Grímnismál 34

The personal diary of Darig, son of Lorraine, part 19

As we form up to march; riders come in from the chaos orders, they wish to be officially joined into the army on our march to Amber. The delegates are Rhanda of Vaal and Rikard of Karm. It is not a decision that I can make but I will take the message to command. I take Rhodri with me and we walk up to the command tent.

As we walk a Trump call comes in, it is Havelock, he looks beaten up and his arm is bandaged; as he moves within the view, it seems that his arm ends in bandages. That is the bad news, the good news is that the Order of the Inconscient Brush may have helped Ben to come to terms with the past and Havelock thinks that it is now time to give him the arm. He asks me to do this and to tell Bleys that he is busy and will be delayed.

We reach the command post and are admitted. Benedict is there with William and Bleys. Ben actually apologises to me and confirms my role as commander of the Vanguard. I tell them of the request by the Chaos orders. William says that whilst he approves the Lugubrious Vendetta he is not so keen on the Deniable Moth as they tried to assassinate him, though they may behave better now Constance is attached to them. I am told to tell the Orders that the matter is ‘under consideration’.

Once this business is out of the way I present Benedict with the arm; his eyes light up, he had seen it in Tir-na-Nogth's shadows. I explain the history I know and that with Melvyn's permission we took it from Nuada's Tomb. Ben seems almost excited, not something that you often see, he tell the others of his encounter in the shadow city.

Next I speak to Bleys, passing on the message from Havelock and reporting his injury. Bleys takes this well so I move onto the next subject, Elektra, and her killing of her mother, from what we know of Petrus they would set her in rock until she is really sorry, the level of the crime is unknown, could it be considered justified or in mitigating circumstances or just plain murder? Under Amber law we cannot return her to slavery but we are bound by the contract. I have no desire to start a vendetta.

A party are returning to Chaos so Bleys will try to contact the King with a view to managing some form of agreement that will avoid a vendetta. In return I will keep him informed as far as I can with what he needs to know as a diplomat.

Bleys warns me that since Dara came on the scene, he tried to attack Corwin, though before we went to Chaos, and would have succeeded but for Corwin tricking him into a patch of entangling grass. He warns me to be careful as Ben's mood might change and he is now far more dangerous with two hands, (as if he wasn't before).

I return to the vanguard, the army will be staying put today as the food starts to arrive from Chaos in large quantities. There is to be a huge banquet and the Chaos Lords are building the venue, their magic makes my palms itch and I get the feeling that I want to call on Pattern but Llewella has sent orders around that under no circumstances are we to go this. The whole army is invited to the banquet, except, of course, a few guards, today is a really good day not to get on the wrong side of your superiors. We establish a basic perimeter to the camp, clearing a little cover and cutting some of the local thorn bushes to make a break.

Back at my own command tent I draft tactful message to the representatives from the Orders and have them sent. There is no night here, apparently, so the banquet will when the venue is built and the VIPs have arrived.

The day is spent unloading, sorting, and packing food. Wagons are repaired or fettled. Elektra is helping keep the rocks of the temporary forge hot but seems to be a natural when it comes to working metal as well.

Constance Trumps in to say they are scouting the area around Ygg and have found a city of lizardmen just to this side. The city seems to be filled with unclean magic. They have captured a couple of scouts from the place who she passes back to me for interrogation. There seems to be a local war going on between them and the local humans call on the help of Kageorgis of the Deniable Moth, he is a lizardman and fortunately can understand them.

One of them seems willing to talk, his name seems to be Kusssyass (with more variants on the sibilants than Thari can indicate). They both keep calling on their deity, Yig. We strip-search them, finding a nasty little knife, apparently poisoned, moulded into a buckle.

They are from the city of Yanyoga, built by refugees from Yoth, which in turn was built by creatures from Valusia the first city of the spawn of Yig. Bragi, who understands most languages, has also come to view the interrogation. Ygg means ‘bright and terrible’ in the language of Valhalla, as in Yggdrasil the world tree, a serpent called the Nidhog, possibly representing Chaos, gnaws at its roots.

More importantly for the moment, Kusssyass reveals that he was on patrol to hunt the aboriginals and walked into Amber troops, he thought we had something to do with the nasty new god of the humans as we overwhelmed their shaman (name given, ask Kageorgis to say it, then dry yourself). If these unclean creatures think the new god is nasty it may be something useful to us. The prisoners are taken away under guard.

The announcement that the banquet will be ready soon reaches us, I inspect the Red Lancers who, along with the Royal Guard, and the Onyx Praetorians will be providing the guard of honour to King Melvyn. They have done me proud though there has been much swapping of kit to get a whole squadron looking their best. All not on guard, yes Elektra, that includes you, depart for the feast. It would go on long into the evening, if there were evenings here.

King Melvyn arrives with suitable fanfare and we all take our seats. Around me are Llewella, Caine, Mandor, and Shadra of Ophir. The talk is at first of the food, thence to talk of Faerie. Mandor, Caine, and Shadra had all met Scaitha, but they had forgotten or never known that I grew up there. Caine remembers her as a young and fierce warrior; Mandor as a famous teacher, my memory of her is greying and running a little to fat, though still one of the finest warriors of the Faerie Marches.

Since it is clear that it must have been Eric that was my father it is interesting when Caine whispers to me that he and Eric had a pact to protect each others children. He has seen the changes in Benedict and tells me that if he says ‘run’ to do so, I should not try to face Benedict anywhere but on my own ground.

Our conversation is halted when Melvyn gets up to speak of reparations and transport plans. It seems the Rim Lords have various methods of transporting the troops. They will work out their proposals for the morning.

After the meal I finish my conversation with Caine, discussing Eric, Lorraine, and Ben's apology, which he sees as hopeful but not necessarily the end of the matter. I am then called into the tail end of a discussion about transport for the army, which has been mostly among those with powerful spells, plans are being laid to transport as much as the army as possible by 'sigil' and 'true word' so that only a few will need to travel by Logrus and some VIPs by pattern.

I walk the camp and check the troops, a small feast has been arranged for those who stood guard, I have brought a selection of the nicest things I could find for Elektra. And so to bed, I feel it should be late at night but the light has not changed.

When I awake parts of the banqueting hall have already vanished, the rest is being used to serve breakfast and for the distribution of supplies. Each soldier will travel with a full pack, the wagons will be taken via Logrus by the Orders. When I have a quiet moment I transport half a dozen engineers to Margrath by Trump, they are sent to help prepare the camp but include Elektra, who has now adopted the grey fatigues that the engineers favour along with the red forage cap with white braids, again a part of the lancers kit, and a red sword belt, which she apparently won arm wrestling!

The first troops to travel are the Rangers, along with some of the draft horses, most of the wagons are then taken, along with the Chaos Orders in a slightly sickening wave of disorder.

Then we are up. The Vanguard along with Bleys and his Hussars. Rhodri and Llewella are with us too in case of any disruption or a trap. We also have what is left of the poor old Jasper Yeomanry. Rhodri is so proud to be in charge of a group that I do not have the heart to tell him that it is only so there is a Trump user in each paired infantry and cavalry regiments. He has been told to do what the guard captain tells him. William is transporting the VIPs by Trump, I see his signal that troops are getting through safely and we move off.

The first group of Rangers should be there already. I lead the Vanguard into the 'sigil' – Red Lancers and Jasper troops, Rhodri is with the Guard cavalry and the Corillaine infantry, Llewella with the two Cordoban units, Bleys with his own hussars and the Sapphire Guard our link to the main body. The last of my Centaurs are with William, those part of the baggage train not already transported guarded by the Ebony Archers and Onyx Dragoons. Ben is with the last part of the main body next and then the flanking units with Julian and Caine, they will support the rear guard as necessary, precise deployment as Corwin decides.