"If it were up to me," he said, "I would clothe you in bright scarlet, and put you at point, manacled, a rope on your neck."
He then left me.
It had again been hot in the delta today, steaming and oppressive.
Columns must by now have attempted to escape from the delta, I thought. The information at the disposal of the captain might have been days old. Perhaps, exiting in force, they had been successful. I was not one to gainsay the expertise of the infantryman of Ar.
Oddly enough, I now again, as I had once long ago, felt uneasy in the heat. I felt again almost as if something lay brooding over the marsh, or within it, something dark, something physical, almost like a presence, something menacing.
It was a strange feeling.
I noticed then, interestingly, that the marsh was unusually quiet. I could no longer hear even the sound of Vosk gulls.
17 Flies
"Hold, draft beast!" called my keeper.
I stopped, grateful enough in the harness.
Lamentations, cries of misery, rang out in the marsh. Intelligence had arrived from the left. It was impossible not to hear the reports as they were carried from man to man. Indeed, the men learned more rapidly than the officer, I think, what had occurred, for it was onto their lines that men would first come, bearing ill tidings, crying out for succor, many of them, I gathered, wounded Oddly enough, it seemed few, if any, had encountered rencers in the marsh. It was as though these mysterious, elusive denizens of the delta had inexplicably withdrawn, suddenly melted away.
"I knew Camillus! I knew him!" wept a man.
"Flavius has fallen?" demanded another.
"I saw him fall," said a man.
The left flank, apparently two days ago, had been struck, in much the same manner as the right, earlier. Until the attack it had been relatively immune from rencer contact. Many had conjectured the rencers were only on the right. If anything the attack on the left, to the south, had been more devastating than that on the right, perhaps because of lesser vigilance on the left, where no village had been encountered in the path of the advance.
"Woe is Ar!" wept a man.
I thought I knew, even though hooded, who now held the key to the manacles. I had heard this morning what I took to be the exchange.
"Woe! Woe!" cried a man.
"Four columns have been destroyed to the south!" cried a fellow.
These must be, I had then supposed, those of the left.
"Speak!" cried a fellow.
I heard men wading near me. One was coughing.
"Do not make him speak," said a fellow.
"Speak, speak!" cried a man.
"I come from the 14th," he said. "We with the 7th, the 9th and 11th sought to make exit from the delta!"
"Desertion!" cried a fellow.
"Cosians were waiting for us," he gasped. "It was a slaughter, a slaughter! We were raked from the air with quarrels. Stones were used to break our ranks. We were trampled with tharlarion! War sleen were set upon us! We had no chance. We could scarcely move. We were too crowded to wield our weapons. Hundreds died in the mire. Many, who could, fled back into the delta!"
"Woe!" said a man.
"We had no chance," wept the fellow. "We were massacred like penned verr!"
"The field was theirs?" said a fellow, disbelievingly.
"Totally," wept the fellow.
It was now clear, of course, given the references to Cosians, tharlarion, sleen and such, that this disaster was not that of the left flank, which had been struck by rencers, but a defeat suffered in the south, by the units attempting to remove themselves there from the delta. It was no wonder the Cosians had been waiting for them. Their every move in the delta, for days, had probably been reported to the Cosian commander, perhaps Policrates himself, said once to have been a pirate, by tarn scouts.
"Surely you made them pay dearly for their victory," said a man.
"We were weak, exhausted," said the man. "We could hardly lift our weapons!"
"How many prisoners did you take?" asked a man.
"I know of none," he said.
"How many prisoners did they take?" asked a fellow.
"What prisoners they took, if any, I do not know," said the man.
I supposed the Cosians would have taken prisoners. Prisoners can be of value, in the quarries, on the rowing benches of galleys, in such places. I wondered if the Cosians would have had chains enough, or cages enough, for the prisoners, assuming they elected to accept them. The prisoner, surrendering, is often ordered to strip himself and lie on the ground, on his stomach, limbs extended, in rows with others. They must then wait to see if it is their limbs which are to be chained or their throats to be cut. Self-stripping, usually unbidden, performed voluntarily, is also common among fair prisoners. The female prisoner is more likely to be spared than the male prisoner. Victors tend to find them of interest. Too, it is easier to handle large numbers of fair prisoners than warriors and such. Fair prisoners tend to herd well. Often a mere cord tied about their necks, fastening them together, the one to the other, is all that is required for their control. Indeed, it is almost, interestingly enough, as though they were made for the coffle, and understood the appropriateness, the rightfulness, of their place within it. Too, of course, they know that Gorean captors do not tend to look leniently on attempts to escape by pretty things such as they, no more than by female slaves, which they may soon be.
The man began again then to cough. From the sound of it there was blood in his throat.
"Seek new bindings for your wounds," said a man.
I supposed that by now a trophy had been erected by Cos on the site of the battle, such as it had been. Usually the limbs of a tree are muchly hacked off and then, on this scaffolding, captured arms and such are hung. Trophy poles, too, are sometimes erected, similarly decorated.
"Lo! To the north!" called a man. The voice came from above and to the right, probably from the captain's barge. It came probably from a fellow on the lookout platform, or the ladder leading upward to it. In recent days the platform had been improved, primarily by an armoring, so to speak, of heavy planks, this providing some protection for its occupant. Even so lookouts were changed frequently and the duty, I gathered, in spite of the respite it provided from the marsh, the relative coolness and dryness afforded by the platform, and such, was not a coveted one. Even with the planking it seemed one might not be sufficiently protected. Too much it was still, I supposed, like finding oneself set forth for the consideration of unseen archers, as a mark.
"A standard of Ar, raised above the rence!" cried the voice.
"Where?" demanded a man.
"There! There!" called the voice.
"It is a standard of Ar!" confirmed a man, his voice now, too, coming from high on the right.
"It is the standard of the 17th!" said a fellow.
"Coming from the right!" cried another.
"Reinforcements!" cried a man.
"From the right!" cried another.
"They have broken through!" speculated a man.
"They have defeated the rencers," conjectured another.
"We have won a great victory!" conjectured yet another.
There was then much cheering.
Such, of course, could explain the recent apparent absence, or apparent withdrawal, of rencers. Indeed, if it were not for some such thing, say, a decisive victory on the part of Ar, or perhaps a hasty flight at her approach, the apparent absence, or withdrawal, seemed unaccountable.
"Where are the points, where are the scouts?" asked a voice.
"Why is the standard first?" asked a man.
"It is wavering," cried a fellow.
"Do not let it fall!" cried a man.
"Quickly, to him!" called a fellow, probably a subaltern.