DragonCrown Saga - The Grand Crusade Part 38

"Yes, but only if Nefrai-kesh is an idiot, and we both know he isn't." Alexia tapped the map with a finger. "If we surround the place and he has more troops in reserve, he falls on us and we're done."

Crow nodded. "Agreed, but if we go hard and fast at the fortress, we are going to lose a lot of people."

"I know that is a problem, too. All he has to do is wear us down, draw us out. Erlestoke has reported that an army is coming to Oriosa. If it stops and backtracks as we chase Nefrai-kesh to Caledo or Sebcia, we are caught between two armies and crushed."

General Pandiculia frowned. "We could use my army as a screening force to the east, but I doubt we would hold them off for long. Still, the warning you'd get would be useful."

Alexia nodded. "In whatever we do, your army is going to be crucial."

Peri gave a small cry of annoyance. "We can't ignore Nefrai-kesh's army because then it would just pour down into Saporicia. We have to attack him there, on a ground of his own choosing."

"Exactly. To us it may look like a poor choice. To him it's what he wants." Alexia sighed, then narrowed her eyes. "I try to guess what he knows, he tries to guess what I know, and so it goes."

"And the killer will be what neither of you knows." Crow shook his head. "It's pretty clear we're never going to know enough, so we just have to stumble on ahead in ignorance."

"Yes, my love, exactly." The princess hugged her arms around her belly. "And hope that what we don't know won't hurt us too badly."

After enchanting theturekadineto row, Resolute had retired to the ship's cabin for rest. His sleep came easy-easier than it had in over a century. While his homeland had been nothing as he remembered, just setting foot on it and having slain the enemy there had given him some peace. Not enough for him to abandon his quest, but sufficient that he could imagine his struggle might someday see an end.

The sun was dawning by the time he awakened and headed up to the wheeldeck. Down on the oardeck, where the undeadturekadinepulled at the oars with a tirelessness that no living creature could match, the Norrington stood unmoving. Qwc slept on his right shoulder. The stone creature seemed not to notice anything around him, yet Resolute had the distinct feeling that had one of theturekadinedone something unexpected, it would not get past him.

Up near the prow, Kerrigan stood with Oracle. Resolute looked over at Trawyn, who was taking a turn at the wheel. "Has Kerrigan slept?"

"No."

"Have you?"

She turned and looked at him. "No. I couldn't sleep with our crew rowing."

Resolute frowned. "They will be no problem. They'll get us to the Ghost March."

"And then what?"

"I don't know. I've never had one survive long enough to wonder. If they are still vital, I'll have them jump into the sea. I owe that much to Tagothcha."

The Loquelf princess turned and looked forward again. "I never approved of what some of your Vorquelves did in getting yourselves enchanted in that way."

"It wasn't your choice. We decided we had to do it, and there were still Vorquelves around who could perform those rituals."

Her voice remained low. "Few of the tattoos on your flesh are Vorquelven in nature."

"True. I spent a certain amount of time learning my trade. There were those who wanted things and I provided them. There was a time when gibberkin gall was thought to be an aphrodisiac, and a fan of frostclaw feathers once was highly sought after in Alcidese society. They got what they wanted, and so did I."

Trawyn looked at him again, and the intensity of her stare surprised him. "Was doing what you have done to yourself worth it?"

"What do you mean, what I have done to myself?"

"Look at you! You're nothing like an elf. You have abandoned your birth name. Do you even remember it?"

His nostrils flared. "Immaterial to your point, Princess, so get to it."

"My point is that, in an effort to redeem your homeland, you became something that never could live there." She shook her head. "Don't take me wrong. I actually have admiration for what you have done."

"Even though you think Vorquellyn can never be redeemed?"

"Yes. You didn't give up hope or become a parasite like Predator and the rest. And you don't play at being an adult the way Amends and his people do." Her brow furrowed and her voice caught. "If you do succeed, you know you will win your home back for them, don't you? They may hail you as a hero, but they will never make you feel at home."

"It doesn't matter, Princess." Resolute gave her a slow smile. "Once Vorquellyn is redeemed, Vorquellyn will make me feel at home. Once I have my homeland, once I am bound to it, it will tell me my place. Until that time, yes, I am what I have made myself. I am elven, and perhaps more, or just different. But it's what I needed to be. Do you understand that?"

Trawyn slowly nodded. "I do."

The Vorquelf looked out over the wheeldeck at the Norrington. "The redemption requires sacrifice, but until the prophecy, we did not have a direction. When Crow and I found Will, I took his name as an omen. Will: a word such as we took for our names. And he was very willful. Sometimes, almost too much."

"I can see how his name would be seen as a good sign." Trawyn nodded. "Now Will seems inappropriate, andthe Norringtontoo forbidding."

"I agree." Resolute closed his eyes for a moment, then half smiled. "Will was actually a name he adopted. As Kerrigan reminded me, his true name was Wilburforce."

"He adopted an aspect of his name for an aspect of his life."

"So it seems. Perhaps now he's just Force." As the Vorquelf said it, the stone creature half turned his head as if he'd overheard. Resolute resisted the urge to ask him if that was his true name, the way someone might question a pet. "Force you shall be."

Trawyn shook her head. "His sacrifices continue. His life, now his name." Resolute hesitated for a moment, then softened the tone he had intended for his words. "You're afraid, aren't you, of what losing your homeland would do to you? What you would have to sacrifice."

"I am wondering if I could do to myself what you have to win it back."

Resolute shrugged. "Let us hope you never have to learn what you would do for your homeland." He looked toward the prow and saw the hint of clouds on the horizon. "We'll make landfall by noon?"

"I believe so, yes."

"Good. I'll spell you here so you can sleep. First, however, I want to talk with Kerrigan."

"He needs to sleep, too."

"I know." Resolute descended the ladder to the oardeck, worked his way around Force and climbed up to the foredeck. "Kerrigan, you need to sleep."

The youth wore a haunted expression. "I can't sleep. I keep thinking about Will."

Oracle rested a hand on Resolute's forearm. "I have apologized for the errors. I knew only that the Norrington was waiting for us. I did not know his shape or his nature."

Resolute patted her hand, but his mind returned to the cavern in Gyrvirgul where Oracle had spent her time creating a vast mural that depicted some of her visions. In one section an image of Will had been painted on a bit of rock that was emerging from the wall.Was that conscious on her part, or just a piece of hergift?

Kerrigan looked up. "I don't blame you, Oracle. You said what came to you, and I asked no questions.

I just a.s.sumed."

"As did I, Kerrigan, and I thought we'd crack that sh.e.l.l and find Will, too."

"I know, Resolute." Kerrigan's hands closed into fists. "What I keep wrestling with is the prophecy and Will's part in it. You said that maybe Will was just part of the Norrington, and that he had to go through a transformation. Maybe his father and grandfather, at one time, could have had that mantle, but events just conspired to settle it on Will. If he fails, if we fail, does that fall to Sayce's child, or one of Will's half brothers? Did Will get someone else pregnant and is her child the newest Norrington?"

Oracle pressed her hands together. "Those possibilities are present, but only aspotential. The Norrington Prophecy is a reality that will see itself fulfilled by one means or another."

The youth's brow furrowed. "I guess it goes deeper than worrying about the prophecy. I've been told that I was bred by Vilwan to fight Chytrine. Defeating her is the only purpose for which I was created.

Will, it seems, was born to fulfill the prophecy. Alexia, while born free, was trained to be Chytrine's enemy. Did any of us have a choice? Could we have been other than we are?"

Resolute glanced back to where Trawyn stood at the wheel, feeling odd echoes of their conversation reverberating. "You could ask if any of us have any choices. Perhaps there are prophecies out there that foretell all of this, from the fall of Vorquellyn and even earlier. Could it be that there are no free choices? Perhaps our ending just determines how our life runs, as if time flowed backward and we were propelled from our deaths on a course to our births."

Kerrigan nodded. "Yes, exactly."

Oracle brushed a droplet of spray from her cheek. "If you allow that, then Kerrigan, you, Princess Alexia, and Will are no different than anyone. The note of self-pity in your question is thereby invalidated, for everyone's life is determined before they live it. You three just have more obvious and grand ends toward which you are heading."

The youth stared at her for a moment, then slumped back against the wale. "This philosophical question is new to me, but you've had alongtime to think about it, right?"

"I have, Kerrigan. Moreover, I have been forced to think about it." Oracle sighed. "I have a gift of seeing. I see futures. I have had to wonder if what I see determines the outcome, or if things can be changed."

"What have you concluded?"

"It seems there are points where outcomes can be changed, and actions that cast futures into flux. Other forces-like the prophecy, or Crow's vow to see Vorquellyn redeemed in his lifetime-serve as levees to channel the possibilities. Futures are contracting right now. I cannot choose which among them will win out, for there is a point beyond which I have no vision. Because I do not know which will be true, to tell you of them would be useless."

Resolute nodded. "And the very act of our learning it might make us do something that changes it."

Kerrigan sighed heavily. "So it sounds to me as if I have a choice: to decide that everything has been determined and what's going to happen is what is going to happen and I have no choice or say in the matter; or to decide that free will and choices are the way of the world, and I've got to make the best choices I can."

Oracle smiled. "I think you have the problem well defined."

"Which leaves me with only one choice, the latter one." Kerrigan smiled wearily. "If things are predetermined, and I am meant to make the best choices, I will. Since I believe I have free will, I am determined to make the best choices." Resolute patted him on the shoulder. "I agree with your choice."

"Because it makes the most sense."

"Pretty much. I also figure it annoys the G.o.ds."

"I didn't think you believed in the G.o.ds."

The Vorquelf smiled. "I don't, but why should that stop me from angering them?"

Kerrigan held his hands up. "Okay, you're beginning to make sense, which means I seriously need sleep.

Wake me when we arrive."

The ship sailed up a small estuary into a swamp with the Grey Misters at the oars for the last leg. True to his promise to Tagothcha, Resolute sent thetureka-dineover the side before they left the sea. The ship finally ran aground on a sandbar, so they made it fast with ropes and headed inland. Resolute was fairly certain that they'd never return to use it, but he didn't want it just floating back down to the sea. While they'd seen no patrol craft along the coast, he didn't feel like taking chances.

The battle at Saslynnae had taken its toll on his company. Of the fifty that made it to Vorquellyn, only thirty-five remained and many of them had wounds from which they were still recovering despite the sap from thecoruesci. Trawyn's people again spearheaded their force, with Resolute, Oracle, Force, Kerrigan, and Bok coming next. Qwc had roused himself enough to come along, but rode on Force's shoulder and did not fly about at all. The Grey Misters formed the rest of the company. Predator, Banausic, and a knot of a half-dozen made up the rear guard.

Resolute kept his voice low as he replied to Kerrigan's question. "Yes, I've been in the Ghost March before, but not for a while. Men still live here, paying tribute to Chytrine, and some do serve her. I have to a.s.sume there are Aurolani forces here, too, but most closer to the Boreal Pa.s.s. Where we've come in there is another, little-known pa.s.s, so we might get in with less trouble."

Trawyn's Loquelves had gotten ahead on the narrow trail that ran over hummocks and around hills.

Resolute had just lost sight of them when a rustling in the brush alerted him to the ambush. Men of every stripe-universally filthy and wearing ragtag clothes-emerged from cover and leveled crossbows or arrows at them.

"Don't move and you don't have to die."

Resolute surveyed the situation quickly and dispa.s.sionately. He had blade-stars in a pouch on his belt and was certain he could kill the tall man who had spoken and two others. But, by then, crossbow bolts would rip through him and everyone else. The rest of the group might kill a few, but they would die, too, and rather swiftly.

Resolute's heart sank.To be so close. He glanced around at the others, then slowly held his hands up.

"We'll think of something later," he rea.s.sured Kerrigan and Oracle.

Kerrigan took a step forward and Resolute realized that to make a grab for him would be to trigger an attack. The mage got an odd look on his face as he studied the soldiers. "Don't I know you?"

The group's leader frowned. "Be quiet."

"Idoknow you. You're with the Jeranese Crown Guards. Your wife was wet-nursing a child, one of the twins the baker's wife had had. You're Fossius."

The tall man blinked. "That's... How did you know that?"

"I read that letter to you. I'm Kerrigan."

The man snorted. "You're not the Kerrigan I remember."

"I've missed a few meals, Fossius. That's Resolute. You might remember him." The mage smiled. "And if you don't, General Adrogans will. In fact, I think he'll want to see us immediately."

Though his tent had been erected in the shade of several trees, Marcus Adrogans found the day's heat had built to an oppressive degree. He'd stripped off his tunic and boots, wearing only free-flowing trousers styled after those favored by the Alcidese in his command. Uniforms had become a thing of the past anyway, and at least the cloth did not cling to his body. Sweat coursed down his chest, but no longer stung the piercings from which hung little talismans of theyrunto which he had bound himself.

The intelligence reports coming in from his scouts had been exacting, but did little to rea.s.sure him that he could affect the situation facing him. He picked up one of the wood samples-a core as long as his finger with writing on it that carefully noted when and where it was taken-and absently twirled it between his fingers.

The unseasonable heat had a good side to it. As disagreeable as he found it, the Aurolani suffered even more. The scouts he had in the actual city of Alcytlin had noted that gibberers and even the gibberkings were sluggish-though thekryalniriseemed not to mind it overmuch. That would stand them in good stead when it came to fighting, for it was always a hot and tiring business.

The bad part of the heat, aside from being as easily able to exhaust his men as it was the enemy, was that it tended to keep the Aurolani in their barracks and did not promote them lighting fires at night to keep warm. Their remaining undercover meant he had a difficult time a.s.sessing how many of them there were. Without that knowledge, to strike at them would be foolhardy.

But if I don't attack...

A man appeared at the flap of his tent. "Begging the general's pardon, but the coast patrol from yesterday is back. They have some captives."

Adrogans frowned and barely glanced in his direction. "You know procedure. Have the interrogators find out what they know and bring me a report."

"I'd have done that, sir, but I think you'll want to see them."

Adrogans turned, his grey eyes tightening. He recognized the man: Fossius, with the Jeranese Crown Guards. "Deciding who I want to see, Sergeant, is not usually a decision made at your rank."

"I know that, sir, but I really think you'll want to see them without delay."

Before Adrogans could reply, the tent's other flap got flung aside and Phfas entered. His left hand was in the grasp of an enormous stone creature that ducked its head to enter the tent. As it straightened up, its head strained the roof canvas. On its right shoulder rode a Spritha, and behind it came a slender young man of pa.s.sing familiarity, and a tall Vorquelf the general recognized easily.

He glanced at Fossius. "You were correct, Sergeant. Thank you."

Phfas clapped his hands like a child. "You see, nephew, your prayers are answered."

"Really." Adrogans nodded a salute to Resolute. "A fighter of your prowess I welcome. And you clearly didn't come alone."