War Maid's choice

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Varnaythus stared into his gramerhain, jaw tight while echoes of disbelief reverberated deep in his eyes.

Impossible. Everything had gone perfectly- perfectly! — and that bastard Tellian had turned it around on him anyway. After all his years of effort, his plans, the risks he’d run-after he’d gotten every piece into position despite all the obstacles and every one of his Lady’s demands-all of it had been torn apart by the last minute interference of one miserable mage, a mangy pack of war maids, one minor lord warden…and a single meddling wind rider who seemed to be almost as hard to kill as her never to be sufficiently accursed husband! It couldn’t have happened, yet it had.

Disbelief turned into crackling fury as a tall, slim, redhaired young woman and a huge chestnut courser cantered up to the smoking ruins of a hunting lodge. The young woman slid from the saddle, crossed to where her father stood beside the King of the Sothoii and dropped something round at Markhos’ feet. The King rolled the round object to one side with the toe of his boot, and Cassan Axehammer’s dead, astounded eyes stared up at the monarch he’d tried to murder.

“ Bitch! ” the wizard hissed, all the years of wasted effort that severed head represented crashing through him in a torrent of rage, and his hand twitched towards the carved-bone wand lying on the desk before him.

“Would that be wise?” a quiet voice asked, and Varnaythus’ head swiveled. Sahrdohr met his gaze and shrugged ever so slightly. “It’s your decision, but as soon as we activate the kairsalhain, everyone in Norfressa will know exactly who was behind all this. Or every mage-and Wencit-will, at any rate, and even with Her orders, the Council won’t like that.”

Varnaythus glared, but even as he did, he knew his anger wasn’t truly-or shouldn’t be, at any rate-directed at the magister. Sahrdohr simply happened to be close enough to serve as a focus, and Varnaythus forced himself to leash his temper. It wasn’t easy, under the circumstances, but no one could attain the rank of master wizard without learning how to govern his own passions.

“Point,” he said after a moment, his voice sharp, and his nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply. Then he turned back to his own gramerhain.

Arm Shahana’s image glowed with the silver-shot blue of Lillinara, and a fresh lava flow of anger rippled through him as he watched her lay hands upon Markhos Silveraxe. The glowing blue corona ran down her arms to her hands, lapping about the King, and Varnaythus could actually see his wound closing. Somehow the healing of that wound-the wound which was the visible proof of how close they’d come to hurling the Kingdom of the Sothoii into civil war and destruction-actually helped him throttle the fuming embers of his rage.

He inhaled again, more naturally, and gave himself a shake. It was because watching her heal Markhos put everything back into focus, he decided. It punctuated the failure of Athnar’s assassins-and Cassan-and forced him to consider everything afresh, with all the hard-earned dispassion he’d learned in his long, ambitious life.

They’d moved everyone out of the ruins of the hunting lodge as the last of the flames gnawed away at the remaining fuel, but they hadn’t gone very far. Nor would they, with so many wounded men. Shahana would heal the worst hurt, but a single arm of Lillinara wasn’t going to be able to heal very many of them, and moving injured men over Sothoii roads would be an agonizing ordeal for the wounded. Messengers had been sent galloping off to Balthar and Sothofalas, and he was certain additional armsmen and healers would swarm towards Chergor as soon as those messengers reached their destinations. Eventually, of course, Markhos would retire either to Balthar or to his capital, but no Sothoii king would leave a field where so many had fallen in his defense until he’d personally seen all the survivors properly cared for. That meant Markhos would be anchored to the vicinity of the burned hunting lodge for at least the next day or two, and all he really needed to be was within a half-mile or so.

The kairsalhain Varnaythus had carefully planted under the hearth in the main lodge was undoubtedly buried under collapsed, charred timbers and masonry, but the most intense mortal fire would scarcely affect the stone. It was formed of the same crystal as his gramerhain, fused in the heart of a working beside which the most powerful lightning bolt was but a weak and pallid thing. And, like his gramerhain, it had come from the working with an affinity for the art. It was sensitized, attuned to the art-no larger than a child’s thumb, yet capable of focusing and storing workings that could have destroyed a city the size of Trofrolantha itself. Yet that was only one of its possible functions. Kairsalhains could be-and often were-used as repositories for such spells, as well as…more subtle ones, but they could also be used as beacons, anchors, or keys.

Varnaythus was still uncertain exactly how the mage wind-walking talent functioned, but it was clearly different from the spells of teleportation available to a wizard, for a wind-walker could travel to places he’d never been, never even seen, if he made the journey in short enough stages. A wizard couldn’t. The art needed a focus, an aiming point, and (also unlike wind walkers) it cost a wizard dearly in gathered power and concentration to teleport himself over long distances even with a focus; trying to transport anyone else at the same time drove the cost upward exponentially. Almost anything could be used as a focus at need, as long as the wizard had prepared it properly before he or someone else deposited it at his intended destination, but kairsalhain was best, because it could be charged before it was placed. The wizard could draw upon the energy stored in the stone rather than expending freshly gathered (and sometimes…unruly) power, which let him arrive undrained, with his command of the art unimpaired-not a minor consideration when colleagues who wished one ill might be awaiting one’s arrival.

There were other advantages to using kairsalhains, of course. A wizard’s wards created a shielded area into which no teleportation spell could reach, for example. But if he’d placed a kairsalhain within it and properly attuned it to the individual idiosyncrasies of his wards, he or an ally with the correct words of command could still pass directly through them without difficulty and without the need to lower those wards and expose himself to someone else’s attack. And teleportation spells weren’t the only workings a kairsalhain could store.

Like the one under the heat-cracked hearth of a burned hunting lodge.

He touched his wand again, stroking it lightly, feeling the power quivering against his palm. He had only to speak the word of command here in his working chamber, and hundreds of leagues away that stone would awaken in a blast of heat and fury like the very kiss of Carnadosa. The crater would be almost a mile across. The forest around the lodge would be flattened, splintered, turned into a roaring inferno that burned for days. And Markhos and Tellian and Arm Shahana and Leeana Hanathafressa would be wiped from the surface of the earth as if they had never existed.

He felt the aching need to do just that, to crush the opponents who’d defeated his tools without ever even realizing who their true enemy was. To show these Norfressans the true power rising once again in Kontovar. But Sahrdohr was right. Satisfying as it might be in the short term, it carried enormous risks, risks the Council of Carnadosa was loath to run…and the greatest of which was Wencit of Rum.

Varnaythus could have lived with the thought of forewarning Norfressa that Kontovar was once again prepared to move. Without wizards of their own, there would be little the Norfressans could do with that warning. But that had been true for centuries, and still the Council had waited, watched, planned and spied but never dared to step out of the shadows and into the open, and the reason it had not was named Wencit of Rum.

For twelve hundred years, Wencit had held the wizard lords of Kontovar at bay, and his very name touched altogether too many of them-including one named Varnaythus, he admitted-with terror. No wand wizard in his right mind would willingly face a wild wizard, not in arcane combat. Wencit’s sheer power would have been enough to frighten any sane opponent, but he held more than power in those scarred, ancient hands of his. He held the keys-the keys to the spells which had strafed Kontovar, seared cities and fortresses into bubbled plains of glass, burned forests, melted mountains, turned glaciers to steam and rivers to desert. He’d created those spells for the Last White Council. He alone knew their secrets, knew their innermost workings…and they remained active to this day.

The Council of Carnadosa had probed them with the utmost caution. Tested to determine that they still stood ready to his hand, awaiting his command. They dared probe no deeper than that, but the connection was there, the conduit was open, singing with the unmistakable vibrations and imprint of his power, and Wencit was a wild wizard. It had taken the entire Council of Ottovar to raise those spells under his direction; a wild wizard would need no one else’s aid to use them a second time.

But the old bastard doesn’t want to use them, Varnaythus reminded himself. He remembers last time too well, remembers how the sky burned above Kontovar for weeks, how the smoke choked a world in The Year That Had No Summer. He remembers the screams, the destruction, the walls of flame marching across a continent. He watched it all in his grammerhain, saw every instant of it; it haunts him still, and that’s his ultimate weakness, the chink in his armor. He doesn’t ever want to call down that devastation a second time…but that doesn’t mean he won’t. He did it the first time; drive him hard enough, and he might yet do it again, despite his memories. Carnadosa only knows what provocation it would take to drive him to it, but none of us ever wants to find out.

And that was the risk of using the kairsalhain, for in its own way, the entire continent of Kontovar was one huge kairsalhain for Wencit of Rum. He could reach his fist into its bedrock and twist any time he chose, any time he was willing to kill enough millions of the wizard lords’ servants and slaves. And if those wizard lords used the art too openly here in Norfressa, he might decide that time had come.

“We’ll wait,” he said softly, taking his hand from his wand, sitting back in his chair. “It was never anything but our ultimate fallback plan, anyway-like the kairsalhain under Markhos’ throne room in Sothofalas-and the Council won’t be pleased if we’re driven to using it in the end.”

Sahrdohr nodded, his relief obvious despite his carefully controlled expression, and Varnaythus’ lips twitched in a sour smile. The magister was right; the Council wouldn’t be pleased if they used the art so openly…yet he could live with that if he must. His orders came from Carnadosa Herself, and whatever the Council might think, that was all the protection from its wrath he would need. Wencit wouldn’t be swayed by it, of course, but at least his fellow wizard lords would have no choice but to accept the deed once it was done.

Yet She wouldn’t like it either, really, if not for the same reasons as the Council. No, even though it would be precisly what She’d commanded him to do, She’d still be furious because the prize would be so much less valuable than the one She’d set out to claim. But if he waited, if he held his hand long enough to see what happened on the Ghoul Moor, he would be able to divert Her anger to a much safer target, for the failure against Bahzell would be Anshakar’s failure, not his. Bahzell had always been the main focus of this entire elaborate operation, and he could always point out that he’d warned Anshakar of the danger Bahzell presented, cautioned him not to take his task too lightly, too overconfidently.

He would have done all he could to make the attack a success, and then-and only then, after Krashnark’s servants had failed in every aspect of their mission-he would bring Her the death of Bahzell Bloody Hand’s wife. That prize, purchased at whatever price in the open use of the art, would be far, far better than to bring Her nothing at all.

And who knew? If Tellian and Markhos both died-and especially if he used the kairsalhain under Sothokarnas to destroy the fortress, half of Sothofalas, and Markhos’ wife and children, as well-the Kingdom might yet dissolve in civil war after all. There was still Yeraghor to think about. He’d be desperate when word of this reached him, and if that was followed by a power vacuum, an adroit advisor might well be able to convince him that…

“Markhos’ assassination was secondary to our main objective, anyway,” he told the magister, “and we damned nearly succeeded in it despite that busybody Brayahs and Tellian and his bitch of a daughter.” He shrugged. “Bahzell was always the main target, and no meddling mage is going to change a single damned thing that happens on the Ghoul Moor. It would take a god to change that!”

He bared his teeth, tapping his gramerhain, summoning up the view of Tellian’s marching army once more.

“We’ll wait,” he repeated, gazing intently down on the tiny, crystal clear images in the heart of the stone. “If Anshakar is half as mighty as he seems to think he is, we won’t need to worry about Markhos or the Sothoii. And if it should happen Anshakar isn’t strong enough to deal with Bahzell, there’ll still be time to kill the King and his precious family. And just between the two of us, Malahk,” his eyes were hard and hating as he glared at those distant images, “I find the notion of killing Bahzell’s wife and father-in-law curiously soothing at this particular moment.”

At least it wasn’t raining.

Bahzell Bahnakson would have been much happier if he’d been able to convince himself the absence of clouds was simply a natural change in the weather. Or, failing that, that it was because whoever or whatever had caused all those dreary days of rain had been dismayed by the steady advance of no less than three champions of Tomanak and decided to take the rain-and himself-elsewhere.

Unfortunately, he could convince himself of neither of those things.

‹ Neither can I, Brother,› Walsharno thought at him. ‹ But at least it means we can see whatever’s coming before it gets here. And our two-foots’ bow strings won’t be wet!›

“No, that they won’t,” Bahzell replied, his voice pitched too low for anyone else besides-possibly-Brandark, riding beside him, to hear. “And truth be told, I’ll take whatever it is we can get, and grateful I’ll be for it. Not that I’d be finding it in my heart to complain if it should happen we were offered more.”

‹ Nor I,› Walsharno agreed, tossing his head in assent. ‹ Nor I.›

Bahzell stood in his stirrups, stretching and simultaneously trying (vainly) to see a little further. Not that he expected to see very much. The Ghoul Moor was both more uneven and more heavily overgrown with scattered clumps of trees than the Wind Plain. In fact, it reminded him very much of the land further north and west, around Hurgrum, except for the absence of farmsteads. Ghouls did raise some crops, as winter fodder for their food animals, and Trianal’s mounted foraging parties would be keeping a lookout for any such sources of supply they could sweep up along the way. But those crops tended to be closer to the ghouls’ occupied villages, and the villages in the area here along the Hangnysti had been largely deserted since mid-summer.

They’d scouted this region cautiously over the last week or two, confirming that the villages in it remained empty. Since the rain had finally eased, though, their scouts had found tracks churned across the mud, indicating that quite a few ghouls had at least passed through it. Nor was that all they’d indicated, unfortunately. Ghouls were scarcely known for tactical or strategic sophistication, yet at least some of those tracks clearly suggested they’d been sending out scouts of their own, keeping an eye on the allied expedition. The possibility that the other side might know more about them than they knew about it for a change wasn’t exactly comforting, but the Sothoii scouting parties had at least turned up sufficient tracks to suggest conclusively where the ghouls had gone. They were gathering along the Graywillow River, a tributary of the Hangnysti about three hundred miles west of its junction with the Spear, which made entirely too much sense from their perspective.

The Graywillow was scarcely two hundred miles long, but it had a lot of small, winding tributaries which drained an extensive, often marshy floodplain, and the main stream was close to seventy yards across where it joined the Hangnysti. That made it a significant water barrier, and the terrain along its course-especially as it neared the Hangnysti-was rough, its banks lined with thick, tangled thickets of the willows from which it took its name. Farther upstream the willows gave way to dense stretches of mixed evergreens and hardwoods which could provide dangerously effective cover for troops as irregular as ghouls…and which would break up the formation of any infantry which tried to go in after them. Taken all together, it was an unfortunately good defensive position. On the other hand, with all the rain which had beset the Ghoul Moor in the last month or two, the Graywillow had to be running high and deep-probably deep enough to be a barrier even for ghouls, if they could catch them between their own advance and the stream.

Beyond the riverline, between the Graywillow and the Spear, a rolling expanse of grasslands stretched east and south almost to the border of the Kingdom of the River Brigands, offering grazing space for enough meat animals to supply an enormous horde of ghouls, assuming any imaginable power could force the ghouls in question into some sort of cooperative effort. Which was a sobering thought, given what appeared to have been happening.

With the information available to him, Trianal had seen no choice but to move down the southern bank of the Hangnysti to the Graywillow. If that was where the enemy was, then that was where they had to go to find him. At the same time, however, he’d stayed within sight of the Hangnysti the entire way, using barges to carry food and fodder. And, with Tharanal’s enthusiastic assistance, he’d turned a score of barges into heavily armored missile platforms, with stout wooden bulwarks pierced by firing slits for arbalesteers and raised firing platforms mounting the much more powerful sort of crew-served ballistae Axeman cruisers mounted. Those “arbalests” threw “quarrels” up to five feet long for as much as four hundred yards, with steel heads capable of driving through a foot and more of solid, seasoned oak. Not even a ghoul would enjoy meeting one of them. And there were even a dozen barges fitted with catapults capable of hurling banefire, the dreadful incendiary compound of the Royal and Imperial Navy. With them to cover his riverward flank-and, for that matter, to provide supporting fire if they had to close with the mouth of the Graywillow-Trianal could afford to concentrate his army’s attention on threats away from the Hangnysti as they moved through the empty, deserted spaces between them and the ghouls’ suspected position.

And it’s no complaint they’d hear out of me if the bastards were never after coming back here, Bahzell thought grimly as he settled back down in the saddle. If they’d sense enough to stay clear of the river and leave us be, then it’s happy enough I’d be to leave them be, in return. But as soon as ever we’ve sent these lads home…

Very few of the men in the expedition would have shared his willingness to let the ghouls alone, and he knew it. For that matter, he had no illusions about the creatures’ willingness to live in peace with any set of neighbors, and he knew it would be no more than a matter of time-and not much of it-before the hradani or the Sothoii would be forced to invade these same lands again to prune back the threat to their borders and their people. Yet however this year’s incursion ultimately worked out, all too many of the men marching and riding about him would be dead or crippled by its close. No number of dead ghouls could truly be an equitable trade for that, and his nerve-eating certainty that something as dark as it was powerful lurked behind the rain and the ghouls’ bizarre activities and tactics made him fear how high the final cost might be.

“Did you ever think that perhaps the smart thing for us to do would be to just go home for the rest of the summer?” Brandark asked lightly from beside him. Bahzell looked at him, and the Horse Stealer shrugged. “I know we have it to do eventually, Bahzell, but do we really have a deadline? We’re not going to be barging anything through here before next year, anyway. Maybe whatever’s been behind all this Phrobus-taken rain would get bored and go away over the winter? I know I’d go away rather than face a Ghoul Moor winter!”

“I’m thinking it’s a mite late to be suggesting such as that, my lad,” Bahzell observed mildly. “And if that’s the way your thought is setting, why, there’s naught to be keeping you here. I’m sure as how Tharanal’s bargemasters would be happy enough to be giving you space aboard, if it should happen you’re so inclined.”

“I was simply pointing out that it would be the smart thing to do,” Brandark replied. “The problem, though, is that doing the smart thing requires the person doing it to be smart.” He shook his head mournfully. “And I, unfortunately, seem to’ve been associating with Horse Stealers too long.” He heaved a vast sigh. “Who would’ve thought that I, of all people, could find myself swept away into foolishness like this by the childlike enthusiasm of a batch of hradani-oh, and let’s not forget the Sothoii! — too stupid to come in out of the rain and the mud?”

“Is that the way of it, then?” Bahzell cocked his ears at his friend, and Brandark shrugged.

“One way to explain it, anyway. And another way”-his tone darkened and his hand dropped to the hilt of his sword-“is to point out that whatever’s out there isn’t likely to go away whatever we do. I’d just as soon deal with it here before we find it moving up the Hangnysti towards Navahk and Hurgrum.” The Bloody Sword smiled grimly. “Call me silly, but I’d rather fight it somewhere none of our women and children are likely to get caught in the slaughter.”

“Aye, there’s something to be said for that,” Bahzell agreed.

He started to add something more, then broke off as a five-man section of Sothoii cavalry swept over the crest of a low ridge perhaps two miles ahead of them and headed towards their main body in a mud-spattering gallop. Hradani had excellent vision, and his ears came up and his eyes narrowed as he peered at them. Then his jaw tightened, Walsharno wheeled under him, and Brandark blinked in astonishment as the courser disappeared in a shower of mud all his own.

“What is it, Bahzell?” Trianal Bowmaster asked sharply as the huge roan half-slid to a halt beside his command group.

“There’s a scouting party coming in yonder,” Bahzell replied tersely, jabbing a thumb to the south-southeast. “They’re coming fast, like all Sharna’s demons were at their heels, and there’s the stink of something else coming on behind them.” He bared his teeth. “It’s in my mind it won’t be so very long before we’ve proof enough of whatever it is as has been playing with the weather.”

“Bahzell’s right, Milord,” Vaijon said. He was gazing off to the southeast, his eyes focused on something no one else could see.

“And whatever it is wouldn’t be heading this way if it didn’t figure it could take us head-on,” Sir Yarran Battlecrow said flatly.

“My very own thought,” Bahzell agreed, and his expression was grim. “More than that, it’s the very stink of evil that’s coming behind them.” His ears flattened in frustration. “It’s an arm I’d give to know just what it is I’m feeling, but I’ve still no better idea than I had this morning. Except that whatever it is, it’s closer than it was then.”

“It’s not just closer, Bahzell,” Vaijon said. The others looked at him, and the younger champion shrugged. “It’s not just of the Dark-it is the Dark,” he said harshly. “And there’s more than one of it, whatever it is.”

‹ He’s right.› Walsharno tossed his head. ‹ In some ways, he’s more sensitive to it than we are, Brother. I hadn’t realized until he said it, but he’s right. I sense at least two of it now, both headed our way, and they’re both strong. Very strong.›

‹ As strong as that bastard of Krahana’s?›

‹ Stronger,› Walsharno replied flatly. ‹Much stronger.›

Bahzell’s jaw clenched as he recalled their encounter with Krahana’s servant. Jerghar Sholdan had been quite strong enough for his taste. Indeed, it had taken all the power he and Walsharno together could channel to defeat him, and they might not have even then if he’d realized in time that he faced not one champion of Tomanak, but two.

‹ True, Brother.› Walsharno had followed his thoughts yet again and tossed his head in agreement once more. ‹ But he had the souls of an entire courser herd at his disposal…and they still had their link to Wencit’s “magic field” to draw upon when he forced them to serve him. Whatever these may be, they don’t have that. They’re…individuals. Very strong, but reliant upon their own strength and no one else’s, I think.›

“Walsharno’s after agreeing with you, Vaijon,” Bahzell told the others. “He’s the scent of at least two. It’s powerful they are, he says, and it won’t be so very much longer before they’re up with us.”

“That’s good enough for me.” Trianal’s voice was like iron, and turned to his personal bugler. “Sound ‘Stand and form,’” he said.

“Yes, Milord!” the bugler replied, and the urgent notes flared across the muddy grassland as he sounded the prearranged signal.

Trianal’s augmented force had been moving in the reverse of a typical mixed formation of horse and foot. The standard clouds of mounted scouts had been thrown out, but instead of stationing formed cavalry on the flanks away from the river to protect the infantry from surprise attacks, the footmen had been formed on the army’s right in column of battalions, with the cavalry between them and the river. Hradani infantry was simply better suited to taking the shock of a charge of blood-crazed ghouls, and it was important to protect the horses which provided the Sothoii’s mobility. The mounted archers would be able to fire over the heads of even Horse Stealer footsoldiers, supporting the hradani while they held their shield wall; there’d be time enough for cavalry charges once the ghouls recoiled.

The supply wagons, pack train, and-especially-the mules loaded with additional arrows for the Sothoii moved along the very bank of the Hangnysti, covered by infantry and cavalry alike. There’d been some-not many, but a few-among Trianal’s men who’d felt his youth had made him overly cautious, even timid, to adopt such a cumbersome formation, especially now that he had almost twenty thousand men, horse and foot, under his command. None of his senior officers or battalion commanders had been among those critics, however, and orders rang out as the bugler sounded the signal for which they’d been waiting half impatiently and half anxiously for the last two days.

The infantry stopped in place and two thirds of its battalions faced right, and advanced two hundred yards further inland from the Hangnysti. The front ranks went to one knee, bracing their shields before them, and a triple line of arbalesteers formed in open ranks at their backs. Half the arbalesteers would double as pikemen once the melee was joined, and the wagons assigned to each battalion drew up behind them, unloading thickets of pikes and stacking them where they’d be ready to hand when needed. Each arbalesteer had three feet of clear space on either side of him; another man in the next line stood directly behind each of those clear spaces; and a metallic clicking rose above them as thousands of Dwarvenhame-built arbalests were spanned and quarrels were fitted to the strings.

The two infantry battalions forming the rear of the column wheeled in place, facing northwest, back the way they’d come, and deployed into a line covering the newly formed battleline’s right flank with their left while their own right was anchored firmly on the Hangnysti. The pair of battalions leading the column did the same, except that they anchored themselves to the battleline’s left flank and faced southeast, covering the main formation’s left. The remaining infantry battalions formed into solid, compact squares, half of them spaced evenly behind the battleline to simultaneously cover the supply wagons and form an infantry reserve at the middle of the three-sided rectangle.

Not all the infantry faced west, away from the river, however. The Hangnysti provided less protection against ghouls than it might have against most other foes, given how well the creatures swam. The river could still be counted upon to break them up, especially as they struggled ashore through the soft mud and sand along the banks, but it couldn’t be counted on to stop them. That was why the other half of Yurghaz’s infantry faced the river, not inland…and also the real reason for those heavily armed barges pacing Trianal’s army on the Hangnysti itself.

The cavalry moved just as quickly, coordinating with their footbound fellows with the precision and polish of long practice and mutual confidence. They knew exactly where they were supposed to be, and they went there. Four thousand spread themselves along the rear of the battleline, where they could support the infantry with arrow fire, and three thousand more formed in the spaces between the blocks of reserve infantry, ready to pounce on any ghouls which might swim the river and get past the infantry or to intercept any enemy penetrations of the battleline. A thousand more were held back in a reserve position under Trianal’s personal command, ready to be dispatched to wherever they might be most needed, They were also earmarked for quick exploitation if the enemy should break, of course…not that anyone expected the ghouls to be breaking anytime soon. And even as the infantry and cavalry formed, the missile-armed barges which had been pacing them on the Hangnysti began shifting position. Many moved downstream, towards the Spear, placing themselves to sweep the front of the short, heavy line protecting the army’s left, but most anchored a few yards offshore, where there missile troops could cover the bank against swimming ghouls as well as forming as a final reserve for their land-bound fellows.

The catapult-armed barges positioned themselves with special care, farther out into midstream, and the catapult crews had loaded their practice rounds even before their barges anchored. As soon as those anchors splashed down into the Hangnysti’s mud, the catapults thumped, hurling their inert rounds far over the heads of the infantry and cavalry. Those practice rounds had exactly the same weight and ballistic characteristics as the banefire rounds waiting to follow them, and Bahzell smiled with grim satisfaction as they thudded into the mud a hundred yards and more beyond the infantry’s front ranks. The gunners aboard the barges launched a second wave of rounds, making certain of their range and firing bearings. Then they loaded with banefire and stood ready.

The speed with which the entire formation shifted would have astonished anyone who hadn’t seen Trianal’s “expedition” turning into an “army.” This was a tightly integrated, smoothly articulated force, one with confidence in itself and in its commanders but no illusions that it faced an easy task because its opponents were “only” ghouls, and Bahzell felt a surge of pride not just in Trianal, but also in Vaijon and Yurgazh, for making it so.

Their march formation had been planned to make it as fast and straightforward as possible to shift into battle formation, and the fact that the river covered their backs simplified things immensely. But all the planning in the world wouldn’t have produced this result without the merciless, unremitting drill to which they’d subjected their men for just this moment. Even the Sothoii levy Trianal had brought down from the Escarpment had been slotted efficiently into their overall organization, taking its lead from the armsmen who’d been part of the expedition from the beginning. The newcomers weren’t as well drilled and disciplined as they might have been, but if all went well their primary function would be as missile troops, and any Sothoii armsman had literally grown up with a bow in his hands.

The same bugle calls which had shifted the army’s formation had recalled the troops of cavalry who’d been scouting beyond its right flank on the march, and individually designated companies of infantry opened access points in the battleline to admit them. They trotted quickly across to their own assigned positions, joining their fellows, and the scouting party Bahzell had seen galloping back passed through an opening of its own to reach the command group.

“Thousands of them, Milord,” the senior man said harshly, his face white as he reined his weary horse to a halt and slapped his breastplate in salute to Trianal. “Never seen so many of them in one place! Phrobus, I never thought there were so many of ’em!”

“How many thousands?” Trianal asked calmly, and gave the scout a crooked smile when the man stared at him. “I realize you didn’t have time to actually count the number of legs and divide by two, Sergeant. A rough estimate will do.”

Two or three of his officers chuckled, and even the scout smiled. But he also shook his head.

“Milord, we couldn’t get close enough to tell how many. I’d say there had to be-what? Six or seven thousand? — this side of the Graywillow.” He looked at the other members of his section of scouts with an eyebrow raised, and heads nodded. “Problem is, they were already throwing those nasty javelins of theirs at us. They were pushing us back-pushing hard-and more of ’em were boiling out of the woods along the river like maggots. I’d be lying if I said I could tell you any more than that, but it seemed to me I’d best be getting the lads back here to tell you what we’d already seen.”

Without trying to see more and getting them all killed, he didn’t say, but Trianal nodded.

“Information’s a hell of a lot more valuable than dead troopers, Sergeant,” he agreed, and the scout’s shoulders relaxed almost imperceptibly.

“Should I assume they’re following along behind you?” Trianal went on, and the sergeant nodded back to him.

“Aye, Milord. I’d say they’re not in all that tearing a hurry-given how fast the buggers can run, you’d’ve seen ’em already if they were. But they’ll be along. And, Milord, they’re using drum signals.”

“I see.” Trianal glanced around his command group’s faces for a moment, then turned back to the scouts.

“You’ve done well, Sergeant. Now get your men back behind the supply element and rest your horses.” He smiled again, more thinly. “I think it’s time for the rest of us to do our jobs.”

“Aye, Milord. Thank you!”

The sergeant beckoned to his section, and the five of them splattered off across the muddy grass while Trianal, Bahzell, and the rest of the command group looked at one another.

“Drum signals,” Trianal repeated, as if the two words were an obscenity, and Bahzell snorted.

“Well, we’d signs enough already as how these aren’t your ordinary ghouls, lad,” he pointed out, and shrugged. “I’ve no doubt at all, at all, as how these bastards are going to prove a right handful, and that’s a fact. Still and all, it’s in my mind the tactical situation’s simple enough to be going on with. It’s not so very likely all the drum signals in the world are to matter all that much.”

“I’m afraid Prince Bahzell’s got that right, Milord,” Yurgazh said sourly. He looked out in the direction from which the scouts had come for a moment, then grimaced and looked back at Trianal. “I think it’s time I was joining my infantry, Milord.”

“Agreed.” Trianal nodded at him and gave Sir Yarran a glance.

“I’m off, I’m off!” the older Sothoii said, raising one hand in a mock defensive gesture. “Just you be remembering what bugles, staff officers, and couriers are for, young man!”

“I’m not planning on leading any desperate charges,” Trianal said dryly.

“What I really want to hear is that you’re planning on not leading any desperate charges,” Yarran said even more dryly. “Under the circumstances, though, I suppose I’d better settle for the best I can get, hadn’t I?”

“Not much point hoping for anything else, any road, Sir Yarran,” Yurgazh said even more sourly, and glanced at Vaijon. “I don’t suppose you could convince my idiot prince to get his unmarried arse back aboard one of those barges, could you?”

“Not unless you want me to have him physically dragged,” Vaijon replied with a tight grin. “Hurthang and a couple of the other lads are probably big enough to do it, but I can’t guarantee he wouldn’t get banged up around the edges in the process if he took offense. Which he probably would.”

“And then there’s Prince Yurokhas.” Trianal’s tone was even more sour than Yurgazh’s had been as he glanced over his shoulder at the wind tube gryphon standard in the colors of the royal house floating above the compact, neatly formed block of the Order of Tomanak.

“I might be able to order him onto a barge,” Vaijon admitted, following the direction of Trianal’s gaze. “He is a member of the Order, if not our chapter, and I am a champion. Although, now that I think about it, Bahzell’s senior to me. If anyone’s going to do any ordering, I think it ought to be him, since he’s at least older than Yurokhas on top of everything else.”

“And because you’ve got a pretty damned good idea how he’d react to the ‘order,’ too, I imagine,” Trianal said darkly.

“And because of that,” Vaijon acknowledged with a fleeting smile. Then the smile faded. “The truth is that in cold-blooded political and dynastic terms, he’s actually more expendable just at the moment than Arsham, Trianal. And he’s a member of the Order, too. Whatever’s coming this way, it’s exactly what the Order is pledged to fight.” He shook his head. “I can’t justify ordering him to safety without some overriding reason-like his place in the succession-and as a member of the Order, he has a right to be here.”

“I know,” Trianal sighed. “I know. Just…try to keep him in one piece if you can, all right? The King would be upset if anything happened to him. And more to the point, he’s my prince and Uncle Tellian loves him. Tomanak, I love him, come to that!”

“We’ll do what we can,” Vaijon promised, and chuckled harshly. “Besides, if our masterful battle plan works, what could possibly go wrong?”

“The enemy, lad,” Bahzell said with a grim smile. “That’s why we’ve the habit of calling him ‘the enemy.’”