Hymn by Ken Scholes

Author:Ken Scholes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

Chapter

15

Lysias

The sun rose over the Y’Zirite camp at Windwir as Lysias watched his scouts slip out into morning fog and vanish beneath fresh magicks.

He and the leftovers of his forces had met up with Tybard and his men the night before, and the most recent moon sparrow from Rudolfo informed them that Philemus and the Wandering Army would arrive the following day. Lysias had considered waiting until Philemus arrived, but movement in the camp in the hours before dawn hinted that the few Y’Zirite survivors remaining were preparing to abandon the site.

Cold water from the melting snow he lay in trickled into his boots and seeped through his uniform. He grimaced and turned to Tybard. “How many were there at last count?”

“Forty-seven,” he said. “There have been four desertions.”

Lysias’s eyebrows furrowed. That meant four more shallow graves. Rudolfo had been clear on the matter of prisoners, and Lysias had operated with the same ruthless pragmatism before he’d even received those orders when he’d dispatched the young Y’Zirite soldier just a few days earlier. There was no kin-clave with Y’Zir governing the treatment of prisoners of war, and he landed on the same side of that cipher as Rudolfo and Orius in sending a strong and final message to the invaders—a message now reinforced by the pathogen’s sharp scalpel and the promise that the same awaited any other Y’Zirites who followed.

Which of course raised another curiosity—a concern even—to the surface. “And you’re certain the woman the scouts identified among them is Ria?”

The captain nodded. “We believe so. The Firstfall Axe is in her quarters, and the others are deferring to her leadership.”

It didn’t seem possible. Lysias was fairly confident that Ria had used blood magicks for her visit to the Seventh Forest Manor back in the days just before the bombing that had led to Rudolfo enlisting Lysias to build the Ninefold Forest a standing army. And yet the Androfrancine pathogen hadn’t affected her.

Lysias squinted down at the camp. The Gypsy Scouts were impossible to pick out in the morning gloom as they carefully approached and took up their positions. When they struck, it would be fast and hard, but they would leave an opening that funneled any who fled into the blades of Lysias’s waiting infantry.

He glanced at Tybard again. The younger man’s lips moved as he counted silently, his eyes fixed on the buildings below. Just as he stopped counting, Lysias heard the whistle of alarm rising from the camp mixed with the sounds of combat. The skirmishes were largely out of view, hidden by the clustered buildings, but from time to time, he saw a running form suddenly beset by an invisible attacker and brought down to thrash in the muddy snow. Lysias waited, remembering the long-past days when he was the scout and his general watched from safety. He’d gruffly given up those days, finally convinced by his own superiors that the Academy and a career in leadership were a better use of his skills.

Movement from the corner of the closest building caught his eye.

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