David Coe - Weavers of War

Eibithar’s king had arrayed the three armies-his own guard, as well as the soldiers of Curgh and Heneagh-as best he could. But they were outnumbered, and would be until the soldiers of Thorald, Labruinn, and Tremain arrived. Add to that the fact that Heneagh’s men lacked the discipline and skill of the other two armies, and it was something of a miracle that they hadn’t been overrun already. Had Galdasten sent soldiers, or Sussyn, or Domnall, or any of the other houses that stood with Kentigern in defiance of the king, matters would have been different. As it was, it seemed to Tavis that the survival of the kingdom was in doubt.

The previous night, Braedon’s warriors had struck at Kearney’s lines, on the eastern front, nearest to the river. The battle had been short-lived-a few volleys of arrows exchanged and a brief, fierce engagement between swordsmen which left several men dead and many more injured-and had ended as abruptly as it began, with the soldiers of Braedon breaking away and retreating. The morning before that, the enemy had staged a similar attack on the Curgh lines, striking and withdrawing with astonishing swiftness.

This time, the empire’s men were attacking the western end of the Eibitharian lines, which were defended by the army of Heneagh.

“They’re testing us,” said Tavis’s father, the duke of Curgh, his face grim and etched with concern as he watched this latest skirmish unfold. “They’re looking for weaknesses in our lines, trying to decide where to concentrate their assault when it begins in earnest.”

“Can Heneagh hold them?” Xaver MarCullet asked, standing beside his father, Hagan, Curgh’s swordmaster.

Hagan shrugged. “I don’t know. But if the duke’s right, I think they’ve probably found what they were looking for.”

Within just a few minutes, the Braedon raiding party had withdrawn. They were pursued briefly by a large group of Heneagh’s men, but Welfyl’s swordmaster quickly called them back. It had seemed to Tavis that this skirmish was even briefer than the previous night’s, but he couldn’t say if he thought this boded well or ill for Eibithar’s forces.

“We should check on them,” the duke said, swinging himself onto his mount. “They may need healers.” Javan glanced down at Tavis. “Come with me?”

The young lord nodded, a smile springing to his lips. Then he climbed onto his horse. Grinsa followed, as did Xaver and Hagan.

Tavis and Grinsa had finally caught up with Kearney’s army four days before, finding the king some ten leagues north of Domnall, where he waited for the armies of Curgh and Heneagh to join his own. From there they had ridden northward with the king and dukes for two days until finally encountering the empire’s invading force on this plain in the northeastern corner of the Moorlands, within sight of Binthar’s Wash and only seven leagues or so from Galdasten Castle. The skirmishes had begun almost immediately, and though Tavis’s father had brought most of the Curgh army and also commanded five hundred men of the King’s Guard, the duke had been alarmed by his army’s showing during their brief encounter with the enemy. A number of his men had been wounded. Qirsi healers had little trouble mending most of their injuries, but Curgh’s soldiers should have fared better.

Still, even under these extraordinary circumstances, Javan had clearly been pleased to see his son; Tavis, in turn, had been surprised by how happy he was to be with his father again. Theirs had never been an easy relationship, even before the brutal murder of Tavis’s promised bride, Lady Brienne of Kentigern, and the young lord’s imprisonment in Kentigern. Tavis hadn’t been certain how the duke would receive him. But Javan had openly welcomed both Grinsa and the boy, and Kearney had done much the same.

The soldiers of the King’s Guard, however, had made it clear from the moment Tavis and Grinsa joined them that they still considered the young lord a murderer who had lost all claim to nobility. Since his arrival, they had offered naught but glares and vile comments uttered just loud enough for Tavis to hear. The boy had thought, or at least hoped, that once he proved his innocence their hostility toward him would abate. But though Cresenne ja Terba had confessed to hiring an assassin to kill Brienne, and Tavis had managed to kill that assassin on the shores of Wethyrn’s Crown, little had changed.

“It’s going to take them some time,” Grinsa had whispered that first day, as they rode past the soldiers, Tavis’s face burning as if it had been branded. “Not all of them will have heard yet that you killed the assassin, and even after they do, some of them will never accept your innocence.”

Tavis had simply nodded, unable to bring himself to speak.

Curgh’s men had been far more welcoming. As word of his encounter with the assassin, Cadel, spread through his father’s army, men began to treat him like a hero, a conquering lord returning to his homeland. This made Tavis nearly as uncomfortable as the rage he saw on the faces of Kearney’s men. He had been fortunate to survive his battle with Cadel, and the man had been defenseless when Tavis killed him. I’m no hero, he wanted to yell at them. And I’m not a butcher, either. I’m just a man. Let me be. But that, he was beginning to understand, would never be his fate.

Still, despite all of this, he was glad to be with his father again, and also with Hagan and Xaver MarCullet, and Fotir jal Salene, his father’s first minister. For a year he had been an exile, denied the comfort of his friends and family, denied the right to claim his place as a noble in the House of Curgh. Now his life as a fugitive was over. He had told Javan all that he could remember of his final encounter with the assassin, and though he knew that many in the realm might be slow to believe him when finally his story was told to all, he had no doubt that his father did. He longed to see his mother, to set foot once more in the castle of his forebears, but already he felt that this was a homecoming of sorts.

Just as Tavis’s father had expected, the Braedon attack, brief as it was, had taken a heavy toll on Heneagh’s army. At least two dozen men lay dead in the long grass; most of them bore ugly, bloody wounds. Nearly three times that number had been injured. Already healers were tending to them, but Tavis could see immediately that they had need for more.

“Go to the Curgh camp,” Javan told the nearest of Heneagh’s uninjured men. “Tell them to send all our healers.”

“What of the king’s healers?” the man asked.

“Curgh’s should be enough. Go. Quickly.” As the man ran back toward the Curgh lines, Javan surveyed the Heneagh army, shielding his eyes with an open hand. “Where is Welfyl?” he muttered.

“You don’t suppose he fell in the battle.”

The duke glanced at his son. “He shouldn’t have been anywhere near the battle.” He made a sour face. “He shouldn’t be here at all.”

Welfyl was by far the oldest of Eibithar’s dukes. Indeed, he came to power the same year Aylyn the Second, Kearney’s predecessor, began his reign as king of the realm. Javan, Tavis knew, had always liked Heneagh’s duke, but there could be no denying the fact that the man was simply too old to be riding to war. He was frail and bent-Tavis wondered if he could even raise a sword, much less fight with one. But he had led his army to the Moorlands, and unless the king said otherwise, he would lead them into battle.

“My lord, look.” Fotir was pointing farther west, his white hair gleaming in the sun, his bright yellow eyes seeming to glow like coals in a fire.

Following the direction of his gaze, Tavis saw the old duke kneeling in the grass, cradling a man in his arms, a stricken expression on his bony face.