“If we lose that ridge,” said Errollyn, looking up as they rode, “we lose Jahnd. The city itself is in range from there.”
Sasha shook her head. “If they mostly come down here with cavalry, they'll not be scaling that ridge quickly. That's infantry work, and the infantry will be coming up from the Ipshaal on the other side. That's where I'll be, so this will be your fight-a cavalry fight. And once they come down here, you'll be boxed in with nowhere to run.”
“The only way into the valley is far ahead,” he said, pointing. “We're headed there anyway, I'll show you. I can lead them on a chase down the length of the valley-it's beautiful ambush country.” Sasha bit her lip. “What troubles you?”
“Errollyn, talmaad fighting is ‘run away’ fighting. I do not mean that as an insult; the talmaad are perhaps the most lethal warriors I've seen, man for man. But mounted archery requires distance from the enemy. You cannot close and fight nose-to-nose as regular cavalry can. And there is no room in this valley to always run away.”
“I know,” Errollyn said simply.
“And this is Saalshen's peril,” Sasha continued with real concern, “because Saalshen has never fought nose-to-nose. Saalshen fights from the shadows and at range. You can inflict terrible losses that way, but you cannot hold ground. The army that attacks you here will hold ground, clear it, and move forward slowly and repeat. You need forces that can hold ground, Errollyn, or Saalshen itself will be lost.”
“I know,” Errollyn repeated. He looked sad. “We have had this discussion too many times before, Sasha. Saalshen wins here, or is lost. As are all my people. We cannot fight this way. We have always refused to learn.”
“Why?” Sasha asked in despair. It was the great question, the one she had puzzled over for most of the last tumultuous year.
“Come,” said Errollyn. “I will show you.”
Tormae was a pretty village at the far end of the Dhemerhill, where the valley began to fade into rolling hills and patchwork forest. She and Errollyn dismounted where a diversion from the river made a small lake, fronted by several timber houses. Each had small paddocks, with a few cows and goats grazing beneath large shade trees. Sasha saw serrin men and women working in nearby vegetable gardens, and thought that the scene was not so different from human villages she had seen.
They left their horses tied to a rail by the lake and walked. She had told the entourage to leave them for a while, so they could have this time alone together. The road here seemed more trees and hedges than houses. Several small bridges crossed streams cutting the road as it wound back and forth between patched sunlight and dappled shade. Birds sang and darted from bushes to treetops, and here and there were serrin walking the road carrying bundles of crops, or odd woven baskets suspended from shoulder slings, filled with vegetables and fruit.
The locals greeted them cheerfully, several exchanging longer words with Errollyn in a dialect Sasha did not understand. Soon Sasha began wondering where the town centre was.
“This is the town centre,” Errollyn answered her. “It's all like this.”
Sasha frowned at him. “No industry? How is wood worked, or tools made, or leather tanned? There needs to be a grouping of people and skills in one location, surely?”
Errollyn shook his head. “You know serrin. We have many skills, we do not specialise. Thus we have no need to cluster.”
Sasha stared about her, pausing as they crossed another small bridge. “You mean, these houses here were…”
“Mostly constructed by the people who live in them, yes.” Errollyn leaned on the railing beside her. “Most serrin know woodwork. Many know stone. Most grow their own food, at least in part. Many make their own bread, and tools, and sometimes even clothes. We do not specialise. Insects specialise. We are not insects.”
Sasha barely noticed the implied insult. “But there are larger cities, yes? Uam? Shea?”
“Yes, but they're quite small compared to Tracato, and certainly compared to Petrodor. All are on the coast, and only grew large on human trade. That trade is how we have such a strong navy. But Jahnd is the largest city in all Saalshen, and it is not even serrin.”
“Oh dear lords,” Sasha murmured, feeling slightly dizzy. She did not know whether to laugh or cry. She spun on Errollyn. “You've been lying to me!” she accused him. “You've never explained Saalshen like this! You implied the cities and towns were larger!”
“You never asked too deeply,” Errollyn replied, with no more than a faint frown. “But yes, I was vague. Sasha, we don't talk about it much, with humans. Even a du'jannah like me can see why it is not a good idea. Can you?”
Sasha turned back to the view across the little stream, through thickets of small trees to several more pretty timber houses. “You don't forget,” she murmured. “Your memories are so much better than ours. You learn a skill and remember it. So you don't specialise.”
“No,” Errollyn agreed patiently.
“So you are more self-sufficient. You do not need to employ a builder to build a house, you build it yourselves, because you learn how and remember, quickly. You do not need specialist tradesmen. Serrin know all trades themselves.”
“Well, not all trades,” Errollyn admitted. “But many more than humans do.”
“So you don't need big settlements,” Sasha concluded. “You like small towns. Villages.” Suddenly it dawned on her, looking about, that for all the wildness of this place, the wildness seemed a little…predictable. “Oh wow, all this village is landscaped, isn't it? It only looks natural, it's actually all been sculpted. These trees, lakes, fields?”
“This stream,” Errollyn agreed, indicating the water that flowed beneath their feet. “The streams are all artificial, flowing from the river, and back into it. We manage watercourses like humans have not learned how. This village could have been here for a thousand years or longer. Serrin have little urge to grow things bigger as humans do. We have all we need here, so we are not compelled.”
“And so you have no industry,” Sasha sighed as it truly dawned on her. A lump grew in her throat. “No great steelworks to outfit an army. No great stone quarries or lumber yards to do works of engineering, to build defensive walls.”
Errollyn nodded. “And we have so little free labour. These people are happy and want for little, but they're busy. Serrin work hard-that is the way when we do everything ourselves and are self-sufficient. Armies require a surplus of men to go off and fight, and a surplus of food and provisions….”
Sasha rolled her eyes and gazed skywards in exasperation. “You fools,” she said sadly. And smiled at him. “You've been bluffing us for centuries, haven't you? That's why humans were never welcome to visit here.”
“That and the small matter of humans thinking this the land of devils,” Errollyn said sarcastically.
“But you can't actually maintain an army at all, can you? Just the talmaad, who are so talented as individuals that they make an intimidating impression, but even they cannot stand and fight in force.”
“We would have to change our entire civilisation,” Errollyn sighed and gazed across the stream. Further along were some fishing nets, woven onto a wooden frame with an elaborate mount that would dip the nets in the water. “We would have to specialise, and live in cities, and make a surplus of labour for fighting and building, and maintain them with a central leadership that gathered taxes. We don't even have leaders, Sasha. No central organisation at all, or nearly none. This is what we were debating, up until King Leyvaan's time. And after his fall, and our capture of Rhodaan, Enora and Ilduur, we had human lands to do all this for us.