A Life for Kregen by Alan Burt Akers

stroking. The cavalrymen swelled their chests. Their faces appeared to fill out, grow larger and firmer, and the brightness of their eyes matched the brilliance of their appearance. Yes, your dyed-in-the-wool jutman, your cavalryman who gallops in with a skirl and a whoop, knows how to ruffle it.
    The two regiments of zorcas and the single regiment of nikvoves totaled around a thousand riders. There were fifty or so of my choice band with me, together with the Pachaks. These last two sets of ruffians, and I joke most feebly there, I cautioned off to another duty.
    So, and for our mounts in a literal sense champing at the bit, we waited out the long descent of the suns.
    Dorgo the Clis, his scar giving him the look of a desperado who would as lief slit your throat as doff his hat, was sent off to Dogansmot with a few riders to find out what the invading army’s mischief had been there. This would be the first place they had bivouacked in that we had found and I felt the heaviness of heart that the usual rapine and plunder would have taken place. Dorgo rode circumspectly around toward the south before cutting west. The breeze at last died away and the rain gentled down, lustering all the greenery with a veil of silver.
    Dogansmot lies not too far from the eastern border of Thadelm where that vadvarate marches with the imperial province of Vond. Vond was solidly with the new emperor in Vondium, and we had ridden through from town to town and village to village in a kind of triumphal procession. We had left in our wake a determined intention of resistance to the invaders. A good blow here by this small cavalry force, the success of my own plan for the night, and then we could return and set our own army in motion.
    And, all the time I schemed, that irritating little itch persisted. There had to be another plot by our foemen afoot. This army below us was in one sense derisory for the sack of a great capital city. There just had to be other forces in the field.
    The army was from Pandahem, that seemed clear and would explain the absence of saddle flyers and vollers. We had seen not a single aerial force, and our own couple of air-boats were at a discreet distance, waiting the signal. There was something afoot, something nasty and something that boded ill for Vondium.
    When I told Barty that he might ride with the three regiments in command he said in his eager way: “That is very fine of you, Dray. But I’d rather ride with you. I know you’re up to some kind of deviltry and that sounds much more interesting than beating up a baggage train and firing tents.”
    I regarded him stonily. A stout-hearted young man, the Strom of Calimbrev, if a little hasty and not over-inclined to think of consequences. But I could not find it in me to deny his request to join in my little spot of mayhem.
    So Jiktar Nath Karidge, as the senior regimental commander, would conduct the cavalry. I gave him strict instructions and we checked sand-glasses, and then I led out my choice band and the Pachaks. The suns were drifting down behind banks of vermilion and emerald clouds, and the rain sifted in as though shaken from a trag’s pelt. We rode silently. Ahead of us lay an army preparing to bed down for the night.
    “They’re pretty free and easy with their lights,” observed Barty as we jogged down.
    Indeed, there was plenty of light from lanterns and torches, whereat I frowned. What I purposed needed the shrouding cloak of Notor Zan.
    “They act,” said Targon with all the wisdom of his newly won state as a veteran warrior, “as though they’re a friendly host. They didn’t even investigate the disappearance of their patrol.”
    “Whatever the explanation,” I said, “it must wait for now. Shastum!” Which is to say, “Silence!”
    The sand trickled away and by the last of the light we saw the final grains tumble through. In the growing shadows, flames licked up from the baggage lines and tents began to burn.
    No need for further orders.