The women and the warlords coaaod-3

by Hugh Cook

  At length – but sooner than one might have expected – the army started to move again. As they advanced, Yen Olass saw a wagon in the swamp: it had been unloaded then pushed overboard. So somebody had been thinking, after all.

  $

  When they camped on the western side of the swamps, rumours and stories began to circulate freely as patrols brought news to the army. Now the ordinary soldiers learnt of the casualties suffered by raiding parties which had infiltrated Estar; they had all known for some time that Estar's temple had been destroyed, but now learnt that only three of the Collosnon soldiers taking part in the attack had survived. Other raiding parties had disappeared without a trace. They learnt also of the strength of Castle Vaunting, the ruling castle of Estar, said to be commanded by a fearsome army of soldiers, adventurers, renegades of one description and another, and Rovac mercenaries from islands far to the west.

  However, the army had many victories to its credit, and few of its veterans had serious qualms about the dangers that lay ahead. After days in Argan, they had seen no dragons, no monsters and no magic – in fact, everything had been remarkably commonplace. The general opinion was that the perils of the southern continent had been greatly overrated, and would be matched easily by the skill and strength of the soldiers of the Red Emperor, Khmar.

  The next day, the army started for Castle Vaunting. A strong rearguard stayed to protect the corduroy road: Lord Alagrace wanted to* ensure that his supply lines stayed open behind him. Patrols and foraging groups spread out into the country on either side of the main line of march, and mounted scouts rode far ahead.

  While the main body of the army moved at the walking pace of the infantry, cavalry squadrons drove deep into the territory of Estar. Some were tasked with seizing control of the coastal trading route, the Salt Road, as Lord Alagrace wanted to ensure that no news of the invasion reached powers further south. To help stop news going north, along the Hollern River, some parties of infantry had been given the job of venturing into the depths of Looming Forest and setting up a blockade across the river.

  As the army marched toward Castle Vaunting and the associated town of Lorford, Lord Alagrace reviewed the latest intelligence, and learnt of nothing untoward; it would be some time yet before he learnt that three wizards had recently arrived in Estar.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The invaders were shocked by their first sight of Castle Vaunting. Its battlements seemed endless. Labouring upwards out of a hill of grass, its heights, the details shrouded by heavy rain, made a doom-dark mountain mass; shadow upon shadow, the tors and crags of the enemy stronghold strove toward the darkness of engulfing cloud. Eight towers studded the walls, while the vertiginous gatehouse keep was a fortress in itself. That hulking darkness, lording it over the centuries, had been built to hold against armies greater than theirs.

  It was with some surprise that the infantry learnt that the town of Lorford had given no resistance. The cavalry had already secured the Salt Road, the town, and the approaches to the castle.

  Working on the commands of short-tempered siege marshals with thunderous voices, the troops made camp, built earthworks to guard against any sally from the castle, and assembled siege equipment. The drawbridge had been pulled up, so they had no easy way into Castle Vaunting, which was ringed with a deep moat with everlasting fire smouldering at the bottom of it. However, it would take more than a ditch and a wall to stop the Collosnon army.

  Before the siege marshals assigned tent pitches to the translation section, Yen Olass made sure she got lost in the confusion. She had no desire to help unload wagons and put up tents in the mud and rain. There was a lot happening, and she wanted to see some of it.

  While she was inspecting the assembly of some siege catapults, she heard that a monster had been captured in a skirmish to the north, in Looming Forest. Yen Olass suspected this might be a tall story – she had already learnt that an army is a magnificent rumour machine – but decided to go and see for herself. She found out where the monster was being held: in a tent in the security section.

  A guard outside the tent challenged her, but Yen Olass told him she had been asked to inspect the monster then give a reading regarding its provenance and its nature.

  The guard expressed his doubts.

  'Lord Alagrace has commanded,' said Yen Olass, her voice hard and cold.

  And he yielded, allowing her to go inside. Would the prisoner be a real monster – or just a big ugly man?

  The first thing Yen Olass saw when she got in the tent was a woman huddled on the ground, weeping. Ignoring her, Yen Olass looked round for the monster. It was everything she could have hoped for.

  It was bigger than Yen Olass, and heavier. It was green. Two arms, two legs. Skin that looked hard, almost chitinous. Gill slits on both sides of the neck, which was massive. On the sides of the body, ridges riding against ridges, perhaps protecting and concealing further gill slits. Down at the groin, a knotted complexity of tendons, muscles and raised ridges, hiding the nature of the sex organs from the inquisitive gaze.

  So.

  A monster – a real monster!

  One of the creature's arms had been gashed. The congealed blood round the wound was red. Yen Olass was offended that a monster should have chosen red for the colour of its blood. But then, rats had red blood, and so did cats, and nobody objected to that. But rats were hardly monsters, and cats were really people. Tentatively, Yen Olass reached out and touched the wound, lightly. She was fascinated. She wondered if they would burn the monster, or if it would be stoned to death, like a dralkosh.

  Suddenly the monster opened its mouth, revealing a formidable collection of teeth. Yen Olass stepped back smartly. Even though it was trussed up firmly, it might still be dangerous.

  The monster made a noise:

  'E'parg.’

  Yen Olass was not impressed. From such a considerable monster, one could reasonably have expected something more expressive than a couple of nonsense syllables. A growl, for instance. Or a roar.

  'The monster went e'parg,' said Yen Olass, 'and the cat went miaow.’

  The next moment, Yen Olass was shocked to hear the monster say:

  'P'tosh, and the cat went miaow.’

  It was echoing her words. But then, birds did that – strange little birds with many colours, which came from Ashmolea, cost a lot of money to buy, and usually died in the winter. Yen Olass had always wanted one.

  'You don't look much like a bird,' said Yen Olass to the monster.

  She talked to cats and horses, so she saw nothing strange in addressing the monster, even though there was no chance that it would understand.

  'E'parg,' said the monster. 'E'parg Hor-hor-hurulg-murg. P'tosh, miaow. P'tosh.’

  Yen Olass was annoyed. Her monster had already forgotten all the words she had taught it. All but one.

  'And the cat said miaow,' said Yen Olass, firmly.

  'P'tosh, and the cat said miaow. P'tosh.’

  'What's this p'tosh business?'said Yen Olass.

  'P'tosh. Kana p'tosh.’

  Yen Olass stared at the monster. Her eyes widened. Kana? Kana p'tosh? Wasn't that one of the phrases her language instructors had drilled her with? Was the monster talking? E'parg-what did that mean? She remembered. In the Galish Trading Tongue, 'e'parg' meant 'I bear', in the sense of 'I am burdened with'; it also meant 'I am called'.

  Not sure whether she was allowing herself to hear speech in an animal's grunts, Yen Olass addressed the monster:

  'E'parg Yen Olass Ampadara.’

  'P'tosh, Yen Olass Ampadara. E'parg Hor-hor-hurulg-murg.’

  'P'tosh, Hor-hor-hurulg-murg.' 'Skanskesh. Nordis.’

  'Yol, skanskesh,' said Yen Olass, and fed the monster some water from the skin she carried at her side.

  Once the monster had drunk some water, it began to speak very fluently in the Galish Trading Tongue, but Yen Olass was unable to understand. She was frustrated by her limited command of the language. She understood 'I am of t
he Melski' and 'help me', but little else.

  To talk with the monster, Yen Olass was going to need help from her language instructors. She knew where to find them. Yet she hesitated. A speaking monster might not be the most welcome contribution to the morale of the Collosnon army. On the other hand, discovering such an interesting beast might win her a certain amount of local fame.

  Then Yen Olass realized that a speaking monster would be a valuable source of intelligence. She should go and tell Lord Alagrace that the large, dangerous creature his men had captured in the forest was an intelligent entity in its own right, and could talk.

  Yen Olass said goodbye to her monster, and went to find Lord Alagrace's command tent. When she found it, an aide-de-camp collared her:

  'Yen Olass,' he said. 'Lord Alagrace is looking for you.’

  'That's all right,' said Yen Olass, 'I'm looking for him. Let's go and talk to him.’

  'Not yet!’

  'But you said he wanted me.’

  'He's with the wing commanders right now.’

  'Talking about what?’

  'Grazing.’

  'Grazing!' said Yen Olass, and snorted.

  But the aide-de-camp made her wait just inside the entrance of the command tent, which was crowded with officers, messengers, siege marshals and couriers, and filled with a babble of talk. Near the entrance was a torture post, to which a prisoner had been tied. He was being interrogated; an executioner stood off to one side, arms folded, disappointed to find that the prisoner was talking without needing physical coercion.

  The prisoner had been stripped of his armour, a weird assortment which included an ornate helmet of polished metal, topped with an irresistible concoction of plumes. Yen Olass looked at it, looked away, looked at it again, bit her lip, hesitated, then grabbed it.

  Nobody tried to take it away from her.

  Yen Olass smoothed the slightly bedraggled plumes between her fingers, then let them tickle her nose. She put the helmet on, trying it for size. She was surprised how heavy her trophy felt. The padded metal cut down her field of vision and muffled her hearing. The padding was missing from the nose guard, and her nose complained about the cold touch of the bare metal.

  'Yen Olass!' said the aide-de-camp. 'We're wanted now.’

  Yen Olass marched forward through the gloom of the tent, and halted in front of Lord Alagrace, who was seated behind a campaign desk. Behind him was an open flap-window. Flecks of rain came dancing in through the window. On the campaign desk was a basket of bread and gaplax which some fatuous apple-polisher had rescued from the ruins of Lorford. Lord Alagrace, in no mood for gourmandizing, pushed it toward Yen Olass.

  'For me?' said Yen Olass, delighted.

  'No!' said Lord Alagrace. 'For a prisoner. One of the town women denounced her. She belongs to one of the castle commanders. She's his evening woman. We want her kept in good condition. We may use her for barter if the castle sends an embassy to treat with us. She's your responsibility now. Take her this.’

  'Where is she?' said Yen Olass.

  'At the security section, of course,' said Lord Alagrace impatiently. 'She's in the same tent as a – what was the thing?’

  'A Melski,' said one of his aides. 'A monster from the forest.’

  'The monster talks!' said Yen Olass, remembering why she had come to see Lord Alagrace in the first place. 'I'm sure it does,' said Lord Alagrace. 'No, really.’

  'Then you can interrogate it for us,' said Lord Alagrace. 'Now go.’

  'Sir!' said Yen Olass, slamming her right fist to her heart in a Collosnon soldier's salute.

  Then, thinking she might have dared too much, she grabbed the basket of bread and gaplax and scuttled away.

  'And Yen Olass-’

  She darted between crowding bodies, hugging the basket close to her body. Lord Alagrace's voice, rising to a roar, pursued her:

  'Take off that ridiculous helmet!’

  ***

  On her way to see the prisoner, Yen Olass ducked under a cart, and, skulking down low and out of sight, she gorged herself on bread and gaplax. But there was still some left when she got to the security tent. And she was still wearing her helmet.

  Inside the tent, the monster appeared to be sleeping, but the woman prisoner was still weeping. Yen Olass was amazed to think that anyone could go on crying for so long. She nudged the captive with her boot.

  The woman scrunched herself up into a little ball, like a hedgehog. Yen Olass nudged her again. Harder, this time.

  'Hey, you,' said Yen Olass, not bothering to conceal her contempt.

  Slowly, the captive uncurled, and looked up. Her face 151

  was soggy with misery. A soft, young face, with brown hair straggling down on either side of it. She might have been pretty, if she hadn't been so bedraggled. So this was the castle commander's woman. Or was it? Yen Olass hunted for a word in Galish, and found one: 'seg', meaning whore.

  'Seg?' said Yen Olass, a note of interrogation in her voice.

  The woman burst into tears and curled up again. Obviously that was the wrong thing to say. Seeing the damage she had done, Yen Olass began to feel a little bit guilty. Momentarily, she wondered what Yerzerdayla would have thought of this. Yerzerdayla would have been appalled to find Yen Olass terrorizing a captive woman.

  'Now then,' said Yen Olass, trying to soothe her victim. 'Now then.’

  She squatted down by the bundle of misery and wondered what to do next. She touched it with a soothing hand: and it flinched.

  'Am I so dangerous?' said Yen Olass.

  Maybe, from the captive's point of view, she was. After all, Yen Olass was a big, bulky foreigner arriving in boots and helmet, her sex anonymous beneath weather jacket and furs. In that context, 'whore' had been a disastrous word to use; realising what the prisoner must have thought, Yen Olass was now thoroughly ashamed of herself.

  What was the Galish word for filly? Nom? No, that was a word for a female camel. 'Gamos' was a word for any kind of female horse. That would do. Yen Olass practised a Galish sentence in her mind, then said it:

  'I am a gamos.’

  Silence. Then the captive looked at her, then looked away.

  'Gamos!' said Yen Olass. 'I am a gamos!’

  The captive began to sniffle violently, crushing her face into her arms. Was she having a fit or something? Suddenly, Yen Olass realised the prisoner was laughing. What was so funny? Her pronunciation couldn't be that bad.

  'I am a gamos,' said Yen Olass, starting to get angry. 'A gamos!’

  The captive laughed and laughed and laughed. She was working herself into a state of hysteria.

  'Say stanaba,' said the monster, Hor-hor-hurulg-murg, who had been listening all the time.

  Yen Olass remembered now. That was the Galish word for a female human.

  'Stanaba,' said Yen Olass. 'I am a stanaba.’

  But she still failed to see what was so funny. She knew that, sometimes, nearing the final stages of exhaustion and fear, people will laugh for no reason, sometimes following helpless laughter with a crying jag. That must be what was happening here.

  The captive calmed herself and sat up. Yen Olass took off her helmet, and then introduced herself. Yen Olass Ampadara and Valicia Resbit.

  'Elkordansk,' said Resbit, patting her abdomen.

  'Hungry?' said Yen Olass.

  Resbit said several sentences, in which Yen Olass caught only the word 'boy'. She could scarcely be hiding a boy child under her clothes.

  'What?' said Yen Olass.

  Resbit nursed an imaginary baby in her arms.

  'Child?' said Yen Olass, pointing at Resbit's abdomen.

  'Boy child,' said Resbit. 'Elkordansk.’

  Was she pregnant? If so, this was very confusing, for even Yen Olass knew that a pregnant woman cannot tell the sex of her child. And what was an elkordansk?

  'Eat,' said Yen Olass, pushing the remaining bread and gaplax toward Resbit.

  As Resbit ate, Yen Olass helped herself to a little more, and
they began to talk. Neither of them knew very much of the Galish Trading Tongue, which was not Resbit's native language, but, slowly, they began to make sense of each other, helping out language with mime, with imaginary drawings done with a fingertip in the air, and with the occasional astute comment from Hor-hor-hurulg-murg.

  They were really starting to get to know each other when there was a commotion outside. Going to the door of the tent, Yen Olass saw a big crowd gathering some distance away; there was a lot of shouting go on.

  This looked interesting.

  'I'll be back,' said Yen Olass.

  But she lapsed into Eparget as she said it, so Resbit did not know what to think when her new friend disappeared.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  When Yen Olass managed to push her way into the centre of the crowd, she found a large ugly man, bound hand and foot to a pole. Yen Olass recognized him without any troubled at all: Volaine Persaga Haveros, sometime Lord Commander of the Imperial City of Gendormargensis. A violent argument was going on as to what should be done with him.

  The argument ended when Lord Alagrace arrived.

  'Cut him loose!' said Lord Alagrace.

  Men with knives went to work. They sliced away the ropes and removed the gag from his mouth. Haveros lay in the mud with the rain falling on his face; he looked dazed, stupid. Lord Alagrace looked around. Yen Olass tried to shrink back into the crowd, but failed.

  'You!' said Lord Alagrace. 'Make yourself useful. Give him some water.’

  Yen Olass knelt down and began feeding Haveros some water. As he suckled on the half-empty skin, she wondered, belatedly, whether he would catch any terrible disease, as the Melski monster Hor-hor-hurulg-murg had already drunk from the same water skin.

  Another woman joined Yen Olass. It was the Princess Quenerain. This high-born lady knelt down in the mud and began to massage the captive's hands, to get the circulation going. Ropes had cut deep into the skin, leaving ugly red marks, as if he had been branded.

  'Haveros!' said a voice.

  Yen Olass recognised that voice. It was General Chonjara. A moment later, the general grabbed her by the shoulders, pulled her away from Haveros and threw her backwards. Yen Olass landed heavily.