‘Very good,’ said Flydd, turning away. ‘Overseer Tuniz?’
‘My manufactory has completed its commission on schedule and to Xervish Flydd’s satisfaction. I’ve brought ten more master farspeakers and another hundred of the slave variety. There were some problems with the earlier ones but they’ve been sorted out by Crafter Irisis Stirm, who will remain in the east to make sure we don’t have any more problems. We’ve also brought two hundred light blasters.’
Tuniz bared her filed teeth but Nish knew it to be a sign of good cheer. She had done all that had been asked of her and was going home to her little children as soon as the next thapter went to Crandor. Nish didn’t feel as cheery. He missed Irisis and had hoped she would be coming back soon, though considering the state of the war perhaps it was better that she wasn’t.
‘What are light blasters?’ asked Nisbeth.
‘A battlefield weapon. I have one here.’ Tuniz reached into a leather bag and held up a pod-shaped object, the length of her hand, made of opaque yellow glass. She threw it at the wall and it burst with a brilliant flash of light that hurt Nish’s eyes. ‘It’s enough to daze the enemy for a minute or two. Their eyes are more sensitive than ours; that’s why they avoid fighting in the middle of the day.’
‘Very clever,’ said Nisbeth, frowning at the blackened hole it had made through her intricate plasterwork, ‘though you might have warned us.’
‘The enemy will get no warning, Governor,’ said Tuniz. ‘These won’t win the war but they’ll give us a tiny advantage.’
‘I doubt it,’ grated Orgestre. ‘We need clankers and stout men with long swords, not artificer’s toys.’ His eyes seemed to be accusing Nish of reckless frivolity, though it had nothing to do with him.
Flydd cleared his throat and the others at the table gave their reports. Counting Troist’s forces, now making a forced march back from Strebbit, Borgistry would have an army of sixty thousand men and eight thousand clankers. They could rely on support from Tacnah, the land north-east beyond the lakes, though its eight thousand troops would take a fortnight to get here. Clan Elienor had promised one thousand, and they were already on their way, though they probably wouldn’t arrive in time either. Borgistry’s allies in Oolo had promised another fifteen thousand but they were a month’s march away. The lands further south and west might be able to provide ten thousand raw troops who would have to be trained and equipped, though they would not arrive until early summer.
‘We’ll be at war within days,’ said Flydd. ‘Therefore, we can rely on nothing but our sixty thousand.’
‘It’s a mighty army,’ said Nisbeth. ‘What are the enemy numbers?’
‘Estimates vary considerably. The lyrinx travel individually or in small groups, and mainly at night. Even in the daytime it’s difficult to count them.’
‘We know that,’ snapped Orgestre. ‘Give us your numbers.’
‘General Troist?’ said Flydd. ‘You’ve just rotored in from Strebbit. What’s your estimate.’
‘At the end of autumn I had their numbers at twenty-eight thousand between here and the Sea of Thurkad, counting those that had gone into hiding after Snizort. There could be more to our north. As to how many might have come across the sea, I cannot guess.’
‘So many,’ said Nisbeth, ‘after all their losses last year?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘General Orgestre?’
‘My spies tell me thirty-two thousand,’ said Orgestre, ‘plus a few thousand that we guess will fly from Meldorin. A mighty force, but we’re fighting for our homes and families and we have the numbers to defeat them. What about you, Flydd? Let’s pray that your estimate falls in the middle.’
‘It doesn’t,’ said Flydd. ‘According to Klarm, who’s counted them and was hoping to be here to present the details himself, the enemy numbers at least fifty-seven thousand.’
Nisbeth clutched at her heart, but after a minute the colour returned to her face. She took a sip of water, gripping the arms of her chair to stay upright.
‘Go on,’ Nisbeth quavered. ‘If you’ve more bad news we might as well hear it right away.’
‘That’s it,’ said Flydd. ‘Each lyrinx is the match of two of our soldiers, so we’re effectively outnumbered two to one. Surrounded as Borgistry is by forest, I don’t see how we can defend its borders.’
FORTY-EIGHT
Someone drew a deep, shuddering breath. Nish thought it had been Mira, though she was sitting back and he couldn’t see her. General Orgestre’s mouth opened and closed. For the first time in his life, it appeared, the hard-faced man was directly threatened, and he was terrified. He began buffing his golden medals, as if to find comfort there.
‘Then Borgistry will fall,’ said Nisbeth. ‘We must evacuate to our refuges.’
‘Where we’ll either starve in the drylands, freeze in the mountains or be eaten alive by midges in the stinking bogs of Mirrilladell,’ said Meylea Thrant, the merchant. ‘Had I known I was throwing my money away, I would have paid my military levies rather less cheerfully.’
‘You never handed over a copper grint without shedding a tear,’ General Orgestre said, now desperately polishing his chest ornaments.
‘I’d gladly pay it to an officer who’d earned his commission, rather than bought it,’ said Thrant.
Dead silence. Orgestre swelled up like a red-faced toad. His mouth opened but nothing came out.
‘That’s not helpful,’ said Nisbeth, who was deathly pale. Her husband was supporting her. ‘General Troist, may we hear your view?’
Troist, a neat man, apart from his mass of tangled, sandy curls, stood up. ‘As far as I know, no human army has ever beaten the enemy when the numbers were equal; nor should we expect to. Yet,’ he looked down one side of the table and up the other, ‘the situation is different now.’
‘Go on, General,’ said Nisbeth. ‘Do you have a plan to defend us?’
‘I’m beginning to formulate one. Flydd and Yggur have given us new hope. Farspeakers are going to revolutionise warfare, though we’re still working out how to make the best use of them. And with our thapters, essentially invulnerable to lyrinx attack, we can see the whole of a battlefield – indeed the whole of Borgistry – at once.’
‘They’ll attack in bad weather when you can’t see further than you can throw a spear,’ said Orgestre.
‘Then we’ll know when to expect them,’ said Troist.
‘But not where. Not how many,’ said Orgestre with relentless despair. ‘And both thapters and farspeakers are vulnerable to node-drainers. Only a fool would rely on such untested Arts at a time like this.’
‘We’re overusing the fields,’ said Mancer Crissinton Tybe, who had the narrowest, most angular face Nish had ever seen on a man, and a mouth that gashed it in two as if the back of his head were hinged. ‘It’s as simple as that. We’re abusing the natural forces, and so are the enemy, and there’s got to be a reckoning.’
‘I’m not sure I understand you, Mancer Tybe,’ said Flydd.
‘What he means,’ said Mancer Rodrig, a small, deliberate man, ‘is that one day the fields will let us down when we most need them.’ His skin was starkly white but there were such dark rings around his eyes that he appeared to be wearing goggles. ‘We must wean ourselves off the fields before it’s too late. We’ve seen it in the stars.’
‘The stars!’ said Flydd, unable to contain his derision. ‘Unfortunately, my dear mancers, this war is being fought on solid ground and to give up the fields is to give up existence. While the enemy uses power we have to match it.’
‘Even to the ruin of the world,’ Crissinton Tybe intoned.
‘If the numbers are correct, we’ve lost the battle and the war,’ said Orgestre. His red face was now blotched with ugly purple stains like birthmarks.