“You will go back to the capital.”

“I will not,” said Attolia.

“You will. You just said—you cannot fight the Medes.”

“And you, who would not know what to do with a company of pikemen if you found them in a basket—you would lead this army? With your generals who do not know a wain from a wheelbarrow? I should leave you here surrounded by idiots who cannot understand that you must feed your army if you want it to fight? Is that in any way satisfying?” she asked.

We all heard the sounds of inkpots or perhaps map weights or troop counters hitting the canvas walls of the tent. Something larger smacked into the fabric— making an imprint for a moment before it was gone. “No, it is NOT satisfying!” shouted the king.

It was probably a wine bottle. It didn’t break when it landed on the overlapping carpets that covered the ground. The knife that came next protruded six inches—harmlessly, because the tent walls sloped, and no one would be leaning with an ear to just that spot on the canvas. One hoped.

“That was inappropriate,” said Attolia.

“Inappropriate?” shouted the king. “You in your state on your way to war is inappropriate!”

“I did not become inappropriate all by myself!” she shouted back.

“Do you imagine I don’t know that?”

Sounis looked at Eddis, pained.

“His mother and father used to shout at each other,” Eddis said, trying to sound reassuring.

There was a crashing noise. Sounis said, “I don’t understand.”

Eddis said, hesitating as she put her thoughts into words, “I think they have to show their worst selves sometimes in order to be sure that even at their worst they are loved. Irene knows how frightened he is.”

The king didn’t sound frightened.

“Any minute,” said Eddis, “he will realize—” As if her words were magic, silence fell in the tent and Eddis finished in a whisper. “How frightened she is.”

With a gesture and an authority that Sounis could only envy, Eddis waved off those lingering nearby and moved the perimeter of the guards away from the tent, giving the two inside space that might afford the privacy that canvas walls could not.

Chapter Seven

The Medes had made it to the Leonyla Pass and were camped on the inland side of it. No one was surprised when messengers brought the news. It had taken almost twice as long to make the march as Pegistus’s estimates had predicted. Carts had broken down, gun carriages had mired in streambeds, progress through bottlenecks had been slowed by disorganization. Still, a little flame of hope had burned in every heart that if the Peninsula’s armies had moved so slowly, the Mede army, which was so much larger, must be moving even more slowly. Indeed, the camp forming below the pass held only the forward part of the Mede’s forces.

“It grows every day,” said Trokides. “By the time we reach the Leonyla, we may well face the whole of the Mede army on open ground.” He only said what everyone was thinking, but it was hard to have our hope snuffed out.

The ships that the king had seized from the Pents had arrived in Stinos and were offloading the troops they’d ferried from the capital. Yorn Fordad was on one of them and, riding south from Stinos, he brought better news: the Pents had given in. Recognizing the threat the Medes posed, they had ended their delaying tactics and were sailing to secure Cimorene and the Straits of Thegmis. More support, ships, arms, and soldiers were being sent by all the powers of the Continent.

It was a great relief to know that we would not fight alone against the Medes. The aid, though, would not come without cost. The countries of the Lesser Peninsula would pay for it in treaties and trade concessions and loss of their independence. They would be occupied by the troops from foreign nations and might not see them gone again for a lifetime.

In grim meetings, Attolia and Eddis remade their strategy yet again. They knew the Medes would march on Stinos first. They could not move south and leave a fort behind them in enemy hands.

“We must slow the Medes’ approach to Stinos, delaying them, if we can, until the Continent’s forces arrive to relieve us,” said Attolia. “Failing that, we garrison Stinos and retreat with the bulk of our forces. If the Braelings and Gants arrive in time to lift the siege, the Medes will be caught between our army to the south and the incoming forces of the Continent.”

And if the Braelings’ ships did not arrive before the tiny garrison was overcome, the Continental ships would reach Stinos only to find it held by the Medes. Stinos was the lone port north of the mountains that ran down Attolia’s eastern coast and south of the Leonyla. With it in Mede hands, the Continent would be unable to land their troops and would be forced to withdraw. Without the Continent’s assistance, the Peninsular armies would be ground to pieces as the Medes moved south.

There was an alternative left undiscussed, its existence hinted at by averted eyes and pursed lips: Eddis and Sounis could abandon Attolia, turn, and ride for the mountains. In Eddis, they could hold out for years, leaving the lowlands to fall to the Medes. The allies from the Continent would eventually drive the Medes back again, and a puppet government would be installed in Attolia, but Eddis and perhaps even Sounis might remain free. Attolia would be lost either way, and her generals knew it. They looked at their Eddisian and Sounisian counterparts with weary resignation.

“Sounis will not run,” said her king.

“Nor Eddis,” said her queen.

“Then we address ourselves to moving faster,” said Attolia crisply. “To meet the Medes as soon as possible and slow their advance.”

They abandoned the artillery and most of the baggage train, leaving them to catch up when possible. I might have been left behind too, but by then I’d grown accustomed to riding for hours at a time, so I was there when we camped on the ridge above the Leonyla Valley. I saw with my own eyes the Medes waiting for us.

Confident of their ability to advance whenever they chose, the Medes had made no effort to extend their base camp. They were leisurely waiting for all their forces to come through the narrow pass behind them. When we attacked, it was only against their vanguard, and we fought for the next three days. Each day a hundred years long.

Lamion was killed the second day. He had asked permission to fight with his father and his brothers and cousins. The king had released him. Drusis had petitioned to be released as well, leaving his brother, Motis, to attend the king. It was a difficult decision all the attendants had to make. So long as the king did not go into battle, neither did they. They would have to desert his service or risk their reputations by appearing to be hiding behind his skirts. When Philologos’s father came to talk privately with the king, Philologos had stormed into the council tent saying he would not abandon his responsibilities to the king, not even for the glory of war. Even Xikos said that must have taken its own kind of courage, and no one so much as hinted that his father might have come to ask the king not to release Philologos—to keep his only son and heir safe.

A hospital was set up in Lartius, a small town well south of the battleground and inland. Most of Attolia’s attendants and Eddis’s were there. Attolia had selected Chloe to stay with her, and Eddis had chosen Selene. The king had attempted to order Attolia back to Lartius as well, without success.