Despite the growing friendship between the two, however, father and I were obliged to concentrate quite a bit of effort to keep the other Mimbrates and Asturians separated.

Father was devious enough to let the Angaraks rebuild the bridges across the first three tributaries unmolested. On the fourth rushing stream, however, Murgo bridge-builders quite suddenly started sprouting Asturian arrows. After that, the Angaraks grew very cautious, and it took them a long time to cross each river. That was the whole idea, of course.

The final cementing of the growing friendship came when Wildantor was showing off. He stood alone on a trembling, undermined bridge, single-handedly holding off the entire Angarak force. I’ve never seen anyone shoot arrows so fast. When an archer has four arrows in the air all at the same time, you know that he’s really attending to business.

‘Pol,’ mother’s voice said calmly, ‘he’s going to fall into the water. Don’t interfere, and don’t let your father get involved, either. Mandor will save him. It’s supposed to happen that way.’

And it did, of course. The bridge Wildantor stood on shuddered and collapsed, and the river swept the red-haired Asturian downstream. Mandor raced down-river to the next destroyed bridge, dashed out to the broken end, and reached down toward the seething water. ‘Wildantor!’ he bellowed. ‘To me!’

And the half-drowning Asturian veered across the turbulent stream, reached up, and their hands crashed together. In a symbolic sense, neither of them ever let go again.

Chapter 33

We continued our slow withdrawal – I won’t say retreat – for the next several days, and our little force became more adept as they gradually came to accept the fact that their alliance was holding firm. The Mimbrate knights and Asturian bowmen, reassured perhaps by the growing friendship between Mandor and Wildantor, began to lay aside their hereditary animosity to concentrate their efforts on the task at hand. The Mimbrates grew more skilled at bridge-wrecking with practice, and several impromptu alliances began to crop up. One little group of knights grew very adept at weakening bridges rather than destroying them outright, and the knight in charge spoke with his Asturian counterpart, suggesting that the archers might restrain their enthusiasm just enough to allow the span to become crowded with advancing Murgos. That was the point at which several knights concealed upstream started rolling logs into the swiftly flowing river. The weakened bridge collapsed when the logs smashed into the already shaky underpinnings, and several hundred Murgos went swimming – for a short while, anyway. A suit of steel chain-mail isn’t the best swimming costume in the world, I noticed. The celebration involving those knights and archers that evening was rowdy, and I saw Mimbrates and Asturians linked arm in arm singing ancient drinking songs as if they’d known each other all their lives.

When we’d left Vo Mimbre, our major concern had been to keep the Mimbrates and Asturians separated. When we returned, nothing we could have done would have kept them apart. Mutual animosity had been replaced by comradeship. I’m fairly sure that hadn’t been what Torak had in mind when he’d come west.

There was a heroes’ welcome awaiting us upon our return. I’m sure that some of the citizens of Vo Mimbre choked a bit over cheers directed at Asturians, but that’s not really important, is it?

Father’s scheme had won us the requisite five days, and the twins, who’d arrived at Vo Mimbre during our absence, advised us that uncle Beldin and General Cerran had reached Tol Honeth with the southern legions. Father sent out his thought and spoke briefly with his twisted brother, and he assured us that the Tolnedrans and Chereks would reach Vo Mimbre on schedule. We were ready, and tomorrow the battle would begin.

Mother spoke with me briefly while father was out looking over the defenses of the city. ‘Pol, she said, ‘when he comes back, tell him that you’re going out to keep an eye on the Angaraks. I think you and I should look in on Torak again.’

‘Oh?’

‘I don’t like surprises, so let’s keep an eye on Torak and Zedar.’

‘All right, mother.’

Father was a bit on edge when he came back, but that was to be expected, I suppose. Everybody’s a little edgy on the night before a battle.

‘I’m going out to have a look around, father,’ I told him.

‘I don’t suppose you’d pay any attention to me if I said that I forbid it, would you?’

‘Not really.’

‘Then I won’t waste my breath. Don’t be out all night.’

I almost laughed out loud. The tone in which he said it was almost exactly the tone he’d used at Riva during the preparations for Beldaran’s wedding when I’d spent my time breaking hearts and he’d spent his chewing on his fingernails. The irony of the situation might have escaped him, however. Back at Riva, he’d been worried about my hordes of suitors. I had a suitor here at Vo Mimbre as well, and this time I was the one who was worried.

Mother and I merged again, and all turned inward, we were once again totally undetectable. We located Torak’s rusting black palace and went inside again through that convenient embrasure.

‘I will punish them, Zedar,’ Torak was saying in his dramatically resonant voice.

‘Well do they deserve it, Master,’ Zedar said obsequiously. ‘In their petty squabbling, they have failed thee. Their lives are forfeit for their misdeeds.’

‘Be not over-quick to condemn them, Zedar,’ Torak replied ominously. “Thou hast still not yet fully atoned for thine own failure in Morinland some several centuries back.’

‘Prithee, Master, forgive me. Let not thy wrath fall upon me, though my punishment be richly deserved.’

‘There are no punishments or rewards, Zedar,’ Torak replied darkly, ‘only consequences. Urvon and Ctuchik shall learn the meaning of consequences in the fullness of time – even as shalt thou. For now, however, I have need of thee and thy two brothers.’

I suspect that Zedar choked a bit at the notion of calling Urvon and Ctuchik ‘brothers’.

Torak, his polished steel mask glowing in the lamplight, sat brooding morosely. Then he sighed. ‘I am troubled, Zedar,’ he confessed. ‘A great discrepancy looms before me.’

‘Reveal it, Master,’ Zedar urged. ‘Mayhap between us we might resolve it.’

Thine o’erweening self-confidence doth amuse me, Zedar,’ Torak responded. ‘Hast thou perused the document which doth expound the ravings of that sub-human on the banks of the Mrin in far northern Drasnia?’