Officially the sick and wounded who could not keep up were left to die, but in practice their friends made sure the enemy did not take them alive. Knowing how they themselves interrogated prisoners, Joalians considered such murders a kindness.
"There's a new plan,” D'ward Hordeleader said.
He had called the troop in around him to hear the new plan. It was midday break, and raining. The closer ones sat down on the soggy ground, wet and dispirited. The rest just stood or leaned against trees to listen. The supply of face paint had run out, and now they had nothing to hide their despondency. They were cold and deeply frightened, naked before their unseen foe and the anger of the gods.
Golbfish sat in the front row. The closer he could get to the Liberator, the better he felt afterward.
Even D'ward did not look happy. His eyes were raw, as if he did not sleep much; he was leaner than ever. He came around at least once every day, and his daily pep talk always raised the men's spirits. It was the only thing that ever did. He visited every Nagian troop every day.
But today even he did not look happy.
"Casualties, Troopleader?” he asked.
Prat'han had been elected to lead the Sonalby contingent when D'ward had been promoted. He was a good kid, but he was not the Liberator.
"Just one today, sir. Pogwil Tanner. Booby trap."
D'ward bared his teeth in anger. “Just one is too many! Well, there is a change of tactics. We're going to make a forced march. We're going to outrun the monkeys."
He glanced around and won some smiles.
Golbfish did not smile. He sensed desperation. Regular forces could not outrun guerrillas. These peasants would not know that. They would find out soon enough.
"No more wasting half the day building forts!” D'ward said. “We're going to push on now until dark, at the double. Then we'll bivouac. Same thing tomorrow. We'll set triple watches all night. Grab any chance for sleep you can get! Some of you have complained about getting blisters on your hands. From now on you're going to get them on your feet—and you certainly won't get any on your backsides!"
More smiles.
"A few days and we'll be in Lemod itself. I told Kammaeman Battlemaster that we Nagians could run rings around his metal-plated Joalians. Was I wrong?"
Loud jeers ... Golbfish wondered what the Joalian leaders would think if they heard this pep talk. Every one of them would just snap out the new orders to his troop and leave it at that. None would ever bother explaining an order—but D'ward always did.
"By the time the monkeys realize where we are,” he was saying now, “we'll be miles away!"
What difference would that make? The whole of Lemodvale was full of people. The enemy was everywhere, endless as the trees.
D'ward began talking details—foraging must be done on the way, no squad ever to be less than six ... He was proposing a rout and making it sound like storm tactics. Soon he had the men twitching with eagerness to try this new plan.
Eventually he even had them laughing. He did not speak very long after that. He rarely said even as much as he had today. It was the way he said it that left everyone smiling and chuckling.
At the end he caught Golbfish's eye and jerked his head in a beckoning. Then he left, and Prat'han ordered the troop to its feet.
The Liberator was waiting a few trees away, leaning on his spear. His sky-blue smile jerked Golbfish's backbone a few notches straighter and dispelled the cold. He wanted to ask if Kammaeman had gone completely insane, but he knew he wouldn't. D'ward would not criticize the battlemaster, even to a prince.
"How are you surviving, Your Majesty?"
"Better than I would have expected, sir. Er, may I ask that you not call me that?"
D'ward held the smile for a few seconds in silence. Then he said, “Warrior, then. It is a more honorable title, because it is one you have earned for yourself. Do you think this experience will make you a better king?"
"It will make me or break me, I suppose. Yes, of course."
"If it were going to break you, you'd have broken long ago. You even look like a warrior now, you know. You stand like one, walk like one. I suspect Joal may eventually find you a tougher nut than Tarion. If all kings were trained this way, there would be fewer wars.... But that wasn't what I wanted to talk about. How well do you know the Filoby Testament?"
Golbfish sighed. “Not at all well! I tried to read it once, but it's such a muddle I lost interest.” He wished he could be of more help to this youngster who had helped him so much. “I've heard bits of it quoted, of course."
"Does it say anything about Nagvale?"
Golbfish shook his head. “Not a word. That I do know."
D'ward frowned thoughtfully. “How about Lemodvale?"
"I don't recall anything about Lemodvale. That doesn't mean it isn't—You mean you—"
The blue eyes twinkled. “No, I've never read it. None of it. I'm not sure I could, since it's written in Sussian."
"Oh, that's not so far from Joalian. But—” Golbfish choked off the question. Why would the Liberator not have read the prophecies about himself?
"I just wondered if there was anything that might be relevant.” D'ward sighed and straightened up. He hitched his shield to a more comfortable position. He hesitated. “You haven't any idea how far it is to Lemod, have you?"
"None at all."
"Mm. Pity. Well, keep up the good work. You're a great inspiration to your countrymen, you know."
With an encouraging smile, the Liberator strode away.
Golbfish wondered afterward if he should have mentioned the Filoby Testament's prophecy about a prince.
27
LESS THAN THREE QUARTERS OF THE ORIGINAL ARMY ARRIVED AT Lemod. There it was thoroughly balked. Lemodwater, the main drainage of the vale, writhed like a mad snake in a deeply incised canyon. The city stood on a shaped salient, practically an island, its fifty-foot walls poised on the brink of sheer cliffs, a hundred feet above the torrent. The only approach was along a narrow neck of land from the north, which dipped almost to river level, so that attackers must charge uphill to reach the gates. Needless to say, those gates were closed. Lemod had been starved into submission a time or two, but even the Thargians had never taken it by storm.
Lemod was a very easy city to invest, for the white-water river was neither fordable nor navigable. The Joalians settled in. Relieved to be out of the pestilential trees at last, they cleared a campsite and a safety zone around it. They set up barricades against any attempts at sorties; they laid out sanitary trenches and generally established a proper military camp. Then they sat back and waited—to sicken, starve, and rot.
At first it was not too bad. The orchards provided food, but five thousand men ate many tons of fruit a day. As days stretched into fortnights, the foragers must go ever farther in search of fresh trees to strip. The greater the radius, the greater the guerrillas’ opportunity for ambush.
Attempts to storm the gates failed before a blizzard of arrows and missiles from the defenders. Casualties were heavy. The attackers began digging trenches, building breastworks and siege engines, and generally going through all the proper motions of investment that Lemod had seen a dozen times before. Periodically the defenders would sally out to burn or smash what had been achieved. The earthworks crept steadily up the hill, but progress was desperately slow.
Disease spread through the camp. The temperature fell steadily, and the snow line slunk downward on the peaks of Lemodwall. Soon it became obvious that the city could endure the siege far longer than the besiegers could.