by Glen Cook
Inger drew on Ozora again before she suppressed her prejudices enough to observe, “This poor hagridden kingdom. I pity it if Bragi and Michael don’t come back.”
“Really? My whole life women have been telling me how much better the world would run if the girls were in charge.”
“Pardon my cynicism. Show me a couple of examples.”
Kristen shook her head. The only women she knew of, who had gotten famous, had been really serious kickers of ass.
Babeltausque found himself second-in-command to his thirteen-year-old girlfriend, who could be precisely decisive even when she had no clue. She was one of those people who got things done.
“Lein She, we need firewood.” In seconds she had determined that the Candidate was the line officer while Tang Shan was only a senior technical specialist. “Send someone to find some. Then we’ll inventory our resources, including skills, before our ability to communicate goes away.”
It might. The easterners were becoming harder to follow.
“Keeping warm is our main project for now.”
Dawn came. They watched it from the portico of what seemed to be a temple. The world sprawled below was grey and white with tufts of brown weed showing through crusty old snow.
Carrie said, “Let’s figure out where we are. And find something to eat. I’m really hungry.” Fire was no problem. A forest lay at the foot of the hill. The easterners had tramped a path already.
Tang Shan spoke slowly. The sorcerer said, “I can’t follow him anymore.”
“What he said last night. He’s been here before. Only now he says if we head straight south we’ll come to a road.”
“You still understand him?”
“You have to listen hard.”
Tang Shan said something more.
Babeltausque listened hard. This time he caught a few words. Something about small game. Rabbit and bird tracks marred the snow. The crust had weathered till those were featureless depressions, but they did suggest that a clever hunter need not starve. “I can help with food.”
“We’re going to get cold,” Carrie said. “Them worse than us. They’re not used to our kind of winter. But we can’t stay here—unless we want to make it to spring by eating each other.”
Babeltausque asked, “Why do you say things like that?”
“Gallows humor? All right. It wasn’t funny. But it was true. If there’s a road we need to find it and let it take us somewhere warm.”
The sorcerer could not argue with that. “Let’s get out of the wind and get a plan worked out.” Carrie was right about them going to get cold. They had barely enough clothing amongst them to preserve the new girl’s modesty and their own. And they would have to help the woman travel. She did not do well on one foot.
She was a strange one. The oddest things amazed her.
Carrie said, “Bee Boss, we could outfit you and send you for help while the rest of us stay by the fire.”
Him because he was most likely to get serious attention, of course.
“Wouldn’t work. This place can’t be found from outside, remember?”
“Are we sure this is the place where the King came back?”
“You heard Tang Shan. And how many secret temples, with transfer portals in them, can there be near Vorgreberg? So we all have to go and we all have to be miserable and I really, really hate that. I really don’t like winter. And right now it feels cold enough to cause frostbite.”
The easterners kept whispering amongst themselves. Near as Babeltausque could tell they were trying to follow what he and Carrie were saying. He and she spoke deliberately, for their benefit, and for that of the woman, who seemed able to read moods well, if not follow their actual speech. Tang Shan focused on Carrie intensely, working hard to maintain communication. Survival might depend upon it. She reported, “He says they can create a heat exchange bubble big enough to keep three people warm. We can take turns.”
“That should help.” He had no idea what a heat exchange bubble might be. Definitely not something within his own skill set. Food he could help with. He could call game to the slaughter if he could see the animal before he started the draw. “How far to that road?”
“He says it’s a matter of time, not distance.”
“That’s right. It took the King and them hours and hours to cover three or four miles.”
“We’d better get started. There’s less daylight this time of year.”
Scalza shouted, “Mother! I found them!”
Mist closed in quickly, wondering who. They were looking for more than one… Ah. The sorcerer, his girlfriend, and some of the Karkha Tower garrison, with Tang Shan, all crowding a bonfire beside a dirt road in a snowy forest. So a few had gotten away, probably because they had been moving the couple along when Old Meddler arrived. They looked totally miserable now.
“Who is that woman?” She could not be from the Karkha Tower—unless the boys had had a prostitute in. No! That level of indiscipline was unimaginable after the stronghold had been compromised before.
Ethrian said, “Sahmaman!”
Silence descended as though some grand spell had been cast. Those farther away caught it from those close enough to see into Scalza’s bowl.
Ethrian glowed.
Ekaterina looked like she had been slammed with an emotional hammer.
Not good, Mist thought.
Lord Kuo was right. Pray that Nepanthe had instilled her own values.
But once the first moment of pain was over Eka crowded in beside Ethrian. She stared, face stony. “Is it really her?”
“Yes,” stated in such a way that everyone understood that Ethrian was his old self again—complete with recollections of being the Deliverer.
He yielded visibly to an abiding sorrow.
Eka put her arms around him and squeezed. Had the moment not been poignant it could have been amusing, she being half his size.
Ethrian accepted the comfort. He took deep breaths, said, “Pulling it together now.” Mist met his gaze over Eka’s head, was startled.
This boy—who had crushed half an empire and had commanded hordes responsible for having slain thousands—this crazy boy not only adored the woman pictured in Scalza’s bowl, he had a fierce affection for Eka, too.
But were his feelings what Eka wanted them to be?
Were his feelings for Sahmaman what Eka did not want those to be?
Eka asked, “What’s wrong with her foot?”
Ethrian shrugged. “I don’t know. She wasn’t like that before.”
A darkness began to take Ethrian after the first joyous flush. He was troubled, wondering how this was possible. Sahmaman had been a ghost before. That ghost had grown quite solid, but was a ghost even so. And that ghost had been stilled again at the end of the Deliverer wars, evidently forever. She had given herself up so Ethrian could survive.
But there she was again, in the flesh, interacting with the sorcerer, his girl, Tang Shan, Lein She, and some apprentices from the Karkha Tower.
“Check this,” Scalza said. He had drawn the bowl’s point of view back.
Michael Trebilcock said, “They went through the same temple that the King and I did. That’s where we hit the Sedlmayr road.”
He saw nothing remarkable, otherwise. Neither did Bragi, who observed only, “Looks like they’re freezing their butts off.”
Mist asked, “Scalza, is that drover the man who killed Megelin?”
“Yes, Mother. Exactly. Intriguing conjunction, isn’t it?”
“Old Meddler might be a more clever manipulator than even I was willing to credit.”
Varthlokkur announced, “That devil has run out of patience. He’s on his way.”
“Shit,” Ragnarson murmured. A dozen others agreed with that sentiment.
Haroun and Yasmid forced their way in for a look at the donkey drover. Neither spoke. No one contested their demand for viewing space. The black emotion steaming off them impressed even the Empress.
There was a
great chance that Boneman would not live happily ever after should his path intersect that of King Megelin’s mother and father.
Varthlokkur was wrong. Old Meddler had not been about to launch his attack. Instead, he had slipped out to visit a fellow conspirator from the Pracchia days who had survived the subsequent purges. The man was a merchant-sorcerer-gangster of modest means, talent, and attainment, but of expansive ambition, who believed that he should be the successor to Magden Norath. The Star Rider agreed. That was what the man wanted to hear. Old Meddler needed the borrow of his equipment, and his assistance, to gather more demonic help.
It might be days yet before the winged horse came with the Windmjirnerhorn. He for sure had to be ready to go when it did.
First order of business, though: more demons. He could not improve his position with iron statues, but there were countless demons out there. His old associate owned the means to call them and was eager to help. His once-upon-a-time attempt to capture the Karkha Tower, undertaken without approval and with secret, malicious ambition, had gone awry. Further, it had let the Tervola know that some of their secrets were not secret at all. There would be no chance for a surprise again.
The attack also told the Star Rider which underling believed that he dared hijack his master’s tools and powers to further his own ambitions.
He did not pursue the matter. He did not have the luxury now. He needed every advantage he could pull together.
He could indulge his vindictive streak later, once his survival was assured and the world had been cowed again.
Ragnarson grumbled, “Going crazy over here! When in the h…” Nepanthe’s child stopped maybe eight feet to his left and stared at him with eyes gone big, trying to decide if he was entertainment or if she should run away shrieking and get herself some big-people comforting elsewhere.
“Ah, damn,” Ragnarson muttered. “Don’t scare the kids and horses, man.” Wouldn’t do any good, anyway. Neither time nor the gods cared how much you whined.
It was late. The usual crowd, including Varthlokkur, had gone to bed. Mist and her main associates had gone off to some Imperial military headquarters to catch up on business having nothing to do with the Star Rider. There was plenty of that. Insofar as anyone could see, Old Meddler meant to spend the remainder of his days in Throyes conjuring demonic reinforcements.
He was marking time, waiting for his horse and magical Horn. The farseers could not locate the beast, whose dallying had the ancient more frustrated than did his enemies.
Nepanthe was playing with a scrying bowl. Now that Ethrian was mostly recovered she seemed to be in an even more troubled place. Bragi was unsure whether that was because the boy no longer needed mothering or because she was afraid that he might become the Deliverer again.
Ragnarson would not worsen her concern by mentioning it but was confident that Varthlokkur and Mist, independently, would have arranged that the boy should never don the cloak of darkness again.
Mist’s daughter was there, too, piloting her brother’s scrying bowl, as were several low-level easterners, monitoring transfer portals and farseeing devices of their own. The girl was having trouble staying awake. She noticed him looking, straightened some and glared. He got the feeling she wished he would go away.
Smyrena came closer now. She was fearless lately. He had seen her crawl into the Old Man’s lap. She had put the baby hoodoo on Kuo Wen-chin. Now she was trying to conquer a king.
Not that difficult. Ragnarson loved the little ones. He had only Fulk left. Fulk had passed the cute and cuddly stage.
Another glance at Ekaterina. Yes. She definitely wanted him gone. Why?
He caught her fleeting look at Nepanthe.
Ah. She wanted to talk to her future mother-in-law, in private.
Almost funny. It was all drama at that age, particularly for girls.
Maybe she was worried about becoming an old maid.
She could have been married by now had she been born in his northern homeland, or in Hammad al Nakir, where they married them off even younger but recommended that they not be used as women before they turned nine.
He could not help a judgmental sneer, which the girl caught and, probably, thought had to do with her.
Nepanthe squeaked, half in surprise, half in distress. Ragnarson, Ekaterina, and Smyrena all headed her way, the little one clambering into her lap, then having to have her hands restrained so she would not splash in the bowl.
There was the winged horse, airborne, streaking over a vaguely discernable river. Nepanthe had adjusted her bowl to see in limited light, but there was little of that. Ragnarson thought he saw ruins and a substantial wood that had been ripped to kindling.
“That’s right outside Lioantung,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“It’s running from something. It gets away but then when it tries to hide the thing that’s after it always finds it again. There! That shadow.”
It was dark out there. Ragnarson saw nothing but the night.
“That’s a demon,” Ekaterina said. “One of the… Serving the one we aren’t supposed to name.”
“So,” Ragnarson mused. “He’s lost all patience.”
“Varth was right,” Nepanthe said. “He has a problem with his horse not doing what he wants.” She backed off the point of view. The horse became a white toy flapping desperately toward the shattered forest. The demon, a sprawl detectable only where it masked whatever lay behind it, followed. It had trouble staying locked onto its quarry.
A bit of red light, just a point but so intense it hurt the eye, appeared at the edge of the bowl. It moved toward the demon at an absurd speed. A second point, paler but more intense, ripped toward the winged horse.
Ragnarson blurted, “What the…?”
Neither Nepanthe nor Ekaterina managed that much.
The easterners on duty crowded round, excited. They knew what was happening but lacked the language skills to explain.
A startling amount of progress had been made toward restoring Lioantung. Lord Ssu-ma Shih-ka’i, however, had established himself in the worst of what remained unreclaimed. He led a company of specialized artillerists. They had a dozen transfer portals in support, against a need for hasty redeployment. There was no obvious sign of their presence, from ground level or the air.
A runner approached. “Message from the Empress, Lord.”
“Another one?”
“Yes, Lord. Another one.”
She would drive him crazy if she did not stop. He wished he dared cut communications completely so he need not waste time keeping her reassured.
He had sent one message bluntly asking her to stop. She had apologized, then had kept right on fussing.
She would be watching now, he knew. She kept sending updates, repeating what his own people had reported already.
His second for the operation, Lord Chu Lo Kuun, announced, “The target has changed course and put on speed, Lord.” It had been drifting lazily, out of range, going nowhere. “It might finally come close enough… Something odd, here. Ah! It isn’t alone!”
Lord Ssu-ma stepped over. “I see.” He saw more than the obvious, in fact. “Sixty miles separating them.”
“But closing fast.”
“Total alert. Stand by for action.” He wanted to step out where he could see the eastern sky but there was no point. It was dark. He would see nothing but stars and a sliver of moon too slight to dust the ruins with silver. Winged horse and demon both would remain invisible unless right overhead.
A demon, though—and one of considerable power—was after the winged horse. Only the Star Rider was calling up devils these days. The horse had been shunning its master. Must have disappointed him hugely to have generated such a cruel reaction.
Lord Chu saw it, too. “What do you think?”
Shih-ka’i’s response would not be popular in some quarters. He removed his boar’s mask so Lo Kuun could read his lips, which he shaded with his right hand. “Target lock them both and calculate
their probable closest points of approach.” Unstated, do all that before higher authority intervened. Before the Empress decided to take the Windmjirnerhorn for herself.
Lo Kuun might have some slight ambition, too, though only Old Meddler had ever been able to control the Horn. His body language suggested that he did not like his orders. Nevertheless, he executed them. Nor did he remind his superior that angles of fire and points of approach would change by the moment as horse and demon maneuvered. Lord Ssu-ma Shih-ka’i had written the doctrine for extreme range use of this artillery. He had proven that doctrine against the Great One.
That Lo Kuun would do as instructed was why Lord Ssu-ma had chosen him as his second.
Coming events would be choreographed to serve the empire, not individual ambition. Thus did the pig farmer’s son will it.
Shortly, from nearby but out of sight, Lord Chu announced, “All set, Lord. They are in range, targeted and locked.”
“Launch one on each.”
“Launching now, Lord.”
Came a roar like the combined release of a hundred heavy ballistae in barrage. The ruins shook. Rubble fell.
“One is away,” Lo Kuun announced.
The roar repeated itself. So did the shaking. Somewhere not far off a brick wall groaned and collapsed.
“Two is away. Three and four are targeted and locked.”
“Stand by. Reload one and two.”
“Reloading one and two, Lord.”
Shih-ka’i stepped over to where farseeing specialists were tracking the shafts.
They reported both flying true.
He whispered, “She will be extremely unhappy,” inside his mask, not moving his lips.
She might dismiss him. Though she had not given specific instructions she would expect him to preserve something with the potential of the Windmjirnerhorn. And, as certainly, he knew that this attack would tell Old Meddler a great deal about what he now faced.
The shafts were no secret, though. They had been employed in number against the Great One, then against Matayanga to the extent that any remained in inventory after the struggle in the east. But Shih-ka’i’s ability to target them precisely, against objects in motion… The Empress would rather that neither the Star Rider nor the world know her artillerists were able to do that.
