recognised the flag atop a near tent—a battlehorn on a scarlet background, the Fyden Silver Horns. Damon called ahead to his Royal Guard escort and rode into the field. Morose, unshaven faces looked up as he approached.
Damon and Myklas dismounted and handed reins to the guardsmen. “Highness,” said a Fyden sergeant, with no real enthusiasm. Of the six men present, this man was the senior ranked.
“What happened?” Damon asked. It was a question he'd asked numerous soldiers this morning. It was plenty clear what had happened. It was not a simple description of events he was seeking.
The sergeant shrugged. “Damn mess, Your Highness,” he said, in a guttural western accent. “They leave, all my Goeren-yai. Many friends. Damn mess.” His Lenay was not good…it rarely was, in the west. Nearby, an officer was shouting, trying to rally scattered men.
“How many of the Silver Horns contingent remain?”
The sergeant made a face. “Half. Maybe less. Some Verenthanes go. Lieutenant Byron go. Maybe I should have go too.”
“They're traitors,” Damon said flatly. Koenyg had been most insistent on that point. Insistent, loud and angry.
The westerners looked most unhappy at that. “Not traitors, Highness,” said another. “Good men.”
Another man said something in a western tongue, which got an angry retort from his comrade. Voices were raised, back and forth. Evidently the issue was not universally agreed.
Damon was not surprised. He glanced up at the Royal Guardsman astride his horse—a Goeren-yai man, one of the few Royal Guard Goeren-yai who'd remained. The man's face was impassive. Despite Koenyg's attempts to dismiss a number of Goeren-yai Royal Guards, Damon had insisted as many remain as possible. Koenyg had already had a list compiled, it seemed, and had spent half the dark hours summoning, ordering and shouting, trying to sort out the loyal from the disloyal. Even when it became apparent that some Verenthanes, too, had abandoned their posts, he only dismissed Goeren-yai guardsmen.
Then had come news that some other Goeren-yai guardsmen, infuriated by the dismissals, had taken leave to ride hard after the traitors and more were joining them. Some northern cavalrymen had intercepted them, with sporadic battles erupting by torchlight across the fields and into the forest below. That tally was twenty dead from both sides, with rumours spreading fast of how the Banneryd cavalry had executed several wounded guardsmen, not helping matters at all. The desertions had only ended after a furious row between Captain Myles of the Royal Guard and Koenyg, during which (it was said) Koenyg had threatened to dismiss Captain Myles as well, to which Myles had countered that all the Royal Guard would desert if he did so.
It had been a long, exhausting, bloody, rumour-filled night, and the day did not promise any better. Already there were reports of murders amongst the few Goeren-yai of Baen-Tar town, the finger of suspicion pointed immediately at the northern soldiers accommodating there. The rest of the Goeren-yai community were sheltering in the houses of Verenthane friends, fearing for their lives. The only positive Damon could see was that the soldiers themselves, with the predictable exception of the northerners, had not been killing each other. From the look of this lot, he reckoned that Koenyg would have his work cut out for him if he expected them to go tearing off in pursuit of their friends any time soon.
“Not bad men,” the Fyden sergeant insisted now. “Good men. Verenthanes…” he shrugged, helplessly. “Verenthanes kill Lord Krayliss, kill Taneryn men, go Sashandra Lenayin to dungeon, now attack Udalyn.” Another helpless shrug. “If I Goeren-yai, maybe I traitor too.”
“Why don't you go and fight with them then?” Myklas said with irritation. “If you feel so sorry for them.”
“Maybe I do,” said the sergeant, with a dark glower at the youngest prince. “Maybe I start now. Boy.”
Damon put a hand on Myklas's shoulder, pulling him back. “Thank you, Sergeant,” he said, keeping his voice even. “You have every right to be angry. None of us like this situation.”
“Aye,” the sergeant muttered. He spat into the fire. “Aye, Prince Damon.”
“You just back down to him?” Myklas said incredulously as they rode back along the road between paddock walls. “Who's the prince here, you or him?”
“Every Lenay man is a prince,” Damon said darkly, casting his gaze across the desolate scene. “We don't rule by divine right, Myk, we rule on tolerance. They tolerate us, not the other way around. It's always been this way.”