Free A Sword for Kregen by Alan Burt Akers

and ruby cast long tinted shadows. The country here was tufty, cut up by small hills and gullies, scrub country and yet being well-watered festooned with traceries of forests. The clouds sent racing shadows leapfrogging across the grass.
    “Down, captain,” I shouted, my words blown away. I pointed down and stabbed my hand urgently. If we continued aloft we’d be blown miles off course.
    So, in the last of the light, we made our landfall.
    We came down fifteen miles short of Kanarsmot and we knew the enemy was in force somewhere between us and the town.
    Thus are the grandiose plans of captains and kings foiled by the invisible breeze.
    A pretty bedlam ensued as the reluctant animals were herded from the capacious interiors of the ships. The men disembarked and set about bivouacking. The wind tore at cloaks and banners. We pitched a dry bivouac, no fires being lighted. Cavalry patrols, zorcamen, were sent out immediately.
    When I gave firm orders that the flutduins, those marvelous saddle birds of Djanduin, were not to be disembarked, Tyr Naghan Elfurnil ti Vandayha stomped across to me, raving.
    His flying leathers were swirled about his legs by the breeze. He had one hand gripping his sword and the other outstretched, palm up, as though he was begging for alms.
    “Majister! My flyers can scout that Opaz-forsaken—”
    “Come now, Naghan — look at the weather!”
    “My flutduins can fly through the Mists of Sicce itself.”
    “I don’t doubt,” I said, dryly. “However, I shall need your aerial cavalry for the morrow. The breeze will drop by then.”
    Naghan Elfurnil was a Valkan, and he had been trained up by expert flyers from Djanduin. An aerial detachment was with us; but I was not going to throw them away in weather like this.
    “The jutmen will be our eyes tonight, Naghan.”
    “They’ll be outscouted, you mark my words.”
    “It would perhaps be best if Jiktar Karidge did not hear you say that, Naghan. He has a temper—”
    “Oh, aye, majister. Karidge is a fine zorcaman, I’ll give you that.” Naghan gave a huge sniff that was instantly whipped away by the wind. “But I’ll never live to see the day when zorcas can outscout flutduins.”
    I forbore to suggest that, perhaps, this night, he had lived that long.
    “Those oafs we will fight tomorrow have flying fluttrells. Not many. But you’ll need to look sharp to drive ’em off.”
    “And, strom, since when has a fluttrell had a chance in hell of matching a flutduin?”
    Well, by Vox, that was sooth, and we both knew it.
    So the pandemonium continued, and slowly and in the end surprisingly, order and quietness came out of chaos. The army bivouacked and the sentries were posted and the patrols went out. If we were not outscouted, we could set down all fair and square. I did not think we would outscout our opponents, for they had the advantage of the terrain. And, as the night progressed and the reports flowed in we understood that on the morrow we would advance to battle with a good idea of the strength and location of the enemy, and that they in their turn would know of our strengths and positions.
    There were some cavalry clashes during that night. The army was up and breakfasting and on the move early. The wind had dropped; but we judged three burs or so would have to pass before the weather was fit for aerial cavalry. In that time we formed and marched forward.
    The commander of the local forces came in with a remnant of exhausted totrixmen. They had been pushed back by the first onslaught over the Great River and had subsequently harried the invaders as best they could.
    “The whole situation was completely quiet,” the commander told me. He was a waso-Chuktar, Orlon Turnil, and he looked worn out. “But they will not expect so quick a reaction, majister. Truly, the flying ships are marvels.”
    That was the trouble with the current mess in Vallia. Our enemies pressed in on all sides and we had to leap from here to there to repel each