Chapter Twenty-Two

A Skirmish

Three weeks after Aidan and Dobro returned from Tambluff, a convoy of Pyrthen ships landed at Middenmarsh and disgorged four legions—twentyfour thousand fighting men. They took the port city without any real resistance and, after leaving a small occupying force behind, began raking eastward toward Tambluff. As they marched, they burned the farms and villages along the Western Road.

It was not a complete surprise, therefore, when Ottis ran up to the washing pool from his guard post at the mouth of the canyon. “Pyrthens!” he called. “Pyrthens! A troop of Pyrthens is headed this way!”

“Are you sure they’re Pyrthens?” Errol asked.

“Yes, sir,” Ottis answered. “I’ve seen enough Pyrthens to know them when I see them. Black-andred battle standards. Black armor.”

“I suppose you do know a Pyrthen when you see one,” said Errol. “How many men?”

“A hundred or so, on horseback.”

“A hundred,” Errol repeated. “A small cavalry unit.”

“Why would they be coming this way?” Brennus asked. “We’re twenty leagues off the Western Road.”

“They must have heard about rebels holed up in the canyons,” Aidan surmised. “They’ve sent a party to find out whether we’re friend or foe.”

“I can answer that easily enough,” said Errol, instinctively feeling for the sword at his left hip. “How long before they get here, Ottis?”

“A quarter hour at the most,” he answered.

Errol began giving orders. “Percy,” he said, “you go up the canyon and alert the main camp. We’d rather hide than fight if we can help it, at least until we know what we’re up against.” He gave Percy a little push in the direction of the camp. “Brennus,” he continued, “I want archers on the canyon rim. Fifty here”—he pointed to a stand of trees above them—“and fifty on the north rim. And stay hidden.” Brennus sprinted off to do his duty.

Errol pointed to the brushy pine boughs stacked nearby. “Start covering our tracks,” he said. “Even if we can’t hide the fact that we’ve been here, we can at least keep the Pyrthens from knowing how many of us there are.”

Down the canyon he could see a cloud of dust rising. The Pyrthens would be coming around the bend any minute. “To the caves and crevices,” Errol ordered, not quite so loudly. “I don’t want to fight unless we have to, not this time. I don’t yet want the Pyrthens to know the full extent of our presence here. But if we have to fight—well, I won’t make a speech. You know what we’re fighting for.”

The men looked at Errol. The light of battle shone in his eyes, and he was beautiful. They all knew what Errol meant. If they had to fight, they would fight for Corenwald, even if it didn’t feel like Corenwald anymore. The old man loved Corenwald; that was reason enough to love it, even if they had somehow forgotten how to love Corenwald for its own sake.

Silently, dragging pine boughs behind to cover their tracks, the men disappeared into the folds of the canyon walls behind them. Aidan and Dobro hid behind a dirt chimney that stood nearby. Errol and Jasper tucked themselves behind a clay wall that spurred out from the canyon wall.

They could hear the Pyrthens picking their way through the canyon’s maze well before they could see them. The Pyrthens were less than fifty strides away when they emerged from behind the nearest turning of the canyon wall. They were all on horseback, except for the man who led them. He was dressed in the rags of a slave. His bushy beard and wild, matted hair created a sharp contrast to the clean-shaven, close-cropped men who trailed behind him in tight formation. He kept his eyes on the ground; any tracker-guide would keep his eyes on the ground, and that was obviously what this man was. But Aidan could tell from the man’s shambling, defeated gait that he always looked at the ground. Still-oozing lash marks were visible through the holes in his tattered garment. His frame was broad; he should have been a big man. But hunger had gotten the better of him. He was mostly bone and skin.

Aidan somehow knew that the slave was a Corenwalder, perhaps a sailor captured by Pyrthen pirates or a mercenary captured in one of Pyrth’s unending wars. His heart went out to this countryman, forced to betray his own people by leading the enemy to their doorstep.

The shaggy, stooping slave stopped near the washing pool. “I have led you to Sinking Canyons,” he said. His voice was husky with thirst, but there was no mistaking his Corenwalder accent. “Now, by the general’s orders, you’re supposed to set me free.”

The Pyrthen commander looked over the scene. “You were to lead me to the rebel camp. I don’t see any rebels.”

“These canyons are vast and complex.” The slave spoke with some heat, though he never looked into the face of the commander. “I have no more idea than you do where the rebels are. My orders were to lead you to Sinking Canyons. That is what I have done.”

The commander’s mailed fist sent the Corenwalder slave sprawling to the ground. He snarled, “I’ll say what your orders are, you dog.”

The slave stood to his feet. Aidan noticed with great admiration that he didn’t even rub the cheek the Pyrthen had struck. “The general,” the slave began. “The general’s orders—you were to set me free when I had led you to Sinking Canyons. I have served him these three years.”

The commander laughed a cruel, mocking laugh. “Did you really think the general would set you free? You? A traitor to your own people?”

“My treachery served the general well enough,” said the slave.

The commander shrugged. “That may be. But the general thinks no more highly of you than your people, the ones you betrayed, must think of you. Neither do I, when it comes to it.”

“But the general’s orders …” the slave began, a little more hoarsely.

“The general’s orders were to kill you once we got to Sinking Canyons.” From the pleased look on the commander’s face, it was obvious he was telling the truth. “One never knows when a traitor will turn again.”

Despairing, the Corenwalder fell to his knees as the Pyrthen slid from his horse and unsheathed his sword. “I am betrayed,” he moaned.

The Pyrthen raised his sword and spoke. “It is no treachery to betray a traitor.”

Before the Pyrthen’s sword fell on the slave’s wretched neck, the canyon walls echoed with the voice of Errol, bellowing the name of his long-lost son like a war cry: “Ma-a-ay-n-a-a-a-ard!”

The old man appeared from his hiding place and closed on the Pyrthen with his broadsword raised above his head. He brought his weapon down on the seam of the Pyrthen’s black armor, where the shoulder plate met the breastplate. Ten Pyrthens were off their horses before Errol freed his blade for a second stroke. A quick, vicious thrust from an officer’s sword sent Errol to the ground. Arrows whistling down from the canyon rim felled a dozen horsemen. A second volley of arrows dropped a dozen more Pyrthens before the first wave of Corenwalder swordsmen fell on the enemy, making it impossible for the archers to go on shooting.

The Battle of Sinking Canyons was terrible. The Pyrthens were ruthless and efficient fighters. They hurt and killed their share of Corenwalders. But they were hugely outnumbered by the militiamen who appeared from the canyon’s every crack and crevice, like ants boiling out of the hidden holes of an anthill. Corenwalders circling around from the canyon mouth sealed off the invaders’ only escape route, but still the Pyrthens wouldn’t surrender. Three or four Pyrthens burst through the lines, dodged the archers’ arrows, and galloped to safety. The rest spilled their lifeblood on the sands of Sinking Canyons.

* * *

Soon after the fighting broke out, Maynard dragged his father to the safety of a small cave. For the slave who had led the Pyrthens to Sinking Canyons was, of course, Maynard, the second of Errol’s sons, who had once tried to pass himself off as the Wilderking in the Feechiefen Swamp. As the battle raged outside, Maynard held his dying father in the cool darkness and wept for the years he had wasted, for the sins he had committed against the father who had traded his own life for the life of a son who betrayed him.

While his life was ebbing away, Errol opened his eyes. When he saw his son, a faint smile flickered across his face. “Maynard,” he said. In spite of his weakness, the voice that spoke the name of his son was so strong with love and tenderness it seemed to bear away all the hurt that had passed between the two of them. “Maynard, you were never meant to be a slave.”