The Sapphire Rose

Kurik nodded.

The Patriarchs were enormously relieved to hear of King Wargun’s approach and even more relieved to hear that Annias had incriminated himself. ‘The colonel can even testify about the arrangement Annias and Martel have with Otha,’ Sparhawk told them. ‘The only unfortunate part of the whole business was that Annias and Martel escaped.’

‘How long will it take for word of this turn of events to reach Otha?’ Patriarch Emban asked.

‘I think we’ll almost have to assume that Otha will know about the change in the situation here almost as soon as it happens, Your Grace,’ Preceptor Abriel told him.

Emban nodded with a look of distaste. ‘More of that magic business, I suppose.’

‘It’s going to take Wargun quite some time to regroup and start to march into Lamorkand to meet the Zemochs, isn’t it?’ Dolmant said.

‘A week or ten days, Your Grace,’ Vanion agreed, ‘and even that’s cutting it a little fine. Advance elements from both armies will be able to move out more rapidly, but neither main force will be able to start in less than a week.’

‘How far can an army move in a day?’ Emban asked.

‘Ten miles maximum, Your Grace,’ Vanion replied.

‘That’s absurd, Vanion. Even I can walk ten miles in four hours, and I don’t move very fast.’

‘That’s when you’re walking alone, Your Grace.’ Vanion smiled. ‘A man out for a stroll doesn’t have to worry about keeping the rear of a column from straggling, and when the time comes to sleep for the night, he can roll himself in his cloak under a bush. It takes quite a bit longer to set up an encampment for an army.’

Emban grunted, laboriously hauled himself to his feet and waddled to the map of Eosia hanging on the wall of Sir Nashan’s study. He measured off some distances. ‘They’ll meet about here then,’ he said, stabbing one finger at a spot on the map, ‘– on that plain to the north of Lake Cammoria. Ortzel, what’s the country like around there?’

‘Relatively flat,’ the Lamork Patriarch replied. ‘It’s mostly farmland with a few patches of woods here and there.’

‘Emban,’ Dolmant said gently, ‘why don’t we let King Wargun work out the strategy? We have our own business to attend to, you know.’

Emban laughed a bit sheepishly. ‘I guess I’m a born busybody,’ he said. ‘I can’t stand letting anything go by without sticking my nose into it.’ He clasped his hands reflectively behind his back. ‘We’ll have everything under control in Chyrellos just as soon as Wargun gets here. I think it’s safe to say that Colonel Delada’s testimony will eliminate the candidacy of the Primate of Cimmura once and for all, so why don’t we clear away this election business right away – before the Hierocracy has time to gather its collective breath. Patriarchs are political animals, and as soon as they’ve had the time to collect their wits, they’re going to start to see all sorts of opportunities in the present situation. We don’t really need a number of unanticipated candidacies clouding things over right now. Let’s keep it simple if we can. Not only that, we alienated a fair number of Patriarchs when we decided to let the outer city burn. Let’s catch the Hierocracy while it’s still overwhelmed with thanksgiving and gratitude and fill that empty chair in the Basilica before they start brooding about lost houses and the like. We’ve got the upper hand for the moment. Let’s use it before our support starts to crumble.’

‘That’s all you ever really think about, isn’t it, Emban?’ Dolmant said.

‘Somebody has to, my friend.’

‘We’d better get Wargun into the city first, though,’ Vanion told them. ‘Is there anything we can do to help him?’

‘We can move out of the inner city just as soon as Martel’s generals start turning around to face his army,’ Komier suggested. ‘We can hit them from behind and sting them enough to force them to chase us back inside the walls. Then they’ll have to divert enough troops to keep us penned up in here. That should reduce the force facing Wargun a little bit.’

‘What I’d really like to do is figure out some way to defend those bridges across the Arruk,’ Abriel said. ‘Replacing them is what’s going to cost Wargun time – and lives.’

‘I don’t see that there’s very much we can do about that,’ Darellon said. ‘We don’t have enough men to keep the Rendors away from the river-bank.’

‘We have got enough to disrupt things inside the city though,’ Komier asserted. ‘Why don’t we go back to the wall and size things up a bit? I need something to do to take the taste of that siege out of my mouth anyway.’

There was fog as dawn approached, for the summer was drawing to a close and the two rivers which joined at Chyrellos fumed grey, wispy tendrils of mist from their dark surfaces in the cool of the night, and the tendrils joined together to form first a haze that softened the orange torchlight, then a mist which enshrouded distant houses and finally that thick, clinging fog so common in cities which are built along rivers.

There was enthusiasm in the ranks for the action. There were tactical reasons for the plan, of course, but tactics are for generals, and the common soldiery was more interested in revenge. They had endured the pounding of siege engines; they had beaten off fanatics climbing scaling ladders; and they had faced the assault towers. Until now they had been forced to bear whatever the besiegers had hurled at them. This was their chance to even some scores, to chastise their chastisers, and they marched forth from the inner city with looks of grim anticipation on their faces.

Many of Martel’s mercenaries had joined him with enthusiasm when there had been the prospect of loot and rapine and easy assaults on meagrely defended walls. Their enthusiasm waned, however, at the notion of meeting a vastly superior force in open country. They became peace-loving men at that point and crept through the foggy streets in search of places where their newly-found pacifist sentiments would not be offended. The sortie in force from the inner city came as a great surprise and an even greater disappointment to men bent merely upon leading simple lives untainted by strife.

The fog, of course, helped enormously. The defenders of the inner city had only to fall upon men who were not wearing the armour of Church Knights or the red tunics of church soldiers. The torches these sudden pacifists carried made them easy targets for Kurik’s now-proficient crossbowmen.