Arms crossed, face set, Corbin got directly to the point. “Bramwell knows you’re moving on Corghest. He’s marching for Pendralyn—or will be shortly, I don’t know which—to attack it while our eyes are elsewhere.”
“Or so the Baron of Heathbire thinks,” Joan interjected. “I’ve just had contact with his sage. The baron is only guessing. Nothing is certain.”
“It’s certain enough.” Corbin turned to Pate. “It seems Bramwell told Dain he’s heading west only to turn south, to attack us from the rear and pin us between his force and the Aldars already at Corghest.”
Wardin scowled at father and son as they exchanged grim, knowing looks. “Sounds like a sound strategy to me. Why doesn’t Heathbire believe him?”
“Hodge’s message was unclear on that point,” Joan said. “All I can say for sure is that the king said one thing, but the baron thinks he’s doing the other. He seemed to think you would understand why.”
“And so we do.” Pate looked at Wardin. “Dain is an excellent judge of people. He can tell when he’s being lied to. But more than that, Bramwell has no reason to discuss his plans with him, and every reason not to. The king saw me at Mindoral. He saw us practicing conduction there. He knows there are things Dain didn’t tell him.”
“Surely he would assume that’s because the baron didn’t know them,” Erietta said.
Pate spared her an impatient glance. “Perhaps, except that the baron, after suggesting he be the one to defend Mindoral, promptly lost it. One or the other, Bramwell could dismiss. But the king is no fool. He’ll have begun to suspect something.”
“The baron is no fool either,” said Corbin. “He would have been prepared to face that suspicion and justify his own actions. By blaming me instead, if I had to guess. Then he would have expected to embark on a long and arduous campaign to regain the king’s trust.”
“But that second part doesn’t seem to have happened. Instead, Bramwell promptly takes a possible traitor into his confidence and tells him exactly what he plans to do next?” Pate shook his head. “Doesn’t tally with what we know of the king. It’s a trap.”
Wardin’s fingers twitched against his cloak. Put like that, it did indeed sound dubious. “Meaning he wants Dain to tell me he’s coming west to meet us, when in fact he intends to continue on to Pendralyn.”
“So you won’t turn back to stop him,” Pate said with a nod.
Their suspicions made sense. Yet somehow managed to sound excessive at the same time. Wardin rubbed the back of his neck. “That is a very big conclusion to draw based on a lot of assumptions we can’t verify.”
“I might agree with you,” said Pate, “except that marching on Pendralyn is the smarter choice. And you can generally count on Bramwell Lancet to be smart.”
Erietta bit her lip. “He’s right about that, War. Assuming Bramwell still doesn’t know to expect the Dords, he’ll underestimate the danger to Corghest. Meanwhile, Pendralyn will never be more vulnerable than while you and a sizable army are out of reach.”
“And now he knows you’re training soldiers in conduction,” Pate added. “He won’t like that one bit. The man was raised in Heathbire. He saw his father nearly defeated by Hawkin Ladimore. He’ll feel some urgency to put a stop to it.”
Erietta met Wardin’s eye and nodded. “I would attack Pendralyn, if I were in his position, knowing what he thinks he knows.”
“As would I,” Pate agreed.
On matters of strategy, Wardin respected Erietta’s opinion more than his own. The same couldn’t always be said of Pate, but there was no questioning the older man’s superior experience. The two of them being of one mind on this should have decided it.
But moving an army was no small or easy matter, and there wasn’t enough time to be wrong. Not to mention that putting his faith in them would also mean putting his faith in the baron. “Pate, you truly trust Dain in this?”
“I do. What he’s told us makes sense. And since this trap is designed in part to catch him, it’s in his best interests to encourage us not to fall into it ourselves.”
Wardin rolled his shoulders to ease the burgeoning tension there. “Where is Quinn? We should get his opinion.”
“But these are just more assumptions, on top of the first assumptions!” Joan’s voice was impatient, as though this were her war council, when in fact she hadn’t even been invited beyond delivering her message. “We cannot change our course based on a guess.”
“Of course we can, if it’s a good guess,” Wardin snapped. “That is, in fact, what commanders do. Anticipate the enemy’s move, and counter it.” He looked at Erietta. “Iver has the greater numbers, but Corghest is well defended. The outcome is less certain if we don’t meet him. And without us splitting their defenses, he’ll take greater losses.”
“All true,” she said. “And I can tell you he won’t appreciate coming to our aid, only to find that we’ve broken faith and abandoned him. Not an ideal start to an alliance, so I see your concern. But I can also tell you that if he’s made to see there was a credible threat to Pendralyn, he will understand.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“He’ll want us to protect the magistery.”
That wasn’t an answer, and her eyes slid away from his as she spoke. Once again Wardin had an uncomfortable feeling that something he wouldn’t like had passed between Erietta and this king.
He turned away from her, from all of them, and stared instead at the dark outline of the mountains to the north. The last time he’d left Alaide to defend Pendralyn in his absence, he’d told her the Harths would find no easy target there, that the magistery was well defended.
It was true at the time. But that was before Mindoral. Before they lost so many, and the enemy gained so many more. Bramwell was in Eyrdon now. And he would have brought more than just soldiers with him.
The king had underestimated them last autumn, and there would be no half measures again. When the Harths came, it would be with miners and carpenters, mountaineers and engineers. They would build catapults, ballistas, perhaps even towers. There would be explosions, fires, collapsing rock.
Over, under, or through, Bramwell would find a way past the mountains and into the magistery.
If Wardin thought the threat to Pendralyn was indeed credible, he must return to defend it. Even if he had to risk losing Corghest—and Iver’s good opinion—to do it.
Yet there might be more than that at stake. Win or lose, if the Dords should suffer significant losses at Corghest while the Eyrds failed to fight beside them, the entire alliance might collapse. A remote possibility, perhaps, when Iver had seven thousand men, and Erietta was so certain of his understanding. But so much depended on the Dords. Too much to be careless.
There was no perfect answer. He would simply have to choose the least imperfect.
Unless …
Wardin cocked his head, still looking at the mountains. And smiled.
I can have both.
Had he not also told Alaide that he intended to keep the war as far away from Pendralyn as possible? That was still the best answer, surely.
“We’ll need to decide quickly,” Pate said. “We’ve already come quite a distance south. There’s not much point in going back to Pendralyn if we won’t get there ahead of the Harths.”
“No. We’ll be well ahead of them.” Wardin turned to look at Pate, then Erietta, then Corbin. (Joan he ignored entirely.) “We’re not going back to Pendralyn.”
“War …” said Erietta.
“I don’t know if that—” said Pate.
“Good,” said Joan.
Wardin snorted. “I am the prince, you know. Corbin is the greater expert on manners, but I believe it’s customary to let me finish speaking. Pate, you will take the bulk of our force and continue on to Corghest as planned. But you’ll have to leave most of the magicians with me. Including Corbin and the other four who’ve been learning conduction.” He ran his knuckles along his jaw, images coming together in his m
ind to form a plan. “I’ll need the horses as well, I’m afraid.”
He looked back at Erietta. “We can take less than a thousand with us. That’s all we’ll need to defend Bering Pass from an almost limitless number of men, if we do it right.”
She was the first to understand, her smile wide. “He has to come through it, if he means to bring enough to be a threat to us. There’s no other way.”
Pate chuckled and clapped Wardin on the back. “Done with your fancy battle squares and ready to get back to the old ways, are you? Should have thought of it myself.”
Corbin cleared his throat, his face sour. “Care to explain to the less clever among us, Highness?”
“Not less clever.” Wardin patted his shoulder. “Perhaps just less familiar with the geography of this part of Eyrdon. Before all this, you didn’t venture much farther than Sarn Graddoc, did you? Nor were you ever with an army?”
Corbin wrenched his shoulder away. “Of course I wasn’t with an army! Does your teasing never cease? Can you not just get to the point?”
His own good cheer restored, Wardin took pity on the man. “There are many ways you or I, or even a company of men, could travel from Narinore to Pendralyn. But if you want to bring thousands of men, horses, equipment, supplies, carts, an entire baggage train, well, there is only one possible path for that. And that is by the same pass we came through ourselves.”
“If they’re trying to get to Pendralyn at all,” said Joan. “By the time you know for sure, it’ll be too late to change your mind if you’re wrong.”
“Eyrdri’s sake, Joan,” Erietta snapped. “Why are you so certain we are wrong? Is it that you can’t bear the thought that Pendralyn will be attacked, or that you simply don’t care about defending it?”
While the two of them started to bicker, Corbin sneered at Wardin. “And if you know where they’ll be, you can cut them off there, is that it? That’s a familiar plan. You might recall it didn’t work the last time.”
Wardin narrowed his eyes. “Have a care. I’ve allowed a fair amount of insolence because I know you to be generally too ill-tempered to help it, but don’t mistake my generosity for weakness.”
Pate coughed—possibly to hide a laugh, which only made Corbin look more peevish. “This isn’t at all the same thing, Corbin. Bering Pass is an entirely different landscape.”
“One I believe we can take remarkable advantage of, given skilled magicians and enough time to prepare.” Wardin looked once more toward the mountains. “And if we leave at first light, we will have both.”
16
Wardin
“It’ll be that much harder without being able to see your opponents. You cannot allow yourself to get lost in the effort. You cannot be distracted.” Corbin paced back and forth, hands clasped behind his back, addressing Wardin and the two women and two men who’d been bold—or foolish, or perhaps in Arun’s view, evil—enough to train in conduction.
He spoke in an even, confident voice that carried no echo of his usual grousing. Like his father, Corbin became more charismatic when he was called upon to lead. Perhaps they both simply liked feeling superior. “Stay focused. Everyone’s boundaries are different, and they change with experience and progression. Only you can know yours. You must be aware of yourself, your own mind, at all times. The moment you feel your balance shift—the moment—you must stop.”
“At which point, you are to pick up a crossbow,” Wardin added. “Shoot through any gaps they’ve made in the barricade. Do not try to practice magic again, not even another kind. Remember that the only sure way to regain your balance is time.”
One of the women gestured at the high wall—taller than even a Lancet king—of rocks and timber they’d hastily constructed to block the road. At one end was a ridge, steep, rocky, and unfriendly, but accessible for Eyrds born to the mountains. At the other, a sheer drop into a narrow, jagged chasm. “But they’re bound to break through eventually, aren’t they?”
“If all goes as planned, there will be other obstacles in their path by then, and they’ll have other concerns,” said Wardin. “But if something should go wrong, and you should find yourself facing them with nothing between you, flee. Do not hesitate.” He smiled at her. “If nothing else, you’ll be saving a horse, and they’re nearly as valuable as magicians.”
He had, in fact, brought the horses with flight in mind. There was no question of standing against the Harths in close combat. By their estimation, Wardin’s small force of eight hundred would be outnumbered six to one.
Just over a hundred contrivers, battlemages, conductors, and crossbowmen waited behind the barricade—one for each mount they had waiting a bit farther up the road. The rest of the Eyrds were divided and positioned elsewhere along the ridge, Joan leading the sages, and Quinn the heavy infantry.
Bramwell had horses of his own, unlike the last time he’d ventured into these mountains. But a scant number, no more than two hundred, according to Wardin’s scout. And Wardin intended to be certain that the Harthian cavalry would be in no position to pursue them.
That the enemy was indeed coming through the pass was a certainty; there was no longer any doubt that Pendralyn was Bramwell’s target. But Wardin, Erietta, and Corbin had had little time to gloat over being right, or to lord it over Joan. The barricade alone took two days to build, and there were other things to prepare.
But all was ready now. And none too soon. They would see the Harthian vanguard within an hour, at most.
Wardin nodded his dismissal to the conductors, and made his way over to Erietta and Magister Conrad, who were deep in conversation at the center of the road.
Erietta offered him a small smile that looked a bit nervous. “The contrivers are ready.”
“As are the battlemages.” Conrad put his hands on his hips as he examined the ridge. “Are you certain no Harthian scouts have gotten by our people?”
“No,” said Wardin with a shrug. “It would be extremely difficult for them to, but not impossible, I suppose.”
“What will you do, then, if they’re forewarned about the barricade?”
Wardin chuckled and waved at the looming pile of wood and stone. “The barricade isn’t exactly meant to be subtle, is it? The Harths have fought too many wars against the Eyrds to be shocked by an ambush. So let them expect it, and be tense over it. Let them wonder whether magic or arrows will begin cutting them down at any moment. They’ve got to move forward anyway. This is still their only way through, and the king isn’t about to give up his goal on the chance we’ll attack him along the way.”
Conrad nodded, still looking up. “It’s an inconveniently clear day, in any case. They’ll see the barricade the moment they come around the last bend.”
“Perhaps a bit later,” Erietta said. “The road isn’t flat there. Anyway it doesn’t matter. An army that big will stretch quite a distance whether they stop and spread out, or just try to push forward. We’re ready for either.”
She and Wardin had already discussed this at length. They anticipated two possible reactions from Bramwell when he discovered the barrier blocking his path. Either he would know an ambush was coming, and try to take down the wall and move past it as quickly as possible, or he would know an ambush was coming, and decide he didn’t want to meet it with his men packed together.
In the latter case, he would send a message down his ranks for the infantry to stop, spread out, and likely get into some sort of formations. That would make it easier to avoid being trapped, but it would also leave them vulnerable to being splintered and separated—all while standing exposed in the road.
Or the king might try a combination of the two. Wardin didn’t know what Bramwell would do; he wasn’t sure what he’d do himself, if he were in the same position. As Erietta said, they were prepared to exploit the disadvantages of any approach. They would rain destruction as far down the road as necessary.
But given their relatively small number of sages, it would be easier for them if the enemy tried to p
ush forward right away. Wardin would prefer that situation in any case, if only because it would get it all over with more quickly.
If it was less waiting he wanted, it seemed Eyrdri heard his prayer. The rumble in the distance had begun.
They were coming.
* * *
Wardin met Erietta’s eye across the line of men and women on their side of the barricade, and nodded.
She signaled the contrivers in turn, and they dropped their cloak of silence. They wouldn’t need it anymore, and their energy was better spent elsewhere.
It seemed only moments since they’d heard the enemy arrive, and already Harthian soldiers were trying to shift the rocks. The fight was coming—sooner rather than later.
Thank Eyrdri for that.
Wardin held up one finger and rotated his hand in a circle, once, twice, giving the signal for the magicians to begin casting. Then he closed his eyes, and reached outward with his mind.
There was life there, just on the other side of the barrier. If they were close enough to touch the wall, they were close enough for him to feel it. He didn’t imagine a spark of light this time. Since he couldn’t use his eyes, he didn’t want to rely on a visual image. Instead he imagined the soldiers on the other side as pockets of energy, of heat.
Of life.
I have one!
Wardin almost laughed in surprise. He hadn’t been entirely sure he could do it. There had been no time to practice using conduction on an unseen enemy. The moment that plan was made, the conductors had to stop doing magic entirely, to safeguard their balance.
But he felt the life force of this soldier, as surely as if there were nothing between them. And perhaps it was best, for what Wardin would do next, that he could not see the man’s face.
He released his spell, and stole the soldier’s life. All of it. He did not relent. His victim’s screams ended quickly. Those of the man’s fellows seemed endless.
A Dark Reckoning Page 18
