A Handful Of Men - The Stricken Field Part 16

"You know a lot of it already. We must enlist the help of the Directorate without alerting the Covin. If Zinixo does not have agents actually within the Council itself, he will certainly have spies near it. He has a compulsive greed to enslave every possible sorcerer into his army. He craves vengeance on his uncle Raspnex and on your father, which puts you and your mother at risk, too, of course, because he is madly vindictive. This little caravan of ours would be a real prize for him."

He paused for comments, but the clear gray eyes waited solemnly for him to continue.

"Do you know all this alreadya"what I'm going to say?"

"Pretty much, sir," Gath said politely. "But you want to talk it out."

"Er, yes." Feeling oddly foolish now, Shandie continued. "And we a.s.sume he wants to get hold of me, too, although he may be managing all right without me. So if he ever finds out where we are, then he'll probably strike with everything he's got. And that's plenty!"

Sorcerers could detect sorcery in use. That was the crux of the danger. A sorcerer could escape detection only by doing nothing. The stronger his power, the less detectable he was in action, and the better he could detect others. Even if Zinixo had no votaries nearby, the Covin could probably sense power being used almost anywhere in Pandemia. If Zinixo's agents were present and could be detected before they alerted their master, the effort of silencing them and liberating them might itself be detected . . .

"This was your father's idea, you know! He was the one who invented the new protocol. He suggested we spread the word by telling mundane authorities, like the Dwanishian Directorate. Trouble is, we've picked the most difficult one to start with."

"Dwarves are hard-headed you mean, sir?"

"True, but also this is Zinixo's home territory. He's certain to have left a watch on it. Worse, there's no fast, easy road out for us afterward."

Gath thought about that for a while, scowling. "Where do we go next?"

They would be lucky to go anywhere except to Hub, as captives. The imperor cracked his whip over the team to encourage the little ponies, which were game enough, but tired by a long day. "Likely the Directorate will want us out of here as fast as possible, and that means down the Dark River, to Guwush, or Nordland."

Those cagey, hard-headed dwarves might just try to turn the fugitives in, of course, hoping to win the usurper's favor, but that was not something to worry a kid with.

"Or sell us to the Covin?" Gath was there already. "Er, yes. It's not easy to betray a warlock, though."

"You didn't mention loyalty spells, sir?"

"What about them?"

"Our sorcerers don't have loyalty spells on them, and the Covin's do. So ours can see theirs even when they're not doing anything."

"You know, that had slipped my mind. Who told you that?"

"Oh, I've been talking to the goblins . . . and Master Wirax. And the warlock."

Shandie should have guessed that any son of Rap's would be likely to have brains and an interest in sorcery. He wondered if the boy perhaps knew almost as much as he did.

"Good for you! Carry on."

"Beg pardon, sir. The pinto has a stone in its front right shoe."

Shandie directed his attention back to the team, doggedly plodding over their shadows in the mud. Lead left did have a faint limp, but it did not seem anything to worry about. "He's probably just tired. Couldn't have picked up a rock in this muck."

Gath said nothing, and his silence said much. "Tell me," Shandie said.

"You stop and one of us goes and gets the rock out."

"Which one of us?"

The young jotunn clenched his big jaw for a moment, suddenly reminiscent of his father. He stared straight ahead at the ponies. "If I try to, you tell me to stay here and you go, to see if I've told you the truth. If I say you're going then you send me."

"You can see both futures?"

"Yes, sir." Then he blurted, "And one where you really lame that pony, too!"

Shandie reined in. "I'll do it," he said, and jumped down into the bog. The s.h.a.ggy pony was a walking swamp and balked at letting him lift its leg. There was indeed a rock in the little shoe, as he discovered when he had cleaned the foot enough to locate it. By the time he slopped his way back to the wagon, he was coated in mud from collar to toes. He thought he detected a gleam in the gray faun eyes looking down at him, and wondered if he had just been manipulated into making a certain adolescent's day.

With much whip-cracking and horrible sucking noises from the wheels, the wagon began to move again. Shandie hoped the dwarves had some dry shelter in mind for the night. They had been known to pitch camp in worse terrain than this.

"Let's hear some more of your ideas."

"Sir!"

"I mean it! You talk for a while."

Gath squirmed, then said, "Well, Moon Baiter says that just because the Covin is all-powerful doesn't mean that every loyalty spell has that much power in it. So if wea"our sorcerers, I meana"can corner one of theirs by himself, they may be able to free him if they all act together. And if they're lucky the Covin won't hear them. Warlock Raspnex said he'd sooner drop plate armor in chapel service, sir, but he admits it may be possible."

"It's not a comfortable prospect," Shandie agreed, amused at the breathless telling.

"If we could get them into a shielded building, like that cottage at Kribur where we met with Death Bird and the generala"then it would be safe, wouldn't it?"

"But we can't count on them being so stupid."

"No, sir."

"Can you suggest any other plans?"

Gath chewed his lip for a minute. "I gotta question."

"Let's have it, then."

"Why walk into their lair at all, sir? Why not just write them a letter?"

"It's a very good question!" Shandie said, thinking that it was an unexpectedly cold-blooded one from a fourteen-year-old. "I did write letters to Caliph Azak. I might have tried it here, too, except events sort of swept me up and brought me. And dwarves are just about as stubborn as fauns . . . What's wrong?"

"I'm part faun!"

The young pup had actually clenched his fists! His faun part would matter greatly to him, of course, especially now. "Nothing wrong with that and nothing wrong with being stubborn," Shandie said. That was not much of an apology! Could it be that his all-over coat of mud was rankling him a little? "Anyway, the Directorate knows the warlock by sight and will certainly listen to him. They may be impressed by having an imperor ask for help. Or they may throw me in a dungeon, of course. We're even thinking of having your mother accompany us. Krasnegar isn't quite a neighbor, but it's a sovereign state. That's our plan, and we know it's about as safe as lion shaving. If you've got a better idea, then I'd love to hear it."

Gath thought for a while. "I know what my dad would do, sir."

"You do? What?"

"He'd ask my mom."

Shandie choked back a laugh lest he hurt the boy's feelings yet again. "Your dad's a smart man, Gath," he said. So much for advice and consultation! Well, it had helped pa.s.s the time.

4.

Shandie was not the only member of the caravan to brood. Inos had more than enough troubles of her owna"Kadie abducted by goblins, Rap off in G.o.ds-know-where, inexplicably failing to report on the magic scroll, her kingdom neglected and likely tearing itself apart. Compared to those worries, the possibility that she and her son were heading into disaster tended to sit near the back of her mind.

Nevertheless, she was aware of the problem. She and Gath had become very close on this strange pilgrimage, and she soon heard all about his chat with the imperor. It taught her nothing she had not already known. Being the only woman in the group, she had a unique status. Few men of any race would resist a chat with an attractive woman once in a while. Like Shandie, Inos had pa.s.sed time by talking with the sorcerersa"Wirax and Frazkr the dwarves, Moon Baiter the goblin, Warlock Raspnex. The other goblin, Pool Leaper, was only a mage, but he was the youngest of the group, and a raritya"a goblin with a real sense of humor. He had told her more than he perhaps realized. Among all living mundanes, probably only she had ever visited the occult plane of the ambience, because Rap had taken her there once when he was a demiG.o.d. She knew every bit as much about sorcery as the imperor did. And she was not going to allow Gath to be used as bait.

Her friendship with Shandie was a matter of convenience. Neither sought real familiarity, and their respective responsibilities as monarchs would have made that impossible anyway. She admired his self-control, but it made him too cold and humorless for her taste. She resented very strongly his reluctance to discuss business with her. It was an att.i.tude she had seen carried to absurdity in djinns, and she knew that goblin women were no better than slaves, but it was not normally an impish trait. She would have expected better of the imperor himself. The idea that a famous warrior might be intimidated by women never entered her head.

As the convoy drew closer to Gwurkiarg, it also drew near to the Dark River itself. It was in flood, bloating over the landscape like a dirty lake, spotted with ice floes and tree trunks from the mountains, plus many squat barges and lug-sailed boats emerging from winter shelter. Near the capital the towns were more numerousa"some of them knee-deep in water and stinking of mud. At night the sky was blotched with the fires of foundries, while the smoke-dulled days were clamorous with the sounds of mills and wagon wheels and metal shops. The dwarves' was an ugly land, as humorless and prosaic as its citizens, devoted like them to business and profit, devoid of soul.

In the Impire spring was proclaimed by the arrival of swallows and in Krasnegar by geese. The news was brought to Dwanish by mosquitoes. Inos was heartily sick of living under canvas. Common sense would have suggested that the travelers seek shelter within some of the many houses and other buildings now available, but Sergeant Girthar continued to order camp pitched every night. Presumably dwarvish householders demanded rent and dwarvish travelers refused to pay it. Mud and mosquitoes and tents were an unholy combination.

Men came and went within the convoy. Part of the armed escort was relieved and replaced. Old Wirax went off to visit his family, promising to catch up later. Saturnine government officials arrived to tally the loot, which they persisted in doing even when the wagons were on the move.

Halfway through a particularly unpleasant day, Inos learned that she was now in Gwurkiarg, capital of Dwanish. She was not impressed. The road was deep in mire, and cramped between unending rows of stone buildings whose doors opened right on the street; there were no pedestrian sidewalks or gardens. The convoy was now merely part of a continuous line of carts creeping into the city, matched by another line creeping out. At intersections they knotted up in chaos.

Gwurkiarg had a mysterious reputation. Few nondwarves were ever admitteda"perhaps because the inhabitants were ashamed of the noise and the smell. Having almost no timber, they burned black stuff they mined, which made their chimneys smoke horribly. Hour by hour, hundreds of melancholy ponies fouled the streets. The skyline of drab slate roofs was unbroken by domes or temple spires; the largest building in the city, she had discovered, was the Treasury, and most of that was underground.

The day was gray and rainy.

When evening brought it to a merciful end, Sergeant Girthar pitched camp in a muddy wasteland apparently reserved for the army's use. The gloomy buildings enclosing it might be a notorious example of urban decay or the heart of uptown Gwurkiarga"Inos neither knew nor cared. She was much more interested in the sight of Shandie in conversation with a couple of strangers. Jotnar were not inconspicuous in dwarfdom.

She slopped over through the mud and took up position at his elbow, waiting expectantly. He reacted with a formality she considered absurd, considering that they both resembled shipwrecked scarecrows.

"Your Majesty, may I have the honor of presenting his Excellency the Nordland Amba.s.sador to Dwanish, Thane Kragthong of Spithfrith?"

The jotunn was huge and broad, almost as large as Krath, who won the Krasnegar weight contest every year now. He was swathed in leather breeches and a fur shirt that bulged open to expose an equally furry belly with a noteworthy overhang. He wore a sword, a shiny steel helmet, and high boots. His silvery beard was long and forked, and although he was well into middle age, he looked capable of entering a castle without using the door.

"An honor, your Majesty!" He boweda"slightly. Thanes came in one flavor, male, and queens regnant were an absurdity.

"The honor is mine, Excellency!" Willfully mischievous, Inos thrust out her hand.

He barely spared it an icy glance. To kiss her fingers would be unthinkable and a jotunn handshake was a test of strength and resistance to pain, not a greeting that could be offered a woman. The amba.s.sador's sea-blue eyes were perhaps less bright than they had been in his youth, and well padded now in fat, but they could still register devilry. Too late she realized that a thane would not be outmaneuvered so easily.

"Nay, let us not stand on formality, kinswoman!" His great hands shot out and lifted her bodily, folding her into a crushing bear hug. He then kissed her, with considerable fervor. There was a beery odor to his mustache and his beard tickled. By the time her feet were allowed to return to the ground, she knew that she had been outflanked, outmatched, and outsmarted, and Shandie was probably fighting off an urge to roll on the ground and gibber.

She staggered back, gasping to regain her breath. "Kinswoman?"

The amba.s.sador was rearranging his beard with an expression of great satisfaction. "We are distant kin. If you want details, then I confess I shall need to wait for my skald to return from Nordland." The old man smirked. "Thane Kalkor, of blessed memory, was a second cousin of mine."

Ah! "Then my great-great-grandmother Hathra comes into it somewhere." Inos bore a lingering grudge toward that ancestral lady and the relatives she had towed into the family tree. The royal house of Krasnegar had other, older connections with the aristocracy of Nordland, but most of those would have been forgotten by now had it not been for Hathra. "I confess I was not aware of you, kinsman. I am sure I have many other worthy and n.o.ble relatives whom I could not list eithera"but I do not mourn Thane Kalkor. My husband did the world a favor there. Nor do I mourn his loutish half brother, Greastax."

Her candor earned a frown from the snowy eyebrows. "It may be that we shall journey to Nordland together, kinswoman. If so, then you must learn discretion. To speak such words in the hearing of the present Thane of Gark or any of his brethren would compel bloodshed."

Inos had just been outflanked again. "Truly said, kinsman! I shall guard my shrewish female tongue more carefully in future."

"It's all right in private," the thane said mildly. "I admire a woman with wit." He grinned down at her triumphantly. She decided the battered old colossus was considerably sharper than he looked; she might even learn to like him, provided he let her win a point or two sometimes.

"And the amba.s.sador's daughter, Mistress Jarga," Shandie said. He must have noticed the byplay, but he was diplomatically not reacting.

Jarga bowed, also. She was shorter than her father, but still half a head taller than Inos, raw-boned and weatherbeaten; she wore leather breeches and jerkin.

In Shandie's account of the escape from Hub, Jarga had been the name of the sailor who . . .

"Kinswoman!" Inos said. "Jarga? Then you must bea""

"I had the honor of meeting your husband, ma'am ,"

Jarga said quickly. Her ice-blue eyes were alert with warning.

"I am very grateful for the help you gave him on that occasion," Inos replied swiftly. There were mundane dwarves around, but none close. Was it possible that the amba.s.sador did not know his daughter was a sorceress? She did not seem very much younger than her father, and probably wasn't.

"Master Raspnex will be here in a moment," Shandie said. "He is seeking a suitable site for our discussions."

"Then I shall depart," the amba.s.sador rumbled.

Shandie looked startled. "You would not rathera""

"I think you will talk of things I prefer not to know." The big man was hiding a smile in his silver beard. "At least, not know officially. Jarga may care to remain and reminisce with her old friend the warlock."

And that was that. If the thane wished to leave, obviously only sorcery or a small army would dissuade him. Shandie went along, escorting him to the edge of the camp, while Kragthong moved through the dwarves like a gander in a chicken run.

"Sailors have superst.i.tions about the occult," Jarga remarked wryly.

That was true, and Inos knew what sort of sailor he must have been. How many more bloodthirsty demons did she have in her family? Thanes were killers by definition.

Dismissing the doubtful past, she brought her mind back to the future. What was to be discussed at this meeting? Jarga had been one of Raspnex's votaries. If the old dwarf was honoring the new protocol, then she had now been released and was a willing helper. She was also free to be a traitor, of course. Meanwhile, the amba.s.sador had made an interesting commenta"

"Your father will escort us to Nordland?" Inos inquired cautiously.

"That depends on many things, ma'am. Will the local authorities allow you to leave? Will the usurper catch us? And timing is important. We shall be pressed to reach Nintor by Longday, and there is no reason to visit Nordland except to attend the moot."

Inos shivered. "I have never been to Nordland but I have seen reckonings fought."

Jarga sighed. She gazed over Inos' head, and for a moment seemed to stare intently at something far off. "I never have," she said harshly. "I could goa"I am a thane's daughter. To attend the Nintor Moot has long been an ambition of mine."

Her bony jotunn face had turned hard and melancholy, stirring p.r.i.c.kles of the uncanny on Inos' scalp.

"Then why do you not do so?"

The sorceress blinked and lost her preoccupation. She glanced down at Inos with a wintery smile. "Even a thane's daughter may not set foot on Nintor unless accompanied by her husband, and he must be a full thane. There are limits to my ambition, lady!"

Inos grinned. "Your father might tell you to guard your tongue!"

Jarga dismissed the grin with a scowl. "He does not take his belt to this daughter anymore! But come, ma'am, there goes the warlock."

"Is this to be a council of war?"