by Glen Cook
The priests came forward without the soldiers. They stopped ten yards away. They were unnaturally pale. Two shook so badly they could barely keep hold of their reins.
“By the thunder!” Finnboga said. “These guys are shitting themselves just looking at us.”
“Yeah,” Shagot said. “So what are they seeing that we can’t? Why are they scared of us? Hey! Assholes in the slave smocks. What’s your fucking problem? We just want to join up with your army.”
The priests chattered among themselves in a nasal, whining tongue unlike any Shagot had heard before. He asked his companions, “Any of you guys understand them?”
The priests began trying different languages. Probably their best course, Shagot thought. His bunch, between them, might stumble through in two languages beside their own. And one of those would be Seatt because Finnboga’s family used to trade with the witch people of the extreme north, up on the permanent ice.
“Ha!” Svavar said. “That fat, scared asshole just said something that sounded like it might be in Santerin.”
“Hallgrim,” Shagot said. “You were a prisoner in Santerin for a while. Talk to him.” Shagot had a little Santerin himself, but only enough to ask where the treasure was hidden.
Hallgrim said, “It’s Santerin, all right. But it ain’t like any variety I ever heard before. I only get about a third of what he’s saying. They seem to think that we’re demons.”
“Keep him talking,” Shagot said. He was starting to pull it together. He began to catch up with Hallgrim. But that was only good enough to leave him puzzled.
Why would these idiots pick them out as demons? Because he and his bunch did not understand their bizarre religion?
“Start beating on the point that we’re just the opposite. The gods have sent us to join their army.”
“They won’t believe that. Not even if you’ve got a signed letter of introduction from the All-Father.”
“Just keep them talking. Keep telling them we’re here to join their army.”
THE ANDORAYANS WERE ALLOWED TO ACCOMPANY THE ARNHANDER force, which was commanded by the Baron Martex Algres, a cousin of the king of Arnhand. His second in command was Archbishop Bere of Source, the foremost cleric of Arnhand, an in absentia member of the Collegium. The army numbered about fifteen hundred, plus camp followers. Many noble Arnhander families were represented in the force. Its mood was optimistic in the extreme. The army would join up with Adolf Black’s Grolsacher mercenaries in a few days, on the border of the Connec. Then they would sweep through that province, destroying its heretics root and branch. The Duke of Khaurene would himself join them somewhere near Castreresone, after they settled up with Antieux for what it had done to the Patriarchal force sent to stifle the unholy rebellion of its people.
Shagot and the Andorayan band trudged along, always spied upon by several priests, never able to understand what moved these people. Always, at least one of the monitors was something called a witchfinder.
Shagot spent all of his time with the Arnhanders, confused. Their reasons for war made no sense. People were going to die over differences in doctrines between Episcopals and Maysaleans? When anyone old enough and smart enough to tie their own bootlaces could not possibly believe any of the crap put out by either bunch?
The most disturbing aspect of the situation for Shagot, though, was the universal conviction of the Arnhanders that the murder of Erief Erealsson had taken place two centuries ago. Today Andoray, Friesland, Weldence, and far Iceland were united under a single crown. And the official religion there was Chaldarean.
Were the gods mad to send him into such a mad world?
14. The Connec, Antieux, and Beyond
T
he rape of Antieux saw almost seven thousand of that city’s people slaughtered. The majority were women, children, and the old. As shock and despair faded, the survivors became ever more animated by anger, horror, and deepening hatred.
People who wanted to help straggled in from the ends of the Connec and beyond. Count Raymone Garete burned bridges by publicly vowing a vendetta against Sublime V and the Brotherhood of War. That was a bold pledge. Not even Johannes Blackboots dared go that far. The Count’s vow was so intemperate that Duke Tormond showered him with letters demanding that he recant.
Now a new army approached Antieux. This one was stronger than the last, better equipped, and consisted of veteran soldiers. It included members of many of the noble families of Arnhand. It was commanded by experienced men determined to make Raymone Garete eat his words one at a time, without condiments, chewing carefully.
Count Raymone was not dismayed. The previous mistake would not be repeated.
It was late in the season. The Arnhander troops were feudal levies on short terms of obligation. They would head home before many weeks passed.
Bishop Serifs paid for his perfidy. The people of Antieux vented their anger on his properties and on those of the Church.
Everywhere priests who supported Sublime suffered. At Gadge, previously a devout Episcopal town, an angry mob exhumed Bishop Maryl Ponte, Serifs’s predecessor, tried him for crimes against God and humanity, then reburied his bones in an unmarked grave in unhallowed ground.
MESSENGERS SCURRIED EVERYWHERE AS KINGS AND PRINCES AND THE Grail Emperor himself made their opinions known.
Sublime V received no congratulatory letters.
* * *
THE ARNHANDERS AND ADOLF BLACK’S GROLSACHER MERCENARIES took up positions around Antieux. Their Brotherhood predecessors had not been numerous enough for a complete encirclement so they had not wasted any effort trying.
This time there would be no accidental invasion caused by the stupidity of adolescents. The stupid kids were all dead. And, this time, every possible cistern, barrel, and container had been filled with water beforehand. This time Antieux was prepared. This time Antieux truly understood the stakes. And this time those caught inside the wall remained calm under pressure.
Archbishop Bere himself demanded that Antieux open its gates, swear allegiance to the Brothen Patriarch, and turn out the heretics dwelling there. He presented a list of people the Church wanted arrested and bound over for trial.
Count Raymone Garete responded by evicting that handful of Episcopal priests who refused to denounce Sublime V. They took with them the relics of St. Erude the Wayfarer.
Count Raymone was a hard, bright youngster who feared nothing and believed that he had nothing to lose anymore. He was determined to remain Brothe’s most terrible enemy while he lived.
THE SIEGE OF ANTIEUX PROCEEDED FOR THIRTY-ONE DAYS. THE WEATHER turned colder. The Arnhander soldiers became increasingly disgruntled. Where was the easy plunder they had been promised? Their enemies were getting fat, staying warm inside the ruins of burned houses while out here the soldiers starved, amidst fields and hills stripped of edibles and combustibles. And now there were reports of incursions from Argony and Tramaine, as Santerin captured castles and villages long in dispute between Santerin and Arnhand.
News that reached the besiegers’ camp also found its way into Antieux. The siege lines did not extend across the River Job. The folk of Antieux came and went as they pleased, in that direction, under cover of darkness.
COUNT RAYMONE GARETE TOOK ADVANTAGE OF THE BESIEGERS’ FAILURE to finish surrounding Antieux on the other side of the river. He slipped away and joined a group of hotheaded young nobles eager to take more aggressive action against the invaders.
BARON ALGRES AND ARCHBISHOP BERÉ ENJOYED AN ANGRY CONFRONTAtion in the Baron’s quarters in the ruin of Bishop Serifs’s manor house. The Archbishop refused to understand why the troops would abandon the siege when God’s work remained incomplete.
The Baron had a reputation for being undiplomatic. “Go out there and find me one private soldier who gives a shit about God’s work. You go look, you’ll find a whole lot of men who figure God is big enough to take care of himself. And I can’t say I don’t agree with them.”
“But . . .”
“You knew the situation when you bullied my cousin into sending me down here to help the Church rob these people. Sixty days is all we can demand of the soldiers. That’s been the goddamned law since our ancestors were savages in hide tents. If Sublime wants to war on these Connecten fools all year round, let him put together his own army and leave us to protect ourselves from Santerin. Oh. Wait. Sublime already sent his own army. It got wiped out.”
As always, in all times and in all places, despite the scale of the stakes, personalities gave definition to history. These two had loathed one another for half a century. The Archbishop was the less articulate of the two. But he was determined to execute the will of the Patriarch and his God.
SNOWFLAKES WERE IN THE AIR. ON THE WALLS OF ANTIEUX THE CITY’S DEfenders jeered and taunted. The Arnhanders were on the move, headed home. This time they would use the westward route because the one they had taken coming south had been foraged already. Baron Algres and his captains were uncomfortable with the situation. They were not accustomed to being in the field this late in the season, this far from home. Even Archbishop Bere now wondered aloud about the wisdom of those who had decreed this folly.
Adolf Black and his Grolsacher veterans stuck with the Arnhander army. Their commission was about to expire but they had been offered employment on the frontiers of Tramaine. More telling than that offer, though, was news that angry Connectens were gathering to intercept them if they withdrew directly toward Grolsach.
A thousand rumors plagued the army. Lately, there was a cycle of stories about the Grail Emperor asserting his rights in the Episcopal States of northern Firaldia and in Ormienden. And he had begun to revisit Imperial claims to several towns in Arnhand’s eastern marches.
Atop everything else, the Arnhander-founded crusader states in the east kept shrieking for help. The Lucidians were pressing them hard.
Worse still, the King of Arnhand was extremely ill. His only surviving son was eleven, a will-less extension of his ambitious mother, a woman detested by everyone. She, like her failing husband, seemed incapable capable of understanding that just wishing would not make something happen. An example: soldiers had a regrettable tendency to demand regular pay, on time, for the risks they took. The money needed to pay and maintain them refused to be conjured out of thin air.
A lot of time and treasure had gone down a rat hole so Baron Algres and Archbishop Bere could visit Antieux, be embarrassed, and leave two hundred Arnhander subjects in graves beneath Bishop Serifs’s vineyards. To a man, they had perished from disease rather than enemy action.
Starvation made it difficult to resist diseases.
Dysentery remained widespread as the army made its stumbling retreat.
TO THE RIGHT OF THE ANCIENT MILITARY ROAD, TWO HUNDRED FEET BACK, stood a dense growth of gray-barked trees of a species common along the verges of high-altitude wetlands. The ground was soft but not soggy. To the left of the road lay two hundred yards of increasingly boggy ground, then a narrow, slow, shallow stream. Beyond the stream stood a thin curtain of trees, then rocks that had fallen off sheer cliffs that rose for hundreds of feet. The morning sunlight crept down the dull face of the cliff. The stone was a dark gray but had a pinkish tinge wherever it was freshly bruised or broken.
This was near the summit of the pass through the Black Mountains, still on the eastern side. Soon the road would swoop downhill and the worst would be over.
A small breeze stirred the mist. The brightness of the light waned as the sun elevated itself above the trailing edge of those clouds that continued to shed the occasional desultory handful of snowflakes.
The Arnhanders and their Grolsacher hirelings, traipsing along the ancient road, were cold, bitterly hungry, and thoroughly demoralized. They had invested three months of misery for no return. And their prospects were completely bleak.
Worse than bleak.
Connecten trumpets sounded.
Far worse than bleak.
COUNT RAYMONE GARETE’S AVENGING ARMY WAS OUTNUMBERED. DESPITE the rage sweeping the Connec, not that many men were willing to defy Duke Tormond. Raymone’s initial plan had been to launch a surprise attack on the invaders’ column, in a place and at a time when they would be least alert. He wanted to punish the Arnhanders, then fade away, going more for an emotional and moral victory than a physical one. But the stunned Arnhanders made little effort to defend themselves. Instead of fighting they fled toward the marshy ground at the base of the cliffs.
Adolf Black’s Grolsachers gave a better accounting of themselves but with the same ultimate result.
The slaughter continued until the Connectens had sated their bloodlust. That paid little attention to rank or station. The Arnhander leadership perished because the armored Connecten knights could not ride out onto the wet ground. The men on foot, possessed of no class commonality with the nobility they slaughtered, took no prisoners.
15. Ormienden, the Ownvidian Knot, and
Plemenza
P
rincipaté Bronte Doneto could not travel with any vigor. There were days when he could not endure more than an hour on the road. Two weeks passed. The party covered no more ground than a normal band might have spanned in four days. Fortunately, no one seemed interested in interfering. And, Else noted, the Principaté’s color and health improved steadily as he put distance between himself and Antieux.
Once back in Ormienden, at the Dencité Monastery, the Principate decided to convalesce.
“HEY, PIPE. WANT TO HEAR SOME NEWS?” PINKUS GHORT ASKED ONE morning.
“If it’s the real thing. I’m not looking for any more of the same old thing.”
“Guess I can’t help you, after all.”
“Groan. So rain on me.”
“Just Plain Joe came in from his lookout down by the bridge. He says people are headed this way. Eight or nine of them. He thinks one might be Bishop Serifs.”
“Well. Makes you wonder what kind of sense of humor God really has, doesn’t it?”
“Makes me wonder if the Maysaleans maybe don’t have it right when they say it was the Adversary who won the war in heaven.”
“Good thing our boss can’t hear you. He’d have you burned.”
The Principaté had been making those kinds of noises lately. The Church was bleeding and Bronte Doneto was determined to cauterize its wounds.
Ghort was cynical about the whole thing. “Doneto is posturing. He don’t believe the shit he’s putting out. It’s excuse crap he tosses around so he can do cruel shit and claim he’s got a good reason.”
Else observed, “You’re awfully critical of the guy who’s paying you to protect him.”
“He ain’t paying me to lie about him, only to keep his ass alive.”
Else shrugged. “I don’t think I’d have the moral flexibility to protect somebody like Serifs. Somebody wanted to cut his throat, I’d probably hand him a knife and hold his coat while he’s working.”
Ghort got a laugh out of that.
Bishop Serifs went straight into the monastery. He was not seen again for days. Else noted that Osa Stile became invisible when the bishop did so.
Several days later a message arrived from Brothe. It included news that Grade Drocker had made his way successfully to the Castella dollas Pontellas in the capital city.
Which news caused Pinkus Ghort to declare, “My heart is all aflutter. The world can go on. Old Ugly lives.”
“I was kind of thinking that way myself.”
More interesting news washed the thrill of the sorcerer’s survival away. A substantial Arnhander force had rushed into the Connec. It was besieging Antieux. Else observed, “That won’t do the Patriarch’s cause any good. Those people won’t be simple twice.”
“Fine by me,” Ghort said. “Let them sit there freezing their asses off and starving. They ought to put all Arnhanders through that. And double for that asshole, Adolf Black.”
“Every day I spend around you I find out about somebody else that you don’t l
ike.”
Ghort laughed. “He’s got me figured.”
Bo Biogna had just wandered in. “What’ve I been missin’? What’s so funny?”
“Life itself,” Else replied. “Sit down and look at where you’re at. Then remember where you hoped you’d be now, say, twelve years ago.”
Biogna shook his head. “Pipe, I got a notion you’re a good guy to have in charge when the shit comes down but the rest of the time you’re too fuckin’ serious.”
Ghort sneered. “Now Bo’s got you nailed.”
“Blame it on my upbringing.” Which was a truth that revealed nothing.
The time spent loafing around at the monastery, waiting for Principate Doneto to heal up, passed into Else Tage’s personal history as close to halcyon. Not once before in his life had he had a month where he had so little to do.
Then snippets of news about the Arnhander disaster in the Connec began to arrive. At first Else was sure the reports were exaggerated. But next day a courier arrived from Brothe. He brought orders from the Patriarch himself. The Collegium would convene to formulate the Church’s response to the massacre. Not only had the Connecten heretics spit in the face of all good Chaldareans, they had raped away the lives of numerous members of the most important families of Arnhand.
Bronte Doneto assembled his band. “We’re not ready to travel. But travel we must. The Instrumentalities of the Night walk the earth unopposed. The Holy Father has summoned me. He plans to charge me with managing the Church’s response once a course is decided.”
Odd choice of words, Else thought. The messenger said Sublime wanted Doneto back in Brothe because he needed the Principate’s voice and vote in the Collegium. The Collegium frustrated Sublime’s ambitions too often, thwarting him just to remind him that even the Voice of God on Earth was subject to checks.
Else told Ghort, “Doneto must have sensed something that wasn’t in the literal text of the summons.”
