"Hold on, tryze," he said. "Wait a minute. You're from Tonilda, aren't you?" he asked Maia.
"Yes."
"Whereabouts?"
"Near Meerzat."
"Well, if you know Meerzat," he asked her quietly and in no tone of disbelief, "what's the name of the inn by the harbor?"
" 'The Safe Moorings.' It's kept by a woman called Frarnli, with a cast in her eye."
"I've seen you there," he said. "I knew I'd seen you somewhere. Who were you with?"
"Tharrin. He's my stepfather."
He nodded. "That's right enough, tryze. I have seen her in Meerzat and I know Tharrin, too."
"Well, but if you're from Meerzat, what are you doing here?" asked the tryzatt.
"General Kembri--an agent. I crossed--into Suba--three nights ago." Then, seeing his look of unbelief, she clutched his wrist. "It's the truth! I've come from a place called Melvda. I swam the river--"
"Listen," said the tryzatt, "we're two miles down from Melvda, d'you know that? Anyway no one could swim across the river here."
"I tell you Karnat's crossing the river tonight! How far are we from Rallur?"
All the soldiers were gathered round her now. " 'Bout a mile, near enough," answered one of the men.
"Ah, bit less, maybe."
"You must take me to the commander in Rallur. Karnat's crossing now, I tell you!"
"What's his name, then, the commander?" asked the tryzatt. "You say General Kembri sent you--"
"Sendekar of Ikat."
There was a pause. "Reckon we'd best take her, tryze," said Jolan at length. "Only if what she's saying's the truth, see, and it comes out later as we didn't--"
There were mutters of agreement from the other men.
"Reckon she's hardly in no state to go, though," said the tryzatt uncertainly. "Are you?" he asked Maia.
"And as for saying she's swum across the river, that's just plain ridiculous--"
"Carry me!" said Maia. "You must!" The thought of being jolted a mile to Rallur was almost unbearable, but even worse was the prospect of failing now, at the end; of all she had done and endured going for nothing.
The tryzatt pondered with maddening deliberation. "Well," he replied at length, "dare say we can fix up something to carry you on, but it won't be all that comfortable, mind. And you'll have to watch that leg: that's nasty, that is; you've lost a lot of blood. Jolan, boy, you'd better run on ahead--tell them to wake the general and tell him she's coming." He turned back to Maia. "You're sure now? Only you said it, lass, we didn't."
She nodded. "I'm sure enough."
Within the hour General Sendekar, roused from his bed in Rallur, was sitting beside Maia's as she told him of Karnat's crossing and the plan to destroy the Olmen bridge. After about ten minutes she fell back in a faint, but he had already heard enough.
Throughout the early hours of that night--the night of the 15th/16th Azith--King Karnat's army, supported by an auxiliary force of about two thousand Subans, marched in successive companies to the place downstream of Melvda-Rain which, his Suban allies had advised the king, was feasible for a crossing. At this point the river was relatively broad and accordingly somewhat (though not a great deal) less swift and deep. Karnat himself, the strongest and tallest man in his own army, waded into the water with a rope paid out behind him, and carrying a forked pole with which to steady himself against the current. Twice he was swept downstream and pulled back to the western bank. At the third attempt he succeeded in crossing and securing the rope to a tree-trunk on the eastern side. Other ropes were then put across.
The rest of the spearhead force, consisting of about four hundred Terekenalters, two hundred Katrians and as many Subans under the command of Anda-Nokomis, their Ban, crossed in something less than two hours and at once set out upstream to destroy the bridge over the Olmen south of Rallur.
Unexpectedly, they found it defended by two hastily assembled companies of Tonildans, whom they attacked vigorously, the king himself leading the assault. The Tonildans, however, were able to prevent the destruction of the bridge and, as the confused, nocturnal fighting continued, were reinforced by Beklan troops commanded by Sendekar in person. For a matter of some three hours the main Terekenalt army, to the south, continued their crossing of the Valderra in accordance with the king's original plan, he himself trusting that enough men would get over to enable him to drive back the Beklans and destroy the bridge. At length, however, realizing that with the unexpected loss of surprise success had slipped from his grasp, he sent back orders to Lenkrit to halt the crossing and withdraw across the Valderra. He himself, as the Beklans gradually gained the upper hand, defended his contracting bridgehead by a brilliantly-conducted fighting retreat which effectively discouraged the enemy from pressing home then-advantage, mauled as they were by one determined counter-attack after another. During one of these Anda-Nokomis, who in leading his Subans had shown throughout the night a total disregard for his own safety, disappeared among the thick of the enemy, and when Karnat, arrived back at the crossing-point, reformed his depleted force, remained unaccounted for.
The greater part of the Terekenalt army re-crossed to the west bank successfully, and losses among the king's spearhead troops turned out not to have been unduly heavy.
Among them, however, was the Katrian staff officer Zen-Kurel who, smarting under a stern rebuke from the king for having absented himself at Melvda until the army was on the very point of setting out, had been continually and recklessly taking part in one foray after another. Next morning a wounded tryzatt told the king of having seen the young man slip and go down on muddy, trampled ground, but in the half-darkness there had been much disorder and he could not tell what the end of it might have been.
Having grasped that the enemy were in full retreat across the river, Sendekar broke off the fighting, glad to see the back of them so cheaply. About two hours after dawn they cut the ropes, the king himself being the last man to cross.
There could be no doubt--as Sendekar emphasized in reporting to General Kembri--that the failure of the attack had been largely, if not entirely, due to the courage and resourcefulness of the Tonildan slave-girl Maia of Serrelind, who, alone and entirely without help among the en-emy at Melvda-Rain, had not only succeeded in discovering their plans but had thereupon escaped, swum the impassable Valderra by night--an all-but-incredible feat, in the course of which she had sustained severe injuries--and brought warning to Rallur in the nick of time. In the circumstances he had thought it only fitting to order the news of her heroism to be proclaimed throughout the army.
PART III
THE SERRELINDA
53: SELPERRON BUYS SOME FLOWERS