The gig rocked dangerously as one wheel or the other went over a rock and water curled up around the aya's legs and the half-submerged wheels. At last they reached the Zinjaban side. Beyond the gentle swell of the river bank, the travelers glimpsed the skeletal shapes of Fodor's two observation towers for photographic use.
When they topped the rise, Reith observed a crowd milling around the base of one tower. He picked Fodor and his massive aya out of the throng. The director was arguing with two Krishnan knights, while Timásh interpreted. Coming closer, Reith recognized the knights as Sir Bobir, the Gozashtando commander, and Sir Padras, leader of the Mikardanduma.
When the travelers neared the outskirts of the crowd, expectant faces turned towards them. Tensely, Reith gripped his scabbarded sword. Leaning from her saddle, Alicia said: "Please, Fergus, pull up here and wait! I think I know how to handle the terrible Hun."
Alicia spurred her aya towards the group and trotted up to Fodor. Soon the pair were walking their mounts away from the crowd in earnest conversation. Then they turned their ayas and trotted to Reith, waiting uncomfortably in the gig. As he approached, Fodor held up his right hand in a gesture of peaceful intent. One finger was still splinted and bandaged.
"Hey, Fergus!" he roared, grinning through his mustache. "Good thing you came back! The battle takes begin tomorrow, and we need all the translators we can get.
"Alicia tells me what really happened. I guess I owe apology. IT I'd known you two was going to get married again, I'd have said: 'No play! Out! Take my bed and bust the springs!' I got the barbarian sense of honor!" He thumped his chest.
"I owe an apology, too," said Reith. "We should have told you, but we'd celebrated our engagement with too much kvad to think clearly."
"So no hard feelings? Good!" Fodor extended his left hand. "Got to shake this one, until the ozzer heals. What's a little fight between friends?"
"You're going to have a real battle on your hands," said Reith. "I've got to talk to you and Kostis, right away. There's a full-scale invasion heading this way, and we're right in its path."
"A real fight? Wunderbar! Csodálotos! Who we fighting?"
"The Qaathian nomads. Their Kamoran—I guess on Earth we'd call him a Great Khan—has decided to add Mikardand to his empire."
"You go stow your stuff. I'll get the boss and see you at the inn right away after."
As Reith helped Alicia to move her gear into the tent she shared with Mary Hopkins, he whispered: "You little bar! You fibbed to save my gore."
"Hardly a real prevarication," said Alicia complacently. "Merely a slight confusion in the order of events. I moved your proposal up a couple of hours. Any psychologist will explain that the human memory plays tricks with time. Anyway, if it came to a fight, I'm sure you'd have bested him."
Reith {pinned. "Flattery will get you everywhere. Since were sleeping apart tonight, give me a nice, big—"
"Oh, excuse me," said Mary Hopkins, entering the tent. "I'll come back later."
"No, no, Mary!" said Alicia laughing at the older woman's embarrassment. "Everything's okay. We're properly engaged, you know."
"Really? You mean you're going to have flowers and bridesmaids and all the trimmings?"
"I don't know that we'll go that far," said Reith, "but we do figure on a proper wedding. Now we've got to go see the Big shots at the inn. Come on, Alicia."
Stavrakos swallowed a bite of sandwich and frowned in concentration. "Fergus, seems to me the only thing is for us—the shooting crew—to run like hell for Novorecife."
"No, no!" said Fodor, pounding the table. "Are we cowards or fools? If there's a battle, we can shoot the whole thing from the towers. Think, man! With a little rewriting of the script, we can use all the meterage in Swords."
"You're nuts, Attila!" said Stavrakos, turning to Reith. "How many of these nomads are on the march?"
Reith shrugged. "At least a few thousand."
"And we've got only a thousand knights and men-at-arms, assuming we can get those two gangs to work together. Plus a few hundred in the garrison at Kandakh. Resistance would be as loony an idea as any they had in old Hollywood, before the earthquake. We've got to make a run for it."
"We don't have that option," said Reith. "These Qaathians ride like bats out of Hell; each trooper travels with remounts. If you started your people off right now, and the nomads arrived tomorrow, they'd catch you on the road."
"Tell me about Qaath," said Fodor, ignoring the peril, "so I get a feel about Krishnan history."
"Qaath is a big steppe country west of Jo'ol and Balhib," said Alicia. "Culturally, the people living there are like Earth's Mongols and Tatars."
"Real men!" growled Fodor.
"All very fine," said Reith, "unless one of them decides to decorate his harness with your scalp. Usually they're split into warring tribes, cheerfully slaughtering one another. But once in a while, an effective leader welds them into a single fighting machine. Then he sets out to see which of his neighbors he can most easily rob and slaughter. Ghuur of Uriiq, the Kamoran of Qaath, is such a leader.
"Because the Varasto nations have been too busy quarreling among themselves to unite against the outside menace, Ghuur has been picking them off, one by one. Now he has his eye on Mikardand, which is stronger than his earlier conquests. He's getting on in years and, I suppose, wants to lead one more grand conquest while he can."
"Any idea how these Qaathians operate?" asked Fodor more soberly. His euphoria at the thought of a battle had been replaced by grim calculation.
"I have an idea," said Reith. "They'll send ahead several thousand light ayas. If they don't meet much resistance, they'll go right on, killing and burning, clear to Mishé. If they encounter strong opposition, they'll recoil against the forces coming up behind them. This main army will move slowly, because the foot soldiers from the tributary states can't travel more than twenty-five or thirty kilometers a day."
"So if we—I mean if our Krishnan extras—smash this advance force, it might stop the whole invasion?"
Reith shrugged. "I don't know Ghuur's precise intentions; but at least it would buy time for Mikardand."
"I think we'd be crazy not to run—" began Stavrakos; but Fodor cut him off with a roar.
"Get hold of the colonels, you two!" He addressed both Reith and Alicia. "I don't care what Kostis says. I'm going to have this battle in my movie!"
"I'll fire you!" shouted Stavrakos.
"You can't! Read the contract! What I say goes for details of the picture, and I say the battle is part of the picture! Go find those colonels!"
"Read the contract yourself!" yelled Stavrakos. "Clause twenty-three gives me the final say on all expenditures ..."
Reith and Alicia left them shouting like angry schoolboys. While Alicia was searching the Gozashtando encampment, Reith found the Krishnan officers relaxing on a bench among the Mikardando tents, sharing a bottle of falat. When Reith told them of the imminent invasion, they sprang to their feet.
"The living-picture folk are discussing what to do," said Reith. "Will you please join them, so we can form a plan?"
Bobir, the older colonel, whispered in Padras's ear, and the Mikardandu departed at a run. Bobir said: "He'll join us presently, Sir Fergus."
Reith and Bobir found the two motion-picture executives still in dispute. From Fodor's glum expression, Reith surmised that the producer had all but won the argument.
Stavrakos said: "Fergus, I convinced Hungary's Revenge here—" He waved a pudgy hand at Fodor. "—that we'd be crazy to stay for a battle. All the crew will take to their heels anyway, when they hear what's up. So as soon as we can pack our gear, we'll make a run for it, even if it's in the middle of the night."