Michal’s shoulders tightened, bristling at his father’s words. He gave the old man a sharp look. “I will always do my duty to the crown.”
Eris frowned at the clear tension between them. There was trouble brewing within Ostovan’s royal family, and a hostility that would likely only increase with the birth of the king’s child. That babe would push Michal out of line for the throne. If he had any designs to seize power in Ostovan, this could become a dangerous time indeed to be King Zigfryd’s guest.
Five
Ieduinloweredhisspyglassand frowned. Long tails of smoke rose in the distance, painting the sky gray. Ash rained like snow. The smoldering remains of farms and fields stretched out before them for miles, almost as far as he could see, but that wasn’t the worst of it.
The road to Greymark Castle wound through the land into the highlands, and at every crossroads he could spot, there were bodies.
He clicked his tongue twice, nudging his horse down from the small rise. To call it a hill would give it far too much credit. Rise, hill… Whatever they were, they were all over the land leading up to the Greymark border on the Ostovan side.
On the Greymark side, the land was flat until it wasn’t. There were no gradual hills in the distance, but sharp and craggy outcroppings of rock that jutted up out of the earth, each one steadily larger than the last. It never formed into proper mountains, but rather the ancient ruins of some of the oldest mountains in the world, worn down by time, as everything was eventually.
Tucked against the highest of those ancient mountains somewhere was the oldest castle in the Free Cities: Greymark Castle.
He rejoined Rixxis at the front of the march. Black armored men on horseback dotted the road behind them in three columns. After hearing about the bandits, he’d brought the escort to three wide to protect the goods they were bringing with them. It’d be suicide for even the best bandits to attack twelve hundred armed mercenaries, but he couldn’t take that risk. Ruith had trusted him with this command, and he wasn’t going to fuck it up.
“What did you see?” Rixxis asked, drawing her lips into a thin line. “Could you see the castle?” Rixxis asked.
Ieduin shook his head. “Too much smoke. Half the farms and fields are smoking ruins.”
Rixxis stiffened. “Trinta?”
“No sign of an army moving through,” he said as they rode. “Probably the bandits working for Trinta.”
“Should be there by midday,” Rixxis replied.
Ieduin shook his head again. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up. I expect there’ll be delays.”
“Delays?” She frowned at him. “Why?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t want to tell her about all the death he’d seen. Not because he thought it would bother her. Rixxis was a mercenary, same as him, and they’d both seen more death than most. To see soldiers and warriors fall was one thing. These people, they were farmers. Women, children. Innocents. Mercenary or no, that was unpleasant to think about.
“Brucia is what? A mile from sea to wall?” Rixxis said, changing the subject. “Greymark must be huge.”
“Greymark is almost seven times the size of Brucia,” Ieduin said.
She frowned. “And we’ve got to defend it with half the men?”
“Fighting this war will not be at all like defending the wall in Brucia,” Ieduin explained. “In Brucia, we had a siege and a compact area. Tight quarters present their own problems. But in a big open area like this, information and logistics are the biggest problems. That’s why they have all those stone watchtowers with the torches. If one falls under attack, they just light the beacon. Next farm over sees his neighbor’s beacon lit, lights his. On and on it goes until the men on Greymark’s wall see it.”
“That’s clever,” Rixxis said, bobbing her head.
Ieduin nodded. “Clever when it works, but time consuming and unreliable if the weather’s not clear, or the other farmer’s asleep. That’s the bad news.”
“There’s good news?”
Ieduin smirked. “Armies need supply wagons. Supply wagons need roads, limiting Trinta’s options for a full assault on the place. They know what I know. Marching an army into Greymark—any army—would be a costly endeavor for the invading force. On terrain like this, every defender is worth a hundred invaders, especially if we get to pick the battlefields. Lure them into a choke point and their numbers count for nothing.”
Trinta would have to break Greymark’s spirit first, and that would be difficult to do with a charismatic leader like Rowan Sullivan. They’d have to break him, and Ieduin wasn’t sure that was possible. If the man had one weakness, it was that he was a control freak who couldn’t bear to delegate responsibility. That would be their biggest fight in Greymark, getting the stubborn king to give them room to do their jobs.
The terrain, though, was a boon. It reminded Ieduin heavily of home. The Yeutlands weren’t quite the same—less damp and dreary—but the flatlands, the rolling hills, the narrow roads, and hidden places… That was home.
Ruith was right to send him instead of trying to head up the defense of Greymark himself. Ruith understood traditional warfare tactics, the psychology of wearing down an enemy he could see and know. Winning in Greymark would mean shrugging off the yoke of honor to fight a little dirty, and that was Ieduin’s favorite way to fight.
Ieduin halted his horse as they came to the first crossroads. Hot, smoky wind blew through the low-lying area, carrying with it the stench of rot and decay. A signpost pointed the way to the castle and bound to it was the corpse of a young woman. She must’ve been beautiful in life, but now her skin was mottled and gray. Whoever had strung her up had put her on display so that she had one finger out, pointing toward the castle as if she were there to direct them. Crows perched on her body, pecking at it.
“Mother, have mercy,” Rixxis whispered.