“Well spoken, Lord Dahken Cor. Read the message, and you have five days. If you wish peace, you and your captains should come to my encampment beyond.”
“And be slaughtered without the protection of my host,” Cor sneered.
“You will be well treated – an honored guest, just as Dahken Keth was,” Karak explained.
“Marya will never let me live. She can’t afford to.”
“That,” pointedly replied Karak as he began to turn his horse to leave, “is a matter between Lord Dahkens.”
Cor stared in amazement as the Tigolean lord galloped away, mostly because he hadn’t expected such civilized honor. Every encounter he had ever had with the peoples from the southern continent had shown them to be near uncontrollable, violent fiends, and the encounters with their riders had done nothing to dispel the illusion. Karak was something else entirely – he was a warrior, a truly noble man of honor.
Cor turned to head back to camp, breaking the seal on the case to read as he walked.
* * *
“May I read it?” asked Mora.
“If you must,” Cor replied, “but it is the same ultimatum we were given back in Byrverus.”
“Wholly unacceptable. War it is,” said Red.
The piece of parchment lay on the makeshift table, its ends still rolled up from the scroll case, and Mora picked it up with her right hand, her only hand, to read it silently. Cor kept the entire affair to himself, but called for Mora and Red to him after nightfall to reveal all that had occurred. Thyss was there of course as she was never far, and Cor’El crawled happily through the dirt. They met under the open sky. It was a clear, cool night, and fires blazed everywhere around the encampment as soldiers relaxed and were generally merry.
Mora dropped the message back on the table.
“So things go as expected,” she concluded. “Marya in fact claimed the throne of Akor. Are we to assume she murdered Parol?”
“Likely,” Cor agreed, “and Keth is in position to do what he must.”
“Is he?” asked Thyss.
Cor looked at her in confusion and said, “I don’t understand.”
Thyss shook her head and snatched Cor’El as he chased some sort of beetle across her feet. Cor felt suddenly like a child chastised by a wiser parent.
“You don’t understand men, do you,” she said, and it was not a question. “How is it possible that you’ve come so far, grown so powerful and don’t understand what drives a man to do what he does? Before we left Byrverus, before this all happened, you took something away from Keth.”
“I did nothing of the sort,” Cor replied, suddenly defensive and even more confused.
“Yes you did,” she replied, “you took something from him that he valued more than you value your sword or maybe even me. You took away responsibility.”
“I… what?” Cor stammered.
“You told him he was no longer responsible for Cor’El, no longer required to train the Dahken for combat.”
Mora and Red both shot Cor a look that made him suddenly feel both stupid and uncaring. “I was only trying to make things easier on him. He has given so much, served me in ways that I never asked, and I wanted him to know that it wasn’t necessary anymore. I wanted him to start doing what he wanted, find his own path.”
Thyss laughed loudly, but there was no humor in it. “You still don’t understand. Keth took those responsibilities on himself as much as anyone asked him to. They were his to bear, they were his path, and you took them away from him.”
“I,” Cor said haltingly as it all started to make sense to him, “wanted him to know how much I appreciated everything he’s done, that I love him like a brother. I didn’t want him to feel that he must do it anymore.”
“So you stripped him of the power, of the responsibility. You stripped away his young manhood,” she concluded.
Cor looked at her golden face, the light of a nearby cooking fire flickering across her almost feline features, and saw that it was deadly serious. He looked to Mora, who only looked away, and then to Red. The huge man never looked more like his father as he dropped his eyes from Cor’s to the rickety table around which they met. He knocked his knuckles on its surface one time, causing it to rock slightly for a moment.
“It’s true,” Red said quietly. He still looked down at the tabletop, but his face held a hint of a smile. “If you take away a man’s responsibilities, he has nothing. It is the things we must do that make us who we are. Without them, we are lost.”
Cor almost deflated as he sighed, and he looked up into the starry sky. It was a dark night, as the moon was nowhere to be seen. He turned from the table and looked out over the host as he considered their words, and they seemed disinterested in breaking his silence. After a long moment, he turned back to them.
“I made a mistake, clearly,” Cor said to them. “I can admit that I don’t really understand people. They don’t do anything that makes sense.”
“Yourself included,” chimed in Mora.
“Everything I’ve done in the past was in the protection of me, my people and my family, and in that light, everything I’ve ever done makes sense. Regardless, my actions are not on trial here,” Cor said more harshly than he planned. “I don’t believe that Keth would turn against us over a misunderstanding so minor, but I will assume the worst. And I’m not worried about Marya; I can handle her when the time comes. The problem we face is the Tigoleans.”
“No doubt,” Red agreed, and the man most visibly changed as his mind moved into battle plans. He pulled out a three foot wide hand drawn map, which he unrolled on the table and weighted at the corners with rocks. It showed the topography of the area. “We’re here, and they’re here. With every sword and bow that has come to us, we number fifty thousand and mostly soldiers.”
“How many Tigoleans?” asked Mora.
“We’re guessing… a hundred twenty,” Red replied grimly.
“Thousand?” Mora asked incredulously, and Red only nodded. “How did they get one hundred twenty thousand men from Tigol to Akor?”
“Plus their weapons, armor, bows and horses,” Red continued the question.
“I spent two years sailing the Narrow Sea,” Cor said. “Tigolean sailing ships are far more advanced than anything we have. Besides, Karak said he was one of the Seven Lords.”
“What does that mean?” asked Mora.
“I honestly don’t know, but I assume he is one of the most powerful men in Tigol.”
“Speaking of bows,” Red interrupted, “they have at least four times as many bows as we do.”
“And Tigolean bows have half as much range as our longbows,” Cor concluded.
“They also,” Red sighed as he spoke, “have at least fifty thousand horses to our five thousand, and while they have little to no heavy cavalry or knights, their sheer mobility is considerable. We’ve also heard reports of new swords and armor.”
“Such as?” Cor asked.
“For example the steel you saw Karak wearing is an example, but they’ve also created some sort of armor out of parchment. It’s thick, light and can’t be penetrated by arrows. And this part I don’t understand, but they’ve learned how to make sword blades from folded steel,” Red said.
“How do you fold steel? And how does that help make a sword?” Mora asked.
Cor looked around the table blankly and saw the same blank looks reflected back at him as if in a mirror. “It doesn’t matter,” he said.
“The point is,” Thyss interrupted loudly, and there was an almost lusty smile on her face, “we’re outnumbered two or three to one by a force that is superior in every way.”
“We have Garod,” Mora replied, almost haughtily.
Thyss rolled her eyes, “Yes, you have whatever strength he grants you, but we also have the power of Hykan and Dahk.”
“They have two Dahken.”
“Not yet they don’t,” Red shot back. “In the north, we had to be constantly on guard should the Northmen attack.
This Lord Karak may be a regimented man of some sort, but the rest of them aren’t. They’re uncontrollable animals, not ordered soldiers.”
“We attack now? Is that what you’re saying?” Cor asked, leaning his weight onto the table.
Red looked long at the map, and they all could see his eyes moving across the drawing and notes as he calculated silently. He looked up for a moment and seemed to mumble wildly to himself before looking back at the map for another minute or so.
Finally, he exhaled slowly and spoke, “We attack them two nights hence. The moon will still be gone, making the night dark. The Tigoleans revel loudly, with heavy drinking, dancing and sport, so perhaps they won’t be alerted by our march. Five miles separate us, and it will be difficult in the dark. We can cross the distance at a full march in less than an hour and charge the last mile at a run. I’ll lead the cavalry and hit them from the north. By the time they can organize, it’ll be too late.”
“Have you ever done anything like this before? Up north?” Cor asked.
“I’ve seen the Northmen do it. It will be difficult with so many men, keeping them in proper formation during a night march with almost no light,” Red admitted, “but it can be done.”
“I don’t think we have a better chance fighting on open ground in broad daylight,” Cor mused.
“We have no chance in broad daylight. Neither your Dahken powers,” Red said to Cor, and then he turned to Mora, “nor Garod’s will aid us if you are both filled with arrows from fifteen hundred feet away. I need one thing though. I need more detailed information of the layout of their camp to decide the best point for the knights’ charge.”
“I can handle that,” Thyss interjected with a mischievous smile. Red and Mora looked upon her with surprised wonder, and a sudden cold weight dropped into the pit of Cor’s stomach.
15.
The night had grown cool in the late hours, and while a Westerner would not find it uncomfortable, a Northman would have said it was a warm summer evening. However, to the Tigoleans who hailed from across the Narrow Sea and enjoyed a generally warm if not tropical or desert climate, the air was simply cold. They drank and debauched late into the evening, despite the annoyed looks of their lords and commanders, as they did every night. Eventually the chill in the air cooled spirits as well, and the warriors wandered off to their own sleeping places.
Those that remained awake saw the strangist of fogs rise and make its way through the host’s enormous encampment. The fog didn’t rise so much as it seemed to descend from the sky or perhaps nowhere at all. Once near the ground, it flowed its way like a slow, misty deluge across every foot of the camp. It passed every tent, every sleeping man and ignored those that watched it. It even passed near and around fires, even seeming to linger near them as if to laugh at their dispelling power. Those that watched it would later swear that it seemed to have a life of its own as it moved and flowed. It was unnatural in both its motion and that it did not cover the entire encampment or as far as the eye could see as a normal fog would. No, this fog moved throughout the camp with a will, a purpose. The few that saw it watched fearfully, protecting themselves from evil spirits and magic with old gestures as they had seen their grandmothers do.
The fog left just two or three hours after it had come, well before the night’s end and floated away on a gentle easterly breeze.
* * *
They waited until well after nightfall to begin the march. Even though the sun had passed the horizon, they waited, for the western part of the sky was still bright from the passage. Once the sky lost its hues of blue and purple, becoming truly black with only the pinpricks of light from the stars, the began to organize and move. Huge ranks of footmen formed to include everyone not on horseback, while the cavalry formed up separately. It was an impressive, awesome sight that almost bored Cor with the commonness of it.
“I should be with you,” Thyss said to him.
“I know, but I’d rather you stay with Cor’El. If I should go down…”
She held a single finger over his lips to stop his words. “It has never happened before, and it will not now. Lord Dahken Cor Pelson, you are beloved of gods.”
“Not just gods I hope,” Cor replied with a smile. “Go rest with him. He may need your protection before this night is over.”
“If something happens to him,” Thyss said with a pointed look at Mora, “I’ll take your other arm, right before I melt your flesh from your bones.”
Thyss kissed him hard and then turned to walk back toward their tent near the middle of the camp. She was still tired from her ordeal the night before he knew which was why she did not argue his point of staying behind. She of course would never admit it. Cor turned back to Mora, finding surliness on her otherwise fair features, and he laughed in spite of himself.
“I can’t tell you the number of times she’s threatened me,” Cor explained. “It’s her way.”
“Perhaps, but could she learn to express her concern for you a little more… civilly?”
“You don’t know much about the elemental gods, do you?”
A clamor of armor and hooves arose from behind him, and Mora nodded her head in a direction over Cor’s right shoulder. He turned to find Red riding toward them. Like his father, the man was a giant on his own two feet, but on a horse he appeared a thing of children’s nightmares. Both he and the warhorse were clad head to toe in steel plate that reflected the twinkling starlight, and his giant sword was strapped across his back. In one hand, he carried a massive lance that was pointed up to the sky.
“Lord Dahken, the cavalry is formed and ready. We are off to find our position now,” Red reported.
“Excellent. We are very nearly ready.”
“It will take a two thousand count for us to reach our hold point. Can you count that high?” Red asked, beginning to laugh before he even finished the question. It was a jibe, but clearly meant as a good natured joke. It seemed the threat of imminent battle raised the man’s spirits. “Once there, I’ll make another two thousand count before I begin the charge. That gives you just over an hour. If you’re not engaged by the time we reach the Tigoleans, we won’t last long.”
“It’ll be enough,” Cor said with a nod.
Red turned his horse to ride back to his men, and then suddenly changed his mind. “Lord Dahken Cor, I still don’t know what to think of you, but if we win the day, you’ll have my trust.”
As Cor watched the man ride off, he muttered, “I thought I already did.”
“Trust is earned by actions not words, Lord Dahken,” Mora said from behind him. As Cor turned, she continued, “I have seen your actions. You have my trust.”
The march reminded Cor of his hurried flight from Losz so little time ago. He remembered every detail of that night perfectly, and yet it was in his mind as if it were a past memory from another life. This time, instead of two dozen children held together by knotted ropes, he had two score thousand armed men at his back. There were no ropes to bind them into formations. Cor had to rely purely on the instincts of the veteran soldiers and the regiment commanders to keep the men together over a march of several miles with little to no light. As they splashed noisily across the shallow river, they encountered no scouts, no pickets and no riders.
They may have pulled back. They’re expecting to fight in three days, Cor thought, but it sounded hollow even in his mind. He looked to his left to Mora, but could not see her face for the gloom.
Cor started to count silently to himself once he stepped foot on dry ground again, as Red had estimated it would take a two thousand count at a normal pace to reach the Tigolean encampment. At one thousand, he would double time the march, and his host should make the Tigolean camp just a few minutes before Red crashed into them from the north. He saw pinpoints of flickering light – waning fires from their camp.
Cor had very nearly reached the point of picking up their pace when he swore he caught a glimpse of movement ahead. It was not the motion of a lone picket or guard,
but rather furious movement from the host’s encampment. He wanted to call for a stop to the march to look and listen, but there was simply no way to safely and quietly call for the stop of forty thousand armed troops trying to be stealthy. He continued the march, watching and listening intently, as a sick feeling began to form in his gut.
Something’s wrong. Red’s already there! Cor turned to face his army, continuing the march backwards in a way that threatened to turn or break an ankle at every step. “We must charge!” he called out.
He turned again to face the right direction, waiting as the order made its way through the ranks. He counted to fifty and closed his eyes for just a second or two to inhale deeply, and then he shouted, “Now!” He picked up his pace to a jog and then a full run as the charge took hold of the men behind him. Metal armor clinked and clanged, and there was the sliding sound of steel being pulled from sheathes. Cor knew that more than one man lost his footing to tumble dangerously, and he only hoped that those behind the fallen were more aware.
The view of the Tigolean encampment became clearer, and he saw that several large tents were ablaze, adding to both the light by which to see and the confusion. His booted feet thumped hard on the dew laden grass beneath them, and the entire scene ahead seemed to jaunt nauseatingly as he ran. He heard the ringing of steel and the screams of men as they fought and died, and he saw a large mounted force on the far side. The cavalry had lost its momentum, stalled out to fight on horseback, and Cor could see figures in gleaming steel plate as they were pulled from their horses by scores of nearly naked Tigoleans.
And then his host crashed into them from behind. A few had seen or heard the charge, but most of the yellow skinned forms were taken unawares in their bloodlust. While Cor had started out leading the charge, others behind him were fleeter than he. They cut down every moving thing they saw, and steel and blood flashed in the star and fire light.
The Cor Chronicles: Volume 04 - Gods and Steel Page 11
