by Chris Walley
Delastro raised his staff high and shook it.
With a casual, unhurried pace, Lloyd, the shotgun in his big hands, began walking over. One of the young men ran forward to grab him, but as his hands touched Lloyd, the gun butt swung back sharply. With a groan, the man doubled up and, clutching his stomach, fell to the ground. Without even a backward glance, Lloyd continued his measured pace.
A dozen green-clad soldiers led by Vero emerged from the house and spread out in a semicircle.
Merral turned to Delastro. “Prebendant, Sergeant Enomoto is a fine fellow, but he does take his job very seriously. He can be fiercely protective. I think you had better not make any moves that could be misconstrued as hostile. Good-bye.”
Delastro, his face pale with fury, glared at Merral. “Be warned, Commander. Evil takes evildoers.”
He swung around and, with his strange, birdlike gait, walked rapidly away toward the strip.
The other man helped up his fallen colleague and, closely followed by Lloyd and the regulars, they went after their leader.
Vero walked over to Merral. “I got most of that. Pretty much along the lines of ‘By the prince of demons you cast out demons’? Well, that’s an allegation with a long pedigree.” He sighed deeply. “But, my friend, we have just witnessed another of my oversights.”
“In what way?”
Vero stared down into the gorge and Merral followed his gaze to where the shadows were deepening. “Ah. I realized that the resurgence of evil in our world would warp our relationships and the way our society is run. And it has. But until now, I had not imagined that it could affect our faith.” He gave a bitter shrug. “But why should that area of life be excluded from the contamination of sin? What richer soil for evil to take root in than that of faith and duty and prayer?”
Within half an hour, the still-fuming prebendant and his followers had left for Isterrane. After their departure, Merral walked over to the medical tents. The seriously injured had been flown to Isterrane already, leaving only those who were lightly wounded. He wandered between them, struggling to hold his emotions in check and trying to offer encouragement and sympathy. He then walked around the tents where most of the remaining soldiers were treating minor cuts and grazes, resting in the shade, or just sitting on the ground staring into infinity.
They were glad to see him and Merral listened to what they had to say. Any euphoria over the victory had seeped away and the mood was subdued and reflective. Everybody knew someone who was dead. I can share in your grief. I too have lost a dear friend in these last two days. He made no attempt to probe what had happened with Latrati and Durrance—that was for another time—but he couldn’t avoid hearing unease in the voices of those who had fought under Zak’s command. Their concerns were delivered in hushed tones with wary glances over their shoulders. Soldiers had been forced into positions that were too exposed; the discipline was too tough—Zak was brutal. I will deal with this, but not today.
The tales of the fighting and the looming issues with Zak darkened Merral’s spirits and he postponed seeing Anya; his mood was too bleak. Finally, as the light faded, he was persuaded by Lloyd to go and eat.
In the mess tent that had been erected at the edge of the village he found Zak at a table surrounded by a number of his captains and associates. The tone of their conversation was boisterous, even jovial. Merral picked up his tray of food, engaged in some brief, polite conversation with them, and went outside. He found a seat under a tree, out of earshot of the chatter and laughter, and there, as the sun set in smoke over Langerstrand, ate his food in silence.
He felt depressed and images of death and destruction seemed to overwhelm him. He realized that the encounter with Delastro and Vero’s analysis of it had shaken him. There was now no place in his world where corruption had not spread.
When he had finished his meal, he got to his feet and—as ever—shadowed by Lloyd, walked up to the gentle ridge amid the olive groves where they had faced the enemy and where the flagpoles still stood.
The wind had dropped and the great flags, now mere shadows in the smoky darkness, only rustled gently in the dusty, smoke-laden wind. He sat down at the foot of the flagpole bearing the large Lamb and Stars standard. Ahead, patches of orange glowed bright on the mountain—the dying embers of the once all-consuming inferno. Above, smeared by the sooty atmosphere, stars were coming out.
Eventually, Lloyd drew closer. “Just checking. You okay, sir?”
“Thanks.” Merral paused. “I had to set fire to trees, Lloyd.”
“I know.”
“Burned trees and hundreds of deaths. It’s a funny way to save a world.”
“It had to be done, sir.” The words were soft.
“Thanks, Lloyd. I guess it did.”
Then, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by tiredness, Merral rose and walked back to his tent.
“Lloyd,” he said as he lifted the flap, “I don’t want to be woken before dawn. Unless it’s an emergency.”
Lezaroth leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling of the drab room at Langerstrand that he had taken as his operations center as he listed his woes. I’ve lost a full-suppression complex by a trick and almost my entire Krallen army to essentially agricultural satellites. My attack force has been defeated by swords and a fire, and now the Dove of Dawn is in their hands. And to crown it all, the baziliarch is missing. Am I cursed?
He clenched his fists tightly in defiance. But even if I am cursed, so what? I will still fight on.
There was a knock on the door.
“Come in.”
A thin, bald man—the baziliarch’s intermediary—in a loose, dark blue robe came in, his pale eyes swinging nervously this way and that. He looked at Lezaroth with dread as if expecting his own death sentence to be pronounced.
“So where is he?” Lezaroth barked. “Is the . . . thing . . . dead?”
The intermediary gulped audibly. “No, sir. But I think he’s wounded. He’ll be hiding out somewhere in the wilds, healing.”
What time is it in the outside world? Lezaroth looked at a clock. He was surprised to see it was nearly midnight. “Are there any precedents?”
“No, sir. But then we only started using baziliarchs after the lord-emperor’s negotiations on the Blade of Night.”
“Of course. So what happened?”
“He was met by something—something or someone—of a similar rank on the other side. It was a hard fight.”
“Will we get him back?”
The intermediary looked even more uneasy. “I think so. I’ll try to contact him, to persuade him to help again. It may take time. You can’t order a baziliarch around, sir. And he’ll be angry.”
“When he returns, can I rely on him?”
The intermediary jerked his head and gulped once more. “Sir, baziliarchs need to be managed carefully. They are lords. But he may join in on his own account.”
“Very well. If he turns up, let me know.”
When he left, Lezaroth returned to his thoughts. We have suffered great losses, but that’s not the issue now. I must think tactically. There have been surprises here, but we can still take the capital and with it, the world. They do not know about the Nanmaxat’s Comet. That can get us back. But it is how to achieve victory that’s the issue.
On impulse, Lezaroth flicked on the wallscreen and called up some of his personal files on Merral D’Avanos. Here is where the trouble lies—the great adversary. And to think I could have killed him with my bare hands just yesterday.
“D’Avanos,” he said aloud. “You are the problem. I need to destroy you. This war is now a manhunt.” But how do I trap him?
Lezaroth realized that he had to twist his mind. I have to think like him. That’s hard. He’s utterly alien to me. What does he value? He looked hard at the screen until the answer came. Beyond his faith, D’Avanos values his home, his friends, his family.
Lezaroth nodded slowly. That’s it. If I put the right pressure on the right place, I’ll
have him. Somewhere there is a way to trap him.
He tapped the desk as an idea struck him. His home, his friends, his family . . .
Merral was awakened by a rough shake of the shoulders. It was still dark.
“Sir!” Lloyd hissed in his ear.
“It’s an emergency?” Merral mumbled.
“Yes, sir. It’s the eastern Krallen force at Camolgi Hills. They’re moving.”
“Oh. Westward? To Isterrane?”
“No, east.”
“East?”
“Yes. Toward Ynysmant.”
28
Ten minutes later, Merral was sipping a cup of strong coffee that Lloyd had made and staring at an ominous screen of interpreted satellite data.
Vero joined him, rubbing his unshaven face as he peered at the images.
“Apparently, the Krallen started to move an hour ago,” Merral said. “About a third of their force—around eight thousand—are moving fast to the northeast.”
“And it has to be Ynysmant?”
“There’s nowhere else in that direction.”
“How long before they get there?”
“It’s just over two hundred kilometers; it depends on whether they have to detour to cross the rivers. At the earliest they could be there by midday our time, midafternoon theirs.”
Vero rubbed his head. “I don’t like it.”
“Me neither. But I know the ground. If Frankie Thuron airlifted troops quickly, we could stop them en route. There are marshes—the north end of the Gulder Swamps. I’m trying to see if Clemant knows what’s happening. . . . How many irregulars are there at Ynysmant?”
“At a guess, a thousand.”
Too few. Far too few.
“Commander!” A man at a desk raised a hand. “I have Coordinator Clemant on this screen.”
As Merral sat at the screen, he noticed that even at this hour Clemant was clean shaven and his hair was combed and neatly parted.
“Good morning, sir,” Merral said. “You are aware of developments at Camolgi Hills?”
“I have known about it for the best part of an hour.” Clemant’s deep voice was smooth. “I have just been talking to Colonel Thuron and he and I think it’s a trap.”
“A trap? In what way?”
“We think they know they can’t easily advance past Ranapert and Halmacent because of the arc of defenses that we now have in place. Our guess is that they want to draw us out from behind the defenses into the open. They know that you come from Ynysmant. And they also know that we value human life—and especially civilian life—very highly. We think, therefore, they are hoping that in order to protect Ynysmant, you will order the army out from behind its defenses.”
There was something very alarming about Clemant’s carefully paced words. “Which is surely what we must do?”
Clemant gave a deep rumble of a sigh. “Commander, this is going to be difficult for me to say, and probably even more difficult for you to accept. I would like you to try to distance yourself from the unfortunate fact that the apparent destination is your hometown.”
“Sir, what are you trying to say?”
Merral was aware of the others in the room gathering around him.
“I’m saying that I do not want to send the army to protect Ynysmant.”
For a moment, Merral was too stunned to speak. “But . . . they’ll slaughter the town! There are twenty thousand people there. This isn’t a village. In fact, with refugees, there must be—what?—thirty thousand people there. We’ve got to defend it.”
“I anticipated these objections. I have asked Colonel Thuron to see if he can deploy any soldiers from around the main defenses. That might allow several thousand soldiers to be deployed later today. But not until then.” The tone of Clemant’s voice suggested that his position was unshakable.
“In other words,” Merral said, making no effort to disguise his anger, “there will be no rescue until tomorrow morning. By which time it will all be too late.”
“Commander, you have to understand that we are doing all we can.” The words were smooth. “We cannot hazard an army—a capital—for the sake of a few people. Protecting the many takes precedence over the few.”
His parents, his uncle, aunt, and cousins, plus a thousand other names and faces suddenly came into Merral’s mind. “And if neglecting the few—thirty thousand is a pretty big few, sir—means condemning them to a horrible death, what then?”
Clemant sighed and shrugged slightly. “Welcome, Commander, to the place of hard choices. I’m afraid that what we’re dealing with is a matter of . . . military necessity. Ynysmant has, I’m told, considerable defenses and a determined population.”
Merral clenched the edge of his chair. “I don’t agree,” he said. “I don’t think we can let this happen.”
“Respectfully, Commander, I think you’re letting your family ties blind you to military necessity.”
“Do I gather, sir, that you forbid me as Commander of the Farholme Defense Force to order Frankie Thuron to deploy his troops to protect Ynysmant?”
“I do.”
“Then I propose to disobey that order.”
Clemant sighed. “I was hoping to avoid this, but you leave me no option. As of this moment, you are relieved of your post as commander and return to the rank of captain.”
Merral heard a low gasp from the soldiers around him. “That’s an outrage!” he heard himself say. “I do not accept that.”
Clemant’s round face paled. “Captain, I should warn you that I am being generous. I have people here—influential people—who want to bring very serious charges against you and Verofaza Enand.”
“Such as?”
“Dealing with demons, witchcraft—charges for which capital punishment might be sought.”
There were new gasps. “That guy’s crazy,” muttered someone.
“This is madness,” Merral protested.
“Captain, so far I have rejected such pressures. I am protecting you. But if you resist me, I may have no option but to have the police arrest you both.”
Suddenly, Merral realized he had made a decision. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, as his fingers found the screen power switch. “I do not accept your authority.”
He stabbed the switch and the screen went black.
Feeling sick and stunned, Merral sat back in the chair. “Vero,” he said, “what have I just done?”
Vero rubbed his nose. “You just mutinied. In some armies of the past, you would be shortly executed.”
“That’s what I thought.” Merral rose. He felt oddly calm now. “What vessels have we got on the strip that are capable of transporting people?”
“A D-series—the good old Emilia Kay—and an F-series, Asaha Sirhen. And—”
“The Emilia Kay will do well enough.”
Merral found a microphone and pressed a button. The sound of a trumpet alert echoed around the camp. “Good morning, soldiers. This is Merral D’Avanos speaking. I am sorry to disturb your much-deserved sleep, but I need volunteers. The town of Ynysmant is under threat and I am going there to defend it. I need crew for a D-series vessel and as many volunteers as can fit in it. This is an unauthorized mission and I can only promise you more fighting and a high risk of death. If you want to come, I would like you to be on the strip with your equipment in half an hour.”
Then he tabbed the microphone off and looked at Vero. “What was that phrase of yours: ‘putting cats among pigeons’?” He got to his feet. “I’m going to get my armor.”
Outside, the darkness ebbed to the east. In the tents there were lights and noises.
I’ll look very silly if no one wants to come.
Suddenly Vero was at his elbow. “I-I’m not the best fighting man, but I want to come.”
“Why you?”
“I have had hospitality in Ynysmant and I would like to repay that debt. And besides, any battle will fall heavily on the irregulars. I think I should be there.” He gave a strange little laugh. “And be
sides, if they are going to try me for witchcraft, then I might as well add the charge of mutiny. May as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.”
“Hung? . . . Oh, explain another time.”
“Can I suggest we take Betafor? Wrapped up in her traveling case, of course.”
“Why?”
“Because, my friend, she may be useful.”
“But will she come?”
“I’ll tell her she’s being hunted as a demon here. She has a strong instinct for self-preservation.”
“Do it.”
“Let me get my things.”
Merral was not surprised when Lloyd demanded to come.
“I won’t argue,” he said and as he did, he realized how glad he was that Lloyd was going to be with him.
Merral walked over to his tent and pulled on his armor.
I can’t believe what has just happened. I rebelled against a legitimate authority. He thought of Ynysmant and his family, the rather ridiculous but likable Warden Enatus, and a score of other people and felt he had made the right decision. Then putting analysis behind him, he slung his XQ rifle over his shoulder and buckled his sword to his belt.
As he left the tent, he found a sleepy-eyed Luke outside. “Merral, I thought I’d better talk to you.”
“Go ahead, Chaplain.”
“Look, are you sure this is the wisest thing?”
“Ah, your right to challenge me. I can’t deny that I’ve rebelled against a legitimate authority. And I know that’s wrong. But I can’t neglect my family and friends, Luke. You wouldn’t want me to do that.”
“No, I suppose not,” Luke said slowly. When he spoke again, Merral heard unease in his voice. “It’s just that what’s happening in Isterrane troubles me. Delastro and Clemant ought to be challenged. There is a madness there, a madness that needs stopping. I think you can do it. Probably only you can.”
“Luke, they are threatening me with all sorts of things: witchcraft charges and the like.”
“Oh, don’t be silly, Merral.” There was exasperation in the tired face. “That’s nonsense. Do you really think they would make that stick? Try the most popular man on the planet for a crime that no one has ever heard of and everyone knows is bogus? In fact, I think you should call their bluff.”
