Omens of Kregen [Dray Prescot #36] Read online

  The most serious aspect of the whole affair of Csitra's attempt to assassinate Delia was simply the fact of the deed itself. The poor girl whose mind had been taken over by the witch, of course knew nothing of what had passed. She was a new arrival from Vondium, come up to join her regiment.

  Delia said: “And how many more people are there from Vondium possessed by this she-vampire? She will have sent them all over Vallia looking for you!"

  “Yes."

  “She knows where you are now. Are we then to expect another of her horrible curses?"

  “She would have done so already, if she could. I suspect Deb-Lu has managed to achieve some mastery over her powers."

  “I sincerely trust so, by Vox!"

  Shortly after that Khe-Hi-Bjanching and Ling-Li-Lwingling turned up, adamantly determined to go with the expedition to the Coup Blag. They were two people I really welcomed along.

  With them actually with Delia, I felt a little easier in my mind about the witch.

  With this—admittedly fragile—new development in affairs, I could make the decision I had trembled to make before.

  To the assembled officers of the army I said: “News has just reached me that Prince Drak and Kov Seg have linked up and are approaching the River of Golden Sliptingers. Their opposition has suddenly materially weakened and they have made unexpectedly good progress."

  Kapt Erndor grumped up and said: “So we know what that portends."

  “Aye,” I said. I didn't like the note of grimness in my voice. “We have recently been blessed with a considerable flow of reinforcements. You'd best reform your Ninth Army, Erndor and make sure you take some of the better regiments."

  “Thank you, jis, I will that. What are your orders for me?"

  “Why, Erndor! To march shoulder to shoulder and bash this Nath the Greatest Ever."

  “If my guess is right, and I think it is, and he has denuded his front against Prince Drak and Kov Seg, he is likely to leave his entrenchments on Losobrin's Edge and his billets in Erdensmot, and mount an attack."

  “Which is precisely what we want him to do, is it not?"

  “Absolutely,” said Nath Famphreon. “Although he will now inevitably be in great strength. The reports of fresh mercenaries arriving daily are explicit."

  “So there's no question of us flying off to the Coup Blag until we've blattered the fellow. When his paktuns have all run back home again and the land is peaceful—then."

  Well, I have said I am not intending to give a blow by blow account of the North Vallian Campaign. There were many battles, a few sieges, and a lot of marching, a damned lot of marching. But now we could brace ourselves for what we all hoped would be the last big encounter. The self-styled King of North Vallia had concentrated almost all his forces against us in the west hoping to knock us out before turning back to finish off Drak and Seg.

  When I calculated out the odds I was fully and painfully aware that I was dealing in the lives of men and women. Still, for this last time—until the unholy Shanks arrived on our shores.

  The two armies were in good heart. Some of the units were raw; many were hardened by this and previous campaigns into veterans, and there were the kampeons, the heroes of Vallia, men and women to be cherished.[3]

  [3 Here Prescot gives the composition of the Eighth and Ninth Armies together with long lists of names. A.B.A.]

  One odd fact emerged from all this, to Kapt Erndor's puzzlement. He had the 30th Infantry Division under command. As he said to me as we met for the last time before going out to our respective armies: “Odd, by Vox. The 11th Churgurs have Jiktar Nogad ti Vendleheim commanding. I was sure old Hack ‘n’ Slay had them."

  Across the moorland we could see the opposing array. I nodded as Kapt Erndor said: “Well, may Opaz ride with you this day. I'm off."

  “Opaz go with you, Erndor.” Then I concentrated on what was to come, all preparations over and what was not done would never be done.

  The place was simply a portion of the vast sweep of moorland up there in Erstveheim. A tiny village, of no more than a dozen or so tumbledown houses, a tavern and a posting house, and a temple to their obscure local god, stood out forlornly between the lines. The village's name was Bengarl. Most unkindly, the swods dubbed the area Bengarl's Blight, and so that was how the battle acquired its name.

  The aerial duels were fought out savagely. Birds wheeled and fluttered against the radiance of the suns. Many fell. Ships burned. This phase of the proceedings lasted longer than usual, and our vaward was running into contact before the air was fully cleared.

  There was no doubt in any of our minds that our Vallian Air Service, and our flutduin squadrons, would do the job. Against ferocious opposition it just took longer.

  The skirmishers, called on Kregen ‘kreutzin', darted in and flung their javelins, shot in their bows, then skipped away, evading with lithe skill. All the same, they did not escape entirely unscathed.

  Our dustrectium[4] lashed out. The superbly trained Bowmen of Vallia, using the Lohvian longbow, ripped enemy formations to shreds. But they had Bowmen of Loh over there, too, paktuns earning their hire. The archery duel became bitter.

  [4 Dustrectium: firepower as delivered by bows, slings and engines.]

  Not wishing to stand my lads still under this punishment, I gave ready assent to the vociferous requests for a general advance. The air smelled damp with that mingled aroma of wet grasses and gorses, of tiny purple flowers, of wet earth. The radiance of the suns strove to pierce through layers of mist. The lines advanced.

  Our Phalanxes, battle-winning weapons, sent up their paeans. Their long pikes all slanted up as one, and on the command the front five ranks’ pikes went down, pointing those small deadly heads at the enemy. The banners fluttered. The bugles sounded. With their crimson shields raised, their bronze-fitted armor glinting and their helmets all bent grimly down, the brumbytes charged.

  Nothing stood before them. They swept away ranks and lines of cavalry and infantry alike. Surrounded by their Hakkodin, the double-handed sworders, the axemen, the halberdiers, they looked like the Wrath of God made manifest.

  Our job was just to hold the enemy. We had to grip him and grapple him, to hold him steady. We were the anvil.

  Kapt Erndor's Ninth Army was the hammer.

  The onrush of the Phalanxes halted as the bugles pealed. The brumbytes remained in solid masses, file by file, Relianch by Relianch, Jodhri by Jodhri. Their chodkus of archers ran forward in the intervals to lay down barrages of shafts onto the reeling foe. And the flags! Those flags flying over the Phalanx warmed my heart, I can tell you. On what was my own personal battle standard, a simple color consisting of a yellow cross upon a scarlet field, the insignie of the brumbytes were embroidered in golden and silver thread. Each Relianch flew its own color, brilliant with the special devices which told the world just who stood ranked beneath that standard. Those colors were no longer my own personal flag, the tresh fighting men called Old Superb.

  Old Superb was carried by Cleitar the Standard. Ortyg the Tresh carried the Union Flag of Vallia. Volodu the Lungs was there, his massive and battered trumpet ready to peal the calls over the battlefield. Korero the Shield, as ever, lifted his shields at my back. Yes, the little group around Delia and myself formed a party most precious to me.

  Ranked away to left and right waited the solid and silent lines of the guard corps. They were all there. Delia's guard corps, also, stood awaiting the call for action.

  Our heavy infantry trampled forward like a herd of elephants in full cry. The bowmen kept up their sleeting discharges. Our artillery, varters and catapults, drenched the enemy lines with rocks and darts.

  Once again, and this time shoulder to shoulder with the churgurs, the Phalanxes advanced. The cruel pikeheads went down, the shields lifted, every helmet slanted forward. In crimson and bronze, as they say in Vallia, the brumbytes charged.

  The mercenary forces serving this Nath the Greatest Ever recoiled. Like good quality Paktuns of Kregen
they fought well and earned their hire. I did not fault them on that this day of the Battle of Bengarl's Blight.

  Nath na Kochwold cantered up astride his zorca, flushed, inspired, waving his arm.

  “They are magnificent! Magnificent!"

  “Yes, Nath. The whole army of Vallia is magnificent."

  He laughed, elated. “Oh, yes. But of them all—my Phalanx! There is the true glory!"

  He rode on, passing from one wing to the other and taking the time to call on me en route.

  Nath Famphreon, as the Kov of Falkerdrin, would normally expect to command a sizable force. But he had been under the shadow of his formidable mother for a long long time. He had requested that he ride as my aide, and to this I had agreed. Now he came racing up forcing his zorca on. He took off his hat and waved it wildly.

  When he was fairly up with us he burst out: “The cunning cramph! He has sent a flank force of cavalry. They strike at our left flank."

  “Then our left flank cavalry will see them off.” I spoke with deliberate calm. I wasn't sure, for I had not inquired, if Nath Famphreon had ever witnessed a great battle before, let alone fought in one.

  The outcome of Nath the Greatest Ever's surprise flank cavalry attack was not in doubt once our Chuktars moved our own cavalry across. The mounted action was interesting as I was afterward told. Our totrixes and nikvoves backed up by a goodly force of swarths, tumbled the enemy cavalry into ruin.

  We did not use our zorca cavalry in this action.

  Many of them, still trained as Filbarrka had specified, shot and lanced and created merry hell with the enemy.

  A flyer spiraled down above us. The girl rode a flutduin, so no one shot her out of the air.

  “Majister!” she shrieked as she volplaned over our heads. “The Ninth come on! In two burs they will hit!"

  “Excellent."

  “Things do seem to be going rather well,” observed Delia, “although my people tell me our casualties are mounting."

  There was no need for me to say anything to that last remark. Delia, I knew, shared my abhorrence for warfare. We had to fight, and when we did we fought as hard and as well as we could. Casualties—even the word has an ugly sound.

  The noise from the field blew about us as the breeze shifted flukily. Our sailing ships of the air had tacked up and taken a goodly part in the fighting; now they were struggling to remain on station. One or two had been brought down by enemy shots from upturned varters.

  Targon the Tapster, clearly sent by his comrades, edged his zorca over. I saw him.

  “Targon?"

  I knew what he wanted, right enough.

  He spoke formally, in earshot of the rest.

  “Jis. I have been entrusted with the mission of requesting you to let us—” Then he broke down, and burst out: “Let us get at them, for the sake of Vox and all his mailed host!"

  “There is time yet."

  He looked savage, but he knew my ways.

  “Then let the ripe time come quickly. The Phalanx will be above itself after this day—"

  The old rivalry! “They do well. So will you. Just keep the lads on a tight leash until they are loosed."

  “Quidang!"

  He cantered off back to where his comrades waited in a clump of palpitating expectation. They stood on foot, and their orderlies held their zorcas a little way off. I felt for the lads, felt for them deeply. If I committed them to the battle at the wrong time, they'd be the ones to suffer.

  I should ride with them myself; I would not do so, for I knew damn well that Delia would be knee to knee with me.

  “I rather think—” said Delia to cover over the hollowness that fell between us after Targon took himself off. “I rather do think that girl who screeched down from the flutduin was Trudi ti Valkanium. She's related to Vangar, as you probably do not know, seeing that they are from Valka and you are the strom there."

  “I knew,” I said, most equably.

  “She opted to join the flyers rather than the fliers. Vangar couldn't understand that."

  “He will be taking over from Farris, soon, to command the Vallian Air Service. Farris, though—"

  “I know. But there is nothing he will allow us to do, although I have suggested it to him."

  What a bloody miserable kind of life this is when we all have to grow old and die!

  And, you will perceive, we spoke thus to cover our deeply distressed feelings at the sights and sounds that so affronted us on the field of battle.

  The rolling charge of the Phalanxes, for there were two full Phalanxes with us on this day, drove like battering waves against yielding rocks. Along the whole front the opposing armies clashed. Our heavy infantry, the churgurs, ran in disciplined formation forward, hurling their javelins. These bulky stuxes drove the shields in splinters from the hands of the enemy. Then the foot soldiers slapped their shields front and forward, whipped out their drexers and so, swords in fists, smashed into their foes.

  Drak had brought up from the southwest the First Phalanx and the Fifth Kerchuri of the Third Phalanx. Each Phalanx was divided into two wings, called Kerchuris. Each Kerchuri consisted of six Jodhris, each of the six Relianches. The Sixth Kerchuri of the Third Phalanx had joined with their other half, coming from Turko's Ninth Army. Up in the northeast and now commanded by Drak, the Second Phalanx was driving on to meet us. Seg had with him the Fourth Phalanx. As for the Fifth, its Ninth Kerchuri still remained in Vondium, a very necessary precaution, while its Tenth was with Drak.

  So, as you will perceive, Kapt Erndor, smashing down to form the hammer to our anvil, had no Phalanx with him.

  Our First and Third Phalanxes were—as many said and as many vehemently denied—the two premier pike formations of the Vallian army. On this day of Bengarl's Blight they performed magnificently.

  The fleeting thought crossed my mind to wonder how the new 30th Infantry Division fared, and what Erndor had meant when he'd been surprised that the Jiktar he dubbed old Hack ‘n’ Slay did not command the 11th Regiment of Churgurs. This 30th Div had been given to Erndor to allow him some substance to his rear and as cover for his forward advance. Erndor had all our mounted infantry with him. The old days when we'd mounted men on any kind of saddle animal we could find had not altogether gone. There were still regiments mounted on preysanys—and they bore the crude jokes and witticisms leveled at them with stoic bluntness.

  As you may well imagine I looked forward to the day when my kregoinye comrade Pompino returned from Pandahem with lavish consignments of hersanys from the island. Despite all, I missed my Khibil comrade.

  And I refrain from comment on the Divine Lady of Belschutz.

  Delia lifted in her stirrups to peer across to the right. Instantly, her shield bearer, a massive and lethally dangerous Djang called Tandu Khynlin Jondermair, shifted himself astride his joat to keep his twin shields at the right angle. His movements caused his steed to trample all over the dainty hooves of a zorca ridden by a flying aide. Tandu did not notice.

  Tandu's son, Dalki, held Delia's personal standard proudly aloft.

  Delia said: “There is movement on the right flank."

  Now anyone who describes a battle to you in graphic details concerning every portion of the field and what transpired there has received information from many people involved. No one can see it all, not even the C-in-C.

  What was going on was relayed to us quickly enough by a flushed girl astride a flutduin. She landed and hared across to our command group. What she said indicated that the King of North Vallia, besides trying to be clever, fancied he had worked out a system to beat our Phalanx.

  The early left flank attack of cavalry had been designed to draw off our mounted forces. We had commented that the North Vallian mercenaries did not appear to be in the strength we anticipated. Nath the Greatest Ever had held a sizable force back, and now he flung a mass of cavalry at our right flank with the clear intention of striking the right-hand Phalanx in the side.

  “We are the anvil,” I sai
d. “So we hold."

  As was proper, the First Phalanx took the right of the formation. I had no doubts that they would hold.

  With a division of churgurs flanking them, with their own Hakkodin and archers, and supported by our own right flank cavalry, they could grapple and grasp these paktun cavalrymen, hold them, pin them, and by that time Kapt Erndor should be up.

  Well, that was easy theory, easy for me astride a nikvove at the back. For the swods in the ranks the story, although finishing in the same way, was somewhat different in the telling, as I knew, I knew full well, by Vox.

  One of our casualties, a simple swod, was out of Delia's regiment of the Sisters of the Rose. She fought bravely and skillfully, and died heroically. Her name was Fruli Venarden. She had recently joined us from Vondium. In between joining us and her death, she had tried to assassinate the Empress of Vallia with a long slender dagger.

  I spoke generally, so that all in earshot might hear.

  “I believe this is the moment of crisis. This is the time, then.” I turned to Nath Famphreon. “Nath, would you be good enough to ride over to Targon and the rest of the rascals and inquire if they would care to ride across and blatter the flank that they can see attacking our right flank?"

  “With all my heart, majister. And I shall ride with them."

  “You may do so, an’ you will, and may Opaz go with you. But, Kov Nath, you ride on your own time. I am not paying you wages to get yourself killed."

  He laughed at that, young, fresh, freed by the death of his mother into a world of liberty he had never dreamed existed. “I would pay you, majister, for the privilege!"

  Then he was off, fleeting across to the commanders of my guard corps. They wasted no time. Old campaigners, kampeons, hardened by civil war and struggles against slavers and aragorn and reivers from across the sea, they were men habituated to victory. They were in motion at once.

  Well, the noise and confusion, the horrid screams of wounded men and animals, the raw stink of blood, the taste of dust on the tongue even in the damp gorse of the moorland, the lowering mist over all turning the radiance of the twin suns in a ghostly twilight of red and green to a corpse-pallor on every face. Well, as I say, the Battle of Bengarl's Blight took place, and men and women died, and Kapt Erndor came up and between him and us we squashed the King of North Vallia's mercenary forces as a fruit is squashed in the press.