“My oath was to follow the king into battle,” he said. “I knew nothing about the Saalshen Bacosh. Still don't…except that you fight well, and like serrin.”
“But you have now gone against your king,” Rochan pressed. “Help me to understand.”
“Kings are not born,” said Kemrys. “Kings are made.”
Sasha smiled. She knew the native wisdom of her people. Understanding dawned in the foreign general's eyes, and Sasha felt immensely, overwhelmingly proud.
“You felt he had not earned his kingship?” Rochan pressed.
“King for one day,” said Kemrys, with a sarcastic smile. “Koenyg swings a good blade, but ten men in my village swing a good blade. Ten men in my village cannot be king. Maybe here in the Bacosh, kings are born to rule. In my land, kings have to earn it.”
“You are in Enora now,” said Artillery Captain Mauvenon. “We have no kings-our leaders are chosen by their peers.”
“Aye,” said Kemrys, eyeing him thoughtfully. “A good custom, I think.”
“What proved to you that King Koenyg had not earned his crown?” Rochan asked.
“We heard stories,” said Kemrys. “Lots of talk on the way here from Lenayin. Said the Steel armies were unbeaten, said many things about your victories. Lenays admire victory. Others in eastern provinces said they liked the serrin…. Now we in Fyden haven't met many serrin. But the east insist the serrin fight well, too. So already, we're wondering why we're being asked to fight for an army that's done nothing but lose for two hundred years.
“Then we fight you. Some of us say you don't fight fair, with your fireballs and such. But you won. We never thought we wouldn't win. Not even once. We see the stories are true, and we start listening to all who know those stories.
“So when we come into Rhodaan, the talk all through the column is how the Larosan priests want all the serrin dead, how they're really after Saalshen…and we start really thinking about what we're doing here. I mean, we're Goeren-yai. Or I am, and now that the north and the nobility's gone, I reckon five in six of us are. We'll fight for Lenayin, but not for some crazy Verenthane crusade. And we see the smoke rising from the villages we pass.
“I went with some friends to take a look, just a short gallop from the column. We saw some stuff. Lenays, you know, we like a good fight. What I saw wasn't a good fight. What I saw is the kind of thing that gets a family…um…esseryl etych?”
He looked askance at Sasha.
“A matter of honour,” Sasha translated for the Enorans. “If a warrior commits a dishonourable deed, in some regions they consider the whole family's honour stained. It can last generations.”
“Like killing families,” murmured the general.
“Children,” Kemrys said solemnly. “I saw children.”
“Me too,” said Sasha.
The Enorans seemed moved.
“And you, Sashandra?” said Rochan. “You returned to your people. And now you have split them?”
“No,” said Sasha, shaking her head. “Their heart and soul are with me still, and I with them. That which opposes us now was always the cancer of Lenayin. Now is our chance to defeat it, and remake Lenayin anew.”
“Your brothers Myklas and Koenyg too?”
“Aye,” Sasha said quietly. “But these are also my brothers. All eighteen thousand of them.”
Rochan exchanged looks with his companions. He took a deep breath.
“Well,” he said. “Our armies watch us, and wonder what we say. They fear our parley shall not end well.”
“Few things have of late,” said Sasha, with a faint smile. “Shall we give them a happier tale?”
She dismounted. General Rochan also dismounted. And then, in clear view of both armies, they embraced.
Into the air rose a great cheer. It came first from the Enoran line, Sasha realised with faint astonishment. It had the sound of desperation to it, and wild relief. Of frightened men who had been on the verge of losing everything, who now once again found hope.
There came an answering cheer from the Lenays, and the two armies ran at each other across a field for the second time in a month. Yet this time when they met, all weapons were sheathed, and instead of blows, men of different lands separated by half the world exchanged embraces, handclasps, laughter, and tears.
It took Koenyg a while to compose himself. He took that time on his way into Shemorane, amidst the silent entourage of his remaining vanguard. The northern lords rode proud and defiant, many now holding their Verenthane stars aloft on poles or great banners brought along for the purpose. Until now, most had hidden those symbols, upon Koenyg's command. Goeren-yai in the Army of Lenayin fought for Lenayin, not for some great crusade of the Verenthanes, and Koenyg had not wished them offended to the point of anger. But now, all such concerns were gone, and some of the northern lords, instead of being angered at developments, looked actually quite pleased.
His first response was rage, yet now that he thought about it, Damon was probably right to judge his tempers with contempt. Temper would solve nothing here. In fact, what now resolved before him was opportunity, pure and simple. His father had warned him of this, numerous times. “The Goeren-yai will like this war at first,” he'd said, in one of those conversations they'd dared not share with Damon, and certainly not with Sasha. “They know nothing of the Saalshen Bacosh, save that their king has declared it a land to be conquered. But the eastern Goeren-yai will not like to fight the serrin directly, and in time, their discontent may spread. Lowland honour is not highland honour, and what Bacosh men may find glory in doing will not seem so glorious to many in Lenayin.”
King Torvaal Lenayin had been unsuited to the leadership of Lenayin. He had made a fine start, commanding victory over the Cherrovan invaders in the Great War, with the help of his general, Kessligh Cronenverdt. But that had been a matter of simplicity, Lenayin against the merciless invader. Clearly the gods were on Lenayin's side, and Torvaal had commanded with conviction.
Yet once the Cherrovan were defeated, few things in Lenayin were so clear. Torvaal had attempted to reach out to the Goeren-yai, and to Saalshen, with his Nasi-Keth Commander of Armies training Torvaal's eldest son Krystoff as heir to the Lenay throne. But the lords and the north had fought back, leading to Krystoff's death, Kessligh's resignation, and the departure of Sasha from the royal family. Verenthane power in Lenayin was too entrenched to accept the vision that Torvaal had proposed, and the gods had punished him for it.
Fearful of the gods' anger, Torvaal had spent the rest of his life attempting to appease them, and seeking forgiveness for the mistake that had cost him his heir. He should have known then, Koenyg had long thought, what the correct path was. And yet he had refused. Koenyg often thought that Torvaal's long period of retreat and prayer in temple was not purely about the death of his heir. Nor was it an attempt simply to regain the gods' affection for himself and Lenayin, as many suggested. His father had prayed to the gods to seek their forgiveness for the thing he should have done, and yet could not. The Verenthane faith was the great and growing power of humanity. A good king, a real king, would make clear to the population of Lenayin that such was to be Lenayin's destiny as well. A real king would lead. Yet Torvaal, devout Verenthane that he was, refused.
And now the gods had claimed him too.
Koenyg was determined that he would not repeat his father's mistake. It did not matter that much of the population of Lenayin would not willingly follow. In the new world that loomed, to be divided was to die, and he loved Lenayin too much to see it dismembered by the great new powers that would arise following the Saalshen Bacosh's defeat. King Soros had liberated Lenayin, and brought a degree of unity, but only a small degree. King Torvaal had defended Lenayin, yet in general maintained a status quo.
Now, King Koenyg would unite Lenayin, by whatever means he must. He had hoped that that unity could be achieved in the forge of war, with the willing participation of the Goeren-yai. But now the Goeren-yai refused, and sought to cling to their futile and dying ways. Well, he had known it might come to this one day, when he was king. It had happened earlier than he'd thought, and in a different location. But now, finally, the struggle to unify Lenayin, and make it strong for the challenges to come, had begun. And here in the lowlands, he had the united Army of the Bacosh to support him in his cause.