It was Etna Doshi who broke the silence at last. “You wanna clarify that?” she asked.
“I am aware that you plan on sending an army to Castia,” said Lastleaf. “I am telling you to reconsider.”
“Requesting, you mean.” This from Obolon Han, who had not so casually placed the palm of one hand on the pommel of his sabre.
Clay saw Gabriel steal a nervous glance toward Matrick’s back. Matty had explained on the way here that the courts were, in fact, marshalling an army with the aim of liberating Castia, or at least eradicating whatever monsters inhabited the city by the time it arrived. Endland was a fair and fertile land, shielded from the Heartwyld by a range of daunting mountains. The Castian Republic, which had been founded by the fleeing remnants of Grandual’s short-lived Empire, had thrived there for more than three hundred years. Several prominent members of Castia’s ruling senate had fled their city and found asylum in Fivecourt before the siege began. They had promised great rewards to whichever of Grandual’s monarchs delivered their city from the Horde’s clutches.
“Think of the cost,” said Lastleaf, “to equip this army of yours, to feed them, to pay them wages worth facing a Horde for. The Heartwyld, even by the straightest path, is more than a thousand miles across. And beyond the forest lies the Emperor’s Mantle.”
A modest name for a wall of ice-clad stone infested with as many horrible creatures as the forest it borders, Clay mused.
“It will take several months for an army to reach Castia. How many soldiers will you lose along the way? The woods remain home to terrible things—things even I dare not approach. How many of your people will fall prey to the flesheater tribes, or to the hungry mouths of the trees themselves? How many will succumb to the rot, I wonder?”
Moog stirred at that. He glanced sidelong at Matrick, who they hadn’t yet told of the wizard’s condition. Condition, of course, being a gracious term for inevitable and exquisitely painful death.
“By the time your army reaches Endland, weary and depleted, Castia will have fallen. My Horde, whose size even now would beggar your imagination, will have grown larger still, swollen with scavengers come to feast on the city’s corpse. If you challenge us, you will not win. I defeated the Republic’s army, bolstered though it was by a legion of your famed mercenaries, and I would defeat you as well. Next time, however, there will be no more walls to hide behind, nowhere to run. If you face me on the battlefield, you risk annihilation.”
The sun had dropped behind the druin, throwing his shadow like a spear through the heart of the assembled delegates. There was a cold bite to the wind now. The Agrian guardsmen were growing visibly anxious, and Clay abruptly remembered what Matrick had said earlier about the wights that flocked to the Isle after dark.
“How many could each of you send? Five thousand? Ten? Even still, it will not be enough.”
That may be true, Clay thought. The Heartwyld Horde might lack the cohesion of a professional army, but it was rumoured to be a hundred thousand strong. By the time Grandual’s forces reached Endland they would be tired and footsore, battered from the months-long trek across the forest, over the mountains. They would be outnumbered, he knew, and likely outmatched. Common soldiers—even the rugged warriors of Kaskar—weren’t the same breed as mercenaries. Mercs spent their whole careers hunting and killing monsters. A soldier’s life, especially since the courts had been at peace for decades, consisted primarily of marching, standing, sleeping, and occasionally throwing dice or playing cards against other soldiers who weren’t busy marching, standing, or sleeping.
A court soldier might know one end of a sword from the other—hells, there may even be a few handy fighters among them—but they weren’t likely to know that a cockatrice’s gaze could turn flesh to stone, or that bugbears, for whatever reason, couldn’t see the colour yellow. Knowledge like that could be exploited. It could save your life. No, Clay reasoned, pitting regular troops against a Heartwyld Horde was likely to result in disaster, as it had for the Republic.
The council knew this, and so did Lastleaf.
“All those precious lives,” he said blithely, “will vanish, like smoke. Who among you can afford to lose so many soldiers?”
“It tastes like a mouthful of seawater,” said Etna Doshi, “but the ‘Duke’ here has a point. Castia may be far from here, but it’s a damn sight farther from Aldea. My queen won’t likely see the sense in sending so many west with little to no chance they’d ever come back.”
Clay saw Gabriel flinch as though struck.
Matrick, his hands balled into fists, whirled on her. “We can’t just let all those people die!”
“Of course we can,” snapped Lilith. “Be practical, Matrick.”
“I’m with the king on this,” said Maladan Pike. “A lot of good mercs went west. I’m not of a mind to give up on them. And besides, any one of my warriors is worth ten bloody goblins. A hundred, even. I’d bet my horse on it.”
At the rate the man wagered horses, Clay was surprised the First Shield had found a mount to carry him to Lindmoor.
The High Han was shaking his head at Matrick. “It hurts like a horse’s cock to say it, but I stand with Old King Matrick as well. If Agria goes west, Cartea rides with ’em.”
Lastleaf turned on Maladan Pike, a sneer pulling at his mouth. “And who will remain to defend the north should the yethiks emerge in force from their winter caves?” The First Shield glowered, and looked poised to voice an angry retort, but the druin wheeled on Doshi first. “Who will be left to guard your coasts if saig raiders storm ashore by the thousand? Who will keep the serpent kin from despoiling your precious oases and cutting off trade with the north?” he asked the Narmeeri ministers, who began clucking to one another behind raised, ring-adorned hands.
These aren’t probabilities, Clay thought, they’re threats. His gaze roved among the assembled delegates, who were wringing their hands and muttering worriedly.
Lastleaf said to Matrick, “Your borders are plagued by centaurs, yes? Stealing children, killing farmers here and there? Let us hope they do not grow emboldened while your soldiers are away in the west. They might start wiping out whole villages, putting entire towns on the spit.” At last he looked to Obolon Han.
“Oh, fuck off,” said the Cartean. “I get it. We attack you, you attack us. I can see the clouds without you telling me rain is on the way.”
“And if we leave you alone?” inquired Lilith, no longer content to use Matrick as her mouthpiece. “If we shun the Republic and abandon Castia?”
Another grin from Lastleaf, autumnal this time—all light and no warmth.
He has what he came here for, Clay thought. Compliance. Capitulation.
“Then the distant Republic becomes the Duchy of Endland,” the druin explained, almost cheerfully. “And perhaps, someday, an ally to the courts of Grandual—”
“You can’t be serious!”
All eyes turned to Gabriel, but none quicker than Lastleaf’s, whose gaze flooded with hateful recognition. “You!” he hissed, ears trembling with rage, his mask of civility shattering in an instant. He didn’t reach for a sword—not yet—but Clay didn’t need a druin’s prescience to see violence brewing.
Even so, what happened next surprised him.
Sensing an opportunity, Obolon Han surged forward, bare sabre bloodied by the setting sun. Lastleaf, his focus nailed to Gabriel, didn’t see the Cartean coming until it was too late, and even then he’d barely begun to turn when the Han’s sword came chopping down—