Carwan Pestle's face screwed up with confusion, as if he did not understand.
"A generational purge," Yakim Douan repeated. ?Eliminate their would-be warriors. All of them! I expect that I will not hear any further requests from Dharyan, but only the news that the To-gai-ru have been properly punished."
Carwan Pestle nodded and bowed, and followed Douan's motion that he should then leave the room.
"What troubles you?" Douan asked Merwan Ma after the emissary from Dharyan had gone, for it was obvious that the young Shepherd was not pleased.
"God-Voice, it is not my place to question - "But it is, because I just told you that it was," Douan told him. ?You are troubled by my command to Pestle?"
"A generational purge?"
Chezru Douan grinned wickedly. ?I grow weary of the stubborn To-gai-ru," he explained. ?I'll have no more trouble from them. They have upon themselves - let them suffer the consequences of their lence and disobedience! Twelve hundred soldiers, my friend, and each are will be led by a Chezhou-Lei... no, by two Chezhou-Lei. We will nuer To-gai all over again, and this time to even more devastating effect. I then I can go to my rest, Merwan Ma. My patience is at its end." Merwan Ma could hardly believe the coldness in Yakim Douan's voice, hut he didn't dare to question the man at that time. He bowed and left the room.
Yakim Douan stood very still for a long while, considering the decision. Three twenty-squares!
But he knew what the stakes were, and after the catastrophe at the Moun-tains of Fire, they were very high.
Douan needed Grysh to put down the reb-els and to destroy this newest legend in the making, this Dragon of To-gai.
He took some comfort in the fact that his latest reports put the Jhesta Tu still in their mountain abode, with no signs that they were planning to march in force and join the uprising on the steppes.
PART 4 THE DRAGON OF TO-GAI Chapter 26 Playing to Their Weakness
J hree twenty-squares," Pagonel reported to Brynn that tenth day of Bafway, the third month of the year. The warrior woman smiled wickedly.
"Twelve hundred soldiers," Pagonel said somberly.
"Then the blow will prove even greater," the woman replied.
The mystic started to argue, but paused and stared at Brynn's knowing smile. They had spent the winter months rounding up the soldiers willing to ride with Brynn Dharielle, and the number had proven considerable in-deed, beyond anything that Brynn dared hope after the disaster at Dharyan with Ashwarawu, for her reputation from that one fight at the Mountains of Fire had swept across the grassy steppes like wildfire. If this woman, this Dragon of To-gai, could destroy such a collection of Chezhou-Lei, and send a Jacintha twenty-square fleeing at the same time, then what did the To-gai-ru have to fear? And so her army had eagerly followed her down from the plateau divide and into the desert sands of Behren, some distance to the south of Dharyan.
"We have near to six thousand warriors," Brynn said to the doubting mystic.
"Only four thousand at our disposal," Pagonel reminded. ?A third are out helping the common folk, as you ordered. They will not rejoin us for another month or two, at the least, until the spring is on in full. Even then, by going east, you are ignoring the many secured settlements within To-gai, and now behind our lines."
"You do not agree with me?"
Pagonel gave a helpless chuckle in the face of Brynn's too-innocent tone. ?I am playing against your choices," he explained. ?As you asked of me."
Brynn laughed aloud and squeezed her dear friend's shoulder. Indeed, she had instructed Pagonel to play the part of her conscience and her better judgment, to question everything she decided with every argument he could nd for alternate courses. She just never realized how good the mystic would ,e at such a task! ?Four thousand will be more than I need," Brynn decided. ?Dharyan "Burned by the fires of a dragon?" the mystic asked. ?I warn you, the city has ballista emplacements - many of them. One shot from such a weapon ould bring Agradeleous down to the ground, and on the ground, he would face a concentrated barrage that even his great armor could not withstand."
"Agradeleous will play a small role, if any," Brynn replied, and the mys-tic's expression became one of surprise. ?I do not need him for this."
"But..."
Brynn noticed that some of her other commanders had heard that last re-mark and were now listening more intently than