After confirming the location of Nadav to their knowledge, each Loszian gave a rough accounting of his or her forces, and Cor was not surprised to find that the Loszians would be of little help. There were few soldiers or even slaves left due to losses from Nadav’s invasion, and most of the nobles’ lands were too far away to be of help. Additionally, Rederick immediately rejected the use of slaves or the dead to bolster his host. In the end, the Loszians estimated they could add only a few thousand to the host, assuming they choose to fight soon.
“My host marches the day after tomorrow, and we shall rally at the valley in a fortnight,” Rederick finally declared. “There’s no point in discussing it further, for the longer we wait the stronger Nadav becomes. Can we be sure Nadav will come for us?”
“I will make it so, Majesty,” Menak promised. “I will tell him where we wait for him, and he will come.”
Red looked at the map and calculated the distance. “It will take him a month to march across Losz,” he said.
“Then that’s all there is to say,” the king decided, standing. Everyone around the table stood as well, though the Loszians did so reluctantly. “My new Loszian subjects, return home. Prepare your forces, and bring anything you can that will arrive at the valley before Nadav’s host does, but do not time it too closely. I want you there well ahead of him. Tomorrow we begin the end of this.”
* * *
Thyss paced the breadth of the small suite of rooms anxiously as she fumed. Housing had been limited for so many of course, but the Tigoleans were more than happy to sleep under the stars. The regular soldiers had no choice but to join them, while most of the officers managed to squeeze into the newly built Loszian barracks. That left the small handful of buildings to the Counselors, the Seven Lords and anyone else of higher rank. The small building Cor took consisted of just two rooms, not unlike his old quarters at Fort Haldon, and Thyss could not pace far before she had to turn and pace back.
Even indoors, there was a chill in the air. The sun had just slipped below the horizon, and the air grew colder. Cor had to remind himself that the air stayed colder around the Spine, even though they were so late into spring.
“I wish I had never met you,” she said. “Why the fuck would I have wanted to see the West? There’s nothing here anyway.”
“Nevertheless, you’re here,” Cor replied, trying to slough off the hurt in her words. He knew that she didn’t mean it; Thyss always said what came to her mind, regardless of how anyone felt about it.
“Yes I am, and I should just let you go to your death, along with all of these other fools.”
“Yes, you should. Take Cor’El with you,” Cor replied, looking at their son.
The baby rolled around on the room’s floor, which had been dug out and set with stone instead of dirt. He stopped his rolling crawl and pushed himself into a sitting position before a wooden chair that was both small and solid. Cor’El reached forward and took a spindly chair leg in each hand and grunted as he pulled, and he began to pull himself up off of the floor. His rear rose a few inches before his legs would no longer support the weight, and he gently fell back into his seated position.
“Why won’t you let me attack Nadav?” Thyss asked, and Cor turned his attention back to find that she had stopped pacing. She stood in her normal, defiant pose, but there was something different about her face. “I’ll join with the clouds and come down upon him. He’ll be ablaze and burning alive before he knows what is happening.”
“And what if it doesn’t happen that way?”
“Then he will have returned to Ghal, and Menak can take you there to kill him,” she answered.
“What if he proves to be more powerful than you give him credit for? What if I lose you to him? No, I won’t risk you.”
“So I should risk you?” she almost screamed at him. “How is it any fucking different?”
“It’s different because Nadav cannot hurt me -”
“You don’t know that.”
“And I can’t teach Cor’El about your powers as he grows up,” Cor finished, ignoring her interruption.
A high pitched scream pierced the room, and they both winced at the pain it caused in such a confined space. It was a sound they both had come to recognize recently – a scream not of pain but of anger. Cor’El seemed to be frozen in place, his legs unable to support him so that he could stand completely and yet unable to let him down to the floor easily. He screamed again, this time longer and louder, and before Cor could move toward him, the wood of the chair began to smoke and smolder.
Thyss laughed behind him as Cor gently picked his son up from behind, causing the babe to release his grip on the chair. The smoking began to subside has he sat on the floor cross-legged with his son on his lap. Cor’El immediately lurched forward to again go to the chair, but found himself unable to escape his father. This angered him further and he began to grunt and wriggle as he tried to get away. Cor reached for his helm where it sat on a bench to start a game that he had used many times to distract his son. He placed it on the floor before them and flicked the black metal hard. Pain radiated through his fingernail much like the echo sounded inside the helm, but Cor’El ceased his struggling for just a moment, then let out a delighted howl. Cor flicked the helm again, bringing a laugh from his son, and then loosed the boy to thump his open hands and fists on the helm as he would.
Cor smiled and looked back at her. “Take him, I beg you. Please take him and get as far away from all this as possible. I would drown myself in the Narrow Sea if anything happened to the two of you. Leave. I will find you again. My blood will lead me to him, and wherever he is I’ll find you.”
Thyss seemed to actually consider his words for a moment as she looked at the two of them. Her son banged gleefully on Cor’s insectoid helm, enjoying the sound of his palm slapping on the cold metal, and he looked up at her, giggling. She looked from him to Cor and saw the pleading in his eyes, and for once, for the first time in her life, she very nearly gave in to someone else’s will.
“I-,” she started, and then her jaw hardened. “No. I will not run from this or anything. I’ve never felt for anyone the way you make me feel, but sometimes I think you weak, Lord Dahken Cor. End your own life? No. I would burn down all the empires of the world, murder a thousand thousand Loszians and listen to them beg for mercy for causing your death, but I could not take vengeance if I let you go to war alone. I will stand with you, and if we die, we all die together.”
Cor sighed and hung his head as she stood staring him down, but when he looked back up at her, he smiled and climbed to his feet. He gingerly stepped over their son to stand close to her, and her nostrils flared ever so slightly with her breath. He leaned over and kissed her gently, a kiss she returned fiercely.
“Gods damn you, Thyss,” he said. “You’re nothing if not consistent.”
28.
“Boy, if we’re going to be fighting side by side, I think it’s important we know something about each other,” Naran said quietly. It was quiet for him, which still passed for slightly loud to the average Westerner. Perhaps it was his size or all of his years bellowing orders at sea that made him so loud, but the truth was plain to anyone who got to know him. It was just his way.
Keth glanced sidelong at the Shet, who towered over him even on horseback. Naran clearly cared nothing for armor, and hardly anything for clothes for that matter, as he rode bare-chested and wore only a loincloth. The man dwarfed the horse upon which he sat, and Keth wondered if the animal strained to carry that much raw muscle.
“Lord Naran,” Keth replied, “I’d appreciate it if you would call me Dahken Keth, not boy.”
“Ha! I’ve insulted him already,” Naran shouted to the sky. “Fair enough, but I’d appreciate it if you called me Naran. The gods damn this ‘Lord’ shit!”
Keth smiled in spite of his attempt to display a sour demeanor, and he held out his arm, “Call me Keth, Naran.”
The Shet’s arm and hand were at least twice
the size of Keth’s own, and taking it felt like squeezing banded cords of iron. Naran’s grip, while the strongest Keth had ever felt, was at the same time surprisingly gentle, as if the Shet was well aware that he could easily crush a lesser man’s bones barehanded.
“Now tell me, Keth, how did you fall in with such poor company?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your ride with a hundred thousand warriors, doomed to fight an unwinnable battle against an unbeatable foe,” Naran clarified, “and even if we win, we still have to face gods. What brought you to this lowly stage?”
Keth nodded forward at Cor’s black plated back. The Lord Dahken rode about a hundred feet ahead with Thyss and their son. “Him.”
“Cor Pelson, eh? He has gone far in life,” Naran mused. “Boy, Keth, I could tell you stories of that one. When he came to me, he knew nothing of anything, a colt still wet behind his ears and smelling of milk.”
“He saved my life.”
“So it’s a blood debt then, a matter of honor. Tell me Keth, do you plan to go your own way after the coming battle? For surely your debt will be well paid by then.”
“No,” Keth replied. “Cor would tell you that my debt is already long paid, that I owe him nothing, but I would rather be nowhere else than in his service. One might even think we are equals – we’re both Dahken and we’re both Counselors to His Majesty.”
“But you serve Cor, not Rederick,” Naran concluded. “No matter. Tell me stories, Dahken Keth. Tell of how this whelp named Cor came to inspire such loyalty.”
“It’s a long story.”
“It’s a long ride,” Naran pushed.
“Where should I start?”
“Ha! The same place all stories start – at the beginning!” Naran boomed.
Keth told Naran everything he could remember with as much detail as he could remember, going back to the day Keth awoke in Taraq’Nok’s cellar turned prison. He told how Cor slew the Loszian and of the flight out of Losz. He spoke of Byrverus and the deal that Cor struck with Queen Erella to found Fort Haldon as the new Dahken stronghold. He explained the events that forced Cor to return to Byrverus and again face the queen. Naran listened intently to every detail and even commented on occasion, especially at the imprisonment of Thyss and what came next. Over the noon meal, Keth relived the escape from Byrverus, the Loszian invasion and the defense of Fort Haldon. He explained how they escaped to the south, returned to Byrverus with a small force and liberated the city with the help of the then Lord Rederick. Next came the defense of Byrverus and the defeat of Nadav, and from there, Naran knew most of the story.
When it was over, they had passed the entire day, and the host stopped to make camp. The two continued to enjoy each other’s company as the cook fires started, bedrolls were laid out and tents pitched for the night.
“Cor Pelson’s story is truly an impressive one,” Naran said, “and I would be tempted to disbelieve it from another’s mouth. You do not have the face of a liar.”
“Now tell me something,” Keth said. “Why are you here? Why have you joined this doomed expedition?”
“I am one of the Seven Lords. It’s for the money of course!”
“I don’t believe that, not about you,” Keth disagreed. “Some of the others maybe, but not you.”
“Ha! Don’t be so sure,” Naran boomed, and then he restrained his voice just a bit, “Yes, wealth has something to do with it, but that’s fleeting. The truth is, because I’ve never done anything like it before. Life is for living, and I pity those people who day after day must do the same thing without fail. The life of the merchant - awake at the same time every day, don the same clothes and go to the same place to do the same thing - is not for me. Besides, sometimes you need the threat of death, cold and very real to remind yourself that you’re alive!”
Keth smiled widely and shook his head ever so slightly as a slight snort blew out of his nostrils. Cor had told him something of Naran, and the man himself did not disappoint when compared to the stories. It all sounded so romantically crazy, and yet it had a sort of truth to it. For this man at least, it was a way of life. Naran seemed like a living legend, the indomitable hero in the flesh, but in reality, he just wanted to feel alive. He was a hard man to dislike.
Someone shoved two bowls of steaming stew into each of their hands, and they found an empty place to sit down and lean back comfortably. “So,” Keth said, “tell me some of these stories of Cor, the boy at sea.”
29.
The valley nestled picturesquely with tall ridge like foot hills on all sides except to the southeast. Tall wild grasses one to two feet tall, recently yellow turned green again with the coming of spring and summer, covered the valley floor as well as all around it, and there were a number of thick, beautiful trees. A wide stream rolled its way down the western ridge and bubbled into a cave like aperture to the north. Birds sang readily, filling the air with both feathers and music, and bees droned on from one flower to another.
Then thousands of booted feet and shod hooves came from the southwest, climbing over the ridge and spilling into the valley. They trampled the grasses into the dirt, turning the entire valley brown. They ripped down the trees, adding whatever fruit they found to their food stores, and they used the wood for cook fires or to assemble shoddy catapults. They set up their leaders’ tents on the northwest ridge and settled their soldiers, bowmen and warriors in around the stream, turning it brown downstream with their waste. They placed pickets all around the top of the valley, men with the sharpest of eyes, and sent out bronze skinned riders on magnificent brown and black steeds to scout the countryside for miles.
To be sure, it was one of the most impressive hosts Rumedia had ever seen. While their foe’s was larger maybe even ten times so, this host consisted only of living armed and armored warriors, fighting men and some women. Fifty thousand Westerners prepared to make a stand in that valley, and twice again were the numbers of Tigoleans. As they waited and built minor defensive improvements, black and gray armored Loszian troops began to join them, though they only numbered at five thousand when it was done.
They sent their outriders further and further, and within a week, they had confirmation that a host like had never before been seen in Rumedia marched and shambled toward Rederick’s host. The scouts who found the army of dead, battle hardened Tigoleans, wept at the enormity of what they faced. They decried hope and spoke of the end of all men at the dead’s hands. Surely the gods Themselves had brought this upon them, for no one man could wield so much power.
The dead kept a slow pace, as unliving muscles only move so fast regardless of the power that propels them, and they even stopped every night to rest, for their Loszian masters required it. Some of the outriders grew anxious and cocky, taunting the mass as it plodded, and some even came close enough to hurl their javelins and long, curved daggers. However, this did not go on for long before dark magicks began to take them right off their horses. The riders kept their distance and were eventually called back to join the rest of the cavalry.
There was no longer any need to keep an eye on Nadav’s host; there was no doubt where it was headed.
Cor had found that a camp was always a somber place on the eve of battle, but this one was even more so. The men whispered to each other of what was to come, and many said they should disband to find a quiet place to live. Others, those who had been through the campaigns with Cor and Rederick, tried to bolster their compatriots morale, as their leaders had yet to fail even against seemingly impossible odds. As time grew short, worries grew and tempers flared, and more than one fistfight broke out among the ranks. Officers and veterans separated the troublemakers, but kept punishment to a minimum in attempts to calm nerves.
King Rederick held Council every day, involving the Seven Lords, the Loszian nobles and a number of aides, captains and lieutenants. They poured over progress, scouting and readiness reports constantly until all were bored with the exception of the king himself and his son, Lord
Red. The defense plans were well known and reviewed every few hours, but Rederick kept certain finer points quiet. Their new Loszian allies knew nothing of the lines of flaming pitch that would drive Nadav’s host down a narrow path through the valley. With the possibility that some betrayal may occur, they were not given the details of Cor’s plan to kill the emperor. In fact, most of the Council didn’t even know, as Cor thought it prudent to limit the knowledge only to those who needed to know for the success of the plan. King Rederick did not disagree.
As they sat upon horses overlooking the valley, he said only, “My young friend, so much of this all rests on you. Do you trust the Loszian? Menak?”
“Do I have a choice?” Cor returned. “Do any of us have a choice? It’s possible that his whole story is an elaborate ruse by Nadav to draw us, me, out. It doesn’t make sense though. He plans to kill us all anyway, and he thinks he’s unstoppable now. He doesn’t need to pull us into Losz.”
“I hope you’re right,” Rederick worried. “If you’re wrong…”
“If I’m wrong,” Cor said, turning to the king with a smile, “I’ll just have to kill Menak too, but if Menak’s words are true and he is loyal to us as it seems, well, I think you just found your Loszian Counselor.”
“I suppose we’ll see.”
“We won’t have long to wait,” Cor said, holding his hand to shield his eyes, and he pointed out to the horizon. “Look – there they are.”
Rederick followed Cor’s outstretched finger to the southeast, and he beheld just the hint of a dark mass at the edge of his vision. From their vantage point, it must have been a mile even two off, but there was no mistaking a host of incredible size. As they watched, it appeared to move in slowly like some ocean tide made of dark, inky waters, but they knew that was only due to the distance it had to cross. The remaining scouts and outriders returned back to the main force with as much speed as they could muster, as if demons hotly pursued them.
The Cor Chronicles: Volume 04 - Gods and Steel Page 21