A Shore Too Far - By Kevin Manus-Pennings Page 0,25

by the smarts of it. Clever or not, you’ve got to stop enjoying the gathering of the clouds and decide when it’s going to rain. Don’t let the fight be the end of the day. We do this for the kingdom, for your father, not just so you can beat another general or send an enemy running.”

“I know my duty, Gonnaban, and a soldier has no place reminding me of it,” I said.

“Forgive me, miss, but who else knows it better?” Gonnaban returned. “You said once that the lives of soldiers were a general’s coin to spend for the good of the people. And the Nine Fathers know you’ve spent your share, and saved as many, I shouldn’t wonder, but you’ll disgrace each of those lives if you’ve been doing this out of the thrill it gives you. If you and I were to go over each of our battles, could you swear on those lives that you didn’t maybe stretch out a fight a little or choose one strategy over another because it was more enjoyable? Could you swear to it, General?”

“You’ve said enough!” I shouted. “You’ve said more than your piece. You are confined to your tent with half rations until further notice.”

Gonnaban glanced down at my belt and out to sea.

“Is that understood, soldier?” I asked.

Again he glanced down at my belt, and said, sadly, slowly, “Aye, ma’am.”

He walked off heavily and disappeared behind the hill.

Only when he was out of sight did I look down at what he could have been seeing, and I found my hand gripping my sword, the blade already an inch out of the sheath.

***** ***** *****

The morning passed at a creep and a drag. Gwey woke at last and read my face well enough to leave his questions for later. The merchants and healers both returned to the tent city. The soldiers hidden among the healers were warned that they may have been discovered and to proceed with care. And we urged the merchants to press to meet with the leader.

Late morning, a message came from Eric. He had strung out his outrage as long as he could, but the princes were leaving after lunch, putting the pair back in my hands by late afternoon or early evening. Eric had little luck extracting answers from the princes. They insisted that everything else they had said was true. They had only lied about their identities, and the forces they brought with them were only to guard themselves, the cargo, and their future colony, though there was no further word about what that cargo was.

Eric’s luck was better in our effort at recruitment. Eight thousand men, farmers and millers mostly, were training outside of Abringol, and our father was working to raise more in his provinces.

Eric also sent word from Admiral Pulgatt. His farlooks had identified what appeared to be Sea Fire launchers on the fore- and aft castles of the Kullobrini ships. And though he had gathered and manned some ninety ships, he did not think he could more than slow the Kullobrini fleet. I had to smash even that hope with a message to Pulgatt about the range of Kullobrini bows, and I counseled that the range of their launchers could be correspondingly as great.

The Kullobrini fleet could not be stopped. They could leave Pulgatt’s ships burning—or seize what they wanted—and blockade Abringol with ease. In the meantime, they could send men by boat to set fires along the wharf to draw defenders away from the fight. No help would make it past that fleet and no ship would make it out to send word for the help that could not come. Our greatest asset, it seemed, was that still no other fleets had been sighted, though that still left the possibility that the Kullobrini were helping the Haru take this land from Eric. Or else our visitors’ compatriots had been waylaid by storm, though it was hard to imagine a storm so great it could stop Kullobrini ships.

Ironically, one aspect of our bleak position provided entertainment for my men. A growing group of them gathered to watch the Kullobrini archers practice, their arrows little more than blurs. The force of their arrows’ landing was hard to believe, and the targets, backstop and all, would move visibly back with each impact. Young, dark-skinned boys would occasionally dart down the lanes to move the targets back to their original positions.

I searched the group of spectators for Gonnaban and remembered with a shock