Dramatis Personae
The Army
King Richard
Princess Asmara
General Roberts
Colonel Donnell
Lord Sol, Duke of Galicia
Count Rotherstone
Major Young
Lord Sarl
Lord Martin Anders, Duke of Fearaigh
The Bear and the Trotter Twins
Elves
Susan Taylor, errant Mistress of the King
the Elder Maelbelenus, teacher
Caomh, Beorsach, Oengus, renegades
Cadeyrn, Border Patrol
Laoire, student
Fainche, Riofach, Orlaith and Fionuir. Female students.
Tuatha da Danaan
Danu, Diana, Diane, Goddess Triumvirate
Lugh, Crom
Naimh, Cara, Shelagh na Gig
Midir, wanderer
Royal Lancers of Fearaigh
Lionel Summoner, Colonel
Jeremy Summoner, Jez, second in command
Hugo, Matt, Andy, Tony, Robbie
Gordie, Uightlander recruit
Hardenwall
The Duke of Hardenwall
Dominic, his son
Baron Algernon Sunder
Luce, maid
Bill, foot soldier in the Guard
The Black Dragon
A sequel to Feeding the Dragon
In the Ancient Kingdom of Sung, a little girl was selected to Feed the Dragon. Convinced this was but a story, she went willingly, persuading others to come with her. On arrival, she discovered there really was a Dragon. His name is Sung, he is telepathic and the Abbott of Sindalar Monastery. The little girl, Wu Nu, is able to communicate with him, unlike all the Monks and Bikkhuni (female monk), and voices her intention to become Sung Bai Ju, the supreme Bikkhuni and human leader of the Monastery.
The camp fire sputtered, sending up sparks as the flames reached a resinous knot of pine. One of the dark figures around the fire leaned forward and prodded it with a stick, sending up more sparks.
“I’m hungry,” he said, in complaining tones.
“You’re always bloody hungry,” said another, standing up and stretching, before spitting into the fire and sitting back down, the flames revealing a smooth, dirty face with eyebrows meeting in the middle.
“I liked that pig we had last week,” said a third, in the high voice of somebody who is always happy. The others groaned.
“Will you shut up about that bloody pig,” said the second. “You are always on about it and it is long gone. Just rice and roots for supper again, and memories don’t fill my stomach.”
“I want a woman too,” said the first speaker scratching at the lice in his groin.
The second started to respond when the happy voice cut across in glee.
“I had a woman once,” he said.
“Yeah, right.”
“More likely that pig.”
“You wouldn’t know what to do with a woman.”
As the barracking continued, a high voice cut across the banter, freezing the men into stillness.
“If you were still farmers, instead of bandits, you would be well fed every night. And probably with a nice fat wife to keep you warm instead of this silly fire.”
The words created a deep well of silence, while the bandits sneaked looks into the darkness, unable to see anything with their eyes blinded by the fire light. The second speaker threw a branch, covered in dried pine needles, onto the fire, which flared up, causing them to blink in the brightness and revealing them as dirty and scruffy, with ill-fitting clothes and a variety of bared and mostly rusty weapons. One of them rolled back into the darkness as the fire flared, while the others peered into the gloom.
Squatting on a large rock, a few feet back from the fire, was a girl. A young girl wearing a jacket with long sleeves, and her arms crossed and the hands disappearing into the opposite sleeves.
“You are not very good bandits, are you?” She spoke with confidence, her face turned to one side so as not to look into the fire. “If you were, you would live in a nice home. So why do you want to be bandits when you could go back to your farms?”
“We follow Xiong, he’s our leader,” said the happy one, oblivious to the tension and happy to talk to somebody. “He trained us, he did. Anyways, we can’t go back. They would kill us, they would.”
“Not very good training.” She gave an audible sniff, which echoed over the low crackling of the fire. “I have spoken to the leader of your village, Ma Shi, and he will welcome you back to till the fields again.”
The one who rolled into the darkness reappeared, on the opposite side of the fire, his hand holding a naked, rusty blade winking in the firelight.
“All alone, little one. So foolish.” He smiled as he stalked towards her. “But welcome. Did you not hear Bao saying he wanted a woman? You may be a girl, but you’ll do, oh yes, we will have fun with you.”
The girl changed her focus from the dark to his face. Even in the firelight, they could make out her squinting a little as she studied him. This must be Xiong, the Bear.
“Not you, I think,” she said, in a meditative tone. “Your aura has too much black, and it is too… deep. No, you cannot return.”
As she finished, her hand came out of her sleeve and flicked, before returning to its place. Xiong dropped his sword, his hands going to his throat as he made a choked, liquid sound before falling on his back.
Nobody moved.
After an eternity, the first speaker croaked out a few words. “Who are you?”
“I am Sung Qingting, from Sindalar. Take his head, show it to Ma Shi and return to your fields, farmers. Leave your farms again, and I will take your heads to Ma Shi, yes, and his into the bargain.”
The fire died down, and when another branch flared up, Sung Qingting was gone, leaving an empty rock and a dead leader.
*
Ma Shi woke to a thunderous knocking on his door, pulling on his robe while he pushed it open with an aching head and a venomous temper. He snarled at the grinning old woman outside.
“Come along, Shi, you will want to see this,” she said in her cackling laugh, before turning and running down to the village square.
Grumbling, Ma Shi followed her, stopping in mid-stride at the sight of the four men sitting cross-legged in front of his chair. They leant forward and knocked their foreheads to the ground at his approach. Ma Shi sat in his chair and inspected the head placed in front of them. A bit of metal still gleamed in the throat and for a moment his eyebrows raised in a question before a dim memory surfaced.
“A star,” he said in wonder. “A flying star, the weapon of the Dragonflies. I have never seen one used before. So, the Sung Qingting found you.” He nodded as the men remained with the heads in the dirt. He turned towards the crowd of villagers assembling behind the men, some smiling, others grinning, some angry but most confused.
“People,” said Ma Shi in his loudest, most ringing voice. “Sindalar has the Dragon back and the Dragonflies are out and about. Peace and order is back in the countryside and we can prosper. No more will we suffer bandits, and no more shall we pay taxes to the Emperor who ignores us. No more children will go to his armies. Instead we feed the Dragon once more.”
A murmur rippled through the crowd, not one of agreement but more of confusion and, in some cases, fear. A young man stepped forward.
“Sindalar? What has the old monastery to do with us and what is this Dragon? The Emperor has many soldiers and they will kill us if we do not pay taxes.” The hum of agreement outshone the earlier confusion.
“Ask the old ones,” said Ma Shi, his face wreathed in a smile of contentment. “In the old days, before the invasion of the Mongols, Sindalar was our protector. The Dragonflies, the Qingting, flew round the countryside and we had no bandits. The Emperor kowtowed to the Dragon. They were good days, and they are upon us once more.
*
The little girl once called Wu Nu and now being addressed as Sung Qingting, the Dragonfly of Sung, strode with purpose across the meadow, plucking the occasional wild flower as she went. Sprawled across a large, flat rock beside the brook, an enormous lizard stretched a leg as he basked in the morning sun, one eye fixed on the girl’s approach.
She climbed the rock and knelt by his head, offering the flowers in one hand, a smile flicking across her face as a long tongue came out to circle the flowers and pull them into his mouth. Despite his ferocious appearance, the beautiful sailed lizard, over thirty feet long, was a vegetarian.
“Sensei,” said Qingting. “How are you today, my master?” She leaned forward and scratched the tender skin under his ear drum. The dragon blinked and gave a mental purr as he chewed the flowers with pleasure.
“You are sad, little one,” came his thoughts, arriving in her mind as if he were speaking. “But do you not come back with great success?”
“I do, master,” she said. “I cleansed the bandits from Lao valley. There were only five.”
“So, what ails you, my child?”
“I killed one, master.”
“Ah,” the dragon thought, able to insert meaning into his words as if he were speaking. “Your first. It is usual to feel strange, bad, after such an event.”
“I did not feel sick, as Ju Qua said I would. The pleasure of a perfect throw is muted, though, for it caused the death of a person.”
“This is not what ails you, child.”
“No, master, it is not,” said Qingting with a deep sigh, her eyes lost on the rim of the high mountain vale in which they sat. She paused a moment as the dragon waited, his patience infinite as she well knew. “I wonder if my actions were correct. Could I perhaps have saved him?”
“Tell me how you decided.”
“He walked towards me, his words hateful. I looked at his aura and there was black in it.”
“There is black in yours,” thought the dragon.
“Yes, but mine flickers, comes and goes, there when I need it. In this man, it was like a hard road, a rut. Oh, I am not explaining very well.”
“I understand, child. What you saw was when a person is so often in the black it becomes ingrained, a fixed way of thinking that shows your decision was correct. You have good instincts, child.”
There was silence for a long while as the girl relaxed, her bright features flowing down as the tension dissolved and her natural beauty begin to flower. Her eyes were like a cat, slanted almonds under her bowl of bright black hair, while her body betrayed her youth, thin and wiry. Her natural devilment surfaced, her smile returning with a quirk at the corners of her lips and the light of battle in her eyes.
“So, Lord Sung, now I have proved my mettle in battle and diplomacy, is it now time for me to receive the title of Sung Bai Ju?”
Bai Ju meant chrysanthemum in their tongue, the flowers given at funerals, and here meant the flower of death. Sung Bai Ju is the title given to the supreme Bikkhuni, female monk, of the monastery.
The dragon paused, his head waving above the girl who showed her surprise with widening eyes. Sung never seemed troubled.
“I fear, my child, you can never become Sung Bai Ju.”
“Why not?” Stung, Qingting snapped her answer.
“There is nobody to train you, child. By all rights you should become Sung Bai Ju after years as a Qingting, but there is much to learn which you can only learn from a human. You have so much potential, but I cannot train you. Just as the monks have lost so much ability, so my Bikkhuni are a poor shadow of their greatness of the past.”
“What happened, Sung? Have you discovered anything?”
“Little that is new. As you know, my kind sleeps for long periods. I slept, for my usual twenty years every hundred, and nobody woke me. While I slept the invaders came, the wild Mongols from the steppes. The Sung Bai Ju led the monks and dragonflies to stem the tide with the Emperors troops. And that is all I know. The log of the monastery, which I have you entering now, stopped with the last entry from the Sung Bai Ju, on her departure. She relished the opportunity and there are no more entries. The history books the Wisdoms read to me, from the Empire, bring nothing new. They describe the arrival of the Sung Bai Ju, the Bright Flowers of Sung, and how they stem the horde. They tell of the defeat of the Mongols, with our Flowers to the fore, and how the Flowers left, not for home but after another enemy they would not describe, never to be seen again. But this does not explain the disappearance of the Lore Keepers, of the Librarian, of the Mother Healer. All gone but a few Wisdoms, girls who know little.”
“How long did you sleep, Sung?”
“It is not clear. Maybe fifty years, maybe a hundred. We fall into a suspended state, needing nothing. We can be encased in mud, in ice, in stone, and when we awake we are revitalized. The remaining Wisdoms did not know how to wake me, indeed they misread the books and thought they should not.”
Qingting’s brow furrowed, as a random thought crossed her mind. “Have you asked the monks?”
“No,” thought the dragon, his tone evincing some surprise. “Why would they know? They have no books.”
“There were monks with the Sung Bai Ju. Let me ask.”
*
Ju Qua, retired for the last year from active work, had refused to return home to his village but chose to end his days in Sindalar. A self-elected sweeper, he and his broom would track the sun through the monastery and the pace of the sweeping reduced with the sunshine. He considered himself superior to the other fighting monks, as the only one to find and return with a girl who could talk to the dragon.
On his own of course, for since then Qingting had found several more, accompanied by him at first, but now with other, younger, fighting monks.
Qingting found him leaning on his broom in a small courtyard, eyes blinking slowly in pleasure at the feel of the sun on his back. Still wearing his military tunic.
“Heya, Goat Shit, now you can even sleep standing up.”
Ju Qua smiled, his back to the girl so she couldn’t see. “Ah, the snapping turtle that speaks. I must watch the monastery treasures, lest they disappear.”
Qingting skipped round in front of him, and after a quick check to ensure nobody could see, gave the old man a hug.
“It is good to see you, oh Guardian of the Dragon, but you should not be sweeping. Let me take you to the Dragon’s meadow and you may garden and watch the sheep.”
“Hush, Beauteous Lady, you know this makes me happy. Though you should come by more often. I hear so much as a sweeper, information you could use. I worry I will forget before I see you.”
Ju Qua’s information held no value, revolving around his determination to prove his enemy, the cook, stole monastery funds. The cook was also his best friend.
“I need your stories today, Old Shifu,” she began only for him to cut her off in delight.
“Ha! Yes, I knew you would see sense one day. Come sit, here on this bench and I will tell you the latest tale of chicanery and double dealing by that toad, that rat in human form. Why…”
Qingting placed a finger on his lips, laughing. “No, Old Shifu, not those stories. I want to hear tales of fighting, great monks from the past.”
“Ah, I see,” said Ju Qua, his lips pursed in disappointment. “I shall tell you the tale of the Bandits of Que Loh. This was a new route for me, for we had not ventured there for many years…”
“And how did you know about the route and that we had not ventured there?” Qingting asked with a little twitch of the corners of her lips.
“Oh, yes, well it is in the stories that the monks pass down and tell in the evenings. That is how we pass on knowledge. Anyway…” Qingting shushed him again.
“There is one of those stories I wish to hear today, Ju Qua.”
“We don’t usually tell these stories to others,” he began, his eyes narrowing. He did not miss the change of name, the dropping of affectionate titles and knew she was here on business.
“I want to hear the one about the Mongol invasion, how the monks went and what happened to them.”
“I know of no such stories,” said the old fighting monk, rising and grasping his broom. “Enough of this idle chatter, I must work.” He began to sweep the area of floor he had swept before she came, broom strokes fast and furious.
“Not just the monks,” said Qingting. “But of the Sung Bai Ju and the dragonflies. We need to know what happened to them.”
“I know of no such stories,” said Ju Qua, but his shoulders hunched in his robe as if struck.
Qingting sighed. “You know I can tell when you lie from your aura, not just your face. You don’t have to hide it from me. But it is not to me you must tell this story that you are hiding. You must tell the Dragon, Lord Sung himself. Come, he is waiting.”
Ju Qua turned around, stricken. “I cannot,” he said. “It is forbidden. Secret. We must respect her honour.”
*
Ju Qua sat on the rock, cross-legged, his lined, weather beaten face stoic and impassive. His usual rich leather skin colour reduced to a pale tan at his proximity to the great dragon, whose head regarded him with unmistakable interest from a bare six feet in front of him.
“Lord Sung bids you welcome, Weapons Master Ju Qua,” said Qingting, in a gentle voice full of understanding. “He thanks you for your services over the many years and his heart is desolate that you have not met him in person before. He has watched over your prowess on many occasions down the long years of your service.”
Ju Qua nodded, still unable to speak, and groped with no success for words.
“Lord Sung wishes you to know that he needs to know why you feel unable to tell him what transpired while he slept.”
“The, the survivors, Lord,” said Ju Qua, overcoming a stammer. “We took oath. We did not want any to know lest it change the memories of the Sung Bai Ju.”
“Lord Sung says she was his friend, he loved her. Nothing you say to him can change his memories of her magnificence and ability.”
Ju Qua could not keep his eyes to the front and looked from side to side. “I was very young. My memories of my youth are not good.”
“Lord Sung says you remember this instance very well and he commands you to tell him.”
Still Ju Qua hesitated and Qingting leant forward.
“Stop mucking about, Goat Shit, and tell him. He is being very nice and gentle with you, but this is so important to him and he has the ability to force it from your mind. But that would hurt you and he doesn’t want to. His patience with you wears thin. Tell the story, now!” Her voice deepened to one of command and Ju Qua flinched.
His eyes closed and fat tears seeped from under his lids, trickling down his face following the deep lines. The dragon leaned forward and his long forked yellow tongue flickered out, removing the tears. Ju Qua started, opened his eyes and found himself lost in the eyes of the dragon, deep, sympathetic and oh, so compelling.
“I was too young to go, though I wished to. They kept me and a dozen youths here under the command of old Ming Tse, who was very upset. He only had one leg and the Sung Bai Ju refused to let him come. He was hard on us in his anger. The Sung Bai Ju, the Dragonflies and the Weapons Masters were gone for a full moon. We heard how the Emperor’s army fell upon the Mongol, the Bright Blades of Sindalar to the fore, and routed them. The first to stand against the horse lords. The soldiers began to return, but no Bright Blades. A soldier came to Sindalar, an old friend of Ming Tse, and he told us the Bright Blades left them to pursue another enemy, one they did not see.”
The old man closed his eyes again, his throat worked and he scratched an itch in his leg, before he continued, the eyes of both dragon and girl riveted on his face.
“Two more weeks and we opened the great gates to let them in. Oh, so few. Six Weapons Masters carried a litter, with a Dragonfly at the head, all wearing bandages and moving so very slow. They brought the litter into the Great Hall and the Wisdoms and Lore Keepers flocked to them, us lads too. The Dragonfly said not a word, but she pulled back the drape of the litter.”
Tears rolled freely down the old man’s face once more, but he kept talking now, the dam broken and the poison in his memories flowing free.
“The Sung Bai Ju lay there, her body rent with great slashes as from the bite of a tiger, her normal alabaster skin blackened and sick. Her eyes opened, full of pain but triumph too, as she took the hand of the Head Lore Keeper.”
“’We did it,’ she said. ‘We slew the Black Dragon that led the hordes of horsemen. We found him and his Blackflies where he lurked back in presumed safety. Ah, how we fought. At the end, there was just him and me, the others hurt, the Blackflies slain, and my sword found his brain as he dripped venom in the slashes he put in my body. Wake Sung and tell him, I slew the Black Dragon.’”
Sung reared back at this information, sitting on his great tail and the front of his body up in the air while his tail lashed from side to side. Ju Qua stopped talking in alarm, while Qingting gripped his arm.
“It is no matter,” she said. “Lord Sung is upset at news of a Black Dragon, and the injuries to his friends, yea and their deaths. Continue.”
Ju Qua did, while watching the dragon with close attention. “The Sung Bai Ju fell back at this, while the Lore Keeper said there was plenty of time to tell Sung and first they would make her well. She barked commands and her lore keepers and wisdoms rushed to do her bidding, while we carried the Sung Bai Ju to the healing rooms. All of us assembled there, as she prepared for the operation, while the Librarian read instructions from a book. I remember they argued as to whether to tie her to the table, but the Weapons Master and the Dragonfly wished to hold her and they did, while the Mother Healer prepared to pour a potion into her wounds.”
Ju Qua paused again, shaking his head. The dragon had subsided, but now watched from further away. No human expression came from his scaled face, but his head swayed from side to side in palpable dismay.
“At the last moment, the Lore Keeper snapped a command, and Ming Tse ushered us young ones from the room, along with some young wisdoms. He paused as he prepared to shut the door, and I looked back with him. The Mother Healer poured the potion into the Sung Bai Ju’s wounds, and her body contorted, bending up while she screamed, a scream of such great pain I could not bear to hear it, and the scream turned to anger. I saw her burst free of the grips of the Weapons Masters and Ming Tse slammed the door, shaking on his one leg.”
“For ten minutes she screamed, great cries of anger and rage, and the noises that came from the room we did not understand. Bangs and crashes, others crying in pain. The door creaked and bowed as something hit it, again and once more. Then all became quiet, silence from the other room.”
Ju Qua hesitated now, sunk into his body and his age showing. Qingting nodded to him, wordless, while the dragon pulled back onto his hind legs once more, his neck shrinking and pulling his head back like a snake about to strike.
“Ming Tse told me to help him open the door and we did. Oh, the blood. The pain must have been so intense to drive her from her mind, for in her pain and rage she had slain all others in the room, ripping the Mother Healer’s very head from her shoulders, I know not how. She lay slumped behind the door, her eyes closing, a mad light still there and no sign of the woman we knew. The light dimmed as we stared, and she was no more.”
The dragon threw his head to the skies and bugled, the first sound Qingting ever heard the dragon make. Bugled his sorrow and pain, before dropping his front legs to the ground and turning, padding away from them. Qingting rose, one hand gripping Ju Qua and the other rubbing her forehead.
“You did well, Old Man. Fear not, Lord Sung grieves for his friend and for not being there. He understands, understands all too well, and commends you for your efforts to rebuild the monastery with none who could speak to him, nay nor wake him. He bids us leave him to his sorrows now.”
Ju Qua followed her and they made their way to the exit tunnel, while Ju Qua babbled, unable to stop the revelations.
“We didn’t know he was called Sung. We thought she wanted us to tell the country she killed the Black Dragon, but nobody knew anything about dragons. We didn’t know what to do, and old Ming Tse didn’t live long. He did his best, while the young wisdoms knew very little and spent all their time reading books trying to work out what to do. We didn’t even know where the dragon was. Took twenty years before the wisdoms found him and another ten before he woke up.”
*
For a week, the dragon kept silent and Qingting respected his wishes, forbidding everyone to visit his mountain meadow. She herself spent the time in the old books, seeking knowledge of the black dragons and how to kill them. She found very little. For every Golden Dragon like Sung, there was, with the natural balance of good and evil, a Black Dragon. Both unusual, she found no actual records of their existence. Just theories and speculation by ancient Lore Keepers using language she could barely understand, although the written language changed very little over the years.
Early one morning as she completed her exercises, she felt Sung’s ch’i in the aether, a disturbed, concerned ch’i. Disdaining her usual dip in the mountain stream, she hurried down the tunnel to the meadow.
Sung was not there, his basking rock empty.
Following the faint traces of his ch’i, she found him at the southern end of the meadow, quarter of the way up the wall, stuck.
“What are you playing at, Sung? You are too big to go up there. Careful lest you fall,” she said, trying to keep the exasperation from her voice, despite knowing he could read it in her ch’i.
“I must go,” he thought, head swaying as he examined all possible routes. “It is no longer safe for me here. I must flee.” He lurched upright, placing his front legs on a ledge which gave way, and the dragon slid down the cliff face in a riot of rocks and debris, while a small avalanche rained down upon him.
Alarmed, Qingting dodged rocks as she picked her way through the loose debris to him, part submerged and with his eyes closed.
“Sung! Are you all right? Where are you hurt?” She pulsed ch’i through him, and watched his aura flare, relieved it showed the lack of serious injury. The dragon shook himself, and she stepped back from the new rock surge, slipping on a rock that wobbled until she found refuge on a solid one. “What nonsense is this, of course you are safe here. Already you have one Dragonfly to protect you, and soon there will be more.”
“I searched through the aether, seeking to watch the battle from the past. I felt ch’i, and, by the powers, it felt me. Nobody feels my ch’i lest I will it. He felt me, and he grasped me, through the aether. His satisfaction and triumph flowed out, he comes, he comes for me.”
“Who comes?” Qingting tried to make sense of what could frighten her dragon. “The Black Dragon is dead, there are no more. What could harm you, sensei?”
“His child, seeking revenge. Another Black Dragon.”
Qingting digested this. “A child? A young black dragon? So, not as powerful as before. Does he bring an army?”
“No, just a Blackfly. He comes for me, not conquest.”
“A Blackfly?”
“His version of you, Qingting, little Dragonfly.”
“Does he not have a bikkhuni, a Sung Bai Ju?”
“Black dragons do their own fighting and leading. He has no need, for he has no flock to protect and nurture. Instead he feasts off the wild people, for he eats meat, does a black dragon.”
“Worry not, my beloved sensei Sung,” said Qingting, allowing her love for the dragon to show. “I shall meet him in the mountains, swat his Blackfly and bring you his head, for he is but a young dragon. I have read the histories, I know how to defeat him.”
“You? A novice barely a dragonfly,” said the dragon with deep scorn. “You have no chance, you would go to your death. No, I must flee, but it is years since I came here and can no longer fit in the tunnel.”
The scorn lashed through Qingting, and she reacted in pain and anger, drawing herself up to her full height, like a mouse in front of an elephant. “Eat less, and exercise then, you fat old gecko. I shall leave you here, stuck in your own debauchery, frightened by a shadow.”
She turned and ran across the meadow to the tunnel, while the dragon watched her go, his face and emotions unreadable to the human senses.
*
Four girls, ranging in age from six to sixteen, stood in the small room watching Qingting with round eyes. She kept silent, preparing her clothes and going through her weapons, selecting the finest and secreting them on her body. She unfolded her beautiful silk jacket, smothered her face in it for a moment, before folding it and replacing it in rice paper. She would wear her fighting leathers.
“What ails the dragon, Sung Qingting?” Wulan, the eldest, plucked up the courage to ask.
“He spooks at shadows,” said Qingting, checking the suppleness of a wrist bandolier of shuriken. “He believes an enemy comes, a black dragon, from the north.”
“You go to face a black dragon, alone?”
“I doubt it is one. They are very rare.”
“Nevertheless, we shall come with you,” said Wulan with certainty, and the little girl’s eyes shone. She almost bounced and allowed excitement to seep out into her ch’i.
Qingting paused in her preparations, considering the girls. Wulan bristled confidence, little Mai Mai excitement, but the other two showed caution and trepidation.
“No,’ said Qingting. “I shall go far and fast, scouting and seeing what the true enemy is. You would be a help, Wulan, covering more ground that I alone, but I need you here to organize defense if there is a true enemy.” She dropped to her knees and took little Mai Mai’s chin. “You, my sweet, would be most valuable, for your skills are wondrous. But I cannot wait for you, so will you please me by organizing the watch, not just for my return but in case the enemy gets past.”
Mai Mai put her thumb in her mouth and sucked hard. She stared at Qingting, an obstinate expression on her face, and shook her head. Qingting sighed.
“Do not follow me,” she said in a firm tone that made tears well in Mai Mai’s eyes. She debated on her sword, before remembering how the Sung Bai Ju had killed the last dragon, and thrust it into her sash. She made for the door, heading for the kitchen. Wulan stepped in front of her, placing a travel bag in her hands.
“I suspected this would happen, and you would be in a hurry, my Shifu,” said Wulan. “Here, travel rations for a week and a water skin. I stopped by the kitchen on the way here. May the Dragon’s Wings speed your feet.”
Qingting accepted the bag, exchanging a deep look with her and nodding before leaving the room. Behind her, she heard a scuffle as Wulan grabbed Mai Mai to prevent her from following.
Qingting ran hard for the first few leagues, stretching her legs, before falling into a dog trot. She would trot a league, then run a league, and keep that up all day. There were few horses in Sung, and the Dragonflies must travel far and fast.
She chose the northern path, which skirted the mountains, and cast ahead for a trace of ch’i. On the second day, she left the path and climbed the lone peak between the ranges, reaching the cool summit as dusk settled in. From the peak, she could see league upon league to the north, indeed to east and west as well. She made herself comfortable in the loose sand at the base of a rock, crossed her legs into lotus and brought her mind inward. Qingting controlled her ch’i well now, but this was a new purpose, hunting and finding another powerful ch’i.
First, she sensed behind her, checking there was nothing between her and the brooding presence of her master, still tainted with despondency and resignation. This was the extent of her ability, and then only with as powerful a ch’i as Sung possessed. Now, she ranged forward, first to the north, then east and west in little half circles. Half the night passed, and she kept but a tenuous hold on her ch’i, unsure if she felt anything or not in the vast empty highlands, bar the odd bandit camp, each of which convinced her it was the black dragon on first contact.
She slept, dreamless, till daybreak, whereupon she continued her search. Two days later, and she wondered at the power of the dragon to reach so far and detect an enemy. She better understood his attempt to flee if he could detect danger so far away. She found nothing, bar false alarms every few hours. However, in the process she refined her power, and found she could detect beasts, and how to filter out the natural ch’i of the trees. Water cooled the ch’i, running through it and causing a coldness.
But still nothing. Just an eagle to keep her company. She hoped it would stoop on a small creature while she watched, but it was more interested in her, coming to land on a rock not fifty paces away to check if she were dying. As she watched the eagle, something twitched the ch’i.
She concentrated and found a ch’i unlike any she had sensed before, feeling controlled and powerful. Coming towards her at a steady rate, coming out of the mountain range to the north. As she narrowed her focus down, it seemed as if the ch’i first bulged, then shrank and disappeared. Strange, she thought, and scanned the region carefully. After an hour, she detected a small plume of dust, hanging in the sky. The plume came closer, too fast for a man and too much dust.
The dust came closer, and from two leagues away she could make out a speck in front of it, which became a large animal, running on all fours. Was this the dragon? She wondered, clamping down on her imagination. It was dark, and had a bulge on its back, wings she guessed, but where was the tail? Hidden in the dust? Who knew a dragon could run so fast, so long. Not Sung, for sure.
The animal became more distinct as it came closer, and the wings resolved into a man.
“A horse lord,” she breathed, fascinated. She had never seen a horse, just heard the stories. The creature had no ch’i, and she wondered, suddenly terrified of this strange creature. A strange feeling, one she did not recognize. Qingting had never been frightened in her life.
She puzzled on the feeling, more at the lack of recognition than anything else, and as she stepped outside of herself to consider, the feeling slipped away. With a shock, she realized it had been sent, sent by the horse lord.
She was detected.
Furious, she did something she had never tried. The horse lord was now half a league away, and looking at her. She cut off her ch’i, concentrated it inside her, before slamming it out in a thin beam, tight and powerful, straight at the horse lord.
He fell off his horse.
She grinned. Reading those old books turned out to be worthwhile. But no, he was getting up, and even at this distance she could see he was unhurt. His shoulders shook. Was he scared? No, she realized with mounting anger, he was laughing. Laughing at her.
Incensed, she flew down the track, out of his sight. This led to a perfect ambush point, but that would be no good if he could detect her ch’i. She had never thought to hide it before, but the example he set caused her to concentrate, clamp down on her aura and pull her ch’i back inside. For a moment, she thought of old Ju Qua, Goat Shit, and how he had replenished her ch’i when she didn’t even know it existed, didn’t even know she used it. She pulled it back, down into her womb and one by one closed her chakras, stopped the leaking, kept them tight.
This wasn’t much use, for this meant she could feel nothing and had to rely on her other senses. She reached her ambush point before the horse lord and found a perfect position, behind a bush where he would not see her. Even so, she did not look at the trail, but the far side, not taking the risk her attention could warn him.
The horse lord cantered around the bend in the trail, coming fast down the trail lying twenty paces below her. His eyes scanned both sides of the trail, concentrating on her side.
She fired her first arrow through the bush, leaping up to the rock to fire another three, adjusting her aim as he twisted. He reacted to the first arrow with supernatural speed, twisting off the horse and falling to his feet on the ground, the arrow whistling over his head. The next arrow misjudged his fall, he twisted to the left to avoid the third, straight into the path of the fourth as she anticipated his turn. It missed his body and lodged in his arm, causing him to stop and stare at it and her. Her fifth arrow thudded into his chest, her cry of triumph cut short as he looked at it and grinned, pulling it from his armour.
He raised dark eyes to hers and laughed, oblivious of the blood dripping down his arm. He spoke in a strange language as she skipped down the rocks to the trail, advancing towards him. When she didn’t respond, he spoke again, this time his words resonating inside her head.
“A Dragonfly,” he said, “as I live and breathe. Isn’t it cute?”
“You travel far, Blackfly,” she said, remembering to send her thoughts through the ch’i.
“Blackfly, am I?” He laughed again. “Well, I shall eat you now, little dragonfly.”
He wore bone and leather armour, great shoulder protectors and flaps over his thighs. Two sword handles protruded over his shoulder, and he pulled out a long sword, curved ever so slightly upwards. It gleamed viciously in the afternoon sun.
She paced forwards, her sword held with both hands, in the style of the novice. He came with a rush, sword high, ready to slice down and twist to remove a hand. She leapt sideways, her sword in her left hand as she parried and deflected his blade while her right flicked and he rolled in the dust shouting in anger, pawing at the blood fountaining from his right knee where her shuriken twinkled.
“Damn and blast you, dragonfly,” he swore. “If that is envenomed, you shall pay dearly and die slowly over the flames as I roast you alive.”
He was up faster than she could believe, her shuriken pulled out and dust slapped into the wound to stop the blood flowing. She stepped forward and feinted at his head, but the sword was out, no the second sword to block and the first swinging back at her. She somersaulted backwards to avoid it, a second shuriken striking his left calf as she did so, and she landed on both feet, watching closely for weakness.
“First blood to you, dragonfly. Well done.”
Now he was silent, extracting the shuriken, deep in the flesh without bone to stop it, and slapping on the dust again. He moved fluidly towards her, his movement unhampered, and Qingting turned and ran, flying up the rocks to stand on the top, looking down.
He flowed up the rocks towards her, she feinted, he paused and she ran. Those few touches told her she was outmatched, far outmatched and all she sought now was distance and time, time for the shuriken to weaken him and give her a chance.
He didn’t follow, but stood and watched her as she disappeared. From hiding, she scanned his aura, for it leaked as he went back to tend his wounds. She expected to see black, tarred, rotten black, but it wasn’t. Oh, there was black to be sure, but it flowed and skipped, with red and gold as well. She paused in thought, was this truly a blackfly? The aura snapped off, and she decided she imagined the gold. Now, a decision to be made. Should she stay and watch him, or retreat and regroup?
She decided on the latter. He was too dangerous, too ready and would know she watched. She left a presence on top of the mountain, hidden but watchful, and ran back down the trail to the base of the next mountain. Half way along the trail, and she felt her presence wink out, followed by a roar of anger through the aether and ch’i as he realized she had duped him again.
She found a small hole under a bush, low down on the slopes and quite different from her previous ambush points. Exhausted, she fell asleep as she considered the lessons she had learned, while watching the trail below, her defenses up, making her undetectable.
She awoke screaming, as a great weight crashed onto her, crushing her chest and driving the breath from her body. The blackfly dragged her from her hole and trussed her, quick precise movements as he tied her hands behind her and her ankles together. He slung her over her horse and rode off down the trail muttering to himself. She picked up the words here and there. “Bloody little brat.” “Heathen fucking country.”
For the first time in her short life, Qingting knew despair. She hung over the horse, behind the blackfly, her stomach aching where he landed. Her head boiled in the sun, her tongue swollen in her mouth. The sight of his blackened and bruised calf, the wound an angry red, eased her soul a little, but the paste over the wound told her he knew the poison and had the remedy.
Gathering her resources, she pulled her ch’i in tight, and beamed a message to Sung. Or started to, as a hand slapped her before the hilt of the sword swung down and blackness descended.
*
A hard thump woke her, as she landed on the ground. Groggy, she realized the Blackfly had cleaned himself up. His armour wiped down, it shone in the sunlight with a lustre that showed hours of work in polishing. She drank in his appearance as she gathered her strength, eyes down to slits. One of the tallest men she had seen, he had black, slanted eyes with a light brown complexion. She couldn’t see his hair, but his breadth of shoulders made up for legs a fraction too short and with the slight bows of the horseman.
“You are awake, Dragonfly,” he said, a statement of fact she couldn’t deny. He came to her and squatted on his heels, prodding her with his finger. “We are going down a steep trail, and you will walk first. If you fall, I will hold you with the rope, for I will not untie your arms. We are going to meet your master, see what he will pay for you. If anything.”
He shrugged at her lack of response, untying the rope round her legs and dodging the kick with consummate ease. He jerked her to her feet and her tongue was a stick in her mouth as she longed for water, but too proud to ask. She staggered in the direction indicated, slow to give herself time, but a rough kick in the rear served to speed her up.
She reached the edge of the cliff and recognized where Sung had tried to escape. His endeavours and the subsequent rock fall now made the way passable, on foot. She could fly down with her hands untied and she checked her bonds, before running down the slope to a small tree and racing round it, to collide with the Blackfly as he countered her move with a grin.
“I don’t need to read your ch’i to know your mind, little Dragonfly,” he said into her wintry glare.
In no time, they were at the bottom, and she made her way towards Sung, sitting on his rock and watching their approach, her head hung and disconsolate.
“Greetings, Lord Sung,” said the Blackfly as they approached. “I bring you a present, your little dragonfly, trussed and ready for the fire.”
“I see she marked you,” said the dragon, even his mental thoughts seeming a deep rumble.
“Indeed, she has potential. Not once, but four times. Impressive for an untrained dragonfly.”
The dragon mused, his head swinging from side to side, before speaking direct to Qingting.
“Sung Qingting, please meet Lord Songkei, a high ranking Sohei from my brother Enryaku, who has graciously agreed to come to train you.”
Lord Songkei grinned as he undid her bonds, while Qingting raised her head, eyes wide.
“You know him?” Qingting stared at the aura of the dragon, radiant with gold and blue and self-satisfaction. “But what of the Black Dragon, of your fear? And what is a Sohei and an Enryaku?”
“It was a test, little one, for Songkei to see your ability. In a far island nation lives my brother, Enryaku, who chose a different route to mine. He formed a monastery as well, but uses men to fight, Sohei, with different titles. How is my brother, Songkei?”
“Lord Sung, I fear he is not strong. The struggles against your other brothers continue. He says you were wise to leave the island. Here alone your strength can grow. The constant struggles mean he missed his last sleep.”
“Yes,” said Sung in reflective tones, “it is not safe to sleep when you are attacked. So, tell me, what can you do with my little Qingting? Can you grow me a chrysanthemum?”
Songkei took a long look at Qingting, who was battling between outrage, excitement and hope.
“She is cunning, Sensei, with fast reflexes and a powerful body, but it is small and there is little room for growth. She can never stand and trade blows with a man, but she knows this. She bluffed me not once, not twice but three times…”
“Five,” said Qingting.
Songkei smiled. “Yes, Five. The empty presence was clever, I have not seen that before. I will give it three months, Lord Sung.”
“I asked for a year. In three months, you can do little.”
“I fear the wars at home, Lord. Six months, then. I shall give her the knowledge and strength to fight, and the keys to her future.”
The Marshal
King Richard sat on a precarious stool overlooking a rickety table, on which Colonel Donnell, the Intelligence Officer of the Pathfinder Regiment, presided over a map of Hardenwall. He consulted scout reports before adjusting the placement of intricate, carved wooden models. General Roberts, commander of the Pathfinders, slumped, snoring gently, on a pile of cushions in a corner, despite the sun being high. A gaggle of nobles argued in the middle of the tent, keeping the volume down but not a few glances checked to see if the king noticed their intelligent comments.
The tent flap burst open with a gust of chilly damp wind blowing in the Princess Asmara. A gentle smell of unwashed cotton, horse and leather emanated from her, causing the nearer nobles to retreat, one actually holding a perfumed handkerchief to his nose. The princess could barely walk, staggering to Colonel Donnell, her clothing a mess. She gave a perfunctory salute.
“Big movement along the edge of the mountains, sir. I knew those attacks were a screen, not the usual bloody mindedness. They’re moving small bands into the mountains in constant procession. We reckon over a thousand men and we must have missed some.”
“Show me where you have certain knowledge of their movement,” said Colonel Donnell. General Roberts, somehow awake and alert, looked over his shoulder, while the king frowned.
“Here, sir, slipped through Cows’ Foot pass, at least two hundred, while we counted another fifty going up Goat Trail. Smaller bands in the distance, often where there is no trail. I regret, sir, we were unable to confirm numbers.”
“Why on earth not,” complained the fop, removing the handkerchief from his nose to ensure his words reached her. “Here, girl, any nobles with the axemen?”
“They are heading for the Sump,” said the princess, ignoring the comment. “They will come together in there, and cut down any one of the forest paths to get into the Hallowed Fields. Whether to rape and burn or come at our rear, I cannot know.”
“I say,” said the indignant fop, furious at being ignored. “Who do you think you are, girl? Don’t give advice to your betters, just pass on the message as it was given to you.” One of his friends grabbed his arm, too late, as the princess whipped out a slender rapier which sliced the fop’s cheek before resting on the side of this nose.
“Philip, you always were an ass, what idiot said you could come to war? You don’t understand a thing about it and can’t even hold a sword.” Now the princess gave him her sole attention, twisting the rapier a fraction, sufficient to raise a tiny ruby bead by the point.
“Asmara, get back to your report and stop playing the fool,” said the king with a sharp tongue, diverting her attention.
“Philip, go back to your friends, don’t try and get attention the wrong way,” said Asmara. “Listen to your betters, by which I mean experienced soldiers and nothing to do with birth. Learn from them and learn to rule. It is what I am doing and why I am a better soldier than you can even imagine.”
Colonel Donnell, with no noble pedigree to protect him from Philip and his friends, carefully moved figures into the areas Asmara indicated.
“How many did you lose?” General Roberts interrupted.
“Sir, we, the scouts, are intact but the screen took a beating. More than twenty wounded and five dead.”
The general looked at the floor before turning to the side of the tent. “Five Pathfinders? How?”
The girl shrugged. “One Spakka was just too fast and too good, sir. He actually wounded six people and killed three before we took him down.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant Starr,” said Colonel Donnell. “You are dead on your feet, go and get some rest. Report back tomorrow at 08.00 for new orders.”
“Sir,” said the princess, with a glance to her father. He was fixated on her, his gaze an intense stare and she knew what he wanted. Sadly, she shook her head. “No news,” she said and walked from the tent, hurting to see her father shrink at her words.
Other soldiers came in a steady stream, each with reports on enemy troop movements and strength. General Roberts watched without comment, replying shortly to the occasional comment made to him by other generals. He stiffened when a boy announced himself as from the North Hallows Regiment, one of the most northerly and held in high regard. Unlike their southern cousins, the North Hallows didn’t indulge in fripperies like rank insignia.
“Who are you, sir?”
The boy looked at the general with old eyes. “Major Young, sir.” The king smiled. He wondered if the general knew it was a compliment to receive an answer from the boy, as the whole regiment despised the soft Southrons.
“Compliments to your brother,” said the general, causing a stir amongst the gathered senior officers, who peered with more interest at the boy. “Is the Regiment provisioned?”
“Poorly, sir.”
“We have a breakthrough occurring, an attempt to round us. Do ye know this area?” The general indicated the map, south of where Asmara said the Spakka gathered. The boy nodded.
“Your land, I believe. Well, we have reason to believe the Spakka will launch a distraction strike through here. Where can we stopper the bottle, cork them up with the fewest number of men?”
The boy studied the map for a long minute, before jabbing an empty area. “Cold Mere, sir. Will need another regiment as well, two if they’re Southron.”
The general held up a hand to still the protests of the officers, most of whom were from the south and looked down on the uncouth northerners who couldn’t stop the savages from encroaching and needed assistance. “Area looks wide open. How can you stop them there?”
“One side is the river, on the edge of the mountain. Rough ground. Trail the other side, takes a wagon in places. Far side looks like open ground, fair ground, short grass. It is the Cold Mere, high bog land. Impassable. Spakka cannot get round. But they are tough and will push hard down the main road. How many coming?”
“Highest estimate is two thousand, might be half that.” The boy’s lips thinned.
“When did they start to gather in the high wold?”
“Report just came in of sightings of small parties going through.”
“Sir, it is a three day march up there, and the Cold Mere is close to the high wold. If they get past the Mere, they are into the middle of us. We’ll leave tonight, get our Lights underway in an hour, they should hold them till the rest of us arrive. We’ll hold them till you get us support, sir.” The boy bent to the map, his mouth working in silence. “Reckon we’ll need supplies sent after us, enough for a week. Can I have a Priority Requisition, sir?”
“Colonel Donnell, write it out. The king will sign it now. Major Young, I will have a regiment after you tomorrow and another the day after to back you up.”
The colonel scrawled a note on a piece of paper before handing it to the king. Richard signed it and stood, bringing it to the boy, who stiffened to attention, perhaps avoiding the king’s embrace.
The king hesitated. “Is there no alternative, General?”
“We can’t have them amongst our baggage trains, sire. War would be over.”
“It will be Hilario, sire,” said Major Young. “We wondered why we couldn’t see his standards with the main army. Makes it personal.”
“Go with God, my boy,” said the king, a hand on the major’s shoulder. Major Young stiffened again, accepted the requisition and swivelled in a smart turn before marching out.
Lord Sol, the Duke of Galicia, came over, eyes bright and interested. “What are the Lights, sire? Why so sad?”
The duke was an old friend of the king, having served together in their youth. The duke’s father had gone against custom and sent his son to serve with the Pathfinders in an attempt to overcome a hundred years of enmity to the conqueror of their country. He alone amongst his nobles stood fast with the king.
“Their fast marchers, 140 paces to the minute,” said the king. “The boy will lead them and he will take them past the mere to a worse place where he will stop the Spakka. The lights will die to a man and he knows I send him to his death. The Spakka will cut them to pieces to get through, by which time the rest of the regiment will be in place at the mere. Get their back-up in fast, General.”
*
The tent flap flew open, sending a fine spray of early morning rain into the tent to announce the king’s arrival. Colonel Donnell, bleary-eyed after a scant five hours sleep, bent to the map. Such an early arrival did not bode well. General Roberts eyed the king over a cup of tepid tea. He pushed an empty mug towards Richard, who filled it, before adding a spoonful of honey.
“Patronising bastard,” he said to the general. “Just because I take his daughter to bed, doesn’t mean I’m going to marry her. Stupid, vacuous cow.” He made a face at the tea. “Eurrrgh. What is the horse piss made from? Why can’t you northerners make decent tea?”
The general sighed, wishing there was word on Susan. The wives and daughters of the realm were doing their best to make him forget her. The word of his sudden availability resulted in a flood of them arriving to cheer up the troops.
“It is a blend, sire, including willow bark which will help your head.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my head, blast your eyes. Anyone arrived in the night?”
“No, not yet. Rotherstone sent word of another delay, though.”
“Of course the bastard did. Knows he will be first man in the wall when we fight.”
Once more the tent flap bulged and this time disgorged the princess into the tent, today resplendent in clean uniform and her red hair falling down her back. She nodded to the officers, kissed her father and helped herself to a cup of tea, disdaining the honey. Sipping her tea, she put an arm around the king’s shoulders and tried to sit on his knee. He grunted in alarm, dropping the leg so she slid off.
“No,” he said before she could speak. “You can’t have a troop, nor can you stand in shield wall. We’ve discussed this to death.” The princess pouted. “If you were any bloody good as a princess you would chaperone me from all these blasted women.”
“Ha, you only want protecting from those you have bedded because you don’t want the crying at being discarded, their dreams of becoming queen dashed in the gutter.” She sipped her tea, before her eyes flashed and her tone hardened. “And why are you chasing me to find Susan anyway, when you are bedding anything that moves? You tried to tell me you loved her, but you are after all these girls in an instant? Strange sort of love, if you ask me.”
“I do love Susan. I was planning to marry her,” said the king with dignity.
“So you show your love for her by taking her friend in the garden while she watches? And you think any woman worthy of respect will put up with that?”
“That was a mistake...”
“A mistake that you were caught.” The princess glared at her father. “I am going to call off the dogs. Poor girl doesn’t deserve you. If she left after one indiscretion, what will she do after the constant performance you are putting on now?”
“No! I want her back. Please, don’t do that Asmara, find her for me.”
“Daddy, it is bad enough having that awful girl Emily Hallows pinching my cheeks and offering to help me find a dress, but the stupid bitch woke me up this morning crying because you took her sister to bed last night. And you expect me to believe you would treat Susan right?”
“Princess, if I may interject,” said Colonel Donnell with diffidence but showing remarkable bravery, in General Roberts’ opinion. “I believe your father is actually showing his love for Susan by trying, and failing, to forget her in the arms of other ladies.”
“Don’t be disgusting, Colonel, and you are being obtuse.” Princess Asmara warmed to her theme, dismissed the colonel with a shake of her head and prepared to put her errant father to the sword, when a gust of damp horse sweat foretold the arrival of a rider. The diffidence with which he pushed into the tent together with the exhaustion stamped on his features alerted them to a perhaps desperate message, and all fell silent as he saluted Colonel Donnell before handing over a packet.
“What’re the words?” A message usually accompanied a written message, without which the writing would not make sense. This in case of interception by the enemy.
“It’s a fleet, sir, at least thirty ships, maybe more. Maybe a lot more.” The silence pooling across the tent at this information shattered as the princess spoke.
“Who are you, soldier?”
The question caught the general’s attention, a damn good one, he thought, considering the tough man with his rough clothing.
“Corporal Hussy, miss, of the Cliff company from the Hardenwall Rangers.” A corporal commanded a company of about twenty men, all from one area and often related. Not a usual choice for messenger, as the general appreciated. “Not many of us left, now, miss, and Baron Hardacre asked for me special, he did. Said he knew I could get through, and I did.” The man lifted his chest but with no smile of triumph.
The princess lifted a hand to forestall Colonel Donnell’s attempt to correct Corporal Hussy’s method of addressing royalty. “You did well, corporal,” she said while panic blazed open the man’s eyes as recognition surfaced. “Compare for me this season’s campaign with previous years.”
The question stilled Corporal Hussy, whose eyes unfocused as the considered. “Any idiot can see there’s more than usual, ma’am, but there is more to it. This lot have purpose, more than before. Usually they are just out for a bit of fun, crash a village if they can, maybe a bit of burning, but the main thing is blooding their axes. There’s method in these boys, few times now they ignored us when in the past they’d run at us quick smart. They’re up to something, ma’am, and it seems to me they’ve come to stay, they have.”
“Thank you Corporal Hussy, you have done well and made an eloquent report.” Corporal Hussy beamed at the compliment, though he had no idea what ‘eloquent’ meant, as she turned to Colonel Donnell. “Give the corporal a chit for a decent bed, hot food and supplies. Corporal Hussy, rest today and tonight. Report here an hour after first light for a message to take back to Hardacre.” She nodded while he stiffened and walked out, a hint of a smile on his face. Both the king and the general smiled at the princess’ commandeering of the colonel’s duties.
The smiles departed with the corporal.
“General Roberts, if you are about to lose me my kingdom I shall not be best pleased.”
“The situation is grave, sire. We don’t have a lot of options. Not enough troops. If we meet them man to man they will crush us. They fear our horse, so will not come onto open ground and up here they don’t need to, they can stick to the rough country.”
“How are they re-supplying?” The princess interjected.
“Galleys, Princess,” said Colonel Donnell. “They are sticking close to the shore and we don’t have the ships to stop them. So we cannot disrupt their supplies or starve them out.”
“Damn this for a fool’s game,” said the princess, still angry. “We should root them out of their islands and put a stop to their ship building rather than let them come onto us each year.”
“Asmara, if you continue to swear I shall put a stop to your soldiering,” said the king with the absent expression of one repeating a frequent point. “Your grandfather tried, remember? Still haven’t replaced the ships and the barons rebel at any attempts to raise the money.”
“Short sighted b…” The princess bit off her words and subsided.
Colonel Donnell coughed. “Sir, I believe we shall see them come into the open ground in front of Hardenwall, this time. I have reports on their building horse barriers, and have worked out what they will do.” The general and king nodded at him and he continued.
“They have built barriers which need four men to carry them. When placed on the ground there is an array of sharp stakes pointing up for horses to impale themselves. We have witnessed them deploying the stakes in front of their shield wall as they practise.”
“Much as we did when we took Galicia,” said the king. “Our archers should pick them off.”
“I believe we are supposed to think that, sire, for they have other soldiers, their trustee slaves, with palliasses and shields.”
“Donnell, how are the Guards progressing with their squares? D’you think they’re ready?” General Roberts leaned forward, considering the map.
“Squares?” Asked the king, eyes alight with interest.
“Sir, they are untried in battle, of course, but I feel they are ready. We just don’t have enough.”
“It’s a weapon I can use,” mused the general. “So, sire, am I still your marshal? Do I have the army? In which case you will learn all about squares.”
The king thrummed his fingers on the table, concentrating on his knife, lying by his hand. Both the general and the colonel leant forward imperceptible amounts, giving off a palpable tension. For once the princess shut up, enthralled. General Roberts might be a superb soldier with a record of unbroken success, but his claim to nobility rested on a grandfather ennobled in battle and a wife from the Fearaigh courts, not a noble in the eyes of the arrogant Galicians. Whether the Galician nobles would accept him as Marshal lay open to doubt – the subject not even raised in the betting shops of Praesidium.
King Richard pulled himself to his feet, glared at his professionals and stamped out of the tent, throwing words over his shoulder as he left. “Full council of war here in the tent in half an hour. Make sure everybody attends.”
*
Nobles packed the tent. Asmara occupied a stool set in an unobtrusive alcove behind the table from where she observed proceedings, committing procedures to memory and attempting to predict actions. The Fearaigh contingent clumped together, all sombre colours, greens and browns, efficient and attentive, not speaking to each other. In total contrast the Galicians paraded every colour, assuming it was bright, and wore expensive plate armour, impressive, ponderous and suicidal against the fast, singing axes of the Spakka. They chattered their excitement, the younger boasting of their prowess on the training grounds. It was nigh on ten years since the Crown called on Galician assistance to repel the Spakka, and to a man they felt turning up and shaking swords at the cowardly Spakka would suffice to send them home.
The Northern Lords dressed in sombre black and brown, leather studded with metal for a balance of protection and ease of movement. In similar garb, the three professional soldiers, Colonel Donnell and General Roberts plus General Constantine of the Guards, mixed with them. Like the Fearaigh nobles, they said not a word. The Harrhein contingent varied from soldierly to religious, with several wearing a red cross on a white shirt over their mail.
The king pushed into the tent and strode to the table, as the Galicians at last stopped talking, the odd bray lingering.
“I shall be brief. This is not a usual council. We face the greatest concentration of Spakka attackers the country has experienced. This summer leaves us stark choices. Either we stop the Spakka and throw them back into the sea, or they will take the Hardenwall, strengthen over the winter and march on Hallowsfield next year, with Sarl the following year. They will bite into us a little more each year. But this year the Spakka have not just come in great numbers. They have come with a plan, and inside that, plans to deal with our tactics and responses. They have plans to deal with our heavy horse and with our archers, and I have to face the fact that the traditional tactics of the Starrs and Harrhein will not work.”
A murmur rose from the audience, a few nobles starting to rise but restraining themselves, expressions of incredulity on the faces of the Galicians while the northern lords nodded in concerned agreement. Fearaigh nobles cleaned their nails and ignored the Galicians, while many of the Harrhein officers appeared undecided in their reaction.
“Therefore I have decided that we shall not conduct this war as our usual sport, riding down the fleeing Spakka and betting on our conquests. If we do that, we shall lose; lose our homes, lose our women, lose our lives. So I am doing something which I know is unprecedented. I appoint General Roberts as Marshal.”
The tent erupted with angry, shouting Galicians, all on their feet and screaming. The northern lords did not move, a few grim smiles appearing, while the Fearaigh contingent nodded in contemplative silence and studied the general. Asmara noticed Lord Sol chewing his moustache, alone among the Galicians in staying seated, while his shrewd old eyes missed nothing.
The Galicians fell silent one by one, not because they were being ignored but because they realised who arose to speak and waited for silence. Asmara gripped the sides of her stool, thinking the situation must be worse than she foresaw if Count Rotherstone came out from under his rock.
“We note Your Grace lacks confidence in his ability to prosecute this war to a successful conclusion, and applaud you on your good sense in recognising this fact. However, your choice of a commoner, an unbeliever at that, demonstrates to all your flawed thinking and incompetence, which goes far beyond a petty war in the northern states.”
His voice dropped to a sibilant hiss, and Asmara gripped her sword in incredulity. The man intended to challenge the king here and now. She reviewed the numbers in her head and frowned. If the Galicians sided with him, likely now, he might take the floor and sway enough to leave the field, causing the loss of not just Hardenwall but Harrhein to boot. The king would not survive such a loss.
Count Rotherstone drew himself to his full height, drawing in a deep breath as he prepared to deliver his master-stroke.
“Rotherstone,” interrupted the general, “your troops are late, which demonstrates your inability to command men and as such you are not competent to speak in this company. Further, I have today sent a rider with instructions to your men as to where they must be tonight and their position on the field of battle tomorrow. In each location there is a rider to inform me on their arrival. In the event of their failing to reach a way point, they are informed that their commander will be hanged forthwith for dereliction of duty in the face of the enemy. That is you, Rotherstone, so hope your men are able to miraculously improve. In the meantime, you are confined to quarters. Guards”
Rotherstone found himself unable to speak, caught out by this development. He cast around for support, finding himself unable to catch the eyes of his supporters, which were fixed on the tent flap and the sounds of a brief struggle outside. A hulking sergeant pushed through the flap followed by four equally large soldiers. The sergeant gripped his sheathed sword with visibly skinned knuckles and wore a satisfied smile.
“Ah, Blackstock. Arraign this gentleman in a suitable tent in the lines of the Guards. No visitors without a written warrant signed by myself.”
The count spluttered, about to find his voice when Blackstock’s meaty hand closed around his wrist where it rested on his pommel, grinding the bones together and changing his protest to a cry of pain.
“Come along, sir, there’s a good count.”
A number of his friends, standing nearby, started to move towards them and the four soldiers moved to form an aisle for the sergeant to lead the count down. Two of the nobles sat abruptly as they came into contact with the soldiers, one holding his mangled foot where a soldier accidentally stood on it. Princess Asmara’s keen eye noted most of the nobles appeared to await something from outside, and guessed the general, now marshal, had predicted the coup and positioned men to neutralise it.
The marshal continued without turning a hair. “Now, Gentlemen, we shall proceed to the briefing as the Spakka are arrayed for battle and we shall meet them on the morrow, on the Harden Plain. All horse to be kept in the lines, we shall meet them on foot, for they have traps and staves to counter our horse, even the Heavies. We shall meet them in time honoured style, Harrhein in the centre around the Royal Standard, Galicia on the right, Fearaigh on the left.
“The Spakka will advance upon us and their lines will overlap us. I shall deploy Heavy Horse on each wing to ensure they do not. Without their staves, they will not advance on the Horse.
“Gentlemen, you may array your men as you see fit, but I suggest you keep your veterans in the third rank and ensure you each have a reserve to resist the pressure. I shall retain the Guards and the Pathfinders behind the king as the main reserve from which you will be supported in need.”
“Doesn’t sound very different from what the king would do,” said Lord Sol, a keen eye scrutinising Marshal Roberts.
“Indeed, my Lord, as I would wish them to think. The wrinkles will appear in due course. For example, I wish you to retain five hundred of your best riders, for a reserve. Please command them personally, my Lord, and I shall provide you a rider trained in our strategy.”
Lord Sol’s keen grey eyes twinkled. “Ah, young Ricky, I’ll be bound. Damn pup coming along well, I take it? Excellent, excellent, sounds like I shall have some fun after all.”
“My Lord knows me too well,” smiled the general.
“Was a Pathfinder myself, don’t forget. Know how you rascals think. Tally ho, boys, that’s enough, let’s go sharpen some blades.” Lord Sol turned to leave the tent, calling to his nobles as he went. “Gentlemen, please give me half an hour to prepare and I shall be ready with your orders for the battle tomorrow. Come to my tent.”
The Duke of Fearaigh stood, pushing forward before speaking to Marshall Roberts in his deep burr.
“Congratulations, Marshall, on your appointment. So, will you spring another surprise and appoint one of my hunters as commander of the Fearaigh troops?” He grinned to show he jested.
“I considered the matter, Martin,” said Marshall Roberts, also smiling. The two were old friends. “Despite the distinct advantages of young David, I thought we should give you another go. Just hold for me, okay? You will get a lot of pressure, but you must not break. I cannot afford to support you, as I need the reserve elsewhere.”
The Duke looked at him sharply, before nodding in thought. “I shall prepare my men for that end,” he said. “Never fear, we shall hold and allow you to get up to mischief.” He left the tent, waving to his nobles to follow him.
Lord Sarl gathered the northern and Praesidium nobles together and left without speaking, as he mulled over his command, eyeing the king as he left. Once outside the tent, his voice could be heard. “Lansdowne, I hope you have the Trotter twins with you? And Dawlish, your blacksmith, the one they call the Bear. I shall want them either side of the King. They’re here? Good. Come along now, let’s go back to the mess tent and have a drink before I decide how to set you out.” His voice faded away as his nobles demanded specific positions for themselves and their retinue.
Asmara wondered at the excitement, building steadily, and the nobles rushing off with smiles plastered over their faces. She realised Colonel Donnell studied her and turned to him, but he spoke before she could.
“So, what have you learnt?”
“That men are crazy. Surely they know they don’t have a chance? They can’t fight the Spakka, not in a shield wall.”
“You are quite right, but these men, apart from the northerners and the regulars, have never fought them and don’t believe the stories. The general, ah, marshal, is sacrificing them to win the war. They will break within half an hour, probably fifteen minutes.”
“No battle has ever been won after your shield wall breaks. You must have some plan, but there is all history to say it won’t work.”
“Nobody has ever tried this. But we need a proper shield wall which will break. It must be realistic. I expect it to give under the Galicians, and this will relieve the pressure elsewhere as the Spakka rear flood to the break. This will allow our experienced northerners and the regular army to form squares. Indeed, the Pathfinders and Guards will be in reserve, and formed into squares behind the Galicians.”
“So that’s why you want Lord Sol in the rear, and that’s why you had Ricky off for cavalry training.”
“Prince Richard of Galicia is the perfect choice, I think. Yes, it will be tricky getting the cavalry to ride down the lines without taking our squares, but I am confident Lord Sol, Prince Richard and his men will lead the Galician Heavy Brigade down the lines.”
“Only five hundred men. Not nearly enough.”
“Indeed it isn’t. Which is why we were rather pleased with a young man who came up from Fearaigh with a new idea. He brought five hundred riders with him that he has trained in a new style of cavalry. We are most impressed. The Spakka won’t know what hits them.”
The general joined them.
“You told her about Lionel? Yes? Good. Right, Princess, this young man is up in the high wold, out of sight. Don’t want the Spakka getting any ideas. I want you to go up and join him and his brigade. These lads have no idea about soldiering, tactics or strategy. None of them are nobles, led by a couple of brothers, father is a damn lawyer. I want you to join them, as their tactician. You will get on well with them, no respect for anybody.”
Asmara wasn’t sure if he was talking about her or the boys. “What are the orders, sir?”
“These lads are fast, Asmara, light cavalry with long lances. There’s never been anything like them. Call themselves lancers. Light horse. As the shield wall breaks apart, the Spakka will flood round the back to get in the break. You’ve seen them do it on a small scale. That’s the moment to hit them, hard and fast, in and out without taking a hit. Precision strikes. These boys are accurate with their lances, will come in and skewer a running Spakka through the laces of his armour. Their job is to stop the flood. Take the Spakka in the rear. Your job is to make sure they do it, as we have no idea of their level of training. Pull them out if you need to, or sacrifice them to win the battle.”