CHAPTER FIFTY THREE

In the days which followed those numbing words, Chaldez could not make himself believe that he would never see Tamasi again; he was simply unable to accept that someone whom he loved so much no longer existed, and he wandered around the camp subconsciously looking for her. Sometimes he caught a glimpse of Asheek, her mother, and then his furiously beating heart gave the peculiar sensation of having moved to the very top of his chest where it lay pounding until he had convinced himself that he was mistaken. Worst of all was when he had dreamt about her because he would awake convinced that she was alive, and then spend the whole day in a state of expectancy. Only towards the evening would it fade, leaving behind an aching emptiness.
Sigmar told him that she became ill during the march and had died quite quickly. Chaldez asked where, but he was vague. "On the march," was all he would say.
As the weeks passed, Chaldez learnt to accept that she was gone for ever; but the dreams continued, and then for a while the agitation, the disquiet, the conviction that he only had to look for her to find her, all came flooding back. The dreams themselves, restoring her to life as they did, were glorious; it was their aftermath he could not bare, and he convinced himself that the only way to escape the cycle of joy and anguish was to visit her grave; that only then would her spirit leave him alone.
During this time Sigmar liked to have him by him; they spoke hardly at all, Chaldez being too distracted to speak. That suited Sigmar. It was his company he required, not his conversation. He had adored Tamasi, and had thought that no one, not even Asheek, would ever understand how much pain her death had caused him, or share his sense of desolation. The people around him had affected a show of sorrow and mourning, but in this young man he knew it to be as genuine as his own, and he found it comforting. When Chaldez eventually expressed his determination to visit her grave, however, his reaction was generous; Chaldez thought it extraordinary. "My son," he said, "I would go with you, but I cannot leave. You must be my envoy. I will send Vanchis with you. He knows where my daughter lies. It is not many days' journey from here - not if you are brisk."
They were brisk. Chaldez took Tsem and, as his personal servant, Nopin. Vanchis was accompanied by two others.
Tamasi had died, and been buried, on the high plateau, her grave marked by a cairn which Chaldez had noticed on his way to Sigmar's encampment. He stood and gazed at it and thought of her lying beneath it and was briefly overwhelmed by an urge to tear away the stones and the earth which covered her, and embrace her for one last time. He said that he wanted to spend the night by her grave, out in the open; he hoped that she would visit him in his dreams and then release him. He slept dreamlessly, and the next day he and his companions set off again across the plateau.
Never again did he dream of her.
On their return Sigmar greeted him like a long-lost friend, and treated him as though he had performed some heroic feat. He gripped his arms, and looking up into his face he declared "Now for Cregitzig! What's past is past. The future is ours!"
It was exactly what Chaldez needed; his energy and imagination were now free and he devoted them enthusiastically to helping to plan the coming offensive.
A few weeks after his return from Tamasi's grave, one of Sigmar's hit-and-run attack units returned to camp. Chaldez, Vanchis and Regdag were attending Sigmar when its commander, a Sairish nobleman called Saminad, came to report. His severely pock-marked face made him distinctive among the karmikvals, and Chaldez had spoken to him a few times; he was aware that he and Sigmar had been friends since their boyhood in Felewith.
Saminad was in high spirits; the mission had been a success, he said. Over one hundreds Muraks had been killed and his own losses had been slight. "It's regrettable," he said, without betraying much sign of regret, "that the Laifyan prince was not able to return."
Sigmar retorted, rather harshly, Chaldez thought, that there were bound to be casualties in war and that the loss of a Laifyan was not likely to be decisive. He then demanded a detailed account of the unit's activities, and what it had been able to find out about the enemy.
That evening Chaldez was shocked to find out from Tsem that the Laifyan referred to was Feldak; he had not even noticed his absence from the camp, and now that he was dead he regretted their quarrel. He told Tsem "I am sorry he and I were unable to be friends; we had much in common and it saddens me that he could not recognise my superiority as a military commander. He had no experience and yet believed himself to be my equal! What could I do?"
Tsem said "We who know what you achieved against Taksibar were more than ready to put him to death for his impudence. He is dead now, and with him his pretensions. I am not sorry."
Chaldez asked Saminad about him. "The Laifyan and I were once companions-in-arms," he explained, "For the sake of our alliance I would like to know how he died."
Saminad, a short, well-built man of about Sigmar's age, pushed out his lips, and then smiled. "I think your alliance died long before he did. I can't tell you much, except that he took on more than he could handle, and paid for his imprudence."
Chaldez was not surprised.
Much later he heard from Nopin, who had picked up the gossip, that bad luck rather than imprudence had robbed Feldak of life. He was in command of a troop which had been sent to attack a small convoy of supply wagons and on the way had run into part of the Murak army which no one, apparently, had known was in the area. He and his men had all been killed.
That year the winter snows came early. Chaldez thought that Sigmar must change his mind about his winter campaign, but he was immovable. He said that the Muraks were encountering problems in Yeisia. They were over-stretched and their supplies were uncertain. "I have been burning crops all summer. There has been no harvest to speak of, and I know that the slave-masters of Kroya are demanding the biggest portion of what little there is."
His own army, on the other hand, was well provided for, having at its back his allies the Ashtaks; he could also rely on the Soans to send him supplies. "Now is the time to strike," he said.
His army, grown since Chaldez had first seen it, was now some 15,000 strong, and would rely heavily on its archers and cavalry. "It is a curious thing," Sigmar said, "but although the barbarians are good horsemen, they make little use of cavalry. Only their priests and tribal chiefs are entitled to ride the noble beast - something to do with their religion, I believe."
The weather in the hills was foul, and it got no better when they reached the plain. There were heavy and prolonged snowfalls, and the army's progress was all-but halted. Chaldez doubted that it could fight in such conditions, let alone reach the enemy, but while he kept such thoughts to himself, there were others more willing to express their grievances. Such a one was Babra, the deposed king of Kroya.
Chaldez had despised him ever since his first sight of him at Sigmar's table, back at the encampment in the Ix valley. He had thought him repulsive then, and now as he whined and complained behind Sigmar's back Chaldez disliked him the more. Sigmar must have suspected as much because once or twice he asked Chaldez what he had been saying, and Chaldez would shrug and deny he had heard anything. Later he found out that Sigmar knew perfectly well what was going on, kept informed by Saminad. Sigmar's eyes and ears, he assiduously told his master everything Babra said.
The journey, hampered as it was by the weather, would have been impossible had Sigmar not been on good terms with the Ashtak and Soan chieftains whose territories he had to cross. Threatened by the Murak menace, they were only too willing to provided his army with supplies, information, and in some cases, men and horses.
Cregitzig was occupying some high ground overlooking the valley. Even from a distance, Chaldez could see what a strong position he had chosen: his rear and flanks were covered by woodland so that anyone approaching in force would have to come at him from the valley, which at that point was sodden and partly flooded. And an unsuspecting enemy might easily think that the main barbarian army was elsewhere; Chaldez knew that what he could see was perhaps a tenth of Cregitzig's strength, the rest of it being hidden among the trees. He boasted to Tsem of having known that the Theigan would choose an unassailable position, but his initial satisfaction at having been proved right gave way to misgivings. He was certain now that he would be able to predict Cregitzig's tacticts as the coming battle unfolded, but how would he be able to explain his extraordinary knowledge to Sigmar, or even persuade him that it was sound? He began to realise that he might have to remain silent, and the prospect of that horrified him.
As soon as he got back he reported to Sigmar and told him what he and his fellow observers had seen. Sigmar listened with studied unconcern. "If that's where he wants his battle," he remarked, "that's where he can have it."
Chaldez could only assume that he had been misunderstood, but when he began to reiterate what he had just said about the strength of the Murak position, Sigmar silenced him with a wave of the hand. "I wish to speak to my brother sovereign, Babra," he said to Saminad. "Fetch him."
Babra was a while coming, and in the interval Chaldez attempted again to stress the impossibility of attacking Cregitzig. Sigmar cut him short. "You didn't get as far as Cregitzig's army," he said, contemptuously. "What you saw was a detachment. The main army is nowhere near that place. I know this. The countryside is crawling with my spies. They tell me everything."
It was just as Chaldez had feared. He knew Cregitzig; he knew what he was capable of, but he could offer no proof of what he knew, and in his frustration he felt disgusted with his own impotence, and anger at Sigmar's lack of discernment. He began to protest, ineffectually, but just then Babra's arrival was announced. The deposed king of Kroya bustled in, accompanied by his entourage of exiled noblemen. Chaldez eyed him with hatred, reminding himself that this was the man who had stolen the Kroyan thrown from his grandfather.