“And whose idea, by Zair, was that? If you’d listened to me we’d be snugly supping in The Fleeced Ponsho again, instead of in some outlandish place at the end of nowhere.”

“Me! You were the one who said there was gold flowing out of the rocks in this place! I was for returning to Donengil!”

“And who said we should sign on with those rasts of Maybers? We’re a damned long way from home, by Zim-Zair!”

I moved again. I drank. I spilled wine. They looked across and Zarado, his dark curled hair sheening under the lamps, said, “I do not wonder that you are frightened, by the disgusting diseased liver and lights of Makki-Grodno, dom. How came you people to be mewed up here?”

Zunder nudged him. “You great onker! That is the jernu, here, the lord. He was the one telling Shudor the Mak—”

“Oh! Well, I didn’t see him — you were nattering away in my ear like two nits dancing in a ponsho fleece.”

“Do you call me a nit, Zarado, the sweepings of a Magdaggian gutter? I’ll—”

I think they might have wrestled a space then, for it was clear they were good comrades, and continually at odds, one with the other, over everything. And, if no real excuse for an argument could be found, then they’d fabricate one, and joy in the ensuing combat. But I stopped them. I stood up and taking my flagon moved across to their table.

“Lahal, koters,” I said. “How came you here?”

I saw their swords now, jutting under the table. Krozair longswords — by their words and their swords I knew they were Krozairs, and not ordinary warriors of Zairia.

By Zair! How I thought of my roistering days on the inner sea, the Eye of the World! My sons were there now; Pur Zeg and Pur Jaidur, both Krozairs of Zy, as was I. I wanted to know of these two — and yet to enquire, to ask the ritual words and forms, to shake hands, would betray me as a Krozair and that would lead to far too many complications.

But I had to know.

“I think,” I said, speaking companionably, “that you are from Turismond—”

“Yes, jernu,” said Zarado. “But you would not know of our homes, seeing this place is so far removed—”

Here Zunder nudged him again. A right tearaway, this Zarado, bellowing his head off without thought.

“You forget, the galleons of Vallia sail the oceans. They have sailed even so far as a place called Magdag.”

They both reacted at this, swearing that they’d like to do certain unmentionable things to the Grodnims of Magdag — and then Zunder said, sharply: “And, jernu, you have been there?”

“Aye.”

“And to Sanurkazz?”

“Aye.”

They sat back. “Well,” said Zarado. “You are the first person we have met since leaving the Dam of Days who knows a little, who shows some knowledge of the world.”

This was typical, this regard for the Eye of the World as the center of existence, and the greater outer oceans as being merely the frame. I well understood that. But I pressed on: “I met a man there who said he was a—” I paused, as though searching my memory. “He was a Krossur — no, a Krozair. Yes. Do you know of these Krozairs?”

They exchanged swift looks. I did not think they were Krozairs of Zy; there was something about them, small signs by which a member of the Order of Zy can tell.

Then Zarado laughed in his bluff Zairian way. Disorderly, harebrained, indisciplined, the Zairians. I suppose that very face has produced the mystic Disciplines that make of the Krozair Orders the fanatically disciplined institutions they are. And, I was attempting to bring some of the best qualities of the Krozairs to my Krovere Brotherhood of Iztar.

“What harm is there, Zunder? We will be fighting alongside him before long, and likely all to go down to the Ice Floes of Sicce.”

“Or go to sit on the right hand side of Zair in the glory of Zim,” I said. Zunder pursed his lips, let out a sigh, and drank deeply. Zarado merely looked at me. Presently, Zunder said: “So it seems you kept your ears open in Sanurkazz. I, myself, am of Zimuzz.”

So that placed him. I turned to Zarado enquiringly.

“Me? Of Zamu.”

I know I have a habit of letting rip with a few choice phrases every now and then, in the heat of the moment, and so I said: “I kept my ears open. Also, I may, from time to time, call upon Zair. I mean no disrespect by that.”

“If I thought you did,” said Zunder, conversationally, “your tripes would be all over the floor before you could spit.”

“Aye,” said Zarado, quite calmly.

I approved...

We talked a little more, and I intimated gently that I was interested only in their prowess as fighting men for Therminsax. I managed to progress no further in enquiries about my sons, until a chance remark threw up the name of Zy, at which I came quiveringly alert. But to ask outright would be foolhardy, for it was much like a man of Manhattan asking a Borneo headhunter similar questions, and not expecting to be credited with specialist and, probably, partial knowledge.

I had a happy inspiration, at last, for obvious reasons not even thinking of the ploy until Zarado, yawning, said: “By Mother Zinzu the Blessed! I needed that — but now I am for bed. I am not your Pur Dray Prescot, jernu.”

The door was opened.

“He,” I said. “Is the prince majister of Vallia.”

“So they say, so they say. But he is a Krozair of Zy and that is much more important. His sons carry on in fine style—” Here Zunder made a face. “I would not admit this if I was a flagon more sober. I would as lief have joined the Order of Zy — but fate decreed otherwise.”

“Ha,” said Zarado.

“The welfare of the sons of the prince majister is of very great importance,” I said. I saw the quick way they looked at me, and knew my carved figurehead of a face was giving away more than I wanted. Neither of these two had ever seen Pur Dray, Krzy, obviously. “Are they well? Are they great Krozairs?”

“They do well, as you would expect—”

You may imagine how I listened as Zarado and Zunder between them gave me a rundown on the exploits and rogueries of my two sons on the Eye of the World. They lived. They fought the devils of Grodno, they prospered, and their swifters brought back prizes season by season. Zeg, as King of Zandikar, was growing to be a great power on the inner sea. His fleet was becoming a powerful instrument in the eternal struggle of Zairian against Grodnim. So I listened, and eventually, yawning again, Zarado said he was going to bed, or, by Zogo the Hyr-whip, his eyeballs would fall out. I heard the shrilling of the trumpets from the walls, and so I said: “I think not, Pur Zarado. I think not. The Iron Riders attack. You and your sword may be needed on the walls or at the barricades.”

Cursing most fearfully they snatched up their weapons and, clad only in their tunics and slippers, ran out. I was before them. The Iron Riders circled the city, screeching. They swung long weighted ropes, and as they swung them and released, the fiery brands tied to the ends brightened, and sparked, and sprouting flames fell rushing onto the roofs and walls of the city of Therminsax. Fifteen

Firebrands

“Water! Water!” The yells bounced into the sky, which, luridly lit by the falling firebrands, pressed down darker than it should. Dawn was not too far off. But the habits of order in the citizenry saw to it that the men appointed by the city fathers to stand their watch at the dawn hour should be awake. Trumpets blew. Men ran with buckets of water. The pandemonium racketed on. People were tumbling out of bed and, half-dressed, rushing to join in the long human chains of bucket-passers and precariously leaning over the parapets to haul that sweet and treacherous water from the canals. The firechiefs swiftly had the situation under control, for many of the barbarians’ brands puffed out in their swift passage, many merely spluttered and died on tiled roofs. Some burned up venomously and caught in combustible materials; and these were attacked with gusto, drenched with water, hammered into black-smoking quiescence.

The attack had come in from the west side of the city where the Letha Brook ran out through a battlemented gate and then, odoriferously, past the vosk-crushing mills and the waste-disposal plants. Downstream all the muck could be washed away from the city. Naturally, the radvakkas had established their main camp to the east, upstream. Their muck floated down to us. In addition, as we discovered with increasing frequency, they threw carcasses and offal and filth into the stream to poison us. Therminsax was provided with wells that produced crystal water, so we cursed the radvakkas, and drank deeply in safety. But with the extinction of the last fires, which took a bit of a hold on the water-mill outside the wall, protected by lesser outer walls and barricades, and a watch being set afresh, I figured that we would have to take steps to unblock the upstream end.

Sleep, then, would have to wait a little longer.

The excitement of the fires had brought the city to life early. As the suns rose with the promise of a fine day, with perhaps a little rain drifting across in the afternoon, perhaps not if the clouds were burned off by then, I paused to watch a group of men attempting to form up in lines. At this early stage I had weeded out all the men of Therminsax who had had military experience of some kind. In the city, to my disappointment, although common sense insisted I was lucky to find so many, there were just forty-three men who had once served in an army. There were ten men who had served in galleons, and these lived near and frequented the inn called The Swordship and Barynth . There were, also, over a hundred men who had served in the Vallian Air Service. This, being an imperial service, naturally would take many recruits from the imperial provinces. With these men, then, in the first instance, I had begun. I had said, speaking forcefully: “I want you to become drill instructors of the most abominable kind. Get the men to march in ranks and files and keep together. If any man complains that you overtax him, or mutters in any way, and you are not able to discipline him yourself, send him to me. I will talk to him.”

No one was sent to me.

I really thought, then, that they were under the impression I would personally crop the ears of malcontents. At any rate, the men sweated over their foot drill, learning to keep a dressing and to maintain a steady line. This, as I say, was a beginning.

The men saw me watching them, and a kind of miracle abruptly appeared in their lines. The ranks straightened. They began to march together. The idea of marching in step was well known and practiced; but many of the men with military experience would have no truck with that. They had been paktuns and used to a free and easy life. I had borne down, hard.

Now I stepped across and bellowed: “Halt!”

The ranks ground to a shaky halt, with men bumping the backs of the ranks in front. I started in to harangue them. Briefly, for it was a speech I repeated over and over, I told them they must learn to march in step, to keep their dressing and their distance, and to maintain the different paces as ordered, with an even and regular step, which I had specified out at twenty-eight inches. The figure was not lightly arrived at.

You will recall I had served at Waterloo, where the foundations of my Earthly fortunes had been laid, and I had watched the army, spoken to men and commanders, learned much of the land-side of the Peninsular. The British Army marched with a pace of thirty inches. The French Army with one of twenty-five and a half. While the British marched seventy-five paces to the minute in ordinary time, the French marched at seventy-six. But — the French marched faster than the British. The reason for this lay, therefore, not in statistics.

It was not so much a question of marching faster as of marching better. For what I had in mind for these citizens of Therminsax, accurate and regular marching, all in line, all in step, and all as one body, was vital.

Spending a bur with this body and being properly courteous to the drill instructor with them, one Hargon the Arm, a bluff old fellow with a pot belly and a fund of stories of his youth when he had been a mercenary and failed — only just missed it by a hair’s breadth, by Vox! — to achieve the pakmort, I did feel that they improved. They marched with more of a swing and they kept together. Chalk lines had been marked out on the flags of the kyro to give them their paces and dressing. I bellowed and ran and pushed and hectored, and we all sweated. At the end of the bur I halted them and told them they were coming along nicely and to keep up the good work, and that if they didn’t keep together as a strong and ordered formation they wouldn’t have to worry so much about the certain fact that the radvakkas would chop them as that I would crop their ears, and that would be far, far worse. The citizens took turn and turn about to stand watch along the walls and to drill in the open spaces. If any of them thought to wonder how this intensive drilling would help them to fight from the walls, not one ventured to voice the question.

A pungent whiff floated from the warehouses containing hoffiburs and we would have to see them all used up quickly before they went rotten on us. The people were regaining a little of their cheerfulness, and the Vallians, normally a phlegmatic and stubborn but highly independent people when the mood takes them, were of the stuff from which I could fashion a winning instrument of war. The idea of that could not be allowed to depress me. What I did I did for Vallia, for Delia and, of course, for my family and myself. I made no bones about that. I was a bright devil in the eyes of many people; but I was crass enough to think that I, Dray Prescot, was a lesser evil than the radvakkas of Phu-si-Yantong. I hope I was right.

Resuming my walk to the upstream end I found myself, as always, feverishly calculating. Odds and gambles, the certainty of defeat if we sat on our hands and did nothing, the trust I must place in others, the agonizing decisions about delegation of duties and responsibilities... I could not do it all myself. This was an entirely larger operation than that in the warrens of Magdag. I needed men who understood what I wanted, had been trained by me, and who could then train their own men. And yet — and yet this was altogether on a lesser scale than the warrens. There I had had the services of hundreds of skilled slaves and workers who could fabricate what I needed. Therminsax was well-provided with smiths and with leather-workers and carpenters and trades of that ilk; but, for a start, we were desperately short of iron and steel. Of copper and tin we had bulging warehouses. So, bronze it would be.

The stink wafted toward me as I neared the upstream bridge and gate of the Letha Brook. Rotting carcasses washed downstream now cluttered the iron bars. The filth stank.

“Volunteers,” I said. “Volunteers to clear the mess. And bowmen to cover them in case the radvakkas disapprove of our efforts to stay clean.”

The job was done. The paktuns who had ridden in brought their bows and crossbows up and we shot off a few radvakkas from their saddles when they ventured too close. The volunteers sweated away in the slime and emerged, panting and odoriferous, with the stream cleared and running sweetly. That would be a daily chore until the Iron Riders saw the uselessness of their efforts to poison us and desisted. I called a meeting. I did not allow it to be called a Council of War. The city fathers and the civic leaders now well understood that I acted by commission of the Justicar and through him for the emperor. That the emperor was dead was not allowed to confuse the issue. I based the argument on the continuation of Therminsax as a city, and of Vallians as Vallians.

So I outlined what we must do to be saved.

Much of what I told them was very similar to what I had told the slaves and workers of the warrens of Magdag of the Megaliths. We faced a heavily armored cavalry host. We had no cavalry of our own, apart from the almost a hundred benhoffs we’d brought in quite inadvertently and the paktuns. Our missile force was limited to around five hundred men who could use the compound bows. Of crossbows we had a small number; but they would have to be discounted, at least from the battle to come although of great use along the walls. And for artillery, although the carpenters and smiths were busy building varters and the wheelwrights making them mobile, our standards of proficiency in that arm were almost inevitably bound to fall far below what would be absolutely essential for any traditional use of the artillery arm. So we were thrust back on the mass of the citizens themselves. In Magdag I had thought we would be fighting from behind walls and in confined spaces of the warrens. In the event we had successfully bested the Overlords of Magdag in the open — and then in a tragedy I still looked back on with fury and regret, had been forced back to the holes and the stinking labyrinth. I’d been hoicked out of it by then, flung by the Star Lords across the Eye of the World, to meet Seg Segutorio. If only Seg was here now! And Inch and Turko and Balass — ah, each one of them would be worth a regiment!

The long room buzzed with talk as, my thoughts for the moment making me fall silent, the chiefs of the city broke into eager, naive, angry, puzzled conversation. One of them said: “We have few swords, jen. We know a little of using spears, by reason of vosk-hunting. But the soldiers of Hamal were beaten by the radvakkas, this you have told us, and they were profoundly impressive warriors—”

“Not warriors,” I said. “Profoundly professional, yes. Swods. Soldiers. But they were sword and shield men. We shall beat the radvakkas, as I say, by using a weapon with which they are unfamiliar. It will not work against the Hamalese, and do not forget that in the hour of victory.”

Lists had been prepared by the stylors detailing the state of the city’s stores. We would have enough, I estimated, just enough; but it would be very tight indeed.

The iron bars in the canals and the Letha Brook were replaced by bronze grilles. All the iron and steel we could discover in the city was meticulously collected up. I showed the smiths a template whittled from wood. The master of the smith’s khand, Varo the Hammer, brought up the subject in his turn at the meeting.

“We are making these spearheads, Jen Jak. They consume only a small amount of steel each; but you require a vast number. Yet—” and here he scratched his bristly side-whiskers— “they are main different from any spearheads I have known.”

“Before I answer you, Varo, let me ask Rivate the Chisel how he is coming along with the hafts.”

Rivate, a dapper little fellow with an eye that could true up a line or an angle to a hair, nodded quickly.

“We have produced many hafts to the incredible lengths you ask for, Jen Jak. The letha wood is of the best quality, as you specified — the trees are being cut down—”

He would have gone on; but I waved a hand.

“These long shafts of springy white letha wood, and these small sharp steel heads, will make the weapon with which we will beat the radvakkas. The name of the weapon is pike. The shafts at the moment are eighteen feet in length; later they may increase to twenty-two, or be decreased to eleven or twelve. Just at the moment we must produce them, and train the men in their use.” I stared challengingly at the master of the carpenter’s and smith’s khands. “I need sixteen thousand of them.”

When the uproar of protestations subsided, I said: “Sixteen thousand. And the quicker substantial numbers begin to be produced the quicker we can make a start on thrashing the radvakkas. The men are already tired of drilling with broomsticks.”

The question of payment as always came up. I met this in the same way. “The Justicar is empowered to sign assignats. The bokkertu is perfectly legal.”

They shuffled at this. Each man who signed up in the army was given an assignat which we all hoped would be collectible. The death of the emperor proved a knotty point; but the assignats were secured also in the name of Nazab Nalgre and on lands available in Thermin. More than once I was tempted to tell them that I had been the fellow to take over the crown and throne of Vallia — I’d not had my hands on either! — and that I was the emperor and Therminsax the extent of my empire. I think you will readily see why I did not, and why I persuaded myself that Jak and Drang could be of more use than Dray Prescot. Maybe I was wrong; there are those who say so, but at the time I considered I was pursuing the correct course.

And that course demanded that I create an impenetrable phalanx of pikemen upon which the Iron Riders should dash themselves to destruction.

Plans are usually bedeviled by someone who thinks only half-logically. I knew I took a terrible risk in thus throwing all our hopes on this one chance. The Phalanx — well, it had served me before and, by Zair, it would serve again. But the chief priest of the temple of Florania — a prissy little man who devoutly believed in his point of view — had no doubts at all that my plans would fail. He gathered his robes about him and stood up, pointing the forefinger of his free hand at me.

“There sits the man who wishes to cast all our sons down into the bowels of Cottmer’s Caverns. The Iron Riders desire plunder. Then let us open our gates and satisfy the greed of the radvakkas, for we are a rich city. We shall, of course, previously hide all our most valuable treasures. When the radvakkas have taken their plunder, they will ride away. Our city will be spared and in a few seasons we will have recouped all our losses.” He stared around at the chief priest of Opaz, a spare, ascetic man with feverish eyes and a bad skin that kept erupting in spots and boils. “What say you, brother in Opaz? Are not my words the words of wisdom? Why do we bow the neck so meekly to this wild paktun, Jak the Drang?

The emperor is dead and the assignats are worthless. Let us preserve our city.”

No one spoke; but all looked at me. I gave a swift glance to the chief priest of Opaz, and saw with that I confess was great relief that he half-turned his shoulder on the priest of Florania. I stood up. I put my hands flat on the table and my old vosk-skull of a head thrust forward, and I do not doubt that my chin stuck out like the ram of a swifter.

“I will tell you, priest of Florania, why we will not open our gates except to march out to fight. I do not like fighting and battles and warfare. I detest and abhor the deaths of fine young men and the wails and agonies of the young girls and of the mothers. You want to open the gates and offer the radvakkas gold and silver, corn and oil and flour, all the good things of Therminsax. And when they have taken what you offer they will laugh. They are illiterate barbarians. But they are not fools. Some of you they will kill at once, as an object lesson. Some, the less fortunate, they will torment until the city rings with their cries of agony, until they are only too thankful to reveal where you have hidden the rest of your wealth. And then they will slay you all, after they have had their sport with you and your women folk. If you want that, priest of Florania, open the gates and welcome the Iron Riders.”

He tried to bluster. “You do not know that! They were resisted by the Hamalese at Cansinsax and Thiurdsmot and Meersakden. There are many millers and master bakers in my congregation, devout men, and my power—”

“We shall have scant need for millers and bakers before long,” I interrupted, uncouthly. “And if you have had information you should tell us. I know of Cansinsax and Thiurdsmot — what of Meersakden?”

This was a fine city of Sakwara, of which I had heard, containing better than seventy thousand souls.

“The Hamalese were routed by two bands of radvakkas. There are two bands outside our walls. You cannot hope to beat them—”

“I do not hope, priest of Florania. I know! They will be destroyed, they will be utterly discomfited by the Phalanx of Therminsax. And,” and here I put a great venom and a horrible evil into my voice and face.

“And if you try to play the traitor or speak against the honest burghers of the city, you will be restrained, placed in irons, and cast down the dungeons beneath the Justicar’s deren. Is that clear?”

We sat in the council chamber of the deren — the palace — and we all knew that there were noxious dungeons below. He flushed up. I felt quite sorry for him; but he was wrong, so wrong that if he had his way he would open the city to death and torment in forms so hideous he could never comprehend them. But, then, he had had no dealings with the Iron Riders.

The chief priest of Opaz, scratching his cheek, said in a gentle voice: “Sit down, brother, and keep your peace.”

With that out of the way we could go on to plan just how we would fashion the killing instrument of victory we planned to hurl against the mailed cavalry of the Iron Riders. Sixteen

In Crimson and Bronze the Brumbytes Form

The days passed. The men sweated and marched and drilled. We had them learning how to march in file, for the organization would be based on the file. I prefer the line; but in this instance the file seemed to be the correct procedure.

The pikes were produced from the manufactories. Also the superb springy white wood of the letha tree, somewhat like ash, was mated to steel heads fashioned with spike, hook and axe, hefty, vicious cutting weapons, halberds. Leather jerkins were wired and sewn with bronze plates to form corselets, and shoulder pieces were artfully fixed at the back to be drawn over and fastened on the chest. The same old arguments went on over shields; but the citizens were not warriors and they were far more pragmatical about the thorny question of shield and no-shield. They had seen the Hamalese and their shields, and although the regiments of Hamal had been defeated, still, it struck the citizens as eminently sensible to have something behind which to stand. The shields, in a very real sense, were to them a continuation of the city walls and barricades. From chin to thigh, the shields were designed to protect a man. Also, springy bronze greaves were made for the lower legs. Now, helmets — the manufacturing capability of the city was fully stretched.

Well, the old vosk-skulls had surged forward under a rain of arrows before; they would do so again. Vosk-skulls are notoriously hard. Piles and piles of them may be found outside most habitations of men on Kregen. The Vallians had built water mills and by harnessing the power of rushing streams had built trip-hammers that, with difficulty, could smash and crush the skulls to form a fine fertilizer. The vosk-crushing mill had almost burned. Around it were heaped and piled the skulls, hard as iron, waiting to be processed. We took these skulls, removed the jaws, scoured them out, affixed leather and quilted linings, riveted straps, added high brims to protect the eyes and grilled or barred face-coverings. For the nape of the neck overlapping and sliding bronze plates formed the well-known lobster-tail. I rather liked the look of the resultant helmets. Grim, rounded, well-fashioned and offering high protection, they looked business-like.

Then I ran into a little example of the power of legend and story.

“But we must have plumes!” exclaimed the Justicar. We were watching men being issued with the helmets and relishing the looks of pleasure as the men felt the protection as well as the weight come on their heads. Foreheads must be well-padded. The helmets must sit firmly and yet not too tightly, not too loosely. The brim must give protection from falling arrows.

“Plumes?”

“Aye, Jen. Feathers and Plumes.”

Then the Justicar and his council produced the old stories and showed the old books. All heroes had tall and imposing plumes in their helmets.

“We are not heroes,” I said. “We are sober citizens doing a job of work.”

But they wouldn’t have it. So plumes were affixed to the helmets by thin bronze strips, and, of course, the majority clamored for that fashion of plume that rises like a giant question mark from the crown of the helmet. I had to give way.

I did say: “If a sword or axe strikes that plume-holder it’ll knock your helmet off — if it doesn’t break your neck.”

So the Justicar’s people, with enormous glee, arranged the tall nodding plumes with holders of stiffened leather which would be cut off or bent when struck. I left them to it, mindful of the thought that in this they showed themselves to be their own men, and increased their importance in their own eyes. We were distressingly short on swords, and so I could not contemplate, with the scarcity of steel, the mass manufacture of two-handed swords, which would have worked wonders on the iron armor of the radvakkas. Stabbing spears had to be substituted and long knives. Anyway, for handstrokes the halberds and axes would do a fine job — or so I hoped.

While these preparations continued and increased in tempo day by day as the people saw the results of their work, and the men drilled in their files, and the files joined together in ranks and grew daily more solid and regular, I worried over the tactical aspects I must decide. It was clear to us all in the ringed city that the radvakkas, having plundered the surrounding countryside and being awash with food and wine and good things, were content to sit down and starve us out. They tried their fire-throwing a couple of times further; but our fire service quenched the flames with ease. We kept an alert watch at all times. The radvakkas made not a single attempt to scale the walls. If they couldn’t ride their benhoffs, then they weren’t interested. All day they rode about and we watched them in mock combats, in sports, in drunken orgies. All in all, the time passed, and still the tactical questions remained unanswered.

The men in the files would be armored as best we could manage. They would carry pikes and shields. If the Macedonian and Successor phalanxes could contrive that, then so could we. The Renaissance and pike and shot man did not carry a shield — or not very often — but the cavalry charge had dwindled away a trifle by his time from the mailed charge of chivalry, resplendent in the panoply of plate. I worried over our serious lack of missile power. Our five hundred archers practiced religiously each day and the stock of arrows grew. Once the Phalanx had come to grips with the foe then I was completely convinced we would succeed. It was getting them there, and protecting their flanks, that exercised my mind. Because Europe pushed out into the world, the military institutions and titles familiar to us came into very wide being. On Kregen the Empire of Loh had given the impetus to the terminology with which, so far, I have acquainted you in these tapes. As the Landsknechts handed down administrative ideas and organizations to succeeding armies, so the army of Walfarg that carved out the Empire of Loh left its methods to Havilfar and Pandahem and to Vallia, also.

With the eager help of the Justicar, who delved deeply into the history of Kregen, we reached past the time of Chuktars and Jiktars, of Hikdars and Deldars, back to a time when the organization of warriors was based on the figure six — one of the twin calculating systems of Kregen.

“Twelve men to a file,” I said. “With the file leader, the Faxul, in front where he belongs. A half-file leader, the Nik-Faxul, and two quarter-file leaders, the Laik-Faxuls, each in their allotted stations. And, in the rear, the file-closer, the Bratchlin. He should be a steady man, hardy and stubborn, and, I may add, ready to thump a comrade in front who lags too tardily.”

The Justicar pored over his dusty tomes, bashing the stiff pages open in his enthusiasm. The pages were filled with colored illustrations of the pageantry of old, filled with the legends and heroic stories of Kregen

— the Quest of Tyr Nath, King Naghan, the Canticles of the Rose City, Prince Nalgre, and many many more.

“I have the utmost confidence in you, Jak the Drang. Where you came from, Opaz knows; but, also, thanks be to Opaz you came to our city. We would have been lost without you.”

“Vallia,” I said, foolishly touched by his words. “I am concerned for the people of Vallia.” I would have to break the news to him about the slaves, and then he and his wealthy friends might not be so kindly disposed toward me.

“Each file of twelve joined with two others, the whole commanded by a Danmork, the center file by a Terfaxul, just so that there is no confusion who gives the orders when they suffer casualties, or form close order.”

The Justicar nodded, no doubt thinking of the pageantry of the men marching shoulder to shoulder, their bright plumes nodding proudly over the serried ranks.

“Twelve files to form a Relianch,” I went on, roughing out the diagrams with paper and ink. “The whole one hundred and forty-four commanded by the Relianchun, marching at front and right, and assisted in command of the second half of six files by the Paltork. Yes, it is a plan almost like others I know of, and yet adapted to our needs. Each Relianch of a hundred and forty-four men will have its own flankers of medium men, halberdiers and axemen, the Hakkodin, twenty-four of them, with their own file leaders and half and quarter file leaders.” I did not smile, but I felt my lips rick. “I shall choose these Hakkodin, these men to guard the flanks, carefully. They will not have a file closer, a Bratchlin, with them.”

Slaves pattered into the airy room in a brightly lit tower of the Justicar’s deren bringing trays loaded with the superb Kregan tea and miscils and palines. We were not hungry yet, in the beleaguered city. But I had to get my phalanx organized and trained, disciplined, able to march in step and line, perfectly moving as a single gigantic organism. “There will be six Relianches to a Jodhri,” I said. “Eight hundred sixty-four pikemen and one hundred forty-four Hakkodin to a Jodhri commanded by a Jodhrivax.”

We drank the tea and wiped our lips and then sorted through a list of stores stylors brought in demanding instant attention. Also, a lesser chamberlain reported that a certain butcher was charging ten times his normal prices for meat. I told Nazab Nalgre to send around first of all a deputation from the butcher’s khand to reason with the fellow and to bring his prices to levels where the folk might afford meat. If he would not accord with common decency then we’d send around a posse of our volunteer pikemen to make him see sense. The people of Therminsax were one — or ought to be one. I knew enough about sieges to know that those in authority must never be seen to favor any one class over another — save, always, that the fighting men must eat. And, of course, if this damned siege was prolonged, therein lay the rub. Not that this was a siege in the real meaning of the term. Those illiterate unwashed hairy barbarians outside had no real idea how to prosecute a siege. Had we faced them when we’d been hemmed in in Zandikar, we’d have laughed at them. So we went back to the organization of the phalanx, for, as you will readily perceive, this was my way of obtaining the positions in the phalanx for the men I wanted there.

“Each Jodhri will be one thousand and eight men strong. Six of them, I think, will form a Kerchuri, six thousand and forty-eight men strong.” I cocked an eye at the Justicar. Nazab Nalgre was looking pleased that his old legends with their continual references to the six and twelve organization and the names of ranks was once more coming into use. He was a fine antiquary, whatever kind of imperial Justicar he might be. “We may find that unwieldy. But I want two commanders of the Kerchuris appointed, two Kerchurivaxes.”

“You have the men in mind, Jen Jak?”

I nodded. “Aye.”

He studied my face. I knew that the commanders of the two wings of the phalanx would have to be Therminsaxers. There were many bright sparks anxious to command, although very many of the lesser nobility had already packed up and left long before the radvakkas appeared, and many women and children, also, had left.

“Men of integrity, stubborn, physically strong, courageous,” I told Nazab Nalgre, speaking a trifle heavily, I fear. “Men who have a presence, who know they will be obeyed when they give an order. Men who are respected by their fellows.”

I merely described the generality of Vallian koters.

“They must be Therminsaxers,” I went on. “Otherwise I’ve half a mind to install that defiant man Cleitar the Smith, for I know him to have discovered he is a bonny fighter when it comes to push of pike. I want Targon the Tapster to handle the Hakkodin.” I looked directly at Nazab Nalgre. “Your son, Nalgre, your fine limber young son, Nath. He will command the first Kerchuri.”

I brushed away Nazab Nalgre’s babble. I was doing him no favor. But Nath na Therminsax, for he was allowed to adopt his father’s style for all he had no rank of nobility so far, was a fine young man in truth and, over and above all the qualities I have enumerated, he was quick-witted. “I will make a break with tradition here, Nalgre, and Nath will ride a mount and conduct affairs from outside the Kerchuri. The right hand position — the lynch-pin — will be taken by that pillar of the city, Bondur Darnhan. The second Kerchuri will be commanded by Strom Varga, and the right-hand man will be Jando Quevada.” I sighed. “I pray to Opaz they will live through the battle. But the front rank men — well, that is why they are there, why they wear the tapes and the feathers, why they are respected, why they are followed.”

Nalgre nodded brightly, seeing only the brilliant nodding plumes over the massed files, the onward surge, the pageantry and honor, seeing his son Nath riding back with the victory. Again I sighed. When honest citizens turn their hands to war they are usually highly practical; Nazab Nalgre, the Justicar of Therminsax, shared the other side of that character, the romantic, the high idealism, the shining honor. He was a man of parts, for the governor of an imperial province, called a Nazab, ranks with a kov. His son Nath might if he wished take the surname Nazabhan. Delia’s father had not been altogether a fool in his choice of men to run his affairs, and although he had been sadly led astray in his capital of Vondium, he had appointed sound men in his provinces. Nazab Nalgre was now fully recovered from that mortifying crisis of nerves that had afflicted him after the Hamalese rode out. Continually, the Justicar moved among the training men, exhorting them to effort, to the acquisition of the skills they must have. The paktuns smiled and quoted the old proverbs about the length of time it takes to make a fighting man; but I put my faith in the innate solidity of the burghers, their strong feelings for their city, their orderly habits of mind, and saw day by day the growing cohesion of the phalanx. Mind you, we carried out most evolutions at this time with the Relianch, the tactical unit. When six Relianches formed and stood shoulder to shoulder in a Jodhri, and we filled the kyros with the Jodhris formed in file, then we could bring them into close order and present a front of four hundred and thirty-two pikes. Drummer boys, four to a Relianch, and trumpeters, sounded the orders, the drums with their solemn and deep blam-blam-berram to keep the step, the trumpets to shrill their commands. In the manner of these things, just how the name began no one could tell; but folk began to talk of the pikemen in the files as brumbytes. The brumby was — I say ‘was’ for the animal was thought to be extinct or legendary — a powerful eight-legged and armored battering ram of whirlwind destruction, armed with a long straight horn in the center of his forehead. Something like an elegant rhinoceros, the brumby symbolized the headlong energy of the pikemen. At once I gave orders that the shields should bear a painted and stylized representation of this formidable beast, along with the formation signs. The ordinary brumbyte carried a clear strip across the top of his shield. The differing ranks in the duodecimal system then carried stripes of color to indicate their status, rising from a single stripe — complemented with a single tape on the buff-sleeved shirt and a single feather alongside the helmet plume — to the four tapes and two stars of a Paltork.

The shields, bronze-rimmed and bronze-bossed, were crimson, the imperial color. The First Kerchuri carried a broad brown chevron and the Second a brown ring upon the crimson. All main plumes were of crimson. The tails were colored Jodhri by Jodhri. As I said to the officers: “We present a solid mass, a devastating avalanche of crimson and bronze.” Then, because these things matter, I added: “But the brumbytes may decorate their kaxes in any way they wish, so long as they do not destroy either their effectiveness or their suppleness.”

The brumbytes sang as they marched to the beat of the drum, manipulating their pikes with growing confidence, although you may be sure there were some horrendous tangles at first. When a fellow tried to make a right turn with his pike horizontal — well, the imagination does not boggle, but he became highly unpopular with the brumbytes in the files near him.

Colors, flags, standards, were carried; but these would only be a hindrance after the onslaught, and arrangements were made for them to pass to the rear. Each Relianch had its color, of course, and a grave variety they made, all based on the imperial crimson.

One evening when I was at last beginning to think we were in some cases to march out, Archeli the Sniz reported to me, allowed immediate access as I had ordered. He was a sly, prying little fellow, recommended to me by the Justicar, and I had set him to spy upon the chief priest of Florania.

“Jen!” he said, speaking quickly. The gathered city fathers and officers looked up from their work at the long tables. “The cramph has been in communication with the radvakkas. I did not know what he purported — but now I know he means to open the Gate of Aman Deffler to them. And, Jen, the task was difficult—”

“Yes, Archeli. It was. Go on.”

“Tonight, Jen. Tonight he means to open and let them in.”

Seventeen

The Battle of Therminsax

The fuzzy pink moonlight washed over the stones of the wall and deeply shadowed the buttresses. Moon blooms opened their petals greedily to drink of the light. The silence drifted with a little breeze, broken only by the occasional sleeping growl of a ponsho-trag. We watched the lenken gates. The Gate of Aman Deffler was the nearest gate to the Temple of Florania. The idiot intended to open up and let the radvakkas in. I had collected the Hakkodins, the halberdiers and axemen, and now we lay in wait. Presently footsteps sounded pattering along the flags. Dark figures moved on the ramparts, for here the gates fronted an open pasture and no suburbs had been built up against the walls. The watch, alerted just in time, made no resistance but fled. I did not want good men killed. The gates swung open, carefully greased by these deluded followers of Florania.

Crouched in the shadows, tense, I saw the oncoming mass of Iron Riders. I gave the sign. Up on the walls the watch returned and with them bowmen and the paktuns. Down below my Hakkodin moved forward. We let perhaps a hundred radvakkas in, surging confidently forward in their iron. Then the gates were shut, the way cleared by lethal sweeps from axes and halberds, the opening bolted up. Then we turned on those Iron Riders who had ridden in.

By Vox! The pent-up fury of the citizens was wonderful to behold — wonderful and horrible in its revelation of the fury honest men feel when their lives, their livelihoods and their loved ones are threatened. The axes cleft mail, the halberds swung with irresistible force. The Iron Riders were swept from their saddles. They stabbed with their spears and swung with their swords; but the devils of my Hakkodin were everywhere, swarming all over them. In a matter of murs the carnage was over, the savage sounds of steel on iron, the shrieking commotion of men in combat stilled. Panting, his halberd a shining brand of blood, Targon the Tapster confronted me.

“Hai, Jak the Drang. Now you have seen!”

“Aye, Targon. Now you understand the radvakkas are merely mortal men—”

“By Vox! When you leaped on them I almost felt sorry for the benighted devils.” He laughed, the reaction setting in. “Although, I swear by the Invisible Twins, you are a greater devil than any of them.”

“Clear the mess away,” I said, intemperately. “Carry all the iron to the workshops. Take the unhurt benhoffs to the stables and you do not have to be told what to do with the poor animals who have been injured.” I looked up at the walls. “Hai! Have they gone?”

“Aye, Jen. We saw them off and emptied a few saddles.”

“Shudor the Mak!” I bellowed. “Take your men out and cover the working party. Bring in everything of value the cramphs of Iron Riders have left us.”

Shudor, who had signed a contract and accepted good red gold for the services of his paktun band, obeyed. We wasted nothing in besieged Therminsax.

Then I went off to have a few words with the priest of Florania.

The Justicar and the city fathers met in solemn judgment. Everything was done with strict impartiality and adherence to the long-established customs of the bokkertu in Vallia. But the evidence was so strong that the verdict of guilty was the only one possible. So I, being squeamish, left the matter in the hands of the city fathers of Therminsax, whose city would have been betrayed by this misguided man. What they did I will not repeat; but the example, I felt reasonably confident, would deter any other poor deluded wight from plunging so foolishly into an act of treason.

As for his followers, they repented at leisure.

I went to find the two Krozairs, Zarado and Zunder. As always, they were arguing, this time about the relative merits of the halberd and the axe, and so I was able to say: “I have noticed your swords, koters.”

I called them koters in the Vallian way, for koter, being a word of similar meaning to gentleman, covered our transactions. “I fancy I would like to have the armorer make me one up in like fashion.”

They laughed, and showed me their Krozair brands. In Therminsax there were the usual number of smiths any place would need; of armorers there was but one, Ferenc the Edge, for it was said he could hone a blade like no one else in all Thermin. He had been kept busy, grumbling about letting blacksmiths into the high mysteries of his art. I had simply told him that any self-respecting blacksmith could put a good edge onto a scythe or sickle, that I had shown the women how to fashion the scaled bronze kaxes, and to pitch in with a will. Now the two Krozairs showed me their swords, and I took them off to find Ferenc the Edge. With me I took an armful of the radvakka swords.

“Now, Ferenc,” I said, in the heat and smoke of the armory. “These two monstrous swords. You see them.”

“Aye, Jen,” quoth this Ferenc the Edge. “And mighty unhandy they look. The handle length is impossible. And there is a curve, if I mistake me not, in the blade—”

“Good man!” I exclaimed. “The curve is of the most subtle, being more of a rise of the cutting edge to the center point. You will make me a sword like this from these radvakka weapons.”

The Krozairs fell about laughing. “It takes skill—” And: “You’ll cut your legs off, if not worse!”

But I insisted and left Ferenc to it, with a promise that he must make the blade superb and if it snapped across in battle I’d stalk back and stuff the shattered end up where it would do him no good at all. But I knew, sadly, that however fine Ferenc’s work would be, the blade he would forge would in nowise compare with a true Krozair blade.

More days passed and our preparations drew on. We made thousands of bronzen caltrops, chevaux de frise were constructed, and husky youngsters, fleet of foot, were trained to run with them and drop them in position, to pick them up and run again; to the shrill commands of stentors. The benhoffs we had taken were added to our cavalry force, and we could field almost two hundred now. Our five hundred archers were now at the stage where they could loose accurate volleys with an expertise that, while it would provoke Seg to a chuckle or two, would for all that do pleasant mischiefs to the radvakkas. I was not concerned to choose an auspicious day for the sally, a holy day or a day sacred to some god or other, not even Opaz. I would choose the right day for my brumbytes. As it turned out, the right day dawned on the morning of Opaz Enthroned, which was a good omen. Normally, the long chanting processions singing their eternal “Oolie Opaz” would wind through the streets. I gave the countersign as Oolie Opaz and told the people that that would suffice on this day. Truth to tell, the sally could not much longer be delayed. Our food was now in sure sight of running out. We had trained to a pitch and now we needed combat to temper our arms. And, as you may well imagine, I was overtaken by the most profound panic of indecision. How could we face the ponderous onrushing might of the Iron Riders? Would not all our careful plans be rendered useless? Our hedge of pikes swept away? Would the burghers change into hardened brumbytes, and stand, and win?

Ferenc the Edge found me, his squat face glowing and smudged with black. He held out the sword.

“Here, Jen Jak. And may Opaz have you in his keeping, for I have tried to swing the blade and took a chunk out of my leg, may Trip the Thwarter take it.” He handed me the sword and I felt a rush of nostalgic onkerishness envelop me as I wrapped my horny old fists around the handle. Ferenc eyed me.

“Go in good spirit, Jen Jak, and, by the Blade of Kurin, as my clients say, I wish you well.”

With the sword in my left hand I took out the assignat I had prepared and handed it to Ferenc. When he saw the sum I had written and which had been countersigned by the Justicar, he whistled.

“You put great store by that monstrous brand.”

“Aye. Now go and take your place. Every man must play his part today.” And I added: “And may Vox send his aegis to give you comfort.”

Whatever happened today, from henceforth it would be known as the Battle of Therminsax. That was inevitable.

The temples crowded with brumbytes and Hakkodins, seeking a last measure of comfort. The women bore up marvelously; but I understood their agonies. I held a last order group with the two Kerchurivaxes, Nath Nazabhan na Therminsax and Strom Varga na Barbitor, and with the Jodhrivaxes. They knew the plan. To dignify what we purported as a plan must be overstating it. We intended to march out, form phalanx, and smash the radvakkas.

Even a well-disciplined phalanx will trend to the right so as instinctively to bring the shields around to face the enemy. To give a little added protection to the right flank we would march out across the open plain with the Letha Brook on our right. The Hakkodins would flank us. If we did go right we’d find our feet getting wet. So I had a private word with Bondur Darnhan and Jando Quevada, the two right-hand men.

Briefly, I told them that the direction of the two wings depended on them — they knew that, anyway; they’d drilled enough times — and that they were to parallel the Letha Brook.

“Put your heads down, your pikes level, your shields up — and go straight in. And tread warily over the clutter on the ground,”

So, dutifully, they smiled at the feeble joke, and went off.

We marched out.

The army of Therminsax marched out.

The two Kerchuris marched. The Hakkodins flanked them. The cavalry and archers took post on the rear flanks, awaiting immediate orders.

And I got the jitters. Were twelve men enough? Was a phalanx twelve pikemen deep thick enough?

Ought I to have made it sixteen, like the Macedonians? The pikes projected past the front ranks, forming a multiple hedge of steel; but I could have lengthened the pikes, made five or six project. I looked at that impressive array, superb in bronze and crimson, marching with a swing, with the drums rolling, and I felt the icy shivers of dread.

So much to gamble, so many lives... It is imperative if you are to gain an insight into that formidable and splendid array to grasp something of what it was like to march as a brumbyte in the files. A heavy helmet weighs down your head and the metal visor obstructs vision. You grasp an eighteen-foot long pike, and you hang your shield around on your left shoulder, trying not to let it slide away to the side. You are aware of your bronze-scaled kax pressing on your chest and back. You clump along, in line and file, as you have been trained. The man in front is old Nath, a good fellow if a boaster, the man to your rear is old Naghan, who always wants to tread on your heels. The men on either side you know, have worked and trained with. The dust rises. Your nostrils sting, your eyes want to run with water. The breath clogs in your throat. And you must grip your pike firmly, held aloft until the moment comes when the trumpets shrill and down go the pikes, level, and you increase pace. Then you can hear and see practically nothing as you just press forward until — but then, you have not yet experienced that fraught until . All the training and practice in the world, even charging solid wooden fences, cannot really prepare you for the hideous reality that will follow when that until becomes fact. Solid, compact, compressed, shield locked, pikes all slanted, the phalanx moved out. One of Shudor’s paktuns had got himself killed and so I was able to buy his zorca, at an impossibly inflated price, from the band. Gold had to be paid; assignats were of no interest to the mercenaries. So I rode a zorca and was clad in a bronze kax of the same kind as those worn by the brumbytes, wearing a vosk-skull helmet with the bronze fittings, carrying a long spear, a shortsword and a broadsword from the radvakkas — and with the Krozair brand scabbarded over my back. The scabbard had been made by the handmaidens of Nazab Nalgre’s wife, the quiet and soft-spoken Lady Felda. From the saddle hung down a steel axe, short-hafted.

Naghan ti Lodkwara and his Hawkwas, riding the benhoffs we had taken, formed a small guard reserve. And I became aware of a monstrous shadow at my back, and turned, and, lo! There rode Korero, bearing an enormous shield. He met my eyes and he looked abruptly shifty.

“Why do you ride there, Korero?”

“You have given me no place in this phalanx, Jak the Drang. I remember what I remember. This shield is large enough for the two of us.”

All I could do was say: “You are right welcome, Korero the Shield. But guard yourself, you hear?”

As I swung back to check the progress of the phalanx I found myself muttering darkly: “What in the sweet name of Opaz will Turko the Shield say?”

Cleitar the Smith rode with us and he carried the standard. This was a large banner of crimson with the yellow saltire of Vallia, and, in the hoist, the crimson and brown of Therminsax arranged in their insignia shape. Dorgo the Clis and Magin rode with us. Also, we had a truly enormous brazen trumpet blown by Volodu the Lungs, a barrel-chested, square-faced rogue with a penchant for ale of any quality and in any quantity.

The brumbytes were signing as we advanced out across the open plain by the brook. Where they got the spit from, Opaz knows. They began with refrains like “The Maidens of Vallia” but as we advanced and saw the mailed cavalry riding out and forming to meet us, the songs grew more wild. A couple of times each Kerchuri was singing a different song; but as we drew forward to the place I had marked, everyone was bellowing out “The Sylvie on the Slippery Slope.” I did not think the ladies crowding the walls of Therminsax could make out the words, even if they might hear the tune, and that was just as well. It is a marvel how decorous, seemly, orderly townsfolk will transform themselves in moments like these into the wildest spirits imaginable.

The stentors blew their trumpets and the shrill notes halted the phalanx. The radvakkas trotted out, ominous and deadly in their iron. The lads with their caltrops on quick-dispensing rods ran out ahead and strewed the ground. On the flanks the chevaux de frise were positioned, ugly trestles armed with spikes, protecting our flanks. The lads assigned to this duty, fleet of foot, collected at the rear of the phalanx, out of the way.

We halted, all the pikes upright, and the banners and standards moved to the rear. I wanted — how I wanted — to leap off the zorca and grasp a pike and so stand in the front rank. But I had a duty and that duty chained me here, in command, ready to hurl the weight of our attack where it was needed. A phalanx arrayed so deeply and with shields locked can go straight ahead. It is designed to go straight ahead over anything. To wheel, to form, to go sideways, is so difficult that it is barely attempted. We had carried out experiments, and had some success, but usually the phalanx fell into complete disorder. I had chosen to march out with the phalanx facing the main camp of the Iron Riders. We would go ahead.

But, all the same, despite that, my place was where I was.

And, all the time, I continued to marvel at the way in which the solid citizens of Therminsax had transformed themselves. From a witless bunch of scared loons — with the exceptions of those men I had seen and noted — the burghers now stood calmly in their packed files and ranks awaiting the onslaught of the dreaded Iron Riders. The transformation was exceedingly marvelous, and I felt a warm and choking affection for these brumbytes sweeping over me.

The jitters persisted. Ought I to have provided baldachins, canopies of cloth to hang from the shields to protect the legs? As I lifted in the stirrups and peered ahead at the advancing Iron Riders, I had to make a fierce effort to banish worries like that. The Phalanx of Therminsax had been forged. It existed. It was. In only a few murs it would be in action, in its first action. Everything was going to go splendidly. It was. I had to believe that, believe utterly and with the fanaticism of the doomed. Dust puffed from under the iron hooves of the benhoffs. The radvakkas had no doubt been astounded to see the gates open and an army march out. I hoped that they would regard us as just another army like those of Hamal they had destroyed in the outright violence of their charge. They had no doubt tumbled out of their tents shouting with glee, arming in all haste, snatching up sword and spear, leaping into their saddles. Being barbarians they would all race to be the first. Their chiefs would, because they were chiefs, be able to control a few of them close at hand. But the mass would dig in spurs and set off. This they did, and so they came down on us like a spuming unformed mass, bunched as they closed, riding knee to knee. The front ranks tended to draw together, followed by a whole tail of furiously galloping riders.

“What a sight!” said Cleitar. He shook the great banner. In his right hand he grasped his massive hammer, and the head was newly fashioned into a piercing spike at one end and a crushing hammer at the other.

“Very impressive,” observed Korero. He sat his benhoff alongside my zorca, but I knew he would haul out to the side and rear when the heat grew. He had no fear of arrows, for the radvakkas were in too impatient a mood. They just clapped in their spurs and charged.

Our own archery rose from the flanks. I had not stationed archers to the front for I did not want bowmen running back through lanes left in the files, with the subsequent movements to fill the gaps and possible dislocations. The phalanx waited like a solid rock against the pounding of the breakers. The Iron Riders hammered on. At the last moment the bowmen retreated behind the bristling spiked trestles and continued to put in a raking discharge. Any moment now — the noise of the thousands of hooves bellowed to the sky. The dust rose. The twin suns glinted from iron armor and steel weapons. Instinctively I tensed and then relaxed as the forces met.

Bedlam. Sheer awful bedlam. The noise blattered away as if insane imps of hell were beating drums through Cottmer’s Caverns. The smashing impact of those superb riders against the steady ranked lines of brumbytes rocked on, rocked in equilibrium, rocked back. I saw a few pikes splinter and sprout skywards. I saw the long level lines of pikes holding, stabbing, transfixing man and beast. The phalanx held. Not a man yielded an inch. The Iron Riders rode into that bristling wall of steel pikeheads and were ripped from their saddles, slashed into the ground, brought to a grinding dusty bloody halt. We lost men. I sorrowed for that. But only a few, a very few, and particularly in one relianch where the front ranks went down under a collapsing tangle of benhoffs. But the brumbytes in rear moved up, stabbing and thrusting, and the cruel steel pikeheads forced a clearance, and the line held. The overlap of the radvakka charge lapped around our flanks. This was where danger threatened. But the very vehemence of their charge carried them spurring on. Those who tried to rein inwards were stopped by the chevaux de frise , and by the archers who shot lethally into them, and by the Hakkodins who slashed with axe and halberd and dragged the Iron Riders from their tall saddles with spikes and battered them into the ground.

On the right flank a mess of benhoffs floundered into the Letha Brook and were dealt with in water and blood.

I saw the recoiling movement. The Iron Riders following up their first ranks had either crashed headlong into them to add to the confusion, or drawn rein and wheeled away. Groups of radvakkas pirouetted about the plain. They would gather for another charge, of that I was certain. Again uncertainty hit me. Now? Or give them another charge and then? So I waited, confident in the cool heads and high courage of the brumbytes.

The front rank men knelt and thrust the butts of their pikes into the ground, their shields facing front and locked. The second rank men thrust forward under arm, over the shoulders of the front rank. Farther back the two-handed over-arm grip was used. All in all, to face that bristling pike-hedge would take a great deal of nerve and courage.

Of nerve and courage and sheer stubborn pride the radvakkas were plentifully provided. They gathered and charged again. And, again, they were piked to a bloody standstill. Now!

The rear rank men, the Bratchlins, were yelling and stretching out their empty hands. Men bearing fresh supplies of pikes scrambled forward. As the front rank pikes were broken, so the files passed up fresh ones, levelly, as they had trained. There were no spikes at the butt ends, and no reversing the pikes as though they were mere nine-foot spears. I gave Volodu the Lungs the order. He blew the “Prepare to advance.”

Immediately the front rank men stood up. The pikes came down level. The brumbytes took a grip on their shields, their pikes, on themselves. I nodded to Volodu.

He blew with scarlet and distended cheeks. “Advance.”

All the other stentors took up the signal. With ringing trumpets and with the thundering rataplan of the drums bellowing the files on, the whole phalanx advanced.

With helmets bent fiercely forward, with glaring eyes, with clenched teeth, the brumbytes advanced. The level rows of pikeheads glittered. The tramp of bronze-studded boots hammered the ground. Careful of the scattered caltrops that had brought down many a poor animal, of the corpses strewing the ground, treading small, the men advanced. When the phalanx had cleared the cumbered ground, and ahead pirouetted an astounded cavalry, and the main camp of the Iron Riders, Volodu at my nod signaled the

“Double, Advance, Charge!”

The whole phalanx broke into a double march, a furious yet steady pace, almost a run, that carried them over the ground and, scattering the remnants of the radvakkas to our front, brought us up to the leather tents of the camp.

The “Halt!” brought them up with their pikeheads ripping into leather. Here the Hakkodins went to work, with the cavalry who now came up. They destroyed the camp. During that enjoyable work the phalanx turned about. This was accomplished with a smartness of drill I admired, for I saw how the taste of action had sharpened the men up. Trumpets shrilled. The Second Kerchuri remained fast. The First moved off. All pikes were vertical. When the First had cleared the Second, the whole Second Kerchuri left-faced. Rank by rank they marched to the rear of the First. When each file was exactly aligned, the trumpets blew again, the Kerchuri halted and faced front. Twenty-four deep, we set off back to the city.

Strom Varga, commanding the Second, cantered over to me.

“Yes, Strom. Nobly done. Be ready instantly to halt your Kerchuri and turn about. Or to face either flank.”

“Quidang, Jak the Drang.” He cantered off, perfectly composed. The evolution would be tricky if some wight forgot to hoist his pike before he turned. Drill and discipline — resent them though the soldier might, they helped to keep him alive on the day of battle.

So we marched back in triumph. Had we possessed a good cavalry force we would have ridden in a bloody pursuit. As it was and in a way very satisfying to me although regarded askance as less than dignified by the citizenry, we were accompanied back by a whole clamoring host of freed slaves. Radvakkas maneuvered some way off. But we did not march straight back, for the ground was cumbered. That led to a tidy old mix-up in lining up for the gate; but I told Volodu to signal “Relianch.”

Then the brumbytes sorted themselves out and marched in in good order. The gates were closed. I breathed in deeply. I had struck out one good resounding blow. But the pikes of my men, my sturdy brumbytes, were crowned with the laurel wreaths of victory.

So we celebrated.

The next morning there was not a radvakka to be seen. All the tents unburned had vanished. The cooking fires were cold.

The Iron Riders had gone.

Therminsax had been saved.

Eighteen

Nath Nazabhan

Over the next period of my life upon Kregen I had best tread lightly. Much of what immediately followed stemmed from the facts surrounding the besiegement and Battle of Therminsax. While I had been mewed up there and in the period following when, with a choice band, we traveled from city to city along the old frontiers and pressed on into Hawkwa country, many great events had taken place in Vallia. My orders from the Star Lords, to be obeyed, necessitated the complete overthrow of the Iron Riders. So I took the matter.

To accomplish this in a short time was patently not possible, lacking a plentiful supply of infantry capable of standing against the armored cavalry charge, and lacking a powerful cavalry of our own. With that choice band — a group that grew together in times of adversity as well as of success — we moved from city to city instructing, exhorting, demanding in the name of Vallia. Where the radvakkas were too strong we bypassed the place. Then, in the fullness of time, we would return and cleanse one more spot of Vallia.

The Iron Riders were slow to counter our measures. We had to make absolutely sure that each province and city we liberated was capable of defending itself against further attacks. With a strong cadre from Therminsax, by expertise that grew with every fresh successful drill no less than encounter, we developed speed in our methods. But, all the same, it was a lengthy business. To arouse a nation to arms is one thing; to train them to win wars is another. Our first task, which we successfully completed, was to clear Thermin back westwards to the Great River. On the day we reached The Mother of Waters, I recall, we looked across and saw on the right bank a massed group of totrix cavalry, wearing the checkerboard ochre and umber of Falinur. I suppose, thinking of it, it was fortunate that a bridge was not nearby and the river ran broad and deep here. A smashed and routed band of radvakkas lay in our rear, and we were still more concerned with them than with the rebels over the river. For, make no mistake, rebels they were, Falinurese who had sided with Kov Layco Jhansi and taken up arms in his struggle for the imperium. His kovnate province of Vennar marched with Falinur to the west. Beyond him lay the long range of heights known in their northern sections as the Black Mountains and in that immense amphitheatre to the south, the Blue Mountains. No good sitting dreaming. We had work to do to the east. Sitting there with the standards and banners about me, I gave the orders, and the cavalry moved out, and the phalanx swung into their dwabur-consuming stride. Oh, yes, these days we marched about the country as a phalanx, made up from men of many tiny villages as well as towns and cities. We trained as we marched, and we picked up fresh recruits every day, it seemed. Mind you, our strength as yet was short of a complete phalanx, and I intended to regularize the numbers out logically. We had almost a full Kerchuri with us, of which four Jodhris were fully trained. Despite my powerful arguments that he should stay with his father and in his city, Nath Nazabhan had elected to march. He was the Kerchurivax. A fine man, a fierce and loyal fighter, he did much to lighten the hearts of the brumbytes, despite his strict adherence to the codes of discipline we enforced.

And, believe you me, the discipline in the phalanx was strong.

We cut south following the river and opened up Eganbrev and then swung sharply east in that broad double-hook of She of the Fecundity and so cleared our way through Aduimbrev. I am making this narrative abbreviated here. We successfully liberated Thiurdsmot and Cansinsax, and, by this time, we had four Kerchuris with us. They amounted to twenty-five thousand men. We had a cavalry arm, also, by this time, mounted on totrixes and nikvoves, and these were organized in the usual system, squadron and regiment. They were all heavily armored cavalry, with kax, spear and sword. In addition we possessed a small scouting force of zorcamen. Gathering men and animals together from everywhere, we at all times observed the proprieties and I signed countless assignats. Well, that is a lie my staunch comrade Enevon Ob-eye would strongly object to.

Enevon — One-Eye Enevon — served as my chief stylor, and he kept scrupulous accounts of every assignment we issued, as well as the army lists. He was from Valka. He had seen me and opened his mouth and I had run him into my tent under the crimson and yellow flag, and cautioned him. He called me Jak the Drang.

He’d been on a trading mission and become caught up with the revolts in their various places and phases and so could give me no late news from Valka.

That reminds me of the day we marched into a ruined town having driven off a wispy attempt by a handful of radvakkas to halt us and found in a tumbledown barn the sad remnants of an airboat. Well, between us, we patched the thing up. So we had ourselves a flier. I called Korero to me. His great shield, and often two shields at once, had interposed between me and the arrows and sword-strokes of the enemy. I looked sternly at him.

“Korero the Shield. You can fly an airboat. You will fly to Valka. You will enter the Heart Heights and there perform a certain function.”

He did not want to go. He was from Balintol, a weird, exotic place, if ever Kregen sprouts such mysterious lands, by Vox. But he could fly and he could read a map and he was of great heart and courage. I entrusted a sealed message to Delia into his four capable hands — not forgetting his equally capable tail-hand — and saw him off with many Remberees.

To finish that story anachronistically, as is not my wont, he returned in the fullness of time, finding us easily enough by reason of a burning city and radvakkas lying strewn in their own blood, and reported that he had seen the Princess Majestrix of Vallia, whom men now called the Empress of Vallia, and that she had opened the letter addressed to her by Jak the Drang and had read, and grown pale, and pressed the paper to her heart, and had then treated Korero the Shield with great kindness.

“She was well?”

“Aye, Jak. She commands an army there of the bonniest fighters I have seen in a long time. They are re-taking Valka for the Strom of Valka — wherever he may be, for men did not know.”

I read Delia’s letter in answer to mine. I cannot repeat its contents; but it was as Korero had reported with his sharp eye. Valka was being won back from the mercenaries who had thought the Prince Majister’s Stromnate easy pickings. She understood I could not join her for the moment: she would join me when it was possible, although she sounded a warning note. Her thoughts were with Delphond and the Blue Mountains. As to Zamra and Veliadrin, our people resisted there; but waves of aragorn and mercenaries from all over, drawn by the news that Vallia was in turmoil and there were easy pickings, were flocking in like warvols.

And that reminds me that I had continually to remind my great-hearted brumbytes that they might overtopple mailed cavalry, but that they could not go up against the iron legions of Hamal. The information was not welcome; but I pressed the point and, also, against possible evil, increased our missile force. We were a national army — or almost so. We had a few mercenaries in our ranks and could pick up more as we progressed. We had a detachment of Bowmen of Loh — and none of them had served in the Crimson Bowmen. This corps I did not resuscitate, having strong ideas on the subject of what I intended in that direction.

Time had flown by and we were well into the North East — well into Hawkwa territory. Now the campaigns we waged changed in character. There was no longer the pressing need to recruit and train men to form phalanxes. We marched and we were the phalanxes. As we liberated areas and towns and cities we destroyed the bands of Iron Riders who opposed us, and rolled up in a receding tide those who fled. The operations took on more and more the guise of campaigning warfare. Gelkwa was freed. With the pikeheads of the host slanting against the suns at my back I appointed a Hawkwa noble, Strom Hafkwa, to be the new Trylon of Gelkwa. He accepted; but he did ask: “By what right, Jak the Drang, do you do this thing?”

I relished the moment for its parallels.

I pointed at the phalanx, at the serried files and ranks of pikes.

“There is my mandate.”

Of course, I then added that I bore a commission from an imperial Justicar, and was using that to ratify my actions. He was one of those — and there were many of them as there had been many to sing a similar tune in Djanduin — who raised the call, cautiously at first but with growing volume, that we should all march to Vondium and chuck out this traitor Seakon and install me, Jak the Drang, as emperor. I smiled.

“One day, one day, perhaps. But I seek no personal aggrandizement.” That was true, by Krun! “First we must cleanse all Hawkwa country of the radvakkas.”

The Hawkwas clustered about in this moment, as a new Trylon of their province was installed, nodded. They said, in effect, and I do not repeat their words: “Much favor is yours, Jak the Drang. All Hawkwas will stand in your debt, for you do not impose alien rulers on us when you might, seeing you have the strength. We accept your rulings.” That is more or less it.

I took some pains to make sure I did not come into contact with any who might recognize me from those hectic days I had spent here previously. That was unlikely, really; but it was a chance I was not prepared to take — not just yet.

I think, now, that Korero the Shield put two and two together and came up with the right answer. But he respected my wishes and kept his own council. Also, Nath Nazabhan knew. It popped out one day, and enquiry determined that his father the Justicar had told him, so that he would mind his manners with me. I smiled — again, I smiled.

“Then you have kept silence, Nath, and will continue to do so. But I can tell you that an imperial province lies in your hands once we have this mess sorted out.”

And then he surprised me. He said, this tough, limber young fighting man: “I follow you, emperor, for two main reasons. One is to clear Vallia and to flex my arm against her enemies. And the other is because of yourself.”

I did not pursue the matter, as we turned to details concerning the new swarm of irregulars who now followed us as we marched. Nath had been promoted to command a phalanx, the other being in the hands of Nev who was a Therminsaxer and who had risen through the ranks being a man of exceptional ability. He had once been known as Nev the Bottle; but now he never touched a drop and my orders said he was now Kyr Nev ti Rendonsmot, a title taken from the town where he had been instrumental in holding his Jodhri firm against almost insupportable numbers, and then of advancing at the double and flinging the Iron Riders back in confusion.

Yes, yes, there were many battles and many campaigns and sometimes the arm grew weary and the brain dizzy; but we persevered, clearing Vallia of the radvakkas.

The irregulars, and I call them that only because they were not as yet integrated into the army, posed problems. Men of Vallia from farm and town, they followed us. They aped our ways, and built themselves shields of wickerwork, and carried long spears, and perched vosk-skull helmets on their heads. On more than one occasion they raced in with a whoop and a yell on the flanks of the radvakkas and materially assisted us in the victory. I had issued orders that the irregulars were to be given the full assistance of our ambulance and medical services, and the doctors with us attended to the irregular wounded in the same way they attended the brumbytes and the Hakkodins. Although we had provided an ambulance and medical service from the very beginning, and little enough they had had to do on that never-to-be-forgotten day of the Battle of Therminsax, the fact remained that once the shields locked and the pikes came down, our men suffered relatively few casualties. This heartened everyone. So many vivid and burning memories of those days of marching and campaigning and battling rise up before me now as I speak. Would that I had the time and a thousand cassettes to speak of them; but always my thoughts pressed on feverishly to the accomplishment of what I had set my hand to, the liberation of Vallia and then the return to Delia and the surcease from strife. When men march together and fight on from year to year they change, their characters alter, in subtle and gross ways they become different men from those who set out. The histories of Napoleon and Alexander demonstrate this with stark and pitiful clarity. We were not troubled by desertion. If a man did not wish to march with us, then he was free to leave. We were, after all, not a conscripted army but a national army of liberation, fired by the zeal to cleanse our country. So I deliberately instituted a policy of maintaining a turnover in the files. By this method men would be sent home as others pressed forward, after training, to fill the gaps. I did not wish my little army to become tainted, sour, as happened to other armies of the past.

One bright day after a smart little dustup when a wing, having advanced perhaps a little too far against two strong bands of radvakkas, and having formed a schiltron, pikes out, to resist, was smartly relieved by a cavalry charge in the flank of the Iron Riders, I looked up into the air and saw a flier circle and land nearby. We used our own single flier to recce; I daresay that was the only airboat for a thousand miles or so. And, now, here was another. She bore flags the colors, gray, red and green, with a black bar, and so I knew she was from Calimbrev, that Stromnate island south of Veliadrin, and also I knew who this was who came leaping over the coaming and racing over the torn-up grass toward the group of riders about the crimson and yellow banner of Vallia. I’d have known that slender, smooth-faced, respectable young man anywhere.

If he yelped out my name before my gathered officers...

But in those hectic days we had spent together in the Kwan Hills and Gelkwa, and, as well, in that harum-scarum chase from Drak’s City in Vondium, something must have rubbed off on him, for as he came running toward us, waving his arms, almost tripping over his rapier and clanxer — I half-smiled when I saw his armory — he bellowed out: “Jak! Jak! It’s me!”

Mind you, young Barty Vessler, the Strom of Calimbrev, still shouldn’t have yelled any name. It was lucky for him I was using the same address alias as before, except that I was not Jak Jakhan but Jak the Drang. I urged my zorca out front and center and then hauled up as Barty arrived, red-faced, panting, overjoyed. He was a supple, bright, eager young man, filled with ideas of nobility and chivalry a little rough-hunting with me had not knocked out of his noodle.

“Barty!” I said, speaking warmly, for I felt pleasure at the sight of him. “Strom. You are right welcome. Lahal.”

“Lahal and Lahal, Jak. I am here. I will fight. I have heard — Del — that is, a message—” He floundered.

I lowered my voice. “I am Jen Jak the Drang. See me in my tent in a bur. And, Barty, for the sweet sake of Opaz, keep your trap shut.”

He nodded, and that wickedly sly grin of the ingenuous at their awed realization they are involved in skullduggery passed over his smooth, polished face, making him look like an apple set out in the front of the greengrocer’s stall.

“Quidang, Jen Jak the Drang!”

Names, names... They conceal and reveal all, and can sometimes lead to very messy deaths... Before I could see Barty the aftermath of the little action had to be tidied up. The Kerchuri that had advanced with somewhat too great precipitancy had done well to form their schiltron, in this case a circle of bristling pikes, and resist successfully until relieved; but I wanted a word with their Kerchurivax, stubborn old Nalgre ti Fomenoir. He would shake his head and agree with what I said and then, the next time, would as lief lead on his Kerchuri in that hard, heavy, pounding advance, the brumbytes all advancing with helmets forward and pikes thrusting. We had become used to charging forward and hurling down all who opposed us. We must not become complacent.

And, after Nalgre ti Fomenoir had been spoken to there was the matter of the Love Story to be attended to.

A certain brumbyte had become enamored of a little lady in one of the towns we had liberated. A fine girl, strong and well-built, she had captivated this pikeman, Nath the Achenor. When the army marched out, Achenor could not bear to part with his ladylove, fair Sarfi. Equally, he conceived that his duty lay with the phalanx and he would not desert. So — so the pair of them stood before my tent and I glowered on them.

They stood to attention with their bronze and vosk-skull helmets gleaming, the barred visors lifted, the crimson plumes lofting. They held their pikes at the regulation position, vertically, the heads stained with blood. Their bronze kaxes shone, and Sarfi’s had been cunningly adapted so as to fit her interesting shape. Their shields rested on the ground, leaning against their left legs. I looked at them, this pair of brumbytes, one male and the other female, and I sighed and wondered what on Kregen to do with them.

“So, then, Sarfi, you fancy yourself as a Jikai Vuvushi?”

“No, Jen. I am a brumbyte and I march in the phalanx.”

“She carries her pike with the best, Jen,” broke out Nath the Achenor. He threw her a swift, fond glance, and then snapped back to glare to his front. “I love her dearly and she loves me and we will not be parted.”

“I do not argue with that. I believe she is trained, for your Relianchun would not have tolerated anything less.”

“She is well-trained, Jen.”

I did not say that I had spoken to Relianchun Anror ti Aventwill, the commander of their Relianch who was due to be promoted to Jodhrivax. I looked on these two lovebirds and I said: “You will return to Sarfi’s home. There, no doubt, you will be married and begin to raise fresh brumbytes. That is your concern. I request — request and do not order — that you drill and train the younger men of the town in our methods. You would have made Laik-Faxul very soon, Nath. You have the training. Make sure it is not wasted.”

Nath the Achenor started to argue, clasping his pike and shield, saying that he did not wish to leave the phalanx. But I pointed out to him that the phalanx was no place for a girl. Mind you, that was a long time ago and things changed on Kregen, as you shall hear.

So the pair of turtle-doves were sent off, trailing their pikes, unhappy at the moment to leave their comrades. I would not forget the phalanx and what we had achieved. Then I went to find Barty Vessler. Barty brought news of my daughter Dayra.

He did not know she was Ros the Claw; he had not seen her, brilliant in her black leathers, her lithe feline form very quick, very deadly; he had not witnessed the slashing destruction wrought by that cunning curved metal-taloned glove upon her left hand.

As ever, after he had failed to halt the invasion of his Stromnate by the aragorn, Barty had gone seeking Dayra, for he was passionately enamored of her in his refined, elegant and chivalric way. He had found Delia in Valka, who had no late news on Dayra, and had been told of my doings and whereabouts. So he was here, panting on the trail of Dayra, and with information he had picked up that did, in very truth, give a lead.

“For,” he said in his light, quick way, “I ventured up to Vondium and, Jak, you will be interested to know that Drak’s City held out for long and long—”

“You did?” I exclaimed very stupidly. Then: “Well, that warren could hold an army at bay. Who took it in the end, Layco Jhansi or Phu-si-Yantong?” Then I had to run over a little of the influence that Wizard of Loh exercised, and of his part in the calamity that had befallen Vallia. It seemed to me that secrecy about the Wizard of Loh was no longer necessary. His acts were plain, carried out by his tools, the chief of whom, as far as I then knew, were the Hamalian Army in his pay and the malevolent Hawkwa party under Zankov.

“The Hamalians control the city with Vallian puppets to make the thing look right. It sickens me. The Hawkwas have fallen out with the Hamalians. Drak’s City burned — a good deal of it, like the city —

but everything is being rebuilt at a prodigious speed. And Dayra was there; but she was entangled with a bunch of mercenaries — masichieri, most likely. They infest everywhere.”

“And?”

“I heard that she had been insulted and had dealt with the masichieri — there was talk of her slicing them up, which puzzled me. Anyway, she left.”

It did not puzzle me. The thought of foul-mouthed, sly, treacherous masichieri insulting my daughter did not, thankfully, cause me more pain than it ought, for I was well aware that Ros the Claw would, indeed, slice up any oaf who thought she was easy prey.

“They meet at a place called Olordin’s Well. I came to you because—” Here Barty paused, and colored, and looked away.

I had not given him my blessing in so many words; but I had come to an appreciation of him, so I thought. I said: “I am unable to leave the North East until all the Iron Riders are dealt with. Dayra can look after herself. As soon as I am free I shall go to Olordin’s Well.”

With the courtesy that was also a useful arguing tool, Barty let that lie and we talked of other things. He would return to the subject, that was sure.

With Barty’s late information and what we had learned elsewhere, the picture of the present state of Vallia emerged. It was unclear — the condition of the southwest remained obscure. But the North West

— not so much a geographical location as a combination of provinces, always staunch Rakker country

— had combined even more strongly and under the leadership of Natyzha Famphreon, the Kovneva of Falkerdrin, had declared themselves independent of the rule of either Hamal or Layco Jhansi. Now Jhansi fought campaigns along his northern borders. His tilt at the throne had not succeeded; but, at the least, he had taken the pressure off the Blue Mountains. Barty shook his head at my enquiry about the Black Mountains, Inch’s kovnate.

“They have been engulfed, Jak. I heard that a strong mercenary army swept through. Some of the Black Mountain Men have moved south to join the Blue Mountain Boys, and they hold out there — or so it is said. But who can believe anything these days?”

The large island of Womox off the west coast had elected itself a king, and severed communications. Womoxes still served other masters in Vallia and elsewhere, as you know; but this was just another indication that the Empire of Vallia was falling to pieces. Certainly, events had not turned out as Phu-si-Yantong would have planned or wished.

As for the many islands fringing the coast of the main island, anything could be going on there and probably was.

Those provinces which had previously been held by nobles who had refused to take up an alignment, and there were plenty of them, like the high kovnate of Bakan to the northwest of Hawkwa country, had been ravaged by greedy neighbors or invaded by hordes of aragorn and mercenaries. Flutsmen roamed the skies of Vallia, these days, and that was good for no one.

As for what was going on north of the massive barrier of the Mountains of the North — that was as remote as the probable carryings on on any of the seven moons of Kregen. For our part, the officers and men around me, we more and more considered ourselves as representing the true Vallia. As I was told by these choice spirits: “The Empire of Vallia has been destroyed and no one can deny that. Now the island and islands are cut up, fragmented, separate. We are the true Vallia, the continuation of the old, and under our banners march men who are true to you, Jak, and to Vallia.”

If this was high-flown stuff, then that was sometimes the way of your bluff Vallian — as of any other of the peoples of Paz on Kregen, so it seems — but they remained for all their quoting of poetry and singing of songs just as slippy at slitting a throat or two.

Phu-si-Yantong was a mere crude conqueror; if he was a sorcerer also, the protections afforded me appeared to be working so far, praise be to Zena Iztar. Layco Jhansi knew very well that his only pretensions to the throne lay in the swords of men he could hire. The Racters had withdrawn and, as so often before, bided their time to strike. Anybody else who sought to become Emperor of Vallia could only be a mere adventurer. This Seakon who now occupied the throne and wore the crown and grasped Drak’s Sword was just such a one, a successful one. From what Barty said it appeared the Hamalese sustained Seakon in power. What, then, of the aspirations of Zankov?

Barty seemed to think Zankov led the Hawkwas; but I was not persuaded of that. After the disappearance of Udo, the lead in Hawkwa affairs had been taken by Nankwi Wellon, the High Kov of Sakwara, and we had had a right little flare-up with that prickly personage. He had been downright indignant that the Iron Riders had been swept away by, as he put it, a rabble of southerners. At our interview, when he had put on airs and graces, being the kov and very condescending and mighty with it, I had had to cut him down to size very smartly.

A kov runs a kovnate province; a high kov runs a province which contains a diversity of races each with its own separate organization — the kind of set-up I had had trouble with in Veliadrin with the damned Qua’voils. In Sakwara there were two other powerful groups, one of Brokelsh and the other of Rapas. They were barely tolerated; but they were allowed to live their own lives. The Iron Riders had wrought horrifically upon these communities of diffs, and their numbers had been reduced by better than eighty percent. The carnage had been colossal, obscene, not tolerable.

The Hawkwas with me showed the Hawkwas of Sakwara very clearly where their sympathies and loyalties lay. It crossed my mind, perhaps pettishly, that Sakwara might do better by being divided into a number of smaller provinces, vadvarates and trylonates, perhaps.

In the event, the High Kov Nankwi Wellon had to accept the situation. He remained the high kov. We had cleared the radvakkas from his territory and we left him to rebuild as we pressed on into the Stackwamors, clearing the country out of pockets of Iron Riders. And then, of course, the radvakkas began to coalesce, even to forget inter-band rivalries, and to join together into one mighty horde. What, you may ask, in all this of that scheming little bitch, Marta Renberg, the Kovneva of Aduimbrev?

What, indeed! Well may you ask.

After the fall of her province of Aduimbrev she had gone hot foot to Vondium to berate, to argue and finally to please — if I read the situation aright — with the Hamalese. She would want them to reinstate her with their iron legions, and they would want to leave well alone and not tangle with the radvakkas. If she returned and claimed Aduimbrev back she would find a very different situation, and one she would not like. I did not particularly look forward to that meeting. To be truthful, I detested the very thought of that coming confrontation, by Vox!

For the talk throughout the army now, in the phalanxes, in the Hakkodins, in the cavalry and archers, was all of marching to Vondium in a mighty host and there proclaiming Jen Jak the Drang Emperor of Vallia. The irregulars, too, were of the same mind. They knew on which side their bread was buttered. I merely made myself smile lazily when the subject came up, saying to them tsleetha-tsleethi, all in good time.

The irony of my devotion in clearing out the Iron Riders from Hawkwa country was not lost on me. The Hawkwas were fully aware that we could have marched on Vondium — no one really believed the Hamalese swods would stand against the phalanx no matter how many times I warned them — and so they regarded me with great favor in that I used the army to clean up their country. I did not mention the Everoinye; but if ever a situation deserved the irony of history, this one did. The campaign persisted and gradually the great day of the final reckoning approached. We were apprised by our scouts and our two fliers of the positions and strengths of the radvakkas. We marched up, the dusty columns with their slanting forest of pikes trudging over the land, pressing closer and closer. Having cleared the center of Hawkwa country, the South, East and West Stackwamors and the other provinces, we marched north through Urn Stackwamor. Ahead, far far ahead, the icy pinnacles of the southern ranges of the Mountains of the North hove into view. We trended eastward, toward the coast, aiming to pin the radvakka horde against the River Sabbator. The river ran down into the sea opposite the island of Vellin and separated Urn Stackwamor from the trylonate of Zaphoret to the north. In this part of the country there were many Peel towers, stark and angular against the sky. The people had resisted stoutly and many of the Peel towers lay in ruins, for the radvakkas had dealt sternly with the people. Food was not too hard to come by; but the host consumed vast quantities, and I knew that we must finish this thing quickly. Assignats might be written but they could not produce food where there was none.

Barty said: “I am no coward, you know that. But I cannot wait any longer. I do not understand your so tender regard for the Hawkwas. By Vox! We suffered enough grief from them. I must be off to seek Dayra.”

“Go with my blessings, and may Opaz fly with you. But I must finish what I have set my hand to. I will see you at Olordin’s Well. I shall come as soon as I can.” I stared at this slender, easy, well-mannered young man. I sighed. “And mind you take good care of yourself, Barty Vessler. My daughter is, I am sure, highly demanding of any man.”

He grew red in the face, and stammered, and swore all manner of high-flown sentiments. Barty Vessler. Yes. Well, I stood to see him off as he observed the fantamyrrh boarding his flier, and we shouted the Remberees. He took off.

And I, somewhat savagely, I confess, set my army in order and gave Volodu the Lungs the order to blow the “March” and we set off for the final battle against the mailed might of the Iron Riders. Nineteen

In the Name of Jak the Drang

That army was superb. There is no doubt of that. They had marched and fought and sung together. Each part knew its duty and did it and more. The Phalanxes, for there were two full phalanxes now, slogged forward in the center, with archers and Hakkodins in the intervals and flanking. The cavalry trotted on the wings. Like an enormous tide of bronze and crimson we advanced. And, too, by now many of the brumbytes had acquired iron armor to replace the bronze. But we continued to use the old vosk-skull helmets, often with iron instead of bronze fittings. We functioned like a cutting machine. We would go through anything.

So the brumbytes said.

The Iron Riders had gathered. They were all here, for they well understood that this was the final reckoning. In one single gigantic horde they would meet us and this time they would crush us utterly, once and for all.

And although the radvakkas were illiterate barbarians, they had learned. They altered their tactics. It was a development long overdue and one against which I had given thought and planned with my officers and men. The army marched forward, singing, confident, ready to sweep away the Iron Riders in this last climactic battle.

We were all chosen men. The word “Legion” carries the connotation of selection. We were the Phalanx, and we were selected from the best. The swarms of itinerants and irregulars hungered to join our ranks. So we marched forward with the crimson banners flying and the bronze and steel gleaming, with the drums blamming their thrilling rataplan.

Ahead the long long line of radvakkas came into view.

At once Nath said: “Hai! The rasts try a new trick.”

The Iron Riders did not charge headlong at us the moment they could. Instead, they hung back, pirouetting out there across the plain, with the glinting thread of the River Sabbator at their backs. The wagon leaguers and the camps occupied a vast area of the watermeadows. The twin suns shone. The banners flew and the trumpets pealed. The Phalanx halted.

I say Phalanx; against this moment we put into practice the plans we had developed. File by file the Relianches moved into open order, the Bratchlins standing fast and the files marching back to turn and come up behind their neighbors, thirty-six men deep. Into the intervals stepped the archers. The evolution was completed smoothly and in good order — and only just in time.

The Iron Riders in clumps and groups swept toward us and retreated and as they curveted so they loosed a rain of arrows.

At this early stage most of the shafts fell short. Our trumpets blew “Shields” and up went the crimson flowers, like a field of roses, ready to resist the falling arrow storm. Our archers loosed careful, aimed shots, from standing or kneeling positions, that took a toll of the galloping radvakkas. For their part, the Iron Riders attempted to press in to the range at which their short bows might reach, but the compound bows of our archers outranged them handsomely. As I have said, one does not fire a bow. Kregans have a word which roughly approximates our terrestrial word firepower. Now Nath half-turned in his saddle, laughing, gleeful, raking me with the demand in his bright eyes, already triumphant.

“See, Jen Jak! Their dustrectium is pitiful! Let us close ranks and lock shields and advance.”

“Their attempt to prepare the mass is, indeed, not worthy of our preparations to resist. Mayhap they have another cast hidden from our view. Let our bowmen empty a few more saddles, Nath.”

On my other side Nev fidgeted astride his zorca, anxious to bring his phalanx into action. But I made them wait. I needed the radvakkas to appreciate that their new tactics were failing them, and to gather, once again, for the headlong charge that, I fancied, this time they would make with the final fling of desperation.

Well, the story of that old battle is there for all to hear in the song that was made. The “Black Wings over Sabbator,” it is called. This is a typical Kregish reference to the incident where a fleeing formation of radvakkas, circling, came across one of our ambulance units tending the wounded of both sides and simply rode across them, slaying friend and foe alike. That was after, at last, I gave the signal, and we closed ranks and locked shields and with helmets fiercely bent forward, plumes nodding, and pikes leveled in a lethal hedge of steel, we advanced at the regulation double pace. The moment was judged nicely. We caught the Iron Riders just as their chiefs had finally collected the scattered bands into that fearsome armored host with which they had so often ridden to victory. We hit them as they formed, before they had even put spur to benhoff. We hit them and the pikes bit and the halberds slashed and we rolled them up and crushed them and destroyed them utterly.

Pinned against the Sabbator they could only stand among the tents and wagons and fight until they died. Our irregulars swarmed in. Our archers picked off any who sought to flee. Only that one formation which so mercilessly razed the ambulance unit escaped; and subsequently they were pursued and brought to justice. For, believe me, that is how the army viewed the situation. Relianch by relianch, the brumbytes came back out of the line, pikes tossed, formed, intact, ready to face anything.

As I say, and no doubt will continue to say, by Vox, that was an army. That it was wildly anachronistic meant merely that it gathered the more honor. Of glory I will not speak. But I had, with the full co-operation of Nazab Nalgre, instituted valor medals, phalerae, and these were worn with pride.

In the history of those skirling days kept by Enevon Ob-Eye the battle was recorded as The Battle of the Sabbator; but men usually refer to it as the Sabbator. It was a famous victory — and, thank Zair, our casualties were less than minimal. On the aftermath of the action I looked up, and there, floating over the Phalanx soared the gold and scarlet Gdoinye.

I put a hand to my helmet and hoisted the barred face-mask, and stared up narrowly. The raptor swung about, and glided down and then, as though satisfied, flirted his wings and soared away. The very next day I said to Nath: “You are in command of the army now, Kyr Nath. Nev will support you loyally. Appoint whom you wish to command your phalanx in your stead, although I think we both favor Kyr Derson. Conduct the army back to the southern borders ensuring that the whole country is free. Then you may disband and send the men to their homes. The work of rebuilding is pressing.”

“But — Jak.”

“I have business elsewhere.”

“Where, by Vox?”

I looked out of our tent and saw the brumbytes. Four full Kerchuris we had now, and their crimson shields no longer bore the brown of Thermin. They were an imperial host, bearing yellow insignia on their crimson shields. I felt the wrench at parting. As I had said to Barty: “The organization is so simple even the dullest oaf can understand. Twelve pike men to a file, twelve files to a Relianch. Six Relianches to a Jodhri and six Jodhris to a Kerchuri. And each position of command from a Laik-Faxul to the Kerchurivax, is linked in a chain. The rank and function are inseparable.” When you spend a part of your life building anything at all, when the time comes for the dismantling, regrets creep in, nostalgia, all the silly unmanning emotions that, I suppose, in some measure indicate the value of what you have wrought. So I said to Nath: “I shall probably end up in Vondium; but I do not know.”

“Then—”

“Command the army well. Make sure we have the whole country cleared. Rebuild. Your father will advance money. As far as the borders are concerned—”

“Layco Jhansi is a traitor!”

“Aye. And he is kept in play by the Racters north of him. Let the brumbytes go home, Nath. And the Hakkodins and archers. As for the irregulars, they will melt away now the fighting is over.”

So I took my leave. The island of Vellin to the east ought to be cleared, always assuming radvakkas had fled there; but I doubted that the Gdoinye would have let me go if my work was unfinished. The actual leave-taking turned out to be highly emotional, and my plans to slip away were frustrated. There was a full-scale parade and review, with the trumpets blowing and the drums beating and the banners flying. The army marched in review — and the sight of the solid masses of crimson and bronze, with the pikes all slanted together, affected me profoundly. This farewell was, after all, worth my own embarrassment. Korero the Shield said, as I saddled up: “You do not seriously think I would let you ride alone?”

The others of that choice band who, even though the country was cleared of radvakkas, still had no homes of their own, said much the same. Cleitar the Smith, who bore the banner of Vallia, may have had a home; but he had no wife and children to go home to. Dorgo the Clis was now so habituated to fighting with me that he was amazed I could even think of sending him away. And this was so of the others, valiant fighting men I had led in battle, who formed a kind of reserve guard cavalry. Mounted on zorcas, we rode south in a bunch, with Calsanys loaded down with provender and weapons and, I confess, with gold. Gold might be very needful, for I had no idea of the kind of situation we were riding into. It would be useful to point out here that so much plunder was recovered from the radvakkas that, of the raw gold alone, we were able to repay many of the assignats, and I appointed a corps of stylors to catalogue each item of treasure and make our best efforts to return it to its owner. This was justice of a very rough and ready kind; but, at the least, we did not take everything for the army, as — we all know

— many would have done.

The depreciation in the value of money which afflicts civilizations from time to time posed a threat which I was concerned to prevent. Armies cost money and the land will provide only so much. With the troubles that had dismembered and disrupted Vallia reducing production drastically, pretty soon the people of the empire would wake up to find themselves poor. The aragorn and the slavers did not help, for their depredations might remove thousands of hungry people; but they created so many terrors that in many areas the land had not been worked properly since the first invasions. As we rode south we saw evidences of that. More and more I felt the claustrophobic effects closing in on me. We were a band of fugitives where we rode, leemsheads, outlaws, shunned by the people of the villages, with the gates of towns slammed in our faces, with the campfires of armed hosts at night to warn us off. This land was torn with anger and terror and evil. And these were the broad rich central provinces of Vallia! Truly, an emperor would weep to see how sadly fallen away was his patrimony. The iron legions of Hamal were a different proposition from the Iron Riders. I developed a scheme. The countryside was infested with brigands, drikingers who waylaid any and everyone. In a brief and bloody encounter with one such band my choice spirits discomfited them — rather roughly, I must report. We told the drikingers that if they wished to live they must confine their depredations to waylaying and slaying Hamalese, aragorn, Flutsmen, the mercenaries and masichieri. They were to leave the honest folk of Vallia alone.

“Any by what right do you imagine you can make us?” demanded their leader, blood streaming down his reckless face, held by the elbows and forced to stare up at me.

“Do the Hamalese not contume you? You are held in contempt by them. You are nithings. Yet you are Vallians. You were not always drikingers. Very well, then. Men call me Jak the Drang. I tell you that I shall utterly destroy the Hamalese and all the vermin who infest our country. Have faith in Opaz. The evil days will pass.”

Such were my words, or roughly what I said, over and over, to the men we encountered in our travels. And, on that occasion and, subsequently, on every occasion no matter that I did not much care for it, one or other of my choice spirits would sing out: “Aye, hulus! Remember, this is Jak the Drang, who is Emperor of Vallia, and will sit on the throne in Vondium and take Drak’s Sword into his hand. Remember and tremble at his name.”

Well, as we neared the capital, we found the name of Jak the Drang had gone before us, and men were ready to heed my words. The scheme I put into operation demanded that the women and children of these rich lands remove themselves to the North East. Reports reached me regularly from Nazab Nalgre and the other nobles in Hawkwa country, all of whom now called me emperor without affectation. Their borders were secure. Their first harvest of the new season was a bumper one, producing the plenty of the land in abundance. This operated in two ways to help us, for the people who traveled to the North East left their own shrunken fields to enter a land where they could eat their fill, and Nalgre and the others forwarded on food to us as an earnest of our good intentions. And, in a third and altogether more profound way — if anything can be more profound than the state of a man or woman’s inward constitution — the news of what had been achieved in Hawkwa country circulated. At the name of Jak the Drang these miserable cowed people, living in fear of the Hamalese and the mercenaries, took heart. What had been achieved there by Jak the Drang might also be achieved here. The process took time. More than once we were forced to enter the open field and battle bands of masichieri — it was mostly them — in defense of a group of people. But our name and the report of our deeds spread.

When the Hamalese sent a force against us we melted away.

When we ran into real drikingers, bands who had been bandits before the troubles, they were dealt with in a proper and summary fashion. The bands who roamed the countryside now were death on wheels to the invaders of their country, and full of concern for native Vallians. We gathered more people, of course, in our peregrinations until we moved in a tidy little force, daily growing in strength, never halting in one place, but clearing up a spot of trouble and moving on.

The canalfolk were a tower of strength. The vens and venas, the vener, proved themselves fully alive to the peculiar advantages and possibilities of the canals, and long strips of narrow boats carried the refugees into the North East. Of course, occasionally, a caravan was stopped. Sometimes there were tragedies. But gradually, as the season passed over, we cleared the lands of most of the women and children. The task was colossal and, of course, we could never fully complete it. There were just too many people in these lands around the capital.

But we cleared so many that the Hamalese were forced to resort to setting guards on the farm people remaining. The fields were being left unattended, and no crops grew, and the food was going to run out

— and soon. The hordes of rasts who had burst into Vallia and eaten of her goodness stored up in barns and warehouses would go hungry — unless they chose to leave.

I suppose — indeed, I know it to be true — that the Dray Prescot who is me was not the person in those days called Jak the Drang. Jak the Drang browbeat bandits, harangued lords and nobles, had no hesitation in dealing with the utmost ferocity with murderers and rapists and those who had battened on the misery of the people of Vallia. The name of Jak the Drang was whispered — in fear by his enemies and in pride and exultation by his friends and comrades.

But — it was hardly me, hardly the new Dray Prescot — although to be truthful, there was a damned lot of the old intemperate Dray Prescot in Jak the Drang.

When we reached Olordin’s Well and found the little hamlet a razed wreck, without hair or hide of a soul, I admit I raved and ranted and was like to have done something exceedingly violent — which is against my nature — when Barty, who with a few friends had been waiting nearby, came running up. He had fliers and provisions and friends; and he reported that Dayra must have been at Olordin’s Well but had long since departed.

I said: “Bear up, Barty. That young lady can take care of herself exceedingly well.” Almost, I told him of Ros the Claw. The tiger-girl, the lissom chavonth-maiden in the black leathers.

“I believe she can, Jak.” He eyed me. He was still the same elegant refined young man; but a little of the roughness of life had him. In a lowered tone, he said: “If she is anything like her father, then I feel sorry for anyone foolish enough to offend her.”

“There is a task we must do, Barty.” I told him of the scheme, and he burbled that, by Vox! he liked the sound of it. “The food has to be grown, say the Hamalese, and the Vallian farmers must grow it. We are seeing them safely away. But some, the rasts from Havilfar mew up, set working in the fields from dawn to dusk, alongside their slaves, put guards to watch and to whip. There is such a farm near here. We have sent out a call and the men will come—”

“I know, Jak,” said Barty. “Your name carries much weight in these troublous times. The men will come.”

The men did come, stealing by night from their fastnesses in the recesses of the forests or in the hills, for although Vallia is fertile and well-settled, there is still a great deal of it and many wild places remain untenanted save in times of turmoil. The men came and we made a descent on the guarded farm and freed everyone Vallian there, free man and slave alike, and the women and children joined the procession of narrow boats to the North East and the men joined one of the growing number of resistance bands. We laughed and counted it a victory.

It was around this time, when things were going well if slowly for us and I prepared to visit Valka, that an incident occurred whose importance I had no way of knowing at the time, although later on it was to play a vital, a decisive, part in ensuring my hide stayed around my flesh and bones. Our band had freed a group of villagers and we had seen them off and we were in camp. A group of locals — peasants, they might be called in another context — who gave us surly looks and refused help were found to have actively co-operated with the Hamalians. They had sided with the Hamalians against their own kind. When they discovered their error and tried to escape they were arrested. Now people will always be found who will collaborate; by Zair, it is a matter of weighing evils. Some of my hardened old blade comrades, and Dorgo the Clis vociferous among them, were for stringing up the guilty ones forthwith.

It fell to me to harangue the mob, there in the erratic dramatic sparkle of the campfires. I told them many of the things you have heard me say before. Human life is sacred, diff and apim alike. These were deluded people; yes, they had betrayed good folk to terrible fates; but vengeance for the sake of vengeance destroys him who so callously metes out retribution without thought of the deeper motivations. We would not slay them. They would be set free, and in the shame they would feel they would hew to the path of justice henceforth. Well, even then I was not quite naive enough to believe all of them would never sin again; but for the salvation of a few the many must go pardoned. It was a hard dialectical struggle; but in the end, and because it was Jak the Drang who spoke, my view prevailed. A small group of people vanished out of the firelight into the shadows as my men, still a little reluctantly, released the prisoners.

That group who vanished so smartly did not belong to my people; but they were gone. They had looked hardy. So we moved on from that area, and I delayed my visit to Valka, until we had established ourselves in another place, where we began at once to cause mischief to the aragorn, the masichieri and the Hamalese.

Then, I borrowed one of Barty’s fliers and flew to Valka.

Twenty

Fire Over Vallia

“No. I think the plan to be not a good plan. I do not like it. And, yes, I have been away to — away to where I have promised to speak to you of and will do when this mess is cleared up. But, as to your plan, no, my heart — in this I am not with you.”

She looked at me. I braced myself up and returned the look. It is hard to cross my Delia — hard! It is nigh impossible. But, in this, I remained adamant.

“We are safe here in the Heart Heights,” she said, and she crossed to the wall of rock and stared out and over into a vast dim blueness separating this mountain fastness from the far peaks. “We resist the aragorn and the mercenaries, the Flutsmen and the masichieri. We drive them back. Soon, we shall retake Valkanium and the war will be won. I am no longer needed here.”

“That can never be so—”

“You know what I mean! I shall return with you to Vallia and together will we eject the Hamalians—”

“I do not fight a war like this one. It is not even a proper guerilla struggle — well, more or less. It is dark and unpleasant. I prefer you to stay here and, by Zair! even here you risk yourself every day, for I know—”

“And since when have you, Dray Prescot, ever been prudent?”

I rubbed my chin, abashed. Then, stoutly, I said: “You would hardly recognize me, in these latter days. For Dray Prescot treads mighty small where once he—”

She laughed. The suns sheened in her hair, making those outrageous chestnut tints shimmer and shine. She clapped her hand to her slender waist, and half-drew her rapier.

“Dray Prescot? Aye, he lags well to the rear. All one hears these days is the name of Jak the Drang.”

“Oh,” I said. “Oh, well, he is a rascal, to be sure.”

So we wrangled. I did not intend to stay long, but one thing and another retained me in Valka. Tom Tomor and Vangar fought their wars of liberation in Veliadrin, and my Pachaks were on the verge of clearing Zamra; but the days were hot with the sounds of strife. Drak had gone to Faol to search out the Manhounds, Melow the Supple and her son Kardo, who was the true and trusted heart-comrade to Drak. Shara, Melow’s daughter, twin to Kardo, was, I understood, with my daughter Lela. And where she was—

“The Sisters of the Rose, my heart. Lela is much occupied with them in these times. From her I learn much of conditions.”

“Lela and Shara did not go with us to Aphrasöe,” I said and I know my voice sounded grim. “That must be rectified soon. I do not wish to look forward to what must follow else.”

“And Barty Vessler?”

“Dayra is looking after herself. She is well able and—”

“Oh, aye. She learned well with the SoR — so well that she spurns us and goes her own ways.” My Delia sounded hurt and more than a little bitter, which struck me with agony.

“So you finish your work in Valka. I will work on in Vallia. I called in on Forli and scouted MichelDen hoping to find Lykon Crimahan and report on his success. But there was no sign of him and the kovnate was still infested.”

“He came on here, dejected, and now he is in the north, trusting that when we have cleared Valka and the islands we will march on MichelDen for him. His trust is not misplaced.”

“Something may be made of him, yet. But I must play all the time on Vondium. Farris is flying back with me, eager to take over in Vomansoir. The people will welcome him — the fighting bands that remain, for we have made a clearance there.”

“You take Farris and you will not take me!”

“No.”

Down below in the shelter of the next terraced rocky wall a pastang of Valkan Archers marched out to take up their sentry posts. Delia had worked well in Valka. Those regiments of ours so treacherously sent to the north of the Mountains of the North had not been heard of. I could only trust they continued in existence. Of fliers, all Vallians were pitifully short, and the Flutsmen still roamed, reiving and murdering from the air.

Around the capital, Vondium, I was drawing the net in tighter and tighter. I say I — I mean Jak the Drang. From Vomansoir we had extended to Rifuji and Nav Sorfall immediately to the east. Naghan Vanki, the old emperor’s spymaster, had gone to ground and messengers from Jak the Drang sought his active assistance. The capital of Vallia, Vondium the Proud, was surrounded by imperial provinces, as seemed only wise. To the west of the Great River lay Vond, and to the east, Hyrvond. The river ran a long east-west reach here and to the north lay Bryvondrin. In all these imperial provinces the emperor’s Justicar had been foully murdered, and men had been in despair. Now the infamous bands of Jak the Drang brought a new resistance and a fresh hope. The net drew in.

We went in presently to sit down to a sumptuous repast, by the reduced standards of the Valka of those days. But there was food and the rations were evenly spread among all. Delia saw I meant what I said, and contented herself only by saying: “You will take a force of Valkans with you? Some of your Freedom Fighters, old blade comrades—”

“I have but Barty’s voller, and that will take a bare fifty.”

“Then take fifty fighting men of Valka, for they thirst to battle alongside their strom.”

I cocked a cautious eye at her. Her color was up. So I knew what she intended. Slowly, I shook my head.

“You need all the fighting men here, my heart. And I find men who were stylors and farmers and cobblers and a thousand other trades springing up overnight into warriors.” She had listened enthralled to my story of the Phalanx. “And, sweet schemer,” and that bit of sickly-sweet sarcasm aroused her, by Vox! “I do not want another stowaway as—”

“You knew all the time, then, before we fought at the Crimson Missals!”

“Mayhap I did. But you are essential here. Do you not think the Freedom Fighters of Valka relish battling alongside their Stromni?”

She lowered her eyelids; but she was mightily put out.

“And,” I went on remorselessly. “You are not to venture yourself so. Do not go to froward into the battle.”

“If I go froward it is because of—” And she stopped, and bit her lip, and so we gazed on each other. When the time at last arrived when I could tarry no longer and I forced myself to tear myself away, that same Dray Prescot who was Lord of Strombor and Krozair of Zy, besides being Strom of Valka and, now, for his sins, some kind of Emperor of Vallia, she handed me a rolled bundle. It was scarlet. I knew what it was.

“I go back to being Jak the Drang.”

“I know. Yet, at the end, methinks you will fly your own battle flag, that famous tresh men sing of, the battle standard Old Superb.”

I took the flag. My hands brushed hers. So, for a space, we clung together. Then, with a stony face and a bursting heart, I went out to Barty’s voller, and called the Remberees, and took off slanting into the morning blaze from the twin suns, from Zim and Genodras, the Suns of Scorpio fiery and glorious over the face of Kregen.

I did not unroll the flag. I stowed the tresh, Old Superb, away and wondered when, if ever, I would fly that battle banner above the hosts of liberated Vallia.

Looking back now I can see more clearly and understand many things that puzzled me at the time. The very completeness of the clearance of Hawkwa country, the repulse of the Iron Riders, impressed all who heard of it. The Iron Riders had shattered army after army of the Iron Legions of Hamal. And then a new army had arisen from the very people of Vallia themselves, a young, brave, confident army, and had routed the radvakkas utterly. No wonder men talked with bated breath of the accomplishment. All those months of labor had borne mighty fruit. The time had been well spent. No one sought to enquire into the character of that new Vallian army, to wonder how it would perform against the Hamalese. It had won. The laurels of victory crowned its spears.

And — the man who had accomplished this, the notorious Jak the Drang, had aroused the countryside, was gathering a host against Vondium. Then arm, friends! Gather yourselves for the final struggle — once the capital is Vallian once more then the rest of the country must follow. I did not miss, also, the interesting if ironical fact that this had been made possible by those very people who had once sought so violently to free themselves from Vondium, to become independent within the empire. There were strong forces of Hawkwas who persisted with the old and, in my view, fallacious dream. But the hosts of the North East marched with Jak the Drang for a strong and comradely and united Vallia.

Mind you, I did not share the view that with the repossession of Vondium our problems would be solved. The vaster reaches of the island empire would remain in non-Vallian hands. But, I did admit, if not the end of the affair, then the capture of Vondium would signal the end of the beginning. Delia had proved herself her usual self in her packing of the flier for the return journey. Among the contents of the many wicker hampers, beside food and weapons, were lengths of scarlet cloth... Farris, the Lord of Vomansoir, piloted for some of the time. We had much to say, one to the other, yet the words were hard to come by... He welcomed my news of the recent events in his province. He had fought most valiantly in Valka and I in Vomansoir, so we were well quitted.

“Once we march into Vondium, majister,” he said. “Once the people can look with renewed hope to a strong central power—”

“Not majister, Farris. Jak the Drang. And a strong central power as you put it may be a mischief in itself.”

“You do not believe that!”

“Sometimes I do not. But, sometimes, I wonder. All I want to do is let Vallia alone. To let the people lead their own lives as they wish, happily.” Then I was forced to add, to make absolutely sure Farris understood: “And we shall free all the slaves. It will take time and it will be a messy business; but I am resolved.”

“There will be much opposition — vigorous and violent opposition. But you know that.”

“Aye. I know that.”

During his sojourn with my people in Valka Farris had seen much of our ways, and understood much more clearly the way we thought Vallia should go. That we were right was a guiding principle; and we recognized the pitfalls in this kind of blind arrogance and arrogation of superiority. But the sights and smells and sounds of the slave bagnios reinforced our determination to go on, in humility, believing that what we did, in very truth, was the right course.

“The men who were once slaves fight right stoutly in the new forces of Vallia,” I told Farris. “They fight because they have been promised their freedom.” However despicable a device that may be, I tried to think that in this case it was genuine, that the stalwart brumbytes, those ferocious Hakkodins, the prowling fighters of the bands closing now on Vondium, would not be betrayed. Then I would brighten. Anyway, I would say, who was there who would force them back under the yoke of slavery when they had formed an army, had seen what free men might do, had found themselves as men? There would be farms and workshops and goodly livings for them in the imperial provinces alone. Taking Farris north to Vomansoir I dropped him off near his own provincial capital, that was, so the rascally leader of the bands of Freedom Fighters outside the city informed us, due to the fall on the morrow. I stayed to watch and in the event to fight. The men surged forward to the attack yelling:

“Vallia!” and “Jak the Drang!” and we burst in. The people rose. The Hamalese fought and, not always but more often than not, defeated the vicious bands of Freedom Fighters who sought to oppose them directly. But we chivvied and harassed them, and drove them into the fortress, and mewed them up. It would only be a matter of time, and the Lord Farris expressed himself as highly pleased. As to the men and women who had resisted so stoutly, only to have their erstwhile lord return at the penultimate hour, they welcomed Farris, as I believed, because he was known as a just and enlightened lord, to whom any man might turn in distress in the sure knowledge of sympathy and ready assistance. So I said.

It was left to a one-eared, dog-toothed rogue to say to me, bold with the camaraderie of the Freedom Fighters: “That may be true, Jen Jak. But, also, the Lord Farris is befriended by you and returns with your blessings.”

And another, a stout woman carrying a butcher’s cleaver, her bare forearms red and shining, said: “We know who has given us back our homes and our shops. No one stands over us but Jak the Drang, who is our lord. And we welcome the Lord Farris because of that. Because he is set back in his place by Jak the Drang.”

And the cry went up: “Jak the Drang, Emperor of Vallia. Hai, Jikai! Jak the Drang.”

That, as I told the multitudes assembled on the next day, was the rehearsal for Vondium. They cheered. The broad kyro swarmed with people, packing in; the noise reverberated to the skies. Once the organizational details had been finalized here, a great host would march from Vomansoir and descend on Vondium. The timing was crucial. They must arrive when all the other bands congregated. If they were too late their help would be lost. If they were too early they might consume the countryside before we struck. Immense quantities of hoarded food were collected against that eventuality, and fresh weapons were secured from the arsenals, and the people cheered, and I sent the flier aloft heading for the Freedom Fighters ringing Vondium.

During all these periods of trouble an alert eye had been kept on the lookout for people who would serve in the future to create the better land of Vallia these folk deserved. The positions of responsibility must be occupied by men and women with the welfare of the people at heart. Already a strong cadre of people who would take over once the invaders had been driven away existed. And, all the time, doubts assailed me. Was this a dictatorship of the worst kind? Well — no. Vallia would breathe easier once we had cleared the invaders away and could get back to living our own lives in freedom. So we all believed, and worked for, and, many of us died for.

All these high ideals and abstract theories on the best forms of government were swept away when I landed at the rendezvous with Barty. He was there; but he was alone, and the bands were nowhere to be seen. His face looked pinched.

“Prince!” he said then he swallowed, and got out: “Jak! We must flee this accursed spot at once.”

“Tell me.”

The trees sighed in the night wind, a few stars pricked the cloud-covered sky, everything shrouded in the mystery of night. Barty shivered.

“The fighting bands have moved away. Hamalese came — a host. They are encamped less than an ulm from here. Let us go.”

“Why is the spot accursed, Barty?”

He had waited for me. That had taken courage, seeing the distress he was in. An elegant, refined, very proper young man. Barty Vessler, the Strom of Calimbrev.

“They set up an idol — a weird thing. They adhere to some religion or other — I do not understand it. But they are over in the next valley, a-worshipping and a-chanting—”

“I would see this.”

“No! They have guards — they are a host—”

I marched off in the direction he indicated and he pattered along after. The night was dark, although not a night of Notor Zan. We reached the brow of the hill and so looked down onto the heads of Hamalese. In the center of the little valley, a dell in reality, an altar had been set up. An image shone above the basalt slab, an image illuminated in the light of many torches.

I saw.

“And they took a child from the village, and they are going — going to sacrifice it, I think...”

I looked down on the assembled congregation and saw they chanted praises and genuflected to the blasphemous silver statue of a gigantic leem.

Lem, the Silver Leem, flourished most foully in Vallia. I watched and I shivered. This was not in the plans.

Twenty-one

Vision at Voxyri

This I had not planned, had not foreseen. This was not abstract. This was here and now, red, bloody, fiery, utterly demanding everything a man can give, and more which comes from the spirit he does not know he possesses, and I was caught, trapped, held by the mirth of the gods in a vise that could be released in only one way. And that way could undo everything I had fought and struggled for for so long...

“There’s only one way to do this, Barty. Come on.” I ran back for the flier. Barty, shaking, ran with me.

“What—?”

“It must be quick and sure and certain.” I took the voller up savagely, smashed the controls over. If she failed me now, then this was the end of Dray Prescot. Through the night we swooped, low over the wooded crest, skimming above the treetops. The torches burned brightly, illuminating that blasphemous statue. Lem the Silver Leem had no part in civilized men’s scheme of life.

“Ready, Barty?”

“Aye, majister — ready!”

I took the voller down steeply aimed at the black basalt slab. The naked, pitiful, tiny form of a child lay there, crying. Priests moved in their cowls and hoods. The sacrificial knife lifted. Abruptly men were yelling. The flier hit the plinth and I was out, ripping the Krozair brand free. Two priests flew in four different directions. Blood drenched down onto the basalt slab, staining darker stains. Men were screaming. Guards charged toward me, their swords lifted. I slashed and swung and the longsword purred through the flesh and bone. The brand may not have been a true Krozair blade; but Ferenc the Edge had forged sweetly and true. Barty was out, a knife slashing the child’s bonds. More guards tried to interface and the dripping brand cut them down as weeds are cut down. A voice lifted among the multitude, for people were yelling and screaming, and moving dizzyingly this way and that.

“Dray Prescot!” screamed this voice, high and shocked. “I know that devil! It is Dray Prescot—”

“Aye!” I roared as I whirled the Krozair brand. “Aye! I am that devil Dray Prescot! And there is no place in all of Vallia for Leem Lovers — no! There is no place in all Hamal, in all Havilfar, in all of Paz for kleeshes like you!” And the stained brand bit deeply and chucked on, merciless, as Barty freed the child and leaped back into the voller.

“Dray! Ready!”

“I am with you!”

The longsword twitched this way and that and flying arrows caromed away. This was quite like old times. A last massive figure wearing the brown and silver of Lem attempted to stop me and the Krozair blade hit mercilessly and he screeched and fell away and I was in the voller and Barty was slamming the levers hard over and we lifted and soared away from that cesspit of human depravity. Lem the Silver Leem! No, I shouted down, cursing them all, no, your foul creed shall never sully Vallia. I was, as you will see, wrought up.

Only speed and audacity had done the trick, of course. Many a Krozair brother, many a Clansman, many a Djang, would have done the same. By Zair! Was there anything else to do?

We flew back to the camp and were able to press the child into the arms of his mother. That, by Opaz, was worth it all.

Then we set about the final preparations for the day of judgment.

The point must be insisted on; this was only the end of the beginning. Many songs were made of the events of the next days. One of the gates of Vondium is called the Gate of Voxyri, and two canals merge here, crossed by a bridge, called the Bridge of Voxyri. Outside the walls, which were tumble-down, extends a wide common land and this is called the Drinnik of Voxyri. As our forces gathered, fierce, hard, determined men, they brought stories of how the Hamalese were everywhere pulling back to the capital. We could see the long columns winding along the roads and along the canals clumsily using commandeered narrow boats. Something vast was afoot. These columns were attacked with vicious fury, using the guerillero tactics that struck from ambush and melted away. The provinces around the capital were emptying of Hamalese and their mercenary allies. We watched the capital walls and suburbs and surrounded the city at a distance, and we took prisoners. These told us enough so that, when we pieced it all together, we understood the magnitude of the event. This was a moment of world history.

The Empress Thyllis in Hamal was recalling her army, was sending for many of the volunteers of her iron legions to return to Hamal. The full details were not known; but a revolution had broken out and there had been reverses in the campaigns in the Dawn Lands around the Shrouded Sea. Men were needed. Taking a calculating look at the situation in hated Vallia, Thyllis must have decided to relinquish those provinces in which organized and determined resistance was costing her too much. Phu-si-Yantong, known as the Hyr Notor, had successfully arranged that those areas still securely under his thumb should remain so. The capital would be held, for its value was obvious and immense. So I looked at Barty and he made a face.

“It is great and glorious news; but it makes the taking of Vondium a thousand times more difficult, by Vox!”

“Maybe. They are short of fliers and must use them to keep open their lines of communication. The Flutsmen are already leaving, as we know, for there are scant pickings for them now. We must redouble our efforts on the columns straggling in. But the plans go ahead.”

“It is mortal difficult to infiltrate people into the city now — the mercenaries sew the place up like a spinster’s—”

“Given a lead the citizens will rise.”

Within Vondium some of our people spread the word. When our Freedom Fighters attacked then Vondium would rise. But I wanted to defeat the Hamalese and their allies and be seen to defeat them —

not me, not Dray Prescot, not even Jak the Drang, I hasten to add. But the fighting people of Vallia —

they were the ones who must defeat the Hamalese and be seen to defeat them. Also, it was reported that the Prince Majister, Dray Prescot, had been seen in the vicinity. There had been Vallian witnesses to the events at the shrine of Lem the Silver Leem. It seems to me that in the events of my life I have been recounting there had been precious little of that old skirling helter-skelter hurtling into blood-red action — and yet, the truth is that in these vast confrontations, in these campaigns, in these secret machinations for power, the old blood still does go thumping along the veins, there is still the same old fey passion of combat. The fascination of men and women scheming obsessively for power is undeniable. All I was trying to do was to make sure that power fell into the hands of people with the general good at heart — and that is a trick beset with many pitfalls, by Vox. My men spoke words that warmed me, and made me want to smile, words that were droll in their context, but words spoken from the heart, with passion.

“Dray Prescot? Aye... Where has this Dray Prescot been in the days of trouble? It is Jak the Drang we follow and fight for. It is Jak the Drang who is rightfully Emperor of Vallia — and will be!” So spoke my men, stoutly.

Couriers spurred into camp with reports of a host advancing from the north and at the same time reports reached us from the city that the last group of infiltrators to go into hiding to await the signal to rise had been taken by mercenaries. We could wait no longer. The city would rise, we would strike from the outside, and the co-ordination would bring us the victory.

Then Nath Nazabhan rode into camp, disguised as a Resistance Fighter. At that, the truth acted as a disguise. I greeted him in my tent very warmly, already half-guessing what he had done.

“Aye majister — Jak the Drang. We owe you. I have brought a phalanx. We marched. We await your orders—”

Telling him how welcome he was did not soften my words.

“You have been warned many times that sword and shield men may not be directly attacked by the phalanx, except in exceptional circumstances—”

“We have many Hakkodins and archers—”

“Thank Vox for that. But this is city fighting, street fighting, dirty work. The brumbytes—”

“I shall bring the phalanx up, majister, and await your orders.” He spoke with a persistent stubbornness I found at once infuriating and confoundedly familiar, for I recognized how much of my teachings had rubbed off on him. I nodded.

“Then await the signals. Volodu the Lungs will blow them.”

“Quidang!”

So the phalanx of Nath Nazabhan explained the host from the north. We would have to take the city quickly, then...

As he left he said, not off-handedly, but casually: “We have new flags for the Jodhris, now.” A fine, dedicated fighting man, Nath Nazabhan, who knew why he fought. “But the great tresh of Vallia flies over all.”

The morning of the chosen day dawned fair and bright. The sky shone with a deep lustrous blueness. The Suns of Scorpio cast down their opaline brilliance in a sheening glory, the ruby and emerald mingling and streaming and illuminating everyone and everything as though revealing the inmost spirit and animation of human and object alike.

So I wrapped the old scarlet breechclout about me and drew up the broad lestenhide belt with its dulled silver buckle. An armory of weapons was girded on. Over my shoulder went the great Krozair longsword that had never been forged in the Eye of the World. And, also, because Delia had placed them in the voller I took a great Lohvian longbow and a quiver of shafts all fletched with the rose-colored feathers of the zim korf of Valka.

And so, on the day of Opaz the Deliverer, the signal was sounded.

Vondium rose.

The plan called for small independent groups to attack at selected points around the walls, aiming for particular gates and bridges. These were diversionary attacks, of course, and because there were not too many of them to reveal that fact to the Hamalese we trusted they would draw the swods off. Although the walls were in generally crumbled condition no one seriously anticipated ill-equipped guerillas to be able to storm over in the face of professional opposition. We wanted the swods clear of the main thrust; my commanders were confident we could do it.

The main attack, aimed to get as many fighters as possible into the city in one overwhelming tumultuous mass, would go in over the Voxyri Bridge. The wide expanse of common ground, Voxyri Drinnik, had to be crossed first. The plan called for the civic rising and the diversionary attacks to coincide, and then for the mass to charge into the city across the Drinnik, over the Bridge and through the Gate of Voxyri. We had chosen the Voxyri complex because the bridge spanned a double canal making it the widest leading into Vondium, and the gate handled the heaviest traffic, and was the widest. These facts occurred in their calculations to the Hamalese high command.

No one ever proved a single thing. It was possible that among our own ranks Punica fides existed. The Bridge would have been taken without difficulty against a normal watch. The Resistance Fighters in the immense mobs waiting for the signal to attack across Voxyri Drinnik were guerillas, Freedom Fighters. They were not line infantry, not even Peltasts or Hypaspists. They had been disciplined on the line of march and in camp and in respect of the proper behavior of fighting men; but they were quite out of hand now, when battle sounded. They would not stand their time in concealment. Thin spires of smoke rose from the city and we could hear the first clangor from the walls and streets.

“Not long now,” said Barty. He sat his zorca erect and his smooth face bore an exalted, shining look that afflicted me sorely. All about us the Freedom Fighters hunkered in cover. We heard trumpets from the city. These undisciplined mobs who fought for what they loved would not wait our signal. They rose into the open. Screaming their hatred for the defilers of their country they ran out. Half-crazed, brandishing weapons, roaring, they burst all thoughts of discipline. In a wild shrieking bunch they tore for the Bridge.

The combination of factors collided disastrously. Perhaps there was no treachery. Perhaps the swods merely acted as experienced soldiers. Perhaps in these latter days Catastrophe Theory can indicate on its models the unfolding progression of events, the upward line, the incurve, the downward trend that, curving through a million dimensions, abruptly explodes into catastrophe. Whatever the inner truths may be — here and now, on Voxyri Drinnik, we stared disaster in the face. This screaming onslaught confirmed our intentions long before the Hamalese had been drawn away by feint attacks. The Bridge and Gate of Voxyri were the widest and quickest way into the city and therefore the best. They were and it was. Except — except that right here and now we saw cogent reasons why they and it were the worst possible ways we could have chosen. From the Gate moved out long columns of soldiers, swods of Hamal in perfect line and dressing, trotting on with ranked shields, with crossbowmen flanking, with standards unfurled, trotting on to deploy into their long lines of armed and armored men. They were ready. They had not suddenly been called up from barracks or billets, summoned with drumming urgency from their beds. They were ranked and ready —

waiting.

And, from the narrower Gate of Rosslyn along the way giving access over the canal trotted squadron after squadron of cavalry.

For whatever reason, the Hamalian army had not been decoyed. Now they deployed, faced front, and advanced.

The roaring ranging mass of people hurtling down on them had no form or order. Archers and spearmen, swordsmen and axemen, all mixed up together in a boiling torrent, they spumed along like the primeval breakers of the sea itself. The long ordered lines of shields would meet them unyieldingly and the swords of the swods, blood-drenched, would be unmerciful.

As the iron legions of Hamal moved into view there was perceptible in the mass of crazed onrushing people the barest check. The noise suffused reason. The regiments of Hamal marched out, deploying, ranking shields. And my people, gathering themselves as men do about to burst into burning buildings, gave a loud vociferous shout, a high shrilling moan of rapture, and flung themselves headlong on. No rapture, no headlong charge, was going to carry partially armored and casually armed and shieldless mobs over or through that iron wall.

Useless to sound the recall. All there was left to do was to kick in heels and go pelting down after those crazed people of mine and burst through and so lead them, hoping that the inevitable stumbling falls of the zorcas might break a way through the shield wall.

I turned to bellow at my choice band, I lifted out my legs to kick in, and I heard and saw the wonder, the marvel — as, indeed, I had surmised I might, hoping, and condemning my hope as evil. The brazen trumpets shrilled high demanding notes into the heated air, all together, trilling blood-thumpingly on — sounding the “Advance.” I saw — ah! I remember it — I remember it... I saw the long serried lines of vosk-skull helmets, bronze-fitted, glittering, the crimson plumes nodding defiantly above. I saw the level wall of shields, crimson and yellow, gleaming. I saw the thickly-clumped forest of pikes, all slanting as one, rank on rank. I heard the heavy resonant blam-blam-berram of the deep-toned drums, and the trampling onrush of bronze-studded war-boots. Rank on rank, Relianch and Jodhri advancing, the files of the Phalanx pressed on.

A pungent smell of the red flowers of the letha tree wafted to my nostrils — hallucination, memory, evocation of another time and place where this advancing machine of glory, devotion, war and destruction had been born.

I trembled.

I, Dray Prescot, in the evil grip of grandeur, trembled. For Jak the Drang had warned and warned, and the brumbytes had laughed and not cared to listen. And I knew what I knew. My tumultuous mobs of undisciplined Freedom Fighters would be savaged and destroyed by the iron of Hamal. The temptation shook me, terrible visions of what would occur tormented me. The Phalanx advanced, perfect in order, moving as a single gigantic organism.

Could I? Dare I? What right had any man to demand the sacrifice of blood and life from another? Even with the fate of a country, an empire and all its people, at stake?

I knew what Nath Nazabhan would say. I knew what the answering roar from the brumbytes and the Hakkodins would be. And yet — the consequences of selfishness were incalculable. So, shaking, filled with indecision, hating the fates that had brought me to this, I sat my zorca. What right...?

Because a man is called emperor and sits in the seat of power over multitudes of men and women —

does that give him the right? I did not think so. I had been called to be emperor by those crazed mobs who would so soon be destroyed and by those ranked and orderly pikemen who awaited my signal. They had placed the power in my hands, and not because I am blessed or cursed with the yrium. I cupped their fates in my hands. Worthy or not worthy, it was all down to me, and to me, simple sailorman though I am, the fate of empire had been entrusted.

This vision of empire at Voxyri, this fleeting hallucination of power and glory as the Phalanx halted as one, glittering, splintered with sun-glory, waiting my signal — my signal! — overwhelmed me. I saw the flags proudly lofting above the Jodhris. Nath had told me the Jodhris had been given new treshes. Scarlet, those flags, scarlet slashed with the broad yellow cross. So he knew. Nazab Nalgre his father must have confided in him.

Over the brilliant and formidable mass of Phalanx awaiting my orders waved Old Superb, the battle flag of Dray Prescot.

So could I take the granite decision and into my own hands and heart allow the creeping death that such a decision might bring? And in the suns-sprinkled scene I saw a private chamber within some anonymous hotel or high-class tavern, the walls lush with rosy drapes, the samphron oil lamps shining, the wide white-sheeted bed, I saw the room clear as the trumpets pealed and the zorcas tossed their heads and the iron legions of Hamal advanced to meet that headlong, rapturous, pathetic charge of the Freedom Fighters.

And, in that room I saw a woman, standing, half-turned, the samphron-oil lamp’s gleam limning her form, supple and sweetly curved, secretly shadowed. The rosy light glimmered on her flesh. I saw her head lift in that old familiar dear way and the heavy fall of her brown hair, rich with those outrageous auburn tints. Standing waiting in that room that was not our own, Delia smiled, and filled all my mind and heart, and I drank her in and slaked my desolation with her goodness. That welcoming smile, that special, secret, intimate smile between ourselves alone enfolded me and I could not feel the zorca between my knees or the helmet pressing my brow, and the dust and stink of armed and armored men shrank and faded away. I looked upon my Delia as I was wont to do in those precious moments of our deepest privacy. And a man moved toward her, taking her into his arms, leading her to the waiting bed. And I saw his face.

Palpitating with love for Delia and ready to cast all the mad desires for empire and power and dominion to the four winds and revel only in her, I saw his face, and saw he wore that tousle-haired, knowing, surely-smiling, handsome face of Quergey the Murgey. I sat the zorca like stone and the suns fell. Pain cleft me. I saw the bitter fighting as my Vallians reached those iron-hard shields and the thraxters struck, in and out, in and out, and scattered their red droplets upon the sundered bodies of my people. The bodies clung together. The shield wall advanced. The pointed swords thrust in and out, in and out, and the tumbled bodies fell into the dust of the Drinnik. Naked flesh pierced by steel swords bled into the dirt. Together they forced themselves on and together they died.

No anguish touched me for the dead. Not then. The agony within me bit and burned as acid bites, corroding through everything, corrupting, defiling, destroying. My whole body flamed a single blaze of torment.

This obscene insanity was not real. The blood and death all about me was not wanted; but its evil was real. Better, perhaps, the ghostly hallucination than the dreadful reality. Surely better, certainly surely, that neither should be real! A spark I did not know I possessed flared and I saw and I understood. This was the work of Phu-si-Yantong. He had thrown his powers upon me, using his kharrna to infect my mind with this horror. And the horror almost destroyed me. A Wizard of Loh is a bitter and implacable enemy to any man; but ordinary mortals are bitter and implacable, they do not wield the sorcerous and supernatural powers of a Wizard of Loh.

Yantong had determined to crush my will to fight. He infected my mind with diseased pictures. That room, that woman panting with passion for Quergey the Murgey, they were not real, they were hallucinations of the worst kind. But they had almost unmanned me. The crucial time approached as the ram of a swifter slices toward its victim’s side. The noise shattered skywards. The stink of raw blood infected the air. Delia — my Delia — would have no truck with a vanity-feeding, suave, seeming-sincere seducer like Quergey the Murgey, no matter how badly I had treated her in leaving her abandoned for so long, for she knew I would come back to her, always.

Phu-si-Yantong’s vile trick had failed.

For my Delia knew me as I knew her, and our knowledge encompassed all of pain as well as love. For better or worse, for all the spaces between, in vaol-paol, we were the unity that transcends oneness, we were Dray and Delia.

Shouting like a crazy man — no, shouting as the crazy man I truly was in that anguished moment — I forced the zorca around and sent him haring across Voxyri Drinnik. Straight at the figure at the right flank of the Phalanx I galloped. For there was a Phalanx there, two full Kerchuris. Straight at Kyr Nath Nazabhan I rode, yelling, roaring, screaming at the top of my lungs.

“Jodhris!” I shrieked, whirling my sword above my head. “Jikaida! Jodhris!”

Nath responded instantly and the trumpets pealed. The even-numbered Jodhris from the right moved on; the odd numbers stood fast. The Phalanx formed a checkerboard. Square and trim in their alignments, the Relianches within the Jodhris halted and the glittering mass poised, in Jikaida, ready. Volodu came crashing up behind me but to one side, for at my back rode Korero the Shield.

“Blow ‘Archers to the Intervals’, Volodu!”

He blew, the notes ringing out over the screaming racket erupting from the mobs of Freedom Fighters running across the Drinnik to follow their comrades as the bolts fell among them. I had to shut my ears to that frightful sound. The noise spumed on. The stinks drenched us with sweat. The brilliance of the suns splintering from bronze and iron dizzied the senses. The zorca moved under me, bounding on.

“Blow for the Cavalry!”

Now Nath was up with me, beaming, entranced, sitting his mount with the consummate ease of the true zorcaman, his armor a shining splendor.

“Well met, Nath. Your cavalry?”

“Coming up on the flank — there is a canal to cross—”

“You will blow the Charge?”

At once grave, he nodded, aware of the importance of the moment.

“As Varkwa the Open-Handed is my witness, majister, this is a moment that will be remembered in all Vallia.” The barred visor half-shadowed his face. He drew a breath. “I will blow the Charge.”

Nath called on Varkwa the Open-Handed, the spirit of generosity in Vallia, uniting all Vallians. I knew I had seriously hurt Delia by my enforced absences from her and that the oily minions of Quergey the Murgey would seek to take advantage of her unhappiness and defenselessness and sense of rejection. But I thought she knew me, knew me, plain Dray Prescot, well enough to comprehend that the necessary spaces between married couples were for us illuminated by the mutual light of love. Life flows on like an ever-running stream and all things are mutable and must change, even to the rocks within that eternal flow no matter how hard their natures, and are sculpted into new and ever-changing never-repeating forms — so it is said. But there are things that never change. We poor mortals must learn to live in harmony with nature and adapt our ways as we progress through life bending with the current, always learning afresh — so it is said. But there are things we learn and know to be true and hold dearly. The sorcerous trick flung at me by Yantong had failed. But it had jolted me in ways I would understand later. Delia and I should not bear the burden of secrets; between us they would be obscene, as obscene as the advantages taken by Quergey the Murgey in appearing understanding and sympathetic to a distressed wife and offering a fresh focus for affection, feeding vanity and the sense of crippled identity. His offers of help and a ready ear were self-centered. By their dark betrayals they destroyed where they purported to heal.

Phu-si-Yantong had known only too well how to get at me, to cause me the deepest of anguished suffering, to steal from Delia and me, to betray and rob us, to tear me into pieces. One day, I knew, Yantong and I would meet. On that day I would not forget his use of the despicable Quergey the Murgey against Delia and me.

So, with the name of Varkwa to guide us in generosity, Nath gave his orders. Volodu cast me a reproachful look as the trumpets of the Phalanx sounded; but the moment belonged to Nath and the brumbytes he had brought all the live long way from Therminsax.

The Charge blew. The brumbytes thrust their fierce plumed helmets forward, slanting in the sunshine, the shields locked, crimson and yellow. The pikes came down. The Phalanx advanced. As a checkerboarded mass of bronze and crimson the Phalanx picked up speed, moved with a beauty and power of unison, crashed across the Drinnik of Voxyri — Charged!

Watchful of the flank Jodhris, I saw they would be too far extended as the Drinnik narrowed before the Bridge. Volodu blew “Eleventh and Twelfth Jodhris stand fast,” followed moments later by: “Under command Relianches, right, follow on.” That would annoy the Eleventh and Twelfth. But what a tribute to their training and discipline! They halted, waited and then, tossing pikes, moved to the right and so followed on in the intervals.

The scene sprawled on that wide expanse of common ground presented an awesome spectacle. The background hemmed in the action. The walls and towers of a great city lofted, badly burned and scarred and now being rebuilt on a grander and vaster scale. Against those lowering walls the extended lines of Hamalese soldiers, smart and brilliant with weapons gleaming, confident in their ability to destroy the ragged hosts who ran upon their deaths, fought with the sureness of confidence. The mobs ran on, shrieking, waving their weapons, racing down to slam into that iron line of shields and those cruel swords. And, beyond all, flowing swiftly on, fired with ardor and passion, the solid masses of the pikemen pressed on with heavy tread and their archers in the intervals showered the foe with darting shafts.

“What a sight!” screamed Barty.

“It is a battle,” I shouted back.

But it was not like any battle we had fought before.

The arrows criss-crossed. The Hamalese wheeled up their varters in the intervals between regiments, and the iron bolts loosed. Larghos Cwopin, a good man with a knife and a ready laugh, abruptly vomited from his saddle, the varter bolt piercing him through and through, iron and red with blood. The zorcas galloped on. The arrows fell. Men screamed and fought and died.

Korero the Shield performed prodigies, his four arms and tail hand manipulating his shields with that rhythmic grace of perfect mental and bodily co-ordination, a marvel. Many feats of heroism passed unremarked. The red mask of horror floated before our eyes. The iron of Hamal remained unbreached. I could feel the armor upon my body, the helmet pressing my head, the grip of the zorca between my knees, I could feel all and know I was alive and yet feel nothing, for death hovered near.

The noise roared on and now the brumbytes broke into a deep-voiced song, almost a paean, a heavy beating song that blended with the solid nerve-tingling blam-blam-berram of their drums. The flags flew. The name of the song does not matter — rather, as the armies clashed at last, the name means so much I cannot repeat it. It has been said that the best position for light troops to stand before the advancing phalanx is two hundred feet out. The guerillas of Vallia were much farther out than that; and so their fight, brief though it was, lasted far longer than I cared for. Then the Hakkodin were up with them and then —

and then the savage bristle of pikes crunched into the shields of Hamal. Even as the guerillas and the Hakkodins passed back in the intervals, the Hakkodins urging the guerillas on, and the archers faded to take up new positions in rear, drills gone through a thousand times, so the second line of Jodhris in the checkerboard smashed awesomely into the swods. The Hamalian cavalry was caught as it debouched onto the Drinnik and was whiffed away as the Iron Riders had been whiffed away. The Phalanx moved forward, moved on and into and through the lines of Hamalian soldiers. They should not have done, of course. They should not have been able to do that magnificent thing. But the irregulars, the Freedom Fighters, the guerillas, had opened the way, had given the phalanx that little time it needed, and the phalanx swept on.

The thought hit me as I sent our little band hurtling on to enter the city as the Phalanx formed Relianch by Relianch to press on over Voxyri Bridge and through the Voxyri Gate, the marvelous and yet vexatious thought, that there would be no holding the brumbytes now. They would believe themselves perfectly capable of going up as a phalanx against sword and shield men and of winning every time. And I knew that was not on.

Through the Gate and into the city I bellowed for Volodu to sound the “Brumbytes, stand fast.” And then: “Archers, Hakkodin — General Chase.”

General Chase. Yes, I know. But my old sea-faring days had dictated that, and now, how it fitted!

The city seethed and bubbled with conflict and the noise surf-roared into the heavens. This moment was the moment we had looked forward to, when ragged half-armed people swept crazily upon the army of Hamal and, far more particularly upon the masichieri. Getting these fighters into the city had been the trick and it would never have been done without the timely assistance of the Phalanx. So I believe. I know miracles occur; I can only say that a miracle had occurred there, on Voxyri Drinnik when the brumbytes of the phalanx toppled the sword and shield swods of Hamal.

The conflict rattled and roared and thundered on, surging this way and that. Many a poor devil toppled into a canal. The fight gradually assumed an order, a shape, and centered on the palace. Somehow I was out there in the front, loosing those deadly rose-feathered shafts, whipping out the longsword when the counter-attacks came in, urging on the men, urging them all on, guerilla and Hakkodin alike, cherishing them, giving them by example effective ways of fighting this kind of messy affair. Every now and then a man or a woman would give a sudden, startled look. I would bellow out in the old intemperate, good-humored way: “On! On for Vallia!”

By the time the kyro before the palace had been reached we all knew that the city was ours. The remnants of the invaders clustered in the palace which reared, lapped in scaffolding, ringed by lumber and stone and all the bush paraphernalia of rebuilding. Phu-si-Yantong had, indeed, sought to beautify his conquest.

The various leaders of the different bands and groups came together and, where necessary, I made the necessary pappattu. We stood, a group of ferocious men in the grip of the victory fever, and stared balefully upon the palace. The wink of weapons and the glitter of helmet and the flutter of plume and flag told us the place was still garrisoned.

“We will not attack,” I said. “We do not have to lose any more good men. They will come out, all in due time.”

There were arguments, of course. But I would not be swayed.

Many of my men were furious, and Nath Nazabhan and Dorgo the Clis and others of like ilk chief among them.

“How can we proclaim Jak the Drang Emperor of Vallia if we are not in the palace? That would not be right or decent!”

“Perhaps I do not wish to be emperor—”

“But you have the right!”

“The right of the sword.”

“The right of leading us all, the right of holding men’s hearts, the right of justice — Vallia cries out for an emperor to hold men together in amity — and you are the man!”

Even I, however reluctantly, could see the sense in that last sentiment. Vallia needed to be healed. With a twinkling and altogether wonderful suddenness, flags of truce equivalent to white flags appeared along the battlements. Trumpets blew the parley. A deputation advanced from the palace across the kyro to where our group of commanders waited. Our people yelled, until our trumpets blew the still. In silence save for a little breeze that whispered with the flags, the men of Hamal, invaders in Vallia, advanced to surrender to the Vallians.

The scene struck brilliance and color, illuminated, stark, vibrating, it seemed to me, with the historical importance of the moment.

And here I must confess that although memory is not faulty, much of the ensuing event, many of the happenings that followed, echo back to me now vaguely, ill-defined, charged with an emotion and a wonder altogether marvelous — and embarrassing, too to an old sea-salt like me, a simple fighting man. The commanders formed a semicircle and I found myself standing a little front and center. In that group of loyal men were many to whom you have been introduced; the roll call is profoundly moving. Behind them clustered, seething and yet silent and intent, the victorious forces of Vallia who had retaken their capital city.

The Hamalese made a brave show in their armor and uniforms, but they carried no weapons, and they looked strained and exhausted.

At their head marched a man I knew.

He had been in attendance on Queen Thyllis when that woman had dragged me through the streets of Ruathytu in her triumphal procession when she made herself Empress of Hamal. I had been lapped in chains and dragged at the tail of a calsany. This man, Vad Inrien ham Thofoler, had been a dwa-Chuktar then, a man bucking for power and position. Clearly he had reached both, for now he was a general, a Kapt, in command of the Hamalese forces in this sector of Vallia. He marched up, his heavy face with the bitter lines about the nose and lips held in that rigid look of disdain for what was going on. He halted before me.

The silence held, thin, acute, with only the little breeze to ruffle flags and standards and scurry leaves over the stones of the kyro. He slapped up his arm in salute.

“Hai, Dray Prescot, Prince Majister of Vallia. We cry quarter. We would negotiate—”

The pressing crowd at the back of the group of my commanders sucked in a single gigantic gulp of breath. A few small cries broke out, then more and more, a sudden tempest of yells and shouts.

“Dray Prescot! Dray Prescot! This is Jak the Drang! Our own Jak the Drang, Emperor of Vallia!”

And then — it had to happen, sooner or later — amongst the yelling, Nath Nazabhan and the others brought order. They yelled in their turn, words that were picked up and repeated back through the hosts and along the avenues and boulevards, until the very sky over Vondium rang.

“This man whom you know as Jak the Drang is Dray Prescot, Emperor of Vallia.”

The yells — the shouts — the astounded bellows of disbelief.

At last I signaled to Volodu the Lungs, whose mouth hung open foolishly, and he blew the still. Korero wore a tiny sly smile, and that confirmed me in my suspicions that he knew.

“I am Dray Prescot.” I roared it out. “And I am Jak the Drang. And we Vallians have gained a great triumph this day of Opaz the Deliverer.”

The incredulous uproar would have broken out again. I saw Korero move forward and he took out a certain scarlet bundle. I wondered with dizzied startlement just how much Delia had told him. He hauled out a pike and he tied on that old scarlet flag, to hoist it up. I heard the people yelling again: “Hai Jikai!

Hai Jikai, Dray Prescot, Jak the Drang! Hai, Jikai!”

So I looked up, expecting to see Old Superb, that flag with the yellow cross on the scarlet field. And I saw — I saw a flag I had once seen in my mind’s eye, seasons and seasons ago as we flew home from the Battle of the Dragon’s Bones.

The yellow saltire of Vallia on the red ground flew there, but superimposed upon it gleamed my old yellow cross. The tresh formed a union of colors, a new flag, the new flag of Vallia. A dark vision crossed my mind. We had Hamal to deal with, we had the vile religion of Lem the Silver Leem to transform into something of worth or suppress utterly, we had problems overseas and at home, and, looming monstrously over all, we had the shanks from over the curve of the world to resist or be finally beaten down. For only a small and precious space could we rest, rejoicing in what we had accomplished, for so much more remained to be done.

In a joyful procession amid a tumultuous host we moved into the palace of Vondium. The regalia was brought out. Where the false emperor Seakon had gone no one knew or cared. The precious objects, the ceremonial adjuncts, the crown, the throne, Drak’s Sword — of which I shall have more to say —

were brought out so that all might see. They sat me on the throne and the crown settled on my head and I took the necessary things, hand by hand, and the priests chanted and the trumpets blew and the people yelled.

Through it all a hollowness possessed me, for the rest of Vallia we had not so far liberated remained. But the moment was sacred and meaningful.

For the fact was indisputable. I was the Emperor of Vallia, chosen by the people, emperor by their will, and seated on the throne because they willed it.

How long I remained there was something I, and I alone, I fancied, would decide. Men and women passed before me, swearing allegiance. In turn they were promised support, that Vallia would be freed, that life and liberty would be theirs, and happiness too, if they could contrive that profoundly difficult achievement.

I looked up. Of course. The Gdoinye and the white dove of the Savanti floated up there against the blue. They had not forgotten me. I would have more trouble from them in the future. As I looked a voller fleeted in over the kyro and swooped for the palace. I saw her flags. Valkan flags, and the flags of Delphond and the Blue Mountains, Old Superb — all flew from her masts. But, over all, that new flag of Vallia floated, free, defiant, yellow and scarlet in the blaze of the suns, heralding a new epoch in the history of Kregen.

Surfeited on emotions both transcendental and foreboding and, just for this wonderful moment, blurring into a haze of thankfulness, I walked forward to greet Delia.

The whole of Vondium rang with the exultations.

“Hai Jikai, Delia, Empress of Vallia. Hai Jikai, Dray Prescot, Emperor of Vallia!”

By Zair, I said to myself as Delia and I walked toward each other and the air vibrated with the noise and excitement. I must remember I am a Krozair of Zy and, too, I must not forget the Kroveres of Iztar. The Corruption of Empire must never foul this moment. The Sovereign State must serve every single person, each to each. If ever the corruption of power touched me, if ever megalomania assaulted my sanity, I would remember the good men who had died looking forward to this moment. The truth was I had not wanted to be Emperor of Vallia; but if I had been chosen for that onerous task by the conjoined will of the people, then — for a space until I talked my son Drak into taking over — I’d be as competent and just and professional an emperor as I knew how, by Zim-Zair!

The uplifted swords glittered blindingly in the streaming mingled lights of Antares, the Suns of Scorpio.

“Jikai! Hai Jikai!” roared the multitudes.

It was a moment to treasure, a moment to remember.

“So you are the Emperor of Vallia in your own right, Dray,” said Delia. She smiled and the suns glimmered pale in comparison. “Now what will you do?”

“Oh,” I said. “Oh, I haven’t even started yet.”

A Glossary to the Vallian Cycle of the Saga of Dray Prescot

References to the four books of the cycle are given as:

SES: Secret Scorpio

SVS: Savage Scorpio

CPS: Captive Scorpio

GOS: Golden Scorpio

NB: Previous glossaries covering entries not included here will be found in Volume 5: Prince of Scorpio

; Volume 7: Arena of Antares ; Volume 11: Armada of Antares ; Volume 14: Krozair of Kregen . A

Ahrinye: Star Lord of acrid tongue in apparent opposition to other Everoinye. Arlton: Island to the north of Veliadrin. Name means pestle.

Aleygyn: Title of chief of stikitches.

“Anete ham Terhenning”: A tragic song of Hamal.

Ararsnet, Roybin ti Autonne: Secret agent working for Prescot. (SES) Arial, Fair of: A fair held for the people of the Czarin Sea on the island of Drayzm after the pirates cleared away.

Arkadon: Pleasant market town in Delphond.

atra: Amulet, lucky charm.

audo: Military term for section of eight to ten men.

Autonne: Town on the west coast of Veliadrin.

Avandil, Rafik: A numim assigned by Phu-si-Yantong to observe Prescot. Eventually unmasked as Makfaril.

B

Ba-Domek: Island on which is situated the city of Aphrasöe.

Bakan: High kovnate of Vallia situated to the south of the Mountains of the North. The Ball and Chain: An unsavory hostelry a stone’s throw from the Gate of Skulls in Drak’s City in Vondium.

Battle of Sabbator: Final battle in which the Phalanx of the North East of Vallia overthrew the Iron Riders.

Battle of Therminsax: The fight in which the army of Therminsax with the Phalanx as the core gained its first success against the Iron Riders.

Battle of Voxyri: Climactic battle in which the Freedom Fighters and the Phalanx of Vallia defeated the army of Hamal and its mercenary allies across the Drinnik and over the Bridge and through the Gate of Voxyri.

“Bear Up Your Arms”: A rollicking song of which this is the euphemistic title. Beng Dikkane: Patron saint of all the ale drinkers of Paz.

Beng Drangil: Patron saint of Ovvend.

benhoff: Shaggy, powerful, six-legged riding animal of North Segesthes, with lean hind-sixths and a roll of fat across the chest. Used by the radvakkas.

Bet-Aqsa: Island west of Havilfar in the Ocean of Doubt.

“Black Is the River and Black Was Her Hair”: A tragical ditty of Hamal which Prescot described as farcical.

“Black Wings over Sabbator”: A great song made in remembrance of The Battle of Sabbator. Blade of Kurin, by the: A swordsman’s oath.

Blarnoi, San: Either a real person or a consortium of misty figures of the dim past to whom many aphorisms and sayings current on Kregen are attributed.

blatter: Slang word for quick and successful assault and battery, a headlong attack. Brassud: Brace up.

Bratch!: Move! Jump! Not as vicious as the infamous Grak! but still a powerful word of command implying move it or you know what will happen.

Bratchlin: The File Closer at the rear of each file of the phalanx. Bregal: A small town of Ystilbur of the Dawn Lands of Havilfar.

brumby: A powerful eight-legged and armored battering ram of whirlwind destruction armed with a long straight horn in the center of his forehead, the brumby is thought to be either extinct or legendary. brumbyte: Name for the pikeman in the files of the phalanx.

Bryvondrin: Imperial province of Vallia north of the capital.

C

Calimbrev: Island Stromnate southwest of Veliadrin.

Cansinsax: Town of Aduimbrev where the Iron Riders defeated an army of Hamalese. (GOS) Charboi, Dr: In the pay of Ashti Melekhi poisoned the Emperor of Vallia. (SVS) chyyan: A large, heavy-winged bird, all rusty black save for scarlet eyes and claws and beak, with four wings like its distant cousin the zhyan.

Cleitar the Smith: Blacksmith who lost his family in the radvakka and Hamalian troubles and from then on carried Prescot’s banner of Vallia.

Czarin Sea: Studded with islands off east coast of Vallia.

D

“The Daisies of Delphond”: A charming song celebrating the ladies as well as the daisies of the Garden of Vallia.

Danmork: Leader of the fourth and tenth files in the Relianch of the phalanx. Deb-sa Chiu: Wizard of Loh at court of the Emperor of Vallia. (CPS) Delia: Mother Goddess generally associated with Delphond.

Deliasmot: Town of Delphond where a canal trunk system terminates. deren: Palace.

Djondalar of the Twisted Staff: Spirit or deity of Kregen.

Dorgo the Clis: Tall, dark-complexioned man with facial scar who followed Prescot in fight against radvakkas. (GOS)

Drakanium: Clean, neat, sparkling city of Delphond.

Drak’s City: The Old City of Vondium.

Drak’s Sword: Part of the regalia of the Emperor of Vallia.

Drayzm: Small island of the Czarin Sea once called Nikzm and named for Dray Prescot. drikinger: Bandit.

E

Eganbrev: Province to the west of Aduimbrev up to Great River.

Emerade, River: Runs from the Kwan Hills and joins the Great River where stands Thengelsax. Enevon Ob-Eye: Prescot’s chief stylor during the radvakka and Hamalian troubles. (GOS)

“Eregoin’s Promise”: A drinking song of Paz.

Ernelltar the Bedevilled: Runs of bad luck are attributed to this spirit or deity in North Segesthes. F

Falanriel: Chief City of Falinur.

“The Fall of the Suns”: A menacing song, Prescot dubs this lay, for its cadences and images invite mournfulness. It tells of the Last Days when the twin suns fall from the sky and drench the world of Kregen in fire and blood, in water and death.

Falnagur: The castle fortress dominating the city of Falanriel.

Father Tolki: The All Mighty, chief deity of the religion of Vallia which ousted that of the Mother Goddess and was in turn superseded by the purer religion of Opaz.

Faxul: Leader of a file in the phalanx.

Fegter: Member of the Fegter Party of Vallia against the Emperor and anybody else who stood in the way.

Fist-tail or Hand-tail: Slang term for Pachak or Kildoi.

flamil: A sand-scarf of Ba-Domek.

Fletcher’s Tower: Once called the Jade Tower of the fortress of the Falnagur renamed by Seg Segutorio. (SES)

Florania: Deity of a minor religion of Vallia patronized by millers and bakers. The Chief Priest of Therminsax, out of good intentions, attempted treachery against Prescot. (GOS) G

Gate of Skulls: A gate giving ingress to Drak’s City in Vondium.

Gelkwa: A trylonate of Vallia between the Kwan Hills and the Great River. Part of Hawkwa country. Gengulas: Legendary monsters with the power of Medusae.

Gods sharpen both edges of a blade, the: A saying of Kregen which appears to imply that one evil may destroy another and in turn be destroyed.

Golden Feathers Aegis, by the: A Flutsman’s oath.

“Golden Fur”: A song shared by numims and Fristles.

Great Chyyan: The black four-winged bird symbol of the evil and synthetic religion fostered by Phu-si-Yantong and destroyed in Vallia by Prescot and the SoR and Naghan Vanki. Adherents called Chyyanists. (SES)

Guiskwain, San: The Witherer, na Stackwamor. A famed necromancer of the North East of Vallia who lived more than two and a half thousand seasons ago. His corpse was revived to inspire the Hawkwa revolt. (CPS)

H

Hakkodin: The axe and halberd men flanking the files of the Phalanx. Hawkwa: Term for the people of North East Vallia.

Himet the Mak: Rafik Avandil, lion-man, tool of Phu-si-Yantong in preaching the artificial religion of Chyyanism. (SES)

hirvel: A stubby, four-legged riding animal, not unlike a nightmare version of a llama with tall round neck, cup-shaped ears and shaggy body and twitching snout with a performance similar to a good quality waler.

Hjemur-Gebir: a minor religion fallen into desuetude with a grotesque toad-thing as the idol of worship. Hockwafernes: Temple and township of Gelkwa where San Guiskwain was resurrected. (CPS) Hyr Notor: Alias used by Phu-si-Yantong in dealing with the Empress Thyllis of Hamal. Hyrvond: Imperial province immediately to the north of Vondium.

I

Ib Reiver: Soul Stealer — used in oaths.

Imlien, Trylon Ered of Thengelsax: A racter with whom Prescot had a smart run in over his daughter. (SES)

J

Jakhan, Jak: Name used by Prescot during adventures in Hawkwa country. (CPS) Jak the Drang: Name used by Prescot to rouse Vallians against the Iron Riders and Hamalese. (GOS) Jhalak, by: A stikitche oath.

Jhansi, Layco, Kov of Vennar: The Emperor of Vallia’s Chief Pallan. When his plots against the emperor were frustrated by Prescot and friends, took to the field in the time of the Troubles in Vallia when Hamal and the radvakkas invaded.

jid: Bane.

Jikai Vuvushis: Battle Maidens.

Jikalla: A Kregish game.

Jodhri: A formation of the phalanx containing six Relianches totaling 864 brumbytes and 144 Hakkodin. Jodhrivax: Commander of Jodhri.

Junka: A deity of the North East of Vallia.

Justicar: The imperial governor of a province.

K

Kadar the Hammer: Alias used by Prescot in Vallia. (SES)

Kamist Quay: Wharves along the Great River in Vondium.

Kapt: General.

kax: Corselet, breast and back, cuirass.

Kerchuri: Formation of the phalanx containing six Jodhris of 5184 brumbytes and 864 Hakkodin. Kerchurivax: Commander of Kerchuri.

kharrna: Manifestation of power exercised at distance by a Wizard of Loh. Khibil: Member of race of diffs with fox faces, alert, strong, limber, excellent mercenaries used to outdoor life.

khiganer: Heavy brown tunic, double-breasted, the wide flap caught up over the left side with a row of bronze buttons from belt to shoulder and from point of shoulder to collar which is stiff, hard and high. Kildoi: Member of race of diffs of Balintol with four arms and handed tail, very strong and courageous with apim-like features and a variety of hair-colorings.

“King Harulf’s Red Zorca”: Drinking song of Paz.

“King Naghan, His Fall and Rise”: Song of Kregen with undercurrents of merriment and discipline and admonishment.

kitchew: Target for assassination on contract by stikitches.

klattar: Parrying stick.

Korero the Shield: A Kildoi rescued by Prescot from torture at the hands of the radvakkas and a good comrade who carries a pair of great shields in combat at Prescot’s back. krahnik: Small form of draught animal of good pulling power.

Kroveres of Iztar: Members of Order of Brotherhood formed by Prescot on model of Krzy to ameliorate conditions in all Paz.

KRVI: Abbreviation for Kroveres of Iztar.

kutcherer: Knife somewhat like a butcher knife with a sharp pronged spike protruding from the heavy back.

Kwan Hills: Range of mountains in Hawkwa Country famed for their plenitude of game, good hunting country.

Kyro of Jaidur Omnipotent: Brilliant plaza or square in Vondium.

Kyro of Lost Souls: Long plaza just within the Gate of Skulls of Drak’s City in Vondium. Kyro of Spendthrifts: One of the squares of Vondium famed for the expensive shops and stalls along the arcades.

L

Laik-Faxul: Quarter-file leader in Relianch.

laybrites: Precious gem of deep yellow color.

Laygon the Strigicaw: Stikitche who to his misfortune took a contract from Ashti Melekhi to assassinate Dray Prescot. (CPS)

letha: Tough, springy, elastic white wood.

Letha Brook: Runs through Therminsax.

Lio am Donarb: A minor religion of Vallia.

Liverspot Bark: Ingredient of the poison solkien concentrate.

Llanitch!: Halt!

Lornrod Caucus: Vallian political faction of whom it is said their only wish is to destroy everything and pull down what has been painfully built over the centuries.

Lushfymi, Queen of Lome: Popularly known as Queen Lush. A dark-haired violet-eyed woman of great poise and beauty sent by Phu-si-Yantong to entrap the Emperor of Vallia. Her allegiance changed and she worked with Prescot to save the emperor.

M

“Maidens of Vallia, The”: A lyrical ballad celebrating the virtuous women of Vallia. Makfaril: Beloved of the Black, the Chief Priest of the Great Chyyan, the evil and artificial creed of Chyyanism developed by Phu-si-Yantong to destroy Vallia. Rafik Avandil, numim. (SES) masichieri: Low-class mercenaries, not bandits but almost that, notorious for their rapacity and greed. Maybers: A race of trading and sea-faring diffs from Donengil.

Mazilla: The high ornate collar much bejeweled and decorated worn by the nobility of Vallia, the simpler dignified high collar of the koters of Vallia. The nikmazilla is the smaller ornate collar worn with evening clothes.

mazingle: Swod’s term for discipline.

Melekhi, Ashti, Vadnicha of Venga: A thin, brittle and bright woman, hard-edged like a diamond, mannish, brilliant, with a flame about her that consumed all who were unfortunate enough not to know how to handle her. Came to an untimely end in her machinations with Layco Jhansi. (SVS) Mellor’An: Local god of North East Vallia concerned with agriculture, husbandry and fertility. Memph: A tree which yields a part of the deadly poison solkien.

MichelDen: Capital city of the kovnate of Forli in southeast Vallia. Mustard Gate: A strong battlemented Tower-gate in an angle of the northwest walls of Vondium. N

Naghan ti Lodkwara: Hawkwa member of the choice band who followed Prescot in the time of Troubles in Vallia. (GOS)

Nalgre, Nazab na Therminsax: The emperor’s Justicar governing Thermin who loyally obeyed Prescot acting as Jak the Drang. (GOS)

Nath the Gnat: Alias adopted by Prescot in the struggle against the Chyyanists. (SES) Nath the Iarvin: A hard man, ruffler, Bladesman, bought body and soul by Ashti Melekhi, who came to an unexpected end on a Krozair longsword. (SVS)

Nav-Sorfall: Vallian province lush and rich with ponsho pastures to the east of Vomansoir. Naghan Vanki was made vad.

Nazab: Governor of imperial province ranking with kov.

Nazabhan, Nath, na Therminsax: Son of Nazab Nalgre, rose to command phalanx created by Prescot. (GOS)

Nik-Faxul: Half-file leader in Relianch.

Nikwald: Fortress town in the kovnate of Sakwara of Vallia.

Numi-Hyrjiv the Golden Splendor: Great spirit or deity of numims and fristles. O

Olordin’s Well: Insignificant hamlet where Prescot rendezvoused with Barty Vessler in south central Vallia. (GOS)

Opaz Enthroned: Day of festival dedicated to Opaz. The day on which the army of Therminsax sallied against the radvakkas. (GOS)

Opaz the Deliverer: Day of festival dedicated to Opaz on which Vondium rose against the Hamalese and the Freedom Fighters and the Phalanx struck in the Battle of Voxyri. (GOS) Order of Little Mothers: One of the sororities of Vallia dedicated to good works. P

“Pachak with the Four Arms, The”: A song highly scurrilous of a fine people with an oblique reference to the Kildoi.

pakai: String of silver or gold rings taken from defeated paktuns by paktun victories and worn as badges of prowess.

Paltork: Commander of half Relianch.

Panadian the Ibreiver, the Vicissitudes of: Cycle of plays by the long-dead playwright Nalgre ti Liancesmot from which couplets, aphorisms and character analyses are often quoted. Peral Gate: Imposing secondary gateway to the imperial deren of Vondium. Phalanx: Created in Vallia by Prescot to oppose the Iron Riders. A phalanx consists of two Kerchuris totaling 10368 pikes and 1738 Hakkodin. In the field any close-order body of brumbytes called the Phalanx.

Poperlin the Wise: Mythical sage apostrophized by the workers of Vallia. Prison of the Angels: A gaunt granite prison of Vondium.

Pyvorr, Tarek Dredd: The first martyr of the Kroveres of Iztar. (SVS) R

radvakkas: The Iron Riders of North Segesthes.

Rakkle-jik-lora: A violent headlong training game played by the Clansmen of the Great Plains of Segesthes.

Relianch: Formation of the phalanx consisting of 144 brumbytes and 24 Hakkodin. Relianchun: Commander of a Relianch.

Renberg, Marta, Kovneva of Aduimbrev: High-tempered, ambitious lady who assisted schemes of Phu-si-Yantong. (GOS)

Rojashin the Kaktu: A Rapa paktun whose greed and overweening idea of his own importance drove him on to destruction and whose gear and pakai were used by Prescot in Hawkwa country. (CPS) ronil: Precious jewel of red color.

Rosala and the Eye of Imladrion: An ancient legend of Kregen in its intentions paralleling the story of Pandora.

rosha: Orange-like fruit.

Ros the Claw: Name given to Princess Dayra of Vallia by virtue of the sharp steel gloved set of talons worn on her left hand with which she is very quick and cruel.

Rumil the Point: Tavern swaggerer who insulted Prescot and dealt with by Rafik Avandil, lion-man, in The Savage Woflo. (SES)

S

Sabbator, River: In North East Vallia separates the trylonate of Zaphoret to the north from Urn Stackwamor, running into the sea opposite the island of Vellin.

Sakwara: High Kovnate of Vallia north of Aduimbrev.

Samphron Cut: A canal of Vondium.

Sapphire Reception Room: One of the ornate but less formal chambers of the deren of Vondium. The Savage Woflo: Famous tavern of Vondium much patronized by the guardsmen and paktuns of the capital.

sax: Fort.

The Sea Barynth Hooked: Pot-house on the Kamist Quay of Vondium catering to skippers of Vallian ships.

Shadow: Magnificent black zorca stallion freed from cruel Kataki owners and ridden by Prescot in Ba-Domek. (SVS)

Shadow Forests of Calimbrev: Beautiful and rich forests in the west of the island coveted by the Strom of Vilandeul.

Shalash the Shining: Fish deity or spirit called on by fisherfolk of Vallia. shandishalah: Merchandise of booths in the fish souks.

Shastum!: Silence!

Shkanes: Yet another appellation for the Shanks, the Shants, the Shtarkins, Leem-Lovers, reivers from over the curve of the world who ravage the sea coasts of Paz.

Shudor Maklechuan: A Chulik paktun known as Shudor the Mak who was hired by Prescot with his band to fight for Therminsax. (GOS)

signomant: An artifact created by a Wizard of Loh, often in the form of a heavy brass disc covered with hieroglyphs, by which he is able to observe events at a distance without forcing a projection of himself to the required place.

Silversmiths Wharf: Canal side area where silver is traded in Vondium. Sisters of Patience: A sorority of Vallia.

Sisters of Samphron: A semi-secret sorority of Vallia.

solkien concentrate: A deadly poisonous compound that secretly wastes the flesh, dilutes the blood and destroys subtly.

SOR: Abbreviation for the Sisters of the Rose.

Souk of Chem: Bazaar of the ivory traders in Vondium.

The Speckled Gyp: A tavern of Vondium smashed up by Dayra and her cronies. Stackwamors, The: Provinces of North East Vallia, the heartlands of Hawkwa Country, north, south, east and west Stackwamor.

stiver: Silver coin on Vallia.

“The Sylvie on the Slippery Slope”: A risqué song of Kregen.

T

tapo: Word of abuse with unpleasant connotations.

tarek: A rank of the minor nobility within the gifting of a kov.

Targon the Tapster: A Therminsaxer who became one of the choice band of followers of Prescot in the time of Troubles. (GOS)

Tarkwa-fash: A town of the North East near the Kwan Hills.

tazll: Applied to an unemployed mercenary.

Temple of Delia: An ancient ruined temple in Delphond dedicated to the Mother Goddess Delia where Prescot had a run-in with the masichieri of the Black Feathers. (SES) Terfaxul: Leader of a file in the Relianch one rank higher than a Faxul. Thengelsax: Town situated on Great River at point where River Emerade joins. One of the old line of fortresses against the North East of Vallia.

Therduim Cut: Canal connecting Therminsax and Thengelsax.

Thermin: Imperial province of Central Vallia.

Thiurdsmot: A sizable town of Aduimbrev.

Thofoler, Vad Inrien ham: A Hamalese Kapt who surrendered Vondium to Prescot and the Freedom Forces of Vallia. (GOS)

tikshim: Form of address used by superior to inferiors, equating with “My Man.” The superiors consider it polite, the inferior are infuriated by its use.

Tolindrin: Place in Balintol with diplomatic connections with Vallia. Tower of Incense: Contains the sorcerous chamber inhabited by the current Wizard of Loh in the deren of Vondium.

Trechinolc: A cactus, constituent of the poison solkien.

Trerhagen, Nath: The Aleygyn, Hyr Stikitche, Pallan of the Stikitche Khand of Vondium. tresh: Flag or banner.

tsleetha-tsleethi: Softly-softly.

Tunnel of Delight: Leads out to the Kyro of Jaidur Omnipotent in Vondium. Twitchnose: A chestnut zorca ridden by Prescot in Vondium.

U

Udo, Trylon of Gelkwa: Led rebellion of North East Vallia. (CPS)

ukra: Flutsman’s weapon, a polearm from seven to fifteen feet in length with narrow blade and curved axe for aerial work.

Ulbereth the Dark Reiver: Poem fashioned from the legends of olden time on Kregen. The episode of the Black Feathers tells of Ulbereth’s disguise to enable him to ravish a fair young virgin with golden hair. unggar: Beast of burden.

Urn Stackwamor: Vadvarate of Hawkwa country in N.E. Vallia.

urvivel: Saddle animal.

Uthnior Chavonthjid: A leem-hunter and guide with a fine reputation who guided Prescot and Barty Vessler in the Kwan Hills. (CPS)

Uzhiro, San: Necromancer of the Hawkwas who roused corpses from sleep to aid North East Vallian rebellion. (CPS)

V

Valhotra: Vadvarate province of Vallia immediately to the east of the imperial Vend provinces and Vondium.

Vanti: Guardian for the Savanti of the Sacred Pool of Baptism on the River Zelph of far Aphrasöe. Varkwa the Open-Handed: Spirit of generosity called upon in Vallia. Vel’alar: One of the Hills of Vondium. The villa of the Stromnate of Valka is situated on this hill. Veliadrin: Large island high kovnate to the east of Vallia whose name was changed from Can-thirda in remembrance.

Velyan techniques: Mystic martial disciplines of the Martial Monks of Djanduin. vener: Collective name for the vens and venas of the Canals.

Vennar: Kovnate province of Vallia between the Black Mountains and Falinur. ver: Title of pledge of loyalty of Kroveres of Iztar similar to the pur of the Krozairs. Vessler, Barty, Strom of Calimbrev: Amiable, chivalrous, brave young man befriended by Prescot. Desperately in love with the Princess Dayra. (CPS GOS)

Vetal: Island Stromnate to the east of the Czarin Sea.

Vikatu: The Old Sweat, The Dodger, the archetypal old soldier of Paz on Kregen, paragon of the military vices, legendary figure of myth and romance loved and sworn on by the swods. Vinnur’s Garden: Rich area in loop of Great River between Falinur and Vindelka whose ownership is contested by both.

volmen: Volim, crewmen of fliers.

Volodu the Lungs: Prescot’s trumpeter in the choice band who followed him in the time of Troubles in Vallia. (GOS)

Vend: Imperial province to the west of Vondium.

Vondium Khanders: Political party of Vallia who looked to the business community for combined strength.

voswod: Aerial soldier of the vollers.

Voxyri: Complex of Drinnik, Gate and Bridge over two canals providing the easiest entrance to Vondium.

vydra tea: An excellent brew of the famed Kregen tea.

W

Walls of Larghos Risslaca: Inner defensive wall of the imperial deren Vondium. wallpitix: Furry, bright-eyed household scavengers living in nest in hidden places of villas and houses. Wellon, Nankwi, High Kov of Sakwara: A prickly kov who took the lead in Hawkwa after the disappearance of Trylon Udo and who was confirmed in his position by Prescot. (GOS)

“When the Fluttrell Flirts His Wing”: A song of Hamal detailing the misadventures of an inexperienced fluttrell flyer.

Whiptail: Slang term for a Kataki.

Y

Yasi, Ranjal, Stromich of Morcray: Twin brother of Rosil Yasi, Strom of Morcray, in the pay of Phu-si-Yantong and bitter foe to Prescot.

yasticum: An expensive and rare delicacy spread on the superb Kregan bread. Yellow-tuskers: Slang term for Chulik.

Ystilbur: An ancient nation of the Dawn Lands of Havilfar.

Z

Zankov: Use-name of Hawkwa determined to overthrow empire, origins secret but subject to many rumors; slender, brittle; the man who slew the Emperor of Vallia. The Princess Dayra’s name is coupled with his in unsavory ways. Zankov, the Tenth Duke, is almost a meaningless name. Zarado: A Krozair of Zy who through some peccadillo wandered from the inner sea and hired out as a Paktun to assist Prescot in the defense of Therminsax. (GOS)

zim-korf: Bird of Valka with rose-red feathers whose quality is equal or superior to the blue fletchings of the king korf of Erthyrdrin.

Zunder: Krzy with the same history as Zarado with whom he is always in arguments. Notes

[i]Tikshim. The form of address used by the higher to the lower orders. The higher consider it neutral. As it probably equates with “my man” or even “my good man” the lower orders are almost invariably provoked by its use although quite unable to articulate their reaction or to explain it. Prescot has used the word rarely, but here it fits perfectly. A.B.A.

About the author

Alan Burt Akers was a pen name of the prolific British author Kenneth Bulmer, who died in December 2005 aged eighty-four.

Bulmer wrote over 160 novels and countless short stories, predominantly science fiction, both under his real name and numerous pseudonyms, including Alan Burt Akers, Frank Brandon, Rupert Clinton, Ernest Corley, Peter Green, Adam Hardy, Philip Kent, Bruno Krauss, Karl Maras, Manning Norvil, Chesman Scot, Nelson Sherwood, Richard Silver, H. Philip Stratford, and Tully Zetford. Kenneth Johns was a collective pseudonym used for a collaboration with author John Newman. Some of Bulmer’s works were published along with the works of other authors under "house names" (collective pseudonyms) such as Ken Blake (for a series of tie-ins with the 1970s television programme The Professionals), Arthur Frazier, Neil Langholm, Charles R. Pike, and Andrew Quiller.

Bulmer was also active in science fiction fandom, and in the 1970s he edited nine issues of the New Writings in Science Fiction anthology series in succession to John Carnell, who originated the series. More details about the author, and current links to other sources of information, can be found at www.mushroom-ebooks.com, and at wikipedia.org.

The Dray Prescot Series

The Delian Cycle:

1. Transit to Scorpio

2. The Suns of Scorpio

3. Warrior of Scorpio

4. Swordships of Scorpio

5. Prince of Scorpio

Havilfar Cycle:

6. Manhounds of Antares

7. Arena of Antares

8. Fliers of Antares

9. Bladesman of Antares

10. Avenger of Antares

11. Armada of Antares

The Krozair Cycle:

12. The Tides of Kregen

13. Renegade of Kregen

14. Krozair of Kregen

Vallian cycle:

15. Secret Scorpio

16. Savage Scorpio

17. Captive Scorpio

18. Golden Scorpio

Jikaida cycle:

19. A Life for Kregen

20. A Sword for Kregen

21. A Fortune for Kregen

22. A Victory for Kregen

Spikatur cycle:

23. Beasts of Antares

24. Rebel of Antares

25. Legions of Antares

26. Allies of Antares

Pandahem cycle:

27. Mazes of Scorpio

28. Delia of Vallia

29. Fires of Scorpio

30. Talons of Scorpio

31. Masks of Scorpio

32. Seg the Bowman

Witch War cycle:

33. Werewolves of Kregen

34. Witches of Kregen

35. Storm over Vallia

36. Omens of Kregen

37. Warlord of Antares

Lohvian cycle:

38. Scorpio Reborn

39. Scorpio Assassin

40. Scorpio Invasion

41. Scorpio Ablaze

42. Scorpio Drums

43. Scorpio Triumph

Balintol cycle:

44. Intrigue of Antares

45. Gangs of Antares

46. Demons of Antares

47. Scourge of Antares

48. Challenge of Antares

49. Wrath of Antares

50. Shadows over Kregen

Phantom cycle:

51. Murder on Kregen

52. Turmoil on Kregen

Contents

Dray Prescot

One – Dragons in the Fire

Two – The Folly of Empire

Three – Delia Looses an Opinion at the Star Lords

Four – Jak the Drang Encounters the Iron Riders

Five – Of a Rout After Breakfast

Six – Of the Scorpion and the Ring of Destiny

Seven – In the Camp of the Iron Riders

Eight – Korero

Nine – Bird of Ill Omen

Ten – “Give me your sword, jen, and you would see!”

Eleven – Sport for Flutsmen

Twelve – We Shut the Gates

Thirteen – The Raid Against the Radvakkas

Fourteen – News of Pur Zeg, Krzy and Pur Jaidur, Krzy

Fifteen – Firebrands

Sixteen – In Crimson and Bronze the Brumbytes Form

Seventeen – The Battle of Therminsax

Eighteen – Nath Nazabhan

Nineteen – In the Name of Jak the Drang

Twenty – Fire Over Vallia

Twenty-one – Vision at Voxyri

A Glossary to the Vallian Cycle of the Saga of Dray Prescot

Notes

About the author

The Dray Prescot Series