Omens of Kregen Page 3

  As I had no intention whatsoever of succumbing to her wishes, and I did not want my people to suffer from the Nine Curses, then I had to live in places where we were sure Csitra could not spy on me.

  “Very well,” I said, in a right old grumbling way. “You are right: I’ll go up north and bash this King of North Vallia. But I want continuous and timely reports on the Lem blight.”

  Then the obvious — a horrible — thought occurred to me.

  “Deb-Lu — you do not think Csitra has a hand in this latest outbreak of the Lem abomination?”

  His wise old face with those crinkly lines showed a moment’s hesitation. Then he spoke out fairly.

  “My best intelligence suggests she has nothing to do with it, Dray. I keep up an Observation upon her and her uhu, Phunik, down there in the Coup Blag. But — and I stress the shadowy nature of all this, Dray — but I cannot guarantee this one hundred times out of one hundred.”

  I sat back. What a moil all this was! There was so much to be done, in Vallia, in the grouping of continents and islands called Paz, so much effort to be put into our struggle against the Shanks, that interruptions like Lem the Silver Leem and this fool witch Csitra acted like stinging insects festering around an animal’s eyes.

  Deb-Lu was quite right. I had to deal with the most important factors first. Csitra, by her actions, had thrust herself into the limelight as the next objective. Still—

  “Deb-Lu, have you anything further on the far eastern question?”

  This referred to the Shanks, those implacably hostile Fishheads, and their attack upon the large island of Mehzta over on the remotest eastern fringe of the grouping of Paz. I did not want our own people to learn of this yet, for purely selfish reasons. We had to clear up our own problems, and those of the lands near to us, before we could expend our limited strength in remotely distant operations.

  And this distressed me, for my good comrade Gloag was from Mehzta. His homeland was being ravaged and despoiled so that the rest of us could use the breathing space in the Shanks’ attack to good purpose.

  “Nothing, Dray.”

  I nodded. I noticed that here, Deb-Lu was calling me Dray instead of Jak, as was very often his custom.

  With that apparently bumbling and yet active enough movement of his, Deb-Lu turned to look across to the side. We all knew he was not looking at what we could see in our comfortable corner of Nath Famphreon’s palace.

  What he was looking at had existed where he was.

  He nodded his head with such vigor the turban toppled dangerously close to falling. He spoke. We could not hear what he said.

  He swung about to face us.

  “Khe-Hi has just paid me a swift visit instead of cutting into our conversation.”

  If anyone not a sorcerer told you he understood the protocol and the way of polite manners between Wizards of Loh — never believe him. Wizards were a law unto themselves. I could see no reason on Kregen why Khe-Hi-Bjanching should not use his kharrna to pay us a visit while Deb-Lu-Quienyin was here.

  Deb-Lu went on: “You will hear the news soon enough, for a swift messenger is on the way. Advance knowledge could prove useful.” He made a dab at his turban. “The upstart King of North Vallia has pre-empted your attack. He has struck down in force stronger than would suggest a mere raid, has routed your frontier force, and is marching south looting and burning.”

  Chapter three

  An aerial skirmish

  From the air, the vadvarate province of Kavinstock looked peaceful enough.

  The ruler of this province, holding the noble rank of vad, had been Nalgre Sultant. He and his son Ornol, members both of the once-powerful political party of the Racters, had vanished after their defeat and the reunification of Kavinstock with the rest of Vallia.

  As the small armada sailed on through the level air, I studied the land below. It looked in good heart, although occasionally we flew over areas of decay and destruction resulting from the late war.

  Far ahead over the horizon the ugly smear of black smoke rising into the air told us that death and destruction still prevailed here.

  “The black-hearted cramphs,” said Targon the Tapster at my side.

  “Aye, Targon,” I said, heavily. “We have come a long way since first we met. And it seems to me all that time there has been fighting and war.”

  Targon the Tapster, with other redoubtable fellows, had helped form the bodyguard that had turned into the First Emperor’s Sword Watch. They took it in turn to command the regiments. They detested going anywhere without me, or of letting me off the hook to go adventuring on my own without them along. The same fractious desires animated as well the lads of the Emperor’s Yellow Jackets. And, as I well knew, the two new regiments in my guard corps, the Emperor’s Foot Bows, and the Emperor’s Life Churgurs, shared that dedicated devotion to my person.

  All of which, as I have said, made me feel very small, and gave me considerable qualms for the safety of the kampeons in the regiments.

  We’d grabbed every flier we could lay our hands on and had flown up as fast as we could drive the vollers. With a foul wind, the vorlcas, the massive aerial ships that depended on sails and their ethero-magnetic keels to move them along, were severely restricted. They’d fly up eventually, though, Opaz willing.

  Kapt Erndor, Nath na Kochwold and the other commanders would move heaven and earth to get up and into action just as fast as they could.

  Targon said: “And you are confident the city of Tali will be able to hold out?”

  “Tali is a sizable place, with many towers and walls sixty paces thick, for I paced them myself. Still, there is no certitude in a town holding out against a siege.”

  “We will distract them long enough.”

  “I don’t want a lot of casualties,” I said.

  “We are all your juruk jikai. The guard corps will not hang back in a fight.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about.”

  Over the deck to where we stood in the prow, Delia walked up with that smooth grace that always catches the breath in my throat. She heard the last words of our conversation.

  “I feel exactly the same about my guards,” she said. “Nath Karidge is such a bold reckless fellow.”

  Nath Karidge commanded the elite regiment called the Empress’s Devoted Life Guard. Also, Delia had a second regiment of jurukkers, a composite regiment of bows and churgurs, a powerful force designed to operate in conjunction with Nath Karidge’s First EDLG.

  Even then, we hadn’t been able to cram everyone aboard who wanted to fly north with us.

  We did have with us a force very essential to the type of warfare carried on in these latter days in Vallia.

  Although the fliers had been able to accommodate only two squadrons of aerial cavalry, we had taken those in preference to three squadrons of ground cavalry. The saddle birds were flutduins from my kingdom of Djanduin, magnificent chargers of the air. Flown by highly trained flyers from Valka, they were worth their weight in gold.

  Marion’s regiment of Jikai Vuvushis also flew with us; they were still without an official name and I’d managed to reduce their numbers to half. The balance would come on with the advance forces of the main body. I guessed Marion herself, off honeymooning with Nango, would have a few words to say when she found out. She would bring them up very smartly, I did not doubt.

  What looked like a dark cloud over the land ahead drew out attention.

  This blot of darkness covered a white road below and straggled out into the fields on either side. It did not take an old campaigner long to know exactly what we were looking at.

  Before anyone could say anything, I spoke in my old hateful, harsh, intemperate way.

  “The best service we can render those poor devils is to fly on and smash up the hostiles. When pursuit ends and the enemy are driven back, these people can return home.”

  “You are right,” said Delia. “But I feel for them — feel terribly.”

  The refugees trudged
along. Some of them looked up and a few waved.

  Our bright scarves trailing over the bulwarks, the splendor of our paintwork, the glitter of weapons and the ugly snouts of our ballistae and catapults might appear grand and lordly sailing along in mid-air. I wondered how much they would reassure those people below. It is hard to see any good in the world when your farm has been burned and your family slain.

  The smoke cloud ahead thickened and grew closer.

  The King of North Vallia had been clever. The fortress town of Tali had been sited on the approach road from the Mountains of the North. The stout walls and strong garrison were there to prevent incursions. This clever king had struck far to the west, almost to the coast, and bypassed Tali.

  He would know that a force would march out to dispute his passage. They had done so, and had been routed.

  Now he had a clear run south for as far as he wanted to go, pillaging and burning. Only when we had gathered sufficient forces to meet him in pitched battle, he would be thinking, might he expect more opposition. And, the scheming devil, he was in great strength himself. This, it seemed clear, came from new hordes of mercenaries he had recruited from overseas.

  The lead voller in which we flew, dubbed Heart of Imrien, was not overlarge and I intended to use her as the headquarters ship. Aboard flew men and women close to Delia and me.

  Our intelligence from the northern provinces over the Mountains of the North in what was now the kingdom of the usurping and self-styled king of those regions was sparse. The general assessment was that he did not have considerable strength in the air. Our plan therefore was to use our air and avoid a direct land battle until the rest of the army came up. That was the plan.

  How many times in the past have I said: “That was the plan.” And how very very many times has that plan gone awry!

  We sailed on, searching the ground ahead for signs of our opponents.

  Heart of Imrien, as I have said, was not an overlarge specimen of voller. She possessed a structure corresponding to a raised forecastle of a terrestrial galleon, with a slightly higher poop. She had but the one fighting top, and this square battlemented fortress was supported by four stout masts, cross-braced and served by ladders.

  There was no reason at all why, in the air, the first sightings should be made from this fighting top; the fact remains, they were.

  “Fliers!” screeched down the lookouts.

  Up ahead of us, whirling like autumn leaves, the forerunners of our enemy’s aerial armada swept down full upon us. They came on with demonic speed, swirled along by the breeze which blew in our faces. There looked to be a lot of them. A deuced lot of them.

  Our trumpets pealed out and the drums beat to quarters.

  Our aerial sailors ran to their stations. The soldiers carried aboard, tough kampeons all, formed up. They were experienced enough to know when to leave one aspect of the approaching fighting to the experts.

  My bowmen could shaft as well as any, and when it came to handstrokes then my lads yielded to no one in Vallia.

  There was practically no time between the first sightings and the onslaught.

  “Fluttrells, mostly,” said Captain Voromin.

  “Aye.”

  The wide-winged birds bore on, a flutter of color and brightness through the air.

  I said to Targon: “Make sure the lads are armored. There will be time for that.”

  “Aye, and time for slaying thereafter.”

  “Yes, And tell the proud-necked fellows to keep their fool heads down.”

  With a clanking groaning the first ballista loosed. These weapons were the superior gros-varters of Vallia, throwing rocks or darts, as suited the occasion and the target. I didn’t bother to see what shooting was made. It seemed to me there were enough birds out there to soak up all the fire we could hammer out and still have enough aerial-borne warriors left to break through and make the attempt to land on our decks.

  Delia said in her rasping voice: “And, you hairy graint, where is your armor?”

  I cursed. By Makki Grodno’s diseased intestines and dripping eyeballs! If I didn’t trot off and don armor, Delia never would. She would stand at my side, shoulder to shoulder, and trade handstrokes with these reivers of the air.

  “Very well. Come on — and for the sweet sake of Zair, let us hurry!”

  For I had seen enough to know these fluttrells were flown by flutsmen, bandits of the air, mercenaries of bloodthirsty nature and heart-stopping habits.

  Strapping up a breast and back I struggled with the buckles. The breast fastened up and the back refused to go easily. I nearly left the confounded thing off, but Delia rapped out: “Put it on!”

  She was right. In these nasty affrays some protection for your back is more important at times than a breastplate. You don’t see the blow from the rear that knocks you over. After that your head is off or your inward parts are displayed for the world to see.

  Rushing back onto deck from the arched opening to the cabin we shared, I was in time to see the first of the flutsmen make their attempts to land on Heart of Imrien. Korero the Shield sprang out before us, hefting two enormous shields and a sword distributed between his five hands.

  “Hai, Korero!” I said.

  “This won’t last long,” he said, and circled his shields to loosen up his muscles.

  I confess I felt that “Hai!” a trifle overdone. I felt dull and wooden, not so much apathetic as resigned to frustration. I had no interest whatsoever in fighting bloody-minded flutsmen. They would be men and women from many nations come flying into Vallia to feast, as they imagined, on the bleeding corpse of the old empire. Some news of the new empire had traveled overseas together with startling information on the new emperor and the new armies of Vallia. This new lot of mercenaries could have come from anywhere; I had the idea they came from a long way away.

  “You look,” said Korero, “as though you’ve lost a zorca and found a calsany.”

  “Aye, and I must use up good shafts on these rasts.”

  The great Lohvian longbow gripped in my left hand, the cunning draw as perfected by Seg Segutorio imparting immense energy into the bow, I drew and let fly. The rose-fletched shaft took a rider from the air and I didn’t bother to see where he went, but drew and loosed against the next.

  That first attempt by the flutsmen to land on our decks proved a dismal and costly failure to them.

  Quite apart from the varters that simply blew the riders from the air, the massed ranks of bowmen picked them off with precision and finicky accuracy. As I say, it does not do to meddle with the kampeons of ESW or EYJ.

  Still, as I had sourly predicted, there were enough flutsmen for some to break through and touch down on the decks of Heart of Imrien.

  The Lohvian longbow went down on the deck and the great Krozair longsword went smack into my fists. Well, now...

  “Dray—” called Delia.

  “Yes, my heart,” I said, without turning.

  The leading bunch of flutsmen tumbling from their birds leaped into action with the remarkable poise and agility of true fighting men of the air. A pity they were such a pack of desperadoes of the unholy kind fit only to be sent down to the Ice Floes of Sicce. Given a better chance in life — well who knew what they might have become?

  As it was we had to chop them, and chop them fast.

  Now I refer to the Lohvian longbow and the Krozair longsword as “great” more often than not. This is because they are great. There are longbows and longswords on Kregen that are not great.

  The Krozair brand snicked this way and that, thrust and withdrew, and as I belted into the lead elements of the fliers on our deck I left a wake of slaughter abaft. There were others with me. In a fighting frenzy of action we belted the flutsmen across the deck and those that were not cut down just fell overside.

  The vollers were not flying all that high in the air, but the fall was enough to pancake anyone foolish or unfortunate enough to try the drop.

  “There are still plenty o
f them left,” observed Targon the Tapster. He was smeared with blood not his own.

  “Flutsmen like easy pickings.”

  We stared out into the brightness of the day where the black dots of saddle flyers curved and pirouetted as their riders summoned the nerve for a secondonslaught. The other vollers in our little squadron had all fared as well as we had done. There was a little pause in the proceedings.

  Then the lookouts perched aloft bellowed down.

  “Airboats!”

  “So this unpleasant King of North Vallia has a proper fleet now, has he?” remarked Delia, with an endearing tilt to her chin.

  “How many?”

  A pause for counting, and then: “More than twenty.”

  “H’mm,” I said.

  Once contemptuous of the silly remark, I now saw its value in covering up the absence of thought.

  The lookouts shouted down again.

  “More than thirty.”

  “Ah,” I said.

  Delia threw me a suspicious look. Casually and with what I hoped was an insouciant air, I strolled over to the bulwarks and leaning out peered ahead. Well, yes, I could see the fliers out there, bearing on, chips of rust against the light.

  More than thirty? We had in this squadron sixteen vessels, a mixture of fighting vollers and larger ships designated transports for this operation. This op was, as I have explained, intended to harass the enemy from the air and hold him until our main forces could come up.

  Now the devils had provided their own air, a completely new force of which we had no intelligence. Therefore, the situation had changed, the odds had altered and the stakes had been raised.

  There was no question of sending our own aerial cavalry aloft. Our two squadrons, hardly more than a hundred and twenty flyers, would be hopelessly outnumbered. I did not relish the idea of a single Valkan astride his flutduin being attacked by ten or a dozen flutsmen.

  “They fly on apace,” said Targon.

  “So I observe,” I said.

  “It will be — interesting.”