Storm over Vallia Read Online Free Page B

allow slavery in Vallia. We will not allow honest folk to be crushed into the mud. So we fight for them. And, this day, we have been defeated.”
    “Tomorrow, jis,” said Kapt Enwood, “or the day after or the day after that, we will be victorious.”
    “And how many days must the downtrodden wait for us?”
    “As many as the Invisible Twins made manifest in the glory of Opaz decide, my prince.”
    Drak took that well enough. He stabbed a finger at the map.
    “At least, they did not pursue their victory.”
    “I lost the better part of a fine totrix brigade,” said Kapt Enwood, grimly. “Then the rains came.” He drew a breath. “No. They did not pursue.”
    Where Drak had stabbed his so savage finger the little bay, known as Swanton’s Bay, gouged a piece out of the Venavito coastline. To the east lay the province of Delphond, the Garden of Vallia. Delphond was the province of the Empress Delia. The people were languid and easygoing, joying in the good things of life which they produced so profusely from their lovely land, not easily aroused. During the Time of Troubles they had changed. From slitting the throats of stragglers in ditches, they now sent many strapping sons and daughters to swell the ranks of the regular Vallian army. Delphond was cut off from many direct routes and canal trunk systems, and invasions usually passed the province by. Drak did not wish to contemplate what his mother would say if he allowed invading hordes once more to ravage her lands.
    Northward lay the vadvarate of Thadelm, mostly occupied by Vodun Alloran’s mercenaries. There was some resistance to his schemes there, though, and a small force watched the borders.
    To the west the kovnate of Ovvend was now once more solidly in Alloran’s grip. Ovvend was on the small size for a kovnate province; it was undeniably rich.
    West of Ovvend lay the diamond-shaped kovnate of Kaldi, Vodun Alloran’s own province. The westerly point of land was the last on the mainland of Vallia. Beyond that extended many islands, chief of which was Rahartdrin, with Tezpor to the north. No word had been received from these islands, or those further west, for many seasons, and spies sent in did not return.
    Two divisional commanders had been killed in the battle, so the council was thin on the ground. Brigadiers would have to be appointed to take over the divisions; as Endru had suspected, they would not advance a grade within the Chuktar rank.
    “I am determined to hold them on this line,” said Drak, indicating a river some miles to the east. “We must draw them north.”
    He was aware that these people, all well-meaning, gathered here to help and advise, would know why he wanted to do that. The thought of Delphond once more put to the torch and the sword made him limp with anger. He had spent some of his childhood there and he loved Delphond’s lazy ways, her soft rivers, the winding dusty lanes, the fields of fruit and hop gardens, the fat ponshos with fleeces as white as the clouds above. Oh, no, he must draw Alloran’s army, commanded by the Kataki twins, toward the north where they could be entrapped in mountains.
    Kapt Enwood said: “We shall have to send to Vondium to ask for reinforcements. I see no alternative.”
    “They are short of troops in the capital.”
    “If you appeal to the emperor—”
    Drak’s head snapped up. Almost, almost, he burst out: “Ask my father? Oh, yes, we’ll ask him. But he won’t be there. He never is. He’ll be off gallivanting around the world doing derring deeds, hurtling under the Suns in his scarlet breechclout and swinging his Krozair longsword. Oh, yes, ask the emperor, an’ you please. Much good will it do you.”
    Instead, he said: “Send and ask, Kapt.”
    “Quidang!”
    Their faces harshly highlighted by lamp and the fire, they thrashed out some kind of plan. They would draw the enemy on, try to chivvy him northwards, get him in unfriendly country, continuously ambush him, run him ragged.