Storm over Vallia Read Online Free Page A

nothing, did not turn his head, as he passed the powerful figure walking sturdily beside his zorca at the head of the column. The prince would be in no mood for polite conversation now, by Vox!
    The inhabitants of the village, apprised by that seemingly magical dissemination of country news, had fled.
    There were beds for the wounded, and roofs for a fair number of those fortunate enough to cram into the little houses. There was even a little food. Fires were lit and clothing began to steam, filling the close confined atmosphere with that particular charring, moist, fibrous smell of drying clothes. When he had seen to his duties, Endru reported to the prince.
    “They’ll get some rest for the night, jis,” he said, using the “jis” as the shortened form of majister, for Prince Drak did not care to be addressed as majister. He was not too keen on the slightly more formal ‘majis’, although that was how most of those not in his immediate circle addressed him.
    “And those we have left on the field will sleep even more profoundly.” Drak sounded depressed.
    “The odds were more than two to one, nearer three to one. Had we not—”
    “Run off?”
    “Aye, jis! Had we not done so, many more of us would sleep on the field this night. And then, what of the morrow?”
    “You are right, Endru. We must look to tomorrow.”
    Endru was of an age with the prince. He felt perfectly confident in his ability to be allowed to say: “Bitterness over this defeat, jis, will avail us nothing. Those damned Kataki twins wrought the mischief, I’ll be bound.”
    “I did not see them in the fight. Did you?”
    “No.”
    Drak sat himself down on a rough wooden seat and put his forearms on the scrubbed tabletop. The fire threw harsh shadows into his face. Yet Endru could see the power there, the arrogant beak of a nose, the jut of chin, all the charisma he possessed, shared and inherited from his father the emperor. They were much alike, yet Prince Drak for all his austere ways, his uprightness, his dedication to his duty, possessed a streak of more gentle character from his mother, the divine Empress Delia.
    The small cottage room contained other men and women: Kapt Enwood nal Venticar, the prince’s right-hand man and his chief of staff, crusty old Jiktar Naghan the Bow, commanding the prince’s bodyguard regiment, the Prince Majister’s Devoted Archers, his personal servants, one or two of the sutlers come to report the damage, various people who had business with the prince, and Chuktar Leone Starhammer, commanding Queen Lushfymi’s regiment of Jikai Vuvushis. Now Kapt Enwood resumed the conversation Endru’s entrance had interrupted.
    “Jiktar Endru confirms my view, then, jis. I am confident the Kataki twins commanded. It is certain that Vodun Alloran was not there.”
    “The quicker he is put down, the better it will be for Vallia.”
    “Yet he is clever and resourceful. He commands many men. And he’s getting his gold from somewhere—”
    “Aye!” burst out Drak. “But where?”
    “It is my view,” put in Leone Starhammer, “there is sorcery involved here.”
    No one cared to answer that. This Leone, a full-bodied woman, plain of face, dark of hair, with biceps that could smash a sword through oak, kept herself and her girls up to a very high fighting pitch. Fortunately, in Drak’s mind as in the others’, the Jikai Vuvushis had not been heavily engaged during the short fray.
    “Let’s have the maps out and see what we can cobble together and call a plan.”
    Again Endru felt that stab of dismay at the depths of the prince’s despondency.
    The maps were brought and spread upon the table and the people gathered about them in the light of a lamp, a cheap mineral oil lamp.
    Drak began by stating the obvious.
    “We are fighting for Vallia. The whole island empire has been broken into pieces, and slavers and slave masters, villains who batten on our misery, have swarmed in to ravage and despoil. We will not