Some nodded. Others merely stared back at the Exile solemnly. That would have to do.
“The Sthan are close,” Garnuk said. “Seven days away. When they arrive they will fall on Dun Carryl with everything they have, attempting to destroy our people. Between the reports of our scouts and Harg, I do not believe the Usurper has the numbers to win this fight. The mountain will be breached and all those inside will be vulnerable. Those who cannot fight, the young, the old. The slaves. They will be slaughtered.”
“Unless,” Garnuk said, raising a clawed hand, “We get to them first. Unless, while the battle outside rages, we spirit our people away to safety until the Sthan leave. Then, we can return to pick up the pieces, without the Sthan ever knowing.”
Garnuk sighed and began pacing between the fires. “It is a difficult thing to do, abandoning Dun Carryl, even temporarily. Allowing men to desecrate our halls. But the city mountain can be remade. Our people are not recreated so easily. You say it is cowardice to abandon the Usurper and his warriors, to use them as a shield while we aide the others in escape. I say this is the Usurper’s chance to atone for his mistakes, by sacrificing all he has so that our people survive.”
The general turned around to look at Harg. “You, Harg, are integral to this plan. I need you to find out where civilians and slaves will be during the battle, so we can free them all. I need you to get Ruekig and Gorit tasked with overseeing the civilians’ defense, if the Usurper is planning to spare warriors for them. Most of all, I need you to give us information on how to accomplish this goal, which halls to avoid, the places where soldiers will be stationed, which passages are the quickest in and out of the mountain. The rest of us will sneak in to assist you during the battle, when all eyes are turned to the west and the Sthan. With any luck, a large number of us will make it and we can escort everyone to safety.”
“And the Usurper?” Tarq asked. “Do we deal with him, or leave him for the Sthan?”
Garnuk frowned. “If he runs across your path and you have the advantage, strike him down. If the odds are close or not good, leave him. I want all of you to survive this battle as well. You have fought long and hard, and I want you to have years of peace and plenty to make up for the suffering.”
“You want us to abandon the greatest of vertaga strongholds,” another warrior murmured. “No other group would even consider this.”
“But we do,” Harg said, “Because of what we stand for.” He looked up at Garnuk. “I support you, general. And I will help you preserve our people and rebuild Dun Carryl.”
Horned heads were nodding all around. “You are sure the Sthan cannot be beaten?” one asked hesitantly.
Garnuk nodded. “Yes,” he said. “The dragon is not something we can defeat at this time. Their army is larger and better organized. There is no way to win this fight, but we can avoid losing this war by walking away from it.”
“Running like cowards,” another growled.
“No,” Garnuk countered. “It takes courage to act in a contrary way, to do the right thing even if it is not what we want. We do not run as cowards, we withdraw to protect. Our people must survive.”
“And go where?”
“They must scatter,” Garnuk explained, frowning. “To the other villages throughout the mountains.”
“They will freeze, you know what the weather has been like these past few days.”
“And the villages will not be able to adjust to needing more food so easily,” another warrior mused. “Refugees will strain resources to the breaking point, and even still there might not be enough to go around.”
“The Sthan will likely leave quickly,” Garnuk said, raising his hands to placate the others.
“Why? Why leave when there is so much to carry off in spoils?” the first warrior asked. “They could linger for months trying to discover all of the mountain’s secrets.”
“Enough!” Tarq shouted, jumping to his feet, his roar silencing even the most vocal dissenters.
The entire camp, Garnuk included, turned to look at the captain. Tarq stood before them with taught muscles, his fists clenched, his teeth bared, and his eyes as hard and unyielding as stone.
“If we don’t save those we can from Dun Carryl, they will all die,” the captain said finally. “By evacuating as many as we can, some may still perish. But we would be giving them a chance. A chance was all we needed ten years ago. All we had to do was put some distance between ourselves and our enemies. All of us,” he said, looking around at every warrior. “We learned to survive. But first, we had to escape.”
“We were warriors,” another vertag growled. “They are not. They will die.”
“They are vertaga,” Tarq snarled. “And we do not die easily. All of our kind are fighters. They are not all trained in the sword or axe, but each and every vertag in these mountains carries a fighting spirit within them, a spirit which cannot be crushed or extinguished, that fights with tooth and claw for survival, and for victory. The vertaga of Dun Carryl will learn to survive just as we did. It is the nature of our people, and we will be there to help them.”
The dissenters fell silent, contemplating Tarq’s words. But the captain wasn’t done yet.
“What it comes down to,” he said quietly, though with no less intensity, “Is whether you trust your general to do the right thing. You do not know him like I do. For the past weeks I have sat beside him and watched him think, plan, plot, spend hours and hours working to find a plan which will bring us victory. If he believes this is the course we must pursue, I have to agree with him. I trust my general,” Tarq said, raising his voice. “I trust my friend. I trust the vertag who started this journey before any of us, who dared to dream of a world where vertaga could live in peace and prosperity. From the first days of this war!”
Garnuk winced at that. Those first days, he had been filled with vengeance. He had wanted the war, so he could weaken everyone involved, then step in and take over. But at Banta Kodu, he had realized he no longer wanted those things. He did not want to be Ramshuk, and he did not want to rule the world. Not anymore. The world wasn’t worth sacrificing what he’d had ten years ago. He just hadn’t realized it then.
While Garnuk was reflecting on the past, the others had been reflecting on Tarq’s words. Those who had argued earlier were looking distinctly uncomfortable.
“I am still with you, Garnuk,” Harg murmured from where he sat.
“And I!” another warrior called eagerly. Soon, there was a chorus of voices crying out, each pledging their loyalty. Every last one of them.
Garnuk nodded gravely. “Then we are agreed. We evacuate Dun Carryl. Harg, you’ll go in tomorrow and report back in a couple days?”
“Yes, general.”
“Good.” He turned to retreat to the ledge overlooking the mountain stronghold, then stopped and turned back. “Three guards on sentry duty. Rotate throughout the night. The rest of you, get some sleep and stay warm.”
The warriors growled in agreement and began spreading out their bedrolls. Garnuk meanwhile stepped around the rock outcrop and swung down to the ledge. None of the others followed him, not even Harg or Tarq.
The Exile sat down behind the outcrop, his feet dangling over the edge, kicking against the sheer stone face. He was so close. In a few days, it would all be over. The Usurper would be dead, the Sthan army would have its victory and withdraw, and the vertaga would be safe for a time. And his family would be freed. Garnuk cherished that thought more than any of the others. It had been so long since he had spoken to his mate and cub. He had barely recognized them when he had spotted them in the fields all those months ago, slaving away for the Usurper’s benefit. But now he would return, and set them free.
Would they remember him? Would they recognize him? The little one would not, she had only been two or three years of age when Garnuk fled. The fact he had run and left his family as slaves still struck Garnuk as cowardly, but if he was able to set things right in the next few days it would all be worth it
. The years of being hunted, the terrifying nights of trying to evade the Black Hawks, the stabs of hunger during the times he had nearly starved to death. The pain from the numerous wounds he had suffered, and the cold which had threatened to claim him. In a few short days, it would be over.
As it turned out, those days were not short. Harg left early the next morning, before Garnuk was even awake, to return to Dun Carryl and begin his part of the mission. The other members of Shadow Squadron were left with nothing to do except take occasional watches, but there were so many of them rotating sentry duty that each warrior had to serve once a day or less. So for most of the day, the vertaga under Garnuk’s command lay around the camp, passing the time in any way they could.
Some slept and rested for hours upon hours, others turned to activities such as carving to pass the time and occupy their minds. Tarq and a few others busied themselves by keeping the fires burning, while Garnuk himself took to spending long stretches of time on the hidden ledge facing Dun Carryl.
Finally, on the third day, Garnuk decided his warriors had been sitting around for too long. He dispatched four teams of two to scout the Sthan advance from a distance and make sure they were still on course. He set a few others to circle Dun Carryl from a distance and try to spot anything unusual that would suggest the Usurper was planning something unconventional or unexpected. The remaining warriors he assigned to begin constructing a camouflaged roof to go with the woven walls that Tarq had developed.
The scouting groups spent most of the day on the move, and returned with little in the way of useful information. The Sthan were still on the move, the dragon was still with them, and the army appeared to be the same size as it had been before. As for Dun Carryl, the city mountain was still and silent, with no sign of vertaga anywhere on its slopes. The Usurper was still hiding, perhaps hoping the Sthan would march right past him and continue to the east. Unfortunately, the massive front gate at the far end of the long lake left little doubt that the mountain was really a stronghold of some kind. If the Sthan were going to miss the city, they would have to be woefully unobservant.
The woven roof turned out to be a far more diverting task. In addition to the problem of creating natural-looking mats to make a roof from, the designers had to find a way to prop them up and keep them from falling down. Several attempts met with failure before Garnuk and Tarq stepped in to offer their expertise. In no time at all, several upright posts from the trunks of fir trees felled by Shadow Squadron’s axes were planted in the ground, woven mats resting on their ends. The mats formed an irregular, disjointed roof rather than a perfect covering. Garnuk and Tarq had decided that it would be less noticeable this way, and they needed a way for the smoke from the fires to escape the camp.
Even with these complications, the new roof was finished on the fourth day. That left three days until the Sthan were due to arrive and attack Dun Carryl, three days with no assignments save the occasional sentry duty. Shadow Squadron rapidly became bored and restless, snapping at each other and squabbling mindlessly over little things. Foreseeing a potential for disaster, Garnuk declared that all weapons were to be kept sheathed and left out of easy reach, except at night. All obeyed without question, so there were no duels to break up the monotony.
Finally, on the evening of the final day before the Sthan army was due to arrive, Harg returned. The captain slipped through the woven gate and came to Garnuk immediately, sitting beside the general’s fire.
“All has been prepared,” he reported. “Ruekig and Gorit will help us. Their warriors have been assigned to guard noncombatants, who will be kept in some of the larger halls midway up the mountain, near the western side.”
“Not far from where the Usurper will be commanding his forces,” Garnuk murmured. “That will make things more difficult, especially the sneaking around part.”
“Yes,” Tarq agreed as he sat down on Garnuk’s other side. “Have you identified the best way out?”
“The slave tunnels,” Harg replied promptly. “It will take time to get to them, but they are far from the battle and very large so many of our people can leave at once rather than being constricted at a smaller exit.”
“Good,” Garnuk said, nodding thoughtfully. “And the slaves? Where will they be kept?”
“Close to the others who can’t fight,” Harg said immediately. “And slightly closer to the command overlook.”
The Exile swore quietly and scratched at his horns. “We’ll have to be careful.”
“Extremely,” Harg agreed. “The good news is, I managed to get hold of this.” He pulled a sheet of parchment from a pocket and unfolded it, spreading it out so that Garnuk could see. On the sheet was a full map of Dun Carryl, including a great number of marks on the eastern side.
“What are these?” Garnuk asked, indicating the marks.
“Entrances for the others,” Harg said. “There’s quite a few more than I thought.”
“Are they all guarded?”
The captain frowned. “That I don’t know.”
“Could be problematic,” Tarq observed. “We should send teams of two to support each other.”
“Agreed,” Garnuk said. “But we have an odd number, so you will both come with me.”
“Are you sure?” Tarq asked.
“There is no one I would rather have watching my back,” Garnuk said firmly.
“No, I meant are you sure you want all three of our leaders in the same group? What if we were recognized and attacked? The others would be left without anyone to command them.”
“They will manage,” Garnuk said shrugging. “They are ready. And Ruekig has enough leadership to make the plan work.”
“Actually, he was demoted after that West Bank battle,” Harg reported. “Not badly though. It may have actually helped us, because all the higher-ranking officers are taking part in the battle.”
“That is fortuitous,” Garnuk agreed. “Our scouts report the Sthan will arrive tomorrow. I believe they will launch their attack without delay, assuming they know Dun Carryl is here.”
“Should we move out tonight?” Tarq asked urgently.
“No,” Garnuk said, shaking his head. “We leave in the morning, circling around to the north and east. We’ll leave one scout team on the mountain itself, and they can signal when the battle has started.”
“One more day,” Tarq murmured excitedly. “We have worked towards this for a long time, my friend.”
“Yes,” Garnuk agreed. “And tomorrow, all our work will pay off.”
Chapter 55:
The Siege of Dun Carryl
Garnuk did not sleep that night.
For a long while, he lay on his bedroll near one of the fires, staring up at the roof of woven mats and the few stars he could see through the gaps in the ceiling. But he soon realized sleep would not come to him, and instead got up and moved to the hidden ledge, a place he had started to consider his solitary thinking spot. None of the others could get to it, save Harg, and no one ever bothered him while he was there.
The Exile easily swung around the outcrop and settled on the ledge, his back against the stone face. He could see Dun Carryl through the darkness, a silent monolith, waiting for the storm that was about to break over it. Garnuk sat there, staring off into the night for hours, alone with his thoughts.
A scrabbling of claws on stone startled him to wakefulness as the sun was rising the following morning.
The Exile flinched, nearly fell from the ledge, then pressed himself against the rock outcrop, heart hammering. As he did, Harg dropped onto the ledge, shaking his head.
“I can’t believe it,” he said. “You actually fell asleep back here.”
“Wasn’t trying to,” Garnuk muttered blearily. “And I’d appreciate a warning next time,” he added, glancing over the edge of the ledge.
Harg looked down as well and winced. “That would be one nasty fall,” he observed. “Not much to cushion your landing down there either.”
“Thanks for point
ing that out. Are the others ready to go?”
Harg glanced over his shoulder, pointlessly, since he couldn’t see the camp. “They will be in a moment. They’re eating right now, checking their weapons. Figured we’d leave everyone’s gear here and come back for it later.”
“Good thinking,” Garnuk agreed. “Today we fight and run, packs would only slow us and arouse suspicion when we enter Dun Carryl.”
“Agreed.”
Garnuk stood and edged around Harg, preparing to swing back around to the main camp. “Anything else I should be aware of?”
“Yes,” Harg said. “Avoid the Usurper.”
Garnuk nodded. “The mission comes first. The Sthan will finish him for us.”
“Don’t go looking for him,” Harg cautioned, “This battle isn’t about revenge, right?”
“Right,” Garnuk agreed. “It’s about survival.”
The captain relaxed a little, then followed Garnuk back around to the main camp. There, Tarq was forming up the warriors of Shadow Squadron, giving them their final assignments and checking to be sure everything was in order. Garnuk waited to one side while Harg went to help the other captain. When at last everyone was ready, all eyes turned to Garnuk.
“It’s been an honor,” he said, looking around at his warriors. “Now, let’s go and finish the job.”
The warriors resolutely followed Garnuk out of the camp. The woven structures they left in place, in case they ever returned. Once they were outside, Garnuk accelerated to a steady jog, bounding down the side of the mountain, towards the valley that Dun Carryl stood in. The others followed wordlessly in two long, strung out files, careful to keep space between them in case someone fell.
They reached the bottom of the mountain in good time and immediately began moving to the north, weaving up and down the lower slopes of other mountains to stay hidden from scouts on either side. It was not until they passed the northernmost part of Dun Carryl that Garnuk relaxed a little. There were still many challenges ahead, but the fact that they had gotten this far undetected was promising.
The Ramshuk (Heirs of Legacy Book 3) Page 55
