After a while the priest rose and left her with a bow to attend to his obligations. He was not half a minute gone when the flap door sounded again, and someone entered her tent. The lack of a visitor bell’s announcement and the slight shuffle of wet fabric told her what she already knew.
“Did you forget something, Myoden?” she said, not moving away from the stove’s warmth.
“I beg your pardon, but that is not who I am,” a voice said, and Dulcea jumped up from her chair.
Krath had not missed a single evening visit since his appearance in her tent four nights ago, but this was the first time he approached her during the day. Dulcea was not sure how she felt about that.
“Good day, my lady.” The vampire nodded his head at her. “Might I engage a moment of your time?”
“Good Sun’s Day to you, my lord.” She pointed at the vacant chair by her side.
They sat down and were silent for a long moment, waiting for the other to speak. Dulcea pinched her clothing between her thumb and forefinger and pulled it free where the rain had plastered it to her skin. She had spared her disheveled appearance no thought in Myoden’s company, but now the indecency of it weighed on her mind. She half-contemplated shrouding her tousled clothes and unruly hair under an illusion, but she was neither vain, nor desperate enough to do that. To her relief, Krath kept his gaze fixed on her face.
“You’ve been out.” She tilted her head to consider him. “Terrible weather, isn’t it?”
“Obviously.” He shrugged. “There is a charming old-fashioned little village—Eldemare, they call it, up in northern Lavea. Lofty scenery but very few people.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Dulcea narrowed her eyes.
“Why, indeed?” Krath grinned. “I would expect a smart lady like you to guess why.”
“I’d rather not,” she said with a disgusted countenance. No doubt he had killed someone.
“Then we do not talk about it.” He stood up. “No need to make this difficult.”
Dulcea followed him from the corner of her eye. Krath examined the items on her shelves with an air of self-righteous, arrogant care; something she had learned to be very typical of him.
An idea struck her. “Wait. Can I ask you something, my lord?”
“Always, Lady Dulcea, although I should like to reserve the right not to answer, should I find your inquiry too obscene.” He smirked, enjoying the sudden blush on her cheeks. “Well, what is it?”
“Can you tell me how to get to Serpent Rocks?”
The vampire sat back down. “… Is that knowledge worth something to you?”
“We identified eight places for Serpent Rocks but have made no further progress on the issue. Earlier today, Lord Itozard, one of the dwarf lords over at East Ford, concluded his research into his clan’s histories. They did not mention Serpent Rocks.”
“I would think it odd if they did. It is a Sarusean-given name, not a remnant of this continent’s past.”
“Well, that explains it.” Dulcea rolled her eyes. “So far, we’ve espied no activity on the surface. Any of the eight could be Serpent Rocks at this point. My general, Lord Haden, tells me underground tunnels crisscross all over northern Usvameer. I suspect the Saruseans know this, too.”
“Yes, I see your dilemma. By my estimate, the strength of that underground base lies somewhere around twenty thousand men. Perhaps more—it is difficult to tell with such an extensive network of caverns. The problem here is that place was no makeshift shelter. The Saruseans know how to defend it. They must have traps set up against intruders, but the earth also protects its own. A man might go underground and never come out again, even with no outside influence. It is easy to lose one’s way.”
“Yes…” Dulcea nodded. “It is much easier to defend the underground than it is to breach it. My former general, the late Lady Pendralyssa taught me this. Her kind, the Mist Elves, inhabit the underground of the Nameless Mountains. Strength alone is not enough. Unless we can identify where our quarry lies, we will need to take eight times the manpower we believe we need. Otherwise, we could face a situation where we’ve men underground, and the Saruseans flank us using escape routes through the other seven sites.”
He thrummed his fingers on his thigh. “Isn’t the answer in what you just said? Block all the exits.”
Dulcea shook her head. “We do not have the manpower for that.”
“By what calculations?”
“Unless we know the exact location, each of the eight teams needs enough men to hold an army of twenty thousand. By our intelligence, the Saruseans in Lavea number around three hundred and thirty thousand men. It is an even match to our own strength in Usvameer, plus we’ve about four and twenty thousand men elsewhere in Caeryn. The River Sithra is difficult to cross, hence this current stalemate. However, if we were to draw a sudden third of our strength south, it would leave us defenseless against an attack from the north. That is why it is imperative we determine which of the sites is Serpent Rocks.”
“How would that help the situation? You would still need a lot of men at every site.”
“That is true, but not as many. Experience has shown this to be so. If the Saruseans are fleeing for their lives, rather than coming out in organized droves, a smaller number can hold a larger. By knowing which site to attack, it would allow us to strategize to ensure the least losses.”
Krath considered this, his pale turquoise eyes fixed on hers. The half-smile sitting on his lips told her she might not like what he had in mind.
He grinned. “I see the information has value to you. I suppose I could part with it… for a price.”
“You would put a price tag on that?” Dulcea tried to appear shocked.
“Why not? I thought you liked games, Lady Dulcea.”
“What is that supposed to mean? Do you expect me to play for that knowledge?”
“Not this time, no, but I should regardless like to engage a moment of your time.”
Dulcea scoffed. “More than you already steal it?”
He laughed. “It is not stealing if you part with it for free. But no, I mean something a little more substantial. I would like to invite you as my guest to Gwyndoorn for one evening, to wine and dine you.”
She swallowed. “Your request is… within the realm of possibility, I suppose. However, it is not an engagement I can make at this moment.”
“I am not looking to have you over now.” Krath chuckled. “I would take my lady’s word for it and request the pleasure of her company some other evening that she has no hurry to be anywhere else. Also, I suppose you need to think of a reason to explain your absence for a few hours.”
A smile tugged at her lips. “I think that will be the most difficult part of it.”
“Does it meet your approval then?” His tone was neutral, but she could tell he was pleased.
“I suppose it must.” Dulcea shrugged. “The knowledge is too valuable to me to not weigh an evening of my time. I will think of a way to explain my absence. Might you visit me again later tonight? I will bring you the map with the sites marked. You can then show me which one of them is Serpent Rocks.”
“All right then.” He frowned. “Does that mean you would… now desire me gone?”
“Well, I am not going anywhere right now.” She looked down at her hands. “Take it as you will.”
“How shocking, my lady. Are you inviting me to stay?” His smile grew wide. “It would please me to get to enjoy your company for a few moments more.”
She glanced at him. “Was there something specific you might want to discuss?”
“Not in particular, no. Why don’t you surprise me?”
She pondered the request for a moment before voicing the first thing to enter her mind.
“How old are you?” she asked, turning sideways in her chair for a comfortable view of him.
Krath raised his brows. “I believe we discussed this already.”
“Yes. I remember your current age,” she said. “I m
eant… when you died. How old were you?”
“Seven and twenty. It was a few months after my birthday, late in the fall of that year.”
He said nothing more on the subject, and she was not sure how to approach it again.
“Have you got any suitors, my lady?” Krath asked after a while.
Dulcea blinked, her mind going blank. For whatever reason, she blushed. She ran a hand through her hair, twirling a long rivulet of silver hair around her fingers.
“No, my lord.” She kept her gaze downcast. “I’ve had requests, but I’ve turned them all down.”
She swallowed, her hands trembling for some inexplicable reason.
“Why… why would that interest you?”
Krath shrugged. “I would prefer that no one get the wrong idea, should a suitor come knocking on your door. The less I have to explain my presence to anyone, the better.”
Neither said anything more. The moment stretched, soon turning uncomfortable for her. She hated the silence, detesting it only because he did not. The rain whipped the tight-strung fabric above their heads with unyielding wrath. Dulcea sighed, trying to think of something to say.
The visitor bell went off in a hurry, releasing her from an uneasy spell, and General Nemnyan rushed inside. The smith stumbled into a hasty bow, his head bent low in both embarrassment and reverence.
Krath stood up, stepped into the shadows, and vanished as if he had never been there.
“My lady! The Saruseans…” Nemnyan pressed his hands to his knees, taking big gulps of air.
“Calm down, Nian. What’s the news?”
The elven armorer panted. “We know where the Saruseans are hiding!”
Chapter 19
A New Understanding
The army that marched off from West Ford three days later numbered fifty-two thousand men.
A group of huntsmen dragging home small game had aroused the Caerynian spies’ suspicion near a Serpent Rocks suspect site twenty-one miles southeast of West Ford. The hunters had been hauling various wildlife carcasses both on their backs and in makeshift sledges: partridges, pheasants, squirrels, rabbits, and even a single deer. Their catch was plentiful and diverse, observing no single type of game. It was clear they had killed whatever they could to feed as many mouths as possible.
By itself, this was nothing to cause suspicion: the Caerynian army’s huntsmen also hunted whatever they could. However, the hunters had been going in the wrong direction to have been theirs, and they spoke neither Caerynian nor Usvameerian from what their spies could tell.
Dulcea did not want to make any mistakes. The lead was promising, but there was no guarantee of it being correct. She discussed the situation with Krath when the vampire came to visit her the evening after they had learned of the hunters’ suspicious activity. He confirmed the spies’ story and revealed to her that of the eight sites, four shared no underground connection. Dulcea considered this with interest, but she could not think of any plausible reason for her to know this without revealing her sources.
On the eve of their fortnight of acquaintance, on the night before the following morning’s march, the vampire handed her a hand-drawn map of the underground. It detailed the layout of Serpent Rocks and its connecting tunnels, along with brief explanatory notes. The map was new, the ink less than a day old, and Dulcea felt touched by the gesture, even though she knew it was not altruistic of him.
It was the first time she had seen something written in his hand. The letters he drew were precise and elegant, and Dulcea imagined the hours Krath must have sat before a governess practicing them as a boy. She frowned, staring at the map as it lay on the table before her. Something uneasy niggled at the edge of her consciousness. She raised her gaze to meet his.
“Do you ever get the feeling you’re… looking at something momentous but don’t know how to explain it?”
Krath straightened in his chair. “Excuse me?” He raised an eyebrow at her.
Dulcea tapped her forefinger at the words written on the map in his elegant hand. “I feel like I’ve seen this before.”
“The words, you mean? Could it be presentiment?”
Dulcea shook her head. “No, I don’t believe in such.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I mean, not in it manifesting in me. I know there are people capable of it, but I am not one of them.”
She was at a loss what to say. Elusive as the sentiment was, she had to let it go.
Dulcea copied the essential parts of the map and presented it as her own in the following morning’s meeting, professing to a partial recovery of her memories. This pleased the generals, the priest Myoden in particular who as a healer had worried about her prolonged memory loss. Dulcea tried to ignore it, fighting off the shame seeping into her veins.
She concentrated on the essential. Dulcea hoped the map had enough detail to be helpful and yet was vague enough to be believable.
They marched for a little over a day, arriving at their destinations at an hour apart from one another. Dulcea went to Serpent Rocks with the main group which comprised five thousand Mist Elves, twelve thousand Usvameerian fighters, and seven thousand Silver Elves. The other groups were four thousand men each.
Only soldiers from West Ford took part in the attack as the fighters at East Ford were too far off to be of any physical help. This left their western camp at a disadvantage of forty thousand men against what they suspected the corresponding Sarusean numbers to be. The plan was risky, but they trusted the rushing wild water and the dragons to keep them safe for the half a fortnight at most they expected to take.
For the duration of it the camp was once more in the capable hands of Lord Gerridov.
The wilds between West Ford and East Ford was where the River Sithra ran both the widest and the deepest, with littlest chance of crossing it. This natural resistance had allowed them to divide their forces in two when first liberating the north of Usvameer, and it now added to their protection. In the last two months, they had built small outposts along the river, each situated around fourteen miles apart, with a few dozen soldiers per each outpost. They patrolled the lands east and west of their station, acting as additional scouts for the army. Any trickery or distractions the Saruseans attempted in half the Caerynian leaders’ absence from the army camps along the river, they would notice.
Dulcea’s group launched their attack on Serpent Rocks at two hours before midday.
The first three days of the battle played like a siege. The Saruseans did their best to bar any outside entry into the underground, and the Caerynians attempted to void all their enemy’s tactics. Lord Itozard and his brother had at last recognized Serpent Rocks for an old abandoned mining site, mentioned in the chronicles of their forefathers as Velenn Nadha Mard. In Caerynian Common it translated into Dead Man’s Hand.
Haden had sent her a useful map, extracted from the dwarven vaults and featuring skylight shaft, air vent, and loophole locations. In the attached note, he had asked her not to make the same mistake as he had and ask Lord Itozard how the ancient mine had gotten its name. Haden said the tale terrified even him—a sturdy, fearless man in his early forties.
---
They had won, but the victory had not come easy. She recalled the experience to Krath two days later, at two hours before midnight on the evening of their victorious return from Serpent Rocks. She had not seen the vampire since the ninth of Strawberry Moon, six days before. It was difficult to say if she had looked forward to this eventual meeting, but neither had she abhorred it.
Krath rested his chin in his hand. “Do I have you in a debt of gratitude now?”
“As you knew you would.” Dulcea shrugged. “Although I did not foresee it being so difficult. Even the protective charm stones I prepared on beforehand turned out to be almost of no use. The Saruseans used all the defenses available to them, in particular the traps left behind by the mine’s former inhabitants.”
“Rock-fall traps, hot water vents, loopholes for spikes and darts… the sort?”
>
“Yes. Is it really that dangerous to keep a mine to justify all that?”
“I reckon owning anything can be dangerous if its proprietorship is in question,” Krath said. “Mine ownerships were much contested in the olden days, before the dwarven clans had settled their hierarchy. The time of clan wars is a regrettable, violent period in dwarven history. They made their mines fortresses, with means to shut off whole levels against flooding, rival clans, thieves…”
“Oh. That would explain the heavy stone disk doors requiring Earth Mages to shatter them…”
“Using millstones for entrance blocking is an old tactic—and a successful one at that,” he said. “It is a crude but an effective way of immobilizing the attackers. Those things can weigh over seven hundred pounds. Imagine attempting to move one aside while your enemy keeps pelting you from loopholes!”
Dulcea sighed. “The danger was more than we estimated. Even with my illusion magic to distract the enemy, we incurred a lot of injuries and deaths. Without the information about air vents and skylight shafts, the battle might not have ended in our favor.”
“You blocked the air vents or burned something poisonous near them, I assume?”
“We did, yes. We also poured scalding hot water into the tunnels.” She wrinkled her nose. “That kind of sabotage sits ill with me, but I am not naïve. None of this was new to the Mist Elves; it was how their mountain realm fell. This was just using the Saruseans’ own tactics against them.”
“You need not admire or even condone your army’s actions; you only need the courage to give the order where necessary. War is not pretty. The things that mean something often require compromises…” Krath tapped a finger to his chin. “Do you know how to compromise, Lady Dulcea?”
The look he gave her stunned her with how much challenge it contained, and she wondered if he had changed the tone of their conversation on the fly.
“Do you, Lord Krath?” She fixed him with her most defiant stare.
“I am not sure I ever had to,” he said, against her expectations. “In life, I was a knight to my king’s realm. He was my uncle, King Vingmar. I did as instructed; I did not rebel. In death, I was akin to a king myself. I had both the ignorant mortals and the progeny I sired to show me deference. My authority was unquestionable. His will in life. My will in death. Now I need to bow to no one.”
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