Page 85 of Traitor Son

“We’ll send men to the other villages,” Remin began, feeling a sickening roll in his gut. Isigne. Meinhem. Selgin. Raida. Nandre. He could picture every one of those villages. He had taken their oaths after the war, promising to reward their loyalty with protection. “We can pull them off the border, full cohorts in marching order.”

“They’ll die if you do,” said Jinmin in his flat bull’s voice. “Took a day to build defenses myself, just to see if I could stand them off on the ground. I’m only here because the stranglers couldn’t get through my armor. Had wolves trying to bash through my barricades all night. You empty the border, that might be enough.”

He couldn’t do that. And Jinmin was right; it was one thing for entire armies on the march to build a fortified encampment every night, with torches and shell barriers on the tents and all the other defenses Remin and his men had devised over the years. During the war, there had been an entire defensive corps that marched with his army, specifically tasked with keeping the fighters alive at night. He had disbanded them at the end of the war because he hadn’t thought he would need them anymore.

“If every man had plate armor…” His brow knotted as he thought aloud. “And builders for a palisade…”

There had to be a way. He couldn’t accept this, that he should justgive upon his people and let the devils have them. For hours, they argued about it, and only the fact that it wasJinminsaying this kept him from dismissing it outright. Jinmin was inclined to understate the problem, if anything.

“Take a company from Tresingale, as an experiment,” suggested Juste. “Send them a few days out of town and let them try to assemble defenses on the march.”

“We’ll try it,” Remin agreed, after a moment’s consideration. “With all the armor we can spare. I won’t send anyone to die for no purpose, but we have to try. I will lea—”

But that set off another uproar.

“You absolutely will not,” Juste snapped, at the same time that Edemir, Tounot, Jinmin, Huber, and Auber all protested at once.

“Not unless you want to leave Her Grace a widow, m’lord,” Jinmin said bluntly.

“We’ll draw lots for it,” said Miche, with none of his usual lazy drawl. “I didn’t take two arrows and a dagger to the back for you just to let you get eaten by a pack of ghouls.”

There ought to be a statute of limitations on that sort of thing, Remin thought furiously, but did not say. He was their liege lord, and they would obey his command; they had all sworn sacred oaths to the stars saying so. But it was also true that almost every one of them could have made a similar claim. Miche had only been protecting him longest. Remin was the Duke of Andelin, the last of his blood, and they had fought and won a war at least partially on the premise that his life and his line were more precious than the lives of thousands.

“Jinmin will lead, with one of you to support him,” he said, clamping down tight on a wave of helpless fury. He could not go. It was his lot to send others to die instead. “Draw lots for the second position. The question is how many we can send without weakening Tresingale’s defenses…”

They labored hours more, answering that question, and in the end, it was Jinmin and Huber that marched out of Tresingale one morning, with fifty men and a dozen horses that Remin really couldn’t spare. Huber had gone as if he were daring Remin to protest the decision, the only one of Remin’s men who was capable of silencing him with a look.

“We need to manage the town’s defenses better in the meantime,” noted Tounot. “Localize the alerts when a devil gets through the lines. If we don’t let people get some sleep, Rem, they’re going to start having accidents.”

Everything was like that, a constant balance betweentoo muchandnot enough.Remin had a depressing number of similarly impossiblequandaries that he could trot out for a little perspective, but he was extremely bitter about the whole thing. And even as he wrestled with these familiar problems of manpower and supply, he was discovering whole new categories of worry.

During the endless week that Jinmin and Huber were outside the walls, Remin was wondering whether it was normal for a lady to keep falling asleep in her bath.

More than once, he had returned to the cottage to find the princess asleep in the water with her head lolling against the rim of the cauldron. He could understand someone falling asleep in a normal bath; those were quite nice. But she was curled up in a little knot of skinny limbs and long wet hair, and he had to shake her to wake her up.

“Oh—what? Did I fall asleep?” She managed to get it together enough to cover her breasts with her hands, blinking owlishly. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to—”

It was the third time he had found her like this. Remin fished her out of the water and felt her forehead, his face grim. He kept meaning to look in on her. It felt like he barely saw her these days, and he had a nagging feeling that something was wrong, but no idea what it was.

“Are you sick? I won’t be angry if you are.” He set her in the chair by the fire and reached for a towel, trying not to embarrass her by looking at her. “I will be angry if you don’t tell me.”

She shook her head.

“Are you having trouble sleeping?” he asked, in sudden inspiration. Her eyes did look shadowed, and he knelt down before her, draping a towel over her shoulders. “I saw Gen’s tonic, and I know it’s loud at night—”

“I’m all right.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“That’s not what I asked. If something’s wrong—”

“Rem!” Auber shouted from outside. “They’re back!”

Remin had to bite his tongue to keep from cursing.

“Get dressed,” he said. “I’ll be back to take you to supper, but I’m on watch tonight. Don’t be scared, Princess. Nothing will hurt you.”

He could at least keepthatpromise, Remin thought savagely, hurrying with Auber to the north gate, where Jinmin and Huber were returning with nineteen men, of whom six had lost limbs. There were no horses.

There was nothing to say. There was nothing the Duke of Andelin could do but get out of the way as Genon hurried to do his work among the wounded.

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