'From Ortelga?' said Gel-Ethlin. 'But at that rate we should have heard-'
Kapparah said nothing and Gel-Ethlin thought the problem over quickly. It was an awkward one. In spite of there having been no recent report from Ortelga, it was just possible that some sort of tribal raid really was going to be made on the Beklan plain. If it took place after he had marched away to Kabin, ignoring a tribesman's warning uttered in the hearing of his senior officers – and if lives were lost – He broke off this train of thought and started another. If the great reservoir were breached and ruined in the rains for lack of an adequate labour force, after he had marched away towards Gelt on the strength of a hysterical report made by a native youth in the hearing of his senior officers – He stopped again. They were all looking at him and waiting.
'Bring the boy to that shed over there,' said Gel-Ethlin. 'Let the men fall out, but see that they stay in their companies.'
Half an hour later he had concluded that the story was one that he could not ignore. Washed and fed, the youth had recovered himself and spoken with restraint and dignity of his own loss, and with consistency of the danger that was threatening. It was a curious and yet convincing talc. An enormous bear, he said, had appeared on Ortelga, probably fugitive from the fire beyond the Telthearna. Its appearance was believed by the islanders to herald the fulfilment of a prophecy that Bekla would one day fall to an invincible army from the island and had started a rising, led by a young baron, in which the previous ruler and certain others had been cither killed or driven out. Gel-Ethlin perceived that this, if true, would account for the failure of the Beklan army's normal flow of intelligence. Yesterday afternoon, the youth continued, the Ortelgans had suddenly appeared in Gelt, set it on fire and murdered the chief before he could organize any defence of the town. Fanatical and undisciplined, they had swept through the place and apparently subdued the townspeople altogether. Several of the latter, their homes and means of livelihood destroyed, had actually joined the Ortelgans for what they could get. Surely, said the young man, there could never have been men more eager than the Ortelgans to go upon their ruin. They believed that the bear was the incarnation of the power of God, that it was marching with them, invisibly, night and day, that it could appear and disappear at will and that it would in due course destroy their enemies as fire burns stubble. On the orders of their young leader – who was evidently both brave and able, but appeared to be ill – they had thrown a ring of sentries round Gelt to prevent any news getting out. The youth, however, had climbed down a sheer precipice by night, escaping with no more than a badly-gashed hand, and then, knowing the passes well, had come over twenty miles during six hours of darkness and daybreak.
'What a damned nuisance!' said Gel-Ethlin. 'Which way does he think they're likely to come, and when?'
The young man apparently thought it certain that they would come by the most direct route and as quickly as they could. Indeed, it was probable that they had already started. Setting aside their eagerness to fight, they had little food with them, for there was virtually none to be commandeered in Gelt. They would have to fight soon or be forced to disperse for supplies.
Gel-Ethlin nodded. This agreed with all his own experience of rebels and peasant irregulars. Either they fought at once or else they fell to pieces.
'They don't sound likely to get far, sir,' said Balaklesh, who commanded the Lapan contingent. 'Why not simply go on to Kabin and leave them to fall apart in the rains?'
As is often the way, the wrong advice immediately cleared Gel-Ethlin's mind and showed him what had to be done.
'No, that wouldn't do. They'd wander about for months, parties of brigands, murdering and looting. No village would be safe and in the end another army would have to be sent to hunt them down. Do you all believe the boy's telling no more than the truth?' They nodded. .'Then we must destroy them at once, or the villages will be saying that a Beklan army fell down on its job. And we must reach them before they get down the hill-road from Gelt and out on the plain – partly to stop them looting and partly because once they're on the plain they may go anywhere. We might lose track of them altogether and the men are in no state to go marching about in pursuit. There's even less time to be lost now than if we were going to Kabin. Kapparah, hang on to the lad; we'll need him as a guide. You'd all better go and tell your men that we've got to get to the hills by the afternoon. Balaklesh, you take a hundred reliable spearmen and start at once. Find us a good defensive position in the foothills, send back a guide and then push on and try to find out what the Ortelgans are doing.'
Within an hour the sky had clouded over from one horizon to the other and the west wind was blowing steadily. The red dust filled the soldiers' eyes, ears and nostrils and mingled grittily, beneath their clothes, with the sweat of their bodies. They marched with cloths or leather bound over mouths and noses, continually screwing up their eyes, unable to see the hills ahead, each company following that in front through the thick helter-skelter of dust which piled itself like snow along the windward sides of rocks, of banks, of the few sparse trees and huts along the way – and of men. It got into the rations and even into the wine-skins. Gel-Ethlin marched behind the column on the leeward flank, whence he could check the stragglers and keep them in some sort of order. After two hours he called a halt and re-formed the column in echelon, so that when they set out again each company was marching downwind of that immediately behind it. This, however, did little to relieve their discomfort, which was due less to the dust they raised themselves than to the storm blowing over the whole plain. Their pace diminished and it was not until a good three hours after noon that the leading company reached the edge of the plain and, having reconnoitred half a mile in either direction, found the road to Gelt where it wound up through the myrtle and cypress groves on the lower slopes.
About a thousand feet above the plain the road reached a level, green spot where the ghost of a waterfall trickled down into a rock-pool; and here, as they came up, the successive companies fell out, drank and lay down in the grass. Looking back, they could see the dust-storm on the plain below and their spirits rose to think that at least one misery was left behind. Gel-Ethlin, grudging the delay, urged his officers to get them on their feet again. The afternoon had set in dark and the wind over the plain was dropping. They stumbled on wearily, their footsteps, the clink of their arms and the occasional shouts of orders echoing from the crags about them.
It was not long before they came to a narrow gorge, where two officers of the advance party were awaiting them. Balaklesh, the officers reported, had found an excellent defensive position about a mile further up the road, beyond the mouth of the gorge, and his scouts had been out ahead of it for more than an hour. Gel-Ethlin went forward to meet him and see the position for himself. It was very much the sort of thing he had had in mind, an upland plateau about half a mile wide, with certain features favourable to disciplined troops able to keep ranks and stand their ground. Ahead, to the north, the road came curving steeply downhill round a wooded shoulder. On the right flank was thick forest and on the left a ravine. Through this bottleneck the advancing enemy must needs come. At the foot of the shoulder the ground became open and rose gently, among scattered crags and bushes, to a crest over which the road passed before entering the gorge. Balaklesh had chosen well. With the crags as natural defensive points and the slope in their favour, troops in position would take a great deal of dislodging and it would be extremely difficult for the enemy to fight their way as far as the crest. Yet unless they did so they could not hope to pursue their march down to the plain.