“He’ll turn up again,” I said, comfortably. “That sort of villain always does. The only trouble is-”
“He’ll turn up when it’s most damned inconvenient, I know!”
Jilian wore one of Delia’s loose lounging robes all of white sensil and she shimmered like an ivory flame in the moonlight. During the day she strode about among her girls and although she did not crack and snap her whip, she carried the ugly thing looped up around her arm.
The Enevon walked onto the balcony from the room beyond, rubbing his eyes, bringing fresh problems to be sorted out.
The exact spot at which we would like to meet Zankov and his wild clansmen had been chosen. If Opaz smiled, then the enemy would choose that route. In order to encourage Opaz to make up his mind I’d sent high-speed forces out to cut the bridges of alternative routes and to harass Zankov enough to make him swing, like a bull, to face the fancied threats. If he was prepared to follow the guidelines I had set for him, he would — Opaz willing — pass across the stretch of land known as the Kochwold. If he did, as we prayed, we would be waiting for him. And this waiting came as a vast and unexpected reprieve. Mind you, as a wild and hairy clansman myself I should have anticipated what was occurring up there in Jevuldrin. Clansmen are clansmen, accustomed to the airy sweeps of the Great Plains. When they ride through hamlets and villages, seeing the spires of cities rising before them, they feel all the itchy-fingered avarice of your true reiver. Plunder was retarding the onward march of Zankov’s hired army. And, that very plunder was the hire money. I raged and fumed and could not, in all conscience, following the sad example of King Harold, allow the enemy to devastate the country. A policy of scorched earth would have served, perhaps; but the country up there was generally in the hands of that rast Ranjal Yasi, Stromich of Morcray, the twin brother to the strom, Rosil Yasi. Zankov was having either to fight or come to terms with his old ally.
So the Kochwold it was to be. Zankov was clearly aiming to march to the east around the mountains, known as the Mountains of Thirda to some folk, rather than the west of them. That way would force him to make too many river crossings. East about he would have fewer major rivers to bar him. Kochwold extended its sweep of moorland on the southern borders of Jevuldrin and the northern borders of Forli. The last I had heard of Lykon Crimahan, the Kov of Forli, was that he was fighting desperate guerilla actions, with the help of us Valkans as promised, and slowly, painfully slowly, regaining some of his province, the Blessed Forli. Now, all that was, if not irrelevant, then of far less importance than the rampaging invasion of ten thousand wild clansmen.
Oh, yes, ten thousand. A further four thousand had been disembarked. And, again, that explained the disembarkation point still further. The ships from Zenicce were engaged in ferrying men and voves across, and the passage between Zamra to the south and the islands below Vellin to the north afforded relatively sheltered waters. No doubt they were making a third trip even now. So that, starkly, was a most potent reason why our waiting, useful as it was, must be curtailed.
“Come on, Jak! For the sake of Vox’s Arm! You look as though your zorca’s run off and you’ve found a dead calsany.”
“I was wishing Delia was here.”
Jilian smiled. “So do I. From all I know of the empress she would have my girls trimmed up in no time at all.”
“Oh, aye. Mind you, I don’t think she ever went through Lancival. Although, everything is possible with that lady.”
“Everything, Jak. Everything.”
She spoke in so knowing a way that my old head snapped up. But Jilian just smiled her smile, her dark hair low over that broad white forehead, and her red mouth arched, so that I knew I was beaten. Jilian was not prepared to let me into her secrets — not just yet, anyway.
While we awaited certain news that Zankov and the clansmen had chosen the route we wanted, we labored hard and long. The army was built up again. The remnants of the force almost destroyed at Sicce’s Gates had come in and formed cadres. Nath was fiercely determined on having three full phalanxes, and the veterans of the First and Second were slogging away teaching the newcomers to the files. The brumbytes worked willingly, with the triumphs of the Third to guide them. Spearmen, archers and churgurs filled the regiments of the infantry, along with axemen and double-handed swordsmen and the rest. The cavalry was not, to their baffled fury, unduly expanded. But they worked hard, damned hard, and I concentrated strength on the armored nikvove regiments. This was obvious sense to anyone who knew what was going on in Filbarrka. A message had been sent to Filbarrka telling him that instead of six there were now ten Divisions to be dealt with. His reply was typical. I could imagine him entangling his fingers and bouncing up and down as he dictated it to his stylor. “A better target for the dartmen and archers, majister! They’ll be so confused, being so many, they won’t know which way to run or what is hitting them.”
Well, it was comforting to know someone was so confident.
Enevon sought assistance from the army in gathering the third mergem harvest and this was done. Mergem, a capital all-purpose foodstuff, would be vital in the campaigns. Farris reported that the new ship construction proceeded well, although: “Ships!” He pulled his lip.
“Mere rafts.”
“Exactly, Farris. And functional.”
The production of silver boxes which would lift the new ships was well advanced. So I had said we would simply construct huge raft-like structures, open-sided, railed in and five or six storied. Each one would be propelled by a rig of the utmost simplicity: foresail, mainsail and mizzen. With the silver boxes exerting their lifting power and extending their invisible keels into the lines of force, we could sail and tack and steer a course. When it rained, well, we’d get wet.
But, with these flying chicken-coops we could transport the army.
I may add that there were very few forests left for dwaburs around Vondium. On three separate occasions I saw the gold and scarlet hunting bird of the Star Lords circling above me. I took no notice. If the Everoinye switched me away to some other part of Kregen now — or, horribly, banished me back to Earth — there would be a struggle and I might win or lose. As of now, as they say, the defense of Vondium and the uniting of all Vallia obsessed me. Every day we heard fresh stories of atrocities committed in those areas occupied by any of the various invaders. We all felt, unshakably, that we had to ensure that the new flag of Vallia floated over a free country. Trite, chauvinistic, opportunistic — maybe. But it was not me, not Dray Prescot, not even Jak the Drang, who alone held this point of view. Nothing could have been done if the people were not every one fully dedicated and committed.
So, mentally committing the Gdoinye and its masters to the Ice Floes of Sicce, I stuck doggedly to the task at hand.
A regiment of my Valkans flying the superb flutduins eventually reached us, and they were greeted with roars of pleasure. Everyone regarded these splendid flyers with great affection and treated their riders right royally, a very different situation from even a few seasons ago when most Vallians regarded saddle flyers as birds of the devils of Cottmer’s Caverns.
Came the day.
At last.
Zankov was reported as definitely taking the route that would lead through to the Kochwold. Imagine a miles wide area smothered in men and animals all loading aboard vast and creaking five-story rafts, like a bedlam of the Ark in monstrous proportions. Dust, yelling, smells, the neighs and whinnyings of animals, the choleric bellows of Deldars, the snapping of whips, the creaking of wheels. And, over all, the forest of masts and yards. Well, somehow or other the mass was loaded and the ships — the flying chicken-coops — lifted into the air.