Wedged between lake and sea, the fields and orchards of the villages surrounding the city appear to have been infested with locusts: the swarming mass of the allied East Saroese and Saro-Urok armies. They’ve filled in the canal outside the walls so they can pull catapults up within range of the population inside. A command camp flies both hawk and peacock banners as well as the gold sea-phoenix banner that shows Nikonos is alive and determined to be king even if it means destroying the city he would rule over. He’s set up on the west side of the city because there are four gates on this side as opposed to a single gate on the less vulnerable eastern wall.
With the gates shut tight, it’s hard to see inside the city, but that’s not where the action is right now. The enemy army is on the move. Horses hitched to catapults are dragging them away from the walls as units re-form into a position facing west. Haze rims the western horizon, and a restless vibration stirs on the edge of my hearing like the rumble of drums.
“That haze is the dust kicked up by an approaching army,” I say.
“Very good, Spider.”
“It must be Garon Palace and their West Saroese allies. Do they know you’re here?”
“Of course they know. We’re sending them reports. They just don’t know that I am actually fighting for the Efeans.”
“Why isn’t the enemy using this hill for reconnaissance?”
“They are. We’ve set up a decoy post over the crest of the hill, to our left. The soldiers wearing the sea-phoenix tabards are working for us but Nikonos thinks they’re loyal to him.”
“So you are supplying both Nikonos and Gargaron with information.”
“Yes. Some of it is false, and all of it tells them only what we want them to know.”
“And neither army suspects?”
“How can they suspect when none of them believe Efeans are capable of rebellion? Much less that a highborn man like me would throw in his lot with a people they look down on?” He cocks his head to one side and, crossing his arms, smiles cuttingly. “So far you haven’t told me anything I haven’t already anticipated, Spider. You need to do better.”
Then he nods at Mahu, person to person, a gesture between equals, and Mahu nods back. “Sergeant Missenshe, you and Trooper Spider may retire to the camp. Nothing will happen until morning.”
“And then what will happen?” I ask, because I need to know and also I’m annoyed that Thynos beat me in even this trifling contest.
“A battle.”
“What if the East Saroese and Nikonos defeat the Garon alliance?”
“Who wins tomorrow doesn’t matter. What matters is that the winner of their conflict be so weakened by the battle that it leaves us as the only healthy adversary on the court.”
Before dawn I climb on foot with the other observers to our hidden overlook on the rim of the crater. As the sun rises the armies begin moving ponderously into place. The army of the old Saro alliance under the command of Nikonos is huge, but they are caught between the smaller Garon alliance and the city walls. Therefore they have to keep two front lines intact. A mass of pikemen and archers face Saryenia’s walls in case of a sortie from the gates. The other line, the bulk of Nikonos’s infantry and cavalry, confronts the approaching Garon and West Saroese forces.
The Shipwrights have tubes that they say aren’t magic, but when I hold one up to my eye I exclaim and almost drop it, for my vision leaps a vast distance. Through the tube I see the faces of men so closely I can identify their features, but when I lower the tube they appear as tiny, indistinct figures.
“Is a bird trapped inside, that we can see through its eyes like a crow priest?”
“No. It uses a glass lens to magnify.” Thynos has his own tube, which he uses to keep track of the enemy movements.
When I raise it a second time to my eye, the shift in perspective doesn’t shock me. I search for and find Prince Nikonos at the center of the East Saroese command company. He wears the gold-and-purple tabard of the king of Efea although he’s not yet put on his helmet.
“Let me see,” says Mis.
“How much longer must we wait?” I ask Thynos as she peers through it.
“Once the two armies have settled into position on the field they’ll blow horns, shout insults, and move units around behind the main lines. That’s how every battle in the Oyia campaign started.”
“Is that where you met Inarsis?”
He smiles to himself like a man in love and abruptly several pieces of his and Inarsis’s story make sense to me. However, he doesn’t answer my question. “The Garon alliance is grossly outnumbered. I can’t figure out what General Esladas means to do from inside the walls.”
“What’s that?” Mis points toward the city.
A flight of birds rises from the walls of Saryenia, followed by a second flight and then a third, as if every songbird and pigeon inside the city has been released at the same time.
Horns blare from the Garon alliance. A thunderous crash of drums arises as its army starts lumbering toward the East Saroese line. The East Saroese wave banners and, with cheers, push forward to meet them.
“What are they doing?” Thynos cries. “It’s too soon! Without support, Garon will be crushed.”
The Shipwright officers surrounding him look alarmed by this reckless act.
“The birds are a signal,” I say as I look back toward Saryenia. “My father must be communicating with Lord Gargaron by crow priests and messenger pigeons.”
All four western gates swing open without a horn call or a drumroll of warning. Horsemen pour out, but the East Saroese have prepared for an attack from the city by deploying companies of pikemen in the line facing the city. Horses won’t charge a solid line of pikes.
Thynos says to his companions, “If the East Saroese rout them, we don’t want to get caught in the slaughter afterward. Prepare to retreat.”
“Wait,” I say. “My father must have a plan.”
The cavalry units sweep a wide circle across the fields, not yet closing with the enemy line. They leave space for the second wave to emerge from the city: spider scouts. The heavy spiders stump forward, picking up speed as they cross the empty ground toward the enemy. A first volley of arrows loosed from the East Saroese line bounces harmlessly off their carapaces. There’s something exhilarating about watching experienced spider scouts gain speed and cohesion as they turn into a headlong charge and crash into the front line of pikemen.
The sudden carnage of spider blades sweeping through the enemy does not prepare me for what comes next.
The horsemen converge, taking arrow-shot along their flank as they gallop at the East Saroese line at an angle. The force with which the cavalry charge hits shatters the already damaged East Saro line. And they keep going, deep, like a spearhead plunging into a body.
“Good Goat!” Tube held to an eye, Thynos follows the track of the charge. “Does he have a death wish?”
That’s when I see a person wearing a feathered lion helmet and a gold-and-purple tabard that’s exactly the same as the one Nikonos wears riding in the midst of the cavalry. He’s part of a wedge that’s cutting into the East Saroese center, protected by a screen of riders on every side. I snatch the tube out of Mis’s hands and put it to my own eye.
Of course it is Kal. Who else could it be?
Now I see Father’s plan. On the western, outer side of their formation, East Saroese troops face the main Garon army, and the two armies engage amid a clamor of drums and horns and the screaming of men and horses. Meanwhile, from Saryenia, Kal and his cavalry are charging straight for the banners of the command company.