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‘Yes, that is indeed the name Syntara has chosen for herself. Daughter Light. I always thought it a presumption. Oh, and now of you, too, in assuming you have the right to send me anywhere.’
‘Forgive my transgression, Renarr. There is a tutor in the camp – have you seen him? The man lacks a leg. Perhaps he would take you under his care. I shall suggest it to Urusander when next I see him.’
‘You mean Sagander, fled from House Dracons,’ Renarr replied, indifferent to the threat. ‘The whores speak of him. But he already has a child he deems to teach. The daughter of Tathe Lorat, or so I am told. Sheltatha Lore, upon whom he leans, like a man crippled by self-pity.’
Serap’s eyes hardened. ‘Sheltatha? That’s a rumour I have not yet heard.’
‘You do not consort with camp-followers and whores. Well, not regularly,’ she added with a small smile. ‘In any case, I have had my fill of tutors. Too many years of that, and oh how delicately they treated the daughter of a dead hero.’
‘They did not fail in honing your wit, Renarr, although I doubt any would take pride in the woman they created.’
‘More than a few come to mind who would happily share my furs and consider sweet their belated reward.’
Snorting, Serap arose. ‘What did you come here to witness, Renarr? This is your first time to your father’s command tent since we left Neret Sorr.’
‘I needed to remind him,’ Renarr replied. ‘While I remain unseen to his eyes, still he steps around me.’
‘You are his anguish.’
‘I have plenty of company in that, lieutenant.’
‘And now?’
‘Now, I will join my giggling companions, atop a hill from which to watch the battle. We’ll fix corbie eyes on the field below, and talk of bloodied rings and brooches.’
She felt the woman’s eyes upon her for some time, a full four or five breaths, and then Serap exited the tent, leaving Renarr alone.
Rising, she approached the map table, replacing the anchor stones to force down the curled edges of the map. Then she leaned over it and studied the thin inked lines denoting the terrain. ‘Ah, that hill there, then, should do us well on this day.’ Conversations of greed with glinting eyes. Sharp laughter and cackling, crude jests, and if the men and women we took last night soon lie cold and still in the mud of the valley below, well, there will always be others to take their place.
Avarice makes whores of us all.
* * *
Captain Havaral rode at a canter down the slope, the wind skirling dead leaves across his path. The broad basin of the valley ahead was not quite as level as he would have liked, with a slight climb favouring the enemy. From the crest of the rise behind him, where Ilgast Rend had arrayed his army of Wardens, the lie of the land here had seemed more or less ideal, but now he found himself picking his way around sinkholes hidden by knots of leafless brush and small, twisted trees, and here and there thin but deep run-off tracks crooked their way downward, inviting a horse’s ankle and then the sickening snap of bones. The Wardens were a mounted force, relying upon speed and mobility. What he was seeing of this slope troubled him.
He had been a Warden all his adult life, and had in Calat Hustain’s absence often taken overall command as senior officer. It was not easy to simply shrug off his sense of betrayal in learning that Lord Ilgast Rend had supplanted him in this responsibility, but he would follow orders nonetheless, without a word of complaint, nor an instant’s resentment in his expression. Personal slights were the least of his worries this morning, in any case. That the Wardens had marched on Urusander; that he and his companions were now preparing for battle, all for the sake of a few hundred slaughtered peasants in the forests, was, to his mind, utter madness.
To make matters worse, they had no reliable intelligence on the Legion’s complement. Was it fully assembled? Or was it, as Rend clearly believed, yet to achieve that? Pragmatic concerns, these. On this day they could find themselves facing the full might of Urusander’s Legion.
Civil war. I refused to think on it. I stripped the hides off my Wardens whenever they even so much as hinted at it. Now here I am, an old fool, laid siege to by knowing looks. Best hope, then, that I’ve not burned the last vestiges of respect among my soldiers. Nothing fashions a fool quicker than a hollow tirade.
But even fools could possess courage. They would follow his orders. To think otherwise was inconceivable.
For the moment he rode alone, watched by fifteen hundred of his kin, carrying to Lord Urusander an invitation to private parley with Ilgast Rend. This battle could still be prevented. Peace could be carved out of this misshapen mess, and to yearn for that was not a failing of courage. It was, in truth, a desperate grasp for the last vestiges of wisdom.
How wo
uld Urusander fare in the face of Lord Rend’s fury? That would be a scene worth witnessing, if only through a pinprick hole in the tent’s back wall. Not that such a thing was even possible. The two men would meet alone, and it was unlikely that their voices would carry enough to be heard by anyone outside.
He was halfway across the basin when he saw a troop of riders appear on the opposite crest.
Havaral frowned, his mount momentarily losing its way as he unconsciously slackened the reins.
The banner did not belong to Vatha Urusander. Instead, the standard-bearer was displaying the colours of the Legion’s First Cohort.
Hunn Raal. Have we not had enough of that man?
The insult was plain, and Havaral found himself hesitating. Then he silently berated himself. No, not for me. I am neither Calat Hustain nor Ilgast Rend. I have no right to wear this affront. Besides, Urusander might be awaiting word, and but sends his captain just as Rend has sent me. The notion sounded convincing in his head, provided he did not direct too much scrutiny its way. Kicking his mount forward, with renewed assurance, he continued on, heading directly for the delegation.
