“I’ve already told you all she told me,” Teriyan objected.
“Think of something.”
Sasha had bad dreams. She dreamed of being dragged from Errollyn’s arms, and the bed set on fire, burning sheets scorching her flesh. Of Errollyn screaming, a blade dripping blood, and rattling chains that tore at her wrists. She saw Rhillian, emerald eyes burning with grief and fury, wrestling with a wolf that snarled and snapped at her throat. Kiel fired an arrow, but struck Rhillian instead of the wolf. The wolf retreated to Kiel’s side, and licked his hand. Kiel pulled the shaft from Rhillian’s side, and blood poured out.
The wolf ran away, and Sasha followed, as it ran down familiar palace halls, and through a wood panelled doorway. Sasha recognised a royal bedroom, with grand furnishings and gilt-edged paintings on the walls. From the huge, four-posted bed came squeals and grunts of sexual pleasure and pain. Sasha walked closer, and found that the wolf had become a man, yet still with a long snout and fangs. Beneath him was Sofy, naked legs about his hairy hide, grunting and crying out as he ravaged her, and his claws reaved her flesh.
Then she was running down a city street, struggling for space in the hot air between oppressive walls. Behind her ran a mob, waving clubs and farm tools, howling like crazed animals. She rounded a corner, and found herself trapped before a formation of Steel, shields interlocked. One lofted a spear, and atop it was impaled Alythia’s severed head, eyes wide and mouth gaping. Sasha spun, and the mob behind lofted more spears, each with another head. The one closest was Kessligh’s.
She awoke in an eruption of limbs and blanket, kicking the covering away as she surged to her knees. And knelt there gasping, her heart hammering, her old wounds throbbing like fire. She rubbed at the burns on her ribs, and felt no scab, only the smoothness of new skin. It should not hurt like this. But still it burned, like the fire from her dreams.
About, on the hillside, all was black save the occasional glow of a sentry’s fire. The moon was new, and Sasha thought of serrin eyesight, and if it might be possible that serrin were creeping through the Lenay camp even now. From nearby came the snoring of Isfayen noblemen. They had camped barely a hundred paces from the farmhouse that was the royal command post, with many other senior nobility. Should an order be given, these men wished to be the first to know. Sasha had been offered a bed in the farmhouse, but had refused, saying she preferred the outdoors. In truth, a bed would have been nice. Yet a bed of broken glass would have been preferable to sharing a roof with her father.
Her heart and breathing recovering, she got up. There were enough fires lit to make for a little light across the long valley slope. Sasha picked her way carefully between sleeping men, and stopped at a small clean patch. She strained her eyes to see across the valley. The lights of the Enoran camp were still there, yet she felt uneasy. She felt like…like…
She could not find the word to describe it. Yet it was like at Ymoth, during the great charge of horses, when it felt as though there were a formless dark shape moving at the edge of her vision, covering her flank. In fact, she thought she’d seen it, dodging a hidden tree stump, and warning her to do the same. She had seen it, hadn’t she? She’d not thought about it in a long time, being busy with other matters, most of them not concerned with old Lenay superstitions. And there’d been a wind, in the second charge of that second fight, when the Hadryn had attempted to regroup. A great gust of wind, that had torn across the flattened fields of crops, and thrown dust and debris into the eyes of the Hadryn soldiers, distracting them from their defence.
It had happened, hadn’t it? Or was her memory playing tricks on her, in the aftermath of vivid, horrible dreams from which she had not yet fully woken? A man dreams he is a butterfly, went the serrin tale. When he awakes, he wonders, was I then a man, dreaming I was a butterfly? Or am I now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man?
Sasha squeezed her eyes shut, and put her hands over her face. Her wrists throbbed from recently healed scabs. Memories and pain. She wished that not all memories were painful. She knew she had some pleasant ones tucked away somewhere, but she did not know where to find them now.
She opened her eyes once more, and stared out into the dark. In Petrodor, Rhillian had told her tales of King Leyvaan’s army in Saalshen, and how the serrin would stalk them by night, beneath a new moon such as this one, and how no soldier could sleep for the terror of the screams of sentries dying. She heard no screaming now. And she recalled how she’d sat with Rhillian, sipping tea and talking, close as unexpected friends could be, who had known each other only a short time but found some common language of the soul. How had they come to hate each other? Somehow, she found it difficult to recall. Perhaps it was because they were so similar. Like her and Alythia, so similar, so aggressive and self-obsessed, merely the modes of expression differed. She’d hated Alythia, then come to love her. With Rhillian, it was the reverse. Perhaps.
She thought she heard a creaking. A distant squeal, as though of a cart, or some wooden axle. Then nothing. Perhaps something was trying to tell her something. Perhaps through dreams. They called her the Synnich again, in some parts of this army. At Ymoth, she’d felt like this, and seen a dark shadow running through the grain fields. She set off walking toward the farmhouse.
She found Damon sitting on the verandah, and a pair of Royal Guardsmen at watch by the door. Many others stood about, and some slept, watching in shifts. Lanterns were placed further from the farmhouse, not near, as Sasha had instructed-best to make any attacking serrin come out of the light rather than into it, and take away that advantage of a darkened approach. And Errollyn had always said that he found it hard to adjust his eyes from one strength of light to another.
She took a seat at Damon’s side, and put her head against his shoulder. Damon said nothing, yet did not seem surprised. He rested his cheek against the top of her head.
“Damon?”
“Hmm?”
“I think they might be moving the artillery.”
“What makes you think that?”
“It’s a new moon,” said Sasha. “They’ve seen we’re too smart to attack immediately. They know they’ll have to attack at some point, if they’re going to get past us and outflank the Larosans to the north. The longer they wait, the more moon there’ll be. Serrin don’t see too well in a new moon, but we don’t see at all, so it’s a much bigger advantage for them than any other kind of moon. Why should they wait, and give us time to scout their forces?”
Damon thought about it. “So you didn’t see or hear anything that might suggest they’re moving the artillery? Some kind of actual fact?”
“No. It’s a stupid hunch.”
Damon put his arm around her, and gave her a squeeze. “I’ll listen to your stupid hunch. Go on.”
“We can’t scout the far end of the valley. It’s too close to the border, they have artillery covering it, a fast charge down the slope will kill anyone getting too close. The hills aren’t that steep either, the Steel ballistas are mounted on oxen carts, those oxen are strong, they could get up or down these hills pretty quickly. Big catapults are oxen pulled too, but those are much heavier and less stable… I’m sure they could do it, though.”
“Hard in the dark,” suggested Damon.
“Not if each team borrows a few serrin to guide the way. We’d not even see lights moving to know what they were up to.”
Damon nodded slowly. “Where do you put the artillery?”
“Along this ridge,” said Sasha, pointing along the ridge where the Army of Lenayin was encamped.
“We can outflank them.”
“With infantry? We’ll have to split our force… I mean, if they send their main force down into the valley, that is.”