“Slave soldiers in the front rank,” Veliss said. “They call them Varitai. Those behind are conscripts, Free Swords. I read it in a book,” she added in response to Reva’s quizzical frown.
“They have slaves in their army?” she asked.
“Volaria is built on slaves,” her uncle said. “It’s what they came for.” He wore a heavy cloak, hand resting on Reva’s shoulder, his breath laboured, although his red-rimmed eyes still shone as bright as ever.
“No engines,” Antesh observed. “No ladders either.”
“All in good time, I’m sure,” Uncle Sentes said. “Though I suspect they’re about to try and scare us to death.”
Reva followed his gaze, seeing a lone rider emerge from the Volarian ranks to gallop along the causeway. He reined in over a hundred paces from the gate, staring up at them, his long cloak billowing in the wind. He was a tall man, wearing a black enamel breastplate, a scroll clutched in his fist. His gaze found the Fief Lord and he gave a shallow bow, a grin of contempt on his lips as he unfurled the scroll.
“Fief Lord Sentes Mustor,” he read in accented but clear Realm Tongue. “You are hereby ordered to surrender your lands, cities and possessions to the Volarian Empire. Peaceful compliance with this order will ensure just and generous treatment for yourself and your people. In return for your cooperation in overseeing the transfer of power to Volarian authority you will receive . . .”
“Lord Antesh,” Uncle Sentes said. “I see no recognisable flag of truce, do you?”
Antesh pursed his lips and shook his head. “Can’t say as I do, my lord.”
“Well then.”
“. . . swift transportation to any land of your choice,” the Volarian was saying, the scroll held in front of his eyes. “Plus one hundred pounds in gol-” He choked off as Antesh’s arrow punched through the scroll and the breastplate beyond. He tumbled from the saddle and lay still, the scroll pinned to his chest.
“Right,” the Fief Lord said, turning away. “Let me know when the rest get here.”
CHAPTER SIX
Vaelin
He found it impossible to gauge the Eorhil woman’s age. Somewhere between fifty and seventy was his best guess. Her face possessed many lines, her lips cracked with age and her long braids iron-grey. But there was a leanness and evident strength to her that bespoke an ageless vitality, her back straight as she sat cross-legged on the other side of the fire, her bare arms strung with knotted muscle. Behind her the great gathering of Eorhil warriors waited, some dismounted, most not, over ten thousand riders come in answer to the Tower Lord’s call. The Eorhil woman’s name, translated by Insha ka Forna, was unusual amongst her people as it consisted of but one word: Wisdom.
“You ask much, man of tower,” the young Eorhil had cautioned. “Not since war with beast people do so many come. Then they knew old tower man, you they don’t. Wisdom will decide.”
They had been sitting like this for much of the afternoon, the woman staring at him through the smoke rising from the fire. He heard no note from the blood-song, she possessed no gift, at least none it could recognise. Ten days’ march had brought them here to the lake the Eorhil called the Silver Tear, a small placid body of water shining amidst the great expanse of the plains where the Eorhil were already waiting with their full number.
“Al Myrna wanted a quiet life,” Wisdom said finally in flawless Realm Tongue, Vaelin starting at the sudden break in the silence. “A man with many battles in his past, tired of war. Our trust in him was built on that weariness. It’s the man of energy who hungers for war, and you, Vaelin Al Sorna, are a man of considerable energy.”
“Perhaps,” he replied. “But I’ve seen enough battle also. It pains me to lead so many to war once more.”
“Then why do it?”
“Why does any man of reason go to war? To preserve what is good and destroy what is not.”
“The Volarians seek to destroy your homeland. But that is far from here.”
“Your forest sister has seen the hearts of these people. They will not stop at my homeland. And I have seen what they did to the ice people. They will take all they can, from the Seordah, the Lonak and you.”
“And if we give you our warriors, the bright promise of our youth, how many will return?”
“I do not know. Many will fall, I do not deny it. I do know that the Eorhil will have to fight the Volarians, either on these plains or in my realm.”
“To reach your realm we must travel through the forest. You expect the Seordah to allow this?”
“I expect them to heed the words of the blind woman.”
Wisdom gave a start of her own, stiffening as her gaze narrowed. “You’ve seen her?”
“And spoken with her.”
The Eorhil woman’s mouth twitched and he discerned she was fighting fear. She got to her feet muttering, “We named you wrong.” She stalked back to her people, casting her final words over her shoulder. “We will ride with you.”
“Wisdom,” Vaelin read slowly, pronouncing each syllable with care.
“Good,” Dahrena said. “And this?” Her finger moved on to the next word.
“Aah-greeed?”
She smiled. “Very good, my lord. A few more weeks and you won’t need me at all.”
“I very much doubt that will be the case, my lady.” He reclined in his chair, yawning. The evening drill had been hard, far too many men still stumbling about with faint notion of the difference between right and left, clumsiness made worse by fatigue from the day’s march, but there was no other choice if they were to have a hope of facing a disciplined enemy.
They were four days from the lake, the Eorhil scouting ahead and covering the flanks as they moved south towards the forest, now no more than a week away. Dahrena fretted over the fact they were yet to meet any Seordah but he told her to stow her worries, forcing more certainty into his tone than he actually felt. Just tell them you met a blind woman from several centuries hence, and they’ll throw their arms wide in welcome? he asked himself. Do you really suppose it’ll be that easy?
But the blood-song was unchanged; the route to the Realm lay through the forest. So he marched his army, trained them for two hours in the morning and two hours at night, suffered the grumbling and doubts of his captains and spent a blessed hour before slumber learning letters with the Lady Dahrena.
He was finding a joy in the words the more he learned, the poetry his mother had tried to impart now laid bare, the emptiness of the catechisms glaring and obvious when captured in ink. It gave him a deeper appreciation of the gift enjoyed by Brother Harlick, the power and the beauty of it, to have an entire library in one’s head.
Dahrena sat at the table they shared, adding the final words to the treaty formalising the Eorhil’s alliance to their cause, including an unasked-for grant of ownership over the northern plains in perpetuity. The treaty would require ratification by the monarch of the Unified Realm, assuming they could find one. Vaelin had ordered Brother Harlick to draw up a list of those with a legitimate claim to the throne should the Al Nieren line prove extinct. It consisted of just four names.
“King Janus lost much of his family to the Red Hand,” Harlick explained. “Many of the survivors perished in the wars of unification. These”-he held up the list-“are the only blood relatives still living in the Realm, to the best of my knowledge, since it’s several years since I lived there.”
“Anyone of note?” Vaelin asked.
Harlick considered the list. “Lord Al Pernil is a famed horse-breeder, assuming he still lives. My lord, you may have to consider the possibility that there is no surviving heir to the throne of the Unified Realm. If that’s the case, other options will have to be considered.”