These two ships, as I have elsewhere mentioned, were the Jalathadar, captained by the indomitable Haakon who had served us so well during the expedition against the City in the Clouds, and the Xaxar, whose captain was, of course, the mighty Zantor, once a corsair chieftain of Zanadar and now a firm and trusted friend.
But the sky navy had recently been doubled in size, for our new ally, Zamara of Tharkol, had joined forces with us and her own aerial galleons, the Empress and the Conqueress, would fight by our side. Perhaps I should explain at this point―being uncertain if any eye but my own will ever peruse these pages, and, furthermore, not knowing if my hypothetical reader will possess intact the earlier portion of this narrative*that the secret of building the remarkable aerial contrivances, believed lost with the fall of Zanadar, had survived among the savants of Tharkol. Zamara had originally intended to launch her own aerial navy as the prime instrument in her ambitious scheme of world conquest; now, by one of the small ironies of fate, she was employing her flying galleons against the secret stronghold of the Mind Wizards … who had given these secrets to her in the first place, hoping thereby to help her realize their own mad dreams of a planet-wide empire!
The shipyards of Tharkol had labored mightily for many months, perhaps the better part of a year, but thus far two ornithopters only had reached completion. A third and fourth vessel, which I understand she intends to christen the Avenger and the Zarkoon―which last is untranslatable, being the name of a mythological or legendary monster similar to the Harpies or the Furies of classical fable―were nearing completion in the shipyards of Tharkol, but neither would be sky-worthy in time to depart with us.
Thus it was that the armada we were soon to launch against our mysterious enemies consisted of four mighty war-galleons of the skies. And a mighty armada it was, armed to the teeth, its decks bristling with fighting men, its holds filled with the weaponry of war. Ever since our return from Tharkol we had been training men day and night for shipboard duties. And the cream of the fighting-men of the Three Cities (as we of Shondakor and Tharkol and Soraba thought of ourselves in our newly-forged alliance) were ours to command, the flower of the fighting manhood of three great realms vied for a chance to join our adventure.
This crash course in “skymanship” was only made possible by a fluke. The crew of the original ship, the Jalathadar, had been hastily and imperfectly trained by myself and my comrade, Koja of the Yathoon Horde, who had served in the wheel gangs of the Zanadarian pirate ships during an earlier period of enslavement. But our rude and fragmentary experience had later been polished with the aid of Zantor, who had joined us in the attack against the pirate city, and had gone over to our side with his entire crew of seasoned and experienced mariners of the clouds. Now that we had a veteran cadre of sky sailors amongst us, it was easy to divide the eager new recruits into teams, each under two or more veterans of the air.
The force of warriors we handpicked from the ranks of the Three Cities was comprised of the finest fighting-men in the world. Nor was their number inconsiderable, for ornithopters of the size and capacity of those which made up the armada could each hold a crew of one hundred and fifteen officers and men. Multiply that number by four and you achieve a total of something slightly under five hundred warriors. Since the armies of Thanator rarely total more than two or three thousand fighting-men, most of whom are poorly-trained and inefficient foot-soldiers, mere yeomen conscripted by force in time of war, our actual strength compared well with that of a genuine army. That is, few Callistan armies contain more than five or six or seven hundred mounted “knights.” The only exceptions to this are the Yathoon barbarians, gigantic hordes numbering in the many thousands, and every one a trained and merciless warrior, and, of course, the Chac Yuul, or Black Legion, a now (happily) broken and disbanded mercenary host of brigands who for years had terrorized the cities of this hemisphere.
In the era of the Sky Pirates, the corsair ships included a complement of some thirty-five officers and crewmen―most of whom were warriors, trained in sword, bow, javelin or lasso―while the remaining eighty members of the ship’s strength consisted of slaves chained to the wheels which powered the great vessels. We, of course, shunned the employment of slaves. This was not, I might add, because of any enlightened attitude among the citizens of Thanator against the institution of slavery (for, after all, what else can you do with captives taken in war except enslave them―the only alternatives being to butcher them, or to set them free to fight against you again, which is nonsensical). Nor was it, simply, that I had once worn the chains of slavery, groaning at the wheel of the aerial ships, and could not endure the notion of another mortal in the same predicament; in truth I must admit that, while I found my time at the wheel grueling and humiliating, it was not unendurable; I was not treated with any singular cruelty, and I found it an excellent way to build the strength of my back, chest, shoulders and arms.
But I am being facetious here, as you may have surmised. Actually, it was simply the most practical thing to do, to eliminate slaves from the crew-strength. We needed every single fighting-man we could carry―we had the vigorous young manhood of three kingdoms to recruit from―and we could hardly afford the luxury of carrying in each vessel eighty men who could not fight.
So we all took a turn at the wheel, even I, the Prince of Shondakor. And beside me at the grueling task cheerfully labored princes and nobles, officers and aristocrats, and the scions of the oldest and wealthiest and most blue-blooded houses in three realms. And not one of us, I’ll wager, but deemed our turn at the great wheels a privilege. For we served in a high-hearted crusade against the cunning and treacherous and secret foes who would undermine and destroy us with their uncanny powers.
In these preparations, Soraba, of necessity, played a minor role. While our Perushtarian allies were no less eager than we to crush the menace of remote and hidden Kuur, the red men are not sprung of a warrior race, and the ancient and honorable profession of arms has gone neglected throughout their history to their occasional detriment. This is an over-generalized statement, and is not entirely true, for Kaamurath of Soraba is a clever and farsighted man, and under his regime considerable strides have been taken to check and to reverse this racial disinclination towards soldiering. Years ago he realized that a princedom unable to defend itself against its enemies must buy peace, either through tribute to the foe or through paying the wages of professional mercenaries. And the squandering of money is not a situation which pleases the merchant-minded lords of the Perushtarian Empire.
Hence the fat, sharp-minded monarch years ago trained and recruited a warrior legion from among his own people, paying a high premium to overcome their innate distaste for the martial arts. And from among his finest warriors, selected in open competition against the flower of the fighting-men of Shondakor and Tharkol, we selected no fewer than fifty-seven.
That may not sound very impressive: but if you could see the average Perushtarian―fat, greedy, bejeweled, draped in gaudy silks, reeking of perfume―you would appreciate what a remarkable transition the Seraan of Soraba had accomplished within a single generation.
If he could not equal the Shondakorian and Tharkolian contribution in number of fighting-men, however, the stouthearted Kaamurath determined to uphold his end of the mutual venture by paying for almost everything. His artisans and craftsmen and traders put at our disposal, of course without cost, the finest weapons that could be found across the breadth of Thanator. He pressed upon us provisions, foodstuffs, medicinal supplies, armor, clothing. He outfitted the four vessels in the armada with the most accurate and superior navigational instruments, maps and charts, cordage and chandler’s stores money could―and did―buy.