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  “Why was not I awakened!” he bellowed. The anger that filled him was more fueled than disarmed by the knowledge that it was unjust. “This force should have been on its feet, armed and ready to march, hours ago. This delay puts all our plans at risk!”

  Jodoli was sitting up, rubbing his eyes. Firada was already in motion, gesturing at his feeders to hurry faster as they hastily dished up the warmed food and brought him hot tea poured from a steaming kettle. There was every indication that Jodoli’s feeders had been awake for quite some time, in order to have all things ready when the Great One awakened. He turned and saw that even Olikea, morose as she had been, was awake and dressed.

  “Why did no one awaken me?” he demanded again, and I cringed for him at how childish he sounded. I think he sensed my disdain for him. He thrust his legs out from under the blankets and gestured angrily for his clothing to be brought to him. He was suddenly realizing how far he had wandered from the soldier’s path, and how telling that might be today. Impatiently he tugged his garments from his feeders’ grasps and put them on, grunting as he did so. He had to hold his breath to jerk his fur-lined boots up over his calves but he did so, and then stood. “We eat, we pack, and then we march. We have to be at the forest’s edge at the road’s end by dark. There, we will have to wait until full dark before we go into the town to attack. So eat and drink well now, and see that your water skins are filled. This will be the last hot meal you get before we join battle. Take a little food with you, but only what you can eat while moving. Get ready!”

  I was pleased that they were getting off to such an uneven start, but tried to keep my satisfaction small and hidden. Even as I watched the cold and sometimes sullen warriors go about their preparation, I wondered how much of her dream Epiny would remember through a mind clouded with laudanum and hoped that Spink would heed the urgency of my message. I would have no way of knowing if my desperate warning had worked until the forces joined battle. Until then, I tried to keep the gnawing of my doubts to myself, even as I fed Soldier’s Boy uncertainty about the readiness of his troops. Over and over, I summoned up strong memories of how quickly the Academy cadets had fallen out before dawn each morning. I recalled for him the times when, as a boy, I’d watched the reinforcements for the eastern strongholds riding or marching past my father’s holdings. The men, even at the end of a long day’s march, had kept their lines straight and their heads up. He watched his warriors gather in straggling groups about their recently appointed leaders. There was no uniformity in how they were outfitted or supplied, no precision in how they gathered, and very little evidence of military discipline at all. All those elements were essential to a battle campaign as I knew of them, and they lacked them all. Their only strong asset was one that made my blood run cold. There was hatred and vengeance gleaming on every face, and the will not just to kill but to slaughter was evident in the harsh promises and cold wagers they placed with their fellows. There would be many deaths tonight. My mind wandered to the old god Orandula, and then as quickly I jerked my thoughts away from him. I did not want my attention to summon him, did not want him to construe the coming slaughter as an offer or bargain with him.

  Yet as Soldier’s Boy’s ragtag force formed up to be quick-walked by the Great Ones down to the forest edge, I could not help but see the hand of the balancer in all of this. Could hatred and determination be a counterweight to organization and experience? I suddenly understood something about the old god of death and why he was also the god of balances. One could always make two things balance by moving the fulcrum. I had the sudden uneasy notion that I was the fulcrum that had been moved.

  Soldier’s Boy bid Olikea farewell. All of the feeders except Dasie’s guards would remain here with Kinrove and Jodoli. From now on, the warriors under the leadership of Dasie and Soldier’s Boy would go on alone. Again, the few horses we had were led rather than ridden. I had never seen Dasie mounted on her cart horse. It pleased me to think she would be a poor equestrian.

  The late morning and fading light of the short afternoon passed in the flickering landscapes of quick-walk. The snow was deep in the places where it had sifted down through the trees, and the cold was enough to crack the lips and stiffen faces. More than a few of our warriors expressed discomfort and then dismay as the march went on. I think some of them would have turned back, but the advantage of the quick-walk meant that they must remain with us, or face several lonely days of hiking back to our encampment. Those who might have otherwise deserted stayed with us, but gracelessly.

  For the first time since Dasie had entered our lives, she was without her iron bearer. Kinrove and Jodoli had refused to even attempt to quick-walk anyone carrying iron, saying that even to have that metal nearby disrupted their magic severely. I do not know if she feared Soldier’s Boy might seize the opportunity for revenge or not. Like Soldier’s Boy, she had left her new feeders behind, but her two original feeders, attired now as warriors, walked to either side of her. The bronze swords they carried looked every bit as deadly as iron, and the men who carried them appeared confident and competent, for they needed to worry only about their swordsmanship, not about any accidental discomfort or injury to their Great One. Behind her, a warrior led the hulking horse she would ride into battle. For now, he functioned as a pack beast, laden with pitch torches.

  Today both Soldier’s Boy and Dasie toiled through a day of walking that was a trial in itself for heavy folk who had grown unaccustomed to exerting themselves. The problem for Soldier’s Boy was not the cold, but the heat his own body generated from the exercise. He wanted to avoid sweating, for well he knew how quickly his body would chill once they had stopped moving, but there was little he could do about it. Again, I experienced that sensation of lurching and halting along as the magic shoved us. It was not pleasant, but I enjoyed knowing that Soldier’s Boy shared my discomfort.

  Night came swiftly. The last bit of our journey we made in darkness. It was unnerving to be magically moved forward through a landscape that became, with every few steps, darker and colder. When we reached the forest of the ancestor trees that bordered on the end of the King’s Road, our unnatural journey abruptly halted. In the dark and the cold, the men and the dozen or so horses suddenly milled, speaking in low voices as they located one another in the dark. Dasie had planned well. She unloaded torches, and as her magic woke each one to flame, they were passed around.

  The giant trees around us were heavily burdened with snow, but had effectively blocked most of it from reaching the forest floor. There were drifts in a few places, but for the most part, it was less than ankle deep. Fallen branches were gathered, and in a short time, a score of scattered campfires leapt and crackled in the darkness. The light made monsters of the passing shadows and the updraft of heat stirred the branches overhead, prompting a few to drip or suddenly spring free of a heavy load of snow, showering the soldiers below. Soldier’s Boy moved purposefully from fire to fire, talking to the men he had put in charge of his troops. Some were effective as sergeants; they’d taken charge of their troops and seen that they’d drunk from their water and eaten sparingly of their supplies. Others were more like bully boys, proud of being chosen to lead but, in their pride, pushing and harrying their warriors rather than truly leading. He should have let them choose their own leaders, I thought to myself. It would have been more in keeping with their Speck traditions. Then I was surprised that I could see how his overlayering of Gernian military tradition did not fit their culture but he could not. I wondered again at how much both of us had blended.

  After he had made his circuit, he came back to his own fireside. The warriors from his kin-clan were there. He wasted a few long moments wishing that he had begun to cultivate them earlier and truly make them his own. He smiled at them and asked if they had any concerns, but could scarcely focus on their responses. In a few hours, his life might depend on them, and he barely knew them or any of the men in his command. He was no better, I let him know, than the distant officers I’d served
under at Gettys. I was merciless as I gouged at his self-confidence and his ability to command. As I did so, I wondered if he had done the same to me during my long days as my father’s slave and prisoner. Had he been part of my inability to tear myself free and find a new life for myself? Even the idea that such was a possibility fanned my wrath to flames. I felt no compunction at all as I undermined his self-worth with every doubt I could imagine, with every recrimination from the past that I could unearth. I reminded him, over and over, that he’d been lazy and neglected his strength and fitness, that he’d wasted opportunities to win his men’s loyalty, to teach them discipline, to make them understand the necessity of drill and swift obedience.

  He glanced once up the hillside toward Lisana’s tree. I knew how badly he longed to climb the steep snowy slope, so that for even a moment he could rest his brow against her tree and let her know that he loved and missed her still. But I daunted him with a reminder of how cold and arduous such a climb would be, and finished it with the idea that if he hadn’t slept in like a lazy pig, perhaps there would have been enough time for him to attempt it. But now it was out of the question. He’d barely have enough time to ready his half-trained troops for their suicide mission.

  I knew the instant I pushed him too hard. He recognized my influence and suddenly I was at arm’s length from him. I found out something else then. He did not banish me as he had before because he did not want to expend that much strength and attention on me. I could not contain my joy to find that it had cost him to hold me in that limbo, cost him more than he dared spend on me now.

  Night deepened around us, and with it came the cold, an absence rather than a presence. All drew closer to the small fires that did little more than taunt winter. They dared not build them big enough to cast out any real heat or light. As it was, Soldier’s Boy scowled at them, hoping that no errant hunter or night wanderer would see them and report them.

  Never had an evening stretched so long. When the time to venture toward the town finally came, Soldier’s Boy ordered that Clove be brought to him. The lack of a mounting block made climbing up on the patient horse’s back an undignified and lengthy process. Dasie did little better with her horse. Clove at least was accustomed to bearing a heavy rider. Once I was up, he shuddered his coat as if settling himself and then stood quiet. Dasie’s cart horse mount disliked the fuss and noise of the warriors who helped their Great One up on her horse’s back. Once Dasie was up, the mare sidled and then, as Dasie gathered her reins too tightly, backed up nearly into one of the groups huddling around a fire. Soldier’s Boy had to ride to her aid, and then waste precious moments in giving her a lesson in basic horsemanship. Although he had not planned it that way, he decided that he would ride at the front of his warriors, with her just behind him and flanked by two of the warriors who were more experienced with horses.

  He rode Clove through the camp, savoring the height and command that the big horse gave him at the same time he cringed from the aches and strain that riding was awakening in his softened body. He spoke to his sergeants, making sure that they had checked their men’s supplies. The torches were the most critical to his plan, and each man carried three. Some of the warriors would carry fire pots, clay pots lined with sand that held coals. If Dasie’s magic could not prevail against the iron present in the town and fort, the torches would be kindled from the fire pots. He’d allowed each warrior to select his own choice of weapon. Some carried short swords, others bows with full quivers on their backs, some had spears or long knives, and a very few carried only slings. He formed them up in two columns, spaced his horses out among them, and then rode back to the head of his forces. From here to Gettys, they would travel on their own feet. Both Kinrove and Jodoli had told him that their strength for the quick-walk had been taxed to its limits, canceling his original plans to appear suddenly just outside the town. They could not move the force magically toward a place so saturated with iron. Soldier’s Boy wished it were otherwise, that they could simply appear in the vicinity of the fort and likewise vanish again. Yet he knew he would have to work with the limitations set on him. The night was fully black around them when he finally lifted his hand and said, in a low voice, “Forward!”

  The word was passed back, and like a feeble caterpillar, the two columns began to move unevenly. He led them on, to the very edge of the forest, and there he paused briefly. The clearing and beyond it the road were coated with smooth snow. There was a bit of light from a quarter moon and the myriad stars in the black winter night. The white ribbon of road seemed to gather the light to itself and then offer it up to the sky again. There was, as Jodoli had predicted, little sign of the effects of my desperate magic. Most of it had been repaired already. But that was actually all right. They’d cleared the road before the snows fell. It made Soldier’s Boy’s path plain. He would lead his men down the very road that had threatened to destroy them, and when they reached Gettys, they would turn that death and destruction back on those who had brought it.

  He kneed Clove and the big horse stepped out easily from the sheltering trees. He negotiated the uneven earth of the clearing under its blanket of smoothing snow and then reached the road itself. The unbroken snow and crust was knee-high on the big horse. With a sinking heart, Soldier’s Boy realized that he’d have to break trail for Dasie and her guard and for all the troops that followed him. He steeled his will, sat his horse well, and urged him forward into the night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  MASSACRE

  I suffered agonies of suspense on that long trek to town. Encumbered with heavy garments and forcing their way through unbroken snow, Soldier’s Boy’s troops trailed in a long ant-line behind us. Gernian foot soldiers, I thought with wry pride, would have made little of this march, but for the Speck warriors, it was a new sort of experience, one that they did not relish. The dark of night, the resistance of the deep snow, and the oppressive cold were cooling their battle ardor.

  I caught Soldier’s Boy wondering if his entire force would stay with him during this last leg of their journey, and then deciding it was better not to think of it. The men who had come with him this far had come for their own reasons; some for vengeance against the Gernians, some to put an end to Gettys and halt Kinrove’s dance, and some, doubtless, because they were young men and this all seemed like a marvelous adventure when they first heard of it. If some chose to turn back now, there was little he could do about it. They were all volunteers, and the Speck had no mechanisms to force a man to say he would do something for a month or a season, let alone a year. I surmised again that Soldier’s Boy was trying to impose a Gernian template on the Specks, one that was ill-suited to their culture. I think he caught a whiff of that thought.

  “It is necessary,” he thought gruffly. “To fight a heartless and evil foe, we must take on some of their strategy. We must bring to Gettys a form of warfare that they recognize. Any who escape us tonight and manage to survive their flight must carry a tale of the Specks at bloody ruthless war against all Gernians. It is what must be. I do not relish it. But I will finish it.”

  I made no response. I was trying desperately not to think too much about the town or the fort or Epiny and Spink. I tried to suspend my anxiety over whether or not Spink would react to my warning. Soldier’s Boy must not suspect that Gettys had been warned. If I dwelt on my fears or my hopes, he might decide to pry into my thoughts. I no longer knew how much I could conceal from him when he was determined.

  Clove moved with confidence, even eagerness, through the cold and dark. Perhaps the beast remembered where he was and was dreaming of a warm stable and a nice feed of oats and hay. We pushed on; our columns straggled out behind us in a display that reminded me more of a prisoner coffle than a military force on the march. The cold was so deep that the snow was dry and fluffy and sometimes squeaked as we strode through it. When we came to the more traveled section of the road where sporadic wagon and horse traffic had packed the snow, we moved more quickly.

  Whe
n Gettys came in view, the warriors rallied a bit. I heard muffled boasts and the callous laughter of young men who look forward to killing. Even this late at night, a few yellow lights shone in the town that huddled outside the walls of the fort. It was still and silent, a town deeply asleep, and my heart sank in me. My warning had not been heeded. I saw no extra sentries on top of the walls, no torches burning nor sign of any activity that would indicate that the fort was any more alert than usual. Soldier’s Boy’s plan would succeed. He would slaughter them in their sleep.

  He gathered briefly with Dasie and his chosen sergeants, to refresh their minds on the plan. It was all about silence and stealth and organization. Dasie would take the town, while Soldier’s Boy would endeavor to get his force inside the fort. The warriors were organized in pairs, each with an objective to find and burn. Dasie touched again the torches the warriors carried and the archers’ fire-arrows, binding them to her magic; when the time came, her magic would kindle each one. Her ability with fire-magic was strong; she believed that despite the iron in Gettys, her magic would be strong enough to kindle the flames. The fire archers each had specific targets; Soldier’s Boy wanted the upper levels of the watchtowers to catch fire. His other warriors would set alight buildings at the ground level before employing their chosen weapons against all who fled the fires. The plan was that all the torches would light simultaneously, kindling fires in so many places that the soldiers could not hope to control them all. If Dasie’s magic failed, they would fall back on the fire pots that some of the warriors carried. Such a tactic would not enable the simultaneous firing of buildings that Soldier’s Boy hoped for, but he believed it would still suffice.

  Soldier’s Boy reminded all of them yet again that they would rendezvous at the end of the King’s Road. When all were as prepared and eager as Soldier’s Boy could make them, he nodded to them and wished them well, and then his forces parted. Dasie’s group would spread out and filter into the town from all sides. Houses, inns, brothels, warehouses, and stores were their targets.