A Shore Too Far - By Kevin Manus-Pennings Page 0,5

headed east carried my summons to my East Guard, though Gonnaban was right in that they were at least ten days away and more likely fourteen if they were to bring provisions. The south riders were of two different tasks: a messenger to my father requesting that his Central Guard gather at the capital with provisions for a north movement and a set of criers who would call to arms what men they could from the southern parts of Eric’s provinces. The northbound rider sought troops from the northern villages.

The rest of our war talk concerned combining my East Guard cavalry and Eric’s into a unit that could at least harass an enemy long enough for help to arrive. Gonnaban was taking that in hand even now, but a few hours is hardly enough time to forge two units into one. To enter battle, even just the harassment of an enemy, without that unity meant we risked orders being misunderstood or, worse, orders being mistrusted because they came from men of a strange unit. With the East Guard weeks off, we were already divided and could ill afford discord between the forces we had. All of this, I knew, didn’t matter until we could look these foreign visitors in the face and know our enemy—or at least know if he should be called enemy.

With all of this on my mind, I retired to the chambers Eric always reserved for me. Guards stood at the hall and saluted me as I entered. Outside my door, servants stood at my approach and bowed low, my lengthy title murmuring from them like water over distant stones. Moments after the doors closed behind me, I heard the deferential rap of a servant.

“Enter,” I called absently.

Eric stood in the doorway, the servants in the hall still bent low at his passing.

“I thought we might speak,” he said.

I smiled. “Of course. You won’t mind me removing my armor, will you?”

He gestured for me to continue, and I unbuckled my sword and began fretting with the buckles of my breastplate.

“I saw our little brother a few months ago,” Eric began. “He visited to advise me on a new library.”

“Oh?” I said, setting my armor on one of the parlor’s rich couches.

Eric moved to sit in a nearby chair. “He mentioned you and he had conferred on his defenses to the east. Your two armies even worked on some joint maneuvers together.”

“Yes, he’s not the most tactically minded, our Kollus,” I said, taking a seat beside my leather chest piece. “He should drive his men much harder.”

“He didn’t say anything to you about expanding eastward? Perhaps challenging the Men of the Gray Valleys for control of those provinces abandoned by the Killain?” Eric watched me with veiled eyes.

“I didn’t really ask, though he did mention the Men of the Gray Valleys—” I stopped short and looked hard at my older brother. “What are you saying, Eric?”

“Our brother could use a boost to his military record,” he said, watching me carefully, “particularly in our father’s eyes. A show of strength would also help silence some of Kollus’s restless nobility.”

“Are you—?”

“Did it not occur to you how it would look? You two conferring militarily? Your forces combined?” His anger was evident now but I should have seen it much sooner. He could always hide himself from me; it remained the only time I still felt a child beside him.

“I sought only to improve the security of the kingdom, Eric, not—not lend support to him in some political game,” I insisted. Our tradition is not prima geniture as it is with the Dolbiri or the Men of the Gray Valleys; the oldest does not necessarily inherit the throne. Instead, a monarch abdicates and announces a successor, whether one of his children or some ally from outside the family.

“You cannot act as though the kingdom is not watching,” Eric said, his voice measured. “All of Avandi watches when any of us succeed or fail. Can you honestly say you have no ambition to follow our father?”

I turned my face away and examined my armor. “I did,” I said softly.

“And you still think that you can act as you please?” Eric stood and moved angrily about the room. “Do you know how you are perceived, sister?”

I was surprised how difficult I found his anger toward me. “Tell me,” I said, not lifting my face from the leather lines of my breastplate.

“Your military victories have endeared you to every soldier in the kingdom. Burning