say? We’ll have archers and spear-men standing on top of those forts and Malavi horse-soldiers slashing at them from both sides. I’d say that each fort could cost them a half-million or so of their companions. If we keep on erecting new forts every mile or so, the Vlagh’s likely to run out of warriors before her army even gets half-way down the pass.’
‘Maybe sending ten thousand fort-builders up the pass wasn’t such a bad idea after all,’ Longbow agreed. ‘Do you think Gunda will go along with us on this?’
‘Not right at first, maybe, but after a day or so of watching his men falling over each other, he’ll probably listen to our suggestion.’
Longbow looked at Andar in a speculative way. ‘I’ve noticed several times that you’re more clever – and practical – than either Gunda or Padan. Why does Narasan pay so much attention to those two and ignore you?’
‘It has to do with our childhood, Longbow,’ Andar explained. ‘We were all children in the army compound in Kaldacin, but we didn’t all live in the same barracks. Narasan, Gunda, and Padan were childhood friends, because they all lived in the same barracks. Brigadier Danal and I lived in a different barracks, so Narasan didn’t know us as well as he knew Gunda and Padan.’ Andar smiled briefly. ‘In a way I’m earning my position while Gunda and Padan get theirs for free. Narasan’s perceptive enough to know that I’m not a dunce. These wars here in the Land of Dhrall have been most useful for me. It’s reached the point that Narasan depends on me almost as much as he depends on Gunda and Padan.’ He glanced off to the east. ‘The sun’s coming up,’ he noted, ‘the real one, I think. Dahlaine’s toy might still be asleep. I think you might want to start out now, and I’ll tell Gunda that it’s time to go. If you step right along, you’ll get farther and farther ahead of him. Gunda should get the point in an hour or so, and he’ll start pushing the men. They like him, so they’ll do as he tells them.’
‘They don’t like you as much as they like Gunda, do they?’
Andar shrugged. ‘Being liked isn’t that important, Longbow. It’s getting the job done that counts.’
The river that had carved out Long-Pass over the extended eons was wider and more gentle than the frothy, tumbling brooks in the more rugged mountain ranges in other parts of the Land of Dhrall. In some ways the river rather closely resembled the streams in the southern region of the Trogite Empire. Andar pulled his mind back from that particular comparison, since it reminded him of the death of Commander Narasan’s gifted young nephew Astal. Narasan had never come right out and admitted it, but Andar was fairly sure that he’d been secretly pleased when word reached him that Gunda and Padan had arranged to have Astal’s murderers assassinated by a number of professional killers.
It seemed to Andar that the river that flowed down through Long-Pass was wider than it should be. The unseasonable warmth caused by Dahlaine’s pet sun appeared to be melting ice and snow farther on up the pass. Had anyone ever told him when he’d still been living in Kaldacin that it might be possible to have a glowing little sun as a house pet, he was quite sure that he’d have had that particular informant sent off to some lunatic establishment.
Longbow, who evidently could get by on very little sleep, roused them before daybreak the following morning. It was bitterly cold, and Gunda saw something that was very rare down in the Empire. Any time somebody spoke, a cloud of steam came out of his mouth to accompany the words. ‘I thought we were far enough to the south that we wouldn’t blow out steam when we talked,’ he said when he and his friends were eating breakfast.
‘It happens up in the mountains fairly often,’ Longbow said. ‘It can be quite useful when you’re hunting – or fighting a war. It’s fairly easy to find out just where the animals – or your enemies – are.’
‘Do the bugs blow out steam when they talk to each other in the same way that people do?’
Longbow shook his head. ‘Most bugs don’t talk with words the way we do,’ he said. ‘They talk with touch instead. Most bugs don’t even have voices.’
‘They do make noises, Longbow.’
Longbow nodded. ‘They rub their legs together to make the noises you’ve heard, Gunda, and the noises they make aren’t words. Bugs don’t need words. They all know what they’re supposed to be doing, so they don’t have to talk about it.’
‘Were you able to see the Wasteland when you came down that mountain range, Longbow?’ Keselo asked their friend.
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