A Victory for Kregen

by Alan Burt Akers

  “Stand back, you missile men, and give the swordsmen a chance. Loose over them.” Again I eyed the narrowing distance between us and the shore. “If she grounds close enough, best you remain aboard for as long as you can and shoot from here.”

  “Aye, majister!” they shouted. “Until she falls to pieces!”

  That was the moment the keel of the argenter touched bottom. We held our breaths. Some of that luxurious stern ornamentation, all gingerbread work, fell off with a roar and a splash. She lifted up with the surge of the waves and shuddered on. Thrice more she touched and thrice more she lifted and rolled nearer the shore.

  The breeze blew our hair forward and chilled our skins. The smell of brine and mud grew more pungent.

  Turko had found a shield — I saw him talking to a swarthy fellow who nodded and handed his shield over without a fuss. I marked him. The shield was the rectangular cylindrical shield of Havilfar. Efficient.

  When a vessel marked for destruction touches the shore always, I think, a man must mourn for another hostage lost to the implacable elements. Mancha of Tlinganden struck at last, and her keel scraped through slimy mud, and the black stuff swirled up in the water alongside. She shuddered on for a few more paces, and then stuck, slewing slightly, canting over, coming to her final rest with a kind of peace we had bought for her. She did not fly into flinders, as I had feared. But her doom was certain. We plunged down into the sea and struck out for the shore.

  Andrinos swam with me and Turko was there also, the shield almost like a surfboard.

  The surf crashed about us and men yelled and were knocked flying, and surfaced, spluttering and going doggedly on. With an increase of pace I managed to get ahead. I did not wear the mesh-link iron harness. I held the thraxter, and the sword glimmered wet with running water. Jumping the retreating waves, I crashed on up that muddy beach, feeling the gluey muck clinging and trying to haul me back.

  Like a mud-devil I reached forward with the water around my waist, and the muck did not wash off.

  The riders on the beach turned their mounts to face us.

  They rode down, the six legs of the totrixes splaying out, their heads high against the commotion of wind and water. The spear points twitched down. They cantered on, full of confidence that they would spear us poor half-drowned rats before we could stagger clear of the waterline.

  Two of them came for me. I braced myself with the tug of the sea about me. The first abruptly switched from his saddle as though jerked by puppet cords. A long arrow sprouted from his neck. The second had no time to puzzle over his comrade’s fate. I leaped for him, brushed the spear aside, sank the thraxter in.

  After that as the paktuns roared up out of the sea, naked, shining with mud and water, half-crazed, yelling, we tore into the totrixmen. Leaden bullets flew. Shafts pierced. Swords glinted and ran red. We had the beating of them in the first half-dozen murs. We fought as men fight coming up out of their graves.

  Only a dozen or so survived to gallop off wildly.

  Panting, the Vallians gathered, and stared balefully after the fleeing riders.

  “Hai, Jikai! Emperor!” someone shouted.

  I quieted the hubbub.

  “I think we are on the island of Wenhartdrin. It is a rich land, and the best wines of Vallia, some say, come from here.But the whole land here is in the grip of our enemies. We are Vallians!”

  “Aye!”

  “Let us then see what honest Vallians may do, by Vox, and in the radiance of the Invisible Twins made manifest through the light of Opaz, let us go forward!”

  And, by Vox, forward we went!

  Chapter seventeen

  Emperor’s Yellow Jackets

  The captain and first lieutenant of the argenter had been killed in an accident, and this in part accounted for her doomed course of destruction toward the rocks. Most of the crew were Hobolings who are among the finest of topmen. These and the other deckhands had no part of our fight. I did not inquire how the arrangements for the passage had been made. We agreed to leave these folk on the island and see to it that they were repatriated.

  Ashore, we busied ourselves scrubbing off the mud. The ship broke apart slowly. I marked the spot. On a more auspicious occasion I’d return here and see if I could salvage those silver boxes from the sunken voller.

  Boxes and bales and barrels floated ashore, mingled with the sad detritus of a destroyed ship. There were many fat bales of a good quality cloth, all of that bright, strong, yellow color called tromp. There was food, also, that was not contaminated by sea water and we soon had fires going and tea brewing and food sizzling. To clothe our nakedness we cut up squares of the tromp cloth and made holes and so put them over our heads. We cinched our belts tight, and we looked a fine rousing rabble under the suns.

  Some few remnants of the paktuns’ original clothes drifted ashore, and a few pairs of boots. But, in general, we were a band of yellow brigands to all intents as we set off.

  The old emperor, Delia’s father, had always liked the wines from Wenhartdrin. We marched on and soon passed signs of viticulture, most of it blackened and ruined. Houses had burned. We saw no one for some time until, reaching a tumbledown village, we found a few poor people who told us the news. This was simple. Strom Rosil Yasi, being a damned Kataki and therefore by nature a slavemaster, was more interested in human merchandise. These folk were left free and alive because they were too ill, too weak, or could till just enough land to provide food for the conquering invaders. Well, by Zair, we sorted out that local problem.

  The band of yellow-clad comrades fought like men possessed. As we progressed into the island and saw the evidences of what being occupied meant, they grew hard and fierce even above all their mercenary habits. We found the aragorn, slavers who occupy an area and from a strong point terrorize and suck dry everything of value, and we slew them in battle and drove them into the sea. Wenhartdrin is not above fifteen dwaburs long and ten wide, shaped rather like two triangles apex to apex. We discovered that Strom Rosil Yasi, known as the Kataki Strom, had left but two squadrons of cavalry and a half regiment of infantry to hold the island. These men were all mercenaries of various races.

  Military organization varies from country to country on Kregen, that stands to reason; but hereabouts the regiment of infantry very often consisted of six pastangs of eighty or so men each, giving four eighty men to a regiment. So there were around two hundred to two hundred and forty mercenaries swanning about Wenhartdrin that we had to deal with. Cavalry regiments varied more widely in numbers and composition and we had seen off one squadron on the beach and the second squadron, some hundred or so, we caught in a pretty little ambush along a defile crowded with tufa trees. By this time a portion of our force was mounted; but what with sickness and casualties, we now numbered not much more than a hundred and seventy-five or so.

  We had shaken out into a loose organization, all wearing those tromp-colored uniforms which, gradually and against all expectations, smartened up and grew into proper uniforms. Larghos the Sko-handed commanded a group of expert staff-slingers. Drill the Eye commanded his bowmen — they used the compound reflex bow, not the great Lohvian longbow. The bulk of the force consisted of swordsmen, many of them sword and shield men, churgurs, and these were handled by Clardo the Clis. Although these people had gathered together relatively recently to return to Vallia, many of them had served as groups in one war or another, and in general their names and reputations were known among themselves.

  On the evening when we knew on the morrow we would have to go up against that half regiment, I stood talking quietly to Torn Tomor. The campfires burned and the viands sizzled and the wine passed around companionably. We talked of his parents, Tom Tomor ti Vulheim, the Elten of Avanar and his wife, Bibi, who were comrades of the Strom of Valka and Elders of the high assembly of Valka.

  “And you will wear the orange of the high assembly in due course, Torn,” I said. “Be very sure of that.”

  “Before that, majister, I will serv
e in the Strom’s Sacred Life Guard.”

  He saw my instinctive frown, a twist of irritation to my lips I could not halt. I have mentioned before my equivocal feelings regarding these bodyguards. When we had been clearing out the island of Valka, before I was fetched to be the strom — which is grandly recorded in the famous song “The Fetching of Drak na Valka” — they had put together a devoted band of blade comrades to stand watch and ward over my person, in battle and camp and wherever the blade of an assassin might strike. They had served nobly, even though I had still managed to find a few adventures on my own account, as you have heard.

  As I struggled to find the right words, a man passed us. He was, as I thought, talking to himself. Torn Tomor glanced across. The fellow’s head was turned to his left shoulder and his right hand gestured vehemently as though he spoke to someone who walked at his side. He was a swordsman, with thick brown mustachios and that swagger of your true hyrpaktun.

  “Oh,” said Torn, “that’s old Frandor the Altrak.”

  “He looks—” I began cautiously.

  “Don’t bother your head about old Frandor. He lost his twin brother in a battle seasons ago and still fancies he is with him. He talks to him all the time. Watch him at meals. He takes a phantom plate and fills it with phantom food and offers it to his brother — who lies moldering somewhere in Loh, and his ib is wandering the Ice Floes of Sicce seeking the sunny uplands beyond.”

  “He is not makib,” I said. I guessed Frandor was not insane. He just had one of those little funny habits fighting men are prone to.

  Many of the most renowned of fighting men had peculiarities that would, on this Earth, have landed them in lunatic asylums. Nath the Flimcop, when his name was shouted out at roll call, would answer with a roar: “Gone fishing!” No punishments could break him of the habit; and now that he was a paktun he could get away with that very mild example of irrational behavior. Some of the near nut cases among seasoned fighting men would shrivel your hair. Naghan the Thumb collected the right thumbs of those he defeated and he wore a belt of the shriveled things around his waist. He had swum ashore with the thumb belt. It had grown considerably since, and he was debating how best to loop it up into a double thickness.

  Talk of the Strom’s Sacred Life Guard — Torn had said En Luxis Bliem Juruk, and Sacred Life Guard is a near enough translation. Kregish is particularly rich as a language, filled with colorful words. Bliem, for life, is merely one word, and the one chosen here. These fellows had fought well and loyally and I had thought the Praetorian Guard, the Imperial Guard, idea had died when I became emperor. But then, as you know, the Sword Watch had been formed. So, what with Frandor the Altrak wandering past carrying on an animated conversation with his dead twin, I was spared the embarrassment of stumbling out some words or other to Torn about my feelings on bodyguards.

  And, by Vox! Bodyguards are a delightful invention when some of the cramphs trying to kill me on Kregen take action!

  On the next day my seasoned veterans caught that half regiment and tumbled the three pastangs into bloody ruin. When it was all over and we turned over the loot, as all good paktuns do, sharing one with another, we were able to outfit our whole little force with armor. And, over the armor, these men wore their old yellow homemade jackets, still.

  On the way back to our camp our outriders spotted a flier cruising over the island. Instantly we all faded into the bushes. Down here any air-service boats were operated by adherents of Strom Rosil. Peering up through the leaves, I studied the craft as she flitted past. She was a very small single-place job, and no doubt before the Time of Troubles had been some sporty fellow’s pride and joy. Then I stared again, harder.

  “Keep your heads down, you famblys!” Clardo the Clis rumbled the words. He had no need to, for these men were kampeons[7]; but Clardo no doubt felt the need of expressing his feelings about cowering in the bushes.

  I stood up. I walked out from the bushes. Lifting my arms and waving, I shouted.

  “The emperor!” someone yelled from the bushes.

  “Shastum!” came Clardo’s irate voice. “The emperor knows what he is doing. But, by Vox, I do not!”

  The flier circled and dropped down. With a sweet swoop of precise piloting she landed ten paces from me.

  I knew that a score of bows were aimed for the pilot’s heart.

  He stepped out and threw up an arm in salute.

  “Lahal, majister! Well met!”

  “Lahal, Quardon,” I said. “Well met indeed.” I half turned and bellowed at the bushes. “Come on out.

  We have been found.”

  From the short flagstaff in the stern of the voller flew the union flag of Vallia. That yellow cross superimposed on a yellow saltire, all on a red field, had told me the airboat was friendly. Down here, she could only be looking for us on the advice of Quienyin. And, as you will readily perceive, none of these paktuns freshly returned to their native land would know that the flag they saw was their new flag of Vallia.

  The splendid upshot of this meeting appeared a few burs after young Quardon, a rip-roaring lad of the Sword Watch, shot off in the voller. Soaring in over the trees, all her sails set, one of our flying ships from Vondium threw her long shadow from the suns. The paktuns gathered with me stared up and it was a wonderful sight to see their faces. The sails came in smartly and the ship let down through thin air, upheld and supported by her silver boxes that were, alas, in nowise as efficient as the silver boxes of the powered vollers.

  Flags of Vondium flew from her, and men’s heads dotted along the bulwarks. She was a fine craft, three-decked and with proper accommodation, and armed with varters and gros-varters. I own to a thrill, myself, as she touched down.

  Well, the Lahals rang out and there was much clasping of hands and back-thumping. Many of the new Second Regiment of the Sword Watch were there. These fighting men had come ahunting me when Quienyin in lupu had sussed out our whereabouts.

  “She is a fine, large craft, majister,” said Torn. “Finer, I daresay, than those with which Vallia thrashed Hamal at the Battle of Jholaix.”

  “As good, Torn,” I said. “As good. Now let us all board and catch the breeze for home.”

  Only two men looked glum. These were the brothers Niklaardu — for their home was Wenhartdrin itself.

  “Have faith,” I said, speaking the easy words, but meaning them, and demanding a response in kind.

  “We will free all Vallia. You will return to your home in Wenhartdrin. Believe that.”

  “Aye, majister. We believe it. But it will be a hard road.”

  Sheer common sense and the practicalities of government told me that during my absence many changes must have taken place at home. I asked questions, an endless stream of them, and digested the answers.

  I preferred this method to allowing my comrades to babble on haphazardly telling me what jumped into their memories. All the relevant information I will retail as and when it affects this my narrative; suffice it to say now that Vallia was still an island sundered and divided, with factions warring for power, and the capital city of Vondium, still in our hands, standing like a rock in a raging sea.

  With those silver boxes we had made ourselves in Vondium uplifting the ship, we sailed on. The boxes gave us no forward motive power, as the complete boxes did for the vollers; but they extended gripping, invisible holds into what the wise men called the ethero-magnetic lines of force and thus afforded the ship a kind of keel so that we could tack and make boards against the wind. Leaving Wenhartdrin, we sailed east over the sea with the lovely coastline of Vallia passing to the northward.

  One item of news gave me an itchy feeling up the spine. Delia and I had discussed the designs of Queen Lushfymi of Lome upon our splendid son Drak. Drak was our eldest, the stern, sober, competent one of our sons. Queen Lush had been sent by Phu-Si-Yantong from her country in Pandahem to seduce, suborn, and destroy the old emperor. Instead, she had turned to us Vallians, and stood at our side against the Wizard of Loh. Now
that the emperor was dead, Queen Lush was set on marrying Prince Drak, well knowing that one day she would thus become Empress of Vallia. Delia and I felt that Seg’s daughter, Silda, was the proper mate for Drak. Nothing openly had been said. This was one of those fractious knots of problems that bedevil men and women, whether they be puffed-up emperors or empresses, or shopkeepers with a business to care for.

  By Zair! How I was looking forward to the day when I could throw down the burden of empire, and become once again plain Dray Prescot, of Esser Rarioch in Valka!

  And, of course, Lord of Strombor and King of Djanduin and all manner of other splendid and sometimes mocking titles and estates.

  The flutsmen circled out of the suns’ glare as I pondered the problems facing me. The trumpets pealed the alarm.

  How marvelous to see the Sword Watch and these new comrades in their yellow jackets work together!

  Shafts rose from the flying ship, leaden bullets flew. The flutsmen, screeching, their mottled clumps of feathers flying, their weapons glittering, swooped upon us. It was a pretty set to. The flying argosy was called Challenger , registered in Vondium, and as she coursed through thin air with all her canvas pulling and the flutsmen spun and darted in to attack, I felt that here we had a microcosm of the evils inflicting Vallia with agony, a prophecy of the struggles to come.

  When the flutsmen saw their attacks were fruitless, what remained of them drew off. Their wings bright in the suns’ light, the fluttrells swerved away. They sped in a long, defeated string northward for the coast.

  “We are within a few dwaburs of Delphond, are we not?” I said to Captain Hando, the master.

  A thin, razor-nosed man with a tufty chin beard, he screwed up his eyes. He had been a galleon captain, and had transferred to the new flying ships service.

  “Aye, majister. Devil take the flutsmen. So near the capital! It is beyond bearing.”