Free A Sword for Kregen by Alan Burt Akers Page B

nodded, and lifted into the saddle. Korero was there, a golden shadow at my back. I half-turned and opened my mouth, and the Kildoi said, “It is understood, majister.”
    I felt the quick flush of pleasure. By Vox! What it is to have great-hearted blade-comrades!
    And here came Nath, another blade-comrade, and his face froze me.
    “Majister!” he called as he galloped. Karidge was belting along to catch him, lathering his zorca, which made me understand with a shiver of dread that the news was bad.
    “Those Opaz-forsaken louts!” Nath shouted. He hauled his zorca around and the animal’s four spindly legs flashed nimbly as he turned. “They have sucked us in!”
    “Aye,” said Karidge, reining up, his face a single huge scowl. “By Lasal the Vakka! I trust in Opaz we have not scouted them too late.”
    “Spit it out!”
    Scouts had come in, and their latest reports contradicted what we had hitherto believed. We had thought there were fifteen thousand foemen. There were more than twenty-eight thousand — infantry and cavalry. A reinforcement had reached them from Opaz-knew-where. I felt my face congeal. Doggedly, I heard out the report, beginning to refigure the entire coming contest.
    I said, “We are near enough thirty. So the odds are even — weighed in our favor still. The plans stand. We go forward and attack. We cannot shilly-shally about now.”
    Then it was a question of listening to reports of the composition of the new forces arrayed against us.
    “Masichieri, majister. Damned thieving no-good vicious riff-raff, masquerading as mercenaries. But they can fight, and there are fully six thousand of them.”
    Well, masichieri — bonny masichieri, I have known them called — yes, they are the scum of mercenaries. But in a battle they are fighting men and their rapaciousness drives them on with the lure of gold and plunder and women just as much as the ideal of patriotism drives on other men.
    “And? The cavalry?”
    “Aragorn, majister. Slavers, come to inspect their wares, aye, and fight for them, too.” Karidge drew his gauntleted hand over his luxuriant moustaches. “There are Katakis among ’em, may they rot in Cottmer’s Caverns.”
    “It seems we will be honored by foemen worthy to die by the rope rather than steel,” I said, conscious of the turgidness of the words, but conscious, also, that they were true for all that.
    “Also,” said Karidge, and he looked disgusted, “there are at least four regiments of sleeths.”
    Nath banged a fist against his pommel. “Sleeths! Two-legged risslacas [2] suitable for — for—” He paused, and gazed about as though seeking the suitable word. It was a nicely calculated performance. One or two men among the aides-de-camp laughed. For, indeed, to a zorcaman the sleeth is something of a joke. Despite that, they can run and they can give a zorca a run for his money. And four regiments, if the usual regimental organization was followed, meant fifteen hundred or so.
    “Is that all?”
    “Dermiflons and swarths.”
    The dermiflon is blue-skinned, ten-legged, very fat and ungainly, and is armed with a sinuous and massively barbed and spiked tail. He has an idiot’s head. The expression “to knock over a dermiflon” is a cast-iron guarantee of success. They’d have howdahs fixed to their backs and half a dozen men or so would be up there, shooting with bows and hurling pikes. I said: “How many swarths?”
    “Around a thousand, three regiments, weak regiments.”
    I let out my breath. The swarth is your four-legged risslaca with the cruel wedge-shaped head and the jaws, with the scaled body and the clawed feet. He is not very fast. But he has a muscular bulk and he can carry his rider well and, a jutman must admit, is a nasty proposition to go up against. They were relatively rare in Vallia and Pandahem; but I had been told that the Lohvian armies put much store by them. And that stupidly mad and imperious Thyllis, Empress of Hamal, had been