Once again, it was Falconsbane who broke the thickening and apprehensive silence. This should earn him the gratitude, and at least the temporary support, of every man at this table. Yes, and the woman, too, if she could see a way to profit by it.
'My lord,' he said, addressing Ancar directly and ignoring everyone else, 'do the lives of common folk in your foot-troops mean anything to you? Are they valuable? Have you any shortage of conscripts? Can you swell your ranks again if they die by the company?'
Ancar stared at him as if he had been speaking Tayledras or Shin'a'in; completely without understanding. Perhaps the concept of valuing the lives of fighters was foreign to him. It would have been foreign to Falconsbane as well, except that he had been in a situation or two where the troops he had were all he would get. At that point, by definition, those lives had value. But finally, Ancar answered.
'Of course not,' the King said impatiently, as if only a fool would ask such a question. 'I have an endless supply of peasant boys from women who whelp them like puppies. I have mage-controlled troops, and it does not matter if they are real fighters, boys, or graybeards. They will obey and fight as I please, and there are always plenty of peasants from the same source to conscript when they fall.'
He did not mention that he had tried armed force before, and failed. Instead, he was giving Falconsbane the compliment of assuming the Adept must have a different plan than the one that had failed.
Falconsbane smiled. 'Ah, good,' he replied, genially. 'That is, on occasion, a concern. If there happens to be a shortage of fighters, or there is no way to make reliable fighters of peasantry, then one must be careful of how the troops are disposed. But in your case - there is your answer. If the lives of troops are meaningless, my lord, then spend them.'
Ancar shook his head. 'Spend them?' he repeated, baffled.
Falconsbane leaned forward over the table, underscoring his intensity with his posture, and the nearest of the mages drew back a little before the avid hunger in his eyes. 'Use them, my lord. What does it matter if this is a trap? Throw lives at a weak point until you seize it! Their controlling spells will hold past the border now, you have no need to fear that they will no longer obey you once you cross it. So throw them at the border, at one spot, in numbers too great for the Valdemarans to counter.' His smile broadened. 'I would venture to say that the Valdemarans have a witless concern over the loss of their fighters. That can be used against them, and it is a potent weapon in your arsenal. Throw your troops at the border, march them over the top of their own dead. Take a position, hold it, fortify it, and use it to take another position. Take land, my lord, and eat into their side as a canker-worm eats a rosebud. Ignore losses, ignore other targets. Take land, and cut Valdemar in half. If lives do not matter, then use them up to your advantage.'
Ancar stared at him, eyes wide, but now it was with an unholy glee, and he drank in the words as a religious zealot would drink in holy writ. Falconsbane mentally congratulated himself. Ancar had known that he was valuable for what he knew. Now the boy knew he was valuable for his intelligence as well.
'Morale is no question when dealing with controlled troops,' he added, 'but it will be for the Valdemarans. And that is a weapon, as well. Think of how their hearts will quail, when they see the enemy continuing to come, grinding the bodies of their own dead beneath uncaring boots. Think of how they will falter and fail - and finally, flee.'
'Yes!' Ancar shouted, crashing his fist down on the table and making his mages jump nervously. 'That is precisely what we should do!' He began drawing an invisible diagram on the table with his finger, but only about half his mages bent to follow it. That was the half that Falconsbane needed to keep an eye on, the ones that might, possibly, prove dangerous. 'We keep the mages in the rear, where they can be protected by the entire army - and we throw the mage-controlled troops at the border! That is the perfect use of our resources! And when Selenay - '
'No, my lord,' Falconsbane interrupted, quickly. The boy was obsessed with the Valdemaran Queen, and now was not the time to permit him to fall into that trap. 'Do not make the mistake that has haunted you in the past. Ignore the monarch, ignore your personal enemies. You will have time enough and leisure enough to work your will on them when you have conquered their kingdom. Land, my lord. Concentrate only on taking land. Capturing and holding large pieces of Valdemar itself. Nothing else.'
'This will require a great deal of energy,' Hulda interjected. From the expression on her face, thoughtful, and now a little alarmed, Falconsbane judged that she had finally been shaken out of her complacency. She was thinking fast, and did not want to be left out of this, with Falconsbane taking credit not only for breaking the barrier, but for coming up with a battle plan as well. 'But it will grant us a great deal more energy to replace it!' She turned a brilliant smile on Ancar, but one that was as bloodthirsty as it was broad. 'Think of all of the troops, both ours and theirs, dying, and in their deaths, supplying a great crimson stream of blood-magic! Sacrifices, by the hundreds, thousands! We will get back twice the power we expend to control the troops. This is a brilliant plan - '
She smiled brightly at Falconsbane, a smile poisoned with malicious hatred. Falconsbane only raised his eyebrow a trifle.
' - and it is one that, properly managed, will gain us more than we could possibly lose even at the worst case.' She settled back in her chair, serene in her confidence that she had at least added her own direction to the flood tide.
But Falconsbane was not yet done.
'In addition, my lord,' he continued, seeming to watch only Ancar, but keeping a stealthy eye on Hulda as well, 'I would like to add something else for your contemplation. There is another consideration entirely. You have an envoy from the Eastern Emperor here at your court.'
