Tracato

by Joel Shepherd

  Damon thought about it. “So you didn’t see or hear anything that might suggest they’re moving the artillery? Some kind of actual fact?”

  “No. It’s a stupid hunch.”

  Damon put his arm around her, and gave her a squeeze. “I’ll listen to your stupid hunch. Go on.”

  “We can’t scout the far end of the valley. It’s too close to the border, they have artillery covering it, a fast charge down the slope will kill anyone getting too close. The hills aren’t that steep either, the Steel ballistas are mounted on oxen carts, those oxen are strong, they could get up or down these hills pretty quickly. Big catapults are oxen pulled too, but those are much heavier and less stable… I’m sure they could do it, though.”

  “Hard in the dark,” suggested Damon.

  “Not if each team borrows a few serrin to guide the way. We’d not even see lights moving to know what they were up to.”

  Damon nodded slowly. “Where do you put the artillery?”

  “Along this ridge,” said Sasha, pointing along the ridge where the Army of Lenayin was encamped.

  “We can outflank them.”

  “With infantry? We’ll have to split our force… I mean, if they send their main force down into the valley, that is.”

  “Give away the advantage of height? And risk encirclement on their high flanks?” Damon shook his head. “Damn, I’d love it if they did that.”

  “No, Damon…” Sasha sat up and looked him in the eye. “You’re discounting the artillery. I’ve been trying to drum it into your thick heads what it can do, but no one’s listening. We won’t be able to assemble above the Enoran force in the valley, because the artillery will keep the slopes clear. They’ll be guarded, like…”

  Sasha sprung off the verandah, pulled her knife and began drawing in the dirt. There was just enough light from the nearby lanterns. “You see? The main infantry force in the valley, covered by their artillery on either flank, high on the slopes. Height means extra range, they can fire at us if we go into the valley, or right into us if we assemble directly above the Enoran infantry for a charge.”

  “So all of their cavalry will be defending their artillery,” said Damon, kneeling alongside. “What if we concentrate our infantry,” and he drew a big cluster on one side of the valley, “and send everyone against one lot of artillery, since they’ve conveniently divided their force. If we overrun that lot, we not only remove half of their greatest advantage, but we hold the heights above their infantry too.”

  “They’ll move every cavalryman they have to defend that side,” Sasha warned. “With all these talmaad around, that’ll be a lot.”

  “Yes, but light cavalry,” Damon countered. “It’s made for attacking, not defending.” He considered the squiggles in the dirt. “This would be cunning of them, but it gives us many options. They’d have to be desperate to try it.”

  “We have them bottled up otherwise,” said Sasha. “And if the Larosans are not flanked, Rhodaan may well fall. If Rhodaan falls, Enora loses its defensive line, and will have to fight invasion from Rhodaan, not from Larosa, which is far easier.”

  “Or from Saalshen,” Damon added, “if the Larosans cross the Ipshaal.” Sasha nodded, and looked up at footsteps on the verandah.

  “What are you two muttering about that’s so important you’d wake me up?” Koenyg asked grumpily.

  “Sasha has an idea.”

  “Oh aye,” said Koenyg sarcastically, jumping down to look at their scribblings, “this should be good.”

  He wasn’t so sarcastic after she’d explained it, though. He knelt, looking at the squiggles for a long time. And looked up, staring into the dark, as though wishing he had serrin vision with which to probe the night.

  “You’re probably wrong on the details,” he said finally, “but you’re right about the intent. If I were them, I’d move soon. Immediately, even. The longer they wait, the worse their overall position.”

  He got up and strode to a guardsman. The man listened to the instructions, and hurried off. Soon, some cavalry scouts arrived, wild Taneryn men, newly woken. Koenyg instructed more scouting sweeps, in addition to the many he’d already assigned. Those men strode off. More lanterns were lit about the farmhouse, and nearby camps stirred.

  The king appeared in the doorway, a black sentinel in a robe. “Trouble?” he asked Koenyg.

  “Perhaps. Sasha fears they may be moving. I think she may be right.” Torvaal looked at Sasha, long and hard. Sasha ignored him, leaning on a verandah post and waiting.

  Yasmyn emerged from the doorway, wrapped in a cloak. Her face, swollen when she had left Sofy’s service eight days ago, was now somewhat recovered, though her right eye remained partly closed. Her hair, previously long and loose, had been covered by a red scarf, patterned with ancient black markings. There were new scars on her cheek, that Balthaar’s men had not inflicted. It was the arganyar, in Isfayen Telochi. In Lenay it translated as “the impatience.” The red of the headscarf was for blood. The cuts on Yasmyn’s cheeks were for intent. And the two gold rings in her left ear were for two heads, delivered to her father, in apology for the dishonour brought upon the family.

  Lord Faras would have preferred an honourable combat, but the daughters of Isfayen were no warriors to deliver such honour. Instead, he spoke of marysan ne tanar, in Telochi, “the honour of women,” which in Isfayen was a different thing entirely. It was said in Isfayen that by the marysan ne tanar, women were far more dangerous to offend than men. A man would at least declare his intention to kill you before he did so, and present you with the opportunity to defend yourself on equal terms. A woman, with honour as pricklish as any man, yet without the option of honourable combat, would achieve her ends however she could. Poison was not unknown, nor seduction followed by a knife in the bed. Yasmyn had been proudly direct, as befitted a daughter of nobility, and ambushed with a blade in the night. It was not by accident that Isfayen women had by tradition the greatest authority of any women in Lenayin. It was a respect built on fear.

  Yasmyn came now to Sasha’s side. “They move their army by night, yes?”

  “Perhaps. We’ll see.”

  “I would ride with you.”

  “You’re not trained,” said Sasha. Yasmyn and Sasha had ridden together, these past eight days, at the head of the Isfayen column. Sasha had been impressed with Yasmyn’s strength, given her ordeal. Revenge helped, Sasha knew well. It suited Yasmyn’s character, and the Isfayen character in particular.

  “I am a good rider,” Yasmyn said stubbornly. “You have admitted yourself that you are not the equal of most men in cavalry warfare.”

  “Not an equal in offence,” Sasha corrected. “But I’m very good at defence. I know how to evade, how to predict, and I know my strengths and limitations. I also have skills of command and tactics, so I have some other uses, even should I not kill many enemies with my sword.”

  Yasmyn folded her arms, wrapped in her cloak. “I never asked to play lagand,” she murmured, gazing into the night. “It is strange. I should have asked, so that I could gain skills like you.”

  “Why?” Sasha asked. “It does little good for a noble daughter to fight in wars. Her purpose is to produce heirs.”

  Yasmyn frowned at her. “You would say such a thing?”

  “That is why I am no longer a noble daughter.” Her father stood nearby, doubtless hearing every word. “I have little interest in raising heirs.”

  “I think a noble daughter of Isfayen should be permitted to fight, should she choose,” Yasmyn said stubbornly. “If she has the skills.”

  “And if all Isfayen noble daughters fight? To be slain before birthing an heir, or depriving her family of the bonds of marriage that bind clans together? If you died on this field, Isfayen could fall apart for the lack of such bonds, and your family ended.”

  “And also should the men die.”

  “But you being safe is their guarantee,” said Sasha. “You cannot escape it, Yasmyn. I agree that women are capab
le of more than our tradition allows. But for as long as families rule, and the line of succession is all important, women shall always be shielded from such risk.”

  Yasmyn thought about it for a moment. More men gathered by the edge of the torchlight, clustered about Koenyg. Damon joined them, but the king remained on the verandah, waiting. Was he truly listening, Sasha wondered? Could he ever admit to listening, and understanding what she was?

  “Serrin women fight,” Yasmyn said then, thoughtfully.

  Sasha nodded. “Succession means nothing to serrin. Family means much to them as individuals, but little as a society. Serrin like to say they are all of one family. It frees women to do as they choose.”

  “Serrin are not human,” Yasmyn objected. “We should not imitate them and expect good results any more than we should live in packs like wolves.”

  “Aye,” Sasha agreed. “Serrin share emotion and thought as humans never shall. It binds them together as humans can never bind. For us to live as serrin do would be to build a great stone house with no mortar, and expect it to stand. But we can think upon our limitations. And we can wonder at what we may learn from their study, not so much of them, but of ourselves.”

  “I should like to be Nasi-Keth myself,” Yasmyn declared. “Perhaps not to fight in wars, though to wield a blade as you do would be glorious. But I would like to think on these things, for the benefit of my people. Perhaps that can be the role of an Isfayen noble daughter. If we cannot fight in wars, then surely we can learn and teach those things that may frighten or offend our lessers.”

  Sasha gazed at her, in mild surprise. “I think that is a fine idea. Tradition is important, but it is the foundation of the house, not the house itself. For that, we must learn to build, and not be scared of building.”

  “Would you be my uman?” Yasmyn asked.

  “I’m still uma myself.”

  “After,” said Yasmyn. “I would be honoured. I have only sixteen summers, I am not too old.”

  “I’d thought you older. But no age is too old. I’m flattered you’d ask, but it is too early to think on such things. Chances are good I will not live out the day that dawns.”

  “As I will not likely survive my arganyar. Balthaar’s cousin Elias still lives, and I cannot kill him yet for the damage it would cause our alliance, and the risk it would cause to Sofy. But eventually, he will die. In the meantime, I shall dream great dreams, and sharpen my darak.”

  A horse approached, cantering along a line of campfires left clear precisely to guide horses to the farmhouse. The rider dismounted and Sasha recognised Jurellyn, her friend from that first ride to Ymoth, and one of the finest scouts in Lenayin.

  “Y’Highness,” he announced to Koenyg and Torvaal, “we’re fucked.” He looked exhausted, and had never been a man for formalities. “I’m pulling our scouts back, I’ve sent word out for them all to head home to camp.”

  “You did what?” Koenyg exclaimed.

  Sasha saw fear in Jurellyn’s eyes, and felt abruptly cold. A man like Jurellyn wasn’t scared of much, and certainly not of royalty. “It’s the serrin, Y’Highness. They’re not attacking the fucking camp like we feared, they’re after my poor bloody scouts. I’ve seen ten dead just this night, they…they aren’t riding, they’re walking and running, all quiet-like, you can’t see them coming, they hide in bushes and behind trees and walls, and they shoot for the smallest gaps in a man’s armour without a fucking candle’s worth of light to see by…”

  He took a deep breath, attempting to regain composure. No one interrupted him. “I can’t fight that, Y’Highness. No man can. We’ve safety in numbers, but a man can’t fight what he can’t see. If I hadn’t ordered our scouts back-”

  “You did well,” Sasha interrupted. “We’ll need our scouts later.” Most of Lenayin’s scouts were Goeren-yai men, foresters with a great respect for the serrin. Serrin, being serrin, would know that. Surely it pained them to do it. But Saalshen was fighting for its right to exist, and serrin for their right to live.

  Jurellyn gave Sasha a grateful look. “There’s something moving down the valley,” he continued. “None of us got close enough to hear. But one of us reckoned he could hear wheels, wooden axles. You could ask him more, but he got an arrow in the neck on the way back.”

  “How long till dawn?” Koenyg asked no one in particular.

  “Soon,” said a guardsman, lifting his palm to the horizon of stars. “Another hand.”

  “Wait until the very first light,” said Koenyg. “We’ll just make a mess in the dark otherwise. Battle formations, and we’ll see what the dawn brings us. Father?”

  King Torvaal merely nodded, and folded his arms within the black robe he wore. An assent, that he had faith in his eldest son’s command. Koenyg nodded, and strode off to give orders for the nobles to gather. Damon joined him, instructing a guardsman to wake Myklas. Sasha gave her father a final stare, and followed. Torvaal did not seem even to notice. He gazed at the horizon, with all the patience of stone, and awaited the rising sun.

  Dawn brought them new silhouettes on the same ridgeline as the command post. The Steel had indeed crossed the valley in the night.

  “All of them?” Damon wondered aloud, as they stood atop the farmhouse roof, and viewed the enormous mass of glittering steel that now formed a huge line across the rolling fields to this side of the valley.

  “Looks like,” Koenyg said. “They mean to flank us on our right, and push us back into the valley toward their own border.”

  “With the forest at our back,” added the king, looking at the thick trees that covered the opposing slope. All had been surprised when Torvaal had clambered with his children from a horse’s back onto the rooftop. He looked to Sasha more animated than she’d ever seen him. “My son, they will advance on us, and attempt to win around our right flank. We must not let them.”

  “Aye, Father. But the surest way to defend the right flank is to attack on the left. They have opened up their entire previous position, and we shall divide their attention by taking it.”

  “Could be a trap,” Damon warned, looking out at the formerly surrounded castle.

  “If they waste forces setting traps for our cavalry,” said Koenyg, “I would not mind a bit.” He looked down at the Great Lord Heryd, waiting patiently below in full black cloak and armour. “Lord Heryd! The left flank is yours! Should you win through, recall that the artillery is your primary target!”

  “My Prince,” Heryd called up, “the north shall bring glory to Lenayin!” He turned and strode to his horses, armoured nobility close behind.

  “Is that wise?” Damon asked his brother. “With the primary attack coming on our right flank, we commit our heaviest cavalry to the left.” All three northern provinces, refusing to divide their number to fight amongst pagans, had declared that they would form one entire flank together, leaving the remaining eight provinces to form the opposing cavalry flank, and the reserve. The arrangement was not as lopsided as it first sounded, given that the north were almost entirely cavalry, and were the heaviest in armour and weight of horse.

  “I mean to break through, Brother,” Koenyg replied. “We must penetrate their defences and harry their artillery directly. We will achieve it by committing our heavy cavalry to their weakest defence.”

  “Only look,” said Sasha, crouched low on the opposite slope of rooftop, “that weakest defence now means riding uphill from the valley.”

  “These Enorans improvise well,” the king observed. “They appear as tactically astute as in all the tales. Do not underestimate them, my son.”

  “I shan’t, Father. There is no clever move against this foe that could win us a painless victory. We shall fight them, and fight them hard. Damon, our time grows short, I need you on the right.”

  “Aye,” said Damon, with something that sounded more like relief than trepidation. He and Koenyg embraced, and then he embraced their father. “Sasha,” he said then, “you’re with me.”

  Koenyg embrac
ed Sasha too. “Good call last night,” he told her. “Your details were wrong, but good call anyway.”

  “I can’t be right all the time,” Sasha said lightly. She paused before her father. Torvaal extended his hand. Sasha took it hesitantly. Her father looked…concerned. There was a light in his dark eyes that she could not recall having seen before. It was not a confident light, but a light all the same. Sasha could not say if she found it encouraging or disturbing.

  “Daughter,” Torvaal said gravely. “Lenayin called, and you came.”

  That was it, Sasha realised. No mention of fatherly pride, no smile, nothing. Only this, reluctant acknowledgement. She was still the daughter who failed, the one who shamed all Lenay tradition in her choice of life, the one who had abandoned him as Kessligh had abandoned him after Krystoff’s death, and had finally led an armed rebellion against his personal authority.

  “I’ve always come,” Sasha said coldly, and walked carefully across the roof to the edge, and a short jump to the ground. Damon followed, and she walked with him to their horses. “Why does he always do that?” she asked him plaintively.

  “Do what?”

  “Make me feel like my entire existence is an affront to him!”

  “I heard a compliment,” Damon said drily. “That you rejected.”

  “Where’s Myklas?” Sasha asked him, changing the subject.

  “He rides with Heryd.”

  Sasha did not like the thought of Myklas riding with the northern cavalry. But he was too young for a command, he was a good rider, and the northerners should have at least one royal riding with them.

  Jaryd was waiting with the horses, and holding a round, wooden shield. He presented it to Sasha.

  “What’s this?”

  “And to think they ever called me a dunce,” Jaryd remarked.

  “I can’t ride with this,” Sasha snorted. “I’m a girl, it’s too heavy for me.”

  “It’s the lightest I could find, and it would barely trouble a fifteen-year-old lad,” Jaryd said impatiently, pressing it onto her.

  “Take it or I’ll have you tied to a tree and left in the rear,” Damon told her, mounting quickly.