Claremont, Chris - [Shadow War 03] by Shadow Star

Author:Shadow Star [html] [Star, Shadow]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-02-21T21:43:26.069000+00:00

LATE THE NEXT DAY, NEWSBOYS WERE IN FULL CRY WITH the news from Tregare. The fort had fallen.

Comments over supper that evening in Giles Horvath's loft were grim and the assessments bleak. There was speculation about the Council coming to some rapprochement with the Maizan. The rationale was persuasive. True, the Maizan were the most formidable of military foes, with little tendency to mercy on the battlefield, but the word from the territories they'd conquered over the past few years had been surprisingly good. Their rule was strict but the laws were enforced fairly; their administration could almost be described as "enlightened." By contrast, the history of the Republic was thick with tales of the various Chengwei incursions, and the depredations that accompanied them. They were the stuff of nightmares.

In their hearts, the people still yearned to follow Elora's banner, but this was a time when many felt the need to close the casket around their hearts and trust to their heads instead. To do what was practicable rather than what they hoped was right. They had faith, it just wasn't enough to sustain them.

"You could rally them," Giles suggested.

"I rallied the soldiers at Tregare."

"And that battle may prove the stuff of legend. They stopped the Chengwei advance dead in its tracks for nigh a fortnight."

"And how many of them escaped to tell the tale, Giles? I don't want my legacy to be a fable celebrating how bravely and nobly my people died. Haven't you heard the stories being told out on the street?"

"That lot respects nobody and nothing, ignore them."

"The peace offered by the Prophecy of Elora is the eternal peace of the grave, that's what they're saying—and I haven't much of an argument against them! I was just thinking earlier today, if I manage to find a way to victory over the Deceiver and restore the proper order of nature and the seasons, I'll only make things worse. A normal winter won't be much of a hindrance to the Chengwei onslaught and even if it was, all they need do is wait till spring and start again. Oh damn," she cried, pacing like a caged cat back and forth across the nearly empty loft, Horvath having given most of his students liberty for the evening, "oh damn, this is so hard. Wheels within bloody wheels, every action interlinked, interacting with another. I can't just deal with the Deceiver without finding a way to counter the other forces she's set in motion."

"So you've said."

"I'm open to suggestions."

"Bless my soul," a woman said, her familiar voice a surprise to Elora, as Khory Bannefin escorted her up the stairs to the loft. "The Sacred Princess Elora Danan actually asking advice, will wonders never cease."

Elora drew herself to her full height, and allowed a thin-lipped smile as she noted she'd gained a couple of inches on the other woman.

"Anakerie," she said, greeting the Princess Royal of Angwyn and the current Warlord of the Maizan as an equal.

There was one other title that Anakerie possessed, but did not use, that of Consort to the Castellan.

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