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In the next instant I was staring at the polished leather of Shadow s saddle, twisting, and Turko was
hauling me up, and saying,  Dray! Dray! For the sweet sake of Opaz 
 I am all right, Turko  now. Let me see the battle.
 Your eyes ?
 Perfectly all right now. I will explain. Are there any of our vollers in sight?
 Not one. I trust they are all safe. He looked at me with all his old quizzical mockery; but he d been
shaken up, all right, no mistake about that!
All along that ravine of death the dead lay. The Tenth had stormed on with their pikes level and left
nothing living in their wake. The rest of our little army, our Eighth Army, pushed on and Kapt Hangrol s
forces fled.
 They won t come araiding over the borders again in a hurry, Dray.
 That is what I would like to think. By Vox! But it is a melancholy sight. Pull Jiktar Brad the Berry and
his Hagli Bush Irregulars out and get them to tend the wounded. Brad will understand.
 Aye, he will. We are light on medical services.
A battery of krahnik-drawn varters went rumbling past. They had limbered up the ballistae in record
time, and the krahniks, powerful, deep-chested, full of fire, hauled with a will. They were off to try to
take up new positions and harry the rout. Their darts and rocks had wrought fearful execution in that
blood-soaked ravine.
Well, the aftermath of a battle is always a messy business, and we had to make sure Hangrol kept
running and did not stop to try to regroup. Our little cavalry force swept out in pursuit. The Tenth
Kerchuri halted and I sent word to Kervax[9]Orlon Sangar telling him of my pride in his men and my
congratulations. All the units involved had done well. There would be bobs[10]aplenty in the wake of the
Battle of Ovalia...
In all decency I could not leave at once. Some reassurance could be allowed in that the Sword Watch
and Quienyin s comrades had burst in to the rescue. But I vowed I wanted to know what had gone
wrong over in the Northeast. By Krun, yes!
A Kerchuri of the phalanx, when arrayed in the normal formation of twelve men to a file, spreads out to
cover a frontage of approximately three hundred and seventy paces. Drill movements can expand or
contract this front, of course, containing as it does four hundred thirty-two pikes in each rank. The Tenth
had swept up the ravine like a steel broom.
Turko and I and a few others of my officers walked slowly along the ravine. Everywhere our men were
tending the wounded and carrying off the dead to be decently interred according to the rites suggested by
the atras, the little amulets, the slain wore. Some of us made the usual trite observations about life and
death. The scene was somber; but I did not feel  then  the chill I knew would near overwhelm me at
all this waste.
I bent and picked up a shield from the phalanx. Its five-ply wooden construction was still intact, leather
faced, bronze bound. The carrying strap was cinched tight; but the battle grips were broken. On the strip
across the top the colors and symbols and numbers proclaimed this shield to have belonged to the
Paltork  the second in command to the Relianchun  of the Sixty-fifth Relianch of the Eleventh Jodhri.
In glowing yellow the stylized representation of the brumby, that long-horned, eight-legged, armored
battering ram of destruction and an animal thought to be long extinct if not legendary, appeared on the
face of the crimson shield. The brumby from which the brumbytes took their name was the symbol of the
entire Phalanx Force. I put my finger alongside the painted symbol of the Tenth Kerchuri of the Fifth
Phalanx, a Prychan grasping Thunderbolts, and I shook my head.
Yes, the Golden Prychan, the wrestlers inn, had yielded up the means to bring back Turko. But as I
stared on this shield, I realized I did not know the name of the Paltork who had carried it into battle.
How could I? But this seemed to me wrong. I felt I should have known his name.
Tucked around the strap was a little cloth packet of cham. The Paltork no doubt chewed stoically as he
marched forward; well, I fancied he would never return to claim his favorite chew.
The group of officers did not dwell overlong on that depressing scene. Having made sure that everything
that could be done was being done, we trailed back to camp in a heavy silence. Of our voller force, nine [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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