“My council with Chief Danamarga did not go well,” Gwydre admitted, referring to the powerful leader of one particularly friendly Alpinadoran tribe, with whom the men of Vanguard often traded, and who many times had graced Gwydre’s table at Castle Pellinor. “He will likely keep his clan out of the fighting.”
“That is good news,” Dawson said. “His warriors are fierce.”
“But he will not intervene on our behalf with the other tribes.”
“The Samhaist influence is great among the Alpinadorans. But great enough to keep them allied with ugly goblins and the light-skinned trolls?”
Dame Gwydre shrugged and scanned the burned-out village. “We are losing, and Danamarga is a pragmatic man. If Vanguard is to be sectioned by the victors, then he would not serve his clan well to be left out of that gain.”
“Vanguard is land. Without us it is empty land,” Dawson argued. “What good will it alone bring to the Alpinadorans? What point is this war?”
Gwydre nodded her complete understanding. The Samhaists, so they believed, were egging on the monsters and the barbarians, but the underlying logic told Gwydre and her advisors that Ancient Badden didn’t really want to wipe the Vanguardsmen from the region and chase refugees back across the Gulf of Corona.
“Ancient Badden and his disciples do not wish to minister to goblins and trolls,” Dawson said. “Nor to the barbarians of Alpinador who loyally follow their own gods.”
“Gods not far removed from the Samhaist deities,” Gwydre reminded.
“True enough, but would you expect Danamarga and the other chiefs to relinquish their control to Badden’s miserable priests? Of course they will not.”
“Then this whole war is to teach me a lesson,” said Gwydre.
Dawson shrugged, for he could not disagree. “It is to drive the Abellicans back across the waters and secure Vanguard for the Samhaists,” he added. “We, all of us-indeed, even Dame Gwydre-are caught in the middle of a war of religions. And it won’t end with Vanguard if Badden drives the Abellicans south. He knows that Laird Ethelbert and Laird Delaval have thrown in fully with the Abellicans, and it’s not to his liking. He will chase the monks from Vanguard, then use us to cross the gulf and assail Chapel Abelle itself. Begging your pardon, dear woman, but that’s no fight I’m wanting.”
His dramatic tone brought a much-needed smile to Dame Gwydre’s angular features, an impish grin that reminded Dawson of the beauty of the woman. Even now in middle age she retained much of that beauty, but the last year had weighed heavily on her, and too rare flashed that smile, reassuring and warm, superior but not condescending, and surely disarming.
So disarming.
It said much about Ancient Badden’s hold on the land, and even more about the current state of the war, that Dame Gwydre’s smile had not brought Chief Danamarga to their side.
“We must force upon Ancient Badden that wider fight you believe he desires, and before the battleground is his for the choosing,” Gwydre said, and her eyes turned from Dawson to the south.
“An immigrant army,” Dawson muttered.
“It is a fine season for the folk of Honce to turn their eyes to the open and beautiful North, I think,” Gwydre confirmed. “Palmaristown, from all reports, has become the haven of rats and foul odors, and there are rumors that the refugees of the war collect en masse at Chapel Abelle, where there is little excess shelter and supplies. And yet, we have villages already built and ready to house those who would seek a better life, and a land as bountiful as any in Corona.”
“Villages empty because all the men are fighting the war, or are already planted in the ground,” Dawson reminded her, but he stole none of her momentum.
“It is the way of things,” she said. “A man who comes here to fight for Gwydre is fighting, too, for his future. If he remains in the South, he will be swept into Delaval’s army, or Ethelbert’s, into a war whose outcome will have no bearing on the prosperity or security of his family. What will change for the folk of Palmaristown, or any other town, if Ethelbert wins? If Delaval wins? They are two lairds of the same cloth-their fight is one for personal gain and not over any manner of governance. But up here, the battle has more meaning. Up here, my warriors strike hard at the flesh of goblins and glacial trolls.”
“And men,” Dawson pointed out.
“Barbarians,” Gwydre corrected. “Not the brethren of the men of Honce as we see in the South. Not a brother, perhaps, who through mere circumstance moved to a town now serving the other side.”
Finally it seemed as if Dawson had run out of answers, and so Gwydre looked at him directly, flashed him that commanding grin, and said, “The gulf is calm, and the ships are waiting.”
“Chapel Abelle?”
“That would be a fine place to start,” said Gwydre. “The brothers there know of our desperation, and they do not wish to have a powerful Badden ruling Vanguard unopposed. Let them direct you to towns not yet emptied by Delaval’s press crews.”
“If Laird Delaval learns of my actions in stealing his potential soldiers…” Dawson warned.
“Do not let him know.”
Dawson smiled hopelessly. When Dame Gwydre made up her mind it was not to be easily changed.
“They will come,” Gwydre assured him. “You will convince them.”
Dawson McKeege knew the meaning of Gwydre’s “convince,” and while it left a sour taste in his mouth, in looking around at the ruins of Tethmawle, it was not hard for him to weigh one evil against the other. Without hardy reinforcements, this wretched sight before him would soon become all too common.
He fell down for the fourth time.
Cadayle ran toward him, but Bransen stubbornly waved her off. Trembling every inch of the way he managed to get over onto his belly and up to his knees. He did well to hide his grimace as he noted the sympathetic and concerned look that passed between Cadayle and Callen.
They were on the road north of Delaval, heading north-northwest along the bank of the majestic waterway that had recently been named the Masur Delaval. Though this northeastern bank was considered the “civilized” side of the river, the road, or trail actually, hardly showed any such signs. They were only three days out from Delaval Town, in a region untouched by the war, yet it was hard to call their path a road. Uneven, muddy, and littered with the large roots of the great willows that lined the river, the trail could trip up any but the most careful traveler. Every step proved a test of courage for Bransen, who stubbornly carried his soul stone in his pouch and not even in his hand, let alone strapped to his forehead.
Resting on his hands and knees to reorient and catch his breath, Bransen fought the urge to slip his hand into his pouch and produce the gemstone. He noticed a pool of red liquid and only then realized that he had slammed his nose on that last fall, splitting his lip as well. He spat a few times, red spray flying from his mouth.
He felt Cadayle’s hand on his back and reminded himself that she loved him, that she was concerned for him, and rightly so.
“Don’t you think that’s enough for the day?” she asked quietly.
“W… W…” Bransen stopped and spat again, then reached for his pouch. He would have fallen over with the movement except that Cadayle caught him and held him steady. She grabbed his flailing hand and gently guided it to the pouch and the gemstone, then helped him bring the stone to his forehead.
“We’ve barely covered two miles,” he protested in a voice clear and strong. Indeed, the sudden change shocked even Bransen.
“We should try to cross another five before dusk,” said Cadayle. “We’ll not go another single mile at our pace, and if you truly injure yourself…”