But if Connavar was right …
Hidden behind the tree line of the immense Avelin forest Carac stood in the royal chariot, silently watching the road a half-mile distant. Wagons were slowly trundling along it, flanked by marching soldiers. Carac glanced to his left. Thousands of Perdii warriors, faces painted for war, waited quietly. To his right, stretching for over a mile, were the cavalry, three thousand strong. Their orders were to attack the wagons, kill the drivers, and rob the Stone army of its provisions.
The king ran a hand across his brow, wiping away the sweat. It was almost noon, and the heat in the forest was becoming unbearable. Carac sat back on the curved seat alongside his eldest son, Arakar, who was his charioteer this day. ‘How soon, Father?’ whispered the fourteen-year-old.
‘Soon enough,’ replied Carac, ruffling the boy’s blond hair. The king was dreadfully tired, his eyes burning. He had not slept these last three nights. Tomorrow was his fortieth birthday, and the weight of his gis sat upon him like a boulder. The old woman had appeared to him a year ago. ‘Let no royal blood be spilt, Carac. If you fail you will not see forty.’
No royal blood had been spilt. His brother was drowned, the wife strangled, the boy poisoned. Not one spot of red had shown on any of the corpses. Carac removed his bronze battle helm and wiped the rim. He felt no guilt at the slaying of his brother. Only anger. Alea the good king, the caring king. The man was a traitor and deserved to die. Few knew of his negotiations with the Stone general, and the agreement that the Perdii would become vassals of Stone, allowing Jasaray to build roads and forts through their territory. ‘It is the only way, brother,’ Alea had told him. ‘They are invincible and we are living in their day. As their allies we can help them conquer all the other tribes. The Perdii will once more be pre-eminent among the Keltoi.’
‘We have the power to crush them,’ Carac had replied.
‘I have seen them, Carac. They have changed the face of war. They come like a flood, irresistible and deadly. Trust me on this.’
Like a flood, he said. Carac smiled at the memory of his death, choking on the water of the flooded river. The death of the queen, however, gave him no pleasure at all. Carac had always lusted after the mystical Alinae. He had not intended to kill her, and had been prepared to offer her marriage. But when he went to her she flew at him in a rage, pulling a dagger from her sleeve and lunging for his throat. He had jumped back, the blade slicing the skin of his cheek. Furious then he had punched her, knocking her down and wresting the dagger from her. ‘You are a murderer!’ she screamed at him. ‘I saw it in a vision. You and Bek dragged Alea from his horse. Murderer!’ Her voice had echoed through the palace, and Carac’s hands had clamped to her throat to silence her. And he had silenced her, crushing the life from her frail body.
The populace were told that she had taken her own life in grief over the death of her beloved husband, and that her son had swallowed poison. It mattered nothing that most of the Perdii disbelieved the story. Strong leadership was always welcome, and Carac had been strong.
The losses in the first attack against the Stone night camp had proved far more damaging. Thousands of tribesmen had deserted after that. But almost fifty-six thousand remained, and today they would crush, for ever, the myth of Stone invincibility. Pushing himself to his feet Carac stared down once more over the Stone army.
Coming into sight, marching in columns of four, were Jasaray’s two Panthers. Carac had given orders that Jasaray was to be taken alive, and he looked forward to seeing the Stone man humbled before him, pushed to his knees, begging for life.
The Perdii king drew his sword and gestured to the trumpeter standing alongside the bronze chariot. A single note sounded.
Perdii cavalry burst from the forest to the north and charged towards the wagon convoy a half-mile distant. A second note blared out, and fifty thousand Perdii warriors raced from the forest, bearing down on the slender line below.