Brian Aldiss: Helliconia Winter

The argument grew hot while shells from Isturiacha exploded nearby. The commandant of the Borldoranian battalion strode off to make complaint to the Chief Marshal. This commandant was a jaunty man, young to command, with a military moustache and a concave back, by name Bandal Eith Lahl.

With Bandal Eith Lahl went his pretty young wife, Toress Lahl. She was a doctor, and also had a complaint for the old Chief Marshal— a complaint about the poor standards of hygiene. She walked discreetly behind her husband, behind that rigid back, letting her skirts trail on the ground.

They presented themselves at the Marshal’s tent. An aide-de-camp emerged, looking apologetic.

“The Marshal is indisposed, sir. He regrets that he is unable to see you, and hopes to listen to your complaint another day.”

“ ‘Another day’!” exclaimed Toress Lahl. “Is that an expression a soldier should use in the field?”

“Tell the Marshal that if he thinks like that,” Bandal Eith Lahl said, “our forces may not live to see another day.”

He made a bold attempt to tug off his moustache before turning on his heel. His wife followed him back to their lines—to find the Borldoranians also under fire from Isturiacha. Toress Lahl was not alone in noticing the ominous birds already beginning to gather above the plain.

The peoples of Campannlat never planned as efficiently as those of Sibornal. Nor were they ever as disciplined. Nevertheless, their expedition had been well organized. Officers and men had set out cheerfully, conscious of their just cause. The northern army had to be driven from the southern continent.

Now they were less buoyant in mood. Some men, having women with them, were making love in case this was their last opportunity for that pleasure. Others were drinking heavily. The officers, too, were losing their appetites for just causes. Isturiacha was not like a city, worth the taking: it would hold little except slaves, heavy-bodied women, and agricultural implements.

The higher command also was depressed. The Chief Marshal had received word that wild phagors were now coming down from the High Nyktryhk—that great aggregate of mountain ranges—to invade the plains; the Chief Marshal suffered a fit of coughing as a result.

The general feeling was that Isturiacha should be destroyed as soon as possible, and with as little risk as possible. Then all could return quickly to the safety of home.

So much for the general feeling. The fainter of the suns, Batalix, rose again, to reveal a sinister addition to the scene.

A Sibornalese army was approaching from the north.

Bandal Eith Lahl jumped onto a cart to peer through a spyglass at the distant lines of the enemy, indistinct in the light of a new day.

He called to a messenger.

“Go immediately to the Chief Marshal. Rouse him at all costs. Instruct him that our entire army must wipe out Isturiacha immediately, before their relieving army arrives.”

The settlement of Isturiacha marked the southern end of the great Isthmus of Chalce, which connected the equatorial continent of Campannlat with the northern continent of Sibornal. Chalce’s mountainous backbone lay along its eastern edge. Progress back or forth from one continent to the other entailed a journey through dry steppeland, which extended in the rain shadow of the eastern mountains from Koriantura in the north, safe in Sibornal, all the way down to perilous Isturiacha.

The kind of mixed agriculture practised by the Campannlatians had no place in the grasslands, and consequently their gods no foothold. Whatever emerged from that chill region was bad for the Savage Continent.

As fresh morning wind dispersed the mist, columns of men could be counted. They were moving over the undulant hills north of the settlement by the river tracks along which the arangherds had come the previous day. The soaring birds above the Pannovalan force could, with the merest adjustment of their wingtips, be hovering above the new arrivals in a few minutes.

The sick Pannovalan Marshal was helped from his tent and his gaze directed northwards. The cold wind brought tears to his eyes; he mopped absently at them while regarding the advancing foe. His orders were given in a husky whisper to his grim-faced aide-de-camp.

The hallmark of the advancing foe was an orderliness not to be found among the armies of the Savage Continent. Sibornalese cavalry moved at an even pace, protecting the infantry. Straining animal teams dragged artillery pieces forward. Ammunition trains struggled to keep up with the artillery. In the rear rattled baggage carts and field kitchens. More and more columns filled the dull landscape, winding southwards as if in imitation of the sluggish river. No one among the alarmed forces of Campannlat could doubt where the columns came from or what they intended.

The old Marshal’s aide-de-camp issued the first order. Troops and auxiliaries, irrespective of creed, were to pray for the victory of Campannlat in the forthcoming engagement. Four minutes were to be dedi- cated to the task.

Pannoval had once been not merely a great nation but a great religious power, whose C’Sarr’s word held sway over much of the continent and whose neighbouring states had sometimes been reduced to satrapy under the sway of Pannovalan ideology. Four hundred and seventy-eight years before the confrontation at Isturiacha, however, the Great God Akhanaba had been destroyed in a now legendary duel. The God had departed from the world in a pillar of flame, taking with him both the then King of Oldorando and the last C’Sarr, Kilandar IX.

Religious belief subsequently splintered into a maze of small creeds. Pannoval, in this present year of 1308, according to the Sibornalese calendar, was known as the Country of a Thousand Cults. As a result, life for its inhabitants had become more uncomfortable, more uncertain. All the minor deities were called upon in this hour of crisis, and every man prayed for his own survival.

Tots of fiery liquor were issued. Officers began to goad their men into action.

“Battle Stations” sounded raggedly from bugles all over the southern plain. Orders went out to attack the settlement of Isturiacha immediately and to overwhelm it before the relieving force arrived. Whereupon a rifle brigade began almost at once to cross the bridge in a businesslike way, ignoring shellfire from the settlement.

Among the conscripts of Campannlat, whole families clustered together. Men with rifles were accompanied by women with kettles, and the women by children with teething troubles. Along with the military chink of bayonet and chain went the clank of dishpans—as later the shrieks of the newly weaned would merge with the cries of the injured. Grass and bone were trampled underfoot.

Those who prayed went into action along with those who scorned prayer. The moment was come. They were tense. They would fight. They feared to die this day—yet life had been given them by chance, and luck might yet save that life. Luck and cunning.

Meanwhile the army from the north was hastening its progress southwards. A strictly disciplined army, with well-paid officers and trained subordinates. Bugle calls sounded, the snare drum set the pace of advance. The banners of the various countries of Sibornal were displayed.

Here came troops from Loraj and Bribahr; tribes from Carcampan and primitive Upper Hazziz, who kept the orifices of their bodies plugged on the march, so that evil spirits from the steppes should not enter them; a holy brigade from Shivenink; shaggy highlanders from Kuj-Juvec; and of course many units from Uskutoshk. All were banded together under the dark-browed, dark-visaged Archpriest-Militant, famed Devit Asperamanka, who in his office united Church and State.

Among these nations trudged phagor troops, sturdy, sullen, grouped into platoons, corniculate, bearing arms.