The ground was hard and dry under the midday sun, but the tracks still showed in the dirt. A young man kneeling down besides them traced his finger around the inside edges, then took a small speck of dirt between thumb and forefinger that he crumbled into dust.
“The ground is tough,” he said, lifting his head to follow a group of boot-shaped tracks lead off to an area of woodland.
“Aye, Sire. This place hasn’t seen rain in days,” said another, older man, standing over the first with a horse’s reins in his left hand.
“And even so their tracks are clear, and in number. There’s no sign of a wagon or animals either, so they don’t belong to farmers, merchants or refugees. They’re wearing boots and armour, and our purpose here makes it unlikely they belong to the feet of our own,” the young man concluded as he stood and straightened his back.
“I see at least thirty, maybe more. No more than fifty, but I don’t have the eyes I once had,” said the elder.
“You don’t have the hair nor beauty you once had, either,” the younger quipped, his delivery deadpan as he looked to the woods.
“I am wounded by your words. My physical attributes have not changed since I was a lad,” the elder huffed falsely.
The younger man was too deep in thought for the witticism to reach him immediately, but when it did his face cracked a small smile. “I say we ride after them,” he finally replied, pushing strands of dark, shoulder length hair behind an ear. “What say you, Sir Anselm?”
“If you wish so, my prince,” the bald Anselm answered. “I’d hazard that these tracks are not old, this morning at the latest. We could catch them in the hour.” Anselm was a tough old knight, standing a little shorter than the average man but at least twice as muscled. His beard had once been as dark as coal, but it was now greying, and was just long enough to hide his scar.
“Then let it be so,” the prince replied, clasping Anselm’s plate pauldron with his hand and then pushing off to find his horse.
In the clearing fifty armoured men and their horses waited for the prince’s command. They wore chain or plate, wielding swords, maces and hammers – some had shields, but those whose armour was sufficiently covering tended to forgo them in favour of their weapon. He didn’t know most of them, but Anselm’s men tended to be like him – simple, honest and loyal.
He found his horse tended to by one of them, a grey mare by the name of Whisper, and climbed up into the saddle. On seeing their prince mount up, those few who had taken to foot followed him and soon they were all ready to ride.
“Let’s go,” the prince commanded.
They set off riding at a light trot in a column two horses wide, with the prince and Anselm leading at the front. They followed the tracks in the dirt for almost an hour, through to the other end of the woodland and across a small creek, then up an incline and into another wood that was thicker with trees than the last. There they turned, following a gentle downhill slope into a valley where the wood gave way to a large clearing of short, dried grass and white flowers. In the middle, 30 or so armed men wearing chain and gambeson had stopped by a small river for water. The mounted party crept their horses closer to treeline to get a better view of their foe, but the summer leaves obscured them.
“Well Caden, it seems we’ve caught them unprepared and outnumbered,” Anselm whispered to the prince, who was busy putting on his plate helm.
The horsemen behind them were given a silent series of gestures and began moving to form a line twelve wide and a little over four deep. Once they were properly formed Caden turned his horse to address them and lightly patted the back of Whisper’s neck.
“They don’t know we’re here or how many we are,” Caden told them. “When we ride, begin to fan out at the rear. We’ll widen our line to catch any who try to escape, then hit them head on and drive them into the river. We’re aiming for surrender, not massacre, so act with mercy and not baseless violence. Are we ready?”
Caden looked for the affirmative nods amongst his riders. They wore the colours of their fealty – red, with a black griffin; the heraldry of Sarkana, of its ruling and royal house; alongside others of their own. Caden wore the same coat of arms on his plate cuirass for he had no shield like some of the others, only a longsword which he drew from his scabbard. Others followed with their own weapons, held low to avoid reflecting the sun’s light. After a final few seconds of calm Caden summoned his courage, lowered the visor of his full-helm and with a breath gave his command: “then we attack.”
The mounted men walked their horses out of the trees, setting off into a full gallop the moment they reached open ground with a roar of “havoc!” from old Anselm. The men by the river were taken by surprise, and their reactions were just as chaotic. Some men took up spears and bills to counter the charge, but despite the cry of the one in charge there was no time or motivation to prepare a solid defence. Others tried to flee to the flanks, but they found themselves matched by the widening line of horsemen fast approaching.
The impact was quick and fierce. Horses smashed men into the ground, or their riders veered them off to chase those who lost their nerve. Caden saw one of the men-at-arms riding besides him take a pike to his cuirass and get knocked back off his horse, so Caden turned his own and swung his sword under the pikeman’s arm and watched him fall with a great cry of pain. Looking back, he saw the man-at-arms scrambling onto the pikeman with a drawn dagger. Caden turned then, pressing on towards another man who swung a sword for Caden’s side, but he knocked it away with his own. Whisper reared up at the man, kicking with her front legs and knocking him into the river water. When the man climbed back out onto the bank, he was without weapon, and lay there with his hands over the back of his head in surrender.
The sound of fighting had filled the air, so sudden that birds fled their nest in fright. The mounted men were more than a match for those who had not even expected skirmish and a few minutes later calm once more began to prevail as the last few of the armoured party were either slain or rounded up to be bound in rope.
Caden watched as Anselm approached him, the man taking off his helm with a bloodstained sword still in his hand.
“At least it was done quick, Sire,” Anselm said, his breathing heavy.
“Tired?” Caden asked him, but his voice was off. The cool tone of his previous command was gone now and the grim sobriety of the violence that had just transpired cracked at his mind like a whip. When he realized he was losing his composure, he took a deep breath and steeled his eyes, setting them on Anselm again with a half-smile. Yet it was clear from Anselm’s expression that his attempt to hide had failed, and Anselm gave a lamenting grunt.
“We should return to your father, Sire,” Anselm suggested. “There’s nothing left to be done here except coral the prisoners, and by now he’ll likely wonder where his son has gotten to.”
Caden couldn’t help but smirk at Anselm’s steering of the conversation. Anselm was an old soldier and had seen more battles than most but Caden could see how they had numbed him, how rather than facing emotional problems he suppressed them and pretended they weren’t there. Caden suddenly realized that the thought of having to offer emotional advice must have made Anselm uncomfortable.
“You’re right of course, Sir Anselm,” Caden replied. He looked over to a man nearby, who was riding his horse up and down the bank of the river and overseeing some of the others. “You there, come here,” Caden ordered. The man, a knight by the look of his plate armour, rode over to him with a raised visor, and a green rose painted on his breastplate.
“Yes, my lord?” The knight asked. His face was young, and Caden realized that the man must only be a few years older than himself.
“How many prisoners do we have?”
“Five who surrendered, sire. Another eleven are wounded, and we count nine dead. Some of the wounded might not make it,” the knight replied.
Caden sighed, trying to quickly solve the conundrum of his own making. “Take the surrendered and the wounded who can walk and bind them, they’ll return with us back to camp. How many of our own did we lose? I don’t see any of ours fallen.”
“None, sire. We took them completely by surprise.”
“Leave the seriously wounded then,” Caden ordered. “There’s nothing we can do for them. At least they have the river’s water to drink to ease their passing.”
The knight nodded, then turned his horse and began to oversee the command as the prince and Anselm sat side by side, their horses sighing and blowing at the scent of steel and blood. For ten minutes Anselm’s men gathered the prisoners, binding their hands with rope and gathering any valuables found on the dead. Those who couldn’t travel were left near the river’s edge, groaning and waiting. Caden listened to their torment but could not bear to look at them. For a moment he wondered if it would not be a greater kindness to have them ended swiftly, but did nothing.
The mounted party left the scene of battle, their prisoners pulled alongside them with rope. They rode around the woods on their return, and up a hill and then down into a valley on the other side. There they turned, riding west as the valley walls grew steeper and began to turn and twist through the hills. For several hours they moved, passing over a river bridge and then following a dirt track that slowly began to wind north. By mid-afternoon clouds began to fill the sky, and talk grew of rain that evening.
“Who goes there?” A voice off the path called. The party stopped with Anselm’s quickly raised fist, and Caden watched as a rider came out of the trees. “Prince Caden?”
“Yes,” Caden answered, though only because he knew the man’s accent. He had the simple, deep voice of a Sarkanian, not the eloquent and rolling tongue of a Lavellan. “Do we speak to the eastern watch?”
“You do, sire,” the rider said, lowering his hood. “The King looks for you, my lord. Word has been sent to all watches, patrols and scouts to find you and return you to camp.”
“That is where we are presently headed,” the prince assured. “My father will not have to wait for much longer.”
Anselm rode forward to the front of the column, his eyes on the woods around them. “Not a bad place for an ambush, this,” he said, his eyes resting on the rider. “I surmise that without our heraldry, we would be pincushions to a man by now.”
The rider looked to Anselm. “We’re to guard this road and these woods from enemy incursion. We weren’t told of any advanced parties heading east, nor that they would be returning through here. We will, of course, open the way,” he said. The rider turned and raised his hand, fingers together and palm open, then took his mount back into the trees where he was soon hidden behind wood and greenery.
“Let’s go,” Caden said, then they continued down the road.
Twenty minutes later they arrived at a camp set upon a hill and the surrounding field. Hundreds of tents of cotton and oiled linen had been erected on the grass, with campfires between them and soldiers of all ranks and social class busy with their duties. Men carried supplies to and from wooden wagons, and the smell of sweet wine and roasting meat made Caden’s mouth water. “I must see to the king,” Caden told Anselm, dismounting his horse and leaving it to be taken away by one of the camp supervisors.
“If me and my men are to get in trouble for following along with your outing,” Anselm said with a grunt, “do us the courtesy of giving us fair warning so we can oil our arses for the spanking.”
Caden grinned, then slapped the old knight on the back of the shoulder. “Take care of the prisoners, would you? And try and get them to say something useful,” he said.
“Worry not about that, sire. We’ll give them drink until they’re singing their darkest shames,” Anselm said with a grin, before leading his men and the prisoners away to another part of the camp.
Caden was suddenly alone in a sea of people. He began walking to the top of the hill, passing men preparing stakes for the camp defence, and a priest holding a small gathering of prayer that dozens of men attended. Every so often men would lower their heads to him and address him as sire, lord, or prince. Even men much older and more accomplished gave him respect that he knew by all rights he had not yet earned, though he could not say he disliked it. In many ways he considered it a debt, and it solidified in him a desire to pay it back with interest. If they were to treat him as a man greatly esteemed, then let him at least do something worthy of it. Caden did not march directly to his destination, but lingered and travelled slowly around the hill's base to find the shallowest slope of ascent. He spoke to knights he knew, greeted soldiers, and paused several times to simply watch.
When he did finally reach the top of the hill Caden saw the command tent, a large and white pavilion with red trimmings. Two large flaps covered the entrance, but when the wind allowed he could spy through the gap to see important men stood at a table and conversing. He knew that his destiny lay within, but in a final act of procrastination he turned away from it and looked at the view the hill afforded. How many hundreds of tents were arrayed below he couldn’t say, but there must have been over a thousand, if not two. They didn’t just house soldiers either, but squires and camp followers whose only job was to maintain and support the army. There weren’t just men; hundreds of crates of chickens, flocks of sheep and goats, horses for riding and war, donkeys for pulling wagons and carts, and even white doves. A city had been built there the previous day, but he knew soon it would be torn down and its people moved on to different pastures. A good thing too, for the land already looked drained of its resources.
“Caden!” A voice called out to him. Caden turned to look at its source, a young man who had just barely become one and who shared his green eyes and high cheek bones. The young man wore a suit of plate and had a longsword strapped to his waist, but Caden’s eyes were drawn to his sand coloured hair – it was freshly cut short, where the last he had seen him it had been as long as his own.
“Ah, good afternoon Arian,” Caden greeted. “I see you’ve grown your hair shorter. An unusual choice my young brother, though I cannot say it’s strange-looking nature does not match your own.”
“I see you are in a jesting mood,” Arian replied. “I would savour it while it lasts, for our father’s sour one will soon ruin your own. Where did you go? We have had men out looking for you.”
“I went for a ride. Sir Anselm and his men accompanied me, and we encountered and engaged a Lavellan patrol. We returned with prisoners.”
“You have seen combat today?” Arian asked, and Caden could tell from his tone that he was trying to hide disappointment.
“I have, though it wasn’t much.”
“You need to go and see father. He delayed the war council by several hours waiting for you to arrive, but he would not delay forever. It will start soon.”
Caden gave his brother a nod, then began walking towards the tent. Arian joined at his side and as they crossed the field towards the command pavilion clouds passed in front of the sun, filling the area with shade. Caden was walking purposefully slow, wanting to delay as much as possible.
“How are you finding your armour?” Caden asked.
“I’m slowly getting used to it. Lord Wulfsurd suggested I wear it around camp, so that when battle comes it is as like a part of me.”
“And your hair? Was that also Lord Wulfsurd’s idea?”
“It was. ‘Leaves the bastards less to grab on to’,” Arian quoted, his impression of Wulfsurd’s midland’s accent uncanny.
“I know you are eager to fight, Arian, but I would rather you be kept out of it,” Caden told him. Arian wanted to protest but it was too late, Caden had entered the command tent and let the flap fall behind him. Arian sighed and raised it himself, ducking under and into the commotion within.
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Inside the tent at least fifteen men were talking amongst themselves, lords and commanders all. Some stood around a table that had a large sheet of parchment and an inked map, while others sat at chairs around the periphery. Several of them wore bold-coloured tunics with linings of fur, but most wore chainmail or thick gambeson. When Caden and Arian entered the tent they were fully armoured in chain and plate steel and almost looked out of place, as though they were prepared and expecting combat at any moment. Their arrival caused silence to fall across the gathered men, except for one sat by himself at the side of the room who looked up at them and let out a short chuckle.
Caden knew most of them, but even those he hadn’t met he had been made privy to. They were dukes, earls, barons and knights all, with lands and titles and stakes in this war of theirs. Half the Sarkanian nobles were in the war camp and Caden couldn’t help but realize that an attack on them now could be devastating for their homeland. “My lords,” Caden greeted them with a nod. They answered with bowed heads and pleasantries, but an awkwardness hung in the air like a stagnant smell. They must all have known of his father’s apparent displeasure, though Caden couldn’t help but note that the king wasn’t there with them.
“Where is the king?” Caden asked.
“We’re told he’ll be here presently,” said the grey-haired Lord Gray, Duke of the Midlands.
Caden nodded and then led Arian to find their places at the table. Arian was quieter than usual, looking around at the nobles but not engaging them, and Caden noticed this. It wasn’t unsurprising – it was his first march, his first war camp, and the possibility of his first battle hung over him. He had every right to be quiet.
Suddenly the tent flap opened and in walked a tall, well-built man. He was in his mid-fourties, with shoulder-length brown hair and an inch of beard that filled his jaws and lower cheeks completely. Caden’s eyes met his own, and suddenly he felt small again. The man walked around him to the end of the table, and though not a word was spoken to him he felt a thousand words of disapproval. Caden leaned against the table on his hands and closed his eyes as the figure spoke.
“Good afternoon, my lords,” said King Valen II of Sarkana, as he looked around the room at each in turn. “I’m glad you could all join us for this session. My sons Caden and Arian, I’m pleased to see you both. As I’m sure you’re all aware, this is Prince Arian’s eighteenth summer, and his first march. I’m sure he is nervous, as we all were at first, but he is a skilled and talented warrior and I have no doubt that he will prove a great asset to this army and its cause.”
The Lords all looked at Arian, their eyes trying to find the truth in his father’s words. Caden opened his own eyes, now examining the map before them in silence as the final few gathered round.
“I would like to start by revealing our next play. We will not remain camped here for several more days as was our previous plan, but instead continue our march and seek out better ground. We have reason to believe that the Lavellan now have an approximate idea of our location, which means that we must move,” Valen told them.
“Why must we move?” Asked Lord Gray, his finger pointing at their location on the map. “The woods to our east afford us some protection from an attack, and our camp here is set on high ground. Why not simply fortify our position and wait? Let them tire themselves marching to us, then meet them when they arrive. If things do not go as planned we can retreat to this position and regroup behind camp walls. We would have several days to prepare at least.”
“I don’t think that strategy would work, Lord Gray,” came another voice, deep and of considerably less noble quality than many of the others in the room. It was Lord Wulfsurd, the bear of a man with short red hair, an unshaven face and a distinctly midland’s accent. “We know that their main force is a week away eastward, but they also have a garrison and men-at-arms at Formere to the north. If their forces were to combine or co-ordinate our disadvantage would grow, and we would be open to attack from two directions. But more than that, we risk turning this into a siege and trapping ourselves here like mice.”
Lord Gray looked across at Lord Wulfsurd. “Even a cornered mouse can bite hard enough to make the cat flee,” he said, his tone unnecessarily intense. “We could plan to fight on this ground and prepare it for their arrival. I see no reason why we should move from this place.”
“There’s not enough here to sustain us for long,” said Caden. “Look outside. Look at the edges of this camp. There’s not enough game to catch here, not enough food to forage. We would start eating into our supplies and our foragers and hunters would be forced to travel farther each day to keep them at their current levels. It may sound counter-intuitive but the longer we stay in this camp, the shorter we can stay in this country.”
Wulfsurd looked at Gray with raised eyebrows and a finger pointed across to Caden, in clear agreement with him. Gray gave out an audible sigh but had no counterargument, so instead looked to the king for his response.
“Let us assume that King Armand will march his army west to meet us, in which direction should we then go?” Valen asked, his question almost rhetorical in tone.
“I see only one option,” spoke another voice. This one belonged to a man who was thin, bald and clean shaven. He didn’t elaborate on his ‘option’, instead he paused to look at the map with sharp eyes and consider his next words.
“What option is that, Lord Colbert?” The king asked him, noticing the break in the flow of discussion.
Lord Colbert hummed for a moment, then began tapping on the map to the east. “We know that King Armand is an intelligent and accomplished military commander. Indeed, there are not many battles in which his forces have known defeat. Our own King Valen is of similar repute, and Armand knows this. We also know that Armand will not sit idly during our campaign, but rather strive to gather all his forces and meet us at a moment that suits them and when they have the advantage of a larger force. Let us consider then that Armand expects us to make the most strategically sound decision in this situation, which is to march north towards Formere and defeat the smaller force that he assumes we believe is marching to combine with his own.”
Again, Colbert paused. “It is considered,” Valen told him. “What then is your suggestion?”
“That we do what he does not expect, and march east instead. Armand will expect us to go north, so his force at Formere will not be marching here at all. Indeed, I doubt they have even left the safety of their walls. Should we march north, we would have no choice but to lay siege to a fortification that is currently preparing for it. We would be stuck there, until Armand arrived and destroyed us. I say we go directly to Armand himself and challenge him on the field. He will be taken by surprise, his army will falter and with our common discipline and valour we will beat him,” explained Colbert.
Several of the lords looked at each other across the table, including Valen and Wulfsurd, and after a moment Wulfsurd raised his brows in pleasant surprise. “It would force him into a decisive battle he wouldn’t be entirely prepared for,” Wulfsurd agreed. “If we won, he might even surrender.”
Caden let out a sigh, then looked up to Wulfsurd. “It is an interesting plan, but we would gamble everything on it based on a mere idea of Armand’s character,” the prince explained. He looked to the Lord Colbert then, a man he didn’t know or trust particularly well. “What if he’s not that smart, or worse, what if he’s a greater strategist than we give him credit for? Or what if one of his own lords has seen through this? We could stand here and speculate all evening but the more complicated we make this, the more we place our hopes on events that are currently completely out of our control, the more likely it is that something will go wrong. It could just as easily be that both Armand’s army and his men at Formere are marching here at speed at this very moment in order to catch us from both sides, which would make it very difficult to carry out a plan that relies on us defeating them separately. How many miles a day could they cover at speed? Twenty? Furthermore, the sky fills with clouds as we speak and if we are to be cursed with heavy rain tonight our own movement will be slowed by sodden conditions.”
Colbert had a half-smile on his face the entire time Caden spoke to him. Part of it was due to politeness, but there were small tells he was clearly nervous and Caden felt a twinge of guilt that he had to criticize the plan of the minor Lord who until recently hadn’t had his father’s attention. The men around the table all wanted to impress, to gain the ear and confidence of their king by proving themselves in this campaign.
Wulfsurd was the exception, but only because he and the king had been friends since childhood, and he looked at Caden with an expression of pleasant surprise, saying, “but then again the prince also has a point.” Wulfsurd chuckled then in his signature manner; deep, pleasant and at how he had backtracked so quickly. Wulfsurd rarely chuckled at anyone but himself, and Caden found it interesting how the man could self-deprecate so often yet remain in good cheer.
“Then what do you propose, Prince Caden?” Valen asked, eyeing Caden rather intensely.
“That we withdraw.”
Gasps, sighs and disappointed groans filled the tent. “What foolishness has taken this boy?” Lord Gray asked, and Caden shot him a glare.
“And why would we do that?” Asked Valen, at least wishing to give his son chance to explain his position.
“Because let them come. Let Armand combine his forces, let him grow stronger on the field, but let us choose that field. Armand is so desperate for confrontation that he would surely pursue us, so let us make him run a little further. Let them tire themselves out, let their supplies dwindle, and then meet us later on a battlefield of our own preparation. Or we could lie in wait and surprise them completely, taking the day without giving them a chance to fight back.”
The room went silent for a moment. A few of the lords shook their heads, but Valen simply watched Caden in silent contemplation. Wulfsurd gave Caden a pat on the back, but Caden couldn’t tell whether it was one of congratulations or comfort.
“Let us speak no more of this,” Valen eventually said. “I will let you all know of my decision later on this evening, but for now let us discuss matters more pressing.”
The talk of strategy ended. For the next hour, conversation shifted entirely to matters of logistics; food, supplies, animals, numbers of men and their organization, their morale and even marching order. Several lords spent ten minutes arguing about being given the honour of the vanguard. Another took five minutes meticulously explaining how a camp logistics officer was developing a ‘promising new system for rationing of supplies’. By that point Caden slowly began to switch out and soon the voices and passing matters became nothing but an audible blur for him. He looked across at his younger brother, who seemed equally bored, and whispered, “tedious, but necessary.”
Soon it was dusk and the mouth-watering smell of roasting meat from across the camp came wafting into the tent, causing Caden’s stomach to growl in hunger. It seemed the king too found the smell irresistible, for suddenly he put an end to the conversation.
“I think now is a good time to put a pause to these discussions,” Valen addressed them. “We should all eat to keep our strength, for I know that mine is sapped for the thought of roasted game. We will meet back here in two hours.”
The lords quietened, some sighed in relief, others were clearly still annoyed from some argument or other that hadn’t gone their way. Caden and Arian stepped back from the table, where Caden suddenly realized that his brother hadn’t said a word since the meeting began. “How are you feeling, brother?” He asked.
“Thoroughly out of place,” Arian admitted. “This will take some getting used to.”
“Worry not, young Arian,” assured Wulfsurd as the lords began to filter outside. “In another week you’ll be boring me as much as the rest of them.” The red-haired man gave the brothers a wink, then left the tent.
Caden found himself smirking at Wulfsurd, but soon sobered when he turned to look at his father. “Father-“, he began, though the king raised a hand to stop him from talking.
“I do not wish to speak to you right now, Caden. I am hungry and I am tired, but it seems once more I must put aside matters more pressing to once again deal with you,” Valen explained. “But I will not do it here. Go and eat, then come to my tent. We will talk in private there.”
“Very well, father,” Caden said, barely able to contain the twitch of anger from his eye. He felt a rage well up in him, but knew it was no good to cause an argument or lose his temper.
“Go now, I wish to speak to your brother in private,” Valen ordered.
Caden looked to Arian, then silently nodded. “I’ll see you later, brother,” Caden said before turning and swiftly marching out to the sound of Arian’s farewell before his frustration could grow any further.
Outside Caden felt relief in the fresh air. It was chilly now, but despite the overcast sky it hadn’t yet rained. He went to his tent and with the help of one of the royal attendants shed his armour, which had grown heavy from the day he had spent wearing it. He changed into a more comfortable padded jacket and kept his sword, but his chainmail shirt he left on the small, cot-like bed that had been transported for him. Then an attendant brought him food, roasted meat and parsnip, and he ate it at a small wooden desk where papers of his own writing were piled next to a pot of ink and a quill made from a swan feather. His father tried to make him work with matters of the state, writing letters and answering petitions in preparation for his own future reign, but Caden was always behind, always too pre-occupied with his own business. It was one of many causes of friction between him and the king, who felt Caden wasn’t taking his role as heir seriously enough.
Caden purposefully procrastinated in going to see his father, spending time lounging over his desk, or standing at the flap of his tent and watching camp business continue, but eventually he could no longer bring himself to ignore his father’s summons. He set off, stopping by the campfire central of the command tents for a minute to warm his hands, then walked around to the rear of the hill to find the king’s private pavilion.
Two fully armoured guards stood either side of the tent’s entrance, with spears that were a foot longer than the tallest of the pair. He knew of both men – they were in the king’s guard, wearing distinctly black armour painted with the heraldic griffin of the royal house, though it was red this time rather than black. He stopped by them and nodded, and they nodded at him in return. Then he stepped past them, into the candlelit interior of a pavilion that was far better furnished than his own.
The inside was arrayed around a central wooden pillar, with thin wooden divides separating the inside into various rooms or quarters. In one was a large wooden cot, almost a bed; in another a stick-mounted mannequin containing the king’s armour; in a third was an office desk not dissimilar to his own; the fourth was a small table set for eating and King Valen sat there eating a chicken’s leg.
“It’s getting cold outside,” Caden told him, finding a stool and seating himself there at the other end of the table.
“So it is,” Valen replied, pausing his eating to speak and putting the chicken’s leg back down on his plate.
“I guess it’s time for my reprimand?” Caden asked, looking across for his father’s reaction.
“You talk like a child,” Valen said. “You know you’ve done wrong; you know you’re in trouble for it, and yet like a teenager you don’t care. You’re simply waiting for me to chastise you, then you will leave and continue to act like you have been. Doing so would be a waste of my time.”
“Then why did you call me here?” Caden asked him.
“When you decided to disobey my command and went galivanting off on this ‘scouting adventure’ of yours, you and Sir Anselm’s men came across a Lavellan patrol, did you not?”
“We did. We engaged them, defeated them and took prisoners for questioning,” Caden explained.
“And the wounded who were unable to travel. You left them there?”
“We did.”
“So, you did not kill them?”
“No. It seemed… Dishonourable. They were beaten, their lives sure to end no matter what we did.”
“How noble of you, my son,” Valen said. “And thanks to you the exact location of this camp will soon be known to Armand. The entire discussion we had earlier, that entire debate, was necessary as a direct result of your antics. You completely ignored my request to stay in the camp, you took a damn good knight and his men to go run around sight-seeing, risking both their lives and yours in the process, and all you managed to do was defeat a patrol of men with no valuable information and reveal the location of our forces to the enemy.”
“How-“
“Do not interrupt me. My entire original plan relied on the quick and stealthy deployment of our army. To attack them where they did not expect it, to move on the roads they did not watch. Now, as we speak, the enemy follow the tracks you left behind and send word to a king who would have already proven difficult to defeat.”
Caden closed his eyes. “If perhaps you had not removed me from your confidence, I might have known this. This could have been avoided if you had simply told me what you planned,” he argued, an anger building in him.
“Really? Should I have done so?” Valen asked, sarcastically. “When you have done nothing but criticize and argue with me for the last several months, when more and more you disobey my orders and requests and constantly call into question the validity and wisdom of my decisions? You are a spoilt brat, Caden. You do not know how to follow; this lesson I have neglected to teach you. You may be a promising commander, but if you are ever to truly lead these men, if you are to ever truly be ready to wear Sarkana’s crown, then you do not just have to know how to give orders you must know how to receive them.”
“You have given me more than enough reasons to criticize your decisions,” Caden replied, his voice a hiss with building rage. “The only reason we are here is your sense of pride, your hurt feelings. How many men will die so that you can lay to rest matters of the past? And it is not just the men who follow you, either. Your own sons…”
“My own sons?” Valen asked, interrupting the prince.
“Arian is eighteen summers!” Caden said, the volume of his voice rising. “You risk my younger brother’s life by bringing him here, just as you risked my life at his age! I almost died during the conflict with Kedora and you would risk not only my life again, but the life of one who is barely a boy, who has barely even seen blood let alone shed it!”
“It is the world in which we live,” Valen explained. The king’s voice was as calm as always and somehow this angered Caden even more. “We are in a world of war. A world of horrors and hardship. I only seek to prepare the two of you for what will inevitably come and though you may see me as a monster for it, when the time comes for you to face these things without me you will at least have experience enough to protect yourselves.”
Caden sighed at the king’s words and leaned back away from him. His anger was fading now, replaced instead with feelings of futility and disappointment. “That world only exists because kings send their sons to war,” Caden said, his eyes drifting down to the floor.
“Perhaps,” Valen replied. “But what can we do? We are not outside observers to this life, we are part of it. We have no choice but to participate.”
The conversation suddenly fell silent, both men deep in thought. Caden was beginning to feel guilty, not because of his argument with the king but because of the idea that he had derailed the entire campaign through his insolence.
After a few unbearable seconds, Caden looked up at his father again. “Have you made a decision? What will you tell the lords of our next move?”
“We will march east and challenge Armand in force,” Valen replied.
“I see. Did you find fault with my evaluation of that strategy?” Caden asked.
“No. But there’s something else that forces my hand, something I need to tell you. It’s the reason I called you here.”
“What is it?”
Valen suddenly stood from his seat and made his way around a wooden divide to a desk with a neatly stacked pile of parchment papers. Caden got up and followed him, then stood by his side as he leaned over the desk and took up a letter written in a language that Caden had never seen before.
“What does it say?” the prince asked.
“It’s an old tongue, but it’s also in code,” Valen explained. “It wasn’t easy finding out what it said, but it was addressed to me. And you, as my heir.”
“What is it, father?”
“The Philosopher King is coming.”