“I didn’t know you were married, Lord Althalus,” Lord Dhakan said with some surprise.
“She’s a homebody.” Althalus shrugged it off.
“You have a house somewhere?”
“It’s her House, actually. It’s just a nice, cozy little place that we like to call home.”
Emmy the cat came padding across the floor and stopped in front of Sergeant Khalor’s chair. She looked up at him with her intense green eyes and meowed inquiringly.
“Don’t do that, Em,” Althalus scolded her.
She gave him a cold look, laying her ears back.
“That is the strangest cat,” Khalor said.
“We all owe her a great deal, Sergeant,” Dhakan said. “She actually saved young Eliar’s life a year or so ago.”
Andine returned wearing a filmy, sleeveless smock. She sat down and patted her lap. “Come here, Emmy,” she said fondly.
Emmy gave Althalus a superior sort of look that spoke volumes and then went immediately to Andine.
“Good kitty,” Andine said warmly. Then she looked at Sergeant Khalor. “What next?” she asked him.
“I need to take a look at the invaders, little lady,” he replied. “I can recognize most of the armies of the world on sight, and every army has its peculiarities. Getting to know the enemy’s very important when you’re fighting a war. I know Gelta quite well after that war in Wekti, but I’d like to have a look at her soldiers before I make too many more decisions.”
“Won’t that be sort of dangerous?” Dhakan asked. “You’re much too valuable a man to have running around in plain sight of the enemy.”
“I know of a way to observe without being seen, my Lord,” Khalor replied. “It’s a procedure that’s either very new or so old that the rest of mankind’s forgotten it. Althalus’ wife introduced us to it back in Wekti. That’s why I need to talk with her—fairly soon, I think.”
Where’s Gher? Eliar asked silently when they returned to the tower.
He’s playing, Leitha’s voice replied, speaking—it seemed—inside Althalus’ head.
“Do you have to do that?” Althalus asked them. “Can’t you keep these little discussions to yourselves?”
Eliar’s new at this, pet, Dweia murmured. If I remember correctly, it took you quite a while to learn not to shout.
What’s Gher up to now? Eliar asked a bit more quietly.
He’s off in the east corridor, Leitha replied, with Sergeant Gebhel’s men. Salkan’s teaching him how to use a sling.
“It was my suggestion, Althalus,” Bheid admitted. “Gher and Salkan are off by themselves. I thought that might be the smoothest way to bring Salkan here to this part of the House.”
“I’ll need to use your windows, ma’am,” Khalor told Dweia. “Arya Andine’s Generals are just a bit vague about the composition of the invading army, so I’d better have a look at them for myself.”
“Of course, Sergeant,” Dweia agreed.
Khalor glanced around quickly. “You haven’t left my Chief and Kreuter’s niece alone, have you?” he asked.
“They’re taking another little nap, Sergeant.”
Why don’t you go fetch Gher and Salkan, Eliar? Althalus suggested silently. If we’re going to break Salkan to harness, we might as well get started.
Go with him, pet, Dweia murmured.
Me? Why?
Let’s keep Gher from revealing too much right at first. We want to ease Salkan into his harness. Gher tends to rush things now and then.
Good point, Em, Althalus agreed.
“That’s what it’s really all about, Gher,” Salkan was saying as Eliar and Althalus approached them in the east corridor of the House. “Any fool can whirl a sling around in the air over his head. Knowing exactly when to let go is the key. Your eye and hand have to work together.”
“It’s a lot more complicated than it looks, isn’t it?” Gher said.
“Ah, there you are, Gher,” Althalus said. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”
“Is something wrong?” Gher asked.
“No, not really. Emmy says that since you’re so close to her House, you might as well pay her a visit. You might want to come along, too, Salkan.”
“I didn’t know there were any houses up here in the mountains,” Salkan said.
“We sort of like to keep it that way, Salkan,” Eliar told the young redhead. “Emmy likes her privacy.”
Salkan looked around. “I don’t even see any roads or paths,” he said.
“We try not to leave tracks,” Althalus told him. “Emmy’s House is fairly splendid, and there are bandits up here in the mountains.” He turned and gestured at the corridor behind him. “The House is over on the far side of that little notch in this ridge. It’s almost suppertime anyway, and Emmy can cook much better than Sergeant Gebhel’s field cooks can. Let’s go have a decent meal, shall we?”
———
“There’s quite a bit more involved in fighting a war than swords and arrows and slings, Salkan,” Sergeant Khalor told the young Wekti as they were all finishing up a supper of near-banquet proportions. He tapped his forehead. “The really important part of a war goes on in here. You have to think faster than your enemy does.”
“I’m not really a soldier, General Khalor,” Salkan replied. “I lose my temper now and then, but mostly I just take care of my sheep.”
“I think you underestimate yourself, lad,” Chief Albron told him. “You mobilized the closest thing Wekti has to any army in a very short period of time, and your boys made a large contribution to our success.”
“Like it or not, Salkan,” Althalus told the young redhead, “you do command troops, so I think maybe you’d better stay here for a while and get a few pointers from Khalor.”
“If you say so, Master Althalus,” Salkan agreed. “After we finish with supper, maybe Eliar can take me back to General Gebhel’s camp so I can pick up my things and have a talk with my friends.”
“We’ll take care of it, Salkan,” Eliar said.
That was slick, Dweia murmured to Althalus.
Not really, Em. Young Salkan’s eager to please people, so he’ll usually go along—if you give him a fairly sound reason. Now that he’s here in the House, everybody’s going to have access to him—Bheid, Khalor, you, Gher, and maybe even me. We’ll convert him to something before the summer’s out.
The skies over central Treborea were obscured by smoke from the burning crops the following morning, and the roads were choked with fleeing peasants. Sergeant Khalor’s face was bleak as he surveyed the devastation from the window. “I think I’m getting a little too old for this,” he muttered, half to himself.
“You didn’t invent war, Sergeant,” Dweia told him, her face pensive. “Can you see well enough from this height?”
Khalor looked down at the burning fields below. “Let’s go a little farther north before we drop down a bit,” he suggested. “There are probably things going on down there that I’d rather not see in too much detail.”
“Truly,” she agreed.
There was no sense of movement in the tower, but the view from the south window was constantly changing.
“Could we go a little lower here, ma’am?” Khalor asked Dweia. “I’d like to get a closer look at those soldiers.”
“Of course, Sergeant.”
Althalus joined them at the window.
“Their infantry units seem to be mostly Kwerons and Regwos,” Khalor observed. “I see a few Kagwhers, but not too many.”
“What about those horsemen?” Althalus asked him.
“They’re mostly cattlemen from the borderland between Perquaine and Regwos,” Khalor replied. “They ride horses well enough, but I’d hardly call them cavalry of the first order. Kreuter’s Plakands won’t have much trouble with them. There are some people mixed up with the rest of them that I can’t really identify, though. Who are the ones in that black armor who seem to be giving the orders?”
“Those are Nekweros
, Sergeant,” Dweia replied. “Ghend likes to have his own officers in charge of the mercenaries.”
“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a Nekweros before.”
“You’ve been lucky, then.”
“Do they paint their armor to make it black like that?”
“Not really. It has to do with the way it’s forged—and the place where it’s forged. Those particular people aren’t entirely human, Sergeant, and their armor’s not so much to protect them as it is to hide their real appearance. You don’t really want to see them.”
Eliar and Gher came up the stairs from the dining room to join them in the tower. “The ladies are talking about clothes again,” Gher reported, “and Bheid and Salkan are talking about sheep. Eliar and I didn’t find anything exciting about what any of them were saying, so we came up here to see how the war was going.”
“What’s my Chief doing?” Khalor asked
“The same thing he’s been doing for the past few days, Sergeant,” Eliar replied. “He’s sitting there looking at Lady Astarell.” Then Eliar blinked and put his hand to the hilt of the Knife. “Is that Treborea down there?” he asked, coming to the window.
“Yes,” Althalus replied. “Your Sergeant wanted to have a look at the enemy troops.”
“Ghend’s down there somewhere!” Eliar said sharply. “The Knife almost jumped out from under my belt just now.”
“Can you locate him?” Khalor demanded.
“That burned-out village off to the east, I think.”
The ground blurred beneath them slightly, and Althalus felt a slight giddiness as his eyes told him that he was moving and the rest of his body insisted that he wasn’t.
“There he is,” Eliar whispered, pointing at two figures standing near the still-smoldering remains of a peasant house.
“Who’s that with him?” Khalor asked quietly.
“Argan,” Dweia replied shortly.
“The defrocked priest?” Eliar asked.
“Yes. Ghend doesn’t really like Argan very much. Argan’s overly civilized, and when you get to the bottom of things, Ghend’s a barbarian. Argan’s also ambitious, and he seems to believe that his blond hair is a sign of some sort of racial superiority. That’s what got him expelled from the priesthood.”
“I need to hear them, ma’am,” Khalor said urgently.
She nodded, and Ghend’s voice became audible. “I don’t care how you find them, Argan,” he snarled, “but get to them and tell them to order their soldiers to stop burning the fields. They’ll starve my army if they don’t quit.”
“Didn’t the notion of bringing supplies along ever occur to Gelta and the other mercenaries?” Argan asked.
“They’re primitives, and primitives graze off the land like cattle.”
“Gelta does rather resemble a cow, doesn’t she?” Argan noted. “And she even smells like one. I’ll go order Smeugor and Tauri to stop the burning, but I don’t think it’ll do much good.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You really ought to pay more attention to the hired help, old boy. You wasted a lot of good gold on those two. They have titles, but no real authority. Their army commanders are the ones making the decisions.”
“Then order them to get off their backsides and take personal command. I want those fires stopped.”
“I’ll tell them what you said, old boy—if you think it’s going to do any good. I think you’re wrong, but that’s between you and the master, isn’t it?”
“Are you keeping in touch with Yakhag?” Ghend demanded.
“Naturally, old boy. I’ve got him well trained. Yakhag doesn’t scratch his nose without my permission.”
“Tell him to keep a tight leash on the Nekweros. I don’t want Althalus finding out about them until much later.”
“I do know what I’m doing, Ghend.”
“Are you making any progress in Osthos?”
“Some. Our brand of religion has a certain appeal among assorted aristocrats. The word ‘humility’ doesn’t sit too well with the highborn, and that works out quite well for us.”
“Stay on top of those fools, Argan,” Ghend told him, “but go wake up Smeugor and Tauri first.”
“At once, great leader,” Argan replied with a mocking bow.
“Is there some way that we can kill Argan before he has a chance to meet with Smeugor and Tauri?” Khalor asked Dweia.
“No, Sergeant. Argan has some other things to do farther on down the line, so let’s keep him alive.”
“We’ve got to prevent that meeting,” Khalor insisted. “If those two turncoats take personal command, the fires are going to go out, and it’s the lack of food that’s holding back the invaders.”
“Excuse me,” Gher said tentatively.
“Go ahead, boy,” Khalor said.
“Why not just keep Smeugor and what’s-his-name in some room here in the House? That priest fellow couldn’t get near them, could he?”
“It’s a thought, Khalor,” Althalus said.
“Indeed it is, but I’m not sure exactly how we’d explain it to Wendan and Gelun.”
“Why not just tell everybody that the Argan fellow’s a hired killer?” Gher suggested. “Sort of tell them that burning all the wheat fields is making Gelta real mad, and she’s paid Argan to find Smeugor and what’s-his-name and cut their throats. That’d scare those two right out of their shoes, and they’d start looking for someplace to hide. Then we find some real strong fort, you see—way up on top of some hill. Then we tell them they’ll be safe there—lots of guards around to keep Argan from getting to them and all that. But even though they think they’re in that fort, they really aren’t. They’re here in the House instead. The guards are going to think that Argan’s trying to get in so that he can kill them, so they’ll be on the lookout for him—and he’s going to think that they’re hiding in the fort to keep Ghend from killing them for burning all that wheat and stuff. Wouldn’t that sort of work?”
“Since you won’t sell this boy to me, Althalus, what if I adopt him instead?” Khalor said just a bit plaintively.
“No, Sergeant,” Dweia said, gathering Gher in her arms possessively. “He’s mine, and he’s going to stay mine.”
“Did I do good, Emmy?” Gher asked her.
“You did just fine, Gher,” she assured him, nestling her cheek against his tousled hair.
“Let him,” Gelun said flatly. “I’ll even lend him my knife if he wants to kill them that much.”
“Not right in the middle of a war, Gelun,” the tall Captain Wendan objected. “Everything’d get all tangled up in arguments about succession. I’ll grant you that our clansmen would be a lot happier without Smeugor and Tauri, but we can attend to that after the war.”
“Am I starting to hear rumblings of mutiny here?” Althalus asked slyly.
“Rumble-rumble-rumble,” Gelun said sourly. “Satisfied? But Wendan’s right. Much as I’d like to attend a couple of state funerals right now, this isn’t the time or the place.”
“Khalor’s located a safe place for your Chieftains, gentlemen,” Althalus told them. “It’s an old abandoned fortress that dates back several hundred years. There’s always been trouble along this frontier, so there are lots of fortified ruins around. This particular one’s fairly intimidating, so a company of guards ought to be able to keep the hired killer out. You might have to repair the roof a bit, but otherwise it’s not too bad.”
“With stout walls and a lot of guards about, it’s almost like a prison, isn’t it?” Wendan mused. “It’ll seem to be a place designed to keep the assassin out, but it might really be a place to keep Smeugor and Tauri in.”
“And maybe we could sort of forget where we put them when the time comes for us to go home,” Gelun added.
“My memory for details has been slipping a little here lately,” Wendan said with a slight smirk.
“That’s to be expected, Captain Wendan,” Althalus said. “You’ve got a lot on your mind right now
. Keep those welcoming fires burning, gentlemen. After the invaders have eaten all their horses, they’ll probably start on their shoes, and barefoot men don’t march very fast. Circulate that drawing of the assassin so that all your men know what he looks like. If you should get lucky and kill him, though, I don’t know that you’d need to tell Smeugor and Tauri about it.”
“They’re important men with important things on their minds, Althalus,” Wendan said piously. “We wouldn’t dream of bothering them with picky little details like that.”
“You’re the very soul of courtesy, Captain Wendan,” Althalus said with an extravagant bow. “I’ll keep in touch, gentlemen. You have a nice war now, you hear?”
“They’re starting to get a little desperate,” Sergeant Khalor observed from his post at the south window of the tower. “There’s nothing to eat out in the countryside. If they don’t take a city—soon—they’ll starve to death. I think we’d better get Laiwon and his clan inside the walls of Kadon. See to it, Eliar.”
“Yes, my Sergeant,” Eliar replied with a smart salute.
“I’ll go with him,” Althalus said. “Chief Laiwon and Duke Olkar look at the world differently, and there might be a little friction between them.”
“A little?” Andine murmured. “I don’t think Laiwon has the faintest notion of the meaning of the word ‘diplomacy,’ does he?”
“He is a bit blunt,” Khalor conceded.
“I’ll keep him in line,” Althalus assured them. “Let’s go get him, Eliar.”
“Right,” the young man agreed. “His clan’s in the southwest wing of the House.”
“How are you and Andine getting along?” Althalus asked his young friend as they went down the stairs.
Eliar rolled his eyes upward. “Remember how I used to be hungry all the time?”
Althalus laughed. “Oh, yes. I was almost afraid to take you into a forest, because I was sure that if I happened to doze off, I’d wake up and find that you’d eaten most of the trees.”
“I wasn’t quite that bad,” Eliar objected.
The Redemption of Althalus Page 52
