Brindisi was forced to camp right outside the mouth of the pass, slowly clearing away the rubble. Their progress moved at a snail’s pace because anyone trying to move boulders had to be guarded by at least two shield bearers or risk catching a Niotan arrow. Even then, the shields didn’t always work. As Darius had previously discovered, Niotanese archers were the most formidable in the known world. And heaven help the enemy when those archers were bored because then they would take on the most challenging shots for the sheer entertainment of it.
After two and a half weeks of constant work, they broke through. Another day or two of effort would clear a wide enough gap that the army could pass through.
Darius decided this would be the opportune moment to try negotiating a truce. Brindisi had seen enough of the pass to know that the cavalry they’d been cut off from was now gone. Probably defeated before their carcasses were dragged away to clear the pass for fighting. At least, Darius hoped they assumed that. He planned to use the cavalry as a nasty surprise for later.
Hoping for the best, he picked up a megaphone and called down the mountain, “General Behnam! This is Bresalier.”
A long pause as the army below stirred restlessly and then a very familiar voice thundered back, “I hear you, Kingslayer!”
Why does everyone insist on calling me that? Darius shook off the thought and responded, “I wish to meet and talk!”
“Then come down! We will talk!”
“Bresalier…,” Mihr shifted uneasily, clearly not happy with this.
“It will be fine,” Darius soothed, already turning for his horse. “He is an honorable man.”
“You know him?”
“Indeed I do. We served together several times.” He mounted as he spoke, absently checking that both bodyguards mounted at the same time. Turning back he added, “I do not think it will come to this, but if I am taken, you are in command. But don’t plan a rescue, alright?”
Mihr gave him quite the look. “You just said he’s an honorable man.”
“Nothing about war is predictable.” With a shrug, he let the other man take that statement as he would and started down.
Darius rode calmly down through the trees, following a trail so narrow that only a goat would find it favorable. Both Tolk and Bohme were anxious and shifty following him down, trying to see everything at once. But then, neither of them trusted this offer to talk peaceably. They thought Behnam had something up his sleeve. Maybe he did. But the man that Darius had served with never offered with one hand and took with the other. He didn’t expect trouble while they were negotiating. When negotiations failed, well…that would be the moment to worry.
They safely reached the ground floor. Brindisi soldiers—or those who were conscripted as such—were all around, watching him with silent eyes. The muttering didn’t start up until after he’d passed them. They kept their voices soft, too soft for him to hear more than word here and there, but he didn’t need to hear them to know what they said. No one approached, though. For now, that was enough.
Behnam had, no doubt as a good faith gesture, set the location for this very close to the mountain side, as close as he could get to Darius’s men. He stood from a collapsible stool as Darius rode to him and for a long moment, the two men eyed each other. Behnam hadn’t changed in the past three years since he’d last seen the man. Still a little gangly looking, with head too big for his shoulders, muscles wiry, skin like tanned leather from being in the sun too long, red hair grayed to white. He’d looked like that for the past ten years, so no one could guess how old the man really was.
Actually, he had been promoted since Darius’s departure. The Living Oak medallion pinned his half-cloak in place on his shoulder, silently proclaiming him to be a First General now. Had the promotion been possible because Darius had left, or had something else happened? It would be rude to ask, although a part of him wondered.
After a long moment, he inclined his head in greeting. “Behnam. You haven’t aged a day.”
Behnam snorted, planting both arms on his hips. “And you look remarkably fit for a fugitive.”
“It’s my wife’s tender love and care,” Darius responded easily as he slid lightly to the ground. Both bodyguards instantly followed his example before sticking close to his back.
The other general’s eyes narrowed. “You’re married.”
“Recently, yes.” Darius met his eyes steadily. Behnam’s reaction proved to be rather interesting. His pet theory that Brindisi somehow wanted to take him back might have a basis after all, judging by that expression. Behnam looked a little disappointed and unhappy to hear he’d made personal ties with Niotan. He hadn’t meant to imply that when he’d mentioned Amalah, though. What he had been trying to say was that he now had every personal reason to make sure that his wife and country never fell into Brindisi’s hands.
“I suppose I should congratulate you, although really, I pity the woman. You seem determined to make her a widow.” Behnam cocked a brow at him, tone condescending.
Darius grinned at him. Behnam had always been one to stab at the snake poised to strike. His negotiating skills left much to be desired. “I’m afraid I don’t see it that way.”
“You’re outnumbered,” Behnam responded patiently. “You’re certainly outmatched. Niotan has done amazingly well to withstand the Sovran for as long as it has. I doubt it has the resources to continue on much longer. You’re losing this war in slow degrees and you know it.”
“If that were really true, I wouldn’t have routed the last force in seven days,” Darius pointed out with a slight shrug.
“Jahangir is a spineless fool and we both know it. If he weren’t in charge, you wouldn’t have been that lucky.”
“True,” Darius acknowledged sincerely. “It would have taken me ten instead of seven.”
Behnam frowned at him oppressively. “Don’t play a naïve fool, Bresalier. We both know how this will play out. I’ll overwhelm you with sheer numbers and then plow straight to the capital, unchallenged, and take it in the name of King Baros. I’m offering you decent terms of surrender to avoid wasting the lives of your troops. Will you take them?”
“Why should I?” Darius asked simply. “I’m winning.”
Taking a menacing step forward, Behnam snarled, “You think your luck will hold out forever?”
“My success has nothing to do with luck and we both know it.” Darius stepped forward so that he was toe to toe with the other man, craning his neck up a little to meet him squarely in the eyes. “I’ve reduced your numbers almost by half in the past two months. Do you honestly think that my bag of tricks is empty now just because you’ve made it to the mouth of the pass?”
For the first time, Behnam actually looked a touch nervous. He darted a look over Darius’s head, no doubt wondering what lay ahead. He could keep wondering or find out for himself—Darius certainly had no intentions of explaining it to him.
“I’ve been fighting losing battles and impossible odds since I was twenty-two, Behnam. You should know how well I handle those situations—you’ve been right beside me several times and seen me in action. Do you really think that I haven’t prepared for every eventuality? Do you really think I’ve sat idle these past several months when I knew that Brindisi would send an army marching for me at any moment?” He flung out a hand to indicate the soldiers quietly listening to this exchange. “Count them now, Behnam. If you continue down this course, I swear to you that by the time you reach Niotan’s border, you will only have half of them left.”
He believed every word. Behnam clearly knew that Darius would do exactly that and there would be little that he could do to stop him. The terrain worked against the Brindisi Army—they would be forced to continue on or die trying. Darius had marched through here several times and had never found a way around that. Behnam wouldn’t be able to either.
His eyes closed fatalistically for a moment. “Bresalier, I have orders to take you no matter the cost. If you will not surrender, I must fo
rce myself through your traps and defeat you.”
“My wife and unborn child are directly behind me,” Darius responded levelly. “I cannot afford to let you through. You will not take me, Behnam, I promise you. I will fight until my last breath.”
“A child.” For a moment, Behnam softened slightly. “You always wanted a family. I remember you speaking of it.”
Darius relaxed a half step and smiled, a little embarrassed. “I finally found a woman crazy enough to marry me. She seems to think that having several children for me to raise will keep me at home and out of mischief.”
Did Behnam look wistful? But then, the man had married once early on and lost his wife due to an epidemic that swept through the capital. He’d never remarried that Darius knew. “I would wish you joy, but it’s my job to make sure you never see that child.”
“I understand.” Darius stepped back a full foot. “I think we’re at an impasse. Won’t you reconsider, Behnam? You will lose this battle and most of your men’s lives if you continue.”
Behnam shook his head, a wry smile on his face. “From any other man, I would think him arrogant to say that to me. But you…you can pull it off. I cannot retreat, Bresalier. I must fight on, no matter the cost. Our king’s pride demands it.”
“It was his father’s pride that got him killed.”
“I thought you were the reason he was killed,” Behnam returned levelly.
Darius shook his head wearily. “If you ever can get Baros alone, ask him for the full story. It’s quite different from the popular version that is making the rounds.”
“Why don’t you tell it to me?” the older man suggested mildly.
“We don’t have a day for me to sit here and spin you a tale. I’m tired of repeating myself, regardless.” Resigned and a little saddened by Behnam’s stubbornness, he turned away. “I will face you again on the morrow. I cannot wish you luck,” he paused with his hand on his horse’s nose, reins in hand, and looked back one more time at Behnam, “but try not to get killed.”
Behnam half-bowed in acknowledgement.
~~~
Darius returned to the mountain camp with a sort of resigned weariness. Three months he’d been at this. He’d really hoped that he could talk Behnam into surrendering so that he’d be home quicker than his five month deadline. So far, everything had gone according to plan, so he didn’t expect this to take the dreaded seven months instead. Still…not the results he hoped for.
This late in the day, no one wanted to start a battle, so the camp instead focused on the hundreds of little camp chores that never seemed to go away. While he was gone, a courier had come through and delivered letters for him. Darius found an open seat near the fire and opened the one from Queen Tresea first and found it to be a standard demand for an update on the situation. He wrote a concise report, sealed it with wax, and set it in the courier pouch at his feet.
With duty out of the way, he broke the seal to Amalah’s letter next and read it through with a smile on his face. He had discovered that his wife had an amazing ability to paint pictures with words. She made the every-day events of her life entertaining and he chuckled as he read.
He read it through twice before finally putting it away. So, she hadn’t been able to find it, eh? Twisting about, he grabbed his letter writing kit from behind him, pulled out a fresh sheet and the bottle of ink, dipped in the quill, and started writing a response.
“Bresalier!” a hearty voice greeted cheerfully.
Darius stopped in mid-word and twisted about. “Tunheim!”
“I came up to see how things were going,” the Baijian clan leader said as he walked toward him. “The men say you tried to parley with Behnam. Didn’t work.”
He didn’t sound surprised. Darius wasn’t either, really, as Behnam had always been stubborn. “I had to try,” he confessed with a shrug and wry smile.
“Every good general does.” Tunheim, without any hesitation, plopped down beside him, a bag of sweet wine in one hand and a joint of some sort of meat in the other. He situated himself comfortably with both legs crossed, sighing in satisfaction as he settled. Happy, he pointed to the letter Darius was writing with his leg of meat. “Writing your new Queen?”
“No, actually,” Darius admitted absently. “I’m writing my wife.”
“Hoooo? You finally got caught by a woman, eh?”
Darius shot him a quick smile. “I had to catch her, actually. She was betrothed to another when I met her.”
The Baijian’s eyes lit up. The only thing they liked better than a good bottle of wine was a good story. “How did you steal her away?”
Putting the quill aside, he stopped the bottle of ink before launching into the story. It didn’t escape his notice, either, that several men nearby all paused in what they were doing and were listening intently. But then, no doubt there were all sorts of variations of this tale going about. They were lucky to hear the true story from the man himself.
Tunheim listened intently, absently pulling at his flask as he listened. When the story wound down to a close, he let out a loud cheer of approval. “Good man! A wife is nothing to trifle with. She’s always worth the battle. But this must be a pretty woman, to be fought over by two men.”
“She’s quite lovely,” he admitted with frank prejudice.
The other man nodded smugly, as if he had already met the woman himself. “I thought as much. You are a good husband to write to her. I write to my wife daily, and bundle the letters before sending them off whenever I can.” He leaned forward as if imparting some grand secret. “The trick to keeping a wife happy is letters and gifts, my friend. Do not believe otherwise.”
Darius chuckled. “I have to agree. It’s funny you say that, though. This letter is about a gift I forgot to give her.”
“Forgot?” Tunheim demanded in surprise. “How can you forget a gift?!”
“Well,” Darius scratched at his cheek and wondered how to explain. “I bought it for her before we were betrothed, you see, while she still belonged to that goat’s son. I planned to give it to her later, when I found the right moment. But then I got tangled up in the duel to win her, and fought the Izeh Battle, and then we were married and moved into a new house, and…,” he trailed off sheepishly, shrugging. “It got lost somewhere in the shuffle. I told her that if she can find it, she can have it.”
“A treasure hunt.” Tunheim’s eyes lit up like a child’s. “Has she?”
“Not yet. Actually, her last letter to me demanded a description of what she’s looking for and an idea of where I saw it last.” He thought about it for a moment before offering, “I have no idea where I put it, actually.”
Tunheim threw back his head and laughed. “That poor woman. For your sake, I hope she finds it before you return home.”
Yes, he hoped so too. “Your men are doing well at the estate?” He’d put them at Surat, the Quetel’s estate, as it was very close to the Dakan Pass.
“They’re fine,” Tunheim assured him with a careless wave. “Good food, good wine, and kind women. You are a good host.”
Phew. He hated to think of what would have happened if Quetel hadn’t met the Baijian standards. “Glad to hear it.”
“I had a good look at your forts as we rode to Surat.” Tunheim gave him an admiring look. “Formidable, those. The way you staggered them, no man can get through the pass without being in danger of catching an arrow.”
Darius shrugged. “That was the idea. I’ve been up against forts like these before. It took a month just to get through and I lost a good portion of my troops managing it.”
“Ahh. That’s how you know he’ll lose half.”
“Hard-won experience,” Darius agreed with a grimace. “The harshest teacher.”
“True, my friend. But you never forget the lesson!”
“Also true,” Darius sighed. “The pass here isn’t as long as the one I went through, so I expect it won’t take a month. Two weeks, maybe, before he’ll bull through.” If Behnam only ha
d ten thousand, Darius’s archers could hold them off longer. In this particular instance, numbers truly played in Behnam’s favor. Darius’s archers, after all, only had so many arrows and could only shoot so many times in a day before they ran out of light. Behnam would be able to force his way through eventually.
“We’ll be ready in two weeks,” Tunheim promised him. “Send word if you need us before then.” Standing, he chucked the stripped bone over his shoulder. “But until then, I shall be with my men.”
“It’s late,” Darius protested. “Why don’t you stay here tonight before going down?”
“Ah, you’re a true friend, Bresalier. But I shall return. For one,” Tunheim leaned forward in a confidential manner and winked, “the food is much better down there, yes? And there’s softer beds to be had. My stallion is the wind itself. He shall get me back before it’s truly dark.”
Well, he’d offered. Standing, he extended a hand. “Then safe return, my friend.”
Tunheim clasped his forearm with a grip that could crush boulders, grinned at him, and then sauntered off with a bow-legged stride.
Shaking his head, Darius went back to his letter.
“He’s not coming.” Darius growled, half-confused and half-irritated.
Behnam hadn’t moved his army at all in the past three days. He had, in fact, sat there like a stone lizard. At first Darius thought he was just letting his troops rest a little before tackling the very dangerous road ahead. But the forested area wasn’t any safer than the pass. In fact, it could arguably be more dangerous in a way. The Brindisi soldiers had to do everything with a shield covering them, even eat and sleep—no one would consider the area “safe to rest in.”
Granted, Darius had pulled all of his men from the forest and up to the mountains two days ago in preparation for Behnam’s troops coming through the pass. He didn’t have enough men to leave them in both places. But the Brindisi troops were completely paranoid now and weren’t willing to drop their guard, so they were still milling about camp with shields in one hand. They certainly weren’t getting any rest.
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