ever push them back, that we might ever reach the end of their will.” Tiernan threw up his hands. “They’re purest evil. There is no soul, no essence in these things, just an all-consuming hunger to take life.”
“Aye,” Briyce Unger said at last, “and that is why we must face them again. Why we must hit them until we find their breaking point. You say yourself, you know-they are evil. They are consuming my Kingdom, eating it whole. Yours will be next, and Longwell’s, until there is nothing left of Luukessia.” Unger shook his head. “At this point, even if we went into the teeth of these beasts again, we stand only the chance to hold them back, not to win. We need more, Tiernan. We need more men. We need every man in the land with an able body. We need every army, every soldier, every farmboy who can wield a pitchfork and stand in a line.” Unger waved a hand toward the mountains. “This isn’t a fight to save Syloreas anymore, not that you were here for that anyway, but I say it because Syloreas is lost. It’s gone. I’m sending my soldiers right now, today, to the corners of my Kingdom and I’m telling them to let everyone know-
“You paint a grim picture,” Tiernan said, his complexion ashen. “Yet you speak the whole truth, no exaggeration. So you would leave your lands behind, have your people flee into the south. What then? Not that they’ll be greeted unkindly by mine own or Aron Longwell’s-”
“They’ll not be greeted at all by Aron Longwell’s armies,” came the voice of Samwen Longwell, and Cyrus turned to see him standing just at his shoulder. Longwell was tall enough already, but he seemed to have gained a solid five inches of height. “I am riding today for Vernadam.” His jaw was squared, straightened, and he spoke from a well deep within. Cyrus could feel the emotion crackling off the man he had known for over two years now but never in this way. “I will ride to Vernadam, right now, today, and I will bring back all the army I can to oppose these beasts. I will turn out every man who is able, and I will come back at the head of them to stand with you in beating back this threat to our land.”
Unger traded a look with Tiernan then cautiously looked back to Longwell. “And if … when … your father opposes you?”
Cyrus watched Longwell’s face carefully, saw the slight trace that came and went before the younger Longwell let slip a slight smile, a false one, to be sure. “Then he will be the King of Galbadien no longer. I will see to it.”
There was a quiet that settled over the convocation. “Well,” Milos Tiernan said, breaking the silence that had settled on them as surely as the first snow, “this shall certainly be a winter for the ages.”
“Aye,” Briyce Unger said, “and perhaps the last one the men of Luukessia will ever see.”
Chapter 67
After the meeting broke a few minutes later, Cyrus found himself walking beside Longwell back to the Sanctuary army. The lines of march had dissolved and men and women were lying about, scattered, some asleep and some not, all of them grizzled veterans now.
“Sir.” Longwell spoke, jarring Cyrus out of his meditation. “I’ll need to be leaving soon, as soon as possible.”
“I won’t have you go alone,” Cyrus said. “You’re talking about deposing your father. You’ll need some help.”
“And I’ll have it,” Longwell said, tense, “but it must be from within Galbadien, not without. If I come to Vernadam at the head of the Sanctuary army, it won’t have the proper effect. It’ll be seen as an invasion. It will be an invasion, the west to the east, the conquering lord of Arkaria come to destroy the peaceful traditions of Luukessia. Of power over peace, of domination and control rather than what this is supposed to be-me taking my birthright to save the land that I love.”
“You cannot possibly expect me to let you do this alone,” Cyrus said. “To go into the heart of the Kingdom of Galbadien as you are, without a single person to aid you? You’ll take an escort-not an army, an escort, so that you’ll at least have a healer and a wizard in case things become truly sticky. An enchanter seems useless against the scourge, so we’ll bring J’anda with us.” Cyrus gave it a moment’s thought. “Nyad, Martaina, Aisling and I will accompany you also, along with a healer and a couple warriors and rangers. Less than ten, total. That could hardly be mistaken for an army by most eyes.”
“Yet to the eyes who know,” Longwell said, narrowing his, “that is more army than most of Luukessia could put together.”
“Yeah, well, not everyone has to know that,” Cyrus said. “It’s a war of perception, not of force. Coming to Vernadam at the head of a foreign army doesn’t sit well with me, either. It’s when you come out that you need to be at the head of an army.”
“Aye,” Longwell said. “What are your intentions for the Sanctuary army, then, while we’re away?”
“Odellan will lead them,” Cyrus said, “and Curatio will take overall command. They’ll move with the armies of Actaluere and Syloreas as they continue a fighting retreat across the steppes trying to winnow down the scourge’s numbers while we’re absent. Perhaps they’ll get lucky and strike the great victory we’re looking for.”
“Sir,” Longwell stopped his walk and laid a gauntleted hand on Cyrus’s shoulder. “You need not come with me. You are an army unto yourself, and more valuable here at the front than as an escort to me.”
“I doubt it,” Cyrus said and felt a sharp pain within. “The army will fight here to hold back the tide, but they won’t actually be able to do it, not without more men. Actaluere is sending more, but having me at the center of the line is useful insofar as I can hold it better than perhaps anyone else, can kill more than any other soldier, but I can’t win the battle by myself, and I can’t make up for the weakness inherent in this army. We lack men. We lack mobility. We needed ten thousand of your dragoons in that last fight, and a wider front to press up against without the weak men that Syloreas stretched to shore up our formation. We need soldiers, real soldiers, not farmers and field hands. We need men who can swing a blade and throw an axe, and the men who can’t, who don’t have the experience, are nothing but chaff.”
“Why, then, do you come to Vernadam?” Longwell asked. “Even if it is as you say, and you believe that there is no hope to beat them here, only to delay them, what possible greater good could you do at Vernadam that you could not do more effectively here?”
Cyrus let out a long breath, and with it felt the emotions ground up within pass, as if he could expunge a plague of doubt all at once. “Your father is obtuse, we both know that. He won’t come around, he won’t listen to reason. But there is one man in that castle that will, one man who could command the legions of Galbadien with or without your father’s blessing.”
“Count Ranson,” Longwell said with cool acknowledgment.
“Ewen Ranson is no fool,” Cyrus said. “If both of us come to tell him what he already knows, then I think we can convince him to move the army. No coup necessary, because your father’s will is irrelevant without an army to back it. Let him have Vernadam because we’ll have the army, and that is what we need to beat these enemies back.” Cyrus took another breath, and this one felt as though all his doubts and fears came back unto him, like he inhaled a lungful of death. “If we can beat these enemies back.”
“I thank you,” Longwell said, and bowed his head. “This was never your fight, not when we came here to battle the Syloreans, not when we ran afoul of Baron Hoygraf, not when we had to adjust and face the possibility of war with Actaluere. You have never once tried to bow out when things became more difficult than we had anticipated, and I think that would have been the first thought of most men, to run from such an unstoppable and implacable a foe as we now face.”
“Implacable foes are the only kind I’ve ever known,” Cyrus said without mirth.
Longwell nodded, but there was confusion hinted at on his young face, the lines that had just started to show expressing those emotions. “I thank you, regardless. I owe you more than I can possibly repay, yet still I shall endeavor to square the debt at some point.”
