A Shore Too Far - By Kevin Manus-Pennings Page 0,29

out what must be long wooden slats every so many feet running the width of the fabric. It was as though a great wind had blown down a red cloth fence and it lay unrepaired and forgotten, fifteen feet wide but hundreds and hundreds of feet long.

We neared the entrance and some of its guards raised a hand to welcome a friend or comrade. Children had gathered as well at the news of our approach and laughed and pointed at things unseen by those to old to see anew.

We paused at the entrance and turned to one another. The escorts held back a discreet distance as we took our leave.

“I enjoyed our talk, General,” Eglanna said.

“It was too brief,” I said.

“I hope we’ll have another chance to speak,” Eldrazz added, a rare smile spreading across his face.

“I’m sure we will. There will be plenty of time for us to meet before you leave,” I said.

As I spoke, what I could see of the Cloth of Blessing behind the brothers began to sag, sinking lower than the level of the ground itself. I was confused and transfixed, realizing that there must simply be a depression in the ground into which the weight of rain was pressing the cloth. But as I watched the sodden fabric pulled at the wooden slats until some eight or ten feet of the cloth had collapsed. Through the sacred cloth, the forms of long stakes reached out of a narrow pit some eight feet deep. A spiked trench was being revealed by raindrops and chance.

My face was no ally then, and the princes tensed immediately and turned to follow my gaze. Their postures froze when they saw the displaced cloth.

“What have you done?” I whispered.

The princes shook off their paralysis and slowly faced me. Their faces too were in complete disarray and they looked at one another and back at me powerlessly.

“By the Nine Fathers,” I whispered again, my anger rising, blazing in me, “what have you done?”

Chapter 6

In three days, Eric’s North Guard had arrived and camped in a great fan south of our lookout hill. At night, their campfires dotted the dark like a constellation come to earth. My own camp had been moved further south also, well away from the giant bows sported by our enemy. Admiral Pulgatt’s ships were now ready for war, though we had little hope on that front, and his sailors armed themselves with bows, cudgels, and swords. The civilian ships the admiral had seized had been fitted with Sea Fire and launchers, though how any of us were to get within range without being butchered remained an issue on both sea and land.

To the south, Kollus was gathering his South Guard and pulling men from the countryside as well, but they were still six or seven days away and lacked the training and experience of my East Guard. I could not fault Kollus entirely; only my and Eric’s borders were threatened by an enemy and so we had the veteran forces while Kollus’s men knew war only from tales and training.

My East Guard was on the move and had reached the small city of Keeda, some week’s march from the tent city. They brought with them supplies and healers and were ready for whatever bloody work lay ahead. Duke Marrish, who ruled Keeda, had added 500 knights to the East Guard’s 33,000 infantry, but it was hard to imagine even gleaming armored knights in a successful charge against the Kullobrini bows tipped with a metal stronger than any we had ever seen.

The Kullobrini had been busy as well and their full cunning was evident on the field. The Cloth of Blessing had been merely a means of concealing the ten-foot-wide trench beneath. The Kullobrini had avoided stepping on the Cloth of Blessing not out of some religious propriety but out of fear of falling in and revealing their masters’ foreboding trench. Some eight to ten feet deep, it encircled the entire tent city and was lined with spears and sharpened stakes. The Kullobrini had also constructed small drawbridges of sorts to allow entry and exit over the trench at specific locations.

The outermost tents of the Kullobrini camp had hidden the removed earth of the trench and now that earth was packed hard into a mound, the outer slope of which was also lined with spears and stakes. Whether cavalry or infantry, any advancing force would have to make it over the trench and then top the mound, all