Reji tangled his hand in Kei’s hair and tugged him up for a kiss, and then to settle him more comfortably in the crook of his neck. “More what? More of this? Any more of ‘this’, and my balls would fall off from overuse.”
Kei pinched him and made him yelp. “Don’t be a fool. But that’s along the lines of what I mean. There are more of us, more chances for...love, more companionship. Here, there’s only you and me.”
“Is that not enough, Keichichi? You and Myka, my dearest friends, a task I’m good at, the chance to kick up my heels every few weeks in Darshek—what more do I need? The crying shame is
you
are not there, my friend. You belong at the academy.”
Kei sighed. “I’m needed here. I’m happy here with Myka.”
Reji tilted his head up. “If Erte had not died, you wouldn’t be here,” he said in a low, serious voice.
Kei pulled his chin out of the gentle grasp. “If Ma were alive, I wouldn’t be needed. I can’t leave Ai-Albon or Myka. I don’t know what your point is.”
“None, except every argument you make to stay, I can make to stay. This is my home, I have a necessary function, and I have people I care for. Darshek is fun, but it’s not my home. Ai-Albon is, more so then ever Ai-Darbin was. So, have you finished with this silly line of questioning?”
Reji was always wiser and more quick-witted than him. He doubted it was just the extra seven years of experience that made it so. “Sorry. I suppose I’ve been thinking today how much I wished I had access to the academy library, but knowing I need to be here. I was projecting my own impatience onto you, and seeing discontent where none existed.”
Reji chuckled and hugged him closer. “That’s all right. If you were always sweet-tempered and logical, I would find it boring and then I
might
have to flee to Darshek for my fun.”
Kei put an exaggerated pout on his lips, as he slid his hand under the blankets to see if there was any chance of another round before they fell asleep. Ah, and it looked like the extra seven years wasn’t slowing Reji down at all. “Shall we make sure you’re not bored, old man? I wouldn’t want you to up and abandon me, after all.”
Reji growled suddenly and pounced, making it very clear that ‘old’ and ‘bored’ were not words he wanted applied to him any time soon, and in a very short time Kei would feel very ‘abandoned’ indeed.
It was a habit Arman never mentioned to his fellow generals, but he liked to walk through the camps of an evening. Wearing a cloak to cover his hair and his uniform, he passed unobtrusively through the lines to measure the mood of his troops, to see what concerned the common soldier, what were their fears, their hopes, their complaints. Aware he was treading close to actual spying, he made it a point of honour to never hold a grudge against a man he heard grumbling about the generals, or to treat them any differently. He had certainly heard enough comments about his own person to keep his ego in check, although he didn’t mind particularly being considered a ‘tough bastard but fair, mind you’. He’d discovered Jozo was well-liked, and criticised only for his occasional conservatism. Ritus suffered more harshly, being described variously as ‘a silly old ditherer’ and ‘an old maid’, neither of which was particularly fair to the seasoned general. Arman liked the old man a good deal, but his good points admittedly weren’t appealing to the ordinary foot soldier.
Tonight he passed silently through the rows of tents as his men sat around campfires, eating their supper. He heard several soldiers complain they had not kept any food down at all that day. He hoped any effects of seasickness would not linger, for they had a long, hard march ahead of them tomorrow. Most were simply concerned about filling their bellies, too hungry and tired to talk much, but Arman came up in the shadows behind a small group who had finished their food, and were smoking a last pipe before retiring to their tents to sleep.
“I hear them Darshianese got men who can fry your eyeballs when they look at you,” he overheard one say. “I heard they got men who can throw stones through the air bigger than a jesig, and throw fire like the rest of us would toss water from a bucket.”
“And where did you hear this rot, eh, Rokus? Been listening to that woman of yours with her imagination again?”
“She heard it from her sister, who owns a bakery right here in Urshek, you bastard. Them Darshianese are wizards, everyone knows that.”
“Some wizards,” an older, deeper voice rumbled. “The Prij took them over pretty quick, and they don’t fight back hardly at all.”
Not, Arman thought wryly, strictly true, but these soldiers were perhaps apt to dismiss the now-quelled rebellions in some of the minor towns and rural areas, although they were bloody enough at the time.
“Yeah, but look what they did at Kurlik Pass. Blocked it for an eternity. That’s wizards for you.”
His companion cuffed Rokus’s head. “They triggered a landfall, you fool. And that was the lot—they never did anything to get south Darshian back, did they?”
“Maybe they don’t want it. Maybe they’s hoping we’ll cross them mountains and fall into a trap. I heard the desert is full of ghosts, and them desert folk, they can talk without moving their mouths.”
The rest of them scoffed. “You’ve been drinking green beer again, Rokus.” The apparent leader of the group stood. “I’m for bed, had enough of wives’ tales,” he said with a stern look at the unfortunate Rokus. “One thing’s for certain. Them Darshian folk are heathens and the gods protect the Prij, not them. I never seen no ghosts, or people throwing fire and until I
do
, my lad, I’ll trust my own eyes and no one else’s. As for the rest of it, Lord Niko minds Her Serenity, and Her Serenity minds us, and that’s all I need to know.”
There was a rumble of agreement, and although Rokus’s expression was discontented, he didn’t argue with the speaker. Arman drew back, and slipped away before they noticed him lurking.
Interesting. He’d heard these rumours of men with supernatural powers before, of course. The Darshian myths were part of their primitive animistic religion, and Arman had long dismissed them as unfit for an intelligent person to pay any attention to. So, apparently, did the Darshianese, who had readily adopted the religion of their masters as self-evidently superior. Arman was only concerned if these myths were to affect morale in any way, but he found it encouraging that his soldiers’ common sense overruled the fanciful.
However, he knew something they did not. The blocking of Kurlik Pass had
not
been a simple rock fall. The pass had been mined with powerful explosives and when the Prij had invaded and taken over Urshek, the mines had been triggered by the retreating northerners, sending thousands of tons of rock into the narrow pass, effectively cutting northern Darshian off from contact with the south, save by sea, which traffic the Prij dominated with ease.
The loss of the land route had been a blow, but the temporary setback had proved in the end most beneficial to the Prij in closing and defending the border. Nonetheless, it had irritated Her Serenity’s father, then sovereign, that the Darshianese had a weapon the Prij did not. He had ordered, as had his daughter after his death, that all efforts be made to discover the nature of the mysterious explosive, one far more powerful than the uko powder the Prij used in small bombs and their ship cannons. In the twenty years since the pass was blocked, the Prijian armourers had not been able to recreate it. It was thought to be the same explosive which powered the huge cannons which overlooked Darshek’s harbour and which, together with the natural mountain barriers to the sides and behind Darshek, made the northern capital impregnable while at the same time allowing it to dominate the trade to the north, especially with Andon.
At least until now, Arman thought grimly as he walked back to his tent, keeping to the shadows. The discovery of a previously uncharted route through the southern range had suddenly made Her Serenity’s long-held ambitions possible, and a plan had been drawn up by the Lord Commander to choke off Darshek’s supply routes from the interior to its south and from the sea. Arman’s forces were the first phase of the attack to secure control of the main inland trade route and the seven large settlements along it which acted as trading centres for the surrounding farming lands. Rare mineral ores were mined at Albon, Darbin and Vinri which were important to Darshek. Through these settlements and the access through the Kislik range to Darshek plain, the Prij would control both grain and mineral trade, as well as communications between north and south. Once these had been taken into Prijian hands and the supplies diverted south to Urshek and beyond that, to Kuplik, a siege would commence seawards, with the Prij navy creating a blockade outside the range of the mighty cannons, preventing goods and boats from Andon and other ocean trade routes entering the territory.
It was a long-term strategy, but a sound one so far as it went, and Arman’s qualms were for after the success of the siege and Darshek’s capitulation, rather than the possibility of that capitulation. He had his orders and he would obey them. They were to sweep forward through the trade route to Kislik, the last village before the northern mountain range some hundred miles from Darshek, where a defence fort would be established under Jozo’s command as a northern barrier against incursions from Darshek itself. Troops would be left at the villages between there and the southern border, and thus communications and supply lines would be crucial as they would be stretched over thirteen hundred miles. They had a thousand men to command and to control initially. Once defence posts were set up, more would follow, and yet more would sweep across the continent to bring the law of Kuprij, once Darshek fell.
Even the first thousand soldiers needed a lot of lem flour, equipment, and pack animals, all of which had to be squeezed through this new pass through the mountains. Arman wondered if it would not have been better to put that manpower to clearing Kurlik pass, even if their engineers were unable to divine a method of doing so at this moment in time, but the army were committed now to the present course of action. Time and the will of the gods would tell if Her Serenity’s judgement was correct.
He pulled back the hood of his cloak before approaching his tent and got a perfectly ordinary salute from his watch. Inside, all was orderly and quiet, his pallet tidily made and ready for occupancy, his papers stacked neatly on a travelling desk, Loke waiting patiently for him in welcome. He had to admit that despite his misgivings, having his page with him was a wonderful luxury. He felt much more at home in this rough army tent than he ever would in a house run by Mayl, and here he had warm eyes and a welcoming smile to greet him. Here he was wanted for himself.
Supper waited for him too. Loke took his cloak from him, and gave him a cloth to wipe his hands and face before he sat down to a meat stew, fresh bread and a mug of the local honey beer which smelled inviting and tasted even better. Loke, serving himself and sitting cross-legged on the rug to eat, had colour in his cheeks and fell on the food with a good appetite too, apparently none the worse for the long day on the boat and his seasickness. At least they would all eat well for the next few days, until the fresh meat and vegetables were replaced by hard rations for however long it took to obtain new supplies from the villages and farms on the other side of the mountains.
“So, are the men ready for the march?”
“They seem in good heart. Some fanciful notions about the Darshianese, which you might expect. Tell me, if I said I’d seen a man throwing fire, would you believe me?”
Loke grinned and put his chin on his hand to look at him. “No, but I would believe you believed it. I would then be forced to find Lord Blikus and ask him to have you taken into custody for your own protection.”
Arman grunted, amused by the cheeky but honest response. “The foolish things people believe never fail to surprise me. Gods are the gods, men are men. As if Lord Niko would permit a man to steal the power of the gods, especially a heathen Darshianese.”
“It’s just the superstitions of the simple-minded. I’d be more worried about falling off an urs beast into a ravine than whether someone was going to cast fire from their fingers, or make the winds carry me away.”
“Don’t,” Arman said, his voice gruffer than he meant it to sound, not even liking to joke about Loke being hurt. He just couldn’t shake the feeling of foreboding he’d had about this march ever since Loke had said he would go with Arman this time and that was the end of it. “You should finish up and get some sleep. It’s another early start. Better get used to it.”
“Yes, Arman,” Loke said mournfully.
“I warned you.”
“Yes, Arman, you most certainly did.”
~~~~~~~~
It rained during the night, and the gentle patter on the roofs, and the trickling of the water into the deep storage cisterns was a restful sound for Kei, lying comfortably in Reji’s arms. Somehow it always made him feel more cheerful, knowing their water supply was being fortified, the crops assured. Not that having noisy, enthusiastic sex with a willing, talented lover wasn’t guaranteed to make him sleep like a baby to begin with, but the rain was a nice addition to his morning. It had stopped by the time he stretched extravagantly, and turned to find Reji watching him with lazy, heavy-lidded eyes.