Frays In The Weave 34 Build-Up: 2

Imperial Guard, and one more regiment. North Gate. That left the capital lacking three full regiments.

The unexpected arrival of his old escort captain, General de Laiden as Arthur learned later, had put the old officer in a position no one would envy him.

Arthur had seen the training of raw recruits from Verd's southern walls, from the east gate tower. The west was occupied by the great telegraph. They had indeed been raw.

He stubbornly looked ahead. Never down. He had no intention of seeing just how raw.

This was the twelfth, or thirteenth stretcher with a corpse he had volunteered to carry one end of. He put one foot ahead of another. He didn't even bother with walking around rain pools. It had rained for hours and he could as well have been immersed in cold water.

Ken had given him a stricken look before refusing to help. We watch, but we never interfere, he had said. What kind of cold hearted att.i.tude was that? Was that what a human grew into if they lived for too long? Ken was hundreds of years old if he was telling the truth, and his English and peculiar knowledge of Terran history only seemed to verify what he said.

Arthur let go of the handles and turned without a word. He would volunteer for another run. This was what being human meant. To give whatever little help there was when no help was enough.

Sure enough he'd received stunned stares when people recognized him, and d.a.m.n right they were to stare! All worth it! Hundreds more had turned up to help, mostly the rich. The locals because they couldn't be seen to be doing less than the taleweaver and visiting Federation citizens would do just about anything to be close to Arthur Wallman.

The bravest carried bodies, with him. Most cared for the wounded. He wondered about that. These were just bodies. Already dead. Inside the hastily cleaned stables people were still dying. He didn't know how he would react to watching that. Some were little more than children.

#

Mairild had expected Trindai to be angry or even furious. She had never expected him to be tired.

Three eightdays ago he had arrived on the dawn of madness. Two eightdays since he lost two more of his men to riots spilling out into the alleys where the poor lived. An eightday after that two more simply vanished while on patrol.

After that he turned over command of his unit to Major Berdaler, kicked his rank two steps to full colonel and reported to Olvar de Saiden.

She saw him leaving the Ministry of War half a day later. He hardly remembered to greet her on his way out. She heard rumours he had rented a room and had a cask of strong brandy brought up. He wasn't heard of for a full eightday.

She studied him across her desk. The cask had to be true. She could drink herself to a stupor just talking with him. He stank from more than just a hangover as well. Drinking apparently hadn't allowed any time for a bath, nor a change of clothes.

Her Trindai was gone. She had commanded a razor in uniform. What sat before her was a cudgel, a tool more to Olvar's liking.

Well, he was Olvar's now. She'd signed over command in exchange for the generalship Trindai should never have lost in the first place when they sent the punitive expedition to Gaz.

Sorry, caravan escort. The outworlder taleweaver had survived after all. The outworlder Arthur demon sp.a.w.ned gherin get Wallman's skin was safe.

She sighed and made an attempt to grab Trindai's hands. He'd been her most trusted man, as close to a friend as she'd dared anyone to become. He withdrew even further. Tired eyes, tired and sad.

What have we done to you? Eighty men to Braka and back. You lost less than twenty while fighting outworlders. Mairild wanted to wring her hands in denial, but that order had been hers alone. The winter cut years from you, old man. You weren't old when we parted last.

They exchanged glanced like they'd done each time Trindai returned back after an especially ugly mission. None had suggested it, but it seemed natural. The best reports she ever had.

Marched through Vimarin Gate with fifty men proud as stallions as if the madness didn't touch you. Darkness, you were the dirtiest heroes I've ever seen! She leaned back into her chair. They really had been. Ragged and torn to boot. Where they marched people fell silently anyway. When Trindai marched out on the great square facing Ming Hjil de Verd with his men the crowd parted like paper to flame, when he climbed the shoulders of his tallest soldiers they were breathless and when he thundered out the message that Keen's first caravan in a hundred years was safely on its way back to Verd the entire square erupted in jubilation.

General de Laiden he may be now, but it had been Trindai, their hero, who gave Verd control over itself. And Mairild's propaganda scheme from last autumn paid off in a way she could never have dreamed of, she admitted guiltily.

Then you took to the streets. Patrolled a regiments share. I never believed it could be done, neither did Olvar. And it couldn't. G.o.ds were fickle and jealous. No mere human could steal their moments of triumph.

They'd known both taleweavers had just watched the madness. And who cared? Ken Leiter de Ghera. Walking Talking. The Legend. He came and went, had done for hundreds of years. Alone he refused to break the habit of visiting Verd, or Dagd or any other of the cities where the arms of the Inquisition reached and scared the others away. He was Walking Talking; even children knew he came and went, leaving a trail of Weaves behind him like gifts for the starved. He never stayed for long.

And Arthur Wallman, latest of legends. Two in Verd at the same time. That was unheard of. And they just watched when madness came to visit.