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PART V:
Pawn Takes Castle

25

A SCHOOLBOY OF ABOUT THIRTEEN CAME OUT INTO THE CORRIDOR and offered Alice his seat in the compartment.

She smiled winningly at him. "That's very kind of you, but I'm all right here. Thank you, though."

Blushing, he went back inside and slid the door shut.

Since Swindon, the train was far less crowded. It was possible to talk in the corridor.

"Tell me what happened after you arrived in Lemodvale and Tarion departed."

Stooping to peer out the window, Edward scowled. "I'd just as soon not talk about it, actually. Have you noticed how much luggage everyone seems to have? I think they're running away from the air raids in London."

"Possibly. And you're running away from my question."

He sighed. "I'm not proud of what happened! It was a mess. Kammaeman may have been a crafty politician, but he was no general. He hadn't done his homework."

He drew cucumber shapes on the greasy window and explained the geography. "Thargia had taken Narshvale, which had been Joalian. The Thargians are the bullyboys of the Vales, like the Prussians in Europe or the Spartans in Greece. Nobody calls out the Thargians!

"But Joalia needed to save face to keep its other colonies loyal. The original plan was to cross over Lemodvale and attack Thargvale itself, while it was still digesting Narshvale. It was to be a punishment raid—loot, rape, burn, and scram. Of course, the Thargians would have retaliated, probably the next year. I expect Joalia was counting on Nagvale taking the heat. That's what junior allies are for, isn't it? It was all business as usual, and nasty.

"But Tarion took almost all of our cavalry, so the plan collapsed. Even hitting and running wasn't in the cards without cavalry. Kammaeman had to do something with the forces he had, or face impeachment when he went home. He decided to conquer Lemodvale instead. He probably thought he could trade it back to Tharg in return for Narshvale." Edward smiled quizzically. "Does that sound logical?"

"But not practical? Like offering to give Southwest Africa back to the Boche in return for Belgium?"

He grinned. "Something along those lines. Cavalry would be useless in Lemodvale, anyway, which probably convinced him, but Joalia had never conquered Lemodvale before, and that should have warned him. All the vales are different, and Lemod is more different than most. First of all, it's hilly. There's no—I suppose Lemodflat would be the English equivalent."

He paused to think. Alice watched the telegraph wires dip, rise, dip, rise . . . Clickety-click, clickety-click . . .

"Valian languages use prefixes where we have suffixes," he said vaguely. "Roughly—very roughly—it would go like this. Say Nagvale is the general term, the whole basin. The mountains all around it would be Nagwall, the foothills Nagslope. Roughly. The arable part would be Nagflat, and in most vales it truly is flat. In Nagland itself it's a plain, almost a desert. Everything that's habitable is called Nagland and everything that's not has another name—Nagwaste? The capital would be Nagtown, or just Nag. The political entity would be Nagia, I suppose. They have other terms. You could say that Nagslope is the usable foothills, and the higher bits are Nagmoor or something like that. It's not a bad system. English doesn't make so many distinctions."

"I imagine words like ebb tide would confuse the Nagians just as much as you are confusing me. What has all this to do with the war?"

"Just that Lemodflat isn't. Flat, I mean. It's all cut up by streams. There wouldn't be enough level ground in the whole country for a good ninehole golf course. And the Lemodians don't have farms, they have trees. They're strange looking trees, but all their crops come from trees. Something rather like a breadfruit gives them their basic starch, but they have others that provide stuff like flax—also cotton and fruits and nuts and wine berries and things just like potatoes . . . everything. The whole country is one enormous orchard."

"Which isn't too good to fight in?"

"It's great to fight in," Edward said bitterly, "if you happen to be a guerrilla."

He sighed and turned around to lean on the brass rail across the window. He folded his arms. "I should have seen what was going to happen. I should have guessed. But, damn it all, Alice, I was only eighteen! I was a stranger in their world. I thought they knew what they were doing in their shiny armor and fancy helmets."

She had never known him to make excuses before. "You couldn't have done anything, surely?"

"Surely I could have! I still had the mana I'd collected in Olfaan's temple. It wasn't much by the gods' standards, of course. I knew it wouldn't build any magic castles, but I thought I might manage a faith healing or something, so I was hoarding it. But even with just my stranger's charisma I could have talked some sense into Kammaeman if I had seen the problem." He pulled a face. "The only man with any brains was Tarion, who got out while the going was good."

He turned back to the glass and added to his map. "Lemodvale's shaped like a snake, very long and thin. We came in here, at the eastern end. That's where the main passes are. Lemod, the capital, is up here, at the western end. Nobody thought to ask what sort of openings there were thereabouts. It was autumn." He frowned at the map he had drawn or perhaps at the scenery sliding by outside. The train was slowing for a station, but she thought he wasn't really looking, just reluctant to tell her more.

"You'd think Kammaeman would have studied the geography, wouldn't you?" he growled. "Or at least the history. He wasn't the first Joalian general to die in Lemodvale."

Houses flowed past the window, slower and slower.

"He wasn't the first Joalian general to be murdered by his deputy, either. And when the Chamber learned I was with the army, then we were fighting gods."

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