Two men were fighting.
Bored by dull days spent camped by the river, other men gathered round to urge them on, to shout, to cheer and lay bets on the outcome. Disturbed by the noise, Lord Alagrace came out of his tent, and saw immediately what was happening.
His first thought was of Yen Olass Ampadara. Guessing that she would escape if given the chance, he had assigned men to keep watch over her by day and by night. She might be no good to him as an oracle, but she might have her value if the army renewed its call for the death of a dralkosh…
Looking around, at first Lord Alagrace could not see Yen Olass anywhere. Then he caught sight of her. She was right in the middle of the crowd, shouting and laughing – and making a bet with someone.
Lord Alagrace pushed his way into the crowd and stood over the two bruised and bloody men, who were now wrestling on the ground, each seeking a stranglehold.
'Cut!' bellowed Lord Alagrace.
The two men took no notice.
'You!' said Lord Alagrace, pointing. 'And you! Pull them apart!’
For this task, he had nominated two of the most sober and disciplined of the common soldiers. This was one of the tricks of command he had learnt over the years. Even in an unruly mob, there are usually a few who will obey, and when these accept commands the others will often follow.
The two fighters were dragged apart, panting and bleeding. They were not seriously damaged. The crowd did not disperse: they were interested to see what would happen now.
'Since you've got so much spare energy to burn,' said Lord Alagrace, 'There's an experiment I want to carry out.’
He pointed south. There, the narrow, swift-running surge of the river widened to a shallow flurry of foam as it leapt between boulders.
'Down there,' said Lord Alagrace, 'in the middle of those rapids, there's a female stone about so big. Her name is Gwenalyn. Go and get her for me. Now! Come on, come on, move yourselves! You should be back by now!’
The two men raced away, dodging round the occasional tree as they sprinted down the riverbank. They waded out into the rapids, slipped, fell, went over, recovered themselves, got hold of a stone 'about so big', manhandled it toward the shore, dropped it, plunged into the water to recover it, then laboured it back to the campsite.
Panting, shuddering, dripping wet, they dropped the stone down in front of their audience. By now, everyone else was taking their ease, some squatting down, others sitting on boulders or tree stumps.
Lord Alagrace got to his feet, stepped forward and nudged the stone with the toe of his boot.
'This isn't Gwenalyn!' said Lord Alagrace. 'This is Nagala. Don't you know the difference between a girl stone and a boy stone?’
'So what's the difference?' said the more reckless of the two miscreants.
'If you don't know the difference between a boy and a girl by now, it's a bit late for me to be teaching you,' said Lord Alagrace. 'All I can say is, it must make for some interesting nights.’
This quip raised lazy laughter from his audience. Lord Alagrace sent his two fighters back to the rapids to get him the girl stone Gwenalyn. When they came back, lugging the stone along between them, they were clearly exhausted.
'That's Gwenalyn all right,' said Lord Alagrace, stroking the stone, a fond smile on his face. 'Isn't she smooth and silky? And only eleven years old! Well, boys, I had a really interesting experiment in mind, but you both look too shagged out to help me with it. So put these children back in the river where they came from. No, you don't have to go back to the rapids – just put them in there, they'll make their own way home. Not like that! You're grown men, you can lift a child without any help, surely.’
The stones went back into the river, the spectators dispersed, and the two exhausted men went to dry themselves off in front of a fire. Lord Alagrace was left to ponder the deficiencies of his own leadership. Even though his troops refused to withdraw from Nightcaps, they had not thrown up their own leader to replace him; the responsibilities of day-to-day management were still his. However, he had spent his time in his tent, producing variant versions of his death song, and dreaming back to days gone by. Waiting for his death.
But perhaps he was not going to die, at least not this year. Perhaps Chonjara was irretrievably lost in the depths of Penvash. Perhaps he was dead – and if so, it was unlikely anyone else would challenge Lord Alagrace for control of the army.
Lord Alagrace knew he should get a grip on his people now, and restore discipline. They should work hard, building a stockade to defend against the Melski. They should have daily weapons drill – Haveros could organize that. Regulations concerning the use of Ordhar should be enforced: it was not good to allow the men to natter away to each other in their barbarous foreign tongues. Maybe D raven's woman should be taken away from him and given to the men for their amusement – that would raise morale. The pirate could always be disposed of if he was foolish enough to resist. That woman Resbit, she could be shared around too.
Entering the area set aside for latrines, Lord Alagrace saw there was work to be done here, too: the men should be set to work digging some decent pits, and soon, otherwise they would be wading ankle-deep in sewage.
Squatting over a stinking hole, Lord Alagrace endeavoured to excrete some of the weight lumping inside him, but failed. He was profoundly constipated, and had been for three days now. He tried again, but his bowels were still reluctant to move. He exerted himself. He felt a small pain, dull and localized, down in the lower left quadrant of his gut. Guessing he would rupture himself if he forced the issue, he gave up for the time being. He was getting old, yes. Old man with grey pubic hair. Everything slowing down, seizing up, becoming unwilling and recalcitrant. His spine resented the disciplines of gravity; his bones complained of the weather; he grew tired easily. Lord Alagrace was still meditating on this when he heard voices raised:
'They're coming!’
'Who?’
'Chonjara!’
Lord Alagrace stepped out of the latrine area, forcing himself to adopt an easy, confident stride. He saw Yen Olass idling south along the riverbank, with Resbit beside her.
'Yen Olass,' said Lord Alagrace, pitching his voice to carry. 'Here! Heel!’
Yen Olass obeyed, reluctantly; Resbit came with her. Looking at her, Lord Alagrace knew he had not been the only one to think Chonjara might well be dead.
Turning to face the north, he watched for the approach of Chonjara and his men. Before long, they came in sight, escorted by sentries who had been guarding the campsite perimeter. There were six of them. Lord Alagrace went forward to greet them. They were all battered, filthy, stinking and tired. They moved like sleepwalkers: they were in the last stages of exhaustion.
'Where are the others?' said Lord Alagrace.
'There are no others,' said a haggard man, who, with a shock, Lord Alagrace recognised as Chonjara. 'There're all dead. We're the only ones to survive.’
And he sagged forward, and fainted. Now was the moment to seize the initiative: to strike. With Chonjara dead-
But before Lord Alagrace could pull out his sword and do the obvious, men crowded round, and Chonjara was carried away to the safety of a lean-to. One of the remaining five hobbled away after him. His height betrayed the identity of this scarecrow figure: Karahaj Nan Nulador, General Chonjara's bodyguard.
'What happened?' said Lord Alagrace, confronting the last four.
'Later,' said Yen Olass, pulling at his sleeve. 'They're in no state to talk yet. Let's take them to your tent: I'll get them food.’
And Lord Alagrace, recognizing that all his authority was gone or soon to go with the return of Chonjara, allowed himself to be instructed by this slave girl, and did as she said.
For two days Chonjara and his men rested, feeding on fish, rice and barley meal cakes. They related confused stories of a ruined city of starfire stone, a monster that attacked only by night, men lured into tunnels and eaten alive, a pit-trap filled with burning fluid which ate away the flesh from the bones.
On the third day, thirty men from the south struggled into Nightcaps with their own tale of terror. They had set out from Lake Armansis, a hundred strong, but they had been ambushed by the Melski.
To get timber out of rugged country, foresters sometimes use a trip-dam. This is a wooden dam rigged so it will collapse when a few vital supports are pulled away. Water piles up behind it, logs are floated in the water, then, when the dam is tripped, a wave of water carries the logs down some stream bed which usually would lack sufficient water in which to float a good-sized branch. The Melski had attacked the soldiers by unleashing such a wave of wood and water against them.
The men had come from Lake Armansis to discover the reason for the lack of communication. Couriers and patrols had been sent earlier, but had disappeared without trace, so they had decided to come in strength.
At Lake Armansis itself, the Collosnon forces were in disarray. Some two or three hundred soldiers had gone downriver to Lorford, intending to place themselves under the command of whoever now ruled the siege forces. Others had slipped away in small groups, deserting for destinations unknown. Fifty or sixty adventurers had set off to cross the Razorwind Pass and raid whatever settlement or community they might find at Larbster Bay. The remainder were quarrelling and fighting amongst themselves, forming factions on the basis of their native language groups. Melski patrols were known to be in the area, and were blamed for the disappearance of several men who had gone hunting and had never been seen again.
Lord Alagrace was deeply ashamed to hear that his army was disintegrating. He saw that the dispute between himself and Chonjara must be settled quickly, otherwise there would be nothing left for the victor to control. Demoralised troops reaching Lorford from Lake Armansis would undermine the morale of the siege forces surrounding Castle Vaunting; men would think Chonjara and Lord Alagrace both dead; the entire army would mutiny, desert, or go over to the enemy.
Lord Alagrace knew that a duel was now inevitable and desirable. To bring order to this shambles, a man would need prestige: success in single combat would give the victor that. And a death would be valuable because the loser could be blamed for all that had gone wrong. This would comfort the soldiers, for men hate to live in an unexplained universe. Lord Alagrace was ready to fight: and to die.
Discarding all chances of gaining the upper hand by conspiracy, diplomacy or an appeal for all to respect the authority vested in him by the Lord Emperor Khmar, Lord Alagrace presented Chonjara with a formal written challenge, duly witnessed by five warriors. Lord Alagrace could have called out his enemy with a few well-chosen words, but he liked the formal elegance of his written challenge. In conflict, he had always favoured words as his weapons; now that he had chosen to resort to force instead, he saw no need to adopt the manners of a street fighter.
For half a day the camp waited, while Chonjara composed his reply. When it was ready, Karahaj Nan Nulador took the part of a herald, and, in a battleground voice, announced to all the world his master's reply:
'These are the words of Chonjara, son of Tonaganuk, horselord of the northern birthtribes, commanding men under the authority of the Lord Emperor Khmar, who gives his favour to the strongest.
'I have received what claims to be a challenge. It is said to be issued by a man named Alagrace, who pretends to be commander of the Collosnon forces in Argan. I know of no such commander; I do not recognize any such challenge.
'As all men know, we have in this camp a senile old caretaker by the name of Alagrace. He arranges rosters of men to bring in firewood and empty the fish traps. He sees that the rice gets cooked and that the rats are kept from the barley sacks. Such is the extent of his authority. If anyone has issued a challenge in the name of this senile old man, the joke is not appreciated.
'Only two men can command a claim to lead the army. One is myself. The other is Volaine Persaga Haveros, lately employed as a spy in the imperial province of Estar. To Volaine Persaga Haveros, I issue my challenge. I will meet him here and now, blade against blade, in a fight which must end with the death of one of us if it does not end with the death of both.’
Haveros accepted.
Hearing the challenge and acceptance, Lord Alagrace 256
knew he was finished as a commander. Even when he knew what he had to do – get a grip on his men, get his people working, share out the women and assert himself as a commander – he had hesitated. And now it was too late.
As Chonjara and Haveros prepared themselves for combat, Lord Alagrace advanced on Chonjara, thinking to force him to a fight. But Karahaj Nan Nulador took him from behind, mastering him first with a stranglehold and then with a wristlock.
Disarmed, and put under guard along with Draven, Yen Olass Ampadara, Resbit, Jalamex and the Princess Quenerain – Chonjara had thought of everything – Lord Alagrace wept bitter tears of shame and frustration. And wondered if he really was going senile.