The air was still, but... something was wrong, Bragi thought. The woman in white... her clothing fluttered as if stirred by a rising wind.
Suddenly, the beasts rose and loped away. Ragnarson sighed. He hadn’t relished facing them.
Mother and son started toward the city.
Ethrian hurled his mother aside. A dark nimbus formed around him. The air crackled. Shih-ka’i bellowed. Varthlokkur caught Nepanthe before she fell. Ragnarson drew his sword, crouched, growled like a cornered beast.
Nepanthe shrieked at Ethrian. The Tervola tackled the boy, clamped fingers round his throat. From the corner of his eye Bragi saw movement on Lioantung’s wall. He whirled, saw a long shaft arcing across the sky. Timing! he thought. His sword hammered the air above Shih-ka’i.
The Tervola bounced to his feet as Bragi pulled the broken spear from the earth. He said something which must have been a thank you, turned to the boy.
It all became confused, Bragi couldn’t tell what was real and what was illusion: The woman in white apparently didn’t exist in the flesh. Something equally fleshless apparently possessed the boy. Mist and Shih-ka’i did a lot of yelling at one another. Ethrian kept trying to shout and Shih-ka’i kept stopping him. The woman in white kept helping her partner’s enemies. At one point Varthlokkur spoke at length in the language of Shinsan. Then a great black cloud exploded from Ethrian, rushed upward in an oily pillar. At its base a glistening dome formed. And Mist said, “The devil in him has been forced out.”
Baffled, Bragi stared up the pillar of black smoke-stuff. “I don’t understand what’s going on.”
“We’ve won. We’ve conquered the Deliverer.”
“I still don’t understand. You said that before.”
“I didn’t....”
The earth trembled beneath them. Maybe he couldn’t understand everything, but he could sense that great forces were contending. He would have to be content to take Mist’s word for the importance of the confrontation.
“It’s over,” she said. “Let’s leave Nepanthe alone for a while. It was a slim hope, but she lost. Hell.” She started toward the city. The Tervola was hurrying thither already, probably to find out about the shaft that had come within a whisker of killing him. Bragi walked beside Mist. She tried to explain.
Varthlokkur hovered uncertainly between his wife and Mist, finally halted two hundred yards from the site of Ethrian’s fall. Bragi glanced back once, saw the woman in white fade away, saw Nepanthe standing tall and brave beside the gleaming dome. “I hope it comes out for them,” he said.
“Who knows? He’s too damned stiff-necked for his own good. And she has to learn....”
Nepanthe shrieked. Bragi whirled. The dome had vanished. Nepanthe was down on the earth, clutching a body, shouting for Varthlokkur. The wizard raced toward her.
“Good gods,” Mist murmured. “He’s alive. He survived. I don’t believe it. He survived the exorcism.”
“What exorcism?”
“The ghost woman did it while....”
“She never made a sound.”
Mist chuckled weakly. “You didn’t hear her? Then your witch blood isn’t as thick as you claim. Come on. They need to be alone for a while.”
“You can be halfway decent when you want, you know that?”
“Is that a compliment? Don’t kick it around where the Tervola can hear it. I’m a princess of Shinsan now.”
“Speaking of which... well, I was supposed to get my caravan people turned loose. Remember? Hsung hasn’t come through. Michael says he’s gone back to his old ways. We were supposed to get along, I thought.”
“Lord Hsung is something of a problem. I’ll straighten him out. Or get rid of him.” She indicated the wall over the gate. Lord Ssu-ma was up there. “A dead man under Ethrian’s control shot that spear. I have to run back to the war with Matayanga. Stay close to Lord Ssu-ma. Some of his staff would love to stick a knife in you. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
But Ragnarson didn’t see her again. She went on to be Princess of the Dread Empire, and he went back to being King of Kavelin. To being King of a Kingdom where the news of his falling out with Varthlokkur quickly spread. To being King of a troublesome witch’s cauldron almost eager to boil.
He never did understand everything that had happened before the walls of Lioantung. But he did understand what it had cost him.
The threat he never fully appreciated had been removed at the price of Varthlokkur’s support. He sometimes wondered if ever he would be sure he had gotten a bargain.
17 Year 1016 AFE
The Great Championship Match
Dantice leaned backin a plush chair. His feet rested atop a table. To his right a mousey Siluro totalled columns of figures. Opposite him sat a man who weighed over three hundred pounds. Aral said, “The King can’t cover any more bets.”
The Fat Man rumbled, “I can draw another fifty thousand easy. Since you let it out he was betting heavy, Nordmen have been inventing money. They all want a piece of him. They’d be lined up outside if it wasn’t for the weather.” Thunder crashed. The building shook.
“Fifty thousand?”
“Minimum. Maybe a hundred.”
“Tolliver. What’re we carrying now?”
The clerk yanked a paper from the rat’s nest atop the table. “King’s money, a hundred ninety-six thousand, two hundred forty-three. All others, forty-three thousand, four hundred seventy-two.”
“We get a commission on that?”
“Only on the King’s money.”
“How much belongs to Michael Trebilcock?”
“Forty thousand.”
“Meaning three thousand and something is all anybody else would risk. Can you still get odds?”
“They’re getting nervous. But still a good two to one.”
Dantice tapped his front teeth with a fingernail. “What’s the game look like?”
“The King’s going to lose `less there’s a miracle. Charygin Hall reached eight Guards that I know about.”
“Can we offset that?”
“Bribes? No way. This much money on the line,
Charygin Hall ain’t taking no chances. They’ve got their boys locked up so tight even their mothers can’t see them.”
“Then if they lose, nobody will accuse anybody of anything.”
“Be hard to make a case.”
“How would you reach them?”
“Don’t think I could.”
“Uhm.” Dantice dropped his feet, leaned elbows on the table. “But somebody goes in and out. They’ve got to eat.”
“Top officers of the Hall. Nobody we can touch.”
“None of them owe us?”
“Nope. I checked.”
“Who does the cooking?”
“Got an idea?”
“A silly little notion. Been knocking it around a couple days. Suppose the night before the game they ate something that would give them the back door trots next morning. Could you keep your mind on Captures when you had the drizzling shits?”
The Fat Man cackled like a hen laying square eggs. “Oh! Beautiful. But it’d be obvious, wouldn’t it? Forty guys don’t come down with the runs sudden like.”
“Okay. Not everybody. Ten or fifteen. One pot of bad food. Happens all the time, right?”
“They’ll suspect.”
“Naturally. They’re crying foul about the last two games. So are the Guards. Handle it so nobody can prove anything later.”
“You saying do it?”
“And cover the rest of those bets.”
“What about the money?”
“Get some that’s already bet and bet it again.”
“Damn, are they going to howl.”
“Ask me if I care. What can they do about it?”
The Fat Man grinned a lopsided, evil grin. He hated as only a former Nordmen victim could hate. “All right. Death to the Panthers, and all that crap.”
“Good. Tolliver. What’s headed for Throyes?”
/> Ten soldiers stood at attention in Michael Trebilcock’s office. Trebilcock wore his seldom-seen uniform. It gleamed. Inside it, he was a cold, pale, angry devil. The soldiers did not know why they had been summoned. He paced up and down, delaying the telling, making the waiting an exquisite agony.
They were terrified. They had heard the stories about Captain Trebilcock’s cruel way with those who displeased him. The rumble of the storm fed their dread.
Michael stepped back. “Gentlemen.”
One said, “Sir?”
“I can’t hear you, Corporal.”
They knew this formula well. “Sir?” ten throats thundered.
“Good.” For half a minute Trebilcock fumbled through the notes and gewgaws upon his desk. Then he stared each man in the eye. “The Palace Guard. An elite unit. Hand-picked men. Absolutely loyal to His Majesty. Its men ready to lay down their lives.” He settled his rump on the desk’s edge. A scrap of paper dangled from his fingers. “A plush posting. Easy duty. Pretty uniforms. Top pay. No field maneuvers. Envy of everybody in the Army. That right, Corporal Nikkles?”
“Yes sir.”
“And at the opposite extreme might be the Briedenbacher Light. Border duty in Loncaric and the Galmiches. The regiment for bad boys. Right?”
“Yes sir.”
“And then there’s Cargo, where the bad boys send their bad boys. One light horse troop right in the heart of bandit country.”
“Sir?”
“Nikkles, this piece of paper says you’re going to become second stableboy with the Cargo troop.”
“Sir?”
“Why? What did you do? Nothing. Yet. If you do, it’s Cargo for the lot of you.”
“But sir....”
“Six days ago Corporal Kalsy Nikkles was paid a sum of forty crowns silver. Twenty-five crowns each were paid to Willem Fletcher and his brother Clete. Next day, twenty crowns each to Arman Sartella, Maries Bowyer... need I continue?”
Nikkles said, “Captain, I....” and stopped.
“Not much you can say, is there? Here’s the choice. Cargo or the palace. If you want to stay here, make sure the Guards beat the Panthers.”
“Sir, we can’t. The only reason I took the money is everybody said they’re going to pound us anyway.”
“If they do, you’re gone.”
Someone grumbled, “That’s not fair.”
“Fair doesn’t interest me. Winning does. You do have a third option. Desertion. That puts you on my shit list. I’ll catch up eventually.” Trebilcock surveyed their ten grey faces. “Nikkles, have I made myself clear?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good. We’ll see you on the Captures field. Dismissed.”
“Thelma, find Sergeant Gales.”
“My Lady?”
“Are you deaf, woman? Move!” Inger marched to a window, stared into the storm lashing the city. The thunder had declined in violence, but the rain had not. She shivered.
“My Lady?”
She turned. Gales. How long had she been lost in the cruel storm? “Josiah. What’s happening?”
“Happening? Nothing.”
“Something’s in the wind. Where’s the King?”
“I hear he went out to the cemetery.”
Lightning flashed. Thunder cracked. “That was close. On a day like this?”
“Sometimes he does strange things.”
“I don’t like it. Whenever he’s going to start something, he goes and talks to his dead Queen.”
“Maybe she tells him what he wants to hear.”
“Don’t joke. I’m scared. He could start onus now. Send somebody to watch him.”
“In this weather?”
“In this weather, Josiah.”
“As you wish.” He was trying to remain detached. He didn’t need any more heartaches.
“Let me know what you find out.”
“Of course.” He departed before she became any more unreasonable.
Inger received Gales’ note five hours later. He had been unable to locate the King. Ragnarson had not gone to the cemetery. Her level of fright rose a notch. “At least the wizard is out of the way.”
Ragnarson wore a heavy, waterproof cape. He leaned low over the neck of his horse. Nevertheless, he was soaked to the skin. He shivered in the chill wind. “Got to be a damned fool to be out here.” His words vanished in the wind.
Lightning slammed down. Chunks of an old oak flung through the air. A shattered, steaming branch hit mud a dozen feet behind him. “That could’ve been me. How bad do I want to win this thing?”
He peered into the downpour ahead. Was that it? Yes. The boundary marker. “Get up,” he growled. “Almost there.”
His mare maintained her desolate pace. The footing in the woods was treacherous.
A quarter hour later he swung down, tied the mare, took a trenching tool from behind his saddle. He looked for a specific rock. “What a day. But it has to be today.” The storm would wipe the evidence away.
The rock was flat, twenty inches across and six thick. He tried to move it, slipped on the slick leaves. He tumbled downhill, into six inches of galloping runoff. The rush tried to drag him away. Sputtering, he took his anger back to the rock.
Once he moved it, he dug. The earth flew into the water. The surge carried it away. Then the hole was big enough. He reinforced it with a few small stones, slid the flat rock back into place, considered his handiwork. “Guess it’ll do.”
That was one. Four to go. And already his hands hurt. He was going to have blisters on his blisters.
He and his mare were covered with mud before he finished. He was cold and miserable and ached in every muscle. He patted the mare’s neck. “Let’s go home, Lady.” Headed south, she set a more ambitious pace.
“Never seen you this glum, Derel,” Ragnarson said. “Got your stuff all packed?”
“Sire?”
“Ready to run for it if we lose today?”
“I’m more afraid of what they’ll do if you win.”
“Scream and yell and cuss like you ain’t never heard.”
“That too.”
“Buck up. We’ll come up smelling like roses.”
“Better start dividing the money,” Dantice told the Fat Man.
“We don’t know who’s going to win.”
“Let’s assume it’ll go our way. Get the King’s share ready. We’ll have to move it out fast.”
“Damned big temptation.”
“No shit. Only it’s too big. You could never disappear with that much.”
“What if the King loses?”
“We have Tolliver start paying off. We run like hell before anybody finds out we bet money we don’t have.”
Michael did a few jumping jacks to loosen up. He told his mirror, “Rich or broke tonight, son. You fool.”
Dahl Haas dismounted before the King’s house in Lieneke Lane. Three carriages rolled to a stop behind him. He dashed to the door. “Ready, My Lady?”
“Yes. What’s it all about?”
“Just a precaution. Come on, men. Get these chests loaded.”
“Precaution against what, Dahl?”
“Against losing the Captures match. If the Guards go down, we’re all done for.”
“I don’t understand. That sounds too melodramatic.”
“I’ll explain when we’re rolling.”
Sherilee herded the children onto the porch. Dahl could not conceal his disapproval.
“The road to where?” Kristen asked.
“Sedlmayr first. Out of the country if the news is bad.”
***
Inger summoned her maid. “Thelma, what’s going on? Has everybody gone crazy?”
“It’s the Captures match, My Lady.”
“Captures? People are acting like it’s the end of the world.”
“It might be for some, My Lady. The King is way out on a limb, they say.”
“You mean all the mystery is over a damned game?”
“Yes, My Lady
.”
Inger dropped into a chair, laughing. “A Captures match! All because of a damned Captures match.” The relief drove her to the edge of hysteria.
Thelma decided she was as mad as her husband.
Bragi called, “Slug. Over here. You too, Michael.”
The whole team milled around outside the castle gate. Trebilcock kept a hard eye on his teammates. They responded satisfactorily.
“Sire?” Slugbait asked.
“Game plan.”
They talked all the way out. At the field Ragnarson tried to give a rousing speech about this being the most critical game of all time, claiming much more than a championship was at stake.
“We going to put this off another day?” one of the judges hollered.
Ragnarson snarled, “Blow your damned horns.” His gut knotted in fear. This was it. The big one. The do or die.
Bragi sprawled atop the moist leaves. There was barely enough daylight to see Michael’s face. He panted, “Even my hair hurts.”
“Oh,” Michael groaned. “I’m a thousand years too old for this.” He rolled onto his stomach, reached over, grabbed the King’s hand. “We did it. We really did it. I don’t believe it. I really don’t believe it.”
“Come on. Let’s go. I want to see that much money all in one place. Ach!”
“What?”
“Cramp.” He laughed. “Know something? Nothing hurts when you win.”
“Yeah. Let’s go before the wind shifts.” He cackled.
“Wonder what happened to those guys, anyway?”
“Who cares? Lucky for us. Oh! Give me a hand. I won’t walk right for a week.”
The news reached Vorgreberg before the teams. Messengers had gone galloping after each score. With the sounding of the second Guards capture a rider had gone to Sir Gjerdrum and General Liakopuios. They scattered the King’s Own and Vorgrebergers through the city, both to prevent disorder and the flight of losing bettors. The third Guards capture had elicited a great cry of rage and agony from the gallery. All the spread bettors had lost.
Despite manipulations on behalf of the Guards, the game had been in doubt till the last. Somebody stayed bought. The Guards tallied their final capture only seconds before the Panthers.
“Help me get on this critter,” Ragnarson growled. “I’m too stiff to swing my leg.”