The girl snickered.
Pil's stance took on the rigidity that told her she'd gone too far.
'You can't hear me?' Peddonon bellowed.
'Eiya! I'm sorry. And an idiot.' She slapped Pil hard on the shoulder, and he relaxed. 'Let's go.'
She trotted toward the cote, Pil's steps sounding behind her. Commander Joss and Captain Anji emerged onto the porch, chattering away like her brothers when they would go on about the most precise details of the cursed goats.
The outlander had an engaging voice, his accent more pleasing than difficult. 'That huge old forest — the Wild, you call it — would be a perfect refuge for skirmishers. We could drop them in behind enemy lines to maintain a running disruption, and they could retreat into the forest when they got into trouble.'
'No human can enter the Wild, and live. It's forbidden to go in there.'
'What if we could speak to these wildings and ask them to allow our soldiers refuge? Just for the duration of the war? If they can think and communicate, then it is possible to negotiate with them.'
'Had much luck trading for horses with the lendings?' asked Joss with a laugh.
The captain winced, then grinned. 'It was my own fault. I did not listen to good advice. But if the wildings are people, like to us, then it is merely a matter of coming to understand what they need and how we can offer that to them in return for what we need. Then both they and we benefit, to our mutual advantage.'
The tip-tap of a cane preceded the appearance of the marshal. He was old, weary, and stoop-shouldered, shaking his head as he appeared in the open doors as if disagreeing with Anji's statement. His evident weakness made the contrast between the three men even greater: Commander Joss's excessive handsomeness could not disguise his barely leashed energy, striking in a man who had counted a full forty years; the outlander captain had a quieter but more forceful charisma, a deadly wolf lying patiently in wait for the right moment to kill.
The captain addressed the marshal as if resuming a conversation broken off inside. 'Marshal Masar, I know there is not time to properly train strike forces as efficient, disciplined units, but there is enough time to use them wisely. Reeves can carry soldiers and put them down behind enemy lines. We can sow confusion, pick off stragglers at little risk to ourselves. Create trouble. Draw off their attention while meanwhile I march the army up from Olo'osson. The key is to keep their gaze fixed elsewhere so they don't see us coming.'
'It goes against all tradition,' objected the old marshal.
Commander Joss's eyes widened as he noticed the blood on Nallo's leathers. 'Masar, if we are all dead, then how will our traditions have served us? The ones who command the Star of Life army have cleansed tradition from their ranks. We need not kill tradition to fight them, but we must change to survive. Do you want Nessumara, and this branch of Copper Hall, to fall to the army? To suffer what High Haldia and Toskala have suffered?'
The outlander captain raised a hand. His gaze skimmed over Nallo and Pil in a way that made her stand up straighter; Pil said nothing, his gaze lowered as if he were ashamed, although what in the hells he would have to feel ashamed of Nallo could not imagine.
The captain lowered the hand and tapped his own chest. 'Listen. I can move my army quickly. They're trained for exactly such a contingency. But I desperately need your support, and your support in particular, Marshal Masar, before I lay my plan before Nessumara's council tonight.' He paused, brushing the back of a hand along his beard, his gestures neat and graceful. 'We must strike while the people of Nessumara and Toskala and High Haldia and the entire countryside along the immense length of the River Istri still possess the will to resist. We must strike before they begin to prefer any form of peace, however onerous, to continued suffering.'
The marshal dropped his gaze like a man beaten in hooks-and-ropes. An agony of sorrow shuttered his eyes. Abruptly, Commander Joss touched him on the arm in a manner meant to comfort.
'There was nothing you could have done,' Joss said. 'Do not blame yourself when the blame must rest on those who forced the choice on you.'
'Why do you people hesitate?' Nallo cried, the words pouring out before she knew she meant to say them. 'Do you think you're the only one who's lost a kinsman? Don't you understand I'm standing here today because that cursed army killed my husband and orphaned my helpless stepchildren? Maybe it wouldn't have happened if there had been reeve wings fighting along West Track. I would rather fight and kill these gods-rotted bastards than sit around on my clean bench and moan about tradition while folk are being slaughtered, women assaulted, villages burned, children enslaved. But who am I to know? Just a cursed hill girl, born to goat herders, married against my will to a kind man who treated me decently despite my bad temper. I'd be dead if it weren't for the Qin.' The marshal was actually cringing, but that didn't make her feel the least stirring of shame for yelling at the sodden old fool. She fixed her glare on the captain, who watched her with unsettling interest. 'My thanks to your men.'
'Reeve Nallo, isn't it?' the captain said. 'Yours is the daughter — she must be your stepdaughter, for you're not old enough to have birthed her — who turned down my good chief's marriage offer in favor of a mere tailman.' He laughed, looking at the commander. 'Bring Reeve Nallo to the council meeting. She'll argue our case convincingly.'
'Because she's right,' whispered the old marshal. 'How many more must perish while we hang on to what is already dead?' With an effort he mastered himself, pushing up on his cane to regain some of the stature years and grief had taken from him. Behind that seamed visage trembled a younger man, the body and strength he had once worn: upright, pious, fair, or believing
himself to be. 'We believed the past could protect us. We believe that if we serve justice, then all will be well. But it isn't true, is it? Without order, there can be no justice. If the stubborn fools on Nessumara's council do not listen, then they deserve to have their beautiful city pillaged and burned and their corpses tossed into the channels to feed the fish!'
'Eiya!' began Joss. 'I grieve with you, Marshal, knowing your sorrow at losing your grandchildren and family, but surely you cannot wish upon others what you have suffered.'
'It is natural to be angry,' said the captain. 'But let me admit that I have taken part in the sack of cities.' His tone was so thoughtful and calm it was impossible for Nallo to imagine him engaged in any such horror, yet on he spoke, not making light, but making sense. 'I do not think even so that the folk in those places deserved what befell them. They were merely unfortunate enough to be there. If any should suffer, it should be their leaders, and yet too often those who rule can buy their way out of worse grief while those who live ordinary lives receive the full blast of the storm. How do you think I got my beautiful wife? I saw her in the market one day, and because I could, I took her. That she proved to be much more than even I had imagined is not to my credit, but to hers.'
A horn's sad voice raised in a long plaint, and faded.
'That's the call to council,' said the old marshal.
Nessumara's council was divided: Surrender and beg for protected status. Buy off the army with coin and supplies. Fight, despite not having enough men to defend the city after so many had been killed in the first battle nor an experienced commander to lead them.
It was pretty cursed obvious, thought Joss, that their arguing rose as much from the strain of a months-long siege as from any significant differences of opinion. They quieted respectfully when Marshal Masar braced himself on his cane to speak.
'The army has been spread out over Istria and Lower Haldia for weeks, but now they're joining forces and marching on Nessumara. You're cut off from the countryside, which itself has been pillaged and burned. While the delta protects you to the south and the swamp forest to the north, the eastern marshland is very dry. Lord Radas's cohorts don't need the causeway to advance from the east. This army has raised fifteen full cohorts.