The soldiers began to actively hate the rain, to view it as the enemy, never mind ogres. The rain beating on the soldiers’ helms sounded like someone constantly drumming on a tin pot, or so one grumbled. Captain Samuval and his archers worried that the feathers with which the arrows were fletched were so wet and bedraggled that the arrows would not fly accurately.
Mina required the men to be up and marching with the dawn, always supposing there was a dawn, which there hadn’t been for the last few days. They marched until the twilight grew so gloomy that the officers feared the wagon masters would drive off the road in the darkness. The wood was too wet for even the most experienced fire-builder to have any success. Their food tasted of mud. They slept in the mud, with mud for a pillow and rain for a blanket. The next morning they were up and marching again. Marching to glory with Mina. So all firmly believed. So all knew.
According to the mystics, the soldiers would have no chance to penetrate the magical shield. They would be caught between the anvil of the shield to their front and the hammer of the ogres to their back. They would perish ignominiously. The soldiers scoffed at the mystics. Mina could raise the shield, Mina could batter it down with a touch of her hand. They believed in her, and so they followed her. Not a man deserted during that long and arduous march.
They did complain—complained bitterly—about the mud and the rain and the poor food and the lack of sleep. Their grumblings grew louder. Mina could not help but hear them. “What I want to know is this,” one man said loudly, his voice sounding above the squelching of boots in the mud. “If the God we follow wants us to win, then why doesn’t the Nameless One send us sunshine and a dry road?”
Galdar marched in his accustomed place at Mina’s side. He glanced up at her. She had heard the grumblings before now and had ignored them. But this was the first man who had dared question her god.
Mina reined in her horse, wheeled the animal. She galloped back along the column, searching for the man who had spoken.
None of his comrades pointed him out, but Mina found him. She fixed the man with her amber eyes.
“Sub commander Paregin, is it not?” she said.
“Yes, Mina,” he replied, defiant.
“You took an arrow in the chest. You were dying. I restored you to life,” Mina said. She was angry. The men had never seen her angry. Galdar shivered, recalled suddenly the appalling storm of lightning and thunder that had given her birth.
Paregin’s face went red with shame. He mumbled a reply, lowered his gaze before her.
“Listen to me, Subcommander,” Mina said and her voice was cold and sharp. “If we marched in dry weather under the blazing sun, it would not be rain drops that pierce your armor but ogre lances. The gray gloom is a curtain that hides us from the sight of our enemy. The rain washes away all trace of our passing. Do not question the God’s wisdom, Pare gin, especially since it seems you have little of your own.”
Paregin’s face was pale. “Forgive me, Mina,” he said through pallid lips. “I meant no disrespect. I honor the God. I honor you.”
He looked at her in adoration. “Would that I had a chance to prove it!”
Mina’s expression softened. Her amber eyes glowed, the only color in the gray gloom. “You will have that chance, Paregin,” she said gently, “I promise it to you.”
Wheeling her horse, she galloped back to the head of the column, mud flying from the horse’s hooves.
The men lowered their heads against the rain and prepared to march on.
“Mina!” a voice cried from the rear. A figure was slipping and sliding, hastening toward the front of the line.
Mina halted her steed, turned to see what was amiss. “One of the rearguard,” Galdar reported.
“Mina!” The man arrived panting and out of breath. “Blue dragons!” he gasped. “From the north.” He looked back, frowned. “I swear, Mina! I saw them. . . .”
“There!” Galdar said, pointing.
Blue dragons, five of them, emerged from the clouds, their scales glistening with the rain. The ragged column of men slowed and shuffled to a stop, all staring in alarm.
The dragons were immense creatures, beautiful, awful. The rain gleamed on scales that were blue as the ice of a frozen lake beneath a clear winter sky. They rode the storm winds without fear, their immense wings barely moving to keep the dragons aloft. They had no fear of the jagged lightning, for their breath was lightning, could blast a stone tower to rubble or kill a man as he stood on the ground far below.
Mina said nothing, gave no orders. She calmed her horse, who shied at the sight of the dragons, and gazed up at them in silence.
The blue dragons flew nearer, and now Galdar could see riders clad in black armor. One by one, in formation, each of the blue dragons swooped low over the ragged column of marching men.
The dragonriders and their mounts took a good long look, then the blue dragons flapped their wings and lifted back up among the gray clouds.
The dragons were lost to sight, but their presence could still be felt, oppressing the heart, sapping courage.
“What’s going on?” Captain Samuval slogged through the mud. At the sight of the dragons, his archers had drawn their bows, fitted their arrows. “What was that all about?”
“Targonne’s spies,” Galdar growled. “By now he must know that you countermanded his order and sent General Dogah on order of your own, Mina. That’s treason. He’ll have you drawn and quartered, your head on a spike.”
“Then why didn’t he attack us?” Captain Samuval demanded, with a grim glance skyward. “His dragons could have incinerated us where we stood.”
“Yes, but what would that gain him?” Mina answered. “He does not profit by killing us. He does profit if we succeed. He is a shortsighted, avaricious, grasping, covetous man. A man like Targonne has never been loyal to anyone in his life, cannot believe anyone else can be loyal. A man who believes in nothing except the clink of steel coins mounting one on top of the other cannot understand another’s faith. Judging all people by himself, he cannot understand what is happening here, and consequently he does not know how to deal with it. I will give him what he wants. Our victory will earn him the wealth of the Silvanesti nation and Malystryx’s favor.”
“Are you so certain we will win, Mina?” Galdar asked. “It’s not that I’m doubting,” he added hastily. “But five hundred against the entire Silvanesti nation? And we have yet to march through ogre lands.”
“Of course, we will win, Galdar,” Mina replied. “The One God has decreed it.”
Child of battle, child of war, child of death, she rode forward, and the men followed after her through the steadily falling rain.
Mina’s army marched southward, following the Thon-Thalas River. The rain finally stopped. The sun returned, its heat welcome to the soldiers, though they had to pay for warmth and dry clothes by redoubling their patrols. They were deep in ogre lands now.
The ogres were now threatened from the south by the cursed elves and the Legion of Steel and from the north by their former allies. Finding they could not dislodge the Knights of Neraka from the north, the ogres had lately pulled their armies from that front and sent them south, concentrating their attacks against the Legion of Steel, believing that they were the weaker foe and would thus more readily fall.
Mina sent out scouting parties daily. Long-range scouts returned to report that a large army of ogres was gathering around the fortress of the Legion of Steel near the border of Silvanesti.
The Legion of Steel and an army of elves, believed to be under the leadership of the dark elf Alhana Starbreeze, were inside the fort preparing to stave off the ogre attack. The battle had not yet begun. The ogres were waiting for something—more manpower, perhaps, or favorable omens.