Chapter two
Of the concerns of Drak, Prince Majister of Vallia
The battle was lost a half an hour after it began with the totally unexpected appearance of a second hostile army swarming up from the sand dunes on the left flank. The Vallians broke and fled.
The First Army, commanded by Drak, Prince Majister of Vallia, trudged dispiritedly back from that disastrous field. Then the rain fell.
Jumbled regiments on foot slogged through mud that thickened and stuck like glue. A few artillery pieces saved from the ruin, ballistae and catapults swathed in coarse sacking against the rain, struggled on drawn by a motley collection of animals, and by men. The cavalry, who had suffered grievously, walked their animals, and everywhere heads hung down.
The wounded, those who could be collected, were transported in improvised fashion, for the supply of ambulance carts proved woefully insufficient.
Sliding, slipping, dragging themselves through the mud, the First Army staggered on eastwards across the imperial province of Venavito in southwest Vallia.
Jiktar Endru Vintang led his zorca through the mud, holding the bridle so that he walked to the side, for the zorca’s single spiral horn jutting from his forehead could inflict a nasty nudge if anyone was foolish enough to walk directly in front of so superb an animal. His saddle dripped water, and his orderly would spit brickdust cleaning up the weaponry strapped both to zorca and Endru.
The long lines of men and animals kept doggedly on in the rattle of the rain and the gruesome footing.
Jiktar Endru commanded one of the prince’s personal bodyguard regiments.[2]
He was three-quarters of the way up the ladder of promotions within the Jiktar rank, and hoped soon to make Chuktar. With this disastrous Battle of Swanton’s Bay to ruin their plans, Endru morosely felt that promotions for anyone were a long way away. You’d have to take the place of a dead superior and soldier on in your own grade for a bit yet. That was his surmise.
Nobody talked. They all went sloshing on in a profound and gloomy silence, broken by the slash of the rain, the creaking of axle wheels, the suck and splash of feet in mud, and the groans of the wounded. All these distressing sounds faded within the bitterness of the silence engulfing the army.
Endru Vintang ti Vandayha[3], tough as old boots, efficient, a superb zorcaman, a warrior who understood discipline and let his regiment know he understood, had fought as a Freedom Fighter in Valka, and counted himself supremely lucky to be selected by the Prince Majister to command the bodyguard regiment called the Prince Majister’s Sword Watch. The best part was that, feeling a real and powerful affection for the prince, Endru knew that Prince Drak liked and trusted him and treated him as a friend.
He knew he felt as many and many a poor w
