Chapter Twenty-Three
“It’s no use planning a strategy for where we were yesterday.
” Alrik was imposing, standing up and leaning over his desk to glare at Finnvid more effectively.
They were in Alrik’s study, morning light streaming in through the long, narrow windows.
“Maybe we made a mistake. We were operating on the best intelligence we had, and I’m still not convinced it was wrong, but maybe it was a mistake.
If so, it’s been made. It’s too late to change it based on anything you learned in Windthorn. ”
“No, it’s not too late.” Finnvid would never have dreamed of arguing with Alrik before the trip to Windthorn, but anyone who could defy an angry Sacrati could absolutely contradict his own brother.
“It was a mistake yesterday. A horrible mistake. And it did change things, yet not so much that we’re doomed, I don’t think. We just need to adjust our strategy.”
Alrik stared at him but didn’t say anything, so Finnvid continued.
“If we do nothing, then the warlord has gotten what he wanted. He’s ensured that we’re in his pocket, because every other Torian faction hates us.
That must have been his motivation for ordering the attack, right?
To get rid of a few strong Sacrati, and to ensure that we couldn’t go behind his back and deal with the Sacrati or the reeve, since we’d just killed the Sacrati men and the reeve’s son.
” It was easier to stay calm when he thought of Theos as a pawn rather than as a forceful, vibrant man.
Still he had to push a little. “But we haven’t killed the reeve’s son. Have we? He remains alive?”
“Alive,” Alrik agreed. “He’s hanging on. There were a couple arrows that did him no good, and a few slash wounds from when the guards reached him.” He shrugged. “And the head injury, and maybe some extra bruises from afterward. The men were pretty pleased to have a Sacrati in their power.”
“That needs to stop!” Finnvid caught himself and didn’t speak again until he was sure he could control his voice.
He let a little anger bleed in to cover for the horror that had been in his last words.
“It’s stupid, Alrik. Our only chance now is to claim that we made a mistake.
We were tricked by the warlord. We followed his orders, but as soon as we realized they were wrong, we did everything we could to rectify the situation.
We gave the Sacrati survivor the best treatment and we are willing to support our Windthorn allies as they work to deal with the problems in their valley that brought death and destruction to our castle. ”
“If there’s internal conflict with the Torians, we need to back the winner,” Alrik said with a frown.
“Sacrati are legendary—and their performance yesterday shows that the legend is deserved—but there aren’t many of them.
And Torian regulars may not be quite so elite, yet they’re still great warriors.
I’ve spoken to some of the men who traveled with you about the Torian training they did, and they all admitted it was tougher than anything we’d even consider in Elkat.
They weren’t training with Sacrati, just regular Torian soldiers.
You really think a small band of Sacrati could take on the Torian war machine? ”
“You’re leaving two factors out,” Finnvid said.
He tried to sound completely confident in his ideas.
“You have to consider the resolve of the soldiers. The Sacrati would be fighting for their lives, and to revenge a savage attack on their own. They’re a tight group, Alrik.
They would be completely committed to their battle.
The Torian regulars? The warlord is a skilled manipulator, I’ll give him that.
Yet I traveled with the Sacrati and the regulars on the way here, and they got along well.
That’s what I saw in training at Windthorn, too.
The Sacrati were more intense, but they often exercised right alongside the others.
” Finnvid decided not to mention that the Sacrati and the Torian regulars had all probably had sex with each other.
“I’m not sure the Torian regulars would follow the warlord into battle against their own. ”
Alrik didn’t seem exactly pleased at being lectured by his previously worthless younger brother, but he was listening. He raised an eyebrow as he said, “And the second factor I’m leaving out?”
“The women,” Finnvid said firmly. “It’s not like we thought it was, before I left.
The women aren’t drudges, exhausted from being treated as broodmares and doing all the menial labor.
The women run the valley. The economy, the crafts, the agriculture—they’re absolutely in charge of everything but the military.
Even reproduction. They call the men to the city when they want them.
The children do a lot of the menial tasks—laundry or whatnot—and there really isn’t as much of that sort of work there as there is here.
No great dinners with white linens and fancy foods.
They live more simply, but more equally, too.
The women are a force to be reckoned with.
And I’ve been told—and it makes sense, based on what I saw—that the men would never attack the city.
Their mothers and sisters and children live in there, and they wouldn’t endanger them. ”
Alrik pursed his lips and glanced over toward the rolled parchment on his desk. “You haven’t read the warlord’s letter,” he said thoughtfully. “But you’ve guessed at a lot of it. Which makes me think you understand the situation over there fairly well.”
“But there’s something I’m missing?”
“Possibly.” Alrik made a face, one Finnvid remembered from their childhood.
Alrik was trying to decide how much information to share.
Unfortunately, in their childhood capers Finnvid had usually let his brother down; he’d reported the theft of the sweet plums, or wandered off when he was supposed to be standing guard.
But maybe Alrik had forgotten, because he finally waved an arm toward the desk.
“Read it,” he said. Apparently making it sound like an order was easier than admitting he’d like Finnvid’s opinion.
And Finnvid didn’t need to be ordered twice.
He grabbed the letter and scanned it quickly.
It was addressed to Alrik, written in Torian, and signed by the warlord.
He returned to the top and went through it more carefully.
He looked over at his brother, who was watching with more patience than usual, and then nodded slowly.
“It’s mostly lies,” Finnvid said. “I can see why you thought you were protecting me. Or getting revenge, I suppose. But I’ve told you the truth.
The Sacrati didn’t abuse me. I was a terrible slave, really, disrespectful and sullen, and no one ever raised a hand to me.
It was the warlord who knew who I was, and he left me enslaved because—” Finnvid stopped, frowned, then said, “because he wasn’t powerful enough to get me free.
” It was true, and it was important. “He tried to sneak me out in the slave train; I assume I’d have been rescued somewhere in the forest and sent home.
Then he tried to bully Theos into giving me to him.
But Theos didn’t give in, and the warlord couldn’t do a thing about it.
If he had the sort of power over Windthorn that he claims, he’d just have ordered them to free me and it wouldn’t have been an issue. ”
“It may have been a question of timing,” Alrik said, but he didn’t sound sure. “He may still have been consolidating his power. And we don’t know what’s happened over there since you left.”
Finnvid couldn’t argue with that. He looked down at the letter again.
It was mostly what he’d expected. The first part was a cleverly worded manipulation: there was no actual order to attack the Sacrati, but there was a clear expression of understanding if such an attack were to occur, given the horrible treatment the Elkati prince had suffered at Sacrati hands.
And then there were promises of alliances and mutual benefit, nothing that was new to Finnvid after the initial meeting with the warlord.
But the third part was a puzzle. Until .
. . “He wants us to attack the city,” he gasped.
“That’s why he wants the exchange of troops.
He’ll send his most independent troops away from the city, to us or elsewhere, and we’ll send him our men, for ‘training,’ and he’ll use them to attack the city.
The women aren’t heavily armed, and they wouldn’t be expecting it.
It wouldn’t take too many soldiers to take the place over. ”
Alrik nodded. “I think that may be it.”
“It wouldn’t work. Not long-term. Our men might be able to take the city, but they’d never hold it. Not once the women organized resistance, and certainly not once the Torian troops returned.”
“I wonder how many Torian troops would be left,” Alrik said. “If he can get the Sacrati fighting the regulars, there’d be huge casualties, surely. Is he that . . . merciless? Cruel? Could he be sinister enough to sacrifice his own men like that?”
“I don’t know.” Finnvid hoped not. “Maybe he’s just planning to send for help from the central valleys.
Even a small conflict between Sacrati and regular troops would be unheard of in the Torian Empire.
I don’t know how they’d handle it, but maybe they’d split the men up, and send new troops to serve under the warlord?
Men who wouldn’t be as loyal to the women in the city, and maybe men from the central valleys, who want Torian society to change in the same ways the warlord does. ”
Alrik shook his head in disgust. “We don’t know. We just don’t know enough to make good decisions.”