The Far Far Better Thing

by Auston Habershaw

  “General!” An old man in bleached-white livery saluted from outside her tent. Myreon emerged, squinting in the noonday sun. “The courier has returned, Magus,” he said.

  Myreon caught the look in the man’s eye. “What happened?”

  The courier had been flogged perhaps twenty times. The boy had arrived back at camp strapped over a mule, his bare back a ruin of blood-red ribbons of flesh. Though barely conscious, he was still able to deliver a letter. Myreon read it with her hands trembling with rage.

  Your Highness,

  I cannot help but think you are insulting me by sending this peasant as courier. I do not take kindly to such insults, and so I have expressed my displeasure upon your boy’s back. My doctors inform me that he will not die. I am merciful, as you see.

  I am prepared to parley with you this afternoon. Bring your witch and your walking dead—I do not fear you. You stand on my lands by birthright, and the Tower and Rose stands strong. I will hear your demands and then you will hear mine.

  Yours in kinship,

  Fawnse Kadrian, Count of Ayventry

  “Well?” Artus asked, looking over her shoulder.

  Myreon folded the letter up. “He’s young and arrogant. His tone of address was insulting to your lineage. But he still wants to meet.”

  Barth shook his head. “You’d still meet with him after he did that? You could practically see the boy’s ribs!”

  “It was a stupid show of strength,” Myreon said, cutting off what was sure to develop into another rant. “I think Fawnse’s situation is worse than we imagine. He wants to look strong to hide his weakness, but it’s his weakness that compels him to meet.”

  Artus nodded. “So what do we do?”

  Myreon laid a bow ward on Artus with a touch of her hand and did the same for herself. “We go and see where the weakness lies.”

  The parley was prepared in under an hour. Myreon sat astride her dappled gray mare before a rank of her best armed soldiers—deserters from the Davram levies, mostly—with Artus on one side and Sir Valen on the other. They were unarmed, as requested, though Myreon—as a sorceress—could not realistically be described as such.

  Across from them, so far as to be only specks, the corresponding delegation from the Ayventry side trotted toward them. Just like Myreon’s party, they were flying the white flag of truce.

  Artus examined them through the viewing glass. “I don’t see any signs of treachery.”

  “One of them could be a sorcerer,” Valen grumbled.

  “Then it’s a good thing I’m here.” Myreon gave him a sharp look.

  Valen grinned and shrugged. “Yes. I suppose that’s a good point.”

  “Smooth, Valen. Real smooth.” Artus chuckled. The two of them smiled at each other, sharing the laugh.

  Myreon sighed and urged her horse forward. She would never understand Artus’s ability to forgive and befriend people who once wanted him dead or in chains. And she even counted herself among that number.

  The two parties met at approximately the middle of the vast hillside that separated the two armies. There wasn’t much to distinguish it—a muddy spot in the middle of an empty pasture. Myreon figured all of the town’s goats and sheep were probably locked up in pens and barns, safe from the hungry eyes of the White Army. And hungry they would be, too, if this battle didn’t end quickly. Barth insisted they were less than two days away from running out of food, and, thanks to Sahand’s scorched earth strategy, their supply lines stretched all the way back to Davram and Eretheria. Bandit raids were already becoming a problem.

  Fawnse Kadrian, the Count of Ayventry, was only a boy—younger even than Artus was when Myreon had first met him. He was wearing ornate, enchanted plate mail but he didn’t have the shoulders for it—his head looked too small between the gleaming pauldrons, like a boy trying on his father’s armor. He had a piggish little face and dark eyes that darted back and forth between his retainers and Myreon. When he spoke, his voice cracked. “No sorcerers! You could enchant us!”

  Myreon spread her hands to show all her fingers. “Then we would be in violation of the truce, which would result in an immediate battle, yes? We are trying to avoid that.”

  “I know who you are.” Fawnse pointed at her. “You’re the Gray Lady. You murdered my cousin in cold blood.”

  Myreon glared at the boy. “Count Andluss was killed by a drifter who knew a simple trick and a series of bodyguards too stupid to anticipate it.”

  “Insult!” Fawnse’s eyebrows leapt up. He pawed for the hilt of a sword that wasn’t there. “Did you hear that?” he asked one of his lieutenants. “Did you hear what she said?”

  Artus cleared his throat. “Maybe we should begin by introducing ourselves. I’m Artus of Eddon, Prince of Eretheria.”

  Fawnse seemed to see Artus for the first time. His expression changed immediately from one of outright hostility to one of furtive caution. He eyed Artus like a duelist gauging an opponent’s style. “You will forgive me for saying so, but you are very informal for a prince. Tell me, have you sat on the throne yet?”

  Myreon scowled—she wasn’t sure which she despised more: this boy’s attempt at political intrigue, or the fact that he was so bad at disguising it. “The issue of legitimacy is not in question here. What is in question is whether we are going to lay siege to your castle or not.”

  Fawnse laughed. “You can’t siege Tor Erdun! I have it garrisoned with two thousand men! You can go no further, General.”

  Valen looked at Myreon out of the corner of his eye. Myreon knew what he was thinking. Two thousand men? In that tiny castle? Where were they sleeping, the chicken coops?

  Artus tried a different tactic. “We aren’t your enemies, Your Grace. We are merely the enemies of Dellor and of Sahand. If you let us pass, no harm will befall a single vassal of yours, nor will we take anything without paying for it.” He nodded to Valen, who produced a tightly packed purse and threw it to one of Fawnse’s men. The man grunted as it hit him—it was heavy. “There’s a lot more where that came from,” Artus said.

  The man undid the strings on the purse and poured out a handful of gold marks. The man’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. He held out the handful of gold to Fawnse. The young count slapped it away. “Bribes now? Who do you think you are dealing with? How many times do you think you can insult me before my cavalry rout you from the field?”

  Artus forced a smile. “Your Grace, if you could just—”

  “You will listen to my demands!” Fawnse held his hand out and one of his retainers put a scroll in it. He unfurled it and began to read. “‘Your rebellion is unlawful, your prince is illegitimate. You will surrender your leaders to me and the commoners shall be permitted to depart in peace. Those of noble birth will be ransomed back to their Houses. Those commoners who incited revolt’”—Fawnse sneered at Myreon—“‘shall be beheaded for treason.’”

  Myreon looked the boy over. His fingers gripped the parchment too tightly. His cheeks were a little sallow—indeed, Fawnse looked positively jaundiced. His two men looked no better—deep bags beneath their eyes from lack of sleep. An unhealthy pallor to them, too. She did her best to put on a winning smile. “Those are relatively poor terms you offer, Your Grace.”

  Fawnse furled the scroll. “I am willing to hear your counter-proposal.”

  Artus fiddled with his reins, causing his horse to dance a bit. “Well—”

  Myreon cut him off. “We reject your proposal, Fawnse. Tomorrow we have a battle.”

  The Count of Ayventry’s mouth fell open. “Wh . . . what? What?”

  Myreon began to turn her horse around. “If you wish to offer your unconditional surrender before then, you know where to find us. Tell your servants they’ll be well treated, too. Unlike you, I don’t whip couriers.”

  Artus was staring at her. “But . . . Myreon . . . we haven’t—”

  “Let’s go, Your Highness.” Myreon flicked the reins and off she went. She didn’t look to see if they wer
e following her—they would, she knew. For the first time in what seemed like forever, she felt light in the saddle.

  Because she knew exactly how to win this battle.

  Chapter 12

  Uphill Battle

  That night, on Myreon’s orders, every man in camp had a cup of beer in his hand—the last few casks were tapped and drained, much to the joy of the army. The fires were stoked high, too, burning through more of their fuel than was strictly wise. It wouldn’t last the night, but then Myreon didn’t need it to. The camp echoed with good cheer and the sounds of voices raised in bawdy song. The noise echoed off the cliffs and up out of the valley—Myreon had no doubt it could be heard for miles.

  In the midst of the merrymaking, Myreon worked some necromancy. It was easy enough to do—the song, the bright fires, the happy mood—made the Lumen rest thick in the camp. The Lumen—the energy of life, of growth—was also the energy of undeath. This was a paradox to the untrained, who expected the living dead to crave the dark and draw power from the Ether—the energy of death. Of course, these people failed to understand what necromancy actually was: the giving of life.

  By her sorcerous command, the White Guard slipped out of the camp, utterly silent as always, and crept up the slope separating the White Army from Fawnse’s forces. Most of them she tasked to some basic manual labor in the fields—they dug with shovels and spades without rest and without complaint for some hours. A select group of others, though, infiltrated the camp of the enemy, disguised with some simple glamours and basic shrouds to make them difficult to recognize as undead in the dark. Their unnatural quiet and the distraction poised by the White Army made it easy for the constructs to slip past the sentries. Also there were fewer sentries than there probably should have been. This confirmed her suspicions.

  Peering through the eyes of her undead servants, Myreon got a good look at the enemy camp. It was as she expected—as the meeting with Fawnse implied and the lack of sentries indicated. The army of Ayventry was starving, on the very edge of disaster. Everywhere the White Guard looked, they found famished soldiers in worse condition than her own, eating chipmunks and gnawing on roots. As peasant levies of House Ayventry, they were modestly equipped—good boots being the primary piece of kit that caught her attention—but they were angry. They squatted by their sputtering fires and spat curses. Not all the curses were directed at her, either.

  At the center of the camp were the pavilions of the knights. They were not substantially better off in terms of food. They complained to one another. They fought over trifles. From what she heard through the ears of the White Guard, they had been stationed here for three weeks. They had eaten through their supplies in ten days. They had stripped the town clean of its meat and grain in another seven. It had been four days now without proper food. The situation in the castle, they said, was worse.

  And of course it was—an army of eight thousand camped in one place for nearly a month? And in the mountains, too? What was Sahand thinking? The soldiers outnumbered the townspeople by seven or eight to one! This was a small trading post, meant to accommodate a trade caravan of hundreds, not an army of thousands. Even with supplies working their way down the Freegate Road from Ayventry, it was a hundred miles away. And from the way Fawnse’s man had stared at that gold, it was clear they didn’t have the money to pay for much in the way of supplies, anyway. Sahand had set this army up to fail. It made Myreon’s skin crawl to consider why, but that didn’t matter at the moment. What mattered was winning the day.

  At her willed command, a dozen different White Guards stepped into the firelight in a dozen different gatherings throughout the Ayventry camp. They spoke with her voice:

  “The Gray Lady bids you good evening, gentlemen. As a champion of all Eretheria, she invites you and your friends to join her in her camp this evening. There is food and song and good cheer, and no one will do you harm. At daybreak, any who remain here will fight and die for Count Fawnse. Any who join the Young Prince may take their ease tomorrow, and watch the battle from a safe distance.”

  Then they each cast down a pouch of silver crowns and departed, leaving the shocked Ayventry men to wrestle with their own allegiance—and each other, trying to get the coins.

  Some of the men attacked her messengers—plunging knives into their bodies or hurling stones at them. The White Guard, of course, were unconcerned with such assaults. They retreated in good order, and the men who attacked them were too frightened to follow.

  But many others followed. In the light of a half moon, the red tabards of thousands of Ayventry men stumbled down the slope in the dark toward the light and life of the White Army. There, at the foot of the hill, Barth and his best men were there to welcome them.

  This will eat through all our supplies, Barth had warned when Myreon explained her plan to him.

  Better lost food than lost lives, Myreon had responded.

  The Ayventry deserters were given a full share of stew and bread, clean water and, if they had descended early, a taste of beer. Myreon had seen to it that they were welcomed like brothers, invited to join the White Army men around the fire. No weapons, no threats, no trouble.

  It worked. There were a few fights, true, and a few Ayventry men trudged back up the hill before dawn, but most of them stayed. There were so many of them, it was like a new, third army had grown up overnight—twenty-five-hundred men slept in borrowed tents and lounged around enemy campfires when the sun rose.

  In the morning light, the White Army stood in ranks, ready to advance on the field of battle. Now, instead of being outnumbered by more than two to one, Myreon’s forces had the clear numerical advantage. This had another effect on the empty-bellied legions of Count Fawnse: footmen began to quit the field. Through the viewing glass, Myreon saw dozens of men throw down their spears and tear off their tabards, to the anguish of the knights put in charge of them. Unrest and ill-discipline spread through the Ayventry ranks like an evil wind.

  Valen shook his head as he witnessed this. “I can’t believe it. Just like at Fanning Ford. It’s the same damned thing all over again.”

  Myreon gave him a cool glance. “The master is always alarmed to discover his slave has desires beyond his own.”

  Valen scowled, but had the good sense to bow his head. Artus, in the saddle beside him, put a hand on the young knight’s shoulder. “You saved a lot of men’s lives that day, Valen. You spared your county a lot of pain. You should be proud of yourself.”

  Valen nodded. He looked at Myreon. “You can think what you like about my grandmother, but she wasn’t an evil woman. She wanted the best for her family and for her county—most of the peerage is the same. They just—we just lost perspective.”

  Myreon pointed to the long rank of enemy knights moving up to try to flank the White Army. “Their loss of perspective is about to attempt to ride us down as we advance.”

  She nodded to Barth, who was on foot alongside a long rank of archers. At her signal, Barth raised a baton. “Archers! Ready!”

  A few hundred peasants nocked arrows and drew to the corners of their eyes, sighting the colorful plumes and bright pennants of the encroaching Ayventry heavy cavalry. Barth’s voice boomed across the battlefield. “LOOSE!”

  The arrows flew in a gentle arc, hitting the forward knights in the enemy formation. There was comparatively little effect—the armor of the knights was thick and the bows they had in numbers weren’t formidable Galaspin longbows or even crossbows, but rather simple hunting weapons. At this range, they lacked the power to punch through plate, to say nothing of whatever bow wards or sorcerous guards the knights had active. A few knights went down or fell off their horses, but not enough to make much of a dent in their numbers. It was all right—they weren’t supposed to. Myreon just wanted them goaded into action—she wanted the knights to be eager for blood. To get their adrenaline racing.

  A few more volleys rained down on the knights as they closed, the thunder of hooves now clearly audible even over the din of
the White Army. The archers were recalled and the footmen called forward, spears and glaives and hook-ended bills held out and braced against the earth—ready to receive a charge.

  At just under a hundred yards distant, that charge began. A clear trumpet note sounded, the knights’ lances lowered, and their horses leapt forward. The slope was steep enough that the knights couldn’t lean in—they had to balance their weight atop their mounts, so as not to fall—but the momentum of the attack was undeniable. Even though she knew what was about to happen, Myreon couldn’t help but tighten her grip on the reins and cast a few powerful guards on herself and her mount. The call of the trumpet, the flash of the lance tips—many enchanted to explode on impact—the heart-stopping rumble of the hooves; the sight of stray arrows pinging off invisible walls of force surrounding the knights. Myreon’s instincts called out for her to run. Instead, she shouted, “Steady! Steady men of Eretheria!”

  Barth did her one better. “HOLD, YOU BASTARDS!”

  The White Army, with full bellies and dreams of victory, held fast.

  The charge never reached the lines.

  The first knight to hit one of the deadfall traps was a standard bearer. The horse pitched forward as its front legs vanished into a shallow trench concealed by grass-covered cloth. As it screamed, the man flew from the saddle and landed, face-first, in the dirt and kept rolling. Another horse fell. And another. And another. One horse would fall and take out another few nearby. Knights tried to pull their mounts up, tried to keep their mounts from trampling their friends who fell in front of them—it was too late, though. The trenches the White Guard had dug through the night were working.

  When the remains of the cavalry hit the pike line, it was not with the force of a wall of steel a hundred men wide, but instead a few isolated knights slamming into the White Army’s ranks and being pulled from the saddle in the ensuing melee. In a matter of moments, the might of Ayventry lay strewn across the battlefield, injured and dazed and dead. The shrieks of man and beast echoed through the air.