Lord of Blood by Dave van Arnam

Author:Dave van Arnam
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, barbarian, sword and sorcery, adventure, robert e. howard
ISBN: 9781479403387
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2014-08-06T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Jamnar and Kasul rode at the head of forty seven men, while Lieutenant Ghradhur rode silently beside them for the most part.

“My good sergeants,” he had told them, “I expect to do almost nothing during this campaign, and under orders to boot. We hear our specific instructions at the border of Chaitor Zun.”

Now they had come two days’ march in one, thanks to the herds of kaphals Athandur had distributed among Nurab and Turtunnull’s Free Companies along with their preliminary orders to move west.

It amounted to about one kaphal for every two men; and since this was their normal carrying-capacity, travel time was cut. These kaphals were, however, much more docile and lazy than those in the Viadhash.

“Why have you never trained these beasts for fighting?” asked Jamnar, as his kaphal ambled along beside the other two.

“We are rather tradition-minded,” said Lieutenant Ghradhur with his sour smile. “And it had been far too long since the plagues.”

At Jamnar’s puzzlement, Kasul explained. “There were no kaphals in the Flanage in all the hundreds of years since the old wars died away in their own wreckage. As I understand it, men tried to bring them up many times from the south and east, but they always died soon after arriving. Later the weather shifted a little and everything there became either dry or swampy. Past East Tharet stretches a vast impenetrable rainforest, who knows how far? And deserts further to the west… well, kaphals came back thirty years ago, and they stayed alive, and thrived. They are not well suited for war, being far slower than those our old stories tell of, and the captains have not tried very vigorously to breed and train them up for war.”

“They are good for transport,” said Ghradhur, and fell silent again.

“But what did you use for transport before the kaphals returned?” Jamnar persisted.

“A sickly beast by comparison, and the return of the kaphal has already driven them from much of the Flanage,” said Kasul. “Some called them steds, others mulitos; I have heard they are not native to this world and never adapted as humans did. Or perhaps the plagues weakened them.”

When the two companies reached the border of Chaitor Zun they halted, and Athandur’s campaign orders were read.

The king, said the orders, wanted Adranarpha and the other Old Akanar powers to know his intentions were to do no more than to protect Larger Khaldir. He did not wish to affright Old Akanar by dealing Adranarpha a savage blow, though all now must know he had the strength for it.

Hence the two companies were to split up into groups no larger than fifty; no larger units were to offer battle, and sergeants and lances were to be given as much opportunity as possible to show independent judgment.

There were to be absolutely no attempts to inflict major defeats on the enemy by combining more than fifty men against them, though it was perfectly all right for the smaller units to take the chance of offering battle.

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