‘The people will be wiped out,’ said Jonat, rising to his feet, his face flushed and angry.
‘They will be wiped out anyway,’ started Karnak, ‘should the Vagrians attack. At the moment the enemy waits for Purdol to fall and they won’t risk entering the forest. Holding Purdol is the best chance for Skarta and the other Skultik towns. Egel will be left with just under 4,000 men, but there are others coming in from the mountains of Skoda. We must win him time.’
‘I know what you are thinking: that it is madness. I agree with you! But the Vagrians have all the advantages. Every major port is in their hands. The Lentrian army is being pushed back. Drenan has fallen and the routes to Mashrapur are closed. Purdol alone holds against them. If it falls before Egel breaks clear, we are finished and the Drenai will be wiped out. The Vagrian farmers are being offered choice Drenai lands, merchants are planning for the day when all of our lands will be part of Greater Vagria. We are doomed people unless we take our fate in our hands and risk everything.
‘Quite simply, my friends, there is no more room for manoeuvre. Bereft of choices, we must hold the tiger by the throat and hope that he weakens before we tire. Tomorrow we ride for Purdol.’
Deep down Gellan knew the venture was perilous, moreover a tiny spark of doubt told him that Kar-nak’s real reason for wanting to aid Purdol owed more to personal ambition than to strategic sanity. And yet …
Was it not better to follow a charismatic leader to the gates of Hell, rather than a mediocre general to a dull defeat?
The meeting ended at dusk and Gellan wandered to his tiny room to pack his few possessions into canvas and leather saddlebags. There were three shirts, two sets of woollen leggings, a battered leather-covered hand-written Legion manual, a jewelled dagger and an oval wooden painting of a blonde woman and two young children. He sat down on the bed, removed his helmet and studied the portrait. When it had been presented to him he had disliked it, feeling it failed to capture the reality of their smiles, the joy of their lives. Now he saw it as a work of rare genius. Carefully he wrapped the painting in oilskin and placed it in a saddlebag between the shirts. Lifting the dagger, he slid it from its scabbard; he had won it two years before when he became the first man to win the Silver Sword six times.
His children had been so proud of him at the banquet. Dressed in their best clothes, they had sat like tiny adults, their eyes wide and their smiles huge. And Karys had spilt not one drop of soup on her white dress, a fact she pointed out to him all evening. But his wife, Ania, had not attended the banquet; the noise, she had said, would only make her head ache.
Now they were dead, their souls lost to the Void. It had been hard when the children died, bitter hard. And Gellan had retreated into himself, having nothing left with which to comfort Ania. Alone she had been unable to cope and eighteen days after the tragedy she had hung herself with a silken scarf … Gellan had found the body. Plague had claimed his children. Suicide took his wife.
Now all he had was the Legion.
And tomorrow it would head for Purdol and the gates of Hell.
Dardalion waited silently for his visitor. An hour ago the Drenai general Karnak had arrived at the meadow, and had sat outlining his plan to aid Purdol. He had asked if Dardalion could help him, by keeping at bay the spirits of the Dark Brotherhood. ‘It is vital we arrive unnoticed,’ said Karnak. ‘If there is the merest whisper of my movements, the Vagrians will be waiting for us.’
‘I will do what I can, Lord Karnak.’
‘Do better than that, Dardalion. Kill the whoresons.’
After he had gone, Dardalion knelt on the grass before his tent and bowed his head in prayer. He had stayed thus for more than an hour when the Abbot came and knelt before him.