“Next time we’ll tell them we’re after wenches in the whorehouses of Evermere,” he said to the Patriarch. “We’ll get thirty thousand.” The holy man smiled within the hood of his peasant’s cloak.
In the small farming village of Brindlesgate, the last stop before the southerly road to Sepulvarta, a clutch of young boys of eleven summers or fewer were waiting atop a mule, a nag, and on foot, metal pots on their heads and hoes in their hands. The soldiers quartered in the barracks nearest the village had shooed them off repeatedly, but the youths kept returning, waiting for their chance to join the mayhem. Finally they caught the notice of the Lord Marshal, who ordered the force to wait in the roadway and rode up before them, reining his horse to a stop.
“What have we here? More recruits?” Five young faces stared back at him, mouths agape. “Yes, sir,” the only one who could muster his voice replied.
“Very good,” Anborn said flatly. “Come along.”
The soldiers looked from one to another, then opened the ranks for the boys. “All right, then,” the Lord Marshal said, turning back to the lead, “let’s be off.”
The cohort traveled south, over the Pilgrim’s Road, with the rising sun to their right. After three leagues the Lord Marshal called a halt at the edge of a small area of scrub pines and broke off from the group again.
“I need riders familiar with the following settlements for a critical mission,” he announced seriously, “Southtown, Meadowfork, Hylan’s Landing, and Brindlesgate. If you know the routes to these places, present yourselves.”
The ranks parted, and soldiers from each of the settlements named rode forward. In the rear came the five young boys from Brindlesgate.
“Encamp here,” Anborn instructed. “You are to form the rear guard; all along the road from here to Sepulvarta I will be positioning riders in encampments to carry the evacuation order east to west and to reinforce the fields. Turn back anyone traveling this road until I come through again or you receive orders otherwise. Understood?”
The soldiers nodded and dismounted, but the boys remained atop their steeds or with their makeshift weapons, looking from one to the other.
“But, Lord Marshal,” the brave one blurted as Anborn turned to leave, “we want to go with you, sir. We want to see combat.”
The General looked back. “You will,” he said briskly, ignoring their pleading looks and pointing at the scrub pine. “I need berms made here with pickets set against a possible cavalry charge; a thousand paces to either side of the road as well.” He rode back to the head of the column and the cohort set off, leaving the rear guard behind. “Hop to, lads,” one of the soldiers said as they began unpacking their mounts. “You wanted to see what war is like? War involves a lot of waiting. But remember, preparations are crucial to victory. The entire unit strikes the killing blow, not just the arm of one man.”
The young boys sighed miserably and set to work. The ride to Sepulvarta was invigorating, Anborn observed. There was something deep within the cynical core of his being that had been planted in his youth, a devotion to the military brotherhood that had been with him all his life. Encamped at night, out in the darkness among the fires and sleeping soldiers, he thought back beyond the centuries of war and desolation, looking beyond the betrayal and the atrocity he had witnessed again and again to a time when all he wanted in the world was this, a life of selflessness and defense, of shared sacrifice with brothers-in-arms. For all that he had become acid over the years, had grown to trust very little in the world and hope for even less, there was still in his soul, black and twisted though it was, something that was moved by the camaraderie, the devotion to duty, that he was witnessing again. He recalled how in his youth the mother who did not understand his desire to learn the ways of the sword foisted him off on Oelendra, the Lirin champion of Tyrian, a First Generation Cymrian and hero from the old world. She was the Iliachenva’ar, the bearer of the sword that Rhapsody now carried, and had trained him well, though he had never truly felt her approval, which he craved beyond that of anyone he had known. Anborn leaned back against his bedroll, looking up at a night sky scattered with bright stars, and remembered her words to him. Fight with your strengths as they are, not as you would wish them to be. He inhaled, taking in the acrid taste of ash from the fires, the smell of the stew and horse leather. In those days he had been scrawny, the youngest brother with much to prove. Edwyn Griffyth would learn his father’s ways of architecture and engineering and invention, and would battle with him over his responsibilities as the heir apparent; Llauron would follow his mother’s teachings and go into the Filidic priesthood, serving as protector to the Great White Tree and the Invoker of the Filids, but Anborn, neither in line for the throne nor by temperament suited to the religious life, craved nothing more than to make his parents proud through prowess on the battlefield. The Lirin champion had taught him to know better, to understand that military might must be tempered with a righteousness, to compensate for what he lacked in physical maturity as a young lad with speed and skill born of practice and intelligence. He had seen the same eagerness in the mirror that he had witnessed in the eyes of the youth of Brindlesgate, and understood what a holy thing it was, how easily lost or perverted it could become without a hero, like the Lirin champion, to nurture it in the right way. He smiled wryly, knowing that he was just such a hero to those boys. Oelendra had cautioned him against idolatry as well. You may admire my skill, and seek to emulate my career, she told him early on in his training. But do not confuse that with me. I have made many missteps in my time, have done things of which I am not proud, because, in spite of my godlike longevity, I am mortal. So are you. Learn to forgive your heroes and yourself. At one time or another, you will need to do both if you are going to live this life, the life of a would-be Kinsman. They had both achieved that honor, he mused, so her words must have been true.
Rhapsody had said something much the same to him as they parted. You cannot purge anything that has happened to you, as if it were an impurity of steel to be smelted away in a forge fire. All that has gone before has made you what you are, like notes in a symphony. Whole or lame, you are who you are. Ryle hira, as the Lirin say. Life is what it is. Forgive yourself. The Lord Marshal hesitated for a moment, then rolled stiffly to his side, seized his leather pack, and pulled it closer. He unwrapped the bindings and pulled forth the conch shell she had given him, fondly remembering her pale face in the reflected light of the fire.
At least try to be as whole as you can, if not for yourself, then for the men you lead. And for me. “All right, m’lady,” he said softly to himself. “I suppose there is no harm in trying, especially since you aren’t around to see.”
He lay back against the bedroll and put the shell to his ear. All he could make out was the crashing sound of the sea wind above ocean waves. He exhaled and drifted off to sleep, dreaming of faces he knew he would never see again. The battle for Sepulvarta was lost before it began. For over an hour the defenders waited in trepidation, gazing from the wall at the fifty thousand men encamped outside their city. The army had fanned out until the wall was surrounded on all sides, but then everything seemed to grind to a halt; some of the soldiers made battlefield camps around small cookfires, while the cavalry remained mounted but at ease. The wagons carrying the ballistae and catapults and other weapons of siege remained untouched, while the army itself did little or nothing to advance farther past the line of initial confrontation. If anything, the siege appeared to be one of wills alone, as no further threats were issued, no weapons trained on the gate.