“Where have you been, Gunda?” Andar demanded in his deep, rumbling voice.
“I got held up for a while up in the Land of Dhrall,” Gunda replied. “What’s going on here in Castano? Every place I looked I saw a Church ship.”
“They aren’t talking to anybody, Gunda,” Andar replied. “The Church armies started marching in about three days ago, and then that Church fleet sailed into the harbor. They’ve taken over the entire waterfront, so there’s no way I can load our men on the ships I hired. I’m not sure just exactly where those Church armies are going, but it looks to me like they’re planning a major campaign somewhere.”
Gunda started to swear—extensively.
“Was it something I said?” Andar asked.
“Jalkan!” Gunda snapped.
“Please, Gunda, don’t use that kind of language. There are children nearby.”
“It’s about time for them to grow up, then.” Gunda managed to get his temper under control and he told Andar about Narasan’s revocation of Jalkan’s commission and the little scoundrel’s imprisonment in one of the Trogite ships.
“I’d say that it’s time for a celebration, then.”
“Not really. Somehow, Jalkan managed to get loose, and then he stole Veltan’s sloop and sailed away. We both know exactly where he went, don’t we?”
“In the light of what’s been going on here in Castano, I’d say that he most probably went to the central convenium in Kaldacin, and he was more than likely to have been spouting the word ‘gold’ before he even got there, and it’s quite obvious that some of the higher-ranking churchmen took him at his word. That does sort of explain just why the Church has expropriated every single wharf here in Castano, wouldn’t you say?”
“And there’s not much we can do about it. Can you come up with any kind of estimate of just how many Church soldiers are boarding those ships?”
“Church armies have distinctive banners, just like real armies do. I’ve had people watching, and so far there’s evidence that there are five Church armies being loaded on those ships in the harbor.”
Gunda winced. “That’s about a half-million men, Andar. We’ve already got one war on our hands, we definitely don’t need another one. Have you caught any hints about just when that church fleet’s likely to sail out of the harbor?”
“I’d say probably sometime in the next two days,” Andar replied. “There’s something else you should know about, Gunda. Yesterday, a couple of ships with black sails arrived, and the men on board those ships conferred at some length with the higher-ranking churchmen. We all know what that means, don’t we?”
“Slavers?” Gunda said. “What are they—?” He broke off. “Of course!” he exclaimed. “They’re not planning to rush up the east coast to confront Narasan. Slaves are almost as valuable as gold, and the Church armies won’t have to fight anybody to gather up potential slaves—not in a region where all the tools and weapons are made of stone, anyway.”
“You could be right, Gunda. I’d say that it’s too bad that the pretty lady’s husband didn’t go a step or two further than just a punch in the mouth. A sword in the belly or an axe right between the eyes would have solved this problem before it even started, wouldn’t you say?”
“I met him—briefly. He’s one of those people who just ooze decency out of every pore. Evidently, a punch in the mouth was about as far as he felt he should go.”
“Decent people can be so inconvenient at times,” Andar complained.
As Andar had predicted, the Church fleet began to leave the harbor of Castano two days later, and Gunda put his uniform aside, dressed himself in some scruffy clothes, laid some rolled-up fishnet across the bow of the Albatross, and sailed out of the harbor in a generally northern direction. He easily outdistanced the wallowing Church ships and reached the floating ice zone not long after noon the following day. He put out his nets about a half-mile from the southern end of Veltan’s channel, and then he waited.
It was almost dark when the first of the red-sailed Church ships reached the mouth of the channel and dropped their anchors. “What took them so long?” Gunda murmured to the Albatross.
As he’d been almost positive they would, the Church ships hauled anchor as the sun rose and sailed on into the channel. “Well,” Gunda muttered to the Albatross, “that answers that question, doesn’t it, baby?”
She didn’t exactly answer him, but she did bob slightly in what seemed to him to be a sign of her agreement.
“It’s time to go on back to Castano, baby. We’d better let Andar know what the Church people are up to.”
Andar bent several rules as he loaded the soldiers of Narasan’s army on board the ships he’d hired. There were a few shrill protests when he announced that there would be no separate quarters for the officers, and, since the weather was pleasant, there was no real reason for everybody in the army to have a roof over his head. The ships that sailed from the harbor were extremely crowded, but the entire army was going north, despite the fact that there weren’t really enough ships to carry them all. Practicality was often necessary, but sometimes Andar carried it to extremes.
Gunda had attached a long rope to the bow of the Albatross and tied the other end to the stern of the lead ship, the Triumph, and when the Triumph approached the channel through the ice zone, he went to the cramped cabin that served as Andar’s headquarters. “I think we might want to be just a bit careful when we go out of the north end of the channel,” he suggested. “It might be best if you stayed out of sight of the southern coast. If our count was right, there are probably five Church armies camped along the southern shore, and it might be better if they don’t know that we’re here. I’ll take the Albatross in a bit closer and see what the churchies are up to.”
“Don’t take any chances, Gunda,” Andar cautioned. “Narasan’s likely to have me for lunch if I let you get killed.”
“I’ll be careful, Andar. All I really need to know is whether the Church ships are anchored along the coast. I’m almost positive that they are, but let’s make certain. We don’t want to have to go looking for them.”
A couple of sailors helped Gunda pull the Albatross up close behind the Triumph, and then Gunda slid down the rope and untied it from the bow of his little yawl. He quickly raised her sail, swooped on around the Triumph, and sailed on toward the north end of the channel.
It was almost dusk when the Albatross came out into open sea again, and Gunda sailed north toward the coast of the Land of Dhrall in fading light. The moon was still in her last quarter, and Gunda knew that he’d have plenty of light once she rose, so he anchored the Albatross some distance to the north of the ice zone to wait for her.
It was quite probably almost midnight when the moon rose, and Gunda raised the anchor of the Albatross and rowed her on toward the coast, reasoning that if he left her sail down, she’d be almost invisible as he went along the south shore.
The villages along the coast were easy to locate because of the lantern-light coming from the crude houses, and Gunda rowed the Albatross slowly past each village he came to. There were several Church ships anchored just out from each village. Gunda couldn’t make out too many details, but it seemed that there were some kind of enclosures in the vicinity of each village, and they appeared to be well guarded by red-uniformed Church soldiers.
“It looks to me like we were right, baby,” he muttered to the Albatross. “I think we’ve seen enough. Let’s go back and talk with Andar.”
3
The Triumph and the following fleet reached the easternmost peninsula jutting out from the south coast of Veltan’s Domain three days later, and Gunda was startled to see what appeared to be the whole fleet of Maag longships moving swiftly down from the north. Things were just a bit tense until Gunda managed to get Sorgan’s attention. For some reason, the Maags seemed to be in a belligerent frame of mind. Gunda climbed down a rope ladder to the Albatross and rowed on over to the Seagull. “What’s afoot?” he called up to the burly
Ox.
“It seems that we’ve got us another war on our hands,” Ox shouted back.
“How did you find out about it?” Gunda demanded. “I thought we were the only ones who knew.”
“We were up in the mountains and Veltan came popping out of nowhere and told us that a whole fleet of Trogite ships had landed down here in the south. The cap’n told him that we’d take care of it for him.”
“That makes sense,” Gunda replied, pulling the Albatross in beside the Seagull. “I think I’d better have a talk with Sorgan. I believe I’ve managed to come up with the answers to a few questions he might have.”
“Come on board, then.” Ox pushed a rope ladder over the rail, and Gunda climbed on up even as Sorgan came forward from the stern of the Seagull.
“What’s going on down here, Gunda?” he demanded.
“I’ve got the rest of Commander Narasan’s army on those ships over there, Sorgan,” Gunda replied. “We’re bound for the mouth of the River Vash, like the commander told me to back in Veltan’s castle. Anyway, when I got back to Castano, the Church had appropriated every pier and wharf in the entire harbor, and they were busy loading five Church armies onto Church ships. When that was all done, they sailed north. I followed them in that little fishing yawl of mine, and, sure enough, they sailed right into the mouth of the channel through the ice zone. Isn’t it peculiar that not too long after Jalkan escaped and stole Veltan’s sloop, a whole fleet of Church ships loaded up five armies and came sailing up through that channel in the ice?”
“So that’s what set this off!” Sorgan exclaimed. “Were you able to find out just exactly where they were bound for?”
“I was indeed, Captain Sorgan,” Gunda replied with a broad grin. “We kept our main fleet out of sight, but I rowed my little yawl on up to the south coast. There are four or five Church ships anchored just off the beach any place where there happens to be a farming village, and there’ll probably be slave-ships arriving before long.”
“We sort of expected that,” Ox said, his eyes narrowing.
“I thought you might have,” Gunda said. “It’s a very old Church custom, I’m sorry to say. It’s been contaminating the Empire for centuries now. The slave-ships have black sails, but the sails on the Church ships are red. The Amarite church is very fond of the color red. It tells everybody who passes by just how terribly important the Church is.”
Sorgan grinned suddenly. “I think we’ve come up with a way to make them very unhappy about red things, Gunda,” he announced.
“Oh?”
“Fire’s sort of red, wouldn’t you say? After my people have set fire to every one of their ships, they’ll probably wish that they’d never heard the word ‘red.’”
“What a wonderful idea!” Gunda replied. “Now why didn’t I think of that?”
Sorgan laughed an evil sort of laugh. “When you see Narasan, tell him that we’re down here, and we’ll do what we came to do.”
“I’ll do that, Captain Sorgan. You have a nice day now.” Gunda grinned at the pirate and then climbed back down to the Albatross.
There were still a few ships anchored off the beach near Veltan’s castle, but most of the fleet had already sailed off to the north, so Gunda didn’t see any reason to stop.
The coast to the north of the castle was quite a bit more rugged than had been the case farther south, and there were mountains rearing up a few miles inland. “Picturesque,” Andar observed, gesturing at the mountains.
“Enjoy them while you can, my friend,” Gunda replied. “They stop being pretty when you start climbing. Narasan showed me a map of the region where we’ll almost certainly encounter the enemy, and it didn’t exactly brighten my day. There’s a narrow sort of pass that’ll take us on up to the top, and that’ll slow us down quite bit. I don’t think we’ll be able to go up through that pass any more than five men abreast, so it’s going to take us quite a while to get the whole army up there.”
Andar sighed. “Oh, well,” he said. “Difficult wars pay better, I guess.”
“Only if you’re still alive when payday rolls around,” Gunda reminded his friend.
It was late afternoon of the following day when they reached the mouth of the River Vash, and it appeared that most of the ships that had carried the advance force were anchored there. Gunda saw the Victory, the ship that belonged to his cousin Pantal, near the center of that fleet, and Gunda and Andar took the Albatross and rowed on over to find out just how things stood.
“We haven’t heard very much yet, Gunda,” the stocky Pantal admitted. “The troops that are going up that gulch—or whatever you want to call it—have it pretty well blocked off, so nobody’s able to come back down and let us know what’s afoot up there.”
“That happens a lot in hilly country,” Gunda said. “How far upriver is this pass located?”
“About two days. Are you familiar with Brigadier Danal?”
Gunda nodded. “He’s been in Narasan’s army for almost as long as Padan and I have.”
“He’s more or less in charge at the mouth of the pass. He’s been very useful. He had his men build quite a few piers along the north bank of the river, and when you’ve got a pier on both sides of a ship, you can unload your troops in a hurry. He’s having a bit of a problem sending the supplies on up to the top, though. A man who’s trying to carry a sack that weighs a hundred pounds doesn’t move very fast.”
“Are we likely to hit any rapids on the way upriver?” Andar asked.
Pantal shook his head. “It’s fairly smooth going this far downriver,” he replied. “The natives say that things get a little rough farther upstream, but that’s not really any of our concern.”
“Good,” Andar said. “We’ll start upriver first thing in the morning, then. It’s likely to take quite a while to unload all the troops, so we’d better get at it.”
The Triumph started upriver at first light the next morning, and Gunda’s friend Andar seemed a bit awed by the size of the trees along the banks of the river. “How long would you say it’d take a tree to grow to be that big?” he asked Gunda.
“I don’t even want to guess,” Gunda replied. “I wouldn’t put it at much under five hundred years. Some of those really big ones have probably been there for at least a thousand years.”
“Can you imagine something that’s been alive for a thousand years?”
“I don’t think it’s very exciting. You wouldn’t be able to do much exploring if your roots kept you in the same place for all those years.”
“I had an idea last night before I went to sleep,” Andar said.
“Like whether you wanted to sleep on your back or your belly, maybe?”
“It went a bit further, Gunda. Your cousin told us that the men who are loaded down with supplies are slowing things down quite a bit.”
“I seem to remember that, yes.”
“A man could move quite a bit faster if he didn’t have to carry so much weight, wouldn’t you say?”
“I try not to say obvious things very often. It makes people think that you’re dull when you do that.”
“Did you want to hear this, or would you rather make bad jokes?”
“Sorry. What’s this grand plan of yours?”
“Twenty-five pounds wouldn’t really slow a man down, would it?”
“Not noticeably. Where are you going with this?”
“We’ve got eighty thousand men. If each man carried twenty-five pounds up that gully, we could put two million pounds of supplies in Narasan’s hands when we reached the top.”
Gunda blinked. “Did you work that out in your head when you were half-asleep, Andar?”
“No, not really. I had to do some figuring on a piece of paper. Two million pounds would be a thousand tons.”
“That would keep the army eating for a while, I suppose.”
“Our troops will be going up there anyway, and carrying supplies while they’re climbing up would be more useful than looking at the scenery, don�
��t you think?”
“Where did you find somebody clever enough to string all those ropes up through that pass, Danal?” Gunda asked, staring up the steep gully.
“It was a young fellow named Keselo, I think,” Brigadier Danal replied.
“I should have guessed that, I suppose,” Gunda admitted.
“Is he really that bright?” Andar asked.
“Sometimes he’s almost bright enough to shine in the dark,” Gunda replied sourly. “That irritates me, for some reason. Young soldiers are supposed to be stupid, and Keselo breaks that rule every time he turns around. ‘Wise’ is supposed to belong to us older soldiers, but Keselo keeps poaching in our territory.” He straightened. “I guess I’d better scamper on up there and let Narasan know that we’ve arrived with the rest of his men,” he said.
“Don’t forget your pack, Gunda,” Andar reminded him.
“I am going to be in a bit of a hurry,” Gunda protested.
“It’s one of the obligations of higher-ranking officers to set examples for the ordinary soldiers,” Andar said.
“You had to go and say that, didn’t you?”
“That’s one of my obligations, Gunda,” Andar replied with a broad grin. “I’m obliged to remind you of all the things you’re obliged to do. It’s a heavy burden, but I think I’m strong enough to carry it. Take the pack, Gunda. Don’t argue with me.”
“What’s in this pack that’s supposed to fill our commander with delight?”
“Beans, isn’t it, Danal?” Andar asked.
Danal nodded.
“Beans?” Gunda demanded. “You’re beating me over the head with a sack of beans?”
“Would you prefer rocks?”
The basin at the top of the narrow pass appeared to be pri- marily a meadow dotted here and there with clumps of trees. About the only unusual feature of that basin was the source of the River Vash. Gunda had heard about geysers before, but this was the first time he’d actually seen one. His mind shuddered away from the thought of the sort of underground pressure that could send water spurting a hundred or so feet into the air in such volume that it was the primary source of a river that was quite nearly a mile wide at the mouth.
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