“The ones gathered here are just the first to join you,” Thaddeus said. “We can move north from here at any time, gathering our army as we go. We’ll pull together a host like the world has never seen, so grand an army, of so many nations, that Hanish Mein will have to face us.” The former chancellor paused, seeming to realize he was getting ahead of himself. “Prince, does this plan please you?”
“We cannot simply amass numbers,” Aliver heard himself say. “We have to train them as well. Without discipline and coordination our host will be but a flock for the Mein and the Numrek to slaughter.”
Thaddeus glanced at Sangae. He sent him some message with a slight motion of his eyebrows, as if marking a point earned, and then returned his gaze to Aliver. He was glad to hear the prince thought on such scale and looked for details within it. He explained that he had been doing the same thing for some time. He had been in contact with several former Acacian generals over the years. They had all nurtured support among intimate groups. They had sworn themselves to secrecy and waited for his call to arms. One of them, Leeka Alain, formerly of the Northern Guard, had found Aliver’s younger brother.
Aliver interrupted. “He found Dariel?”
Thaddeus nodded. “I received correspondence to that effect while you were gone. They should be on the way to us soon. And they’re not the only ones. There are people in every corner of the empire who remain loyal to the Akarans.”
His brother was alive! The news that one of his siblings had actually been found and won over to this effort filled Aliver with relief, followed fast by a flare of worry. Little Dariel! How could he survive amid the coming turmoil? He almost said that Dariel should stay in hiding, but he caught himself. He was picturing the small boy Dariel had been. That child was no more. The years would have changed him as much as they had changed Aliver. Even more, for he was so young when the exile began. He wanted to grasp the old chancellor and ask him question after question. Where was his brother? What sort of life had he lived? What had he become?
He would pose all the queries later, he decided. Before that he had to ask something else. “You say people in every corner of the empire remain loyal to my family. Are you sure of this? We did so little for them.”
“Because they remember your family’s nobility,” Sangae answered. He said this solemnly, his wrinkled chin jutting forward. No doubt he believed it completely, somehow feeling some ownership of that nobility himself.
“They believe in you, Aliver,” Thaddeus said, “just as they loved your father. They likely love your father in death more so than they did when he lived.”
Neither answer surprised Aliver, but neither seemed satisfactory either. He turned to Kelis. “How do you see it?”
The Talayan cleared his throat and answered with complete honesty, as Aliver knew he would. “Because the entire world suffered from Hanish’s war. Life is worse for them now, under the Mein’s new tyranny. But you…you’re a symbol of a lesser evil. That’s about all people can believe in and hope for. So it feels right to them.”
“That’s not good enough,” Aliver said. The answer came crisply. Hearing the words he felt a confidence in them that surprised him. It wasn’t good enough to be a lesser evil. If he was going to do this at all, he had to aim higher. “I don’t want them to fight just to return to the old position of bondage. If I win this war, Thaddeus, it must be with the promise of changing everything for the better. Tell people that if they fight with me, they fight for themselves so that they and their children will always be free. This is a promise I make them.”
Thaddeus gazed at him for a long moment, his face unreadable. So unreadable, in fact, that he must have worked hard to render it so. Eventually he asked, “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Aliver said.
“You speak an ideal that may prove hard to put into practice. The world is corrupt from top to bottom. Perhaps more than you know.”
The prince looked hard at Thaddeus. “I’m more sure about this than anything else. This war must be a fight for a better world. Anything less is failure.”
“I understand,” Thaddeus said. “I will make sure that message is known. Your father would be proud to hear you speak.”
Aliver stood and moved over to one of the windows. He lifted the shutter and, squinting against the sliver of brilliant light on his face, studied the scene outside. “All these people,” he said, “they came of their own accord? They’ve been told the truth. Nothing more?”
“Yes,” Sangae said. “We’ve heard from all the southern tribes, Prince. They know the mission you’re set on. Most want to aid you. That’s why they’ve sent emissaries here, to attest to their faith in you. They may spin tales of their own about your greatness, about how you found the Santoth. They may even pass stories of feats you accomplished in your childhood. The kind of prodigious feats, Aliver, that may surprise you to hear of. But Thaddeus and I, all we did was admit that you lived and that you were ready to retake the throne of Acacia. That was all they needed to hear to flock to you.”
“You say most want to aid me. Not all?”
Sangae shook his head regretfully. The Halaly, he explained, were the only powerful tribe not to respond enthusiastically. They had sent not a single soldier or pilgrim or representative bearing gifts and praise. They did send a messenger saying that they were aware of the claims being made in the Akaran name. They would, they said, hold council on them. With the Halalys’ haughty nature it seemed unlikely they would move without prompting of some sort. They were but one tribe out of many, but after the Talayans they were the second most numerous.
“We would do well to win them to our side,” Kelis said. “They are good fighters. Not as good as they think, but still…”
“Fine, then,” Aliver said, once again surprised at how quickly the decision came to him. “I’ll call on them.”
The kingdom of Halaly lay rimmed on three sides by hills. It centered around one great basin out of which a river flowed. The shallow lake there so teemed with aquatic and avian life that Halaly people never went hungry, even during periods of consistent drought. It was this bounty that made them the powerful nation that they were. They depended on the tiny silver fish that thrived in the lake-a protein source that was fried or put in soups, dried or pickled or crushed into a paste and fermented in earthen jars buried in the ground. As their totem, however, they picked an animal more in keeping with what they believed their nature to be. It was a less than original choice.
“Does every man in this land believe he was fathered by a lion?” Aliver asked, as he and Kelis approached the mud walls of Halaly. The stronghold stood three times a man’s height, lined across the top with twisting barbs of sharpened iron. It was formidable in appearance, but the wall served mostly to impress visitors, to seal the inhabitants safely away from the creatures that hunted in the night, and it stood as a backdrop upon which lion hides were pinned.
“Not all,” Kelis said, studying the skins. “On occasion a leopard did the deed.”
They had left Umae secretly, just the two of them. Aliver wanted to catch Oubadal by surprise, to honor him with a visit, and to hear whatever he had to say privately. He had been warned the Halaly chieftain would expect some sort of reward in return for his support. Just what he might want Aliver was not sure.
Since little surprised the chieftain of the Halaly, he was waiting for Aliver under a large shelter, a cone-shaped structure supported by a weave of gnarled shrub wood trunks, opened at the sides and thatched up above. Oubadal sat at the center, flanked by a few attendants. A group of aged men sat at the edge of the enclosure, just inside the line cut by the shadow. They followed Aliver’s approach with yellowed eyes and a belligerence at odds with their twisted, aged bodies, as if each of them were capable of leaping to his feet and throttling the newcomers should they pose any threat or cause any insult to their monarch.