work to our advantage now. We will not have to worry about being attacked from another direction. But most important we shall have the element of surprise, for over half a year has passed since Hetar pushed into Tormod and Piaras. At this point I am sure Hetar believes we will do nothing. But if we do not take back these territories then Gaius Prospero is planning to annex them. Who will they come after next?” He looked about. “The Devyn are the easiest target, and then Blathma will fall, and so on.”
“How can we be certain that the Shadow Princes and the Coastal Kings will aid us?” Roan of the Aghy wanted to know. “Can we trust this Kaliq? Why does he offer to help us, Vartan? What does he want?”
“Nothing for now, but he has said that one day they will come to us for a favor, and it is then we must repay them for their aid,” Vartan said.
“He has also said we must raise a mighty army in order to impress Hetar,” Lara told the chieftains.
“What does it matter the size of the army if we can beat them?” Roan wanted to know. He ran an impatient hand through his bright red hair.
“You must understand that Hetarians are impressed by wealth, strength, status and its like,” Lara explained. “If you beat them with a small army they will say it was a fluke, and they will attempt to come at you again. Piaras and Tormod will forever be open to invasions. More people will be killed. If you beat them with a great army then they will feel they have been fairly bested, and in all likelihood the ancient treaty will be once again honored.” She shrugged. “I can explain it no better. In order to win against Hetar you must impress them first. And to do that you will have to kill many of the mercenaries, and send their bodies back to the City as a warning.”
For a long moment there was a deep silence among the chieftains. Then Rendor of the Felan spoke.
“I understand what you say, but it amazes me that so delicate a female can speak so dispassionately about taking life, for females are life-givers.” He looked at Vartan. “Your wife is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, and yet she has, it seems, the heart of a warrior.”
“It is not my heart that should concern you, Rendor of the Felan, but rather your own. How many men will you pledge to this battle?” Lara asked him bluntly.
He laughed. “Every whole man among my clan from fourteen to sixty will fight for the Outlands,” he promised. “We are shepherds at heart, but we know well how to defend our flocks be they sheep or people, Lara of the Fiacre, wife to Vartan, daughter of Swiftsword,” Rendor answered her.
“We would expect no less,” Vartan said. “What of the rest of you?”
“Every horseman in my clan will fight,” Roan of the Aghy said.
“We are few in number,” Accius of the Devyn said, “but we will contribute in our own way. Some of our bards will go into the villages of the Piaras and the Tormod, ostensibly to entertain the invaders, but they will pass the word to the people that their leaders have reached their brethren and that a mighty army comes. We will ready them to rise up against their captors. And we will fight. Those who cannot fight will sing you into battle, and if necessary into the realm of the Celestial Actuary.”
“Thank you, my old friend,” Vartan said. “The nobility of the Devyn is well known among the Outlands.”
“Our fields are put to bed for the winter now,” Torin of the Gitta spoke up. “If the Shadow Princes say our villages will be safe, then only women, children and the elderly will be left behind to care for our lands. All who can fight among us will come.” He turned to look to his fellow agrarian, Floren of the Blathma.
The plump farmer sighed. “I can do no less than Torin,” he said reluctantly. “You are certain our villages will be safe from harm?” he asked of Lara.
“Kaliq of the Shadow Princes has said it, and I have never known him to lie,” Lara replied. “They are honorable men, and the oldest among the inhabitants of this world we all share,” she explained.
“Then it is settled,” Vartan said. “Take your people home, my brothers, and then return here to the Gathering place in ten days’ time. By that time we will have a plan readied to punish these Hetarians who have invaded our lands.”
“I know I speak for Petruso as well as myself when I thank you,” Imre of the Tormod said. “For the sake of our peoples I only wish we had gotten to you sooner.”
“Do not thank us until you are back safe in your own house with your wife by your side, Imre. Many will die in this undertaking, but there will be more grief in Hetar than in the Outlands when this is finished,” Vartan said fiercely.
Early the next morning, before the sun was even up, the clan families dispersed from the Gathering place. Imre, Petruso and their men went with Vartan’s clan for they dared not return to their own homes yet. On the day following their arrival in Camdene, Vartan dispatched riders to each of his villages issuing a call to arms. Every Fiacre clansman between the ages of fourteen and sixty was expected to answer that call if he was physically able. The villages and the herds would be looked after by the elderly, the women and the children. Any woman able to fight was invited to come as well, although it was not mandated that women answer the chieftain’s call. Still, several came from each village, and were put into Sholeh’s care. Lara, it was agreed, would fight by her husband’s side.
“I will come, too,” Noss said bravely.
“You do not like discord,” Lara reminded her friend and companion. “This will be terrible, dearest. Remain behind with Bera, Elin and Liam’s mother.”
“No,” Noss replied. “While you will fight with Andraste, I am a better archer than you. Why did I carry the long bow the prince gave me on my back from the Desert kingdom if I was not to use it? And what better use than in the defense of our homeland? And Sakari tells me she, like Dasras, was trained for battle. She is eager, and I feel safe with her. I but ask one thing of you, Lara. Let me wed with Liam now.”
Lara sighed. In her eyes Noss was yet a child, but in truth she was not. Lara still saw Noss as the frightened girl who the Foresters had refused to accept as a breeding slave because she was too young, but two years had passed, and Noss was no longer that youngster. She had small, firm breasts, and a way of tossing her head that bespoke someone on the verge of womanhood. Liam loved her. What if he was among those killed in the coming Winter War? Could she forgive herself if she forbade Noss even a brief happiness? “I will have Vartan speak to Liam,” she said, and her heart swelled at the look of happiness that engulfed Noss’s pretty face.
Tears spilled down that face. “Thank you!” Noss said softly, and she hugged Lara hard. “I was so afraid you would make us wait, and what if he doesn’t come back?” She sniffled. “Or I don’t?”
“Have you spoken to him about coming with us yet?” Lara asked.
“Yes, and while he is not pleased, he has consented, for he knows that I must go with you. How could I not?”
“You must not think you owe me because the Forest Lords did not want you and took me instead. That was part of my destiny, Noss, as unpleasant as it was,” Lara said. “If you would prefer to remain behind I will not think you craven.”
“Nay, it is not that. I feel I must do this, just as you feel your destiny so strongly,” Noss responded. “I sense no impending doom about me. I shall come home to Camdene again with my Liam when this is all over, Lara.”
“Very well then. I shall be glad for your company, as always,” Lara told her.
No time was wasted in the matter of Liam of the Fiacre and Noss of Hetar-the marriage was performed that same night in Vartan’s hall. Liam’s mother, Asta, was pleased with her new daughter-in-law’s sweet nature, and equally pleased that Noss would go with her husband to fight by his side.
“Mayhap,” she said, “the ordinary Hetarian is not as bad as we have always supposed they were. Noss might have been born here in the Outlands did I not know otherwise. But when this Winter War is over and done with I shall have grandchildren at last!” She laughed heartily. “I am pleased with this marriage.”
Vartan gave the bride and groom two days to hide away by themselves. “Be back in my hall on the third morning,” he said.
After the brief respite the wedding offered them, Lara and Vartan became engrossed in planning how they would attack and triumph over Hetar’s invasion of the Tormod and Piaras lands. All the Outlanders were trained in the arts of war, though they had not been forced to use that tuition in centuries. Their greatest advantage was that neither had the Hetarians, for there had been peace between the two cultures for years. The great Crusader Knights were an army never used. It was the mercenaries who fought in the small squabbles between the law- abiding citizens, and the bandits who roamed all the provinces. But no one in the Outlands could remember a great battle being fought.
They learned from Imre that the householders in each village had been forced to take in their oppressors. Those forced to toil in the mines now were kept in barracks they had been forced to build themselves, and the
