Thrant, the merchant. ‘Had I known I was throwing my money away, I would have paid my military levies rather less cheerfully.’
‘You never handed over a copper grint without shedding a tear,’ General Orgestre said, now desperately polishing his chest ornaments.
‘I’d gladly pay it to an officer who’d earned his commission, rather than bought it,’ said Thrant.
Dead silence. Orgestre swelled up like a red-faced toad. His mouth opened but nothing came out.
‘That’s not helpful,’ said Nisbeth, who was deathly pale. Her husband was supporting her. ‘General Troist, may we hear your view?’
Troist, a neat man, apart from his mass of tangled, sandy curls, stood up. ‘As far as I know, no human army has ever beaten the enemy when the numbers were equal; nor should we expect to. Yet,’ he looked down one side of the table and up the other, ‘the situation is different now.’
‘Go on, General,’ said Nisbeth. ‘Do you have a plan to defend us?’
‘I’m beginning to formulate one. Flydd and Yggur have given us new hope. Farspeakers are going to revolutionise warfare, though we’re still working out how to make the best use of them. And with our thapters, essentially invulnerable to lyrinx attack, we can see the whole of a battlefield – indeed the whole of Borgistry – at once.’
‘They’ll attack in bad weather when you can’t see further than you can throw a spear,’ said Orgestre.
‘Then we’ll know when to expect them,’ said Troist.
‘But not where. Not how many,’ said Orgestre with relentless despair. ‘And both thapters and farspeakers are vulnerable to node-drainers. Only a fool would rely on such untested Arts at a time like this.’
‘We’re overusing the fields,’ said Mancer Crissinton Tybe, who had the narrowest, most angular face Nish had ever seen on a man, and a mouth that gashed it in two as if the back of his head were hinged. ‘It’s as simple as that. We’re abusing the natural forces, and so are the enemy, and there’s got to be a reckoning.’
‘I’m not sure I understand you, Mancer Tybe,’ said Flydd.
‘What he means,’ said Mancer Rodrig, a small, deliberate man, ‘is that one day the fields will let us down when we most need them.’ His skin was starkly white but there were such dark rings around his eyes that he appeared to be wearing goggles. ‘We must wean ourselves off the fields before it’s too late. We’ve seen it in the stars.’
‘The stars!’ said Flydd, unable to contain his derision. ‘Unfortunately, my dear mancers, this war is being fought on solid ground and to give up the fields is to give up existence. While the enemy uses power we have to match it.’
‘Even to the ruin of the world,’ Crissinton Tybe intoned.
‘If the numbers are correct, we’ve lost the battle and the war,’ said Orgestre. His red face was now blotched with ugly purple stains like birthmarks.
‘It would almost be worth it,’ came a low voice from behind the veil, ‘to rid the world of the bloodless warmongers who send our young to die but never hazard their own lives. Have you ever seen active service, Orgestre?’ Nish had never heard such hatred as there was in Mira’s voice.
‘Mira, please,’ said Nisbeth. ‘Would you go on, General Troist?’
‘We have thapters, against which the enemy haven’t yet found a defence. We have farspeakers – which aren’t perfect, I agree – yet in this battle, in the limited compass of Borgistry, they’re worth twenty thousand troops. If the enemy break though in some unexpected place, our captains will know in time to send reinforcements, or withdraw.’
‘They have the numbers to overwhelm us,’ said Orgestre. ‘and they too can communicate over a distance.’
‘Their mindspeaking is of the most primitive sort,’ said Flydd. ‘Only those most powerful in the Art can use it. There’s still hope, since the lyrinx are just out of hibernation. They’ll be lethargic and wouldn’t normally do battle for another week. And they’ll be wasted and hungry when they get here.’
‘They’ll fight all the more fiercely for it,’ said Orgestre. ‘We must withdraw.’
‘They won’t fight as well, or for as long. We must force them into battle before they’re ready, and seize the advantage.’
‘You’ve got to find them first,’ said Orgestre. ‘How are you going to do that?’
‘We’re training animals to sniff them out,’ said Flydd, reluctantly.
‘What kind of animals?’
‘Pigs, as it happens. They can pick lyrinx even further away than dogs, and –’
‘Sniffer pigs! That’s one for the Histories. They’ll still be laughing about it in a