by N. C. Reed
“You did?” she asked, as the two walked down the portico steps.
“Oh, yes,” Parno chuckled. “I thought he was going to fall into a fit when he found out you were here. Apparently you are very highly thought of in Nasil. I got quite an earful from him about ensuring that you were safe and secure here among my nest of criminals.” In spite of himself, Parno heard the bitterness creep into his voice.
“Ah,” Stephanie said softly. “You and your family aren’t really close, are you?” she asked.
“No,” Parno replied bluntly. “I thought for a moment we might at least draw closer, at least Memmnon, my father and I, but it was not to be. There will never be any familial feelings between my family and myself.”
“I’m sorry, Parno,” Stephanie said softly. “That’s not the way it should be.”
“So I’ve heard,” he responded lightly. “So I’ve heard. At any rate, the fact that you were here was quite a shock.”
“I’m sure it was,” Stephanie’s voice held a trace of scorn. “Only my mother supported my decision to come here. Everyone else had the usual, ‘you’re a woman’, ‘no business on such a post’, ‘talents wasted’, and so forth.”
“So why are you here?” Parno asked. There was no hint of challenge, just simple curiosity. “There’s certainly no reason you shouldn’t be, if that’s what you desire, but what made you come here? And stay?”
“It’s worthwhile,” came the instant reply. She looked up suddenly. “And so are you.” Parno blinked at that, not knowing what to say. Suddenly, they were at the Doctor’s door.
“Well, I am safely home, Parno McLeod,” she grinned, “and I thank you, kind sir.”
“My pleasure, Lady Corsin,” Parno grinned crookedly. “Goodnight, Doctor.”
“Good night, My Lord.” Again before he could act, or react, she stood on her tiptoes, kissed him lightly, then fled inside.
“I’ve got to be quicker,” Parno decided.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Time flew swiftly. Too swiftly, it seemed to Parno McLeod, as he worked and worried over his regiment. Time was running out. Already there was a hint of spring in the air. Parno watched the calendar with trepidation as the days wound toward the coming of the new season.
Spring. The time of renewal.
The time of war.
By the first day of March the rains had begun and with them came warmer air. Unstable air. Storms battered the mountain and training was limited in those days. Parno bemoaned every lost minute, but there was nothing to be done.
And when the rains ended, the Nor would come. He was sure of it.
The only bright spot in his bleak outlook was that Roda Finn’s ‘factory’ was making weapons every day. Including the wonderful ‘exploding arrows’ designed by Whip Hubbel. Even Darvo had been impressed.
“‘That thing will make us able to do more than we ought with our numbers, lad’,” the grizzled veteran had said after seeing a demonstration. “‘With weapons like that, along with the other things Finn has developed, it will mean that a smaller unit can do the same damage as a bigger one and more impressively, as well’,” he added. There was something to be said for intimidation, after all.
Parno agreed that Roda Finn’s weapons would enable the regiment to do more damage than any other unit their size or even twice or five times their size.
But there were still only so many soldiers and so many weapons, as well. Once in battle, Parno feared they would use them up quickly and then be overrun.
“‘May well happen’,” Darvo nodded in agreement when Parno voiced his concern. “‘ But we’ll do a sight o’ damage ‘fore that happens, lad’,” he had grinned and Parno found his mentor’s calm demeanor rubbing off on him.
Cho Feng had agreed.
“‘My people have used similar weapons for many generations’,” he had informed Parno one evening as they sat around the table, discussing how best to use the weapons. “‘The shock factor will be invaluable in the first battle. After that, the damage done physically will still be considerable’.”
Parno hoped he was correct. He knew and knew deep in his soul that Soulan wasn’t ready for the storm that was coming. He almost laughed at that thought, gazing out his window as yet another lightning bolt hammered the earth from above.
Therron’s disdain of his men had angered Parno but as the time drew near the younger Prince began to see that disdain in a different light, one that would allow him to act on his own.
Despite his repeated warnings, Parno’s father and his older brothers were ignoring the threat posed by the Gap of the Cumberland. Parno had spoken to Doak Parsons about the trail through the Gap, since the former outlaw had used it on his return from the Ohi River. Parsons answers had chilled the younger man.
“‘They kin use it, milord,” Parsons had assured him. “Not be easy in some places, I grant ya, but it can be done. ‘Specially if’n they all come a horseback. Moving anything heavy through there’d be a might hard, but a few stout men with axes, breakin’ trail fer’em, and they’re down to the Gap in a week. Ten days, at most, assumin’ they start out from Loville, was we to lose the bridges’.”
Parno rubbed his face, trying to scrub away the fatigue that the constant strain of work and worry had left him with. He was exhausted.
“Now is as good a time as any to get some rest,” he decided. Which made him think of his men. They had worked very hard over the last two months and a bit more. They needed rest as well. He called for Harrel Sprigs.
“Milord?” the young Lieutenant entered a moment later.
“My compliments to Colonel Nidiad. I want the entire regiment on limited duty. Guards to be maintained, regular duties performed, but otherwise, rest and recuperation for the men.”
“Yes, milord,” Sprigs bowed, then departed to deliver the message. When he was gone, Parno returned his gaze to the window and to the storm that raged outside.
“That’s all I can do, for now,” he said to himself. “We’ll have to make do.” With that he headed upstairs for some rest of his own.
Soon enough, he knew, there would be no rest for anyone.
*****
Therron McLeod was also watching the storms. Rain had been falling in Nasil for just over a week, keeping Therron from being able to move about much at all. He disliked not seeing things for himself but there was no point in slogging about in the mud.
Just as there was no point in trying to force men to train in it. The cold rains of March would simply leave many men sick, and some dead, of pneumonia. He wanted every man available when the time came.
Well, not every man, of course. Parno’s men would be of no use. Therron felt a momentary twinge at the lie he had told his father. He didn’t have a spy in Parno’s camp, in truth. The thought had never occurred to him. And why waste someone on such a job when Therron already knew the truth? There was no way that Parno had taken that riffraff and turned them into a fighting unit. None.
Therron felt a familiar anger course through him at the thought of his youngest brother but fought it down. There was too much to do to worry about Parno just now.
And, if things went as he planned them, the youngest McLeod sibling wouldn’t be a problem anyway, once all was said and done.
Therron wasn’t blind, nor was he a fool. He knew that his father was sick and had been for some time. Which meant that Soulan would soon need a new leader. One with the stamina and backbone to defend it against the Nor.
Someone like him.
Memmnon was the Heir, of course, but if Therron could defeat the Nor then he would gain a considerable following among the nobles of the kingdom. He already enjoyed the support of the army. With enough of the nobles in hand, Therron, as the hero that had saved Soulan from the Nor, would be in a position to force his will upon father and brother alike.
He didn’t relish the idea, of course. No true McLeod would. But facts were facts. And the fact, as Therron saw it, was that he would simply make a better, stronger
King than Memmnon would. He held no personal animosity toward his older brother. He and Memmnon had always gotten on well enough. They had their disagreements, as any brothers did, but they were always settled amicably enough.
No, it wasn’t personal. It was his duty. That was how Therron thought. How he had convinced himself of the rightness of his actions. He should be King because he was better suited for the job. Not because Memmnon wouldn’t be a decent King, but because Therron would be a better one.
And Soulan needed a better king in times like these.
Therron felt a wry smile cross his lips at the thought of the Norland Emperor actually helping him, Therron McLeod, seize the throne of Soulan. Without the threat of war, Therron’s plans would have taken a great while longer to ferment and the risks would have been far greater.
But the Nor had given him a great gift in deciding to go to war with Soulan. Therron himself would lead the army to its final victory and then be heralded a hero when the Nor were beaten back across the Ohi, their tails between their legs.
Yes, Emperor Bane had done him a great favor. Too bad he’d have to repay it by destroying his army. Therron continued to watch the rain pelt his window, his mind swirling with thoughts of being the victorious war leader and the King of Soulan.
*****
It would have surprised Therron to no end had he known that, one floor below him, Memmnon stood watching the same rain and thinking about the fact that his brother, Therron, was plotting to seize power from him at the first opportunity.
Memmnon acknowledged that he, himself, was partly to blame. So wrapped up had he been in other things that he had often neglected the nobles around Nasil and around Soulan at large. In that vacuum, Therron had taken the opportunity to win many of them over to his ‘side’.
He also controlled the Army. An army they needed whole and hearty to defend the realm, not divided by the removal of their Lord Marshall on what was practically the eve of war. Memmnon sighed, rubbing his eyes in an attempt to fight off a coming headache.
Why, he wondered, didn’t he just give Therron what he wanted? Let him have the throne. Memmnon had seen by now that the problems of the position far outweighed any benefits and there were problems, Memmnon knew. He, himself, didn’t desire power, it had simply come to him. It was his duty and he had accepted it. He had seen, first hand, that being King would not be the great experience that Therron seemed to think it was.
For Therron, there was only the power. The right to do as he pleased once he was installed as King. He either didn’t see the inherent problems Soulan faced or simply didn’t care.
Or, Memmnon allowed, perhaps he did see them and simply believed that he could handle them better than Memmnon could, or even Tammon for that matter. Either way, Memmnon was certain that Therron was plotting to take the throne. Possibly by force.
As fate would have it the Nor had given Therron all the room he needed to make a peaceful case for his ascension to the throne over Memmnon. If he could defeat the invasion and drive the Nor back across the Ohi then he would be a hero, a strong, steadfast defender of the people. Someone that no one would object to being King.
The problem was that Therron simply wouldn’t make a good King. He didn’t have the temperament for it, for one thing. Therron was apt to lash out at those around him, to treat people with a high and heavy hand that many found to be too much. Had it not been for the King’s ever watchful eye Therron might have been in more trouble than was normally the case.
Even so, Memmnon knew this was a problem he would have to face sooner or later. Tammon was in no shape to deal with his quasi-rebellious son. Memmnon would have to do it for him and do it in such a way as not to upset the balance of the army. They needed to be focused on defending the Soulan people from the Nor, not on supporting one brother over another for King. Looking out once again at the rain, Memmnon began working on a way to make all that happen.
*****
It would have surprised both brothers McLeod in the palace that night to know that, whilst they plotted around each other, their father was sitting next to the fire in his private chambers, considering the problems facing him.
Including a son that Tammon was convinced meant to seize the throne of Soulan at his first opportunity. The old man sighed wearily, his hand rubbing along his temples.
Never, in the ageless history of Soulan, had the throne been ‘taken’. Never. Peaceful ascension to the throne by the legal heir was simply taken for granted. To do otherwise was unthinkable.
Tammon shook his head slowly. To have it happen under his rule. What had he done to deserve that? Even as the thought came to him, he snorted.
You’ve done nothing, he told himself, and that’s the problem. You’ve simply made your will be so, and that’s that. Now you have a son that is bordering on being out of control and power hungry on the eve of what might be the greatest war in the history of Soulan. Some King you are.
Tammon shook off those thoughts. Richly deserved though the self-recrimination might be, it wasn’t helpful. It didn’t solve his problems. Of course, at this juncture, nothing would solve his problems.
Therron ran the army and Tammon needed the army. He needed them ready to repel the coming invasion and protect the kingdom. If they succeeded it would be with Therron at the helm, rather than himself, which would make Therron’s power grabbing that much more acceptable to some.
The key to everything was the war. If they lost, then Therron wouldn’t be a hero, but there also wouldn’t be a kingdom to assume control of. If they won, and Therron survived. . . .
The King’s thoughts trailed away at that dark idea. He had considered having Therron meet with some ‘accident’ or other. The problem was that if the word ever got out, then Tammon would have helped destroy the very thing he had sought to protect. The peaceful succession of power.
I should have let him fight Parno, Tammon thought darker still. Had I known how good the boy was with a blade, I might well have insisted upon it, could I have seen this in the offing.
But this wasn’t Parno’s fight and, the King reflected, the youngest Prince of Soulan had suffered quite enough at the hands of the royal family. No, this was Tammon’s fight. A problem of his own making.
One he desperately needed a solution for. One that wouldn’t ruin his family…or his kingdom…in the process.
*****
The rains were beating down along the Ohi River as Lieutenant General Gerald Wilson watched from horse back. His men moved along the trails just a few miles north of the river. Trails that had been cut, then hidden, months ago. Trails that led into prepared camping areas within easy gallop of the jump off points for his invasion of the south. His assault force, the men who would cross in the navy boats, were already in position several miles both up and down river from Loville. They, their naval comrades, and their boats were carefully hidden, just a few hundred yards from the river, alongside their camps.
The men he was with now were part of the force that would assault the bridges themselves. Taking those bridges was, as always, the key to everything. With those three bridges in hand the Norland Army’s supply route and line of communications would be secure. Guarded by hand-picked men so that this time there would be no cavalry ‘dash and attack’ to cut their supplies and leave the invasion force to whither on the vine.
Wilson smiled as he thought of that. This time, things would be different. The force opposing him was much smaller than his own. Once across the river, Wilson was more than confident that his army would crush the Soulan 2nd Corps. With that done, the heartland would lie open to him, with only the 1st Corps in Nasil itself to oppose him.
True, there were problems to deal with. The rains, thus far, had been heavier than he had hoped and the river was rising rapidly. Once the rains had subsided, the river should fall just as quickly, however. With the naval boats and personnel, the height of the river shouldn’t matter anyway but Wilson wasn’t accustomed to trusting in fate. He worked very hard to an
ticipate any problems he might encounter and devised plans to counter them.
For instance, what if the Soulanies discovered his army marshaling for an attack and attacked first? That wasn’t likely, of course. Soulan had never launched a war of aggression against Norland, or anyone else for that matter.
Still, he couldn’t simply disregard the possibility. Which was why he had quietly and carefully increased the garrison at Loville to a full brigade. While they could never stand against the Soulan Army alone, they could hold long enough for Wilson to get there with the bulk of his army.
Then there was the possibility that his advance would outpace his ability to resupply. This time of year there would be little or no foraging. He didn’t mind taking from the Soulan people to feed his own men but they wouldn’t have even a fraction of the supplies he would need here at the end of winter. That meant that his men would be dependent upon the wagons rolling across the bridges to keep them fed and equipped.
