His Nagians cheered him, of course, but without conspicuous enthusiasm. He sat down. Half a year ago, who would ever have expected to hear such defiance from the fat man?
D'ward glanced around the big chamber, as if inspecting reaction among the onlookers. Then he scrambled to his feet and stepped up onto the pile of planks. “My information is that the Thargian army is already in Lemodvale, and will be on our doorstep very shortly. Has anyone else heard similar rumors?"
There was a pause, a long pause. A few Nagian hands rose reluctantly. A moment later, some Joalian hands joined them. Angry whispers buzzed through the shop.
"Rumors!” Kolgan barked. “The city is sealed! Who can know?"
D'ward smiled down at the tall man's angry glare. “When we were the besiegers, the people inside the walls signaled back and forth to the Lemodians in the woods with flags. Did you not see them at the windows? And there are still many thousands of Lemodians here in Lemod. Those outside have been sending them messages. The rumors are well-founded."
Kolgan opened and closed his mouth a few times.
And so did Dosh.
The women!
The Joalian had worked it out also. “Can you trust a word they tell you?” he demanded angrily.
"Yes,” D'ward said sadly. “Some of them. And I am not the only one who has been told, obviously. This is a problem, gentlemen. Some of you have won the love of your companions, and I am sure that hundreds of others have done so also. But most of those women are now with child. I am afraid that we must leave them all behind when we depart, and that—"
"Depart?” Kolgan shouted. “Go where? How?"
"Well, home, of course! You don't want to stay here do you?"
Even the Joalians guffawed at that, even Kolgan himself, but it was laughter with a brittle ring.
The Liberator folded his arms and looked around the room again. “A fortnight ago,” he said loudly, “you honored me by electing me battlemaster. I asked you then to wait, and to trust me. You did both and I thank you for your faith. Now the time has come. This morning it started to rain."
He smiled faintly at the puzzled reaction.
"I am told, and I believe, that the Thargians outnumber us by three to one. The Lemodians must be even more numerous. While I respect Golbfish Hordeleader's courage, I refuse to send warriors against impossible odds. On the other hand, I also refuse to end my life as a slave in the Thargian silver mines."
The assembly growled agreement like a nest of fourfangs.
D'ward raised his voice. “When you have eliminated the unacceptable, you are left with the merely impossible."
He grinned and paused, as if waiting for suggestions. None came.
"No one's mentioned the rope bridges they maintain in peacetime. I looked into the possibility of building one, but it isn't practical. It would take days, and we'd need half the army on the other bank anyway, to defend the construction. If we could move half over, we might as well move all of it."
He waited a moment. Dosh wondered how many of the listeners had even known about the rope bridges. He had heard of them from Anguan and come to the same conclusion—they were not a practical solution.
Receiving no argument, D'ward continued. “It's true that the only permanent, all-weather ford on Lemodwater is Tholford. But at low water, there are other sites where active men can force a crossing. You may think that low water comes in late summer, as it does on most rivers. But Lemodwater is fed by glaciers. Its low point is right now! In a few days the rain and melting snow will start it rising again. Have none of you noticed?"
Dosh heard the mutter of surprise. Certainly he had not spared the river a glance lately, but he never stood guard on the walls. No one spoke up.
D'ward shrugged. “Well, you will see shortly. An army can go where traders and normal civilian traffic cannot. My information is that about three days ago, the Thargians arrived in Lemodvale over Moggpass, which is about twenty miles due south of us. That must have been quite a feat, but Thargians are a determined bunch when roused, so I'm told. They headed west, to Thimb'lford. Men can cross there at low water. They should be making their crossing today. Expect them at the gates by tomorrow night or the day after."
Dosh shivered.
D'ward waited until his audience fell silent. “Now do you see? They're going to be on our side of the river, the north side. So tonight we shall cross over to the south side! It must be tonight—the rain has begun. We jump the river, and then we make a forced march to Moggpass, which the Thargians have so kindly opened for us. Our only way out is to invade Thargvale itself!"
The room exploded in tumult.
D'ward yelled, “Quiet!"—and won silence. “I am your battlemaster! You will take my orders now, or you will depose me and cut off my head! Which is it to be?"
He was younger than anyone present, an untrained youth garbed in a motley collection of cast-off clothes, and yet he seemed to blaze. Deadly blue eyes raked the room. Not a whisper...
"Very well. Why does the wall go all around the city? I wondered about that when I first saw it. The only possible reason is that sometimes the river can be crossed! And right now the water is as low as it ever gets."
Men stirred in excitement. Dosh thought of the cliffs and that roaring white torrent. He shuddered. There would be Lemodians over there, and probably Thargians. Not very many, perhaps, but some.
"We need planks,” D'ward said, “and all the rope we can find. We can bridge some of the gaps with pontoons. It won't be easy in the dark, but tonight we cross Lemodwater. If we can get one man over, we can get all of us over. Tomorrow we march on Thargvale. The Thargian army will be on the wrong bank—and the river is rising!"
Escape! He was offering them hope—a slim hope, but a chink of light in a sealed tomb. So what was a thousand feet of roaring foam, sharp rocks, ice floes, and Lemodian arrows? Nothing, compared to the Thargian host. The troopleaders sprang to their feet and cheered.
D'ward waved impatiently for silence. “This is what we shall do. Secrecy is essential! Some of the women here now support us, but many are still loyal Lemodians, understandably. They will try to signal. When darkness falls, they may set the place alight. We must round up every woman in the city, so there are no signals passed. Every man will need warm clothes, good boots, four days’ rations...."
The implications struck home to Dosh like a kick in the belly. He was going to be parted from Anguan! He would miss that wiry little Lemodian wildcat. He would never see that child she carried. He had always known that this must come to pass, of course, but the actuality was an unexpected blow. Why? Affection? Gratitude for some wonderful copulation? It was no more than affection, surely?
Perhaps he was more like other men than he had realized.
He wrenched his mind back to the Liberator, who was spouting a fountain of orders and directives. Obviously he had worked out all the details in advance. As soon as darkness fell, Golbfish and Kolgan were to lead separate columns across the river. Before then, they must obtain ropes and prepare floats, pontoons, and gangplanks. There were tree trunks and ice floes caught amid the rocks. Of course it would be dangerous. They could expect to lose men, drowned or frozen. The enemy on both banks would attack when they learned what was happening.
If a contested crossing of Lemodwater had been achieved in the past, the Liberator must have learned of it in his reading. He was not mentioning that, so it had never been done.
The withdrawal of the forces on the gates...
Oh!
D'ward asked for volunteers for that contingent and got them—but who could doubt that the rear guard was going to die?