by Simon Brown
'What are you going to do about Magmed and the knights?'
'They can stay here for the moment, unless Areava orders them back to Kendra. To some extent, I suppose it depends on what Lynan does next.'
'You think he will invade Chandra?'
'No doubt about it. Without Chandra, he cannot reach Kendra. It's a matter of when he invades, not if.'
'Do you think we can stop him?'
'Not by ourselves. Look what he and his Chetts did to Salokan and Charion.' He glanced at Barys and smiled. 'But don't worry; I'd be surprised if they crossed our border before winter.' He absently patted his left pocket. 'Plenty of time,' he said more quietly.
CHAPTER 18
Lynan woke, wide-eyed, his mouth open in a silent scream, his muscles rigid with fear. For a moment he did not know where he was, and then he heard the even and gentle breathing of Korigan, asleep by his side.
Daavis. Night. Autumn.
Safe.
His muscles unlocked and he slumped back into the mattress. He closed his eyes in the vain hope he might find some more sleep, but after a few minutes knew it was useless and got out of bed. He dressed quickly and quietly, making sure not to disturb Korigan, and left the bedchamber. Two Red Hands saluted as he walked out and another two fell in behind him. He was not sure where he was going, but he felt the need to do something physically hard, something that would tire him out enough so that when he fell asleep there would be no nightmare to greet him.
He stopped in the courtyard. In the dim light of an early morning under a grey sky, the palace—the whole city—seemed suffocatingly close. He headed for the stables, chose a mare and saddled it. His escorting Red Hands did likewise. When all three were done they rode out of the palace then out of the city, heading north at a until Lynan felt the horse struggling underneath him. He slowed to a walk and then dismounted.Leading their horses, Lynan and his bodyguard made their way back to Daavis. In the city people were on their way to work. Stalls were opening, carts carrying fresh produce from farms were rattling their way to markets, agile children carrying wooden platters laden with breads and cakes from bakeries weaved their way through the streets to shops and homes. The night cart was finishing its last run and leaving the city, making everyone who passed it wince with the smell. Cleaners were doing their morning course, picking up dead rodents and birds and any other animal that had died during the night and ended up on the street or in the gutters.
For the most part, the streets were so busy at this hour that no one had any time to pay attention to the short youth leading his horse towards the palace. His two companions elicited the occasional remark. Once or twice a passer-by saw Lynan's face and gasped in sudden realisation of who he was, then paled in sudden fear, but before they could do anything he was past them and lost in the crowd, leaving them to sigh in relief he had not noticed them.
When they reached the palace a Chett rushed forward to take his horse, but he waved her away and returned to the stables himself and, despite the protestations of the local hand, insisted on brushing down and feeding his own mare. When he was done he felt hot and sweaty and relaxed. On the way back to his chambers he saw Farben in the courtyard, busily and bossily giving instructions to several workers and at the same time directing clerks and secretaries. Farben stopped when he saw Lynan watching and approached him.
'Prince Lynan, was there something you wished to see me about?'
One of Farben's secretaries, a young, red-headed man, seemed surprised his master would presume to talk to Lynan at all.
'No. I am glad to see you about your duties.'
'As we discussed, I must keep the city in order for the return of its rightful ruler.' He said this without any hint of sarcasm.
Lynan smiled thinly, understanding Farben's need to remind everyone publicly and at every opportunity why he was working as administrator of an enemy-occupied city.
Korigan was awake and eating breakfast by the time Lynan arrived. She was still in bed with a big bowl of fruit nestled in her lap.
'Where did you go?'
'For a ride,' he said, sitting down next to her and picking up a piece of fruit.
'You should have taken me with you.'
'You were asleep. City life is softening you.'
Korigan snorted in disgust. 'We Chetts don't spurn luxury. Out on the Oceans of Grass we have no choice about when we sleep and what we sleep on. But when we have a chance to enjoy a soft bed and late mornings we indulge ourselves.'
'So you don't miss the plains?'
Korigan looked serious. 'Of course I do,' she said, her voice distant, as if she was suddenly standing on the Oceans of Grass. 'How much longer do we stay in Daavis?'
'Until reinforcements arrive from Haxus. We need to garrison this city, then stock supplies for our campaign into Chandra. Daavis will be our base until we capture Sparro.'
'Reinforcements may not arrive until late autumn. Haxus is recovering from a defeat, remember. That means no campaign until next spring, and by then Areava will have organised a new army.'
'Who says we have to wait for spring?'
'Will you fight in winter?'
'Winter in the east can be hard, but it is nothing compared to what the Chetts endure at the High Sooq. We can start our attack on Chandra when we're ready, even if it is in the middle of winter. Our Chetts will be fully rested by then.'
'You are not going to ask for more warriors from the clans?'
Lynan shook his head. 'No. We started with twenty thousand riders, and still have close to eighteen thousand. It is enough to take Chandra as long as Grenda Lear does not interfere with an army. Once I have Sparro we can build an army to rival anything Areava can create, using troops from Chandra and Hume and Haxus.'
'We Chetts aren't used to fighting with other forces. It will be hard to make us all work together.'
'Nonetheless, with you and Ager and Gudon helping, we can do it.' He looked downcast suddenly. He handled the fruit without eating it.
'It would have been a lot easier with Kumul,' Korigan said for him.
'Yes. I think we will miss his presence the most in the coming months. When it was winter and everyone else wanted to stay indoors in front of a fire, drinking ale and telling stories, he would be exercising the guard or polishing swords or training recruits. He knew how to turn farm boys and fishermen and labourers into the Kingdom's best soldiers. I don't have that knack.'
'Ager might,' Korigan observed.
Lynan smiled thinking about the crookback. 'Yes, dear Ager. If anyone can do it now that Kumul is gone, it is he.'
'Out of bed!'
Ager felt himself being rolled before he hit the cold stone floor with a thump. 'Urgh,' he mumbled.
Morfast stood over him, needled his back with her foot. All she got was another grunt. She shook her head in disbelief. He was getting too used to the comforts of so-called civilisation. She went to the washstand and brought back a ewer, tipping its contents over his head.
'You didn't have to do that,' Ager said, still on the ground. 'I was already awake.'
'Yes, like a tree is awake.'
He turned suddenly, grasped her ankles and yanked her legs out from underneath her. She fell on top of him. He kissed her.
'We are wasting time in Daavis,' she said.
'There is much to be done here.'
'Yes, but not for the Ocean Clan. Lynan has his builders and carpenters and stonemasons to rebuild the city. We should be riding.'
He kissed her again.
'Don't tell me you don't feel it,' she persisted.
He sighed and eased himself from underneath her. 'Perhaps,' he admitted, scrounging among the bed sheets for his breeches and jerkin. They were tangled in a clump at the bottom of the bed. Clothes always managed to do that. He wondered if there was a law involved.
'Hume itself has not been conquered yet,' she said.
He laughed dryly. 'The eastern provinces are not like the Oceans of Grass. If you take a capital city you take
the heart out of a province. In the west there is no capital city.'
'There are no cities at all,' she pointed out.
'In the east the political and economic strength lies in cities and towns, and they are connected by trade and tradition to the capital. There is no Hume left to pacify because Hume became pacified the moment Daavis fell to us. And when we march on Chandra we will aim straight for Sparro. And when we take Kendra, the whole Kingdom will fall into our hands like a ripe fruit.'
Morfast shook her head. 'How strange.' She thumped her chest. 'That is why the Chetts will never be conquered!'
Ager smiled grimly at her. 'Wrong, Everyone can be conquered. You just have to know a people's weak points and go for them.'
'We have no weak points,' she said.
'Of course you have. Your sooqs and waterholes. Your cattle. Your lack of organisation. Your eagerness to bicker and argue among yourselves. All of these can be exploited. As they were by mercenaries and the king of Haxus during the Slaver War. Korigan's father had to go to war against his own people to unite them.'
He went to the washstand, looked around for the water before remembering Morfast had disposed of it. 'How am I supposed to clean myself now?'
'You are cleaned,' she said, and put her fingers through his soaked hair.
'But you are right. We must do something. I will talk to Lynan about it. Maybe he will release the Ocean Clan to scout into Chandra.'
Morfast's eyes lit up. 'To battle?'
Ager shrugged, making his crookback rise in the air like a mountain. 'Maybe. But mainly to find where they are setting outposts so we may take or avoid them when our army finally moves.'
'That could take weeks,' she said excitedly.
Ager laughed. 'Yes. It might take weeks.'
'We would be together. Alone.'
'Alone with a thousand Ocean Clan warriors.'
It was her turn to shrug. 'They are like family.'
Ager groaned. 'Nobody needs that big a family.'
'You are our father, Ager, our chief.'
He nodded and smiled. 'Yes, and proud of it.'
Morfast moistened her lips. 'And we can always add to it.'
Ager's smile turned into a grin. 'That takes practice.'
Morfast took his hand. 'The more the better.'
'I've just dressed,' he protested, but weakly.
Galen thought it was a dry, scratchy, uncomfortable place with more than its fair share of spiders, scorpions and centipedes. That's how he knew Charion would like it.
'Perfect,' she said.
'It would be,' he said under his breath, then louder: 'The hills are higher than I thought they would be.'
'Good defensive terrain,' she mused, 'and they run up close to the river.' She stood on the highest point, a boulder about the size of a house, and looked west and northwest. 'A good view.'
'Can you see Daavis?'
'Not exactly. There is a smudge on the horizon which might be smoke from all the city's kitchens.'
'Or it could just be a cloud.'
'It probably is. But I do see the north road. It is far enough away to look like nothing but a little yellow string.'
'Well, a hideaway with a view of a dusty road. Wonderful.'
'Don't be sarcastic. It doesn't suit you. What this place gives me is a perfect lookout over Lynan's main route of reinforcement from Haxus.'
Galen silently cursed himself; he should have realised the road's importance as soon as Charion mentioned it. He scrabbled to the top of the boulder and stood by her side. 'How's your side?'
She slowly moved her right arm up and down. The arc of the swing she could take increased every day, and the bruising on her chest was now nothing more than a shrinking pinkish-yellow stain. 'I'll be able to use a sword soon,' she said.
'I wondered when you'd get around to that. Use a sword against whom?'
'Lynan, of course.'
'I mean whom specifically?'
She pointed in the direction of the road. 'Against them.'
Galen squinted, barely able to make out a dark ripple on the northern road. 'Troops?'
'Or supplies. Maybe even a small caravan. Whatever it is, destroying it will hurt Lynan.' She continued to gaze northwestwards. 'Look there…'
Again Galen squinted, 'I can't even see the road that way—'
'Exactly, If I'm not mistaken—and,' she said, turning to Galen, 'I rarely am—that is the Elstra Gorge. It runs north-south for about a league.'
This time Galen was keeping up with her. 'A perfect site for an ambush.'
'Exactly. Especially for a force of infantry.'
'You're going to raise infantry?' This was the first he had heard about it.
'God's death, Galen,' she said, shaking her head. 'You nobles of the Twenty Houses really do think the world was made solely for your benefit.'
'What did I do to deserve that slap in the face?' he asked testily.
'Where do you get your horses from?'
'Me personally?'
'You and every other knight.'
'Well, from our stables or farms outside of the city.'
'And on these farms you grow what crops?'
'Not many. They're mainly horse ranges…' His voice dropped away.
'Exactly. You need to be rich to raise horses, especially warhorses, since they need specialised training, feeding and breeding. Look around you. This is farming and wood country. Not poor by any standard, but not particularly rich. The land here is drier and has more clay than you get around Kendra or the green valleys you find everywhere in Chandra. The average farmer might own one horse, two at most, but they're likely to be old hacks with saggy backs and a tendency to bite. That's why I'm going to raise infantry. Besides, if we're going to use this hill as our hideaway, where would you suggest we put the horses?'
'I've never fought on foot,' he said doubtfully.
'Yes you have,' she said, and patted his hand. 'Defending my city, and by all accounts you fought well.'
'How would you know?' he asked, but she could see he was flattered.
'Farben told me. I think he liked you.' Her face grew solemn. 'I hope he is alright.'
Galen looked at the hill from Charion's point of view again and saw that she was right. It gave them an easily defended position, good views over the north road, access to the river, and lots of hidey holes.
'Very well, you've convinced me,' he told her. 'What next?'
'We recruit.'
'As soon as you do, word will spread about what you are doing. The Chetts will learn of it eventually and come looking.'
'Let them. It's about time we gave them a bloody nose again.'
'Do you seriously think we can win?'
Charion half smiled and shook her head. 'By ourselves? Of course not. I'm counting on your queen—sorry, our queen—coming to my rescue eventually. But everything I can do to help her cause I will do. We may only sting Lynan, but it might be enough. It might make all the difference in the world.'
Lynan called his war council together. It was the first time he, Korigan, Gudon, Ager and Jenrosa had gathered in the same room since the fall of Daavis. They met in a room Farben told them had been used by Charion for the same purpose, and sat around a square table. All except Jenrosa seemed relaxed and confident; she wore the tired, sullen expression she had adopted since Eynon's departure, and Lynan did not know what to do to change it. He resolved to talk to Ager about it after the meeting.
'We have a few things to discuss. First, our reinforcements from Haxus have started to arrive.'
'I've seen them,' Ager said disdainfully. 'Dribs and drabs. Just recruits.'
'We should expect little else after what Haxus has been through. But they can be trained up.' He looked meaningfully at Ager, and the crookback sighed his understanding.
'We must also decide on a replacement for Kumul.'
Jenrosa looked up sharply. 'What do you mean by that?' she demanded.
'I mean we need someone to take over command of
the banner of lancers,' Lynan said, keeping his voice level. He glanced at Gudon. 'I was thinking of your brother, Makon, but I had need of him elsewhere.
'Third, we must discuss the timing of our attack on Chandra.'
'I've been giving that some thought myself,' Ager said.
Lynan smiled. 'I thought you might have. It wouldn't by any chance involve a long raiding party into Chandran territory?'
Ager looked abashed. 'Possibly,' he said rather too meekly.
'Involving the Ocean Clan?'
Ager shifted uncomfortably in his seat. 'Possibly.'
'First things first,' Korigan said. 'The reinforcements.'
'Three hundred have arrived so far, in four groups,' Lynan told them. 'All spear.'
'How many have you asked Salokan to send?'
'Just over three thousand, almost all of whom will be allotted to defend Daavis; a handful will be sappers, replacing those we lost assaulting this city.'
'They are worth their weight in gold,' Ager said. 'Do you trust the Haxans to defend Daavis for you?'
'Only as much as I need to. If things go according to plan, we will have Sparro before next summer and Daavis will become less important in the scheme of things.'
'Salokan won't make a grab for it?' Gudon asked.
Lynan remembered the last conversation he had with Salokan. 'No. He will never betray us.'
'That won't stop some Haxan defender with imagination trying to seize Daavis in his name.'
'We will leave Chett officers to supervise any defence,' Lynan said, 'and with them a good contingent of Chett warriors.'
'Three hundred reinforcements so far,' Korigan said, shaking her head. 'I hope the flow increases somewhat.'
'Salokan sent those from among his own house troop as soon as he received my request. The remainder have since been conscripted and are being sent on their way south over the next few days. We should have them all halfway through autumn. Furthermore, they bring with them supplies—weapons, horses, some bullion.'
'Bullion?' Korigan looked surprised. 'We Chetts do not need coin for our services!'