Why am I doing this? How did we even get here?
—Interesting questions, Aidan Gairden,
the grandmotherly voice broke in
. Why
are
you doing this, if you believe it to be wrong?
His jaw tightened. Annalyn had chosen to stay behind. Naturally, the sword-bearer kept Heritage by her side, or tucked away in the sword chamber, or any of a dozen other places within the palace and away from Aidan. Unfortunately for him, Heritage didn’t seem to care much about proximity. The voice had poked holes in his thoughts repeatedly since the disastrous conclusion to yesterday’s disastrous announcement, pestering him with the same question: Why?
“Stay out of my head,” he muttered.
—Someone needs to do the thinking in this relationship, and it obviously won’t be you.
I have a plan.
—Oh? Care to share?
No.
Shoving the sword from his mind—literally, he hoped—Aidan took a deep breath and gave up trying to recall his speech. It so happened that he
did
have a plan, and the grandiose words he’d prepared by candlelight did not fit with what he intended to attempt at Sharem. He settled for speaking from his heart.
“It is never easy,” he began, steadying his voice before continuing, “to do what it is we set out to do. Remember that you fight for Torel so that we can cultivate her land and work her metals into instruments of productivity instead of war. You fight so your children can grow up in a realm free of danger and strife, and as full of opportunity as limitless as the Lady’s light.”
He swept his gaze over the men. “I give you my word that I will do everything in my power to bring you back to this very spot.” He clapped his left fist to his chest. Two hundred fists echoed the salute, gauntleted fists ringing against chests coated in steel mail.
“For Torel!”
“For Torel!” the Wardsmen returned.
“For Torel,” a lone voice at the back of the columns called out.
Aidan watched his father gallop past the lines, slowing as he drew up to the prince. They faced each other in silence, the heat from yesterday’s bitter exchange hanging over them like a thunderhead ready to burst. Then Edmund dismounted and dropped to one knee. Stunned, Aidan’s mouth worked to form words.
“This is what you’ve trained for, son,” Edmund said, looking up. “What you march toward this day is the culmination of everything I have taught you.”
Aidan said nothing.
“I remember the day when you first asked to accompany me on a tour of the training grounds,” Edmund said, his voice trembling with pride. “I will never be able to teach my son how to wield a blade. That is not your gift. The Lady blessed you with
Ordine’cin
, and you are as extraordinary a Touched as has ever walked Crotaria, as your mother and Tyrnen say.”
Edmund rose. “But you have another gift, Aidan. You have an incredible mind, and you have used that mind to absorb the lessons I have taught you—lessons of leadership, discipline, and strategy. Those gifts will lead these men to victory. And I would like to be by your side to witness that victory, if you will have me.”
“If
I
will have
you
?” Aidan repeated. “You are General of Torel’s Ward.”
Edmund shrugged. “This is your campaign. The command is yours.”
Aidan regarded his father for a long time. “You may join me.”
Edmund bowed. “I predict this glory will be the first of many for you, son,” he said as he hoisted himself into his saddle.
“I don’t seek glory,” Aidan snapped. He turned and shouted a command. The gate began to crank open, and Aidan guided his horse down the mountain pass and into Calewind.
The march lasted eight days and seven nights. Each day, when the Lady tucked herself away for slumber, Aidan called a rest. Edmund grumbled about haste, but Aidan reasoned that the Wardsmen needed to conserve energy for the battle that awaited them.
“The people of Sharem are being held captive by an enemy,” Edmund said to Aidan the first night. They stood in his father’s tent. A table littered with maps stood between them. Edmund leaned forward over the table, fists planted against its surface. “Your pace is leisurely, as if we go to pay a visit to friends. Imposing a forced march could place two hundred men outside Sharem’s walls in four days, maybe three. Give the order.”
“No.”
Edmund slowly straightened. “Why?”
“This is
my
campaign, Father,” Aidan said, his voice calmer than he felt. “
My
men need to be rested. We halt at dusk and break camp every morning at dawn.”
“Very well,” Edmund said. “I don’t agree with your methods, but I will defer to you.”
Aidan searched his face but saw no sign of contradiction. Nodding, he joined Edmund at the table to go over the maps. Sharem sat in the heart of Crotaria where all four realms met, dividing up the trade city like a pie. The Temple of Dawn, a towering monument made from sparkling marble, sat in the very center of the city so that each corner of the temple touched one of the four realms. The Lion’s Den was located in Torel’s district amid dozens of laboratories, observatories, schools, and shops that dealt primarily in foods and academic supplies. Darinia’s district hosted smiths proficient in crafting all sorts of materials, mostly iron and steel. In the eastern district, Leaston’s wealthiest merchants kept a steady flow of goods coming in and heading out, contributing a great deal of the coin that flowed through Sharem like a dog chasing its tail until they spread out into the realms beyond.
All but one. Like the rest of the southern realm, Sallner’s district was a slum. Efforts had been made over the centuries to bring the district up to modern standards, but few, save patrols of Wardsmen charged with monitoring the south’s activities, set foot there. Most Sallnerians lived in communities on the Territory Bridge, anyway, a strip of land bordered by the Great Sea and connecting the main body of Crotaria to the southern realm. What
remained
of the southern realm.
“What reconnaissance do we have?” Aidan asked, studying a map of the city.
“Tyrnen’s student contact inside Sharem estimates the force within the city to be thirty strong. If we—”
“How did such a small force take one of our key cities from us so easily?”
Edmund gaped at him as if the answer should be obvious. “We believed Darinia to be our friends, Aidan. The Wardsmen in Torel District would not have been prepared for an attack orchestrated by former allies.”
“Leaston and Sallner Districts?” Aidan asked. “Are they under Darinia’s control?”
“We should assume as much. Tyrnen’s sources said that the gates have not opened since the Darinians took the city—no one in, no one out. They could smuggle clansmen across the border into each district until they’re ready for a large-scale attack.”
“Dawn’s light,” Aidan cursed. “We only brought two hundred men. You’re telling me we could be marching into battle against all the clans?”
Edmund shook his head. “Unlikely. Romen’s death has thrown the clans into turmoil. The chiefs are probably fighting amongst themselves to determine who will ascend to war chief. Nichel is the most likely candidate, but she has not yet come of age. That’s why we need to strike now, while the wildlanders sort themselves out.”
Aidan flinched. The slur stung like a blow. Until the day his mother had declared war on the west, he had only heard the term muttered by drunken tavern dwellers, and they had been promptly booted from the establishment. Hearing it twice in the span of as many days was a sharp reminder of just how quickly his life had spun out of control.
“There is still time to reconsider this,” he said. “We could—”
Edmund yawned and covered his mouth with a fist. “I’m quite tired. You can show yourself out.”
At mid-morning of the eighth day, when Sharem was three leagues away, snow began to fall. Aidan called for a final stop and looked at his father’s tent. A soft ball of light glowed within. He set his shoulders and trudged forward. Deep snow encouraged his reluctance. He nodded to the guards out front and went through the flap. Edmund stood poring over his maps. A squat lamp sat in one corner of the table.
“What is our plan?” Edmund asked as Aidan joined him.
Aidan hesitated.
That depends on which plan you mean.
“I’ll strike here,” he said, pointing to Sharem’s northern wall. “I don’t want to march up to the front gates, no matter how small the attack party inside the walls is rumored to be. I will not squander lives.”
From either side,
he wanted to add.
He took a breath and rushed on. “Once the wall falls, the Wardsmen will enter the city, and I will give the Darinians a chance to surrender peacefully.”
Edmund’s face tightened. “Aidan—”
“Bloodshed should be a last resort,” the prince cut in, keeping his eyes fixed on the map. “You taught me that. The clans have been allies for hundreds of years. If I can find a way to resolve this conflict here, today, I will take it.”
He looked up to meet Edmund’s gaze, refusing to drop his eyes. To his surprise, Edmund shrugged.
“What you suggest might work to our advantage.”
Aidan frowned, surprised and more than a little cautious. “How so?”
“We need to hold the city until your mother arrives with all of Torel’s Ward. From there, we—”
“What do you mean? Why is she leading the army here?” But Aidan thought he knew.
Edmund gave a low, rumbling growl. Aidan realized it was supposed to be a laugh.
“Sharem is the perfect staging ground for the war. Our troops will have access to all the food, water, shelter, and supplies they could ever need.” He looked up at his son’s shocked face and smiled. His eyes remained devoid of humor, of light. “This
is
a war effort, Aidan. Sharem is but one phase of that war. Negotiation, bloodshed... Use any approach you like to take Sharem. Just don’t fail.”
Aidan turned back to the maps. “What about the Leastonians?”
“They’re probably captives, too. Freeing them all but assures the merchant guild’s cooperation. And if not...” He shrugged.
Aidan’s eyes widened. “You want to fight them, too?”
“I didn’t
want
to fight the clans, yet here we are. What we do is for the good of all Crotaria. Adding the Leastonian navy to our effort protects their realm from the wildlanders, too. If they can’t see that, then we must consider them an enemy, as reviled as the snakes in the south.”
“What is wrong with you?” Aidan said, voice trembling. He could feel his emotions boiling over, but he couldn’t stop them. Either his father had gone mad, or he’d never awoken from his first nightmare. He suppressed a shudder and forced the visions of his parents—staring at him with eyeless sockets, their mouths open in unending screams—from his mind. “The friendship we shared with Darinia was prosperous for both realms, for all of Crotaria! War will deplete our resources—money
and
lives. There must be a way to fix this without more violence. Please, let me find a way.”
“What’s done is done.” Edmund’s tone left no room for argument. He turned away. “You have a battle to prepare for, son. I suggest you get ready.”
In a daze, Aidan went to the tent flap.
“Aidan.”
He hesitated, glanced over his shoulder.
“What?”
Edmund’s eyes burned with intensity brighter than the lantern on the desk. “Will you be able to go through with this? This is only the first strike in a war we must win. You gave your word, son. I must be certain of your cooperation.”
“I will do what I have to do only because I have to do it.”
“Your kingdom needs you, Aidan. The outcome of this battle is crucial.”
Aidan stormed out of the tent.
Snow leaked from the clouds as the Lady continued her slow flight through the sky. The Wardsmen stood waiting, nine rows of twenty men, at the top of a hill that overlooked Sharem’s northern wall. The hill flowed down to a flat stretch of white earth that ended at the north wall of the trade city, bordered on one side by a thick forest buried under a glistening canopy of snow and ice.
The silence was interrupted by a single trebuchet lumbering forward, creaking as twenty Wardsmen Aidan had plucked from his force rolled it to the top of the hill. The long arm of the trebuchet was cocked back; the large sling at the far end was empty and dangled over the ground. The men grunted into the stillness of the afternoon as they stopped and lifted a boulder into the sling. Ten knotted ropes dangled from the short end of the cocked arm, brushing polished helmets. After dropping the boulder into the sling, the Wardsmen hurried under the trebuchet and took hold of the ropes, two men to each rope. Then they turned and looked at Aidan, waiting.
Stroking his mount’s neck nervously, Aidan breathed in the crisp air and looked at his father, beside him atop his own steed. His gaze was pleading.
Give me a chance. Let me talk to her.
Edmund was studying Sharem, pointedly avoiding his son. Sighing, Aidan signaled to a lieutenant several rows up. The man nodded and shouted at the Wardsmen operating the catapult. As one, the twenty Wardsmen heaved on their ropes. The long end of the arm shot upward and the boulder flew down toward the city.
The boulder slammed into the center of the wall, shattering heavy stone. Seconds after the echoes of the first strike faded, another boulder rocketed downward and slammed home with a thunderous crash. Broken stone fell away from the wall. Through the gap, Aidan could see people scrambling away, screaming as they fled. He raised his hand to signal a halt to the barrage and considered his next move as the twenty Wardsmen abandoned their post and fell into place at the rear of his force. He could do it. He could ride forward now, enter the city, find Nichel or whoever had led the attack, and—
One of his scouts sounded a note of alarm. Below, a group of perhaps forty clansmen stormed through the eastern gate and curved to the north. Plated mail covered the tattoos that decorated the clansmen’s bodies. The helms they wore—steel fashioned in the form of wolf, bear, and ram heads, fiendish masks capped with horns and fangs and painted in streaks of colors—made them look like half-human beasts.