Salokan refused to answer. He knew he was going to die, and had no intention of amusing these barbarians any further.
'My friend asked you a question,' said a new voice from behind him. Salokan turned around. He was not sure which of the Chetts had spoken, but there was something about the posture of the shortest one that drew attention to him. The Chett had his wide-brimmed hat drawn low so Salokan could not see his face.
'I am King Salokan of Haxus. I don't talk with herders.'
The short Chett slipped easily off his mount and approached Salokan, stopping no more than two paces away from him. He lifted his chin and slipped his hat off his head.
Salokan gasped. The face he saw belonged to no Chett. Indeed, there was something about the man's features that were not entirely human. The skin was as pale as moonlight and had a slight lustre to it as if it was made from carved ivory. A dreadful scar ran from the right ear all the way to the jaw. And the cold brown eyes were like those of a wolf.
'My name is Lynan Rosetheme.'
Salokan was too surprised to speak. How could this creature be a prince of Grenda Lear?
'I wish to talk to you about a certain mercenary called Rendle,' the man continued, and took a step forward.
What drove Salokan to act then was something he never completely understood, but a mixture of fear and loathing made him raise his sword arm and bring it down in a mighty stroke.
And in the next moment his sword was spinning away from his hand and into the night. Salokan gasped in pain and grabbed his hand. Blood pumped from the stumps of three fingers. The pale prince was holding a sabre. Salokan had never seen anyone move so fast.
'My hand—!' he cried, then coughed as the point of the prince's sword jabbed into his throat.
'Do you want to die, Salokan of Haxus?' Lynan Rosetheme asked.
Salokan did not want to answer. He did not want to show this strange creature and his Chett warriors how afraid he was. But the pain in his hand was overwhelming, and he could feel his blood, hot and slick, running down his arm, and he could feel the point of a sabre pricking his windpipe.
'No,' he said weakly.
Lynan Rosetheme dropped the point of his sabre and smiled at him. 'Good. I'll need a governor to look after my interests in my new province of Haxus.'
CHAPTER 4
It was a cool dawn for this time of year. Ager, who thought he had grown used to the cold, could not help shivering. He looked over the gentle rolling landscape of Hume and tried to see only the woods and brooks and scattered farms, but he could not avoid seeing the bodies. Where the Haxus infantry had stood their ground and been scythed down by wave after wave of arrows, they lay in neat piles; where a fleeing column had been slaughtered soldier by soldier, bodies appeared in long straggling strings. Crows hopped over bloody heads and limbs, pecking at eyes and fingers. As the day warmed, the flies would come, great hovering clouds of them.
Ager shivered again. It's the cold, he told himself.
He felt bewildered. This time yesterday he had expected Lynan, defeated by Areava's army and shattered by the blow of losing Kumul, to retreat perhaps as far as the Oceans of Grass. Instead the prince had gone on the offensive. The night had been a long and bloody one, ending with the complete destruction of Salokan's army. The Chetts had the victory they needed to restore their morale and confidence.
It would be called the Battle of the Night, he knew. Such battles were very rare, commanders afraid of losing control in the dark, of banners and regiments attacking their own side by mistake, but Lynan had taken advantage of two facts—whereas Salokan had few cavalry, all his own warriors were mounted and so knew anyone on foot was an enemy, and a full moon had been up for many hours.
Ager could not help feeling some sympathy for his foe, but he reminded himself that Haxus had long been a traditional enemy of all those living in the south of the continent of Theare, as well as the main base for the slave trade that once had preyed on the Chetts, including the Ocean Clan.
My clan, he reminded himself.
Morfast rode up beside him and gently grasped his arm. He squeezed back, sighing deeply. 'How many did we lose?'
'No more than thirty,' she said. 'But that includes all the adult members of the Delen family. They were surprised by Haxus cavalry and were cut down before they could react.'
'How many children?'
'Three. They will be taken in by uncles and aunts.'
Ager nodded wearily. 'A hard blow for a child to lose so much of its family.'
Morfast grinned savagely. 'Many more Haxus children were made orphans last night.'
The crookback's conscience rebelled against such bloody joy, but he knew the Chetts revelled in combat as no other people he knew, and he had been a soldier for most of his life.
'Was it like this under the General?' she asked him.
'The General?'
'In the Slaver War,' she prodded.
Ager snorted in surprise. Although he had once spent many years remembering his part in the Slaver War, revering the memory of General Elynd Chisal, Lynan's father, Morfast's question made him realise he had not really thought of those times since the first night he had met Lynan.
'Yes, I suppose it was like this. There was more reason to hate then, perhaps, and more reason to fight…' His voice trailed off when he realised what he was saying.
Morfast looked at him strangely. 'You think the White Wolf should not have crossed to the east with an army?'
He shook his head and said quietly, 'No, I don't think that.' He did not add that there was no time during the Slaver War when he doubted he was doing the right thing, but now he was part of an army that hoped to overthrow the legitimate ruler of Grenda Lear doubt seemed to fill him. He understood the political necessity for the invasion, understood it was not Lynan's fault that he had been driven to take this action by Orkid and Dejanus murdering Berayma—Usharna's eldest son and successor—and laying the blame on him, but none of that made Ager feel any better about going to war against the Kingdom which he had served for so long. Perhaps, just perhaps, Kumul—for whom serving the legitimate ruler of Grenda Lear had been his life work—died when he did because God had more mercy than Ager had ever believed.
And as for this slaughter of the army from Haxus, a traditional enemy, he could not help wonder if Salokan could not have been allowed to run home with his tail between his legs. Haxus had never been a serious threat to Grenda Lear itself, more a nuisance than anything else. Ironically, this was a possibility Kumul himself would never have considered; for him, the argument would run that Haxus was an enemy and you killed your enemies.
But I am not a general, and I am not a king-in-waiting, and I am not Kumul Alarn. I am Ager Crookback. I do not understand these things.
At midday Lynan called another council. The attitude of all the clan chiefs was noticeably different than the day before. When asked for their advice, all they would do was ask in turn what Lynan would have them do. Ager thought Lynan looked satisfied with this response, and it made him feel uneasy; yet when the prince asked him for his opinion, he had little to offer.
'We have two choices,' he said.
'And they are?' Lynan urged.
'To turn our attention again to the Kingdom, either by attacking the remnants of Areava's army or by attacking Daavis, or to retreat over the Algonka Pass and reconsider our strategy.'
Lynan nodded, as if in agreement. 'Will no one else add their thoughts?'
There were muffled refusals. Even Korigan and Eynon seemed content to forget their feuding and wait on Lynan's word. He had given them a great victory, perhaps the greatest in Chett history. He was the son of the General. He was the White Wolf returned. Who were they to question him?
Lynan turned to Jenrosa. 'And what do the magikers say?'