But who could say we did not? The meckanshü all gathered together and Will watched them with wonder. They were men and women who had been horribly disfigured in combat and allowed themselves to be put back together through magick that welded metal to their bodies. Sallitt’s right arm had been mangled by a blow from a sullanciri’s ax. Somewhere he had gotten it hammered back into shape, though Will could see some residual twists in the metal. He had no idea what it would have felt like to have a smith pounding those crooked metal bones straight again, but the idea that anyone could think that what a meckanshü endured in order to fight again was not enough of a sacrifice astounded him.
As for his own Freemen, he wondered what possessed them to leave their homes and follow a boy into another nation to fight against a foe that was devouring all nations. He looked at his half brother, who didn’t need to be here, and Linchmere, who could have had all the armies of Oriosa between him and Chytrine’s troops. Anyone who could suggest that these men were not heroes was insane.
When he first met Resolute and Crow, the Vorquelf had ridiculed him for desiring to be a hero—at least a hero on the scale he had been thinking of. Will believed heroism consisted of the actions recalled in songs, but the heroes he modeled himself on, he realized now, were hardly worthy of the title. While he knew heroes sacrificed mightily, he had focused on the glory.
He shivered. Being cold and hungry was hardly glorious. Being cold and hungry was hardly heroic, either, since countless people were both every day. The difference, he decided, was that they were enduring the cold and short rations for a good cause. It wasn’t that the ends justified their means, but it elevated their circumstances. Anyone could go without food, but how many could do it while fighting an army?
How many would volunteer to do that? Will hugged his arms around his chest. How many would die in such an effort and count themselves lucky to have done so?
The arrival of a signal-mage bearing an arcanslata interrupted his reverie. “Crow, this just was relayed from Caledo. Two pieces of news. The first is old: Sarengul is under assault by Aurolani forces and may have fallen to them as much as two weeks ago.“
Crow nodded. “It seems that heading east and fading back into the mountains isn’t an option. Your plan may be it, Resolute.”
The signal-mage shook his head. “It gets worse. A fragment of the DragonCrown is located in Sarengul. There are a number of people in there from Fortress Draconis. We don’t know if they have it, or if they are hunting it, but a piece of the crown is buried in a place crawling with Aurolani troops.”
The meckanshü tapped a metal finger against his chin. “Has to be in possession of the people from Draconis. If the Aurolani had it, they would be headed north. If our people were tracking the Aurolani troops, we would have been told to send people to help retrieve it.”
Resolute nodded. “And if they said nothing about having it, it was because they didn’t want spies alerted to its presence. How did they learn the fragment is there?”
The signal-mage shook his head. “It was not stated.”
Crow and Will spoke at the same time. “Kerrigan.”
“If it’s Kerrigan, I’m willing to trust the report.” Resolute’s argent eyes became slender crescents. “We have to assume it’s moving. They need to keep us informed of its location. We can find it and them if they do.”
“Wait a minute, Resolute.” Crow jerked a thumb west. “If we head into the mountains, we bring pursuit with us. We could find the fragment and then have to face them.”
“True, though if we flee before them, they might not pursue as aggressively. They want to stop our raids, after all.”
Will raised a hand. “What if they learn of the fragment?”
“I doubt they will want us more dead.” The Vorquelf shrugged. “Their motivation doesn’t matter; they’ll die all the same. The mountains will just make us a bit harder to find, and we’ll have to hope that will make enough of a difference.”
60
Erlestoke hated the feeling of being stalked. For close to a week his team had moved through Sarengul. They had intended to keep as close as they could to the Aurolani forces, and if there was another Sarengul attack that created an opening, they wanted to break through the lines to what they hoped would be safety.
Their plan, however, had been predicated on what they thought of as logical behavior for a military force. The bulk of the Aurolani troops had continued to move south along the main route. They fought little skirmishes here and there, but the Saren attacks did not amount to much. The Aurolani forces pushed on, and Erlestoke followed them, ignoring side passages off the main line.
Then the Aurolani leader made a classic mistake and split one group off his main force to follow a sideline. Erlestoke’s people had missed the signs of that departure, but quickly became aware when that unit came back into the main route. They hunkered down, hoping the enemy would return to the main body of the Aurolani force, but they never did.
The main Aurolani force had started acting much more intelligently, too. Erlestoke’s group could find very little in the way of supplies left behind. What they did find was occasionally poisoned and often booby-trapped. For the first several days he had no reason to suspect the Aurolani were doing anything more than looking for urZrethi stragglers, but after four days, the hunting became more diligent and his people had been forced to flee into the byways and smaller passages.
Jullagh-tse had explained how villages and towns existed up and around the main routes, but Erlestoke had never quite grasped the idea until he moved into some of them. They could be built around a cylinder, with the doorways to corks opening onto that central circle, or as a maze of corks that were chopped into rock as miners followed the serpentine twists of an ore vein.
Erlestoke and his people were moving through an ore town. Its narrow roads broke off at odd angles. They rose, then curved and dipped sharply before coming to a broad stairway that slanted upward and cut to the right. Facing down that stairway were the empty black pits of windows, but at any moment archers or draconetteers could pop up and the stairs would offer his people nothing by way of cover. Worse, he couldn’t see the entrance to the building, so even if they got up there, getting in to kill the snipers would be difficult.
While he knew they were being pursued, he couldn’t be certain that some of the enemy hadn’t gotten in front of him to wait in ambush. The village’s abandonment only added to his sense of insecurity. The lack of any indications of a massacre was a good sign, but there could easily be a lot of blood splashed over stone walls before any of them got out.
If any of us get out.
Being pursued didn’t bother him as much as having the sensation that his pursuers knew what he was carrying. He would have expected any Aurolani troops cutting across his band’s trail to follow—that made sense. What would drive them on faster was knowing he had a piece of the DragonCrown with him. He had been hoping, however, that the journey through the bowels of Fortress Draconis would have been enough to throw informed pursuit off.
It further disheartened him that their pursuers did not come after them pell-mell, but seemed to be moving deliberately. The gibberers should have used numbers to compensate for a lack of sense, but they hadn’t. While Erlestoke still felt that he and his people were making their own choices in terms of the path they were taking, the enemy force clearly was cutting off all avenues of retreat. They could only go forward and, at some point, the enemy would be there waiting for them.