Indomitus Est (The Fovean Chronicles) (53 page)

    
“Bind me then,” she said to us, on the street in the port of Eldador.  “Keep me alive if you want to so badly, though I think we all know that it is no kindness.”

    
So she had her life, and her hate, and she stared at me with green eyes that wished me no good.  If looks could kill she would be facing Power now.

    
“I am told,” she said, to the air, “that one of us spent the day bullying and threatening our warriors.”

    
Ancenon smirked to himself.  D’gattis looked directly at me.  “Would that be you, Black Lupus?” he asked.

    
“Who else?” I asked him.

    
“To what end?” he pressed me.  “These men are trained.  Surely, should they want to congregate…”

    
Drekk and Nantar blew in through the tent flap with the night air and interrupted him.  We exchanged greetings.

    
“Lupus, I hate your bif – wack,” Nantar told me, smiling through his black beard.  “I was challenged four times between the city walls and the palisade, by men who know me.”

    
“Well I love it,” Drekk said.  “In fact, it is one of the few things that he has done right.  No one gets in, no one gets out, no one knows where we are and no one is going to.”

    
That shut D’gattis and Genna down right there.  Drekk and Nantar seated themselves on folding stools and I realized that, for Drekk, that passed for a speech.

    
“That city looks tight,” Nantar reported.  Drekk nodded.  “We scouted the walls until archers drove us back.  Sappers might get in underneath, but that would take months.”

    
“I do not want to spend months here,” D’gattis said, matter-of-factly.  “This place is ghastly and this camp is worse.  We have been paid, we need to be away as soon as possible.”

    
“As soon as practical, cousin,” Ancenon corrected him.  “While I agree with the need to accomplish our goal quickly, we have much to lose if we are foolish.”

    
“Why can’t the two of you just lob fireballs over the wall at dawn or something?” Thorn complained.  He had taken over, of all things, the morale of the troops.  I shuddered to think what he did to keep them happy – probably told them how much worse
his
life seemed.  “We spook them, they come out and the fight starts.”

    
“Why would they come out?” I asked.  My “why” questions had started to irritate, I could tell, but I came from a whole different technology of warfare.  “They have Wizards, they could just lob fireballs back.”

    
“That would look like cowardice,” Arath sighed.  Ancenon nodded.  “Can’t you understand that, Lupus?  The idea is to be able to hold your head up at the Fovean High Council.  You can’t do that if you are perceived to be a coward.”

    
“So if we attack, they’re honor-bound to answer?” I asked.

    
Everyone nodded; could this really be
that
easy?  “But then we’ll have the Volkhydrans to contend with,” I said. 

    
“
That,
” said D’gattis, “is the legitimate problem, Lupus.  If we just pick a fight, then the Volkhydrans are as likely as not to bring their forces against us.  They are fifteen hundred strong at least, and blooded veterans.”

    
“And our men show promise, but we aren’t ready for a pitched battle,” Nantar said.  “At least, not yet.”

    
“Neither are our officers,” added Ancenon.  “I am the only one here who has seen a pitched battle, I fear.”

    
“
Seen
a pitched battle?” I asked.  “Or commanded one side?”

    
“A High Priest of Adriam does not take
command
, Black Lupus,” he told me.  I had assumed all along that Ancenon would be calling the shots.

    
“That’s going to be my job, unless you feel you’re more qualified,” Arath told me.

    
I did
not
want command.  I didn’t want to lose all of our warriors, either.  “What do you have planned?”

    
Arath smiled to himself.  “A surprise,” he said.  “We come around on the harbor side and attack them while they are getting ready to attack us.  They will never expect that.

    
That seemed really simplistic and I said so.  “Have you ever noticed that there is often a good reason why someone isn’t expecting something – like the idea would never work?”

    
“Like this camp?” Nantar asked.  He almost smiled so I didn’t take the jibe to heart.

    
“How do plan to get past the walls?” I asked.

    
“Cross on the sea side,” he said.  The rest were nodding.  “The tide will ebb in the morning.  We can wade through and –“

    
“Have you scouted that out?” I asked him.  Shela gripped the flesh of my calf as I spoke, warning me I think that I needed to keep my temper.  “Caltrops in the water would cripple our men.”

    
“Cal – trops?” Arath asked.  There were blank stares all around.

    
“Pieces of steel, little pyramids with sharpened points, to be stepped on?”

    
“Who would want to step on something like that?” Dilvesh asked.

    
“I think he means to be stepped on by an enemy,” Thorn said.  “Chatoos has something similar on the beaches by their ports.  If a horse steps on it, it goes lame.”

    
“We won’t bring horses,” Arath said.

    
“One might safely assume that these would be no kinder to a foot,” D’gattis said.

    
“It’s a good plan,” Arath said, shaking his head.  “If you think you can do better, then take responsibility yourself, Lupus.  I didn’t ask for command.”

    
“Well, if you haven’t even
seen
a pitched battle, I at least participated in the Battle of Two Mountains,” I said.

    
“That
was
against the Dorkans,” Thorn said. 

    
They sat quiet.  Everyone looked at Arath.

    
He sighed.  “All right,” he said.  “You designed the camp, you picked the spot, and you have all of these concerns.  You lead it, Lupus, and Adriam be with you.”

    
I smirked to myself.  “I’ll settle for War,” I said.

    
We debated into the night: this strategy, that one, what others had heard about fighting Dorkans and, more importantly, Volkhydrans.  Nantar provided living proof of how tough they could be.  My experiences there backed this up as well.  Of all of the races of Men, Volkhydrans could be the most volatile.

    
In time we had evolved a plan.  Arath would leave for the plains two hours before the sun came up, Thorn with him.  Nantar would command the base camp with two hundred men; I would take three hundred with Dilvesh and D’gattis and go to the city gate.  Shela and Ancenon would remain at camp.

    
She had argued and argued about that; I told her finally to obey me.  The same argument that told her to be with her man defeated her there, although it couldn’t silence her.  When I couldn’t listen to her arguments any more I told her to go to sleep without me and I left to walk our perimeter.  I wanted the night air to clear my head, if it could be cleared at all.

    
There were those among our warriors who assigned watches and gave our orders and directives to the foot soldiers.  In an army there would be sergeants and lieutenants and such.  We weren’t there yet, but we were approaching it.  We had watches and warriors assigned to them.  I still heard rumblings about the blond lunatic who waited for the first excuse to gut one of them if they slacked off.

    
“You should be sleeping,” I heard from behind me.

    
I turned and saw Genna, in her leathers, one of her daggers missing from her bandolier.

    
I pointed to it.  “Trouble?” I asked.

    
“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” she said.

    
“Scouting?”

    
“It is what I do,” she said.  “It is what is left me.”

    
I sighed, turned to leave her.

    
“Sorry,” she said.  I could hear it in her voice.  “I am – look, I am sorry.”

    
I turned around to face her.  She’d started crying again.

    
“I wish it hadn’t happened like it did,” I said.  “I wish you hadn’t suffered.”

    
“Easily said,” she told me, her eyes holding mine.  “I thought it meant more to you than it must have.”

    
“I told you many times – “

    
“I know,” she interrupted me, taking a step closer, so I could smell the plains on her, like she did in Conflu when she would fill my senses with the forest. 

    
“You made me love you, Lupus, Rancor, Mordetur, whoever the hell else you are,” she said.  “You don’t get to untie that bundle, not all on your own like you want.”

    
“I am with Shela now,” I said.  I had no plan to go down this path with her.

    
“Exclusively,” she asked, looking into my eyes, searching them.  “No others, dedicated to your slave like a good master?”

    
“It isn’t like that.”

    
“No room for… dalliances?  Perhaps… experimentation?”

    
“Genna that is just not going to happen.”

    
“She keeps you on a tight rein, then?” she pressed me.  Her hand rose up between us, serpentine in its motion, to drum her fingernails on my breastplate as she had done in the past.

    
Genna’s mind took things apart and put them back together.  That made her superior at what she did.  I could see her doing that now, with my relationship.

    
I didn’t bite.  It didn’t even tempt me.

    
“Does the bit hurt your mouth?” she asked me, meeting my eyes again, the look on her face so falsely sincere.

    
“Nah, Genna,” I said to her.  “In fact, I love it.”

    
She drew her head back, a mocking smile on her lips.  She saw what she thought might be her opening.

    
She knew me too well. 

    
I turned and walked away.  She called after me, something about my going back to the stables, right in front of our men.  I couldn’t hurt her and I wouldn’t stand there and play her game. 

    
A good leader knows when to walk away, too, and in a few hours I had to be one.