The Steward and the Sorcerer by James Peart (small books to read .TXT) 📗

Simon was about give voice to his admiration, then thought twice, retorting instead “don’t lose yourself in the part.”

“But they’ll do what we want.  What I asked them.”

“They will.  Remember, though, you don’t really know what Longfellow is like.  They’ll follow you up to a point but some of them must have noticed how different you are, not in appearance maybe, or voice, but in manner.”

“I was a help.  I could help.  That’s all that matters.”

“You were, Chris.  I doubt Longfellow, wherever he is, could have given a better speech.”

30.

The Northern Army platoon known as the Exile Legionnaires and led by Commander Dechs waited for the Naveen King and his followers at one end of the narrow urban alley known as Cornerstone Pass.  Dechs, uneasy with being stationed immediately outside the citadel, had moved his platoon west along the old city wall. His Sub-Commander approached him, drafting a short salute.  He stood beside Dechs, saying nothing, his gruff face reflective, allowing his Commander to enjoy the moment before battle before he spoke.  Dechs smiled.  Jens was a good officer.  He possessed the valuable qualities of being both loyal, brave and able to think in combat.  A good soldier, he had survived numerous campaigns as a member of the Exiles.

“What manner of enemy do we face today?” he asked finally.  He knew the answer to this as he had heard the news.  What he was really asking was this: were they strong and were they clever?  More specifically, this meant were they well motivated to succeed and were they well versed in battle tactics?  Regarding the former, he would have to say he didn’t exactly know, as their motives were the cause of one man, this Iridis who had somehow brainwashed them into being some form of half attempted soldier, and he was an unknown quantity.  Rumour had it that he had confronted the Druid Daaynan and survived and it took guts to take on an agent of magic, though he was also a creature of magic.  His instinct and reasoning told him Iridis was a man of tremendous will and that he could interpret that will for whomsoever he wished.  So, the answer to the first had to be yes.

As for the second, he had no reason to suspect Iridis was a clever tactician.  In fact, according to what he had heard, a source that traced back to the Vice-Steward, he was something of a despot, uninterested in the details of what he planned, yet powerful enough to forgo the necessity of those details.  Perhaps.  He would see.

“Strong, but not clever,” he answered his Sub-Commander.

“What’s wrong with this battle?” the other asked softly, looking out over the wooded urban park that stretched to the limits of the city.

“We have to kill our people today, Jens.  We have to kill the citizens of Brinemore.”

There was no answer to this, not immediately at any rate.  Jens continued to stare out in the direction Dechs was looking, awaiting instructions.  This was a city fight, not a battle fought in fields and valleys and between mountain passes.  Their defences would run from the old city wall that surrounded the citadel and the Confederation complex where the bulk of the Northern Army would be waiting for Iridis’ men (comprising half the state citizenry) to Cornerstone Pass through which passage had been closed by barricade.  A mass of people seeking to penetrate the fortified complex housing the Council chambers, unable to breach the citadel gates, would have to pass through this alley.  Dechs had positioned a number of his troops behind barricades that had been erected at various points along its length.  The pass sloped downhill, giving his men a height advantage over the invaders.  The backbone of their defence, however, would come in the form of the bulk of the Northern Army that was stationed in Brinemore.  Many soldiers were in the eastern Drague Territories and were not due back until tomorrow.  Word had been sent to get them home but they needed to move quickly because by tomorrow morning it would all be over.  The Northern Army recruits that were here were largely directionless, robbed of their Commanders most of which were still in the East.  Karsin Longfellow had given them a rousing speech, spelling out the trouble that had descended upon the city in broad parameters, wound them up with a tale of duty and solidarity and set them loose on the city without so much as an outline of a battle plan.  It had been left to Dechs to take-charge of them.

He sucked wind through his teeth.  Could they pull this off, even with the red-veined demon to assist them?  It was supposed to be the other way around of course, but he hadn’t believed that for a second.  He thought they could not, or at least not in the army’s current state of disorganisation.  Then there was the demon to contend with.  He had ordered it to stand at the gates to the citadel, half a mile from the Pass, suspecting that it might not obey the order.  It did, however, after appearing to make a swift internal decision in the manner of consulting a higher power that weighed what it was being told against its own wishes.  He did not trust it not to turn on his men at some point and, guided by some perverse law, perhaps at the time when they were especially vulnerable and would most need support.  He reflected on prior attacks on home soil.  Over the last half century, Brinemore had been subject to attack on no more than a handful of occasions.  The most successful attempt- the only one worth mentioning- had been made by an organised group of tribesmen from an unchartered land in the far west.  Their battle strategy had been arranged in the form of sudden sharp attacks and retreats, their numbers constantly changing formation, never staying still and exposed for long.  They had succeeded against a much