LITMIR.BIZ

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to himself, telling them to fall in behind and follow him.

      ‘Do you—’ began Bethany.

      The sergeant quickly but gently covered her mouth. ‘No talking, Lady Bethany. Now, let’s go.’

      Before she could say another word, he moved into the trees and the other men began to follow.

      Martin ran down the road and then slowed to a trot. He’d have to pace himself or he’d collapse before he even knew exhaustion had hit him. He was young and fit but he had been without sleep for the better part of three days, had hardly eaten, and had endured his first battle. He stopped, put his hands on his knees and took a deep breath. He was feeling dizzy. Certainly not a good sign.

      He slowed his breathing for a moment, then heard voices coming from the west. His fatigue forgotten, he hurried down the side of the road to a stand of trees and moved parallel to the road as best he could.

      He could smell char and smoke and knew the breeze from the harbour was blowing it toward him. At least the Keshians wouldn’t smell him coming.

      He saw a small copse of wild apple trees and grabbed one of the fruits. It was slightly sour, but he needed the nourishment. He chewed slowly, not wanting to give himself a stomach ache.

      It took him nearly an hour to work his way carefully northward, first crossing the main road then moving along a series of game trails through thinning woodlands. He and his brothers had played here as children then later had hunted in this vicinity.

      Crydee Harbour was marked at the southern end by a pinnacle of rock and a rising bluff known as Sailors’ Grief. To the north the circle was suddenly cut off by a massive bluff with a fifty-foot drop to the beach below. From the junction of that bluff and beach a series of stones that jutted above the water even at high tide ran out to a small island. That rocky path and island had been filled in with quarried stones until a man-made jetty with dock had been fashioned, named Longpoint. At the end of it rose up the Longpoint Lighthouse.

      The bluffs to the north of Longpoint had served the first Duke and his son as a makeshift lighthouse and lookout station until a proper lighthouse had been constructed. On top of the bluffs the stones of that old watch post still rested.

      Martin reached that point after an hour of climbing and looked down onto Crydee harbour. ‘Gods!’ he said aloud.

      What looked to be at least two hundred Keshian ships were at anchor. He could see two more sailing out to sea, and another two sailing in while about thirty ships in the harbour were being serviced by a dozen or more ferries, carrying cargo to the docks. The activity was frenzied and so widespread that the Keshians were offloading cargo onto the rocky shore to the south of the town’s docks, and thence to the rickety smaller quay before the fishing community directly below where Martin stood.

      But what astonished him the most was that more and more people were coming ashore. A second wave of men, women, and children were entering Crydee Town, and from their varied skin colour and garb they were obviously from many different places in Kesh. Many of them had animals, oxen pulling wagons, horses on leads – not war horses but dray animals – donkeys, mules, and cages of chickens and geese. Even a brace of spitting angry camels was being led into the town.

      Martin stood in stunned amazement.

      He sat down and took a deep breath, collecting his thoughts. Nothing he saw below him made sense. Out of the three brothers, he was the student of history. More than just studying battles and the lines of nobles, he had delved into the causes of war and the results.

      Kesh had expanded rapidly over the three preceding centuries, its people moving across the Straits of Darkness from Elarial up to what was now Tulan. They had built their first garrison there, then an expedition north from there had found the wonderful harbour at Carse and the smaller harbour below. A fourth harbourage far to the north also was found and at one point Kesh tried to build there, calling it Birka. But that settlement had been the first obliterated by the dark elves, the Brotherhood of the Dark Path as humans came to call them.

      History showed that Kesh had expanded too far and too fast, and could not support the ancient province of Bosania, as Crydee and the Free Cities were called. The coast of the Bitter Sea colonies prospered, so that when Kesh withdrew, they had been strong enough to resist the expansion westward of the Kingdom of the Isles. But it had been Martin’s ancestor who had ridden over the very trail from Ylith that his men were now fleeing down, to arrive here at Crydee.

      The only reason Crydee had become the capital of the duchy was that his ancestor had taken the old Keshian fortification and built upon it, waging a ten-year campaign to conquer Carse and then Tulan. When it was over, Queg was an independent kingdom, the colonies in Natal had become the Free Cities, Ylith had become the southernmost city of Yabon Province, and that had remained the status quo for over two hundred years.

      Now Kesh was back and it was clear they were reclaiming all of ancient Bosania. They were not only bringing their armies, they were bringing in colonists hard on their heels. They were obviously going to be bringing in their own logistical support, peopling farms and pastures, logging camps and cutting mills, mines, and fisheries with Keshians.

      Martin was no expert on such subjects, but it looked to him as if they had brought enough of Kesh with them that they could occupy the entire Duchy of Crydee … He stopped.

      Suddenly he knew exactly what Kesh was doing. If he desired one thing in life as much as Bethany’s kiss, it would be word from her father as to what was occurring in Carse. Because if he was to wager everything he had, he would bet that the entire Keshian invasion force had sailed right past Carse and Tulan, perhaps leaving a screen of ships to keep the Kingdom warships bottled up in those two harbours, and then landed here. They weren’t going to occupy all of Crydee, just the north!

      And he knew why.

      Wishing he could just lie down here on the rocks and sleep for a week, Martin pushed aside his exhaustion and started back down the hill. Glancing at the midday sun, he considered that with luck he might be able to overtake his men and Bethany after sunset.

      He ran down the slopes from the bluffs into the woods below.

      As he reached a drop in the road, in darkness, Martin could make out fires ahead and hear the sound of horses. He wondered if it might be those Keshians Ruther called ‘the Leopards’, and if so where were Bethany, Ruther, and the men?

      He crept up to the edge of the clearing and saw men there in the brown tabards of Crydee. Feeling relief flood through him, he shouted, ‘Hello the camp! Coming in!’

      One step later he was surrounded by guards, who took a moment to recognize him. ‘Martin! they greeted him.

      Bethany was sitting near the fire next to Brendan. Martin smiled and walked over as quickly as he could. He smelled food cooking and was suddenly ravenous.

      His brother rose and came around the campfire to embrace him. ‘Martin, I was worried.’

      ‘We all were,’ said Bethany and Martin saw an expression on her face that made his heart sink.

      He looked around and realized something momentous. ‘Where’s Father?’ he asked quietly, knowing the answer before it came.

      Brendan looked to the east along the road. ‘Goblin raiders. They jumped us before they realized how many we were. One wounded Father and he fainted, but when he fell ... he broke his neck.’

      Sergeant Magwin joined them. ‘We buried him near the road, Martin, and marked it well. When this is over we’ll fetch him home.’

      Martin felt empty inside. Of all the things he had imagined, his father not being at the head of this column had never been one of them. He sat down next to Bethany and a plate of food and a skin of water was presented to him. ‘Eat, drink,’ she said. ‘I know you’ve no stomach after such news, but you must revive yourself.’

      Martin was numb. Exhaustion, fear, and the stress of battle had worn him to a nub inside. He knew he should be weeping or shouting in rage or something at the news of his father’s death,

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