Leaping Wolf, page 11
part #2 of Caledon Saga Series
That man, Gawan couldn’t place his name, had been Rhianwyn’s first husband, and now he looked at him more closely he saw that Bradan could be no-one but his father. Even now Gawan sometimes felt that lying with Emeryn betrayed his wife’s memory, and he thought about how Rhianwyn acted around Mobryn’s headman. He could well understand why she felt so awkward. And why she spoke with such respect to her former father-by-law. But for all the discomfort she may have felt the Wildcat carried on, her voice clear and even.
‘I fear we would not be facing Caserach alone. The rider who came to us spoke of at least one Breiryn at Three Willows. The man clasped wrists with Caserach when the fighting was done.’
There were a few intakes of breath and a good deal of frowning but Owain spoke calmly before anyone could comment.
‘From the way he was described it sounded like Asrec, the headman of Reed Marsh. We must assume he is in league with Caserach.’
The name meant nothing to Gawan but then he’d had few enough dealings with the Breiryn. All of Caderyn land lay between his home and the southern tribes, and even Hywel showed no sign of recognition.
‘Is he formidable?’
Rhianwyn shook her head.
‘For himself; no. He has little enough personal reputation but his clan is large and he has ties by marriage to several others of equal size. Asrec may be a middling fighter at best but he can summon many warriors should he wish to. He could often be a stone in my father’s boot, back before the Gaians came.’
The Caderyn druid spoke softly from beside her. He was younger than Hywel but older than Bael with a stringy grey beard and sunken eyes. His white robe hung about a frame that seemed almost skeletal but though his voice was quiet, it was not frail.
‘It is only a guess, but I would say he could muster up to two thousand Breiryn if he had the support of his neighbouring chiefs.’
Gawan was no expert with numbers but he knew enough to know bad news when he heard it.
‘How many will be Gadarim?’
The druid shrugged his bony shoulders apologetically.
‘Alas I cannot be sure, but I have heard nothing of Asrec’s clans containing any more than would be usual. All told we have barely thirty such warriors available to us, he could in all likelihood match that number, perhaps even better it.’
Gawan frowned. The druid’s estimate was not far off, though not all of their Gadarim were fighting fit. The prospect of facing at least even numbers of Breiryn elite, along with two thousand normal warriors, was daunting. Legion or not, this was grim news.
‘Do we know how many Dariniae Caserach has brought with him?’
This time Rhianwyn answered him.
‘Our messenger was unsure, but he guessed at some two hundred at most with few Gadarim amongst them.’
Gawan quickly ran through his knowledge of the legion, his expression darkening further as he did so. Nantwyn had scarred them deeply, and of the four-hundred-strong cohorts that had been formed initially, few could now boast more than three hundred men, and some had suffered even worse than that. Many of those who had not fallen had later died of their wounds or of disease, and the army that had ridden home a few days ago had been a shadow of the one that had ridden to war.
Of those savaged units, one Caderyn company was still at Nantwyn with Bedwyr, while another would have to remain at Bryngarth. Rhianwyn could talk of peace and friendship all she wanted but she was not fool enough to leave such vital settlements unguarded while the Blackbird Gaians were still upon her land. The larger Gorvicae cohort had left for Graigarw with Duran and might well have already reached the northern capital. That left Gawan’s cohort of some two and a half hundred Gorvicae, Kyran’s Dariniae company which was in similar condition, and the Caderyn cohorts of Owain and Bran. Those two had suffered more than either of the others and even between them they would field fewer than four hundred warriors. Perhaps seven hundred Dragon Legionaries against more than three times their number, and with equal numbers of Gadarim for us to face.
Owain had either worked it out faster or else had already thought the numbers through.
‘Even if more warriors are gathered we will be badly outnumbered, by at least three men to one. But in open field a legion is worth much more than irregular troops.’
Irregular troops? The man had spent too much time with Marius, not that he was wrong. Not entirely. Bran piped up from beside him.
‘We would be wise to bring yours and my companies together into one; that would give us one unit at least that was almost up to strength.’
Owain nodded and began to talk of numbers and equipment with Bran, speaking with confidence. But Gawan suspected he was not alone in his continued concerns, and Hywel proved him right by speaking them aloud.
‘None can deny that our people are brave, but can even the Dragon Legion succeed against such fearsome odds?’
It was strange that even Gawan, who agreed with him, wanted to tell him that of course it could. He’d taken pride in both training and fighting with his cohort and had seen with his own eyes the quality of the other companies. He wanted to say that the Dragon Legion was invincible, and the match for any other force, Gaian or Lurian. But he couldn’t say that. The fact was that even before the butchery at Nantwyn, the Dragons had not been trained to the same standard as Gaian soldiers. In their current state he could not speak for their worth against such fearsome odds. He took a deep breath.
‘We could give them a hard fight, but to win? Of those here and fit to fight we have barely half the legion.’
The words tasted bitter in his mouth and Owain spared him from speaking further.
‘Even if we beat them back, which we may not do, our losses would be too great to then challenge Caserach in Niswyn, not to mention if the Gai...’
He pulled himself up short with a guilty look at his chieftain. Rhianwyn simply nodded slightly and an awkward silence followed. Kyran was the first to break it.
‘I will not ask any to come with me who do not wish it, nor would I endanger the Caledon,’ he dipped his head to Rhianwyn, ‘but I am taking my cohort south, no matter what else.’
Several people took in breaths to speak, but once again Rhianwyn raised her hand. For someone so small she could command a room extremely well.
‘We are all heading south with you, comrade. The Caledon must be together or we are nothing and that is an end to it. We will commit all those we can to your aid.’
None of the little assembly smiled but a few faces looked at her with approval. Gawan nodded his head and tried to sound positive.
‘My own people are ready to leave at once. If we send word ahead of us perhaps some of your clans can send warriors to swell our numbers?’
It was a rather hopeful thing to say, given that the land had been drained of fighters already by the war against the Gaians, but he felt he had to ask. Both Bradan and Merwyn spoke at once and two conversations began across one another. Various ideas were voiced about how more men might be found but Gawan heard little that was practicable. He wondered briefly whether he could summon Duran and his company back from Graigarw but then dismissed the idea again. For one thing, by the time a messenger had reached them and Duran had marched his people back, Caserach could have laid waste to the whole length of the Caderyn border. For another, what guarantee was there that the Gorvicae headmen would allow him to come at all? This was after all a Caderyn problem first and foremost, and plenty of chiefs would object to their warriors being summoned by a Caderyn chieftain to help solve it.
He saw Rhianwyn looking pensive, listening to the conversations with lines across her brow, but listening only, not speaking. He wondered if she was thinking the same thing that he was. Probably. She has a good head for these things. He kept looking at her and saw her eyes darting quickly from side to side, as though weighing up options or else arguing with herself; thinking up point and counterpoint. All around her the chiefs and Gadarim, and even the druids, tried in vain to think up ways to squeeze more able-bodied warriors from a land that had already bled away the flower of its youth. Gawan studied Rhianwyn as her eyes twitched and her brow furrowed, until at last her face froze in an expression of resolve, and if anything he got the feeling that whatever argument she’d been having with herself, she had somehow lost it. It took two or three heartbeats before his mind caught up with hers and he realised with a jolt what she intended to do. He stepped forward before she could speak.
‘No!’
He’d not spoken loudly, but his voice had carried through the small room, and the other conversations abruptly ceased. All eyes turned to him and Rhianwyn locked eyes with him before she spoke.
‘It is the only way.’ She turned to address the room. ‘There is another option.’
Gawan moved in front of her and glared as he repeated himself.
‘It is not an option!’
She was a foot shorter than he and barely half his weight but the Wildcat did not back down.
‘It is our only chance at avoiding a massacre.’
Gawan stared down at her but Elfed’s voice came from beside him before he could speak again.
‘What are you talking about?’
Gawan saw Rhianwyn try to answer but he cut her off, not even trying to conceal the anger in his voice.
‘She would summon to her the only other fighters in the west. She would have us fight alongside the Gaians.’
*
In the storm of objection that followed this, another leader might have had to shout the others down by brute force. Rhianwyn just let them speak for a moment and then raised her hand again, palm open. They fell silent quickly, and even Gawan held back his protests while she spoke.
‘General Galerian’s legion still has at least one cohort nearby, hunting down the stragglers of the Fourteenth. They march swiftly and can be here in only a few days. The First Legion is one of the finest in the Empire and with their support we could crush Caserach and any number of Breiryn that Asrec could muster to him.’
There was sense in what she said but Gawan was in no mood to hear it. A glance around him showed that he was not alone in his attitude, and he kept up his glare at Rhianwyn.
‘You would invite a Gaian legion to march through your land and then expect us to fight alongside them? Have you forgotten already what they did to our people?’
There were murmurs of support but Rhianwyn matched his glare and spoke back, her voice calm but firm.
‘Galerian is not Lepidus. He has no ambitions of conquest and no sorcerous allies. He is an honest soldier. He can be trusted to assist us.’
Gawan wanted to say exactly what he thought of that but Alraig voiced his objection first.
‘Would this not go against the laws that you yourself have set down?’
Merwyn nodded his white head in agreement and spoke softly to his chieftain.
‘I helped you to make these laws, Rhianwyn. Alraig is right, the treaty you and Galerian swore to expressly forbids any Gaian from crossing Caledon land under arms.’
Rhia held up a finger as she answered, and Gawan suspected she had prepared for this when she’d been arguing with herself.
‘Yet it was agreed that this was to take effect after the First Legion had withdrawn from our lands.’ She opened her hands. ‘They are still here, hunting down their traitorous comrades as we agreed they would be allowed to do. We would not be inviting soldiers into our land, merely asking assistance from those already here.
Owain looked distinctly uncomfortable but he spoke in her support.
‘I suppose it could be said that they already fight our enemies by hunting the Panthers. It would perhaps not be so bad if...’
But Gawan cut him off. He didn’t want to be disrespectful to him but he was too angry for manners.
‘Any dealing with the Blackbirds would be bad! For one thing, they are missing far more Panthers than they are catching, and it would not surprise me if they are delaying on purpose as an excuse to stay here. For another, how do you think our own legion will feel, having Gaian legionaries with naked swords standing beside them when they fight?’ He looked around. ‘How many of you would trust a Gaian to protect your flank, or stand with you back to back against an enemy?’
He was pretty sure that none of them would raise a hand to that, but then Rhianwyn cut in with a comment Gawan had hoped would not be made.
‘Of those of us here, how many have fought beside the Gaians before?’
The Gorvic’s face darkened at the memory of First Nantwyn. At the time of planning he’d enjoyed the prospect of teaching the Caderyn a lesson, but from the moment that fight had started he had regretted ever agreeing to it.
‘Baercban did not know what he was doing when he allied us with them, and my people paid dearly to learn our lesson.’
He remembered bitterly the way the Gorvicae had been treated by their former allies after Nantwyn, and the failed rebellion he had led against the Gaians. He remembered the warriors who had died at White Ridge when the legions had counter-attacked, and the maddened frenzy of the Panthers as they had torn into his comrades. Yes, the Gorvicae had been wrong to ever side with these people, but the gods had seen to it that they were punished for their folly.
‘I am not proud of what my tribe did but it is done now, and we all of us know the Gaians well enough to see the truth; they cannot be trusted.’
Rhianwyn was about to reply, her face set, but Owain’s voice cut in before a harsher argument could ensue.
‘Against odds of three to one, better a Gaian at my flank than empty air.’
Gawan snorted.
‘At least empty air could not stab you in the back.’
Bradan stepped in-between them, his palms raised.
‘I like this no more than you do, Leaping Wolf. Camelas knows well I have good cause to hate the Gaians, but if it is this choice or else the deaths of more of our warriors, then we must take it.’
Owain and Rhianwyn both looked relieved to have heard some support, but then their faces fell as Hywel spoke against them.
‘I am not so sure. Caserach aside, would we not be wiser in trying to make peace with the Breiryn? A peace with fellow Lurians sounds kinder to my ears than to trust the safety of our people to the Gaians.’
Alraig nodded along with him but said nothing, and Gawan was glad to hear a druid speaking for his side. Peace with the Breiryn might be difficult to manage, and Caserach would still have to be dealt with, but if it meant the Gaians stayed away then Gawan was all for trying it. Rhianwyn cast her eyes down for a moment before looking up at the druid, her words courteous but insistent.
‘Caserach is keen for a war with us to secure his chair, father. He will not want to seem weak by making peace, either to the Breiryn or to his own tribe, and now that they have declared themselves, Asrec will feel the same way. They will lose all credibility among their people if they seek peace now.’
Kyran nodded, his face sour.
‘It is true. He will need a victory to prove his worthiness to lead, and he is the kind of man who lives only to have power over others. If this Asrec is of the same mind then they will draw us into battle, no matter what.’
The Caderyn druid chipped in, speaking mainly to Hywel.
‘I too desire no more bloodshed for our people, but Asrec is indeed a man who would not dare risk such a loss of face. To make peace with an enemy he would most likely have beaten will make him seem like the worst of cowards, and his reputation will suffer for it.’
Gawan felt his spirits drop as the Gorvic druid nodded sadly. Rhianwyn leaped on the opportunity.
‘If anything this will work to our advantage, if we let it. Instead of chasing them through hills like bandits on the run, they will seek to fight us openly simply to show that they can. With even one cohort of the First to bolster the Dragon Legion, we would easily break their charge in open field.’
Kyran nodded very slowly, his harsh voice filled with resentment.
‘I must defeat Caserach. If this plan can let me do that, then I will consent to it.’
Gawan reminded himself that Kyran likely held less hatred for the Gaians than the mainlanders did. They’d never come into his territory after all, never tried to impose their will upon his people. Gawan could hardly blame him, or Rhianwyn for that matter, who always let her love for Marius blind her to what the Gaians really were. He hated it, but there was even some wisdom in what they were saying. But still he couldn’t stop himself objecting.
‘If we allow them to cross Caledon lands like this then they will think that they still control us, and how long before they are back to their old ways?’ Rhianwyn took in a breath but Gawan didn’t let her answer. ‘Besides, if we tell them that we need their help they will know how weakened Lepidus has made us. If we are to keep them out for good then they must be afraid to provoke us to war.’
Merwyn spoke again before anyone could argue against that.
‘And again I say that to do this would break your own law. Regardless of the prowess of our cohorts, you are still new to us as chieftain, Rhianwyn. If you begin your rule by ignoring laws that you would have others follow then many will lose faith in you. They would think that perhaps we were wrong in granting you your father’s chair.’
He spoke in a kindly way that made it clear that he did not regret his choice but all the same, the message was there. Alraig backed up his fellow headman in somewhat sterner tones.
