by Damien Lake
“You look worn,” Dietrik observed.
“I feel worn. I don’t much enjoy being the leader with the responsibility for this fiasco.”
“In all honesty, you have been effective at it so far.”
“Have I? I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve been lucky.”
Dietrik squatted on his ankles. His lips pursed in mild annoyance. “I see we’ve come back to this place. Mate, it seems as long as I’ve known you, you enjoy wallowing in a pool of self-doubt and woe.”
“This isn’t the same! Experienced leaders could have managed each of our battles better than I’ve done. I know that much. Something always goes wrong no matter how carefully I plan it out with Torrance.”
“So what? Torrance is as experienced a fighting lad as you can find in the entire kingdom. Stop persisting in selling yourself short. We have hardly lost anyone in our various victories in the last eightday. All of us are enjoying being under a leader who doesn’t simply bellow ‘charge’, and then expect glorious victories.”
“I don’t feel like me.” Marik pulled a grass stalk. He picked the feathery seeds off one at a time. “I’ve hardly seen anyone except Torrance and Gibbon since we left Thoenar, have only talked to them, the other band leaders and the odd messenger.”
“What did you expect? When you move up in the ranks, you can’t pass your days the way you used to.”
“Do you think I have? Moved up I mean? Once this is over, Raymond won’t have any use for me. I’ll go back to being a Ninth Squad merc like before.”
“You ought to be smarter than that by now,” Dietrik admonished. “So far you have proven you can think around corners. You can predict battle patterns…oh, up to a certain point, I agree,” he added when Marik started objecting. “No person alive or dead could foresee a war from beginning to end. Your decisions have been smart for a rookie commander. I’d say that when this war is over, Torrance will pick you the next time a sergeant’s position comes onto the board. Or perhaps he will skip you straight to a squad lieutenant.”
“No one gets a high position in the Kings without working their way up from the bottom.”
“Admittedly. But then no King has ever been charged with leading a campaign by the crown, has he?”
“I don’t see any point in thinking about it at the moment,” Marik said. “That depends on how many of us survive the summer.”
“Relax and enjoy life’s little pleasant moments, then,” Dietrik allowed. He dropped off his heals to sit in the clover as well. “You do look as though you need an afternoon off, mate. A bit pale and drawn. What are you carrying there? If it’s work, my advice is to put it off until this evening.”
“Nothing important.” Marik tossed the dispatches at Dietrik. They caught the air and fanned out, a dandelion releasing its pods on the wind. “You take a look if you’re interested in the manure an army leader has to wade through.”
“If I held any true interest in such, I never would have resigned my position in the ranks.” Dietrik plucked scattered pages from the ground nearest him.
Marik mulled his friend’s words while they sat in silence. Whatever he said, Marik had never considered himself a ‘broody’ type, nor one who enjoyed fishing for sympathy. Dietrik’s opinion on Marik’s likely future startled him. Every day since Raymond had shocked him by appointing him the leader of the western efforts, he had only fallen asleep at night because he lulled his unease with the knowledge that soon he would be returning to his home in the Ninth Squad.
It had never occurred to him that Torrance would keep him in an officer’s role. Would he be forced to lead a different squad? The thought of leaving his friends in the Ninth soured his stomach.
But Torrance would surely pull the same dirty tricks as he had before if he was so inclined. It would become a choice of doing Torrance’s will or leaving the band entirely.
At least there were other options to choose from this time. Kerwin would gladly accept him as a peacekeeper at his inn. It would be a paying job, though how much coin he earned interested him little. No other job would appeal to him a quarter as much since working for Kerwin meant working side-by-side with Ilona while she ran the Standing Spell’s new location.
And, come to think of it, Ilona would want to employ a peacekeeper or two, wouldn’t she? Men she could count on to be present when she needed a strong arm to manage a recalcitrant patron, men strictly on her own payroll who would not be dividing their attention between the top floor and Kerwin’s gambling paradise downstairs. Working for her might be the smarter choice than glaring at drunks throwing their coin into Kerwin’s bulging pouches all night long.
Or perhaps not. By her nature, she abhorred mixing business with pleasure. She would make her employees, the men at any rate, earn every copper of their pay, driving them hard as a demonic taskmaster. The minor fact that Marik and she were in a deeper relationship than mere employer/employee would make no difference during the candlemarks they both worked. He would receive no leniency from Ilona.
“What chaps in a right state of mind care about enforcing a policy that every official uniform must have brass buttons? We happen to be in a state of war! Do you care if your men replace their brass with wooden buttons?”
“No. If they can pawn them for a few extra coppers, then I say let them enjoy a decent meal or two before their inexperience gets them killed. As long as their clothes don’t interfere with their movements in a fight, they could wear rags for all of me.”
Dietrik folded the paper into a thick square and flung it away. It skimmed over the grass seedpods until it tumbled into the concealing springtime.
Marik’s mind wandered back to his musings. He had listened to countless tales, ballads and histories in Puarri’s Tavern during his youthful years, no few of which dealt with the most unstable emotion in the whole lot. Love. Those had never been his favorites. Long before brushing Tattersfield from his boots he had reached the conclusion that he was too smart to fall prey to it.
Love, as he had always known it, hardly qualified as a spider’s web waiting to hopelessly ensnare him. His love for his mother had prompted him to endless effort from dawn to dusk, praying that the meager coins he earned might finally purchase the correct medicine to cure her ailment. It had been painful, and he had never once questioned that he would labor to whatever extremes were necessary. But it also had never felt as if entire worlds were balanced on a precarious dagger’s tip, salvation or destruction poised to escape their cages depending on a single word.
That was how it always seemed to be described by the minstrels. The suggestion that a woman’s presence alone could unhinge his mind was laughable.
Or had been.
And yet his relationship with Ilona hardly fit any of the traditional pictures painted by the songs. There existed, without question, a bond between them that Marik had never believed himself capable of. At the same time, birds continued on their private business instead of swooping down to serenade them when they passed. Stars twinkled in the sky same as ever, dazzling no one with additional brilliance. Flowers had yet to blossom in continuous garlands around the Standing Spell’s timbers.
The lack of surreal manifestation to announce the fact that Marik Railson was indeed capable of a bardic emotion felt surreal.
Had he found a Soul Match in Ilona, or not? He thought about her often when he could not be with her. It felt as if she had always been there with him, since before he had known Dietrik. They were relaxed together, despite the fact that her sharpened sense of humor could draw blood at times. Did this casual acceptance mean their love was as deep as the songs said it should be? Or were they simply infatuated?
“Oh, for… When you believe you have heard every depth of foolishness possible, the fools rear their heads high!”
“What are you talking about? More buttons?”
“No.” Dietrik deftly spun the paper through the air, which came out of its spiral to land five inches from Marik’s hand. “Have you chaps been talk
ing much about the Nolier conflict in your little tent?”
“The only time we mention it is to curse about how Tybalt’s forces short-supplied us on every piece of equipment we need. Except Gibbon, anyway. When we left, Raymond’s top diplomat was still running the talks. She said we might be able to settle it without bloodshed this time as long as no actual fighting had broken out yet.”
“In that light, I would say the second war with Nolier has officially started, then. Before you read that, I would draw your attention to the name contained in the paragraph third from the last. Of all the self-grandiose nobles who chose to serve with the army for the prestige of it, I believe you can safely guess who would be most likely to add the final spark to a war in the making.”
With a buildup like that, Marik already knew whose name must be written in the dispatch. Balfourth Dornory, but referred to by his honorary military rank. Under-Captain Dornory.
Army dispatches were dispassionate. None contained the euphoria or vitriolic rage of the participants involved. This one came damned close to crossing the line.
Knowing Balfourth as he did, Marik could read the words and interpret them easily, seeing the truth of what had happened across the kingdom on the Nolier border. Such words as ‘faith in the capabilities of his men’ meant that Balfourth was being Balfourth; a stone idiot who refused to listen to any words of wisdom, preferring instead the heroic legend he was writing inside his head.
“So,” Marik summarized after several moments reading, “he ignored the scouts who warned him about the Nolier presence inside his patrol range. He pushed on through the Green Reaches to the Tenpencia River according to the original plan made eightdays earlier. When he found a squad of Nolier horsemen watering their animals, instead of backing off, like he should have done since war hasn’t been officially declared yet, he decided to ‘make Galemar’s sovereign might known on its own soil’.”
“We’ve always known him for the fool he is,” Dietrik agreed, “but this must be a new plateau. Over half his men killed, every Nolier soldier on the Tenpencia’s western shore springing from wary caution to outright hostility, and two of the old depots razed before the top officer could organize a suitable defense.”
Marik sent the dispatch zipping over the grass in the direction Dietrik’s had landed. “The nobility has waved their hand at numerous idiotic acts from their own that they would never tolerate from the lower classes. Except this one puts too many weights on the scales. If they let That Moron traipse away lightly after this, I’ll lose what shreds of respect I have left for them. At least he can’t foist the blame off onto us this time.”
“I expect we’ll be receiving word to finish our ‘minor skirmishes’ quickly as possible. You would be hard pressed to find enough people to fill a room who believe the Arronaths are as serious a threat as Nolier. They will want us hoofing it across Galemar to join the real fight soon.”
“That might change faster than you’d believe,” Marik muttered. “Celerity got in touch through that mirror of hers earlier. Tomorrow morning we’re returning to Drakesfield because their floating mountain is going to come around the Stoneseams and try to cross the border.”
* * * * *
Returning to Drakesfield’s ruins only required two days of easy marching. They had never possessed enough mounts for everyone to ride, leaving the Crimson Kings mostly afoot along with the free mercenaries. What horses the Kings had brought all went to the first four squads.
Those squads were the ones who usually drew the horses from the sunken corral beside the town. Their contracts tended to take them far and wide. Torrance, no doubt, had assigned the mounts to them for this campaign in sympathy for the fact that the specialist squads always claimed the highest casualty rate.
Marik’s mind spun the entire distance. He kept reviewing his plan for dealing with the airborne Citadel. In Thoenar, within the comfortable perception that wiser heads than his would discard his ludicrous ideas and that other people would run the efforts to repel the Arronaths, his conclusions had sounded solid enough.
After the journey south, stopping to battle every black soldier detachment along the way, his confidence was shaken.
Every night he asked himself the same question. Were his notions based on genuine logic, or had his ego swollen as it had before? A serious mistake this time would cost more than a melted sword and a reconstructed face.
Three days passed after attaining the broken town. Celerity contacted him with increasing frequency. Most of the enclave’s mages had gone east with Tybalt. She had called on her own military rank and clout with Raymond to stay behind at the palace with her two most capable scryers. They watched the Citadel to the best of their abilities whenever it traveled through an area they could scrye.
Their ability to scrye inside Galemar was no better than across the mountains. They were limited to whatever soil samples were in storage. Since catalysts for scrying had only been collected from the larger towns in any given area, Celerity could only guess at what the Arronaths were about once they moved beyond those limited points. Most of the base camps were nowhere that the mirrors could find.
Marik relied on his scouts. Second and Third Squads scattered, ranging half a day’s ride from Drakesfield. They brought back news the day before the Citadel would arrive. The Arronaths were coming north in numbers enough to be worrisome.
His miniature army outnumbered the approaching soldiers only by roughly thirty percent. Very few Taurs had been spotted. A small comfort.
Clearly the enemy knew that their mobile fortress would be arriving. Did they come in hopes of entering it? To reinforce it? To re-supply? To draw additional men? To retrieve fresh Taur herds?
The debate raged in the small command tent. As Marik saw it, there were only two viable scenarios. Either the Arronaths intended to fight their way through to reach their Citadel, which meant a major battle on the southern flanks, or else the Citadel would put forces to ground in order to attack the Galemarans in a pincer. Neither Gibbon nor Torrance could agree which was the most likely.
Marik agonized over the decision. Should he place the majority of his forces in position to combat the southern enemy formation? Should he split his men to deal with a battle on two fronts?
Torrance’s words echoed through his mind late in the afternoon. It was an outcome that could develop either way. Fifty-fifty. They could not predict which scenario had the highest odds, therefore it would be best to make a decision that might prove only half-effective rather than be paralyzed by the indecision. An incensed Gibbon nearly blew the tent’s canvas away with his shouts when Marik rolled a pair of dice across the map to decide which course to take.
The pips showed a three and a six. Odd roll up. Marik accepted Fate’s say on the matter and split his men to face attacks from the south and west.
Marik stopped by the Ninth Squad long enough to speak with Dietrik about the plans and leave his pack with his friend. He would only need his swords until after the battle.
Torrance and Gibbon shared a joint command. Gibbon would oversee the southern battle using the strike-and-run tactics Marik had lain out, tactics that hearkened back to his first battles as a mercenary against Baron Fielo’s rover patrols. Marik had altered the details so that each strike required extra time but also yielded better results. The attacks were far better focused than the rovers’ random bow fire.
Commanding the western front if the battle required it would be Torrance, who needed no careful instructions as far as Marik was concerned. The commander might be the most experienced combat leader in the kingdom. He could certainly oversee a battle with quick, effective decisions until Marik returned.
* * * * *
Marik gazed upon his mage corps. For the first time he could say with certainty that his patron god Ercsilon had bestowed a blessing upon him. Tollaf had been left in Kingshome, buried in research that Celerity had requested he oversee before the band originally left for their mid-winter contract the year before.
“We had better move if we want to beat nightfall,” he announced. “We’ll walk and talk at the same time.”
Caresse nodded happily and bounced along the path with Lynn. If she bobbed two inches higher, it would qualify as a skip.
Yoseph moved without apparent interest in anything outside his head. Behind him trod Jeremy, who chewed on the end of a long grass stalk, hands in his pockets.
Four mages from the band. It would have been laughable to take on the Citadel with only these, however capable they might be. King Raymond’s support had been the only lever that allowed Marik to pirate nearly every cityguard mage in Thoenar.
On that front, Tybalt had put up very little opposition. The investigative mages employed by the cityguard were considered a step shy of worthless by army standards. They were magic users with weak talents for the most part, men and women who earned a handful of supplemental coins to purchase bread by aiding the cityguard in tracking down criminals, or unraveling mysteries, or finding evidence that had been hidden.
The cityguard knew where to find them when the need arose for extra help in a situation. On the whole, they were considered marginally useful in the right circumstances, hardly worth the notice at any other time.
Marik had questioned that. As he had learned from experience, a clever magic user could employ his talent in such a way as to be effective beyond the level of power used. A slight push at the right instance could change the face of a mountain as a thousand prisoner work gangs wielding mattocks could never achieve.