Part 15 (1/2)

Maynard pointed down at the canyon floor. ”Down there?” he asked, surprised to hear that anyone would put a village in the bottom of Sinking Canyons.

”No,” said Aidan, pointing again. ”Out there. It stood right out there, in a spot that's now a hundred feet in the air. It was solid ground then, and the villagers built solid little cabins on it. They cooked their suppers, raised their children, visited with their neighbors. On nights like this, they stepped out their doors and watched the sun go down.

”And then the earth opened up and swallowed their little village. Which goes to show, you'd better be careful what you put your faith in. The things of earth look mighty solid, mighty permanent. But then they go away.”

The diggings were just visible in the failing light. ”We found part of that village, by the way,” Aidan said, lest Maynard think he was making it up, or maybe speaking figuratively. ”Dug it up with shovels. The name of that solid little village was right there on the gate stone: New Vezey.”

Maynard got a strange look on his face. ”Did you say New Vezey?”

”That's right,” said Aidan. ”We think it was an old feechie settlement.”

Maynard paused, deep in thought. When he finally spoke, he spoke slowly, carefully. ”The Pyrthens have a saying: ”Until New Vezey rises, the Empire will stand.”

Aidan looked perplexed at the odd saying.

”It's like saying the Pyrthen Empire will stand until pigs fly or until the stars fall from the sky,” Maynard explained. ”It means the empire will stand forever.”

Aidan shook his head. ”I still don't understand.”

”There's a legend people tell on the continent about the Vezians, or Vezeyfolk. They were a warrior tribe that lived in a broad river valley they called Vezey Land.”

”Veziland,” Aidan muttered, remembering the inscription on the coin that Arliss found.

”When the Pyrthen empire first rose to power,” Maynard said, ”the Vezeyfolk were one of the tribes they conquered. Vezeyfolk were driven out of Vezey Land, and their king, Halverd the Antlered, led them into the country that came to be called Halverdy. Which is where our people came from.”

”The Halverdens started out as Vezeyfolk?” Aidan asked. ”I never knew this.” Indeed, even the most learned of Corenwald's lore masters were a little hazy on the history of the Halverdens before they came to Corenwald.

”All that part is historical fact,” Maynard continued. ”But then there's the legend of New Vezey. According to the legend, King Halverd sent a select group of Vezeyfolk over the ocean to establish a colony called New Vezey, just in case they put them on s.h.i.+ps and waved good-bye, and that was the last anybody ever saw of the New Vezians. They were s.h.i.+pwrecked on an island somewhere. Then, according to the legend, the earth just opened up and swallowed them.

”Just fairy-tale talk, of course. Just a legend. That's why the Pyrthens say their empire will stand until New Vezey rises again, because there never was any New Vezey.”

”But there was,” Aidan said, his voice rising with excitement. ”There was a New Vezey, and we found it. Vezeyfolk ...” Aidan muttered. ”Feechiefolk ... Vezey ... feechie ...” He remembered Bayard's misquoted rhyme: ”'Fallen are the Vezeyfolk ...'” He remembered Bayard's sudden realization that sent him running for the library.

”The feechiefolk are Vezeyfolk,” Maynard said, the realization slowly dawning on him. ”They're descended from the lost colony.”

”Yes!” said Aidan, nearly shouting. ”Descended from the same people we're descended from. That explains why we found a Vezilander coin in the diggings. Their Harvo Hornhead is our Halverd the Antlered. That explains why they speak our language.”

The realization made him almost giddy. ”The feechies are our people, Maynard! We're one tribe!”

”The empire stands until New Vezey rises again,” Maynard quoted. ”So the Pyrthens have better reason to hate us than they know: We are New Vezians, together with the feechiefolk. If only we can rise again.”

Aidan understood a new truth about the Wilderking prophecy: The Wilderking wouldn't merely unite the feechies and the civilizers into a single kingdom. He would reunite them, two parts of a single tribe that had been separated for three centuries.

Chapter Twenty-Four.

Preparations Days pa.s.sed, and the expected attack by the Pyrthens didn't come. News of the invasion soon came, however, and it wasn't good. Tambluff had fallen. Much of the city had burned, and Tambluff Castle was now inhabited by Pyrthen officers.

Rather than allow the Pyrthens to besiege Tambluff and subject its inhabitants to starvation and disease, the Corenwalder army had given the Pyrthens battle outside the city walls, led by King Darrow and Prince Steren. The Corenwalder army was scattered to the four winds. King Darrow was killed in the battle. It was believed Prince Steren survived-or King Steren now, if indeed he did survive.

”They will surely be coming now,” said Aidan to his brothers. ”And they will bring the main body of their force. This is the only army they have left to fight against.”

To Aidan's surprise, however, the Pyrthen army wasn't the first army to arrive at Sinking Canyons. Word had gone out among Corenwald's scattered warriors that resistance to the Pyrthen occupation would center on Sinking Canyons and Aidan Errolson's army. They streamed in for a day and a half, in groups of ten, fifteen, fifty. Sometimes whole units came. Civilians came, men who had no part in the battle at Tambluff but had heard about Sinking Canyons and wanted to play a role. Some came believing Steren was king. Others came believing Aidan would be king, believing they were among the first recruits of the Wilderking's army. Indeed, many of these stragglers suspected the Sinking Canyons army would be mostly feechies.

With every new group that came, Aidan studied the faces, hoping Steren was among them. And at last, the fourth morning after the Tambluff battle, Steren rode up at the head of a cavalry unit, a das.h.i.+ng figure on a black horse.

Aidan bowed before his old friend. ”King Steren! You are welcome to Sinking Canyons. We are yours to command.”

Steren leaped from his horse and, pulling Aidan to his feet, embraced him as a brother.

”I am sorry to hear about your father,” said Aidan. ”We are all sorry.”

”Thank you,” Steren said. ”He was beautiful, Aidan. I wish you could have seen him on that last day. He was first in the attack and last in the retreat. He was worthy of Corenwald that day, Aidan, and I shall always remember him that way, astride his black horse, tilting toward the enemy.”

”Then I will remember him that way too,” said Aidan.

”The Pyrthens aren't far behind me,” said Steren. ”They'll start arriving later today. They may attack as early as tomorrow. I need to review the troops immediately so we can prepare for battle. How many men do we have?”

”Seven or eight thousand foot soldiers,” Aidan answered. ”Then there's your cavalry unit and a second cavalry unit we've cobbled together from individual hors.e.m.e.n who have arrived in the last two days and men riding horses captured from the Pyrthens.”

”Seven or eight thousand,” Steren mused. ”The enemy is probably twice that at least. Well then, we shall make do with what we have.”

The rest of the day was spent in preparation for the coming battle. Scouts gave the officers a tour of the canyons' terrain. King Steren organized the new recruits into makes.h.i.+ft units and a.s.signed them to officers. Late in the afternoon, the scouts at the canyon rim reported the arrival of the first Pyrthen units on the north side of the canyon. The Pyrthens kept coming well into the night.

Outside the tunnel complex, the five Errolsons and Dobro sat in a circle with King Steren. There were no fires on the canyon floor that night. Men circled around fires would have made easy targets for the Pyrthen archers, who were surely in position already at the north rim of the canyon. The Corenwalder scouts on the south rim could see hundreds and hundreds of Pyrthen campfires flickering across the plain on the other side.

Aidan was explaining his plan to the others. ”We could hold these canyons forever if we had to,” he said. ”Archers can't really hurt us. Any archer who was in position to shoot down on us from the rim would be very exposed himself. We could pick them off like flies.

”They'd have to come in after us, down to the canyon floor. And they couldn't roust us out that way even if they had a hundred thousand men. We know every crevice of these canyons and every hideyhole. They'd be fighting an invisible enemy. We could ambush them from a different spot every day.”

”They could starve us out,” Brennus observed.

”We could attack their supply trains, carry off their food,” Aidan said. ”We could eat better than they do.”

”Fine,” Steren said. ”We can hold the canyons. Then what? The Pyrthens have Corenwald's army contained in Sinking Canyons. As long as they get to keep the rest of Corenwald, I think they'll be happy to make that trade.”

”But don't you see?” Aidan said. ”From here we could wreak havoc on the Pyrthens. Their supply train will have to stretch from Middenmarsh all the way to Tambluff. Our raiding parties could hit them anywhere on the Western Road, then beat it back here to the canyons. We can organize resistance in the villages, create a whole country of insurgents. Eventually we could win Corenwald back.”

”Eventually?” Steren said. ”Eventually? Aidan, you're still thinking like an outlaw: Hide out, bide your time, wait for something good to happen. Eventually!” He nearly spat the word. ”Meanwhile, our people are living under the oppression of the Pyrthens. That's no way for my people to live, Aidan. I am king of Corenwald. I won't lead an insurgency in my own kingdom. We're not a band of outlaws. We're an army. We're the army of Corenwald.”

But Aidan had spent a lot of time planning his insurgency. He had also dug a lot of tunnels. He wasn't ready to give up so easily. ”We know every nook and cranny of these canyons,” he said, his voice rising. ”Do you have any idea of the advantage-”

King Steren raised a finger to his lips for quiet. ”What's that sound?” he asked. All night they had heard the murmur of Pyrthen voices and the jingle of horse tack, the occasional clank of weapons being moved or stacked. But now there were new noises coming from the northern rim-great metallic groans and iron squeaks, the blowing and stamping of horses under strain, the barks of the horse masters.