Exile's Honor

And, when it all came down to cases, it was rather difficult to hide the movement of the entire Valdemaran army from much of anyone in a country that had as much freedom as Valdemar; the Tedrel spies had no doubt counted most of the Valdemaran troops and reported them on the move. Alberich could only hope that the Tedrels believed those troops were made up of old men and inexperienced boys and girls—basically, the last possible lot of conscripts left out of a depleted population.

Working in Valdemar's favor, of course, there weren't many options open to where the Tedrels came across the Border, given where they had made their base, deep in the hills. The fact that Valdemar had known where that base was, and had moved to block the only real access point right at the Border itself, might (he hoped) have come as a slight surprise.

Or not. If the Tedrels really, truly thought they had superior numbers, there was no reason why they should care where the battlefield was as long as neither side had a critical advantage.

Alberich surveyed the Tedrel nation from his place at Selenay's side, and hoped that his sinking heart didn't make itself known in his expression. They filled their side of the battlefield, from one side of the valley to the other, and there seemed no end to them. A hundred thousand? Two hundred thousand? More?

Surely not more. Sunlord help us if it is.

Beside him, with Selenay's silver-and-blue battle banner streaming above her, Myste sat stock-still, the mask of her lenses making it impossible to tell what she was thinking, but her skin was nearly as white as her Companion's hide. Myste had volunteered to take Selenay's banner, and Alberich had agreed, given that it was unlikely Selenay's party would see real combat—and if they did, it was because they were fighting their way to retreat.

Talamir had the King's battle banner, much larger than Selenay's; both were affixed in a socket behind the saddle and didn't need a free hand the way Karsite banners did.

It was easy to tell which were the real Tedrels and which the mere recruits. Behind those shock troops, whose mounted officers had to constantly ride their lines to keep them in their places, the real Tedrels had formed up, rank on rank of them, unmoving and unmoved, silent, waiting. Their armor glittered in the morning sun, each man a minute scale upon the body of some massive beast, poised to claw and rend its way to Valdemar's heart. So far away as to be just barely visible to the naked eye, fluttering above the heads of the enemy at the top of the next ridge, were the purple battle banners of the Tedrel commanders.

Alberich hoped that the King and Lord Marshal were proud of their fighters, who stood rock-steady in the face of so numerous a foe. Two or three moons ago, many of these young people had been following plows, sweating at a forge, or tending beasts—or hauling nets, tending shops, working at a craft. Now they stared at the enemy, knew they were about to fight for their lives against battle-tested and hardened mercenaries, and did not flinch.

There was no sign of Sunpriests. Alberich strained his eyes in every direction to be sure, but they simply weren't there, and his heart, which had sunk down into the soles of his feet, rose as far as his ankles. Thank you, Lord Vkandis, giver of life, awful in majesty....

'Sire?' the Lord Marshal said quietly, at Sendar's right. 'Your orders?'

'This side of the valley is Valdemar; that side is Karse,' said Sendar in a low but clear voice. 'We will not provoke this fight. Though they have attacked us every summer for the past three years, we will not provoke them, and we will not cross the Karsite Border. If they insist on having this confrontation, they must break the peace and the Border, for we will not.'

Sendar sounded completely calm, quite composed, as if he did not care whether the Tedrels came or not. Alberich glanced at Selenay's Six; all were mounted, surrounding her, the Guards on ordinary horses rather than Companions.

Well, not quite ordinary horses; these were the big, ugly, fighting horses out of Ashkevron Manor, trained by horse-talkers who were trained by Shin'a'in, or so it was claimed. Knights of Valdemar dreamed of being able to own a single one of these beasts in a lifetime, and Alberich had never seen more than three in all of the time he'd been in Haven, but Ashkevron Manor had sent enough of their finest to mount every one of the bodyguards that wasn't a Herald. They carried their armor, a set of hinged plates that protected vulnerable head, chest, and flank, as if it weighed no more than a bit of barding. Each of the Guards had been schooled by one of the horse-talkers in how to handle their brutes and had not just learned to ride them, but had bonded in a sense with them; the results were impressive. They were pleasant enough in corral and under saddle, but Alberich pitied the man who met them in a fight. A single touch of the knee and a shouted command, and an enemy would be pulp. And if the horses were attacked first, their attacker would be pulp without the signal or the command.

Those horses were much heavier than any Companion save Kantor. So the Guards (and Crathach, the Healer) were in the point position for both the King and Heir, carrying wide shields to ward off missiles coming from the front. The Companions wore lighter armor of chain and leather, probably proof against arrows, probably not against axes. Everyone was armored, even lean Jadus; everyone had a shield, even though Jadus wouldn't use one in a fight. If—no, say when—arrow storms fell, they'd all trained in locking those shields overhead in the formation called 'the turtle,' to protect Selenay and Sendar. The archers would have to be in range first, though—that was what the Heralds, used to judging their firing distance, would be watching for.

Where's their cavalry? he wondered suddenly, as he realized that the only mounted troops in sight were the officers commanding the front ranks. I know they have cavalry; they've had them before. So where are they?