soldiers sitting by his side so that it shot around the room, the laughter increasing as it spread to the other Tsurani. The few women in the room were also laughing, shaking their heads and holding their hands up in mock horror.
Wolfgar stood up, and with a groan somehow managed to step up on to the feasting table, knocking over a platter of meat. Raising his feasting cup, he drained it to the dregs, tossed it aside and slowly walked down the length of the table, acknowledging the upraised flagons and goblets and the lusty cheers of the men. A number of the Kingdom troops started into an obscene ditty about a blacksmith who had five daughters, and the fate that befell each of their midnight visitors who were dragged out to face the hot tongs and anvil. The Tsurani were singing as well. Somehow they had understood the nature of Wolfgar’s boasting, and Asayaga was intrigued that the song they started to sing in counterpoint had almost the identical plot.
Finally Wolfgar held out his hands for the men to be silent and the room fell quiet. As he stood the years seemed to fall from his shoulders. Dennis watched with approval, knowing that before them stood one of the Kingdom’s finest singers of sagas, even if he was a reprobate, liar, and thief.
Softly at first, but with firm control, the old man began a very old song:
‘Fare thee well, my sweet Kingdom lassie, Fare thee well, and I bid you goodbye, For I’m off with the dawning to cold northern mountains, Off to the north, where for King shall I die …’
Dennis sat back and looked over at Asayaga, who seemed intrigued by the old song of a soldier knowing he was sent to face the Dark Brothers in a campaign doomed from the start. Dennis closed his eyes and remembered when he had first heard the song as a boy. He had sat by his father’s side, silently listening to Wolfgar, while tears had flowed unchecked down his cheeks. The song was about duty, honour, and sacrifice, and Dennis wondered at Wolfgar’s choice. For if any Kingdom men were doomed to the fate of the hero of that song, it was the men in this room.
Asayaga saw Dennis’s expression, and realized the song had some meaning for him. He listened to the story in the song, ignoring its odd rhythm and strange tonal qualities. The story was heroic, about a man who put honour above common sense. Asayaga was torn, because on one hand, it was a very Tsurani attitude, yet on the other, no Tsurani would even raise the question of failure and debate it, even within himself. To die for honour was a great thing.
‘I’ve spent too much time on this world,’ he muttered to himself, as Wolfgar finished to a deeply appreciative round of applause. Asayaga saw that some of his own men had translated for the others, and more than one soldier on both sides sat with eyes rimmed with moisture.
Yes, thought the Tsurani Force Commander, it is a powerful tale.
He left the room, ignoring the bitter cold outside, and went to the slit trench he had ordered dug earlier in the day. The men had used the common area in the centre of the stockade when first arising, and he had put a stop to that as soon as he realized there were no latrine facilities inside the stockade. No soldier with any field experience would let his men foul their own camp. Disease came too quickly on the heels of filth, a point that seemed to be lost on the barbarians. He reached the trench and started to relieve himself, a sense of relief flooding through him.
‘They’re happy in there.’
Startled, Asayaga saw that Dennis was by his side, relieving himself as well. Finished, the two stood silent for a moment, the blizzard driving the snow around them. The lanterns hanging on the outside of the long house swayed in the wind, casting dim shadows, barely visible as a heavy gust of snow swept across the narrow courtyard.
‘We’re going to be stuck here for a while,’ Dennis said. ‘The only way out now is through the high passes and they’ll be blocked by morning.’
‘It keeps the Dark Brothers out, though, even as it keeps us in.’
‘Yes. The chase is over.’
‘For now at least. I doubt if they will give up. We’ve injured them. If it was reversed, Hartraft, if they were trapped in here …’ His voice trailed off.
‘No. If it was me and my men trapped in here and you were on the far side of the mountains, what would you do?’
‘Wait you out.’
‘I see.’
Again they were silent for a moment.
‘You are a hard man. A hard opponent, Hartraft. Were you this way before the war?’
‘That’s not your concern. What we face now is my concern.’
‘Our pledge to fight, is that it?’
‘Like I said, the chase is over. We agreed to a truce until we escaped, and for the moment we have.’
Asayaga turned and stepped closer until they were only inches apart. He looked up into Dennis’s eyes. ‘What do you want? Come dawn should we roust our men out from in there, line up, draw weapons and commence slaughtering one another?’
Even as he said the words both could hear the laughter and the start of another song from within the long house.
‘We both know what is in there is not real,’ Dennis replied, waving vaguely towards Wolfgar’s long house. ‘We’re outside our world for the moment, but sooner or later reality will come crashing back in. Less than a hundred miles from here, this night, Kingdom troops and Tsurani troops are sitting in their camps, waiting out the weather, and when the blizzard passes, they will be out hunting each other, and the war will go on. Are we any different, are we excused?’
‘We could kill each other tomorrow down to the last man and it won’t change what happens back there. I am as honour-bound as you, Hartraft, but killing you tonight will not change the war. It is as if we are both dead and gone from it. Tell me, is it honour, a sense of duty or vengeance which drives you now?’
Dennis did not reply.
‘Is it dawn then? If so, I’d better go in and tell my men to stop drinking and prepare. You’d better do the same.’
He snapped out the words, struggling to control his anger and stepped back. Then he bowed formally, and started to turn away.
‘Wait.’
‘For what?’
‘Just wait a moment,’ Dennis said, his voice heavy, distant. ‘There must come a day, we both know that. Once back into our lines, yours or mine, we have to face that.’
‘So why not now?’
‘Don’t press me, Tsurani: the ice we tread on is thin.’
‘Go on then, say what you want.’
‘We’ll still need each other once the passes clear. The Dark Brothers will be waiting, perhaps even bringing up reinforcements. We stand a better chance of surviving if we work together.’
‘Is that the real reason?’
‘Like I said, the ice is thin: don’t press me.’
Asayaga finally nodded.
‘A truce,
