Helliconia Summer - Brian W. Aldiss [255]
Borlien already had the unpopular Western Wars on its hands. No ruler of Borlien, not even the Eagle, could hope really to win against either Randonan or Kace, since those mountainous countries could not be occupied or governed even if conquered.
Now the Fifth Army was recalled from Kace and sent into the Cosgatt. The campaign against Darvlish was not dignified with the title of war. Yet it ate up as much manpower as a war, cost as much, was fought as passionately. Thribriat and the wilderness of the Cosgatt were nearer to Matrassyl than the Western Wars.
Darvlish had a personal animus against JandolAnganol and his line. His father had been a baron in Borlien. He had fought by his father’s side when JandolAnganol’s father, VarpalAnganol, had appropriated his land. Darvlish had seen his father cut down by a youthful JandolAnganol.
When a leader died in battle, that was the end of fighting. No man would continue. Darvlish’s father’s army turned and ran. Darvlish retreated to the east with a handful of men. VarpalAnganol and his son pursued them, hunting them like lizards among the stoney mazes of the Cosgatt – until the Borlienese forces refused to go further because no more loot was forthcoming.
After almost eleven years in the wilderness, Darvlish had another chance, and took it: ‘The vultures shall praise my name!’ became his war cry.
Half a small year before the king divorced his queen – before the idea even invaded his mind – JandolAnganol was forced to muster new troops and march at the head of them. Men were in short supply and required pay or the loot the Cosgatt would not yield. He used phagors. The phagor auxiliaries were promised freedom and land in return for service. They were formed into the First and Second Regiments of the Royal Phagorian Guard of the Fifth Army. Phagors were ideal in one respect: both the male and female fought, and their young went into battle with them.
JandolAnganol’s father before him had also rewarded ancipital troops with land. It was as a result of this policy – forced on the kings by manpower shortage – that phagors lived more comfortably in Borlien than in Oldorando, and were less subject to persecution.
The Fifth Army marched eastwards, through jungles of stone. The invaders melted away before it. Most skirmishes were confined to dimday – neither side would fight either during darkness or when both suns were high. But the Fifth Army, under KolobEktofer, was forced to travel during full day.
It travelled through earthquake country, where ravines ran obliquely across its path. Habitation was scanty. The ravines were a tangle of vegetation, but there, if anywhere, water was to be found – as well as snakes, lions, and other creatures. The rest of the land was pocked with umbrella cactus and scrub. Progress across it was slow.
Living off the land was hard. Two kinds of creature dominated the plain, numberless ants and the ground-sloths which lived off the ants. The Fifth caught the sloths and roasted them, but the flesh was bitter in flavour.
Still the cunning Darvlish withdrew his forces, luring the king away from his base. Sometimes he left behind smouldering campfires or dummy forts on elevated sites. Then a day would be wasted as the army investigated them.
Colour-Major KolobEktofer had been a great explorer in his youth and knew the wilds of Thribriat, and the mountains above Thribriat, where the air finished.
‘They will stand, they will stand soon,’ he told the king one evening when a frustrated Eagle was cursing their difficulties. ‘The Skull must soon fight, or the tribes will turn against him. He understands that well. Once he knows we’re far enough from Matrassyl to be without our supply trains, he’ll make his stand. And we must be ready for his tricks.’
‘What kind of tricks?’
KolobEktofer shook his head. ‘The Skull is cunning, but not clever. He’ll try one of his father