EXCERPT

Aerynn Land
by

Lisa Gabriella

Chapter One

The farther north we went, the more numerous and troublesome were the rumors and reports coming down from the front to diminish our morale and confidence. Often during the march and voyage, Berrym went aboard the Royal Barge, ostensibly to discuss the reports with me. However, on each visit he spent some time with the Princess and her entourage.

I have never agreed with the custom of females following the army into battle. In times of peace or war, they are far too much of a distraction. Even a warrior of Berrym's caliber could be diverted from his main purpose. All of his mind should have been on the task ahead. But when I told him so, he just laughed and clapped my shoulder.

“They give me a reason to fight. Don't worry, old comrade, I shall be a true hero defending our land.”

Soon we encountered the first elements of our retreating frontier defense forces, straggling groups of deserters who looted the villages as they fled southwards along the banks of the river. With very little ceremony, and no hesitation at all, Berrym beheaded several of them and spiked their heads on spears.  These stood erect along the bank as an example and a warning. Then he gathered up the other survivors and regrouped them under reliable officers. No further desertions followed and the troops stood to the colors with a new spirit.

Our fleet came to the line of hills to the north of The Capital, overlooking the great river. In defiance of his orders from Nembyt, Berrym stationed a tactical reserve legion of three battlegroups there under the command of his trusted Battlegroupleader Remhyt. Then we sailed on northwards to take up our positions on the border, and there to await the approach of The Conqueror.

The fleet lay at anchor along the river, battle ready, but the vessels were under minimal crews. The fighting males were disembarked with the main body of infantry and deployed as land fighters immediately to the west out from the river. I prevailed upon the King to have the Princess and her little son to remain on board the large and comfortable barge that had brought them there. It was nicer and safer out on the water, and their escape would be swifter if our army met with any unplanned misfortune. But His Majesty went ashore with the army, and set up his camp on the higher ground above the valley fields.

There was an abandoned town there. Years before inhabitants had fled from that place because of a border dispute with a previous northern governor. There had been foraging troops and bloody little skirmishes thereabouts, and the farmers had simply given up on any further attempts at trying to work those fertile but dangerous fields.

The name of the deserted town was Klontyrf. The flood of the Shannyn River had begun to subside some weeks prior to our arrival there. And even though the irrigation canals were still running strongly, and the fields were morasses of dark mud, the main waters had retreated back between the permanent banks of the salty water.

Within the restrictions placed upon him by Nembyt, Berrym set about preparing to meet the oncoming threat. The battlegroups encamped in their order of ranking. Hemyn commanded the craft on the river and the legion of crews next to it. Berrym himself had the center legion with his flanks in between. Krytas had the legion of the far left wing.

The dark valley, stretching to the tall distant cliffs on either side, was deep and wide. No army could traverse out in the barren higher peaks beyond it. But our force was indeed quite secure and impregnable within it. All that we knew of the Great Invader Army was that it had come overland, leaving its deeply keeled ships in the northern ports, and that it had no flat bottomed river craft. Berrym expected to meet them on land, and to fight an infantry engagement. Our Army Commander knew that the Invader Army could not navigate the mighty river, and so he should be able to bring them to battle on this field of his own choosing. Ideally, this would not have been there at Klontyrf, but Nembyt had made that decision for him. The town of Klontyrf itself was on a low place with open untended fields around it. At least it commanded a good view, and the enemy would be under our observation long before they could engage and drive in our pickets.

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