Neversfall - Ed Gentry [108]
The Chondathans were unimportant, but the people they represented were not. The men and women who had hired the mercenaries knew what needed to be done, and they gave Jhoqo the means to do it. So why couldn't his own soldiers understand? Couldn't they see the degradation of Southern ways all around them?
Fair and open trade was being stifled by petty laws and politics. The very idea of declaring trade with another country to be illegal was absurd, even offensive, to anyone who loved the South and the ways of the Adama. The citizens he was working with understood that, and he knew that he would have to walk away from his entire career. For the South, he would do that.
Jhoqo stood and took a deep breath. So be it, he thought and walked out the door, leaving the lifeless Bascou behind him. He called out to the Chondathan guard who was his shadow, "Go and fetch me your second in command."
The guard, with his downy beard, was one of the youngest the Chondathans had brought. He did not move, though his eyes went straight to the ground.
"Go!" Jhoqo barked.
"He's dead, sir," the boy said, twitching.
"Then the third, and if he's dead, then the fourth. Just get me somebody, boy!" Jhoqo yelled, and he started toward the central tower, namesake to the citadel.
Before he reached the door, an older man, a bit thick through the belly, came to a stop in front of him and saluted.
"You have a wizard in the mines, yes?" Jhoqo said. The man nodded.
"Go and get him right away. Tell him I have a challenge for him," Jhoqo said, craning his neck to look up at the top of the tower.
+ + + + +
Of all the feelings that swirled through him, Taennen dwelled the longest on foolishness. He was afraid, intimidated, uncertain… but mostly, he felt foolish. The torchlight held by the man behind him guided his steps through the tunnels. Taennen glanced back once to see the ragged squad behind him, stumbling through the stone corridors. Foolishness.
Here he was, hoping to lead a score of soldiers and ten utterly untrained farmers and craftsman against a fortified citadel held by veteran soldiers who weren't as worn and weary, and who outnumbered them besides. The only advantage they had, by his reckoning, was that the Chondathans and their dwarf cohorts would be unlikely to expect an attack by the very forces they had just routed.
"How many can we expect?" asked one of the former captives-a farmer by trade-and not for the first time.
"We should be ready for at least twice our numbers," Taennen replied.
The soldiers nodded and traded words of encouragement and reassuring claps on backs. The few citizens all seemed to pale at the same moment. They would be the first to die, Taennen knew. Unable to skillfully wield the weapons they had been given and facing trained foes, they would fall quickly. They would serve the cause best if they could live long enough to distract an enemy, allowing a Maquar or Durpari soldier to end the attacker's life swiftly. It was a matter of stretching their numbers. Taennen stopped, the people behind him stumbling into him.
"Sir?" someone said.
But Taennen barely heard the question. He turned to look at the former captives, their eyes wide and knuckles white on weapons that would likely not help them. A soldier knew that his life might be forfeit at any time, but these men and women-farmers, brewers, herders-they had sworn no such oaths. Taennen needed their numbers and their swords, but guilt tugged at him. Surely many of them would die.
Looking at the former prisoners, their thin faces reflecting a lack of proper nutrition, he spoke. "Go back. Turn around and await us at the edge of the woods. If we don't return, head straight south. You'll come across an expedition sooner or later, likely some halflings who will take you in."
The soldiers stayed quiet though a few exchanged glances. The former captives, frail and tiny compared