The Horsemen's Gambit: Book Two of Blood of the Southlands by Coe David B

Author:Coe, David B. [Coe, David B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Fantasy
Published: 2009-01-20T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

In the days following her audience with His Lordship, Tirnya’s mind was so filled with thoughts of taking back Deraqor and the Horn that she could barely sleep or eat. Her wounds continued to heal, and five days after meeting with Maisaak, she began to train with her men once more. She worked them hard—so hard that her lead riders seemed puzzled. Oliban went so far as to ask her if the men had angered her in some way. She assured him that they hadn’t.

“I just want them ready,” she said.

Oliban had given her an odd look. “Ready for what?”

“For anything. Look around you, Oliban. I’m not the only commander pushing her soldiers.”

This much she knew was true. Her father wasn’t as eager to fight the Fal’Borna as she was, but he was warming to the idea. To her surprise, Stri Balkett hadn’t dismissed the notion out of hand.

“It could work,” he said over dinner in the Onjaef house two nights after the audience. “But I’m not convinced the sovereign will allow it.”

Jenoe also remained skeptical about their chances of convincing the sovereign. Still, both Stri and Tirnya’s father were pushing their men harder than they had in years, just in case.

Aside from Stri, Tirnya and Jenoe had told no one about their conversation with the lord governor and lord heir. Even if Maisaak hadn’t ordered them to keep the matter to themselves, they knew better than to discuss the invasion with anyone. If they were to succeed in this venture, they would have to take the white-hairs utterly by surprise.

Tirnya knew, though, that even surprise would not be enough to overcome Qirsi magic, and for days after their audience with Maisaak, she racked her brain, trying to develop a workable strategy for their attack. She wondered, if the lord governor had known how formless her plans were for this invasion, whether he would even have considered her proposal. She had, of course, never led an invasion before; neither had her father, though he did have far more battle experience than she. In the first several days after the audience, however, Tirnya was afraid to admit even to Jenoe how formless her plans were. Surely, she thought, with a little time she would come up with something. She avoided him, and she wasn’t terribly subtle about it, though if Jenoe noticed he kept his thoughts to himself. Finally, after several days of trying to think of a way to defeat the white-hairs and coming up with nothing, of feeling overwhelmed and fearing that the audience had been a terrible mistake, she raised the matter over the evening meal at home.

“How does one plan something like this?” Tirnya asked abruptly as her father poured her a cup of dark wine. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

Jenoe grinned. “I was wondering when you’d ask me.”

She felt her face redden. “You knew? And you didn’t say anything to me?”

“It seemed clear that you didn’t want to talk to me about it, at least not yet.

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