Bacorium Legacy (73 page)

“Of our men, we lost roughly thirty percent. Including those too injured to continue fighting, we've lost about forty-five percent. The Saeticians lost - more than seventy percent, and the injured bring it up to over eighty-five.”

Zaow grimaced at each number. “Almost all the Saeticians - and more than a third of our own - what a disaster.” He took a deep breath, and drew himself up. “Once the injured are treated enough to be moved, we need to climb back up that hill. We're too vulnerable in this valley. Once we're out of here, set up camp between the hills. I'll have to meet with King Halt.”

The soldier nodded, and left to spread the word. Zaow sighed again, and turned to Luca.

“Your instructions near the end likely saved many lives. Had we not known what was about to happen, so many more would have still been in that circle when the Acarians warped back. Though many still died, your efforts lightened the blow. Remember that, son of Lodin.”

Zaow walked away, leaning on his cane, leaving Luca alone. He sat there for a moment in silence, then he drew his sword from its sheath. It was covered in blood.

For several long minutes, he sat there, wiping the blood from his sword on his fur clothes, while a blur of indeterminate voices shouted around him.

Chapter XXIV

Run Away, Never Look Back

“Three copies of your letter have been made and sent to King Edmund, informing him of the situation and your decision.”

Zaow nodded. “We can only hope he gets the letter before he makes it to Acaria, or he may suffer the same devastation we did.”

Princess Selphie folded her hands and sighed. Her father looked as tired as she felt, and she knew that it would be many hours yet before he could rest. Many decisions needed made, and the situation was too complicated for them to be made quickly.

Across the table from her, King Halt looked worried and unsure. He'd been confident enough before - putting on a strong face for his men in the uncertain hours following his father's death. And he had seemed confident as they marched out into Acaria. Now - he looked young. Too young to be in the position he was in.

“So the Torachians are going to retreat?” Halt asked.

Zaow nodded slowly. “Assuming King Edmund gets the letter. That's why three copies have been sent, each on a different raven. It's essential that he gets it. He needs to know what happened. Zinoro could have a trap set for him just like the one we walked into.”

“Yes, yes... The Torachians are the only ones with enough men left. They can't be caught in a trap like this - We need those men.”

Zaow looked to him uneasily, but said nothing.

“The wounded should be ready for travel by tomorrow,” Selphie said. It sounded like a simple statement, but it was edging close to the real issue, the one Selphie wanted to address more than anything - which Halt seemed to be doing his best to avoid.

“That's good,” Halt said. “There weren't as many wounded as it initially seemed. That's a good sign.”

Zaow frowned, and Selphie knew why. It wasn't that it had seemed like there were more wounded at first - there really were. Many had been too injured to save, or had even died while waiting to be treated. There hadn't been enough healers to keep up. A few healers had even been killed in the early stages of the battle, before defences had been set up. And those that remained only had so much mana - healing magick was draining.

Her father said nothing about this, so Selphie kept her mouth shut as well. It was important that she follow his lead in this. If they said the wrong thing, it could ruin everything.

“So we can leave in the morning?” Halt asked.

Zaow nodded. “Assuming things stay stable until then. Zinoro may yet send more troops to finish the job. We're atop the hill, so if they appear on that circle, we'll have time to get ready. We won't be ambushed like we were earlier, but let's hope we can be gone before Zinoro returns to finish the job.”

“Do you think he'll send more?”

“It's hard to say,” Zaow said. “Zinoro is a difficult man to predict. But we know he's more dangerous than we initially believed. We had no knowledge that he could teleport an entire army like that... Who knows what other abilities he might have?”

Halt thought for a moment. He turned to the greying man beside him - the only Saetician general who still lived. “The Acarian prisoners... Have they been interrogated?”

“They have, your majesty,” the general said. “They are silent. They say nothing, nor do they respond to anything we do to them. Underneath their helms they're - well it's hard to say, but their skin is far too pale. They don't even blink. It's very unnatural.”

Halt turned back to Zaow and Selphie. “Back at the Elder Hall, you claimed Zinoro's army was made up of dead men he had returned from the grave with dark magick. You called Lodin's son up as a witness, and he denied your claims. He said we had nothing to fear from Zinoro, and he had no dark powers... And yet we walked into a trap where Zinoro used some kind of forbidden magick to warp his army kilometres away. An army of men who do not speak or blink.”

Zaow looked uneasy. He didn't seem to like where this was going. “It's a complex situation. I don't believe the boy lied for malicious reasons.”

“I met him briefly, back in Serenite,” Halt said. “He insulted my father, and made claims that he could not be killed. Witnesses of the attack on Allma Temple back up these claims. This boy was there when the Acarians attacked Allma, and then when an agent of their appeared in my city, tainting my brother's mind with dark ideas. He was also at the town of Reven, when the same Acarian agent was captured and killed.”

There was an uneasy silence while Halt's words settled in. Selphie looked to her father, who wore an expressionless mask.

“An assassin killed my father the night before we set off...” Halt continued. “Someone who was able to come and go without being seen. And this boy used magick during the battle to warp around - the same magick Zinoro used to drop his army on top of us. Do I need to go on?”

It was strange, Selphie thought. Halt now seemed to have regained his confidence.

“I see what you're implying,” Zaow said in a quiet voice. “I cannot disagree with you, not under this evidence.”

“Zinoro has a number of acolytes, does he not?” Halt said. “And infiltration is a tactic he seems to prefer.”

“I understand,” Zaow replied, seemingly impatient with the topic. “What do you suggest we do?”

“Arrest him,” Halt said. “Bind him and place a ward on him so he can't warp away.”

Zaow nodded once more. “Very well. I'll have it done immediately.”

Halt turned to his general, and said more quietly, “The Acarian soldiers won't talk, but this kid will. We may learn something of Zinoro yet.”

Selphie looked down at her hands. She felt conflicted now. The very thought of Luca enraged her. He had betrayed her, and the cause the group had worked for, in the moment she had needed him most. He lied in front of Marcus and Edmund, and everyone else in the Elder Hall, and called both her and her father liars.

But on the other hand, he was still her friend, and she couldn't bear the thought of him being locked up and tortured.

“I believe that settles it, then,” Halt said. “In your letter to Kind Edmund, you asked him to return to the Elder Hall?”

“I did,” Zaow said, though there was a slight tone in his voice that suggested he did not agree with it.

“Good,” Halt said, more confidently. “We'll all meet up again, and come up with a new strategy. Zinoro may have dealt a strong blow today, but we'll strike back tenfold! He'll see that the Alliance is not so easily beaten!”

The young king rose from his seat and left the tent, his general following after him. The few lords and captains who remained followed after a moment, leaving Selphie alone with her father.

She turned to him. “You're really just going to let them torture Luca like that?”

“No,” Zaow answered, giving her a reassuring smile. “I know what I'm doing. Before, I may have been willing to give the boy over to Zinoro to spare my kingdom, but you talked sense into me. I owe his father, and now Luca himself, a debt of gratitude.”

“What do you mean?”

“You didn't see it, but I did. He fought against the Acarians with passion. He struck down so many of them, and he confronted the man in charge, who rode the dragon. And when the Acarians were about to flee, he knew what was to happen, and warned us. He even personally saved at least a dozen people before the warp happened. Without him, the loss of life would have been much more severe.”

“But we wouldn't even have been here if he hadn't lied!”

Zaow shook his head. “This war has been an inevitability for some time. Zinoro has been playing his cards, slowly luring us into his trap. The attack against Allma, the secret pact with Marcus' son that he intentionally revealed - they were meant to give the others reason to hate him. It worked, and I think that even if Luca had told them the truth about Zinoro, and urged them not to go to Acaria, they still would have.”

Selphie sighed. “But we're just going to go back, aren't we? Halt won't give up, and neither will Edmund. We'll keep fighting this fight until we're all dead. You said you would try to talk him out of it, but you sent the letter to Edmund asking him to return-”

“To Torachi,” Zaow interrupted.

“Wait, what?”

“I lied to Halt. In the letter, I told Edmund of the losses we suffered, and I told him that we were all returning to our separate kingdoms. Edmund will take his forces back to Torachi, and some time in the days ahead, when we have the chance, we will break away from the Saeticians and march back to Sono.”

“Father...” Selphie said, scarcely able to believe her ears. “You can't be serious... You're lying to them both. If they found out...”

“With a little luck, they will not.” Zaow gave a sad chuckle. He didn't seem to believe that was possible. “The fact is that you're right. Halt and Edmund will not give up this campaign. Marcus was the only one with reason, and he's gone. Eliminating him was another part of Zinoro's plan, I'll bet. The only way to keep us all from marching to our deaths is by lying to them. We cannot afford to keep up this war, not after seeing what Zinoro is capable of. An army is not what we need to stop Zinoro.”

Selphie saw his reasons, but she couldn't agree that it was a wise course of action.

“If we can-” Zaow started to speak, but he was cut off by a coughing fit. He covered his mouth with his hand, and coughed into it for a bit, then cleared his throat. “Excuse me, dear.”

“Father, are you alright?” She was suddenly worried for him. He'd been strong through the battle, and after it as well, but he was a man of nearly eighty, and he'd been having health problems before he'd left T'Saw.

“I'll be fine,” he insisted, wiping his hand on a rag and shoving it in his pocket too quickly not to be hiding something. She half-feared she saw red on that rag. She prayed it was just her imagination. “I was saying - if we can just return to Sono, recover from our wounds, and fortify our defences, we should be alright. T'Saw is an impregnable fortress. Zinoro's father learnt that, and he will learn it as well.”

“And what if Halt and Edmund learn you lied to them, and unite against us?”

“I doubt they are foolish enough,” Zaow said. “T'Saw was once the great Markiran Capital. Not even the fall of the two empires was enough to bring it down. And I may not be around forever to protect it, but I'm sure you and your brother will do me proud.”

“Don't talk like that...” Now she really was worried.

“But let's take things one step at a time, dearest daughter,” Zaow said with a smile. “Find the boy and tell him what's going to happen. Warn him, so that he can escape if need be. I'll have to send a few men to arrest him, to keep Halt from growing suspicious, but it will just be a show. As long as you get to him first, he'll know what's happening.”

Selphie nodded, feeling a knot in her stomach. Too much unrest. Too much uncertainty. Her father was a man who took risks, and sometimes did things she didn't agree with, but he always had the best interests of his children and his kingdom at heart. She trusted him.

She got up, kissed Zaow's cheek, and left the tent to find Luca.

<> <> <>

Luca finished dressing, and looked with disdain at the blood-soaked clothes on the floor of the tent. They were the same clothes he had brought with him from the unnamed village in Arimos. They had been through a lot, and been bled on a lot. Mostly his own blood - in particular there was a dark patch over the breast of the shirt where he'd been stabbed twice in the heart by Dreevius. But they were indisputably ruined now. He could no longer hold on to the sentimentality of them. It was time to let go of that part of his life.

The clothes he wore now were nothing special. A standard tunic and belt, with a breastplate over his chest. A little bit of armour would help, but he didn't like wearing so much.  The breastplate was the same one he'd worn earlier in the battle, and while it was a little dinged up, it was still in working condition. His sword was sheathed and hung from his belt, and a pair of leather boots and gloves completed the outfit.

In the hours following the battle, things had eventually settled. They had climbed out of the empty lake, back up the long, narrow hill. Back in the smaller valley, they had set up camp and put scouts on the hills around them, to keep watch in case Zinoro sent his army back to finish the job. Not that he would. Luca understood what was going through the man's mind. Everything he did was tricks, traps, and subterfuge. He would wait for them to make the next move, and he would have some nasty surprise waiting for them.

Which made him wonder - what was their next move?

They couldn't possibly go through the pass. Zinoro clearly had scouts in the mountains with horns, ready to send the signal that would bring another army to trap them. Would they try to find another way in? Or would they turn around and leave? Were the losses too great for them to go on?

He would know soon enough, he figured.

Leaving the pile of bloody clothes where they were, Luca stepped outside the tent. He was eager to see Emila - he hadn't seen her since the morning before the battle. She had been among the healers, treating the wounded all through the long hours following the battle. He'd felt through the tether how much of her mana she had used up in the healing, though the magick was gone now, so she must be resting.