"Not everything," Hirundo said. "They're free – the ones who are left are free, anyhow. And I'll tell you something else, Your Majesty. I'll bet the freed ones will know of more wells and such than the Menteshe do. If we run into what looks like trouble, asking them is likely to do us more good than anything else."
"Mm, I'd say that's a pretty good bet," Grus agreed after a little thought. "And it's something the Banished One and the Menteshe are liable to miss. Who pays attention to thralls unless he has to?"
"We do," Hirundo answered.
Grus nodded, wondering whether that was a weakness the enemy could exploit or a strength that might help Avornis win this struggle. He had no idea – it would all depend on how things played out. And caring about the thralls also might turn out not to matter one way or the other.
The army did move forward, and found more poisoned wells in its path. Men and animals started getting thirsty. Most streams were either dry or tiny trickles in the summer heat. Grus sent wizards ahead with the scouts, to bring freedom to some thralls and try out Hirundo's notion.
It worked even better than the general might have guessed. The thralls found wells and streams and even a pond the Menteshe had missed. The army got enough water to keep going – not a lot of water, but enough. And the thralls, even with the darkness freshly lifted from their spirits, were not just willing but eager to do all they could for the Avornans. The Menteshe had been hard on them and hard on their ancestors for hundreds of years. How much of that oppression did they really understand? Enough to know which side they were on; that was clear.
"Well, you were right," Grus told his general as they encamped for the night.
Hirundo bowed. "Thank you kindly, Your Majesty. One of the reasons people want to do things for you is that you say things like that. Plenty would just take the credit, whether it belonged to them or not."
"I've known officers like that – who hasn't? Nothing's ever their fault, either," Grus said. Hirundo nodded. The king continued, "If you have a choice, you'd rather lean on the other kind. I do try to remember that myself."
Hirundo bowed again. He didn't say anything. His silence was part of the price Grus paid for being king. If he had spoken, Grus was sure he would have said something like, Most people would forget all about that as soon as they got a crown on their head. It was probably – no, certainly – true, but it wasn't the sort of thing you told a sovereign, even an easygoing one.
The Menteshe didn't need long to realize something had gone wrong. Seeing the Avornans moving forward, seeing their animals healthy and not on their last legs, told the nomads Grus' army had found water one way or another. But the nomads didn't turn any special savagery against the thralls. It was as though they couldn't imagine those near-beasts doing anything for good or ill – doing anything at all, except what beasts did.
Instead, with a fury that seemed to Grus not far from despair, the Menteshe struck at the Avornan army. As always, they hit hard. Volleys of arrows stung Grus' force. Wounded men and wounded horses screamed. The Avornans wavered. If the nomads had kept pelting them with arrows from long range, they might have broken.
What saved the Avornans were the siege engines rattling along in the baggage train. Those could hit the Menteshe where Avornan archery couldn't. And, as always, each of the flying stone balls and stout darts did far more damage than a mere arrow could have. The Menteshe abruptly seemed to lose patience with the long-range duel. Shouting curses in their own language, they charged.
In charging, they threw away the advantage they'd enjoyed. They'd had the better of the missile duel even if they didn't like stones flying their way. At close quarters, the Avornans, who wore heavier armor and rode sturdier horses, had the edge.
The Menteshe didn't need long to realize they'd made a mistake. By the time they did, though, it was too late. They were already entangled with the Avornans. Getting out of trouble proved harder than getting into it, which was usually true. The Avornan lancers and archers and spear-carrying foot soldiers made the Menteshe sorry they hadn't stayed farther away.
And when the nomads did finally break free, they were too battered and too disorganized to go back to the strategy that had worked well for them before. They were also too closely pursued. They rode off toward the south. Grus didn't push the pursuit hard. That would have let his men get shaken out into loose order, where they would be vulnerable to the nomads. He wanted to play to his own countrymen's strengths as long as he could.
Watching the Menteshe retreat, Hirundo said, "That will give them something to think about."
"I hope so," Grus said. "They tried to stop us with filth in the wells, and they couldn't. And they tried to stop us with soldiers again, and they couldn't do that, either. What have they got left?"
"They may have more fight left in them. They're tough," the general answered. "And then, if they keep losing, they stand siege in Yozgat. The place is supposed to be formidable."
"We'll find out how formidable it is," Grus said. Like Hirundo, he was looking south. Hirundo no doubt thought he was thinking of the city where the Scepter of Mercy had lain for so long. And so he was, but he was also looking farther south still, toward the Argolid Mountains. What would the Banished One do if – no, probably when – the Avornan army encircled the city? We'll find out, Grus thought again.
Pouncer knew what to do, every step of the way. King Lanius watched as the moncat proved as much in the city slice he'd had Tinamus design and build. "Look at him go!" Lanius exclaimed.
"He's a remarkable animal, Your Majesty," Collurio agreed. "It's been a… a privilege working with him."
"You started to say something else," Lanius told him. "What was it? A pleasure? But you didn't say that."
"No, I didn't. The moncat pushes back too hard to make it a pleasure," Collurio said.
After a few heartbeats, Lanius shook his head. "I don't think that's quite right. It's just that, well, a moncat is a cat. Pouncer will do what Pouncer wants to do, not what we want him to do. The trick is to get the miserable creature to want to do what we want him to do – and not to knock him over the head with a rock when he doesn't want to do it."
"Yes – and that last," Collurio agreed with a weary smile. "Anyone can tell you've had some experience with animals, Your Majesty."
"And with children," Lanius said.
That made the trainer laugh. "And with children," he agreed. "Oh, yes. Children, though, mostly grow out of it. Beasts never do."
"True enough." But Lanius was thinking about Ortalis, and about how much beastliness he'd never grown out of. Collurio might have heard this or that about Ortalis; palace gossip always leaked out into the streets of the capital. The animal trainer didn't have to live with the prince, no matter what he'd heard. As far as Lanius was concerned, that made Collurio the lucky one.
Pouncer kept on with the routine it had learned. It knew where to go and what to do to earn each new reward. The moncat knew how to reverse its course, too. Lanius kept looking away from Pouncer and up into the sky. No hawks. No eagles. Not even a jay scolding people for being people. Just a few small white clouds drifting on a warm, lazy breeze.
"I'm glad you're here, Your Majesty. We're just coming to the hard part now," Collurio said. "Crinitus and I are going to start widening the distances between rewards. We'll set them out in every other usual place, so the moncat will have to go twice as far between them. Then we'll double the distance again, and so on until we have what you want."