A Shore Too Far - By Kevin Manus-Pennings Page 0,31

his tent and tended a small fire. When he noticed me he began to stand, but I motioned for him to keep his seat. Five days with half rations had thinned him and I found myself again trying to remember if he had any family.

“Things have moved right along, I hear,” said Gonnaban.

“Yes,” I said, taking my own seat by the fire.

“Right queer about that rainbow,” Gonnaban said, gesturing with his head toward the sea. “Some of the lads take it as a good sign.”

“I’m glad something cheers them,” I said.

“We’ll be all right, ma’am.”

“Yes.”

“Are we going to attack?” Gonnaban asked, his eyes in the fire.

“I don’t know. They deserve it, certainly, but it will be costly.” I stretched my neck but the tensions would not ease. “I’d rather they get back on their boats and leave us in peace.”

“Really, ma’am?” Gonnaban asked, surprised.

I looked at him and found myself surprised as well. I thought a long moment.

“Yes, I think so.” I studied the hollowness of his cheeks. With his thinner face, his somewhat large nose appeared all the larger, an old man warming himself against early spring air. “I would appreciate your eyes on our predicament, Gonnaban.”

“You know I’ll follow your orders, ma’am. Eight years is a long time.”

“Yes,” I said, “I suppose it is.”

He rose and helped me to my feet, his hand a band of iron, a strength that I had forgotten, whatever its age.

“I hear from the lads that they’ve sent messages under a flag of truce, is that so, Highness?” Gonnaban asked.

“Yes, a number of them. All under the red flag,” I answered as we worked our way through the infantry tents.

“A red flag?” Gonnaban asked.

“Yes.”

“Huh, how’d they know?”

“Know?” I asked.

“Well, everybody’s got their different war customs, right? The Dolbiri and Mun Dovari both use blue for a truce flag,” Gonnaban said, thinking. “The Sand Republics use their house’s flag, but turned upside down. How’d they know our custom with a red flag?”

“In conversation with the men?” I posited.

“I dunno. I wouldn’t think you’d talk surrender and such with men from a different army,” Gonnaban said. “I wonder if they’ve been studying us, you know, for a while.”

“I don’t know, Gonnaban,” I said, sighing. “What could surprise us now?”

We rounded the lookout hill and the Kullobrini fortifications came fully into view. Gonnaban was visibly struck by the sight, pausing midstep.

“Blazes,” said Gonnaban. “They haven’t been idle, have they? I had heard, of course, but to see it.…” He shook his head and rubbed his own neck.

We resumed our pace and walked to the former location of my own tent. Above us, we could hear the soldiers on the lookout hill speaking in low voices.

“Any better numbers on their cavalry?” Gonnaban asked, studying the array of earth and men before him.

“Not as many as we first feared, not 5,000, but closer to 3,000,” I answered.

“Still, trouble enough on those horses of theirs. It’s much the same as our troubles on the water: bigger or faster is fine; bigger and faster is the Low Cauldron, no mistake,” he said, shaking his head.

“We’ll find a way, Gonnaban,” I said quietly, my eyes fixed on the ebony soldiers who manned every foot of the Kullobrini perimeter.

He looked at me a long while and then turned back to the Kullobrini.

“Aye,” he said. Suddenly, he laughed sharply and picked up a twig from the ground. “Do you know why the Mun Dovari sing in battle?” he asked, twisting the twig around and around in his hands.

“No,” I admitted.

“Well, they believe their goddess was born out of some giant dog, Ulshogg the Night Hound, they call her. Well, one night Ulshogg gives birth to a litter of black puppies and this goddess. Each night though, Ulshogg returns to her litter and eats the quietest puppy—just wolfs it down, so their goddess, she starts singing every night, loud as you please, just to keep death at bay, just to keep from getting eaten.”

He laughed again and tossed the twisted shreds of the twig to the ground.

“What are you saying, Gonnaban?” I asked.

“I dunno, ma’am, but I might just take up singing,” he said, staring out at the line of Kullobrini soldiers.

We studied the Kullobrini defenses in silence, the rainbow over the sea arching high in the clouds.

“I shouldn’t have put you on half rations,” I said finally. “You look like you don’t have a pound to spare.”

“I’m all right, ma’am,” Gonnaban said. “Some bridges don’t burn.”

We stood for a long while, watching the