‘The old boundary!’
‘Yes,’ said Patrick. ‘We take back Shamata!’ His yell caused his horse to turn completely around. ‘You think on this as you ride south, and you’d better be moving that way at dawn, else I’ll turn my army south and start marching that way myself, rain or no rain! Do you understand?’
The General glanced over his shoulder and saw the red light in the sky. ‘I understand, Highness.’
‘Good!’
Patrick turned his horse and rode off, Erik and Greylock at his side.
Pug waited as the Keshians returned the way they came, and Patrick rode off. When only the two of them remained in the street, Pug on his horse and Nakor at his side, Pug asked, ‘Nakor, what did you promise Chalmes and the others to get them to pull that stunt?’
Nakor smiled. ‘I gave them Stardock.’
‘You what?’ asked Pug.
Nakor said, ‘Well, you told me to think of something.’
Pug asked softly, ‘You gave away my duchy?’
‘I had to. Independence from both the Kingdom and Kesh was the only thing I could think of that they’d fight for. And the Tsurani like having a neutral way into Midkemia, too. Which is why they helped.
‘Either way, though, you lose Stardock, to the magicians or to the Empire. This way is better, I think.’
‘But you gave away a duchy! What am I going to tell the King?’
Nakor shrugged. ‘You’ll think of something.’ He grinned.
EPILOGUE - Consequences
Fadawah frowned.
He looked at the maps his aides had provided and said, ‘What is the situation here, Kahil?’
‘It is the city called Ylith,’ said the captain who had been charged with gathering intelligence. ‘It is a major seaport and the only sea entrance into the province of Yabon. It is relatively untouched, and most of its garrison was already sent south to defend Darkmoor. There is only a small force there as well as a few ships. There is another garrison in Zun, as well as in Loriel and Yabon.’ He indicated the different locations on the map. ‘However, if we can seize and hold Ylith until spring, those garrisons should be easy to destroy.’
Outside, his regrouped army was settling in around the town of Questor’s View. They had overrun the town in under a day’s fighting, as it had been defended by less than one company of regular soldiers and a half-company of militia.
Fadawah nodded. ‘Good. We will take Ylith.’
Twenty thousand men had made their way up the coast, after Fadawah had judged the situation hopeless at Darkmoor. As soon as he had seen the disposition of the men when he had come out from under the demon’s trance he knew that even if they took Darkmoor, they would possess a useless mountain of stone and dead bodies.
The reports that had followed him along his retreat, about the sudden snows and the arrival of another army from the east, only made him all the more certain they had been on a fool’s errand, attempting to drive across the mountains, to seize a city reported to be abandoned. He had briefly wondered at the sanity of the demon, but given what had happened since, he said a prayer each night to Kalkin, thanking the god of gamblers for blessing him. How he had survived when so many others had been destroyed by the Emerald Queen or the demon was beyond him.
But now he had more immediate needs. His army was a long way from home and hungry. The good news was that as he traveled north the lands were more abundant, and his men were starting to eat well again. He said to Kahil, ‘Word is to be sent south that any of those who managed to get away from Darkmoor could come to Ylith, to winter there.’
‘Very well, General,’ said the intelligence officer, who saluted and left the tent.
Fadawah also knew the Saaur were out there somewhere, and he was concerned. If he could speak to Jatuk he might convince the leader of the lizard people that he was also a dupe, a tool used and almost discarded, but if he failed that, the angry lizard would seek someone upon whom to vent his rage. As the highest remaining officer of the Emerald Queen’s Army, Fadawah was a logical choice.
Fadawah sat back on the small stool in his tent. He had been cast upon a distant shore by a capricious fate, but it was his nature to turn an advantage wherever he might. That was why he had become the most successful general in Novindus, rising from mercenary captain in the Eastlands, to Military Overlord of the Emerald Queen.
His senior captain, Nordan, said, ‘What will we do once we’ve taken this Ylith, General?’
Fadawah said, ‘We’ve paid in blood for other people’s greed and ambition, my old friend.’ He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. ‘Now we serve our own.’
He smiled at his old companion. His thin face looked especially sinister in the faint light from the small lantern that hung from the tent pole. ‘How would you like to be General of our armies?’
Nordan said, ‘But if I become General, what about you?’