The Unknown Enemy.Chapter 9.

Chapter 9.

 

    The Order That Can Not Be Ignored.

 

Just after dawn, Smike returned to the throne room. King Syldan looked as if he had been up all night. There was no one else in the room, not even the usual footman. The two men didn't bother with greetings; they got straight to work.

“Stop me if I have missed anything,” the King said, his voice flat and controlled. “We need to get the Foresters back from these ‘incidents’ Tizard has staged. Otherwise, we are short-handed here. But we must do it without Tizard realising we know his plans.”

Smike nodded.

“I also need to send messages to my son, Beldan, and my nephew, Mardan, to warn them,” Syldan continued. “And we need to know how many mountain fighters, the clansmen. we are about to face. And, most importantly, we must act so that the clerk with the limp suspects nothing. Have I missed anything?”

Smike didn’t answer straight away. He paced the room, his boots clicking on the stone. Finally, he turned.

“Sire, the Foresters have practised for this. We call it Exercise Nineteen. If any Forester is given that message, he will know exactly what to do.”

“And what does it mean?” the King asked.

“It means return unseen,” Smike explained. “No banners. No uniforms. No contact with local officials. They come back as shadows, not soldiers. We will add the words Camp Two to the message.”

“Camp Two?”

“It isn’t a place, sire. It’s a person. Prince Mardan. When a Forester is told to go to Camp Two, he does not return to the palace. He regroups at the Prince’s lands and waits for orders. They will even dress villagers or guards in their old cloaks so that, to any spy watching, it looks like the patrols are still there. Tizard will see only what we want him to see.”

“So, who takes the messages? I do not want to reduce my force here any further. At best I have only one hundred and twenty Foresters when they are all here.”

Smike answered without hesitation.

“Don’t forget the forty men at Prince Beldan’s estate, and the same number at Prince Mardan’s,” he said. “We send the new recruits. They’ve passed their tests and begun their training. It will be good practice for them. And best of all, sire, they don't know what the code means. If they are captured, they cannot explain what they do not understand.”

“Your nephew, Gregan, is one of them, isn't he?”

“He is. And I’m told he was the best of the lot. I’ll send him after Captain Mylon.”

“Very well,” the King said. “But how do we keep the spy from seeing the recruits leave?”

Smike hesitated. “Can we trust Thallian, the chief clerk?”

“Definitely,” said the King. “He knows so much that if he were a traitor we would be beaten already. Why?”

Smike allowed himself the faintest grin.
“Best way to stop the spy seeing the recruits leave is for Thallian to keep him so busy he has no chance to look up, let alone send a message.”

Syldan nodded, pacing with his hands clasped behind his back.

“I would like to know more about these Mountain Clans,” he said. “And how many fighters Tizard can raise.”

“Sergeant Jenner is the one to ask,” Smike replied. “His mother was a clanswoman.”

Syldan nodded once. “Then bring him.”

Moments later, Jenner entered the throne room, bowing stiffly.

“Tell us about the clans,” the King commanded.

Jenner nodded. “No one knows them well, sire. They keep to the high valleys and the ridges. Outsiders don’t last long up there.”

“Do your best,” Smike encouraged.

Jenner drew a slow breath. “There are ten tribes. And they spend most of their lives fighting each other. Feuds, raids, old grudges… it never ends.”

Syldan frowned. “Yet they join together when it suits them?”

“Only for one reason,” Jenner said. “If someone from outside threatens one of the tribes. Then the others will come down like wolves. They’ll tear apart anyone who looks like an invader.”

“As I said, there are ten tribes altogether,” he said. “And they’re not one people, sire. They never have been. Each has its own chief, its own grudges.”

” “Will they fight for Tizard?” Syldan asked.

Jenner shrugged. “That depends on what he’s promised them. But… as he’s still alive, I’d say some of them already have.”

“How many?” asked Smike

Jenner held up four fingers. “Four tribes will join Tizard immediately. They hate the Crown’s laws and taxes. They’ll follow him like hounds.”

He lowered his hand and raised two fingers. “Two tribes won’t join him at all. They want peace for their grazing lands. They’ll stand with you if they must.”

He raised another two fingers. “Two more are uncertain. They watch the wind. If you look strong, they stay away. If you look weak, they join Tizard.”

Finally, he showed the last two fingers. “The final pair wait until the fighting starts. They only join the side they think is winning.”

Syldan’s expression darkened. “So, at worst… eight tribes.”

“Over two thousand warriors, sire,” Jenner said grimly. “At worst, sire. But not at once. The clans don’t march together. They come in waves,  loud, wild, and hard to stop.”

“How do they fight?” Syldan asked.

“And what weapons do they use?” added Smike.

“Wildly, sire. That’s the first thing to understand. They don’t fight like soldiers. They don’t even fight like bandits.”

Syldan waited, and Jenner went on.

“No bows. No lines. No orders. They use whatever they can swing , axes, short spears, long knives, round shields. Anything they can carry up a mountain. “Before a battle they drink. They dance. They shout themselves into a frenzy. They work themselves up until they feel no pain, then they charge.”

Smike nodded once , he had seen something similar in the far north.

Jenner continued:

“There’s no discipline. No training. But they’re fierce, sire. Fierce enough to break a line if the line isn’t ready. They are storms, sire. If Tizard turns them loose, they hit hard and fast. A Forester can outfight any one of them, but a thousand of them in a rage will trample a kingdom.”

Jenner looked down at the floor. “Sorry, sire… but if it comes to that, the kingdom will be destroyed.”

King Syldan sighed. “Thank you, Jenner. Speak of this to no one.”

They watched Jenner leave, the door closing softly behind him.

“If I may,” Smike said, “I would like to speak to the recruits before they leave.”

“Yes, of course,” replied the King. “And I shall deal with this clerk. I would very much like to know why he has betrayed me. On your way down, ask a footman to step in.”

Smike bowed and left. He found the recruits gathered in a small stone room, waiting for their orders. They straightened as the Captain entered.

“Leave quietly,” Smike commanded. “Go one by one. Wear your ordinary clothes, not your uniforms. Speak to no one. Find the Foresters. The message is simple: Exercise Nineteen, Camp Two.”

The lads exchanged puzzled looks.

“I know it means nothing to you,” Smike added, “but it will to the people who matter.”

He pointed to the first lad. “You, Tower Thirty-Six.” The boy saluted and slipped out. One by one, Smike sent them off, each with a destination and a salute, until only his nephew, Gregan, remained.

Smike studied him. “I’m told you were the best tracker the examiners have ever met. I hope that’s true.”

The lad flushed. “I didn’t know that, sir.”

“Captain Mylon was impressed,” Smike said. “That’s why I’m sending you to find him. He is somewhere in the wilds beyond Harthwick. You’ll need every skill you have. He is… very, very good at disappearing.”

“I’ll find him,” Gregan said, standing tall.

“Good.” Smike reached out and gave a slightly awkward pat to his nephew’s shoulder. “Take care. Your mother and grandmother would never forgive me if something happened to you.”

“Yes, sir,” the lad said with a cheeky grin, and then he was gone.

Harthwick was a scatter of stone farmsteads and long, sloping sheep-fields. The place smelled of heather and wool. Gregan did not bother with the cottages; he went straight to the people who knew the land best.

He found two shepherds on a high field. “I’m looking for a party of Foresters. Captain Mylon among them.”

The older shepherd pointed his crook toward the rising slopes. “Up the east ridge. Past the old sheepfold. Into Black-Wood Pass. They asked after water and shelter, they meant to go deep.”

“Thank you,” Gregan said.

“You going after them alone?” the shepherd asked, surprised. “Mind yourself. Mylon’s a hard man to find.”

Gregan allowed himself a small, confident smile. “That’s why they sent me.”

He reached Black-Wood Pass late in the afternoon. Like Mylon and his men, he found the rockfall. He stopped and looked at it carefully. “This is not natural,” he murmured. “Someone has put these rocks here.”

He crouched, and studied the scene with the same sharp eye that impressed the examiners. He did not need to touch anything. He doesn’t speak. He simply read the ground.

He scanned the ridges the way Mylon did, slowly, patiently, letting the light shift and reveal what it will.

Nothing moved. He stepped back from the rockfall and looked at the left‑hand wall of the pass. There was a narrow ledge. Barely even a goat‑path.
Almost invisible unless you knew how to look for it.

And there, faint, almost nothing, a scuff on the stone where a boot once tested its weight.

A Forester’s boot.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured.

He slung his pack higher, tested the first foothold and began to climb.

The climb grew steeper as he left Black‑Wood Pass behind. The air thinned, the wind sharpened, and the ground underfoot shifted from turf to broken stone. He moved quickly now, not recklessly, but with purpose. Mylon’s trail was clearer here, fresher, the signs more recent.

He found a scuffed boot print in a patch of shale. Further on there was a  pine branch bent at shoulder height, then, pebble kicked downhill, still resting where it had bounced.

He crouched beside the print, brushing a fingertip along its edge. The wind hadn’t softened it. The sun hadn’t baked it flat. This was no more than a few hours old.

His pulse quickened.

He stood and scanned the ridge ahead. The mountains were quiet, but not empty. He felt it, that subtle shift in the air, the sense of being near something hidden, something watchful.

Then he saw it: a tiny mark on a boulder, no bigger than a thumbnail. A Forester sign. A direction marker. Fresh.

He grinned despite himself.

“I’m close.”

He adjusted his pack and pushed on, climbing toward the high shelf of rock where the sign pointed.

The path narrowed to a ledge barely wide enough for a goat. He edged along it, one hand on the rock wall, the drop yawning below. Then the ledge widened suddenly, opening into a shallow hollow tucked beneath an overhang of stone.

Suddenly, a shape shifted in the shadows.

A man stepped forward, bow in hand. Another appeared behind him. A third emerged from the rocks above, silent as snowfall. They were Mylon’s men.

From deeper in the hollow, a figure rose, his cloak blending perfectly with the stone. Captain Mylon. He studied Gregan for a long moment. “You were looking for us?”

Gregan let out a breath. “Captain Smike sent a message, sir. Exercise Nineteen, Camp Two.”

Mylon’s reaction was small, but every man in the hollow felt it. He turned to his patrol. “Orders are orders. Break camp.”

The Foresters moved at once, silent and efficient. They folded blankets and stamped out their fire, vanishing as if they had never been there.

Mylon faced the lad again. “We go back to Harthwick and pick up the horses.”

Gregan nodded, pride swelling in his chest. Mylon’s gaze softened just a fraction. “You kept your head,” he said. “Good. You’ll need to keep it for the journey back. Stay close, goat-paths don’t forgive mistakes.”

At Tower Thirty-Six, the two Foresters on duty heard the message from their recruit. They exchanged a sharp glance. “Right,” the older one said. “Time to vanish.”

They went down to the village and spoke to the reeve. Within the hour, the Foresters had swapped their uniforms for the homespun clothes of the villagers. The village men accepted the green uniforms with solemn pride.

“You know what to do,” the older Forester said. “Walk the parapet. Keep the fire ready. Make noise at the right times. From a distance, no one will know the difference.”

The villagers disappeared into the tower. From the valley below, silhouettes moved against the sky with the steady, watchful rhythm of trained sentries.

The real Foresters mounted their horses and slipped away, looking like nothing more than ordinary travellers. The same thing happened at Tower Thirty-Seven and Tower Thirty-Eight.

Quietly and unheeded, all of Smike’s men were on their way to Camp Two. To Tizard’s spies, the towers looked exactly as they always had—but the real soldiers were already moving into position.