“Such will be my pleasure. But I can only train them to fight. For tactics and drill — all these things -
you will need a drill master.”
“Yes. You train them to fight with shield and sword, or see how the glaive fits in. Tom ti Vulheim will provide the drill masters, and for the new drills we shall need. . well, I’ll have to think on that.”
The truth was that I had already thought of this problem and had already reached a solution. I feel sure you will guess easily where I intended to obtain my drill masters in this new-fangled — to my blade comrades of Valka — mode of fighting.
Naghan Kholin Donamair was absolutely furious. His four fists beat the air. His eyes protruded. He was one enraged Djang.
“But, King! My flutduins are ready, the young Valkans trained — well, trained enough to give an account of themselves, by Zodjuin of the Silver Stux! And the chicks are hatching well, so the next generation is assured.”
I shook my head. “I do not punish you by asking you to stay here, Naghan. Your task is great. We must build up a corps of flyers here in Valka. The flutduins are vital.”
“But, my King! You go off to war and I do not go with you?”
“By Holy Djan himself! I ask this of you as a favor, for I know the agony you suffer. But if Hamal wins, if Vallia goes under, won’t those cramphs of Hamal turn south through the Dawn Lands? How long will it be before they come knocking on the Mountains of Mirth? And do you think they will be sucked in as the Gorgrens were? Well, by Zodjuin of the Stormclouds, what do you think, Naghan Donamair?”
It just wasn’t fair of me. I know that. These wonderful four-armed Djangs of mine have no heads for statecraft, strategy, and the intricacies of diplomacy. Give them a sword and a shield, a bow and a quiver of arrows, a joat or a flutduin, and they are the bravest fighters one could ask for. So I bamboozled poor Naghan, but I was right. His place was here, in Valka, training my aerial cavalry. Saying goodbye to Delia came with the shock of abrupt agony.
She had said she was coming with me and had started rummaging out her leathers and the brave scarlet breechclout and sash. But I knew her condition would prevent her from joining me, as, of course, she knew herself. But, still, being Delia, she argued.
“And suppose the little fellow’s born in the middle of a battlefield, under a flap of canvas, with headless corpses all around?”
She laughed at me. She mocked me. “Oh, Dray, Dray! And don’t you think that’s just about the most fitting place a son of yours could be born?”
I was furious. “Delia! Anyone would think I liked wars and bloody battles-”
She was serious at once, those wonderful brown eyes warm and tender. “I know, dear heart. But your life has been hard, one of fighting — yes, all for very good reasons! And I think that long before Kregen is a fit world in which to bring up children, as you have so often told me, then he must learn to cope and fight as quickly as may be.”
“But suppose he’s a girl?”
“Suppose he’s twins again?”
I sighed. “Well, Delia, my girl, you are not coming with me, and that is final. You’d best get Thelda for I know she loves you, even if she means well, poor soul.” Here I did Seg’s wife Thelda an injustice, and both Delia and I knew I only prattled on about yesterday. “And Inch, too. Time that long streak was married, anyway.”
“I shall stay here, in Esser Rarioch.”
I hummed and hawed, but I suppose she was right. Valka was now a real home to her, and she had many friends here.
“And Doctor Nath the Needle.”
“Do not fret, dear heart!”
“Excellent advice that it is impossible to take!”
There was no question of my not going. Delia was the daughter of an Emperor and she would have looked at me rather strangely if I had said I was not going because she was to have a baby — or, as she lived on Kregen, the strong possibility of two babies.
“Turko the Shield will bear his great shield over you, so promise me you’ll stay there, and not rush out like you always do!”
In giving her the promise I recollected that I might rush out anyway, forgetting in the heat of the moment. And she, the witch, understood that, too, for she said: “Well, I will not take your promise and lock it in my golden chest with a golden lock. But, Dray Prescot!” When she spoke like that it paid me to take heed. “Take care of yourself and come back with everything still attached to that body of yours! Do you hear?”
I kissed her most tenderly and said goodbye to the twins, and everyone else. There were so many RembereesI was two long burs about it. Then I went down to the galleon and so, at last, we set sail for Pandahem.
A number of high nobles and Pallans made a last-minute attempt to halt the expedition. Led by Kov Lykon and the dowager Kovneva Natyzha, they put forward powerful arguments, the chief of which worried me. His ran like this: “If we send a force to Pandahem to fight the Hamalians, and they are not at war with us, won’t this enrage them, be tantamount to a declaration of war on our part, and won’t they then really determine to overthrow us?”
I had thought about this, and decided that the obvious answer, “A Zorca shod today is a herd saved tomorrow,” while being true, was not ample enough. We had to make an attempt to stop the Hamalians at any risk — and I knew the risk did not exist for it had already taken place. One of the Emperor’s council of the Presidio, a lean tall man with a scarred face who talked little, one Nath Ulverswan, the Kov of the Singing Forests, spoke and out of surprise obtained all ears. “You do ill, Majister, in allowing this headstrong son-in-law of yours to drag honest Vallians to their deaths over the sea. We are a sea people and we rely on our galleons. Buy mercenaries to fight, in the old way.” Then he ceased and sat down. The Singing Forests extended for many kools just south of the Mountains of the North in Vallia, and this Kov Nath Ulverswan was a man rich among rich men. I stood up and said, “Much of what Kov Nath says is true. But times have changed. In any case, the expedition will seem to be composed entirely of mercenaries. We will not wear Vallian clothes or colors. We fight for pay, on behalf of the Kov of Bormark. There should be no repercussions.”
I had sought for this scheme and used it desperately. But it was accepted, for the Emperor still wielded power to push through this kind of measure against the opposition of his enemies in the Presidio. So it was with much regret that I left my flag, that yellow cross on a scarlet field, that battle flag fighting men call “Old Superb,” in the high hall of the fortress of Esser Rarioch. Instead we carried Pando’s colors, the blue field charged with the blazing golden form of the wild zhantil. The same orders had been sent via voller messengers to Ortyg Coper and Kytun Dom — true comrades both — in far Djanduin. When my ferocious Djang warriors joined me with their flutduin regiments, they, too, would fly the blue flag with the golden zhantil emblazoned at its center. I guessed that Ortyg Coper would run Djanduin in my absence, as its civil head, and Kytun would fly with his warriors to fight at my side.
I was not wrong.
Kytun Kholin Dom, his coppery hair flowing as wildly as ever, his four arms wide in a gigantic embrace, leaped from the first voller to touch down at our camp in a small bay to the east of the northern coastline of Tomboram. We were not too many dwaburs west of Jholaix here, for the army of Hamal pressed ever on from the west, overrunning Pando’s own Kovnate of Bormark.
“Dray! King!” He enfolded me in three of his bear-like arms and I tensed my gut. He punched me there, so I punched him back with fifty percent of my arms, and his seventy-five percent hugged me while the other twenty-five rat-a-tatted against my stomach. “Dray! King! By Holy Djan himself!”
Well, such is the temper of my Djangs. I fancied my Valkans would find themselves in the company of their peers, if not their superiors, when it came to drinking, brawling, and fighting. A four-armed man holds a tremendous advantage over us two-armed types, I fear.