The Treasured One

Keselo blinked. ‘I never thought of that!’ he exclaimed. ‘How in the world did you come up with that notion, Omago?’

‘The two things just sort of connected,’ Omago replied. ‘I wasn’t trying to make a joke of it or anything like that, but if there’s a spear-point that’s been dipped in that venom, you’d have something to protect yourself with if one of the snake-men happens to duck under the spear-points lined up out in front.’

‘You’re an absolute genius, Omago!’

‘I wouldn’t go that far, Keselo,’ Omago replied, feeling slightly embarrassed by the young Trogite’s enthusiasm. ‘As I see it, this phalanx thing your commander mentioned is going to take quite a bit of practice to get used to.’

Keselo nodded. ‘Several weeks at least,’ he agreed. ‘Now, when we take up the phalanx formation we overlap our shields to put a solid wall to the front. Then we tuck the butt of the spear under our right armpit and take hold of the shaft with our right hand. You have to hold the shield bar tightly with your left hand and the shaft of your spear just as tight with your right. The muscles in both your arms will be a little sore by the end of the day at first, but that’ll go away after a while. The secret of the whole thing is that your soldiers aren’t working as individuals. They’re a unit, and they’re very closely coordinated. When you use the phalanx formation, your men have to lock their spears in place and then walk forward in unison. They walk the spear-point into the enemy instead of jabbing or poking.’

‘That might take a bit of getting used to,’ Omago said a bit dubiously.

‘Yes, it does. We’ll start by teaching your men to march. That involves walking in unison. We want everybody’s left foot to come down on the ground at the same time. After a while, it gets to be second nature, and they’ll be able to do it in their sleep – well, almost.’

‘Being a soldier’s a little more complicated than I thought it might be,’ Omago observed.

‘It beats doing honest work,’ Keselo replied with a slight grin.

‘My ships are a lot faster than yours, Narasan,’ Sorgan Hook-Beak said that evening at the supper table. ‘I’ll be able to bring Lady Zelana’s archers here in about half the time it’d take those scows of yours.’

‘And only bring back half as many,’ Narasan added dryly. ‘We could probably argue all night about which would be better – fast or many.’

‘You’ve got a very warped sense of humor, Narasan.’

‘Nobody’s perfect,’ Narasan replied blandly.

‘Just exactly where’s the border-line between your Domain and Zelana’s, Veltan?’ Longbow asked.

‘I don’t know if I’d call it a line, exactly,’ Veltan replied. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Most archers are hunters, and hunters can run quite a bit faster than people who spend their time sitting in one place. Any ship -either Sorgan’s or Narasan’s – will have to take the long way around to get back to Lattash. The archers could come across country, though, and if I remember your lumpy picture correctly, a straight line from Lattash to your house here would be less than half as far as a ship would have to travel.’ He looked at Sorgan with a faint smile. ‘We could race, if you’d like, and maybe even make some kind of wager on it.’

‘I think I’ll put my money on Longbow, Sorgan,’ Narasan declared.

‘Not against me, you won’t,’ Sorgan said sourly. ‘The main thing I’ve learned about Longbow is never to try to beat him – at anything.’

The following morning a balding Trogite named Gunda came up from the beach to confer with Commander Narasan. ‘I had a clerk draw a copy of my map for Andar,’ he reported, ‘and he’ll bring the rest of the army on up through that channel through the ice. Then I bought a sloop so that I could come up here and find out exactly where we want the army to come ashore. Then I’ll go on back down to the upper end of the channel and lead Andar on up here.’

‘How long is it likely to take, Gunda?’ Narasan asked.

‘Probably about another two weeks. Have things started to heat up here yet?’

‘Not as far as we know,’ Narasan replied. ‘Of course, when you’re dealing with those snake-men, you can never be sure. Why didn’t you bring Padan up here with you?’

‘Well, he’s just a little bit nervous, Commander,’ Gunda replied. ‘When he gets here, he’s going to have to report a couple of things that aren’t going to make you any too happy.’

‘Such as?’

‘Could I take that as an order, sir?’ Gunda asked. ‘I wouldn’t want Padan to start calling me a snitch.’

‘Consider it to be an order then, Gunda. What’s been going on down there at the beach?’

‘Well, sir, when Padan woke up yesterday morning, he noticed right off that Veltan’s sloop wasn’t there any more.’

‘You said what?’ Veltan demanded.

‘It’s gone,’ Gunda replied, ‘but this gets even better. Padan told me that Commander Narasan had stripped Jalkan of his commission and had him put in chains. After a while, Padan put a couple of things together and he ran down to the little room in the hold of the ship where Jalkan had been chained to the wall – and guess what? Jalkan wasn’t there any more either. I suppose it might just be a coincidence that the sloop and Jalkan both vanished on the same night, but I don’t think I’d want to wager a month’s pay on it.’

‘Are you just about through joking around, Gunda?’ Narasan demanded.

‘I was just reporting what had happened, sir. If I remember correctly, you did order me to tell you about this, and a good soldier always obeys orders.’ He feigned a look of wide-eyed innocence.

And then he burst out laughing.

Upon reflection, Omago realized that the outlanders were quite a bit more advanced than the people of the Land of Dhrall, but their social structure left much to be desired. They were very much like children – except that they all carried deadly weapons, and they’d go to war on almost any pretext.

That childish aggressiveness did work to the advantage of the people of the Land of Dhrall, though. The current situation required many hired killers, and it appeared that Veltan and his sister had found exactly the ones best qualified to meet the servants of the Vlagh.

Omago smiled faintly. The outlanders had all appeared to be astonished by several of the innovations he’d suggested. Evidently they all had the notion of’primitive savages’ locked in stone in their minds. The possibility that anybody in the Land of Dhrall could come up with improvements in weaponry was beyond their comprehension.