They rode on now, following the trail on the map marked with their clan color, arriving at the Singing Caves by early afternoon. The caves were so named for when the winds swept through them it sounded as if a choir was singing, the winds from different directions each sounding quite different. The other clan families were already awaiting them, and all had the same tale to tell. The villages they had been assigned to storm had either already been retaken by their inhabitants, made brave by the knowledge the Devyn imparted, or the villages had risen up in revolt when their saviors had entered them ready for battle. There had been no deaths among any of the clan families, but there were minor injuries.
Imre’s own village, Fulksburg, would not be so easy, for it was larger, as was Quartum, Petruso’s home village.
“Which is the softer target?” Vartan asked Imre and Petruso as they sat in council after the evening meal. “We have been fortunate so far, but such luck cannot last. I do not believe we can take two more days in this endeavor. We cannot be sure that none escaped the villages retaken today to warn these last two targets. They must both be dealt with on the morrow, my lords.”
“I agree!” Roan of the Aghy said. “Let us split our forces. Half will attack Fulksburg, and half Quartum.”
“Quartum is more a market town,” said Accius of the Devyn. “Both Piaras and Tormod trade there. Its only mine is one that has always yielded us exquisite gems.” He turned to Imre. “What think you? Is it an easier target than Fulksburg?”
“Perhaps, and perhaps not,” Imre said slowly. He looked to Vartan. “It has more streets than Fulksburg, and those streets wind.”
Vartan’s next question was for Accius. “We will march early, but what we do must be based upon more knowledge than we have. Can your people scout the two villages, and meet us along our route?”
“I shall dispatch them immediately,” Accius replied. “Some of us have an ability that others do not. We can see in the dark. It is an inheritance from a faerie ancestor long ago. I shall gather my night seekers, and send them out.”
Vartan said, “If we must split our forces, Roan of the Aghy will lead the Blathma and the Gitta. I will ride with the Felan and the Devyn. Will that suit you all?” He gazed about the circle where they all sat, and his companions nodded again. “Then it is settled. Accius, at first light your scouts must meet us at the crossroads where the road divides the paths for Fulksburg and Quartum. It is then we will decide if we fight as one force, or as two.”
The council dispersed, each chieftain returning to his own clan family. Lara watched as several Devyn warriors slipped from the caves. She sat quietly as the fires burned down to small flames and hot coals. The caves sang the softest lullaby as the winds from the west were light. Tomorrow there would be a battle, and she would be in the thick of it. Her belly roiled with the certainty. Should she be afraid, she wondered? Aye! Only a fool would not be afraid. But that fear would not keep her from doing what must be done.
She had always loved her homeland. She had always been proud of Hetar, its laws, its civility, its order. To be Hetarian was to be the best. Now she realized it was but a counterfeit hiding the deceit and rot that was growing within Hetar’s heart and soul. A sanctimonious hypocrisy that would spread like a virulent contagion into the Outlands if they did not stop it now. But could they? It would be but a temporary accomplishment. If Hetar wanted the Outlands, if they needed them, they would come again-and next time they would send the Crusader Knights, for they would consider the safety of Hetar now at stake. If Hetar wanted these lands they would tell whatever lies they needed to in order to rouse the people, and bring them beneath the banner of war. It had been a very long time since Hetar had fought a real war. But the carts of bodies would be held up to prove the savagery and lawlessness of the Outlanders. The mercenary ranks would once again be filled with innocents eager to share in the glory this war would bring to Hetar. Lara shivered.
“What is it?” Vartan said, coming to sit by her side.
“I am seeing the future,” she told him. “It is terrifying. This little war we fight is but a temporary solution. Hetar will come again, I fear.”
“Then what can we do?” he asked her. Sometimes Vartan’s innocence was endearing, but at other times she worried over it.
“Just what we are doing,” Lara answered him. “There is no other way.”
“What will happen in the end?” he said.
“I don’t know,” Lara replied. “Perhaps a new world will come of this all. I just don’t know, my husband.”
“Come to bed,” he said. “You must rest, if only a little.” He stood up, drawing her with him, and when they lay together beneath the fur coverlet he put his arms about her.
“That is nice,” Lara said, and suddenly weary beyond all she slept in his embrace.
In the misty predawn hour they rode forth from the Singing Caves. The air was now completely still, and oddly warm for late autumn. They came out of the Forest, and traveled along a hard-packed wide dirt road. At the crossroads they were met by the Devyn scouts who had gone out the night before. The news was both good and bad.
Accius listened to his men, and then he said, “The Hetarians have deserted Quartum, and joined with their fellows at Fulksburg. Obviously one or more escaped from the other villages and hurried to warn the mercenaries in those two villages. It was decided that Quartum with its narrow streets was too dangerous a place to be caught, and so they have decided to make a stand at Fulksburg.”
“They may have sent someone to the City as well,” Lara said. “Our victory today must be a decisive one, my lords. They may even come out to meet us.”
“So much the better,” Vartan declared. He turned to face the assembled clansmen. “We fight as one, brothers and sisters! Quartum has been deserted, and the Hetarians await us at Fulksburg!”
A great cheer arose as weapons were raised, and the horses danced and snorted nervously at the noise.
Dasras turned his head and spoke to Lara. “I will protect you as best I can, mistress. Concentrate on using Andraste, and leave me to guide myself. I will keep us from danger best that way.”
“You may have your head,” Lara answered him, “and I thank you.” She reached down to touch her crystal.
Fight well, Lara. You will be protected, she heard Ethne say.
They moved out along the road to Fulksburg, and the skies turned bright blue above them. As the sun crept over the horizon, Lara wondered how many of them would live to see the sunset. And then on the flat mountain plain ahead of them they saw the Hetarian mercenaries awaiting them. The Outlanders stopped. Their ranks opened, and the carts from the five retaken villages, piled high with the dead and driven by a single survivor from each particular village, rumbled forth to be displayed to the enemy in hopes of disheartening them. A groan arose from the mercenary ranks.
Then a single man rode forth from the Hetarian forces. He drew his horse to a halt halfway between the warring parties and waited.
Without hesitation Vartan rode out to meet him. When he had reached the mercenary he said, “I am Vartan, lord of the Fiacre.”
“I am Odar of the Mercenary Guild. I have come to offer a truce.”
Vartan laughed. “You offer us a truce? There can be no truce. You invaded the Outlands in defiance of an ancient treaty that has kept the peace between our peoples for centuries. You enslaved the Tormod and the Piaras. You have committed murder and rapine. Now we have come to take back what is ours. We have already regained all the villages but this one. Now we will regain Fulksburg, and because we are not the savages you seem to believe, we will return your bodies to your masters in the City as a warning to keep to the treaty in future.”
“I propose a solution to a battle,” Odar said. “We will each send a champion out, and whichever wins shall gain these territories. Your people shall not be slain nor shall ours. Just one man from each side, and the matter will be settled.”
Again Vartan laughed. “You obviously do not unders
tand, Odar of the Mercenary Guild. We will not cede one inch of our lands to Hetar. Not now. Not ever! Return to your troops, and say a prayer to the Celestial Actuary that you will die well this day.” Then the lord of the Fiacre turned his horse about, and rejoined his fellow clansmen.
“What did they want?” Lara asked anxiously when her husband rode up next to her. She had to let Vartan rule, but he did not know Hetar as she did.
“First they offered a truce, and when I refused they suggested one man from each side fight it out, and winner take all,” Vartan said.
“No!” Roan half shouted.
“I told them no. That we would not give up any of our lands,” Vartan explained. “Prepare the troops. We are ready for battle. Lara, you and Noss must remain behind here on this little rise. I know your willingness to fight, but I want you safe.”
“No,” she said quietly, and Andraste began to vibrate against her back. “I am protected, and not afraid now. If you force me to stay, Vartan, I will leave you. What transpires today is part of my destiny. A most important part. You must trust to that.”
He closed his eyes for a long moment. Then opening them he nodded. “Very well, Lara. I swore to you that I should never stand in the way of your destiny, and I will keep my promise even though I am afraid for you.”
“Do not be, Vartan! I swear to you that I am better protected than any here today. I will see today’s sunset, and tomorrow’s sunrise as well.” Ethne, help me, she called out in her mind. Help me to take his fear away else he be killed in his concern for me.
Put your hand on his forehead just for a moment, Ethne replied. You alone are capable of removing his fears. The magic in you grows stronger with each passing day.
Lara reached out, and placed a hand against her husband’s forehead. “You will not fear for me, Vartan. You will know I am protected and worry only about yourself,” she told him quietly.
To his complete surprise Vartan suddenly felt the weight that had sat upon him rise up and disappear. His mouth dropped open with amazement.
Lara laughed softly. “It is time, my lord,” she said.
“What did you do?” he demanded of her.
“I banished your fears, my lord, did I not?” she replied.
“Aye, most thoroughly,” he admitted.
“Can you do the same for me, lady?” Roan of the Aghy asked her with a grin.
“I do not have to for you are fearless, my lord,” Lara returned with a small smile. “Like me, you love no one-except perhaps yourself,” she amended.
He laughed aloud, and then the battle horns began to sound from the enemy side.
“Lead the second charge,” Vartan ordered Roan, who nodded.
And then the battle for the Outlands began in earnest as the armies from both sides charged each other. The thunder of horses’ hooves arose into the morning air. The clash of weapons quickly mingled with the cries of the wounded and dying. The Outlanders were ruthless in their pursuit of the Hetarians. Soon the battlefield ran red with blood, and it was difficult not to slip or fall. Steam from both animal and human ascended from sweating bodies. Noss and several of the other archers remained on the rise, their deadly arrows singing in the morning air as they sought and found the invaders, easily slaying them.
As the Hetarians began to fall in greater numbers it became easier to fight on foot. Lara slipped from Dasras, and with him at her back she fought off the mercenaries who, seeing she was a female, thought her easy prey. And with each soldier who engaged Lara, Andraste began to sing louder and louder, sending terror into the hearts of those who would die that day.
“I am Andraste,” the sword sang in its rich voice, “and I drink the blood of the unjust, the blood of the invader, the blood of the wicked!”
Lara felt strangely exhilarated as she fought. How odd, the thought twisted through her consciousness, that a girl meant for passion and pleasure should become a warrior. But then suddenly a man engaged her in battle, and to her shock she recognized him, although he did not at first recognize her. With deliberate fierceness she forced him to his knees. He struggled to arise, but could not, and she saw the terror in his eyes as he realized he was but a hair’s breadth away from death.
“Yield to me, Wilmot, son of Mistress Mildred,” Lara cried. “Yield to me, and live! Continue to fight, and despite my love for your mother I will slay you.”
The man’s sword blade fell away from Andraste. “Who are you that you know my name?” he asked her, confused.
“I am Lara, daughter of John Swiftsword,” she answered him.
Surprise lit his face. His sword dropped from his hand. He didn’t know if he believed her, but he could fight no more. “I yield,” he said wearily as around him the last of the Hetarians met their just fate, and the battlefield grew silent.
She took a strip of leather from her saddle, and bound his hands before him. Then mounting Dasras, she led him through the battlefield and up the small rise that the Outlanders had held at the beginning of the engagement. The survivors were even now gathering there.
“Well at least one of us thought to save a Hetarian to drive the last wagon,” Roan chortled. He was covered with dirt, and sweat and blood, and had a rather nasty gash on his thigh that had cut through his leather trousers.
“Who is he?” Vartan said.
“No one of importance, I’ll wager,” Rendor of the Felan remarked scornfully.
“His name is Wilmot, and he is the son of the woman whose hovel was next to my father’s. Mistress Mildred was my grandmother’s friend, and she was always good to me. When I recognized him I spared his life for her sake, for she has no one else. They would give his hovel to another leaving her homeless,” Lara explained. “In Hetar if you have no family and no means, there is no provision made for you. The elderly are considered to have outlived their usefulness which is why they must rely upon their family to survive,” Lara replied. “If you cannot contribute to society you are deemed worthless. It is their way, Vartan.”
“It is a poor reward for those who have given what they could,” her husband said, looking to Wilmot. “When you return to the City, mercenary, tell your mother of my wife’s kindness. And tell her should you die and leave her destitute, Mistress Mildred will be welcomed by the Fiacre clan, and in Vartan’s house. There is always a place by the fire for the old ones among us.” He turned away from the prisoner. “How many of our own have we lost?” he asked his fellow chieftains.
“Surprisingly few,” Roan answered. “Seven from among my people, five each from the Felan and the Gitta. The Blathma are either incredibly fortunate, or better fighters than I had thought, for they have lost only two, and Floren has not a mark on him although I am told he broke two swords in his enthusiasm.”
“Blood is an excellent fertilizer,” Floren said calmly.
“Four of the Fiacre are lost, and Noss sustained a small wound when her bow string broke,” Vartan said. “Accius?”
“Only one of our people,” Accius replied. “We may be poets, but our swordsmen are the finest in the Outlands. Blades and verse are our twin passions,” he chuckled.
“Imre and Petruso? They have survived?” Vartan asked, looking about.
“We have,” Imre replied. “We are anxious to go into Fulksburg, and tell the people that we have prevailed. And Quartum must be notified as well.”
“You two go ahead,” Vartan suggested. “We must load at least two more wagons, and they must begin their journey today back to the City. The sooner the High Council receives our message, the better it will be for us all.”
Imre and Petruso rode toward the village, and the clansmen began to fill first one cart, and then another with the dead bodies. All weapons, leather breastplates and helmets, however, were removed from the bodies. They would be divided among the victors. Wilmot sat stunned as he watched the activity going on around him. He was still very frightened, and couldn’t believe he would really escape these Outlanders unharmed. He began to weep softly in his fear and
relief.
Seeing it, Lara dismounted Dasras, and came to sit next to him. “You need have no fear, Wilmot. You are safe now. Are you thirsty or hungry?”
“Nay.” Wilmot was silent for a short moment, and then he burst out, “How came you to be among these barbarians, Lara, daughter of Sir John Swiftsword? Were you not meant for a great Pleasure House in the City? That was the rumor.”
“Rumors are not always truth,” Lara said to him. “The Head Mistress of the Guild of Pleasure Women told Gaius Prospero that I was too beautiful, and she would not permit me to be sold into any of the City’s Pleasure Houses. That I was already causing much dissension by the very possibility I might soon be a Pleasure Woman. So I was sent from the City with the Taubyl Trader, Rolf Fairplay,” Lara began. And then she continued on, explaining her stay with the Forest Lords, how she had escaped them, her sojourn with the Shadow Princes and her arrival in the Outlands. She did not, however, mention her faerie mother or the relationship they now had. “And I discovered that these people are nothing like it is said in the City,” Lara told Wilmot. “They simply prefer a less complicated way of life. They are orderly, and live by their own laws.”
“But how do they live?” he asked. “We were always told they were bandits and thieves who preyed on travelers.”
Lara laughed. “The Fiacre, the largest of the clan families, raise cattle. The Aghy, horses. The Felan, sheep. The Blathma and the Gitta are farmers. The Devyn are poets and bards. The two clan families whose lands you invaded are miners of ore and gems. They trade back and forth amongst each other, taking only what they need from the land, and restoring the land where it is necessary. Did you not see the beauty of the countryside before your greedy masters began destroying it? Do you not know why the Piaras and the Tormod were invaded? Gaius Prospero, the Master of the Merchants was behind it.”
“We were told these people violated Hetar’s borders, raping and killing innocents,” Wilmot said. “Confiscating their lands was to be their punishment, and by expanding our own borders we would protect Hetar.”
Lara Page 42
