Into the Abyss

Actually, the more he thought of it, the more he realized that there was no way his death would bring his mom and stepdad together. His stepdad would simply blame his mom for not controlling him better. Tom knew that there was nothing his mom could have done, but his stepfather wouldn’t see that, and his mother would probably believe his stepdad and blame herself too. The more he thought of this the more depressed he got.

Finally, over the forest, Tom landed among the trees. It was quiet here, a few birds, small animals running in bushes. The wind through the trees. Feeling depressed and slightly weary, Tom sat down beneath a tree, just to rest. Perhaps to sleep a little, he was not really tired enough to sleep, but if he could, it would help him forget. He closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the forest. They were far away at first, having been quieted by his disturbance of the forest, but they slowly returned. Slowly he drifted off.

Chapter 18

“If he marches all night, then he’ll be here before dawn. Otherwise we should expect him around sunset tomorrow, sir,” the young scout reported to Lenamare in his private study. It was about two candles after sunset, and the scout had just arrived on a worn out horse. He had just ridden straight from the enemy camp. He hadn’t spared his horse; he knew that every moment of advance warning would be needed.

It was a good thing he had, the wizard thought. Lenamare really hadn’t expected Exador for a minimum of four to five days. There was no way Zilquar could get his troops here by tomorrow. The best he could hope would be for Zilquar to help lift a siege. Well, that should be no problem, Lenamare knew his defenses were strong enough, and supplies large enough to survive a siege for a few days. The problem of course, was how Exador managed to get so close so fast. “Tomorrow evening then,” Lenamare said, no sane general would march all night and then go into battle at dawn. He waved the scout an absent-minded dismissal.

As the scout left his office, Lenamare turned to Jehenna. “How the hell did he move so fast?” He demanded as soon as the door closed.

“I have no idea. He would have had to either use magic or our previous scouts were badly mistaken.”

“I think mistaken is an understatement, they would have to have been blind, to misjudge an army’s march by three days.”

“Perhaps blinded by magic?”

Lenamare frowned at that. Exador could have done that, but to so carelessly waste one’s energies on cloaking and illusion spells, when one was about to go into battle, just didn’t make sense. “Possible, I just have a hard time seeing Exador cloak and hide his army for several weeks. That’s too insane.”

“Well then, what if he didn’t. What if he is now?” Jehenna asked speculatively.

“You mean put an illusionary army three days ahead of himself? Then arrive later? No, that’s almost worse. We’d eventually see through the illusion if it just sat out there. True, one could speculate that we would arm up, and then when we’d relax because no attack came from the nearby army, he could hit us with the real thing. However, I trust Exador to know that it wouldn’t take me too long to investigate the army and discover the illusion and deduce his plans.

“No, we must assume he’ll attack tomorrow. Exador is no fool. He has something planned. If only we knew what.”

“Well, whatever it is, we’ll just have to be ready. We won’t get much sleep tonight.” Jehenna said.

“No, let lesser individuals do things tonight. Tonight all people truly essential to the defense should get a good night’s sleep. We probably won’t get many in the next several weeks.”

Jehenna nodded. “Very well, I’ll instruct the students and masters to finish all the wards, except for the final primings, tonight. Then tomorrow afternoon, we’ll perform the final rites to prime them, and when Exador’s army shows up, we set them.”

“Good, will you be interested in... meditating... with me this evening, before battle,” Lenamare asked, giving her a knowing little smile as she stood.

“Of course. We will need to generate all the... psychophysical energy we can... for the battle.” She smiled back as she opened the door to leave.

As the door closed, Lenamare spun in his chair to look out the window at the horizon, where his enemy slept. Exador thought to take me unaware... no, old adversary... Lenamare is never unaware. Lenamare knew his defenses could and would hold. Thanks to his ingenious planning and strategy, his defenses would be completely ready for the army. True, it was regrettable that they hadn’t been able to gather in as much food and storage as they’d hoped; but, in war, peasants died, and dead peasants didn’t need food anyway.

Chapter 19