On the long, lonely ride, Hal forced himself to ruminate on a new circle of questions. Was he merely leading this army to revenge Rani Trader’s death? Or was he fulfilling his obligation to root out a known traitor, to bring Bashi to heel? Could Hal rule Morenia complacently, knowing that a wolf howled on her northern flank, a wolf that had already flashed its teeth? Hadn’t Hal sworn his vows to the Fellowship well after he had sworn his princely vows to protect Morenia and keep her people safe? Did he have any choice but to ride north and face whatever awaited him? Or was he merely leading this army to revenge Rani Trader’s death?
The king’s thoughts were not any brighter when Tasuntimanu and Puladarati strode up to him in the gloaming evening light. Hal had watched the camp being set up around him; he had studied the early sunset that bled crimson across the horizon. “Your Majesty,” the silver-maned duke said, bowing low. Tasuntimanu mimicked the gesture a moment later.
“Aye.” Hal resented needing to move his hand closer to his knife; he resented fearing for his safety in the face of one man who had been his regent and another who was his sworn brother in the Fellowship.
“The men have marched far today. We’ll cross the Amanthian border at dawn.”
“Aye.”
Puladarati gave his king a curious glance, settling one gloved hand on the hilt of his sword. The tooled leather gauntlet disguised the man’s missing fingers, but Hal did not forget for one moment that the old nobleman had shed blood for the crown. For the old crown, for Shanoranvilli. But not for the boy who currently sat the throne.
“Your Majesty, I recommend that you order an extra ration of meat for all the men. It will do them good to have their bellies full, and they will be cheered by your consideration.”
“An extra ration? When we have no idea how long it will take us to march through Amanthia?”
“Precisely, Your Majesty. Your spendthrift gift will make them believe that all is well.”
Hal started to argue out of habit, but then he realized that the nobleman was right. It would do the men good to see that their king cared for them, was concerned about their hunger and their fatigue. And if they found no food in Amanthia, one day’s meat would hardly make a difference. “Very well. Order the extra ration distributed.”
Puladarati bowed again and gestured toward Tasuntimanu. “Will you see to that, brother councillor? Oh, and Your Majesty – should I spread word that you’ll review the troops tonight? Will you make your way through the campsites?”
What in the name of all the Thousand Gods were Puladarati and Tasuntimanu plotting? Did they have a cabal ensconced within the soldiers? Were they waiting to lure Hal into a trap under cover of night? Did they plan to kill Hal before Morenia was even left behind?
Puladarati cleared his throat, as if to remind Hal that he waited for a reply. “I only ask, Your Majesty, because it would raise morale. It would make the men that much stronger for the skirmishes that are certain to begin tomorrow.”
There. Hal was left without a choice. Glaring at Puladarati, Hal agreed. “Yes, then. I will review the men, after they’ve eaten their double ration of meat.” He could not help noting that Tasuntimanu inclined his head toward Duke Puladarati before skulking off into the night, as if the old silver-haired man were still the regent, still the voice of the king. Hal breathed a prayer to his ancestor Jair, wishing for guidance even as he longed to be back in the City, back in the palace, back in his own chambers, where he knew how to defend himself against men who would murder one king and set another upon the throne of all Morenia.
Shea looked up automatically from the bread line, a smile freezing across her face. “No, Serena. There isn’t enough bread for everyone to have two pieces.”
The little swangirl pouted, a frown puckering the narrow space between her fair eyebrows. “But I’m still hungry.”
“Everyone is hungry, child.”
“But I’m a swan!”
The four words rang out through the camp, loud enough that Shea winced and looked about at the adult soldiers on the stockade walls. “Hush, child!” When Serena’s lips started to tremble, Shea came around the table. “I’ll have none of that here! Swan or lion, owl or sun, it makes no difference in the Little Army’s camp.”
“But Tain said –”
“Tain said what she thought was true. Look around you, child. Do you see all these boys? Do you see how none of them has a tattoo?” Serena nodded reluctantly. “There are soldiers who would take away the girls’ tattoos as well.”
“But –”
“Serena! These men want to take their knives to your face! They want to hold you down in the snow and carve the swan’s wing from your cheek! They want to make it so that there is never another swan, not you or anyone else! Now take your bread and go to your tent, and leave me alone!”
As Shea caught her breath, astonished at her outburst, Serena gaped at her. Shea could see the protest written on the girl’s face, her challenge that she, she had been the only swan in the cottage. She had decided Crestman’s fate.
Well, just look at how that decision had turned out, Shea wanted to grumble. Just look at what had come to pass after Serena made her murderous choice.
Shea clambered back to her feet and returned to the bread table, only to find that all of the meager provisions had been distributed. She was about to gather up her apron and pull her cloak closer about her shoulders when the strange southern girl came running up to the bread line. “’urry, Shea!” The newcomer had lapsed into her odd outlander speech, the slurring that took over her words when she was excited.
“What is it, Mair?”
“They’re openin’ th’ gates! They’re lettin’ us out!”
“What? Why would they do that?”
“Davin’s goin’ t’ test ’is flyin’ machine! Mon’s already i’ th’ ’arness! ’Urry! Ye dinna want t’ miss it!”
Shea waddled after the girl, pushing her way through the crowds of the Little Army. Sure enough, the guards were letting the children ease outside the stockade walls. They only let one child emerge at a time, though, and adult captains stood on the outside, harrying the young soldiers into straight, orderly ranks. Grown men held bows, with arrows cocked between their fingers, the strings half-pulled to their ears.
The girls, newly added to the Little Army, were slow to form their lines. They did not understand how to follow the adult officers’ harsh orders. Shea watched with a touch of pride as Tain helped some of the youngest comply with the barked commands.
Shea automatically sought out Crestman, hunting for his blond braid in the crowd. In the past two months, the boy had grown several inches, and he now stood nearly a head taller than most of the little soldiers he chivvied. Her chest swelled with pride as it always did when she watched him do his job. She had been right to save the boy. She had been right to rescue the lion.
But what about Hartley, a voice whispered at the back of her mind.
What about Hartley? According to Tain, King Sin Hazar’s recruiters had come upon Shea’s old cottage early one morning. Tain had been dribbling meager grain into water, preparing to stir the thin gruel, when she heard the boy soldiers crash out of the woods. At first, Tain had thought that Shea had returned, leading Crestman and some of his fellows to the cottage. The sungirl had grumbled at the thought of yet more mouths to feed.
Tain only realized her mistake when the cottage door crashed in, tearing from its brittle leather hinges. The invaders had quickly looped ropes about the oldest sungirl, binding her arms to her sides. Tain had closed her fist about the meal she was pouring into the water; hours later, she had let Serena lick the grainy mush that had formed in the palm of her hand.
But during that morning, during the long hour when the sun rose and the water boiled away in the cauldron, the soldiers had rounded up Tain’s children, Shea’s children. The boys were carved away from the girls, and lengths of rope were looped around everyone’s hands. A few children were gagged as they protested the invasio
n. Hartley, though, had been permitted to speak, permitted to command his lions into orderly submission.
The lions had listened, yes, but the owls had tried to work their debates. Torino had stepped to the middle of the floor, tilting his head quizzically at the soldiers. “Premise,” he chirped. “It is unnatural for children to bind children in an undeclared battle.”
There had been no time for another owl to reply, no time for Hartley to order Torino to silence. One of the Little Army raised his bow with a casual gesture, sighting down his arrow as if he were playing. The bow twanged, and Torino fell on the hearth, his ribcage pierced by a tufted stick, by a shaft that had looked neither long nor dangerous, until it pierced a child’s chest.
If Shea closed her eyes even now, she could imagine Torino twitching on her neatly swept cottage floor. She could see the little owl struggling to draw a breath, trying to structure his final premise. She could see her other children, huddled in horror, in terror. Shea shook her head, desperate to drive away the image. It had already happened, days before. There was nothing she could do now. The girls had been marched out of the cottage, driven to King Sin Hazar’s capital without time to sleep, to mourn.
And the boys? Shea did not let herself think of the boys, left behind in the cottage, bound at wrist and ankle. Certainly Father Nariom would have come from the village. Certainly the priest would have found the boys before they became too hungry. Too thirsty. Too cold. Certainly the boys were alive and well, living happy lives near the village they had always known, because the king had already met his quota for male soldiers in the Little Army.
So Shea had heard the grown soldiers say. Teleos, the mysterious general who would command the Little Army on its passage to Liantine, had declared that he needed no more boys. He wanted only girls, to balance his male troops.
Shea’s sons had been spared. They still lived, back at her cottage.
She could not let herself believe otherwise.
And so, Shea followed her daughters, edging out of the stockade gate and taking up a position at the front of the Little Army, near the strange southern girls who had elbowed their way forward through the ranks.
A monstrous contraption spread across the plain outside of the stockade. Shea could make out four wings – two large ones and two smaller ones, all folded backward like the flying apparatus of a parchment moth. Between the wings was a narrow platform, a harness fashioned out of thin, whiplike tree branches. The narrow limbs had been stripped bare of leaves and wrapped many times around with strong, light willow bindings. The harness was surrounded by a thicket of ropes and pulleys; strange knobs of polished wood studded the contraption.
Davin stood beside the machine, scowling at his device. His aged hands reached out to test the engine, tugging at a rope in one place, kicking at a strut in another. All the time, he muttered to himself, glancing back and forth from the construction to a series of parchment rolls. Those rolls refused to be constrained in the growing breeze, and more than once, Davin swore as he wrestled with a wayward sketch.
Each time the old man exploded in anger, a ripple ran through the assembled Little Army. Shea picked out a few of the boys that she knew, soldiers who had been stationed at the Swancastle. They eyed Davin with an excited eagerness; they knew the old man’s ways, and they understood that they were about to see some novel invention.
As Shea watched, Crestman walked around from the far side of the moth-machine, leaning over the figure strapped into the willow-wrapped harness. It took Shea a moment to recognize Monny. The child’s flame-red braid was pushed under a leather cap. His freckled features were animated as he spoke to Crestman, gesturing over his shoulder at the folded parchment wings. Crestman shook his head and tugged at one of the wooden knobs, moving the entire engine forward a pace. Monny gripped a leather hand-hold above his head and responded vehemently.
Glancing at the bemused guards, Shea moved closer to the arguing boys. The back of her neck itched as she felt the grown soldiers’ arrows train upon her, but she forced herself to stand straight, to walk as if she had no care in the world. She was the closest thing either of those boys had to a mother, and it was her job to smooth over their dispute.
Crestman was scowling as he picked at one of the rope lashings. “I’m telling you, soldier, it’s not safe. I won’t have one of my men risking his life on some unproven flying machine.”
“Aw, Crestman, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Davin says it’s safe, and that’s good enough for me. He added glue to the cross-braces, so you can’t complain about that anymore.”
The captain looked as if he were going to rebuke his rebellious soldier, but he settled for saying, “Davin’s opinion is a little tainted, don’t you agree? He has something of an interest in this.”
“Davin’s interest is in serving King Sin Hazar.” Monny turned his freckled face toward Amanth’s walls, as if offering up his fealty. A look of surprise and amazement spread across his features. “Cor! Look, Crestman! It’s the king himself!”
Shea followed the boy’s excited finger. Gazing across the plain, she could make out a dozen horsemen wrapped in heavy winter cloaks, accompanied by a standard bearer. The dragon of Amanthia billowed on the breeze of their fast ride.
“On your knees!” cried one of the adult soldiers behind Shea, and the Little Army dropped in fealty as the king and his company rode up in a flurry of hoofbeats. Shea eased her tired bones to the ground, halfway between the flying machine and the girls from the south. She took a moment to be grateful that the frozen earth was covered with only a dusting of snow; it had not yet been churned to freezing slush by passing feet.
King Sin Hazar drew up in front of the company, curbing his stallion with an iron hand on the animal’s bit. The horse pranced in front of the Little Army, mincing sideways and snorting at a sudden gust of wind. Shea glanced up through her eyelashes to view the king.
He wore a cloak lined with ermine. The white fur framed the king’s blue-dyed riding leathers, making the man seem larger than any possible life. The king of all Amanthia wore supple leather boots that reached to his thighs, and his spurs were washed with gold. As Shea caught her breath in astonishment at her sovereign’s power and force, she realized that the Amanthian dragon was painted on his chest, glittering black lines tracing across his broad metal breastplate.
Shea could barely bring herself to gaze upon her liege’s face. His dark hair was loose, flying on the wind in stark contrast to the clouted boys in the Little Army. A golden crown was on his head, and a handful of flat-cut diamonds and rubies glinted dully from the metal. The king’s beard was even darker than the hair on his head, and his lips were as bright as cherries in the cold winter air. But it was the king’s eyes that made Shea’s heart beat fast – those eagle eyes that took in more than any mere man could see. King Sin Hazar’s gaze flashed across the Little Army like a furrier measuring a sable.
Shea saw the king count up the neat lines of boys, and she noted the precise instant that he registered the girls. For just one heartbeat, the royal gaze lingered in its sweeping perusal, and Shea feared that she had attracted royal scrutiny. Then she realized that the king was looking behind her, at the two southern girls, Mair and Rani Trader. The king maneuvered his stallion to stand before the outlanders, and for just an instant, Shea thought that he would speak to the maidens.
They must have thought so as well. Both girls raised their eyes to the king, acting as if they were swanchildren. Shea caught her breath as Rani Trader took a half-step forward. The girl actually drew breath to speak, made as if she would reach up for the royal stallion’s bridle. Before she could act so inappropriately, though, Mair caught at her arm. Rani tugged herself free and lashed an angry glance at her friend, but by the time she turned back to the king, he had edged his horse farther down the line.
When King Sin Hazar spoke to the Little Army, he did not single out the two forlorn southern girls with purloined sun tattoos on their cheeks. Instead, he cheered hi
s royal forces, his dedicated soldiers. “Well met, Little Army!” the king proclaimed. “You bring honor to all Amanthia!”
There was a moment’s hesitation, but then the captains led their boys in a round of cheers. A few of the girls joined in, hesitantly adding their treble voices to the rollicking greeting.
“As many of you know, our campaign is moving forward!” Again, cheers. “You will be the first in a new wave of battles against Liantine, against the upstart eastern kingdom that refuses to bow its neck to our mighty Amanthia.” Pandemonium surged on the field.
The king gestured his standard bearer forward. The young squire who held the banner dipped it toward the king, taking care to let the long pennant catch the wind. The dragon’s tail streamed out over Sin Hazar’s head. “We are pleased to see your loyal arms raised to fight for us, Little Army. But even more importantly, we are pleased to see that our greatest advisor, our wisest councillor has created a new weapon to use against Liantine.”
The king turned in his saddle and inclined his head toward Davin. The old man managed to look up from his scrolls long enough to accept the royal salute. He even remembered to hide his scowl as a gust of wind tugged at the winged machine behind him. Monny swallowed a yelp as the moth-engine started to lift from the ground, and Crestman grabbed rapidly at one of the ropes that tethered the strange construction.
King Sin Hazar continued as if there had been no disturbance. “Lord Davin has crafted many a novel invention. Some of you have seen the mining equipment that he created, the engines that will eat the very earth from beneath Liantine’s walls. Today, all of you will bear witness to another device, a most magnificent engine that will bring the Little Army supremacy over all our enemies. My lord Davin!” King Sin Hazar bowed slightly in his saddle, making the gesture extravagant by letting his ermine cloak billow behind him.
“Your Majesty,” Davin muttered distractedly, and then he stepped over to the moth-like machine. “Boy! Don’t waste your king’s time!”
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