The Savage War

by Esther Wallace

  It took a whole day to force his mind back to the problem at hand, but the next morning as he was sitting with the master mason while the old man described the castle’s defense constructions and the holes in the battlements above the portcullis’s long tunnel, the islander froze. Quickly, he changed topics, inquiring about the soundness of the walls and how best to make them impenetrable. As night fell, he remained in the library drawing his own construction plans.

  He had just finished drawing his plans that evening when word came to him that Miro wanted him in the council room. Sir Hadwin had arrived with a report, and both the king and Memphis awaited the islander before they would hear the report from the field.

  Or more likely, Miro waited and Memphis merely stood there pretending to be everything he was supposed to be.

  Hadwin’s report, however, was simply that Melmoor was quiet, as if the very air awaited something that was coming, but not yet there. He had found nothing and the king dismissed him.

  Once Miro looked to his councilors, however, the islander held out the plans he had brought.

  “Will you consent to see this, Your Majesty?” he asked, unrolling the parchment on the table. As Miro bent over it, the islander explained, “Should you build a wall on the borders, I think the natives might agree to terms of peace.”

  Regarding the islander, the king wondered, “And how should you even manage to build a wall while they continue to rain fire and poison on the workers?”

  “Mira tells them ahead of time,” Arnacin stated. “Even if they do not believe that Mira would keep within its wall, there are two walls depicted wherever your land touches theirs, with a space down the center. One wall is theirs, the other is yours, and should anyone ever try to pass their own boundaries, they would become trapped between those walls without cover for either side to easily slaughter at will.”

  “Who would tell them?”

  “May I speak, Sire?” Memphis interjected, raising his own eyes from the plans. When Miro turned to him in permission, he said, “They will likely only see it as a weakness, which would instead encourage them to attack harder. Why would we raise the question of a wall if we had the strength to defeat them? Moreover, since from such action, they would understand that Mira was on the verge of collapse, they would make every effort to take their land back once and for all, now and forever. Savages never forgive.”

  The king did not answer, but he noted the fire burning in the islander’s eyes as he glared at the high councilor. Miro then asked, “I will not judge that in the current light. The main point is that I do not think they would listen to anyone Mira could send.”

  Looking back up at the king, Arnacin breathed, “I think they would trust my word.”

  The high councilor huffed sarcastically.

  Overlooking the fact that the islander unintentionally slandered his own honor, Miro reminded him, “They fear no one more than you at this time, Arnacin. Before you could speak, before you could breathe, they would see an arrow through your heart, should you step within range. They have heard too much about your prowess.”

  The fire in Arnacin’s eyes vanished as he turned to the king. “I think they also wish for a way to be certain of peace. They should be willing to at least hear what you have to say if it comes from someone… about whom they have heard certain things.”

  “And how is it, we may ask, that the savages even know about his deeds?” Memphis inquired when Miro remained silent, causing the islander to raise his head at the implied charge. “If not for the fact that he lets enemies live to bring word back to their own as messengers to his ‘greatness,’ they wouldn’t. He may think that the fear he instills will prevent their attack, but we of more experience know that it only strengthens their fury and revenge. Sire, good intent our foreigner may have, but for Mira’s safety, consider his rash council before acting on it.”

  Silence met his words. Instead of answering, the king turned to Arnacin inviting the islander’s own defense. Dipping his chin in gratitude, the islander said, “Some natives were allowed past my ambushes when they fled in earnest. My attacks are meant to extinguish their threat, not to execute unjust murder.”

  “We are at war!” Memphis exclaimed.

  “A side that falls to murder to achieve their end is not worth the strugg—” Arnacin cut his burning retort off as Miro raised his hands to silence the two.

  “Thank you, Memphis, for your wisdom, as always,” Miro sighed. Recognizing the unspoken dismissal, the high councilor bowed out. As the door closed behind him, the king turned to Arnacin, placing a hand on the islander’s shoulder. “He is right, Arnacin. You are full of good intentions, but you must gain experience before you can expect your suggestions to be taken. In troop movement, I would ask no one else to advise me, but your long-term goals lack understanding.”

  Lifting his gaze from the floor, Arnacin inquired, “Your Majesty, you have tried the same plan for ten years. It’s not taking you anywhere. They continue to pick the battleground, which according to some means they are still the masters of this war. Can you not think of some new, long-term plan to best them?”

  “There may not be one, Arnacin,” the king said before concluding, “You may go.”

  Obeying, the islander instantly strode out toward his ship, pausing only when he heard his name called by the princess’ voice. Turning, he allowed her to catch up with him before they entered the city’s harbor.

  “I gather whatever you suggested was not agreed upon,” Valoretta sadly noted.

  Glancing down at her, the islander exclaimed, “Mira is losing, slowly but surely. If they don’t alter their long-term plans, I will be of no help.”

  “And?”

  “And, according to them, I’m simply inexperienced, rash, proud…” She choked beside him, causing him to turn once more to her.

  “They’re right in that, Arnacin. You are proud.”

  Smiling himself, the islander confessed, “All right, I’m proud, but I hope not in the way they are saying.”

  Turning to him, the princess suggested, “Well, what is your long-term plan? If I like it, perhaps I can help you find a way to convince them and, if not, to help you fix its flaws.”

  Reaching his ship’s port rail, facing the sea, Arnacin ran his hand along it thoughtfully. Then slowly he nodded and, like so often before, Valoretta fell into role of adviser.

  Chapter 16

  The War on Two Fronts

  DESPITE VALORETTA’S AID, THE KING did not change his mind and Arnacin’s frustration grew. All the same, the war continued and he aided where the king permitted his council. In fact, it was only a week after the first argument about the wall that word arrived, in the form of Sir Hadwin, that the natives were again massing in the border woods, particularly on the east side.

  Slowly, as it became increasingly apparent how much of the natives’ forces swarmed along the east coast, Arnacin counseled a closer watch on the western side. Meanwhile, theories of why they were gathering in the east were tossed back and forth. The speculations traveled from Mira’s generals, to the men themselves, to the three-way discussions among the king, his high councilor and the islander, and—Arnacin assumed—to the other meetings Miro called with his official councilors.

  After five days, Arnacin and Valoretta estimated that half the castle thought the natives were hoping to claim that portion completely as theirs, therefore preventing anyone from going around the land to enter the mountains. The other half thought that their enemies were simply engaging them far away from whatever it was that the enemy really wanted.

  “What do you find more likely?” Valoretta asked, sitting on the islander’s ship rail.

  Arnacin thought for a moment, sealing the last medicine jar with wax. “I find the latter less wild, but I fear we’re missing the real issue. The natives don’t strike me as the types to continue pushing that tactic. They use it often enough. It works often enough—but they must realize by now that we are somewhat aware of it.”


  “Yet we know there is nothing to gain from blocking the ocean there. If we were to decide we really wished to go around, we’d take a ship, and they won’t be cutting us off from any of our trade—” Valoretta stopped abruptly as the islander’s head jerked upward, his gaze flying over her shoulder to the Guardian Hills, the eastern mountain range ending at Mira’s harbor. Before she could ask anything, he glanced quickly toward the open seawall itself and then shot to his feet.

  “Come,” he commanded, before jumping onto the dock. The swift rustle of silk a second later told him Valoretta had dashed after him.

  “What is it?” she inquired as she caught him.

  “They’re taking the shoreline to this end of the mountains, where they’ll disappear, slowly trickling more men into the hills, before attacking the sea wall,” the islander hastily explained. “Once they hold that, they can stop any ship from entering or exiting, and it’s not just about supplies, Valoretta.”

  “They could deny ambassadors entrance,” the princess gasped in realization. “Other kingdoms would think we had become hostile and attack. We might find ourselves at war on every front until the savages could simply slip away and watch us annihilate each other. ”

  “I suspect such are their very thoughts,” Arnacin whispered as they strode into the castle’s keep, headed to warn the king.

  Although the king instantly ordered a watch and extra guard on the sea walls, one day passed into another and another without any sign of trouble. Perhaps, this could be credited to the fact that troops had also been sent to engage the native cluster on the eastern shore. What Miro feared, however, was that they were falling for some trap, pouring their strength into the very thing the enemy wished. It did not help that Arnacin himself voiced that doubt.

  Around the capital, the same doubts echoed in forms such as the messenger from the sea wall asking for the reprieve of men weary from their exhausted tenseness. As the king maintained the men’s new routines, Arnacin mentioned, “You must tread carefully, Your Majesty. No one can continue waiting for long, and if their watchfulness ends when an attack is forming, you will surely lose.”

  “Tread carefully, you say,” Miro huffed, ignoring the look of strained patience on Memphis’s face. “How exactly would you go about keeping them tense? Randomly ordering attacks on them yourself?”

  Smiling, the islander whispered, “No, I leave the decision to you.” His smile growing slightly, he added, “But if that is all you can think of, why not?” Shaking his head, Miro excused the islander and soon retired to the royal chambers to muse alone before a fireplace.

  Knowing no other course of action, Miro sent his swordmaster down to create drilling practices for the men waiting, while others watched. They would then trade off. Five days after the drills had started, the sea wall was attacked, forcing the swordmaster’s instant retreat. As the able-bodied men were all needed in defense of the wall, the swordmaster was the one to slip away and alert the king to the skirmish taking place at the wall.

  Standing on the highest east-facing parapet, beside his master swordsman and Arnacin, Miro viewed the battle with the aid of a telescope. Natives poured down from the hills under the cover of their archers and the Mirans’ archers could not fire a single shaft in the midst the natives’ furious torrent of arrows. Their sole defense lay in the slow, blind launch of their catapults’ projectiles.

  “Send a messenger down there,” Miro ordered his master swordsman. “Let the troop know that if the savages gain the wall, they are to burn it to the bottom of the sea.” Bowing, the man hobbled away, and the king growled to himself, “They dare to enter our capitol. Very well, they will pay the price.”

  At his side, Arnacin glanced toward him yet remained silent. Recognizing the locked jaw, however, Miro asked, “Have you any suggestions?”

  “If you are willing to burn the wall down at all, Your Majesty, I think you should let them have it, come around to block their escape, and then burn it. Make it look like you could not stand up to their attack and were forced to retreat. I assume they won’t suspect, and they wish to keep the wall themselves in order to trap you inside. On that note, I also guess that whatever army they snuck into those hills is a sizable one, one you would not want to escape alive.”

  Arnacin had finished without once looking away from their view. Studying him, the king nodded. There were times he wondered if he knew the islander at all—but as that was currently unimportant, he made no comment, instead ordering another messenger sent to the wall’s captain with the newest strategy.

  As the Mirans then began their retreat, the king sent another messenger to order all the ships in the harbor to load small catapults onto their decks, set sail, and bombard the hills once at sea. Although Arnacin winced as Miro relayed his strategy, the islander again remained silent. This time, Miro did not ask why, yet he started to guess when those ships headed for the open sea, very low in the water, swaying back and forth far more than they should have. “As long as they arrive within firing distance,” the king soothed, “it will not matter. The water is shallow enough.” He received no answer and, expecting little more for the islander to do, Miro excused him.

  It was late that night when Arnacin received the news that the battle was over and the Mirans had won. Of the wall, only stones remained, but amid the flames, the last savages risked suicide by jumping from the fiery walls in their final attempt to escape. As to the ships, they were gradually limping back as they were freed from the shore. Upon hearing this, Arnacin slipped off to bed, hoping, if not expecting, that to be the last of the natives’ drive.

  As if to validate that hope, the days continued in relative peace. Cestmir reported that the savages massing on the east coast had retreated once again into their lands and resumed their normal attacks. On the king's orders, men began rebuilding the sea wall. Meanwhile, the councilors continued their own backstabbing.

  This Arnacin would only hear of after the councilors had already hissed their poison and his response was often to escape to the wharf. There, among the honest and carefree play of the sailors and commoners, the islander’s frustration could temporarily fade into the background.

  Focused on resupplying his ship, Arnacin was waiting for the market’s barrel maker when the sound of his name caught his attention.

  Sitting around the dockside’s tavern, Samundro and five other sailors were watching him. Nodding toward the men, all of whom had helped him rebuild his ship, the islander turned back to his own business—yet it was now impossible not to listen to their hearty conversation.

  “How much ransom do you think he’d earn us exactly?”

  “I’m not sure, but I know one thing, it must be pretty high considering that he’s acted against the king’s commands several times and is still here, alive and unharmed. He’s a nobody who’s the king’s war councilor, and Lord Carpason died in order to clear his honor. Someone values him quite a bit.”

  “That’s not even all, if you’ve heard the gossip…”

  “Yes, the princess. From their talk, she would give her own skin in return for him, if she had to.”

  “Aye, but that part, I can’t guarantee. What I can guarantee is that he’d be worth a fortune in gold, and there he goes, a treasure chest walking about on the pier by itself.” The speaker paused while they roared with laughter. “The six of us could easily take him while no one’s watching. Gag him, bind him, and drag him aboard a ship, where we set sail before sending someone back to retrieve the ransom.”

  By that point, they were pounding the table with their hands in laughter. Glancing at them, Arnacin could not help but shake his head with a small smile. Apparently spotting his look, Samundro called out, “Arnacin, join us, mate!”

  “I’ll wait until the temptation’s weaker,” the islander replied to even greater hilarity. An hour later, however, after paying the barrel maker and taking the new barrels to his ship, Arnacin headed over to the sailors still sitting with their tankards.

  “So how�
��s the beer here in comparison to your own ports?” he asked with a smile.

  Some said that it was the best they knew of and others that it was comparable. Grinning, the islander quipped, “Well, you won’t want to lose the ability of drinking the best beer in these seas just for a dusty trunk of gold that would disappear sooner than you reckoned.”

  Bursting out with more laughter, Samundro commented, “Snake. That’s how you wriggle out of capture, is it? Using our weaknesses against us, are you? I’d take you captive just for that alone, matey, ’cause I don’t put up with them games.”

  Laughing with them, Arnacin excused himself and returned to the castle.

  Time appeared to drag in those days. Summer passed, filled with too few projects, too many frustrations, and the growing ache for Mira’s peace and his home. Each time the king sent troops out, Arnacin would watch, feeling his resolve to convince the king to build a wall rekindle. It would only intensify when the beaten troops returned, limping back beneath the portcullis, carrying their wounded or dead. As if in sympathy, he would find himself pushing his hand beneath his shirt collar as his shoulder burned yet again.

  In disregard of the islander’s sentiments, the king was swayed constantly by Memphis’s arguments against said wall and, after a month or so, Miro ordered it not to be discussed again. With that, Arnacin left the castle for his ship.