‘I’ll see t’ it, me Lady. Y’ kin count on me.’
I wrote him an official-sounding authorization, and then I went out into the garden and put on feathers again. As it turned out, I got back to mother’s cottage just in time. Even as I flew in, I saw father crawling through the tall grass toward the ruin. There was barely time to resume my own form, but just at the last instant, I veered off. An idea had just come to me, an idea that might prove useful later on. I settled into a solitary tree several hundred yards from the cottage and blurred from a falcon to a snowy owl. I knew that the form upset my father in the first place, but I also knew that his seeing me in that form might explain occasional absences. He’d assume that I was out hunting or something. I gave him about a quarter of an hour to start getting nervous, and then I flew in, resumed my own form, and made some show of moping about for the rest of the day.
My invasion of Muros was a quiet one. My army, dressed in nondescript clothing, slipped into town in twos and threes, mingling with the steady stream of refugees out of Wacune. We didn’t want to announce their presence to the Asturians until the city was completely in our control. The brisk commands Malon had carried to my generals had given them a sense of purpose, and that raised the spirits of the army as a whole. Moreover, the improved morale of the army seemed to be contagious. The ordinary citizens began to realize that the world hadn’t come to an end with the fall of Vo Wacune, and that just maybe the Asturians weren’t invincible. I concentrated on Muros because it would be Garteon’s obvious first target, but more because I had to have a victory in the first major battle to put some steel back into my dispirited subjects.
The next part of my plan was more difficult to get across to my soldiers. My southern army was largely of Wacite descent, and a vast rumbling of discontent – verging on open mutiny – went through my southern forces when Malon passed the word to Halbren and the other generals that any patrol encountering Asturians was to run away. Running away isn’t a part of the Arendish vocabulary, I guess. ‘We’re trying to lure the Asturians into a major battle, Malon,’ I explained patiently to my friend when he passed along the objections of Halbren and my other generals. ‘I want Garteon’s army to believe that we’re completely demoralized and afraid of our own shadows up here in Erat. Then, when they come across the River Camaar, they won’t expect any real resistance. That’s when we’ll fall on them like hungry tigers. I want their screams to reach all the way down to the bottom of whatever rat-hole Garteon’s hiding in.’
‘Yer after hatin’ that Garteon, ain’t y’, me Lady?’
‘Hatred just begins to describe what I feel for him. I could cheerfully roast him alive over a slow fire for several weeks.’
‘I’ll start carryin’ some kindlin’ wood in me pocket, yer Grace.’
‘What a dear fellow you are, Malon.’
‘I’ll be after steppin’ on th’ toes o’ yer generals down in Muros, me Lady,’ he promised. ‘I’ll make ‘em pull in their horns an’ bide their time until th’ cursed Asturian come traipsin’ across th’ river. Then we’ll have ‘em fer breakfast. I’ll have t’ go down there in person t’ git their attention, so I won’t be talkin’ t’ y’ fer a week or so. Don’t be after worryin’ yer head about it, me Lady. I’ll be busy layin’ a trap fer Garteon’s army, don’t y’ know.’
‘I understand perfectly, Malon.’ The fact that he so closely resembled Killane, not only in appearance but in his manner of speech and in his thinking, made our relationship grow very close in a surprisingly short time. In a sense, I was just taking up where I’d left off several centuries earlier, so there wasn’t that awkward period of what’s called ‘getting to know each other’.
There wasn’t anything particularly original about the strategy I set in place around Muros, but the Asturians of that era weren’t addicted to reading, and history books tend to be dry and dusty, so I was fairly sure they wouldn’t be familiar with my tired old ploy. Halbren and my other generals finally got my point, but the common soldiers seemed to have a lot of trouble with it.
The Asturians grew steadily bolder as a result of our deception, and by early autumn Garteon’s army was massing along the south bank of the River Camaar. Father’s continued snooping made it totally impossible for me to personally direct the counterattack I’d been planning, so General Halbren would be on his own Halbren was certainly up to the task, but that didn’t keep me from going back to my childhood habit of biting my fingernails. A thousand ‘what ifs’ kept me from sleeping very soundly.
There was one thing I could take care of, however. I instructed Malon to gather as many leaders of the Wacite resistance as he could find among the trees in the ruins of a village about half-way between Vo Wacune and the River Camaar on a certain night so that I could talk with them.
I evaded my father that evening, went falcon and flew on down to the appointed meeting place. The Asturians had burned the village, so about all that was left of it were heaps of charred timbers and tumbled stone walls. It was a moonless night, and the surrounding forest pressed in on the ruins ominously. I could sense the presence of a fair number of men, but they cautiously evaded me as I walked through the ruins toward what had been the village square where Malon was in the middle of a ragged-looking group of armed men. ‘Ah, there y’ are, yer Grace,’ he greeted me.
He introduced me to a motley collection of Wacite patriots. Some were noblemen, several of whom I recognized from happier days. Others were serfs or village tradesmen, and I’m fairly sure that there was also a sprinkling of bandit chiefs in the group as well. As I understood it, each of these men commanded a band of what the Asturians called ‘outlaws’, men who entertained themselves by ambushing Asturian patrols.
‘Gentlemen,’ I addressed them, ‘I’m a bit pressed for time here, so I’ll have to be brief. The Asturians are going to invade my duchy before long. They’ll probably strike across the River Camaar to lay siege to Muros. They won’t expect any trouble because they think my army’s made up of cowards.’
‘We’ve heard about that, yer ladyship,’ a burly serf named Beln interjected. ‘We found it very hard t’ believe, don’t y’ know. We’ve all got kinsmen up around Muros, an’ they’ve never bin noted fer timidity.’