‘Tell me,’ Brasti said, and he crouched on the floor and started taking the arrows out of his quiver. He laid them on the ground, then reached inside his coat for a small, sharp knife. ‘Tell me their names,’ he said, and as they did, he set about carving those names into his arrows.
We stayed there for another two hours, pausing only to call for more arrows, and when he was done, forty-six shafts bore the names of some village boy or girl or spouse or parent. It was impossible to hope each one would find a target, but Brasti just stood up and said, ‘Rest easy tonight, for tomorrow every one of these arrows will fly across that field, and if each one of the Avareans they strike learns only one word of our language, it will be the name you sent them.’
A lot of the wounded died that night. It would be too much to hope that this strange ritual Brasti had devised would take the pain from their passing, but for some at least, it did give solace. Brasti may never become a Saint, but for those few hours, he was theirs.
*
I got back to my tent exhausted beyond measure and desperate for whatever sleep remained to me, but I’d only just removed my coat and unslung my rapiers when Kest appeared.
‘Can it wait until morning?’ I asked.
‘I’m afraid not. We got word a couple of hours ago: a contingent of soldiers is coming from the south. They’ll be here soon.’
‘Any idea who’s leading them?’
‘Rhetan,’ Kest said, then added, ‘Duke of Baern, apparently. It seems Ossia has abdicated.’
‘A death sentence will do that to you.’ I sighed, put my coat and sword belt back on, then checked to ensure the cold hadn’t frozen the blades in their scabbards. ‘I don’t suppose the new Duke has given any indication as to whether he intends to die alongside us or hasten our deaths in exchange for some heretofore unknown favour from Avares?’
‘It’s Rhetan,’ Kest reminded me, holding the tent flap open for me. ‘I imagine that’s up for negotiation.’
*
‘You’re rather late, your Grace,’ I said, walking up to Rhetan who stood warming his hands by the fire. Several sturdy looking men I assumed to be his lieutenants stood close by.
The new Duke of Baern surveyed the darkened field ahead of us. ‘Oh, I expect we’re here in plenty of time for our share of the bloodshed. Besides, I didn’t want to overtire my soldiers by forcing too fast a march. It’s as I’ve told you before: patience in all things.’ When he caught my gaze, he must have seen my suspicion there. ‘We’ll fight with you, Falcio, to whatever end awaits us all.’
‘I must confess, I was wondering if Baern might perhaps—’
‘Secede? Like Domaris and Pulnam?’ He reached up to scratch at the sparse beard he must have started growing on the way here. ‘I’ll admit I did give it some consideration. However, it appears that I have little choice in the matter.’
He gestured behind us, to a woman only now dismounting from her horse. I almost didn’t recognise the Lady Mareina at first; she was no longer the beaten-up, emaciated woman I’d first encountered some months ago. Now she looked . . . well, she looked very like her sister Cestina, but what I saw in her eyes was something different entirely. Rhetan shook his head at the sight of her. ‘This Damina you foisted upon me? She had the gall to threaten that should Baern secede from Tristia, then the newly minted Condate of Revancia would secede from Baern. Worse, she somehow managed to convince two Viscounts and a Margrave to go along with her. It appears that conspiracy and sedition runs thick in her family’s blood.’
Mareina gave me the barest nod in acknowledgment before walking right past me. I turned to see her destination and found her embracing Chalmers. ‘Three hundred soldiers,’ Rhetan said a little bitterly as he clapped me on the shoulder. ‘That’s what your little Greatcoat’s reckless determination to rescue a stranger has bought you.’
I watched as Chalmers and the Lady Mareina talked for a few minutes, then suddenly burst into laughter, and I wondered what they were discussing, and what bond had formed between them in those moments aboard Margrave Evidalle’s wedding barge.
‘Eh?’ Rhetan asked. ‘What was that you just said?’
I hadn’t realised I’d spoken aloud, so it took me a moment to remember. ‘Forgive me, your Grace. I believe I said, “Fuck anyone who ever doubts the purpose of daring acts of heroism”.’
*
Rhetan wasn’t the only nobleman to arrive that night. He’d met up with Pastien, Ducal Protector of Luth, on the road, bringing nearly a hundred and fifty of his own soldiers with him. We now had roughly four hundred more soldiers than we’d started with.
On the other hand, we also had Pastien.
The boy was kneeling in front of Valiana when I found him, ignoring Feltock entirely. ‘What little I have . . .’ Pastien – I suppose he was simply ‘Lord Pastien’ at that point, since the title of Ducal Protector had been stripped from him; all he had left was some pathetically small Condate with half a dozen villages and a town barely big enough to earn the name. ‘What strength the Condate of Guillard has to offer is yours, Realm’s Protector.’
Kick him in the face. Please, if some small part of you still considers yourself my daughter, just kick him in the face, just once, for your old Da.
She reached a hand down and bid him to rise. ‘If Tristia is to survive, it will not be on the might of our numbers but on the strength of our hearts. Thank you, Lord Pastien. You and your soldiers are most welcome indeed.’
The boy’s face brightened, then went a little red. He spoke more quietly when he said, ‘Valiana, I . . . I also hope that this action on my part might persuade you to once again allow me to come to you, for you to teach me how to make you mine once ag—’
Rolling her eyes, she cut him off. ‘Oh, for the sake of Gods alive and dead, Pastien, are you entirely incapable of doing anything because it’s what you believe in, rather than some coin to exchange for that which you could not earn yourself?’ Before he could reply, she leaned in close, and spoke so quietly I doubt anyone but Pastien and I could hear her. ‘And if you ever, ever try to “make me yours” again, the only thing I will “teach” you is the first rule of the sword.’
Now that’s my girl.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
The Inevitable
If our first day of battle had brought us good fortune, the second looked – for a while, at least – like a miracle. The addition of Rhetan and Pastien’s troops had ignited fresh enthusiasm in our existing forces and had enabled Feltock to adjust his positions to good effect. For every one of ours who fell that morning, the enemy lost nearly three.
But war is a game of numbers, and ours were far too small.
‘They’ve altered their tactics,’ Kest shouted as we rode away from the enemy flank with the rest of the Greatcoats and Sir Elizar’s Knights. For the third time they’d repelled our charge. ‘The Avarean commanders have found a way to communicate their orders without interference from the Bardatti warsong.’