Tracato: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Three (56 page)

“That’s amazing.” For a while, they both said nothing, but listened to the sound of forty-plus thousand men at camp. Already the air was thick with smoke, from small fires and cooking. “A warrior is not supposed to doubt before a battle,” said Andreyis. “But I can’t help it.”

“Every man feels fear, lad. That’s why they drink, sing and laugh, to drown out the fear.”

“No, it’s not fear. Or at least, it’s not
just
fear. It’s doubt.” He looked at Teriyan, and saw the big man’s face troubled. This was one of the only men in all Lenayin he’d have dared express such things to. “We should not be fighting serrin. Nor Enorans. I’m certain of it. And I’ll bet Sasha’s certain too.”

“Aye lad.” Teriyan sighed. “She is. But she’s Lenay, and she’s here because her people need her. If we could turn around and walk out now, all our men would have to fight that much harder to cover our absence.”

“I know that,” Andreyis retorted crossly. What Teriyan suggested was dishonourable. Like any Lenay, Andreyis was certain he would rather die. “I’m just saying. We fight for honour. But the cause is dishonourable.”

“The cause is out of our hands. That’s for the king to decide.”

“And since when did any Lenay man listen to
him
?”

Teriyan looked at him for a long moment, then shook his head in faint exasperation, but not at Andreyis’s question. At the circumstance.

“I wish Sasha had visited,” Andreyis said quietly. “I know why she can’t, but I wish she had. Tell me some more of her adventures.”

“I’ve already told you all she told me,” Teriyan objected.

“Think of something.”

Sasha had bad dreams. She dreamed of being dragged from Errollyn’s arms, and the bed set on fire, burning sheets scorching her flesh. Of Errollyn screaming, a blade dripping blood, and rattling chains that tore at her wrists. She saw Rhillian, emerald eyes burning with grief and fury, wrestling with a wolf that snarled and snapped at her throat. Kiel fired an arrow, but struck Rhillian instead of the wolf. The wolf retreated to Kiel’s side, and licked his hand. Kiel pulled the shaft from Rhillian’s side, and blood poured out.

The wolf ran away, and Sasha followed, as it ran down familiar palace halls, and through a wood panelled doorway. Sasha recognised a royal bedroom, with grand furnishings and gilt-edged paintings on the walls. From the huge, four-posted bed came squeals and grunts of sexual pleasure and pain. Sasha walked closer, and found that the wolf had become a man, yet still with a long snout and fangs. Beneath him was Sofy, naked legs about his hairy hide, grunting and crying out as he ravaged her, and his claws reaved her flesh.

Then she was running down a city street, struggling for space in the hot air between oppressive walls. Behind her ran a mob, waving clubs and farm tools, howling like crazed animals. She rounded a corner, and found herself trapped before a formation of Steel, shields interlocked. One lofted a spear, and atop it was impaled Alythia’s severed head, eyes wide and mouth gaping. Sasha spun, and the mob behind lofted more spears, each with another head. The one closest was Kessligh’s.

She awoke in an eruption of limbs and blanket, kicking the covering away as she surged to her knees. And knelt there gasping, her heart hammering, her old wounds throbbing like fire. She rubbed at the burns on her ribs, and felt no scab, only the smoothness of new skin. It should not hurt like this. But still it burned, like the fire from her dreams.

About, on the hillside, all was black save the occasional glow of a sentry’s fire. The moon was new, and Sasha thought of serrin eyesight, and if it might be possible that serrin were creeping through the Lenay camp even now. From nearby came the snoring of Isfayen noblemen. They had camped barely a hundred paces from the farmhouse that was the royal command post, with many other senior nobility. Should an order be given, these men wished to be the first to know. Sasha had been offered a bed in the farmhouse, but had refused, saying she preferred the outdoors. In truth, a bed would have been nice. Yet a bed of broken glass would have been preferable to sharing a roof with her father.

Her heart and breathing recovering, she got up. There were enough fires lit to make for a little light across the long valley slope. Sasha picked her way carefully between sleeping men, and stopped at a small clean patch. She strained her eyes to see across the valley. The lights of the Enoran camp were still there, yet she felt uneasy. She felt like…like…

She could not find the word to describe it. Yet it was like at Ymoth, during the great charge of horses, when it felt as though there were a formless dark shape moving at the edge of her vision, covering her flank. In fact, she thought she’d seen it, dodging a hidden tree stump, and warning her to do the same. She had seen it, hadn’t she? She’d not thought about it in a long time, being busy with other matters, most of them not concerned with old Lenay superstitions. And there’d been a wind, in the second charge of that second fight, when the Hadryn had attempted to regroup. A great gust of wind, that had torn across the flattened fields of crops, and thrown dust and debris into the eyes of the Hadryn soldiers, distracting them from their defence.

It had happened, hadn’t it? Or was her memory playing tricks on her, in the aftermath of vivid, horrible dreams from which she had not yet fully woken? A man dreams he is a butterfly, went the serrin tale. When he awakes, he wonders, was I then a man, dreaming I was a butterfly? Or am I now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man?

Sasha squeezed her eyes shut, and put her hands over her face. Her wrists throbbed from recently healed scabs. Memories and pain. She wished that not all memories were painful. She knew she had some pleasant ones tucked away somewhere, but she did not know where to find them now.

She opened her eyes once more, and stared out into the dark. In Petrodor, Rhillian had told her tales of King Leyvaan’s army in Saalshen, and how the serrin would stalk them by night, beneath a new moon such as this one, and how no soldier could sleep for the terror of the screams of sentries dying. She heard no screaming now. And she recalled how she’d sat with Rhillian, sipping tea and talking, close as unexpected friends could be, who had known each other only a short time but found some common language of the soul. How had they come to hate each other? Somehow, she found it difficult to recall. Perhaps it was because they were so similar. Like her and Alythia, so similar, so aggressive and self-obsessed, merely the modes of expression differed. She’d hated Alythia, then come to love her. With Rhillian, it was the reverse. Perhaps.

She thought she heard a creaking. A distant squeal, as though of a cart, or some wooden axle. Then nothing. Perhaps something was trying to tell her something. Perhaps through dreams. They called her the Synnich again, in some parts of this army. At Ymoth, she’d felt like this, and seen a dark shadow running through the grain fields. She set off walking toward the farmhouse.

She found Damon sitting on the verandah, and a pair of Royal Guardsmen at watch by the door. Many others stood about, and some slept, watching in shifts. Lanterns were placed further from the farmhouse, not near, as Sasha had instructed—best to make any attacking serrin come out of the light rather than into it, and take away that advantage of a darkened approach. And Errollyn had always said that he found it hard to adjust his eyes from one strength of light to another.

She took a seat at Damon’s side, and put her head against his shoulder. Damon said nothing, yet did not seem surprised. He rested his cheek against the top of her head.

“Damon?”

“Hmm?”

“I think they might be moving the artillery.”

“What makes you think that?”

“It’s a new moon,” said Sasha. “They’ve seen we’re too smart to attack immediately. They know they’ll have to attack at some point, if they’re going to get past us and outflank the Larosans to the north. The longer they wait, the more moon there’ll be. Serrin don’t see too well in a new moon, but we don’t see at all, so it’s a much bigger advantage for them than any other kind of moon. Why should they wait, and give us time to scout their forces?”

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.