A Shore Too Far - By Kevin Manus-Pennings Page 0,35
We had no colony site chosen beforehand; there was not time, but news of a lost caravan of colonists does not alarm a nation like news of exiles. We needed time to tend our sick, cleanse the ships. And the military that would not serve under the new regime, those exiled with us, gave us the appearance of an invasion.”
“And your trench? The stakes and spear points?” I challenged. “Surely your people recover faster when not digging miles of earthworks.”
“Of all the lands we passed, we were faced with two stark realities: unforgiving mountains or land too arid to support our numbers,” Eglanna said. “Here, among your people, we found a place that can support our numbers by the sweat of our own brows. Here we found the first possible home for our wandering thousands.” Eglanna gathered himself as though preparing for a blow. “And we needed to be able to protect ourselves while the matter was settled.”
Again, I stared at him, nearly through him, as I wrestled with the enormity of his suggestion.
“You propose to remain…here,” I said. “After all you’ve done. After all the lies and abuses, you think you’ve found your new home?”
“General—,” Eglanna began.
“No,” I said, cutting him off, “let me understand perfectly the reasoning of your people. You land where you will and then entrench yourselves so that you can make a new home? You think the burdens of your kingdom can become the burdens of mine so long as you have enough men and spears? So long as the task of removing you is hard enough, you could press us to negotiate?”
“We have a responsibility to our followers to try, General,” Eldrazz said, an edge to his voice.
“Your forwardness knows no bounds,” I said, my voice quivering. “You bring your thousands to my shores, the shores of my father and my blood, and now out of fear of confrontation, I am to accommodate your outrageousness?”
“If we return home,” Eglanna insisted, “we will be slain. Not just my brother and I, General, but every soldier and artisan, every mother and child in those camps. Our choices are few. We are desperate.”
“And now I am to share your desperation, Eglanna? I am to open my father’s land, my brother’s provinces, because of the unsavory politics across the Hard Water?” I postulated contemptuously.
“Will you simply slay us en masse then and settle the issue, Highness?” Eldrazz countered while Eglanna looked back and forth between us helplessly. “Will you push a good and loyal people into their graves for slights to your honor? For my misdeeds or those of my brother?”
Esmir had moved closer to her masters, her brow furrowed in doubt and fear. She raised her hand as though to touch some unseen thing but finding nothing it hung there empty.
Kannafen, too, took a step closer, trying to lend some unknown aid.
The blood rose in my ears and all I could think about was the sound of the tide, wave after wave moving across the face of the world, implacable, unstoppable, eternal.
“You place the lives of your supporters on some trifling scale, like a merchant with coins, and balance it against my restraint? Leave the butchery to me so that your hands remain clean?” My fists clenched tighter and tighter until they stung with the strain. My eyes burned into Eldrazz’s. “You do not deserve the loyalty of your people. I cannot fathom how these people came to be so unfortunate or how you claim that royal blood fills your veins.”
“Highness, I hardly—,” Kannafen began.
“What would you ask of us, General?” Eglanna asked, moving now more fully between his brother and me. “What can we do to make amends? To find an answer for both our peoples?” He looked at the ground, but eventually he again met my gaze. “Take my life if that it will serve. Hang me for our crimes and satisfy your outrage.”
Kannafen started at the suggestion, crying, “Highness!”
Eldrazz reached for his younger brother. “Brother—”
“No,” a voice said, icy and unyielding.
Both brothers turned away from me, and I suddenly knew beyond reason where they would look. I suddenly knew the source of cunning that had plagued me these past few days.
“No,” Esmir said again.
Her eyes found mine and before I knew it I had stepped back. She stepped forward, and the princes gave way before her. Her face was composed with the measured calm of one who was used to measuring lives, a look I had only seen in my father as he weighed