man, broke and fled. The trumpets rang out, crashing notes of silver urgency.

  The Phalanx formed, became a cohesive whole, surged upright, moved, advanced — charged!

  And on the flanks the Hakkodin hacked and slashed and carved a path through the fleeing cavalry.

  “Time for our cavalry, Volodu,” I said.

  Volodu the Lungs blew Cavalry, General Chase.

  The Vallian zorcas, totrixes and nikvoves leaped forward.

  Spuming down in their turn like the returning tide, they roared on after the fleeing aragorn. Everything now could be left to Nath. And here came a zorcaman, red-faced, exhilarated, racing down from the town, roaring out that the place was in our hands. I acknowledged him, shouted, “Well done!”