Aliver’s new army spoke different languages, had different customs, made war in differing ways. They were young and old, men and women, experienced soldiers and rank novices. They were fishermen and laborers and mine workers, herders and farmers; they were of all professions imaginable. Unifying such diverse groups into a fighting force posed an incredibly complex set of problems. Hanish did not contest their northern progress, but he drew his provincial guards in toward a central point. They received reports that he was massing troops along the Talayan coast. The time when the two forces would clash was very near.
Fortunately, Leeka Alain was itching to be in military command again. The legend of the rhinoceros-riding general had not been forgotten. Leeka was, after all, the first man to separate a Numrek head from the neck that supported it. He had outlived an entire army and fought in battle after battle throughout the first war. Though a few years older now, he was still a general whom others would follow into the fray. He threw himself into ordering and training Aliver’s growing army.
He broke them into units meant to use their diverse talents. He instructed the officers beneath him to think creatively about how each person could be used to strengthen the whole. He simplified the battle commands, selecting the best words from a variety of languages so that the calls were crisp and understandable and so that each people heard at least one of their words spoken on their officers’ lips. He trained them through drills that got them used to functioning as units. By staging mock battles in which newer troops faced an onslaught of veterans, he accustomed them to the close-up tumult of two armies smashing together. He worked them hard but always left them just enough energy so that they could march the day’s allotment as they moved north. New troops were accepted the very moment they offered themselves and were thrown into the routine without delay. He might not get them completely ready to face units of Punisari or hordes of Numrek warriors-who could be truly ready for such things?-but he would have them as prepared as humanly possible, even if he had to throw out much of Acacian military tradition and rethink the entire endeavor.
More than any other thing, though, Dariel’s arrival had done a great deal for Aliver. It bolstered him like no other single thing had. The night of Dariel’s arrival, Thaddeus had rushed to the council tent and found the two brothers locked in an embrace. They must have been holding each other for some time. They sat on stools, arms entwined, speaking to each other in whispers. Shyly, Thaddeus drew up close to them. He was not sure what to do until Aliver’s eyes touched on him. The prince reached out with one hand and pulled the old chancellor in to hug. Dariel-his face that of a man now, though the child was still there in the shape of his eyes-welcomed him with a sad smile. Thaddeus managed to whisper a greeting to the young prince before emotion choked his words away.
In the days that followed, the brothers got reacquainted amid the flow of daily events. They were together often during the day, touching at elbows, listening to the same councils, making decisions together, weaving the years they had spent apart into the fabric of their daily, busy existence. Thaddeus had wondered if there would be any friction between them. Would they be strangers to each other? Would they size each other up, men now and perhaps competitive, considering the possibility that one of them might soon be king? Would the years apart have damaged their relationship in ways not easily remedied? But Thaddeus saw nothing like this. There was a great deal of catching up to do, yes, but neither of them seemed at all awkward with the other. Perhaps Leodan had shaped them, in those early years, to be better siblings than most.
Pausing in the entranceway to Aliver’s tent one evening, Thaddeus could not keep himself from eavesdropping on the two. He had not meant to do so, and he certainly had no ill intent. But hearing Aliver’s low voice on the other side of the flap stopped him in his tracks. It was not the same voice the prince usually spoke with. There was an open frankness to it, an undisguised sincerity. It was the voice of a man speaking to his brother, to one of the few people in the world from whom he did not need to hide anything.
Aliver was talking about how hard it had been for him to be thrust into Talayan culture. It was overwhelming. Early on, he had hated his pale skin and straight hair and thin lips. For a time he had shaved his head and spent too many hours in the sun and even pouted his lips to make them seem fuller when talking with young women. Fortunately, this was years ago. He had grown more comfortable in his skin the last few years. He knew who he was now, knew what he had to do, and, finally, he could look at Dariel and see his family reflected back at him. That was a wonderful gift. Speaking through a laugh, he said, “So I thank you for living this long. Please, continue to do so.”
Dariel shared just as much with Aliver, detailing how strangely lonely he had felt growing up among the raiders. There had been people around him all the time, coming and going in the swirl of adventure and camaraderie, and yet he had been lonely. He loved them all, he said, especially Val. The giant of a man had been all the father he could. He had given his life for Dariel, in more ways than one. Things like that could not be repaid. Such gifts could not even be earned, he said. “I’ve no idea what I ever did to deserve it.”
“Val had a life to live, too, right?” Aliver asked. “Maybe doing what he did was his way of living with honor, his way of finding meaning. Often, I think, the men who do the most with their lives are the most afraid of…not being worthy of the faith of those that love them. Of course, it makes our lives harder as well. You and I, we have to be better than we might have been otherwise. We are links in a chain, aren’t we?”
Hearing this, Thaddeus felt sure that to some extent the prince was talking about him. It embarrassed him, and furthermore he knew that no matter what he did for them he could never be as close to these Akaran children as they were to each other. He loved them absurdly, with an intensity that had increased over the years. It felt like he had taken Leodan’s feelings for his children and added them to his own and mixed them within the great hollowness left by the death of his wife and son. He was father and uncle, mourner and penitent for past crimes all at once; the combination was almost too much to bear. A fitting punishment, he thought.
As the younger Akaran heir needed to be brought into the fold, to know everything, to have a hand in all that was happening, Thaddeus took over from Leeka Alain and carried on the young man’s education. One evening, while encamped about a hundred miles from Bocoum and the Talayan coastline, he shared a tent with Dariel and Aliver and Kelis, who in many ways seemed a third brother now. Dariel asked about the Numrek, beings that he had not yet laid eyes on. He asked if the tales told about them were true.
“Depends which tales you mean,” Thaddeus said. “Some are decidedly true. Others are decidedly not.”
“Is it true that they were forced out of their land?” Dariel asked. “I’ve heard that was why they came across the Ice Fields and joined with Hanish.”
Thaddeus nodded. “Those whom the Acacians never defeated on the field of battle came to this land as a vanquished people, fleeing forces they feared enough to trudge into the unknown.” He let the significance of this sit for a moment. “This world is larger than we know, with more in it to fear than we have yet imagined. Don’t let this cloud your thoughts, though. For the moment Hanish Mein is the enemy. If we don’t defeat him first, we’ll never have to worry about what might come after.”