Storm rising

by Mercedes Lackey

  His heart pounded painfully in his ears as he waited for one or the other of them to speak—or something!

  Finally, though, it was Selenay who broke the impasse, and she did it with a smile.

  "Talia told me that we were much alike, Holiness," she said, as Solaris answered that smile with a wary one of her own. "I suspect that she was being tactful."

  "Very tactful, Majesty," Solaris replied, in that peculiar, carrying voice that never seemed to rise above conversational level, yet could reach clearly to the back of the Temple, "But I would expect that level of tact, knowing Our Priestess."

  Cleverly phrased; Karal marveled at how clever—in the same breath, by saying "I" first, she had given Selenay notice that they were equals and she was claiming no special precedence for herself, even as Selenay had not. But by referring to Talia as "Our" Priestess, she reminded Selenay that unlike the Valdemaran ruler, Solaris spoke with more voices than her own. Talia was a Priestess to Vkandis as well as Solaris, and where Solaris was, so, too, was her God.

  "I suspect," Solaris continued, reinforcing that status of equals with another "I', "that what she truly meant and would not say is that we are too much alike."

  She raised a long, thin, elegant eyebrow at Talia, for the first time taking her attention from the Valdemaran Queen. Talia had donned Karsite Sun-priest robes—but they were in white and silver, rather than black and gold, in token of her dual duties as Priest and Herald. Another nicely balanced gesture.

  Talia blushed, as Selenay chuckled very softly, and relaxed the tiniest bit. Karal relaxed a great deal more than that; finally letting out the breath he had been holding. They like each other! Oh, thank you, Vkandis! Solaris was never that frank except with people she liked and trusted. She would never lie, but she was a past master at partial truth and dissimulation. She had to be, after all; she could not have gotten as far as she had if she was not.

  Then again, although he could not speak from personal experience, Selenay was probably just as clever.

  Solaris moved forward the remaining few paces and held out her hand. Selenay took it immediately, clasping it heartily.

  "Now, Holiness," the Queen of Valdemar said, turning adroitly so that she now stood side-by-side with the Son of the Sun, "if I may begin the introductions. Talia you know—and this is my husband and consort, Prince Daren...."

  Karal took a discreet step to the rear, placing himself in a modest position behind his ruler; at last laying all the intolerable burden of authority on the proper shoulders to bear it.

  Seven

  Dear gods, it's a frozen wasteland out there. Commander Tremane—who no longer thought of himself as a Grand Duke, nor in any other context than as the commander of his men—gazed out at the now-empty courtyard of his stronghold. It was buried beneath snow that reached to the knee, and the weather-wizard from the town said that more was coming. Even though the old wreck couldn't change the weather anymore, he could still predict it, and he thought he could teach one or two of Tremane's mages the trick. Snow. I haven't had to deal with this much snow since the years I spent on my estate. In the Imperial capital, of course, all snow was neatly steered away from the city itself, except for a dusting that looked ornamental and could easily be swept from the streets.

  Winter had arrived, bypassing most of fall altogether. But with the help of his men, the locals had gotten their crops in, the foraging parties had brought in bales of hay, baskets of wheat and root crops, pecks of nuts and fruits, and even some livestock that had not gone altogether feral. The armed parties had brought back some of the livestock that had gone feral, in the form of carcasses now hanging frozen in a locked warehouse in the city. Ownership of those carcasses was not a matter of dispute; Tremane owned them, traded one-for-one for Tremane's half of the living animals collected. The fresh meat would be a welcome change from the preserved and salted meat in the Imperial warehouses—having it so far from camp, while it increased the chances of pilferage, ensured that the cooks would do as he had ordered, and plan meals that alternated fresh meat with preserved. He didn't want the fresh meat used up all at once, leaving only preserved. The men would complain, and rightfully, if meal after meal was nothing but the salty stews and other dishes that were all that could be made with preserved meat. It was a little thing, but in winter, and under the conditions that the men were now living in, little things could amount to great problems of morale.

  It could be worse. Snow is not the worst thing that could happen to us. He was happy enough with snow, actually, because two days ago what had come down out of the sky was an ice-storm. Snow was infinitely preferable to ice that made walking between buildings into an ordeal. There were two men down with broken legs, five with broken arms, and a half dozen with broken collarbones, according to the roster.

  Such injuries were not the calamity they would have been a few weeks ago, when he had needed every able-bodied person. The walls were completed; so were the new barracks. The builders had arrived at a clever and elegant solution to the heating problem—or, rather, one that made the best use of limited fuel and equally limited time for building. It was a variation on the idea of a furnace that one of his own men had concocted.

  The barracks were still being finished inside, but that could be done while the men were living in them. As long as there was room to put down bedrolls, that was what mattered. They were similar in design to the plan of the earth sheltered buildings he had looked at earlier, but instead of making the entirety of one wall into a chimney, these plans arranged for the warm air to run under the floor to the opposite wall, and there were additional chimneys built into the support posts. Directly above the furnace were brick ovens for baking and depressions shaped exactly like the huge army kettles for heating water and making soups and stews.

  That meant there were no windows, so all light came from candles and lanterns. What the barracks lacked in light, they made up for in warmth. Tremane reflected that if a vote had been taken, the men would probably have voted against windows in favor of heat in any case.

  Of course, since they had not been consulted, the men called the new barracks "the holes," or "the caves," and although they were not happy about living in such dank and poorly-lighted places, a fair majority of them admitted that the barracks were far, far preferable to not having solid shelter.

  They had still been in their tents when the first ice-storm hit. They had been a great deal less happy about that, as fully half the tents had collapsed beneath the weight of the ice that had built up on them. It was amazing how quickly the last bit of building went up after that.

  There was a faint but persistent smoky animal odor about the places, caused by the dung bricks and peat blocks they were burning instead of wood in the furnaces. It wasn't too unpleasant, though the men complained about that too, claiming it got into the bread and the soup. He had given orders that strong herbs be added to both to cover the scent and taste.

  There were plenty of complaints; the rumor mill was positively acidic these days, but the complaints and rumors were all of the sort that appeared when people had an excess of time and energy, and none were the kind that presaged mutiny. In fact, in a strange way they were a sign of health; the natural result when men who were used to activity were confined in comfortable but boring surroundings.

  I will have to find creative ways for them to use up all the energy. Wood gathering parties—hunting parties, too. But that won't take very many. Snow maneuvers? Or perhaps something in the town? But what? I don't want to have them take over the duties of the local constables this soon; that could only cause resentment.

  Tremane had made certain that the men were given leave to go into town on a regular basis; there was no point in cooping them up in barracks when a mug of beer and an hour with a pliant girl would make them cheerful again. The townsfolk were getting along reasonably well with the men and vice versa; the only incidents had been caused by drunkenness, either on the part of the soldier or more rarely of one of the townsfolk,
and all had been resolved. As might be expected, the man who was drunk was usually to blame, and punishment was meted out by the appropriate authority. Between them, Tremane and the Shonar council had established a list of infractions and punishments, based on the imperial Code, that was applied to townsman and Imperial soldier impartially.

  On the whole, Tremane's world was in relatively good shape, as long as he kept his gaze within the walls of Shonar.

  Outside, however—

  From somewhere beyond the walls, out in the snowy gloom, came a high, thin wail. One of them. That cry had not come from the throat of a wolf, a lynx, or a feral dog; it had come from... something else. He heard them howling and wailing at night from dusk to dawn, and the sentries on the walls reported shadows by dusk and glowing eyes in the dark, gazing up at them and then vanishing. Whatever they were, they were smarter than the spider-creature, for they had not been caught—but he pitied the farmers who had declined the hospitality of the town for the winter. It must be terrible to hear those creatures crying beneath the windows, and know that only one thin wall of wood separated you and your family from them. Did they snuffle at the cracks under the doors, and sniff at the barred shutters? Did they scratch at the walls or gnaw on the doorposts? He hoped that long before the beasts became a danger, those farmers would change their minds and pack up what they could, and head for the high brick walls of Shonar, driving their stock before them. Thus far, whatever they were, the walls were keeping them out—but every mage-storm brought more and potentially worse creatures to roam the snow-covered landscape. And the winter had just begun....

  Turn your eyes within your walls, Tremane.

  The roofs of his barracks, like the roofs of most of the buildings in town, were thick thatch, and pitched steeply enough that a buildup of ice merely broke free and slid down the straw rather than collapsing the roof. That had been necessity rather than wisdom, but it was fortuitous; the same storm that had collapsed half of the tents had collapsed the roof of one building in town that had been covered with plates of slate rather than bundles of thatch. Yes, with thatch there was a danger of fire, and that was a consideration. By design, though, there would be no chance of a soot fire in Tremane's barracks, for all soot built up in the roof of the furnace itself, and could be poked loose when the furnace was stoked.

  Tremane's roof here was slate—but laid over stone rather than wood. This manor had been designed to last for centuries, which was no bad thing at the moment. Some of the rooms were perishingly cold, but very few of the officers or mages spent much time in their tiny closet-sized rooms. If the room was cold, one could always warm up in the Great Hall before retiring, send a servant in with a bed warmer first, and then bury oneself in blankets with a hot brick for comfort at bedtime. There was no lack of servants now; plenty of folk were happy to serve in Tremane's manor. Imperial coin spends better than their own now. Ours is of fair weight, and theirs has often been shaved and clipped.

  But there were few places, other than his suite here, that were truly warm. In that much, he envied his men their "caves." Many of the floors on the first story of the manor were of stone and no treat to stand on; even through thick boot soles cold numbed the feet. Someone had recalled the old country trick of covering the floors with a thick layer of rushes mixed with herbs to keep them sweet, and he'd ordered the floors of those rooms with no carpet so buried, which had helped with cold drafts coming up the legs of one's trews. The men on housekeeping detail and the newly-hired servants had appreciated the move, since it meant they no longer had to sweep and wash the floors on a daily basis. The only exception was in the room he was using as the manor mess hall; there he would allow no rushes, and the daily sweeping and scrubbing went on as it had in the summer.

  Outside the bubbly glass of the window, snow fell in fat flakes the size of coins. You couldn't even make out the clouds when you looked up, for the sky was a solid sheet of gray-white. Clouds? You can't even see the sun!

  His nose itched, and he sneezed convulsively as his foot crushed a sprig of a pungent herb carried up from the lower floors. He let it lie there; the stuff was everywhere anyway, and just as well. The only product of the mage-storms to pass inside the walls was not a huge, vicious monster, but a tiny, vicious monster, and a prolific one at that. It had probably begun life as a flea; it was about the same size and general shape as a flea, but it was venomous. Not enough to poison a man, but certainly unpleasant; its bite left painful boils that had to be lanced and drained immediately or they went rotten. One of the locals had found a common herb that kept them away, so now every clothes chest, every bed, and every storage closet smelled of the stuff. Sprigs of it were in the rushes, and crushed on the bare floors. Both town and barracks were coping with the plague, but there were many poor people who couldn't afford the herb and were suffering from the bites of the thing. He'd heard that the poor were carting off the discarded rushes and searching through Imperial rubbish piles for the dried-out bits of the herb. He'd left orders not to stop them. He hated to think of children covered with bites from the things....

  At least the cold weather would probably kill what specimens were outside, and as for those inside—bored men were hunting the things down and keeping tallies of the kills. It might be prolific, but it couldn't last long under those conditions, unless it lingered in the slums.

  So there is my life; reduced from candidacy for Emperor to a war against monsters and fleas.

  Well, better monsters and fleas than other things he could name.

  He had a full war sentry out on the walls; men posted every few paces with pitch torches burning between them at night. The watches were for four marks, but if it got as cold as Tremane feared it might, he intended to reduce the watches to two marks. It would be pretty pointless to make all this effort at building tight, warm barracks only to afflict the men standing sentry watch with frostbite.

  Those that were not standing watch he'd assigned to finishing their own barracks. The floors were rough wood and needed to be finished and polished so they could be kept clean. There were still the partitions to put up, the bunks and storage lockers to build, walls to plaster, furniture to put together. And when they finished all that, he'd think of something else for them to do. Maybe build attic space beneath the thatch; lowering the ceiling would conserve still more heat.

  And still no contact from the Emperor, not that he had expected any. Oh, it was possible that one of his agents could have made it back to the capital to report the looting of the warehouse, and it was possible that the Emperor would then have gotten together a score of powerful mages to open a Portal and fetch Tremane home to justice. It was even possible that Charliss would have sent a physical message with a physical, overland courier or with a troop of heavily armed men and mages. Whether or not he did so would depend on how badly the Empire was suffering the forces of the mage storms—if indeed the Empire was suffering them at all.

  But as the days had stretched into weeks, the possibility of Imperial recontact diminished rapidly. Now, with the onset of winter, there was no way that even a physical courier would be able to reach them. It would take something the size of the army he already had to do so, for travel across the winter landscape would be impossible under these conditions unless one had an army.

  So now Tremane stared down at the wintry isolation beyond his windows that was an uncomfortable mirror for the state of his own spirits.

  Well, I certainly have my empire now. A small one, but all mine. I doubt that anyone is likely to dispute me for it until spring.

  "Commander sir?" One of his many aides was at the door; he turned to face the boy, composing his own expression into one calculated to bring confidence.

  "Yes, Nevis?" he replied, keeping his tone even.

  "Sir, there is a rather—odd group of men here to see you." The boy was clearly puzzled. "Frankly, sir, I don't know what to make of them. They're none of them from the same units or even the same disciplines, but they say they wish to see you
for the same reason and that they must speak with you personally."

  "And they won't tell you what it is?" He pursed his lips at the aide's nod. "Well, perhaps you'd better show them in. it might be we have another nasty little insect to contend with, one that bites people in... places they'd rather not discuss."

  The boy flushed, which amused Tremane; how had that youngster managed to climb through the ranks and still be able to blush at the idea of a flea that bit a man's privates? "I'll bring them up, sir." he said hastily, and took his leave.

  Blue dusk outside the window gave little light for a meeting, and one thing they had in abundance was candles. There must have been hundreds of sealed caskets of candles, and hundreds more of the cruder tallow dips. Tremane set about lighting them himself before the delegation arrived. He'd set the last one alight and was trimming the wick when Nevis brought in the men.

  They were a very mixed bag, some dozen or so of them. One mage, one of his high-ranking generals—which was probably why Nevis hadn't dared send them away without consulting Tremane—two sergeants, two leftenants, and an assortment of scouts and troopers.

  That's odd. The one and only thing these men have in common is that they were all someone's agent, and I doubt any of them know that the others are agents—

  He sat down behind his desk and contemplated the sober-faced group before him while Nevis closed the door. "Well," he said finally, "I hope this is not the prelude to a mutiny."

  General Bram laughed. "Hardly, Commander. In fact, that's the point, and I'll be brief. I've no doubt you already knew this, but we're all spies—some of us reported to your rivals; I reported to the Emperor. We've decided to come admit it and fling ourselves upon your mercy. You're too good a leader to throw us away; our request is that you retain us in our current positions."