Tracato

attempting to find better ground than this, and would be greeted every time by the Enorans atop another fucking hill. I say we go here. The slope is gentle, and we have flanks for our cavalry.”

They were still on Larosan land, yet barely so. The Enorans doubtless knew this land nearly as well as their own, having scouted it often. This valley was the obvious approach to the border with a large army, and once their serrin scouts had discerned that the Army of Lenayin was indeed headed this way, it would have been a relatively simple thing for the Enorans to use their paved roads to cut across the Lenays’ path, and forward to this point overlooking the valley, thus cutting the route.

“The location is good enough,” said Sasha, “but we should not attack here. We should hold, and make them come to us. Our task is merely to prevent them from advancing into Larosa, and attacking the main force engaging the Rhodaanis to the north.”

Faras frowned. “This is not a strong defensive position. Should they come, they come down the hill.”

“And their artillery comes down the hill with them,” Sasha replied. “I learned in Petrodor that artillery does not fire well on a slope. Perhaps they can move it downslope over there,” and she pointed to the fork in the valley that turned into Enora, “but that will give us an opening where their main force is undefended by artillery. Either way, it is in our advantage to make them move first.”

Sasha was thankful that Koenyg saw matters the same as she. At midafternoon, the army was fully assembled, and growing impatient. A ridge beside a farmhouse had become the royal command post, and Great Lord Faras rode that way to consult, leaving Sasha with the remaining Isfayen nobility. She practised some taka-dans, and wondered just how many serrin talmaad were probing their flanks right now, and testing the strengths of Lenay cavalry.

Lord Faras shared those concerns, and with a party of ten nobility they rode back along the gentle valley slope. Across the valley was thick forest, making any leftward flanking move troublesome. It would be crawling with talmaad, Sasha was prepared to bet. And now, down the valley, came the Torovans, a great snaking army of metal helms and wooden shields. They rode with a glitter and polish that the Army of Lenayin did not, armour sparkling silver, and great, colourful banners flying. Sasha and the Isfayen galloped close, and were greeted with hearty cheers and waves from the cavalry at the front.

“They look very fine!” an Isfayen nobleman remarked above the thunder of hooves.

“Aye,” said Faras, with a twisted smile, “if it made them better warriors, the Isfayen would put feathers in their hats too!”

Upon their return to the main formation, a wild-haired Goeren-yai messenger on a little dussieh came flying to intercept them.

“M’Lady Sashandra,” he called, “you are wanted on the field. Negotiators from Enora have requested your presence for parley.”

It took a while for Sasha to find the centre of the formation. She galloped along the Lenay lines, jumping pasture walls where they obstructed her, dodging about small camps in fields or milling groups of men who did not seem to know where their place was, or did not seem to care. Banners were difficult to spot amidst the enormous crowds.

Finally, to the front of the formation, she saw a small cluster of men on horses beneath a royal banner. She edged her horse through one of the gaps in the line, and rode to the little group. It was Koenyg, she realised, and Damon, and…her father.

The king did not look at her as she approached. Sasha reined up beside Damon, and waited.

“What do they ask?” she asked him in a low voice, above the thunder of hooves, and the roar of many thousands of voices. It would have been too much to expect Lenay warriors to sit quietly and wait. They seethed with anticipation.

“To talk,” said Damon with a faint shrug. “It is customary, in the lowlands.”

Sasha nodded. In Lenayin, individual warriors might talk before a duel, but rarely entire armies. She did not think that most Lenay warriors would disapprove of the notion, however. To discuss protocols with a man you were about to kill seemed honourable. Oddly, she found herself wondering why Lenays had never adopted the custom for grand battles. Probably, she thought, because there was so little flat ground in Lenayin. Armies did not line up, but struck with the first advantage. An odd case of terrain dictating custom, perhaps.

From the top of the slope near the castle, a small party of men rode forth. Sasha squinted, but could not make out the flags. Sweat prickled on her brow. She thought she knew why she had been asked for. She wanted to say no. To plead off sick, or find some lameness in her horse. But she could not appear weak before the men. And if her horse was lame, they’d find her another.

“It must be them,” Koenyg concluded as the party kept coming. The king tapped heels to his horse, and rode with his three children toward the stream and the slope beyond. The stream barely came up to the horses’ knees, and soon they were cantering across fields as the ground began to rise. There were three in the oncoming party, two human and one serrin. Sasha nearly turned back.

Koenyg signalled to her and Damon, and Sasha moved up on Koenyg’s side, the far left position in their line. Damon took the far right, beside their father. They came to a trot, and then a halt, perhaps ten strides from the opposing line of three.

“I’m General Rochan,” said the central man, in Torovan. He wore a helm with a general’s crest, and wore chest and shoulder guards over mail. A middle-sized man, with intense, close-set eyes, of perhaps forty summers. “Commander of the Enoran Second Regiment, acting Commander of Armies for this engagement. To my left is my second, Formation Captain Lashel. To my right, Vilan, of the talmaad.”

Sasha forced herself to look. The serrin had pure white hair like Rhillian’s, worn long and untidy. His eyes were nearly gold within a pale face. It gave him the look of an albino, but Sasha doubted that he was. He was simply serrin. Sasha wished he were elsewhere.

“King Torvaal Lenayin,” her father replied grimly. “My sons, Koenyg and Damon. My daughter, Sashandra.”

General Rochan looked across their line with his sharp eyes. Something about his manner disturbed Sasha further. She had hoped that perhaps some turmoil of Enoran politics would lead the Enorans to place an incapable general in command of this battle. To observe the thoughts racing through Rochan’s eyes, she did not think that had happened.

“You come a long way, King of Lenayin,” Rochan said finally. He drew himself up, and his gaze held little of respect or fear. “Why are you here? We Enorans have done nothing to you.”

“You sin against the Verenthane faith,” said Torvaal. “You hold lands that are not yours.”

“Truly?” Rochan looked genuinely astonished. “I can trace my ancestry back a dozen generations on this land. How is this land not mine?”

“You sin against the Verenthane faith,” Torvaal replied, as though he had not heard the general. “The Archbishop of Torovan has decreed it.”

“Ah,” said Rochan. “Torovan. And how many have the Torovans sent you? It looks perhaps fifteen thousand from our vantage? Eighteen, at the most? They had promised you thirty, had they not? Why does the Archbishop of Torovan send Lenays to die for his cause?”

“Any Verenthane would serve as well,” said Torvaal darkly.

“And barely half of you are Verenthane,” said Rochan, giving Sasha a long stare. Sasha looked at the slope behind him, and the castle, large against the sky.

“We have not ridden all this way to debate,” Koenyg interrupted. “State your terms, if you have any, or offer your surrender. Should you offer it, you shall be given honourable terms from Lenayin.”

Rochan snorted and smiled unpleasantly. “This from a Lenay, who finds nothing honourable in surrender. Have no fear, Prince of Lenayin, we like it as little as you do. Your allies have made it plain for two hundred years that they shall offer no terms. We think it preferable to die on our feet with a sword in our hands than at the end of a Larosan rope, or beneath their torture knives.”

Sasha barely repressed a shudder. The serrin Vilan noticed. Again, Sasha looked away, hoping it would all end soon. Battle would be preferable to this. In battle, one did not have to think.

“Do you have terms?” Koenyg repeated.

“Withdraw now,” said Rochan, coldly. “Those are my terms. You are foreigners to this kind of warfare. Know that the Enoran Steel has faced armies twice the size of what confronts us here, and left them barely a man alive. I think it an abomination that Lenayin’s rulers should lead its sons to die by the thousand upon this foreign field, for this most ignoble cause. You are a curse upon your people, sirs. They will curse you when we are done.”