The Unsound Prince Page 6

  The ridges were becoming less daunting now. The valleys were opening out, turning broader, and more inclined to host scrub than trees. The winds that funnelled through The Gap made the region colder. It was less hospitable for plant and animal alike. But the next valley wasn’t like that.

  Lush, dense foliage soared up to impossible heights from the valley floor. It was unnatural, and it started at a sharply defined line. They could see a scrubby, open ridge behind them, yet down in the valley the trail stopped at an impenetrable wall.

  “Shyleen, backtrack and check that last valley,” said Ochren, searching among the party for the scout.

  “She’s already gone,” said Bear. “There was an old tree not far back covered in vines. She’ll get a good look from there.”

  Ochren nodded. He encouraged initiative.

  A few minutes later Shyleen came into view on the trail behind them. She shook her head. The extraordinary wall of foliage went as far left and right as she could see.

  “Hell’s teeth!” swore Ochren. “Don’t want to go through it, can’t go round it. What in the name of all the saints is that stuff?”

  He made the trail sign for them to take a break.

  Mudge had a sinking feeling. Some of the lessons from his teachers at the Priatic Order must have sunk in, despite his complete lack of interest.

  “Mesoans,” he said resignedly.

  The others looked at him.

  “A – kind of – original race of people. Here when the gods formed the world,” he said. He was searching his memories frantically, and wishing he had paid more attention to the subject.

  “They move around, generally going where there are no people. It looks like they’re here in The Wilderness at the moment.

  “Wherever they are the plant life grows like this. It's part of what they are, and what they do. They still have that ‘becoming’, the ‘could be this or could be that’ potential that started the world.

  “Though it’s a stretch to call them people,” he ended lamely. “A force of nature maybe.”

  “Mesoans,” echoed Ochren, incredulously. He snorted, then turned his mind to ways of overcoming the problem.

  “Will they let us through their land?” he said, at last.

  Mudge blew out a breath. “Don’t know,” he said.

  “Well, someone has to go ask them,” said Ochren. They both looked at Mudge. He got a strong sinking feeling.

  “And yes, we think it ought to be you,” said Senovila, smiling as he said it.

  Mudge didn’t feel like smiling at all.

  FIVE

  Senovila and Bear accompanied Mudge to the solid wall of vegetation in the valley below them. It didn't take long, and then they were staring up at the strange, moving homeland of the Mesoans.

  Mudge was immersed in his own thoughts. Each day was getting more complicated than the one before it, and there was more than a little despair in his realisation.

  He had travelled in the dream world, but it had somehow turned out to be the real world. Then, incredibly, he'd met Jago and Luce, and all that had happened before sun up. Now the travellers had run into mythical creatures he didn’t actually believe in, and it wasn’t even half way through the morning.

  Mudge shook his head. It was hard to figure out how to react. There wasn’t enough time to adjust to all this, to any of it.

  “Trust your instincts, boy,” said Senovila, and a heavy hand settled on his shoulder. “Don’t slow yourself down with unnecessary thinking.”

  Do I look that lost? mused Mudge, but he was grateful for Senovila’s words.

  “Just do what feels right,” continued the smith. “Not what feels easy, or saves your skin, or gives you a chance to show off. Just make sure you can live with yourself afterwards.”

  Mudge thought that sounded about right. Easy to say when he didn’t know what was ahead, or what his choices were going to be. Bear murmured his own words of encouragement.

  Mudge looked at the Mesoan homeland more closely. The path ahead ended in an impossibly lush burst of growth. A rampart of green disappeared into the scrubby forest on either side of them.

  “Well, it looks like you’re on your own from here,” said Senovila. “We’ll wait until you come back, you can rely on that.”

  Bear reached into a pouch on the belt around his waist. He gave Mudge a metal ball with a spout on one side and two little fins at the top.

  “Blow on this if you want help. It is standard Ranger issue. Makes a piercing sound that carries a long way.”

  Senovila nodded his approval. It was a good bit of practical help.

  “Good luck, Mudge,” he said at last. “Keep your wits about you.”

  Mudge nodded. He took the metal ball and put it carefully in one of his pockets. It didn't matter that the others weren't coming with him. He didn’t think the Rangers, or any material force, would be of much use in the Mesoan world.

  He looked at the wall of green again and told himself it didn’t look that dangerous. Then he smiled grimly. It didn’t matter what it looked like, he had no choice. Squaring his shoulders he marched resolutely into the unnaturally green vegetation.

  ***

  Ultrich assembled his war cabinet in the chart room at the Golden Palace. The chart room had always been his base in times of conflict, ever since he’d first united the three Marches.

  He smiled ruefully at the memory. Then, he’d been barely old enough to serve in the armies he commanded, but his ideas had worked. The Karnatic League had slowly taken shape.

  He had taken special steps to see the war cabinet wasn’t interrupted. The stone building sat close by the palace, in the grounds, and the chart room had been strengthened by means both practical and esoteric.

  In fact Ultrich had added spirit links of his own, connections that led to some very unpleasant places. Anything that attempted to follow the spirit trace his son had left behind would be in for a nasty surprise.

  As part of his plans he had put his greatest concentration of spirit walkers on high alert. Teams of spirit walkers at Prias, on the coast, were now scouring the spirit world day and night. Ultrich would know if his enemies stirred, anywhere in the League, or beyond it.

  However, much of what lay ahead of them would be won by conventional forces, and for that he needed commanders with a good grasp of strategy. That was why the war cabinet was meeting today.

  "If our information is correct, gentlemen, we have very little time in which to act,” began the Legatus.

  “The main body of Xaanian troops is somewhere on the Desert Trade Route, and may already be at the borders of Beltainia. We haven't yet heard from commander Yeltar, but we know he can be relied upon. He will mobilise his forces at the first sign of trouble, and send us a messenger."

  Heads nodded round the table, and there were rumbles of agreement. The war cabinet were all confident the Beltainian commander-in-chief would lead his people well.

  Previously head of the cavalry forces, Yeltar had taken over as People’s Guardian more than twenty years ago. It had been a black day when unknown assassins wiped out the royal family, but Yeltar had led the Independent Kingdom very ably since then.

  Beltainia had grown strong. Yeltar had hunted down the bandits that had been the country's main problem, and firmed up control of its borders. Beltainia, the largest of the Independent Kingdoms, had thrived under his leadership.

  "Unfortunately," continued Ultrich, "the situation in Beltainia is only one of our problems. Another army is marching south toward the High Steppes. If they overcome the Hill Tribes it's only a matter of time before they’ll be through the Scaffold Mountains.

  “If they get through the mountain passes they'll overrun the Scion Kingdoms, and then the Marches."

  There was a moment’s silence. The war cabinet was wondering how the Legatus would take this news of the impending army. His wife had come from the Hill Tribes, and after her sudden death he had never remarried. The High Steppes were his second home, and the new
s must be a crushing blow. Ultrich, however, wasn't dwelling on that.

  "A third force has arrived at Mishvart, and is preparing to cross the Galleon Straights to the Gold Coast. One of our spirit walkers, living as a fisherman at the docks, has been watching the ships embark."

  There was some uncomfortable fidgeting round the table at the mention of spirit walkers. These were practical men and women. They were warriors, and commanders of armies, and only two of them, Sergeos and Cinnabar, were spirit walkers. The idea of spirit hawks, that crossed vast distances instantly and spoke with a human voice, made the rest uneasy.

  Ultrich noticed the fidgeting, but let it pass. These were people who saw war as a science, but in other areas could be superstitious. A spirit hawk was a force, a repeatable experiment within a body of knowledge. As such it was a science. Unfortunately, most of his commanders couldn't bring themselves to try and understand it.

  He was grateful Cinnabar was there. A noblewoman who had also studied at the Priatic Order of Mysteries, she gave some legitimacy to the Legatus' use of spirit walkers.

  "Half the ships are empty," he continued smoothly, "and we have to ask ourselves why. I think they intend to take control of the gold and silver mines on the Gold Coast by force. Those mines would help to fund their armies.

  “But, and this is a new twist, there is a rumour they’re going to round up the men from the villages and bring them back to Xaan. I think they intend to press-gang them into their armies.

  "This may be part of the answer to a question that has been bothering me. The forces Xaan has already fielded are much greater than we anticipated. Where are they getting the extra numbers from?"

  The Legatus looked around the room. His commanders looked uneasy. The Karnatic League, with a little help from the Independent Kingdoms, had always seemed a match for Xaan. In fact they ran war games occasionally that assumed this very confrontation. But if the Xaanian army was much larger than expected, the battles were going to get increasingly lop-sided.

  "I think their strategy is to rely upon mercenary soldiers and press-ganged villagers,” said the Legatus, “all paid for by the mines on the Gold Coast. If that’s the case we may find the going tougher than we expected.”

  Heads nodded a reluctant agreement.

  Ultrich paused. He had one more unpalatable bit of information for them. “I suspect many of their current numbers are made up of Wild Men from the Northern Wastes.”

  This got a reaction. The cold, barren lands north of Xaan were a freezing hell. The population who lived there were savage barbarians. They had a primitive language few understood, and they lived in caves and sod huts. It was an element of this war that unsettled the League commanders.

  “The Xaanian First Elect, Ottar Bey, must have been preparing for these invasions much longer than we thought,” said the Legatus. "It's the only way he could have fielded three armies this big, this quickly."

  Ultrich looked around the room. "While we are woefully unprepared."

  There was much shuffling of feet. Sergeos had been with the Legatus since they were boys together. He was the one that asked the question first.

  "Why did we not know about this? What’s the point of having spirit walkers if they can’t tell us what’s happening?" he demanded. Since he was a spirit walker himself, Sergeos was free to say what the commanders were thinking.

  Ultrich was troubled by the question. Though not because he thought the spirit walkers had let the League down. He was troubled by the answer he had to share with them.

  "I have discovered an ancient power behind Ottar Bey," he said quietly. "Something like our spirit walkers, but much older, and much stronger.

  “It is something without rules of behaviour, and without a conscience. It will lay waste to everything it touches until it gets what it wants. And what it wants is control of all the known world, and the slavery of every citizen of every nation. At the very least it wants to reduce the League, and the Independent Kingdoms, to a rubble that cannot threaten it.

  "So far it has been able to cast a veil over what Ottar Bey is doing in Xaan. That's why our spirit walkers haven’t given us more warning. It also means that things we normally rely upon may not work out the way we expect them to.

  “This is a war that will be fought as much in the spirit world is on the ground, I’m afraid."

  The members of the war cabinet were troubled by the revelation. War was a business where numbers and knowledge made all the difference. When there was uncertainty, when you couldn't trust the information you were receiving, it was hard to know what to do. The commanders could end up sending soldiers into battle blind to what lay ahead, and that got troops killed.

  "I think we should leave the spirit stuff to the spirit walkers," said the Legatus firmly. "They are just starting to come to grips with this, and I think we can expect some improvements in that area.” He didn't say that his greatest hope for a breakthrough was his own son.

  “We've all got jobs to do,” he continued. “We have to trust the spirit walkers to do theirs." He looked around his war cabinet. They weren't happy with this new reliance on spirit walkers, but they’d learned to trust Ultrich's leadership over the years.

  "We also have to leave the defence of Beltainia to Yeltar for the moment,” he finished. “Mobilising the entire League is going to take time. I say we take the troops we've got, and stop the Xaanian army heading our way at the High Steppes."

  The Legatus hesitated for a moment. He'd always tried to be fair. Anyone suggesting he was running the League to serve his own purposes would feel the full force of his wrath. On the other hand his war cabinet, hell the whole League, knew his heart lay in the High Steppes. Perhaps he needed to say something.

  "We have to stop the Xaanian armies overrunning the Scion Kingdoms," he said quietly. "Our best fighters come from there, and we can't outfit troops with armour or weapons if we lose the mines in the mountains.

  “That means we have to stop the enemy on the High Steppes. We might hold out in the Marches for a while if they broke through, by trading for metals from the Independent Kingdoms and the Tengue Dynasty to the south, but that’s a big risk, and an unnecessary one, do you understand?"

  Heads nodded vigorously around the table. Porteous, the army commander from Middle March, rose out of his chair. His thickset build, grey hair, and straight-backed bearing added dignity to his words.

  "No one thought otherwise, your eminence,” he said gravely. He was letting the Legatus know the war cabinet trusted him completely. Ultrich was silent for a moment, then bowed his head in acceptance of their loyalty.

  After that the war cabinet settled down to the task at hand. They built up a plan to move their troops to the other side of the Scaffold Mountains in record time. Then they tore it apart and rebuilt it. Then they did it all over again. Slowly, as they tested it, fixed it, and retested it, they developed confidence in what they could achieve. They would be ready to meet the Xaanian war machine.

  Within days troops were be marshalling at key points throughout the League. A steady stream of battalions and supplies converged on Rotor Valley Pass, because it was the only way to move large numbers of soldiers and supplies through the Scaffold Mountains.

  Ultrich’s spirit walkers became increasingly busy. They needed to conceal troop movements, and block Xaanian spies on the ground.

  It was much later in the day when the Legatus finally told his commanders to go home and get some rest. The war cabinet had made good progress, but they would be needed back in the chart room, well rested, for the evening shift.

  Once they were gone, Ultrich got up and stretched. Then he settled himself back in his chair. One more thing remained on his mental checklist, and for that task he would send himself. It would be a bitter-sweet journey, but he was looking forward to it.

  He hadn’t seen his wife’s family for almost a year, so a visit was overdue. What he would be doing this time, though, would be asking a lot more of them than could reasonably be ex
pected. He wanted them to give up the High Steppes, and join with the League forces to defend Rotor Valley Pass. It would be a hard sell.

  Ultrich smiled. Krell, his father-in-law, was still the most powerful chieftain of the Hill Tribes after all these years. If Ultrich could get his support, the others would follow.

  He liked the old man. It would be a joy to ride with him and his people once more, even if it was to war. If the war cabinet could work out the details of the High Steppes campaign tonight, he would set off for Krell’s camp first thing in the morning.

  ***

  Mudge pushed his way into the imposing wall of green. It gave way before him, and he shouldered his way further into its depths. Lush, leaf-laden branches closed behind him, and he was gone.

  Bear shook his head. It felt like Mudge had stepped out of the known world, but what had he stepped into?

  Inside the tangle of greenery, Mudge forced his way onward. He wondered at the density of the stuff. It was more than a thicket, but it didn’t have the abrasiveness or resistance of a hedge. At least it was soft.

  He found it reasonable going, if he ignored the great effort each step was taking him. Reasonable or not, he had taken no more than a few steps before he was completely lost. He looked up, hoping to see the sky through the trees above, but the greenery had closed over him like a roof.

  He wondered how he could see at all. The sun was now completely hidden from view. Light appeared to be emanating from the plants around him. Or out of the air itself, it was hard to tell.

  Mudge focused his mind, hoping his spirit direction would work in this place, but he detected nothing. He was deliberating whether to push on in the direction he was facing, or try a new direction, when he heard music.

  It was unlike any music he had ever come across, but it quickened his step and lifted his spirits. It made him feel glad in his heart, as though anything was possible. The apprehension he had begun to feel was gone, and for that he was grateful.