Warlord

by Jennifer Fallon

  “Do you think it’ll help them or us?”

  “Neither,” Almodavar concluded. Damin had thought he was doodling on the ground with a stick, but on second glance he realised he was drawing out a map of the battlefield. Damin glanced down at it, wondering what he was up to.

  “How long do you think we have before they get here?”

  The captain shrugged. “Not long. The scouts will let us know. The trick isn’t them getting here, though. It will be getting across the bridges and closing the pincers behind them at the right time after they get here.”

  Damin smiled. “I remember Elezaar telling me once that the enemy invariably attacks on one of two occasions, when you’re ready for him …”

  “And when you’re not ready for him,” Narvell finished for him.

  Damin studied the map in the dirt and then looked down at Almodavar. “Where do you suppose Regis is now?”

  The old Raider looked up at Damin and pointed to the map he’d sketched in the dirt.

  “You old fox,” Damin chuckled, as he realised why Almodavar was so interested in his rough map of the surrounding terrain.

  “What?” Narvell asked, a little confused.

  “Unless Regis is one of those fools who likes to lead from the front and get himself killed in the first few moments of the fight, I’m guessing he’s back here somewhere,” Almodavar surmised, poking a stick at the location. “With his cavalry. He’ll want to see how the battle goes before he commits them.”

  “Then our brilliant ambush may not be as brilliant as we’d like,” Damin agreed, “if he’s got another five or six thousand fresh troops who can come up behind us.”

  “You mean if he hesitates before he commits them?” Narvell asked.

  Almodavar nodded. “When he sees our flanks that were so easily broken in the earlier part of the attack suddenly starting to regroup, he’s going to know what’s going on.”

  “By then he may have no choice but to follow,” Narvell suggested.

  Damin shrugged. “Perhaps. His only other option will be to abandon his infantry and try to get away with his cavalry intact.”

  “A man who runs from a fight he can’t win is a man still looking for a fight he can,” Almodavar reminded them.

  “So is Regis the type to cut his losses and run, or the sort who’ll fight a glorious but futile battle to the bitter end?”

  “I’m guessing the former,” Almodavar said. “Hablet’s a nasty piece of work, but he knows real talent when he sees it. If this man was smart enough to get command of Hablet’s army for this campaign, he’s not the selfless, self-sacrificing type. I suspect he’ll cut and run in the hopes of either making it back to Fardohnya or making a last stand somewhere he can do some real damage.”

  “Back up the valley,” Damin concluded. “There’s nowhere else he can go but west.”

  The old captain looked up at Damin. “We probably should do something about that.”

  Damin grinned at the old man. “We probably should, shouldn’t we?”

  Narvell looked at his brother and then the captain, shaking his head as it dawned on him what the others were suggesting. “No way! You’re not leaving me here to fight the battle while you two go off chasing rainbows!”

  Because Damin had brought only cavalry with him from Krakandar, his troops and the remainder of Narvell’s Elasapine light cavalry made up most of the left flank that would close in behind the Fardohnyans. Cyrus Eaglespike and his Dregian cavalry made up the right flank, while across the end of the valley at Lasting Drift, the remainder of the infantry—the most’ experienced men drawn from every province in Hythria—and the re-formed Sunrise archers waited for the oncoming army with growing impatience. Discipline held them in check, however, just as it would ensure they moved at the right time; of that Damin was quite certain.

  They should have had another two or three thousand Raiders to deploy but there had been no sign of them, nor word from Krakandar about why they’d never arrived. It was a problem that niggled at the back of Damin’s mind constantly, but one he couldn’t spare the time to deal with right now. This battle had to be fought with what they had at hand, not what might have been.

  “You can handle the left flank without my help, little brother,” Damin assured him. “Think what Charel will say when he hears about your glorious victory!”

  “Think what Cyrus Eaglespike will say when he finds out you ran away from the fight, Damin.”

  “Think what the fool will have to say when we capture the Fardohnyan general and his damned cavalry,” Almodavar suggested.

  Narvell glared at both of them. “You’re as bad as he is, Almodavar.”

  Damin frowned, a little annoyed to think Narvell assumed he was suggesting this just for a bit of light entertainment. “I’m not just doing this for fun, you know, Narvell. If Regis gets away today with his cavalry intact, we’re going to have to do this all over again, either tomorrow or a week from now, or a month from now. This damned war will drag on for ages. Let’s be done with it, here and now.”

  “You are doing this for fun,” Narvell accused. “I don’t care how many clever ways you’ve come up with to rationalise it. And since when did you care if the war drags on for a bit, Damin? You like war.”

  “I like the idea of killing Mahkas better.”

  “What’s Mahkas got to do with it?”

  “The last discussion Mahkas and I had about Leila and Starros was interrupted by the unfortunate need to keep him alive. I believe we have some rather important unfinished business.”

  Narvell stared at his brother, and then turned to the captain.

  “Don’t look at me for help,” Almodavar warned. “I think he’s right.”

  “You’re both mad,” Narvell announced, rising to his feet. “How many men are you taking or do you think the two of you are enough?”

  “No more than a dozen,” Damin told him.

  “You really are insane.”

  “I’m not trying to confront the Fardohnyan cavalry, Narvell, or capture them single-handedly. The idea is to find Regis and have him surrender them. A small band can move faster and has a much better chance of slipping through the enemy lines than a whole century of Raiders. Besides, you need them here.”

  “I need you here,” his brother pointed out unhappily.

  “No, you don’t,” he assured Narvell with an encouraging slap on the back. “Think of this as your opportunity to show the world what you’re made of. One that doesn’t involve you and I having to shed each other’s blood at regular intervals.”

  “Cyrus is going to explode when he hears about this,” Narvell warned.

  “Only if we fail,” Damin pointed out reasonably. “Think you can handle things here?”

  Narvell sighed at his brother’s folly, and then he seemed to change his mind after thinking about it for a time. He shrugged, perhaps accepting the futility of trying to dissuade Damin when Almodavar was supporting him. “You’d better be right about this, brother, or you’re going to look like a coward and a fool.”

  “I am right,” Damin promised. “And by this evening, we’ll have the Fardohnyan surrender. You mark my words.”

  Skirting the thinly forested foothills of Lasting Drift, Damin, Almodavar and their handpicked men got a unique overview of the battle from the heights. For the average soldier in the thick of it, a man’s view was rarely more than his own fight for survival and what was happening in the few feet surrounding him. The big picture was something he learned about afterward, something gleaned by anecdote and rumour, sitting around the camp fires after the day was won.

  The view Damin received was vastly different as he watched the battle progress while they made their way northwest to where they assumed (and fervently hoped) Axelle Regis was directing the conflict.

  As the enemy passed the river crossings and reached the ambush at Lasting Drift, the Hythrun mobilised the remaining cavalry and the pincers began to close, advancing against the Fardohnyan infantry on the wings
which, until then, had only skirmished with the Izcomdar light horse. Attacked on both sides, the Fardohnyans were taken completely by surprise, their progress checked as soon as the echelons emerged from hiding.

  By the time Damin and his handpicked squad turned toward the small valley where they figured Axelle was holding his cavalry in reserve, the Fardohnyans had been forced to a halt, fronting the enemy on all sides.

  After that, it was—as Damin had predicted—like spearing fish in a barrel. The low foothills rang with the sounds of battle as the enemy was attacked every way they turned by the Hythrun infantry with short swords, by the cavalry with javelins and by the devastating accuracy of the mounted Hythrun short bows, the Raiders rarely missing in the densely packed mass.

  “It’ll be all over soon,” Almodavar remarked, urging his mount up the slope beside Damin as they watched the Fardohnyans being pushed back, relentlessly crowded together. Without hope of relief, they probably expected death and fought as if their only hope of salvation was to honour the God of War before they died. The carnage sickened Damin a little. It was one thing to win a glorious victory, but there came a point when triumph moved to slaughter, then war no longer seemed quite as splendid as one imagined.

  “We need Regis to surrender before this war is done. And we need to stop him sending in his reserves in a last-ditch attempt to save the day. He could still take this if he can move his cavalry up quickly enough.”

  “If he’s watching this and has even the slightest humanity in him,” Almodavar disagreed, “he’ll already be considering surrender.”

  “Let’s go make it easier for him, shall we?”

  The old captain nodded and turned his horse away. Damin followed a few moments later, thinking how easily the shine came off a glorious victory once it became tarnished with blood.

  CHAPTER 67

  Emilie’s concern about Mahkas Damaran’s condition proved well founded. The Regent of Krakandar appeared to be suffering from blood poisoning, a direct result of the infected and ulcerated sore on his right forearm. It was the physician’s opinion that the scar Mahkas fiddled with so obsessively in times of stress harboured a tiny fragment of metal, a leftover from some longforgotten skirmish, and it had worked its way to the surface, exacerbated by Mahkas’s relentless worrying at it. Since his discovery of Leila and Starros and his descent into undisguised madness, he’d barely left the scar alone and it had eventually become infected. Unless the wound was lanced and cleaned of the poison, it was likely to kill him.

  The palace physician, Darian Coe, who’d come to Krakandar some fifteen years ago when Damin’s stepsister, Rielle Tirstone, was presented with her first court’esa, explained the situation to Luciena, Xanda, Bylinda and Emilie, after he’d tried unsuccessfully—yet again—to treat Mahkas’s injury. The regent would have none of his ministrations, convinced Darian Coe was an assassin sent by his nephew, Damin Wolfblade, to have him killed.

  “Is he really going to die, Mama?” Emilie asked with concern. Luciena wasn’t happy about Emilie being included in this meeting, but she’d been keeping Bylinda company when Darian arrived to inform Xanda and Luciena of the situation and they’d come to the Lady of Krakandar’s room, not realising their daughter was here. Given the child’s affection for Mahkas (misplaced though Luciena believed it was) and the fact Emilie was so worried about him, she decided to let the child stay.

  “He should be all right if I can clean the wound, my lady,” Darian assured the little girl. “But he won’t even let me get a close look at it.”

  “Suppose we just do it by force?” Xanda suggested. “If I get enough men in there, we can hold him down while you cut this infection out.”

  The handsome former court’esa shook his head. “Given Lord Damaran’s current state of mind, that would probably just make things worse.”

  “I agree with Darian,” Luciena said. “He’s likely to go crazy if he sees you marching into his room with a troop of burly Raiders, all there for the sole purpose of restraining him.”

  “We can’t let him die from an infected arm, Luciena,” Xanda reminded her.

  “He has to keep his oath,” Bylinda added. Nobody was really sure what she meant, but she talked a lot about keeping oaths these days. Suddenly she gripped Emilie by the hand. “Don’t you listen to their lies, child. They swear they’ll do it, but they don’t. I’m still waiting for him to keep his oath.”

  With a grimace, Emilie extracted her hand from Bylinda’s grasp. “I’ll not listen to anybody’s lies,” she promised, clearly with no more idea than the adults what Bylinda was talking about. She frowned uncertainly and looked to her parents for help, but Bylinda’s words meant nothing to them, either.

  “Could you talk to him, Aunt Bylinda?” Xanda asked. “Perhaps he’ll listen to you. You must press on him the importance of allowing a physician to treat him.”

  “I’m still waiting for him to keep his oath,” she replied with such a vague expression on her face, Luciena wondered if she’d heard a word anybody had said.

  “I could talk to him, Papa,” Emilie volunteered.

  “Out of the question!” Luciena declared.

  “Now, now, Luci … let’s not be hasty,” Xanda cautioned, looking at their daughter curiously. “Why do you think Mahkas would listen to you, Em?”

  “Because he likes me.” She shrugged, as if the reason were self-evident. “I remind him of Leila.”

  Darian Coe seemed to be on Emilie’s side. “The child speaks the truth, my lord. He often mistakes your daughter for his own.”

  “I hope your intention of telling us that, Darian Coe, wasn’t to reassure us our child is in no danger from him,” Luciena remarked with a worried expression.

  “Of course not, my lady,” the physician replied with an apologetic bow. “I merely make note of the fact in passing. But you have nothing to fear in any case. Mahkas Damaran is in no condition to hurt anybody but himself at the moment.”

  “So why don’t we just wait until he falls unconscious and treat him then?” Xanda asked.

  “By then it will probably be too late to save him, my lord.”

  “I’m still waiting for him to keep his oath,” Bylinda said, as if she was taking part in another conversation none of the others was privy to.

  “Please, Papa,” Emilie begged. “Let me help. I can talk to Uncle Mahkas. I’ll make him let Darian fix his arm.”

  With some reluctance, Xanda nodded in agreement. “Perhaps you should talk to him, sweetheart. Do you know what to say to him?”

  Emilie nodded solemnly. She was a bright child, even if she did have a blind spot where Mahkas was concerned. But perhaps that was Luciena and Xanda’s fault. They’d gone to great pains to keep what had happened in this place from their children. “I have to tell him what Darian just said. That his arm is making him sick and if the wound isn’t cleaned and treated, he’ll die from it.”

  “Do you think you can make him understand how important this is?”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “Xanda, you can’t be serious about letting her …”

  “We don’t have a choice, Luciena. We can’t let Mahkas die.”

  It was only the presence of Bylinda and Emilie that prevented Luciena from replying, “Why the hell not?”

  Far from being repulsed by Mahkas’s infected arm, Emilie Taranger was morbidly fascinated by it, a fact that left Luciena shaking her head in despair. It took the child less than an hour to convince Mahkas he should let Darian Coe treat his arm, although he did insist Emilie stay with him throughout the entire procedure, to keep him company.

  Luciena wondered if Mahkas made Emilie’s presence a condition of the treatment simply to bolster his own courage. Although she had no sympathy for him, she knew he was in unbearable pain. Perhaps, with Emilie there to be brave for, he’d have the nerve to suffer through Darian Coe slicing into his badly swollen and infected arm and digging around for the tiny shard causing him all this trouble.

  Darian was st
ill setting up when Luciena arrived. Emilie was sitting on Mahkas’s bed, chatting to him as the physician arranged his tools. Mahkas was propped up on a mountain of pillows, his arm resting on another pillow. His face was strained and he was sweating profusely, clearly in agony.

  A moment after Luciena arrived, Xanda appeared behind her with two large Raiders. Mahkas said something to Emilie they couldn’t hear and then glared at his nephew, obviously displeased about something.

  “Uncle Mahkas wants to know why the soldiers are here, Papa,” Emilie asked from the bed. With his throat so damaged that he couldn’t speak louder than a whisper, he needed Emilie to relay his messages.

  “They’re here in case you need help, Uncle,” Xanda explained. “This is liable to be very painful, and—”

  Mahkas’s gesticulating cut Xanda off. He whispered something to Emilie and then pointed angrily toward the door.

  “He says he doesn’t need anybody to hold him down.”

  Xanda shrugged. “As you wish.” He turned and ordered the guards to wait outside and then looked at Luciena helplessly.

  “If we had any sense at all,” she told him in a low voice, “we’d start the evacuation tonight. While he’s too sick to notice what’s happening.”

  “The thought had crossed my mind.”

  “But?”

  “We’re not ready yet … and if he doesn’t …” Xanda hesitated, unwilling to finish the sentence. “Well … there may not be a need.”

  She knew what her husband really meant was that if Mahkas died, there would be no need to evacuate the city. And much as she might hope for it, that outcome was a double-edged sword. Mahkas’s death would relieve the immediate problems in Krakandar, but they would just make things worse in greater Hythria. Another province under the control of Alija Eaglespike was something Luciena was prepared to do almost anything to prevent. Even keeping Mahkas Damaran alive.