Prince of Wrath (20 page)

Land was the biggest concern. While money was never ignored, it was often passed over for material wealth or status. It was what a House could do with the land that drove interest. Even flat plainlands were desirable, as that meant equines could be pastured and there was a lot of money in equines. The Pelgion family, for example, had made their wealth there, for their estates sat on relatively flat plainlands in Frasia.

Jorqel nodded to himself. Alenna was too young to understand the wider picture. “Tomorrow we leave for Kastan City, and your new home. I shall ensure you are looked after, as long as you do not cause any trouble. Your name will no longer protect you, and in many ways, may give you plenty of problems. It may be desirable for you to marry swiftly and change your family name.”

“Do-do you have anyone in mind, Lord?”

The Prince shook his head. “Kastan City has many people in high positions, and one may present himself in due course. You’re young, well educated. No doubt some young noble will find you charming and comely, and desire to marry you.” Jorqel still thought her lips too big but some men loved that. She was short and dark but not unattractive. She was something of a snob and if she got comfortable and felt safe once more, undoubtedly that would resurface. He cared little for that – his concern for her only extended to the fact he’d given his word she would not be harmed and looked after. Once he delivered her to the palace that was it, as far as he was concerned. Someone else could look after her. He had bigger aquatic swimmers to fry.

Onwards! Onwards! was the cry racing through the men as they trotted down the mud road towards the sharp peaks of the Bakran Mountains. Speed was of the essence, and the Emperor himself was goading them on, pushing them to their limits. Ahead the Hushirs roamed, galloping out wide and far, wild and exultant, pleased to be in open land, even if it wasn’t as flat as they would like.

The heavy cavalry of Astiras and his guard plodded along happily enough, keeping to the pace of the company of Bakran archers Astiras had brought from Zofela. It was at these men’s pace they were restricted to, and so he’d taken the step of enhancing their stamina and endurance, something that had been done a few times in the past, but not generally known, or even accepted, officially.

Bragal was rich in many different kinds of flora, and many of these plants had medicinal properties. One of them, called Fecaz by the Bragalese and Stamina Plant by the Kastanians, could be broken down and made into a stimulating drink that gave people greater strength and stamina, if only for a short while. The downside was that once it was done, those who had taken it felt terrible and exhausted and would be unwell for a day or so.

Astiras wanted to be through the mountains within three days. Once in Turslenka he intended staying two days while his men recovered and he got the spearmen he wanted supplied and integrated into his army. The new Army of the East would be ready for battle in five days from now, a very stiff task, but he was confident it could be done.

He wanted to recruit a second company of archers from the mountain men, and having a unit here already would help. He wanted the men already under his command to spread the news of the food, clothes, quarters and general care they got. Astiras was always mindful of the treatment of his men. Treat them well and they would fight for you. Ignore them and they would desert given the first opportunity. It had been a common fault of some of the more stuck-up generals in the civil wars. A general who didn’t look after his men often found he went from having an overwhelming superiority in numbers to being the opposite in a matter of a couple of days or so.

Another reason he’d only brought mercenaries with him rather than the militiamen was that the Bakran Mountain men were hardy and much tougher than their Kastanian counterparts. It was said they could eat a handful of gravel and live off that for a day. Nonsense, of course, but it showed how tough they were regarded by their contemporaries. Astiras knew he’d get a better physical reaction from these men than the militia spearmen he’d left behind in Zofela. He also didn’t want to leave just them there, so they had been augmented by a mixture of regular archers and mercenary irregulars. He was confident he’d left enough there to keep things going nicely without any problems.

Ahead, the stark white stone jagged peaks of the mountains dominated the sky. Bragal was a curious province; the south was flat plains that led to the Ister River, while the central area was a mass of mountains and valleys. The north was reasonably flat but the borders were marked by three different ranges of high ground. From the Balq Sea in the west, the lowest hills, the Frasian Highlands, rose. These were relatively small, and after a small gap the Bakran Mountains rose, sheer, bare, frightening looking. They were narrow and long, and tailed down to the east where they fell into rolling hills for about fifty leagues, then came the Pindar Mountains, a long chain of peaks that dominated eastern Kastania.

The land that led to the Bakran range was of rolling plains, covered here and there by woods or forests, and farmsteads could occasionally be seen. It was a sparsely populated area. Only one road ran through the mountains, the one they were on, because there was only one pass. This was a cleft in the mountains, as if some giant had swung his mighty axe and cleaved a chunk out of them and left it at that. Because of this the pass was strategically important, but up to now nobody had bothered to erect a fort or defences there, because in the past the region had been deep in imperial territory and there had been no need to build anything there.

In more recent times there had been half-hearted efforts but these had all been defeated by the wild mountain men, descendants, so it was said, of a tribe who had invaded the Empire many centuries past and had settled in the high ground, away from anyone else.

Astiras knew this route well enough. In his time as governor he’d been on plenty of reconnaissance rides, checking out the borders of his domain, and the road ran true straight across the broken land that sat in the shadows of the peaks, crossing the few rivers that ran from them this side, and then climbed up to the Storma Pass and over. It wasn’t a high climb, and it dropped down soon enough on the other side into the Storma Valley, a long river valley many leagues wide that ran down straight to Turslenka. It was one reason why Turslenka was where it was. The valley provided food and water in abundance.

The air was cool but not uncomfortable, and the running men were sweating hard, panting as their bodies, pumped full of the enhancements, obeyed their minds to keep going. The tough, wiry Bakranians took it all in their stride, so to speak, and they only needed to stop twice a day. In fact, it was approaching the mid-day break. Astiras pointed at the sun, off to the north, shining above the peaks that were coming ever closer. “Time, Teduskis, break out the Stamina Rations.”

Teduskis nodded and rode to the front and turned round, his hand upraised. “We stop here for lunch. Fall out!”

The archers gratefully threw themselves off left and right, lying where they fell, mouths open, panting, sweat covering their faces in a sheen of liquid. The sound of their breath rasping in and out was all that could be heard for the next few moments. Astiras reined in and dismounted, handing the reins to one of his men. He stretched and cracked a few muscles, wincing at the noise although there was no pain. He wandered along the middle of the road, looking ahead. The Hushirs were wheeling about, riding back but in a huge arc. Those tough bastards ate in the saddle, and only got off to perform bodily functions and sleep at night.

The captain of the archers, a barrel-chested man by the name of Tunsec, sat up, trying to get his breathing under control. His dark hair was plastered to his forehead and the pain in his eyes was plain to see. Astiras slipped off his riding gauntlets and looked down at him. “Coping alright with the journey, Captain?”

Tunsec nodded, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Speaking to the Emperor of Kastania would not do if one’s mouth was wet with drool. He got up painfully and stood in an almost upright position, still breathing hard. Astiras waited patiently. “Lord…. we of the mountains….. can run hard like this….. all day.”

Astiras grinned. “So I see. Why did you think I only brought Bakranians with me? My Kastanian militamen would all be lying back there dead by now.”

The Bakranians nodded in agreement, smiling or grunting. They had to show just how tough they were to these Kastanians, honour demanded it. The tougher their deeds, the greater their reputation, and the greater need, therefore, to perform even greater deeds of hardship to maintain that reputation. It was a self-feeding thing. No matter most wanted to throw up, they would not. To do so was a sign of weakness, and it simply would not do to admit that, especially to Kastanians. The shame amongst one’s own would be too great to bear, either.

The Emperor looked over the shattered company. “You will rest for half a watch, then we will resume. We will stop for the night amongst the mountains. I assume there will be company waiting for us once we arrive.”

Tunsec nodded, his breathing much more under control now. “My people will be curious, but our presence will reassure them. Will there be any trading, sire?”

Astiras smiled. “I may be interested in a transaction or two, Captain. I trust you and your men will tell your people what it means to be part of the Kastanian army?”

“You can rely on that, sire.”

Astiras nodded and walked up to Teduskis who was peering at the peaks of the mountains. “Thoughts?”

The retainer turned briefly at the arrival of his master, then nodded towards the bleak stone jagged wall. “Its quite a frightening spectacle, isn’t it, sire? That hard, bare stone wall rising sheer up like that. I’ve never seen mountains like that anywhere else.”

“Neither have I. That pass over there,” he pointed to the route they were to take, “is another unusual feature. Passes are normally much higher, but this one is almost without a climb. Perfect place to site a fort.”

“The locals wouldn’t allow it,” Teduskis said. “I’m told it’s a weather divider, these peaks.”

“Oh yes. This side the weather is definitely colder and more wintry in the cold seasons. Once we pass through to the Storma you’ll notice the difference. The Storma is green most of the year round and hardly ever gets any snow. Don’t ask me why, it’s not my field of expertise. Some scribe somewhere in a dusty, cobwebbed dungeon would be able to tell you why, no doubt.”

Teduskis grinned, then looked at the archers who were just beginning to open their rations. “Will they be able to keep up the pace this afternoon? They look spent.”

Astiras slapped his gauntlets against his thigh. “They should. One more dose of that drink each and they’ll run their balls off. Nothing more after that, though. I want them to be able to fight once we get to grips with the Duras army, damn their eyes. All I want is to be in the Storma tomorrow, and at this rate we can do it.”

They set off shortly afterwards, the archers once more revitalised with the properties of the Stamina Plant. Their eyes were wide and fixed, their faces drained of blood. It looked like they were all corpses, running after they had all died, but it was merely one of the consequences of the plant they had taken. The body pooled all the necessary resources to the right places, and they just ran and ran, with no thoughts entering their minds. Emotions were dulled and even suppressed. Almost like fast moving zombies, they pounded on in the wake of the cavalry.

The land gradually rose, but not sharply or suddenly. The land became rocky and more outcrops could be seen to either side of the road, and a few more watercourses were crossed. All of these had stony banks rather than mud or dirt, and tall evergreen trees grew in thick stands off the road a way back. The bridges they used to cross the streams and small rivers were built out of them. The land eventually began to fold in mounds of rock and mud and trees grew up them from the roadside. Avians lazily circled overhead, curious about the movement on the road below, and a few large forest creatures ran off from them, startled, as they rounded a curve and came upon them in glens or clearings.

The road ran determinedly towards the distant cleft in the sheer rock wall ahead, and detail was beginning to be made out as they neared. It wasn’t as uniform as it had appeared further away. Now they could see fissures and ridges and ravines. The trees went up perhaps a fifth of the way before the rock jutted out from the ground like the spined backbone of some great beast from legend. Clouds gathered around the higher mountain peaks and rain was a possibility. The resinous smell of the evergreens could be detected, and the army tramped along the muddy road that twisted and turned along the left bank of a river. It had clearly been dug out some years ago, as the land was undulating and uneven all round except here where it was totally flat for the width of the road which was wide enough for four men abreast. Off to one side of the road the occasional sheer rock-face could be seen with the cut marks of the engineers who had hacked their way through the countryside, making the road. They could be twenty years old, or a thousand.

Vapour spiralled lazily up from the trees in plumes, making it look spectral. Those who had been through forests before had seen this sort of thing already, but it was easy to see how legends of spirits of the forests could begin. Astiras took the lead, indicating to the Hushirs to watch the rear, and the skirmishers obediently allowed all to pass. They were uncertain about this place; it did not have wide open spaces to roam about, and there were dark forests on either side of the road, with strange spectres rising up from them. They did not wish to lead. Best to let ‘Landwaster’ lead, for he would frighten the ghosts of the woods and allow all of them to pass unharmed.

Astiras did not want the Hushirs to precede him as they would not understand how to inter-react with the Bakranians. Best they were at the back and out of any initial discussions.

The sun had gone down, past the peaks to the west, and darkness was falling. It came rapidly to the mountains. The river was now foaming below them, tumbling over boulders and rocks, a white rushing maelstrom full of meltwater and rainwater. The forests on either side flowed away into the darkness, giving their own air of menace to the place. The men’s pace slowed and off to the right, along the river bank on the far side, a small village came into view. There was a narrow footbridge spanning the gorge but with no handrails. Anyone trying to cross and who slipped, would almost certainly fall to their death. If the rocks didn’t break their fall, then they’d be rushed off to a watery grave.

Astiras reined in and waved his men to remain still. The road ran off to the left, away from the river, heading directly for the cleft, while the river turned at this point to run parallel to the looming mountains, now half-seen in the descending dark. “Everyone remain still,” Astiras said and looked about. The village was silent, as if it were deserted, but this was merely an illusion. He knew full well dozens of eyes would be watching them, and just as many arrows aiming at them from places of concealment. A veteran of the nasty war in Bragal, he knew what to expect.