“I should like to be Nasi-Keth myself,” Yasmyn declared. “Perhaps not to fight in wars, though to wield a blade as you do would be glorious. But I would like to think on these things, for the benefit of my people. Perhaps that can be the role of an Isfayen noble daughter. If we cannot fight in wars, then surely we can learn and teach those things that may frighten or offend our lessers.”
Sasha gazed at her, in mild surprise. “I think that is a fine idea. Tradition is important, but it is the foundation of the house, not the house itself. For that, we must learn to build, and not be scared of building.”
“Would you be my uman?” Yasmyn asked.
“I’m still uma myself.”
“After,” said Yasmyn. “I would be honoured. I have only sixteen summers, I am not too old.”
“I’d thought you older. But no age is too old. I’m flattered you’d ask, but it is too early to think on such things. Chances are good I will not live out the day that dawns.”
“As I will not likely survive my arganyar. Balthaar’s cousin Elias still lives, and I cannot kill him yet for the damage it would cause our alliance, and the risk it would cause to Sofy. But eventually, he will die. In the meantime, I shall dream great dreams, and sharpen my darak.”
A horse approached, cantering along a line of campfires left clear precisely to guide horses to the farmhouse. The rider dismounted and Sasha recognised Jurellyn, her friend from that first ride to Ymoth, and one of the finest scouts in Lenayin.
“Y’Highness,” he announced to Koenyg and Torvaal, “we’re fucked.” He looked exhausted, and had never been a man for formalities. “I’m pulling our scouts back, I’ve sent word out for them all to head home to camp.”
“You did what?” Koenyg exclaimed.
Sasha saw fear in Jurellyn’s eyes, and felt abruptly cold. A man like Jurellyn wasn’t scared of much, and certainly not of royalty. “It’s the serrin, Y’Highness. They’re not attacking the fucking camp like we feared, they’re after my poor bloody scouts. I’ve seen ten dead just this night, they…they aren’t riding, they’re walking and running, all quiet-like, you can’t see them coming, they hide in bushes and behind trees and walls, and they shoot for the smallest gaps in a man’s armour without a fucking candle’s worth of light to see by…”
He took a deep breath, attempting to regain composure. No one interrupted him. “I can’t fight that, Y’Highness. No man can. We’ve safety in numbers, but a man can’t fight what he can’t see. If I hadn’t ordered our scouts back-”
“You did well,” Sasha interrupted. “We’ll need our scouts later.” Most of Lenayin’s scouts were Goeren-yai men, foresters with a great respect for the serrin. Serrin, being serrin, would know that. Surely it pained them to do it. But Saalshen was fighting for its right to exist, and serrin for their right to live.
Jurellyn gave Sasha a grateful look. “There’s something moving down the valley,” he continued. “None of us got close enough to hear. But one of us reckoned he could hear wheels, wooden axles. You could ask him more, but he got an arrow in the neck on the way back.”
“How long till dawn?” Koenyg asked no one in particular.
“Soon,” said a guardsman, lifting his palm to the horizon of stars. “Another hand.”
“Wait until the very first light,” said Koenyg. “We’ll just make a mess in the dark otherwise. Battle formations, and we’ll see what the dawn brings us. Father?”
King Torvaal merely nodded, and folded his arms within the black robe he wore. An assent, that he had faith in his eldest son’s command. Koenyg nodded, and strode off to give orders for the nobles to gather. Damon joined him, instructing a guardsman to wake Myklas. Sasha gave her father a final stare, and followed. Torvaal did not seem even to notice. He gazed at the horizon, with all the patience of stone, and awaited the rising sun.
Dawn brought them new silhouettes on the same ridgeline as the command post. The Steel had indeed crossed the valley in the night.
“All of them?” Damon wondered aloud, as they stood atop the farmhouse roof, and viewed the enormous mass of glittering steel that now formed a huge line across the rolling fields to this side of the valley.
“Looks like,” Koenyg said. “They mean to flank us on our right, and push us back into the valley toward their own border.”
“With the forest at our back,” added the king, looking at the thick trees that covered the opposing slope. All had been surprised when Torvaal had clambered with his children from a horse’s back onto the rooftop. He looked to Sasha more animated than she’d ever seen him. “My son, they will advance on us, and attempt to win around our right flank. We must not let them.”
“Aye, Father. But the surest way to defend the right flank is to attack on the left. They have opened up their entire previous position, and we shall divide their attention by taking it.”
“Could be a trap,” Damon warned, looking out at the formerly surrounded castle.
“If they waste forces setting traps for our cavalry,” said Koenyg, “I would not mind a bit.” He looked down at the Great Lord Heryd, waiting patiently below in full black cloak and armour. “Lord Heryd! The left flank is yours! Should you win through, recall that the artillery is your primary target!”
“My Prince,” Heryd called up, “the north shall bring glory to Lenayin!” He turned and strode to his horses, armoured nobility close behind.
“Is that wise?” Damon asked his brother. “With the primary attack coming on our right flank, we commit our heaviest cavalry to the left.” All three northern provinces, refusing to divide their number to fight amongst pagans, had declared that they would form one entire flank together, leaving the remaining eight provinces to form the opposing cavalry flank, and the reserve. The arrangement was not as lopsided as it first sounded, given that the north were almost entirely cavalry, and were the heaviest in armour and weight of horse.
“I mean to break through, Brother,” Koenyg replied. “We must penetrate their defences and harry their artillery directly. We will achieve it by committing our heavy cavalry to their weakest defence.”
“Only look,” said Sasha, crouched low on the opposite slope of rooftop, “that weakest defence now means riding uphill from the valley.”
“These Enorans improvise well,” the king observed. “They appear as tactically astute as in all the tales. Do not underestimate them, my son.”
“I shan’t, Father. There is no clever move against this foe that could win us a painless victory. We shall fight them, and fight them hard. Damon, our time grows short, I need you on the right.”
“Aye,” said Damon, with something that sounded more like relief than trepidation. He and Koenyg embraced, and then he embraced their father. “Sasha,” he said then, “you’re with me.”
Koenyg embraced Sasha too. “Good call last night,” he told her. “Your details were wrong, but good call anyway.”
“I can’t be right all the time,” Sasha said lightly. She paused before her father. Torvaal extended his hand. Sasha took it hesitantly. Her father looked…concerned. There was a light in his dark eyes that she could not recall having seen before. It was not a confident light, but a light all the same. Sasha could not say if she found it encouraging or disturbing.
“Daughter,” Torvaal said gravely. “Lenayin called, and you came.”
That was it, Sasha realised. No mention of fatherly pride, no smile, nothing. Only this, reluctant acknowledgement. She was still the daughter who failed, the one who shamed all Lenay tradition in her choice of life, the one who had abandoned him as Kessligh had abandoned him after Krystoff’s death, and had finally led an armed rebellion against his personal authority.