“My Val!” said Orlon Sangar ti Deliasmot. “Majister, I’m delighted to get the chance of showing you what my lads can do. By Vox, I thought I’d rot in Vondium forever.”
Orlon Sangar came from Delphond. He was the Kerchurivax in command of the Tenth Kerchuri. He had risen through the ranks in the Third, and the Third was by way of being a special phalanx to Nath Nazabhan and me. I nodded.
“Your lads will do well, Orlon. I just wish we had more of you.”
He made the expected reply. Well, that answer has been given many and many a time before a battle, on two worlds…
The brumbytes handed in their pikes as they boarded. These long weapons were bundled and then lashed to the ships. The men kept their shields, and they hung them on the bulwarks in fine style. There was a deal of the horseplay and raucous coarse humor inevitably surrounding the movement of green troops. These men had been trained hard; but only the faxuls of the front ranks, and not all of them, had seen active service. A wisp of nerves can be concealed beneath a huge guffaw and a practical joke. Essential though the religious ceremony honoring and imploring Opaz most certainly was, I own — a coarse, profane, swearing kind of fellow as I am — I chafed to have it over with and get the troops airborne. When the prayers for the safekeeping of the men and for the victory were offered up and the voice of the chief priest rang to silence, a deep stillness held all Voxyri Drinnik. Absolute quiet for ten long heartbeats proved how wrong I was, how much the feelings of the soldiers had been affected, how needful this was. Then a cough, the scrape of a boot, and the Deldars yelling, the shrill notes of trumpets. Even the flags began to rustle again.
One of the texts chosen as suitable for the service was the well-known advice from the Instructions to Novices. This says, in effect: “Be Brave, Bold, and Resourceful; Fret not on the Hazard.” A fair comparison may be made with Aristophanes in The Frogs, where he uses words of similar meaning and intent. Easy to give advice and harder than keeping warm on the Ice Floes of Sicce to take it. I had accepted the risk and, in theory, should now push all thoughts of the hazard from my mind and go forward in bold confidence. But, while that might be fine for your valiant and daring prince, for me, plain Dray Prescot, the doubts and premonitions of disaster remained. Weak, of course; but in my usual fashion I put a tough face on my ugly old beakhead and concealed the torture and turmoil in my head from my comrades.
Then an event occurred which the doubter would take merely as a trifle from a Fairy Story. One of the new regiments of zorca archers was loading. The animals were being led up the gangplanks, and the cavalrymen were in the usual lather, yelling, pushing, pulling, cajoling the zorcas into the ship. A commotion greater than usual began as I cantered by. I was riding Fango, a fine bay zorca, who had lost a hand-breadth of his spiral horn at some time in his career. The imperial stables had fashioned a new horn tip for him from Chemnite ivory, neatly banded with gold. Grumbleknees and Snowy were having the day off.
“Catch him!” The shouts spurted up. “Grab the beast!”
Cavalrymen went spinning every which way, their red uniforms dusty and stained already. A monstrous black shape reared high, hooves lashing, nostrils crimson, seeming to breathe fire. His eyes glittered in the light of the suns. Down he came, roaring down the ramp, scattering folk like ninepins. Straight up to me he galloped, horn up, tail flying, mane splendid. Fango backed off, alarmed, thinking he was being attacked.
“Majister!” They were yelling. “The emperor is in danger from a wild beast! Shoot the zorca down!”
“Hold!” I bellowed. I really let go a shout that rattled the teeth in their heads. I gentled Fango and as the huge black zorca crashed alongside I laid a hand on his head.
“Shadow!”
And Shadow threw up his head and whinnied, glorious in his shining splendor. Shadow… A great-hearted zorca with whom I had built a special relationship of trust and affection, and whom I had thought lost in Vondium, and yet, and yet… Always I had known we would meet again. That was quickly sorted out. I was told Shadow had been found in Vond, dwaburs away from Vondium, and in our eternal quest for quality zorcas had been brought into the army. He had always given trouble, being highly independent-minded. The Jiktar to whom he had been issued sighed with relief when I said, “He is my zorca, Jiktar.” I dismounted. “Take Fango. He is a first-class animal and you will joy in him.”
“Quidang, majister!”
The saddles were swiftly changed and I stuck my boot into the stirrup and mounted up on Shadow. He showed his pleasure. We had been through many adventures together; we would go through many more. But in the heady moment of reunion all those perils could wait.
Then another little crisis developed. Long lines of yellow-clad men marched toward the gangplanks. I frowned.
“Larghos the Sko-Handed!” I bellowed.
Larghos came over, beaming. His shoulder wings stuck out far more than regulations allowed. He looked fit and tough.
“Where, Larghos, do you think you are going with those coys?” A coy is a recruit, a greenhorn.
“Coys, majister! Are not they damned assassins? They will fight! By Vox! I will see to that!”
I sighed. What would you do with these fellows?
Nath the Knife had sent us an initial seven hundred young men. They could fight, of course. But they weren’t swods.
Larghos saw my face. “You would not deny them the glory?”
About to break out into bitter invective against this stupid, shuddery, bloody idea of glory, I held my tongue. If our country was in the dire danger we all knew her to be, why should not these fine young men go off to fight? Why should they? Because it was their duty? Because they would be less than men if they did not? No — the reasons lay deeper than that…
Larghos’s slingers went on boarding. Drill the Eye shouted at his bowmen to carry on and rolled over, spluttering, to join his comrade. When Clardo the Clis, his scar burning, nudged his zorca across, I knew I was beaten.
“You are taking the Sword Watch,” pointed out Clardo, with consummate cunning. “They are coys, also-”
“Not quite,” I said.
“Nor neither are we!”
“Very well. You’ll have to skirmish forward. Your drill is not up to formed standards yet.”
“Aye, majister. We’ll skirmish the zigging Hamalian tripes out!”
So that was settled. The Emperor’s Yellow Jackets, the EYJ, joined the Second Regiment of the Emperor’s Sword Watch, the 2ESW, aboard the flying ships. Both men and swods would be created out of the lads embarking. That is life.
The return of the vollers enabled me to send off part of a regiment of totrix heavies. They would still arrive ahead of the sailing fliers. Other units went up to the northwest. Regular reports told me Ovalia was filling up, and the locals were helping with energy.
Consigning the rest of the paperwork to Enevon, confiding the city once again to Naghan Strandar and the Presidio, I collected the last of the troops we were taking and with Turko stepped aboard the voller, observing the fantamyrrh, and took off for Ovalia and destiny.
Chapter twenty
The messenger stood before me in the Tower of Avoxdon in Ovalia where I had set up headquarters. His flying leathers were stained and travel worn. He looked exhausted. But before he would allow himself to sit down, this merker would deliver his message from Drak.