Julinne turned a shade whiter; it made her look less healthy than many corpses Inyx had seen along the Road. Julinne had lost four children and a husband to Claybore’s troops and along with the heartbreak came a boon. The shock of the loss had broken the woman’s spirit and, ironically, had given her the gift required to defeat the grey-clads.
“How many?” asked Ducasien, his voice low and soothing.
Julinne’s eyes glazed over. “Four hundred and some.”
“When will they all be together? When will the commandant muster his troops?” Ducasien and Inyx exchanged worried looks. Julinne turned even paler and her entire body trembled like a leaf in a high wind. Even her teeth chattered in reaction.
“A fortnight from now. They gather to… to…”
“Yes?” Inyx held the woman’s hand and squeezed reassuringly. “What is their plan?”
“I see it so clearly,” Julinne said. “But the words. The words refuse to come.”
“This is harmful to her,” protested Nowless. “We cannot go on.”
“We must!” snapped Ducasien. “I tell you this is the only chance we will have to destroy them, gather them in one spot and close the trap around them.” He clapped his hands together. Jaw set and face grim, Ducasien brooked no argument.
“So many of us have died,” moaned Julinne.
“More will unless you tell us the plan.” Inyx listened carefully as Julinne’s lips barely moved. The whispered words began to make sense and she passed them along to Ducasien and Nowless. When the woman’s vision of the future had come to an end, she slumped forward. Inyx caught her and gently laid her down. Julinne slept deeply.
Ducasien motioned for them to leave the woman. He, Inyx, and Nowless walked the perimeter of the guerrilla camp, discussing all Julinne had seen.
“They feel they have committed enough outrage,” said Ducasien. “The time is ripe for them to systematically eliminate us.”
“The countryside is properly dispirited,” admitted Nowless. “Even our finest victories do little to help when the farmers know that the bedamned grey-clads might descend on them at any time and burn them out.”
“They have no confidence in us,” said Inyx. “But we need that. Without full support by the time the soldiers gather at the fort, we are lost.”
“You have a plan?” asked Ducasien.
Inyx nodded, brushing away her long, dark hair. Her blue eyes sparkled as she launched into it.
“A resounding defeat for a small group of them will set us up nicely,” she said. “We show the countryside we can prevail. That will align them with us. But the victory cannot be so great that it alerts the greys.”
“You’re thinking thoughts of Marktown?” asked Nowless. “The garrison there is undermanned, yet it is a key position for them.”
“It will be our most dangerous raid yet,” said Inyx, “but if we succeed, we will have won.”
“Not quite,” said Ducasien. “Their mage will have returned from his circuit. The fort will boast both soldiers and ward spells. The mage is not overly good, but he is better than none at all, which is what we have.” Ducasien clasped his hands behind his back and walked on. Nowless said nothing as he turned and left.
Inyx watched Ducasien, thinking that they ought to have a mage.
“Lan,” she said softly, then hastened after Ducasien.
“We are too few,” complained Ducasien. “This raid cannot work as you laid it out. We must regroup, plan some other foray.”
Inyx laughed. “You are too caught up in the overall scheme to appreciate the subtle moves. Look, Ducasien, we go yonder and down. The greys rush out to meet us. Nowless and his group sneak in from behind and we have them caught in a pincer. They cannot run and we will outfight them because they are undermanned.”
“Too pat,” said Ducasien. The man chewed on his lower lip and looked worried.
“There is something more bothering you. This is not that daring a plan.”
“You,” Ducasien said finally. “I do not want you in the party. Stay with Julinne and the others.”
“Why this sudden change of heart?” Inyx frowned. This was unlike Ducasien.
“I… I have lost too much,” said Ducasien. “I will not lose you.”
“Oh? And you think I have not lost those I love?” she shot back. “My husband is worm food because of the grey-clads. What if I should lose you to their sword? Would my hurt be less than yours?”
“This is a foolish argument.”
“It is,” Inyx said hotly. “I plan, I fight. I must show confidence in my skills or none will follow.”
Ducasien faced Marktown and the small garrison. He kept his hands locked behind his back, a gesture Inyx had long since interpreted as being one of defiance in the man. But she would not relent. Inyx knew she was right in all she did.
“Leponto province was never like this, was it?” he asked.
“Not in your memory,” Inyx said. “I left just as the soldiers poured over the borders from Jux and Chelanorra. For years they had been threatening such a move, but it was only when Reinhardt and his brothers were dead did they invade us.”
“That was long years before I was even born,” said Ducasien. “The time flows between worlds in odd ways.”
“Tell me of Leponto. The one you remember.” Inyx leaned back against the sun-warmed rock and closed her eyes. No longer stretched out at her feet was the village of Marktown on some world so far along the Road she had no clear idea where it lay. Ducasien’s words took her home, where she had been born and raised and loved and watched death stalk those dearest to her. Back to Leponto.
“The summer I left was extraordinary,” Ducasien said. “The lin were in full bloom. Remember how the blossoms showed brown spirals?”
“Only in the blue blooms,” said Inyx, remembering well. “The red blooms had black spirals. When I was a child we’d pretend we were bugs going along the spiral. We’d describe our path to one another.”
“Pollen grains,” said Ducasien. “We’d always try to be the first to describe the pollen. As large as boulders.”
“You played the game, too? Yes, I suppose all in our province would. The flowers were the mainstay of life.”
Inyx sighed. Leponto had been famed throughout the world for the delicacy of its flowers, especially the lin. Some had curative powers, others were used in dyes. Nowhere in the world had a finer textile factory than in Leponto. And the flowers even had decorative value. The Council of Threes always opened with a flower from Leponto being presented to each of the representatives. Inyx had traveled to the court once for the ceremony. Seeing the three from her home given the lin had been a high point of her young life.
“The autumn feast,” went on Ducasien. He chuckled. “I met my first lover at the feast.”
“Under the moons of good harvest?” asked Inyx, startled. “So did I.”
“Reinhardt?”
Inyx smiled and shook her head. “Reinhardt was later, but not that much so. No, I had forgotten about the autumn feast until you’d mentioned it.”
“You’re lying,” chided Ducasien. “No one forgets their first lover. Their second, perhaps, or their fourth or fortieth, but never their first.”
Inyx swallowed and nodded assent. She had not forgotten. She had remembered how much he looked like Lan Martak. The brown hair and eyes, the quick movements, the quicker smile. They had met under the watchful eyes of the orange harvest moons. Inyx lifted one finger to a spot just under her left eye; he had kissed her there. The finger traced a line down to the line of her jaw and then forward to her chin. His lips had moved along so enticingly. Even now Inyx felt her heart beating faster. Her hand covered her lips.
“It’s time to assemble our troops,” said Inyx. “We dare not put this off any longer.”
“The patrols will not return until sundown,” said Ducasien.
“We attack now.”
Ducasien locked his hands behind his back and his lips thinned to a razor’s slash, but he did not argue. He went to give Nowless and the others last-minute instructions. Inyx gazed downhill and saw Leponto in autumn. She closed her eyes and when she looked again saw only Marktown.
It was time to begin the attack.
Inyx fingered her sword and worried. Something was wrong. She glanced around and noted the placement of her fighters. All waited nervously for the signal to attack Marktown garrison. The woman licked dried lips and forced calm on herself. She had to think. What wasn’t right? What was out of place?