“Yet,” Tiernan said, and stood, “if we allow our army to become pinned down, will it not mean our defeat? Will we not be pushed back, lose ground and lose heart?”
“Losing ground is an acceptable trade-off in this situation,” Cyrus said as he watched Briyce Unger nod his head. “We have hundreds of miles of open ground to lose before we butt up against a forest and have nowhere else to fall back. Losing heart would be foolish so long as we keep them from breaking through. If they flank us, we’re in trouble. If we can keep them in front of us rather than behind and continue to hammer them, we stand a chance. This battle is as much about standing toe to toe with them and bleeding them through attrition as it is about land and position. Let them have the whole plains,” Cyrus said with a wave of his hand to indicate the land around them. “So long as we can bleed them dry in the process and lose few enough of our own, we win.”
Tiernan conceded with a slight nod of his head. “Very well. This has been explained to me more than once, but the way you say it seems to make more sense than the others.” He nodded in deference to Briyce Unger. “I hope you’ll forgive me for saying so.” Unger waved him off, and Tiernan went on. “Can you guarantee that your healers will be able to hold our lines together against the death and serious injury that these beasts bring with them?”
“I guarantee nothing in a battle save for bloodshed and death,” Cyrus said, looking at Tiernan, a smaller man than he, as most were. He saw a hint of Cattrine in the King of Actaluere’s cheekbones. “You will lose men, no doubt, even if my healers were to perform miraculous feats. The army is too large and my healers too few to effectively protect the entirety. They will do their best, especially since your army will be holding the left flank, and I have no desire to see you take casualties that will weaken my defenses in that area.”
“Fair enough,” Tiernan said, and his voice was graver than Cyrus had heard it at Enrant Monge. “Then I suppose we have our plan, we have our roles, and all that is left to do is to wait for my army, and then move north into the jaws of the enemy.”
“Aye,” Briyce Unger said, “and let us hope that this time, we bring a morsel too large for them to digest, a bone that they might finally choke upon.” With that, the King of Syloreas stood, and as though his nervous energy was in need of a release of its own, walked briskly out of the tent without another word.
Cyrus watched him go, and saw the members of the Actaluere delegation begin to file out as well, save for a few-Milos Tiernan and two of his closest advisors, men Cyrus had seen at Enrant Monge. Tiernan caught Cyrus’s eye, and the meaning was clear-Wait a moment.
Cyrus did as he was bade by the King’s gaze, and after only another moment, Tiernan’s advisors nodded in turn and left the tent, the flap closing behind them. The air was still now, and Cyrus stared at Tiernan, his piercing green eyes staring into Cyrus’s own. The King held a brass cup that had been resting at his side during the convocation and he drank from it now, his eyes never leaving Cyrus. “So, you’re the general of Sanctuary,” Tiernan said when the cup had just barely left his lips. “You’ve caused quite the stir since you came to our land.”
“None of it was intended to harm your realm, I hope you understand.” Cyrus did not bend as he spoke, kept the deference he might otherwise have offered well out of his words. He said it harsh and firm, keeping it from being any sort of offering or concession.
“I do understand,” Milos Tiernan said, though he kept his distance. “You trespassed, and I would have been content to let you do so, because there was little margin in me keeping you from crushing Syloreas so long as you didn’t turn against me afterward.” The King of Actaluere let out a bitter laugh. “Hell, even if you had, I would have been better off than opposing you while you were in the middle of my territory; having you come at us from the border with Galbadien would have been less sensitive than letting you sack Green Hill. That was a black eye for us.”
“Yet you don’t seem that upset by it.” Cyrus watched Tiernan’s reaction; there was a subtle tightening of the man’s jaw as it slid to the side and his lips drew tight together, wrinkling as they pursed in an almost-smile.
“I don’t have to live in Green Hill,” Tiernan said, and took a small sip from his cup again. “Nor was I the one who gave the order to muster forces against you. That was your friend Hoygraf. Obviously, I don’t care to see any part of my realm destroyed, but as I said-I would have let you pass, if for no other reason than it benefitted us greatly to not stop you.”
“How does it benefit you to have us save Galbadien?” Cyrus asked, watching Tiernan carefully.
“How would it have benefitted Actaluere to go from two enemies to one?” Tiernan shrugged. “Luukessia has a delicate balance of power, one that none of the Arkarians I’ve met seem to fully appreciate, coming from so fragmented a land. If there comes a war to Luukessia-and there always does-it rarely involves all three parties. Alliances last a year, perhaps two, enough to firmly shellack one of the powers and to allow the other two to remember their disdain for each other, and then they dissolve.” He touched his chest with a single finger. “I like the balance. I like knowing who my enemies are, always. I prefer to know that I can’t trust anyone on my borders and that my best bet is to always keep a wary eye on both of them.” His expression turned sober. “And I always liked to think that if an outside threat came from over the bridge, our three Kingdoms would band together and toss them back without a second thought.”
“Second thoughts seem to be abounding in this situation,” Cyrus said, catching Tiernan’s eye after the King had seemed to go pensive. “Your whole land was almost in an uproar; you barely made it to this conflict yourself, and whatever is coming down from those mountains is looking to me a whole lot worse than most of the things that might have come across the Endless Bridge.”
“Perhaps,” Tiernan said with a ghostly smile. “But part of that was your doing-your interference. No one but an outsider would have caused the fragmentation that you did when you took my sister away from Hoygraf. No Luukessian, at least.”
“I didn’t know she was your sister when I did it,” Cyrus said.
Tiernan gave a small chuckle. “If you had, would that have swayed you?”
“Doubtful.”
“Then it matters little enough, doesn’t it?” Tiernan started toward a pitcher of water that rested on a table near the side of the tent. “Your attack on the Baron-I’m sorry, it’s Grand Duke now, isn’t it? — on his castle and your subsequent actions forced me to guide my land toward a war I never asked for. That would be the only reason we wouldn’t have rendered aid to Syloreas given what’s happening, at least after my scout saw with his own eyes what we faced.”
“You seem to like the idea of fragmentation in the land of Luukessia as a whole,” Cyrus said. “But I note you don’t seem quite so fond of it when it happens in your own Kingdom.”
“No man enjoys having his own house thrown into chaos,” Tiernan said, his back to Cyrus while he hefted the water pitcher and poured it into his cup. “Make no mistake, Hoygraf has enough power to throw my house into a good deal of chaos.”
“You’re very frank about that,” Cyrus said. “I would have expected you’d do more to hide it, given your reputation for maneuvering and canniness. There doesn’t seem to be much advantage to be gained from telling me you’ve elevated a man to Grand Duke who is poised to tear your Kingdom apart should he so desire.”
Tiernan didn’t stiffen, not exactly, though his expression was masked from Cyrus, with his back turned as it was. The King took another sip of water without turning, and the warrior wondered if perhaps it was because Tiernan was taking the time to compose his reply. “There is little advantage in lying about the troubled state of my Kingdom to an outsider.” Tiernan pivoted and gave Cyrus a twisted smile. “Let us not be coy; you were my sister’s lover not so very long ago. I might not speak as freely with a complete stranger, but if she did not tell you at least a majority of the things I’ve ‘admitted’ to you in the last moments, I’ll eat my own horse for dinner.”