‘Morale is low,’ said Gellan and Sarvaj nodded. Gellan undipped his red cloak, laying it over his saddle. Pushing his hands into the small of his back he stretched and groaned. Like most tall men, he found long hours in the saddle irksome and was plagued by continual backache.
‘I stayed too long, Sarjav. I should have quit last year. Forty-one is too old for a Legion officer.’
‘Dun Esterik is fifty-one,’ Sarvaj commented.
Gellan grinned. ‘If I had quit, you would have taken over.’
‘And what a fine time to do so, with the army crushed and the Legion skulking in the woods. No thank you!’
They had stopped in a small grove of elm and Gellan wandered off to sit alone. Sarvaj watched him go and then removed his helm; his dark brown hair was thinning badly and his scalp shone with sweat. Self-consciously he swept his hair back over the bald patches and replaced the helm. Fifteen years younger than Gellan, yet here he was looking like an old man. Then he grinned at his vanity and pulled the helm clear.
He was a stocky man – ungainly when not in the saddle – and one of the few career soldiers left in the Legion following the savage reductions of the previous autumn, when King Niallad had ordered a new militia programme. Ten thousand soldiers had been dismissed and only Gellan’s determination had saved Sarvaj.
Now Niallad was dead and the Drenai all but conquered.
Sarvaj had shed no tears for the King for the man was a fool … worse than a fool!
‘Off on his walks again?’ said a voice and Sarvaj glanced up. Jonat sat down on the grass and stretched his long bony frame to full length, lying back with his head on his hands.
‘He needs to think,’ said Sarvaj.
‘Yes. He needs to think about how to get us through the Nadir lands. I am sick of Skultik.’
‘We are all sick of Skultik, but I don’t see that riding north would help. It would merely mean fighting the Nadir tribes instead of the Vagrians.’
‘At least we’d have a chance there. Here we have none.’ Jonat scratched his thin black beard. ‘If they’d damn well listened to us last year, we would not be in this mess.’
‘But they didn’t,’ said Sarvaj wearily.
‘Pox-ridden courtiers! In some ways the Hounds did us a favour by butchering the whoresons.’
‘Don’t say that to Gellan – he lost a lot of friends in Skoda and Drenan.’
‘We all lost friends,’ snapped Jonat, ‘and we’ll lose a lot more. How long is Egel going to keep us cooped up in that damned forest?’
‘I don’t know, Jonat. Gellan doesn’t know and I doubt if Egel himself knows.’
‘We ought to strike north, through Gulgothir, and make for the eastern ports. I wouldn’t mind settling down in Ventria. Always hot, plenty of women. We could hire out as mercenaries.’
‘Yes,’ said Sarvaj, too weary to argue. He failed to understand why Gellan had promoted Jonat to command of a Quarter – the man was full of bile and bitterness.
But – and this was so galling – he was right. When Niallad’s militia plan had first been put forward, the men in the Legion had bitterly opposed it. All the evidence indicated that the Vagrians were preparing for invasion. But Niallad claimed that the Vagrians themselves feared an attack to save money. Our money! If one good thing has come out of this war, it is that the noble class is gone for good.’
‘Perhaps. But then Gellan is a nobleman.’
‘Yes?’
‘You don’t hate him, do you?’
‘He’s no better than the rest.’
‘I thought you liked him.’
‘I suppose he’s not a bad officer. Too soft. But underneath he still looks down on us.’
‘I’ve never noticed it,’ said Sarvaj.
‘You don’t look hard enough,’ responded Jonat.
A horseman galloped into the grove and the men lurched to their feet with hands on sword-hilts. It was the scout, Kapra.
Gellan walked from the trees as the man dismounted. ‘Anything to the east?’ he asked.
‘Three gutted villages, sir. A few refugees. I saw a column of Vagrian infantry – maybe two thousand. They made camp near Ostry, by the river.’