Another said, “Sounds to me like he’s part of what the Queen was saying. That buzzard is sitting up there laughing at us. The way things were going, he couldn’t do anything that didn’t make him look bad. But if we do anything now, it’ll look like treason. Nobody would much complain if something happened to us.”
Inger said, “There are a lot who would cheer. A lot who resent the fact that there are so many foreigners in the palace. They like us less than they like my husband.”
“That raises a question that’s never been adequately answered, My Lady. What do we do with the man? Assuming we ever do take over?”
“That’s a moot question.” And one I want to avoid, Inger thought. “Our taking power isn’t even a pipe dream anymore. Survival is the question here. We have to decide what I’m going to tell Trebilcock tomorrow.”
“Stall him.”
“Put him off.”
“What if he won’t be stalled?” She didn’t want to stall. She was tired of this dreary little kingdom and its plague of selfish nobles, tired of the role her family had thrust upon her. She was tired of being afraid, and tired of being in continuous danger. She was ready to meet Michael’s conditions. She just wanted to get away, to go home, to raise her son and be free of the vicissitudes of politics.
She wished she could ride away the way Bragi had described, drifting off into history, Kavelin’s crown left for whoever wanted it. Maybe she should have offered to ride away with him. It might have been interesting, living with him the way his first wife had, with every day an honest struggle for honest pay....
“My Lady?”
“Yes? Sorry. I was daydreaming. All right. I’ll try to stall him. Meantime, find out what’s going on. Try to contact the Estates again. If there’s anything I should know, tell me before Trebilcock shows up. Now go somewhere. I need to think.”
What she needed was time alone, time not so much to think as to weep for everything that might have been, everything she had hoped for in the few hours between her receipt of Bragi’s proposal and her having gone to Dane for advice.
Dreams die hard.
Ragnarson gave the signal. The light horse company surged forward, swept round the flank of the hill, hurtled toward the shanty trading center built alongside the ruins of Gog-Ahlan. “Drums,” he shouted. “Double cadence, forward.”
Drums began grumbling. The troops picked up the beat and double-timed forward. The heavy horse rolled along at their flanks. “They look good,” Ragnarson told Baron Hardle. “Very good indeed.”
Sourly, Hardle replied, “They’ve had good leadership. And they believe in their supreme commander.”
Ragnarson scowled. Hardle was worse than Gjerdrum. But give the man his due, he wasn’t sabotaging anything. He was performing his tasks to the limits of his capacity.
“Back with your men. Septien!” he shouted at the commander of his Marena Dimura scouts. “Move out. If anybody gets by you I’ll have your scalp.”
The scouts galloped off to interdict the road to Throyes. They were to stop anyone who escaped the light horse.
Ragnarson spurred his mount, hastened to the head of the column. He rounded the flank of the hill and looked out on the plain where the ruins lay. “What the hell?”
There was nothing there. At least, nothing to compare with what had been there last time he’d come this way. The trading town had been a city then, wild and colorful and ramshackle. Now there was nothing but a neat geometric layout. A barracks city with only a few non-standard buildings off to one side. The barracks and the low curtain wall surrounding them seemed to have been assembled from stone salvaged from the ruins.
“That makes sense,” he muttered. “Use the materials at hand. And why would the traders stay after trade was cut off?”
Ragnarson pointed at a trumpeter, beckoned, charged toward the town. He was certain he would find it wholly abandoned. All this energy expended for nothing. But it would be good for the men. It would get them used to moving when it was time to move.
The light horse were almost upon the barracks, their wings sweeping forward to surround the buildings, when a lone horseman appeared among the ramshackle civilian structures to the right. He whipped his animal into a gallop. A squadron of horsemen turned after him. Ragnarson did the same. In the distance Septien swung back as he spotted the horsemen too.
The man turned this way, that, and saw all escape fade away. He pulled up and waited. In moments he was surrounded.
Bragi reined in, looked the man over. “Throyen. Anyone speak the language?” Most Kaveliners spoke several tongues, if only because there were four languages current in Kavelin itself. Many more spoke the tongue of one or another of the kingdom’s trading partners. Of those Throyes had been the most important.
“Here, Sire,” one soldier said, and another raised his hand.
“Ask him questions. The kind of things we’re interested in.”
The soldiers asked when the legion had withdrawn, where the civilians had gone, what this one man had been doing there alone. They asked about the surrounding territory, and about what lay between Gog-Ahlan and Throyes. Bragi occasionally suggested additional questions. The prisoner was moderately cooperative.
He had been left to watch the pass. Insofar as he knew, there were no armed forces between Gog-Ahlan and Throyes. “Things have gone bad wrong,” he said. “El Murid has a new general. Better than the Scourge of God, the old people say: I know we lost a couple of big battles. They’ve been sending everyone to the fighting.”
Ragnarson exchanged glances with Hardle and Gjerdrum. “Better than the Scourge of God, eh?” Bragi muttered.
Hardle said, “He must be if he’s making a showing against everything Lord Hsung’s thrown in.”
And Gjerdrum, “You think Habibullah exaggerated Yasmid’s weakness?”
“No. He believed the story he was telling. Those people are funny. They’ll fight like devils for a leader they believe in. You’re not old enough to remember the things Nassef and el Kader did. Have the Baron tell you sometime. They damned near conquered the world.”
The army made camp thirty miles southeast of Gog-Ahlan. Ragnarson kept his captains up late. It was obvious from his picking of nits that he wasn’t comfortable with what he was doing. He went walking the camp perimeter after sending the others to bed.
It was a cool night, boding the approach of autumn. The stars were crisp and cold in the black felt sky. The encampment was orderly, and the cooking fires were low and shielded from the casual, distant eye.
These are good men, he thought. The best I’ve ever led. Perfectly honed, well-disciplined, and positively motivated. Were it not for the sorcery, they would stand up well to Shinsan.
What is the matter with me? Why am I doubting myself?
Why am I doing this? Logic weighs against it, as Gjerdrum and Hardle remind me with every look. Even if I do swoop in, and pull off the biggest coup of my life, what’s really been gained? What drives me? Why do I have to do this? Because so much has gone badly at home? Am I trying to balance my failure as King with success at the one thing I can do well?
He stopped at the point of camp farthest south, stared toward where Throyes lay. His intuition had nothing to say. Instead, ghosts from his past hemmed him in. He remembered the friends and loved ones lost, the triumphs and defeats, the good times and bad. “I’m here because I don’t know any better,” he whispered. “I’ve been hurrying toward a fight, or running away from one, since I was fifteen years old. This peace since the end of the wars is the longest I’ve ever gone through. Maybe helping Mist woke something inside me.”
A shooting star arced across the sky. “A man’s life. One bright moment in the darkness. Am I looking for a flashy exit?”
When you got down to it, this raid had suicidal aspects. Hsung might be a renegade defying his Princess, but he was Tervola. If he were destroyed, or severely embarrassed, his brethren would be that much more incensed, that much more determined to settle scores....
Ragnarson jumped.
“Sire?”
“You startled me, soldier.”
“I didn’t mean to, Sire. I was being quiet on account of you might be thinking about something important.”
Bragi chuckled. “Who can say?”
The soldier saluted and started to move on.
“Hold on a second.”
“Sire?”
“What do you think about this?”
“This, Sire?”
“This march on Throyes. What do you think? What do the men think? Honestly, now. I was a soldier myself once.”
“Well, Sire, I don’t think anybody is happy about it. Nobody understands. But for the most part they figure you know what you’re doing, and it must be important or we wouldn’t be out here.”
Curious, Bragi thought. They still trust me. “Not that much grumbling and second-guessing?” Every soldier was a general, figuring he knew better than the people up top.
“No, Sire. Like I said, a lot of wondering why, but the only bitching is about the food.”
“Some things never change. Thanks, son. On about your rounds now.” He fixed his gaze on distant Throyes once more.
Four days, he thought. A hard, fast march. Into the city. Capture Hsung’s headquarters. Wipe out his puppets. Give the pro-western and faithful Throyens a chance to organize, then scuttle back home.
I hope we take Hsung alive.... Ought to put him in a zoo and charge admission.
Four days. Will my nerves hold out?
Day dawned brisk and clear. Bragi bounced out of his tent and did a few jumping jacks. “What’s that?” he yelled to his cook. “Smells damned good.” He felt fantastic. He’d had a restful night, with no troubling dreams. The morning was one of those when everything seemed right, when he felt ready to whip the world.
He walked around behind his tent, which stood atop a hummock, stared off in the direction of Throyes. Can’t be more than sixty miles now, he thought. Push hard today, rest well tonight, and hit them tomorrow.
It was going to go right. He knew it. All that soul-searching and worry had been for nothing. Throyes would fall easily. If it went well enough he might push on south, help Yasmid wrap Hsung’s army in a pocket where it could be destroyed.
Wouldn’t that frost the Tervola? More of their legions casually crushed by the western bane? Ha! And Mist? He’d love to see her face when she got the news. Serve her right for not keeping Hsung on a shorter leash.
He was sure Hsung didn’t have Mist’s sanction. She must be having trouble getting the Tervola into line. Nobility could be restless, as well he knew.
“Good morning, Baron,” he said cheerfully, as Hardle came up the slope to join him. “Isn’t it a glorious day?”
Hardle smiled. “It is indeed, Sire. There’s a magic in the air, isn’t there?”
“I don’t know what it is, but I feel great. I hope it’s not just you and me.”
It was not. The feeling infected everyone, though nerves should have been bowstring tight. But there are those mornings when things just seem ideal, and the world appears a beautiful place to all but the most sour of heart.
Even Sir Gjerdrum was cheerful. He hadn’t smiled since Maisak. In private, he said, “I’ve been thinking, Bragi. You may be right about this. We might pull it off. And if we do, it might be the coup we need. It might get Shinsan off our backs for our lifetimes. It might be the stroke that silences our enemies at home. And they can’t wait a lifetime. It’s only the old Nordmen who want to get rid of us. There won’t be many to replace them when they die off.”
Bragi punched Gjerdrum’s biceps. “Now you’re getting it. This looked like a long shot when we started, but now I think we’ll manage it. Wizard or no wizard.” For days he had been looking over his shoulder, expecting Varthlokkur to appear. He assumed that the wizard would relent before the army reached Throyes.
“You think he’ll show?”
“I’m confident. He’s stubborn, so he’ll try to make me worry, but he’ll be here in time.”
Breakfast finished, Ragnarson got the army moving. He had his scouts range far ahead, it wouldn’t be long before they encountered some of the outlying farmsteads and manors orbiting Throyes. They were only seventy or eighty miles from the sea now. Though it was sparse, there was enough rainfall to support some cereal crops.
The night chill burned off fast. The day turned warm, though it never really became hot. The sky remained a clear, incredible cerulean blue. Bragi continued to marvel at how grand a world surrounded him. The hours slipped by.
“Look there, Klaus,” he told one of his bodyguards. “That bird. It’s a gull. We slide over the top of that range of hills and, if it stays this clear, you’ll be able to see the sea.”
The hills came closer. They were all rounded, humpy things, very old, carpeted with sere grass which gave them a tawny appearance. Off to the east there was a long black swath where a grass fire had run wild.
“Yo, Sire,” a man shouted, pointing. “Riders coming in from the van.”
Bragi stood in his stirrups, watched the men approach. They weren’t hurrying. A routine report. He sat down, urged his mount forward.
“Sire,” one scout said,, we’ve found a small watch-post.” He indicated a hill slightly off the line of march. “Looks out over most of the plain. It wasn’t manned, but there’s a garrison in an adobe fort behind the hill. Twenty men, near as we could judge. Shinsan. They didn’t act like they knew we were here.”
“Uhm,” Bragi grunted. He glanced back. The column was raising a lot of dust. “Is it that hill standing alone, out this way from the rest of the range?”
“Yes, Sire.”
“Uhm. Did you see if there were any Tervola or Aspirators there?”
“No sign of any, Sire.”
“You left somebody to watch? To keep them off that hill?”
“Yes, Sire.”
“Good. Messenger. Get me Captain Tompkin.” Back to the scout. “That fort very tough? Any reason a light horse company couldn’t take it?”
“It’s not really a fort, Sire. More like an adobe blockhouse with a four foot curtain wall around it. The gate was off its hinges.”
“Good enough. Show Tompkin where it’s at. Give him a look from the top of the hill. He can decide what’s the best way to take it.”
The attack went smoothly. Tompkin returned to report that the garrison of eighteen, taken by surprise, had fought well but in vain.
“They should have been on their toes,” Bragi said. “When you’ve got a war going you’ve got to watch your back as close as your front.”
The column began skirting the hill during the afternoon.
Bragi remained cheerful. Twenty miles of hills and ten of flatland and he would be pounding on the gates of Throyes. He would camp in the hills tonight, and swoop down in the morning.
“Sire.”
Bragi looked where the man was pointing, to his left and the column’s rear. Riders were coming in fast. The screen of outriders was folding in behind them.
“That doesn’t look good. Halt the column. Trumpets, blow commanders to me.”
Gjerdrum arrived first. Bragi told him, “Get up that hill and see what you can see.”
The knight wheeled away. Five minutes later the scouts arrived, their horses lathered and winded and stumbling. Their leader swung down and began babbling excitedly in Marena Dimura.
“Hold on, son. Slow down. I can’t follow when you talk that fast.”
The man jumped up and down and pointed. Bragi still didn’t get what he said, but his meaning was obvious enough. There was trouble out that way.
Captain Septien arrived, listened, went grey. “Sire,” he said,, there’s a Shinsaner cohort headed this way.”
“They seen us?”
The chief scout asked, listened. “He doesn’t know.”
“All right. Damn it all anyway. Baron, take charge here. Get the outriders in. Get the column behind the hill. I’m going up top to watch. You
. You. You.” He indicated messengers. “Come with me.”
He met Gjerdrum halfway up. The knight looked greyer than Septien had. “What is it, Gjerdrum?”
Gjerdrum swallowed, said, “You’d better go see for yourself.”
“Bad, eh?”
“Yes.”
Bragi ascended to the watch-post. The scout had been right. Five or six hundred men formed a dark stain moving his way. No problem, really, except... except that that was just one of four such stains moving in from different directions.
“Gjerdrum. Think there’s more of them?”
“Yes. In the hills. That’s where I’d have put them.”
“Right. No doubt that they know we’re here? That they’re coming after us?”
“Not in my mind.”
“How did they know? And where did they come from? They’re supposed to be tied up down south.”
“What will we do?”
“We have the interior advantage. They’re scattered. Get down there, take the horse out and smash... that bunch. They’re the closest.” The armies of the Dread Empire seldom used mounted warriors. Against western heavy cavalry they hadn’t ever shown well. “Then come across after this bunch due east of us. Then that bunch there. Knock us a hole we can run out.”
“You’re going to run for it?”
“Damned right. No point in going ahead when they know we’re coming. We won’t fight any more than we have to to get away. We get through the gap, we should be able to stay ahead. We’re in as good a condition, and they’ll have to break through the horse to reach the rest of us.”
Bragi scanned the plains again. He was disappointed but not upset. The mood of the day persisted. The trap did not look inescapable. “You bastard, Hsung, you won a round. But I’ll get you one of these days. Get going, Gjerdrum. Runner. Message to Baron Hardle. We’re going to dig in on this hill till Sir Gjerdrum clears us a way out. Go tell him.”
Bragi looked at the approaching enemy again, then elevated his eyes to the sky. There was one small trouble with his scheme. There might not be enough light left for Gjerdrum to open a wide enough gap.
Gjerdrum did crush two of the enemy units before the seeing became poor. But four more groups appeared. No hole big enough opened. “A whole damned legion, must be,” Ragnarson murmured. Meaning the force he faced was at least as strong as his own. And, overall, better trained, armed, and disciplined. His men were good, but the soldiers of the Dread Empire were better.