gathered all weapons and searched the corpses for anything usable.
Spinner looked at the wounded and the dead and sighed deeply. They had beaten the Jokapcul and taken many more lives than they gave up themselves. They held the ground at the end of the fight, which was the classic definition of victory in battle. But the victory was pyrrhic. Even though far more than half the lancer troop lay dead, and nearly a score more were in the makeshift hospital waiting their turns to be tended, half of the Zobran Border Warders who were in the fight were dead or seriously wounded, and a third of Veduci’s men were down as well. Most of the remainder bore lesser wounds.
The Jokapcul could absorb such losses and replace every lost soldier with more, many more. The refugees couldn’t replace any of their few fighting men without taking in more refugees, and most refugees were women, children, and oldsters; too many of the men had been killed defending their families and homes when the Jokapcul swept through their countries.
“We beat them again,” Haft said, joining Spinner after seeing to the defense. His voice was weary.
“At what price?”
“Too great a price.”
“
I
don’t think so.” Veduci limped up to them. His voice was hoarse, and blood seeped from a crude bandage on his leg and dripped slowly from his sword. “Had they,” he nodded at the pile of Jokapcul bodies, “caught my people, they would have killed all of us. Instead, more than half of my men are mostly whole and all of our women and children are safe.” He looked intently at them. “When word spreads that the Jokapcul can be beaten, they will begin to lose more often, and fewer people will die at their hands.”
CHAPTER
FOUR
They dug a common grave and reverently buried their dead. A shallow trench sufficed for the Jokapcul. Nobody cared if scavengers dug them up later, they just wanted to prevent stench for the time they’d be in camp under the trees just over the ridge from the battleground.
Try as they might, it wasn’t yet possible for the refugees to be silent in setting up camp; still, they were quiet enough that they sounded like only a few hundred refugees rather than the more than two thousand they were. It wasn’t long before the men had a pavilion stretched over the wounded soldiers, tents pitched or lean-tos constructed for sleeping, and privy trenches dug away from the tents and water sources. That last was one of the innovations Lord Gunny had brought from wherever it was he’d come. Most people didn’t understand the need at first, but they quickly enough came to learn that they had less illness with the remote privy trenches than they would have without them, so they dug them willingly enough.
Xundoe and the chief Eikby healing magician let loose their aralez, and the tiny, doglike healing demons scampered about, licking at the worst wounds, cleaning out what was bad and speeding healing. The healing magician was more careful in guiding his land trow; even though there were no young mothers or infants under the pavilion, there were a few nearby. While the land trow was a powerful healing demon, it was also a severe danger to nursing women and infants and had to be kept from them. It was waist high to the magician who controlled it and went about languidly on its business, never straining against its leash, from wounded man to wounded man. It stopped here and there when a wound interested it and probed deep inside with its long, slender fingers. Most of the time when it withdrew its fingers a greenish cloud came with them. The land trow examined each cloud curiously for a moment before dismissively flicking its fingers, dispersing the cloud into nothingness. Nightbird and the Eikby healing witches tended lesser wounds and bruises with unguents and poultices. At length, their wounded were all attended to and they turned to the wounded Jokapcul. The most severely wounded enemy soldiers were set
Spinner looked at the wounded and the dead and sighed deeply. They had beaten the Jokapcul and taken many more lives than they gave up themselves. They held the ground at the end of the fight, which was the classic definition of victory in battle. But the victory was pyrrhic. Even though far more than half the lancer troop lay dead, and nearly a score more were in the makeshift hospital waiting their turns to be tended, half of the Zobran Border Warders who were in the fight were dead or seriously wounded, and a third of Veduci’s men were down as well. Most of the remainder bore lesser wounds.
The Jokapcul could absorb such losses and replace every lost soldier with more, many more. The refugees couldn’t replace any of their few fighting men without taking in more refugees, and most refugees were women, children, and oldsters; too many of the men had been killed defending their families and homes when the Jokapcul swept through their countries.
“We beat them again,” Haft said, joining Spinner after seeing to the defense. His voice was weary.
“At what price?”
“Too great a price.”
“
I
don’t think so.” Veduci limped up to them. His voice was hoarse, and blood seeped from a crude bandage on his leg and dripped slowly from his sword. “Had they,” he nodded at the pile of Jokapcul bodies, “caught my people, they would have killed all of us. Instead, more than half of my men are mostly whole and all of our women and children are safe.” He looked intently at them. “When word spreads that the Jokapcul can be beaten, they will begin to lose more often, and fewer people will die at their hands.”
CHAPTER
FOUR
They dug a common grave and reverently buried their dead. A shallow trench sufficed for the Jokapcul. Nobody cared if scavengers dug them up later, they just wanted to prevent stench for the time they’d be in camp under the trees just over the ridge from the battleground.
Try as they might, it wasn’t yet possible for the refugees to be silent in setting up camp; still, they were quiet enough that they sounded like only a few hundred refugees rather than the more than two thousand they were. It wasn’t long before the men had a pavilion stretched over the wounded soldiers, tents pitched or lean-tos constructed for sleeping, and privy trenches dug away from the tents and water sources. That last was one of the innovations Lord Gunny had brought from wherever it was he’d come. Most people didn’t understand the need at first, but they quickly enough came to learn that they had less illness with the remote privy trenches than they would have without them, so they dug them willingly enough.
Xundoe and the chief Eikby healing magician let loose their aralez, and the tiny, doglike healing demons scampered about, licking at the worst wounds, cleaning out what was bad and speeding healing. The healing magician was more careful in guiding his land trow; even though there were no young mothers or infants under the pavilion, there were a few nearby. While the land trow was a powerful healing demon, it was also a severe danger to nursing women and infants and had to be kept from them. It was waist high to the magician who controlled it and went about languidly on its business, never straining against its leash, from wounded man to wounded man. It stopped here and there when a wound interested it and probed deep inside with its long, slender fingers. Most of the time when it withdrew its fingers a greenish cloud came with them. The land trow examined each cloud curiously for a moment before dismissively flicking its fingers, dispersing the cloud into nothingness. Nightbird and the Eikby healing witches tended lesser wounds and bruises with unguents and poultices. At length, their wounded were all attended to and they turned to the wounded Jokapcul. The most severely wounded enemy soldiers were set
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