Borrus shook his head at once. “They’ll kill him if I do.” He hit the table again with his fist, but it was weaker, disconsolate. That was Borrus Kanabar. He blew hot and cold and he was cooling again, sinking into despair. “I should never have let you go, Emeric. I’d made my peace with my father’s death. Now I find out he’s still alive, suffering, dehumanised. I know how the Agarathi are. I know how they like to treat their prisoners, and my father…my father…”
“We should march,” repeated Lord Rammas. Emeric wondered how many times he had said those words, or some version of them, during their long encampment here. According to Rikkard it was many times daily, and he barely said anything else. ‘He’s like a trained raven, that one, always quorking the same thing,’ the knight had said. “We cannot let your father’s suffering continue,” the Lord of the Marshes went on. “Nor the others. Death would be better.”
“He’s right,” declared Mooton Blackshaw, standing from his stool. He towered above all but Borrus in the room. “I loved your father the same as you, Borrus, but we have to accept that he’s dead. The longer he suffers, the worse it will be. Lord Rammas is right. We should march.”
Once more, Sir Rikkard was the voice of reason. “Amron ordered us to stand fast, I’ll remind you all,” he said. “He is our king. His word is absolute.”
“His word is old,” came back Mooton Blackshaw. “It might as well be sprouting mushrooms it’s been rotting so long.”
“King Daecar isn’t here,” put in Prince Raynald Lukar. He looked around the room to make sure he had been heard and had their attention. “How long do we submit to his ruling when he does not know what is happening here? And Elyon…who knows where he’s gone. I saw his eyes, my lords. The Windblade may have led him astray, and there’s no knowing when he’ll be back. I say we decide upon our own fate. We cannot be led by a man a thousand leagues away.”
Rammas and Mooton both nodded agreement. Others murmured their own doubts, and the debate went on. It would lead nowhere, Emeric knew. Much the same had been said the day before, and over the days before that as well, and for all Borrus’s bluster, he did not want to risk the sacrifice of his father without exhausting all attempts to save him.
“I need to think,” the Barrel Knight said, after they’d gone around in circles a few more times. “We’ll reconvene later once something new comes to light.” He waved them away, and off they went, streaming from the tent and into the rain. Rammas stepped in for a private word, but Borrus flicked a wrist and said, “Not now, Rammas. I know what you’re going to say. Not now.”
The rest filed out until only Torvyn Blackshaw and Emeric remained. Borrus sagged down into his seat, hooking a cup of wine in his grasp, drinking deep. “Go on then, Torv. You’ve got something to say, I can smell it.”
“Nothing that hasn’t already been said.”
The Barrel Knight huffed. “I’m sure. And you, Manfrey?”
Emeric stepped forward. “I could try to reach out to Moonrider Ballantris again,” he said. “Lady Marian has sufficient ingredients, she says, to disguise me as before.”
Borrus thought little of that. “Nothing will come of it,” he dismissed. “We’ve lost Sansullio now, and his men. You’d never make it there alone.”
“I made it back alone.”
“That was different. The moonlord let you go. But getting back in by yourself…no. And what would happen if you did? You think Ballantris would urge that my father be freed? You think he would care, or that Vargo Ven would listen? No, is the answer you’re looking for. Ballantris told you he planned to muster his men to leave at once, is that not so? Then why hasn’t he? His army is still in camp so far as we know.”
“These things take time. His allies…”
“What allies? That’s Avar Avam’s army out there, not his. This Moonrider thinks a lot of himself, doesn’t he? They’re all like that, these Moonriders, pompous and superior. He thought he could snap his fingers and Avam’s host would rush to heel. He thought he would tell Vargo Ven he was leaving and the dragonlord would meekly smile and let him go. Well neither of those things have happened. More likely Avam brought him to heel. Perhaps your precious Moonrider is dead.”
Sir Torvyn gave a solemn nod, the lid of his left eye flickering. “He may be right, Emeric. Vargo Ven will not take kindly to any attempts to undermine him.”
“If he has killed Moonlord Ballantris, we would know of it,” Emeric claimed.
Borrus snorted. “How do you come by that? They’re a day’s march from here, twenty miles as the crow flies. Our scouts and outriders don’t get anywhere near…”
“Near enough to hear Tathranor seek his vengeance,” Emeric told him. “You have seen moonbears on the battlefield, Borrus. They are a force of total destruction, and their rage cannot be matched. Not even by a dragon. Tathranor would kill a thousand men getting to Ven. It would take half a dozen dragons to stop him.”
“They have half a dozen dragons. They might have ten times that, for all we know. I don’t doubt the moonbear would kick up a bit of a fuss, but Ven’s power would quickly subdue him. He’d only need to send out Malathar for that.” He drank his wine. “But I take your point. All that fighting would cause a stir, and no doubt we’d have heard it. So Ballantris lives. What of it? Maybe he’s been thrown in with my father? That ought to keep the bear at bay.”
It was a possibility, there was no denying it. But there was another that Emeric Manfrey preferred. “Timor may yet side with us,” he said, with the thin strains of hope in his voice. “His allies might have convinced him of that wisdom, as I failed to do. It will take him months to march his army home, and anything could befall them on the way. Turning on Ven once the fighting begins would be the wiser course.”
“Of course it would be,” Borrus said. “The best way to defend is to attack, that’s what we say around here. Talk to Rammas. He’ll tell you. Well…sometimes that man takes it a little too literally, but the point still stands. I…” He cut himself off at the sound of the horns. All of them turned sharply to the flaps. The sound was low, a long deep wailing. Borrus frowned. “These Pentars…I can’t figure out their calls. What does that one mean?”
Sir Torvyn answered. “Scouts returning.”
He was right. Emeric walked to the flaps and stepped out. A steady, slanting rain was falling, as it did most days, and the great ward at Rustbridge had turned grey and soggy, its drainage system tested to its limits. Emeric could hear shouting from the walls as the horn-blast trailed off, echoing out over the open plains east of the city.
He walked to the crossroad a short distance away, where the main thoroughfare led to the eastern gates. The portcullises were rising, the drawbridge falling, the Pentar captain there shouting commands in his red and silver cloak. Into the city Emeric saw a small host of riders returning, dressed in grey and brown, leather and light chainmail, saddled atop swift slim coursers all frothing at the mouth. Emeric saw Sir Karter appear, hastening out to take report from the scouts. The conversation looked tense.
“What’s happening?” Borrus asked. He had followed Emeric outside, Sir Torvyn as well, and all of a sudden the lords of Rustbridge were emerging from their pavilions to converge at the cobbled crossroad. A moment later Sir Karter Pentar came running.
“My lords,” he said, breathless. “The enemy host…they’re moving.”
“Moving?” repeated Borrus. “Where?” He looked at Emeric, as though to wonder if they’d been wrong. Had Ballantris finally stirred his army to leave? Was Vargo Ven retreating back to the Bane, fearing he no longer had the strength to challenge them?
All such questions passed through the mind of Emeric Manfrey. Until Sir Karter shook his head and said, “Here, my lord. They are coming here. They struck their camp this morning and are marching west with all their strength. They may intend to siege the city.”
“Or they’re just moving camp,” said Rikkard Amadar. He had stepped from his pavilion with Sir Killian in tow. “Their grounds may have become waterlogged in this rain. It is not uncommon to move camp after so long in one place.”
Sir Killian looked to Emeric. The heir of House Oloran was a quiet, intense man who rarely spoke unless he had something to say. When speaking with the blade he was most garrulous, however, Emeric knew, one of the finest swordsmen in the north. “Was their camp waterlogged, that you saw?” he asked in his whispered voice.
“I did not see enough of it to judge, Sir Killian,” Emeric answered. “But what I did see…no, the ground was muddied, but not overly drenched.”
“They’re not moving camp for the hell of it,” snorted the Beast of Blackshaw. He took Borrus by the arm. “We need to beat the drums, Barrel. Get the men ready to attack.”
“Defend, you mean,” Rikkard Amadar said. “We have high walls and deep moats and battlements bristling with bowmen and ballistas, spitfires and scorpions. Leaving the fort would be folly until we are certain what they plan to do.”
Borrus pulled his arm from Mooton’s grip. “You talk too much, Moot. Too much and too loudly.” He thought a moment, then told Sir Karter Pentar to raise the canopy roof. “If the dragons come in force, we’ll need that shield. See to it, Sir Karter. And triple your guard on the walls. I want a bowmen at every crenel, and every scorpion and trebuchet loaded and manned. They will stop out of range, we can be sure, but it pays to be prepared.” He looked around. “Where is Lady Payne? She was not at council earlier.”
“She finds our company overbearing,” said Sir Rikkard. “Rammas, mostly. And Mooton is too boisterous for her tastes.”
“He’s too boisterous for everyone’s tastes,” Borrus said to that. “Even I’m growing tired of him.” He did not bother softening the insult with a smile. “Emeric, you go see her…she seems to like you. Tell her what’s happening if she doesn’t already know and then head back to the others. If we’re to come to blows, I want the Silent Suncoat in the van. That man’s mere gaze is like to freeze a dragon in its tracks. And someone go speak with the prince. Tell him…” He paused. “Actually, I’ll see to it. The lad deserves me to pay him a visit over there. He’s always asking.” He waved a hand to dismiss them. “Go. See to it.” And off he marched, Sir Torvyn at his side.
Emeric made for the small Payne encampment, an orderly place raised amidst the larger Vandarian host. The Payne forces numbered only about two and half thousand, Emeric knew, and were the sole Rasalanian representatives here. There had been some hard words said over that. But for Tandrick Payne, the Rasal greatlords had not sent aid and had chosen to defend their own lands and borders instead. Emeric would not judge them harshly for prioritising their own people, though others were not so forgiving. The word craven had been bandied about a fair bit. Perhaps that was the reason Lady Marian did not attend council so often as the others. Listening to the likes of Rammas and Mooton Blackshaw curse her countrymen did not make for pleasant hearing, and who knew the truth of what was happening over there in the east? They might have sent a great host afoot, only for it to be besieged by dragons on the road. The lords of the bays may have pulled together a grand armada, only for it to founder as it crossed the seas, assaulted by wing and fin. They did not know, that was the truth of it. And no amount of fist-shaking was going to help.
