No. Whatever happened, he decided he would never again leave the woman he loved. He might have to persuade her to take the trip with him, but he would not leave her behind.
Leaving the little apartment that he and Dwan had shared while he was first in Olvion, Taggart walked happily through the familiar hallways and arches. It was still early, and the castle staff was still waking up. His footsteps echoed as he clomped up stairways and along richly decorated walls. The castle of Olvion was not like the ones that appeared in hundreds of Earth movies about medieval times. It was more like a combination of that architectural influence combined with more modern styling.
As he walked along, Taggart wondered again how much different the castle and everything else on this world would be if the planet were more like his Earth. The discovery and exploitation of fossil fuels and explosives had completely reshaped his old world. It was an interesting and intriguing fact that no such elements had been found here. There was no oil that Taggart was aware of. He had heard tales of farmers hitting patches of sticky black substances while developing their fields. These discoveries were few, and the farmers involved had sectioned those areas off from their fertile producing fields. Taggart had decided that it was entirely possible, even probable that such elements must exist here, only in much smaller quantities. The two worlds were far too similar to believe otherwise.
What, he wondered, could he change for the better if he were to search out and locate oil fields or pockets of natural gas? Would any such changes actually be better for this world? He truly did not know.
Arriving at the Queen’s reception chamber, he entered as a new set of sentries opened the doors for him. Meena was at a round table in the middle of the room. The walls were a bright yellow, and blue curtains hung from the many windows. It all had a cheery effect. Meena herself was dressed in a plain uniform, which was no different than any warrior in the field except that her collar bore a silver pin in the shape of a crown.
The queen was talking with two other warriors, and was holding a piece of toasted bread in one hand as she studied a map or some other type of document. There were two stewards waiting quietly on the side of the room.
Meena looked up as the doors opened and smiled at her friend. Taggart walked up, and she stood briefly while he kissed her cheek, and she responded in kind. The two warriors at the table did not find this odd. Displays of affection were not hidden among friends, unless they were at a formal function and one outranked the other.
“I apologize for the early hour, but there is much to do and much for you to catch up on before you leave,” she said. “We received another set of messengers before daybreak,” she indicated the two warriors at the table. Meena seemed to notice that they were standing. “Sit, sit,” she ordered, pointing to a pair of chairs. “You must be exhausted. And famished.” She beckoned to the stewards. “Can you please bring our brave couriers something to eat? Oh, and something for my dear friend here as well?”
The stewards nodded and headed for the kitchen.
Taggart sat, as did the two messengers. They wore the colors of Aspell albeit somewhat dusty. He nodded to them. “Thank you for risking your lives,” he said. “I hope your kingdom is not running short on avenues in which to sneak away. I am Tag-Gar, by the way”
Both couriers almost laughed and started to stand for introductions, but Meena beckoned them to stay put. The oldest one was in his mid-thirties, the youngest barely eighteen or nineteen. The oldest one spoke for them. “Yes, you hardly need to be introduced. It would be difficult, indeed, to confuse you with another. I am Tau and this is my apprentice, Dalan. As to your question regarding exits from the stronghold; we really have none. We are blessed by the fact that the invading force is not at all disciplined. They rely wholly upon a simple surrounding of the redoubt by groups of men. We have been able to lower runners on ropes and slip through their lines.”
Taggart nodded as the man talked, but he was not listening as much as he was thinking. The fact that the Aspell stronghold had never developed clandestine routes out of their walls was unfortunate. It was another indication of just how much the three Coastal Kingdoms had depended upon Olvion for their defense. He thought back on the numerous night raids in which he and a handful of brave young warriors had visited death and destruction upon the Grey Ones that were laying siege to their city. Meena’s voice pulled him from his musings.
“Tau has brought word that a small number of ships has left the Aspell shore, but more are arriving. I'm afraid that the early estimates of the enemy’s numbers have been revised upward. We now expect them to have perhaps double what we had been told of before.”
Taggart did the numbers in his head. “We should still be able to mount an effective attack. I mean, with all of the kingdoms contributing resources.”
Meena sat quietly for several seconds. “Here’s what I see,” she said finally. “Damn, I wish Ruguer were here to handle this. Anyway, Archer’s Gate has nearly twenty thousand warriors. They won’t send all of their fighters, any more than we would under these circumstances. No kingdom wants to leave their walls undefended, especially with invaders about. So let’s say we’re fortunate and they give us half. That’s ten thousand.
“Northland is even worse. They have a total of twenty five thousand, but King Minos is…cautious.” Taggart saw the younger of the two messengers stifle a laugh. “I doubt he will give us as many as Archer’s Gate. Let’s be optimistic and say five thousand.” She held up a hand as Taggart started to object. “I know what you are going to say. Believe me, I have already said it. He might be influenced to provide more once Ruguer arrives.” She turned to the two messengers. “My husband has a way with words.”
Taggart knew what she was really saying. If Ruguer knew what Minos was doing he’d be riding to Northland to kick some royal ass.
Meena continued. “And then, of course, there is us. Tag, we just don’t have the people. The war took too many of us. Out of a total of sixty thousand warriors we lost over half in the battles against the Greys. As you will recall, the reinforcements we asked for did not come until it was almost too late.” The two Aspell warriors dropped their eyes in embarrassment. Meena didn’t notice. She would not have held them responsible. It was the politicians who delayed until the warriors of all the remaining kingdoms told them they were moving to aid Olvion with or without their approval. “We lost another six thousand in the weeks following. There were so many horrible injuries. We could’ve saved more if we’d had more healers. Dwan was magnificent, she worked for days without rest, but even healers eventually have to sleep and eat. Infection and blood loss took so many.” She shook her head at the memory.
“So how many men can Olvion send?” he asked.
Meena looked up at him with an embarrassed expression. “Twelve hundred. That includes the two hundred cavalry.”
He examined her expression hoping to see a trace of humor, but he knew she wouldn’t joke about such a situation. There was nothing humorous to be found in it.
“So few?”
She nodded, and pushed her chair back so she could see him better. “I fear so. We still have to patrol the valley, there are hundreds of individual bands of Greys still raising terror among our outlying areas. We can’t abandon the farms and ranches. The city has to be fed. The coastal kingdoms have helped us through the immediate aftermath of the war, but we were all caught unprepared. They will eventually run out of surplus food.
“But I have not even gotten to the worst part of this little predicament. As you know, we train our warriors from an early age, and we treat them like a separate occupation. They are professional soldiers. We had some reserve forces, but they played a minor role in battle such as making certain that the fighters were fed, etc.
“The other kingdoms depended so heavily on Olvion that they have very few real warriors. Most of their armies are twenty percent professional warrior and eighty percent reserves. The reserves are farmers, smiths and craftsmen first and warriors
second. A distant second.” The queen rose, and walked around the table as she spoke.
“Now add to this mess the fact that most of those professional warriors I’m talking about were in the vanguard of the successful counter attack against the Greys in the Great War. The losses and injuries were not bad considering, but…it all adds up against us.”
Taggart pondered the situation seeking an answer that had not yet been found. He could see the redness in the queen’s eyes. He was certain she had been up the entire night examining the issue from all sides. He doubted he could contribute anything helpful. He beckoned Meena back over to the table.
She sat. “I wish I had better news for you,” she said. Her eyes were brimming.
“In the end it really doesn’t matter, Meena. Dwan is inside that stronghold. One way or another I’m going to get her out.”
At that point the stewards reentered with meals for them. Taggart looked around the room.
“Where’s Toria? I thought she was going to be joining us.”
“I sent a runner to her room, but she either wasn’t there or she didn’t want to open the door. I fear she is more than a little angry with you.”
Taggart sighed. “I can’t really blame her. She was expecting to be meeting with her cousin and returning to her home. Instead I am forced to leave her with strangers.”
The two messengers from Aspell sat motionless until Meena indicated that they should begin eating. They began doing so with gusto.
Meena frowned and put her hand over Tag’s. “I know, but what else could you have done? She thinks going with you will be an adventure. She has never been exposed to war and the horrors it can bring.”
“True,” he replied. “I have to say, however, that she is not the average young woman. There are few seasoned warriors who could have acquitted themselves as well as she did. She sliced the throat of an armed Grey One in the time it takes a person to blink.”
“It was an amazing feat,” Meena admitted. “Still, you aren’t considering taking her with you?”
“No. I just couldn’t have it on my conscience if something were to happen to her.” The big man smiled. “She is a wild one, though. Kinda reminds me of another woman who wanted to be a warrior even though she had no training and went on to accomplish some amazing things.”
Meena blushed. “Eat your breakfast…and don’t worry about Toria, we’ll take good care of her. Before you go, I have something for you.” The queen signaled one of the door guards who nodded back and went into a recess on the side of the main room. He came back a moment later carrying an armload of military gear.
Taggart immediately recognized the articles and jumped from his chair. He snatched the queen up, and lifted her high into the air.
“My weapons and gear. You kept them.”
“Of course we kept them. Uh…put me down now, Tag.” He did. “Dwan asked us to keep it for the day that you returned. She never lost hope. It was too heavy and cumbersome for her to haul to Aspell.”
Taggart was taking the gear from the guard who appreciated the lightening of the load. Taggart’s weapons and armor were larger than what the average man of Olvion was used to. In fact, he had never encountered one who was strong enough to effectively use any of them.
Knowing that he was going into a war situation he found his instruments of battle comforting. Strewn about now on the chairs and floor were his sword, war mace, armor for his calves and forearms and a thick black leather vest with metal studs and stars. Those objects were placed upon the vest, not for decoration but for their ability to deflect blows and prevent perforations.
The vest went on first. It was a bit more snug now that he had put on an extra fifteen pounds of muscle but not uncomfortable. He experimented by twisting his torso and moving his arms. Satisfied with the fit and comfort, he then lifted his sword. The other men in the room were somewhat surprised at the size of the weapon. He stepped away from the table into the center of the room and gave it a few practice swings. The sound of the blade cutting the air was witness to the deadliness of the weapon. Next he seized the war mace. On earth, the measurements of the weapon would be three and a half feet in length and twenty five pounds in weight. Most of the heft was in the spiked head. Here on Olvion the lighter gravity made it feel like it weighed ten pounds. It was Taggart’s favorite weapon because it maximized his advantages of size and strength. Anything standing in front of the bludgeon when it was in the midst of its deadly swing was soon swept away to fall broken and out of the fight.
Taggart looked at the large shield and spear, the other two pieces of weaponry that he had found in the mysterious cavern of skeletons.
“I think these would be too heavy to manage on the trip. If I leave them here, will you see to it that they are taken care of?”
“Of course we will,” Meena answered. “Just promise me you’ll return.”
After his meal Taggart hugged Meena and hurried down to the ground level of the castle to meet up with Vynn. He’d also been invited to the breakfast but had begged off citing the concerns of making ready for the journey to Aspell. Taggart greeted his friend with a fist placed over his chest, the Olvion salute. The gesture was customarily given when a lower ranked warrior met a superior. The higher ranked soldier then returned the salute. In this case, Taggart had been formally returned to his status as a Sub-Commander by Meena before he left her side so when he arrived at the staging area and saw Vynn, he saluted first out of courtesy. Vynn’s position as the Sword of the King made him the overall commander of all military forces in Olvion. Formality was necessary in a military setting because it helped to maintain discipline. After all, training and discipline was the only real difference between an effective army and a mob.
The long lines of saddled charon were being worked on by their riders. A man that Taggart took to be Tophar was walking up and down the rows checking straps and tack. He was a typical warrior of Olvion, somewhere near five feet, six inches in height with the same wiry musculature that came from a lifetime of military training. He wore the green and red uniform of Olvion adorned with nothing but a small black pin shaped like a horse worn on his collar.
Vynn saw him looking. “You need have no concerns about Tophar,” he said. “He is one of the few cavalrymen who survived the war. He was wounded, and it took a full season for him to recover. He is second only to Ruguer in the art of mounted warfare.”
Taggart hoped that was so. They would need all of the help that they could get. The picture, as painted by Meena, was a bleak one. With so few fighters being committed by the kingdoms of Archer’s Gate and Northland, they would be challenging the invaders with more or less equal numbers. That would not normally worry Taggart much, except that these men from the sea were an unknown quantity. They knew nothing about them. One could assume that they were fighting men from the fact that they had been willing to besiege a city. They were here to loot and pillage, but what else? Was rape and slavery also a part of their plans? How about mass murder? They had not received any word of such actions, but all of their information was two days old owing to the distances involved.
Taggart wondered about Aspell and what help that kingdom could contribute to the effort to drive the pirates back into the sea. According to Meena this kingdom, like the other two that were located on the coast of the great sea, were also overly dependent upon a military system which had few full-time fighters supported by citizens who were expected to join in as a reserve force. It was expected that they would have only some two thousand active warriors, and they were all defending the walls of the stronghold. The others had probably fled with their families.
Taggart pondered where these reserve warriors had gone. How would they even locate them and get them mobilized? As a former member of the U.S. Army, Taggart knew the weaknesses of such a system. Reservists were fine as long as they had regular training, and there was a recall system in place, but there were no telephones or radios here from which to broadcast orders to assemble. They would have
to see if the situation was as bleak as it appeared when they got closer to the coast. At least they were going to be meeting up with other elements from Archer’s Gate and Northland.
That left another question, didn’t it? Who would take charge in such a combination of forces? Taggart had asked Meena before he left, but she had only said that such details were still being worked out via long distance discussions.
Taggart had placed all of his incidentals that he might need for such a journey; toiletries, extra pairs of socks and uniforms, etc. into the largest backpack that Meena had been able to scrounge up for him. He had taken it off to set it on the ground to check for the third time when he felt a touch on his arm. When he looked up he saw an older gentleman of more than sixty summers standing before him. The sturdy looking old gent wore a huge smile. Taggart recognized him immediately.
“Geord,” he shouted excitedly. “By the stars Man, it is so good to see you!”
Geord was a master craftsman of the art of bow making. When the kingdom had been threatened by hundreds of thousands of Grey Ones he had converted his shop and employees to the making of effective and serviceable bows by the thousands. Before the war had forced him into that effort, he had been known throughout the four kingdoms for manufacturing beautiful works of art, which also happened to be the most accurate bows in the four kingdoms. Any young archery officer of means would carry one of Geord’s creations draped proudly over his shoulder.
Months before Taggart had been reluctantly spirited away from Olvion, old Geord had crafted a beautiful weapon for Taggart. With his expert eye, he had observed the big man in a parliamentary meeting and taken his measure. He had then encountered Taggart on the streets, and gifted the weapon to him. The bow was so stout that the string was intertwined with thin extruded wires, and no normal man was capable of stringing it. Even the mighty Ruguer had not been able to accomplish it, but Geord knew his craft. After instructing Taggart in the proper method of holding and bending the bow, the big man had succeeded. Besides being an attractive work of art it was a devastating weapon. Taggart had just begun developing his skills with it when the war had escalated, and he’d had no opportunity to use it in battle. After winding up back in his home of Clovis, California, Taggart had made a point of developing his skills with several weapons, including the bow and arrow. In the six months or so that he was away, he had gone from being a hopeless novice to very nearly an expert with the bow.
The Coastal Kingdoms of Olvion: Book Two of The Chronicles of Olvion Page 16
