by Guy Antibes
Trak traced his own path with his finger. He had headed not quite in the right direction, but close enough to save his friends. Looking at the pass Trak hoped that the terrain was rougher than it looked.
“So the pass really is that wide and flat. Isn’t that what’s called a ’saddle’?” Trak said.
The commander nodded. “So what we need from you is anything to funnel the enemy in our direction,” he said in Pestlan.
“Make a pathway that you can defend…” Trak looked back down on the map. “That will be easier than blocking the pass. Show me where you want a barrier to go. I can get boulders into the area, but can’t your Toryan magicians place them using your floater spells?” He asked it as a question. “I’ll need to save some energy or I won’t be able to get anything done quickly.”
The commander looked at Tembul. “You know more about magical ability than I do, Tembul. Will that work?”
“It will. Where is there a supply of large rocks?” Tembul said, looking back down at the map.
“An avalanche hit this place early this spring,” the commander said. “There are plenty of rocks there.”
Trak thought back to lessons learned from Misson. What they discussed had been done before, by bringing down trees to create a channel of enemy soldiers with the purpose of funneling them towards a selected battlefield. This strategy served the same purpose. He smiled at the thought of finally combining something learned with something actually happening. “Good. We can’t stop walking troops, but we can direct the mounted men and their supply wagons. Is there a narrower spot than right at the top of the pass? You know, we can also cut down trees in certain places to do the same thing.”
The commander frowned. “We don’t cut down trees in Torya.”
He glared at Tembul, who whispered in Trak’s ear. “He will, but not as part of the general strategy. We treasure our trees.”
Trak pressed his lips together and rubbed his hands. “We should get right to it. I can start planning today, but I am still recovering from using too much power.”
“I understand,” the commander said. “Spend the day with your friends spying out a probable route and bring the details back to me. No rock lifting until tomorrow. We will begin to confine the movements of the enemy with our troops.”
“Can I copy the map?” Trak said.
The commander handed him a leather case. “I’ve got one in here. Feel free to mark it up. You two are dismissed.”
Trak left the tent and heard the commander speaking in Toryan to his officers.
“What do you think?” Trak said.
Tembul walked silently alongside Trak for a bit. “We do what we can. The commander didn’t talk about you joining in the fight. He knows your skills. I’ve told him, but perhaps he doesn’t trust you.”
“But you trust me, right?” Trak said. Suddenly he wanted to hear Tembul give him some support.
After an uncomfortably long silence, Tembul nodded. “More than any other outsider.”
What was his response called, faint praise? Trak thought. He would have to speak with Honor, Neel, and Ben about their new assignment anyway. If Tembul couldn’t make it to their discussion, all the better.
~
“We’ll need provisions, so we can work in the field rather than returning here every night,” Honor said. “Tembul can you arrange that? I think we have enough here to carry on without you.”
Tembul smiled at them and gave them a little bow before leaving.
Trak sighed. “Thank you. Now we can talk a little more openly with Lenis and Tembul gone.”
Able folded his arms and leaned back against a tree. They sat at the edge of a little clearing with the map on the ground in front of them. “Now what are we going to talk openly about?”
“The Toryans don’t trust us and we are given make-work here.”
Neel rubbed his chin with the back of his hand. “Not quite make-work, but we aren’t in the fighting. Are they protecting you?”
Trak hadn’t thought of that. “Why would they do that? Keeping me alive for seeking out the Princess?”
“Is she always on your mind?” Rasia said, lifting a corner of her mouth in half a smile.
“Not her,” Trak said and then realized what he had said and felt his face get hot.
Neel slapped him on the back. “Maybe you’ll head north to Espozia after all?”
“If we don’t actually help the Toryans defend their homeland, perhaps that is what I should do.”
“We should do,” Ben said. “We should stick together. We’ve taken care of the southern pass, so we make the funnel and then leave. The Toryans will keep the rest of the Kandannans from invading Santasia, even without an alliance.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t much like the Toryans anyway.” He looked at Neel. “How did you survive?”
“I was only a little kid and I didn’t know any better, Ben,” Neel said. “It is clear we aren’t wanted, but we still have work to do here to keep the Kandannans at bay.”
“Indeed,” Ben said. “So let’s see what we can do.” He bent over to look more closely at the maps. “Have you flown over this terrain?”
“None of us have gone aloft since we got here,” Trak said. “I think we should, though. Seeing is better than guessing.”
“You’ve got that right, son,” Able said. He looked sideways at Rasia. “I could keep you company walking around the camp while these four are aloft.” He smiled.
Rasia frowned. “I’ve got more scout experience than any of you. Perhaps we can put it to good use out in the field, even with this,” she said holding up her wrapped and splinted left arm.
“Then, Able, why don’t we get an escort for you?” Neel said. “Tembul can do that and find a soldier who can speak Pestlan to talk to you. Reconnoiter. See what happens. Notice how the soldiers are grouped and their organization. We’ve not done that yet, and you can probably do that and ask questions less pointed than I ever could.”
Able brightened at the thought. “Not a spy, but an observer?”
“Precisely.” Neel smiled again. “Observe and see if you find anything significant. Chances are you won’t, but it’s worthwhile for one of us to do it. If we all waltzed around the camp, there would be too much talk.”
“I’ll do it…even without Rasia.” He grinned at the woman.
“Rasia can fly with me,” Honor said. “Maybe Ben, too. Then Neel, Trak and Tembul in the other flyer…all with Toryan blood in their veins.” She looked at Neel.
What was that remark all about? Trak thought. He had never really thought along those lines before. Was that a Colcanan thing? He’d have to keep his eyes open to see if there was an undercurrent that he should know about. Maybe Neel would know.
All of a sudden his friends had taken over from him. He had thought of himself as the leader, but then he thought back and realized that he didn’t make many group decisions. He acted well enough, but that didn’t make him in charge. He would have to decide how he felt about that.
Trak certainly wasn’t vying for leadership. He had always considered his actions as responding to whatever was needed. He led himself, that he knew. The rest of the group worked as a group and generally made decisions based on consensus. He looked over at Neel, poring over the map with Rasia.
Neel led more than anyone. Ben acted as a mentor, which Trak thought fit him perfectly. He leaned back over the map and tried to make sure he learned from the questions and answers that were being thrown about by them. For the present, Trak could put his anxiety about fighting aside.
~
Tembul returned with enough provisions for a week, but the commander wanted them to start on the funnel the next day. He agreed to leave Able behind. One less person, a big person at that, would only make their trip shorter. Truly, Able added nothing to the scouting and funnel-making activities.
Trak spent the night trying to relax. He tried to dampen the disappointment he had felt living with the Toryans. As they talked about headi
ng into their lands, he thought that they would understand him, and he would find a home among fellow magicians, but these people didn’t trust him anymore than those in Bitrium.
The Colcanans feared his power, but it seemed to Trak that the Toryans looked down on him and sought to use and then discard him. He wasn’t exiled yet, but if he did rescue the princess, then what? He realized that he had no idea.
Perhaps he could find Valanna, and they could make a life together in some other country. He had to laugh to himself. Could that ever really happen? Trak felt something special about her, but it had been so long since he had seen her. He thought he might not be able to remember her face, but right then her image came into her mind. No problem visualizing her. That was a problem for another day, he decided.
First he had to make the funnel and then? He vowed that once he had taken care of the Kandannan invasion that he would head for Espozia and find Valanna. The Toryans could let the princess become a Benninite or whatever you called someone who lived in Bennin.
Ben’s hand on his shoulder broke Trak from his musings. “Time to go. Tembul says the commander is very keen on us getting started.”
Trak nodded and walked across the small camp they had made apart from the rest of the Toryan force towards their flyers.
“I’ll do the shield,” Neel said. Tembul knows the area better than either of us, so he will navigate, and you, my son, will make wind.” His father laughed. “I never get tired of saying that. Let’s go.”
Trak took them up twenty stories and followed Tembul’s instructions. He faced backwards and noticed Honor, Rasia, and Ben flying behind. At least he knew that Rasia would navigate. Tembul had left Able behind scouting out their allies after finding a Pestlan speaker, but would Tembul realize that Able had been tasked to do that? Trak shook his head. One thing at a time, he thought. First, the funnel.
~
They spent the rest of the day traveling to the westernmost edge of the funnel. A rocky ridge extended quite a ways east and they would begin to make obstructions pointing northeast towards its end. Honor took Rasia up as the darkness took hold and using Rasia’s sharp eyes, defined the edges of the Kandannan troops. Luckily, none were in the vicinity to start, but when they reached the midpoint of the funnel, they would be in the midst of their enemy.
By the time Honor and Rasia returned, the men had set up camp and were cooking the night’s meal. They’d have a fire tonight and one for breakfast. From then on, they would have to use heat from a pose to cook anything.
While Honor and Rasia reported their findings, Trak pulled out the map and gave it a hard look. “Outside of this spur, nothing else matches anything on the map that I can see.”
“You are right,” Tembul said. “This stream doesn’t exist any more and the rest of the contours are off. It’s more rugged than indicated, but that is a good thing. The ridge has plenty of boulders that Trak can move. It is a matter of putting them in the proper place, along with felling enough trees that the Kandannans won’t bother to remove.”
Neel took a swig of water from his skin. “Do you think this funneling idea is still going to work, Tembul?”
The Toryan frowned. “I don’t think it will help protect Kizru any more than a standing army, but I’m not the commander.” He looked at Trak and then at the rest of the group. “Those are the orders we’ve been given.”
“Do you have any other ideas?” Ben said.
Tembul pursed his lips. “It depends on how much you are willing to get your hands bloody.”
Trak’s heart skipped a beat. He really had avoided the thought of using his magic unless threatened, but Tembul asked a question he couldn’t really answer.
Neel slapped his hand on Trak’s knee. “I know what you’re thinking, lad. You don’t want to kill innocent soldiers, but what do you think those men are going to do? They captured us without warning. They’ve invaded Torya or Santasia, depending on how you look at it. Did they come here just to twiddle their thumbs and wander aimlessly through the woods until the war is over?”
“No, I—”
Neel squeezed Trak’s knee. “You know that those soldiers will follow orders to kill other people, and they might not just be innocent soldiers. You can rationalize that in battle everyone is fighting for their lives, and it’s a fair fight, but it’s not. This isn’t a friendly fight with the village boys in Greenbrook. If you don’t fight for Torya, you are fighting for Kandanna. It’s a choice we all have to make. I’m with Tembul.” He looked at Tembul, who nodded. “Once our orders are fulfilled, we enter the fray. I say we take out the officers. Drop rocks on them and make them retreat without their leaders.”
Honor nodded her head. “I hate to say it, but Neel is right. We can cut the head off the snake because there is nothing the Kandannans can do to stop us as long as we keep our shields up.”
“It’s not fair, fighting that way,” Trak said.
Ben rose to his feet. “What if Valanna were dead or injured fighting the rebels. Would you fight back?”
Trak didn’t hesitate. “I would. I went to your aid when you were captured, didn’t I?”
“These Kandannans have joined up with the rebels. Who is to say which one of them won’t be the one to kill any of us? To them, we are their enemies, so that makes them ours.”
“Enemies…” Trak said. He sighed. “I’ll think about it. We still have some work to do before we have to make a decision.”
“Right,” Neel said as they dispersed to their tents.
“What did I tell you about decisions?” Ben said, gesturing to Trak to stay seated by the campfire.
“If you don’t make a decision, you really have decided on doing nothing, and that is a decision,” Trak replied.
“And you have to accept the consequences of inaction.”
Trak knew when he couldn’t win. He held up his hands. He took a deep breath and then sighed. “I know what we have to do.” He had made his decision. He had decided to follow Tembul and Neel. He didn’t decide to kill anyone, but he knew that would be the ultimate consequence, and he would have to get used to it. “Neel says the world is headed towards a war with most countries affected.”
Ben sighed. “Even invaders, if they win, lose a large portion of their men. No country that fights to attack or defend comes away unscathed. Torya, Colcan, Pestle, Warish. The Kandannans will have their own dead to take care of, even if the fighting never moves to their country, which it probably won’t. No one wants anything in Kandanna.”
“What about the people on the Bennin or Vashtan continents?”
Ben let out a grim chuckle. “Who is to say someone or some nefarious group aren’t pulling strings somewhere?” He raised his hands. “It’s futile to guess now. Go to sleep. Just think of what we have to do tomorrow and let the other decisions come in their time; they generally do.”
Trak nodded. “There is the midpoint, that Honor talked about, where we will confront the Kandannans.”
“You’ll have to commit when we get there, boy. Making your decision before then won’t hurt you.”
Track stirred the dying embers of the campfire with a stick. “I have.” He sighed. “I’ll fight. I don’t like it, but I will.”
“I don’t like it either, but I’ll be there right with you.”
He went to sleep, later than he wanted to, thinking about Valanna and wondering what kind of decisions she had made.
~~~
Chapter Twenty
~
High above the battlefield, Valanna and Nullia hovered on their flyers twenty stories in the air, close enough to carry on their current conversation. The day had dawned crystal clear. Summer had come Valanna could feel currents of heat in the air. They had been three weeks traveling north and then east to the ocean where the Colonel’s army crossed the Glazia River and marched on towards Espozia.
Not far from where they turned west to converge on Santasia’s capital city, an army half their size emerged from a forest.
“The magicians are wearing their robes,” Nullia said. “They must have half of what’s left of the Magician’s Guild in that army against the five of us.”
“As long as Riotro isn’t among them—” Valanna stopped in mid-sentence. A cluster of five black-robed figures emerged from the forest. “Blacks!”
Nullia squinted her eyes. “Riotro isn’t there. He would be shorter than all of them. Blacks. He couldn’t train that many magicians and conduct this war. We only had ten Purples at the guild, as it was and maybe two joined him.”
“Then could they be imposters to frighten the army? They frighten me, well enough.”
They both watched them as the magicians pulled back their hoods, but Valanna couldn’t recognize them from this high up.
“Perhaps they are Kandannans. We should move back. If they know the spell that the Toryans used to bring down Trak’s flyer, then we certainly don’t want to—Ugh! I spoke too late. We are descending,” Nullia said as she dropped from view.
Use wind to blow yourself towards our lines!” Valanna said leaning over, watching Nullia descend. She began to use wind to move her flyer and suddenly found the flyer heading back up. She realized that she had escaped the range of the spell, but her hand went automatically to her mouth when Nullia reached the ground and the magicians ran to her flyer.
Valanna sped as fast as she could towards the Loyalist command tents. Colonel Mirona had to be told what happened, and then she would find Sandy and Lieutenant Navino. Nullia had to be rescued. She landed and ran towards the Colonel’s tent.
“Nullia’s been taken,” she said. “They have more magicians than we thought.”
The Colonel sat in his tent sitting in front of the remains of his breakfast. He jumped to his feet, crumbs cascading down the front of his uniform. “What?”
“The army is half the size of yours, and they are filled with inexperienced, poorly-uniformed soldiers, but the magicians are a threat, and without Nullia, a battle might not work out to your advantage,” Valanna said.
Mirona dropped down heavily onto his chair. “Valanna Almond. What do you propose I do? I’m not keen on retreating from magicians. Not in my orders, you see.”