Unfair, he said to Idrys, scanning the trees and the rocks and wondering whether Idrys watched the column from that rough outcrop or from the depths of the woods. He was vexed with Idrys, not an uncommon thing in dealing with the Lord Commander, but no signal he could give would order Idrys in.
He needed advice on a matter far more important than Ryssand's treason and Ryssand's conspiring with someone he trusted.
We have a war to fight, have you noticed, perchance, master crow?
Should I care that one more of my barons would put a dagger in my back? I am not destined to be a well-loved king, but thus far and somewhat by my own wits I am a live one. Come in! Stop this skulking in the bushes… it ill behooves a commander of the king's armies.
Damn, he said to himself as birds flew up, startled from a thicket.
He found he was anticipating attack, not attack from one of his barons, but attack out of the woods that were no more than a thin screen between them and the ridge… not enough to prevent archery lofted over and down, if Tasmôrden were so enterprising. He had sent his scouts ahead to investigate the heights he had sent a squad to occupy, indeed, but the essential trouble with scouts was that they had to come back to report what they saw. A man with critical information might not be able to come back, might be lying dead with a dozen arrows in him.
So might Idrys, if he went poking and prying into the woods ahead, if he had his attention all for the barons and none spared for the enemy.
And which of the barons, or which of the officers, was a traitor to him?
He refused to suspect Maudyn or Maudyn's sons: Sulriggan's turning on him would be no news and no loss. He had never been sure of Osanan.
He led the rest, not reckoning any one of them a potent threat, not reckoning Murandys would dare cross him: that alliance of Mur-andys with Ryssand was lately frayed; and Murandys was not a man to take rash and independent action.
Anwyll was never suspect, either. Complicity could not possibly lie in that face, in those forthright blue eyes. There was never a man less given to conspiracy: Anwyll always expected honesty of the world, was indignant when he found otherwise; and for the rest of the officers, they had served Ylesuin in his father's reign and served with honor, no marks against any of them.
An owl called by daylight, and drew alarm from the men nearest. Maudyn laid a hand on his sword. But then a true owl took to the air and flew off across their path, so Maudyn laughed, and no few of the men did.
Then a horseman came from around the bend of the road and toward them at breakneck speed.
Attack came: there was no question—and they had not reached the chosen battlefield. Cefwyn's heart leapt and plummeted, seeing the guardsman rode perilous in balance, the dark stain of blood on his red surcoat, an arrow jutting from his back.
"Form the line!" Cefwyn shouted, and already the banner-bearers halted and spread out across the meadow: they wanted all the open land they could take, the devil and Tasmôrden take the woods where heavy horse could not have effect.
They might have met the ambush attack of some bandit, some startled peasant farmer; or it might herald the presence of an enemy whose surprise was spoiled.
The scout came riding up, scarcely staying in the saddle, and managed his report:
"Enemies in the valley next, a line, a camp…" The man had used all the wind he had, and sank across his horse's neck.
"Tend this man!" Cefwyn ordered, and shouted orders next for the banners to advance and compact the army again into a marching line spearheaded by heavy cavalry. "Panys!" he shouted at Lord Maudyn. "Take the left as we come through." They had a barrier of woods yet to pass to reach that place the scout described, which by the condition of the scout might mean hidden archers on either side of the road. "Shields! Lances!"
Here was the battle he had come for. Tasmôrden hadcome out of his walled town, fearing, perhaps, that its surviving population was too hostile, its secrets were too well reported; and so they were: Ninévrisë had told them to him in great detail, and swore, too, that such townsmen as still lived could never love this lord, of all others.
The sun was shining, the hour toward noon: there was no impediment to the fight they had come for… and Tasmôrden came out to fight, relying most on traitors to do their work.
So Cefwyn instructed his Guard: "Watch my back!" They knew from whom to guard it; and there was no more time for musing. A page brought his shield and another his lance, young men themselves armed and well mounted, young men whose duty now was to ride with messages, and so he dispatched them down the line to advise the hindmost to arm and prepare, and the baggage train to draw up and bar the road with the carts, save only a gap through which they might retreat if they had to ride back through the woods: an untidy battle if it came to that, but the saving of some if the encounter went badly, the saving of part of an army that might come home to Ylesuin, to Efanor's command… if it came to that.
He took the precautions, but he had no intention of losing. His grooms brought Kanwy up, his heavy horse, and with the groom's help he dismounted from Danvy and mounted up on a destrier's solid force, settled his shield, looked on the descent of a low hill and the strand of woods that ran from the road to the left slope, screening all the land in that direction, away from the ridge: they had climbed gradually for two days. Beyond this, his maps told him there was one great long slope before they reached the end of the ridge, a long ride down to the valley where he most expected Tasmôrden to meet him, beside what his best map, Ninévrisë's map, warned him was wooded land.
He had fought in worse land, on the borders. They had come downhill out of the brush into a Chomaggari picket barrier, and had had to climb over it. Such hours came back to him, and with the high beating of his heart, the confidence that the Elwynim, aside from their bandit allies, were not disposed to such ambushes: it was heavy horse they were bound to meet ahead, lines that mirrored their lines: the shock of encounter and the skill of riders to carry through.
The king of Ylesuin, however, did not carry the center of the charge, not today.
Leave that to Ryssand and Murandys.
CHAPTER 6
One moment Tristen's company crossed a wide meadowland in the bright sunlight; and in the next, slate gray ribbons of cloud raced across the heavens, broader and broader, until, rapid as the drawing of a canopy, the sun gave up a last few shafts.
"Gods!" Crissand said, for it was not only the gray space which changed so easily, but the world itself which had shifted, and Men and horses faltered in their march, dismayed. From the confidence of a world that could change but slowly, they had entered a territory where magic met magic and the sun itself was overwhelmed.
A sudden gale buffeted the foremost ranks, and lightning cracked and sheeted across the hills. From ranks behind them came wails of dismay: seasoned veterans and country lads who had run to the banners of the High King met hostile magic and wavered in their courage as the lightnings gathered alarmingly above their heads.
Tristen flung up his hand and willed the lightning elsewhere. It took a tree on the wooded ridge to their left: splinters flew in a burst of fire.
Owl came winging to him, and swung a broad, self-satisfied circle, on a light breeze.
— Well, well, said the Wind. We are quick to seize the advantage, are we not? And confident?
— Owl! Tristen would not distract himself in debate with his enemy. He let Owl settle on his fist, and sent out one burning message through the gray space to all he loved and trusted, nothing reserved now: Ward yourselves! Let nothing in or out!