Chapter Ten
Obah Sitheh’s sword arm fell to his side, all strength gone from it. His final opponent, a large brute of man garbed in fur and metal bracings, lay at his feet, shuddering as blood poured from the gash in his side below the rib cage, where Obah’s sword had almost cleaved him through to his spine. The involuntary twitching of his arms and legs lessened, eventually stilling altogether as the last of his life bled out.
Obah’s breaths were coming in gasps, departing as forceful exhalations. For several minutes, the rise and fall of his chest and the pounding of his heart were the only realities until his mind shrank from the necessary all-encompassing awareness of the battlefield to the sole realization that he was alive. Gradually, as the demand for air grew less urgent, his consciousness spread from the few feet of ground on which he stood to the battlefield beyond. He searched for his war horse—having long since abandoned the saddle, the better to engage his remaining foes, most of whom were on foot—and found the stallion some distance away, foraging between corpses for remnants of grass. Assured the animal was unharmed, Obah shifted his gaze to his comrades and was relieved to see that all of the men still standing and moving about wore his own gold, blue, and crimson.
Even now he clasped his sword. Despite how his hand ached, how its muscles were cramped, he could neither release it nor bring himself to return it to its scabbard. His blade and his reflexes were the only reasons he was still standing, and it was as if understanding this, that his body clung to the hilt the way it had held on to life.
“Thank the gods you’re alive!” someone cried.
He whirled at the intrusion and found himself staring into the face of his old friend, General Barral. It was spattered with blood and lined with exhaustion, but somehow, after all that had happened, a smile wound across it.
“I’ve been searching for signs of Hath Kael,” said Barral.
“He fled with his coterie and the best of his fighters and let Garmak En take the brunt of our assault,” replied Obah. When Barral raised his eyebrows, Obah added, “I might have done the same. A man can’t turn defeat from the grave.”
“Still, it’s a fine way to repay one’s ally.”
Obah nodded. Then, without being asked, he observed, “I expect he’s fled west into Deth to join with Essem Cargath.”
“Even so, it will take him time to rebuild.”
“I expect it will take us as long to do the same.”
Barral shook his head. “We did well. I expect when the final tally is in, we will find we lost less than a quarter of what we started with. If Darva hadn’t appeared when she did and let you know you could launch your assault, we would have suffered much worse.”
Barral’s observation struck a chord. He was glad he had sent his sister far from the battlefield before the conflict was fully under way. He found himself gazing north where she had gone when Barral interrupted.
As if reading his thoughts, Barral asked, “Do you think she made it?”
“If she and her bodyguard kept to the foot of the mountains, as I instructed, she should be fine. She’s smart, so I suspect she did. In any case, she couldn’t have remained.”
Barral surveyed the thousands of corpses and nodded.
“What do we do with them all?” he asked. “In two or three days, the stench will be intolerable. We can’t leave. We have to remain here to secure the fort.”
“Locate your division commanders, or whomever remains in their place, and order them to assemble as many squads as they can and build pyres. Use the remains of Kael’s encampment to construct them and whatever’s left when you’re done as fuel. There are too many to bury, and we need to turn our attention to the state of our supplies. In the meanwhile, I will send couriers to barakMaroc. If the reinforcements General Kahn put together fared half as well as we did, we will have something upon which to rebuild. This was only Kael’s first offensive.”
“That reminds me,” said Barral. “If you recall, Pytheral had begun sending aid when Kael shut the door on them. While he’s still in disarray, I can send riders west to inquire if they are still willing to join us.”
“Dispatch them at once. Cargath has supporters in Dethen. If they decide to join forces, they can cut off whatever help Pytheral offers and your riders may find themselves caught between the two and fighting for their lives.”
“So it will be Cargath and Kael against us?” Barral inquired.
“Be glad there is still fighting in the North. If Limast and Meden weren’t still at war, we might face Harven Goth as well. We still might.”
“Why would Meden assist Kael?” Barral asked. “They have no common interests.”
Obah screwed up his mouth and said, “Power unites as much as it divides. That is all this is about.”
“It’s not what we are about. We are fighting for our lands and our right to remain free.” He paused and looked Lord Sitheh squarely in the eye. “Or have things changed since we began?”
Placing his free hand on Barral’s shoulder, Obah replied, “We are still the same, and the world around us is still mad. Sometimes I wonder when it will all end and if we will still be here when it does. I have to believe we will. I have to believe that somehow a few madmen have created all this and that sanity will prevail.”
He gestured at the miles of dead men.
“I don’t know if it was just youth and innocence that made me believe most men want to be brothers and yearn to live in peace. I wasn’t very old at the start, but I’d like to believe goodness was not just the product of youthful imagination.”
“If it was,” said Barral, “then we both suffered the same delusions. The men who joined with you also believed. We weren’t raised to be fighters. My mother and father—may the gods grant them rest—were shopkeepers. They dreamed of grandchildren, not kingdoms.”
“Mine as well,” Obah replied. He reflected on the carnage before adding, “We need to bring an end to it. Ride to Nagath-réal and speak with Ammac Bad. Tell him we appreciate the troops that he sent, but tell him we need more. If my guess is right, this is shaping up to be the greatest battle our world has ever known. He cannot afford to pretend to be neutral and apart any longer. No one can. After that, go to barakMaroc and confer with Kahn to assess his needs.”