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CHAPTER ONE

THE SUMMONS

Rick Galloway left Sergeant Walbrook to organize the final evacuation of Armagh and moved north with his guards and staff. They camped at a major crossroad, with branches leading northeast to Taranto, west to Chelm, and north through borderlands into the Five Kingdoms. He planned on sending most of this party west to join Tylara, while he took an escorting force to Taranto to investigate what was happening in Nikeis.

The day’s march was satisfactory, and Rick had Warner as his guest at dinner. As they were finishing, there were shouts from the periphery guards. A few moments later Sergeant McCleve came into Rick’s command caravan.

“Reporting, Sir,” he said, and Rick returned the salute.

“Kind of private, Sir,” McCleve said. “Medical report, Sir.”

Rick nodded and turned to Warner.

“Guess that’s your cue.”

“Right, Colonel. I’ll go see to my gear.”

Rick waited until Warner was gone and he was alone with McCleve, then nodded.

“Have a seat, Sergeant.”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

“Wine?”

“No, Sir, water’s okay. Unless you’ve opened some of the reserves?”

“No.”

“Then just water.” McCleve watched Rick for a moment and grinned. “Seeing as how surprised you are—”

“Maybe a little.” Rick shrugged. “Okay, a lot. Never saw you turn down a drink before.”

“You didn’t notice, I guess. Been sober for months,” McCleve said. “Got that devil licked to the point I can enjoy a glass and not want more. No point in cheap wine, though. I do like the taste of some of the best.”

“That’s good news, Sergeant.” Rick frowned. “You’re the closest thing we have to a doctor. Maybe it’s time we recognized that.”

“Sir?”

“Doctors are usually officers,” Rick said. “Perhaps it’s time to promote you to captain.”

“Not a lot of point to it, is there, Sir?” McCleve said. “Not as if it would put me in a higher pay grade, so to speak. The locals all call me Lord anyway, and why would I care if Warner and Bisso call me ‘Sir’?” He grinned. “Of course it might be interesting to have Elliot ‘Sir’ me, ’specially if we both end up back at the University. Maybe I ought to think on that one again.”

“All right. If you have new thoughts on the subject, come see me. Now, do you have a report?”

“Yes, Sir. You asked me to stay behind to examine Publius. I did. From all I can see, it’s arthritis, the first stages of leukemia, multiple sclerosis or lupus, Colonel. I’d say lupus, but without a blood count—and we can’t do those here—I can’t be sure. If it’s MS or leukemia, I can’t help him.”

“Lupus. Is that fatal?”

“Can be. It’s an autoimmune disease, Colonel. Tends to be debilitating. Symptoms are a lot like arthritis, only generally much worse, but severe lupus can take out the kidneys or other organs. Attitude counts a lot.”

“Is there a treatment?”

“Maybe, but not one I have,” McCleve said. “Prednisone is the standard treatment for it back home, and it helps, but the side effects can be nasty. ’Course, we don’t have any prednisone, though I suppose we could ask the Shalnuksis for some.” He shrugged. “Hasn’t helped much with anything else, I know, but we sure can’t make it here.”

“We can always ask,” Rick agreed with a shrug of his own. “I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting, though.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. Now if I had some books on lab techniques maybe I could get started figuring out how to produce more of what we need locally, but I don’t. Too bad we didn’t have a good chemistry set with us in Africa! I’ve made a passable microscope, but chemistry was never my strong point anyway.”

“You seem pretty familiar with lab work,” Rick said.

“Sure. I have an MD degree, Colonel.” He grinned at Rick’s astonishment. “From Guadalajara University. After I graduated I pretty well drank my way out of getting a license in the US. After a while I joined up as a medic. I’m a lot out of date, but I did have the training.”

“Now I’m pretty sure we’ll have to give you a commission,” Rick said, and McCleve snorted in amusement.

“I doubt it matters a lot, but it’s okay with me.”

“So what’s the prognosis with Publius?”

“I left him some aspirin,” McCleve said. “Told him about willow bark, too. Willow bark works here just as good as it does on Earth. Damn near as rare, too! But he’s got the resources to look for more. And I gave him some mumbo jumbo to keep up his spirits. Attitude’s likely to be as important as anything else. If he keeps his spirits up, he’s good for ten years anyway, maybe more, but lupus is pretty tricky, Colonel. It can hurt like hell, and bring on fits of depression, and if he gets too discouraged there’s lots of ways to go out rather than face it.”

“I see.” One more thing to worry about, but nothing I can do, Rick thought. Not now, anyway. “Thanks, Doc.”

“Sure.” McCleve stood and saluted. “I’ll give it some more thought, Colonel, but I can’t think of anything else just offhand.”

Rick nodded. “Thanks.”

* * *

The crossing was important enough to support a major village. It also held one of Rick’s semaphore posts. At dawn the semaphore arms began waving and a runner came to Rick’s caravan. Rick heard him shout “Urgent message from the Wanax,” and went back to his breakfast.

An hour later he had the message. It was brief:

“To Rick Galloway, Warlord of Drantos, greetings. We advanced on Aachilos. At first we met success, but now we have been defeated. Many star weapons were used against us. The host of the Five Kingdoms pursues us. I do not know their numbers. There are star men serving the Five. I do not know their numbers. Bring all your forces to the Ottarn Fords immediately. Disaster threatens. Bring all forces. You will learn more as you approach the Ottarn. Ganton, Wanax.”

It was followed by authentication codes that left no doubt this was a message sent by Ganton.

“But whether he had a dagger to his throat is another matter,” Warner said sourly.

“Yah, but what do we do?” Sergeant Major Elliot asked pointedly. “‘Send all forces’ isn’t a command that makes sense, Colonel. How the hell will we feed them all? Send them to face what? And if you strip Chelm what holds back that goddam army sitting in your crop fields? Skipper, this is stupid.”

And Ganton isn’t stupid. Or hasn’t been.

“Panic, Top?”

“Looks that way to me,” Elliot said. “’Course you know him better than me, Colonel.”

“It’s a direct order. Sir,” Warner said. “If he’s looking for a way to get at you, direct disobedience is a pretty good charge.”

“I’d say you have a nasty, suspicious mind, if I didn’t worry about the same thing myself, Mr. Warner,” Elliot said.

“Disobedience to an order that can’t be carried out,” Rick said. “There’s no way we can feed a big army at the Ottarn. Hell, we damn near stripped the place ourselves. We can get fodder sent in from the local areas, and carry rations, but that’s sure going to limit how many troops we can bring.”

“Yes, Sir,” Warner said. “But it doesn’t change a direct order, Colonel.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Rick said. “But we don’t know what we’re facing, either. How many star weapons? Is this some renegade from our outfit?”

“Who would it be?” Elliot asked. “He said ‘many.’ We’re not missing ‘many.’ Clavell and Harrison, they’re in Nikeis. Maybe Murphy went off his head and joined the enemy, but that don’t make sense, and it still doesn’t add up to ‘many.’ Colonel, to the best I can make it we’ve accounted for everyone we brought here from Earth, and I just named the only ones not dead or directly under our command.”

Elliot looked thoughtful.

“Unless Gengrich went rogue again, but if he had we’d have heard.” The sergeant major looked around to be certain no one but Warner and Rick could hear him. “And even if we didn’t hear, your Lady would, she’s got those Children of Vothan watching down there. No. To the best I can make it, this has to be someone new.” He looked thoughtful. “Colonel, I’d sure feel better about this if we’d heard anything from our people in Nikeis. I don’t much believe in coincidences. Lights in the sky at Nikeis, now Ganton runs into opposition with star weapons.”

“Sounds like new players,” Rick agreed. “Wonder how many?” He paused to think. “So. Okay. We send mounted forces, and not many of those. We have to sort out who goes north and who goes west from here. Elliot, I’ll leave that to you. Sounds like we may need Walbrook and his mortars with us, so get a runner back to him and tell him to hand over the evacuation to Walinski. Then he's to join us as quickly as he can. Get all our noncombatants and supplies and logistics together and have them wait here for Walinski’s lot. And tell Walinski to get a wiggle on. Leave anything we can replace. I want him headed west with enough guards to make sure he gets there. The rest of us head north to the summons. That includes Warner and McCleve, I want them with me. Get your book out, Warner, I’ve got semaphore signals to dictate.”

“Aye, aye, Skipper.”

“All coded. Signal to Tylara, copy of the Wanax’s message and orders. To Mason, leave Tylara a bodyguard. Henderson and Boyd, I think. He’s to bring the rest of the mercs to the Ottarn. Particularly Ark and the LMG, and Frick and McQuaid with the Carl Gustav. We don’t have many rounds left for that, but bring what we have. It may be needed. Leave the one-oh-six with Tylara; there isn’t enough ammunition left for it to be worth much in the field.

“The Musketeer Dragoon Company, I guess. They aren’t trained very well, but they may be better than nothing. Bring light cavalry. Reiters, all of them, all of the mounted archers. Bring the mobile supply trains, logistics people. Tell him to use his judgment, but it needs to be fast and self-contained. All mounted, keep the movements secret, and make it as quick as possible. Warner, get that off.”

“Yes, Sir—Colonel, that’s going to leave your county pretty defenseless against that Fiver army camped there.”

“Maybe not. If the enemy doesn’t know, it won’t matter at all. Even if they do they’ll have to assault fixed positions, and Tylara can handle that. At worst she can hold the castle until I get there.” He thought for a moment. “It won’t hurt to remind Mason that the Great Guns aren’t part of what I consider mobile forces. Leave those big cannon to defend the walls. Make sure that reads like a reminder and not an insult to his intelligence.”

“Yes, Sir.” Warner nodded and Sergeant Major Elliot chuckled.

“Given them gunners are local militia and you’re stripping the county of most everything else, I’d think it would take a direct order to get Lady Tylara to let go of those guns in the first place.”

“If even that would do it,” Rick said. “Okay, but it never hurts to be explicit, particularly in a semaphore message. What I want to get across is they should keep what it takes to hold Chelm, but the Wanax has directly ordered us to ‘bring everything.’ That’s the way to start the message, with the royal order. She’ll catch on quick enough, she’s sharper than I am about local politics.”

Rick wasn’t surprised when neither Warner nor Elliot wanted to comment on that.

“Another thing,” Rick said. “I need administration more than guns. Top, I want you to take the civilians and logistics and supplies back to Chelm and start organizing madweed cultivation.”

Elliot frowned slightly. Doesn’t like being under Tylara’s direct command, Rick thought. Well, nothing I can do about that.

“Sir.” Whatever misgivings Elliot felt they didn’t make it into his voice. “Do I take Rand?”

“He’s one of the best scouts we have. I may need him here to deal with this. I’ll send him back to you as soon as I can, but I think I better keep him.”

“Sir.” Elliot paused. “And Lady Siobhan?”

“Oh God, I forgot she was coming with us!” Rick said. “To marry Major Mason. Only now I’ll need Mason here. Take her with you, Sergeant Major. She’ll be safer there than anywhere else, and it’s the best place for her to wait for Mason anyway. I’ll send Tylara a note so she’ll expect her.”

“You might let Art Mason know she’s coming there,” Warner said. “Sir.”

“Right. You do that. Now, Warner, a message to Drumold. Tell him what’s going on. Use his own judgment.”

“He’s got no reason to come to the Ottarn,” Warner said. “Ganton’s writ doesn’t run in Tamaerthan, and I don’t think the little king’s going to get any volunteers, either. Took all you could do to get the clans to come up here the first time, and that was before his barons pissed them off. Again.”

“I know. Let them know. It’s all we can do just now. When you get that drafted I’ll add a personal note to my father-in-law.”

“What about Nikeis?” Warner asked.

“Has to be put on hold. I’ll put together a message to Publius explaining the delay.”

“Going to be hard on Harrison and Clavell,” Elliot said.

“I know that. Not sure what I can do.”

“Diplomatic note to the Doge in Nikeis,” Warner said. “We are greatly concerned that we haven’t heard from our men in quite some time, and beg that our ally find out for us if some ill has befallen them. All sugar and spice. That’s what I’d do, Colonel.”

“Sounds good,” Elliot said. “Best to stay friends if we can. Let Publius put on the pressure. Least until we know more.”

“Right,” Rick said. “Do that. And I’ve had a thought.”

“Sir?” Warner asked.

Rick looked around. Only Elliot and Warner were close.

“Tylara may have a way to learn more about the situation.”

“The mean little kids,” Elliot said. “Yes, Sir, that she may.”

Tylara’s band of child assassins was a sore subject. For over a year Rick had feared they might be turned on him, and now that things were better between him and Tylara there was still the danger of discovery of the assassins and their victims. If word gets out, Rick thought to himself, we’re through. Fortunately, Tylara’s changed their mission to observation and protection. Right now intelligence is what I need.

“I’ll write that request myself,” Rick said. “Okay, get those messages off. Elliot, sort out the farmers and civilians and escort them to Dravan. Except for your escort, everybody else comes north. Bisso will be senior sergeant with me. Warner, you’re my direct staff aide and adjutant. Better get foraging parties going out ahead of us. Forced marches, gentlemen.”


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