Crystal Gorge. David Eddings

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      At first light Captain Hook-Beak rowed a skiff across the harbor near Veltan’s house to speak with Narasan before the two fleets separated. Rabbit was standing near the bow of the Seagull when his young Trogite friend Keselo came out on deck. ‘Where’s your captain going?’ he asked.

      ‘He wants to get a few things straightened out with your commander before we split up and sail off in different directions,’ Rabbit replied. ‘We’re likely to be separated for a month or two, so the Cap’n wants to be sure that we’ll all be ready if trouble breaks out, I guess.’ He looked at Keselo. ‘Do you know very much about these horse-soldiers that everybody seems to be so excited about?’ he asked.

      ‘I’ve never been in that part of the world,’ Keselo replied, ‘but I’ve heard a few stories, and if those stories come anywhere close to being accurate, I definitely wouldn’t want to face them in a war.’

      ‘Just exactly what is a horse?’ Rabbit asked curiously.

      ‘It’s one of the animals that eats grass,’ Keselo replied. ‘It’s not very much like a sheep or a cow or a deer, though. It’s quite a bit larger, and it can run faster. The Malavi have somehow managed to tame them, and they sit on the backs of horses when they’re moving their cattle-herds from one place to another. Horses can run faster than cows – even when they’ve got a Malavi sitting on them. Over the years, the horses have turned out to be very useful, and the Malavi cow-herds have proved to be extremely valuable.’

      ‘What have cows got to do with war?’

      ‘Beef tastes better than pork or mutton, Rabbit, and it brings a high price in the cities of the empire. There were quite a few cattle-buyers who thought that they’d come up with a way to increase their profit significantly. If they didn’t have to pay for the cows they sold, they’d make twice as much money. They offered sizeable bribes to the more corrupt members of the Palvanum – the ruling body of the empire – and the glorious Palvanum issued a declaration that the Land of the Malavi rightfully belonged to the empire. Then they sent several armies there to enforce that declaration.’

      ‘That does sound sort of Trogish, all right,’ Rabbit said. ‘What happened next?’

      ‘Things started to fall apart almost as soon as the armies landed,’ Keselo continued. ‘A Malavi sitting on a horse can move a lot faster than a man who has to walk, and the horsemen cut armies all to pieces quite regularly. The horse soldiers use a slash and run strategy, and Trogite armies can’t respond fast enough to meet them. That went on for several years, and the armies started to demand more money. The Palvanum wasn’t happy about that, but they grudgingly agreed. They’d already spent more than they could hope to recover for years, and now they were going to have to spend more just to keep their foothold in Malavi.’

      ‘What a shame,’ Rabbit said sardonically.

      ‘Isn’t it, though?’ Keselo said with a faint smile. ‘The thing that finally broke the back of the “grand plan”, though, had nothing to do with battles between horse-soldiers and foot soldiers. The leaders of the various clans in the Land of the Malavi got together and came up with a way to stop the war right then and there. They announced that their cattle wouldn’t be for sale until all of the Trogite armies went back home. The Trogite cattle-buyers sailed to the coastal villages of the Land of the Malavi and announced that they were ready to buy cows, but not one single herd came to the coast that year. The cattle buyers were there with money and ships, but the Malavi stayed away. That’s all it really took to bring the invasion to an abrupt halt. The glorious Palvanum revoked its declaration of inclusion and pulled the armies out of the Land of the Malavi almost immediately. The Malavi still own their land, and the cattle-buyers still have to pay for the cows they want.’

      ‘What a shame,’ Rabbit said in mock sympathy. ‘Do the horse people have any unusual weapons?’

      ‘Their swords and spears are a bit different from ours. They call their swords “sabres”, and they slash with them rather than stab. Their spears are called “lances”, and they’re quite a bit longer than ours. I think they might have some problems if they encounter the bug-people, though. Venom would kill a horse just as fast as it kills people, I think, and a Malavi without his horse wouldn’t be very effective.’

      ‘Do they wear armor of any kind?’

      Keselo shook his head. ‘It would probably just get in their way, and the extra weight would slow their СКАЧАТЬ