by David Weber
She yanked the brush through her hair one last time, then tossed it onto the dressing table with a clatter. That would have to do, she told herself, and rose, then looked at the servant hovering in the doorway.
"It's grateful I'd be if you'd tell the courier I'll see him in the Council Chamber," she said, and no one would have guessed from her voice how frightened she was.
Princess Arthanal was already waiting in the Council Chamber when Marglyth arrived. Arthanal had no official role on the Council, yet Marglyth knew how often her advice had been pivotal to Bahnak's important decisions, and a tiny part of the weight crushing down on her own shoulders seemed to ease under her mother's encouraging smile. She walked around the table to sit in her proper place as First Councilor, then looked up, heart suddenly racing, as the door opened once more. But it wasn't the courier-not yet-and her pulse eased slightly once more as the guards passed Bahzell and Hurthang into the chamber.
"Thank you for coming," she said, softly but from the heart. Bahzell only shrugged, then hugged her and stepped back against the wall behind her chair like an armsman behind his lord, and Hurthang joined him. Technically, the two of them had no more business here than Arthanal did, but Marglyth knew she would need advice, and it would have been impossible for her to summon a regular meeting of the Council in time. Even if it hadn't been the middle of the night, almost all of the Council's male members were at the front with Bahnak, and the other female members were scattered about Hurgrum trying to see to their absent fellows' duties as well as their own. Besides, this was one of the burdens that came with acting as First Councilor. In her father's absence, it was Marglyth's job to govern Hurgrum… and until she knew the full message the courier carried, there was no point in trying to assemble a quorum, anyway.
Someone else rapped on the door, and she made herself sit back in her chair as an exhausted, mud-spattered Horse Stealer was ushered in. He went down on one knee between the open ends of the U-shaped table, and she swallowed.
"Don't be crawling around on your knees, man!" she said tartly. "Get yourself up and say your say."
"Aye, Milady." The courier stood and reached into his pouch. The hastiness with which he had been dispatched was obvious, for the grubby piece of paper he produced hadn't been put into a message tube for safekeeping. In fact, it hadn't even been properly sealed, only folded into a screw. He held it out to Marglyth, and she was pleased to see that her hands didn't even quiver as she took it.
"Thank you," she said courteously, and straightened the tightly folded paper. The hand in which it was written was difficult to read, but not difficult enough, and she felt her ears fold tight to her head as she ran her eyes down the scrawled message.
"Would you be knowing what this says?" she asked, raising her eyes to the courier, and he nodded.
"Aye, Milady. Captain Garuth feared it might be lost, seeing as how he'd no time to seal it up proper. He was wishful to be sure I'd be able to be answer any questions should that happen."
"I see." She gazed at him for another long moment. "And your own estimate of the numbers would be?" she asked finally.
"Captain Garuth's the right of it, Milady. There's after being a thousand of them in the vanguard alone if there's one, and likely more following on behind."
"I see," she repeated. Then she drew a deep breath and nodded to him. "You've my thanks once again. It's grateful I'd be if you'd leave us to think on this-" she twitched the written note slightly "-for a bit. Tell the guards I'm wishful to have you wrap yourself around a good, hot meal."
The courier nodded, bowed, and withdrew, and Marglyth turned to her family. Her carefully calm expression wavered for just a moment as the door closed behind the messenger, but she forced it back under control.
"Garuth," Hurthang said softly. "He's after commanding the picket watching the Gullet if I recall aright."
"You do that," Marglyth confirmed grimly. She crushed the note in her fist and looked straight at Bahzell. "The Sothōii are coming," she said simply.
"Tomanāk !" Hurthang muttered, but Bahzell said nothing. He only looked back at his sister, and in the back of his brain he heard Kilthan's voice once more, describing the Sothōii's fear of a unified hradani realm. Well, if they wanted to prevent that, they'd chosen the right moment, he thought grimly. Bahnak had left five hundred men-a single battalion-to garrison Hurgrum itself, backed up by a half-strength City Guard. The other Horse Stealer cities were similarly vulnerable, for every warrior the massed clans had been able to scrape up had been thrown at Churnazh. His father had wanted to smash Churnazh as quickly as possible-partly in the hope that his allies, seeing how utterly he had been crushed, would surrender without further combat, and partly in order to free up the troops to guard his flank against just such an attack. But the Sothōii had managed to assemble their strength more rapidly than Bahnak had thought possible.
"They're coming down the Gullet?" he asked finally, and Marglyth nodded. Well, that made sense, too. Winter hung on late atop the Wind Plain, and the snow in its northern reaches and up near Hope's Bane Glacier was only now melting. The mighty Spear River was in full flood, but so were all the other, smaller streams which tumbled down the Escarpment, which meant most of the traditional routes from the high plateau to the lowlands remained flooded and impassable.
But not the Gullet. That long, narrow, tortuously winding crack stretched clear up the side of the plateau. Little wider than fifty paces in places, most of its length was protected from heavy snow accumulations. Once it had been the bed of the northernmost tributary of the Hangnysti River, but some long ago cataclysm had twisted and buckled the western edge of the Wind Plain, diverting the river further north and heaving up a steep shoulder of tilted rock to form an effective wall across the upper end of the Gullet and divert even the spring floods from it. The Gullet had never been flooded out in living memory, but it was also a difficult path. Most people's cavalry would have found it utterly impassable, and even the Sothōii's war horses and coursers would require over two days to make the descent. That was the main reason it had been used far more often by hradani raiding parties, and even now he couldn't completely shake off a sense of surprise that the Sothōii had chosen to attempt it.
Unfortunately, they had… and the Gullet's lower end was less than twenty-five leagues from Hurgrum's walls. If a Sothōii column debouched from it, it could sweep right through the heart of Prince Bahnak's realm-and there would be no warriors to stop it. Sothōii armies had penetrated that far before, if not in the last two or three generations, and each time the devastation had been terrible. Even as he smashed Churnazh's army to bits, Bahnak might find his own lands being put to fire and the sword behind him.
"How far into the Gullet have they come?" Arthanal asked in her quiet voice.
"They haven't-not before Garuth was after getting his message off," Marglyth replied. "He'd stationed watchers ten leagues out across the Wind Plain to spy out threats. As of this morning, they'd not started down. In fact, they'd not yet reached within five leagues of his main position."
"And how many men would he be having with him?" Bahzell asked.
"Not enough," Hurthang answered grimly for his sister. "He was never intended for aught but a forward scout. It's surprised I'd be if he's more than forty."
"But the Sothōii can't be after knowing that yet," Marglyth pointed out.
"Aye, and the Gullet's no bad place for a handful to be trying to slow an army, either," Bahzell murmured. He leaned back, rubbing his jaw while his ears moved slowly back and forth in thought. He didn't know Garuth as well as he knew some of his father's other officers, but the man he remembered was a thoughtful, canny commander. He wouldn't need anyone to tell him his job, and he'd know every trick there was to convince the enemy he had more men than he did. But if the Sothōii had decided to move in strength, he would never be able to stop them, however defensible the Gullet might be.
"-reinforcements?" He shook himself as he realized his mother was speaking a
nd looked at Marglyth.
"We've none to send, Mother," his sister said flatly. "Oh, we've the battalion here in the city, but they'd not stop a serious attack. Slow it, perhaps, but not stop it. No," she shook her head, "we'll be needing them worse where they are when the Sothōii are after getting here."
"Marglyth's the right of it there," Hurthang agreed unhappily. "Not that one battalion's going to be doing us all that much good, even from behind a wall."
"Aye, that's true enough," Bahzell heard himself say. "But it's in my mind there might just be a better answer nor that, when all's said."
"It's hard put I'd be to think of a worse one!" his cousin said with a hard crack of laughter. But then Bahzell's expression registered, and he cocked his head at him. "D'you mean to be saying you've truly thought of something?" he demanded.
"Well, I'll not say it's the best thought the gods were ever giving a man, but it's better than naught," Bahzell told him. Then he turned back to his sister. "You'd best be getting a courier of your own off, Marglyth. Tell Garhuth he's to do all that ever he can to slow the Sothōii, but I want no pitched battles. He's to feel free to skirmish if he must, but he's not to be doing anything as would prove how weak he is. Tell him I'm wanting him no further down the Gullet than Charhan's Despair before noon tomorrow."
"And why would we be telling him that?" Hurthang asked.
"Because betwixt now and then, you and Gharnal and I are going to be after force marching the entire Order to Charhan's Despair," Bahzell told him flatly.
"But Himself was saying-" Hurthang began.
"Himself was after saying we were to take no part in the fighting between Horse Stealer and Bloody Sword," Bahzell interrupted, "and no more will we. But he said naught at all, at all, about our fighting Sothōii, my lad!"
"But we've no more than six score blades, even counting all the novices," Hurthang pointed out. "You'll not stop four or five thousand Sothōii with such as that, Gullet or no. And that's even assuming as you can be getting them there that quick!"
"Oh, I'll get 'em there all right and tight," Bahzell agreed in a grim, hammered-iron voice. "And whether we can be stopping the bastards or not, we've no option but to try. We've done naught to be provoking a Sothōii attack-we've not even raided their herds in the better part of five years, now-and I'm thinking himself might not feel so kindly towards those as make undeclared war against folk as haven't been hurting them in the least. That being so, we've little choice but to take the Order out to argue the point and show them the error of their ways, like."
"And they'll still be riding us into the mud, come what may," Hurthang argued.
"Maybe they will, and maybe they won't," Bahzell replied. "But they'll not do it without getting hurt themselves, and they'll not do it all in a minute, either. It's surprised indeed I'd be if we couldn't be buying at least two or three more days' time, and it's possible whoever's in command on the other side will take it into his head to be taking his horsemen home if we can. He'll not know how the battle is going against Churnazh, so he'll have no idea how soon Father can be shifting troops around to be hitting him. And it's mortal early in the year, Hurthang. I've no notion of just what conditions may be up atop the Wind Plain, but I'll lay odds as how they're worse up yonder than they are down here. Aye, and come to that, I'm thinking Garuth may have been overestimating the odds just a bit, as well. I've no doubt at all, at all, he was after seeing the numbers he reported, but like as not there's not nearly so many behind them as he was thinking."
"And just how might you be figuring that out?" Hurthang asked skeptically.
"These lads will all be out of the West Riding, and most likely from the local garrisons, at that," Bahzell said positively, remembering what Kilthan had told him about the Sothōii kingdom's divisions over how to react to the hradani "threat."
"There's not been time for more to be mobilized-or to've been reaching the Gullet if they had-with the roads being what they must up yonder," he went on. "So whoever the fellow in command may be, he'll know as well as we do as how he's operating on a boot lace. He'll not want to be meeting four or five thousand Iron Axes and as many more warriors from each of the other clans in the open. No," Bahzell shook his head. "His whole notion is to be getting in and out quick, and maybe to be holding the bottom of the Gullet until reinforcements can be reaching him."
"Mph." It was Hurthang's turn to rub his chin. He considered Bahzell's argument carefully, but then, reluctantly, shook his head.
"I'll not fault your logic about mobilizations and what t'other side's after thinking, Bahzell, but that's mostly because it's damned I'll be if I can see a single reason why his notion shouldn't be working. I'll grant you we can like as not hold 'em for a day or two, but three?" He shook his head again. "Hard enough for two, lad; three would be taking miracle workers, not warriors! And even if we're after managing three-aye, or even four-it won't be enough. They'll ride right over us, throw out scouts to be certain sure there aren't any of our armies anywhere near 'em, then fan out, and they'll take their torches with 'em, curse it!"
"I'm thinking Hurthang is right, Bahzell," Marglyth said with quiet hopelessness. "All you'd be doing would be to throw your own men away alongside Garuth's."
"Maybe so," Bahzell said stubbornly, "but there's one point you and Hurthang are both after missing-one thing about our lads as is different from Garuth and his picket."
His cousin and his sister looked at him blankly, but he saw his mother nodding slowly. Arthanal's expression was still worried, but there was a glimmer of hope in her eyes, and he nodded back to her.
"Garuth is after fighting under the colors of Hurgrum," he said quietly. "Our lads will be under a different banner, Hurthang. Now, it may be the man commanding those horsemen won't be minded to see it so, but there's a whole world's difference between riding down bloodthirsty hradani raiders and slaughtering a chapter of the Order of Tomanāk as only wants to protect women and children and old folk. I've no doubt they picked a man as won't shed any tears at all for the killing of hradani, but angering the entire Order of Tomanāk-now that's a horse of another color, Hurthang!"
"Assuming as how they're minded to believe we're a chapter of the Order, it may be you've a point," his cousin admitted. "But what if they're not?"
"Then we'll be no deader in the Gullet than we would be in the ruins of Hurgrum," Bahzell told him grimly.
Chapter Thirty
" Well?" Sir Mathian spat the one-word question at Festian.
"I warned you this route was more difficult than it looked on a map, Milord," Festian replied in a tart, stinging tone. The scout commander's eyes flashed, but he had himself under control. Which didn't mean he intended to suffer Mathian's tantrums. Not in the field, where Mathian's so far negligible exploits certainly hadn't earned him the right to tongue-lash a man who'd served his own apprenticeship under Pargan the Great.
Mathian's face darkened, but then he made himself draw a deep breath as the older knight's reply fanned his ill temper afresh. The fact that Festian had, in fact, argued against the expedition-and specifically against sending it down the Gullet-from the first didn't help… and neither did the fact that Mathian knew he needed the scout commander. Unlike Mathian, Festian had fought in the Gullet before. But Fiendark take it, this was the only way Mathian could get at the Phrobus-damned hradani, and if he meant to attack at all, it had to be now, while that bastard Bahnak had all his troops off slaughtering his fellow barbarians elsewhere.
"Very well. You warned me," he said. "Yet however well taken your warning may have been, we're here now. And that being the case, I need your report on what we face."
"As you say, Milord." Festian removed his open-faced cavalry helm and tucked it into the crook of his left arm. Like Mathian and Haladhan, he wore a steel cuirass over boiled leather armor, not the chain or plate knights would have worn in other lands. Aside from the wind riders, almost all Sothōii cavalry, nobles and armsmen alike, were light or medium horse whose forte was mobilit
y and speed. In open terrain, their fast, slashing attacks and lethal skill with the horsebow made them deadly foes, but the Gullet would deny them virtually all their normal advantages. They couldn't fight on horseback in its cramped confines, and their light armor would be of limited value against Horse Stealer hradani on foot. Not that Mathian seemed aware of it.
Festian took a moment to survey the expedition's commander, and a mental lip curled. Despite his inherited position as Warden of the Glanharrow District, this was the first opportunity Mathian had found actually to command any sizable body of troops in the field, and if there were two mistakes he hadn't made, Festian couldn't think of what they might be. He always was a pain in the arse, he thought. No wonder the coursers wouldn't take him! Now if only there were some way I could be rid of him!
But there wasn't. And so Festian was out here, a third of the way down the Escarpment, with his weary horse mud to the belly, under the orders of a vengeance-driven fool who'd never grown up… and thought he was Torren Sword Arm reborn.
"The Gullet may not be flooded, Milord," he said, "but the mud's hock deep in places. In fact, it's mostly mud-where it isn't solid rock or piled up boulders so steep even a wind rider would have to dismount." Mathian's eye flashed at the mention of wind riders. His glance darted to where Sir Kelthys sat comfortably in the saddle, and Festian hid a smile of satisfaction. "On top of that, the hradani knew we were coming. My lead scouts are a third of the way down, and they've already reported at least a dozen spots where the enemy used mud or rock slides to block the main path."
"But we can get through them, correct?" That was Sir Haladhan, and Festian glanced at him coldly.
"We can, Lord Marshal. We'll have to clear the trail-especially if we mean to get horses through, which I presume we do-and some of my men are already working on that, but it's going to take more like three days than two to get all the way down."
