by Cook, Glen
There had been ample warning. Connectens of the noble and knightly classes had made pilgrimages to Vantrad and Chaldar before. Some had tarried for years, helping thwart the villainies of those emissaries of darkness, the Pramans. Many of those veterans were willing to share their experiences endlessly.
They had declared that no one ever accepted the truth till they met it head-on for themselves.
Triamolin offered another lesson. The Widow and the Vindicated would not be celebrated in the Holy Lands. They were almost unknown. Those who had heard of them were not impressed. There were hard men everywhere in the Holy Lands. The hard men of Triamolin were of Arnhander extraction, in the main. They had no love for the bandits and rebels who had undone the sainted Anne of Menand. Anne’s unwavering favor had sustained their crusader state for a decade.
Brother Candle suspected that disembarking at Kagure or Grove would have been wiser. Those counties had been established by fighters from the Connec.
Kedle told him, “I may have outwitted myself again.”
“Again?”
“Again. I do it all the time. I’m just clever about covering it up. Like a cat. I don’t let the rest of you know. Come. Let’s find a Brotherhood hospice.”
They learned that there were three of those, two of which had opened in the past two months. All three were stuffed with armed pilgrims who had arrived with no plans beyond reaching the Holy Lands. None of the three had room to squeeze the Vindicated in, nor could they handle the animals the Vindicated had brought. A soldier older than Brother Candle suggested that they camp in the countryside. The road east led to pastureland eight miles out. Others were camped there already but the water and grazing remained adequate and the locals were not too predatory when marketing victuals. They would be wise to post sentries, though.
“Needs must needs must,” Kedle grumbled. She did not like that one miserable choice. Eight miles. Animals took longer to get their land legs than did people. Even that brief journey could decimate those that had survived the passage.
It would take a month for the Vindicated to become an effective fighting force again.
* * *
The campsite was not ideal. The best ground was occupied already. Kedle was not prepared to muscle someone and start a feud. She had come to the Holy Lands amply supplied with enemies already.
Her two tagalong gifts from Socia began hauling water immediately, leaving their worshipped mistress, whose wounds still hampered her, to try setting up her tent by herself. Water would remain a constant problem because so much would have to be carried so far.
She fought the canvas and tent poles with help from no one but the old cripple from the siege of Arngrere, known as Grandfather Arcot. She had a bad leg herself. Grandfather Arcot had problems with his arm, facial scars, and lacked three fingers on his right hand. The two of them were not well made for handling common camp chores.
Someone asked, “Could you use some help, then?” in heavily accented Connecten.
Kedle started to snap something in character for Kedle Richeut, nasty or sarcastic or both, but Lady Hope came to mind. Not quite sure why, she held her tongue.
The speaker was the commander of a battalion camped close by. He had watched the Vindicated arrive. It looked like he knew who she was. She thought she ought to know him, too, though she was sure their paths had not crossed before. The feeling waxed as she took his measure.
Grandfather Arcot chirped, “Little help here, please?”
The visitor stepped in as Kedle responded. He got hold of an obstreperous tent pole. “I have three hundred bored soldiers just sitting around. They’re gonna start getting into mischief if I don’t give them something to do.”
Oddly, he seemed disinterested in her as a woman but intrigued by Kedle Richeut, the Widow.
She ignored that, listened to what he said.
In her camps there was always work enough to exhaust everyone by the end of the day. To the Widow all the world was enemy territory. She insisted that the Vindicated take that to be true wherever they were. They had been warned already that trouble might be coming here.
“Why not? I’ll use whatever help I can get so long as the helpers don’t have sticky fingers.”
The visitor put on a dramatic show of being appalled. “Madam! Please! You are speaking to the chief law officer of the Mother City!”
Grandfather Arcot declared, “Not a thunderclap of reassurance to a Connecten, fella.” He lost control of the canvas he was wrangling. His eyes had gone hard.
The visitor considered Arcot’s face, hand, and arm. “Unhappy encounter with the minions of law and order?”
Kedle said, “With minions of Brothe. At Antieux.”
“Ah. Of course. Some of us can’t put the bad times behind us.”
Still wrestling canvas and poles, Kedle demanded, “Who the hell are you?”
He got no chance to reply. A small man had appeared. “Word just came in, Boss. He’s unshipping at Shartelle.”
“Hey! Bo! I really hoped he’d give it a skip. Guess he couldn’t ignore the challenge of cracking the tough nut first.”
“Just Plain Joe will be there. I’m tempted to go see him.”
“Not smart in this country. You don’t go anywhere on your own. You’re a westerner, you’re prey.” He faced Kedle. “Some crusaders are worse than most Pramans. I’m told.”
The smaller man bobbed his head nervously. “Rogert du Tancret.”
“And the Queen.”
Kedle eyed the smaller man. “I’ve seen you before.”
“I doubt that, ma’am.” His nerves worsened, though. He was lying.
She sniffed out the cleverest lies easily, these days. This man was, suddenly, desperate to be away from her.
The other interposed himself smoothly. “I would be Colonel Ghort,” he said, while the little man slipped away, studying his surroundings with ferocious care.
“All right. I remember who he is. Or was, maybe.” The little fellow had been a Brothen spy in Antieux, pretending to be a Seeker from Firaldia. He had been bold enough to engage in a doctrinal debate with Brother Candle before vanishing so completely that he might never have existed.
“He’s a good man.”
She shook her head, unsure that she had her facts right, then focused on Ghort. Pinkus Ghort. Sometimes Colonel Ghort. Lately, Captain-General of the Patriarchal armies Ghort. “I appreciate the offer of assistance. Being Khaurenese I would have no trouble accepting. The Good God knows we could use a hand. But these are the Vindicated, mostly from Antieux. Chances are they would consider you a gift from God.”
“Oh, sigh. I had nothing to do with the Antieux massacre.”
“You’re older than I am, and more experienced. You have to know that you being guilty, or not guilty, means about as much to them as it did to Bronte Doneto, whatever hat he wore whenever.”
Ghort managed a grin. “You’re probably right. It’s an awful old world, chock full of human beings, and human beings are such unreasonable, irrational beasts. Worse than the gods themselves. All right. I tried to forge some solidarity. Now I’ll go somewhere where I won’t be so much of an object of temptation.”
Kedle thought she felt the snicker of an invisible, amused entity. Hope? There must be news.
Ghort said, “Come visit me. My guys don’t hold any grudges.”
More amusement.
Kedle watched the man amble off. “What the hell was that?”
“You vamp.” Grandfather Arcot wore a big, scar-distorted grin. “Let’s talk about it after we’re done here.” He was making no headway with the tent.
“Yeah. All right. I’m coming. It’s just … That was so damned odd. I can’t figure what he wanted.”
The very air whispered, Perhaps he noted that you are a woman and recalled that he is a man. The same air slithered under the edges of the tent and lifted it up.
“There we go!” Grandfather Arcot declared. “That’s what I wanted to see. So. You’re cur
ious, go on and visit him. You lads! Lend a hand, you don’t want to sleep in the rain.”
The Arnhander boys from Arngrere put their buckets aside.
The Widow continued to stare after the Captain-General. Hope continued to envelop her in silent amusement. Pinkus Ghort was still officially Captain-General, was he not?
What was his game?
What, for that matter, was he doing in the Holy Lands?
Maybe she would go visit, just to unravel that mystery.
* * *
Brother Candle wakened from the deepest, most satisfying, most refreshing sleep he had enjoyed since leaving Antieux. Lady Hope, faintly radiant, was shaking him. She had been in his dreams … and was here now in actuality …
She grinned wickedly. “What a wicked old devil you are, thinking like that! Too bad. We don’t have time. The enemy approaches.”
Groggily, he stumbled to Kedle’s tent. A dozen Vindicated had crowded in already, few more alert than he was. None paid the Instrumentality any heed.
Kedle was not sleepy. She was excited. Flushed. Breathing fast. “We’re all here, now. These are the facts. Pramans have been gathering in the hills to the east. They’re mostly regional, modestly armed, but led by professionals from Lucidia. They don’t know us. They just see a chance to grab some plunder.”
Brother Candle asked, “What about the others camped around here?”
Kedle did not answer the question he thought he had asked. “I sent the boys … They’re on their own. We’ll get hit first, anyhow. We’re closest to the hills.”
This must be what that old man at the hospice had meant when he said they should post sentries. Local opportunists—not necessarily Praman—considered pilgrims a resource best exploited while still muddled from travel.
“These raiders have done this before. They have the impudence to sell the captured arms in Kagure or Grove.” Ominously, “Healthy captives get sold to slavers and sent east. The rest…”
She did not have to explain.
“We have been warned.” She did not explain that, either. The Vindicated no longer asked. “We have a few hours to prepare. Let’s make a statement they’ll hear from one end of the Holy Lands to the other. These dogmatic snakes need to know that the Vindicated have come.”
Brother Candle shivered at her intensity.
“I want toddlers in Shamramdi, Begshtar, Mezket, Souied ed Dreida, even Jezdad, to wake up screaming at night because they think the Vindicated are coming. I want Indala himself pissing down his leg.”
Hope chided, “That’s a bit of an overreach, darling.”
The men chuckled.
“I want it. I don’t expect to get it. We’ll start by making the camp look unprepared. Pickets should be drowsing. We’ll offer an obvious, safe path to the command tent, where they can lop the head off the dragon before it knows that it’s in trouble.”
The boys from Arngrere oozed into the tent. The bolder of the two gave a nod and thumbs-up despite all the eyes upon him.
38. The Holy Lands: Reconnaissance by Combat
Piper Hecht opened his eyes after allowing them momentary relief from the sun’s brilliance. He sat on a hilltop, behind a cluttered table, overlooking Shartelle and its harbors from the northeast. There were breaches in the mighty wall. Starving defenders strove to fill them before any crusader attack. The Righteous, however, were content to wait.
Hecht’s main strength had gone away, to overrun Praman cities along the coast and explore the approaches to Vantrad. He expected to fight at least one major battle getting there. The Pramans dared not fail to try to stop him. Not to fight would constitute acknowledgement that God had chosen to stand with the Enterprise.
The misnamed White Sea was a brilliant azure. Allied warships patrolled beyond Shartelle’s harbors. They showed the colors of Aparion, Dateon, and the Eastern Empire. Jackals all, they were eager to feast on the Righteous’s kill.
“She always overdoes it, doesn’t she?” Lord Arnmigal grumped. Hourli had just brought news from east of Triamolin. “The economic impact will be severe, especially in agriculture. She killed four hundred eighty men with just a handful of followers.”
“It was a clever ambush by hardened butchers. And Aldi helped. She could have cleaned up a force five times the size of that one.”
Hecht sighed. He did not like having killers out there who were not his to control.
Hourli said, “She wanted to announce her presence.”
“Damned if she didn’t. Everyone will know the Widow now.” He shut his eyes again. The reflection off the sea was not pleasant. “Will it have any strategic impact?”
“Timid souls will stay out of her way. Indala? How would you expect him to react?”
“He’ll fuss, but what can he do? He’s locked up. And he doesn’t let emotion push him into making deadly mistakes.”
“Members of his family were among those who organized the raid. Any survivors will be some of the prisoners the Widow is sending us.”
“There were survivors?” That was a surprise, the Widow being so bloodthirsty.
“About a dozen. Three Lucidians, one Dreangerean, the rest local shakes. She wanted to kill them all. One of the other commanders talked her into sending them to us.”
“What is that boy doing?”
Pella, halfway down to the nearest siege works, was easy to spot. He favored flamboyant local Chaldarean costume these days. He wanted to be noticed. Hecht hoped he would not regret the conceit.
Wife departed the tent that gave respite from the sun, a pleasure Hecht exploited often. He had forgotten how fierce that orb could be, here.
The Instrumentality murmured to Hourli. Hourli leaned down, told Lord Arnmigal, “Your son has found a city militia captain who will open a gate in exchange for the safety of his family and property.”
“Excellent.” He was not surprised. Shartelle had been stubborn but most of its people recognized that the end was near. Every relief effort had been crushed. No more would come. Pramans elsewhere were desperate to protect their own homes.
Their God had averted His face.
A traitor, if known, would suffer the hatred of his fellows but his treachery would save lives because Heris had extracted that promise from her brother.
“That’s good,” Lord Arnmigal said again. “Let him know that I approve. He has full authority to make the arrangements. Suggest that it should happen at night so fewer people get hurt.”
* * *
Explosions happened in succession in a barracks, a communal kitchen, and during late prayer services. There were casualties by the score and general panic, all far from the sally port the traitor opened. The Righteous poured in unnoticed despite the inevitable confusion and noise.
Few of Shartelle’s defenders resisted. Most said their prayers and chose to believe the invaders’ promise to spare them. Those who did choose to fight on fled into the big stone box of the citadel. Most of those belonged to the Lucidian garrison Indala had installed before the arrival of the Righteous. They were among the Great Shake’s most faithful soldiers.
All Shartelle but the citadel fell before noon. There were problems of indiscipline but those did not persist. The Shining Ones intervened.
Shartelle became a Chaldarean city for the first time in centuries, at less cost than its people had any right to hope.
The Lucidians in the citadel offered to yield their arms and leave the city. The Commander refused. From them he wanted only unconditional surrender. They refused.
Hecht had masons brick up the entrances. The Lucidians could stew in their pride. The Shining Ones kept harm from touching the masons, but, otherwise, stayed out of the light.
“I don’t want the whole world thinking they need to get rid of me the way we got rid of those revenants in the Connec,” Hecht told Pella when the boy wondered why they did not just turn the Shining Ones loose.
“They would clean up. Of course they would. But no one out there would consider them as anythin
g but devils. The Church wouldn’t admit that they exist if the Choosers snatched the Patriarch’s robe over his head and spanked his bare ass in front of ten thousand witnesses.”
“Getting a little cynical, there, aren’t you, Pop?”
“Getting? I’ve been like this since I was younger than you are.” He flashed back on the boyhood of someone named Else Tage, then wrestled identity confusion, trying to understand why he had become the implacable enemy of everything that had meant so much to that boy.
Pella broke the mood. “Spanking the Patriarch would be popular. But the Shining Ones need to do things to make people want to believe in them again. Right? That’s why they hooked up with us. Helping us helped them get to the Wells of Ihrian, so they could be the kind of gods who actually show up when somebody yells for help, not the kind that are only convoluted intellectual exercises for priests to quarrel over. ‘God answers all prayers’ is a copout. He doesn’t have to exist…”
The boy stopped. Such talk was not likely to find favor with the religiously driven.
Hecht stared. What the hell was this? Somewhere, somehow, the kid had gotten his brain engaged. That was scary.
“Pella, you make me nervous when you think about things besides firepowder formulary and falcon deployments.”
“Great. I like that. Where is the Empress, now? Getting close?” The answer to that was, much too close.
Lord Arnmigal became an anxious adolescent whenever he considered Helspeth’s approach.
He was so eager to see her that he almost danced when he thought about it. His people kept finding him frozen in thought.
That seldom caused comment anymore. It seemed to be another phase, like the massive need for sleep that had gone its way, now, having grown ever less debilitating as the Righteous moved south.
Hecht himself paid little attention. His focus remained on the mundane and daily.
He told Pella, “She’ll be here in a few days. Barring disaster.” What made him add that?
Determined Pramans had tried to ambush her repeatedly. Sheaf and Wife had become full-time lifeguards, replacing Ferris Renfrow and Asgrimmur Grimmsson, who had then been ordered back to Alten Weinberg to help Algres Drear keep the Imperial peace.
