69. Bold Decisions.
Torbit was sitting at Willag Axehound's campfire when captured scouts were dragged before the Warchief. The three young-looking hares, two males and one female, were disarmed and roughed up a good deal, but unwounded.
"There was another one," explained one of the otter warriors who escorted them. "But you told us to take any and all of 'em alive, and we couldn't catch him without shootin' him, fast runners these longears are."
Willag looked at the captives as grimly, as he usually looked at everything. "So, what you were doing here, coming to my camp like thieves, uninvited and unheralded?"
One of the hares had enough bravery to answer: "And what you're doing here, coming to our land like a warmaker, uninvited and with an army?"
From the beginning Willag was speaking loud and clear, so that many otters and other beasts who came to see what's happening, could hear every word. "I thought that your Badger Ruler believed that woodlanders should be allowed to go freely wherever they will. Or does that only apply to her servants?"
Threatening growls from all around the otter crowd were not merely audible, Torbit felt them in his bones.
"If she has any courage, she shall stand before me to answer that herself, instead of sending milksops like you to spy on me!" Willag pointed at the hares with his battleaxe.
"Who do you think you are, you…"
Torbit was sure that Willag made a small sign with his paw, and one of the otters around the three prisoners hit the hare in the stomach hard with the butt end of the spear, cutting the words short.
"Silence!" Willag barked. "It's not yet your day to die, longears. Keep your mouths shut before you say something a Warchief cannot forgive. You came to count Axehound warriors and weapons? Fine! Show them the camp, lads! And then let them run back to Salamandastron. Let them and their Badger Ruler know our invincible strength! Maybe trembling in their knees will put some sense in their heads!"
As Willag shook his fist in the air to underline his words, otters all around howled, whooped, brandished their weapons, shouted "Yes!" and "Right!". The hares were dragged away before the noise died down sufficiently for them to say anything and be heard.
"Watch it," Leffel, who sat next to Torbit, leaned towards him and spoke right into his ear. "Fear of the undefeated Long Patrol banished in a moment, and for a small price. That's how a chieftain rules."
Torbit shrugged. "At least it ended without killing, as ye promised."
"Akkla wished otherwise, but Father listened to me. If Violet won't get a fit of bloodwrath upon hearing his words retold to her, it all may yet end without killing."
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Noise in the big feast hall of the Castle Floret was overwhelming. Myns heard angry shouts and yells several corridors away, and immediately could feel the anger. In any other time, she would have just ran to inform Belk. But now, Belk wasn't there to help. Well, even if he was there, it would have been proper to first see what trouble befell them with her own eyes, before running to him, right? So, she walked into the hall.
Most beasts in the castle's walls already were within that hall and most of them were busy shouting and yelling at each other. Jerbilrats formed one large group, Southswarders, both castle servants and Melayna's followers, another, and by the look and sound of them, they were about to point weapons, instead of accusing fingers, at one another. Melayna and Gerrul, the chief of jerbilrats, seemed to be at the center of the confrontation, but Myns could not hear them over the noise.
"Tchah, who do you think you are!"
"You filthy savages!"
"Woodlander liars!"
"Desert cowards!"
Bang! The booming metallic sound was so loud that everyone closed their mouths for a second and looked towards Myns, who grabbed a heavy metal tray from the nearest table with both paws and threw it against the stone floor as hard as she could. "Belk will be ashamed to see you quarreling and screaming like babes in his absence!"
Gerrul was the first to answer. "Belk is lost and dead. And without him, why we have to fight this hopel…"
"My husband is alive! If the vermin killed him, where is his head on the stake before our gates?! He risked his life to let you escape, and this is your gratitude?!" Myns spoke with total conviction that seemed to work on the crowd, but the logic was pretty shaky, and she knew that better than anybeast. Over the last few days she couldn't banish the thought of Belk escaping the vermin only to die from wounds somewhere in the forest. "And besides, he's the warrior wielding the Sword of Martin, so there is no way for him to die so easily!"
"Tsk, maybe." Gerrul nodded. "But we're not gonna fight for the beasts who treat us little better than foes, anyway!"
"Then stop acting little better than foes, plundering my larders as if they were bottomless, and ruining my castle! Just two days ago your beasts nearly set the southeastern tower on fire!" Melayna interjected loudly.
Gerrul turned to her again, and Myns' heart sank. No more words were coming to her mind, and in a second the quarrel was going to start all over again.
"Wait, all of you!" Myns did not notice Elmsfort among the crowd at first, but now the old squirrel, still walking with a cane – in fact, he looked like he was unable to stand without leaning on it – was between the two crowds. His voice was not very strong, but his age and everybeast's knowledge of his stoic resistance under torture commanded respect, so at least for a moment both sides listened. "«Your castle», Melayna? You're not the Queen yet. Walmond is in charge of the Castle Floret in absence of King Gwynfren, and after him, myself. And you, Gerrul. Your people call themselves jerbilrats to sound vicious, but you're not rats and you know it. The vermin may promise to let you join them or leave the castle unharmed, but that would be lies!"
"And what makes you know that?" questioned somebeast from the jerbilrats' crowd.
"Them giving us three days and nights to think of surrender and attacking like thieves in the night before that time was up, for one. Those vermin will keep no promise breaking which may be to their advantage, and will spare no beast who foolishly places himself in their power. But we're not like them. Goodbeasts do not betray each other. We do not think of titles when the country burns around us." Elmsort looked at Melayna. "Neither we forget our promises when going gets tough." With these words he turned to Jeibras. "And if some of us believe they are treated unfairly – or believe that others act improperly – then we can settle our issues in a manner befitting goodbeasts, not through shouts and threats. Or am I wrong?"
Air in the hall still stank of animosity, there was grumbling and mumbling from both directions, but nobeast opposed Elmsfort openly. The subsequent long-winded talks, with listing of many a petty grievance, from practical jokes at the expense of ignorant jerbilrats, to jerbilrats vandalizing the castle through their ignorance, to a few accidents recounting of which made Myns blush slightly, were more boring and repetitive than tense and hostile. She was not even sure why she remained in the hall until it was past midday and everybeast was leaving, given that she couldn't contribute anything.
"A good idea with the tray," said Elmsfort later, meeting her in the corridor. "I was unable to make myself heard. Your husband, when he returns, can be congratulated on his choice of a wife."
"Eh, I was just scared, everybeast looked like they were about to fight each other, and…"
"Nevertheless." Elmsfort's voice suddenly got sterner. "How are the rats? Melayna and her crowd aren't about to start a fight with them too, by chance?"
Myns thought for a bit. "Ezri told me that Melayna checked on them a couple times, but her beasts aren't guarding them."
"Hrmph. Maybe starting a fight would have been better." After Myns answered with nothing besides a disapproving look, Elmsfort added. "Melayna only decided to protect them in your husband's absence to spite me, if you haven't noticed. Your husband is noble but soft-hearted, judging by what I heard of him, yet Melayna just has brains of a cub. Vermin are vermin. If you could win their loyalty by treating them well, we would not be in the middle of this predicament."
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Sparth and Tezza were buried next to each other, and a bit apart from graves of the slain Southswarders. Aldwin himself looked almost fit for a grave, so his only part in the funeral was the oration, if it could be called that – he spoke without raising his voice, and even that must have caused him a good deal of pain.
"It is said by the wise that courage is the first of virtues, because without courage the rest are just empty wishes. And if anybeast is ever to malign those two by saying they lacked in courage, may that liar's tongue rot off. One day we meet them again, in the Dark Forest, or maybe on the sunny meadows said to lay beyond it, and I only wish is that none of us would be ashamed to look at their faces then!"
"Captain Aldwin?" Some local vole walked up to the small group of the remaining companion just as Aldwin finished his brief speech. "King Gwynfren calls for you!"
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Gwynfren looked at his improvised council. "I promised you to give a decision this morning, and so I will."
His left ear suddenly was itching badly, and only with an effort he abstained from making any undignified notions. There was a leaden weight in his stomach as well. "I've checked our supplies before dawn, with Eskil's help, of course. We're lucky if we last a week on what we have and what we gather from the countryside. We have to split camps and hope that the vermin won't wipe us out part by part and the beasts won't start losing heart and deserting. Or we have to attack, which you've advised already."
He drew a deep breath. "I choose to attack."
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Belk admired Gwynfren's ability to make himself look majestic before the crowd despite being crippled. The young King wisely decided that it is not possible to assume a regal pose with a crutch, so he addressed his army sitting on a wooden chair, big and throne-like, albeit roughly made. A long robe and cloak helped to make his injury less obvious.
"…but yesterday we turned the vermin invaders back, with the help of our new friends and allies, who led the charge in battle and fought as if each of them had the strength of seven beasts!" He waved his paw to the left, where Aldwin, and most the rest of his surviving Gallopers. The crowd cheered them loudly. Gwynfren waited for the noise to die down and continued.
"The northerners we fought were the strongest and boldest of all their army, and yet they ran like cowards they are, and all their strength helped them not! Neither did their low cunning – they failed to take us by surprise! And their attempt on my own life was foiled by these brave beasts!" Now Gwynfren waves his paw to the right, where Sovna, Suran, and Kethra flanked his chair on the other side. The cheers were quite a bit weaker and more uncertain this time, but at least there were cheers.
Belk, of course, was not a stranger to dealing with vermin, but looking at Suran and Kethra he could understand why many Southswarders may have felt apprehensive about these two. Nobeast could mistake Kethra for anything but a dangerous killer, and Suran looked downright villainous, it was hard to see them and not question whether they are at all different from their kind, the beasts who were razing Southsward right now. Belk himself did.
"…now," fervor of Gwynfren's speech rose, and returned Belk from his thoughts to the present, "is not the time to rest and lick our wounds! Now is the time to seize the moment, to make advantage of the victory, to fight the vermin horde, and smash them beneath the walls of Castle Floret! Now is the time for the battle that will end all battles and return peace to Southsward! Are you ready to follow your King?!"
"We are!" hundreds, no, thousands voices shouted as one.