barracks were enclosed by high wooden fences. The old women were sent into these enclosures to cook for the miners and wash their clothing. The women left behind in the cottages caring for their young children were more often than not forced to offer pleasures to the men now living in their homes. The young girls, as Imre had told them, were confined in his house and forced to act as Pleasure Women for those men in charge and for important visitors from the City. Old men who could work at tilling the fields that fed these clan families were left in peace. Any who were unfit and showed no signs of recovering were slain without mercy.
“They are clever,” Vartan said to the circle of men around him in his hall. “They inhabit every house, which makes it difficult to mount an attack.”
“Why must a battle be noisy and heroic?” Lara said. “Is not the victory the same even if the battle is a quiet one?”
“What do you mean?” Vartan asked her.
“Death is inevitable in war, but if we can keep all knowledge of our coming from the Hetarians, if we can get word to all in each village before we attack, do you not think they will rise up to aid us? We will move stealthily from village to village until the Tormod and Piaras regions are free of the invaders. In each village we will spare one among the enemy, and they will drive the wagons of Hetarian dead back to the City, to the very door of Gaius Prospero’s beautiful house in the Golden District.”
The men gathered around her nodded, and smiles wreathed their faces.
“Some Outlanders, for whatever reasons, will have cooperated with the enemy,” Vartan said wisely. “They must be rooted out and slain as a warning to any who would betray their own kind. This will be difficult, but we must be hard.”
Again there was agreement.
“I would send a traitor from each village with the wagons. They will hardly be welcome, and they will not be able to come back. Execution is a quick death. Exile is a long one. There is no place in the City for strangers,” she told them. “They will suffer bitterly before they finally die.”
“Is it your destiny to destroy the world that spawned you, my Lady Lara?” Imre asked her politely. “Is Hetar doomed?”
“My destiny for now is to be Vartan’s wife, and to ride with you in what is a just and righteous cause. What is to come I do not know, my lord Imre. I am but half faerie.” She smiled at him, her green eyes twinkling.
“Will your faerie kin come to our aid if you ask?” he wondered.
“We do not need them in this endeavor, my lord Imre. The clan families of the Outlands are strong because they are pure of heart,” Lara told them.
Vartan put an arm about Lara. “You have all heard my wife,” he said. “Now we must decide how to execute our plans that all be in place when we meet with the others at the Gathering place in a few days. Speak now, and let me hear your voices.”
Chapter 16
THE ARMIES of the clan families convened in late autumn. Lara was very pleased to see how large a force had been gathered, and how impressively they were caparisoned. When word got back to the City, the High Council would be very impressed. The flags flown by each clan family were different. The eagle was embroidered upon the purple and gold banner of the Fiacre. A white horse galloped across the blue and gold banner of the Aghy. The Felan flew a banner of sky blue with a black and gray wolf upon it. The Devyns’ red flag was decorated with a golden harp. The Gitta’s flag was green with sheaves of grain, the Blathma’s green with multicolored flowers. The Tormod flew a banner of silver that twinkled with gemstones. The Piaras’s flag was coal black with gold and silver lines running through it.
It had been decided that each clan family would free a single village, but for the last two. Each individual army would move off to secure its designated village, before joining together for the assault on the two villages of the Tormod and Piaras left to be freed. The Devyn would send their bards into the villages beforehand, singing in the ancient language of the Outlands before both they and the Hetarians spoke a single tongue. All Outlanders were taught the old speech in their schooling, and many of their songs were sung in it.
“We are less apt to be seen if we travel singly,” Vartan told them. “Beware of mercenary scouts. Send your own ahead of you. We will lose fewer of our own men if we maintain the element of surprise. Kill all the enemy but the one chosen to drive the cart. We will all meet in the mountains at the Crystalline Falls, and move out from there.”
Even with less than half a day’s light left, the clan families departed the Gathering Place, their trumpeters and banners hidden until the moment of triumph to come. The Desert moon was waning, but the butter-yellow moon of the Coastal Region lit the way for Vartan’s army until they finally stopped to rest themselves and the horses. None of the other clan families was visible to them.
“What if the mercenaries have posted a watchtower on the mountains?” Lara asked her husband. “That could ruin all of our carefully laid plans.”
“I will take the eagle’s form, and fly ahead in the morning,” Vartan said.
“Nay, you must lead your army, husband,” Lara told him. “Nor do you want it known that you shape-shift. It must remain your secret, and it cannot if you disappear from the head of your troop. Yet nothing will be thought if I disappear, and then return suddenly. I am the Fiacre chieftain’s halfling wife,” Lara said with a chuckle. “I possess faerie magic.”
“But what if you are seen?” he worried.
“By whom? An eagle seen flying in the mountains will not be thought unusual, my lord,” she reassured him.
He nodded. “Then go with the dawn, my love and my life, but return to me safely.” He kissed her brow, his blue eyes filled with his love for her.
“I will, husband,” Lara told him, and when the dark began to retreat from the autumn skies over the plains the next day a small golden eagle soared above the sleeping encampment of the Fiacre. The bird’s speed was swift, and by late morning it cruised among the peaks of the Purple Mountains, eyes sharply viewing the landscape below. She was pleased to find that there were no sentries’ outposts posted on the heights. Obviously the mercenaries felt safe, which seemed rather careless to Lara. Did the men who had escaped them not concern them? Or were they so arrogant as to believe that any Outlanders who came upon them could be easily beaten? Satisfied that their plan would hold, Lara turned and flew back, spying Vartan and his troop as they traveled across the grasslands.
She circled above them calling, and her husband looked up. Lara realized that perhaps now was the time to display some of her small magic to her husband’s people. It would put them in fear or awe of her, and one day she might need that advantage. She flew down to the riders, alighting upon her own saddle as Dasras cantered along. “Lara return!” she said, and was immediately restored to her human form. She reached out for her reins, knees gripping her stallion’s heaving sides, laughing at Vartan as she did.
Around her she heard the gasps of surprise, and low murmurs.
Her husband chuckled. “That was well done, and you are now completely established as a magical creature,” Vartan told her.
“It may be of help to us one day that they are convinced of my powers, and perhaps even a little afraid, husband,” Lara told him.
Liam rode up, coming between them. “Noss did not tell me you can shape-shift,” he said admiringly. “You have frightened many of those who ride with us, especially Adon.” He chortled wickedly.
“I suspect that is a good thing,” Lara told Liam. “If I should ever have to act for Vartan I do not want to waste my time arguing with him. He is, I fear, a man who has but to open his mouth, and I find I am annoyed.”
Liam laughed. “I know,” he agreed. “We are blood kin, and I do not know another of our family like him.”
“He is greedy for his brother’s place,” Lara said astutely.
“He shall never have it,” Liam said. “The elders would not approve it.”
“What did you learn?” Vartan asked his wife, not enjoying the conversation between Lara and Liam.
“There are no sentry posts in the mountains, or even around the villages,” Lara said. “It seems rather feckless to me, but they are obviously convinced they are secure in their conquest. Considering that Imre and Petruso
