War Maid's Choice

by David Weber

  “I might be pointing out that before ever it’s able to move north, up the river, it’s the lot of us here to deal with, first,” Bahzell said mildly. “And if it happened as how I was so underhanded as to be using logic, I might be pointing out that if it should happen it can deal with us first, then it might just be any ideas you might have wouldn’t be doing so very much good—seeing as how you’d most likely be dead and all, I mean.”

  “Then it’s probably just as well a champion of Tomanāk wouldn’t stoop to such low tactics,” Arsham replied, and Bahzell shook his head.

  He’d always rather liked Arsham, even when he’d been a political hostage in Navahk, although he’d never really gotten to know him before Churnazh’s defeat. And he’d understood why Arsham had to have mixed feelings, at the very least, where his own family was concerned. Yet any lingering resentment the Navahkan prince might feel at having been defeated by Hurgrum had vanished—for the moment, at least—at the prospect of action, and Bahzell found himself liking the other man even more because of it. Which probably said something he’d rather not think about too deeply where his own mental processes were concerned, since both of them knew Arsham was actually being an idiot.

  But it was a very hradani sort of an idiot, Bahzell reflected.

  “You know,” Trianal said thoughtfully, “since it’s obvious Prince Arsham has no intention of being reasonable about this, it may not be an entirely bad thing. From my perspective, I mean.”

  “And would you be so very kind as to explain that?” Bahzell cocked his ears at the young Sothōii. “Seeing as how I’ve yet to see a single good thing about the entire notion, and all, I mean.”

  “Well, if he’s serious about staying out of the fighting and just observing,” Trianal bent a moderately ferocious glare on Arsham, “he may be able to sit on Prince Yurokhas at the same time.” Trianal looked at Vaijon. “I’m thinking that if they stay, they both promise to stay with the Order and out from underfoot, and Prince Arsham sets the example for Yurokhas by doing exactly that.”

  “And exactly how was it that you intended to make either one of us promise you anything of the sort?” Arsham inquired, cocking his head. “I ask only in the spirit of honest curiosity, you understand.”

  “Actually, it’s fairly simple.” Trianal smiled, looking even more like his uncle. “Unless you both do promise, we’ll just sit here in camp letting the barges bring food down to us for however long it takes. I’m sure Yurgazh and Sir Yarran could always find the extra training time useful. Of course, that means you’d have to explain to Prince Bahnak and Prince Yurokhas would have to explain to King Markhos exactly why it was that a force this size stood idle for the remainder of the campaigning season. I’m fairly certain neither of them would want my ears over it.”

  * * *

  Darnas Warshoe muttered unhappily to himself as he carted another bale of fodder ashore.

  Hradani were never going to be anything but a scourge to be eradicated—in that much, Warshoe was in complete agreement with his baron—but he had to admit the supply arrangements for this expedition were better than anything he’d ever seen back in the days when he’d been an officer in the Royal Army. Of course, most of that was probably thanks to the damned dwarves who were propping up Bahnak and the rest of his bloodthirsty scum, yet there was no point pretending it wasn’t so. And Warshoe had never minded getting his hands dirty (in more ways than one) when it came to getting the job done. For that matter, his current employment as little more than hired labor was an admirable cover for his actual reason for being here. And little though he might care for unloading cargo in the rain, at least Tharanalalknarthas had seen to it that his work crews had snug, covered quarters aboard the barges.

  No, the reason for his current unhappiness had nothing to do with his cover or its demands. It was more...fundamental than that.

  He swung the bale down from his shoulder and into the lean-to riverside warehouse where it would be out of the wet, and stood for a moment under the same roof, surrounded by the scents of rain, riverwater, and dry hay as he massaged the small of his back and gazed out into the gauzy veils of mist while he thought.

  It had sounded forthright enough when Baron Cassan described his mission to him. Not without risk, but risk was part of the job, as far as Warshoe was concerned. And a part of him was looking forward to the opportunity to correct his failure seven years ago when Sir Trianal Bowmaster had been so disobliging as to move at just the very wrong instant. Darnas Warshoe didn’t miss very many arbalest shots, and he’d always taken that failure a bit personally. Assassinating Prince Yurokhas didn’t bother him, either. His loyalty to the Sothōii crown had disappeared along with his commission, and if Baron Cassan wanted the Prince dead, that was reason enough for Warshoe. Nor had he objected to the Baron’s insistence that the two of them had to die in the course of an open battle with the ghouls. Battlefields provided admirable cover for an assassin plying his trade, after all.

  But there was something in the air, something Baron Cassan hadn’t warned him about. He didn’t know what it was, yet the sensitive cat whiskers of a successful assassin quivered incessantly.

  It was just his nerves, he told himself. Only a perfectly understandable anxiety over the scale of this assignment. That was all it was.

  He told himself that very firmly...and he never believed it at all.

  * * *

  “It’s going well,” Malahk Sahrdohr said with undisguised satisfaction.

  With the court’s removal from Sothōfalas, Sahrdohr was able to move about the city more freely. Unlike the Prime Councilor, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had remained in the capital where he could stay in touch with the manifold details of his responsibilities. Sahrdohr had responsibilities enough of his own in his disguise as one of Whalandys Shaftmaster’s senior clerks, but even the Exchequer’s tempo had dropped with the King’s departure. “Mahrahk Firearrow” had much more free time than he’d had earlier in the year, and the exodus of everyone who’d possibly been able to get out of Sothōfalas had reduced the sheer congestion enough to make it far easier for him to drop out of sight without some busybody’s noticing. At the moment, he and Master Varnaythus sat once again in Varnaythus’ warded working chamber, watching the senior wizard’s gramerhain.

  “It appears to be going well,” Varnaythus corrected him, but even his tone was more judicious than disagreeing, the voice of a conscientious man refusing to succumb to overconfidence.

  “I think it’s more than just appearances,” Sahrdohr said, respectfully but firmly, and raised his left hand, ticking off points on its fingers with his right index finger as he made them.

  “Arthnar’s men are on their way—they’ve already passed through Nachfalas without anyone noticing and linked up with those horses someone ‘stole’ from Cassan’s herds,” he said, and Varnaythus nodded.

  The Fire Oar’s assassins weren’t the very best quality armsmen he’d ever seen, but they were tough, individually competent, and about as unscrupulous as they came. Even better, Arthnar had managed to retain an entire mercenary company of Spearmen who’d been too eager for work to worry much over what their new employer wanted them to do. That company provided better than two thirds of his total manpower, under its own officers, which gave it a much greater degree of cohesion and experience working as a unit than Varnaythus had allowed himself to hope for when he’d hatched the original plan. They’d passed through Nachfalas in groups of no more than a half-dozen, small enough not to draw attention to themselves...especially when Baron Cassan had taken some pains to see to it that they wouldn’t. Now they’d reassembled with their “stolen” mounts and were on their way to Chergor, and Arthnar’s hiring agents had successfully convinced them they’d been hired by the Purple Lords, exactly as planned.

  “Second,” Sahrdohr ticked off his next point, “Bahzell, Walsharno, Vaijon, Trianal, and Yurokhas are all on the Ghoul Moor where Anshakar and the others can get at them. And just as an added attraction
, Prince Arsham’s with them, as well.” The younger wizard smiled coldly. “Killing him’s likely to destabilize the succession in Navahk, and that can’t help the stability of this Northern Confederation of Bahnak’s. And, if we’re lucky, we might even get Tharanalalknarthas, too, which would be a much heavier blow to Kilthan than he’d want to admit to anyone.”

  Varnaythus nodded again. Anshakar and his two companions were already cautiously moving their massed army of ghouls into position. Even the three of them found controlling that many ghouls difficult, but they were managing the task quite nicely, between their own more than natural powers and the sheer terror they’d instilled in their new worshippers.

  “Third, Borandas has clearly decided to support Cassan.”

  “That might be putting it a bit too strongly,” Varnaythus pointed out. Sahrdohr cocked an eyebrow at him, and the older wizard shrugged. “I admit he’s decided to support Thorandas’ marriage to Shairnayith, and that’s a major plus. But we still can’t be positive which way he’s going to jump when Cassan makes his move. Thorandas and Bronzehelm are both primed to push him into jumping Cassan’s way, but even the two of them together may not be able to overcome his common sense at the critical moment, and I’d be happier if we could keep a closer eye on Halthan.” He grimaced. “I’m not happy having Brayahs back home to muck things up, especially when I can’t be certain he won’t pick up on our scrying spells.”

  “Granted.” Sahrdohr nodded. “But the mere fact that Borandas has agreed to the betrothal ties him to Cassan in everyone else’s eyes, and all the indications are that Tellian’s partisans are already taking that into their calculations. If the entire Kingdom looks like going up in flames, who’s going to believe his shift wasn’t orchestrated ahead of time as part of whatever Cassan’s up to, however hard he denies it?” the younger wizard shook his head. “No, if Arthnar’s men pull this off, Borandas isn’t going to have much choice but to back his son’s new father-in-law, especially if Tellian and his faction are saddled with responsibility for the King’s assassination. Brayahs would have a hard time undoing that even if he figured out that you’ve been meddling with Bronzehelm’s mind.”

  He paused, eyebrow still arched, until Varnaythus nodded back to him. The older wizard remained uneasy over the possibility that Brayahs might realize someone was using wizardry to manipulate the Great Council’s members. If he did come to that conclusion, the logical thing for him to do, as one of the King’s trusted mage investigators, would be to warn Markhos, and the fact that he was a wind-walker made him just the man to do it. The last thing they needed was for the King and his personal guard to take additional precautions or even withdraw entirely from Chergor to the safety of Balthar. Fortunately, Varnaythus had learned and deduced enough about mage talents to construct a trap spell barrier around Chergor which he was reasonably confident would kill even a wind-walker if he tried to cross it. Unfortunately, he was only reasonably confident, since there’d never been any opportunity to test the underlying theory upon which it was based.

  “Fourth,” Sahrdohr went on after a moment, continuing his count, “Tellian is going to be at Chergor when Arthnar’s men attack after all.” He smiled unpleasantly. “I really thought he’d spend longer at home with his wife after being away so much of the summer. It’s a pity that attentiveness to duty of his isn’t going to be better rewarded.”

  He contemplated the four extended fingers of his left hand for a moment longer, then leaned back in his comfortable chair and raised both hands, palm uppermost.

  “I’ll admit it’s unlikely we’re going to run the board and succeed everywhere,” he said, “but we really only have to succeed partially to accomplish what They sent us here to do. And there’s still all that marvelous potential where the Purple Lords are concerned, after Kilthan and his canal cut off their entire economy at the knees!” He shook his head. “Even granting all the things that can still go wrong, the odds are heavily on our side, Varnaythus.”

  “And if someone on the other side knows what They’re doing—or what They have us doing, at any rate?” Varnaythus challenged.

  “If Tomanāk or any of the others realized what was happening, They’d have already taken steps to stop us,” Sahrdohr said confidently. “Because, frankly, by this point, I don’t see anything They could do to prevent our basic strategy from biting Them right on the arse. There just isn’t enough time for anyone on the other side to adjust their positions enough to stop us before we actually hit them.”

  “Probably not,” Varnaythus conceded. “On the other hand, I suspect Jerghar, Paratha, and Dahlaha thought that right up to the last minute the last time, too. I know we don’t have people running off in all directions at once the way those three managed, but that doesn’t mean it can’t still come apart on us.”

  “No,” Sahrdohr agreed. “But in a worst-case situation, there’s still the karsalhain.” He shrugged. “Coming out into the open with the art may be a last resort, but at least we can still guarantee that Markhos, Tellian, and everyone else in Chergor dies, whatever else happens. It won’t be as neat, and it won’t be as precisely targeted as we wanted, but it may actually work out even better, especially if Borandas and the wind riders decide Cassan was behind it. They won’t have any choice but to move against him if they think he’s been hobnobbing with Carnadosans, Varnaythus, and Yeraghor won’t have any choice but to back him, because they’ve been joined at the hip for so long no one would believe he hadn’t known exactly what Cassan was up to all along. That gives us a brand-new Time of Troubles, and there’s no telling how many fish we could land out of waters that troubled!”

  Varnaythus was forced to nod again, although he dearly hoped to avoid using the karsalhain. Someone like Wencit of Rūm was entirely too likely to be able to track that sort of working back to its caster. It would probably take him quite a while, but one thing wild wizards had plenty of was time, and if he did succeed, the result could be decidedly fatal for the caster in question.

  At least you haven’t done a single thing to attract Wencit’s attention back to the Wind Plain yet, he reminded himself. And Sahrdohr’s right; the karsalhain is definitely a “last resort”...and one it doesn’t look like we’re going to need. Not when not a single one of them so much as suspects what’s coming at them.

  * * *

  “Shahana?”

  Shahana Lillinarafressa sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. It was pitch black outside the windows of her austerely appointed sleeping chamber in the Quaysar temple, but the chamber itself was filled with gentle, silvery illumination. There might not be any moon in the heavens over Quaysar, but there was one—or at least the light of one—in Shahana’s bedroom, flowing from the dark-haired, dark-eyed woman standing in her doorway. The Quaysar Voice was slender and quite tall, and she kept herself physically fit, yet she was also in her forties, and her hair was just touched with the first strands of frost.

  “Yes?” Shahana rubbed her eyes again, grateful that the Voice had decided to call the Mother’s light rather than carry a lit lamp with her. Being awakened in the middle of the night was bad enough without having bright light blasting into her darkness-accustomed eyes.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you.” The Voice smiled crookedly as if she’d been able to read Shahana’s thoughts. Which, the arm conceded, she might very well have managed to do. Some of the Voices could read thoughts, after all.

  “I assume you wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been necessary,” Shahana said.

  “No, I wouldn’t,” the Voice agreed. “You have to leave for Kalatha. Now, I’m afraid.”

  “Now?” Shahana repeated. “You mean as in right now, in the middle of the night?” Her tone made it clear she wasn’t complaining, merely making certain she’d understood correctly, and the Voice nodded. “May I ask why I’m leaving for Kalatha?”

  “You can ask, but I can’t tell you,” the Voice said wryly, and this time the arm’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “I would if I knew,” the Voice co
ntinued, “but I’m afraid She didn’t tell me, either.” She shrugged. “I got the impression it has something to do with young Leeana and that whole business about her marrying Bahzell, but it was only an impression, Shahana. I wouldn’t depend too heavily on it, if I were you.”

  “It’s not like Her to be quite that vague,” Shahana said, and the Voice snorted.

  “I’ve been listening to Her for over twelve years now, Shahana, and I’ve discovered She’s never vague. When she seems to’ve been, it usually turns out we simply didn’t know enough about what was going on—then—to realize She was actually being quite specific. Unfortunately, in this case, I don’t have a clue what She has in mind.”

  “Well,” Shahana said philosophically, climbing out of bed and reaching for her clothing, “I suppose we’ll just have to find out, won’t we?”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “Good afternoon, Master Brayahs,” the armsman in the crimson and silver of House Daggeraxe said.

  “Good afternoon, Sergeant. I’d like to see Baron Borandas, please.”

  The sergeant outside the closed door considered Brayahs Daggeraxe thoughtfully. There’d been a time when Brayahs had been one of Borandas’ most trusted advisers, and the sergeant knew he was still extremely close to the baron and his baroness. But he also knew Brayahs had been chosen as one of the King’s magi, with his oath given to the Crown first and Halthar second, and that imposed certain constraints.

  “Your pardon, Master Brayahs,” the sergeant said, “but the Baron is conferring with Sir Dahlnar. Perhaps it would be better if you came back later.”

  “I realize he’s meeting with Sir Dahlnar,” Brayahs replied, returning his regard steadily. “In fact, I really need to speak to both of them. Please announce me and ask if they can see me now.”