CHAPTER 33
Doranei slept poorly
in the humid night air. Words and faces danced on the edges of his
consciousness, questions and memories colliding uncomfortably. Some
part of him sensed the bedroll underneath him, and the pack he was
using as a pillow, but at the same time he could feel the cool,
clean sheets of Zhia’s bed in Byora.
The sensations
mingled and added to the mess of confusion in his dreams, and
everything was dominated by Zhia’s darkly glittering sapphire eyes.
The questions continued, voices speaking at once: Mihn’s soft lilt,
King Emin’s crisp, aristocratic tone, and they were all asking
about those sapphire eyes.
Can she be trusted? Where do her allegiances lie? Will she
take sides?
He couldn’t answer
any of them. In his dreams his tongue swelled, making speech
impossible, but even if he had been able to speak, there was
nothing he could say, no assurances he could give.
An unexpected chill
shivered down Doranei’s spine and he jolted awake, heart hammering
and dread slithering across his skin. The room was dark, and as he
sat up his head cracked against the underside of the dining table
under which he’d been sleeping. A deep thump reverberated around
the room as Doranei fell back onto his bedroll,
gasping.
‘Told you,’ whispered
someone nearby.
It took Doranei a few
moments to focus as he winced and rubbed his stinging head. When
the stars cleared he saw Veil, watching him owlishly from the other
side of the table.
‘Told me
what?’
Veil grinned. ‘That
you wake up sudden-like sometimes, so maybe under a table ain’t the
best place to sleep.’
Doranei looked around
at the rest of the dining room: a long, ancient hall - older even
than the keep - that had been incorporated into the newest wing of
Moorview Castle. Apart from the huge, empty fireplace there was
precious little space not occupied by dozing King’s Men. He opened
his mouth to reply, but hesitated, remembering the strange
sensation that had woken him.
‘Thought I heard
something,’ he said at last.
‘No, you didn’t,’
Veil said. ‘You’d have a sword in hand if you did. You dreamed you
did, or some girl with sapphire eyes just reached out and touched
you.’
Doranei frowned and
tried to order his thoughts. He didn’t remember dreaming of
anything that would wake him so abruptly. Zhia’s touch was
accompanied by a memory of her perfume; this was neither, it was
something unfamiliar.
‘Think I’ll go get
some air,’ he muttered.
Veil watched without
comment as Doranei picked up his sword; unnatural happenings and
strange sensations were familiar to the Brotherhood, as were
overactive imaginations in the dark of night. However, the need for
caution was ever-present, and confusion hadn’t overridden Doranei’s
natural mistrust.
Doranei slipped out
of the darkened hall and found himself in a moonlit corridor. He
didn’t know what bell it was, but the stillness indicated the
depths of night. He looked around and as he shivered involuntarily,
his hand closed around the sword grip . . . but nothing happened,
so, feeling foolish, he released it again and buckled the scabbard
properly to his waist.
He still felt better
when he was holding the sword. King Emin’s belief that Lord Styrax
would not use subterfuge to win this battle was small comfort in
the dark hours of the night.
Magic had always been
feared by the common folk; its use in battle was accepted, but few
generals made their name off it. Styrax might have the advantage
there, with his awesome powers, but his plans extended further than
mere victory. Intelligence reports were coming in all the time:
four Menin armies of ten to fifteen thousand men were destroying
great swathes of the Narkang nation as three of them made their way
towards Moorview Castle. Each army comprised soldiers from all his
conquered cities, most particularly the remnants of the Chetse
élite known as the Ten Thousand.
Part of the reason
for bringing them here was to keep the vanquished troops under
control - if they were ravaging King Emin’s lands, they would not
be fomenting rebellion in their homeland. But that was not the
whole of it: Lord Styrax had amassed a larger host than ever before
for a more fundamental reason. Forty thousand or more men were
marching on Moorview to take part in the battle he wanted every
bard to sing of for centuries to come.
Somewhere up ahead
Doranei heard the scuff of a shoe on the flagstone floor. He
started to draw his sword - and stopped, struck by the sight of the
black blade in the darkness. The provenance of the sword he’d taken
from Aracnan’s corpse was unknown, but it was certainly old and
powerful. In daylight it prickled faintly with tiny sparks of
light. Now it was more like the night sky on a clear night, casting
a very faint light of its own. He sheathed it again, suppressing
his fascination for the time being. When he reached the corner of
the corridor he stopped and peered around it. He saw no one, but
whispering voices were coming from somewhere at the far
end.
This was the opulent
part of the castle, away from the servant’s quarters, and there
were long, narrow rugs running down the centre of the corridors. A
wide variety of paintings, both portraits and landscapes, were
displayed on the walls, and ahead of him Doranei could see a large
map of the whole area covering one wall. It had been painted by
Countess Derenin, the lady of the house, and was accurate enough
that the king had consulted it often in the past few days. The
local suzerain’s family was an ancient one which had managed to
adapt and thrive under King Emin’s rule, unlike many who didn’t
understand the art of compromise and had been eclipsed by the
king’s ambitious supporters.
Doranei walked
silently on the rug until he was almost at the end. There he
stopped, feeling horribly exposed, as another deep voice joined in.
He heard the words clearly, though there was a thick stone wall
between them; the voice echoed in Doranei’s head without hindrance
or distortion, though it was quiet and sounded strangely far away.
It made his teeth ache, and as he winced at the sensation his
bruised head increased its throbbing, sending flashes of pain down
across his eyes.
‘You ask me to put myself in the power of
others.’
Doranei covered his
ears, but it made no difference — the voice was not loud, only
penetrating, and his hands felt as insubstantial as the walls. He
could hear nothing but the words - no cadence or accent to place
the speaker.
‘What did you think
would happen?’
He recognised that
voice; it was Lord Isak, more focused than he had been earlier that
day. Whoever - whatever, Doranei
realised - Isak was talking to, they had made him forget his pain,
for a little while at least.
‘It cannot be permitted.’
‘It must,’ whispered
a third person - Mihn - urgently, ‘there is no other
way.’
‘Find another.’
‘No,’ said Isak. ‘You
cannot command me; that much I know.’
The white-eye sounded
strange to Doranei and after a moment he realised it was the lack
of antagonism in his voice. The spark of aggression, that fire
within all white-eyes, had been extinguished within
him.
‘You invite catastrophe — you
do not understand the forces you play with.’
Isak laughed,
although it was more a strangled wheeze. ‘I have nothing but the
scars of understanding. I was born to command, born to
change.’
‘This will be done,’
Mihn added, ‘and you must play your
part.’
There was a long
period of silence, and Doranei waited with his fists clenched tight
in anticipation of the echoing voice in his head.
At last,
‘What of the Ralebrat? They will not heed my
call.’
‘They will heed
ours,’ Isak said.
‘They are not to be trusted.’
‘The service I ask is
great. They must be rewarded for their losses. The price is
forgiveness, long overdue absolution.’
The voice became no
louder, but Doranei felt it press all the harder on his eardrums,
an intensity born of outrage. ‘You presume too
much.’
‘As is my lot,’ Isak
said, the weight of the Land in his voice. ‘This Land shall be made
anew, the cruelties of the past left behind.’
Doranei crept closer.
Now he could see the door at the end of the corridor was ajar, a
faint blue light spilling around its edges and outlining a dark
figure. Though he was unable to make out any detail, Doranei still
felt terrified, and the air grew thick and heavy around
him.
‘Some crimes haunt you still,’ the figure said with
cold derision.
Its face was hidden,
but Doranei felt the force of its presence like the looming bulk of
Blackfang, and for a moment he was sure the figure’s words were
directed at him, rather than Isak.
‘There is a scent of vampire about these halls. Are you so
sure of those around you?’ the figure asked, and Doranei
flinched, an icy ball of dread filling his stomach.
He backed off down
the corridor and wasted no time in fleeing silently to the furthest
corner of the castle, the panicked thump of his heart pounding in
his ears.
Knight-Cardinal
Certinse looked up from the pile of papers on his desk. The night
was well advanced and his head was pounding. The hot summer’s day
had left his study stuffy and malodorous; the bunches of fragrant
lavender and pepper grass hung over the door and windows had done
more to add to the heavy atmosphere than relieve it.
His eyes drifted to
the door that led to his bedroom; the thought of sleep was
enticing, especially compared with tallies of import taxes.
Certinse stood, reaching for the candlestick on his desk, but he
was stopped by a muffled commotion from somewhere
downstairs.
‘What now?’ he
wearily asked the empty room. ‘I’m too tired for another late-night
chat with High Priest Garash.’
Abruptly the door
opened and Captain Perforren entered, a worried expression on his
face. ‘My apologies, Knight-Cardinal, but a visitor has just
arrived.’
‘A visitor? There are
still Menin soldiers outside the house, aren’t there?’
‘And men of the
Devout Congress inside the door,’ his aide added. ‘They, ah, they
didn’t manage to stop your visitor. I think he has them
confused.’
‘Explain quickly,’
Certinse said, hearing boots on the stair.
‘He arrived with one
of the Jesters! The soldiers don’t know what to do; he’s a
Demi-God, after all.’
Certinse managed a
smile at last. ‘That’ll confuse the bastards sure enough. Is the
visitor Luerce?’
‘Nope,’ said a deep
voice from the corridor, ‘no one so special.’ A tall man entered. A
white patchwork cloak didn’t do much to disguise his powerful
frame. He wore a sword at his hip and held a dagger in his left
hand. Certinse blinked a moment before recognising the man, Duchess
Escral’s bodyguard, Kayel.
‘A little late for a
social call, isn’t it, Sergeant Kayel?’
Kayel raised his
right hand, in which was a glass bottle of brandy. ‘Never too late
for a drink between friends.’
Certinse regarded him
for a moment, his face blank, before gesturing for Perforren to
leave. ‘Your young prince is still looking to be friends
then?’
Kayel watched
Perforren shut the door behind himself before heading for the
glasses on a side-table. He poured a large measure of brandy into
each wide-bottomed glass and handed one to the
Knight-Cardinal.
He raised his glass
in a toast. ‘Ruhen stands for peace in this Land,’ Kayel said
gravely. ‘Friends is all he’s looking for.’
‘Tell that to the
priests plaguing me,’ Certinse muttered, showing the sergeant to
one of the chairs at the far side of the room, set on either side
of the empty fireplace. ‘I’m amazed some of those fools preaching
in Akell got out again without being lynched. Ruhen may have his
admirers here, but they’re keeping their heads down.’
‘Who can blame ’em?
It’s better than getting ’em chopped off.’ Ilumene took a big gulp
of brandy. ‘Speakin’ of your priests, I thought I’d come see how
that situation was workin’ out.’
Certinse gave him a
sour look. ‘Is that supposed to be funny?’
‘You see me laughin’?
It’s my concern when Ruhen’s Children ain’t allowed to spread their
beliefs, when they get strung up for the heresy of criticisin’ priests. An’ I b’lieve it’s
your concern that you, as Knight-Cardinal, ain’t in command of your
own Order — that you got to answer to a crowd o’ fanatics who’ve
forced their way into power.’
‘I’m not sure what
you’re saying here,’ Certinse said cautiously. ‘Are you asking
whether I’m plotting against fellow members of the Knights of the
Temples?’
Kayel laughed. ‘No!
I’m sayin’ in your place, I’d likely gettin’ ready to murder the
whole damn lot of ’em! And, I’m askin’ why you ain’t done so
already - they’ve robbed you o’ your Order, and if you don’t take
it back soon, it’s gone for good.’
The sergeant knocked
back the last of his brandy and rose to fetch the bottle. As he
turned his back, Certinse inspected the man. His high boots looked
scuffed and dirty, dull black rather than polished to a shine, but
they looked well-cared-for; Kayel was a man used to walking, he
surmised; he obviously knew the value of good boots. He didn’t
recognise the style of the lines of black stitching, but he did
recognise the concealed pommel of a dagger when he saw
it.
‘The Menin Army’s
been gone a while now,’ Kayel said as he offered Certinse more,
‘long enough that the war’s likely to be done soon. Whichever way
it goes, the Land’s goin’ to be a different place
after.’
‘Undeniably,’
Certinse agreed, ‘but I can’t be sure there will be an Order of the
Knights of the Temples left to see this new Land.’
‘So why ain’t you
moved? You’ve hardly made much effort to help out Ruhen’s Children,
and you know we’re happy for you to exploit us that way - don’t
hurt our cause a shred.’
‘Unfortunately the
matter is not so simple,’ Certinse said. ‘My Order is by definition
composed of the pious. Our rank and file are all volunteers, and
most joined for higher reasons than the stipend.’
‘So they’ll take
their whippings like dogs?’ Kayel asked, momentarily surprised,
‘they’ll cower and whine, all the while shrinking from a raised
hand? And never once thinking to bite back?’
‘The analogy is
accurate,’ Certinse agreed. ‘They’re an army, and properly trained.
I have been paying careful attention, as you might imagine, but
there are simply not enough men willing to consider insurrection
against a body of priests.’
‘But no one’s likely
to complain if it’s done for them?’
The Knight-Cardinal
smiled. Interesting, he thought
suddenly, the man’s accent has softened now
we’re at the meat of the conversation. He’s not playing the big
simple soldier any more.
There was something
more, something else at the back of his mind trying to grab his
attention. Ah yes, he speaks Farlan well, very
well. That’s not the casual familiarity of a mercenary.
Certinse had spent more years than he cared to remember in exile,
living under King Emin’s rule after Lord Bahl’s ban on the Knights
of the Temples. Over that time he’d noticed a number of common
errors in the way people there spoke the Farlan dialect; some were
glaring, some subtle enough for most native speakers to not pick up
on immediately. Sergeant Kayel had made none of those mistakes,
none at all.
‘Obviously I couldn’t
condone any such actions,’ he said carefully, mindful of being
lured into speaking too openly, ‘and on a purely logistical note I
would point out that only the Menin have the capability to do such
a thing. A covert mission of the scale required would be
near-impossible.’
Kayel didn’t blink.
‘It so happens,’ he said cagily, ‘that there might be some new
arrivals in the Circle City very soon. The call of Ruhen’s message
has reached further than many might believe, and a few remarkable
followers have been attracted to him.’
‘Such as the
Jesters?’
Kayel shook his head.
‘Their losses were considerable in the battle against the Farlan;
only half a dozen acolytes remain.’
‘I’m intrigued,’
Certinse said, guessing he was going to be told no more. ‘If they
are so remarkable it’s a shame I remain under house arrest, unable
to receive visitors without the escort of Demi-Gods. ’
‘A shame indeed. If
anything were to happen, however, you would have to step in quickly
- no sense giving the opportunists a chance, is there? A symbolic
figure would be useful in that instance, I think you’ll find;
remind the Order of its founding principles.’ Kayel gave him a sly
look and set aside his glass. As he was making ready to leave he
added, ‘My view is it’d be sensible to prepare against all
eventualities. Either King Emin wins this war and the Circle City’s
in need of a leader again, or Lord Styrax wins, and he’ll be
looking for a permanent ruler for each region of his empire. If
that happens, I’m sure he’d be glad of strong allies before he
heads towards Tirah - especially if one has connections in those
parts already.’
Certinse smiled. ‘My
first obligation must certainly be the stability of the Order, yes
- my scholarship has perhaps been neglected in recent years, but
it’s never too late to refresh one’s memory of the Order’s founding
principles. This current fervour could be far better employed in
the pursuit of the Order’s greater purpose, I suspect - and never
let it be said I am closed to new ideas. Your little prince’s
message, for example; even an old soldier such as I could be
swayed. The Land will soon be tired of war - if it could be ended
swiftly the Gods themselves would surely thank us.’
For a moment Doranei
forgot himself and stopped, staring in wonder: far away over the
moor a flock of birds were diving and wheeling in a great cloud
against the sky, while closer at hand, swifts darted and swooped,
feasting on the insects stirred up by the activity on the moor. He
could hear the beating of thousands of wings in
unison.
‘Not a sight you ever
get bored of, eh?’ Veil commented from his right.
Doranei nodded dumbly
as the flocks swept over a slight rise on the moor and flattened
into a swirling cable of birds that arched up into the sky. Further
east, orange-edge striations of cloud lay above the horizon and he
felt a slight shadow fall over them as the flock veered
past.
‘Is that supposed to
be funny?’ snapped the man standing between them. His left arm was
resting lightly on Doranei’s shoulder.
‘What? Hah! No - not
a joke,’ Veil said, a brief grin flashing across his
face.
The third man in
their group was a mage from Narkang called Tasseran Holtai, who was
generally acknowledged to be the finest scryer in the kingdom.
Unfortunately, his years of service had come at a price: he had
been completely blind for almost a decade.
‘Aye, we only joke
with men we like,’ Doranei growled while Veil looked skyward in
exasperation.
‘You impudent
peasant!’ Holtai spat, swinging his walking stick at Doranei’s
shins.
The King’s Man hopped
nimbly away from the blow and stifled a laugh as Veil was jabbed in
the ribs with the stick in Doranei’s place.
‘I don’t care what
favour the king has for you, I’ll have you flogged for your
insolence!’ he snarled.
‘I’m afraid there’s
already a queue for that pleasure,’ Veil said cheerfully, ‘so let’s
get this done first.’
Mage Holtai turned in
Veil’s direction, far from mollified, but aware the king was
waiting. He was a sprightly man of more than seventy winters, his
white moustache neatly trimmed and his clothing immaculate, as ever
— today he wore a long purple robe edged in gold. His skills had
brought him not only considerable personal wealth, but also great
political power in Narkang; he was a poor enemy to make, even for
the Brotherhood.
‘Shift yourself then,
you wretch,’ the mage hissed, grabbing wildly for Doranei’s
shoulder again.
The King’s Man raised
his eyebrows and rolled his eyes at Veil, who grinned back. He
stepped closer and guided Holtai’s hand to his shoulder, but they
had gone only a few steps before the old man grabbed him by the
collar and wrenched him backwards with more strength than Doranei
would have expected from a frail-looking old man.
‘Not so fast you damn
fool!’ the mage snarled.
Doranei bit back his
instinctive response and slowed his pace until they were shuffling
through the flattened grass towards a raised mound of indeterminate
purpose. It was five feet high, and it was encircled by a staked
ditch twenty yards out, and a full company of soldiers - fifty men
- looking extremely bored.
On the mound itself
stood two unmistakable figures: Endine and Cetarn, King Emin’s most
trusted mages. Tomal Endine, a wiry, rat-like man, sat cross-legged
before one of a dozen wooden posts. One hand was pressed against it
and trails of white light danced around him. His colleague and
friend Shile Cetarn lounged nearby, resting part of his
considerable weight on an enormous wooden mallet. As they neared,
Doranei was amused to see Endine moving away from the post, then
falling backwards in shock as Cetarn wasted no time in taking an
almighty swing with the mallet to pound it into the
ground.
Doranei grinned, he
could just imagine the mage’s furious squawks of outrage - and
Cetarn shared his sense of humour; before he could take a second
swing the white-eye-sized mage had dropped the mallet and doubled
over, his roaring bellows of laughter reaching the plodding trio a
hundred yards off.
‘Doranei, my
favourite drunkard!’ Cetarn yelled once the trio were within
shouting distance. ‘Come to swing a hammer for me?’
‘Reckon you need the
exercise more than me,’ Doranei shouted back. ‘We’re here to test
out your work.’
At that Endine began
to cough, until Cetarn slapped him hard on the back, laughing
again. ‘Not that; the boy’s a drunk, not mad!’
Doranei and Veil
exchanged confused looks, but Cetarn didn’t bother to explain
himself as he hauled Endine back onto his feet again. ‘It’s not
finished,’ Cetarn continued, his round head flushed pinker than
normal, ‘but it’s good enough for your need, and I can always nudge
things along.’
‘I can manage
perfectly well without your help, Shile,’ the blind mage said
primly. ‘I mastered my art long before you were born, young
man.’
‘Indeed you did,
sir,’ Cetarn agreed, ‘but you will be scrying up to a hundred miles
while the adepts of the Hidden Tower attempt to stymie your
efforts. The help is yours, whether you like it or
not.’
Mage Holtai’s face
soured as though he’d just swallowed a bug. ‘If I need your
assistance I will request it,’ he said firmly. ‘Until that becomes
the case your power will only make my efforts all the more
noticeable.’
He started to walk a
little faster, and tugged impatiently at Doranei’s shoulder for him
to keep up. As they reached the mound Doranei saw an iron chain
half-buried in the earth, running north from one of the posts along
the ground. Whatever magic they had planned, Doranei knew he didn’t
want to be anywhere near the results.
He helped Mage Holtai
up onto the mound and looked around from his elevated position. A
hundred and fifty yards off, almost half a mile from Moorview
Castle itself, was a complicated forward defence post that a
thousand men were still working on. Three square towers surrounded
by twelve-foot-deep ditches were to be the heart of their defences
— though by no means the only line of defence. Two longer ditches
were being dug on each flank, forming two sides of a triangle, with
the removed earth being used for ramparts behind. Fire-blackened
stakes were being hammered into both ramparts and
ditches.
The moor was covered
with smaller ditches and treacherous holes, as much a way to keep
the waiting army busy as to hinder the Menin’s advance to battle
wherever possible. The battle-hardened Menin heavy infantry needed
to close and bring the fight to the Narkang forces. The king
intended to make that a costly process.
Doranei looked down
at the soldiers all around them. The core of the Narkang army was
the Kingsguard, but that was only five legions; five thousand men.
There were a similar number of mercenaries from the north and
western isles, but the bulk of their troops had been hastily raised
and were being drilled right now: advance and retreat, form line,
form square, right turn, set spears . . . To Doranei’s experienced
eye, it was all painfully slow.
Unlike the Farlan
they had no system of martial obligation among the nobility, and
many of the ennobled veterans from King Emin’s wars of conquest had
died since then. They might have gathered fifty thousand troops,
but they amounted to little more than conscripts and volunteers,
from all walks of life. More were arriving daily. What they didn’t
have was the command structure required. Just getting the new men
armed and sorted into legions was proving taxing enough, for all
the king’s advance preparations.
‘What’re all these,
symbols of the Gods?’ Veil asked Cetarn, pointing at the wooden
posts as the blind mage made himself comfortable on a rug at the
centre of the mound. He peered at the nearest. ‘Yes, the whole
Upper Circle, it looks.’
‘One aspect of our
preparations,’ Cetarn declared, ‘harnessing the energies of the
Land - but if you think I’m going to waste my valuable time giving
you two dullards an explanation you could never fully fathom,
you’re more fools than I thought!’
‘Shile,’ Holtai said,
arranging his robe around him, ‘if you don’t mind?’
‘Of course, Master
Holtai, my apologies.’ Cetarn grinned at the King’s Men, grabbed
his mallet and retreated off the mound with Endine. When Doranei
started to follow, the big mage motioned for them to stay where
they were, a little behind Mage Holtai, looking down at the old
man’s thinning pate while he settled himself again and began to
mumble arcane words.
Mage Holtai sat rigid
and upright, facing west, with his eyes closed, chanting in an
unintelligible monotone for ten minutes or more. Twice the mage’s
tone altered abruptly, moving up the scale as he craned his scrawny
neck high, before dropping back down the register
again.
The two other mages
were watching intently as the old man gave a sudden exhalation and
ended his chant. Doranei and Veil both advanced and knelt at his
side, ready to listen.
‘I see a cavalry
force, several legions strong,’ the mage said in a strained
whisper, ‘engaging the enemy.’
‘Green scarves?’
Doranei asked, and received a nod in reply. General Daken’s troops
were obviously still harrying the enemy.
‘Smoke in the
distance,’ he went on, ‘another town burns. I see standards, the
Fanged Skull, and more: many states. Ismess, Fortinn, two Ruby
Towers. The mosaic flag of Tor Salan, even Chetse - some of the Ten
Thousand.’
‘No Devoted?’ Veil
asked.
It took him a long
time to answer, but when he did it was just to croak
‘no’.
‘How many Chetse?’
Doranei tried.
‘Many flags, many
legions.’
He scowled. The
rumours were true then, the core of the Chetse Army had voluntarily
joined Lord Styrax - what was left of it after the slaughter
outside the gates of Thotel, anyway. Styrax wouldn’t have allowed
the Menin troops to be outnumbered if he didn’t trust the loyalty
of the Chetse.
‘What about cavalry?’
Veil asked.
‘Three legions, not
Menin.’
Doranei thought for a
moment. ‘Can you tell which town it is?’
‘A stone bridge
crosses the river; upstream is a small fort on an
outcrop.’
‘Terochay,’ the
King’s Men said together before Doranei continued, ‘At the edge of
the moor; sixty miles or so. Doubt any of the poor bastards even
left the town after we’d stripped it of supplies.’
‘Gives us a week?’
Veil hazarded.
‘Thereabouts.’
‘Find the other
armies,’ he urged the old man.
As the mage
recommenced his chant, Doranei rose and continued to survey the
moor. It would be a desperate fight, though he still didn’t see how
Isak could hope to turn the tide. They had picked as good a place
to fight as any army could hope for, providing Lord Styrax with the
choice of a long route round the forest with dwindling supplies and
a hostile force behind, or battle on ground of their choosing. If
they were going to win, it wouldn’t be because of some broken-down
white-eye.
Attacking defended
ground was far from ideal, but Styrax wouldn’t shrink from the
challenge. His shock troops were the finest in the Land, and they’d
been getting a lot of practice this past year. Once he pierced the
defensive line, chaos would ensue.
It didn’t take Mage
Holtai long to find the other two army groups advancing on Tairen
Moor. They were keeping within a day’s march of each other. Soon
the mage was recounting details in his rasping voice for the King’s
Men to commit to memory and report back, and all the time he was
speaking, Doranei watched the clouds massing on the northern
horizon, preparing to roll over the moor and unleash yet another
ferocious storm.
His throat was
becoming tight with anticipation. Time had almost run out for them,
and for Doranei it couldn’t come too soon. The reports of
destruction had been horrific: dozens of towns and Gods-knew how
many villages razed to the ground. Few had escaped the wholesale
slaughter in Aroth, and that city’s brutal destruction had set the
pattern for the weeks that followed.
The dead numbered not
their hundreds, but in tens of thousands. The eastern half of the
country had been largely devastated, and though Doranei understood
the need for a fighting retreat, he hated it as much as the rest of
the army did.
But now King Emin had
drawn a line. Win or lose, here they would make their stand in a
week’s time. Here they would stand or fall, and the Kingdom of
Narkang and the Three Cities would stand with them, or fall with
them.