Springwar (21 page)

“Well then,” replied Barrax, king of Ixti, “perhaps your father will listen.”

Kraxxi inhaled sharply, straining against his bonds to remove his blindfold. It had sounded like Barrax, but Lord Lynnz was clever. This could be a trick. Or his mind could be contriving tricks of its own.

“Remove my mask and give me water, and maybe I’ll believe you.”

“You’re in an odd position to make demands, but perhaps … I will.”

Air swished around Kraxxi, and he felt a brush of warm darkness as hands fumbled at the ties to his mask, finally yanking it away. He blinked up at his father.

Though not as he’d ever seen him. Not in royal regalia, but in the guise of an ordinary soldier. Which made him wonder all kinds of things, including how many people knew their king walked among them so disguised. Whether even Lynnz knew, though surely Barrax would’ve had to show the royal signet to access a royal prisoner.

“Drink …” Kraxxi choked.

“When you’ve finished. I have none with me now.”

Though he’d had days uncounted in which to ponder this meeting, Kraxxi was suddenly at a loss as to what to do. Barrax saved him the trouble.

“Why are you here?” he barked.

“To save lives,” Kraxxi replied, feeling a modicum of strength returning.

“Whose lives? Your own? Surely you know you’re under sentence of death for slaying your brother.”

Kraxxi didn’t reply, but his gaze quested down his father’s body to his hands, where, indeed, showed the missing thumb joint that signified loss of a child past puberty.

“I know it doesn’t matter to you,” Kraxxi said at last, “but it was an accident.”

“I have only your word for that, and your flight gives the lie even to that. If you’d returned—”

“—You’d have had my head without a trial,” Kraxxi gave back, wondering where he’d gained the nerve to address his father so.

Barrax glared at him. “Perhaps.”

Silence.

“So,” Barrax said eventually. “What is this thing of which you will speak only to me?”

“Something I learned in Eron, that, I hope, will save many lives in both that land and this.”

“And how will these lives be saved?”

“By convincing you that this war you want is even less wise now than heretofore.”

“And how do you propose to do this?”

“I—” Kraxxi began, and fell silent. Now that the moment was upon him, what should he say? He’d rehearsed this conversation a thousand times, but now that he confronted it, he was terrified. Once he revealed his secret, his options decreased by orders of magnitude. “I have learned of a means by which certain folks in Eron can speak mind to mind across great distances.”

“And if I believed this, what difference would it make?”

“It means their commanders would know in moments
what might take yours days to discover. It would give them a clear advantage.”

“And how is this … advantage effected?”

“By a gem.”

“A gem? Surely you realize—if I believed you—that even if such a thing were possible, it would take more than one person speaking thusly to make a significant difference.”

Kraxxi regarded him calmly. “It would depend, I would think, on who those people are.”

“But there is only one of these gems?”

“Only one of which I am aware.”

“And your purpose in telling me this was … to dissuade me from my war?”

“It … was.”

“You had no thought for yourself? No desire to trade this knowledge you have so freely given for your life?”

“I had considered that,” Kraxxi admitted.

“I see your time in the sun and the scorpions’ maw has rendered you rather more … tractable than I recall.”

Kraxxi closed his eyes. Despair filled him. He should’ve set out his desires first,
then
made his revelation. But he’d been tired and stupid and …

He wished he were dead. That was always his solution to situations like this: wishing he were dead. Then he wouldn’t continue to play things so totally and completely wrong.

“I could kill you now,” Barrax told him. “I could collect my own reward. But I think perhaps you and I might have other things to discuss by and by. So I tell you this. Die you will, but not until you can die in Ixtianos. I want everyone there to see what befalls a fratricide.”

“And that will be …?” Kraxxi dared.

Barrax shrugged. “As soon as I have conquered Eron. I have just been given two important keys.”

And with that he strode from the tent.

Kraxxi closed his eyes against the glare, and pretended the sunlight was the only cause of his tears.
Barrax didn’t bother announcing himself before he strode into Lord Lynnz’s tent. The new one that had replaced, in all expensive particulars, the old one that Merryn had burned. Which alone told him a number of things about his captive, one of which was that she needed to be watched. Another was that she was a prize to be treasured: not something to be used casually and thrown away—and certainly not if she was kin to the King of Eron. A more worthwhile person, perhaps, than his son—though something had changed in Kraxxi, too.

Not that it mattered.

Lynnz rose abruptly from where he’d been perusing what looked like plans for a revitalized series of way stations along the Flat Road, complete with a nice wooden model. Barrax wondered idly which of his cowed courtiers was financing this one.
Not
Lynnz, he was certain. Lynnz looked angry, though. Then again, he’d never been one for interruptions.

“Who are you?” Lynnz snarled, reaching for his dagger. “Guards—!”

“Respect their king,” Barrax said quietly, lowering his mouth-mask, and whisking off his helm. “I can show you the signet and missing digit if you need proof.”

“Majesty,” Lynnz managed with reasonable aplomb, as he searched for a chair for his sovereign. Doing a good job of not appearing shocked. “I thought you were in Ixtianos.”

“That’s what I want people to believe.”

“But why—?”

Barrax claimed Lynnz’s chair, which happened to be on a dais, along with Lynnz’s clean plate and cup. He filled a glass of wine. Lynnz paused with his hand on the back of another, lower seat. “I ask the questions here,” Barrax continued, offhand. “I am
your
commander, in case that has slipped your mind.”

“No, Majesty.”

“Sit. I need your full attention, and I won’t have it while you’re standing.”

Lynnz obeyed.

“You didn’t recognize me, did you?”

Lynnz shook his head. “No, Majesty.”

“Neither did Kraxxi and …
Merryn
, whom I just finished interrogating.”

“Ah, so that’s her name. Did this interrogation achieve anything useful?”

“Enough. I’m surprised you had so little success.”

“They told you—”

Barrax drained the mug and refilled it. “All in good time.”

“Trust is necessary among commanders, Majesty. And kinsmen.”

Barrax eyed him narrowly. “This is a fine force you have here. Finer than I had in mind when I asked you to assemble it. Fine accommodations. I was not aware of the wealth of the Army of the North.”

“It fared better than the south during the plague,” Lynnz retorted. “As my reports show.”

“I have no doubt,” Barrax noted dryly. “In the meantime, I have in mind to see if this force and another to which I have access are in fact soldiers as well as poseurs.”

Lynnz leaned forward at once: interest gleaming in his eyes. “What did you have in mind, Majesty?”

“Why, to test Eron’s defenses.”

“Now?”

“You sound surprised.”

Lynnz covered with a sip of wine. “No, Majesty—if you think it wise. But I would remind you that it
is
winter up there.”

“And I would remind you of two other things. First, they are so used to hiding out in their holds during the cold time they never think someone might dare attack them then. And second, that warmth returns first in the south—and their first and strongest line of defense lies in the south.”

“War-Hold.”

“Exactly. If we were to attack it early—in the middle of the winter, say, when they least expect it—we could take it before word could reach the north. Then, as spring marches north, so do we.”

“A brave plan, Majesty, but … forgive me, foolish. Forgetting the winter, War-Hold has never been taken.”

“Nor has it been assailed in ten generations. And we know that Eron is under strength.”

“So are we.”

“But not so much. And our full army against one hold …”

“One
impregnable
hold.”

“Not so.”

Lynnz’s eyes narrowed again. “Kraxxi told you … something?”

“He did. Foolish, naive, innocent boy that he is. I may even let him live—long enough to see what he has done.”

“And what has he done?”

“Given me a reason to attack.”

“And this reason is?”

Barrax smiled wickedly. “Well now, that is something you need to ponder for a while. Suffice to say that I learned some very interesting things from my interview with Merryn. A remarkable woman, that.”

“Things that would benefit me to know?”

“Things that would benefit the army I command to know, of which yours is part.” A pause, then: “Oh, stop fretting, Lynnz. I’m not out to kill you or relieve you of your command. I’d never hear the end of it from my sister if I did.”

Lynnz shrugged. “You are my king. I can say nothing else.”

Barrax laughed—loudly and without restraint. “Perhaps not. For now, however, we need to spend some time discussing how far we can move how many men how fast.”

“You’re determined to do this thing?”

“I’m determined to investigate it thoroughly. The rest—I may have to modify the timetable for all sorts of ridiculous reasons, but I will tell you this, Lynnz. I may be a dreamer, but I’m no fool.”

I
’ve forgotten what green looks like,” Eddyn told Rrath, as the stumpy gelding he’d named Stamina labored up yet another snow-drenched hill. They were angling sideways, to keep the wind out of their faces and ease the slope a bit. As if it mattered.

Except that everything one did on the plains mattered, if it preserved one whit more warmth, strength, or determination. There’d been no snow for a day—for a change—and thank The Eight for the tents they’d had of the ghost priests, and for the horses the folk at Grinding-Hold kept.
Horse
, rather, because one of them was dead and buried in drifting snow, forcing the other unfortunate beast to bear double on those occasions Rrath and Eddyn both tired of walking. They tried to vary that task—taking turns on the horse and leading it when the going was especially rough, though both knew it cost them precious time to labor along in snow up to their waists, when both had skis. They moved slowly, but they moved. Every hand brought them closer to Tir-Eron. And decision.

“Remind me next time we start overland,” Rrath growled, from where he sat behind Eddyn on Stamina’s broad back, “and I’ll be sure to wear a suit of motley, so you won’t get bored.”

Eddyn ignored him, having grown tired of arguing
everything either of them did or said. Instead, he pondered the landscape: rolling hills covered with snow, dulled by a thunderous sky. A distant line of forest in gray-brown and midnight-blue, but not the dense foliage of the Wild. A ruined hold they’d decided wasn’t worth investigating. And, for the first time, a gauzy whiteness against those glowering clouds that he prayed was steam rising from Eron Gorge. By straining his vision, he thought he could make out the square finger of Eron Tower: the guard post that marked the western road. They’d come in from the northwest, splitting the distance between the two principal means of ingress into the most habitable—and inhabited—gorge in Eron. Better that way, Rrath said, than to risk being sighted.

Eddyn wasn’t certain he cared anymore. None of this was remotely real, nor had been for a while. It was all noble notions worn down to naught by the need for survival.