A Shore Too Far - By Kevin Manus-Pennings Page 0,34

sun could still be seen above the Gaping Sea when the princes Ujor started across the small drawbridge over the trench. I had sent the princes an invitation to talk, an invitation to avoid the extinction of their people on this continent. They had taken hours to respond—and with good reason: my conditions for our talks were stringent and without compromise. The princes could bring no weapons of any kind and their guard must remain behind the audacious trench and mound. The talks would take place at my tent and surrounded by my thousands of infantry. Finally, the princes had to leave their steeds behind. They would walk the entire quarter mile and more between our two camps. In effect, the princes would risk capture just to arrive at the talks and even then their dignity would be sorely tested. If the princes’ demand for an audience was a game, I intended to press it from them like wine from grapes.

But game or not, the princes appeared and began the lonely trek across the scrub and brush. Halfway across, my own honor guard met the princes and escorted them into camp. Whatever abuses they had delivered, I would allow them some treatment equal to their blood. It also provided me something else to take away should the need arise.

Though not specified in my message, Esmir and Kannafen also accompanied them. I could not feel surprise; the old woman’s spirit was irrepressible and Kannafen’s loyalty was steadfast, even if both were misplaced in the service of liars and rogues.

I stood on our lookout hill and watched the procession. Against the two sprawling hosts camped against the sea, the approaching men looked tiny and it was only through an act of imagination that one could realize that thousands of lives rested on their shoulders.

I met the princes in my tent and greeted them at my war table. Esmir carried a basket, filled no doubt with wine and glasses, but she took a discreet corner of the room and bowed her head. Kannafen found his own corner and leaned his advisor’s shield against his leg.

I finally stood after they had entered, and my fingers traced over and over some gouge or scar that I had not noticed before in the table.

Eglanna and Eldrazz bowed deeply but with the tiniest hesitation, a mark of the pains they suffered under my restrictions.

I returned their bow but remained standing. Eric once told me that any conversation could be controlled. The only question was whether one did it through silence or through speech.

“You have brought our peoples to the brink of war,” I began. “You have lied and under the pretense of that lie you have built fortifications on sovereign soil.” I let the accusations hang heavy in the air. “You will explain all of this and fully so, or I will drive you into the sea.”

The princes did not look at one another. There was no pause as one brother debated whether to defer to the other. They had worked out who would answer me long before they had left their camp.

“Highness, we are exiles,” the young Eglanna started quickly. “We and those loyal to us were given a fleet so they we could make our home elsewhere. Families, merchants, soldiers, and their sovereigns were forced to set sail from Kullobrini and never return. We’ve been more than a month at sea and now our situation is desperate.”

He spoke in a rush and with the urgency of a man long tired of secrets.

I looked from Eglanna to Eldrazz, who hung his head and stood slightly behind his younger brother. Eldrazz always had a warrior’s stance, the frame of a man who had held a sword, but here he appeared cowed, defeated. Throughout all of Eldrazz’s silences, I had never before seen his shame but rather only his resentment. I could not help but wonder if Eric would have seen both much sooner.

“Why would you not admit this as soon as you landed? Why hide all of this from us?” I asked.

“It is no easy thing,” Eldrazz said, now glaring at me.

Esmir looked up in alarm. Eglanna glanced at Eldrazz and rested a hand on his brother’s arm. Kollus, too, was a peacemaker, always ready with a touch, a word, to calm the hot-blooded.

“We were cut off from our country, General. What land would take us?” Eglanna explained. “With the sickness spreading on our ships after more than a month at sea, we had to set ashore.