And neither of us can give up those advantages. He has proven himself an able commander, though of course, he has Korven to help him.
Besides, each time he travels through the Shadow World, he sustains losses that cost us nothing. He cannot keep that up indefinitely.”
He’s kept it up for eight years, Derwyn thought, but said nothing out loud. What kind of fanatical loyalty does a man inspire who can keep leading men into the Shadow World? At least one major campaign each year, with sporadic fighting here and there throughout the winters, when the weather was too severe to mount campaigns. During the rainy season in the spring, the roads all turned to mud, the plains were soft and damp, and the bogs became more treacherous than ever. It was impossible to march in force with supply trains and siege engines.
The catapults and rams sank into the ground up their axles. Summer and autumn were the times for war. So during the past eight years, how many times had Michael led troops through the Shadow World?
A dozen? More? And how many of his fighters had he lost in there?
Intelligence about such things was not all that difficult to come by.
When soldiers returned from a campaign, they always talked about it in the taverns. But they always exaggerated, too. Numbers could not be trusted. However, one could get a general sense of the campaign by comparing stories.
Their spies reported that the Army of Anuire had fought undead within the Shadow World, monsters like albino spiders, only even larger, big enough in some cases to drag off a cow, if the stories were to be believed. They had encountered deadly vines that lay dormant and withered-looking on the ground till stepped on, then suddenly snaked around a man’s legs, rapidly climbing up his torso and sending root tendrils deep into the flesh to suck out the vital fluids.
Cut the vine and the tendrils keep on growing underneath the skin, sending shockingly rapid new growth out through bodily orifices.
Death came within hours, filled with excruciating agony. Derwyn shuddered at the thought. What would make men risk such things time and again?
His father could not command such loyalty. He seemed to know it, too.
Arwyn ruled by fear.
Michael ruled by inspiration. Perhaps his reasons for not taking troops into the Shadow World were strategic, as he claimed. Or perhaps he was secretly afraid his troops might mutiny if he attempted it.
Indeed, thought Derwyn, it was a crazy thing to do.
Maybe that was it. Even when they were boys, Derwyn had seen traces of that craziness in Michael, but at the same time, it was an infectious craziness. He could always get the other boys to do the most amazing things, things they never would have considered doing on their own. He was a natural-born leader, with a very special and powerful charisma.
Doubtless, it ran within his bloodline, as it did within Derwyn’s own, but Derwyn had never manifested it. His father had it to a degree, but Michael possessed in abundance the blood power known as divine aura.
His troops would follow him anywhere. And if a man were to fall in battle, Michael would see to it that his family was provided for. It had to be a ruinous expense considering the losses his army had sustained over the years. If we tried it, Derwyn thought, it would quickly bankrupt our assets.
THE IBON THBONE
treasury, but Michael had the advantage there, as well. The Imperial Treasury had built up a considerable surplus over the many years of the empire’s history, and the Roeles had never been profligate spenders.
Until now, of course, but the entire empire knew Michael dipped into his treasury to support his people, and so they contributed all the more willingly. Surely they were as tired of the war as the people in Boeruine or Brosengae or Taeghas, but they loved their emperor because he never forgot them. Still, there had to be a limit. If this war continued for much longer, it would break them both.
If it weren’t for the considerable resources of the guilds in Brosengae or the merchant shippers in Taeghas, thought Derwyn, our own war effort would have stalled at least five years ago, and the interest on those debts was mounting steadily. The only way they would ever be able to repay the debt would be to conquer Anuire, seize the empire, and then bleed the country dry. He didn’t want to think about the possibilities of what might happen if the guilds called in the loans. His father had the troops, of course, but the guilds had powerful alliances with other guilds throughout Cerilia. They could easily raise a mercenary army or else freeze Boeruine out altogether, isolating them and cutting off all trade.
They could not afford to lose this ill-considered and seemingly interminable war. But then, Derwyn knew, as did his father, that if they did lose, they would undoubtedly be put to death, so there was little point in worrying about the debt. If they won, it would be paid off by taxing the people of the empire, who would certainly not love them for it.
Even his father was growing tired of the war. A man who had always lived for the thrill of leading troops into the field on campaigns, Arwyn was showing the strain of the long fighting.
He brooded about it obsessively, spent long hours with his advisors and field commanders, planning his campaigns, constantly sending observers out to report on the conditions of the border garrisons, which he expanded and refortified each spring. He so often complained about the goblins’ failing to hold up their end of the alliance that Derwyn could recite most of his litanies by heart. How
