say that Labdurg framed it to
happen that way. He advised Kurchuk to invade, in the first place, and
I mentioned my suspicion that Chombrog, the Chuldun Emperor, is
planning to move in on the Hulgun kingdoms. Well, what would be
smarter than to get Kurchuk's army smashed in advance?"

"How did the defeat occur?" Verkan Vall asked. "Any suspicion of
treachery?"

"Nothing you could put your finger on, except that the Jumduns seemed
to have pretty good intelligence about Kurchuk's invasion route and
battle plans. It could have been nothing worse than stupid tactics on
Kurchuk's part. See, these Hulguns, and particularly the Zurb
Hulguns, are spearmen. They fight in a fairly thin line, with
heavy-armed infantry in front and light infantry with throwing-spears
behind. The nobles fight in light chariots, usually at the center of
the line, and that's where they were at this Battle of Jorm. Kurchuk
himself was at the center, with his Chuldun archers massed around him.

"The Jumduns use a lot of cavalry, with long swords and lances, and a
lot of big chariots with two javelin men and a driver. Well, instead
of ramming into Kurchuk's center, where he had his archers, they hit
the extreme left and folded it up, and then swung around behind and
hit the right from the rear. All the Chuldun archers did was stand
fast around the king and shoot anybody who came close to them: they
were left pretty much alone. But the Hulgun spearmen were cut to
pieces. The battle ended with Kurchuk and his nobles and his archers
making a fighting retreat, while the Jumdun cavalry were chasing the
spearmen every which way and cutting them down or lancing them as they
ran.

"Well, whether it was Labdurg's treachery or Kurchuk's stupidity, in
either case, it was natural for the archers to come off easiest and
the Hulgun spearmen to pay the butcher's bill. But try and tell these
knuckle-heads anything like that! Muz-Azin protected the Chulduns, and
Yat-Zar let the Hulguns down, and that was all there was to it. The
Zurb temple started losing worshipers, particularly the families of
the men who didn't make it back from Jorm.

"If that had been all there'd been to it, though, it still wouldn't
have hurt the mining operations, and we could have got by. But what
really tore it was when the rabbits started to die." Stranor Sleth
picked up a cigar from his desk and bit the end, spitting it out
disgustedly. "Tularemia, of course," he said, touching his ligh