Читать книгу Crystal Gorge - David Eddings - Страница 20

At first light Captain Hook-Beak rowed a skiff across the harbor near Veltan’s house to speak with Narasan before the two fleets separated. Rabbit was standing near the bow of the Seagull when his young Trogite friend Keselo came out on deck. ‘Where’s your captain going?’ he asked.

‘He wants to get a few things straightened out with your commander before we split up and sail off in different directions,’ Rabbit replied. ‘We’re likely to be separated for a month or two, so the Cap’n wants to be sure that we’ll all be ready if trouble breaks out, I guess.’ He looked at Keselo. ‘Do you know very much about these horse-soldiers that everybody seems to be so excited about?’ he asked.

‘I’ve never been in that part of the world,’ Keselo replied, ‘but I’ve heard a few stories, and if those stories come anywhere close to being accurate, I definitely wouldn’t want to face them in a war.’

‘Just exactly what is a horse?’ Rabbit asked curiously.

‘It’s one of the animals that eats grass,’ Keselo replied. ‘It’s not very much like a sheep or a cow or a deer, though. It’s quite a bit larger, and it can run faster. The Malavi have somehow managed to tame them, and they sit on the backs of horses when they’re moving their cattle-herds from one place to another. Horses can run faster than cows – even when they’ve got a Malavi sitting on them. Over the years, the horses have turned out to be very useful, and the Malavi cow-herds have proved to be extremely valuable.’

‘What have cows got to do with war?’

‘Beef tastes better than pork or mutton, Rabbit, and it brings a high price in the cities of the empire. There were quite a few cattle-buyers who thought that they’d come up with a way to increase their profit significantly. If they didn’t have to pay for the cows they sold, they’d make twice as much money. They offered sizeable bribes to the more corrupt members of the Palvanum – the ruling body of the empire – and the glorious Palvanum issued a declaration that the Land of the Malavi rightfully belonged to the empire. Then they sent several armies there to enforce that declaration.’

‘That does sound sort of Trogish, all right,’ Rabbit said. ‘What happened next?’

‘Things started to fall apart almost as soon as the armies landed,’ Keselo continued. ‘A Malavi sitting on a horse can move a lot faster than a man who has to walk, and the horsemen cut armies all to pieces quite regularly. The horse soldiers use a slash and run strategy, and Trogite armies can’t respond fast enough to meet them. That went on for several years, and the armies started to demand more money. The Palvanum wasn’t happy about that, but they grudgingly agreed. They’d already spent more than they could hope to recover for years, and now they were going to have to spend more just to keep their foothold in Malavi.’

‘What a shame,’ Rabbit said sardonically.

‘Isn’t it, though?’ Keselo said with a faint smile. ‘The thing that finally broke the back of the “grand plan”, though, had nothing to do with battles between horse-soldiers and foot soldiers. The leaders of the various clans in the Land of the Malavi got together and came up with a way to stop the war right then and there. They announced that their cattle wouldn’t be for sale until all of the Trogite armies went back home. The Trogite cattle-buyers sailed to the coastal villages of the Land of the Malavi and announced that they were ready to buy cows, but not one single herd came to the coast that year. The cattle buyers were there with money and ships, but the Malavi stayed away. That’s all it really took to bring the invasion to an abrupt halt. The glorious Palvanum revoked its declaration of inclusion and pulled the armies out of the Land of the Malavi almost immediately. The Malavi still own their land, and the cattle-buyers still have to pay for the cows they want.’

‘What a shame,’ Rabbit said in mock sympathy. ‘Do the horse people have any unusual weapons?’

‘Their swords and spears are a bit different from ours. They call their swords “sabres”, and they slash with them rather than stab. Their spears are called “lances”, and they’re quite a bit longer than ours. I think they might have some problems if they encounter the bug-people, though. Venom would kill a horse just as fast as it kills people, I think, and a Malavi without his horse wouldn’t be very effective.’

‘Do they wear armor of any kind?’

Keselo shook his head. ‘It would probably just get in their way, and the extra weight would slow their horses down. Speed is very important in Malavi war-tactics. In many ways they’re very much like your people, Rabbit. They rely on speed.’ Keselo smiled briefly. ‘Now that I think about it, the Malavi are almost a land version of the Maags, and the horse is very much like the Seagull here.’

‘I think we’ll get along with them fairly well then,’ Rabbit said. Then he sighed. ‘I guess I’d better fire up my forge. Longbow told me that the archers up north will probably want bronze arrowheads as soon as they see the ones he has.’

‘Wouldn’t iron be even better?’

‘Maybe, but not all that much. Bronze is almost as good as iron when you’re talking about arrowheads, and it’s a lot easier to work with. The fire in my forge doesn’t have to be as hot to melt down bronze. I can turn out ten times as many bronze arrowheads in the same amount of time as it’d take me to make a few out of iron.’

‘Do you have that much bronze here on the Seagull?’Keselo asked, sounding a bit surprised.

Rabbit grinned at his friend. ‘There’s quite a bit down in the hold,’ he said. ‘Trogite ships usually carry spare anchors just in case they happen to break the rope on the main one, but those spare anchors have been disappearing here lately for some reason. Isn’t that odd?’

Keselo laughed. ‘You’re a pirate, Rabbit,’ he declared.

‘Of course I am. I’m a Maag, after all, and piracy’s what we’re all about. Everybody knows that.’

It seemed to Rabbit that there was a kind of dusty quality about the air as the Maag fleet sailed along the southern coast of Veltan’s Domain. He’d noticed that on several occasions in the past. Autumn was often pretty when the leaves were turning gold or red along the coast, but there was a kind of sadness about the season that followed summer.

‘You’re looking sort of gloomy today, Bunny,’ Eleria said as she joined him near the bow of the Seagull.

‘Winter’s coming,’ Rabbit said. ‘That’s the gloomy time of the year.’

‘We could ask the Beloved to make winter go away, if you’d like,’ she said with one of those sly little smiles.

‘I don’t know if that would be a very good idea, baby sister,’ Rabbit replied. ‘If she starts playing with the seasons, Mother Sea might send her off to the moon like she did to Veltan that time.’

‘Mother Sea wouldn’t do that to the Beloved,’ Eleria replied. She held out her arms. ‘I need a hug, Bunny. Everybody’s so busy talking in that hut where we’re staying that they don’t have time for me.’

‘It’s called a “cabin”, baby sister, not a “hut”.’

‘What’s the difference?’

‘I’m not really sure,’ Rabbit admitted, ‘but I think “hut” would upset the Cap’n almost as much as when somebody calls his ship a “boat”. That sends him right straight up the wall.’

‘You’re not hugging, Bunny,’ she scolded.

‘Sorry, baby sister. I’ll get right on it.’ He picked her up and wrapped his arms about her.

‘That’s so much nicer,’ she said, kissing his cheek.

Later that day, Longbow came out on deck and joined Rabbit at the bow of the Seagull. ‘It’s good to be moving again,’ he said quietly. ‘I was starting to get a little tired of all that bickering.’

‘What was that all about, anyway? I never did get the straight of it.’

Longbow shrugged. ‘Zelana’s older sister wanted all of the outlanders to defend her Domain, but her big brother wouldn’t hold still for it. He feels that his Domain is just as important as hers – if not more. Zelana and Veltan thought that they were both being a little silly. We sometimes forget that the Elder Gods are nearing the end of their cycle, and they’re starting to get just a little strange.’

‘More than a “little”, sometimes,’ Rabbit said. ‘Eleria’s going to take over for Zelana before long, isn’t she?’

‘I believe so, but the gods might have a different definition of “before long” than we do. I’d imagine that the younger gods will have to grow up before their elders can hand things off to them.’