R. Salvatore - The Dame

“What are you doing, Ethelbert?” he asked quietly, for something here was not quite right. Laird Delaval’s forces were gathering around Bannagran in Pryd Town, with more streaming in every day. Surely Ethelbert knew that. No scout could miss it.

Milwellis had won in the north and was in position to swing to the south and press Ethelbert hard. Surely Ethelbert knew that.

So why hadn’t he attacked Pryd a week before, as soon as Milwellis had handed his Northern forces the defeat at Pollcree?

Pryd Town swelled with soldiers. Even now Bannagran had at his command more men than Ethelbert could put on the field. That number only grew in Bannagran’s favor with more of Delaval’s warriors streaming in every day.

Bannagran looked past Ethelbert’s distant camp then swung his gaze to the south, looking for some hint that Ethelbert had another force moving in to support him. The night was dark, unbroken by fires beyond the known encampments. Bannagran had scouts wide and far south and east of Ethelbert. There seemed no reinforcements on the horizon.

So, with the balance obviously shifting day by day to Pryd’s favor, why hadn’t Ethelbert already attacked?

And now, with the full weight of Delaval congealing around Pryd Town, why hadn’t Ethelbert turned and flown the field, back to the east and the south where he could rally more allies?

Bannagran knew Ethelbert and had seen him in battle years before against the powries. He was a capable commander, a fine tactician who knew when to strike.

“A fine night,” came a voice behind Bannagran. He couldn’t stop his reflexive wince at the familiar nasal whine of Prince Yeslnik. Bannagran leaned more heavily on his hands, his fingers pressing tightly against the stone of the tower crenellations.

Yeslnik walked up beside him and followed his stare to Ethelbert’s campfires.

“They are many,” Yeslnik said.

“Not so many. Not nearly enough.”

“I will defeat them,” Yeslnik said, and by “I” he meant “Bannagran.”

“If we can catch them and engage them, then we-you-will prove victorious, yes,” Bannagran promised. “More so if Prince Milwellis pivots his force to the south.”

“I prefer to let Milwellis run to the coast to put those wretched lairds of the Mantis Arm to the fire.”

A tactical blunder, both militarily and politically, Bannagran knew, but he also knew that voicing such a concern wouldn’t do much to dissuade the stubborn Yeslnik and, indeed, might prompt an even more stupid response from the impetuous and spoiled young man. Let the lairds of the Mantis Arm hold their loyalties to Ethelbert for now, Bannagran silently reasoned, for once this fight was decided and Ethelbert routed, those lairds would quickly realign behind the victor. They had no ideological and deep-felt belief in this war, after all, and were simply trying to figure out which laird’s victory-Delaval or Ethelbert-would benefit their respective holdings the most.

“Do I need Milwellis?” Yeslnik asked. “Have I not given you enough to properly deal with this old sot from the south?”

“Yes, my laird, I mean, no, you do not need Milwellis, and, yes, you have more than enough men already gathered in Pryd Town to destroy Ethelbert’s force.”

“Then why are they not yet destroyed?”

Bannagran summoned his patience. “Because time works against Ethelbert. He is ill-supplied, and our numbers grow daily.”

“But I can beat him now.”

“A difficult fight.”

“So?”

The callousness of that remark was not unexpected by Bannagran. Yeslnik didn’t care how many men and women, his own as well as Ethelbert’s, he sent to the grave as long as he achieved his victory.

“If Laird Ethelbert comes at us, we hold a defensive posture and he will be utterly destroyed,” Bannagran tried to explain. “That would be the sweetest victory for you of all. If we must fight him in the open, then we will still win, though I fear that Ethelbert himself and many of his warriors will escape. If we must find him, we will win more decisively with every passing day. It is not just the victory, Laird, but the extent of the win that is important.”

“I grow tired of the waiting,” Yeslnik sighed. “March tomorrow morning.”

Bannagran managed to avoid Yeslnik’s gaze as he rolled his eyes.

“What will Ethelbert do in that event?” Yeslnik pressed. “He will see my strength and know his doom.”

“He will likely flee the field,” Bannagran replied, thinking it through as he spoke. He started to explain to Yeslnik that Ethelbert assuredly already knew of their strength, but the words caught in his throat and he stared back to the east more intently and with obvious alarm.

“What?” Yeslnik demanded anxiously, and he, too, looked that way. “What do you see?”

“Ethelbert is a shrewd commander. He knows he cannot win this fight,” Bannagran pondered, more to himself than to Yeslnik. “He will flee. He seeks no more, perhaps, than to draw us out or to keep us occu-” Bannagran cut himself off and shook his head with slowly blossoming concern.

“That is a good thing, is it not?” the confused Prince Yeslnik asked as Bannagran wheeled away from the wall and started for the ladder leading back into the keep.

“How protected does Delaval City remain?” Bannagran asked.

“Behind her high walls?” the oblivious Prince replied.

“You have emptied her guard?”

“To fight Ethelbert,” Yeslnik said, somewhat defensively, without knowing why.

“It is a ruse,” Bannagran explained. “A feint of the highest order. He does not sit there intending to fight but only to keep us occupied, to keep us gathering our forces for a decisive battle that will not commence, not here, not soon.”

“Then go and get him!” Prince Yeslnik cried, not catching on to the cause of Bannagran’s alarm.

“Why is he here?” Bannagran asked.

“What puzzles are these?”

“To bring us here,” the general from Pryd answered his own question. “Why does Ethelbert wish us here? Why does a swordsman invite a parry?”

Yeslnik stared at him blankly.

“Because such a parry will not defeat his true intended attack,” Bannagran explained, and when Yeslnik at last seemed to be catching on, he repeated, more grimly, “How protected does Delaval City remain?”

Yeslnik’s wail confirmed Bannagran’s fears. The seasoned soldier rushed into the keep, Yeslnik dithering in his wake.

Guard Captain Rubert was widely considered the toughest man in the service of Laird Delaval. He had grown up on the streets of Delaval City, literally fighting for his every meal. His knuckles carried the scars of a hundred fights, a hundred crushed faces, and he wore a necklace of teeth he had knocked from the mouths of his opponents.

His reputation served him well, with an appointment to Delaval’s own elite guards and a climb to the rank of captain, and in this latest adventure, where most of the soldiers had been sent from the city on the miserable hike to Pryd Holding, Rubert had escaped the call.

He was too tough, too valuable to Laird Delaval, the would-be King of Honce.

“Ah, but there’s a cold wind coming down the masur this night,” he lamented, tightening his cloak against the frigid breeze rushing down the great river, a harbinger of the approaching wintry season. “And I’m out o’ weed for me pipe and got not a striker pad to light it up. Be a good sport,” he called to his fellow sentry atop the wall encircling Laird Delaval’s main keep. “Put a light up and a pinch.”

As he neared, the man stood up and shrugged off the guard cloak. Even in the dim light of the quarter moon Rubert knew at once that this was not his companion. For that moonlight shined off a bald head, where his companion wore a thick mop of black hair, much like Rubert’s own.