Enchanter's End Game

Anheg growled, still glaring at the two ships, which were already several hundred yards away.
    Rhodar shrugged. "Anything's unnatural the first time you try it."
    "I'll think about it," Anheg said darkly.
    "I wouldn't think for too long," Rhodar suggested. "Your popularity as a monarch is going to go downhill with every mile - and Barak's the sort of man who'll parade that contraption of his back and forth in front of your sailors every step of the way to the escarpment."
    "He would do that, wouldn't he?"
    "I think you can count on it."
    King Anheg sighed bitterly. "Go fetch that unwhole-somely clever Sendarian blacksmith," he sourly instructed one of his men. "Let's get this over with."
    Later that day the leaders of the army gathered again in the main tent for a strategy meeting. "Our biggest problem now is to conceal the size of our forces," King Rhodar told them all. "Instead of marching everybody to the escarpment all at once and then milling around at the base of the cliff, it might be better to move the troops in small contingents and have them go directly up to the forts on top as soon as they arrive."
    "Will such a piecemeal approach not unduly delay our progress?" King Korodullin asked.
    "Not all that much," Rhodar replied. "We'll move your knights and Cho-Hag's clansmen up first so you can start burning cities and crops. That will give the Thulls something to think about beside how many infantry regiments we're bringing up. We don't want them to start counting noses."
    "Couldn't we build false campfires and so on to make it appear that we have more men?" Lelldorin suggested brightly.
    "The whole idea is to make our army appear smaller, not bigger," Brand explained gently in his deep voice. "We don't want to alarm Taur Urgas or 'Zakath sufficiently to make them commit their forces. It will be an easy campaign if all we have to deal with are King Gethell's Thulls. If the Murgos and the Malloreans intervene, we'll be in for a serious fight."
    "And that's the one thing we definitely want to avoid," King Rhodar added.
    "Oh," Lelldorin said, a bit abashed, "I didn't think of that." A slow flush rose in his cheeks.
    "Lelldorin," Ce'Nedra said, hoping to help him cover his embarrassment, "I think I'd like to go out and visit with the troops for a bit. Would you accompany me?"
    "Of course, your Majesty," the young Asturian agreed, quickly rising to his feet.
    "That's not a bad idea," Rhodar agreed. "Encourage them a bit, Ce'Nedra. They've walked a long way, and their spirits may be sagging."
    Lelldorin's cousin Torasin, dressed in his customary black doublet and hose, also rose to his feet. "I'll go along, if I may," he said. He grinned rather impudently at King Korodullin. "Asturians are good plotters, but rather poor strategists, so I probably wouldn't be able to add much to the discussions."
    The King of Arendia smiled at the young man's remark. "Thou art pert, young Torasin, but methinks thou art not so fervent an enemy of the crown of Arendia as thou dost pretend."
    Torasin bowed extravagantly, still grinning. Once they were outside the tent, he turned to Lelldorin. "I could almost learn to like that man - if it weren't for all those thees and thous," he declared.
    "It's not so bad - once you get used to it," Lelldorin replied. Torasin laughed. "If I had someone as pretty as Lady Ariana for a friend, she could thee me and thou me all she wanted," he said. He looked archly at Ce'Nedra. "Which troops did you wish to encourage, your Majesty?" he bantered.
    "Let's visit your Asturian countrymen," she decided. "I don't think I'd care to take you two into the Mimbrate camp - unless your swords had been taken away from you and your mouths had been bricked up."
    "Don't you trust us?" Lelldorin asked.
    "I know you," she replied with a little toss of her head. "Where are the Asturians encamped?"
    "That way," Torasin answered, pointing toward the south end of the supply dump.
    Smells of cooking were carried by the breeze from the Sendarian field kitchens, and those smells reminded the princess of something. Instead of randomly circulating among the Asturian tents, she found herself quite deliberately searching for some specific people.
    She found Lammer and Detton, the two serfs who had joined her army on the outskirts of Vo Wacune, finishing their afternoon meal in front of a patched tent. They both looked better fed than they had when she had first seen them, and they were no longer dressed in rags. When they saw her