A quick scan of the battlefield revealed hundreds of torches flickering in the darkness outside the Alliance's lines. These torches illuminated the field for the details sent to retrieve western corpses and search for the wounded. So far, no body found outside the lines proved to be alive; the Tuigan had trampled most of the corpses in their retreat. A low moan continually hovered over the western camp as the injured and the grieving vented their sorrow together.
A sick feeling settled in the princess's stomach as she considered the situation. She rested her elbows on her knees and bowed her head in thought. "Pull three-quarters of the troops off corpse detail," she ordered at last. "I want them breaking down what remains of the Alliance's camp. We should be ready to move if the need arises."
Farl frowned. "But the corpses of our soldiers-"
"— will be of no use to us now," the princess sighed. She noted the shocked look on the general's face and added, "The gods will certainly understand if the heroes who died fighting here are not given the proper burial rites."
"Yes, Your Highness."
"When that's done, organize the remainder of the troops into three shifts. I want the men rested up in case the Tuigan come back," Alusair ordered calmly. "One shift of the three should remain alert, waiting for the horsewarriors, while the others sleep."
Nodding, Farl looked around at the Alliance's lines. "I've already started on that, Your Highness. If the men weren't so frightened, they might be easier to command." He paused and looked into the fire. "I–I share their concern, Princess. I don't think we have the strength to make another stand here."
A pressure had begun to weigh upon Alusair the moment she'd discovered her father was injured, the moment she'd been forced to take command of the army. The princess felt that pressure increase now. Her shoulders tight and her stomach in knots, she placed her hand on the general's arm.
"Then we'd best be ready to move by midnight," she said softly. "Perhaps we can find a more defensible place to the west."
Farl didn't reply at first. Eventually he stood and bowed. "I'll see that your orders are carried out." He paused, then added, "I'm glad you're here, Princess. I don't know how the men would have reacted to your father's injury if you hadn't taken command."
Alusair appreciated Farl's compliment, but the notion that she was one of the only things holding the Alliance together frightened her. She realized then that it was this responsibility that weighed so heavily upon her. Running a hand through her knotted blond hair, Alusair wondered if this pressure was what her father felt every day.
To take her mind off that and other thoughts, she established a makeshift command headquarters in the midst of the western lines. Despite this effort, the princess found that, once she'd set the army to its various tasks, there was little for her to do but wait and think and watch the bright bonfires that had sprung up around the battlefield. Those fires, which might have been the center for a rustic celebration in Cormyr, were the resting place for the western dead. One by one, corpses were hefted onto the blazing pyres, their souls sent to the afterlife unceremoniously on clouds of foul-smelling smoke.
The funeral pyres brought more unwelcome contemplation, and she was attempting to force her mind away from various morbid topics when she heard a spent arrow snap beneath someone's foot. Glancing behind her, the princess saw Thom Reaverson, a smile on his young face. At the bard's side was another man, dressed in a heavy black robe, its hood concealing his face.
"Hello, Allie," the hooded man said.
Alusair sprang to her feet and threw her arms around her father. When the king groaned, the princess backed up a step. From where she stood, Alusair could see Azoun's pale face and haggard expression. She also noted for the first time that he leaned heavily to his left upon a walking stick.
Before his daughter could say a word, the king held up his right hand. "Thom told me you were here, so I came to see you." He shifted his weight on his leg, trying to get comfortable. "I just wanted to tell you I'm all right, and I wanted to see how you fared in the battle. I was. . worried."
The king didn't need to explain the disguise. After seeing how ill her father looked, Alusair could guess the reason for it. "You don't want the men to see you when you're so weak," she said quietly.
Azoun nodded. "In the morning, after I've rested, I'll return from the dead, their triumphant hero." Alusair could not miss the note of self-scorn in those words. She wanted to comfort her father, but he'd already placed his hand on Thom's shoulder and turned to go.
"Wait!" the princess gasped, running a few steps to get beside Azoun. "What are we supposed to do until morning?"
The king cocked his head, and Alusair thought she saw a little color flush back into his face. "Thom told me that you've taken command until I get better," he said, pride bolstering his weak voice. "And from what I hear you're doing everything I would." He hobbled a step, then stopped and added, "I'd move the troops tonight, though. We'll have a better chance of putting some distance between us and the Tuigan under cover of darkness." Thom cast a sympathetic glance at the princess, then the king and the bard moved on.
For a moment Alusair considered telling her father she didn't want the responsibility for the army, that he or anyone else should take it. But as her father limped back toward the western camp, his face hidden in the hood, the princess realized that he already knew that. Alusair realized, too, that she would take command of the Army of the Alliance, not because she had some vague duty to honor or pride, but because Azoun needed her help.
The weight she felt upon her shoulders that night wasn't lessened by her acceptance. In fact, she felt the responsibility all the more because she knew what it was and knew that the burden could not be lightened. But Alusair was reconciled with that, and she went about organizing the retreat of the army, knowing that her father depended upon her. She was certain she would not fail him.
15
"I left Cormyr, left a soft job guarding caravans, for this," the mercenary cursed. He wiped the sweat from his brow with one blistered hand and held the small ax in the other. When no one responded, he swore under his breath and went back to work.
With a grunt, the tired, hungry man resumed chopping a point onto the end of a long wooden pole. Hundreds of other soldiers crowded around him, sharpening other poles to be used in the defensive palisades. Exhaustion showed plainly on all their faces, and few men spoke. The occasional conversations that sputtered to life in the ranks died quickly, as if fatigue had swallowed the soldiers' words as well as their strength.
Like the blistered mercenary and the others in the work detail, Razor John had slept little in the last day and a half. He, along with what remained of the Army of the Alliance, had left the site of the last battle shortly after midnight. They'd struggled west down the Golden Way all night, stopping only briefly for morningfeast. A constant fear that the Tuigan would suddenly sweep down on the retreating army from the east had hung over the troops all night and all day. Now, an hour or two before sunset, the western soldiers still wondered where Yamun Khahan and his army of barbarians were.
"They're just toying with us now," the mercenary muttered.
"Perhaps they'll stay away for a while. Perhaps we hurt the Tuigan worse then we think, Yugar," Razor John offered hopefully. He paused to take off his shapeless black felt hat and scratch his sweaty scalp. The fletcher's sandy hair, once almost long enough to cover his ears, was now cropped short for easy care. This, coupled with the bags beneath John's eyes and the tired stoop in his gait, made him seem haggard and more than a little mournful.