53. To War.
Campfires of the Southsward army were scattered across a wide meadow next to the Sunshimmer River like flickering stars across the night sky – and with the same absence of order. Most of the beasts who gathered under the banner of Gwynfren Squirrelking were simple farmers, gardeners and fishers who had no idea of military organization. They settled down to rest wherever they could find a place to do so. Only the king's otterguards placed proper sentries, and most of those were guarding the big tent raised in the center of the camp for the king himself.
In that tent Gwynfren Squirrelking gathered his war council. The king had war councils often, ever before the invasion had turned from hard-to-believe warnings, brought from Salamandastron by travelling geese, to reality. Of course that was only proper for a king as young and lacking experience as him… Experience with real battles – or with kingship, for that matter. Being a grand-grandson of a then-Squirrelking's third brother usually entitled one to just a little bit more respect than your average country squirrel was due. And Gwynfren was raised as a country squirrel, not a prince. Until Laydon the Old Squirrelking descended into his final illness, childless, with no closer-related male heir in sight, and courtiers remembered about Gwynfren's family existence. The young king worked studiously to educate himself since first entering Castle Floret, and he learned how his – now his – dynasty persisted for thousands upon thousands of seasons. In the past squirrels with even more distant blood ties to Squirrelkings had ascended to the throne once or twice, when plagues, wars and other unfortunate circumstances cut direct lines of succession. But still, before elder courtiers he couldn't help but feel himself Gwynfren the country squirrel, not Gwynfren the Squirrelking. As the war engulfed his country, he took care not to act without their advice and agreement.
"Are their numbers indeed that few?" The question was addressed to Lerith Streamdiver, a tall, fierce-looking – if growing a little fat in the recent seasons – otter, one of said elder courtiers, the captain of the king's otterguards.
"My scouts watched their camp close enough to smell the stinky breath of their sentries. Picked off a few of their foragers and I tell you, Your Majesty, a vermin brave enough for lying to my face hadn't been born yet. I'd bet my right paw that there is no more than twelve hundreds of vermin, aye, and probably less. We have over three times their number."
Gwynfren could clearly hear a murmur of relief from the courtiers gathered at the tent, mostly squirrels. And he shared their sentiment. "Then should we face them in the field and crush them?"
"If you excuse me for speakin' me mind, Majesty," another impressive-looking creature raised his voice, "that ain't the advice I'd give."
"And why is it so, Ironbristle?" Gwynfren turned to the speaker, leaning on the one side of his carved chair, brought with the rest of the king's baggage to serve as an improvised throne.
"'cause numbers alone ain't goin' to win you a battle, Majesty." Ironbristle was a big, stout, scarred, famously strong hedgehog, with thick, unruly, graying fur and long spikes. Laydon the Old appointed him the Cellarkeeper in Castle Floret, to reward his brave deeds against vermin raiders on the southern border with a sinecure, yet despite his age and numerous seasons of soft life Ironbristle still was a beast as hard, as his name suggested. "Look out there, just go 'round the camp and look. What would you see? I say: a whole lot of peasants who never saw as much as a vermin's tail in their lives and never cut anythin' livelier than a wooden log! Plenty of mice, voles and moles, not the biggest and fiercest of beasts, if you excuse me sayin' so, and with scarcely a shield or a real blade between the whole crowd. And most of 'em only met each other when called to arms by Your Majesty, just days ago. How can a beast trust strangers to watch his sides once arrows start flyin'?"
"We have my otterguards to lead them." Lerith clearly disliked the fact that the hedgehog dared to offer an opinion ahead of him.
"You riverdogs are mighty fighters, that's true, but ain't there less than a hundred of otterguards?"
"Ninety and three. But do not forget the castle squirrels, my friend." This time it was Chamberlain Elmsfort who spoke, and when this small, grey, polite squirrel spoke, beasts listened. "They add fifty and eight more beasts, all armed properly and most trained in use of weapons. But regardless, what do you propose us to do?"
Ironbristle humphed and stepped forward, to the small table, on which a relief map of Southsward skillfully carved from a large oak plate laid.
"I say we retreat here." He tapped the map with the thick white-grey claw. "To Arrowwood Ford. The only place an army that big can walk across Sunshimmer for dozens and dozens of miles. Take every boat to our side and let 'em come at us. The right bank is high an' steep, save one narrow road up, an' before that their smaller beasts would be walkin' chest-deep in bloody swift waters – that crossin' would be the death for any army or horde I heard about on my life. That if they attack cross the ford. If they don't, oh well, buildin' rafts an' boats for a whole army from nothin' takes time. Crossin' a river on those rafts an' boats ain't going to be easy too, with otters in the water an' the rest of us waitin' on the high bank. In another moon many beasts from border tribes would come to our help, real foresters, knowin' what end of a spear to hold, not flabby farmers. Then we could think about takin' the fight back to vermin scum."
Lerith looked down at the shorter beast with contempt. "Are you telling us to abandon a third of our country to vermin's tender mercies, because an army a third of our size is too scary for us to fight, hedgehog? How many goodbeasts won't be able to get away in time from those vermin murderers, if we're to turn tails tomorrow morning?"
"I say, it is better to lose a third of our country for a moon than all of Soutsward for seasons, if not for ever." Gwynfren knew who supported Ironbristle's opinion without even looking. Even in his sleep he could recognize the voice of the person whose very existence doubled the discomfort he experienced sitting on the Squirrekings' throne.
Melayna Firebright was everything he wasn't, after all. Strikingly beautiful – lithe, with fur of intense red and spotless white – instead of fairly average. The closest living relative of Laydon the Old raised, raised, trained and educated at Castle Floret from birth, instead of a shirttail cousin from the country. Skilled in noble arts and tested in battle, instead of, well… not being so. Everybeast knew Melayna deserved the throne much more than Gwynfren. Gwynfren was sure of that. She had just one small problem… well, two problems, really – being a female and an offspring of Laydon's daughter, and the latter alone was enough to place her behind Gwynfren in the line of succession, according to Southsward's ancient laws.
Or, as Gwynfren pondered recently, perhaps certain courtiers had an additional reason beyond laws to seek any beast with Squirrelkings' blood other than Melayna Firebright. The young king remembered these thoughts, when the chamberlain immediately countered Melayna, a well-measured slight hint of derision in his voice. "This reasoning, my fair lady, would be the most wise – assuming we had an army of bees or ants. Alas, the goodbeasts who gathered here under the royal banner are not insects wholly devoted to their hive. When a Squirrelking shows reluctance and uncertainty before a much smaller enemy force, his subjects lose heart. Many would scatter to protect their homes and loved ones if we are going to let vermin do as they please on the whole left bank of Sunshimmer. A retreat would make our army melt away like snow in the spring. And that is before we even start to consider the difficulties of feeding thousands of beasts staying in one place for a moon or more, as our venerable Ironbristle suggests."
"But." Elmsfort turned to Gwynfren and the young king shifted uncomfortably on his throne under the glare of chamberlain's jet black eyes. "The final decision is Squirreking's. What would you say, Your Majesty?"
Gwynfren liked Ironbristle. And while books about wars of old he read suggested that vermin cannot possibly win without numbers on their side, he knew that the old hedgehog had more experience of real fighting than any other beast in the tent. But siding with Melayna against Elmsfort and Lerith… the very idea was as pleasant as learning to swim with your long, wet squirrel tail dragging you down.
"We march to battle. This is my command."
000000000000000
Ironbristle sat under a tree, honing his sword when Melayna found him. The hedgehog's ugly curved blade gleamed dangerously in the light of the small bonfire he built, and, as far as Melayna could see, already was perfectly sharp. That did not deter the old warrior from applying a whetstone with smooth, measured moves.
"I told you they ain't gonna listen." Ironbristle couldn't miss her approach. "Oh well. Good job getting' the command of our left, Melayna."
Melayna Firebright looked down at the sitting hedgehog. A rustic and quite ugly creature, particularly next to her – Melayna was well aware how striking she looked in a fine red jerkin matching her well-groomed fur, wearing a straight sword and a long, thin dagger on a belt decorated with golden medallions. But in a battle to death there was no better fighter to cover one's back in the entire Southsward.
"Thanks, Ironbristle. I would be honored if you join my command on the left wing. Be assured, I would never take your advice as lightly as our king and his… wise councilors. Together we might yet be able to salvage something even if the worst comes to the worst."
Ironbristle put aside the whetstone, rubbed his nose, then snorted. "Much of the advice I told 'em was yours to start with. An' thanks a bunch, but no. If the worst comes, then my place is with whatever King fates sent me. Ain't much of a servant of Squirrelkings I would be otherwise, no?"
"I guess." Melayna nodded, hiding her disappointment with a smile. "May then the same fates reward your loyalty."
000000000000000
Beasts said that when Akkla Axehound first relayed the ill news to her brother, Willag, the Warchief's face and voice betrayed no emotion. He only squeezed the shaft of the great battleaxe that served as both his weapon and the symbol of his position with such fury that his fingers left dents in the hard old wood. A ludicrous tale, but Torbit found himself believing it.
Standing on the porch of his big house, before the assembled crowd of his followers – Axehound otters, otters from lesser northern clans who accepted Axehound leadership, barbaric-looking squirrels from highlands and wild forests of the eastern coast – Warchief Willag looked like a fearsome legend of destruction and vengeance made flesh. Ilmo Wavedog was frightening in his wrath, Heddin Wintersky was the very image of a implacable warrior, but neither ever gave Torbit shivers like Willag.
Beasts said that in the distant seasons of his youth Willag Axehound was mocked for being too pretty for a future Warchief. One could never guess that by looking at him now. Blades and claws of countless enemies left terrible marks that even long fur could not hide on Willag's grizzled body and face. Yet age and wounds did not seem to sap any strength and vigor from his tall, thin form. A cloak of stoat fur and a three-row necklace of fangs attested that the Warchief's savagery matched his might. His unblinking eyes were bright green like emeralds and just as hard. And his thick, raspy voice conjured images of steel scrapping against bone and teeth being torn from jaws to take place on Willag's necklace in Torbit's mind, whenever the Warchief spoke.
Like now.
"…Should we leave Heddin, the pride of Northlands, my son in all but blood, unavenged? Should we bow before this so-called Ruler, this ally of vermin, and heed her arrogant command?"
"No! Never! Never! Never!" The roar of so many warriors, brandishing and waving their weapons over their heads, as they gave voice to their fury, must have been heard for miles. Even Torbit found himself shouting "No!" before he knew it. Only the two females standing besides the Warchief on the porch remained silent – Akkla by Willag's right side, and Leffel Axehound, his oldest surviving child, by the left.
After listening to the uproar for half a minute, Willag slammed the butt of his axehaft into the porch's timbers thrice, demanding silence. And when silence was given, he raised his ancestral weapon, holding it high like a banner.
"For vengeance. For honor. We go to war!"
000000000000000
After he, Akkla, and the rest returned to the Axehound stronghold, Torbit spent most of his days and nights sleeping and idling onboard of the Wavecrest. Thankfully, he saw very few dreams. His remaining tribesmates tried to bother him during his hours of wakefulness, but even they seemed to be giving up recently. Torbit didn't care. Until tonight he didn't care about anything anymore.
But tonight sleep refused to come. The darkness of his small cabin was comforting no longer. His bunk somehow got much harder, and Torbit could not get comfortable no matter how he tossed and turned. Terrible weariness pressed on his mind like a heavy, rough rock, and instead of letting Torbit sink into oblivion faster, it allowed him no rest.
By midnight he finally gave up, picked up his cloak and went out on the deck to breathe some fresh air. The moon was high in the sky, pearly white and bright, and he didn't need a torch to find his way. To his surprise, Groundswell was on the deck as well, fishing from the stern. Using a fishing rod instead of diving down to catch fish with her own teeth surely was just a way to waste time, maybe because she couldn't sleep properly too – in any case, Torbit hardly had any right to reprimand her.
"Ye ain't lookin' too happy tonight, chief," Groundswell quietly noticed the obvious, as Torbit walked close and leaned against the bulwark.
"Should I be lookin' happy?"
Groundswell thought for a moment. For all of Torbit's current apathy, she remembered and feared his temper. But dishonesty was not her way.
"After somehow gettin' what little is left of our crew in a bloody war with fellow woodlanders? Nay, don't think ye should."
She expected some ugly response and backed away a bit, but Torbit only sighed. "By all the abysses of the sea, ye're right."
Both remained silent, not knowing what to say, until Torbit spoke again. "Scrimmo said that Axehounds are bad luck, when he was lyin' on his deathbed, and worse than that – villains. Said they would be the doom of us all. Asked me to forget avengin' him and think of those still breathin'. It's high time to pay his words some mind, do ye not think so?"
000000000000000
Aldwin was not sure if this high hill ridge marked the northern border of Soutsward. But he believed that Southsward was the country he saw below, from his observation post high in the boughs of the tallest beech tree on the hill. A tranquil-looking green basin, beautifully contrasted with the blue sea to the west and a river shimmering like gold in sunlight down south from the hill. Aldwin couldn't see any sort of castle or town, but in all likelihood Castle Floret was just too far away. Maybe they weren't late, after all…
And then, on the very horizon, he saw a pillar of smoke.