Forest For The Trees (Book 3) (43 page)

“What are you talking about?  More buttons?”

“No.”  Dietrik deftly spun the paper through the air,
which came out of its spiral to land five inches from Marik’s hand.  “Have you
chaps been talking much about the Nolier conflict in your little tent?”

“The only time we mention it is to curse about how
Tybalt’s forces short-supplied us on every piece of equipment we need.  Except
Gibbon, anyway.  When we left, Raymond’s top diplomat was still running the
talks.  She said we might be able to settle it without bloodshed this time as
long as no actual fighting had broken out yet.”

“In that light, I would say the second war with Nolier
has officially started, then.  Before you read that, I would draw your
attention to the name contained in the paragraph third from the last.  Of all
the self-grandiose nobles who chose to serve with the army for the prestige of
it, I believe you can safely guess who would be most likely to add the final
spark to a war in the making.”

With a buildup like that, Marik already knew whose
name must be written in the dispatch.  Balfourth Dornory, but referred to by
his honorary military rank.  Under-Captain Dornory.

Army dispatches were dispassionate.  None contained
the euphoria or vitriolic rage of the participants involved.  This one came
damned close to crossing the line.

Knowing Balfourth as he did, Marik could read the
words and interpret them easily, seeing the truth of what had happened across
the kingdom on the Nolier border.  Such words as ‘
faith in the capabilities
of his men
’ meant that Balfourth was being Balfourth; a stone idiot who
refused to listen to any words of wisdom, preferring instead the heroic legend
he was writing inside his head.

“So,” Marik summarized after several moments reading,
“he ignored the scouts who warned him about the Nolier presence inside his
patrol range.  He pushed on through the Green Reaches to the Tenpencia River
according to the original plan made eightdays earlier.  When he found a squad
of Nolier horsemen watering their animals, instead of backing off, like he
should have done since war hasn’t been officially declared yet, he decided to
‘make Galemar’s sovereign might known on its own soil’.”

“We’ve always known him for the fool he is,” Dietrik
agreed, “but this must be a new plateau.  Over half his men killed, every
Nolier soldier on the Tenpencia’s western shore springing from wary caution to
outright hostility, and two of the old depots razed before the top officer
could organize a suitable defense.”

Marik sent the dispatch zipping over the grass in the
direction Dietrik’s had landed.  “The nobility has waved their hand at numerous
idiotic acts from their own that they would never tolerate from the lower
classes.  Except this one puts too many weights on the scales.  If they let
That Moron traipse away lightly after this, I’ll lose what shreds of respect I
have left for them.  At least he can’t foist the blame off onto us this time.”

“I expect we’ll be receiving word to finish our ‘minor
skirmishes’ quickly as possible.  You would be hard pressed to find enough
people to fill a room who believe the Arronaths are as serious a threat as
Nolier.  They will want us hoofing it across Galemar to join the
real
fight soon.”

“That might change faster than you’d believe,” Marik
muttered.  “Celerity got in touch through that mirror of hers earlier. 
Tomorrow morning we’re returning to Drakesfield because their floating mountain
is going to come around the Stoneseams and try to cross the border.”

*        *        *        *        *

Returning to Drakesfield’s ruins only required two
days of easy marching.  They had never possessed enough mounts for everyone to
ride, leaving the Crimson Kings mostly afoot along with the free mercenaries. 
What horses the Kings had brought all went to the first four squads.

Those squads were the ones who usually drew the horses
from the sunken corral beside the town.  Their contracts tended to take them
far and wide.  Torrance, no doubt, had assigned the mounts to them for this
campaign in sympathy for the fact that the specialist squads always claimed the
highest casualty rate.

Marik’s mind spun the entire distance.  He kept
reviewing his plan for dealing with the airborne Citadel.  In Thoenar, within
the comfortable perception that wiser heads than his would discard his
ludicrous ideas and that other people would run the efforts to repel the
Arronaths, his conclusions had sounded solid enough.

After the journey south, stopping to battle every
black soldier detachment along the way, his confidence was shaken.

Every night he asked himself the same question.  Were
his notions based on genuine logic, or had his ego swollen as it had before?  A
serious mistake this time would cost more than a melted sword and a
reconstructed face.

Three days passed after attaining the broken town. 
Celerity contacted him with increasing frequency.  Most of the enclave’s mages
had gone east with Tybalt.  She had called on her own military rank and clout
with Raymond to stay behind at the palace with her two most capable scryers. 
They watched the Citadel to the best of their abilities whenever it traveled
through an area they could scrye.

Their ability to scrye inside Galemar was no better
than across the mountains.  They were limited to whatever soil samples were in
storage.  Since catalysts for scrying had only been collected from the larger
towns in any given area, Celerity could only guess at what the Arronaths were
about once they moved beyond those limited points.  Most of the base camps were
nowhere that the mirrors could find.

Marik relied on his scouts.  Second and Third Squads
scattered, ranging half a day’s ride from Drakesfield.  They brought back news
the day before the Citadel would arrive.  The Arronaths were coming north in
numbers enough to be worrisome.

His miniature army outnumbered the approaching
soldiers only by roughly thirty percent.  Very few Taurs had been spotted.  A
small comfort.

Clearly the enemy knew that their mobile fortress
would be arriving.  Did they come in hopes of entering it?  To reinforce it? 
To re-supply?  To draw additional men?  To retrieve fresh Taur herds?

The debate raged in the small command tent.  As Marik
saw it, there were only two viable scenarios.  Either the Arronaths intended to
fight their way through to reach their Citadel, which meant a major battle on
the southern flanks, or else the Citadel would put forces to ground in order to
attack the Galemarans in a pincer.  Neither Gibbon nor Torrance could agree
which was the most likely.

Marik agonized over the decision.  Should he place the
majority of his forces in position to combat the southern enemy formation? 
Should he split his men to deal with a battle on two fronts?

Torrance’s words echoed through his mind late in the
afternoon.  It was an outcome that could develop either way.  Fifty-fifty. 
They could not predict which scenario had the highest odds, therefore it would
be best to make a decision that might prove only half-effective rather than be
paralyzed by the indecision.  An incensed Gibbon nearly blew the tent’s canvas
away with his shouts when Marik rolled a pair of dice across the map to decide
which course to take.

The pips showed a three and a six.  Odd roll up. 
Marik accepted Fate’s say on the matter and split his men to face attacks from
the south and west.

Marik stopped by the Ninth Squad long enough to speak
with Dietrik about the plans and leave his pack with his friend.  He would only
need his swords until after the battle.

Torrance and Gibbon shared a joint command.  Gibbon
would oversee the southern battle using the strike-and-run tactics Marik had
lain out, tactics that hearkened back to his first battles as a mercenary
against Baron Fielo’s rover patrols.  Marik had altered the details so that
each strike required extra time but also yielded better results.  The attacks
were far better focused than the rovers’ random bow fire.

Commanding the western front if the battle required it
would be Torrance, who needed no careful instructions as far as Marik was
concerned.  The commander might be the most experienced combat leader in the
kingdom.  He could certainly oversee a battle with quick, effective decisions
until Marik returned.

*        *        *        *        *

Marik gazed upon his mage corps.  For the first time
he could say with certainty that his patron god Ercsilon had bestowed a
blessing upon him.  Tollaf had been left in Kingshome, buried in research that
Celerity had requested he oversee before the band originally left for their
mid-winter contract the year before.

Were he here, the old man would seriously undermine
Marik’s authority.  He would undoubtedly ignore his apprentice’s instructions
in order to follow his own whims.

“We had better move if we want to beat nightfall,” he
announced.  “We’ll walk and talk at the same time.”

Caresse nodded happily and bounced along the path with
Lynn.  If she bobbed two inches higher, it would qualify as a skip.

Yoseph moved without apparent interest in anything
outside his head.  Behind him trod Jeremy, who chewed on the end of a long
grass stalk, hands in his pockets.

Four mages from the band.  It would have been
laughable to take on the Citadel with only these, however capable they might
be.  King Raymond’s support had been the only lever that allowed Marik to
pirate nearly every cityguard mage in Thoenar.

On that front, Tybalt had put up very little
opposition.  The investigative mages employed by the cityguard were considered
a step shy of worthless by army standards.  They were magic users with weak
talents for the most part, men and women who earned a handful of supplemental
coins to purchase bread by aiding the cityguard in tracking down criminals, or
unraveling mysteries, or finding evidence that had been hidden.

The cityguard knew where to find them when the need
arose for extra help in a situation.  On the whole, they were considered
marginally useful in the right circumstances, hardly worth the notice at any
other time.

Marik had questioned that.  As he had learned from
experience, a clever magic user could employ his talent in such a way as to be
effective beyond the level of power used.  A slight push at the right instance
could change the face of a mountain as a thousand prisoner work gangs wielding
mattocks could never achieve.

All he needed was an effect, not high-level spell
casting.  And effects such as he needed were certainly within their range of
ability.

He had expected to gather perhaps another half-dozen
magic users to add to his plan.  Whether ten mages could accomplish the task
was more than questionable.  His astonishment grew when, with a cityguard
captain as his guide, they moved from house to house, from one side of Thoenar
to the next, delivering the news that the crown demanded their service.  In the
end he gathered thirty-one men and women from over fifty.

These, as the captain had repeatedly informed him,
were only the magic users who had made their potential services known to the
cityguard.  The ones who hoped to earn enough by month’s end to pay off the
landlord.

For the first time, Marik understood how the
magic-oriented shops he had visited across the city could garner enough profit
to stay in business.  There resided a far larger population of magic users in
the everyday world than he had ever dreamed.

His brief interviews had ensured that these thirty-one
were capable of adding to the effort.  A handful were no better than
hedge-wizards, learning on their own without a teacher, discovering odd uses
for their talent.  Seven came from the elusive schools that never stayed in a
set location very long.  They had proudly declared their origins.  Only one
name had registered in his mind, since Tollaf had mentioned it once before. 
Winds of the Summer Sun.

The two women from that particular discipline might
prove the most useful finds of all because they were trained both in
large-scale group workings and in the massive undertaking of influencing
weather patterns.

He’d had little time to spend with them once they left
the city.  His only instructions to the mage corps had been for the
knowledgeable to teach what they could to those who struggled.  Most
particularly, instructing each other on how to cooperate magically, acting as a
portion of the whole rather than a solo practitioner.

Thirty-five magic users.  He expected the four band
mages to act as the core but would make no decision until they were in place
and he could discuss it with the Summer Sun women.  Then he would see who might
work best in what positions.

Marik raised his voice until it could be heard by
everyone as they climbed the steep path into the mountains.  “Make sure you use
your blankets tonight!  I don’t want a single person using magic in order to
stay warm.  Any trace of magic might be detected beforehand.  Everyone with
mage talent should gather as much energy from the diffusion as they can during
the walk.  Hold onto as much as possible until tomorrow and only replenish what
bleeds off at the last moment.  If we drain the diffusion at the overlook then
enemy mages might notice the gaping hole in the mists and know where we are.”