The Invisible Hands - Part 1: Gambit (72 page)

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“Take some sergeants and form a welcoming committee, Wendo,”

Tenaxos said. “Make it known to these good people that I personally have ordered that their immediate needs should be taken care of. Give them food and water, and let the medics look at their wounded and sick, if any. Assemble them on the field before that little hill there. Announce that I will speak to their village elders forthwith, but that I want them to eat, drink, and rest first.”

About an hour later, Tenaxos rode towards the little hill, accompanied by his friends and guards. Everywhere little groups of survivors of flooded villages could be seen, huddled together. A lot of them were farmers who had lost everything. Their land had been flooded, and most of their family members had drowned as well as their livestock. A lot of them had only the clothes on their back left, some had managed to save a few paltry possessions.

Tenaxos dismounted, and guiding his horse by the reins, walked slowly between the men, women and children, who sat on the ground, eating and drinking gratefully whatever the soldiers had distributed among them. With tired eyes they looked at the prince, walking among them, visibly perturbed by the state they were in. They didn’t fail to notice that his left arm was bare, except for the by now grimy bandages with dried up, dark red stains. Finally the prince climbed to the top of the little hill. Sergeants went from group to group, always with the same message. The prince would like to speak to the village elders, family heads and others who were responsible for a group of fugitives.

But only, they stressed, when they had eaten and drunk their fill. The prince would wait for them to finish.

He didn’t have to. Immediately out of every group one to three men rose and started mounting the little hill, where they found Prince Tenaxos sitting on the ground, just like they had sat in the field beneath.

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They stood waiting, some their caps in hand, but the prince bade them

sit down.

After almost an hour, when he was reasonably sure most of the

groups were represented, he rose and asked for quiet by raising his arms.

“Friends,” he began, “you have come to the right place. Let me assure you, first of all, that we will do everything we can to help you.

Whatever can be done to alleviate your suffering, will be done. For those who don’t know me: I am Prince Tenaxos, commander of the Ximerionian Army of the South. My brave soldiers have defeated the Lorsanthian invader in battle—”

“What happened? Why were our villages and fields flooded? Why

did my daughters drown?” one of the men shouted in anger at the Prince.

Tenaxos raised his arms again.

“In one word? Lorsanthia. Lorsanthia happened. You know my

father, the high king, had plans to transform the Arkhasaro Valleys in one of the most fertile regions of the land. Alas, the arrogant and ever more aggressive behavior of Lorsanthia made the defense of the realm more urgent than these peaceful undertakings. Nevertheless, great basins were constructed in the Morradennes, from where the water could be delivered to the Valleys, all year round, through a system of sluices. We never imagined that Lorsanthia would stoop so low as to abuse this system, which was meant to bring you unheard of prosperity, to wreak destruction upon you instead. They must have surprised the units who guarded the waterworks, and they opened them with criminal and murderous intent.”

Tenaxos paused to let his words sink in. A busy exchange of questions and answers between the men showed that most of them had never heard of the high king’s irrigation works. The prince waited patiently until everybody grasped what he had told them.

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“You see,” he continued, after the noise had died down a little, “our

enemies balk at nothing. I understand your anger. I am partly to blame this happened,” he added in a tired voice. “I should have foreseen this inhuman behavior. I should have taken appropriate—”

“No, Your Highness. No,” one of the men, standing up, shouted.

“You are not to blame. They are. Those Lorsanthian criminals.”

“That is kind of you to say so,” Tenaxos replied, “but I’m afraid I failed you nevertheless. However, let’s look to the future. We have captured many tents, utensils of all kinds and tens of thousands of items of clothing, like tunics, shirts, boots, underwear, and most importantly, provisions. It may rain. You will not get drenched. Your clothes may be dirty and torn. You will get new ones. You will not go hungry anymore. There is enough food for everybody. My only regret is that I can not bring your loved ones back to life.”

Grateful noises of assent came from the assembled men.

“You can rest easy here, as long as you want, protected by my valiant troops who will help you in any way they can. You can help too in relaying this message to the many people that are still arriving every minute.”

A man in his forties stood up.

“All good and well, Your Highness — and mind you, we’re extremely thankful for everything you are doing for us — but we can’t stay here forever. Some of us have lost everything. Others need to feed what remains of their family.”

Tenaxos sighed ostentatiously.

“I know, friend, but there’s only so much I can do. We need new forces, more fighting men. Those who would like to do so can join my army and maybe one day take revenge for everything the Lorsanthian barbarians took away from them. Maybe even restore their fortune with spoils of war. Everybody who wants to join me will be accepted. I 61
don’t mind how young or old you are. We will find useful employ, even

for the very old, the weak or the impaired. Everybody can and should do his or her bit in the face of this relentless, monstrous enemy, whose cruelty you just fell victim to. You know these parts, and all kinds of services will be required. Not only fighting will have to be done. We can use carpenters, seamers, blacksmiths, bakers and cooks. We can use men to sharpen stakes, and men to dig pits to put them in. Each unit will be guided by experienced soldiers, but you wouldn’t be regular fighting forces. Consider yourself Tenaxos’s gadflies, harassing the enemy when he returns — and return he will — only to fly away again before he can swat you. Laying deadly traps in his way, and disappearing as he is about to fall into them.”

Tenaxos looked around. Some of the men sat more upright, their faces more lively than before. Some had already decided they were going to take advantage of the opportunity they were given.

“For those who still have families, we can help you build safe abodes, hidden deep in the woods on the slopes of the Morradennes, where no army can get at them.”

“How will we feed them?” a young man asked.

“With the pay you’ll receive, if you take service into your country’s army. But of course you can take your chances and flee deeper inland.

I will provide armed escorts for those who think this is the better choice. However, I can’t guarantee what you’ll find, wherever it is you want to go. You would have to take your chances.”

The men murmured excitedly among themselves.

“Friends, listen to me,” Tenaxos shouted.

Suddenly his face contorted with pain. He grabbed his left arm, and stooped slightly forward. The men gasped and fell silent. Then the prince righted himself again.

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“I’m sorry, I can’t stay very much longer,” Tenaxos said, the distress audible in his voice. “I need to take care of something. You don’t have to decide immediately. Take care of your loved ones, your friends, your neighbors and yourselves. My soldiers will help you.

Each of them can guide you to a tent where officers can explain to you the details of my offer, should you want to take me up on it. Whatever you decide is fine by me. If you want to flee the land of your forefathers that's up to you. Now…”

He didn’t finish his sentence, but went over to his horse and mounted it with some difficulty.

“Quite a performance,” Wendo said to the prince when they were at some distance from the small hill.

“This blasted wound hurts, Wendo,” Tenaxos replied, but he

grinned.

“Admirable, how you took advantage of this unexpected serendipity,” Seph of Gisswing said.

“What unexpected serendipity?” the prince asked, with a lopsided smile.

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“And so the first great move in the game was made. The high king
had been right. It would have been dangerous to postpone the conflict
any longer.”

…

“Ah, Verial, how naive you are. Sometimes I wonder how you find
your own member without directions. Deep in his heart — or rather
his mind — the king had always known he couldn’t deliver a decisive
blow to the behemoth. That was never his intention. He wanted the
initial defeat, ephemeral as it might turn out to be, provisional as it
was, to be as humiliating as possible… and strange.”

…

“Because, stupid boy, he wanted it to be marveled about far and
wide. He wanted ballads to be sung in all the cities of the region, how
the raging waters had fallen down upon the might and pride of
Lorsanthia. Because he wanted the Purple Room and the High Command of the Lorsanthian Army to wonder what else he could be planning. Because he wanted them to know that they were not dealing
with an opponent who would fight them in the open, but who would
use any and all means at his disposal. Because he wanted His Divinity to know that he was fighting the House of Tanahkos and that the
House of Tanahkos was mad as Murokthil. All three of them.”

…

“Pah. He had already dismissed Portonas as inconsequential and
almost forgotten the very existence of Ehandar.”

…

“No. Good plans always leave leeway for the unexpected. The
opening of the sluices was meant to split the Lorsanthian forces in
half. One half was to be driven by the prince’s army toward the main
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force under command of the king. Then the prince was supposed to
contain the other half on the strip of land between the Arkhasaro Valleys and the border.”

…

“Prince Tenaxos was on-site. He had visited the irrigation works.

He had seen how broad the Valleys were. He knew it was just a matter of opening the sluices at the right time. And, of course, his hit-and-run attacks were of his own design. The combination of both tactics worked better than even the prince had foreseen, though he had
hoped for this or a similar outcome from the beginning.”

…

“The king had never underestimated his oldest son, as he had his
youngest. In fact, he knew Prince Tenaxos so well that he had more
or less expected that his son would try to use the war to gain a more
prominent position. Both the Tanahkos ethos and the successes of his
youngest brother would drive the elder brother at least to trying to
attain a similar status.”

…

“Why did the king so readily agree? Partly for the same reasons
he had sent Anaxantis and Ehandar to the Northern Marches. Partly
because it made his position stronger.”

…

“But are you devoid of all ability of clear thought? Isn’t it obvious?

Even if one of the rivaling princes would gain the upper hand, he
would lose it again promptly from the moment the high king would
champion the other. By strengthening Prince Tenaxos’s position, he
put himself above the factions in his House. From now on Anaxantis
wasn’t competing with his father anymore, but with his brother.”

…

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“Yes. The Lorsanthian threat was the more urgent, and certainly
the more dangerous one. All the more reason for the high king to put
his House in order or, as he himself called it, restore the balance. His
authority had been challenged by his youngest son. Now he had reasserted it by making himself into the arbiter between both his sons.”

…

“Don’t be impatient, Starlight. The story hasn’t reached that point
yet. I’ve told you Anaxantis saw the weaknesses of Great Renuvia,
and how he was already thinking about ways to strengthen his
fledgling state. He hadn’t heard the news of the Battle of Barnsted
Fields yet. He hadn’t heard from Timishi and Lorcko, nor from He-marchidas and Arranulf. He was sorely lacking hard intelligence.

For the moment the only thing he could do was shore up his
defenses.”

…

“Why am I not surprised? You care not one wit that a kingdom
that had stood for over a millennium could fall overnight. You don’t
mind thousands of people dying while trying to protect their houses
and hearths. You just care about two persons. Let cities be burned to
the ground for all you care, provided those two young men find peace
of mind and happiness.”

….

“Very well. Anaxantis and Ehandar were in love with each other.