for health and home and wood and stone,
for beauty's fragrant bloom and gleam,
and rivers clear and fair
we strike;
nor will we cease,
let fall our heads to ash and dust,
lose faith and heart and hope and bone.
We strike
until the Land is clean of wrong and pain,
and we have kept our trust.
Let no great whelm of evil wreak despair!
Remember Peace:
brave death!
We are the proud preservers of the Land!
As she finished, she turned Myrha, faced the watchtower. From the Staff of Law, she sent crackling into the sky a great, branched lightning tree. At this sign, Lord Loerya threw her bundle into the air, and Lord Trevor pulled strongly on the lines of the flagpole. The defiant war-flag of Revelstone sprang open and snapped in the mountain wind. It was a huge oriflamme, twice as tall as the Lords who raised it, and it was clear blue, the colour of High Lord's Furl, with one stark black streak across it. As it flapped and fluttered, a mighty cheer rose up from the Warward, and was repeated on the thronged wall of Revelstone.
For a moment, High Lord Elena kept the Staff blazing. Then she silenced her display of power. As the shouting subsided, she looked at the group of riders, and called firmly, “Warmark Hile Troy! Let us begin!”
At once, Troy sent Mehryl prancing toward the Warward. When he was alone in front of the riders, he saluted his second-in-command, and said quietly, to control his excitement, “First Haft Amorine, you may begin.”
She returned his salute, swung her mount toward the army.
“Warward!” she shouted. “Order!”
With a wide surge, the warriors came to attention.
“Drummers ready!”
The pace-beaters raised their sticks. When she thrust her right fist into the air, they began their beat, pounding out together the rhythm Troy had taught them.
“Warriors, march!”
As she gave the command, she pulled down her fist. Nearly sixteen thousand warriors started forward to the cadence of the drums.
Troy watched their precision with a lump of pride in his throat. At Amorine's side, he moved with his army down the road toward the river.
The rest of the riders followed close behind him. Together, they kept pace with the Warward as it marched westward under the high south wall of Revelstone.
Thirteen: The Rock Gardens of the Maerl
TOGETHER, the riders and the marching Warward passed down the road to the wide stone bridge which crossed the White River a short distance south of the lake. As they mounted the bridge, they received a chorus of encouraging shouts from the horsemen and raft builders at the lake; but Warmark Troy did not look that way. From the top of the span, he gazed downriver: there he could see the last rafts of Hiltmark Quaan's first two Eoward moving around a curve and out of sight. They were only a small portion of Troy's army, but they were crucial. They were risking their lives in accordance with his commands, and the fate of the Land went with them. In pride and trepidation, he watched until they were gone, on their way to receive the measure of bloodshed he had assigned to them. Then he rode on precariously across the bridge.
Beyond it, the road turned southward, and began winding down away from the Keep's plateau toward the rough grasslands which lay between Revelstone and Trothgard. As he moved through the foothills,
Troy counted the accompanying Hirebrands and Gravelingases, to be sure that the Warward had its full complement of support from the lillianrill and rhadhamaerl. In the process, he caught a glimpse of an extra Gravelingas mounted and travelling behind the group of riders.
Trell.
The powerful Gravelingas kept to the back of the group, but he made no attempt to hide his face or his presence. The sight of him gave Troy a twinge of anxiety. He stopped and waited for the High Lord. Motioning the other riders past him, he said to Elena in a low voice, “Did you know that he's coming with us. Is it all right with you?” High Lord Elena met him with a questioning look which he answered by nodding toward Trell.
Covenant had stopped with Elena, and at Troy's nod he turned to look behind him. When he saw the Gravelingas, he groaned.
Most of the riders were past Elena, Troy, and Covenant now, and Trell could clearly see the three watching him. He halted where he was-still twenty-five yards away-and returned Covenant's gaze with a raw, bruised stare.
For a moment, they all held their positions, regarded each other intently. Then Covenant cursed under his breath, gripped the reins of his horse, and moved up the road toward Trell.
Bannor started after the Unbeliever, but High Lord Elena stopped him with a quick gesture. “He needs no protection,” she said quietly. “Do not affront Trell with your doubt.”
Covenant faced Trell, and the two men glared at each other. Then Covenant said something. Troy could not hear what he said, but the Gravelingas answered it with a red-rimmed stare. Under his tunic, his broad chest heaved as if he were panting. His reply was inaudible also.
There was violence in Trell's limbs, struggling for action; Troy could see it. He did not understand Elena's assertion that Covenant was safe. As he watched, he whispered to her, “What did Covenant say?”
Elena responded as if she could not be wrong, “The ur-Lord promises that he will not harm me.”
This surprised Troy. He wanted to know why Covenant would try to reassure Trell in that way, but he could not think of a way to ask Elena what the connection was between her and Trell. Instead, he asked, “What's Trell's answer?”
“Trell does not believe the promise.”
Silently, Troy congratulated Trell's common sense.
A moment later, Covenant jerked his horse into motion, and came trotting back down the road. His free hand pulled insistently at his beard. Without looking at Elena, he shrugged his shoulders defensively as he said, “Well, he has a good point.” Then he urged his mount into a canter to catch up with the rest of the riders.
Troy wanted to wait for Trell, but the High Lord firmly took him with her as she followed Covenant. Out of respect for the Gravelingas, Troy did not look back.
But when the Warward broke march at midday for food and rest, Troy saw Trell eating with the other rhadhamaerl.
By that time, the army had wound out of the foothills into the more relaxed grasslands west of the White River. Troy gauged the distance they had covered, and used it as a preliminary measure of the pace he had set for the march. So far, the pace seemed right. But many factors influenced a day's march. The Warmark spent part of the afternoon with First Haft Amorine, discussing how to match the frequency and duration of rest halts with such variables as the terrain, the distance already traversed, and the state of the supplies. He wanted to prepare her for his absences.
He was glad to talk about his battle plan; he felt proud of it, as if it were a work of objective beauty. Traditionally, beaten people fled to Doom's Retreat, but he meant to remake it into a place of victory. His plan was the kind of daring strategic stroke that only a blind man could create. But after a time Amorine responded by gesturing over the Warward and saying dourly, “One day of such a pace is no great matter. Even five days may give no distress to a good warrior. But twenty days, or thirty-In that time, this pace may kill.”
“I know,” Troy replied carefully. His trepidation returned in a rush. “But we haven't got any choice. Even at this pace, too many warriors and Bloodguard are going to get killed buying us the time we need.”
“I hear you,” Amorine grated. “We will keep the pace.”