Arena of Antares

Chapter Five

That disaster did not strike exactly as I had imagined it must.

The raw army of recruits of Migla fought well.

I fought with them. The memories I retain of that battle are scattered and fragmentary, of the charges and the falling spears, the glitter of armor and weapons, the clouds of crossbow bolts, the solid chunking smash of masses of men in close combat. The fliers astride their mirvols rained down their bolts from above, and the Miglas lifted their shields, and the crossbowmen afoot loosed into them. But the pila dragged down many a shield, and the stuxes flew. The Miglas fought magnificently. They outnumbered the army of Canopdrin. They did not consider their own losses. They charged again and again, their veknises gleaming crimson with blood, and again and again they were hurled back. Yet still they charged. The supplies of stuxes I had arranged to be brought up by wagons were late arriving, and when they did at last reach the field, which lay in wide meadows about a dwabur west of Yaman, there were pitifully few hands to grasp them.

I had four totrixes slain under me. When there were no more riding animals to be had I charged afoot at the head of the Miglas. I found the thraxter to be a useful weapon, used with a shield, and I also discovered — as I had always known — how inordinately powerful a shield wall could be if it remained intact.

The Miglas broke two shield walls.

They toppled two Canoptic brigades into rout.

But the supreme efforts spent their strength and the remaining two brigades were able to drive in, charging in their turn now under showers of bolts, and tumble the Miglas back into destruction. Trapped in a close-pressing melee Turko and I were tumbled back with the rest. Yes, I do not recall many of the details of that battle, which, from a windmill nearby owned by a Migla called Mackee, was henceforth known as the Battle of Mackee; but one scarlet memory stands out and runs like a thread through the whole conflict.

How strange it was, I thought, not to have to worry over my back!

For, where I went, there went Turko the Shield.

With those lightning-fast reflexes of the Khamorro he picked up the flight of a bolt and interposed the shield between it and my back or side. He hovered over me, an aegis through which no single bolt, no single arrow, no single stux could penetrate.

And — more than once a Migla, inflamed by the homicidal fury of combat, seeing in Turko and me two hated apims, would hurl at us. Turko’s muscles roped and twined as he held the great shield up, its surface bristling with shafts. Whenever he could he took the opportunity of ripping them away. He had the Khamorro strength to rip a barbed bolt out where a normal soldier would have no chance of doing the same.

A pilum smacked into the shield. I remember that. I remember seeing Turko hoisting the shield up, seeing bolts glancing from it, seeing the way he held it despite the dragging effect of the pilum. For a space we were clear of the press. Dust and blood and the shrieking screams of wounded and dying men created that insane horror of a battlefield all about us.

Turko bent and ripped the pilum away-

And then I remember looking up at the night sky and seeing the Twins eternally revolving one about the other sailing across the sky, cloud wrack driven across their faces giving them the illusion of movement. Turko at my side lay senseless, blood clotting his hair. He wore a red band around his head now, as a reed syple, and I knew why.

All about us the horrid moaning of hundreds of wounded men, Migla and apim, rose into the cool night wind.

Occasionally shrill shrieks burst out, to sputter and die away. Canops were out with lanterns searching among the dead. I discovered the blood dried along my head. All the famous bells of Beng-Kishi rang in that old head of mine; but my skull is a thick one, and I had bathed in the pool of baptism in the River Zelph in far Aphrasoe, and so I was able to hunch up and get Turko on my back and stagger away from that awful and tragic field.

There was nothing to be done here, the disaster was on so great a scale, that all there was left for us was to save our own skins. Then, I vowed, then we would come back and do properly what we had so signally failed to do this day on the field of Mackee.

A voice hailed.

“Over here, dom.”

Armed Canops, with samphron-oil lamps and flaring torches. If I ran they would split Turko and me with accurate bolts. I took Turko across to the fire. Many Canops lay on blankets around the fire, and I saw Canop women tending them. The smoke drifted in the cool wind.

“Let’s have a look at you, soldier.”

This Canop, this one with the lined haggard face, the haunted eyes, must be a doctor. In mere seconds he had stuck his acupuncture needles into Turko and so could banish my comrade’s pain while he tended the gash on his head. My own wound needed merely cleaning and poulticing and bandaging.

“A nasty crack that one, soldier.” The doctor handed me to a Canop woman, a mere slip of a girl with dark hair and eyes I knew would be merry in other circumstances. Her long slim fingers bandaged my head. We were apim; therefore we were Canops. We were not Miglas, we were not the enemy. The situation was not without its piquancy.

Turko breathed easier now. We had both been wearing armor taken from Canops, and we would pass. We were put down carefully on blankets in a ring around the fire, and broth — good vosk and onion soup — and a rolled leaf filled with palines were handed to each of us. We drank and ate with relish. Later there was wine, rough army issue wine, but refreshing and invigorating at the time.

“Those old cham-faces,” said a soldier next to me, who had a bandage covering most of his stomach.

“They stuck me in the belly. But I feel sorry for ’em.”

“Sorry for ’em?” I was genuinely surprised.

“Well, look at the crazy onkers, charging us like that.” The soldier moved and suddenly, unpleasantly, he groaned and I saw his face go set into drawn haggard lines.

“Nurse!” I called, and the girl hurried over. She knelt, her yellow tunic and skirt, not unlike the kilts worn by the men, glimmering warm in the firelight. There were many fires over the battlefield, each with its ring of wounded. She looked cross.

“Have you been drinking, soldier?”

He winked at her.

“You silly onker! You’ve been cut up in the belly — no more wine until the doctor orders. Understand?”

She had given one of the needles sticking in him a twirl and his pain receded. He looked properly subdued. “Orders is orders, nurse. But I’m fair parched.”

“Suck palines, soldier.”

When she had gone in answer to a muffled scream from across the ring of wounded men, I returned to the source of my puzzlement. “Those Miglas. They were out to kill-”

“Well, wouldn’t you be? If your land had been taken from you?”

The disorientation of all this could not be explained merely by his mistaking me for a soldier and a comrade. The soldier next along lifted on an elbow. He had a broken leg which had been expertly set and splinted. He spoke over the man with the stomach wound.

“How much do we get out of it, then, I ask you? We do the fighting — aye, and I’m proud to fight for Canopdrin. But I’d like a little more booty.”

These men I had already summed up as soldiers fighting for their country, not mercenaries, and therefore urged on not by cold greed but hot patriotism. They talked on, quietly, and I came to understand the viewpoint of the Canoptic soldier much better. A rough lot, like soldiers almost anywhere, they enlisted for enormously long periods and expected hard fighting, for they had had a long-standing feud with a neighbor island of the Shrouded Sea. When Canopdrin had been made uninhabitable they had welcomed the decision of the king and his pallans to make a new home in Migla. But, as was usually the way, the high-born reaped most of the benefits.

The man with the belly wound, whose name was Naghan the Throat — he was always thirsty -

rambled and muttered and I feared that he would be gripped by a fever and so taken off. He suddenly tried to sit up, his eyes wide and brilliant, and he cried: “I fought, by Opaz! I fought!”

Then the man with the broken leg, one Jedgul the Finger — I was too delicate to inquire why he had acquired the name — sat up sharply and dragged himself toward Naghan’s blanket and took Naghan and thrust him down, his hand splayed over the face.

“Quiet, you onker!” He spoke breathily, quickly, and then, in a louder voice: “By the Glorious Lem, you will live!”

The picture came clear to me in those few words. Lem, the silver leem, was the supernatural being worshiped by the Canops, and his statue was everywhere, for a soldier most noticeably in the form of a silver leaping leem atop the standard. This leem cult had broken the religion of Migshaanu. But Naghan the Throat had cursed in his delirium by Opaz, the great twin deity, invisible and omnipotent, that represented the major religious beliefs of the peoples of Pandahem and of Vallia and of many other civilized places besides. So, I reasoned, Lem, the debased silver leem, had ousted the followers of Opaz before he had started in on Migshaanu. Now I have made no attempt to outline the beliefs or practices of the religion of the Invisible Twins, of Opaz. I have told you of the long chanting processions streaming in torchlight through the cities and all chanting “Oolie Opaz, Oolie Opaz, Oolie Opaz.” The stresses come on the first syllables of the words. It is always “Oolie Opaz!” over and over again. But — there is a very great deal more to it than a mere chanting procession. Jedgul the Finger looked at me over the prostrate form of Naghan and I saw his eyes glittering in the firelight.

“Naghan the Throat is a good comrade of mine, dom. You are a soldier. You would not betray him?”

“Never,” I said.

Jedgul slumped back, as though relieved.

“It’s all the fault of the officers,” he said, his voice low, grumbling. This is so common a complaint in every army I would have taken no notice of it; but Jedgul added, “They think themselves so high and mighty. A common ranker may never enter their shrines to Lem. Everything of the best is always theirs. I bet you your officers are doing what ours are now, drinking themselves silly and pestering shishis. . You didn’t say what your regiment was.”

I had seen his shield, with the embossed image of the leaping leem at the top, below that a black neemu, painted on, with the figures eleven and one. He was of the first pastang of the eleventh regiment of foot. At the beginning of the battle I had made it my business to make a note of all the regiments arrayed against us, and now was able to choose one on the opposite wing from the eleventh. Also, in choosing this particular regiment I could exhibit a little hard-won knowledge.

“Third,” I said casually. And added, “Hikdar Markman will be occupying two shishis, if I know him.”

Jedgul chuckled.

“Aye, Nath,” he said, for I had told them I was called Nath. “And King Capnon can sleep safe in his bed this night.”

“Better get some sleep yourself. Here comes the nurse.”

“Aye,” he said, yawning. “Paline Chahmsix is a sweet kid. Her old man ought to be proud of her.”

“Six” is one of the common suffixes denoting daughter, as “ban” often denotes son. The nurse, Paline Chahmsix, came up, tut-tutting, and bid Jedgul and I sleep as soundly as Naghan. “Lem keep you,” she said, which is a way of saying good night.

Jedgul answered with a snore.

I turned over and closed my eyes. When the light tread of her little feet had gone I rolled across to Turko and shook him awake. The sounds around us were dying. The wounded were finding peace in sleep. Tomorrow would see the collection and burial of the dead, with their memories dedicated to the greater glory of Lem, the silver leem.

“We have to leave now, Turko. And don’t make a sound.”

He was awake quickly enough. He touched his bandaged head and checked the needle. “What-?”

“A doctor attended you, and a charming little girl not really old enough to be out here at night with all these desperate soldiers. We’ve been lucky, Turko. Now let’s get out of here without a fuss. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to little Paline Chahmsix.”

His glance contained all that old quizzical appraisal; but he rose, and together we silently crept away from the glow of the fire out into the moon-drenched shadows of Kregen. Late on the following day we caught up with what was left of the army of Migla and with these sorry remnants we returned to the camps in the back hills. We had lost a sorrowful lot of men. Hamp and Med had both been wounded; but they were unrepentant when I started to tell them a few home truths.

“We were not ready, as you said, Dray. But we have learned. We know now we can beat them next time.”

“There will be no next time,” I said. I was savage and cutting and angry and contemptuous — of myself. For, I, too, had seen my own crass stupidity. “There will not be a next time until I give the word.”

Mog waved her arms about at this, and quieted Mag, who had been about to try to say something, and she yelled: “I am the high priestess! We must strike, and strike again!”

“Agreed. But we do it my way. The common soldiers of Canopdrin are just ordinary men. They are driven into fighting by their masters, who crack the whips over them, and who dazzle their eyes with statues of Lem, the silver leem.”

As I spoke these words Mog and Mag and the others shuddered and put up their hands, warding off the evil of that foul name.

“Opaz,” I said fiercely, proddingly. “Aye, Opaz is known among them and some still love the Invisible Twins. They would welcome you of Migshaanu if a way could be found.”

“They would cut us down with swords if we tried,” said Med.

“Agreed. You cannot face them in battle, not for a long time. You must accept this as a truth. But there is a way, and I shall take that way, and bring you help. You must wait here, recruit more men, train them up as I have shown you. When the time is ripe Turko here, or one bearing a message from me, Dray Prescot, will come to you. Then, my friends, strike at Yaman!”

They jabbered on at that; but all I would say — for fear I should fail — was that they must prepare themselves for the day. When that day came, they would be told.

And, even as I cursed myself for my own stupidity, I cringed a little at the thought of what the Star Lords would do. For I had not disobeyed the Everoinye. I had done what the Star Lords commanded, through their spy and messenger the golden and scarlet raptor, the Gdoinye. But — for the first time on Kregen

— I had failed the Star Lords.

I had not failed them in Magdag but had been too successful.

I had not disobeyed.

I had failed.

What would they do to one who proved a broken reed?

The thoughts of Delia, and our twins, drove mad phantasms through my mind. What if, through my failure, I was banished from Kregen forever? If the Star Lords had no further use for me? The thought was impossible; I could not face it. I must recoup this situation, bash on, trample down any and everything that stood in my path. Oh, I did not relish my avowed intent, there in that ring of hills in backward Migla. But — better the Ice Floes of Sicce than being hurled back to the Earth of my birth and never more see my Delia, my Delia of Delphond!

Never before had I failed in what the Star Lords had set me to accomplish. This was no time to start. Turko would come with me.

I bid Remberee to Mog and Med Neemusbane and Hamp, and set off for Yaman. We traveled secretly and by night, and I wore my old scarlet breechclout and carried weapons, and Turko wore the scarlet band about his forehead that was his new reed syple, and a shield strapped on his left arm. And so we came under the moons of Kregen into the ruins of the temple within the grove of trees sacred to Sidraarga.

Shadows dappled the stone where lichens already stained and obscured the sacred symbols. The moons rode the sky above and the pink moonlight flooded down. I moved into the shadows beneath the trees, and my brand gleamed naked in my fist.

The flier was still there.

This was the voller that had brought us out of Faol and away from the slavering if human jaws of the manhounds.

Turko said, “I have never inquired why you had to bring old Mog home, Dray, being content to follow you. And, now, I am filled with joy that I may lift a shield at your back. But-”

“And much do I value that, Zair knows!” I climbed up into the airboat. “In me, Turko the Shield, you behold a great and misbegotten fool! An onker of onkers, a get onker.”

“If you say so, Dray, I would be the last to correct you on so weighty a point.”

He was laughing at me again, this muscular Khamorro!

I checked over the flier and saw she was intact and ready to go. I would not give Turko the satisfaction of rising to his sarcasm; for all that we owed each other much, I still had that prickly feeling that he weighed me and sized me up at all times. I had proved to him through the disciplines of the Krozairs of Zy, of which he had never heard, that I was as good as any Great Kham produced by the Khamorros, and I had earned his shocked “Hai Hikai!” But, still, he wanted to know more of me. You could not fault him for that, I did realize, somewhat ill temperedly; for I own I am a great shambling bear of a fellow when it comes to human relations and I know what I want to do and say and, Makki-Grodno as a witness, I say and do the exact opposite. I have overcome that defect a great deal in later years; but it is a burden many of us bear.

With a finicky delicacy on the controls I edged the voller out from under the trees. Mog had truly said no one would venture into the sacred grove. We cleared the last boughs and I looked up ready to haul the lever into the ascent position, when I saw the black shape of the Gdoinye hard-etched against the glowing pink and golden face of the Maiden with the Many Smiles.

For an instant the accipiter hung; then it vanished.

No mistake was possible; that had not been some nocturnal, completely ordinary bird of prey. The Everoinye watched over me, watched me in my failure!

“Where away, then, Dray?”

“Do you know where lies Valka?”

“No.” Then he added, “I’ve never heard of it, I think.”

This did not surprise me. Kregen is a world where rapid transport by flier rubs shoulders with quoffa carts, where men in one continent cannot be expected to know very much of another continent, and that in the other hemisphere. And yet one expects travelers, businessmen with overseas agencies, military personnel, and, above all, the men of the air services, to be aware of vast numbers of names and places scattered across the islands and continents in this part of Kregen.

“Valka lies a trifle west of due north.” At this time on Kregen the magnetic variation was approximately naught degrees naught minutes and ten seconds west — which was very handy for calculation — and a due north course would serve admirably. “It must be something like two thousand or more dwaburs which, in this excellent voller, are a mere nothing.”

I said no more.

Around me in the flier a blue nimbus spread. I was aware of outside sounds slipping away, of Turko’s light voice fading. The blue radiance grew and began to coalesce around me into the gigantic form of a scorpion.

This was idiocy.

This was sheer lunacy.

Were the Star Lords then so abysmal a pack of cretins?

The blue radiance closed around me.

“You idiots, you onkers of calsanys of Star Lords!” I roared. “How will taking me back to Earth help you now? I am going to Valka and to Vallia to raise an army to fight the Canops and to free Migla! As you commanded! Are you so stupidly dense as not to see that?”

The blueness wavered, not thickening; but not thinning, either. I sweated. Would these lofty Star Lords heed my impassioned call? Or were they truly less than perfect and blind to my purposes? I had fooled them before — or, rather, not so much fooled them as twisted their motives to my own ends. “I have to raise an army somewhere, and the Migla money will not serve against the Canops’ control of the treasury!”

Familiar falling sensations swung me and I felt the faintness overcoming me. They were not listening!

They were contemptuously hurling me back to Earth! This was unlike that other time I had struggled against the Everoinye, there in the courtyard of the Akhram as the Star Lords and the Savanti had through the agencies of the raptor and the dove sought to determine if I should stay on Kregen and to which side of the Eye of the World I should venture. I had gone eventually to the green north, to the land of the Grodnim. Who was to say what my fate would have been had I gone to the red south, to the land of the Zairians?

So, again, I struggled. I roared and raged and cursed and pleaded. The blue glow about me wavered uncertainly.

“If you banish me back to Earth now, you Opaz-forsaken cramphs, you will never free Migla! By the Black Chunkrah! Let me go to Valka and raise my own men. Then we will see how the army of Canopdrin fights!”

The scorpion leered down on me, at once surrounding me in the blue radiance and also hovering over me, that arrogant tail upflung as the constellation of Scorpio flings its tail across the night sky of Earth. I felt the beginnings of a fading, of a lessening of power and of a lightening of that lambent blueness. The glow blinded me. All I could see, suddenly and with a shocking clarity that told me the vision came from within my mind, the face of Delia blotted out everything else in the world of Kregen. But I did not utter her name aloud. Even then, onker that I am, I kept my wits about me. Instead, cunning with the cunning of the desperate, I screamed: “Let me go to Valka and there raise an army to fight for you, you — you Star Lords.” The thought had occurred that cursing them might not help, either. The blue radiance rippled, as a pool ripples from a flung stone, trembled, and — instantaneously — was gone.

Turko was looking at me quite normally and saying, “I agree this is an excellent voller. We can make about fifteen db[2]and with stops to pick up supplies should be there in three and a half or four days.”

As far as he was concerned nothing had transpired. He did not know I had fought as hard a battle over my fate, dangled between two worlds four hundred light-years apart, as ever I had done — but not, Zair rot the Star Lords, as I was to do, as you will no doubt hear in due time. Whatever their mysterious purposes were they clearly wanted me to reinstate the religion of Migshaanu

— and her twin brother Migshenda the Stux, who was in something of a decline even compared with Migshaanu — pretty badly, enough to allow me to call them a bunch of onkers and calsanys and many another vile word I could put my tongue to. The voller drove up past that grove of trees sacred to Sidraarga and sped out over the face of the land spread beneath the moons of Kregen. I was on my way home — home to Valka and to Delia.