Chapter 49: Preparation for War

In less than a week, as measured by the time bells of Kioram, the ships began to arrive with troops from various parts of the coast of Atvatabar, bringing volunteers for either branch of the service of her majesty. In ten days one hundred thousand volunteers had arrived, and these were quartered in the city, pending their equipment as wayleals and bockhockids. As might be expected, a great many were deserters from the royal army, and these were of great assistance in organizing the troops, being already skilled in the tactics of aerial warfare.

General Rackiron had turned the entire fortress into an arsenal of war. Fires blazed everywhere for forging guns and magnic spears, and a thousand hammers were shaping the limbs of bockhockids. The department for making ammunition was busiest of all, furnishing the elements on whose efficiency depended success or defeat.

A vast quantity of hand mitrailleuses, or gigantic revolvers, were made, and being of but little weight, these blew showers of bullets from magazines attached to the tubes. Each wayleal carried a thousand cartridges.

The cell in the case of the wayleals had to furnish a double current, viz., the current that moved the wings and the death-dealing current of the spear. For each bockhockid two powerful cells were necessary, one for the rider and the other to work the bockhockid he rode or flew upon. The strongest cell was contained in the body of the mechanical bird, which moved both its wings and legs, and also furnished its claws with a deadly current, so that when a detachment of bockhockids dashed into a mass of wayleals, legs foremost, the greatest possible havoc could be made with the least possible risk to the mounted riders.

The object of having each cell separate in the case of the bockhockids was apparent. In case a mounted wayleal got unhorsed he was able to join the wayleals, or infantry, having the same equipment as they.

Our superiority in arms when compared with the royal army, which possessed only magnic spears and shields, was apparent.

Of course, the enemy also made the legs and claws of the bockhockids magnic spears in themselves.

It seemed remarkable that a people so inventive, and who possessed the best of all means for manufacturing firearms, should not have thought of a better device than their naval air guns. It was but a further illustration of the fact that the keenest minds are constantly color-blind to the simplest combinations visible to lookers-on while they are pursuing their elaborate researches.

But the royal army, if inferior in arms, possessed the superiority of numbers. It outnumbered us three to one.

Our total forces consisted of 175,000 wayleals and 42,000 bockhockids, making a total of 217,000 troops, which included 5,000 amazons.

We at first expected a much larger army, believing the priests of invention, under Grasnagallipas, would certainly espouse the cause of the queen, but it was a terrible blow to our enthusiasm when we learned that the priests of invention, making a total of 50,000 wayleals, had joined the royal army and would fight against their late goddess.

Calnogor being the headquarters of the royal army, it would have been particularly dangerous for the priests of invention to have espoused our cause, surrounded as they were by the enormously more powerful enemy. To our loss, they had chosen to continue part of the army of the king, which at the lowest computation numbered half a million men.