Lord Bodwy turned to Loftus and extended his arm. "Here is my hand on it."
Lord Loftus, still somewhat stiff and utterly humiliated, felt a sudden liberation from all which had gone before. In a pulse of generosity as warm as Bodwy's own, he took the hand and clasped it. "You shall never find me lacking. I hope that we shall be good friends and neighbors."
II
NO SOONER HAD AILLAS RETURNED to Doun Darric than his forebodings were realized in full degree, and his previous problems suddenly became trivial.
Aillas had long awaited a signal of Ska hostility to his rule, if only a skirmish or two, to test his mettle. Instead of a signal, the Ska dealt him a harsh and brutal blow: a challenge which allowed him only two responses. He could submit, thereby incurring ridicule and loss of face, or he could fight, which meant lunging into a conflict for which he was not yet ready.
The Ska action could not be considered a surprise. Aillas knew the Ska intimately; they considered themselves at war with the rest of the world, and took advantage of every opportunity to extend the range of their power. Since South Ulfland under King Aillas could only become stronger, his rule must be expunged promptly. As a first step, with minimum expenditure of force and Ska lives, they took the town Suarach on the south bank of the River Werling, hard by the border between the two Ulflands.
The Ska heretofore had left Suarach in peace, to serve as a neutral area where they might trade with the outer world. The town fortifications had long been broken; and Aillas, lacking both funds and troops for an adequate garrison, perforce had left Suarach undefended, hoping that the Ska would continue to regard the town as a neutral zone.
The Ska, however, moved suddenly, to make their policy in regard to South Ulfland unmistakable; they marched into Suarach with four regiments of mixed cavalry and foot soldiers, and took the town without resistance of any kind.
Immediately they impressed labor gangs from the town's population and, working with that ferocious intensity characteristic of all their conduct, they repaired the fortifications, and Suarach became a mortal insult to Aillas and the dignity of his rule, which he could not ignore without a sad diminution of prestige.
For two days Aillas kept to his Doun Darric headquarters, calculating his options. An instant counterattack to retake Suarach by frontal assault seemed the least feasible of his choices. The Ska enjoyed short lines of communication; their warriors were superior to the raw Ulfish troops in every category by which soldiery could be measured: training, discipline, leadership, weaponry, and, most telling of all, the almost religious certainty of Ska invincibility. The Troice troops, so Aillas believed, matched the Ska more evenly, but still, in sheer fighting ability, could not be held equal to the Ska*.
*A Ska soldier feared one thing only, the disesteem of his fellows. He gained civil advancement primarily through his military exploits, and fought each battle with total ferocity, which disheartened his adversaries even before the battle was joined. Withal, the Ska among themselves were a gentle and law-abiding people, who lived to the tenets of a unique and complicated culture, with a written history ten thousand years old, and traditions far older. Originally a small tribe which followed the retreating glaciers north, they became the true indigenes of Scandinavia, only to be at last thrust out by the Ur-Goths (later the Scandinavians and Vikings, who adopted many Ska traits and skills, including the Ska long-boat). Ska traditions recalled battles with ‘cannibal ogres'—evidently Neanderthal tribesmen—who, so they were assured, interbred with all other tribes of true men, so that only Ska were of pure human descent, and all others hybrids, soiled by the infusion of Neanderthal blood. For further background to the fascinating Ska psychology and history, see the glossary in LYONESSE I: Suldrun's Garden.
Aillas, sitting alone in the cottage which served as his headquarters at Doun Darric, looked out at rain sweeping down across the moor: a dreary view, but no more dismal than his present predicament. If he committed troops, ships and supplies from Troicinet, in quantity sufficient to overwhelm the Ska, he not only risked disaffection at home but he also became exposed to a sudden onslaught by King Casmir of Lyonesse (who in any event would rejoice to discover Aillas trapped in a desperate war with the Ska).
At this moment, the attention of every baron, knight and lordling of South Ulfland was fixed upon him. If he failed to strike back, he lost his credibility as an effective king and became another Oriante, helpless when confronted by Ska force.
Aillas, standing by the window and looking out over the rainswept moor, finally reached a decision—which in fact was not so much a plan of action as a list of responses he must not make: no assault upon Suarach, no reinforcements from Troicinet, except for warships to harass Ska shipping, and no turning his back on the situation as if nothing had happened. So then: what remained? Only the classical weapons of the underdog: craft and cunning.
What of North Ulfland? The Ska roamed at will, using the region as a wild hinterland which eventually they would occupy. Now they exploited its resources of timber and ore, and impressed the scattered inhabitants into their labor gangs as they found convenient. Across that coastal strip known as "The Foreshore' the Ulfs had been totally expelled. In their stead the Ska had come in numbers to build their curious many-gabled villages and to cultivate not only the fertile acreages but also those ranges which the Ulfs had relegated to grazing land. Elsewhere a few peasants clustered in squalid villages, hiding at the approach of the Ska press-gangs, even though at Xounges, King Gax still maintained his nominal rule.
Darkness settled over the sodden moor. Aillas was served a supper of bread and lentils, then sat alone by the fire for another two hours before taking to his couch, and eventually the soft sound of rain on the thatch lulled him to sleep.
In the morning by some miracle the sun shone bright from a keen blue sky, and the moors, glistening with sun-struck rain-drops, seemed not so bad a place. Aillas took his breakfast, then despatched a message to Domreis, commanding that six warships instantly make ready and set sail for Ys, and thereafter scour the Narrow Sea for Ska shipping.
Aillas next met with his military command. He spoke for a period, defining problems and explaining how he hoped to deal with them.
The reaction of his staff surprised and gratified him; indeed, Aillas' concepts coincided generally with their own predispositions. There were even voices raised in full defiance of the Ska: "We have truckled to these black-hearted devils long enough! Now at last we will show them the stuff that Ulf warriors are made of!"
"They have beat us before, true! And why? Because they are skillfully trained, which gives each man the force of three! Now we too are trained!"
"I say, march now! Full and hard into North Ulfland, then let us seek out their armies! We are not the bleating sheep they take us for!"
Aillas, half-laughing, cried out: "Ah, Sir Redyard! If only the whole army knew your determination! Our problems would be gone! But for the present we must fight with intelligence, rather than emotion. The Ska's single vulnerability is lack of numbers; they cannot afford large losses, no matter how many they take with them. But I value each of our men no less, and I do not care to trade them lives, especially our two for their one, even if it gains us victory. We must strike like bandits, take our toll, then retreat before suffering harm of our own. The war will be won gradually, but surely. On the other hand, if we attempt to battle the Ska face to face, we play their preferred game, and we shall take many losses and still not win."