The Sword of Retribution

Pargonn - Part 7

    The discussion between the various delegates went on for several more hours, during which each of them outlined the situation in and around their own countries. They listed their various military commitments and made a rough estimate of the number of troops they could spare to send north and help fight the Shadowarmies. Some of them gave ridiculously low figures, obviously only a token force that they felt they had to send but no larger than they could possibly get away with. The Clandanian delegate, for instance, stated loudly and proudly that they would send five hundred of their finest warriors to help Belthar in its hour of need, an announcement that was greeted scornfully by the others who knew that Clandania had one of the largest armies in the region and was obviously hoping to use it after the war, when all its neighbours were weakened and vulnerable.

     Others, however, were genuinely unable to send very many soldiers, being in rather dire straits at home. The Samnians, for example, were in the middle of a vicious war with the Lirians, the evil inhabitants of the Megran mountains, and were only able to send another five thousand men, in addition to the ten thousand they’d sent earlier. Kenestra and Calmany, on the other hand, both had rather small armies to begin with, only just enough to defend their own borders.

     In contrast, however, the shae folk from Lourell were able to announce that four divisions of the Army of Life could be spared to help fight the Shadowhosts, particularly now that some of their old enemies, the gl-hugs, had called a temporary halt to hostilities in order to fight the same enemy. “When I came to this conference,” the shae said in his beautiful, melodic voice, “I was prepared to commit only two divisions to help you, but now that we learn that twelve houses of the gl-hugs will not be fighting us until the greater enemy had been defeated, I believe that we will be able to spare an additional two divisions. The rest of our army will be enough to fight a purely defensive war against the other gl-hug houses that will continue to attack us.”

     “What about the shae folk of Tenneras?” Lanaris asked the Beltharan General. “Has there been word from them yet?”

     “No, not yet,” replied the General. “Our ambassador is still negotiating with them. They’re still bitterly resentful of all humans, not to mention virtually all other races, since the shae wars, even though they took place thousands of years ago. The shae folk have long memories. And, of course, there’s no point thinking about the Tas-Lanneans at all, assuming they’re more than just a myth.”

     Everyone knew what he meant. After the shae wars, the Tas-Lanneans had shut their entire country off behind an impregnable barrier of magical force and refused to have anything else to do with the rest of the world. No outsider had seen a Tas-Lannean in thousands of years, and it was not even possible to say for certain that the race still existed.

     In the end, the various delegates around the table pledged to send sixty five thousand warriors to help fight the Shadowarmies, consisting of forty thousand trogs, ten thousand shae folk and fifteen thousand humans, most of which would be divided equally between Belthar and Fu Nang, with the rest coming to Pargonn to help them resist the expected sea attack. In addition, the dor-maja said that he would scour the world looking for others of his own kind, along with good dragons and other champions of justice and freedom that might be willing to come to their aid. Sixty five thousand sounded like a lot, but it was really quite a small number compared to the armies of Belthar and Fu Nang, not to mention the Shadowarmy itself. The delegates could send a lot more if they wanted to, but despite everything they’d heard, they still weren’t convinced of the urgency of the situation. The enemy had been defeated three times before, they were thinking. They would inevitably be defeated again. Somehow, Resalintas Knew, they had to be made to understand the real situation. Their victory in the war would depend as much on their ambassadors abroad as on their soldiers.