“Because I like you,” Bo said. “And I like the kid. But I’m leaving the city soon and you should figure out your plans. I won’t be here longer than a week.” He stepped away. “See you tomorrow?”
Nila swallowed. “Yes.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Tamas’s army crossed the last of Kresimir’s Fingers and ascended the wide plateau of the Northern Expanse almost seven weeks after they’d left Budwiel.
The Northern Expanse, like the Amber Expanse to the south, was a breadbasket of the Nine. Unlike the Amber Expanse, it was not home to cattle farms or wheat fields but to immense bean fields, which could survive better with little water.
Tamas ordered forage teams to spread out across the plateau, under the command of the most levelheaded sergeants in the army. He needed to strip the land of its resources while making this as painless to the native population as possible.
He rode at the head of the column, eyes on the northern horizon. It would be several days before they crossed the Deliv border and could see the city of Alvation, but he couldn’t help that his heart beat faster with every step. Soon, they’d find relief. Soon, they’d cross the Charwood Pile Mountains and descend into Adro, taking the fight back to the Kez.
Gavril rode up beside Tamas. He and his horse were coated in dust from coming up behind the column. Not far behind him, an old man rode a pack mule. He had a hard time keeping up with Gavril’s charger. Tamas reined in his mount. Olem stopped too, his eyes vigilant despite the plateau being empty but for their army.
“Who is this?” Tamas said, nodding at the old man, who was still fifty paces off.
“A Kez bean farmer.”
“Why is he here?”
“Wanted to talk to you.”
Tamas cocked an eyebrow at Gavril. This was the last thing he needed. Why on earth would Gavril bring him here? “Does he know who I am?”
“Yes, and he has some interesting things to say.”
What could an old bean farmer on the Northern Expanse have to say of interest?
The old man brought his burro up beside their horses.
“Are you the field marshal?” the old man said in Adran. The Kez accent was so thick that the words were barely distinguishable. His face was wrinkled, his skin brown from the hot sun of the plateau and perhaps a mix of Deliv blood. Labor and trade went on freely between the Deliv to the north and Kez farmers on the plateau.
The old bean farmer was emaciated. He might have been plump at one point, but the skin now sagged from his cheeks and sickly splotches on his face spoke to malnutrition.
The man’s eyes held a smoldering anger that surprised Tamas.
“I speak Kez,” Tamas said in Kez.
“Are you the field marshal?” the bean farmer said again in Kez.
“I am. Good afternoon.”
The bean farmer spit at the feet of Tamas’s charger. He bared his teeth and glared, as if daring Tamas to do anything about it.
Tamas looked at Gavril. His brother-in-law, still bruised from their fight last week, just shrugged his shoulders.
“Something wrong?” Tamas asked.
“You tell me.”
Tamas shot another glance at Gavril. What was this all about?
“I can’t imagine.”
“You took my crop,” the old man said. “It was a good one this year, considering the drought. You took my wife and daughters. Your blasted men broke my son’s legs when he refused to serve them!”
Tamas scowled. Damned infantry. Even the best couldn’t keep themselves under control. He’d ordered that women be left alone under penalty of death. The food, they needed, but Tamas didn’t need his soldiers raping and killing their way across the Kez countryside.
“What company did this?” he asked Gavril.
“None of ours. The man and his son were alone in his hut when the forage teams found him. The place had been stripped bare, all the furniture broken. The boy’s legs were broken, like he says. The lad will be a cripple for life. Looks like it happened weeks ago.”
“I’m sorry about your wife and daughters,” Tamas said, “but it wasn’t my men.”
“Are you calling me a liar?” The bean farmer edged his mule closer to Tamas.
Tamas took a deep breath and reminded himself that striking an old man wasn’t the best way to end a conversation. “When did this happen?”
“Eighteen days ago,” the bean farmer said.
“It couldn’t have been us. We just arrived.”
“Then who was it? I know Adran troops when I see them.” The bean farmer leaned over to pluck at Tamas’s jacket. “Adran blues, with silver trim. I’m not a fool!”
“How many men?”
“Thousands of ya!” The bean farmer spit again.
“Gavril, any sign an army came through here recently?”
Gavril rode off a few feet to confer with one of his scouts. He came back a moment later. “Foraging teams are all reporting the same thing – the land’s been stripped clean. All the crops were harvested early, or burned, and the men have come across dozens of empty farmsteads.”
Tamas drummed his fingers on his saddle horn. The forage he’d been expecting on the Northern Expanse – gone. All of it. Nothing for his men to eat on the way to Alvation.
“Well?” the bean farmer demanded. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Which way were they headed?” Tamas asked.
The bean farmer seemed taken aback. “North.”
“Olem, give this man enough food for him and his son and send him back to his home. Let him keep the mule.” Tamas flicked the reins. “Gavril.”
Tamas left the cursing old bean farmer in Olem’s hands and rode back to the head of the column. Gavril came up beside him, letting his charger keep pace with Tamas’s.
“This doesn’t make sense,” Tamas said. “We don’t have any troops in northern Kez.”
“I’d say the old man isn’t right in the head, but the place has been swept clean. It would have taken a great number of men to come through and strip the plateau like this.”
Tamas gripped his saddle horn. How was he going to feed his men with no forage?
“How many?” Tamas asked.
Gavril scratched the stubble on his chin. “At least a brigade or two.”
“Wearing Adran blue, but not Adran.” Tamas mused it over in his head. “Shit! They’re trying to slip into Adro.”
“The Kez?”
“It must be. They come through here, acting like an invading army – bluff their way through Alvation and then take an unsuspecting Mountainwatch. They might be in Adro already.”
“What should we do?” Gavril asked.
Tamas let his fingers play upon the butt of one of the saw-handled dueling pistols stuck in his belt. A gift from his son. “We keep going. We catch up to them and take them from behind.”
Chapter 32
Ricard Tumblar’s carriage jolted along the winding highway at the base of the Charwood Pile Mountain Range, headed north toward the Pan-Deliv Canal. Mountains rose above them immediately to the west, and there were more in the distance to the north, their white tops looking like frosting on peaked cakes. The carriage thumped, then clattered over a stone bridge crossing a tributary of the Ad River and then it was back to the pitted dirt road.
Adamat stared out the window and tried not to think of the jarring of the ground. The last thing he needed was to throw up all over the velvet interior.
Five days in a carriage was no pleasant prospect, even one as fancy as Ricard’s. The undercarriage employed the very newest leaf-spring suspension and the thick, padded seats helped absorb some rocking of the road, but nothing prevented Adamat’s head from hitting the roof when they hit a particularly deep hole in the road.
Damn these northern roads.
At least Faye seemed to be enjoying herself, as much as she could under the circumstance. She had become even more withdrawn after her decision not to go after Josep. Her weeping had stopped, though, and she seemed more resolved to put on a good face for the other children.