‘What do you think, Lucas?’ she asked her son.
He waved his hands. ‘Don’t ask me! I’m not a soldier.’
‘You think I am?’ snapped Rayvan. ‘Give me an opinion.’
‘I don’t like it. But I cannot give you an alternative. As Tenaka says, if we cut and run we open Skoda to them. And we cannot win that way. But two-thirds . . .’
Rayvan pushed herself to her feet, grunting as her rheumatic knee half gave way beneath her. She walked away down the slope to sit beside a ribbon stream that rushed over white pebbles, glinting like pearls inches below the surface.
Burrowing in the pocket of her mailshirt she found a hard-cake biscuit. It had broken into three pieces against the iron rings.
She felt a fool.
What was she doing here? What did she know of war?
She had raised fine sons and her husband had been a prince among men, big and gentle and soft as goosedown. When the soldiers cut him down she had reacted in an instant. But from then on she had lived a lie – revelling in her new role as a warrior queen, making decisions and directing an army. But it was all a sham, just like her claim to Druss’ line. Her head bowed and she bit the knuckle of her thumb to stop the tears flowing.
What are you, Rayvan? she asked herself.
A fat, middle-aged woman in a man’s mailshirt.
Tomorrow, or at most the day after, four hundred young men would die for her … their blood on her hands. Among them would be her surviving sons. Dipping her hands into the stream, she washed her face.
‘Oh, Druss, what should I do? What would you do?’
There was no answer. Nor did she expect one. The dead were dead – no golden shades in ghostly palaces gazing fondly down on their descendants. There was no one to hear her cry for help, no living thing. Unless the stream itself and the pearl-like stones beneath could hear her, or the soft spring grass and the purple heather. She was alone.
In a way this had always been so. Her husband, Laska, had been a great comfort arid she had loved him well. But never with that all-consuming love she had dreamed about. He had been like a rock, a solid steadfast mountain of a man she could cling to when no others could see her. He had inner strength, and he didn’t mind when she lorded it over him in public and appeared to be making all the family decisions. In reality she listened to his advice in the quiet of their room and, more often than not, acted upon it.
Now Laska was gone, and with him her other son, Geddis, and she sat alone in a ridiculous mailshirt. She gazed out at the mountains at the opening of the Demon’s Smile, picturing the dark-cloaked Legion riders as they rode into the valley, remembering again the blow that had felled Laska. He had not expected an attack and was sitting by the well talking to Geddis. There must have been two hundred Skoda men in the area, waiting for the cattle auction. She had not heard what passed between the officer and her husband, for she was thirty feet away, chopping meat for the barbecue. But she had seen the sword flash into the air and watched the blade as it cut deep. Then she had been running, the meat cleaver in her hand . . .
Now the Legion were coming back for revenge -not just on her but on the innocents of Skoda. Anger flickered inside her – they thought to ride into her mountains and stain the grass with the blood of her people!
Pushing herself to her feet, she slowly made her way back towards Tenaka Khan. He sat motionless like a statue, watching her without emotion in those violet eyes. Then he rose. She blinked, for his movement was swift and fluid; one moment he was still, the next in motion. There was perfection in that movement and it gave her confidence, though she could not imagine why.
‘You have made a decision?’ he asked.