Robert Hughes - The Prophet of Lamath

“Tohn, I give you freedom to search,” Dorlyth called back.

Tohn brightened. “Is that an invitation to approach your gate?”

“It’s an invitation to try to take it, if you choose.”

There was a murmur of agreement from the soldiers who lined the battlements.

Tohn’s pony pranced while its rider decided to make a different appeal. “We are old men, Dorlyth,” he began. “We have no business scrapping with one another as two boys would roll in the mud. Let us be reasonable.”

“I’m listening,” Dorlyth called back.

“Give me the man and the girl. It is simple enough a gesture, and think of the savings in life, in time, in crops. We’re farmers, you and I, and neither of us has time for a siege.”

“I quite agree that a siege would be foolishness,” Dorlyth yelled back. “But I cannot choose for Pelmen and the Lady Bronwynn. If they chose the house of Dorlyth over the house of Ognadzu, who am I to send them packing?”

“Dorlyth—”

“You say we are old men, too old for fighting. I agree there, too. The laws of the Confederation agree. I have no wish to fight you, and indeed I won’t lay a hand to the sword. All I ask is that you pack your tents and return to the western lands before Dragonsgate.”

“I will do that when I have Pelmen and the girl,” Tohn yelled, calmly evaluating what force it would take to splinter the gate of the keep.

“They are free to go with you when they so choose,” Dorlyth answered back, pointing down toward the gate with a hand hidden from Tohn behind the wall. Several warriors below him reinforced it, still further, and a pair of thickly muscled local freemen carried a large vat of boiling pitch up a nearby stairway.

“Do you have any estimate as to when that might be?” Tohn smiled gravely.

“I am sure they will be ready to go with you in several years,” Dorlyth smiled back.

Tohn chuckled. “As I said, I’m an old man. In several years I may be dead.”

“Of course, there is that other possibility,”

Dorlyth called back, adrenaline rising through him and making him incautious.

“Which is?”

“That in several minutes you might be dead,” Dorlyth called out brightly, and there was laughter all along. the line of the wall.

“Or that you may!” Tohn called back, realizing that the battle was inevitable.

“Perhaps I will die today,” Dorlyth replied loudly, “but I shall not raise my hand against you unless attacked.”

“Well then,” Tohn answered sadly, sheathing his greatsword, “I suppose I shall have to raise mine against you.” He turned the head of his horse and made to ride away, then decided he wanted to add a word to the powerful warrior standing astride the gateway. “One thing, Dorlyth. This is not my idea.”

“Mine, either,” Dorlyth called back, and Tohn and his captains rode back to the striped tent on the hillside.

No assault came that day, but Dorlyth had really been expecting none. Tohn was no hot-headed youth, itching to prove his leadership by slaughtering his own men needlessly. No, the merchant was a tough old fighter of rich battle experience. Not only had he ridden with warriors of all the three lands, but some said he had battled with dragons.

Dorlyth retired to his rooms to wait for the event he felt surely must come—Tohn’s attack on his water line. The water lift in the lesser tower had been kept pumping since Pelmen’s departure, but the cisterns were still far from full. When an old soldier knocked on his door and informed him that Tohn’s warriors were in the forest behind the castle, Dorlyth recognized that the blow would come sooner than expected.

“Probably tomorrow,” he whispered to himself. “Send Venad mod Narkis to the lesser tower now. We need his bow to defend our water.”

“He’s already there, Lord Dorlyth,” the old man said softly, “and he’s already claiming first blood.”

Tohn and his captains were sitting solemnly in the command tent when the news arrived, followed quickly by the body. Tohn cradled the young man in his own arms and carried him to his own cot. “Get out!” he growled, and all others left the tent. “What am I going to tell your mother, lad?” the old fighter asked quietly, then he bowed his head across his young nephew’s chest and wept.

The young man had been nineteen years old, one of the many Tohn had wrestled with and coached. He had been inspecting the stream on the far side of the castle, unwary, and had taken an arrow through the neck. In these few moments of quiet, Tohn did not blame the archer. He blamed himself for bringing such a youthful army so far for so little—and for deciding to remain and press the point.

“An old man should spend his days reflecting on life, my boy,” Tohn said quietly, “watching the wheat grow. Not killing oil his sister’s babies.” And yet he realized he wouldn’t give it up. Death or no death, Tohn had committed himself to this way of living, and he’d sat in too many tents with too many bodies of the first-slain to believe that this time he would yield to the temptation to pack up and go. He would be no hypocrite, and beat his breast and sob.

Decisions made were decisions made. To second guess decisions constantly would only bring greater pain.

As he walked to the door of his tent and called for men to carry the body away, Tohn could not help but wonder if the continuation of the family business was really worth all the family blood. Once his captains rejoined him, he would need to thrust the question aside and get on to practical matters. But while he waited, shielding his eyes against the afternoon sun and examining once again the castle that was his target, he let his mind wander freely. Did the boy’s personality ride now on the winds, a new power to be dealt with? Or was he just gone, a fleeting bright fire of a life, drowned by a bucket of his own shed blood? “We raised no sword against them!” he heard one captain say angrily as they rounded the comer of the tent in a group. “And yet they ambush us from the battlements!” Tohn turned away and ducked back into the tent. The man continued his tirade as he followed the old merchant in. “What manner of man is this Dorlyth that he says one thing and does another! When we take this castle we should—”

“Quiet,” Tohn said, and the man obeyed, a bit surprised. Tohn waited until they were all assembled, then addressed himself to the red-faced speaker. “You are saying he fights unfairly. So do you. So do I. Have some integrity as a soldier, son. He’s done nothing you wouldn’t do if you were outnumbered and your keep surrounded. Perhaps you must get steamed up about something before you can fight. Well, go ahead then. But don’t let it color your respect for your enemy, or he’ll kill you.” Tohn turned to the others, and shrugged broadly. “We’ve lost a man. We’ll lose others. At least the boy’s death wasn’t totally a waste. It provided us with some helpful information.”

“What information?”

“Show me the spot where the young man died. I’ll show you where we can cut off Dorlyth’s water.” It rained during the night. When the sun rose the next day the colorful uniforms of Tohn’s army were no longer so bright and clean. The field between the tents and the castle gate was bright, the bright green of new grass; but though it looked as smooth as a hand-tied carpet, Tohn knew it was full of treacherous potholes and hidden puddles. He urged the long column of riders to move closer, trying to minimize as much as possible the distance of the charge while staying out of bowshot range until all was ready. One unit of two hundred men stood abreast of him on the eastern edge of Dorlyth’s field. Their mission was ostensibly a frontal assault on the castle gate, but Tohn knew in advance they wouldn’t breach it. Not unless Dorlyth had built the thing of green wood. The real purpose of this attack was to draw defenders to this side of the castle.