Alaman Shaundaar was not a man who took much interest in politics.
Nor was he a man to match his delicate-sounding, obscure name. A hulking, cruel brute with a surprising intelligent – or at least cunning – streak, he had grown up on an uncivilised planet called Elleria, in a nation called Kamar, though of foreign stock. Through a really quite unbelieveable series of events, he had ended up not only in space, but in charge of his own stolen Deydaan gunship, with a crew of fellow humans, most of them from the human homeworld of Elleria.
So it was he had turned to space piracy. And in the world of space piracy, politics matters not very much – whether the trade lanes are policed by the Deydaans, or the Khanati Commune, or the Arbugadines, piracy occurs nonetheless. His operation was large enough to be lucrative, yet small enough to be ignored by the vast run of the Khanati cruisers whose elegant lines traditionally dominated this area of space.
So he was very surprised when he saw the ship – for that was all the mysterious, star-swallowing black shadow heading his way could be.
He was even more surprised when the sensors didn't see it.
He was even more surprised, when he opened up with the Deydaan plasma cannon, that the ship not only didn't fire back but barely seemed to notice.
The only word to describe his reaction when the black shadow pulled up alongside his ship was 'gobsmacked'.
And when he met the creatures from the shadow ship, surprise gave way to terror.
This made him rather amenable to their demands, despite the fact that they were quite political in nature.
* * *
The canvas marquee's walls shook to the tramping of Lanciars and Kamareans on the soil of East Lain, the two nations' combined hosts assembling to bring wrath to the aides of the Blue Dragons.
"A word is now requisite on the nations of Lannding and the Eastern Duchy," Duke Scalax of Akar croaked, "for the benefit of our foreign allies." A bevy of emissaries – a brass-embellished Thurse soldier from Ostmargue, a bony Markanian Thurse, a little, green-cloaked Erse and a Farhighter – all nodded gratefully. Zorlac debated whether or not he should go to sleep, then decided that Scalax would probably take it amiss – even though he was one of almost fifty people crammed into the marquee. Zorlac was, of course, the greatest wizard known to mankind and all that, but even so he wouldn't like to tangle with Scalax of Akar. The ancient, emaciated – in fact positively skeletal – Duke, bent under the weight of the Lanciarial armour he was never seen without, was far stronger than he looked, and the fevered eyes that glistened in the wrinkled folds of his face were as sharp as they had ever been. Aside from the fact that he was old and sharp, there was something... off about Scalax, something Zorlac didn't think a non-magic user would detect, something dark and potent and mysterious.
In short, Duke Scalax was a funny kettle of fish.
"The people of Lannding and the Eastern Duchy," Scalax began, his reedy voice echoing within the confines of his ribcage, "are a sullen, mongrel lot, jealous of the power and prestige of Akar and Kamar." Well, of our power and prestige anyway, Zorlac thought wryly. "Ethnically, the people of the Eastern Duchy are mostly Akaric, like the people of Akar, Tyrenea, and Old Lain, before the Kamarean... aah... colonisation, with some Farhighter and Shai Qadi elements; Lannding's folk are mongrels, composed of Farhighter, Akarean, Kamarean and Shaiqadian bloodlines. Their right to independence is disputable." Independence from you, you mean. "Lannding is, in fact, the last remnant of the Farhighter empire in the west, declared independent in a moment of weakness for the Farhighter monarchy; the Eastern Duchy, a nation so bereft of identity it remains nameless. Their land is half-desertified and arid, supporting only two hundred thousand souls in the Eastern Duchy and a hundred fifty thousand in Lannding, of which twenty thousand live in Ostia, capital in the East, and thirty thousand in Lanndar. Economically, Lannding is richer than the Eastern Duchy, though neither are wealthy, and, especially in Lannding, the balance of wealth is very inequitable. It should not be diffucult to pressure the peoples of both nations to rise up against their corrupt monarchies. Technologically, both Lannding and the Eastern Duchy are behind Akarean standards by up to thirty years." And behind Kamarean ones by up to two hundred and thirty years. Akarean barbarians.
"Militarily, neither Lannding nor the Eastern Duchy are formidable. During the Lannding War of Independence, a century ago now, Lannding fielded ten thousand soldiers; factoring in her population increase, I surmise Lannding should be able to field around sixteen thousand soldiers. In the Eastern Duchy, there is a long and ignominious history of banditry; mobilising these gave the Eastern Duchy thirty thousand men and women, when she fought against Kamar a generation ago." When you Akareans manipulated the Eastern Duchy against Kamar, you mean. Bloody Lanciar crooks, Zorlac thought angrily. "Factoring in the ravages from that war, I estimate the Eastern Duchy will bring between eighteen and twenty-five thousand to the field. At worst, that gives us a total of forty-one thousand enemies, probably ill-equipped and poorly trained. I imagine that, across the border from us are assembled the standing armies: ten thousand, maximum.
"In contrast, Kallipolis holds almost forty thousand Lanciars, of which I have seven thousand. If my Kamarean, ah, comrades have a hundred thousand as they claim, and twenty thousand of those are here, then we outnumber the enemy well over two to one, and outgun them too.
"With this in mind, my friends, I predict that, on the morrow, when we invade the Eastern Duchy and find the enemy, our biggest problem will be cleaning up afterwards." Scalax nodded, and cracked what might have been a grin. "Thank you for your attention."
* * *
"Your biggest problem will be cleaning up afterwards." Janin of the Sand's End Shai Qadi assured the King of Lannding. "Isn't that right, Mr. Shaundaar?"
And the space pirate nodded and smiled grimly, as he handed over the blueprints for all the weapons on his ship, like he had been told, for the Lanndings and Easterners to arm their armies with.
Because the people from the black shadow-ship wanted Elleria very much, and this was how they were going to get it.
No comments:
Post a Comment