The Treasured One

‘So that’s what set this off.’ Sorgan exclaimed. ‘Were you able to find out just exactly where they were bound for?’

‘I was indeed, Captain Sorgan,’ Gunda replied with a broad grin. ‘We kept our main fleet out of sight, but I rowed my little yawl on up to the south coast. There are four or five church ships anchored just off the beach any place where there happens to be a farming village, and there’ll probably be slave-ships arriving before long.’

‘We sort of expected that,’ Ox said, his eyes narrowing.

‘I thought you might have,’ Gunda said. ‘It’s a very old church custom, I’m sorry to say. It’s been contaminating the Empire for centuries now. The slave-ships have black sails, but the sails on the church ships are red. The Amarite church is very fond of the color red. It tells everybody who passes by just how terribly important the church is.’

Sorgan grinned suddenly. ‘I think we’ve come up with a way to make them very unhappy about red things, Gunda,’ he announced.

‘Oh?’

‘Fire’s sort of red, wouldn’t you say? After my people have set fire to every one of their ships, they’ll probably wish that they’d never heard the word “red”.’

‘What a wonderful idea!’ Gunda replied. ‘Now why didn’t I think of that?’

Sorgan laughed an evil sort of laugh. ‘When you see Narasan, tell him that we’re down here, and we’ll do what we came to do.’

‘I’ll do that, Captain Sorgan. You have a nice day now.’ Gunda grinned at the pirate and then climbed back down to the Albatross.

There were still a few ships anchored off the beach near Veltan’s castle, but most of the fleet had already sailed off to the north, so Gunda didn’t see any reason to stop.

The coast to the north of the castle was quite a bit more rugged than had been the case farther south, and there were mountains rearing up a few miles inland. ‘Picturesque,’ Andar observed, gesturing at the mountains.

‘Enjoy them while you can, my friend,’ Gunda replied. ‘They stop being pretty when you start climbing. Narasan showed me a map of the region where we’ll almost certainly encounter the enemy, and it didn’t exactly brighten my day. There’s a narrow sort of pass that’ll take us on up to the top, and that’ll slow us down quite a bit. I don’t think we’ll be able to go up through that pass any more than five men abreast, so it’s going to take us quite a while to get the whole army up there.’

Andar sighed. ‘Oh, well,’ he said. ‘Difficult wars pay better, I guess.’

‘Only if you’re still alive when payday rolls around,’ Gunda reminded his friend.

It was late afternoon of the following day when they reached the mouth of the River Vash, and it appeared that most of the ships that had carried the advance force were anchored there. Gunda saw the Victory, the ship that belonged to his cousin Pantal, near the center of that fleet, and Gunda and Andar took the Albatross and rowed on over to find out just how things stood.

‘We haven’t heard very much yet, Gunda,’ the stocky Pantal admitted. ‘The troops that are going up that gulch - or whatever you want to call it - have it pretty well blocked off, so nobody’s able to come back down and let us know what’s afoot up there.’

‘That happens a lot in hilly country,’ Gunda said. ‘How far upriver is this pass located?’

‘About two days. Are you familiar with Brigadier Danal?’

Gunda nodded. ‘He’s been in Narasan’s army for almost as long as Padan and I have.’

‘He’s more or less in charge at the mouth of the pass. He’s been very useful. He had his men build quite a few piers along the north bank of the river, and when you’ve got a pier on both sides of a ship, you can unload your troops in a hurry. He’s having a bit of a problem sending the supplies on up to the top, though. A man who’s trying to carry a sack that weighs a hundred pounds doesn’t move very fast.’

‘Are we likely to hit any rapids on the way upriver?’ Andar asked.

Pantal shook his head. ‘It’s fairly smooth going this far downriver,’ he replied. ‘The natives say that things get a little rough farther upstream, but that’s not really any of our concern.’

‘Good,’ Andar said. ‘We’ll start upriver first thing in the morning, then. It’s likely to take quite a while to unload all the troops, so we’d better get at it.’

The Triumph started upriver at first light the next morning, and Gunda’s friend Andar seemed a bit awed by the size of the trees along the banks of the river. ‘How long would you say it’d take a tree to grow to be that big?’ he asked Gunda.

‘I don’t even want to guess,’ Gunda replied. ‘I wouldn’t put it at much under five hundred years. Some of those really big ones have probably been there for at least a thousand years.’

‘Can you imagine something that’s been alive for a thousand years?’

‘I don’t think it’s very exciting. You wouldn’t be able to do much exploring if your roots kept you in the same place for all those years.’

‘I had an idea last night before I went to sleep,’ Andar said.

‘Like whether you wanted to sleep on your back or your belly, maybe?’

‘It went a bit further, Gunda. Your cousin told us that the men who are loaded down with supplies are slowing things down quite a bit.’

‘I seem to remember that, yes.’

‘A man could move quite a bit faster if he didn’t have to carry so much weight, wouldn’t you say?’

‘I try not to say obvious things very often. It makes people think that you’re dull when you do that.’

‘Did you want to hear this, or would you rather make bad jokes?’

‘Sorry. What’s this grand plan of yours?’

‘Twenty-five pounds wouldn’t really slow a man down would it?’

‘Not noticeably. Where are you going with this?’

‘We’ve got eighty thousand men. If each man carried twenty-five pounds up that gully, we could put two million pounds of supplies in Narasan’s hands when we reached the top.’

Gunda blinked. ‘Did you work that out in your head when you were half-asleep, Andar?’

‘No, not really. I had to do some figuring on a piece of paper. Two million pounds would be a thousand tons.’