“Pretty good, Cap’n. He’s sort of young, but he’s got a good head on his shoulders. He likes to talk, so I’m learning a lot more about the Trogites than he might realize he’s passing on to me.”

“Stay close to him, Rabbit,” Sorgan suggested. “See if you can learn this flag-waving language. Even if we never use it ourselves, it might be useful later on when we go back to robbing Trogite treasure ships for a living. Ham-Hand, go tell Ox to rouse the crew and get word to the other ships in the fleet. We want to hit the beach by sunup.”

“Aye, Cap’n,” Ham-Hand replied, turning and leaving the captain’s cabin.

“Did Longbow tell you anything about what the enemy’s up to, Rabbit?” Sorgan asked.

“From what he says, I guess they’re pretty confused, Cap’n. Of course, there aren’t too many of them left. They didn’t know about these spring floods, so most of them were down by the river when it came boiling down the ravine. Longbow says that it’ll take a while for them to replace the army that just got washed out to sea.”

“Is he certain that they won’t just give up?”

“He might not be, but Zelana is. Every now and then she lets something slip. I guess that this Vlagh thing out in the Wasteland has a longstanding grudge against Zelana’s family, so it’ll keep throwing armies at us until it runs out of people.”

“You’re just full of good cheer, aren’t you, Rabbit? Maybe I should have held out for more gold. Why do they keep calling this Vlagh a ‘thing’ instead of a chief or a king?”

“I’m not sure, Cap’n. Zelana and her kin never say ‘he’ or ‘she’ when they talk about the Vlagh. All they ever say is ‘it.’ Maybe it hasn’t decided what it really is yet. For all I know, it’s some kind of animal, or maybe even a bug. Whatever it is, as long as it’s still in the Wasteland, the Dhralls won’t be safe.”

“That’s where we come in, I guess,” Sorgan said.

THE RAVINE

1

Keselo of Kaldacin came from a distinguished Trogite family, and he was certain that his choice of a career in Narasan’s army had greatly disappointed his parents. His eldest brother was a member of the Palvanum, the ruling body of the Empire, and his next-to-eldest brother was a merchant who was well on his way to becoming the wealthiest man in Kaldacin. Keselo, however, had attended the University of Kaldacin, although he had felt no great longing to spend his time in the pursuit of knowledge. He admitted to himself that his years as a student were really nothing more than a convenient way to put off an unalterable career decision. His brothers, of course, knew exactly what he was doing, and their sneering condescension played no small part in his decision to choose a military career. After some grumbling, his father finally gave in and purchased him a commission in Commander Narasan’s army.

His childhood had taught him the value of keeping his thoughts and opinions to himself, and this had served him well during his first few years in Commander Narasan’s army. Many junior officers felt the need to assert themselves and to boast about their meager accomplishments. Keselo, however, preferred to do exactly as he was told without comment.

Commander Narasan, he discovered, approved of that. Evidently, a junior officer who knew how to keep his mouth shut was a rarity in the Trogite military.

Keselo had participated in a few military campaigns during his early years, and it was probably through sheer luck that he’d modestly distinguished himself. He seldom took chances, so very few of his men were seriously injured, and even fewer were killed. Commander Narasan approved of that even more than he approved of Keselo’s lack of boasting, and Keselo’s men became very attached to him.

Then there had come the disastrous campaign in the south of the Empire, when Commander Narasan had seriously underestimated the size of the opposing army, and twelve cohorts had been slaughtered as a result. Commander Narasan, seized by despair, had cast off his uniform and taken to begging. To Keselo’s way of looking at things, this was an even greater blunder than that which had cost the army those twelve cohorts. Without Narasan to lead it, the army rapidly began to disintegrate.

And then, almost like a miracle, the Dhrall named Veltan had come to Kaldacin, banished Narasan’s guilt and shame, and restored order in the very teeth of chaos.

And so now they were in the Land of Dhrall, inappropriately joined with the pirates of Maag in what promised to be a hopeless war with an enemy the Dhralls called the Vlagh. Keselo determined that he would do whatever duty called upon him to do, but he had little hope that he—or anyone else in Narasan’s army—would survive.

As usual, though, he kept that opinion to himself.

Keselo was none too happy about his detachment from Commander Narasan’s army to serve as signalman for the pirate Hook-Beak, but he kept his discontent to himself. For some reason, his commander frequently found unusual things for Keselo to do—almost as if he were testing his junior officer to determine the limits of his capabilities. It was flattering, perhaps, but Keselo privately wished that the commander would go find someone else to test.

The weather had turned warm. It wasn’t summer by any stretch of the imagination, but it was most unlikely that there’d be any more snow in the mountains to the east of Lattash.

As the Maags began their march up the north bench, Keselo noticed that they weren’t really very well organized. Each ship captain commanded his own crew in a rough equivalent of a platoon, but there were no middle-grade officers to form a functioning chain of command. Keselo briefly considered making a few suggestions, but he decided against it. The Maags were temperamentally unsuited to rigid chains of command, apparently, so it would probably be better to just keep his mouth shut.

Keselo found the terrain of this river gorge a bit intimidating. There were mountains in the Empire, of course, but they didn’t even approach the size of the mountains here, and the trees growing on the sides of the ravine were enormous. Nothing had prepared Keselo for trees that were thirty feet through at the butt and rose a hundred and fifty feet into the air before sprouting any limbs. He moved through that day in a state of bemused awe.

Just before sunset, Sorgan squinted off to the west. “I think we’d better stop here for the night,” he decided. “If any of those snake-men survived the flood, they’ll probably be creeping around in the dark, so we’re going to have to fort up. Keselo, go signal your commander so that he knows that this is as far as we’re going today. I don’t think it’d be a good idea for him to get too far ahead of us.”