Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The tents sprawl across the wild hillscape and meadows. The sky dances in swirls of cinnamon and saffron, the amber light falling on the grassy landscape with a dusting of gold.
I’ve finished finding things I can do – setting up tents and situating horses, sourcing water and unrolling bedding. So I make my way through the throng of soldiers towards a familiar set of round tents at the centre of the camp – the commander’s tents where we’ll be staying this evening.
The grassland has been trampled flat, the mud beneath upturned as I round the last tent.
I spy my friends sitting cross-legged on a series of mats and cushions near a large fire that Serra is currently poking.
Giulia has wrapped Michelle in her arms while the artist continues to sketch.
Royah is inspecting her blades, while Alfieri watches with interest.
“Evening, stranger!” calls Emilia, waving my way.
“Evening,” I say, settling down next to the flames.
“Here,” says Giulia, pulling the cloth off a wooden bowl and handing it over. “We saved you some.”
“I didn’t realise I’d missed dinner,” I say, frowning. “Sorry about that.”
“Ah, I’ve only just sat down myself,” says Serra, waving off my worry as she finishes her own bowl of food. “The nature of this kind of thing.”
“Besides, it’s no culinary masterpiece,” Giulia says. “It’s only stew.”
“Your stew?” I clarify, grinning, as I pick up the spoon. I breathe in the familiar smell and my mouth waters. Giulia nods.
“Yep. One of the few things Giulia can whip up in the kitchen— Ow!” Michelle laughs as Giulia gives her a teasing pinch before kissing her cheek.
“You have barely looked up from your pad for the last few hours. Someone has to make sure you eat,” Giulia says. Michelle grins and plants a quick kiss on her fiancée’s lips before turning her face back down to the page.
“Urgh, this is great,” I say through a mouthful of warm broth and potatoes. “Just what I needed.”
“Yeah, a night of camping is going to be great for my back,” says Serra sarcastically. “Particularly after a day of riding.”
“Ah, that’s part of the fun,” Royah says, holding her blade up to the light as she inspects her work. “Besides, you’ll want to sleep tonight. Tomorrow we’ll be at Semita, and the night before a battle is always a little … eventful.”
“Eventful?” says Emilia, frowning.
“You think you’re going to sleep tomorrow evening?” Serra asks curiously as though it were obvious.
“Probably not,” Emilia muses, “but restless and eventful are two different things. Royah said eventful – what’s going to happen?”
“Nothing you need to worry about,” says Alfieri. Royah smirks.
“Let’s just say, imminent battle has a way of making people seek … companionship,” Royah continues.
“Oh!” Emilia barks with laughter, eyes going wide with understanding as she shares a wicked grin with Alfieri. “I see.”
“Yeah, it can get … a little awkward. As can the night after too, honestly,” Royah says. “The nerves of an imminent battle and then the relief after one seem to put people in a strange headspace.”
“One that rarely gets acknowledged after the fact,” Alfieri says.
“What happens before or after the battle stays there and is never referenced again by anybody. It’s like an unspoken rule,” Royah agrees.
“Noted. Get a good night’s rest while you can,” Serra says.
“What did Idris want?” Royah turns to me expectantly. I frown at her, spoon pausing before my lips as I blink in surprise.
“Huh?”
“Idris was looking for you like thirty minutes ago. I thought he’d found you,” Royah explains, pausing with her blades. “He, Tahira and Savino have been in the strategy tent since we got here.”
“Doesn’t sound like great news,” Giulia says softly, looking around at the others. My heart hammers in my throat as I swallow. The hot stew races down my throat, my eyes stinging at such a large gulp.
“Shoot.” I scramble to my feet. “I’ll go find them. Which way?”
“I’ll take you,” Alfieri says, hopping to his feet. “I want to grab my jacket from my tent anyway.”
I bid goodbye to my friends, carrying my dinner away with me as Alfieri and I walk.
“This feels like something you could’ve mentioned earlier,” I point out as I frantically gulp down my stew.
“I figured he found you,” Alfieri answers honestly. “I mean, you were surrounded by your guards. Where were you?”
“Helping, mostly with the medical tent and set-up,” I answer as Alfieri shows me to a large round tent.
The red canopies are treated with wax to make them waterproof, their edges trimmed with black leather to ensure the material won’t fray.
Unlike the soft dirt around the rest of camp, the entrance to this tent is already well trodden and a small puddle that I hop over has formed by its door.
Thorns crawl up my throat, a hot fire bakes at the backs of my eyes as my nails turn into acidic claws at the ends of my fingers.
I grit my teeth, forcing out a slow breath before pushing open the tent flap.
Inside, the large space is lit by maybe two dozen burning candles in glass jars.
A huge table sits in the centre of the tent, covered in maps, while a frantic conversation is going on between Tahira, Savino and Idris.
Idris’s head snaps around the moment I enter, shoulders flinching up with the intensity of the bond. They drop back down as he wrestles his reaction into submission.
“There you are,” Tahira says, exasperated. “Where have you been?”
“Doing things. Seriously, I can’t have been that hard to find!” I answer. “I had a dozen guards with me.”
“I knew where you were, but figured we’d come to you with a suggested solution once we’d worked it out,” Idris counters, beckoning me over. I step up to the table beside him.
“Bad news?” I ask. Idris’s jaw tightens and he nods.
“The reinforcements from the other Independent States are delayed,” says Savino.
My heart drops. Two thousand men delayed? Two thousand desperately needed soldiers?
“How delayed?” I ask, my stomach dropping.
“We’re not sure. Hopefully just a day,” Tahira says, rubbing the back of her neck as she stands straight. “But without them…”
Without them our numbers stand at just two thousand and eight hundred.
A tiny force… “We’re no match for the Holy States,” I say, my mouth going dry.
I look over the maps, seeing the figurines and doing the quick maths.
The Holy States army is about the same distance from Semita as we are – probably arriving tomorrow.
“Numbers don’t win wars,” Tahira says diplomatically, though her tone is strained. “We’ve been planning to fight with a smaller force since the beginning, we have strategies ready to go. Your war machines will give us a huge advantage they won’t see coming. We are far from hopeless.”
“The issue is that the Holy States will know we don’t have the numbers right now.
Scouts from their end will report back to them, and we can’t rely on catching them all – the likelihood is that someone will get back and report our numbers to them just as our scouts have reported their numbers to us,” Idris says, his voice gruff and frustrated.
“If we leave early and march we can reach Semita first, giving us a few hours to set up … but that might not be enough. They’ll capitalise on their advantage, won’t hesitate or bother with their own set-up, not when every hour’s delay risks our reinforcements arriving. So they’ll strike hard and fast…”
Idris trails off and takes a long, deep breath. They’ll strike hard and we won’t have had enough time to properly set up or come up with a new battle strategy.
“We could abandon the Semita plan,” Savino says, “and find some place local to move to that will perhaps give us the uphill advantage.”
“The Semita plan doesn’t allow for pincer movements,” Tahira reminds us. “Which a smaller force will be vulnerable to, particularly if stationed on top of a hill.”
“Or we could pack up now and march straight to Semita to capitalise on time and preparation,” says Idris, “but then our forces will be tired from a trek in the dark all night, and that’ll risk more injuries and breakages…”
“Tanking morale. They’ll be wondering why the sudden change of plan, and know something is up – something bad,” Savino says.
I nod and lean over the table and the maps.
“Or we could stick to the plan we have,” says Tahira after a moment of silence. “So what’ll it be, Maestrus?”
Suddenly, the lives of all the Halician soldiers settle on my shoulders.
I swallow tightly, my throat going thick.
I clench my fingers into fists as my eyes seem glued to the figurines denoting our numbers.
I picture them on Nouis’s table like this.
His glee, that manic look in his eyes as he sizes us up. All I want is to wipe it away.
“Okay, so we need to fake our numbers,” I say, straightening up. “And stick to the original plan.”
“Fake our numbers?” Tahira asks sharply.
“Make the enemy think we have more men than we currently do,” I explain, but Tahira gives me a look like she understood that part.
“If it’s only a day until our reinforcements arrive, we can try to fake it for that long.
If Nouis believes us to be as strong as he’s expecting – that’ll make him pause exactly as he would’ve before.
No rushed early attack. But if he thinks our force is bigger than he’s expecting, then he’ll need to re-strategise.
That will take far longer, which should hopefully buy us that time for our reinforcements to catch up, and for us to prepare properly with our current battle plans. ”
“Sure, but how do you plan to do that?” asks Savino.
“How do you count numbers?” I ask.
“Wait until it’s dark and count the fires…” Tahira trails off, eyes lighting up as she realises where I’m going with this.