He ground his sharp teeth together and fought down his despair. By the absent gods, how would he ever find the courage to tell her?
The Mask of a General
25
The next few days became a blur to Linsha-hot days on horseback and cold, uncomfortable nights spent tied in Lanther’s tent. The new general did not try to kiss her or touch her again, but he would not let her near Crucible, and he never let her out of his presence. Linsha wished sometimes he would, even for just a few minutes. She was starting to loathe this man she had once considered her friend. She stared at him sometimes as they rode, still in shock that he had turned on her so suddenly. She half expected him to slouch in his saddle, turn around with his crooked grin, and tell her it had all been a joke. A poor joke, but a joke nonetheless. And then he would limp to her side and apologize. But it never happened. The Lanther she knew was a lie, a fabrication that was gone forever, and she began to grieve for that person as surely as she grieved for Mariana.
She saw Sir Remmik a few times during those bleak days. The older Knight had been locked in a small barred cage used to discipline disobedient slaves. The cage was loaded on the back of the wagon that hauled most of the furnishings, ropes, and walls of the general’s tent, and in those rare moments when the Akkad-Dar was distracted and the wagon was unwatched, she tried to slip Sir Remmik a water bag or a fragment of food. The Tarmaks gave him water and bread in the evening, but it was not nearly enough to last through a long day. Sir Remmik swallowed his pride and took what she could give him with mumbled thanks. He would say nothing more to her for fear of being beaten. In spite of his earlier animosity to her, she feared for his well-being. At least the traces of the blue paint remaining on his skin protected him from sunburn and helped heal the wound on his leg and the many cuts and bruises from the fight.
When she wasn’t worrying about Sir Remmik or Crucible or Varia during the long days of endless riding, Linsha often wondered what Falaius and the militia were doing. Had they gathered enough people to confront the Tarmaks? Would they attack before the army reached Stone Rose? Or would the town be sacrificed? Where were the inhabitants of this land? Thus far she had seen no sign of tribesmen, centaurs, or anyone. The desolate land they traveled was seemingly empty of people. There were no travelers, no caravans, no shepherds herding their flocks, no nomads to watch them pass by. Even when they stopped near the river to replenish their water supplies and water the stock, they did not see boats or local fishermen. This was not a heavily populated land, Linsha knew that, but this close to the river, there should have been someone.
The Tarmak scouts did not seem to be finding anyone either. Whenever they returned to report to the Akkad-Dar, she sidled close to listen and heard enough to make her suspect the local inhabitants were fleeing the coming of the Tarmaks. They were wise, she thought.
But this empty peace would not last much longer. Of that she was sure. The people of Duntollik had not maintained their free realm between three dragonlords by sitting in their homes and running at the first sign of trouble. Somewhere out there on the Plains the tribes and clans were mustering to confront the Tarmak invaders, and she doubted they would wait much longer.
Three days’ march to the southeast of Stone Rose, another tributary of the Toranth River joined the Red Rose in a confluence of shifting sand bars, twisting currents, and treacherous shoals that changed the character of the river to a staid, meandering waterway with enough water to float a boat. The southernmost tributary, the Khol, was named for a village in its proximity and stretched lazily through the southern reaches of the vast desert. West of the confluence, where the Red Rose ran alone, the river was not a pretty sight in anyone’s imagination, for it was shallow, thick with silt, and meandered through rusty colored mud flats and sand bars. The Red Rose, Linsha learned, had been named by local centaurs for its reddish color and for the odd stone rosettes that could sometimes be found in the weathered gullies and canyons of its watershed. Its banks supported only tough cottonwoods and thick willows and beds of rushes that harbored every biting insect known to the Plains. But it was water, and water was more valuable in the desert than gems.
Even though the Run paralleled the river, the majority of the Tarmak army did not see the confluence of the Khol and the Red Rose simply because it was too far from the Run for the wagons, chariots, and slow-moving oxen to detour. However, a day later they reached a section of the road that passed a great northern loop of the Red Rose and saw for themselves the muddy, red-hued river and its striated hanks of red sandstone. After several days of skimpy water rations, everyone was pleased to see it. No one minded a little mud.
Especially Crucible. Without waiting for Lanther to agree, he galloped down the bank and plunged into the water, wallowing snout-first into the mud and sending waves of muddy water washing up the bank. Linsha laughed for the first time in days, and Lanther, who knew more about dragons than the Akkad-Ur before him, grunted and said, “He could have done that a little farther down stream.”
That evening, they saw the first rider on a hill to the west, silhouetted against the setting sun. Lanther send a band of the mercenary brigands after the rider, but he disappeared before they could get near him.
At dawn there were two watchers on the distant hill.
Lanther sent out Tarmak trackers and put his army on alert. They broke camp quickly, and every Tarmak carried his weapons on the march. They did not see a concentrated band of the enemy that day, but they saw watchers on every distant hill and occasionally a troop of centaurs would canter by on a parallel track and observe the Tarmaks as closely as they dared.
Linsha observed the sentinels and felt her nervousness increase by the hour. The Tarmaks’ opponents were out there, waiting for the most advantageous time or the best place to attack. Were they going to launch an ambush? Or use the old familiar form of advancing lines? Would they attack at dawn? She could only wait and try to keep her worried frustration from boiling over.
At dawn the following day, signal horns blared all around the camp, alerting the warriors and bringing the commanders running. They stopped and stared at a sun-capped hill on the western Run not far from the sprawling camp and saw at least seven mounted riders and three centaurs standing in the middle of the road as if they were attempting to block the Tarmaks’ path. One carried a truce flag.
Lanther buckled on his sword and strapped the gold mask of the Akkad on his face. Taking Linsha with him, he mounted his horse, called his guards, and rode up the hill to meet the waiting riders.
Linsha kept her face expressionless as the group of Tarmaks came to a halt ten feet away from the truce party. She scanned the faces in front of her and saw Falaius, Sir Hugh, and several of the militia she recognized. The others were tribesmen and centaurs from Duntollik clans. She gave Sir Hugh a scant nod and tore her eyes away from his questioning expression. She hoped they would not get a chance to talk. She did not want to have to explain Mariana’s death to him under these circumstances.
The rider carrying the flag nudged his horse forward to meet the Akkad-Dar. He held his hands out so the Tarmaks could see he was unarmed. The only thing he carried was the torn scroll Sir Remmik had given to the leaders at the Grandfather Tree.