“No proof — yet,” answered Nigel. “But don’t you see? If the dogs are on the march, coming from so many scattered and distant parts of the forest, it can only mean that they plan to move against us — in a united front.”
“Even if all this is so, and we do once again face war, it’s still a far cry from fulfillment of the Prophesy. Such movements in the wood can be interpreted in many different ways. It could be because of bad hunting after winter, or because of late snows, or even because of some feudal war among themselves. Really, I think the relationship between this and the ancient Prophesy is foolish.”
Nigel got up and began to pace. His hands perspired, and his breathing quickened. He glanced out the window, down at the deserted street. There was no one to be seen, save the soldiers on duty, standing firm along the parapet of the low eastern wall. The torches in the towers burned brightly. What was the saying? A soldier of the Haven never sleeps.
But Antonius was right, he knew. His worry, at least at this stage, was unwarranted. The Prophesy dated back from times long ago, some said even before the Haven itself. Why should it be more true today than a thousand years ago? Nigel clasped his hands behind him and turned once again to face his friend. Still, though, the thought nagged at him.
“All right,” he said at length, “let’s forget the Doomsayers and the Prophesy. How many nearby Packs seem to be gathering? And how large are they?”
Antonius thought for a moment, then looked glumly at Nigel. “If Desmond’s assessment is correct,” he squawked, pausing for some mental calculation, “and if the Packs the falcons saw are indeed headed this way, we could face a force of, oh, perhaps up to two thousand.”
Nigel whistled. That would be a formidable army. The Haven would be hard pressed to push them back.
“Are you sure your numbers are correct?” he said, knowing that birds often had great difficulty in counting beyond a few dozen or so.
Antonius fluttered his wings again. “Your grandfather taught me well your mathematics,” he said. “Too well, perhaps. My figures are correct.”
Nigel frowned.
“Yet remember,” rasped the parrot, “such a force would not be much larger than the last time the dogs attacked in strength.”
The young Lord tried to hide his shudder. He remembered the last time very well: it had cost the life of his father.
Twenty years before, when he was nine, an army of over fifteen hundred wild dogs had invaded the Valley. They overran eleven frontier settlements, sweeping in a broad pincer movement clear from the Westland, the Southern Borders, and right across the Valley River. The Haven had committed its entire force, including the crack soldiers of the Royal Guard.
The battle raged for days on end as the dogs inched their way along a broad perimeter leading to the Outland. Fighting birds had swept down by the hundreds trying to somehow block the enemy advance, but still they had pressed on. The field hospitals were overflowing with wounded, even as the fight raged within sight. After fully a week of savage combat, the Haven’s army broke through the enemy line and divided the dogs into two scattered forces. The mounted cavalry charged bravely into the fray, and finally sent the dogs running back into the forest. But had the enemy had a fresh thousand warriors to send against them, Nigel knew he might not be standing here today. And if he was, it would be under the watchful eye of some dog-warlord who would keep him and others alive only for sport.
The cost of that war had been staggering. Whole areas of the Valley had been ravaged as the dogs plundered and pillaged everything in sight. It had taken years to rebuild, and many of the scars had yet to heal. Hundreds of men had fallen, bravely giving their lives to keep the Empire free.
Nigel tried to erase the awful memory from his mind — but was unable. His mother’s screams rang in his ears as she received the casualty list, his father’s the last name on the list. And in his own grief it was good Antonius who had made him wipe away his tears and stand tall again. It was a debt that could never be repaid.
“Are you still planning to speak before the Council tomorrow?”
Nigel snapped out of his thoughts.
“You know I am,” he said, gesturing to the papers upon which his speech was being written. “But what good will it do? Sean and Assan are dead set against me.”
Antonius rustled his wings restlessly. “Military men. All they understand are tactics and strategy. They are too shortsighted.”
“Lord Ciru was a military man,” reminded Nigel. “He wasn’t shortsighted.”
The parrot nodded his head. “Ciru was truly a man among men. But there are none like him anymore. Commanders like Sean have no care in seeking new horizons, no vision of a new future.” He looked into Nigel’s eyes, “But what about Elon? Surely the Elder will give some consideration to your plan.”
Nigel’s eyes scanned the papers on his desk. Papers so carefully written, explaining the benefits of his planned exploration into the forest. “If Elon wanted to break the Decree against forest-explorations, he could. But he’s still unwilling to act alone.”
Antonius nodded his beak knowingly. But even after all these years in the Haven, the political ways of men were still too hard for him to really understand. “But you will keep trying, won’t you? Even if you fail again tomorrow?”
The question need not have been asked; there was never any doubt of it. Ever since his twentieth birthday when he assumed his father’s place at the Council, he had implored them to be given permission to lead an expedition through the forest and find the way out. But time after time they turned him down. It was dangerous, they said — it was useless, it was suicide. The words of his teacher raced across his mind: the forest is endless.
Some called him a dreamer, others said he was a fool. And each time they had voted him down. There were a few of course, a tiny handful, who held similar beliefs to his own and understood what he was striving to do, but they were never enough to carry the day. Never nearly enough.
“You know I’ll keep trying,” he said after a while, “but I’m tired, Antonius, weary of it. What more can I do?”
Antonius flapped ruffled wings. “Why are men such fools?” he wailed to the sky, to the Fates. “Are they so blinded? Don’t they realize that the Valley imprisons them, like a bird in a cage?”
Nigel reached out to stroke the trembling feathers, but the parrot drew away, in no mood to be soothed.
Nigel moved his hand back, a hurt look in his eyes. Even birds understood, he mused, even they knew the Empire must break free from the confines of the Valley — if only to breathe. Otherwise it would stagnate — was it not doing so already? — and eventually collapse under its own weight. While all the time the enemy was waiting and sniping at every side. The dogs have us trapped! Will the Council never see it?
“Tell me, Nigel,” chirped the parrot, calmed down a bit, “how many live within the Empire?”
Nigel thought for a moment. “Oh, about thirteen thousand or so,” he said. “About seven thousand of them inside the walls, the rest in the settlements. But why do you ask? What are you getting at?”
The parrot’s beady eyes gripped Nigel’s. “Once there were twice that number!” he shouted. “Your population has not grown, it has declined. Does that not tell you anything?”
Nigel peered at his friend through sad eyes. “Yes,” he drawled, “it says much. It tells of the hardships we have lived with these past hundred years. But there has been so much for us to contend with. The Plague has struck us hard, as did the Great Drought in my great-grandfather’s time, as did the Ten-Year Famine of my grandfather’s day.”
Antonius recoiled with anger, ruffling his feathers. “And I begged your grandfather to listen! You speak to me of ‘signs,’ well, the signs were there, then! Action should have been taken long ago. Men should have entered the forest and fought their way through, if necessary. You should have left the Valley by the thousands, while you were still strong, met the dogs on their own terrain and beat them back while you
could. But no! The Council sat and talked, debated over cups of sweet wine — and did nothing! Nigel, you and the others here today are paying the price of your ancestors’ mistakes.”
Nigel was speechless. Never before had he heard Antonius rage in such a torrent of words. And worst of all, the parrot was right. Everything he said was true. How ironic, he thought, that in recent decades disease and famine had taken more lives than the dogs!
“Your Empire is crumbling, Nigel,” rasped the parrot softly, his anger stilled. “Bit by bit the dogs encroach and strangle you. And you do nothing but talk.”
“That’s unfair! The Council listens to any matter before it, and gives it due consideration — that is our law. But they must also take into account the common good, what is best for all the Empire, farmer or noble alike.”
“Time upon time you have been blocked by their ‘considerations,’ yet even now you shield them, excuse their errors. By the Fates! The Council cannot see past its own face — or its ambitions.” Again the feisty bird flexed his talons, clawed at Nigel’s hand, and made him wince. “War may be coming, perhaps this very summer; and after it will come another — and after that one will be yet another. How many blows can the Haven stand? The Valley is no longer as rich and fertile as it once was, and with each passing year it becomes harder to protect.”
And each year the dogs become bolder, Nigel thought. Growing in strength and numbers, as the Empire staggers. “But what can I do?” he said. “The Council ties my hands. They won’t listen.”
“Make them listen! Demand it as a Lord! Threaten them, if need be, but make them act! One day the dogs will come and you’ll really be powerless to stop them. One day they’ll overwhelm you, just as they did us, a thousand years ago. But we were fortunate. We had the Haven to turn to. Who can men turn to?”
Nigel swallowed hard, but the rising lump in his throat did not go away. Once, it was told, men had been rulers over the whole world, and feared no creature. Now they sat cowering in the Valley, afraid to believe they could find a way out. Nigel knew this, saw it as plain as water. But the problem was how to make the Council see it, and do something about it. And that would not be easy.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Valley was peaceful in the early hours before dawn. Not a single candle burned in any of the villages. Hidden by the night, two riders came racing across the craggy Westland hills, bounding over crevasses and boulders alike until they came to the flat lands of the Plain. There they dashed onto the new road, making all haste. Dustclouds stirred and swirled behind them as they rode forward. Their faces were dirtied and grimy, tunics soiled, swords caked with blood.
Past the orchards they galloped, past the vineyards and silos, not even once breaking stride. Far off in the high tower they had already been seen. The Great Gate was lumbering open to receive them.
And into the city they charged, leaving the long-faced archers and sentries puzzled and worried. Once past the low inner wall they turned sharply left, following the wide boulevard that led to Central Square. The markets were deserted but they paid no heed, caring not if it were teeming with life. Beside Central Square they dismounted, left their horses roaming free, and ran down the narrow street to the plaza. The plaza suddenly filled with muffled cries as a hundred windows grew bright with candle and torch. From every direction sleepy-eyed citizens pushed open their shutters and gazed at the commotion below.
Soldiers, Royal Guardsmen by their uniforms, were scrambling down the street, assembling. Some carried torches, others came with swords drawn. Horses’ hooves clattered on cobblestone as a hundred mares and stallions were brought from the stables. The soldiers fastened their swords, threw on the saddles, and prepared to ride. Orders were barked and ranks formed smartly. Then from the black sky came dozens of fighting hawks and falcons, sweeping in low, flying at their sides.
The pre-dawn ride of a hundred cavalry could mean but one thing: an attack. And maybe the beginning of war.
By dawn the news had spread throughout the Haven. From his rooms Nigel could see great billows of black smoke rising from the burning fields of the Westlands — thick clouds, climbing higher and higher. And he knew it was true, that the nightmare was real.
Taken by surprise, the panic-stricken Westlanders had burned everything rather than leave a single grain of food for the advancing enemy. The tiny Westland garrison, it seemed, had been powerless to stop the onslaught. Under Captain Desmond’s command, they had formed a hasty evacuation of the settlers. The region was perilously close to the edge of the forest, and further attacks by marauding packs of wild dogs could be expected at any moment. Mule-drawn wagons had brought out the women and children first, then the men, at least those who had survived. All morning long these wagons could clearly be seen as they lumbered slowly over the hills to safer territory. The settlers were in a state of shock, many of their loved ones left behind, their corpses mutilated by the enemy.
The assault had been swift and savage. Early casualty reports, brought by messenger ravens, told of scores of wounded and dead. It was clearly the worst defeat the Empire had suffered in years. By noon the entire Westland had been overrun, and reports of enemy thrusts across Valley River were widespread. A frontal assault on the Dale and Outland was considered imminent. And if that was lost, the Plain could be next. At all costs they must be stopped.
Reinforcements set up new lines of defense along the Dale, a holding action until the counteroffensive could be mounted. It was said there were still a few brave soldiers fighting behind in the Westland, desperately trying to slow down the dogs’ advance.
Nigel dressed in a hurry and ran to the South Wall. On the parapet in the tower he paced nervously, clutching at the silver dagger strapped onto his belt. Word had just come that Desmond was one of those still behind enemy lines.
Nigel stared blankly, white knuckles grasping at the edge of the crenellated wall. He and Des had been friends since childhood, their lives one way or another somehow always intertwining. He knew that Des would need every trick, every skill, every bit of cunning he had ever learned to come out of this alive — and even that might not be enough.
But Nigel was cautiously optimistic. His friend would know how to hide from the dogs, how to turn any disadvantage into an advantage, and with the luck of the Fates, he might somehow escape.
*
The lands of the Westland are rocky and uneven, craggy hills with weeds for grass and a coarse gravelly earth that makes tilling the soil here more difficult than in any other part of the Valley. But those who settled here were a hardy folk; wherever a weed or a single blade of grass grew, some determined soul would be there, plowing up the earth.
To the more urbane folk of the Plain or the Dell, or even the Outland, such settlers were fools at best. They lived dangerously close to the forest, saw little profit from their labors, eked out the smallest of harvests. But to those who called these parts home, it was the finest corner of the Empire. Here a man could hold his own property, be beholden to no Lord or Lady. Here you learned to live beside the forest and learn from it. You could learn to track, to hunt, to smell — to gain a knowledge of the wood like few others ever could.
Because of this, it was natural that so many of the Haven’s finest soldiers were Westland-born.
By the standards of the Lords of the Council, Desmond was of rather low rank, merely the son of well-to-do landowners whose title ranked him low among the nobility. But as a soldier there were few finer. His rank of captain was far more than the customary title bestowed upon the sons of the highborn. His Westland background had prepared him well for his duties, and his men loved him because they knew they could trust him as a leader and as a friend. If anyone could make it, Des could.
CHAPTER FIVE
The walls of the outer corridor were pastel green, soothing, almost like the countryside. The windows were tall and deeply recessed, giving both sunlight and gentle breezes. On the floor were clay tiles, almost a mosaic of color: browns and golds, deep re
ds and ochre, all given added luster by the late afternoon sun. On the wall opposite the doors, by the vestibule that led to the street, was a grand map of the Empire, so detailed that every farm, every village, every hill was clearly identifiable. One could gaze at it for hours, becoming lost and entranced, believing that such an empire as this would stand forever. Then there were the doors of the Great Hall. They were solid, massive, tall, oval structures of the most sturdy oak, made to withstand the passage of both time and the elements. Their carved designs told tales of their own; apart from their beauty and grace, the doors were worn and their best days had passed.
With surprisingly little effort, the heavy doors swung open at last. The guards at either side snapped to attention, saluting smartly as the Lord came out of the hall.
Nigel walked slowly, head down, biting his lip to control the surging anger inside. He was dressed in his brown ceremonial toga, with a red sash around his waist, the formal dress that was required for Council. The only thing different about him was the silver dagger fixed firmly at his side. Without acknowledging the salute of the guards, he strode down the long corridor silently, his sandals creating a dull echo as he passed. He came out into the sunlight cursing under his breath. Oh, they had listened patiently enough when he explained why now, more than ever, an expedition through the forest was needed. But the matter was put aside. The fighting in the Westland required top priority; his schemes would have to wait. Nigel laughed bitterly. Wait! He had heard that before. The real truth was plain: fighting or no fighting, once again he had failed.
Outside everything seemed peaceful and quiet. The path from the Great Hall was lined with budding trees, hickories and firs; there were a scattering of wooden benches and a small park. The park was filled with a dozen children running and playing under the watchful eyes of nannies.
Some of those children should have been his.
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