Jodoli spoke hesitantly. “But what of your previous proposal? That we would negotiate with them, perhaps with a treaty that appealed to their greed?”

“Later,” he said coldly. “I have decided that will come later. When they decide to try to rebuild Gettys. Then will be the time to confront them. For now, the plan is simply to kill. And when Gettys is destroyed, Kinrove will have no further need for his dancers. They will be free.”

Olikea took a breath and spoke hesitantly. “Can you truly do it so quickly? Can you bring Likari back to us?”

I felt the doubt that he dared not bare to them. Aloud, he spoke with confidence. “I can. I will.”

I feared that he was right.

CHAPTER TWENTY

BATTLE PLANS

It was dark in the mountain passage, and cold. Images of the passing terrain blinked before me like pages in a book, turned before my eyes could focus on the print. Only torches lit our way as we quick-walked. Ropes of ice twined and coiled down the stone walls. Horses’ breath stood out in plumes of steam. The Speck warriors, unnaturally bundled in furs and wool against the cold, walked awkwardly on the slick ground. The waterway that had gurgled to one side of the passage the last time I had traversed this pass was frozen solid.

The sounds of our passage came in pieces. Creak of leather and clop of hooves and resounding echoes were stuttered with silence. Murmurs of complaint from the men and the occasional harsh laugh or curse. The distant crash of a falling icicle, big as a man. Soldier’s Boy’s army was on the march toward Gettys and slaughter.

He had kept his word to Olikea. Scarcely three days had passed since they had gathered around the fire to discuss Likari’s fate. The events of the following days had occurred so swiftly that whenever I thought of it my mind spun. Jodoli and Soldier’s Boy had called a meeting with Kinrove and Dasie. Both of the other Great Ones had been startled by their demands for immediate action. The Specks, I discovered, dreaded cold, and both Kinrove and Dasie argued against the wisdom of sending their warriors forth to fight their first battle in such an alien environment. But Soldier’s Boy had prevailed, pointing out truthfully that if they struck now, the deep cold of winter would do half their work for them. He spoke earnestly of burning the supply houses and barracks and as many homes and stores as would catch fire. In detail, he explained how the intruders’ food supplies would perish, along with the tools and the men who could use them. Destroy the ability of the Gettys folk to rebuild, and they must either flee back down the King’s Road into the barren winter weather and impassable snows or stay where they were, to freeze and starve. Either way, the cold would make an end of them, decreasing the work for the warriors.

Convincing them to attack immediately was only half the battle. Demanding that all four of the Great Ones should be involved in the battle shocked the rest of them. He set out his plans succinctly. Jodoli and Kinrove would go no farther than the mountain pass. Their key contribution would be spending magic to quick-walk the entire force from the rainy side of the mountains westward through the draw and then swiftly down to the low-lying hills that surrounded Gettys. He needed them for that task. Moving at a normal pace, his forces would quickly be both discouraged and thinned by the inhospitable weather. I knew his hidden thought. If any of his soldiers considered deserting along the way, they would be faced with a long, cold journey home, unaugmented by the magical speed of a quick-walk.

Once the force had reached the western side of the mountains, Soldier’s Boy had planned that he and Dasie would command the battle itself. They would go on horseback, mounted for a better view of the action and to allow both of them to keep up with their troops. Dasie’s fire magic skills would be required, as would his knowledge of the layout of the town and the fort. Soldier’s Boy had decided that his horse soldiers were too small a force to deploy as cavalla. Instead, the horses would carry supplies and perhaps the mounted riders would serve as messengers to coordinate the troops during the battle.

The Specks had no experience with the sort of warfare that involved coordinated troop movements and warriors obeying a single commander. Every step of it had to be explained. Soldier’s Boy had talked and talked and talked. Kinrove did not wish to be involved in quick-walking the troops. He wished to stay with his dancers. Soldier’s Boy insisted on it. “Our warriors are not accustomed to the cold. I think they can sustain a brief journey through it, and a night of fighting, but beyond that, the cold will eat at their stamina. If the cavalla troops at Gettys rally against us, we will be fighting seasoned soldiers who are tolerant of those conditions. If I must take the troops through the snow for days before we even close with the enemy, they will lose heart before they even fire an arrow.” Looking from Jodoli to Kinrove, he said, “And you know that I do not have the strength to quick-walk such a force on my own. Dasie and I will require your help if we are to deliver a force capable of an attack on Gettys.”

He was willing to admit that they had strength he needed, knowing that such an admission would all but force them to help him, simply to prove their own strengths. He did not admit to them that he relished the idea of seeing the Great Men in discomfort. But I lived in him, behind his eyes, and I knew. They had both bested him in magic. Now he would show them what he was best at, and force them to be present at his victory. Soldier’s Boy wanted both to see, if not the battle, our warriors as they returned from it. He would have them witness the difficulty and the dangers of fighting a real war. He did not feel they grasped the reality of that, and for a reason he could not explain even to himself, he felt that they needed to.

I wondered if Soldier’s Boy himself did. I wondered if I did. I had never seen battle. I’d read of it, been schooled to it, heard tales of the blood and smoke all my life. Yet here I was, riding mutely along to my first engagement, leading troops against the very country that had created me. The knowledge of that crazed me, if I dwelt on it. I held myself back from thinking of it, and focused my thoughts only on what I knew I might be able to save. I did not think I could stop the attack or the massacre that would follow. I might be able to preserve a few of the people I loved.

I tried to be small and forgotten in Soldier Boy’s mind. I uttered no sound of rebuke or dismay as I witnessed him marshaling his troops. They were armed, not with guns, for the iron of the barrels and actions would disrupt our magic, but with bows, spears, pikes, and, in plentiful supply, with pitch torches. His four chosen archers carried the fire-arrows and their loads. Dasie was good at the calling of fire. She would be the one to kindle the flames when the time was right. And Soldier’s Boy was to be in the thick of it, leading his troops right into Gettys and directing his cowardly attack against the sleeping foe.

And so I rode with him those last horrid days, watching him plot and plan against my people. My people. His traitorous words had found fertile soil in me and were, despite my resolve, sending down bitter roots. “My people” had disowned me and attempted to kill me. “My people” had not been able to see past the changes the Speck plague had wrought in me to realize I was the same Nevare I had always been. “My people” had no respect for the Specks who had taken me in, no interest in learning why they so vigorously defended their forest, and no intention of letting the Specks preserve their way of life. When I dwelt on those things, it was hard for me to say why I remained so fiercely loyal to a people who had no connection at all to me. Yet when those traitorous doubts came to me, all I had to do was focus my thoughts on Spink and Epiny and the woman and children they had sheltered for me, and my determination to undermine Soldier’s Boy’s plans came roaring back to life.