Octobers Baby

TEN: The Closing Circles

i) From the jaws of despair

Ragnarson collapsed onto a rock. He could scarcely remain awake. The Nordmen gave up their weapons meekly, though puzzledly. They couldn't believe that they had been beaten by lesser men.

For Bragi, too, it seemed a dream. It had taken two man-breaking weeks, but he had slipped out of the destroying vise.

He had fled Maisak certain he would never escape the Gap. Enemies had lain before and behind him, and there had been no way to turn aside.

He had outrun the Captal, almost flying into the arms of the eastern barons, who were pursuing Sir Andvbur Kimberlin, then had made a way to the side, out of the inescapable trap of a box canyon. At least, his enemies had thought it inescapable.

While they had taken the measure of one another and he had goaded them into fighting, his men had cut stairs up the canyon wall. Abandoning everything but weapons, they had climbed out one by one. Meanwhile, with a few Trolledyngjans and Itaskians, Ragnarson had harassed the Captal's surviving Shinsaners so they wouldn't get the best of the barons.

The desultory, constricted, unimaginative combat between pretenders had taken four days to resolve itself. The barons had had numbers, the Captal sorcery and men fanatically devoted to his child-pretender.

Ragnarson felt that, this time, he had won a decisive victory. He had won time. The Captal couldn't muster new forces before winter sealed the Gap. The succession might be determined by spring. And the eastern Nordmen had been crushed. For the moment he and Volstokin commanded the only major forces in Kavelin. If he moved swiftly, while winter prevented external interests from aiding favorites, he could fulfill his commission.

And he could return to Elana.

If Haroun would let him. What Haroun's plans were he didn't know.

He had sent his men up the stone stairs, over mountains, and into the Gap behind the barons. The animals and equipment he had abandoned had become bait. They had rushed to the plunder.

Ragnarson's captains, led by Blackfang, had struck savagely. In bitter fighting they had closed the canyon behind the Nordmen. Bragi and a small group had held the stairs against a repeat of his own escape.

There was no water in that canyon. Ragnarson's animals had already devoured the sparse forage. The arrowstorm, once the mouth narrows had been secured, had been impenetrable. The Nordmen had had no choice.

There had been more to it, as there was to all stories: heroism of men pushing themselves beyond believed limits; inspired leadership by Blackfang, Ahring, Al-tenkirk, and Sir Andvbur; and unsuspected bits of character surfacing.

Ragnarson studied Sir Andvbur. His judgment of the young knight's coolness and competence had proven out during Kimberlin's operation around the headwaters of the Ebeler. Under him, the Wessons had shown well against the barons, particularly during disengagement and withdrawal.

But the first thing he had done, after getting his troops safely into the box canyon, had been to throw a tantrum.

"Both leaders think they can handle us later," he had said.

"You sound bitter."

"1 am. Colonel, you haven't lived with their arrogance. Kavelin is the richest country in the Lesser Kingdoms, and that's not just in wealth and resources. There're fortunes in human potential here. But you find Wesson, Siluro, and Marena Dimura geniuses plowing, emptying chamberpots, and eating grubs in the forests. They're not allowed anything else. Meantime, Nordmen morons are pushing Kavelin toward disaster. You think it's historical pressure that has the lower classes rebelling? No. It's because of the blind excesses of my class... Men like Eanred Tarlson could help make this kingdom decent for everybody. But they never get anywhere. Unless, like Tarlson, they obtain Royal favor. It's frustrating. Infuriating."

Ragnarson had made no comment at the time.

He hadn't realized that Sir Andvbur had a Cause. He decided he had best keep an eye on the man.

Blackfang and Ahring took seats beside him. "We should get the hell out before Shinsan tries for a rematch," said Haaken. "But there ain't nobody here who could walk a mile."

"Not much choice, then, is there? Why worry?"

Blackfang shrugged.

"What about the prisoners?" Ahring asked.

"Won't have them long. We're going to Vorgreberg." He glanced up. The sky was nasty again. There had been cold rain off and on since his withdrawal from Maisak. It was getting on time to worry about wintering the army.

Two days later, as he returned to the march, the Marena Dimura brought him a young messenger.

"Wouldn't be related to Eanred Tarlson, would you?" Bragi asked, as he broke Royal seals.

"My father, sir." .

"You're Gjerdruni, eh? Your father said you were at university."

"I came home when the trouble started. I knew he'd need help. Especially if anything happened to him."

"Eh?" But he had begun reading.

His orders were to hasten to Vorgreberg and assume the capital's defense. Tarlson had been gravely wounded in a battle with Volstokin. The foreigners were within thirty miles of the city.

"Tell her I'm on my way," he said.

The boy rode off, never having dismounted. Ragnar-son wondered if he could get there in time. The rain would f complicate river crossings in the lowlands. And Tarlson's injuries might cost the Queen the support he brought her by force of personality. He might lead his men to an enemy city. "Haaken! Ahring! Altenkirk! Sir Andvbur!"

ii) Travels with the enemy

"Woe! Am foolest of fools," Mocker mumbled over and over."

The dungeon days had stretched into weeks, a parade of identical bores. Kirsten had forgotten him due to other pressures. Those he could judge only by his guards. Always sullen and vicious, they became worse whenever the Breitbarth fortunes waned. News arrived only when another subversive was imprisoned.

One day the turnkeys vanished. Every available man had been drafted to resist Volstokin's perfidy.

After crushing resistance, Vodicka visited the dun­geons. Mocker tried to appear small in his corner. The Volstokiners were hunting someone. And he had had a premonition.

"This one," he heard.

He looked up. A tall, lean, angular man with a wide scar down one cheek considered him with eyes of cold jade. Vodicka. Beside him Was another lean man, shorter, dusky, with high, prominent cheekbones and a huge, hawklike nose. He wore black. His eyes were like those of a snake.

Inwardly, Mocker groaned. A shaghun.

"Hai!" He bounced up with a broad grin. "Great King arrives in nick to rescue faithful servant from mouldering death in dungeon of perfidious ally. Breitbarth is treacher, great lord. Was plotting treason from begin­ning ..."

They ignored him.

Mocker sputtered, fumed, and told some of his tallest lies. Vodicka's men put him in chains and led him away. No one explained why.

But he could guess. They knew him. He had done El Murid many small embarrassments. There was the time he had sweet-talked/kidnapped the man's daughter. There was the time he had convinced an important general that he could reveal a short-cut through the Kapenrungs, and had led the man into an army-devouring ambush.

Still, daylight seen from chains was sweeter than dungeon darkness. And at least an illusion of a chance to escape existed.

He could have gotten away. Escape tricks were among his talents. But he saw a chance to lurk on the fringe of the enemy's councils.

He got to see a lot of daylight—and moonlight, starlight, and weather—the next few months, while Volstokin's drunken giant of an army lumbered about Ravelin's western provinces. Vodicka wanted his prizes near him always, but never comfortable.

Mocker didn't get along with his fellow prisoners. They were Nordmen, gentlemen who had barely paid their ransoms to Bragi's agents when taken by Vodicka.

Ragnarson had won himself a low, black place in Vodicka's heart. He had already plundered the best from Ahsens, Dolusich, Gaehle, Holtschlaw, and Heiderscheid provinces. Bragi's leavings were not satisfying the levies, who had been called from their homes for a campaign that would last past harvest time.

Vodicka kept escalating his promises to keep his army from evaporating.

Mocker wished he could get out among the troops. The damage he could talk... But his guards, now, were men of Hammad al Nakir. They were deaf to words not approved by their shaghun. His chance to escape had passed him by. The looting improved in Echtenache and Rubbelke, though there a price in blood had to be paid. In Rubbelke, sixty miles west of Vorgreberg and fifteen north of the caravan route, a thousand Nordmen met Volstokin on the plains before Woerheide.

Vodicka insisted that his prisoners watch. His pride still stung from the difficulty he had had forcing the Armstead ford.

Vodicka was more talented at diplomacy and intrigue than at war, but refused to admit his shortcomings.

Tons of flesh and steel surged together in long, thunderous waves amidst storms of dust and swirling autumn leaves. Swords like lightning flashed in the thunderheads of war; the earth received a rain of blood and broken blades and bodies.

Volstokin's knights began to flee. Enraged, Vodicka prepared to sacrifice his infantry.

Mocker watched with delight and game-fan commen­tary. The Nordmen had no infantry of their own. Unhorsed, without the protection of footmen, they would be easy prey for Volstokin's more mobile men-at-arms.

The shaghun asked Vodicka to hold the infantry. He would turn the tide.

Mocker had encountered many wizards. This one was no mountain-mover, but was superior for a survivor of El Murid's early anti-sorcery program. If he were an example of what the Disciple had been developing behind the Sahel, the west was in for some wicked surprises.

He conjured bears from smoke, unnaturally huge monsters misty about the edges but fanged and clawed like creatures bred only to kill. The Nordmen recognized them harmless, but their mounts were impressed beyond control. They broke, many throwing their riders in their panic.

"Now your infantry," said the shaghun.

"Woe," Mocker mumbled, "am doomed. Am con­demned to hopelessest of hopeless plights. Will never see home of self again." His fellow prisoners watched him curiously. They had never understood his presence. He had done nothing to enlighten them. But he had learned from them.

He knew who planned to betray whom, and when and how, and the most secret of their changing alliances. But Mocker suspected their scheming no longer mattered. Vodicka's and Bragi's armies were the real powers in Ravelin now.

Vodicka's leadership remained indecisive. Twenty miles from Vorgreberg he went into camp. He seemed to be waiting for something.

What came was not what he wanted. From his seat outside Vodicka's pavilion, Mocker listened to the King's curses when he discovered that the Queen's Own, though inferior in numbers, were upon him. While the surprise attack developed, Vodicka and the shaghun argued about why Tarlson was so confident.

Mocker learned why they had been waiting.

They were expecting another Siluro uprising.

But Tarlson should have anticipated that possibility. Had he rounded up the ringleaders?

Mocker supposed that Tarlson, aware of his position, had elected to rely on boldness and speed.

He brought his horsemen in hard and fast, with little armor to slow them. From the beginning it was obvious he was only mounting a raid in force.

Yet it nearly became a victory. Tarlson's men raged through the camp, trailing slaughter and fire. One detachment made off with cattle and horses, another drove for the Royal pavilion.

Mocker saw Tarlson at their head, shouted them on. But Vodicka's house troops and the shaghun's body­guards were hardened veterans.

The shaghun crouched in the pavilion entryway, chanting over colored smokes. If there had ever been a time for a Mocker trick, this was it. He had begun to despair of ever winning free. He wracked his brain. It had to be something that wouldn't get him killed if he failed.

A not-too-kind fate saved him the trouble.

A wild thrust by a dying spearman slipped past Tarlson's shield and found a gap behind his breastplate. The Wesson plunged -from his saddle. With the broken spear still protruding, he surged to his feet.

A youth on a big gray, hardly more than a boy, came on like a steel-edged storm, drove the Volstokiners back, dragged Eanred up behind him. Tarlson's troops screened his withdrawal.

In minutes it was over, the raiders come and gone like a bitter breath of winter wind. Mocker wasn't sure who had won. Vodicka's forces had suffered heavily, but the Queen's men might have lost their unifying symbol...

Mocker reassumed his muddy throne. His future didn't seem bright. He would probably die of pneumonia in a few weeks.

"Ignominious end for a great hero of former times," he told his companions. He cast a promising, speculative glance the shaghun's way.

iii) Reinforcements for Ragnarson

Two hundred men sat horses shagged with winter's approach, forming a column of gray ragged veterans remaining death-still. The chill wind whipped their travel cloaks and pelted them with flurries of dead leaves while promising sleet for the afternoon. There were no young men among them. From beneath battered helmets trailed strands predicting life's winter. Scars on faces and armor whispered of ancient battles won in wars now barely remembered. Not one of that hard-eyed catch of survivors wore a name unknown.

From distant lands they had come in their youth to march with the Free Companies during El Murid's wars, and now they were men without homes or homelands, wanderers damned to eternal travel in search of wars. Before them, a hundred yards away, beyond the Kavelin-Altean border, stood fifty men-at-arms in the livery of Baron Breitbarth. They were Wessons, levies still scratching where their new mail chafed, warriors only by designation.

Rolf Preshka coughed into his hand. Blood flecked the phlegm. Paroxysms racked him till tears came to his eyes.

From his right, Turran asked, "You okay?"

Preshka spat. "I'll be all right."

On Preshka's left, Valther resumed sharpening his sword. Each time they halted, sword and whetstone made soft, deadly music. Valther's eyes sought something beyond the eastern horizon.

Preshka waved a hand overhead.

The column took on metallic life. The mercenaries spread out. Shields and weapons came battle-ready.

The boys beyond the border saw their scars and battered arms, and the dark hollows where the shadows of the wings of death had passed across their eyes. They could cipher the numbers. They shook. But they didn't back down.

"Be a shame to kill them," said Turran.

"Murder," Preshka agreed.

"Where're their officers? Nordmen might be less stubborn."

The scrape scrape of Valther's whetstone carried during a lull in the wind. The Kaveliners shuddered.

Rolf turned. Several places to his right were three old Itaskians still carrying the shields of Sir Tury Hawkwind's White Company. "Lother. Nothomb. Wittekind. Put a few shafts yonder. Don't hurt anybody." Qualifications for the White Company had included an ability to split a willow wand at two hundred paces.

The three dismounted. From well-oiled leather cases they drew the bows that were their most valued possessions, weapons from the hand of Mintert Reusing, the acknowledged master of the bowmaker's trade. They grumbled together, picking targets, judging the breeze.

As one three shafts sped invisibly swift, feathered the heads of leopards in the coats of arms on three tall shields.

The Kaveliners understood. Reluctantly, they laid down their arms.

Preshka coughed, sighed, signaled the advance. East of Damhorst he encountered a band of Kil-dragon's foragers. They were lean men with a few scrawny chickens. The larders of twice-plundered Nordmen were growing empty; Kildragon wouldn't permit looting the underclasses. Since Armstead Reskird had been fighting a guerrilla campaign from the Bodenstead forest, hanging on even after his enemies had given up trying to hunt him down. He had lost a third of his Itaskians, but had replaced them several times over with Wessons and Marena Dimura. He and Preshka joined forces, contin­ued along the caravan route toward Vorgreberg. Other than Volstokin's army there was no force strong enough to resist them. The Nordmen had collapsed.

Preshka wondered where Bragi was. Somewhere deep in the east at last rumor. After Lake Berberich, Lieneke, and Sedlmayr, he had disappeared.

Rolf moved fast, avoiding conflict. There was little resistance. The faces he saw in the ruined towns and castles had had all the fight washed out. He always explained that he was bringing the Queen's peace. His force grew as angry, defeated, directionless soldiers abandoned the Nordmen for the Queen.

He passed south of Woerheide, heard the peasants mumbling about sorcery. It was chilling. What did this shaghun have in his bag of tricks?

And where was Haroun? As much as anyone, bin Yousif was responsible for events in Kavelin. His dark ways were needed now. But there was hardly a rumor of the man.

Then came news of Tarlson's action near Vorgreberg, and of the Queen's forces wavering while mobs bloodied the streets of the capital.

And still no news of Bragi beyond a rumored baronial force having pursued him into the Savernake Gap.

When Preshka's scouts first reported contact with Volstokin's foragers, Rolf told Turran, "We can't handle Vodicka by ourselves." He considered his mercenaries. They had come on speculation, on the basis of his reputation. Would they fight?

"We can distract him," Turran said. "Eat up small forces."

Valther sharpened his sword and stared eastward. Hints of mountain peaks could be seen when weather permitted.

"He's been dallying for months," Reskird observed. "Should've driven straight to Vorgreberg."

"Was it his idea?"

"Eh?"

"El Murid's people might've conned him. So he'll be too unpopular to rule once he's done their catspawing. Want to bet there's a Siluro candidate in the wings, waiting till Bragi's been disposed of?"

"Might take some disposing," Kildragon observed. "He's beaten Volstokin before."

"This mob's got a shaghun. A first-rater, you can bet."

"We haven't reached a decision," Turran interjected.

Preshka glanced his way, frowned. The man still hadn't explained his sudden urge to join this venture.

"They can't know much about us yet," said Kildragon. "So we sneak up on them, hide out—that's hilly country—and give them a swift kick once in a while. Keep them tottering till Vorgreberg gets organized. Way Vodieka's been vacillating, he won't attack with us behind him."

They sneaked, following a corridor of devastation so thorough Volstokin's foragers no longer wandered there. On a gray, icy morning at winter's head, in a drizzle that threatened to become snow, Preshka hurled his force at Vodieka's. He held no one in reserve.

Vodieka's troops were not surprised. Their trouble with Tarlson had taught them to be alert. They reacted well.

Preshka's lung was so bad his fighting capacity was nil. Though he retained overall control, he assigned Kildrag­on tactical command. Because of his stubborn insistence on joining the assault, Turran, Valther, and Uthe Haas stayed near to guard him.

Cursing the rain because of the damage it might do their weapons, the Itaskian bowmen generated a shower of their own from behind Preshka's veterans. The recruits held the flanks, to prevent encirclement of the thrust toward Vodieka's gaudy pavilion.

A spasm racked Preshka. He thought about Elana, the landgrant, and the heartaches he had suffered there. Was this better?

The Volstokiners fought doggedly, if with little inspiration. But Preshka's force penetrated to the defenses of the Royal pavilion.

If he could capture Vodicka, Rolf thought...

"Sorcery!" Turran suddenly growled. He sniffed the wind like a dog. Valther did the same, his head swaying like a cobra's about to strike.

"Hoist me up," Preshka ordered. A moment later, as his feet returned to the bloody mud, "The shaghun. And Mocker, in chains."

"Mocker?"

"Uthe, can you see?"

"No."

"We've got to get that shaghun. Otherwise, we're dead. Kildragon! Put your arrows around the tent door." But his words were swept away by the crash. "I think," he told Turran, "that I just brought you here to die. The attack was a mistake."

Colored smokes began boiling up before the pavilion.

iv) Vorgreberg

It was raining hard. Bits of sleet stung Ragnarson's face and hands. The rising waters of the Spehe, that formed the boundary between the Gudsbrandal Forest and the Siege of Vorgreberg, rushed against his mount, threat­ened to carry them both away. The far bank looked too soggy to climb.

"Where's the damned ford?" he thundered at the Marena Dimura scout there.

The man, though shivering blue, grinned. "Is it, Colonel? Not so good, eh? "Not so good, Adamec."

They had been pushing themselves to the limit for a week, a thousand men strung out along remote, twisty ways, trying to come to the capital unannounced.

His mount fought the current bravely, stubbornly, squished up the far bank. As Ragnarson rose in his stirrups to survey the land beyond, the beast slipped, began sliding, reared.

Rather than risk being dragged under and drowned, Bragi threw himself into the flood. He came up sputtering and cursing, seized the lance a passing soldier offered, slithered up the bank behind him. Across his mind flashed images of the main hall of his home, warm and dry, then Haroun's eagle's face. He staggered to his feet cursing louder than ever.

"Move it there!" he thundered. "It's open country up here. You men, get that safety line across. I'll have your balls on a platter if somebody drowns."

He glanced northeast, wondered how Haaken was coming along. Blackfang, with the bulk of the force and the prisoners, was hiking the caravan route, his function for the moment that of diversion.

Bragi's horsemen, exhausted, on staggering mounts, came out of the river by ones and twos, ragged as bandits. Their banners were tattered and limp. The one thing impressive was that they had done the things they had. He wished he could promise them that the hard days would be over when they reached the city. But no, the business in Kavelin was far from done.

The final rush to Vorgreberg reminded Ragnarson more of a retreat than of a dash to action. He waved to startled Wessons peeping from hovel doors, sometimes gave a greeting in the Queen's name. He had the surviving Trolledyngjans with him, as well as the best of the Itaskians and Wessons. Of the Marena Dimura he had brought only a handful of scouts. They would be of no value in street fighting.

A few columns of smoke rose on the horizon, fires still smoldering in the rain. As they drew nearer Vorgreberg, they encountered bands of refugees camped in the muddy fields. From these he learned that the Queen still ruled, but that her situation was precarious. The rumor was circulating that she was considering abdication to avoid further bloodshed.

That would be in character, Ragnarson thought. All he had heard suggested that the woman was too good for the ingrates she had inherited.

And what of Volstokin?

The refugees knew little. Vodicka had been camped west of the Siege, doing nothing, for a long time. He was waiting. For what?

Ragnarson kept pushing. The rain and sleet kept falling. One thing about the weather, he thought. It would keep the mobs small.

He reached the suburbs unannounced, unexpected, and laughed aloud at the panic he inspired at the guardpost. While his Wesson sergeants answered their challenge, he swept on toward the city wall.

At the gate he again surprised soldiers, men hiding from the weather while the gate stood open. Sloppy, he thought, driving through. In a time so tense, why were they not alert?

Morale problems, he imagined. Despair caused by Tarlson's injury. A growing suspicion that it no longer mattered what they did.

That would change.

The alarm gongs didn't sound till he had reached the parklands around Castle Krief. As the panicky carillon ran through the city, he ordered, "Break the banners."

The men bearing the old, tattered standards dropped back. Others removed sheaths from fresh banners representing the peoples forming Ragnarson's command, as well as standards he had captured in his battles. He made sure Sedlmayr's banner was up near his own. The Royal standard he took in his own hand.

The castle's defenders reached the ramparts in time to observe this bit of drama. After a puzzled minute they broke into ragged cheers.

His eyes met hers the instant he entered the vast courtyard. She stood on a tower balcony. She was a tall woman, fairy slim, small-boned, with long golden hair stringing in the downpour. Her eyes were of a blue deeper than a summer sky at zenith. She wore simple, unadorned white that the rain had pasted to her slight curves...

He learned a lot about her in that moment, before turning to survey the mud-spattered, weary, ragged cutthroats behind him. What would she think?

He dipped his banner in salute. The others did the same.

His eyes locked with hers again. She acknowledged the salute with a nod and smile that almost made the ride worthwhile. He turned to shout orders to keep traffic moving. When he looked back, she was gone.

The political picture could be judged by the fewness of the servants who helped with the animals. Nowhere did he see a dusky Siluro face. Among the soldiery, Nordmen were scarce. Virtually all were flaxen-haired Wessons.

One, a youth trying to keep his head dry with his shirttail, came running. "Gods, Colonel, you made good time."

"Ah, Gjerdrum." He smiled weakly. "You said to hurry."

"1 only got back last night myself. Come. Father wants to see you."

"Like this?" He had had time to become awed. This was a Royal palace. In the field, at war, a King was just another man to him. In their own dens, though, the mighty made him feel the disreputable brigand he currently appeared to be.

"No formalities around here anymore, sir. The Queen... She's a lady who'll understand. If you see what I mean. The war, you know."

"Lead on, then." He left billeting, mess, and stabling to his sergeants and the Queen's.

Tarlson was dying. Propped up in a huge bed, he looked like a man in the final stage of consumption. Like a man who should have died long ago, but who was too stubborn to go. He was too heavily bandaged to move.

She was there too, in her rain-soaked garments, but she stayed in a shadowed corner. Ragnarson nodded, went to Tarlson's side. He tried to avoid dripping and dropping mud on the carpeting.

"I'd heard you'd picked up another scar," he said.

Eanred smiled thinly, replied, "I think this one had my name. Sit. You look exhausted."

Ragnarson shuffled.

From behind him, "Sit down, Colonel. No need preserving furniture for Vodicka's plunderers." She had a melodious voice even when bitter.

"So you finally came," said Tarlson.

"I was summoned."

"Frequently." Tarlson smiled. "But you were right. We couldn't've won defending one city. If I hadn't been rash, you might still be chastising barons."

"I think they've had enough—though I'm out of touch. About the west and south you know. And the east has surrendered."

"Ah? Gjerdrum suggested as much, but wasn't clear."

"He didn't waste any time asking questions."

"He's got a lot to learn. You came swiftly. Alone?" "With a thousand. The rest are afoot, with prisoners. As I've said before, I believe in movement."

"Yes, per Haroun bin Yousif. I want to talk about him. When the pressure is off. Maybe your arrival will help." Ragnarson frowned.

"We intercepted messages from Vodicka to the Siluro community. They're supposed to revolt this week. I hope they'll reconsider now."

Ragnarson remembered the laxity of the Queen's troops. "My men won't be much help if it breaks tonight. And yours don't look good for anything." "What do you suggest?" Tarlson asked. His wounds had taken the vinegar out of him, Ragnarson thought. "Lock the gates. Use the palace guard to flood the Siluro quarter. Post a curfew. Enforce it. They can't do anything if you grab them as they leave their houses."

"And leave the palace undefended?" "In my hands, you mean? Yes. Eanred, you've got your suspicions. I'm not sure why. Let's just say our goals are similar."

Tarlson didn't apologize. "Ravelin makes one suspi­cious. No matter. Be your intentions good or evil, we're in your hands. There's no one else to stop Vodicka."

Ragnarson didn't like it. He was becoming too much a principal in Ravelin's affairs.

"I know my contract," he said stiffly. "I'll try to keep it. But the loyalties of my men lie differently." "Meaning?"

"They've been in Kavelin for months, fighting, and dying, for a cause not their own. They're full of spirit. They haven't let loose for a long time. What happens when they go for a drink and realize they haven't been paid a farthing?..."

"Ah." Tarlson glanced past Ragnarson. "Sums have been held in the Treasury, Colonel," said the Queen. "Though you should be rich with the booty you've taken."

Ragnarson shrugged.

"And what's happened to your fat friend?" Tarlson asked. "As I recall, he disappeared at the Scarlotti ferries."

"That's a ghost that's haunted me since. I don't know. I sent him to Damhorst. All I've heard is that he might be in Breitbarth's hands."

"He may be with Vodicka now," said Tarlson. "I saw a chain of prisoners during the attack..."

"Was he all right?"

"Not sure it was him. I just caught a glimpse of a fat man hopping around screaming. Then I got spear bit."

"That's him. I wonder what Vodicka's doing with him?"

"What're your plans?"

"Don't have any. I was called to defend Vorgreberg. I didn't extend my imagination beyond getting here."

"There're two considerations. The Siluro. Vodicka. The Siluro we can handle now. If we can send Vodicka packing before spring, we might have an edge on the barons next summer."

"Next summer you'll have real problems."

"Eh?"

"The Captal of Savernake."

"What about him?" Tarlson's face darkened. He stole a glance past Ragnarson.

"He's got his own army and Pretender up there. A child about six. I tried to get him, but..." He stopped because of the emotions parading across Tarlson's face.

"But what?"

"His allies. It was pure luck that we got out. Those people... The grimmest soldiers in the world."

"There were suspicions... The King told me... Who? El Murid?"

"Shinsan."

His sibilant whisper fostered a dreadful silence broken only by a gasp from behind him. Tarlson's face became so pale and immobile that Ragnarson feared he had suffered a stroke.

"Shinsan? You're sure?"

"Blackfang's bringing the proof. Armor from their dead. And the child... He's training with Mist herself. She was at Maisak."

"The child... Did she seem well?" The Queen's voice held such excited interest that Ragnarson half-turned. Then it added up. The child was hers... Then, stunningly, the "She" reached his consciousness.

"Shinsan!" Tarlson gasped.

Ragnarson turned back. Despite his condition, Eanred was trying to rise.

He almost made it. Then he collapsed, fighting for breath. Bloody foam rose to his lips. l"Maighen!" the Queen shouted. "Find Doctor Wach-tel! Gjerdrum! Come help your father."

As the boy rushed in, Ragnarson went to the Queen. She seemed ready to faint. He helped her retain her feet.

"Eanred, don't die," she begged softly. "Not now. What'll I do without you?"

When aloofness and dignity abandoned her, Ragnar­son caught a glimpse of the frightened woman behind the facade. So young, so defenseless.

Ignoring his filth, she clung to him, head over his heart. "Help me!" she begged.

What else could he do?

v) Hour of reprisal

Mocker thought the crash and clash and screaming meant that the Queen's Own had come back for a sudden rematch. He was so sick that he didn't look up. Why bother?

The clangor moved closer. For a long time he did nothing more ambitious than blow his nose on his sleeve. He was sorry immediately. The stench of the corpse five places to his right reached him despite the downpour. The fellow had died four days earlier. No one had bothered to remove him. As the Siluro uprising continued to be delayed, the Volstokiners became increasingly lax, increasingly defeatist. Vodicka and the shaghun had had bitter arguments about it. Vodicka himself had become dull-witted and unconcerned.

Mocker's stomach turned. The little he had had to eat had been moldy, spoiled. Staggering to his feet, he dragged his nearer chainmates along in his rush to the cathole latrine five paces away.

While he squatted with the skirts of his robe around his waist, a spent arrow plopped into the mud nearby. He reached, slipped, fell, came up cursing. The other prisoners cursed him back. A quarter of their number had died already, and disease soon would have them all—and Vodicka's army as well. Dysentery was endemic. In the chain, now, there were no friends, just animals who growled at one another.

The arrow was Itaskian. No native weapon would have used one so long.

He wanted to shout for joy, but didn't have the energy.

He had long despaired of having this opportunity, yet he had prepared. It had taken slow, careful work. He had wanted no one, especially his favor-seeking companions, to discover what he was doing.

First there had been the chains. Each man's right hand was linked to the left ankle of the man on his right. He had, for days, been grinding away at a link with bits of sandstone. That done to his satisfaction, he had gone on to provide himself with weapons.

When the shaghun and his gaudy smokes appeared at the pavilion entrance, Mocker broke the weakened link and took the best of his weapons from within his robe.

Making the sling had been more difficult than cutting the chain. Everyone was always toying with the latter...

He had three stones, though he expected to get but one shot before being brought down himself. And it had been years...

The sling, twisted of fabric strips from his robe, hummed as he wound up. A few apathetic eyes turned his way.

He let fly.

"Woe!" he moaned. He shook his left fist at the sky, got a faceful of rain. He had missed by such a wide margin that the shaghun hadn't noticed that he was being attacked.

But no one gave Mocker away. No dusky guards came to pound him back to the mud. The attack was ferocious. Must be some bad fighters out there, he thought.

He turned, glared through the downpour, almost immediately spied Reskird Kildragon. His hopes surged. The best fighters in this end of the world.

His second stone scored. Not with the eye-smashing accuracy he had had as a boy, but close enough to shatter the shaghun's jaw. The soldier-wizard staggered from his smokes, one hand reaching as if for help. He came toward the prisoners.

Mocker checked the haggard Nordmen. Some were beginning to show interest.

Wobbling on legs weak with sickness, he went to the shaghun. He swung his length of chain, beat the man to the mud.

Still no interference. But dusky faces were beginning to glance back from the fighting. He used the shaghun's dagger to finish it quickly.

"Vodicka now," he said, rising with the bloody blade. But through the uproar he heard Kildragon bellowing for his men to close up and withdraw.

And there was no way he could reach them.

"Am doomed," he muttered. "Will roast slow on spit, no skald to sing last brave feat." His hands, deft as those of the pickpocket he had been when Haroun had picked him up early in the wars, ran through the shaghun's garments, snatched everything loose. He then scooted round the pavilion's rear, hoping to vanish before anyone noticed what had happened.

The Nordmen watched with eyes now jealous and angry. From within the pavilion came Vodicka's queru­lous voice. He sounded drunk or ill.

Then came shouts as the murder was discovered.