War: Bloody Beginnings
Among the Voitusotar, succession to the throne is not subject to dispute. A crown prince is selected by what they term the "Soul of the Voitusotar," most often from the family of the existing Crystal Lord.
The nature of the Soul of the Voitusotar is not clear. It appears to be an aspect of the voitik hive mind, acting upon the total knowledge of the species, but having its own volition…
Talent in sorcery is not held by the Voitusotar to be the supreme virtue. It shares that honor with intelligence. Knowledge, on the other hand, is taken for granted. The hive mind is the receptacle of everything known to them, and what one knows is available to all. But understanding presents problems, as does accessing specific knowledge only vaguely identified by the seeker. And while the content of that vast repository includes decisions, it does not hold wisdom…
From: The Voitusotar by Admiral Rister Vellinghuus
(translated from the Hithmearcisc by Magister Dohns Macurdy).
23 The Language Instructor
Of the three ships sent exploring westward, fifteen years earlier, only one returned to Hithmearc. That voyage had predated voitik knowledge of sextants, and navigation had been by the sun, the pole star, and dead reckoning. But after sixty-one days and nights at sea, with winds from various quarters, and having twice been driven far off course by storms, dead reckoning had left a lot of slack.
The surviving ship had been the smallest of the three, and the one given the most northerly course. The first land she'd raised had been a high rocky coast, dark with coniferous forest, and showing no sign of habitation. She'd replenished her water supply but not her food, then explored southward. After a week, a fishing boat was sighted, then more of them, along with villages, small towns, and several cargo ships of modest size, schooner-rigged for coastal travel. Her own square sails made the Hithik vessel conspicuous, and her human skipper nervous.
Meanwhile his food supply continued to shrink, and he'd already learned that Vismearc was inhabited and civilized. All he really needed besides that were captives to take home with him, from whom Vismearcisc could be learned.
Thus he anchored one night and sent out an armed party, which captured two youths just back from tending lobster traps. With this modest but important booty, the Hithik skipper set sail for home.
Before he got there, he became involved with autumn storms, and reached home late and hungry, his vessel severely battered. One of his captives had died of a bleeding flux.
The captain had early assigned his eleven-year-old cabin boy to be the captives' tutor, and the boy showed a talent for language. By the time they'd reached Hithmearc, both tutor and captive had made major progress in speaking and understanding the other's language. And in the process, the cabin boy learned that the ylver had indeed arrived in Vismearc, and prospered. The Ylvin Coast began a day south of the captive's village.
At the voitik crown prince's order, the cabin boy remained the captive's companion. A year later, the captive died of a plague. The cabin boy then became the crown prince's personal language instructor, and indirect resource for the hive mind.
24 An Ill Wind
On the horizon, the admiral of the voitik armada could see a low coast that could only be Vismearc. But where in Vismearc? The Ylvin Coast? South of it? North of it?
The armada had clocks; clocks had long been familiar in Hithmearc. It also had sextants, courtesy of the Occult Bureau of the Nazi SS, via the Bavarian Gate. So the admiral knew rather closely where on the globe they were. But as he pointed out to the crown prince, what he didn't know was where on the globe they needed to be.
The crown prince was not, of course, surprised, but the admiral felt uncomfortable with it. He was, after all, merely human, as were all the armada's officers and crew, and one preferred not to disappoint one's voitik masters.
Minutes later, the lookout reported a small sailboat to windward, and the crown prince ordered a captive taken. The admiral had signal flags run up, and for miles astern, the vast fleet hove to. A courier schooner was sent in to pick up the boat's occupant. From him, the crown prince learned that the ylver land was "off north some'rs"-far enough, he knew no more about it. Off north was adequate.
The armada had experienced no major storm, but constant strong westerlies had seriously slowed it. The crossing had taken sixty-four days, and supplies of drinking water were seriously depleted. So instead of turning north at once, the crown prince decided to land and refill the water casks. Meanwhile the troops could go ashore. The voitar were desperate to stand on stable ground, and stop taking the antiseasickness potion provided by voitik herbalists. Prolonged use had caused chronic bowel disorders.
The flat, sandy Scrub Coast had no harbors to accommodate 304 ships. By Hithik standards it had no harbors at all. Its fishing boats and smugglers' sloops sheltered in the lee of offshore islands and sand spits. And in the tidewaters of streams, few of them large, though some could accommodate ships in their lower reaches.
Thus the armada was scattered along some ten miles of coast. Ships carrying the wasted, ramshackle cavalry horses took turns at such wharves as could accommodate a bark. Others lay in crowded anchorages, many of them aground at low tide, for there were no deep water anchorages inshore. Many lay at anchor in the open sea. Lifeboats shuttled to the beaches and back, landing troops.
The local population had fled into the sparse forest before the first anchor dropped. Only elders and the disabled remained, and they were questioned. There was, they insisted, no land route northward to the ylvin land-"the empire," they called it. A great swamp intervened.
Cavalry patrols were sent out on the more serviceable saddle mounts, seeking fodder and grain for the horses, and women for the officers. They found the country sandy, and the forage coarse. Here and there were boggy areas, mostly small, with lusty mosquito populations. Scattered along the streams were hardscrabble farms, on silty or sandy bottomlands, growing corn, squash, melons and groundnuts. But not fodder. Few owned a horse, and their cows and pigs foraged for themselves, tended by boys and young girls in no better flesh than the livestock.
The ships' crews were hard at work. Lifeboats made trip after trip up streams, carrying casks to be filled with dark and dubious water, then were rowed back to their ships. The crown prince was impatient, and soldiers were assigned to help with the rowing, which went on around the clock. The weather was hot and humid, and the oarsmen, and the men on the tackle raising the casks, sweated copiously. The breeze gave scant relief.
The next morning dawned to stronger breezes, and high thin clouds that thickened through the day. The ships' officers began to look nervously over their shoulders. Orders were shouted to hurry the work, but after a brief response, the pace slowed again. Before supper, signal flags ordered all ships secured for a storm. Spare anchors were lowered.
By dawn, a gale had the sea in its teeth. By midday the armada was gripped and shaken by a category three hurricane. The low offshore islands and sand spits reduced the seas but gave no protection against the wind itself. Anchors had not settled into the firm sand bottoms of the anchorages. Wind combined with the storm surge drove many onto the beach, or up shallow streams.
Ashore, the troops had sheltered in any buildings available, and in tents. But before the winds ever peaked, few buildings still stood, almost none with a roof.
When it was over, 112 ships had foundered or broken up. Most of the rest were aground, a few of them high and dry at low tide. Few had a standing mast, and most had deck or hull damage. Grim and bedraggled, Crown Prince Kurqosz counseled with his staff and the admiral, and began to plan the recovery. Gangs were put to work salvaging what they could from broken ships-tools, cordage, spars, hatch covers, canvas, barrels of pitch and tar, unbreached water casks, anchors-anything useable. Ashore, troops were sent into the sparse, brushy woodlands to find where their tents had blown to, and salvage what they could of them.
Over subsequent days, the horses recovered slowly. There was little grain on the Scrub Coast, and the forage was poor. Searching for food and fodder was systematized and intensified.
Two mounted reconnaissance patrols were sent to explore to the west. They found that the sandy plain, with its open scrub forest, extended sixty miles or so inland. Beyond that lay a band of hills and heavier forest which the patrols did not explore. Beyond the hills a mountain range could be seen, not particularly high, but rugged looking.
Neither patrol had seen so much as a village.
A cavalry platoon had been sent off northward, to check the claim that there was no land route to the ylvin empire. It was gone for nine days. Two days' ride northward, it had come to a vast uncrossable swamp of black water, with great flare-bottomed trees, and mosquitoes beyond belief. The patrol had turned westward then, looking for a way around it. It ended at a steep and forested ridge, difficult for men and worse for horses.
And at any rate a river, the source of the swamp, was in the way. It flowed out of the mountains, paralleled by a good wagon road. There was a stone wharf at its outlet into the swamp, but no sign of recent activity. Brief exploration up the road found the valley quickly narrowing to a gorge, with rapids unsuited to boating.
After getting the platoon's report, the crown prince brooded all one night. The hive mind provided no help. When morning came, he gave new orders.
Four weeks later-four weeks of beautiful weather-repair crews had 147 ships serviceable. Patched, jury-rigged, with stubby masts of local pine, but serviceable. They were adequate to transport seventeen regiments of infantry and five of cavalry-more than half the army-northward up the coast to attack the ylvin empire. They'd be badly crowded, but the voyage was expected to take a few days at most. Over a period of several days, the ragged fleet assembled at sea off the mouth of the river that drained the great swamp.
Then it set off northward, pushed by light southwesterly winds, and carrying with it far less than half the available food: it would conquer or starve. Crown Prince Kurqosz felt no misgivings. In his mind, to attack was to conquer.
The fleet left not because the crown prince was impatient, though he was, but because the rations wouldn't last till enough ships were ready to take the entire army.
Kurqosz had left his younger brother, Prince Chithqosz, on the Scrub Coast with seventeen regiments-fifteen of infantry and two of cavalry-and one circle of sorcerers. Kurqosz, his twenty-two regiments and two circles of sorcerers, would find a major port town, capture the district or region there, and send back ships to get the regiments left behind.
Meanwhile ship repair would continue on the Scrub Coast. And the troops left there would continue to forage, to supplement their shrinking food supply.
Unknown to the crown prince, on the same day he left (night, actually, for it was on the other side of the world), a large, seagirt mountain exploded. Cubic miles of rock were pulverized and blown high into the sky; the sound was audible two thousand miles away. Effects more significant than sound would be felt much farther.
25 Attack on Balralligh
No word of anything worrisome reached the East Ylvin Coast Guard for weeks after the armada landed. The hurricane had run up the coast, weakening a bit, but damaging harbors and vessels extensively. A week afterward, a refitted Coast Guard flotilla-a schooner and three sloops-had run south on a routine smuggler patrol. It kept the low coast in sight, but saw no craft at sea, not even a fishing boat. Which in itself might have inspired investigation, but didn't.
Its pass back northward, two weeks later, was a bit closer inshore. This time, on the Scrub Coast, eight hulks were spotted on offshore islands, dismasted and no doubt derelict. The commodore entered them on his log, but did not investigate.
Three days later, the log was turned in at the Coast Guard office in Balralligh, and interest was finally sparked. Two seers had recently reported dreams of a voitik fleet, but no one had informed the Coast Guard. It learned of it quite incidentally, well after the patrol flotilla had sailed off southward, and then didn't take it seriously.
Now the admiral sent a message to Emperor Morguil. Who had just received a dispatch describing Gavriel's and Cyncaidh's concern, after their meeting with Macurdy and the great boar.
All military leaves were canceled. Level One mobilization orders were issued, carried by the best postal service in Yuulith. Command staffs down to cohort level were ordered to report. All other officers and men were to make themselves ready and available should further mobilization become necessary. And the rams were to be refitted and recrewed as quickly as possible.
Meanwhile, a light flotilla-four fast sloops-was sent to investigate the hulks. In the face of southerly winds, they sailed southward till they spotted the first armada ships close offshore. Ugly with their stubby replacement masts, about forty of them rode the hook in the assembly area, awaiting the others. The Coast Guard sloops made about and headed for home.
Within an hour of their arrival, the great bell at Balralligh Fortress banged its alarm across the city, continuing for ten head-rattling minutes. Couriers galloped out, headed for every other city in the eastern empire, particularly Colroi, the imperial capital. And as dusk thickened into night, a great beacon, newly piled on Balralligh Hill, was fired. It could be seen for thirty miles. Within sight of it were other beacons waiting for the torch, and within their range, still others.
The ylvin admiral was sticking his neck way out. There'd been no identification of the ships seen, and no consultation with the imperial palace. But forty strange ships? If they weren't voitik, then they were some other potent threat. And in his talented bones, he felt those ships were what his people had first feared, then largely forgotten about over the generations.
From his palace in Colroi, Emperor Morguil ordered full mobilization.
The Balralligh Legion was more human than ylvin-four cohorts of ylvin cavalry and six of human infantry. For even with long-youth mixed bloods registered as ylver by the census, humans outnumbered ylver in the eastern empire.
The legions officers and men were all from the Balralligh and Lower Ralligh River Districts, and within three days they were almost fully mobilized. They were decently trained, though inevitably they lost some of their edge and physical conditioning between the annual exercises. But given the nature of the alarm, all were in a state of repressed excitement. If it came to a fight, they felt ready.
The Coast Guard had sent picket sloops south to watch, and on the fourth day the armada was seen approaching as briskly as it could, given its jury-rigged masts. As it approached, the pickets turned home one by one. Balralligh's great alarm bell banged again, this time at intervals all day. And again couriers galloped off with brief but fearsome reports and orders. The newly rebuilt Balralligh beacon was doused with oil in preparation for nightfall.
General Kethin, Lord Felstroin, stood atop the wall of Balralligh Fortress. It no longer provided the security it had fifteen centuries earlier, when it had still enclosed all there was of the mile-square town. Since then, Balralligh had greatly outgrown its enclosure, spreading over an unwalled area eight times as large.
Still the fortress, and the mangonels atop its walls, commanded the harbor and its wharves. And fifteen years earlier, during the "pirate" scare, a lesser fortress had been built on the promontory commanding the harbor entrance. Now, to intercept the invaders, the imperial battle fleet had put to sea-twenty rams, biremes with rows of muscular human oarsmen, and cargos of ylvin marines.
Landsman though he was, General Kethin knew the basics of naval warfare, and had seen the picket reports. None of the enemy ships appeared to be rams. Troopships then. But surely the Voitusotar wouldn't send ships that couldn't be defended. They might, he supposed, land men down the coast a day's march or so, at effectively unfortified harbors: two ships at one, three at another, four somewhere else. Even here at Balralligh, not more than twenty could dock at once, though many more could lay at anchor to await their turn.
He wished he could see better. The moon was well into the third quarter, and had not yet risen. And though he had a fair degree of ylvin night vision…
From the promontory above the harbor entrance, he saw a streak of fire arc across the water, then others in quick succession, fireballs cast by the mangonels positioned there. Before the first hit the water and was extinguished, nearly a dozen were in the air. Two struck ships, and within a minute, flames could be seen spreading through their freshly-tarred rigging. Cheers arose from the fortress wall. But neither ship took fire generally. General Kethin imagined teams aboard them manning pumps and hoses, attacking any burning material that fell to the deck.
He hoped it was merely pumps and hoses. Voitik sorcery was his greatest concern. His ylver should be resistive to it, but hardly his human troops.
Fireballs continued arcing across the water, less concentrated than the opening volley. The intervals varied with the loading speed of the crews, and the need to turn the heavy track-mounted carriages for aiming. The crew chiefs in charge were ylver of strong talent, but their powers were in aiming and igniting. They couldn't control the flight of their pitch-soaked missiles.
The invading ships continued to pass through the entrance. Now several more had fires aboard, but seemingly under control. Within minutes, the crews on the fortress walls would be operating their own mangonels.
Now the general became aware of light from the sky, and looked up. A weakly glowing cloud was building overhead, roiling and ruddy, and somehow obscene. It drew every eye on the fortress wall, every eye of the troops waiting on the docks, or sitting their horses in the streets. As it grew, it became the color of smoky blood, and despite its light, the night seemed darker. Sorcery! The air reeked of it. The cloud pulsed, once, twice, a dozen times, sending lightning bolts crackling onto the city, the docks, the fortress. One struck the wall, and a section of balustrade rumbled into the street.
Yet there were no cries; the shock was too great.
Then a great throbbing began, like some monstrous drum-or heartbeat!-growing nearer. It filled the air, and the cloud in the sky dimmed to its earlier ruddy glow. Before the general's eyes, monsters took gradual shape among the ships, as if coalescing from some other reality. Like the cloud of light, they were the color of embers, and they exuded evil. They stood taller by half than the masts… and began striding upright over the water, reaching the docks through a cloud of arrows. In their hands they held great chains, like whips, and swung them crashing down among the soldiers.
Lord Felstroin stared transfixed. There were screams, a ragged chorus of them from the wall and the docks. To his eyes, the monsters were foul, but they were also ethereal. And their chains appeared no more solid than the abominations that wielded them. Yet when they struck among the foot troops on the docks, the carnage was horrific, with men transformed to bloody pulp.
He became aware that the mangonel crews on the walls had broken, scrambling for the stairs while their ylvin crew chiefs shouted curses at them. In their panic, some fell or were pushed from the wall or the steps, plunging into the stone-paved bailey. Before the wall a monster loomed. Its chain swung up, then down, and despite himself, his lordship flinched. It slammed the wall beside him, smashing men to paste, rose again, struck down again, coated with blood and mashed flesh.
Yet it had no effect on wall or floor!
Felstroin's fear flashed off as he realized: while the human mangonel crews were being killed, their ylvin chiefs were not. Unlike the lightnings, he realized, the monsters were not physical in any earthly sense. They were effective only on those who couldn't see through them.
Meanwhile the walls were nearly unmanned now, cleared of mangonel crews by the apparitions.
From where he stood, on the fortress wall above the harbor, Kethin couldn't see into the broader city. But he saw the torsos and heads of monsters passing the fortress on both sides, flogging with their chains.
Compassionate All Soul, he thought, save us from this evil.
He hadn't prayed for years.
The very tall, slender, red-haired officer saluted sharply. "Your Highness, the enemy's commanding general has been brought here as ordered. He is in the bailey."
"Thank you, Captain. Bring him up."
It was near midday, and Crown Prince Kurqosz stood on the fortress wall. Not on the harbor side, but overlooking what had been the city. He hadn't slept yet; he was too exhilarated. He'd removed his helmet; his fine-haired, six-inch-long ears stood out conspicuously. A fresh breeze cooled his sweaty, red-haired scalp.
The breeze reeked of smoke and char. After intensive, systematic looting, he'd torched the city outside the fortress walls, as an object lesson. Little remained but smoking rubble. Perhaps a third of the population, mostly women, had survived the initial massacre and fire. Of those, most were enclosed in rope corrals outside the city margins, guarded by his human troops. Some had escaped, of course. That was inevitable and desirable; he'd ordered his commanders not to hunt them down. They would spread word that an ylvin army had been crushed by sorcery and arms, and the city destroyed. He'd also ordered that the ten most attractive ylvin female prisoners be held unmolested, for his inspection. He'd been without unconscionably long, and he'd never seen, let alone had, an ylf woman.
A scuffing of boot soles on stone steps turned his head. It was Captain Jorvits and an enlisted man, with the prisoner.
Again Jorvits saluted. "Your Highness," he said, "here is their general."
From his seven-foot-eight-inch height, the crown prince gazed coldly down at an ylvin lord, who stood disheveled and proud, his hands tied behind him. Kurqosz spoke in accented Vismearcisc. "You have a name, I suppose."
"I am General Kethin, Lord Felstroin."
"Ah. That is an abundance of names. If I decide to keep you, you will be called simply Dog. To reflect your status."
"In Yuulith," the general said stiffly, "we have civilized rules for the treatment of prisoners."
Kurqosz turned his face to the captain, who spoke to the soldier in words foreign to Felstroin. The soldier, a heavy-shouldered human, struck Felstroin hard in the belly. Whoofing, the general doubled over and sank to his knees.
"This land is no longer Yuulith," Kurqosz said mildly. "It is now Vismearc, a province of the voitik Empire. And we have civilized rules for addressing one's betters. I am Crown Prince Kurqosz; I am your better. Captain Torvits is your better." He gestured. "This human, this common soldier, is your better."
He paused. "But you were not brought to me for training in courtesy. I am considering you as a possible-carrier? Courier! A courier to the ylf dog who claims to rule this land." He paused. "Tell me how you were captured."
Felstroin got slowly to his feet, and spoke with difficulty through his pain. "I was captured while trying to leave the fortress."
"Ah! Then what?"
"My hands were tied. I was taken from the city before it was torched, and put in a rope pen with other captured soldiers. Then, my rank being recognized, I was removed." He stopped, lips tight, eyes on the voitu's aura, gathering what insights he could.
"Yes?"
"Then my comrades in arms, all with their hands tied, were lined up by your soldiers and used for spear practice. Mostly not killed outright. They were played with, stabbed, struck with spear shafts. Many were mutilated."
The voituk eyebrows rose mockingly. "Really! Then what?"
"I was held separately until someone decided to put me with the civilians."
"Civilians? I thought I'd ordered them killed too. Ah! They must have put you with the captive women."
His lordship's face worked, but he did not speak.
"That must have been enlightening. Well." The crown prince turned to his aide. "Trilosz, write a safe conduct for our friend Dog. Using his former name. And give him the sealed message I signed earlier, for the person who no doubt still claims to be emperor here. Then put Dog on a good horse. Have him escorted beyond our outposts, and released with his hands freed."
He turned back to Felstroin. "Take good care of my message. In it I tell your emperor what he must do if he wants to prevent the kind of things you witnessed after your capture."
With that, he turned his back in dismissal, and the general was taken away.
Kurqosz made no firm decision on his next actions till he'd received a review and recommendation from his high admiral. He had more confidence in Vellinghuus than in any other human.
Nine of his ships had been rammed and sunk, though some of their men had been fished from the water. Eleven others needed rerigging and other repairs, due to fire damage. Of the remainder, the hasty storm-damage repairs on thirty-eight had proven inadequate, and they'd taken water faster than their pumps could deal with. It had been necessary to transfer additional pumps to them, from other ships.
All told, only eighty-nine ships were deemed still serviceable, and they were more or less marginal.
There were three shipyards on the Ralligh River, close upstream of the city, with ship materials of all sorts including tall, white pine masts. The high admiral wanted to make use of them, to refit his fleet as rapidly as possible.
The crown prince decided to send the best seventy ships south, to bring as many of Chithqosz's troops north as they could carry. It would relieve the pressure on the dwindling food supplies of the Scrub Coast. The rest of the ships were to begin refitting at once. Meanwhile he'd give his staff seven days to gather further provisions from the countryside and prepare to march. Then he'd leave an infantry brigade at Balralligh to protect his base, and some engineer companies to assist in refitting ships. The rest of his army he'd march to Colroi, sixty-eight miles northwest, and capture the imperial palace.
Two mornings later, the seventy serviceable ships left the harbor and started south. They carried no sorcerers. On the second day, a storm struck, with strong winds and heavy seas. A number of ships lost spars, canvas, even makeshift masts. Three foundered. Nine others went aground while the fleet attempted to take shelter in the mouth of a large river. Of those driven aground, five were broken up by storm waves.
There was a minor town, a port, a short distance up the river, and an enemy garrison nearby. On the first night, the garrison sent some twenty fire boats down the river into the voitik ships at anchor. Fortunately for the fleet, the fire boats were mostly ineffective. They tended to deflect off the ships they struck, without setting them afire. Also, the layer of sand put in the bottoms of the fire boats hadn't prevented some of them from burning and sinking before they reached the fleet. Still, the storm wind whipped the fires that were started, and several ships took significant damage.
The vice admiral in charge of the expedition felt seriously at risk there. Surely the ylver would try other ploys. The patrols of marines he sent to reconnoiter and harass were attacked, and routed with casualties. But not before one of them had watched large rafts being built, and firewood piled. And there were carrels on the river bank, presumably of tar, and butchers' cauldrons for melting it. The admiral could imagine a string of fire rafts chained or roped together, floating down to hang up on his ships. That would be catastrophe.
So when the storm abated the next day, he took his whole fleet out of the river, and labored back northward through still heavy seas toward Balralligh.
When they arrived, Kurqosz had already left with his army, to capture Colroi.
26 The Willing and the Unwilling
The late summer evening was cool, hazy, and autumnal, and Macurdy was on foot, giving Vulkan a half-hour break, more or less. Something he did several times a day. He'd decided to get in better shape, and had taken to trotting instead of walking during the breaks.
This was good farmland, somewhat more cleared than wooded. And as much improved as roads had been in the river kingdoms, in the Marches they were better. Certainly the Imperial Highway was. It even had reliable and fairly frequent mileage signs. The last had read BLACK GUM 2, and Macurdy and Vulkan had decided to spend the night there.
To the west, across a pasture, was a sunset that reminded Macurdy of murky red sunsets he'd seen in Oregon, in the '30s. There'd been a series of them lately. He slowed to a walk. "That's quite a sky," he said, "I'd think it was forest fires somewhere, but if it was, we'd smell smoke." He laughed. "There are people who'd take skies like that for an omen."
‹As it may be.›
"People will make it out one, that's for sure. And afterward choose something that happened, and say that proves it."
‹True.›
"Got a candidate?"
‹The cause of these vivid sunsets is a natural event that will affect many vectors more or less importantly.›
Vulkan's bland certainty took Macurdy's interest. "Really? What else do you know about it?"
Vulkan gazed westward, and he didn't answer for half a minute. ‹Weather will be the mechanism,› he said at last. ‹Definitely the weather. Over an extended period.›
Macurdy looked at that without responding. Floods, he wondered? Blizzards? Heat waves? He'd know in good time, he supposed.
They arrived at the village of Black Gum, and stopped at its crossroads inn. Word had already arrived that they were on the highway headed north, and the stableman wasn't spooked in the least to see a man ride up on a great boar. He was, though, ill at ease about being left alone with it. "I'll send out a roast for him," Macurdy told the man. "He outeats me twenty to one."
‹An exaggeration,› Vulkan replied, making the thought perceptible to the stableman. ‹Ten to one would be more accurate.› The man blinked in surprise.
Macurdy went into the inn and ordered supper-roast beef, a large roast potato, boiled cabbage, a quarter-loaf of dark bread with butter and honey, and a mug of buttermilk. And an uncooked pork shoulder for Vulkan, which a pot boy took warily out to him.
Only after he'd ordered did Macurdy pay any attention to the conversation in the taproom. It involved some half dozen men-all who were there except for himself and the innkeeper. One man had the information; the others provided questions and interest.
The sentence that snagged Macurdy's attention was: "What do they look like, these voita somethings?"
"Too tall to go through doors without ducking. Red hair, great long ears like a goat… And they're sorcerers. That's the main thing."
My God! Macurdy thought. It's happened!
"Ears like a goat? Not likely," another man said. "Someone's put you on."
"Ears like a goat," Macurdy interjected. "I guarantee it." Then he turned to the message bearer. "How did you hear of them?"
"I stopped at the post station at Venderton. An express rider had just stopped for a remount and a bite to eat. He'd given the station keeper a bulletin on it, to post there. The keeper asked him questions while he ate, and I listened. Before I left, I read the bulletin. You can too, if you stop there."
Quickly Macurdy got the principal points: A voitik army had captured first the Eastern Empire's main seaport, then its capital. Messengers had been sent hurrying west to Duinarog.
He restrained the impulse to run out, jump on Vulkan, and gallop off northward. Instead he finished his meal, then went outside and told Vulkan. Five minutes later they were on the road again, invisible now. They'd go till midnight or so, then sleep by the road and be off again at dawn. If they pushed it, they could be in Duinarog in four days.
They arrived at the imperial palace early on the fifth. The gate guards didn't hesitate to let them inside. In fact, the stableboy who took charge of Vulkan told them, "They're expecting you in there. Word came yesterday that you were in the Marches on your way north."
Macurdy had scarcely left the stable when a page came pelting across the courtyard and took him to His Majesty's audience chamber. Cyncaidh was there with the emperor. Both ylver were on their feet, and shook Macurdy's hand. "I knew you'd come," Cyncaidh said. "As soon as you heard the Voitusotar had arrived."
"I didn't hear about it till I got to Black Gum. A little place in-Broglium, I think it is."
Gavriel nodded. "Broglium. Correct. How much do you know about what happened?"
Macurdy summarized the little he'd heard and read.
Gavriel nodded. "The best thing to do next," he said, "is have you hear Lord Felstroin, who commanded the Balralligh Legion, and Lord Naerrasil, Morguil's military advisor."
"Morguil?"
"The eastern emperor. Naerrasil is here seeking an alliance against the Voitusotar." Gavriel gestured toward Cyncaidh. "Raien's job is to bring in the Marches. We hope you can bring in the Rude Lands. And mine-is more basic. I must convince the Council."
Macurdy frowned. "Convince the Council?"
"Quaie's infamous incursion into Kormehr, and your own armed… retaliation, resulted in new law. Which requires approval by the Council to send the Throne Army outside the empire. I need eight of the twelve votes."
"Eight votes? Will that be hard?"
"I have discussed it with them already, without requesting a vote; their formal rejection would block reconsideration for a month. The members have serious questions about the wisdom of it. Their feeling is, the Eastern Empire is already lost."
Macurdy pursed his lips. "If your council won't agree to send an army," he said, "what do you suppose the kings of the Rude Lands will say when I ask them to?"
"That is precisely what I will ask my council before it votes. But their reluctance is not without grounds. Hold your judgement until you've heard the battles described, and the current tactical situation. I've sent for Lord Naerrasil and his aide, and Lord Felstroin, to brief you. Brief you and my war minister, Lord Gaerimor, who like yourself has just arrived. And an old friend of yours who was there."
"A friend of mine? At the battle?"
"The chief of a dwarvish trade mission from the Diamond Flues: Tossi Pellersson Rich Lode. He was at Colroi when it was captured. The voitik leader, Crown Prince Kurqosz, took one look at the dwarves, then had them courteously escorted clear of the voitik lines, and released." Gavriel chuckled mirthlessly. "I suppose the crown prince has read the mythical description of Vismearc's terrors, and decided to take no chances with dwarves."
At Cyncaidh's suggestion, they met after lunch. In one of His Majesty's gardens, in order that Vulkan could attend. Naerrasil had brought more than an aide and Lord Felstroin with him. He came with half a dozen other east ylvin officers. There, against the quiet background of wind chimes and splashing fountains, Macurdy was briefed. Felstroin led off with his observations of both battles, and as a prisoner at Balralligh. And described his experience with the voitik crown prince. Lord Naerrasil described the tactical situation as it had been when he'd left, and his estimate of the voitik resources.
"Apparently their enlisted personnel are all humans," he said. "Voitar make up the command levels above some undetermined grade." He paused, then added glumly, "We do not know how many troops we faced. But judging from an estimate of the ships that brought them, they numbered between thirty and fifty thousand.
"Which actually is only half their army, though half was quite enough. And their losses were minor."
"Half their army?"
"The other half sits stranded on the Scrub Coast. A great storm destroyed or crippled many of their ships."
"How did you find that out?"
"Of the ships that brought them to Balralligh, most were then sent back to bring the rest of the army north, or as many as they had room for. But on their way south, they were struck by another storm, which destroyed some of them and drove the rest to shelter in the river Seorroch. We had a garrison there, which then attacked the fleet with fire boats-unfortunately to little avail. Meanwhile the voitik fleet sent marine patrols out. There was fighting. Three wounded marines were captured, and questioned separately.
"They were human, of course, and assumed they'd be tortured if they were not forthcoming. So they spoke earnestly and, from their auras, honestly. And their stories matched quite well. Our commander in Port Seorroch reported it to us by messenger pigeons. The messages were numbered, and all but two arrived."
Macurdy sat examining his fingernails. They needed cleaning. His whole body needed a bath. "So what happened when the storm ended?" he asked. "I suppose the fleet continued south?"
"Seemingly not. Message number twelve said it turned north when it left. The storm had driven nine aground that we know of, and it's probable that others foundered. Those that anchored in the river had taken considerable damage. Our assumption is, they returned to Balralligh harbor, probably to the shipyards on the river, for repairs."
What interested Macurdy more than anything else was the description of voitik sorceries at Balralligh and Colroi. Most were not directly effective on ylver, though some sorcerous lightnings had been. Tossi Pellersson added that to the dwarves, the monsters were little more than wisps. " 'Tis rock that's real," he said. "Rock's what we see best."
Naerrasil summarized the situation as he saw it. "Our primary problem," he said, "is our strong dependence on our human infantry. But given the size of the voitik army, along with our lack of allies, we have no choice. And as long as we stand alone, no chance. What we need-" he paused to look grimly at Gavriel "-what we need is an all-out effort by every trained ylf in the two empires. In the face of voitik sorceries, human troops are useless to us." He looked at Tossi Pellersson. "And even then the odds look bleak. But if the dwarves joined us, and if they're as good as they claim to be, our prospects would be much improved."
Tossi's eyes were hard. "It does ye no good to tell me about it. I'm a trade representative, not a king. I'll take word to the Diamond Flues, but it will be weeks before I arrive there. And on my way, I'll send a messenger to Finn Greatsword, in Silver Mountain. His people are far more involved with the Eastern Empire, and far more numerous to boot. But if ye know anything at all about him, ye can guess what he'll say."
Macurdy then told of his audience with the King in Silver Mountain. The dwarf king's attitude of "wait and trade" brought a bitter twist to Naerrasil's aristocratic face. Then Macurdy summarized briefly his own experience with the Voitusotar, on Farside and in Hithmearc. Including the sorcery he'd witnessed, that had caused the Bavarian Gate to open daily instead of monthly.
"The thing is," he said, "it took a circle of them to do it, a team working together under the right conditions, directed by a leader. Major sorceries aren't something done on the spur of the moment. They take time and preparation."
He paused, wondering if he was right, if that was true. It had better be. He continued.
"Suppose you had small units of human troops well trained and daring. Operating behind enemy lines, moving in the woods or at night, striking where the enemy didn't expect them. What could sorcerers do about them? By the time they knew where the raiders were, they wouldn't be there anymore. It would be up to the voitar's human troops to deal with them. And what've they done so far? Mop up, after the defense had been panicked and broken by sorcery. That and kill, rape, torture and burn."
Lord Naerrasil had been shaking his head while Macurdy spoke. "Behind enemy lines, you say." His voice was bitter, tinged with scorn. "When we left, he was lined up along the Merrawin River, rich farmlands with few woods. His engineers were making pontoons and bridge sections. When he's ready and it suits him, he will send his monsters across, and follow them with all the troops he cares to. If he hasn't already. We'll try to stop them with what ylvin units we have. And be overrun."
Sneering, he finished: "And you tell me we need human raiding parties fighting in the woods!"
Everyone's attention was on Macurdy now. All but Naerrasus; his was befogged by emotion. When he'd delivered his closing jab, it had seemed to Cyncaidh that Macurdy would explode, with a sound that would buckle Naerrasil's knees.
Cyncaidh misjudged. The Lion did not roar. He looked Naerrasil over thoughtfully, then surprised everyone by bowing slightly. When he spoke it was quietly, softly, making them reach to hear him.
"Your lordship," he said, "what wars have you fought in?"
Naerrasil sensed what Macurdy was implying, and flushed. "This is my first," he said. "But I have an excellent military education and training."
"Your first." Macurdy's voice remained soft. "We might hope a man could live his life without any at all, but that's not how things are. Not now." Macurdy's eyes didn't let the ylf go. "In your position, you damn well need to be good, very good. And you need to be willing to learn, not spout off a bunch of… half-understood generalities." Macurdy had stumbled on the edge of saying bullshit. "A military education and training aren't worth much, if they don't lead to good military judgement."
Naerrasil's fair face was deep red now.
"I suggested a strategy," Macurdy went on. "Not an entire plan of war, but a strategy for part of it. You rejected it without examining it. As if you'd rather have your empire destroyed than consider possibilities. Rather leave your people to the mercy of an enemy that doesn't have any, than deviate from what they spooned into you at military school."
He paused, glancing at Cyncaidh to see how he was taking all this. Cyncaidh's face was frozen, and Macurdy turned to Naerrasil again. "I have no more suggestions for you. I'd be wasting my time. But I trust that others of your people are willing to exercise will and intelligence. If they ask, I'll tell them what they need to know to get started."
Still speaking quietly, he turned to Naerrasil's entourage. "I have yet to see country in Yuulith that doesn't have wooded areas. And winter is coming, with its long nights. Armies travel mostly on roads. Their supplies are hauled on roads, and voitik supply columns will get longer as they move farther west. Daring men, ylver or human, can attack them there. And the raiders don't need to win victories. They only need to strike quickly, kill men and horses, loot if there's time, then disappear into the forest or the night.
"With raiders rampant, the voitar will have to send strong cavalry escorts with their supply trains, cavalry that won't be at the front, fighting you."
He turned back to Naerrasil. "The men who fight such wars aren't like you. They don't have comfortable quarters, orderlies to shine their boots, and cooks to prepare meals on order. They are often hungry, often cold, often exhausted. They sleep on the ground. In the rain. They forget what it is to be clean, to be comfortable. They see comrades die. They may end up lying in the mud or snow, staring at their own entrails." He paused. "But they will punish the invader. They may even break him. Because the invader is no hero. He's a rapist and a butcher, who doesn't have much taste for anything that puts his life in danger."
Macurdy looked around at the assemblage. A single pair of hands clapped, slowly but loudly: Tossi Pellersson's. "If anyone wants to talk with me about this," Macurdy finished, "I'll be lying in the sun, on the lawn outside the main entrance." He turned to Vulkan. "Shall we go, good friend?"
Vulkan got to his hooves. ‹I believe it is time. You have said what was necessary.›
They left then. Macurdy's mood was beginning to sag from the rough brutality of his own words. The message had been needed, he told himself, but he wished he'd spoken less cruelly.
He'd begun to wonder if anyone was going to take him up on his offer, when Cyncaidh appeared, and sat down beside him on the lawn. "Lord Gaerimor," Cyncaidh said, "is busily rubbing oil on Lord Naerrasil's wounded pride. While discussing possible modifications of standard military philosophy. I believe he'll make more progress than one might expect.
"Meanwhile, Gavriel and I discussed our own situation. My emperor's strengths do not include matters military, and he tends to accept my advice on them. He is, of course, imperializing and mobilizing the twenty-eight ducal armies, most of them numbering two companies. They and the Throne Army will move at least to the border, and if the Council approves, to wherever the front is.
"My own dukedom is the largest, and my army consists of five companies, though normally I have only one on active duty. The rest are reserves, meeting in each season for a week of training. And all are mounted-human as well as ylver-trained to fight both on foot and horseback.
"Some grew up townsmen, some farmers, some woodcutters or fishers or trappers, but most are woodsmen when they can be. In the north, even townsmen grow up to hunt.
"As required by law and tradition, my ylver and my humans are in separate companies, the humans with human officers. But they are all very good. And in the northland, many humans show the talent-lighting fires with a gesture, and some of them even weaving repellent fields against insects. There's been crossbreeding through the centuries, you see. Not abundant, but enough. And it seems to me that some of my humans, perhaps many, will see through the monsters the voitar create. Especially when prepared in advance."
He looked at Macurdy's typically human features. "I'm sure you understand that."
Macurdy looked wryly back at Cyncaidh. "You're not telling me all this to pass the time," he said.
"Of course not. You see, Gavriel has given me dispensation to keep my cohort independent. To train and lead them as raiders in the manner you described. And within the Throne Army, men will be offered an opportunity to volunteer for another such cohort."
Macurdy realized he was frowning, and why: He doubted these people could do it successfully, and the doubt irritated him. Why couldn't they? In the 1930s, the U.S. Army had been painfully conservative. And ignorant. Yet a few years later it had the world's best air force, a number of armored divisions, and five airborne divisions plus ranger battalions. Decision was the beginning, and the decision had been made. There, and now here.
"You'll need advice," he said. "Principles. Some guidelines. I don't have time to train your people, not even a cadre. I'll tell you things, you and any others who want to listen. Then you ask questions and I'll answer them. You can take it from there yourself."
Cyncaidh didn't grin, but his aura, and his slight smile, told Macurdy how confident he was. "As a youth," the ylf said, "my greatest pleasure was to track wildlife. I seldom hunted to kill; at Aaerodh Manor we had no need of wild meat. I tracked simply to learn more of how they lived, and to glimpse them from time to time. To run through the forest in moccasins in summer and autumn, and on skis and snowshoes in winter. My father used to tell me I spent too much time at it."
Macurdy smiled back at him, a smile that took life of its own and became a grin. "How about this evening? Can you get people together by then?"
"This evening after dinner. At my home. Varia hasn't returned from Aaerodh yet, but Talrie will see that we're properly fed and have clean bed linens. You will stay with me, of course."
Of the fifteen who met that evening at Cyncaidh's residence, three had come west with Lord Naerrasil, each of them making a point of shaking Macurdy's hand before they sat down. That raised Macurdy's eyebrows. He'd done more good than he'd realized, that afternoon.
He didn't get to bed that night till after two.
The next morning, Cyncaidh went to the palace at his usual hour, leaving Macurdy still asleep. After a bit, Talrie woke him. "Marshal Macurdy," he said quietly, "there is a gentleman in the foyer, waiting to see you. A Mr. Pellersson. Shall I invite him to breakfast with you?"
Macurdy sat up, gathering his wits. "Tossi Pellersson? Sure. And tell the cook that dwarves like big breakfasts." He swung his legs out of bed, hurried through his morning preliminaries, and pulled his clothes on. When he reached the breakfast room, Tossi was waiting there for him, drinking the usual ylvin sassafras with honey. He and his trade mission, Tossi said, were leaving that morning for the Diamond Flues-a four-week ride on dwarf ponies.
The two ate leisurely, food secondary to talk. Tossi had been up to see the sun rise. It had been as red and murky as the sunset. "It's of the Earth," Tossi said.
"What do you mean?"
"The sky has the smell of rock."
"Rock?"
"Aye. My people know the smell of rock. And not just with the nose. Something like this happens every few decades. Though rarely this strong, I think."
Macurdy let it pass. Mostly they talked of the old days, when Tossi and two younger cousins had mixed into tallfolk affairs to the shocking extent of taking part in the Kullvordi revolt. Then Macurdy told briefly of the evening meeting that had gone on till well after midnight.
Tossi grinned ruefully. "I wish I could help," he said. "But in the Diamond Flues we're far removed from the ylver and their troubles. My people will say the invaders will never come so far west, and they may well be right."
His eyes peered at Macurdy from beneath heavy brow ridges, crowned with thatches of coarse hair. "As for the folk in Silver Mountain-they're far more numerous than we are. The last I heard, they could call seven thousand to the surface, armed and ready. If they felt the need. But in Silver Mountain, their focus is on wealth even more than ours is. Ye'd have to convince them the invader is a threat, and I doubt even yew could do that."
Macurdy had already come to that conclusion. When they'd finished eating, Tossi got to his feet and thrust out a hand. "I hope our paths will cross again, Macurdy," Tossi said. "Yer more than a dwarf friend, ye know. Yer a brother to me."
Then he left for the inn where the others of his party had been staying.
Macurdy gathered his own things, then he and Vulkan took to the highway. Southward, to see what he could accomplish with the kings of the Rude Lands.
27 The Younger Brother
Prince Chithqosz was as tall as his elder brother, and to voitik eyes as handsome. What he did not have was Kurqosz's power and certainty, his ambition and focus.
Nor was he jealous. It was much easier to be the younger, lesser brother, occupied with his concubines and sketch pads, his blocks of marble, granite, and limestone; walnut, cherry, and linden. With his drills, chisels, knives, saws, files, and charcoal. He considered his sculptures superior, both in stone and wood, and in important respects they were. They were not inspired, but his craftsmanship was superb, and his eye for form and nuance excellent.
As a youth he'd wanted to be like Kurqosz, so he'd studied sorcery. Psionically he proved talented-the one indispensable requirement-and advanced with remarkable quickness through the levels. Until the work became demanding and exhausting. Then his interest sagged.
He was certainly not all his imperial father would have liked. But His Supreme Majesty, the Crystal Lord, might have settled for a sculptor in the family, had it not been for Kurqosz's dream-to someday reach Vismearc, conquer it for the Voitusotar, and punish the ylver. And when the exploration ship returned from Vismearc, the project changed from visionary and speculative to firm and dedicated. The Crystal Lord himself contracted research on a remedy for seasickness, while Kurqosz launched serious if somewhat dangerous research into new levels of sorcery.
To Kurqosz, his younger brother seemed the perfect collaborator; he had psionic skills, and was compliant. So he asked Chithqosz to be his assistant. And Chithqosz, who'd have preferred not to be, said yes. The younger genuinely and greatly admired the elder, who in turn was considerate, avoiding needless or arbitrary demands. In fact, Chithqosz's new duties did not greatly reduce his sculpting. Mainly they reduced his loafing.
Meanwhile their research was productive. First the time-honored use of "circles" was rationalized and systematized. Then they expanded their reach. New and more powerful effects became possible, admittedly with greater demands and stress, but now with less danger for the sorcerers. Chithqosz was proud of his role in it, and in his performance, which his elder brother praised.
It was the invasion itself that drastically changed Chithqosz's life. For the father ordered him to go along. Kurqosz himself would command the circle of masters, tapping energies and elementals too powerful to control with adepts. Meanwhile the two circles of higher adepts would manipulate lesser energies, to produce monsters and panics-the basic weapons of the new sorcery.
It could be necessary, from time to time, that one of the circles of adepts link with the circle of masters, to anchor it and stabilize its power. Which required a master to lead it, one who harmonized well with Kurqosz. The Crystal Lord assigned Chithqosz to the job.
For the first time in his life, Chithqosz seriously resisted. He was sure, he said, that at sea he would die. (The truth was, he had a low tolerance for contemplated discomfort.) His father pointed out that the years of herbal testing had provided a palliative which worked for almost all voitar, and insisted Chithqosz try it on a 130-mile, round-trip test voyage across the Ilroin Strait. To Chithqosz's dismay, though he felt queasy, he never once threw up. His father declared him perfectly suited, and ordered him to complain no further.
Actually Kurqosz had suggested to their father two other masters of suitable age who might be substituted. But the Crystal Lord had decided. Chithqosz, he said, needed to get out of the palace, take responsibility, and act like a prince. And of course Kurqosz gave way, as Chithqosz did.
As it developed, Chithqosz survived the sixty-four-day crossing of the Ocean Sea better than most of the voitar on the voyage. In fact, he was one of the handful who outlasted most of the symptoms. All but the medication's principal side effect, an enervating chronic diarrhea for which no useful medication had been found. Thus he ended the voyage proud of himself on the one hand, and on the other, determined that once back in Hithmearc, he would never, ever, set foot on a ship again.
After ordering seventy ships back to the Scrub Coast, Kurqosz assumed he'd taken care of matters there, and marched off to Colroi unworried. While ravaging the capital, he learned that the ships, those which hadn't been destroyed, had returned with their mission aborted.
He had instantaneous communication with the force left at Balralligh. Every headquarters, from battalion on up, had a voitu communication specialist, whose skills enabled him to quickly locate specific information in the hive mind. Thus Kurqosz was quickly informed when the fleet returned. Twelve ships had been lost, and others newly damaged by storm or fire.
There'd been no voitu with the mission, so the events were not recorded in the hive mind. Neither the communications specialist nor Kurqosz had any way to view the events directly. Therefore the crown prince's first response was to order the vice admiral flogged. His second was a query to the high admiral, asking how seaworthy were the ships that had returned.
The answer was, not very, particularly given the continuing bad weather. If a new expedition was sent, he'd recommend that it comprise not more than the best thirty ships.
So Kurqosz contacted Chithqosz directly through their personal subchannel of the hive mind. The younger prince was in excellent spirits. How had the fighting gone? he asked. Chithqosz was delighted with the answer. Briefly they exchanged thoughts and images, including the matter of the aborted rescue.
Chithqosz insisted things were going well on the Scrub Coast, and that the problem of provisions had been handled for the near future. He'd learned that to the people of the Scrub Lands, their cattle were their wealth, their pride, and their reputation. And when word came of the invaders, they'd driven most of their livestock deep into the back country. Now his cavalry had a swarm of platoons out hunting them. Already they'd begun bringing in cattle in quantities. The men might tire of eating mainly beef, especially tough stringy beef, but they would not go seriously hungry.
It had been a reassuring exchange, Kurqosz told himself. Chithqosz was handling his command adequately, and was in good spirits. Nor had it hurt that his younger brother had found an attractive woman for his bed, a woman stupid but passionate.
Next he contacted the chief communicator at Balralligh again, and gave him a message for the high admiral. Push hard on refitting ships. As soon as eighty were in thoroughly sound condition, send them south to pick up the remainder of the army.
Meanwhile he'd send patrols west to the Merrawin River. When he had adequate information, he'd march his army there, and with that he'd control a third of the Eastern Empire. The rich and fertile third. Autumn, it seemed, came early there, winter would follow, and provisions were necessary in fertile lands as well as poor. He needed to collect, store, and safeguard food for his troops. And fodder for his cavalry, and for the thousands of draft horses he'd appropriated.
"I am told you claim to have been over the road that goes through the mountains," Chithqosz said. He spoke Yuultal-"Vismearcisc"-as well as any of the voitar, and for the most part understood what was said to him in the Scrub Lands dialect.
"Yes, your lordship. Twicet each way."
"For what purpose?"
"Trade, your lordship."
Chithqosz frowned. "Trade?" he asked. Surely these people had nothing to trade.
"Of salt fish, your lordship."
"I've seen no salt fish here. And why would anyone trade for salt fish?"
"There's some prosperous kingdoms acrosst the mountains, your lordship. A market for delicacies."
"Salt fish is a delicacy?"
"A partic'lar land is. Calls 'em smelt. Mighty tasty. They runs up the cricks in the spring of the year, to spawn. Some years folks takes 'em in great muchness, and salts 'em down in barls. And if they's enought, I hauls 'em crosst the mountains soon's they's salted down. They's best if they don't lay in the salt too long. It renches outen 'em better."
Chithqosz didn't ask many more questions. His attention was stuck on two pieces of information. Prosperous kingdoms across the mountains, and twelve or fifteen days by wagon. He had the human given a gold morat for his information.
Fortunately for the trader, the Voitusotar do not see auras.
Chithqosz might not have decided as he had, were it not for the weather and the living conditions. During the nearly two weeks since he'd painted a rosy word-picture for Kurqosz, the wind had blown almost constantly. Cold wind. And rained enough-cold drizzles, mainly-that things had gotten wet and not really dried out. Especially in the shelter tents occupied by his troops.
However, after he'd talked to the "fish merchant," the day before, the sun had come out. A good omen. He'd run for an hour on the beach, in the sunshine, and thought about prosperous kingdoms across the mountains.
The next night he dreamed of them. And woke up chilled despite his down quilt and the fire his orderly kept in the fireplace. A newly risen sun shone through the membrane-the lining of a cow's abdomen-that covered his window. But when Chithqosz went outside, he found the surface of the ground frozen. It was then he made his mind up. As soon as he'd eaten, he contacted Kurqosz and made his proposal. The crown prince asked some questions, then exchanged thoughts with General Klugnak, Chithqosz's chief of staff.
Finally he touched minds with his younger brother again, and approved his proposal. Howeyer, Chithqosz was to let his chief of staff make the operational decisions. Klugnak was a good and experienced senior officer.
Meanwhile, Kurqosz's own campaign had proceeded without a hitch. And according to his intelligence officers, the kingdoms outside the ylvin empires were human. Except for the rare dwarvish enclave, and the dwarves were interested only in trade.
28 Triple Whammy
A brigade-some six thousand officers and men-were left behind, distributed at various points along the ten miles of coast. They would safeguard the ships, and the crews and engineers refitting them.
The rest marched away, in a column ten miles long-soldiers, cattle, packhorses, and wagons. The cattle-mobile rations-had been distributed to the individual battalions, each battalion responsible for its own. Wagons were relatively few-from two to eight for each battalion, depending on whether the battalion was infantry or cavalry They carried the equipment of the battalion's engineer platoon, and corn and minimal hay for the horses. The troops carried their own gear and cornmeal.
The voitar themselves walked. They'd have run much of the time, but were slowed by the pace of their human infantry. Voitar, of course, carried almost nothing except their swords and daggers. Officers' baggage was carried by packhorses.
It took five days for the lead unit to reach the point where the river left the mountains and entered the swamp. Chithqosz was impressed with the stone wharf there, and the road, what he could see of it. Obviously neither had been built for commerce in salted fish. Meanwhile the weather had held good-cool, but with hazy sunshine. General Klugnak ordered the army to make camp. He'd rest the men and horses a day before starting them up the road.
He did, however, send scouts up the road on horseback. They returned an hour later. The valley, they said, narrowed to a rocky gorge, little more than wide enough to accommodate the river-the Copper River, according to the fish merchant. The road had continued westward, in places carved into the gorge wall. At the mouth of the gorge they'd found a small building of neatly cut and fitted rock, but no one had been there. A toll road, Klugnak guessed aloud to the prince, manned in season by whoever had built the road, but this was not the season.
The next morning at dawn, the army started up the river.
The heart of the Great Eastern Mountains-the part that had inspired the "Great" in the name-lay some sixty miles south of the Copper River Gorge, and farther from the sea. The head of the Copper River Pass was only 3,100 feet above sea level, and the shoulders above the pass only 600 feet higher. That far north, the mountain range is particularly broad, an extensive series of north-south ridges, from whose drainages, small mountain streams empty into the Copper River. Mostly from hanging ravines, via falls and cascades.
The army's progress was less than swift. Here and there were rock falls, the source of the innumerable tumbled blocks of stone over and around which the Copper River rushed and romped. When the lead unit encountered a rock fall partly blocking the road, trumpets echoed through the gorge, stopping the column. Then men and horses went to work clearing the rock. Even so, at late dusk of the first day, the hindmost battalion had entered the gorge.
There wasn't a hint of rain, which was fortunate, because there was no place to pitch tents. Men and junior officers slept on or beside the road itself, on rock or rubble. Senior officers slept on pallets laid on hay. There was no forage along the road; the horses were skimpily fed from the fodder on the wagons. Klugnak hoped these mountains did not outlast the fodder supply.
At midmorning of the second day, the lead battalion-the command battalion-reached a remarkable bridge. Two massive stone piers arose from each side of the river, anchoring ropes made of steel wire. Ropes the like of which Chithqosz had never seen before. Suspended from them by similar but smaller ropes hung a bridge floored with thick, white-oak planks. The planks, like the cables, were ancient, made immune to decay by dwarven spells. Chithqosz sensed the spells as he crossed, and found them neutral, without threat.
A few hours later, scouts came back to report another suspension bridge, with a manned guard station at its far end. They'd seen it from a little distance, and believed the guards had seen them in turn. It seemed to Klugnak the scouts were uneasy about it, no doubt at the possibility they might be ordered to cross the narrow span in the teeth of crossbow fire.
"Continue the march," the general ordered. Thirty minutes later, the prince and the general could see the bridge ahead, and the guard station at its far end. The building was small, built of stone against a sheer rock face. A wooden barricade arm had been lowered, blocking the road. Even seen from a hundred yards away, the guards were short and broad, with disproportionately long arms. Lines in a book came to the minds of both voitar: "… savage warriors no higher in stature than the nipples of a man." A human man. "Short of leg but long of arm
… and no concept of mercy."
A chill bristled Klugnak's hair, but he rejected it. The warnings of sea dragons and serpents, bees the size of sparrows, great birds that killed and ate men-all had been fantasy. He turned to his aide. "I want the place captured and the guards taken prisoner. Kill them only if they resist."
The voitik major saluted sharply. "As you order, sir."
A squad of the prince's personal guard company-rakutur, voitik halfbloods-approached the guard station. Their sergeant ordered the two guards to put down their weapons. One of the guards skewered the sergeant with his spear. Within half a minute, both guards lay dead. But on the ground before them lay four rakutur-four rakutur!-two dead, one dying, and another whose next shirt would need only one sleeve.
Klugnak himself examined the building's interior. Despite the dwarves' short stature, the door was more than high enough to accommodate the towering voitu nicely, and two human soldiers could pass through it side by side if they chose. He wondered why. Actually it was to permit dwarves to hurry out with their weapons, including spears and poleaxes.
In back, the door leading into the mountain was little more than five feet high. To pass through it, a human would have to bend or crouch, a serious problem if it was defended from the other side. It opened into a large chamber with two rear entrances. One was an upward-slanting tunnel, polished slippery smooth, and too low for even a dwarf to stand in. The other was about six feet high, at the foot of steep stairs that climbed into darkness. All of which should have told Klugnak several things, as should the faint lingering odor of lamp smoke in the room. But his arrogance got in the way, and at any rate the die had been cast.
Outside the guard station, the rakutur destroyed the wooden bar that blocked the road, and the column moved on.
An hour later, a short stocky figure emerged from a tunnel eight hundred feet higher, and half a mile south of the gorge. The dwarf carried a trumpet as long as himself, and raising it, blew a single long piercing blast. Then he sat down to wait.
A short while later, a vulture-sized black bird arrived, resembling a large-headed raven with a crimson cap. It settled on a nearby pine.
"Everheart?" the dwarf called.
"Himself," the bird answered.
"How are yer nestlings?"
"Grown, flown, and on their own, I'm grateful to report. I am ready for another twenty-year vacation from parenting." The bird cocked his red-crowned head. "Why have you called on the great ravens?"
Like the dwarves, the great ravens were disinclined to involve themselves in politics. They didn't need enemies. But they had an agreement with the dwarves. The surface of the Silver Mountain kingdom was almost entirely wilderness. And there all the great ravens in that half of the continent built their nests and raised their young, untroubled by human predators.
"I've a report for the King in Silver Mountain," the dwarf said, then described the skirmish at the bridge.
Everheart didn't need to fly it to the king; the great ravens had their own hive mind. He simply needed to get the attention of others. Another of his kind, located near the palace, could deliver it much more quickly than he.
By late on the second afternoon, the river, though still boisterous, was smaller than it had been. From that, Klugnak judged that the lead battalion would reach the head of the pass late the next day, and start down the other side. After days of unbroken hazy sunshine, there now were tall clouds in the sky. He hoped it wouldn't rain. He felt a vague anxiety, and wanted to get out of the mountains as soon as possible. Again he did not halt for the day until dusk had thickened nearly into night.
Again they slept in the road, and again it did not rain.
A great raven had given the report to the King in Silver Mountain. The king had given him one in return, which the bird relayed to the entrance of the Great Northern Copper Lode. Production there was not what it had been a century earlier. But still there were more than three hundred adult male dwarves within a five-hour speed march of the head of the pass, and as many more within nine hours. The speech of message gongs sounded throughout the networks of drifts, dwelling areas, and utility and connecting tunnels, inspiring swift but organized activity.
Shortly after noon the next day, the lead battalion approached a third suspension bridge. There the river was a relatively modest stream. The road was cut into the south side, forty or fifty feet above the river, and the gorge walls, though still precipitous, were not so high as before. Clearly they were near the head of the pass.
The scouts had already crossed the bridge when their trumpeter blew a warning peal: danger!
It was a signal to more than the army's commanders. Within seconds, a swarm of crossbow darts hissed down from the opposite rim. Soldiers fell, along with voitar, horses, cattle. Nor did it seriously abate after the first volley. The dwarf physique is ideal for stirrup-cocked crossbows, providing a rate of fire not so inferior to that of an ordinary bow skillfully used. And their accuracy was excellent. Soldiers and animals panicked, filling the air with screaming, whinnying, bawling, and shouted curses. And trumpet blasts, which stopped the rearward battalions where they were. The panicked cattle were especially dangerous because of their horns. A number of men and horses were crowded off the edge of the road, to fall to the broken rocks along the river's edge.
Until the whole army could stop and turn around, there was no place to go except ahead. The first unit of the command battalion was the prince's company of mounted rakutur. Without conferring with Chithqosz, General Klugnak ordered them to charge, to take and hold the bridge. They charged.
As if the charge were another signal, a barrel-sized stone started down from the gorge top, rolling and bounding to the road, where it killed two men, squashing one of them. It hadn't yet landed when others started down, then still others.
All remaining order dissolved. The men who could, crowded against the gorge wall, hoping the stones would land farther out, as most did. For two or three minutes the bombardment continued on the lead battalion. Then it stopped, only to begin farther down the column a few minutes later.
Between the assault of boulders and crossbow darts, the only voitik eyes that had followed the charging rakutur were Klugnak's. He watched the lead squads make it across the bridge without drawing fire. Then a swarm of darts slammed into them, and on those jammed up on the bridge behind them. The bridge span began to sway from side to side, as wounded and panicked animals reared, trying to escape. Some got their forelegs over the hand line, and overbalancing, fell to the rocks and water below. On the far side a block of stone-half a ton or more-struck the top of a bridge pier. The upper part of the pier shattered, releasing the great ringbolt that held a suspension cable. The bridge span fell sideways, dumping horses and men into the gorge. A few rakutur held on, dangling from the hand lines and targeted by sharpshooters.
That was the last that Klugnak saw. A block somewhat smaller than most, perhaps a hundredweight, struck and killed him, instantly and messily. Chithqosz stood five feet away, flattened against the cliff, his eyes pinched shut. He saw none of it. Then his communicator gripped his arm and pulled him back down the road.
The lead battalion was a shambles. Although many were dead, a large majority had survived, but their morale had been demolished. More by the crashing rocks than by crossbow bolts, though the latter had caused most of the casualties. And the way ahead was destroyed. The army's only option was to get back downstream, out of the gorge. They'd taken something more than two and a half days to get where they'd gotten. If asked, they'd have said a day and a half would get them back out.
The entire dwarf attack had been concentrated on the first two battalions in the column, but word passed swiftly backward. Within two hours, the final battalion in the ten-mile-long column had heard what had befallen the first, a report enriched with exaggerations. By then, all of them had seen the two dead dwarves lying by the gatepost of their barricade, their beards plaited in war braids.
Now the legend felt real.
Meanwhile the command lines had begun to function. The rear battalion became the lead battalion, and its voitik commander sent mounted scouts out "ahead," back the way they'd come. It was downhill, and the scouts rode briskly. At length they rounded a bend from which they could see the guard station-and the second suspension bridge. They stopped, staring. Its oaken span had been burned; its cables hanging loosely in sagging arcs. Feeling ill, they rode down to it and looked long, then started back to report.
The voitik colonel commanding the 4th Infantry Regiment had crowded and intimidated his way past the twenty-two hundred officers and men of his command, to the new "head of the column." Any voitu was intimidating to hithar, and the colonel more than most. He was nearly as tall as the crown prince, and for a voitu burly, 320 pounds. And a magnificent runner, where there was room to run.
When he saw the ruined bridge, he didn't waste time swearing. First he ordered his trumpeter to call the army to a halt, and his communicator to send back the reason. Then he examined the situation more closely, and gave other orders. Not far upstream, a brawling tributary entered the gorge from a hanging ravine, tumbling fifty feet down a stairstep falls. The colonel sent a team of engineering troops, equipped with axes, struggling up the difficult slope. They were to cut trees-pines so far as possible-fifteen inches or so in diameter. Drag and slide them down to the stream, and float them over the falls. Squads below the falls were detailed to intercept them, and pull them onto the bank. Horses would drag them to the road, and down it to a relatively quiet stretch of river, not far upstream of the bridge piers. There, rope from the engineer wagons would be used to tie some of them together, end to end, in a string along the riverbank. They were to build a small raft at the upstream end. When securely tied together, and the downstream end anchored to the shore, the raft would be launched into the current, ridden by men. The colonel didn't volunteer to be one of them. The current should swing the chain of logs out to lodge on the far bank, where the men were to anchor it.
The whole process was to be repeated, and the two chains of logs fastened together side by side, with wagon planks spiked to the logs. The army would then have a narrow bridge. Unstable, wet and slippery, perhaps, but a bridge.
That was the theory. The colonel's engineers, all of them human, were not as confident. But they kept their mouths shut. After his log cutters had disappeared upslope into the forest, the colonel sent word of the situation to Chithqosz, via his communicator. Chithqosz started back at once along the stalled ten-mile column.
The first object to come down the falls was a dead soldier, soon to be followed by others. Grim and angry, the colonel sent up another team of log cutters, this time preceded by a company of infantry to protect them. Soon logs began coming down the falls. The colonel decided there'd only been a few of the enemy, probably those sent to destroy the original bridge. And they'd slipped away when they saw the infantrymen with their crossbows and swords.
On the other hand, they may have heard what the colonel had not: distant thunder over the western slope of the mountains.
The storm first struck what had been the lead battalion. They'd seen the storm clouds, and over the river noise had heard their rumbling, so they were not taken totally by surprise. An onslaught of hail and icy rain swept them, with swirling wind, blinding flashes, crashes of undelayed thunder. The troops were soaked in the first seconds. Hail fell for only four or five minutes, but the extreme rainfall did not slacken for thirty. And when it did, it was only to a heavy, steady downpour.
It seemed to Chithqosz he'd never seen it rain so hard. With his orderly and his bodyguard, he picked his way among the miserable soldiers huddled and shivering in the road. Hundreds of new rivulets poured down the side of the gorge in miniature waterfalls. Within half a mile he came to one of the tributaries, previously small. It was already storm-swollen, surging from its ravine.
Below it he saw no further casualties, and wondered if the storm had driven their assailants to cover. If so, it might prove a life saver. At about five miles he wasn't so sure. A new squall line had passed over them, and he'd never realized that water could be so deafening, short of a major cataract. The side streams had swollen beyond recognition, and the river itself was a raging torrent. Close ahead it had flooded a stretch of road that before had been six or eight feet above the water. It was impossible to go farther downstream.
Then, loud as the river was, it took on a new tone-a booming and rumbling that was not thunder.
Here and there were trees along the margins of the road, mainly on the uphill side. Abruptly his bodyguard grabbed the prince, manhandled him to a large hemlock, and shouted unheard words in his face. Then grabbing him, turned him to face the tree, and boosted him. Chithqosz realized the rakutu wanted him to climb.
It was a thick-boled tree, but well equipped with dead branches, and gripping them, Chithqosz began to climb. When he paused, ten feet up, his bodyguard shoved him, and he climbed again; the rakutu would not let him stop. The booming grew louder, more alarming, and he no longer needed urging.
At twenty feet he saw it: a wall of water ten feet high, carrying at its front a crest of fallen trees, like battering rams. Men were swept off the road and disappeared. Chithqosz realized now what the booming was-great boulders carried rolling and bounding downstream by the torrent. One struck his tree a heavy blow,: the shock almost dislodging him, and for a moment he feared the hemlock would be torn from its roothold. Swiftly the water climbed the trunk, and panicking, Chithqosz began to scramble upward again, into green branches, pursued by the water.
He spent the evening and night there, the rain never stopping, though gradually it slowed. Exhaustion and hypothermia weakened the prince, and long before midnight he'd have dropped into the river, had it not been for his bodyguard. The rakutu somehow got out of his own breeches and used them to tie the prince to the tree. Then, clinging to the trunk with powerful arms and hands, the half-breed jammed a broad shoulder under the prince's rear, for support.
Numb with cold, Chithqosz slipped into a sort of sleep, dreaming, but always aware of the rain. Were he not tied to the tree, he'd have fallen. At some point he became aware that his bodyguard was no longer there.
Eventually the rain nearly stopped, and although he couldn't see it, the water level had dropped somewhat. It seemed to him he was alone in the gorge, his whole army drowned, carried away. He was sure he would die.
He was wrong on both counts. Dawn thinned the darkness. The river was less loud, and he heard shouts! Then the sun came up! The sun! Sections of the road had remained above the flood. Men had retreated to them. Others, where the slope allowed, had scrambled up out of the gorge. The base of his tree became visible, then the road surface beside it. With his dagger he cut the breeches that held him in place. Then, with exaggerated care, he climbed unsteadily down from the tree.
He was shivering with cold and shock. Other voitar found and fed him, and together they worked their way down the gorge. In places the road was still under water, and they waded, or waited. Late in the day they came to the ruined bridge. Some soldiers had crossed on the deck cables, holding on to the hand lines. Others had butchered horses and cows, and lacking dry wood, were eating the meat raw. Many were coughing, harsh hacking coughs rooted in shock and hypothermia.
Using his communications aide, a colonel had reached the hive mind, and reported the catastrophe to the crown prince's headquarters, then to the brigadier left in command on the Scrub Coast.
Meanwhile they ate, stashed raw meat in their packs, and took their turns crossing on the cables.
Two days later, coughing, wheezing, wobbling, sweating with fever, Prince Chithqosz emerged from the gorge. A remarkable percentage of the troops who emerged were similarly ill. Someone had ordered camp set up near the stone dock, with fires and crude lean-tos. The weather was clear, the nights cold, even frosty. They ran out of the meat they'd brought with them. Many died of pneumonia.
A relief column arrived from the coast. Ships from Balralligh came up the river channel through the great swamp, and loaded men at the dock.
The magnitude of the losses in the gorge would not be sorted out for another week. Nearly six thousand men were missing or known dead.
And of course, the army had a new enemy, though it occurred to no one that their significance would go beyond this one encounter.
Many of the bodies snatched away by the flood were swept out to sea by the current. There, some were taken by sharks and other marine scavengers. Many were carried along the coast by offshore currents, then deposited by waves on the beach, to be scavenged by an assortment of beach fauna, from gulls to vultures, crabs to possums.
One very long corpse, face down in the sand, was examined curiously by a fish crow. Earlier scavengers had reduced the clothing to shreds, the body to bones and cartilage. Lying beneath the ribcage was a shiny stone-a blue crystal, round and polished, about the size of a hickory nut with the husk on. The fish crow walked around the ribcage, looking for a way to get at the stone.
Circling above, a great raven watched, large as a vulture but incomparably more intelligent. Deciding to investigate, it swooped down. Complaining, the fish crow flew off a few yards and waited.
The great raven grasped the rib cage with its large powerful beak and tugged, tugged, and tugged again. Then reaching, it picked up the stone and flew away with it.