Jonathan Rogers - The Way of the Wilderking

Aidan looked at his father with horror. Was he speaking treason too?

“Aidan, don’t you understand? When the Pyrthens come again-and they will-those three thousand men may be the only army Corenwald has left. We couldn’t defeat the Pyrthens in a pitched battle. But we could make them sorry they came. Hit-and-run attacks. Rearward attacks on their supply train, horse rustling…”

“Feechie warfare,” Aidan said, beginning to catch his father’s vision.

“That’s right,” said Errol, with growing excitement. “I’m an old warhorse, and this wouldn’t normally be my style, but you make do with what you have. The Last Campers are the best archers I’ve ever seen. They can teach those villagers to shoot. Our twelve army scouts will make a good beginning to a reconnaissance force. And the miners can show the militiamen how to dig shelters for themselves in the canyon walls.”

Errol put his hands on Aidan’s shoulders and looked intently into his eyes. “Bayard the Truthspeaker isn’t here, so I’ll tell you this myself: Live the life that unfolds before you. A small army is coming to Sinking Canyons. They want to follow you. That’s what is unfolding before you today. You didn’t ask for it. You didn’t seek it. You didn’t want it. But here it is. These men mean to follow you. They need to follow you. Will you lead them?”

“I’m not their king,” Aidan said.

The vein on Errol’s forehead appeared again. “Stop making excuses, Aidan!” The vehemence of his father’s response surprised Aidan. “I never said you were anybody’s king,” Errol continued. “I asked if you would lead these men. You’re not a boy anymore. You’re a man. Don’t make any more excuses. Just tell me whether or not you will lead these men.”

In that moment of challenge, in that moment of seeming conflict, Aidan felt the blessing of his father pass to him. “Yes, Father,” he said, “I will lead them.”

Errol nodded, pleased with his son’s answer. “Good,” he said. “And just because you’re leading, that doesn’t mean you can’t follow too. Lord willing, you’ll lead these men to follow King Darrow.”

Within a week all the militias had arrived at Sinking Canyons-thirty-six hundred men from every corner of Corenwald. Some had military experience. Many had fought the Pyrthens at the Battle of Bonifay Plain six years earlier. Some had actually been with King Darrow’s army at Last Camp when Aidan came out of the Feechiefen with Percy and Dobro.

They came with stories of a kingdom in disarray. The army had fallen apart in the weeks since King Darrow abandoned his invasion of the Feechiefen. The king rode back to Tambluff alone, leaving no orders for his officers. The men just wandered back home to resume the lives they had left when they were forcibly drafted into the army. A few soldiers, in the absence of leadership, had taken to looting, highway robbery, and other crimes.

Sinking Canyons could no longer be properly called a hideout. There was no way of concealing the presence of so many men, even in the maze of caves and crevices. It was unmistakably a military outpost. Aidan worked with his father, his brothers, and the noblemen, Aethelbert and Cleland, to organize the militias into more efficient fighting units. They worked on the basics of sword fighting and archery, drilled quite a bit on troop movements-flanking an enemy, orderly retreat, field signals. But most of their time was devoted to tasks that related specifically to the kind of battle they expected to be fighting. They studied the geography of Sinking Canyons, learning every crevice, every finger, every tower and chimney, every fold in the earth that might provide cover in combat. They reviewed plans for ambushes and for search-and-rescue operations. They worked on tracking techniques and habits of concealment-always walking up the braided stream whenever possible, sweeping away tracks with pine boughs after walking through soft sand. Dobro offered special seminars on feechie methods of camouflage.

But more than anything, the new recruits spent their time digging. Under the miners’ guidance, they dug tunnel after tunnel for shelter and storage. They dug out hiding places; they dug out wells. On more than one occasion, they dug each other out after poorly dug tunnels caved in.

The old-timers-the original band of Sinking Canyons outlaws-didn’t have as many tunnel-digging responsibilities as the new recruits. They maintained their interest in Jasper’s archaeological dig.

One day, Arliss made a discovery at the diggings that set the whole camp abuzz. It had been days since anyone had found anything more interesting than splintered logs or pieces of broken crockery. Then Arliss noticed a small, shiny disc peeking out from a shovelful of sand he was about to toss on the discard heap. It was a silver coin in surprisingly good shape, considering it had been buried for many years. He immediately ran with it to Jasper, who was cataloguing their findings, seated at a small campaign table he had taken from his father’s cave.

“Fascinating,” said Jasper, admiring the bright silver. Then his eyes grew wide as he made sense of the date on the coin. “Am I reading this right?” he marveled. “Is this coin three hundred years old?”

Percy scrutinized the date, sure that Jasper must be mistaken. But it was plain enough; Percy scratched his head. “I don’t see how,” he said. “It was barely a hundred years ago when the first people got to this island.”

“Humph!” Dobro grunted. “A long time before the civilizers showed up, there was plenty of folks on this here island-feechiefolks!”

Aidan pointed at the silver coin. “Does that look like something a feechie would carry around?” he asked. “I’ve never seen a feechie with a money purse.”

“’Course not!” Dobro said with some haughtiness. Even Chief Larbo’s band, when under the spell of cold-shiny knives, axes, and shovels, never had any use for cold-shiny money. “I was just makin’ a point,” Dobro continued. “Just because there ain’t no civilizers on a island don’t mean there ain’t no people.”

“I take your point,” said Percy, somewhat chastened.

Jasper was still studying the ancient coin. It must have been made from the purest silver, for it was hardly tarnished. The portrait on the front was still easy to make out-a thickset man with an enormous beard and a four-cornered hat or crown on his head. Jasper’s finger traced a pair of branching sticks that appeared to sprout from the figure’s head. “Are those supposed to be tree limbs behind his head?” he asked. “Is this some kind of forest king?”

Errol took the coin from his son and examined it. “Those aren’t tree limbs,” he said. “Those are antlers.”

“So this is…” Jasper began. His lips were parted in astonishment.

Errol nodded. “I think it must be.”

All twenty of the men at the diggings looked expectantly from Errol to Jasper and back again, waiting for an explanation. But the father and his studious son both fell silent, brows creased in perplexity.

“This must be what?” asked Percy. “This must be who?”

“King Halverd the Antlered,” said Aidan, the light finally dawning on him. “The first king of Halverdy.”

Arliss and several of the other Greasy Cave boys looked blank. They were no scholars. “Where’s Halverdy?” Arliss asked.

“It’s on the continent,” said Jasper. “Or used to be. Most of the first people to come to Corenwald…”

“Most of the first civilizers, ” Dobro corrected.

“Right. Most of the first civilizers, ” Jasper continued, acknowledging Dobro’s correction, “were Halverdens who left the continent when their kingdom finally fell to the Pyrthens in the middle of the last century. Our ancestors were Halverdens. Yours probably were, too, Arliss.”