The Bloodstained God (Book 2) (50 page)

Narak stood, rigid and tense as a bowstring, as close to the edge of the cliff as he could, and closer than Pascha dared. He had given the signal, and now his eyes searched the green ocean of the forest. He scented the air for the first hint of smoke.

Pascha watched him. He had shown no emotion, but this had to be an impossible day for him. Narak was a creature of duty, and his duty was to the forest,
his
forest which he loved more than anything, except possibly his wolves. Today he was burning that forest. She thought that the tension in his body was not just excitement and expectation, but pain as well, and anger.

“There.” He pointed, and sure enough she could see a distant coil of smoke rising above the canopy. It drifted up, miles away, and bent towards them, thinning as it rose, caught and tumbled by the wind. Almost at the moment it disappeared there were other fires evident, more smoke. They quickly became unmistakable, and Pascha caught sight of a burst of flame, shockingly red against the muted greys and greens of the morning.

It seemed a very short time until a line of fire rose up through the trees, looking for all the world as though some great god had drawn his finger across the earth, causing it to burst into flames at his merest touch. In a way Pascha supposed that this was exactly what had happened.

Narak continued to stare out over the forest, a look of triumph frozen on his face, surprised by other emotions. He was quite still and did not speak for several minutes during which time the smoke from the fires drifted to them and their camp was overwhelmed by the scent of burning wood. The smoke was thick enough to steal what little warmth the sun had, and she shivered. There was a blanket on the ground, and she picked it up, wrapped it around her shoulders.

“What now?” she asked.

“Now? Now they burn.” His voice was distant.

“With Skal,” she said. “What do I tell Skal about Telas Alt?”

Narak seemed to have difficulty dragging his eyes away from the spectacle of the burning forest, but he did, and looked at Pascha.

“Skal? Well he can do what he likes. The fire has caught them all. Those who were marching south are still in the forest and they, too, will burn.”

“And the army?”

“I will go to them,” Narak said. “I’ll tell them to turn around and head south to support Skal. If he takes Telas Alt perhaps we can end this. It would be better if they went straight to the coast.”
 

“Their ships are destroyed.”

“Some of them, but they have more. They will bring more men
, but I do not expect them soon.”

She didn’t ask him how he knew this. Pascha had watched the ships burn through sparrow eyes, and there had been a great number of them. Avilian and Afael between them could not have assembled half the number, and those were the largest fleets of the kingdoms.

“I will go, then,” she said.

“As you wish,” he looked back to the forest. Now the fire was in full command, flames leaping to twice the height of the great trees and punching a sheet of grey smoke into the sky where it roiled in the heat before thinning out into a vast, pale blanket that laid itself gently across the Dragon’s Back. She could hear the fire now, crackling and roaring as the wind drove it towards the mountains.

She walked to the top of the path and made her way down to the camp, choosing to walk so that she could think. The path was difficult, and it took some time before she was down among the tents. She was met my Cain.

“He’s done it then,” Cain said. He looked satisfied, but his smile was edged with a frown.

“Yes.” She looked up. The blanket of smoke filled the sky above the pass. It looked so serene. She tried not to think of the fifty thousand men trapped between the flames and the mountain.

“Some may still escape,” Cain said. “The mountains themselves will take the edge off the wind as the fire burns near.”

She nodded. “Narak has said that he will go to the army. Will you remind him? I fear he may forget.”

“I will remind him,” Cain said.

Pascha turned away and walked back to her tent. There were a few things there that she did not want to leave behind. There was her sword, the blood silver blade that she had carried with her since she had taken it from an assassin sent to kill her in Benafelas, a few items of clothing, her bow. It took a moment to fetch them and then she stood and looked at Cain’s wall for a moment. It seemed as though the promised great battle was never going to happen. The cleverness of the wall, the effort of its construction was no longer what it had been. It had ceased to be the fulcrum on which the war turned.

Fifty thousand men. Perishable goods.

*              *              *              *

Skal insisted on Avilian scouts. He was a colonel and a minor lord, and Terresh was a king, yet he had the larger force and his men were more disciplined. It was not that he doubted the Telans’ courage, rather the opposite. He needed men who would obey their orders if they encountered the enemy, and those orders were to get back to Skal and warn him. He rather feared that Telans would prefer to stay and fight. Terresh, of course, insisted that Telans also act as scouts. It seemed to be a point of pride with the king, and perhaps he did not quite trust Skal and his Avilians. It meant that they were over-scouted, if that was possible, but Skal didn’t mind. It compromised any attempt at stealth they might have wished for, but on the other hand it made them look like a larger force than they actually were.

They rode through a countryside that showed few signs of the war. The fields were tilled and planted, the vineyards were pruned and showing green. It was all very peaceful. Terresh had found a banner somewhere, the blue and gold of Telas, and he had it raised as they crossed the land. People came out to see what was happening when they saw the banner. It told them that these were not Seth Yarra troops, and it seemed that the people of Telas still had some regard for their king, because they cheered when he passed.

Just outside a small town, Himmeran by name, they met a body of soldiers. They were Telans, about five hundred of them. They looked weary and battle scarred, but they were overjoyed to see Terresh and Hestia. They were commanded by a captain, a rugged man with a thick, black beard and battered armour, who rode out in front of his men to see who it was that approached with a blue and gold banner. When he caught sight of Terresh he slid out of the saddle and knelt in the road.

Terresh dismounted and lifted the man to his feet, asked him for his story. The man told it, and it was typically Telan, brief and to the point. They had been camped north of Benafelas with a matching guard of Seth Yarra when news had come in that the ships of the Seth Yarra fleet had been burnt. On the same day, by happy chance, they heard that the king had left Telas Alt declaring for the Benetheon.

The commander of the Telan force, a major Maylan, had watched as the Seth Yarra split their force, half of them rushing to the port and the rest left to watch the Telans. That had been a mistake. Maylan had promptly attacked what was left of his guard, killed them all, and began to march north. They had suffered losses, but only a couple of hundred.

The remaining Seth Yarra force had followed them, and caught them three days later, only to lose the ensuing battle. The Telans had lost another three hundred and Major Maylan had been killed. Command had fallen to Captain Emmar, and he had led them here, and now placed himself and his men at the king’s disposal.

There was no denying that it was a boost. Not only had their force increased by five hundred, but the news that a thousand less Seth Yarra were abroad in Telas was also very welcome. Emmar, however, had spotted that a large number of the troops with Terresh were Avilian.

“Indeed,” Terresh said. “This is the second regiment of the Seventh Friend under the command of Colonel Hebberd, Lord of Latter Fetch. They have fought alongside us and shown themselves staunch allies.”

Emmar did not look impressed. He studied Skal darkly for a moment. “My brother fell at Fal Verdan,” he said. “And your name is know to me as one who commanded there,” he said.

Skal knew what that meant. Telans were unspeakably precious about their honour. In the past they had been famous for their feuds, pursued over generations, and only recently eradicated as a way of life. The chance that Skal had been responsible for this man’s brother’s death was all the excuse the man needed to call him out. Terresh, however, did not permit the grievance to go any further.

“Captain,” he said. “If you see this as a matter of honour I command you not to pursue it as long as there are Seth Yarra alive in our kingdom.”

As a prohibition it left something to be desired. Skal expected that he would have problems with this Captain Emmar, probably until one of them was dead, and he would have preferred to get the thing out of the way.

“As you wish, Lord King,” Emmar replied, but he cast another dark look in Skal’s direction before remounting his horse and calling his men up to join the king’s army. Skal didn’t worry too much. If Emmar came to him demanding satisfaction he would kill the man. Skal had met one or two duellists in his life who could have bested him. The wolf for sure, and probably Aidon, but Emmar looked easy. He was strong and probably quicker than average, but Skal was confident of his own ability.

That same evening Skal was preparing for sleep in his own tent when he was surprised by a slap on the canvass. He’d posted two men outside, so he didn’t expect any trouble, but all the same he picked up his sword and dagger before calling out for whoever it was to enter.

Passerina stepped through the opening. She looked at his naked blades.

“Having trouble with the locals?” she asked, smiling a wry smile.

“Just one that I know of,” he replied. He put his weapons down by his bed.

“You said that you would wait,” she said.

“A day. You promised to be back in a day. I had to make a decision.”

She looked at him as though measuring his reply. “Fair enough. You made a rash choice, but it’s worked out well for you. Narak’s trap caught the force they were sending south, so they won’t be coming. All dead.”

“All?”

“And the rest of the army.”

“All of them? Gods, what did he do?” Skal was shocked. Fifty thousand men had gone north. All dead?

“He fired the forest,” she replied. “They all burned.”

Skal sat down on his bed. He’d expected something more, well, military, something more miraculous. What Narak had done was so crude, so blunt. But he could not deny that it had been effective.

“Telas Alt is ours, then. They cannot hold it or take it back from us without help. They do not have enough men.”

“They will have more men,” Passerina said. “Narak is sure of it, but perhaps not for a while.”

Skal looked at his hands. Just a week more and they would be at Telas Alt. Terresh had said that only about a thousand men remained there, and a thousand was not enough to defend the city. It was, however, enough to hold the citadel against them. The king had assured him that there were ways into the fortress that the Seth Yarra did not know, but he would not believe that until he had his men inside.

The presence of Captain Emmar had brought home the fragility of his situation. He had started out the commander of the largest contingent, and he had faith in his own men, but he could see the future quite clearly. By the time they reached Telas Alt, and certainly by the time they took it, he would be outnumbered by the Telans, and their need for his men was somewhat diminished with the elimination of the northern Seth Yarra. Some, like Emmar, already resented him. As they became more confident of their ability to hold the capital they would resent him more.

He did not fear an attack, or at least not yet. If the Telans attacked him their remaining force would doubtless be inadequate to hold the city. Passerina, too, would not permit it, and he thought that Hestia, too, would prevent such an act.