I had not, needless to say, chosen that name myself. The High Council of Elders of Valka, warming to my suggestion, had given the name. I, like the swods, preferred bobs. So we worked all that day. With the sinking of Antares I took up a cup of Vela’s Tears and drank deeply, preparing to plunge afresh into the reorganization and forward planning of my little army. We must not be trapped by the vastly superior forces of Hamal before I had made proper contact with the King of Tomboram, who had not turned up, as I had expected. Mind you, he had his hands full elsewhere. Now we must march and throw ourselves into the battle line alongside him. Kytun Kholin Dom and Tom Tomor would handle the troops; I had no fears on that score. So I planned and, the night being hot, threw off the white tunic and sat in a plain blue breechclout, drinking, and working by the mellow gleam of the samphron-oil lamp within my tent.
Stretching, I yawned. The close air clogged my lungs, so I rose and, hitching a fine Vallian rapier and main-gauche about me, strode outside the tent for a breath of fresh air. The guard slapped his glaive across as I went out and I spoke a few words to him. I wandered along in the fuzzy pink moonlight, with the camp about me filled with those nocturnal noises of a sleeping army. . A shadow moved against a darkened tent. I halted at once but the shadow had gone. I went on quietly and saw a guard — a Chulik — sleeping peacefully on the ground. About to bellow at him to stand up and get on guard, he’d face a charge in the morning, I held my tongue. A thin thread of dark blood trickled down behind his ear. He was not dead. I straightened up, looking around, and the pink moonlight fell full on my face.
I heard a gasp. Then a voice spoke, a blustery lion-voice that strove to whisper in that moonshot darkness.
“Hamun! By Krun! Hamun!”
Chapter 11
The rapier went back into the scabbard with a snick.
I said, “If you shout loudly enough, Rees, you fambly, the whole camp will know we have escaped.”
“By Krun!” said the Trylon Rees of the Golden Wind, stepping forward and looking around him. “You are a changed man from our days in Ruathytu, so help me Opaz!”
“And you, too, Rees, old fellow. Has Opaz then conquered you? What of Havil the Green?”
“This is no time to argue theology, Hamun! For the good graces of Hanitcha the Harrower, let us get out of here!”
This was to be expected. The plan that had instantly flown into my head demanded a few murs alone, and yet I should have known that Rees, that glorious golden Numim who — I counted myself fortunate
— was a friend as well as an enemy, would be full of energy and resolve. He wouldn’t hang around when he could escape.
I said, “I am overjoyed to see you, Rees, by Krun! I did not know you were with the army here.”
“And I had no idea you were either, old fellow. Now where are you going?”
“I will fetch weapons and clothes.” I had seen he wore the wreck of a uniform, and he carried a stone in his hand with which he had knocked the Chulik out. “Wait quietly!”
“Don’t be long. They are as efficient a pack of scoundrels here as any I’ve known.”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “These rasts of Tomboram are a fine fighting bunch.”
“Tomboram? These are cramphs of Vallia!”
So that meant I’d blown up one pretty little scheme.
Still, I would not have my friend Rees slain out of hand. He and I had ruffled it together in the Sacred Quarter of Ruathytu, when I was spying in Hamal; with Chido we had had some fine old brawls and roistered the night away. He thought I had been captured and escaped, as he had. Now I would put that to my advantage, for there were outstanding items in Hamal.
You may imagine the speed with which I ran.
“Tom!” I said into his ear, and he was awake on the instant. “I am going to Hamal. Do not question. You and Kytun must do what we planned with the army. I trust you. If there is any difficulty at all with the rast of a King of Tomboram — any difficulty at all — then pull out. Use the transports and the vollers and get the men safely away. No questions. Tell Kytun. Tell him I trust you both and if you argue too much, one with the other, I’ll knock both your heads together.”
“But Dray-!”
But I was gone.
In my own tent I ripped out a clean blue shirt for Rees and a loincloth. I snatched up a fine matched pair of rapier and main-gauche and then, on my way out, paused. I turned back, snatched up the longsword, and at top speed again fled into the moonlight.
I saw Rees hiding in the shadows of the tent. As I came fairly close to him a Chulik guard stepped out into the fuzzy pink and golden glow of moonslight. He started to snap his spear across in salute and to bellow out, “All’s well-” He would have finished that with, “My Prince!”
I leaped for him, took him by the throat, hissed in his ear: “Silence! Shut up! Stand still!” Then I tapped him alongside the head, just under the brim of his helmet. “Fall down and lie still, my friend!”
He fell down and he lay still.
Rees got up and whistled. “A different man from that Amak Hamun I rescued from the Rapas and the burning building, by Krun!”
“Here are clothes, here are weapons. Now let us find a voller.”
Rees stared at the longsword. “That bar of iron — is that a weapon?”
“I found it in a tent and thought it might serve.”
“I fancy I might wield it passing well.”
“I fancy so, too. But for now I think I will carry it. It pleases me.”
Rees shook that golden head of his so that his mane fluttered under the golden moonsglow. “A different man.”
We crept cautiously away.
“Not so, Rees. I am still the same Hamun ham Farthytu, the Amak of Paline Valley. But I have been in a battle and I see things a little differently now.”
We reached the voller lines. I had to be far more careful now than even Rees realized. I most certainly would not slay one of my own men, not even for a scheme of importance, but Rees would be elated if he could dispatch a hated Vallian to the Ice Floes of Sicce.
A thought occurred to me, so, as we eased up to a voller with our eyes glaring out at the guard, a Rapa who paced some fifty yards away, I said: “And Chido? Is he here, too?”
“Now, old feller! D’you think I’d sneak off and leave old Chido a prisoner? No, he was not taken, thanks to Opaz.”
I noted this use of Opaz by a Hamalian who in theory should stick to his state religion of Havil the Green, and who by belief and predilection professed Krun. I shook my head.
“Of course not. I am glad he is safe.” I was sincere.
How can a man be friends with men who are enemies of his country? It is a puzzle and a torment. In any event we stole a voller — not a prime example, I was glad to see — and we made good our escape, successfully eluding the guards. Much though this pleased me — we had not had to fight, so I was saved the agony that would have caused me — I was also hotly angry that my guards had allowed it. On one hand my pleasure was genuine as we flew swiftly through the pink-streaming moonslight, and on the other I was ragingly angry at the slackness of discipline. I would have something to say to the guard commanders when I got back, that I promised. To jump ahead, and also to explain much of what had happened, I should now say that Tom Tomor had sprung out of his bed, rushed out, and seen my attack on the Chulik. The Chulik had repeated my words. So Tom gave immediate orders that a mock pursuit was to take place. He understood just enough to assume I knew what I was doing, maniacal though that appeared. But then my chiefs of Valka are accustomed to a maniac leading them. . In my own overweening pride I had decided that any attempt to fake the escape would alert Rees. Probably, in one way, that was right. But now I think that if Tom had not given his orders, Rees and I would never have escaped so easily.