by Robert Brady
Supposedly the Eldadorians had a few thousand in that direction, and as many as ten to the northeast. Less than a third their number in all, but mounted.
No Wolf Soldiers, then. Wolf Soldiers fought on foot. According to Xinto, who had it from the woman who ran this army, the Emperor was about to put all of his troops on boats and ship them elsewhere to attack some other country.
Unless they cut the Emperor’s own supply lines, of course. That was this army’s mission. Be in the way of his food and his army would starve and fall apart. How many times had Raven heard, “An army marches on its belly?”
With a particle of her newfound magic, she reached her mind out to this person on the hill. He’d know if she invaded his privacy, but she could read what radiated off of him without tipping him off.
Male. Race of Men. Focused, angry, determined. He led others, perhaps even the Duke from the south, the son of the old king.
Glynn had wanted to offer this one his father’s position as hereditary monarch, to sway the Fovean High Council to recognize the Duke as a King, and the Empire as illegitimate.
From what she’d learned of Rancor Mordetur, that would just make him laugh. He’d come and kill this Duke just to prove he could, and then go after anyone who made claims against him, so he could brag about it later.
From what she read of this Man, no one would ever get close enough to him to make the offer, anyway. She felt his anger, focused on them. If anyone from here approached this person, they’d be dead before saying a word.
“What do you see, child?” Glynn asked, approaching from behind.
When an Uman-Chi walked, they could do this thing where they seemed to glide around. Glynn did that all of the time here, now. She moved so quietly Raven couldn’t hear her, and the hem of her new, white cotton robe hovered the same distance off of the ground, never moving.
It creeped Raven out.
Raven informed her of what she’d read.
Glynn nodded. “I agree,” she said. “I think we might actually be looking at Tartan Stowe, the son the first King of Eldador.”
“I thought that, too,” Raven said.
Glynn glided over to her side. Seated, Raven allowed herself a glance at the hem of the white robe, and saw a white, silk slipper, planted firmly on the ground.
They looked and move like ghosts, but they were real enough.
“Local peasants tell a story of the Empress and the Imperial family being captured by the Bounty Hunter’s guild,” Glynn said. “What do you believe of that?”
Raven put her hand on the soil before her. Glynn believed the Earth was a living god who heard all of the secrets told upon Him and, if one could commune with Earth, one could know those secrets.
That struck Raven as pretty friggin’ stupid, however she’d learned for herself that people had auras here, and these auras radiated like so many microwave ovens.
Those waves could embed themselves in the soil, and she could access them once she’d learned where to look and what questions to ask.
Hadn’t Vedeen been telling them, over and over, their problem was not that they didn’t understand Glynn’s song, but that they didn’t ask the right questions about it?
Raven shook her head to clear it and pressed her hand into the ground. For a moment, nothing. She imagined her hand at the tuner of a huge radio dial, and she turned it until she found the frequency she wanted.
The Empress, her daughters, stolen. A call for help from her son, him finding her, a battle.
Little Vulpe, calling Eldadorians to the Wolf’s Head banner.
She looked up at Glynn, into her silver-on-silver eyes.
“Then you know it as well,” the Uman-Chi said.
She nodded.
* * *
Thorn had never seen so many warriors in one place, and he’d spent his last twelve years as a mercenary. He sat his Angadorian mare, Nantar next to him on a similar horse, overlooking a vast plain overloaded with tents, corrals, dog pens and warriors, training.
Daff Kanaari, Eldadorians, Wolf Soldiers, as many as one hundred thousand, rounded up and training, marching, making ready to move.
Already the harbor at Uman City sat clogged with Eldadorian Sea Wolves, square-rigged vessels wider, deeper and better armed than any on Fovea.
“He’ll be upset,” Nantar told Thorn, as if he needed to.
Thorn nodded. Black Lupus’s horse climbed the hill where they sat with the Theran Lancer squad, ten messengers from young Vulpe, his son.
“The key is to make him hear the whole tale,” Nantar said, more to himself than to Thorn. “Make him listen, not take off with this entire army, like he’ll want to do.
Thorn wished Dilvesh were here, or Ancenon. They knew how to handle Lupus. Lupus would listen to their every word, still as a stone. Even Arath, were he here, might make Lupus listen. Lupus liked Arath, a general like himself.
Thorn and Nantar spent more time with Black Lupus than the rest of them, because the rest of them had ‘great things’ going on all the time, and Thorn and Nantar were warriors, like Lupus. When Lupus wanted to fight, when he wanted to drink, when he wanted to be a male, he sought out Thorn and Nantar.
Well, he would sure want to fight now.
“What news?” Lupus demanded, as soon as he was in earshot. His eyes traveled to the Theran Lancer squad that sat their horses to the left of Thorn and Nantar.
“Sees Far and Wide,” Lupus’ eyebrows swooped down toward his nose like a falcon’s wings, targeting the Andaran sergeant of the Theran squad. “What are you doing here? You’re assigned to Thera.”
To the last man, Thorn thought to himself. He knew them by name. No wonder they were so willing to fight for him?
“Your Imperial Majesty,” the Lancer said, making a fist over his heart. “News from Vulpe, your son.”
Lupus smiled a broad smile. That wouldn’t last, Thorn thought to himself.
“Her Majesty, Empress Shela, was last month captured by Bounty Hunters, with your daughters. Your son escaped—”
“What?” Lupus already had his sword out.
“Patience, Lupus,” Nantar said. “Hear it all.”
“My wife and daughters—”
“Are safe,” Nantar said. He kicked his horse up alongside Blizzard. The huge stallion was already pawing the ground, sensing his rider’s agitation.
Lupus glared at the Theran Lancer, already sweating. He should have begun with, “Everyone you love is safe,” as Nantar had told him, but he had his orders.
“Your family was on the road to Thera when attacked by Bounty Hunters. Your son rallied the Wolf Soldier survivors and sent for help from Duke Two Spears. Before he could respond, Vulpe collected two squads and rescued her himself.”
Lupus straightened and the smile returned. Quick to anger, quick to forget, Thorn knew. Lupus’ moods ran like the weather.
“My son did this?”
“I fought alongside Vulpe myself,” one of the other men, another Andaran, said. In their own army, none dared speak out of turn. Here, it was different.
“You’re a Wolf Soldier,” Lupus said. “I know you—Thunderclap of the Swift Tails.”
“I was sent to Thera to the Duke’s service,” Thunderclap said, “but I will remember to my last day, your son’s blooding.”
Now Thorn was surprised—he hadn’t heard this. Vulpe, at eleven years old, had killed a man in combat. That made him a man himself. Now this Wolf Soldier called him by his first name, just as they did Lupus.
“My son fought?” the scowl had returned. Blizzard shifted under him.
Thunderclap nodded, his eyes greedy with blood lust at remembering it. “The old man, Jack, taught him to plan an ambush. We drew in our enemies like flies to our web, and we struck! Wolf Soldiers in foot formation, Theran Lancers circled back behind and charged in along the path of the advancing Bounty Hunters. Vulpe held the center of a Wolf Soldier squad!”
“Your Imperial Majesty, everyone whom you love is safe,” th
e sergeant, Sees Far and Wide, said, finally. “But now ten thousand Theran Lancers stand between you and a Confluni army estimated at fifty thousand, camped on the plains of Eldador.”
“Fifty thousand?” Lupus’ eyebrows shot up on his head.
The sergeant nodded. “Vulpe commands the Therans, and has sent his sisters back to Galnesh Eldador with more lancers and Hectaro, son of Hectar. Princess Lee will operate your ‘Central Communications,’ and coordinate your major cities, however Two Spears, Vulpe and Jack all fear this army is here to destroy our supply lines, just as you leave on your campaign, and ask that you come and relieve them.”
‘Jack,’ the messenger kept saying. Thorn hadn’t heard that name before.
“It would be good practice for those green troops,” Nantar said, still next to Lupus. “We’ll destroy fifty thousand Confluni—it will barely b—”
Lupus held up his hand and quieted them all. Thorn recognized the look on the scarred face, the focus to the blue eyes. Thorn knew of two Men named Lupus, one barely more than a child in his heart, the other a cunning wolf. He tolerated a lot from the one to get these glimpses of the other.
“It’s a trap,” he said, his blue eyes sweeping them.
“What?” Nantar looked as if he’d been pole axed. “Lupus, if we leave your nation to those Confluni, your supply lines will be cut—”
Lupus shook his head. “Think I didn’t expect a counter attack before we could get back?” he asked. “When we landed an army this vast on foreign shores, someone was going to say, ‘Must be lonely on the home front,’ and come in behind us. I left more than enough troops to handle fifty thousand.”
“Then—” Nantar was dumbfounded.
They’d planned to have to argue Lupus out of attacking the Confluni, to let the Daff Kanaar take care of it, to pick an easier target for the campaigns, like Sental, rather than abandoning it entirely.
Now it looked like he would leave it all up to his eleven-year-old son.
“Nantar, what would you have me do?” Lupus demanded of him. He did this—he called them, ‘interrogative questions,’ making someone else make his point for him. Thorn hated it, but admittedly he’d used it himself with people too stupid to see things his way.
“We should send the Daff Kanaari soldiers to attack, at the least. Perhaps with an Eldadorian guard escort—”
Lupus nodded appreciatively. Thorn recognized the trap, the sarcastic look, the cat playing with its prey. “And will they win, Scarlet Nantar?”
“Of course they’ll win,” Nantar clearly saw the question for its obvious answer. “We’ve got—”
“We’re Daff Kanaar,” Lupus interrupted him. “We’re Eldadorians. We’re Wolf Soldiers. We win.”
“Yes…”
Thorn saw it now, obvious after the fact.
“You think the Confluni, whom I’ve beaten every single time they’ve invaded, think otherwise?” Lupus pursued him.
Nantar looked down at the ground, then raised his head up grinning through his black and gray beard.
“We’re supposed to go after them,” Nantar said. “We’re supposed to turn this army around, and then they’ll come back with a spike up our arse and catch us between two armies, both ready.”
Lupus nodded. Thorn smiled. He’d been waiting years for this, very patiently, but now he had it.
“Wrong,” he said. Both looked at him.
“I knew this day would come,” he continued, leaning back a little in his saddle, enjoying this. “I knew someone would finally point out your weakness, and exploit it, and I would be here to laugh.”
“What?” Lupus was back to scowling. Good. Let him.
“It’s too easy, Lupus,” he said. “It’s too pat. This is a trap, you’re right, but these are the parts you are supposed to see, and you’re supposed to say, ‘Aren’t I the clever Lupus the Conqueror, who out-thought you all again?’”
Lupus looked at Nantar; Nantar seemed to shrug inside of his armor. Both looked back at him.
“You think you’re going to sit here, and send the garrison of one of your other cities, and first catch this army between your son and them, and then pull these troops back into the plains, and catch whoever marches out to take Uman City unawares?” Thorn pressed him.
Lupus looked at Nantar again, then back at Thorn, and finally nodded.
“That’s what you’re supposed to do,” Thorn said. “And when you do that, they’ll hit the city you leave behind, and then you’ll come and relieve that city, and they’ll be waiting for you.
“Meanwhile that army of fifty thousand is going to stay dug in and quiet, because you’re right, fifty thousand isn’t going to be able to attack you, but they can stand fast and defend for a long time, and while they do, every farmer on the plains is going to have his crops boarded up and his livestock hidden.”
Lupus looked at Nantar again, and Nantar looked at Thorn. The Theran Lancers looked at each other; this was far past their meager abilities.
Thorn had said fourteen years ago Lupus would out think himself one day, and it had finally happened. Now Thorn stood here to point it out.
“So, we want to…” Lupus began, and Thorn could almost see his mind working out the problem.
“Thera must have nearly emptied out its garrison to provide ten thousand Lancers,” Nantar said.
Lupus nodded. “He has four thousand foot reserves, but those troops are Eldadorian Regulars and don’t see a lot of action. Thera’s walls aren’t much—you could take the city with ten thousand.”
“And Galnesh Eldador?” Nantar asked.
“Four thousand Wolf Soldier guards, one thousand Eldadorian Regulars, Hectar to hold the city and the strongest walls on Fovea. No one’s getting in there. Andurin has half its garrison still, Metz is pretty much cleaned out, except for a thousand home troops, usually Arath leaves warriors not fit to fight.”
“Too far inland, I think,” Thorn said. They both looked at him again. “Everyone knows Thera is second best to the capitol. Burn that to the ground and break the heart of the nation.”
Nantar nodded, Lupus as well, then grinned.
“I know what we’re going to do,” he said, finally.
Chapter Eleven
Cats, Mice and Dogs
Vedeen knew they were coming over an hour before they arrived. These ‘Theran Lancers’ had gone to great efforts to conceal themselves, wrapping their horses’ hooves, moving in long lines rather than many abreast, barely even talking to each other. Duke Two Spears’ Andaran heritage, she felt, proved itself. Without her magic, she might never have known.
She’d never be without her magic, however, and she did know. She arose two hours before the dawn, Earth whispering into her ear of the coming storm.
She stroked the dog’s head and rubbed the spot between the great, green eyes. Her slavering jaws hung limp, the tail still, the animal in ecstasy for the simple caress, and said nothing.
She had not come to fight. She did not side with these people. She might hear their song, but that did not make her one of them.
She fed herself, because there’d be no eating this morning, and she cared for her horse, because she loved it, and no one ever knew how a battle would go. She sensed them coming an hour before the dawn, spreading out on the other side of a hill to their west. The Confluni guards couldn’t hear them, leaning sleepy on their spears, waiting to be relieved by the morning watch, and to commence their daily drills. Camp workers, cooks and artisans were barely stirring, catching final sips of sleep before the long day began.
The dog raised its ears, its tail thumping the ground. Vedeen wondered if she sensed them, too, but realized that their Raven had arisen with the other birds, and approached with that wide grin that the race of Men reserved for animals.
“You’re up early,” she said.
“I was listless,” Vedeen admitted. No point in lying when the truth sufficed.
“Me, too—something’s wrong,” Raven admitted. She squatted quite un
ladylike before the dog, to rough her ears. Had Glynn been here, she’d have admonished her protégé.
Vedeen wasn’t surprised to see the parts of a woman and didn’t balk now, not that she’d have done the same.
“Wrong?” Vedeen pressed her. “Wrong how?”
Raven stood and hugged herself. She looked to the west, as if to see through the hill between her and the Theran Lancers. “Something…angry. Something close. I can almost touch it, like an outfit in the back of my closet.”
Vedeen’s interest had been piqued. Too late to help them now, she knew. “And if you reach out with your mind?” she asked.
“A jumble, like a crowded room—um, I’m not sure of the words. Like a stadium?”
This girl’s gifts grew daily, more quickly than any she’d seen. Vedeen would have recruited her to the Druids, were there any point.
“Then perhaps you might—”
Raven’s head swung around as if she had been slapped. Vedeen looked into her eyes, read her, and knew, knew she’d taken the next step.
“We’re about to be attacked!” she exclaimed. A worker twenty feet away dropped an armload of pots and stared at her, slack-jawed. She spoke in the language of Men, and many Confluni knew it. “On the other side of that ridge, an army, a huge one!”
“Then what must you do, my dear?” Vedeen asked her.
She would not help, she would not advise, but she could observe and inquire to her heart’s content.
Her hand turning white with power, Raven flung out her arm to the west, her palm open, a brilliant ball of energy flying from her to soar like an eagle into the sky. The very air seemed to tear as it passed, the dusk became day for its brilliance. Confluni stood blinking, who were awake so early, and the guards shouted and gripped their spears.
The ball flew over the ridge and exploded, a vast sphere of flame as if she’d found a way to ignite the air itself. The ground shook for the force. From a distance, horses screamed and Men swore. Three fireballs flew back over the ridge from the other side in retaliation. Raven was already sprinting, not from their path but into it, the dog at her side.