For days, couriers had ridden from Mazeppa to Gallagher and Gallagher to Mazeppa, with questions and updates. That nothing was written was not important. Non-literate peoples, or those with limited access to writing materials, tend from childhood to develop good recall of details. And for couriers, their leaders tend to choose from among the better of them.
That morning Mazeppa mounted his best horse. At midday, the army would start eastward as planned. All the chiefs were prepared. All knew.
As the sun climbed, the braves gathered. There were no MPs to direct traffic, nor did the war parties muster in ranks for pre-departure roll calls and inspections. There was no last minute checking of maps, rolling stock, order of march. The entire plan consisted of what army went where. Once launched, speed would be of the essence.
That spring, scouts dressed as dirt-eaters had explored both routes, learning the main roads, the countryside, place names . . . Food would be no problem. Everywhere were bands of the dirt-eaters' spotted buffalo, stupid, easy to kill.
The northern army, led by Gallagher, consisted of some 800 Ulsters and 500 Yellow Bears—1,300 fighting men in all. The southern army, led by Mazeppa himself, numbered 1,200 Dkota, 1,000 Wolves, and 300 Yellow Bears.
The chiefs didn't worry about coordination. Their braves knew how to ride, to camp, to fight. They would, more or less, follow the directions of their leaders. And these rules: "Move, don't linger; burn all the hamlets and villages you come to; kill all male dirt-eaters you encounter, man and boy, but don't waste time on long pursuits. Nor on pillaging or raping; wait till the war has been won. Burn the palisades, where it can be done quickly, otherwise pass them by; but if they take fire, kill the male dirt-eaters when they come out. Move swiftly till you reach Hasty. Then all the braves will rest outside the stone walls, eating spotted buffalo and enjoying Sotan women and girls, while the Sotan fighters starve inside their fort."
It wasn't necessary or possible to tell his braves how to do those things. They'd see, and seeing, they would know.
That's how it would be done.
At the two camps, some sixty miles apart, the sun reached the meridian at nearly the same moment. Hardly a minute apart, the two principal war chiefs made a loud cry, and their armies set out at an exuberant gallop. They'd slow quickly enough. They knew horses, and how to treat them.
(Luis)
At Zandria Town, Donald and I had gathered several excellent riders as couriers. Then we set out for the baronies in southern Zandria and northern Kato, to explain the situation and strategy to the barons and their local headmen. And to suggest tactics. We needed to do at least two baronies a day if we could. Hard on horses. Hard on us.
Marcel and his captain would educate the baronies farther north and west.
At our first stop, we generated less than certainty about the situation, but enough concern that the baron promised quick action. The stockades would be resupplied—mainly with food, water, arrows and fodder, depleted since the peace treaty. It was interesting that no one had really believed in the peace treaty, yet they'd used it to rationalize letting supplies get low, and to not seriously push militia training as a volunteer activity.
On the second morning we arrived at the baronial seat of Ronglue Lumthan, and met with the baron, his captain, and a local headman. I described the strategy: supply the palisade, muster the militias; and get the women, children and elderly well away from the Zandria-Cloud Road, with older men to guide and assist them, taking only a few milk cows per group. Drive the rest of the cattle eastward to more extensive forest.
The baronial armsmen and part of his militias were needed to help fell and man abatises at the most strategic sites, well to the east, toward Cloud, where there were sizeable areas of forest. "Abatises to bleed the Dkota, stop them and send them back to their grasslands."
My com buzzed, and without explaining I excused myself, to receive the report in the shade of a yard maple. It was from Tahmm: the invasion had been launched—something like twenty-five hundred headed southeast for the Sota River Road, and maybe twelve hundred headed toward Zandria.
I returned to the meeting and gave them the news. They looked unsure. How could I have learned such a thing? In a few days, when my news was verified, the Order's reputation would be enlarged.
That night we had another conference call, sharing what we'd learned. There were four masters actively involved, not counting Lemmi now, plus Tahmm, our eye in the sky. Carlos, who'd grown up bilingual, was back at Hasty already, using a Spanish accent as part of his disguise. He'd rented a room in a house where Spanish was the language, and played an occasional game of checkers with the grandfather there to brush up on the language.
He was looking for a job that would get him into the palace, a delivery job, he thought. He had a ten-day growth of black beard that covered him from the eye sockets south. A few more days, he said, and Eldred wouldn't recognize him if he had five guesses.
As for Peng, he'd told Duke Jonas, at Cloud, that Mazeppa's armies were on the move, also their size and where they were headed. Jonas had asked how he knew. Peng answered that Higuchian masters had ways of knowing things.
Freddy and I had made our coms known to Donald and Keith Frazier, violating major policy in this very first masters' operation. But Donald and Keith were key actors in this, and responsible men. We needed them, and they needed confidence in us. Tahmm had done the same with Lemmi and me when we were brothers, but Tahmm is Tahmm, the COB's director of operations in North Merka. When it was over, we'd have to defend our policy breach to Dzixoss. But according to Tahmm, if you followed policy slavishly, you had no business being on the job. It's almost as bad as ignoring policy.
Until the call was nearly over, Tahmm said nothing. It was our mission, not his, and he wouldn't put his oar in the water unless he thought it was vital. The problem was knowing what was vital before the fact. But the high point was when he put Lemmi on, from the clinic at the Academy. Lemmi sounded heavily medicated—slow, muzzy, groping—but alive and able to talk. He was being treated mainly for internal injuries, he said, and looked forward to getting back to us.
I didn't feel too kindly toward Mazeppa just then.
I spent the night in the rectory at Satomomiji, a baronial seat in the south end of the Duchy of Cloud. I didn't go to sleep right away; I was reviewing mentally. We didn't have much time—the tribesmen weren't riding turtles—and there were things I'd neglected. When I'd left Austin, I'd had the notion (my muse again) that Sergeant Major Banda would play a role in this. So I decided that in the morning, Donald and I would split up, take two different routes to Kato. We'd handle the barons along the way single-handedly, and push hard to get there in two days. The Dkota wouldn't be there that soon. Then, from Kato with two fresh horses, I'd head for Austin.
At various points along the River Road, Jarvi and his army had come upon, or heard, companies of peasant axmen felling abatises. They'd left most of the roadside trees standing for now, trees typically coarser and heavier, with the limbiest tops. They could be felled later, as necessary, to close the road. Every group of axmen he'd talked with had been enthused to see him. Twice, foremen had told him they'd known all along that Eldred wouldn't abandon them to the Dkota, and Jarvi hadn't corrected them. Which was unlike him, but what could he say?
Late spring and early summer had been dry and clear, but this morning had dawned on puffy cumulus that grew quickly, riding the wind eastward. Jarvi kept glancing upward, concerned. Being near the river, the road burrowed through forest, mostly, but occasionally the general was granted a larger view. Far to the west, clouds had built high, and flattened. The troops saw what Jarvi saw, and knew as well as he what it meant: storms, big ones. By late morning, thunder muttered in the distance.
Accompanied by an aide and three horsemen, Keith Frazier arrived to meet the general before noon. Two of the newcomers hurried on northeastward. Frazier, his adjutant and an aide stopped, then fell in beside the general. The "adjutant" was Freddy, dressed as a Katoan ensign. By that time the thunderclouds were close enough that only their dark blue-gray undersides could be seen. The treetops had grown restless, and the distant muttering had become rumbling, with occasional rolling booms. As the two seasoned warriors shook hands, Frazier wondered briefly what Jarvi would think—or do!—when he heard what he'd hear.
Just now, Jarvi's mind was on the looming storm. "Did you bring this?" he asked half humorously, gesturing upward with a thumb.
Frazier laughed. "It's you, not me. It's come to greet you; meet you halfway."
The general ordered a halt, his trumpeter bleating it northeastward, others passing it on. The riflemen reslung their rifles with muzzles inverted; the artillerists covered the mouths of their guns with leather caps, and the teamsters their cargoes with oiled, tightly woven canvas, lashing it snugly against threatening wind. Everyone donned their oilskins.
Now the treetops began to wave, bob and bend, a great leafy thrashing. The thunder was near, and the wind suddenly cold. Men, horses, the forest, seemed to draw in on themselves against impending violence. Then they heard the hail, wind-driven, galloping—stampeding!—across the forest roof. Teamsters and artillerists crawled under their wagons. Men on horseback left the road for the shelter of the forest eaves. Lightning flashed, thunder crashed deafeningly. The horses started, some rearing. Then the hail arrived, the first raising puffs of road dust. Within a minute the road was blanketed thickly, some of the stones an inch through, clicking, snapping, clattering, bouncing high in all directions like round white drunken grasshoppers. Leaves and twigs rained down from battered treetops. Lightning flashed and pulsed, accompanied by crashing rolling thunder. Near the column, several trees split, tops plunging to the ground with shocks the men could feel.
Then came the rain, displacing the hail, pelting almost as hard and cold, and more thickly. The forest roof leaked like a sieve now, the leakage gentler than the rain, but thick.
Frazier traded exhilarated grins with Jarvi.
It was a strange conference they held then, talking loudly to be heard. Frazier's news was biggest: Mazeppa had begun his invasion with two armies, the collected braves of four tribes. No mere raiders these. The northern force was riding eastward toward Zandria, the other southeastward toward Grove Falls and Kato.
Frazier didn't say how he knew. Jarvi assumed spies galloping headlong to report, while the tribesmen mustered, preparing to leave Many Geese.
That first squall line passed in half an hour, moving off eastward, the thunder mere grumbling now, the rain only heavy, not torrential. Jarvi contemplated a new set of circumstances. The kingdom was being invaded, and time was short. At least so Frazier claimed, and for as long as Jarvi had known him—twenty years—Frazier'd had a reputation for integrity.
Meanwhile the road was muddy, which would slow his army. If he turned back, would he reach Hasty before the Dkota did? Kato was considerably nearer, but could he get there before the Dkota?
"Keith," he said, "when will the abatises be closed?"
"When I send word."
"What will the road be like between here and Kato? For wagons, and the guns?"
"In places not too bad. In others . . ." He shrugged. "It's been dry enough that if the rain stops soon, the excess should drain fairly well. But if it keeps up all day—" he waved a hand to indicate the steady rain "—it'll be hard slow work getting them through."
Jarvi contemplated. "In the stockade at Kato," he asked, "are the runways strong enough to accommodate artillery?"
"Neither strong enough nor wide enough."
"Umh." Again the general thought, a long silent minute as they rode. "I'm going to send the artillery back to Hasty, with the rifle company, and their wagons, of course. The rest of us will go on to help stop the Dkota at Kato, God help us. How's your fodder supply?"
"You're bringing a lot of horses with you. Until the Dkota get near, you can graze your stock in local pastures, but once inside the walls, the hay will disappear fast, and it'll be seriously crowded."
Jarvi glanced at the sky as if hoping for a sign that the rain might stop soon. The undersides of the clouds remained dark blue-gray, still tall and full of rain.
He turned to his executive officer. "Major, tell Stolz and Koskela the Dkota are on their way." He turned again to Frazier. "About two thousand of them, is that right, captain?"
"About twenty-five hundred on this road, and twelve hundred more on the Zandria-Cloud Road. That's the word."
Jarvi looked at his executive officer again. "Tell them that. Tell them they're to take their people back to Hasty to help defend it. I'll lead the rest on to Kato, to delay the Dkota. To . . . " He paused, took a deep breath. "To give His Majesty time to come west, or send an envoy west, to negotiate with Mazeppa. Go now."
Briefly, glumly, he watched the major turn his horse and trot back down the road. Wondering how close those estimates were. Twenty-five hundred. Twelve hundred. Their precision generated skepticism. He'd feel happier with rounder numbers—two thousand, one thousand—but let it pass. The Dkota had mustered two large armies; that seemed to be the reality.
He looked at his adjutant. "Captain Piper, repeat to me what I just told Major Fahzi."
The captain repeated it, adding nothing, leaving nothing out.
"Good! You will ride back to Hasty as fast as you can, with a good remount but no baggage. That's as fast as you can. And report it to the king."
The adjutant looked stricken. He couldn't imagine His Majesty accepting such a message. He'd be outraged! Nonetheless he saluted. "Yessir!" he said, then wheeled and galloped off northeastward, skirting the stopped wagons, hooves splashing mud.
The old warrior watched him go. He couldn't imagine Eldred accepting it, either; the king would deny the facts rather than change his philosophy. He turned to Frazier. "Captain," he said, "your report had better be true." But there was no edge to his words. He'd been uncomfortable with the treaty from the start, but had swallowed his mistrust.
He'd sworn two oaths—one to the king, and one to defend Sota. Now it seemed they were incompatible, and he'd been forced to choose in the saddle.
Again the mounted infantry took up their march toward Kato. After a bit the rain eased, and Jarvi suffered pangs of uncertainty. But the road was bad in places. In some the troops had needed to uncoil ropes and take up pry poles to get the wagons through mudholes. And when a new phalanx of thunderheads rumbled to the west, his uncertainty eased. Eldred would still hate him for what he'd done, but he'd stand by his decision.