'Your suggestion that we take in an army willing to swear fealty to him and the prospect of settling such an army down south, very close to the Oka.n.a.la border is very appealing to the Maharajah, but it is counterbalanced by the concern over where the loyalty of such soldiers may lie to their own leaders or to the Maharajah?' He spread his hands in a gesture of uncertainty.

Kaspar shrugged. The reaction was much as he had expected. 'I don't suppose the word of an outlander would count for much? They are the most oath-bound bunch I've ever encountered. If they swear fealty to the Maharajah, they'd cut off their own thumbs at his order.'

'I believe you, Kaspar. In our brief encounters I have come to judge you accurately, I think. You were once a very proud man who was humbled, and you are a more than capable military man. A ruler, too, I think at one time, or someone placed very high by birth.'

'You read me well,' said Kaspar.

'You have never lied to me, though you probably never had cause: if you had, you'd no doubt lie as convincingly as a young wh.o.r.e seeking to persuade a rich old man she's in love with him.'

Kaspar laughed. 'I have been known to avoid the truth when it served me to do so.'

'So, what do you propose?'

'Come with me. There are some things I cannot tell you yet, but there are things you should know. If I judge you you accurately, you are a man loyal not only to his ruler but also to his nation and people. I think you realize that your young Maharajah is looking for an excuse to finish what he started, his conquest of everything down to and including the City of the Serpent River. He wants to finish building his empire. You know the risks. While you're resting and rebuilding, so are your enemies, including Oka.n.a.la.' accurately, you are a man loyal not only to his ruler but also to his nation and people. I think you realize that your young Maharajah is looking for an excuse to finish what he started, his conquest of everything down to and including the City of the Serpent River. He wants to finish building his empire. You know the risks. While you're resting and rebuilding, so are your enemies, including Oka.n.a.la.'

Alenburga ran his hand back through his grey hair. 'Ah, Kaspar. Why can't you take service with me? I'd make you my adjutant, second-in-command of all the armies of Muboya.'

'I lost interest in conquest some time back,' said Kaspar. 'I know what it's like, and I also know what it feels like to be on the other side.'

'Well, go take service with Oka.n.a.la, then,' said Alenburga with a laugh. 'Facing you in the field would be more fun than those jesters the King employs. The only reason we didn't win was we ran out of time and gold.'

'And men,' said Kaspar, remembering the dead bodies of Bandamin, his wife Jojanna, and the boy Jorgan lying by the roadside, while the Master of the Luggage wept over them. 'You ran out of men.'

'Which is why you thought we'd welcome a few thousand seasoned warriors?'

'Something like that. Though it's more than a few thousand.'

'How many more?'

'How many would you like?'

Alenburga sat back, regarding Kaspar with a focused attention. Then he said, 'I suspect you have more than I want.'

'More, I think, than any reasonable man would want.'

'How many?'

Kaspar could feel all hope draining away. 'General, with all candour, from what I know of the situation facing the Tsurani, they may not have much of an army left by the time they deal with the threat to their world. But if they're smart, they'll pull up stakes and run. That would mean a million warriors, and three times that in women, children, and other non-combatants.'

'Four million?' said the General, a look of genuine astonishment on his face. 'Our entire population is less than a million, Kaspar.'

'I know. I doubt there are four million souls living in the Eastlands in all the kingdoms and city states.'

'Just how many Tsurani are there?'

'I don't know exactly, but they have an imperial census they use for taxes, and I have been told that the last one seven years ago accounted for twenty million citizens and slaves in their empire.'

'You hear things, Kaspar, and sometimes you judge them to be rumours and stories, tales told by those given to exaggeration. When I was a boy and heard stories of the Riftwar, it was something of legend. Here in the Eastlands we'd see the occasional trader from your continent up north. We knew you were up there, but we never had much contact. The Riftwar was this amazing tale of aliens from another world who used magic to invade the Kingdom of the Isles. A ten-year struggle and a climactic battle. Very much the stuff of sagas, but in all of that, we never heard a jot of information about the order of battle, the disposition of resources, or provisioning the troops the stock and trade of the working soldier, Kaspar. To us, it was all a fantasy.'

'Not for those dying up there, General. As difficult as it may be to believe, I have met some people who lived through that war, and the one that devastated this continent afterwards, and I can tell you it was no fantasy to them.'

'But millions of Tsurani...'

'I will tell you everything you need to know, but time is short.'

'Kaspar, you know I would probably recommend to His Majesty that we accept your Tsurani refugees, or at least some of them, if I could guarantee their good behaviour.'

'Then you should meet them,' said Kaspar with a dark grin.

'Really?' Alenburga sat back in his chair and looked at Kaspar across the chessboard. 'How do you suppose I can do that?'

'Well, I have arranged for you and your general staff to take part in a first-hand demonstration of the Tsuranis' ability to fight.'

'Kaspar, now you're being glib.'

Kaspar smiled. 'Yes, I am. Let me tell you of the Dasati' Speaking quietly and calmly he told the General everything he knew of the situation on Kelewan and the minutes soon turned into hours. When the General's batsman came to see if Alenburga needed anything, he was waved away. By the time Kaspar had finished the story, evening had become night and the palace in Muboya was silent.

The General let out a long, slow breath. 'Kaspar, that is a remarkable story.'

'It is true, every word, I swear.'

'An army of millions with no effective leadership?'

'I need you, General,' said Kaspar. 'The Tsurani need you. I have officers waiting, but not enough of them. I have one experienced commander who has led men in the field and can conduct brilliant tactics and who has a brilliant grasp of logistics: Erik von Darkmoor. I am not being vain when I tell you I am his equal. But I need a strategist. If you can come to Kelewan and help them mount a defence, you'll understand what type of soldier you'll find ready to do your bidding. They are tough, loyal and fearless. But I need a high command and I need a full staff in place. And I need it soon.'

'How soon?'

Something in Kaspar's belt pouch buzzed, and Kaspar pulled it out rapidly. It was a signalling device given to him by an artificer on Sorcerer's Island, at Miranda's instruction. Every member with military training had one, from Kaspar down to the boys serving with him, Servan, Jommy, and the others.

Key officers in Roldem, Rillanon, Krondor and other cities would have their devices buzzing. It meant that word had reached Miranda that the Dasati had begun their invasion of Kelewan.

Kaspar looked steadily at the General. 'I need you now.'

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - Invasion.

THE WOMAN SCREAMED.

'Help me!' she cried, clutching her baby to her chest. She was covered in blood and spattered with an orange fluid unrecognizable to the scouts.

Their horses pawed the ground nervously as the woman neared. One scout dismounted and halted the wide-eyed woman and looked at her baby. With a single shake of his head he indicated to his companion the child was not sleeping, but dead.

With an equally curt gesture the still-mounted rider indicated he would move away and leave his companion to direct the woman to the south, where the army was mustering. There were healing priests there who would do what they could for the woman. Others would say a prayer for the baby.

The dismounted rider tried to calm the woman and the other moved his steed up the northern road. The report that a small village in the foothills of the mountains had been razed had reached them two days ago. Word had been sent south by fast rider and then by magical means to the Holy City. In a few hours, the order to muster had been given, and warriors from every house and clan in the north had answered the call. The gathering point was a small outpost closest to the reported incursion, a small fort housing cavalry from House Ambucar. The small cavalry detachment, some of the finest hors.e.m.e.n in the Empire, had the duty to patrol the foothills to the north.

The outpost's primary duty over the centuries had been to prevent raids by the migratory Thn to the north, so they were in a good position to respond to the Dasati incursion. The rider pushed his horse up a steep rise to a crest and looked to the north. Part of his normal patrol area, this road and the village that had nestled in a vale below were as familiar to him as his own son's face. Most buildings were intact, though two were burning at the far side of the village square, erected around the common well. The scout surmised the fires had been the result of overturned cook fires, perhaps, else the other buildings in the village would also be ablaze.

The woman he had met on the road was the only proof this village had been occupied. One hundred twenty or more men, women, and children, all serving House Ambucar were gone. An experienced tracker, the scout quickly ascertained what had just happened.

The village had been struck by a raiding party of mounted men... if that's what they were, he considered, for the tracks in the dust were made by no animal he had seen before; neither horse or needra or Thn warrior made those marks in the dirt. He ranged around the village a few more minutes, then saw drag marks. For a moment he was confused, then he realized the villagers had been trussed up in large nets and dragged away.

He was too old and experienced a scout to doubt his own eyes, but nothing of this made sense. As a young soldier he had served a tour in a garrison across the Sea of Blood and had fought against slavers from the lost tribes of Tsubar, those malignant dwarves who used human as slave labour. You wouldn't drag valuable slaves, risking injury and death; you'd truss them up in a coffle or herd them aboard waiting wagons.

The village that had been the site of the first alarm was but a half-hour's fast ride up the road. If he hurried, he might overtake the raiders, burdened as they were by their captives. There was only one way for them to travel, for on the right the river Gagajin flowed down a series of rapids and cut gaps, at times falling a hundred feet below the roadway, and on the right a series of steep hillsides vaulted upward, giving little room for more than a trio of riders or a heavy wagon to pa.s.s.

A short time later he saw by dust on the road ahead he was catching up with the raiders, and none too soon, if he could tell from the splatters of blood along the trail. If the villagers were netted as he suspected, many would be dead, crushed under the weight of their companions or from the repeated pounding as they bounced along the ground.

There was dust over a rise, a position from which he should be able to see the next village. He hurried his now tiring horse up the steep road, and when he came to crest, he reined in.

Galloping down the road were men if that was what they were mounted on creatures unlike anything he had ever seen, from this world or the world of Midkemia. They dragged large nets behind them, in which a dozen or more bodies were confined. Weak cries told the scout a few wretches endured within the ma.s.ses of the dead. But what commanded his attention was what he saw as their destination.

A sphere without feature rose up above what should have been the village of Tastiano. It rose easily three hundred feet, and from the rider's vantage, appeared to be half a ball buried in the soil. Which would mean a six hundred foot diameter. More than a quarter mile across! He realized it must be some Dasati magic as he saw the first rider vanish through the wall as if pa.s.sing through a sheet of smoke.

Two Dasati riders were turning and the scout realized he had been observed. Their alien looking mounts were quickly at a gallop and the scout turned his horse about. He put heels to the mount's barrel and urged him to a gallop. His horse was tried, but bred for endurance as well as speed and he just hoped it was faster than those monsters coming after him. He had to carry a warning, for at the last instant, just before he lost sight of the murky sphere, he had seen it expand. It was now bigger than it had been moments before.

The magician cast a spell. A pair of Dasati Deathpriests erected a protective barrier but not before one of them was struck by a flaming globe of fire. Tomataka, the Tsurani Great One who had cast the fireball was knocked backwards by the concussion of the following explosion. The Deathpriest standing next to the one who had been struck was thrown sideways almost thirty yards and slammed against a rock-face hard enough to break his bones.

The battle had raged all morning, with thousands of Tsurani warriors streaming into a pa.s.s that led into the small valley. They were south of the village Tastiano in the northern mountain range that bordered the Empire, The High Wall, or where that village had rested before being devoured by the black sphere. The river Gagajin had one of its two sources in the mountains high above this valley and what was called the Greater Gagajin flowed through heart of the valley.

The Dasati had chosen well in establishing this beachhead, for there was only one access point a narrow pa.s.s a few hundred feet above the river. The Gagajin flowed too quickly and the pa.s.s was too constricted for boats to be used to ferry soldiers upstream. To the south of the valley the invaders could move directly into Hokani province, threatening old Minwanabi estates now belonging to the Emperor's family. From there it would be down to the city of Jamar, then on to the City of the Plains, off Battle Bay, where the great rift which had enabled the original invasion site of Midkemia still existed. Or they could swing south-west, and attack the city of Silmani, the northernmost population centre on the River Gagajin, then cut down through what was left of the Holy City of Kentosani, on to Sulan-Qu and down to the ancient Acoma estates, where the Emperor was hidden away.

Tomataka was one of a dozen magicians who had volunteered to accompany the ma.s.sive response to the reports of invasion that had been communicated to the a.s.sembly the day before. The Empire was in turmoil, although some order had been restored by the simple means of the Emperor issuing edicts and every house in the north of Hokani obeying. Tens of thousands of warriors were on the march, although many were still days away, but the first few hundred accompanied by the Great Ones had entered the valley pa.s.s this morning at dawn.

The Great One picked himself up off the ground, his ears still ringing from the impact. He could see dozens of Dasati warriors pouring out of the Black Mount. It was the size of a small mountain and as black as soot at midnight, hence the name. No light came from within and there were no apparent doors or windows, yet the Dasati warriors and priests seemed to pa.s.s through with ease.

Hundreds of Tsurani warriors were hurrying up the trail above the river and were essentially throwing their lives away to halt the Dasati advance. The Great One's head was pounding and he was unable to focus enough to conjure any spell that would help, so he retreated slowly from the advancing front to gather himself. But when he looked towards the Black Mount he noticed with alarm that it was larger than when he had first arrived: there had been a lightning-struck tree and an odd rock formation at the far edge of the growing black sphere; now they were gone from sight. He calculated and judged that the sphere must have grown a dozen or more yards on that side in less than an hour.

Still feeling wobbly, he turned and staggered down the trail from the line of advancing Tsurani footmen. He knew that somewhere down the trail Tsurani cavalry would be waiting. Horses were still a rarity on Kelewan, but every major house now had a number, and they would not waste them trying to force them through on a narrow footpath, but would keep them in reserve for a counter-offensive should the Dasati reach the bottom of the trail and the great plains below.

The magician knew that the Dasati would succeed in doing this. He had seen their Deathknights fight and he had seen his countrymen die, and he had no doubt. The Tsurani Empire, and this entire world, could not stand on the strength of Tsurani bravery and dedication alone.

Newly-appointed Supreme Commander Prakesh Alenburga looked around the room. In ancient days this had been the court of Lord Sezu of the Acoma and his daughter, the legendary Lady Mara, later known as the Mistress of the Empire. Alenburga did not understand the gravity of history those names represented, but he had quickly come to appreciate the weight of Tsurani history. Everything he had seen since coming to this world spoke of ancient times, and a tradition that was deep and rich. These were a great people and he felt a strong attraction to them, perhaps because his own nation was young and had none of the trappings of history these people exhibited at every hand.

Alenburga bowed before the Emperor, his head still aching from the spell used by the priest Miranda had summoned to teach them all the Tsurani language, in an hour. That had been yesterday evening, but by the end of that hour he could understand and be understood, and that had been worth the pain. 'I pledge my life to discharge the great responsibility you have placed in my hands, Your Majesty,' he said solemnly.

Emperor Sezu, named for the last man to rule this very house, inclined his head, 'It is we who thank you, Commander.' He looked around the room. Beside Alenburga stood Kaspar of Olasko and Erik von Darkmoor, and behind them stood their makeshift staff. Jommy, Servan, Tad, and Zane stood to the right of Alenburga's headquarters staff, which consisted of a score of officers from Kesh, the Kingdoms of Roldem and the Isles, and the Eastern Kingdoms. Two of the boys would serve with Erik as aides-de-camp, and the others would serve in the same capacity with Kaspar. The Emperor nodded in the direction of this team and added, 'As we thank all of you who have come to our world to fight on our behalf.'

The Emperor now looked towards the a.s.sembled Tsurani n.o.bles who cl.u.s.tered on the other side of the audience hall; it had once served well for a ruling lord of a single house, but for those gathered at the Emperor's command, it was decidedly cramped. 'You, the surviving rulers of the great houses of the Empire, you have our thanks, as well, for understanding how dire our situation is. In these outworlders, we have placed the care of our Empire. It is our edict that you shall obey them as you do us in the conduct of this war. Now, go and marshal your soldiers, for we are in grave peril.

'For the Empire!'

'For the Empire!' answered the Tsurani rulers and no matter what their personal feelings were about taking commands from the new Supreme Commander, they would keep those feelings in check and do as they were ordered.

'See to your commands, my lords, and be ready to march at once. You are dismissed,' said the General.

There was a slight intake of breath by several leaders, and to a man they looked at the Emperor.

Alenburga turned to see the Light of Heaven standing erect and calm to all outward appearances, save for a tell-tale whitening of the knuckles where he gripped the edge of the throne. The General realized the severity of his breach of protocol and bowed his head. 'If the Light of Heaven permits?'

The Emperor was motionless for the briefest of moments, then he nodded his approval. 'We will a.s.semble here again in one hour by which time I would ask that the latest intelligence we have on the invaders be made ready for our consideration. All warriors in the Empire must be ready to march as soon as possible and all provisions and other logistical support must be made ready with the utmost haste. We must move swiftly and decisively.'

That order was something the Tsurani lords could understand. As one they bowed, turned and left the room. Alenburga turned to the other Midkemians. 'We need a few minutes to discuss how we're going to do this. Kaspar, Erik and General Shavaugn from my staff are, in that order, the chain of command. Should anything happen to me, Kaspar will a.s.sume command of the armies.' He let out an audible sigh of relief.

He turned to face the young ruler of the Empire and with genuine apology in his tone said, 'Your Majesty, please forgive any future breach of decorum for we are outlanders, and we need to be about our business. If you'll permit me?'

The Emperor said, 'We understand. We shall attend and observe and remain silent.'

Kasper nodded slightly, indicating the General should continue. Between them, they had quickly contrived the t.i.tle of Supreme Commander to two ends: first to convey in as unambiguous a fashion as possible Alenburga's position and rank, and secondly to avoid any suspicion that the office of Warlord had been given to a non-Tsurani, an act that could bring more tradition-bound n.o.bles to rebellion, even in the face of an invasion.

Word of the a.s.sault on the Holy City and the destruction of the High Council had only just reached the general population, and news of the invasion was still days away. Alenburga looked around the room and said, 'We need an order of battle, and before we can do that, I need to have an understanding of our resources and their deployment.' He looked at his sub-commanders. 'What do we know?'

Kaspar pointed to the map. 'The incursion is here, in a small valley about twenty-five miles upriver from the foothills. About ten thousand Tsurani warriors are strung out along two lines of march, here and here.' He pointed at the river and the plains to the east. 'If the Dasati break containment and move in strength, they can strike in almost any direction. Their best course, in my opinion, would be to come south and move along this road that follows the river. Once they get south of the gorges and rapids they could then use the river. If they either bring or make boats, that will give them the ability to move swiftly and bring significant supplies with them.'

Erik said, 'I don't think so.'

'Why?' asked Alenburga.

'They'd have to establish another beach-head, somewhere downriver, and that would put them at risk of a severe beating they may be better individual soldiers but we outnumber them down there right now with more coming fast. Also, if they move along the riverside, they can be flanked and find themselves with the river at their back. I think their best course would be to take the river road, then turn west,' his fingers stabbed at a large area of plains to the west of the river road, 'then turn south, coming straight at Silmani from the north. There's nothing there but farms and pastureland.'

Alenburga squinted as if visualizing the terrain on the map.

'I'd try for here,' he said, pointing to a spot north-east of the city of Silmani. 'If I read this map right, there are half a dozen fords within a mile each way, and a large forest to the south giving them timber for siege engines. That way they don't have to worry about which side of the river they are on should we counter-attack.'

Jommy started to fidget and after being ignored for a few more moments cleared his throat. Without looking back, Alenburga said, 'Something you care to add, Captain?' The four young men had been given that rank as a way for the Tsurani to accept they were empowered to carry orders on behalf of the generals.

'No disrespect, General, but aren't you... we, overlooking something?'

'What would that be?'

'These Dasati, well, they're not human, are they?'

'And your point?' said the General impatiently.

'Well, our Tsurani friends here, for all their differences, are still human like us, and we can expect them to think largely like us, but these Dasati, well, sir, they're something else. What if they don't care about losses in taking a bridgehead or the need for lumber for siege machines, or swimming across the ocean... ah, sir?'