Storms of Destiny (65 page)

The King stood motionless for a long moment before stepping closer to the young warrior. Putting out a hand, he touched his face, then slid his hand down to lift his chin so their gazes could meet. The King stared deeply into Jezzil’s eyes for many moments.

Agivir finally spoke. “I see that you mean what you say, young warrior. What made you decide this?”

Jezzil drew a deep breath. “Part of it was seeing the world outside my own land, Your Majesty,” he replied. “I have seen the people that Kerezau has conquered, for no reason other than to expand his desire for power and land. Their lives are the worse for it.”

The Chonao glanced over at his companions. “But mostly I have come to realize that my people’s ways are wrong. In Ktavao, women are not friends or companions. They are possessions, valued for their beauty or their fertility, but not for themselves. Knowing Talis and Thia has taught me that my people are wrong to make chattel of women.”

“I see.” Agivir gazed down at the Chonao and suddenly, abruptly, nodded. “We accept your fealty, young Jezzil.

Rise.”

Jezzil stood up in one lithe movement. A smile flashed across his face but was gone almost before it could be seen.

“We face an impressive force of your former countrymen,” the King said. “Will you advise us on how best to counter their offensive during the coming attack?”

“I will, sire,” Jezzil said.

The King nodded. “Good. Of course, Salesin will not trust you, lad. But he is too canny a tactician to disregard your counsel, if he can tell it is based on experience. There will be—”

The King broke off as the door opened and Salesin rushed

in. Ulandra tensed, but her husband did not even look at her.

His sharp, piercing glance took in his brother, dismissed him, then focused on his father. “Sire, I was out inspecting the artillery fortifications in Ombal Pass when your messenger reached me. How fares the Queen?”

Agivir simply stared at him, then his haggard features sagged. Shaking his head wordlessly, he turned and left the salon. Eregard stepped forward. “Our mother is gone, brother. If only you …” He trailed off with a sigh. “Never mind. She understood that you had duties, I am sure. She knew what it was to be royal, better than anyone else.”

Salesin hesitated, and for a moment Ulandra thought he might embrace his brother. But he contented himself with a slap on Eregard’s shoulder that was surely meant to stagger the younger Prince. But Eregard stood firm. “Well spoken, little brother, well spoken. I shall raise a new chapel in her name.” He glanced over his shoulder at the others in the room, and again his gaze slid over Ulandra as though she did not exist at all.

“Who are these people, Eregard?”

“My friends, the companions who helped to rescue me from slavery and danger in Kata.” Eregard went on to make introductions. Ulandra was relieved to see Talis make a proper, formal bow, though she did not miss the tightness of her mouth and jaw as she did so.

“This is my friend, my comrade, Jezzil. He has left the Chonao homeland and sworn fealty to Pela, my brother,”

Eregard concluded. “The King has accepted his oath of service. I believe he could be of great help in planning the defense of our land against Kerezau’s forces.”

Salesin stared at Jezzil for a long moment, clearly taking his measure. Finally, he nodded. “Very well. Pela needs advisers familiar with Chonao tactics. Ride out with my brother tomorrow to familiarize yourself with the lay of the land and our force, then you may join us for the afternoon briefing, Jezzil.”

Jezzil bowed. “I shall, Your Highness. Thank you.”

Ulandra tensed again as Salesin headed toward her, but he walked straight past her, then paused at the door to the royal bedchamber and turned to regard Eregard. “Come, brother.

We have much to discuss.”

Eregard nodded, and looked at Ulandra questioningly.

She answered his look, saying, “Do not concern yourself, Your Highness. I shall see to our honored guests.”

Eregard nodded, a look of relief in his eyes, then followed his brother into the chamber where their mother lay, still and pale in death.

The next day, as promised, Eregard took Jezzil to inspect the royal armory and the parade grounds where the Pelanese infantry and cavalry were drilling. Then they saddled their horses and made the two hour ride up to Ombal Pass, passing contingents of soldiers transporting cannon on caissons, ammunition wagons, and squads of army engineers. When they reached the pass, they found that the battle line had already been established. Engineers were overseeing crews busily digging trenches and preparing gun emplacements.

At all times, Jezzil and Eregard were accompanied by five taciturn Pelanese guardsmen. They’d been introduced to the Chonao as Prince Eregard’s bodyguards, but Jezzil knew they were there to watch him as much as the Prince. Salesin was no fool. He would take no chances that Jezzil’s defec-tion from the Chonao forces was not genuine.

When they reached the pass, they rode to the front of the battle line. The Pelanese had the high ground. Eregard and Jezzil halted their horses on a small raised hillock just to the left of the road that ran through the pass.

Ombal Pass spread out before them as they sat there, gazing at the lay of the land. The guardsmen, at a gesture from Eregard, lagged back a few horse lengths to allow them to speak privately.

Jezzil dropped Falar’s reins on her neck. “Stand, lady.”

A good place to defend,
Jezzil decided, assessing the terrain through the eyes of a warrior. Ombal Pass was narrow, less than a league across. The ground was mostly upland grasses, broken by gray thrusts of jagged rock outcrops and stone shelves. The road they had followed up from Minoma stretched before them, cutting a broad swath through the tall green sward. Falar, scenting the breeze, stretched out her neck and snorted, begging to run. “Hush now,” Jezzil said in his own language. “There will be another day to run.”

He gazed from side to side, estimating that a man afoot could cross the width of the pass in less than an hour. On both sides, rolling foothills led up to bare black mountains and then to jagged gray peaks, their crowns of snow mostly melted in the summer Sun. Ombal Pass was nearly feature-less, save for the road before him. As he peered into the distance, he saw a timeworn stone building. He pointed.

“What’s that?”

“It’s an ancient traveler’s shrine,” Eregard said. “Used to be an abbey, hundreds of years ago. Now all of that is in ruins, and just the shrine is left.”

Jezzil assessed the building, then dismissed it as of no tactical importance. It was too far away from where the Pelanese lines were being established to be significant.

Turning in his saddle, he squinted into the distance at what appeared to be a depression. Brighter green vegetation marked the line of it.
A ravine or gully? How deep?
he wondered.
That might provide cover for an incursion.

“What do you think?” Eregard asked. Beneath him, his black gelding began to paw at the grass, wanting to graze.

“Stop that!”

“I think this is a good place for defense,” Jezzil said.

“How many troops will you be able to field?”

“Probably three brigades of five thousand troops each,”

Eregard said. “Salesin usually prefers to take the right brigade, Adranan is likely to be assigned the left, and, tradi-tionally, the King will take the middle. But I’ve been talking to my father about putting General His Lordship Osmando-Volon in command of the center, while he stays back at the command center. I think I have him convinced that he’s too precious to troop morale to risk. But the truth is, he’s just too old and frail for true battle.”

Jezzil nodded agreement. “What about you?”

“I’ll fight,” Eregard said grimly. “I’ll ride with General Osmando.”

Jezzil had to respect the courage that vow took. Eregard was better than he had been, but he was far from being a good shot or swordsman. Still, it was the Prince’s duty, and he could not argue with that. He changed the subject.

“What about that ravine over there? Can we take a closer look at it?”

“Surely,” Eregard said. “It’s too deep and rough for troops to climb, though.”

They jogged the horses the mile or so to the ravine. Once there, they dismounted, leaving the guardsmen to hold Eregard’s horse. Falar, trained to stand, watched them curiously as they walked over to the edge.

Jezzil stood looking into the ravine. It was fairly deep and quite narrow, scarcely more than half a musket shot across.

As he peered over the edge, he could see the blue thread of a stream at the bottom. The sides, as Eregard had said, were steep and rocky, studded with clumps of tough grass and twisted scrub oak. “See? I told you,” Eregard said. “Too steep to climb.”

“I could climb it,” Jezzil said absently.

Eregard gave him a look, half amused, half exasperated.

“Oh, of that I have no doubt. You could probably turn invisible and
fly
up it, with all the wizard tricks Khith has been teaching you.”

Jezzil felt his face grow warm. “I didn’t mean it like that.

And I certainly can’t fly.” Abruptly, he grinned, seeing the humor in it. “If I could, that would make things much easier, wouldn’t it?”

Eregard chuckled. “Without a doubt.” He looked back down at the precarious slope. “Well, I suppose I could climb it, too, given enough time and maybe some rope. But there’s no way it could be used to mount a flank attack.”

“I don’t know about that,” Jezzil said, serious once more.

“If you used knotted lanyard attached to embedded stakes to make guide ropes, and cut away the brush blocking the secure footholds, well …” He shrugged. “The Pen Jav Dal specialize in this kind of operation. When I was in the seminary, we were taught to scale fortress walls, rock cliffs, ice cliffs, and forest giants.” Squatting down, he tossed a fist-sized rock over the side. They could barely hear the splash it made. “How far does this ravine run?”

Eregard looked west, toward Minoma. “In this direction, not too much farther. It gets shallower and shallower as it runs downhill, until there’s just the stream left. The stream joins into the Min River, which empties into the sea, north of Minoma.”

“And heading east?”

“It runs all the way up into the mountains, where it becomes a deep gorge,” Eregard pointed to the mountains before them.

“Parallel to where the Chonao lines will be,” Jezzil said.

“I suppose so,” Eregard said. “But the higher it gets, the deeper. Where it begins in the mountains it’s called Carsini Gorge. My father named it after old Duke Carsini, who commanded the Royal Fleet for decades. There’s a big wa-terfall at its head, though it mostly dries up in summer.”

Jezzil stood up, gazing at the northern mountains. “This gorge … it can’t be crossed?”

“Not unless you’re a goat,” Eregard said.

Behind them one of the horses snorted. Jezzil turned back to Falar. “I’ve seen what I needed to see. Let’s look at the other side.”

They rode back to their vantage point in the middle of the pass, near the road.

“If there’s no crossing Carsini Gorge, then the mountains on the northern side of the pass are blocked,” Jezzil said.

“What about to the south?” He turned in his saddle to look to

his right. Falar shifted her weight beneath him, pawed restlessly for a moment, then quieted when he spoke a soft order.

“There are trails all through those southern foothills that run parallel to the pass,” Eregard said. “Shepherds use the alpine fields for summer grazing, and some of the farmers terrace the land up there to grow ruta roots. Lots of trails.

Most of them join together, eventually, and run down, past this point, where they come out of the forest into the western part of the pass”—Eregard turned around to point—“almost a mile back that way.”

Jezzil nodded thoughtfully. “Noted. Could be a problem.”

As they turned to ride back to Minoma, Eregard said, “Did anyone mention to you that there is to be a welcome home feast in my honor tonight?”

“Princess Ulandra told us about it this morning when we broke our fast with her,” Jezzil replied. “She said you were with your father.”

“Yes. Well, it won’t be very festive, because we’re all in mourning, but you should plan to attend,” Eregard said.

“Pelanese chefs are rightly famous the world over.”

“I will be there,” Jezzil said.

They rode in silence for a while, then Jezzil spoke again.

“Eregard, when last we spoke, the night before the
Pride
was taken, you said you were going to ask Thia to marry you. Did you?”

He’d been watching Thia for days now, on the
Sea Eagle
and here in Pela, but she hadn’t seemed to act any different toward the Prince. And surely she would have if she’d agreed to be his wife, wouldn’t she? On the other hand, Jezzil had been shocked to discover that Thia had acting talents he’d never expected. Her “performance” before Barus had been memorable.

He turned in his saddle, watching Eregard, waiting for his answer, and realized he was holding his breath. He forced himself to exhale.