The Prince of Exiles (The Exile Series) (54 page)

“The circus,” she said.

“Command tent,” the Prince amended.

“Same thing,” Leah and Tomaz said together.

“Your disrespect for proper authority cofounds me.”

“If it was really proper,” Leah noted, “you wouldn’t have had to come to me for battle planning.”

“The point remains,” the Prince said, obstinate.

“Well I hope you change your mind,” she said, “we’re going to have to argue and browbeat some of the Generals into following this plan, I can almost guarantee that. All right, here we are.”

They were outside the command tent. How they’d arrive there so quickly, the Prince really couldn’t say; time seemed to be slipping and starting around him due to the lives he’d absorbed. He took a deep breath, readying himself for the confrontation about to take place.

“Well,” she said, “shall we?”

“Shouldn’t we fill in Tomaz?” He asked.

The giant leaned forward and rumbled quickly: “Revised battle plans, they won’t like it, you two are back on speaking terms. Did I miss anything?”

“I guess not,” admitted the Prince.

“Then what’re we waiting for?”

“A miracle,” he sighed.

“You’ve got us,” rumbled the giant, now calmly munching on an apple he’d gotten from somewhere. “Hasn’t that been enough so far?”

They ducked into the tent, and saw that the generals were still gathered, and they were once again discussing the plans to invade Tibour. They turned to look at him and froze, looks of fear and awe crossing their faces. Henri Perci stood at the back of the tent, and looked to be the only one who didn’t care about what had just happened.

“Well,” the Prince said, “glad to know I’m such an integral part of the process.”

“You’re back,” Henri Perci said, sounding less than thrilled.

“And he brought friends!” Rumbled Tomaz cheerfully.

“What are the two of you doing here?” Elder Ishmael asked. The Prince turned to see him, Elder Spader, and Elder Keri enter the tent, all looking flushed. Keri gave him a quick up and down, and while she seemed content with that for now, her look implied he would get a thorough going-over once the meeting was done. The Prince swallowed nervously and focused instead on Ishmael, who was regarding Tomaz and Leah with a disapproving eye. The Prince realized that, as head of the Rangers and Rogues, they technically reported to him before they did the Prince. He desperately hoped the Elder didn’t command them to leave before they laid out the plan.

“The princeling told us you’re having some disputes over campaign strategy,” said Leah.

“He is the Prince of the Veil, and you will treat him with respect,” said Commander Wyck, the General in command of the infantry forces.

“Right,” Leah said, “the princeling of the Veil asked us for help. We’re here to tell you what to do.”

“By the Light, you need to learn
tact
woman,” the Prince sighed wearily. “What she means to say is that she’s helped me see an opportunity that I hadn’t considered. We shouldn’t be going for Tibour – we should attack Banelyn.”

There was a small moment of silence.

“First he kills a Daemon, now he wants to take Banelyn,” Spader said. “This is the most fun I’ve had in sixty-nine years.”

And then everyone in the command tent was speaking at once. Henri Perci was spouting off about the honor of a clean battle versus a gimmick that would lead to a massacre, Oleander was talking about the high unlikelihood of success, and Commander Wyck was going off about, of all things, Leah not using the proper title of address for the Prince.

But Elders Spader, Keri and Ishmael didn’t speak a word; they went immediately to the map table and began examining the charts and papers laid out before them. One by one they began nodding to each other.

“SILENCE!” Tomaz roared, his voice cracking out at them like a whip of thunder. “This is the command tent of the Generals of the Kindred Army, not a group of fledgling infants just back from their first forest outing! Remember yourselves and where you are!”

Immediately, like chastised children, the Generals fell quiet and even Henri Perci looked slightly embarrassed at his outburst. It didn’t, however, prevent the tall warrior from speaking:

“Explain yourself,” he growled.

Spader cleared his throat at the back of the tent and pointedly raised an eyebrow.

“My Prince,” Perci finished, looking as if he’d rather have swallowed glass than utter those two words.

“Leah?” The Prince asked, extending a hand and praying with all that was left in him that she wouldn’t insult anyone too badly in the next few minutes.

“Gather around the maps,” she said, taking the floor and striding forward.

The Elders nodded and opened up a space for her, watching with interest. The Generals, from Herni Perci who looked outraged at this breach of protocol to Commander Wyck who looked as if he may be interested against his better wishes, said nothing. How could they? If this didn’t bother the Elders, how could they reasonably object before hearing her out?

“From what the Prince has told me,” Leah began, gesturing to the pages of notes in Henri Perci’s bold hand, “you’re trying to invade the Empire by going through Tibour.”

“It is the logical course,” said General Gates, one of the older, more conservative generals. The Prince had a feeling he was the perfect man for defending a fortified position, and was, in fact, one of the men who had engineered the defense at the Stand – but the problem was he treated
every
battle as if he was in a fortified position, which would be disastrous in the open field.

“If we take the city,” Gates continued, “then we have a position we can fortify and hold. From there, we can launch further attacks into the Empire, going both east and west as well as north.”

“And from Tibour,” Perci continued, “we can strike at
Tyne
, while our force is still fresh and the surprise is still new.”

“You think the Kindred will be
fresh
after a prolonged siege?” Leah asked, eyeing the man with, if it was possible, an even lower opinion than she’d already had. “The Prince of Wolves only has to sit in her desert palace and wait for us. We, on the other hand, will have marched for weeks by the time we arrive at her gates. No doubt once we
do
reach her palace, word will have been sent with one or more runners to the other Children, the Prince of Lions chief among them. The city will not fall without serious loss of life, or a long standing campaign that could take months.”

“You summoned me General?” Asked a voice behind them.

They turned and saw Autmaran striding into the tent in his customary red uniform, now complete with the battle armor of an army Commander.

“What are you doing here?” Henri Perci asked bluntly, only barely concealing the edge of his anger. Ever since Autmaran had succeeded in nominating the Prince to his office, Henri Perci had extended his hatred to the dark skinned Commander.

“General Dunhold sent for me,” he said, nodding to the final member of the council of Generals, a tall man with thick gray-black hair, thin as a blade, who was a master of battlefield tactics in his own right. Unfortunately, like the Prince, he was not intent on campaign planning and strategy, and had also called for a retreat to the mountains of Roarke, where his experience as an ambusher would be of most value.

“And why would he do that?” Perci said, shooting a venomous look at the General.

“Commander Autmaran has had the most current experience of us all fighting the Imperial forces in the field,” Dunhold said, bristling at the malice in Perci’s stare. “Between the retreat to the Stand, the Pass of Cartuom, and the aftermath of Roarke, I think he’s proven himself a valuable asset. It had seemed we were at an impasse – besides, he is now Commander of the Scouts, both light infantry and cavalry. I felt he should be involved.”

“It seems quite logical to me,” said Elder Spader, with his dry, sardonic tone of voice. He turned to Perci, mocking him with a simple look. “Unless you object to
logic
now. I wouldn’t put it past you, you object to everything else.”

“May I ask why Majors Leah and Tomaz are present?” Autmaran interrupted smoothly, coming into the tent and approaching the table, standing next to Commander Wyck.

“They are here at the invitation of the Prince of the Veil,” Ishmael said smoothly, quickly steering the conversation away from the more dangerous waters that Spader had headed it towards.

“We were just discussing a possible alternative to the planned invasion of Tibour,” the Prince said, seamlessly following Ishmael and continuing the conversation, forestalling Perci once more from speaking.

“Invasion of Tibour?” Autmaran asked, looking around him. “I do not know if such an attack would be advisable.”

“Indeed,” Leah said, taking her cue, “which is why we should head for Banelyn; it is the most logical option.”

“Banelyn is the center of the Empire’s economy,” Autmaran said immediately, though Herni Perci looked so apoplectic at the continuous stream of conversation that the Prince was surprised he hadn’t exploded in sheer frustration. Autmaran, however, either didn’t notice or was pretending not to. He bent over the maps as he continued:

“It is also central to the Empire and away from any of their major forces.”

“The walls are surely defensible,” said Gates, now looking at the maps as well. The Prince felt his heart begin to beat faster – the General looked like he was seriously considering Leah’s plan. “With enough supplies I could hold those walls against the Empress herself.”

“And how in all the seven hells would you manage to get to the
other side
of those walls?” Perci interjected, finally finding a place to break into the conversation. “No army has ever breached the Black Wall. If you think a siege outside Tibour would take months, how long do you think it would take to bring down the only
impregnable
city in the entire Empire!”

“Banelyn has no standing army,” Leah began, but Perci had his stride now and wouldn’t be deterred.

“It has no standing army because it doesn’t
need
one!” He roared, filling the tent with the huge sound of his voice. “We will break our
backs
on those city walls. There is no way through them, no way under them, and
certainly
no way over them. We can’t –”

“There
is
a way over them,” said the Prince. His voice was low and quiet but the sudden excitement in it was enough to cut through the mounting speech.

“We found one,” Leah said, continuing on for him. “There is a secret passageway, used only by the Seekers, that goes through an abandoned guardhouse, right over the Black Wall.”

A huge silence greeted this as the sudden real plausibility of this plan began to manifest itself in each of their minds.

“You lie,” said Henri Perci to Leah. “If you speak more untruths, I will hurl you from this tent.”

“Be very
very
careful about what you say next,” rumbled Tomaz, stepping forward and rolling his massive shoulders.

All of them, even the Prince, had forgotten the giant was in the tent with them, but at the sound of his deep, cavernous voice, the air seemed to gel and all of them froze, waiting to see if Perci would be so bold as to even provoke the wrath of Tomaz.

For a long moment it looked as if he would. Perci’s face had turned a deep red and he had pulled himself up to his full, considerable height.