air and Captain Tyrun yelling for a halt.
They reined up, as the cry and signal passed back along the line of horsemen, horses tossing and snorting impatiently as one of the forward guard dismounted, weapon drawn, and ran for a look at the bundled rags mostly hidden behind the trailside wall. Whatever he saw caused him to raise one hand and make the Verenthane holy gesture upon throat, heart and lips. Impatient, and trusting Peg's abilities, Sasha urged him into a little jump across a runoff trench, and onto the ledge alongside the stone wall.
Lying in a row upon the far side were ten corpses, bloodied and broken. Men, mostly, Sasha saw past the horror. Several looked very young. And at least two, upon closer inspection, appeared to be women. Sasha stared, as Peg fretted and fought at the reins, smelling blood and knowing what might likely follow. Kessligh swung off Terjellyn's back, leaving his halter in the care of Captain Tyrun, and jogged across to look, gesturing irritably at Sasha to clear her beast away from the wall.
She did so, and suddenly there were cries from behind the wall of an adjoining paddock-villagers were emerging, wrapped in ragged cloaks and shawls. They had seen the banners and were crying for the king. Most appeared to be women, with some children in tow, grieving and wretched. Amidst the foreign sounds of local Taasti, the wails and tears, Sasha heard the only words from the locals that mattered-'Telgar,' 'Hadryn' and 'Verenthane.'
Sasha caught a glimpse of Master Jaryd's expression, hard with disbelief, muttering something now to Captain Tyrun. Jaryd couldn't believe Verenthanes had done this. For a brief moment, she almost felt sorry for him.
Kessligh stood atop the stone wall by the bodies, looking down at the gruesome wounds, then glancing about the surrounding farmland. Eyes narrowed, as if piecing together the previous day's events in his mind. Then he gazed down toward the little town of Perys below, as village folk wailed and sobbed about his feet.
One of the women noticed him and stared upward with wide, tearstreaked eyes. She gasped and exclaimed something in loud, frantic Taasti. Others came crowding, some exclaiming, others falling to a knee before the vanquisher of the Cherrovan.
'Lenay!' Kessligh demanded. 'Who speaks Lenay?'
An old man came forward, his face hidden in bedraggled beard, hunched shoulders wrapped in a shawl. Halting conversation followed, punctuated with gesticulations and pointing. Several villagers clustered about Sasha as she sat astride, one work-worn woman trying to touch her boot, murmuring something Sasha couldn't understand.
Damon came alongside, watching with a concerned frown. 'What do they say?' he asked, nodding at the other villagers.
'I don't speak Taasti,' Sasha said shortly, straining her ears to overhear Kessligh's conversation. She did not wish to look down at the woman by her boot, head wrapped in a scarf, her eyes lined with hard work, age, and more fears than any city-bred nobility could possibly understand. Such reverence made her uncomfortable.
'I heard mention of the 'Great Spirit',' Damon pressed, his eyes now suspicious. 'What is that?'
Sasha shot him a look of disbelief. Damon understood some Taasti? 'Kessligh saved these people from the Cherrovan thirty years ago,' she replied. 'The legend of the Great Spirit changes from region to region, but it's common among all Goeren-yai. People here think the Great Spirit was Kessligh's spirit guide. Some people call it the Synnich.'
'And what do you think?' Damon asked pointedly.
'I think it's a nice legend,' Sasha said blandly, tired of feeling as though she were on trial all the time.
'You don't believe in the spirits?'
'I didn't say that.'
'You only know that you don't believe in the gods?'
'I said I don't follow them,' Sasha replied with a dark, sideways look. 'Whether I believe in them is irrelevant.'
'Not to father it isn't.'
'Aye,' Sasha muttered, 'well he's not here, is he?'
Kessligh jumped from the wall and swung back into his saddle. 'Hadryn did this,' he said to Damon without preamble. 'They're still in the town. They don't appear to be expecting trouble from this direction, doubtless they have the northward approaches covered. I advise we make them pay for the oversight.'
Damon swore beneath his breath, staring away across the rolling, descending hillside, as if searching for inspiration. Villagers crowded about Terjellyn, some sobbing, some pleading. Others approached Peg, Sasha keeping him steady with a shortened length of rein as he started and tossed his head nervously.
'I'll vouch with your father for the necessity,' said Kessligh, his tone hard.
Damon gave him a hard look. 'I'm not concerned with that!' With enough temper to assure Sasha that he truly meant it. 'But it will be Verenthanes attacking Verenthanes. There will be repercussions.'
'This is a land grab,' Kessligh said firmly. 'It's against the king's law. If Hadryn nobility have a problem with Taneryn nobility, it should remain limited to that. This is opportunism-murder-and illegal by your father's own decree. It doesn't get any easier than this.'
Decisions, he meant. Judgments. When to fight, and when to kill. The daily bread of princes and kings. Sasha wondered darkly if Damon would have quite so many doubts if the men to be fought were Goeren-yai.
'Damn it,' Damon muttered and reined his horse about, signalling to Jaryd and Captain Tyrun. The commands went out from the sergeants, forming companies.
Kessligh pulled Terjellyn as close to Peg's side as possible, considering the villagers. 'We'll run the left flank behind Sergeant Garys,' he told her. 'Remember you're not armoured, we're running reserve for the front line.'
Sasha nodded, gazing out across the farmland, wondering at the footing and the line. She looked down at the woman by her boot. 'Please, mother,' she said, in kindness laced with desperation, 'the soldiers are moving. Please move back or you'll be trampled.' She leaned down to grasp the woman's hand, gently. The return grasp was hard, work-hardened fingers clutching like claws.
'I know you, Synnich-ahn,' said the woman, in hoarse, broken Lenay. Her eyes were bloodshot red and her earrings were curling, metal spirals that might denote a spirit talker. Unusual, for a woman. Sasha stared, as her heart skipped a beat. 'The line is unbroken, Synnich-ahn. What was once the father's shall pass to the daughter. The time has come.'
The woman moved back with the others, as horses jostled past and large portions of the column broke in different directions, spilling through the shattered gates into broad fields to the left and right. Kessligh took off downslope and Sasha followed, galloping along the winding trail until there was another gate in the left wall, and they turned sharply through it. The open field stretched before them, sloping rightwards, as Sergeant Garys's contingent ran along the upper slope to their left. Kessligh allowed Sasha to pull alongside at a gentle canter, sword out.
He pointed his sword, indicating the vast sweep of hillside before them. 'What do you see?'
'No space for a wide line,' Sasha replied, standing half upright in the stirrups for a better look, the wind tossing at her tri-braid. 'Best to keep them in small groups, perhaps five apiece, following two routes of approach.'
'Why not more?' Kessligh asked, voice raised above the thunder of hooves.
'There are only so many good approaches through broken terrain. Also ambush spots are limited on the way in, we only need so many vantage points.'
Kessligh nodded. 'Also, see the way the paddock walls follow the contours of the land?' He swept his sword across a forward arc… and Sasha noticed that indeed, the stone walls did hold to the higher ridges and climbed the steeper folds at right angles. Which was one of those things that Kessligh called the difference between knowledge and wisdom-of course she'd always known the farmers constructed their walls as such, she'd simply never thought of the military implications. Most wisdom, Kessligh insisted, was comprised of things that most people already knew, but simply hadn't understood in all its implications. 'Trust the farmers, they know the land better than we. Follow the walls, use them as a guide to the land. And see this shallow depression downslope? If we follow it further leftwards instead of the direct route to town, we'll have cover for longer and gain some surprise.'
'Might they already have seen us?' Sasha asked.
'Perhaps… but I suspect they'll be watching north for Taneryn reinforcements, not south. These are Hadryn
