Tad Williams - Shadowrise

“Ah, yes,” said the autarch. “The woman who ruled a nation! This name I have heard.”

“She earned her fame. Her husband had been killed in a fight against one of the Mantis’ fellow bandits and his son had died beside him. Lily was left to rule the country alone, and many of the frightened people argued that she should be deposed, that a warrior-knight should be elevated to the throne. But Lily was as much a warrior as any man in her court—Anglin’s blood ran hot and strong in her. She would not be put aside.

“The Mantis had long admired Southmarch, and not just because of its young queen. The land was fertile and the castle was all but impregnable. Davos sent Queen Lily an offer of marriage. She had no husband and no son. The Mantis pointed out that he was rich and strong, and that if she married him his great army would be at the service of the March Kingdoms. Many in the Southmarch court urged her to accept this proposal. What other hope did they have?

“Instead, Lily sent a letter back to Davos Elgin, the black-cloaked Mantis—master, so it was said, of a hundred thousand bloodthirsty soldiers—which read, ‘Queen Lily regrets that she will be unable to honor your invitation. She will be too busy killing the rats that are swarming across her lands.’ And that is what she commenced to do.” Olin glanced up. “Am I wearying you, Sulepis?”

“Not at all! You are amusing me and that is a rare treasure.” The autarch leaned down toward the foreign king. With his bony, long-nosed face and troublingly bright, unblinking eyes, Vash thought Sulepis looked more than ever like a human hawk. “Please continue.”

“Lily knew that the Gray Companies could not survive without plunder—they had already left destruction across all the other lands they had entered—so she sent her agents out to tell the people to retreat, not just in the Mantis’ direct path but all around, even from places it seemed he did not threaten. She told the people to take everything they could and destroy all that was left behind. If they could reach Southmarch, she told them, she would protect them there. Then she sent out her armies, still full of hard, battle-worn veterans of the war against the Twilight People, to harass the Mantis’ much greater force but never to confront him directly.

“Thus, as the mercenary armies trekked across the March Kingdoms they found the way deserted and scorched before them—no nobles to ransom, no valuables to steal, no food to eat. As they struggled on, the Marchmen appeared from out of nowhere, struck, then vanished like shadows, never killing many of the Mantis’ soldiers but making them all fearful because of the unpredictability of their attacks. Sometimes they slit the throat of just one mercenary where he lay sleeping in the midst of a dozen comrades, so that when the others found him they would know it could just as easily have been any of them. Queen Lily’s raiders killed the Mantis’ men in a hundred different ways, subtle and otherwise, weakening the bridges, poisoning the mercenaries’ water or rations, or simply setting fire to their tents as they lay sleeping. So many of Davos’ sentries were murdered that finally the pickets insisted on huddling together in groups of three or four, which meant large stretches of the perimeter were left virtually unguarded.

“At last, with his unnerved men starting at shadows, Davos the Mantis staked everything on a swift and direct assault upon Southmarch Castle itself. The shores of the bay were full of rough dwellings built by those who had already fled Davos’ assault but could not get into the crowded castle. As the mercenaries’ march drew closer these refugees fled from them again, disappearing into the caves and forested heights of the headlands. Then, as Davos and his men marched down the main street, wary of ambush, they smelled the smoke and saw the first flames—the town along the shore had been set on fire. The mercenaries looked at each other fearfully. These people of Southmarch would rather burn their towns down again and again instead of ceding one inch to the raiders. Who could fight such madness?

“And then the Mantis’ men at last saw the high walls of Southmarch Castle across the bay, and knew it would take them a year or more to overthrow such a powerful stronghold—a year of starvation, because the land had been made uninhabitable around them and their stores were empty. Even Davos’ most loyal lieutenants, the men who had enriched themselves at his side and gone from bandits to magnates in his employ, now refused his orders. They had lost the will to fight. Many of the soldiers threw down their weapons on the spot and skulked away from the overwhelming sight of unconquered Southmarch.

“But Lily had kept only a token army inside the castle. The greater part of her forces had been taken by ship to the coast of Landsend to begin their ride south. So it was that as the Mantis’ army was in its greatest disarray, with a quarter or more of its number deserting and the rest fighting among themselves, the army of Southmarch fell upon them.

“The Southmarch folk were much fewer but they were fed, and angry, and fighting for their own land. The mercenaries trapped on the beach put up only a short resistance before the Southmarch force split them in half. Those on one side were forced back against the waves of the freezing bay and either surrendered or were killed. Those on the other side did their best to follow their comrades who had fled earlier, but most were caught as they tried to climb the cliffs. The queen’s archers picked them off like birds on a low branch, their bodies tumbling down the hillside in such quantity that in Southmarch we have for centuries called a disordered heap a ‘mantis-pile,’ although few these days remember where the term came from.

“The Mantis himself, Davos of Elgi, died in Brenn’s Bay, trying to wade toward the castle with a dozen arrows in him.

“You see, the March Kingdoms have been invaded by Syan, by Hierosol, by the Kracians and all the mercenaries of the Gray Companies. We have been invaded three times by the Qar themselves. Twice we have driven them out with them suffering great losses, and we will drive them out again. And you, Sulepis, for all your power and certainty, will soon be only another name in the histories of my country—another failed invader, another man whose pride was greater than his sense.”

Even though only Vash, the autarch himself, and Panhyssir spoke enough of Olin’s tongue to understand all he had said, the northern king’s tone as he finished his tale was enough to make many of those surrounding the autarch’s litter look up at their monarch with foreboding, if not terror. This foreigner was insulting the Golden One!

At first Sulepis said nothing, but at last a smile stretched slowly across his angular face.

“Very good,” he said. “Very good indeed, Olin. A story with a lesson in it! Although I think you could have trusted your audience to puzzle out the meaning without the last bit—perhaps a bit too much honey on the cake, if you take my meaning. Still, very good.” He nodded as if taken with a new idea. “And your advice is excellent. It would certainly not be a good idea to sail all my ships and all my men into the bay at once, leaving myself open to whatever mischief these Qar have planned for me.” He leaned down as if about to impart a secret. “So in a few moments we will disembark a good number of our soldiers and let them come upon Southmarch from the land while the fleet approaches on the water. What do you say, King Olin? Since it is your idea, will you accompany me? It may be your only chance to feel the earth of your homeland beneath your feet—or at least, to do so with the open sky above your head.” He laughed, then called out to the captain of the flagship, “Prepare to make land!”