“So?”
“They’re sorcerers, too. Not big-time, but they’ve got some magic.”
“But I thought El Murid killed all the magicians…”
“Sure!” Ragnarson interrupted, sneering. “All that didn’t get religion. You ever hear of a priest who wouldn’t make a deal with his devil to get what he wanted? El Murid’s no different. He’s a politician first, same as all of them. He just started out with ideals. After reality kicked his ass a few times, he started compromising. The shaghûn system worked for the Royalists—Haroun is supposed to be one, but he didn’t get much training before he had to run—so why not for him?”
Bragi was a cynic who disapproved of any organization structured for purposes other than warfare. His opinions of governments were as severe as those regarding priesthoods.
“What can we do?” Elana asked.
“About what?”
“About this hedge-wizard, you lummox!” Mornings they both could be bears.
“Oh. I’ll have to kill him. Or give up and see what he wants. How’s Rolf?”
“Still in a coma. I don’t think he’ll come out.”
“Grim. Where’s Mocker? And where’s that shaghûn? If I’m going to get him, I got to know where.” He sent someone to get Uthe from the tower.
Elana started to ask why
he
had to do it. She knew. It was his way. The more dangerous the task, the less likely he was to delegate it.
“Let’s go to the study,” Bragi said. He had a room of his own off the main hall where, supposedly, he attended to business. It was more a museum filled with mementos, and a library. “I hope he stays alive long enough to tell me why I’ve got El Murid’s horses trampling my wheat.”
“I’d like to see him live a little longer than that.” She revealed too much emotion. Bragi frowned puzzledly, was about to ask something when Uthe arrived.
The men went to four maps hung on a wall. One was of the west, political; another of the Itaskian Kingdom; a third was of the landgrant with inked notations about resources and special features. The last was of the area around the house, with large blank borders where the forest still stood. It was to this that Bragi and Uthe went. Haas pointed out the location of the shaghûn, then of nearby horsemen. Bragi traced an approach route with one heavy forefinger.
“Did you see his colors?” Ragnarson asked. “Did you recognize them?”
“Yes. No.”
“Guess we couldn’t tell much anyway. Bound to have been a big turnover. Most of them died before El Murid gave up and went home. Well, I don’t know what else I can do. Wish I’d known he was out there when it was still dark.”
He grabbed Elana, kissed her swift and hard. “Uthe, if it don’t work, you take over. Wait for Mocker. He’s bound to come—though how much good he’ll be I don’t know.” He kissed Elana again.
ii) His regiment arrives
The ground was cold. His leg ached. The dew on the grass had soaked through his trousers and jerkin. A breeze from the south did nothing to make him more comfortable. His hands were chilled, shaking. He hoped they wouldn’t ruin his aim. There was little chance he would get a second shot. The shaghûn would have a protective spell ready for instant use.
A hundred yards more, at least, before he dared a shot. And they the hardest since he had slipped out the tunnel from the cellars. There was no cover but a fencerow.
Where was Mocker? he wondered.
The yards slowly passed under his belly. He expected an alarm at any moment, or the cry of the shaghûn ordering an attack.
It was light enough to storm the house. Why were they waiting?
From the end of the fence he would have to trust luck to cross five yards of naked pasture to a ditch.
They would get him there for sure.
A sudden outcry and stirring of horses startled him. He almost let fly before realizing the horses were moving away. He raised his head.
Mocker had come.
And how he had come. The column emerging from the forest, both horse and foot, was the biggest Ragnarson had seen since the flareup with Prost Kamenets. At their head, fat and robed in brown and astride his pathetically bony little donkey, rode Mocker.
They were not Royal troops, though they were disciplined and well-equipped. Their banners were of the Mercenaries’ Guild. But Ragnarson knew few of their names could be found on Guild rosters. They were Trolledyngjans.
The desert horsemen, after first rushing toward the newcomers, retreated. Even a shaghûn was no advantage against such numbers.
Their flight passed near Ragnarson. The shaghûn, in a burnoose as dark as night, was an easy target.
One shaft, from a bow few men could pull, flew so swift its passage was nearly invisible. It burst through the shaghûn’s skull.
For a long minute Bragi watched the riders gallop off.
In an hour they would have disappeared without a trace. They came and went like the sandstorms of their native land, unpredictable and devastating.
“Hai!” Mocker cried as Bragi trotted up. “As always, one believed old fat windy fool, self, arrives in nick, to salvage bacon of friend of huge militant repute but, as customary, leaguered up by nearest congregation quadriplegic. Self, am thinking same should admit same before assembled host…”
“Speaking of which,” Ragnarson interrupted, “where’d you turn this crowd up?”
“Conjuration.” The fat man grinned. “Self, being mighty sorcerer, wizard of worldwide dread, made passes in night, danced widdershins round yew tree, nude, burned unholy incense, called up demon legion…”
“Never changes, does he? Blows hard as a winter wind.”
The speaker was a man even more massive than Ragnarson, mounted on a giant gray. He had the shaggy black hair of a wild man, and behind his beard a mass of dark teeth.
“Haaken! How the hell are you? What you doing here?” Haaken Blackfang was his foster brother.
“Been recruiting. Headed south now.” Without alcohol in him Blackfang was as reticent as Mocker was loquacious.
“Thought that was where you were. With Reskird and Rolf. Speaking of Rolf, he turned up yesterday, three-quarters dead, with that gang after him.”
“Uhn,” Blackfang grunted. “Not good. Didn’t expect them to get excited this soon. Figured another year.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Rolf’s job to explain.”
“He can’t. Might never explain anything. Mocker, did you bring Nepanthe? We need medical help.”
Before the fat man could reply, Blackfang interjected, “He didn’t. I’ll loan you my surgeon.”
Ragnarson frowned.
“He’s good. Youngster with a case of wanderlust. Now then, where to settle this lot? Looks like your fields have been hurt enough.”
“Uhn. East pasture, by the mill. I want my animals near the house till this blows over.” He wondered if there would be room, though. Blackfang’s baggage continued rolling from the forest, wagon after wagon. This looked like a
volkswanderung.
“What you got here, Haaken, a whole army?”
“Four hundred horse, the same afoot.”
“But women and children…”
“Maybe word hasn’t filtered down. There’s trouble in Trolledyngja. Looks like civil war. The Pretender’s grip is slipping. Fair-weather supporters are deserting him. Night raiders haunt the outlands. Lot of people like these, whether they favor him or the Old House, don’t want to get involved.”
A similar desire, after their family had been decimated in the civil war that had given the Pretender the Trolledyngjan throne, had driven Ragnarson and Blackfang over the Kratchnodians years ago.
“Had a letter from the War Minister a while back,” said Ragnarson. “Wanted to know why there hadn’t been any raids this spring. He thought something like Ringerike might be shaping up. Now I understand. Everybody stayed home to keep an eye on the neighbors.”
“About it.
Some decided to try their luck with us.”
“What about the Guild? They won’t like you showing their colors. And Itaskia won’t want Trolledyngjans roving round the countryside.”
“All taken care of. Fees paid, passes bought. Every man’s a Guild member. At least honorarily. Doing everything by the book. We can’t leave any enemies behind us.”
“Will you explain?”
“Later, if Rolf can’t. Shouldn’t we put the doctor to work?”
“Right. Mocker, take him to the house. I’ll help Haaken get his mob camped. You travel all night?”
“Had to to get here in time. Thought about sending the horse ahead, but they couldn’t’ve gotten here before dark last night, and I didn’t figure anything would happen till morning.”
“True. True. You’re a welcome sight.”
iii) Missive from a friend
Rolf came round briefly while the surgeon, who doubted there was much hope, was removing the arrow. He had ridden too far and hard with the shafthead tearing his insides.
Preshka saw the anxious faces. A weak smile crossed his lips. “Shouldn’t have… left,” he gasped. “Stupid… Couldn’t resist… one more try…”
“Be quiet!” Elana ordered while fidgeting, trying to make him more comfortable.
“Bragi… In kit… Letter… Haroun…” He passed out again.
“Figures,” Ragnarson grumbled. “This much going on, couldn’t be anyone else. Haaken, you feel like explaining?”
“Read the letter first.”
“All right. Damn!” He didn’t like this mystery piling on mystery, and nobody leaking any light. “I’ll hunt the thing up. Meet me in the study.”
The country,
Haroun’s letter began,
is Kavelin in the Lesser Kingdoms, among the easternmost of these, against the Kapenrung Mountains where they swing southwest out of the Mountains of M’Hand, and therein borders on Hammad al Nakir. In the southwest Kavelin is bounded by Tamerice, in the west by Altea, and in the northwest and west by Anstokin and Volstokin. (I am assembling a portfolio of military maps and will get them to you when I can.) El Murid is an enemy, of course, though there has been no action since the wars, which Kavelin survived virtually unscathed. Altea is traditionally an ally, Anstokin mostly neutral. There are occasional incidents with Tamerice and Volstokin. The most recent war was with Volstokin.
Governmentally, this is a parliamentary feudality, power balanced between the Crown and barons. In force of arms the latter outweigh the Crown, but internecine intrigues dissipate the advantage. Under the current, mediocre King, the Crown is little more than an arbiter of baronial disputes. Although, unlike Itaskia, Kavelin has no tradition of intrigue for the throne, a struggle for succession is taking shape. There is a Crown Prince, but he is not the King’s son. By listening at the proper doors one learns that the genuine prince was kidnapped on the day of his birth and a changeling substituted.
Historically and ethnically Kavelin is even more muddled than the usual Lesser Kingdom. The original inhabitants, the Marena Dimura, are a people related to those of the south coastal kingdoms of Libiannin, Cardine, Hellin Daimiel, and Dunno Scuttari. They form the lowest class, the pariahs. Only the most lucky (relatively) are so well off as to be slaves, bond-servants, or serfs. The majority run wild in the forests, living in a poverty and squalor that would shame a pig.
When, between 510 and 520 in the Imperial dating Ilkazar occupied the region, Imperial colonists moved in.
Their descendants, the Siluro, today form that class which manages the daily work of government and business. They are educated, officious, self-important, and schemers of the first water, and through their hands flows most of the wealth of the kingdom. A lot, in the form of bribes, sticks.
In the last decade of the Imperial era, about 608, when Ilkazar crossed the Silverbind in the north and Roë in the east, whole villages of Itaskians were transported to Kavelin in what has been called the Resettlement. These people, the Wessons (most came from West Wapentake), still speak a recognizable Itaskian and constitute both the bulk of the population and of the peasant, soldier, and artisan merchant classes. As with Itaskians, they are stolid, unimaginative, slow to anger, and slower to forgive a wrong. Their leaders still resent the Resettlement and Conquest and scheme to set those right.
The final group are the Nordmen, the ruling, enfiefed class. Their ancestors were proto-Trolledyngjans who came south with Jan Iron Hand for the final assault on Ilkazar. They decided life as nobles in a southern clime was better than going home to become commoners again in the icy North Waste. Can you blame them?
Everyone does. It has been centuries since the Conquest and still all three lower groups plot to topple the Nordmen. Add to actions forwarding these schemes the almost constant state of warfare among the barons, and the problem of the succession (for which several candidates have begun to vie), and you see we have an interesting political situation.
Native industries include mining (gold, silver, copper, iron, emeralds), dairying (Kavelin cheese is famous south of the Porthune), and a modest fur trade. Economically, Kavelin’s major importance is its position astride the east-west trade route. The fall of Ilkazar and subsequent drastic climatic changes in Hammad al Nakir forced the movement of trade northward. Kavelin became its benefactor by virtue of controlling the Savernake Gap, only pass through the Kapenrung Mountains connecting with the old Imperial road to Gog-Ahlan, which is the only developed way through the Mountains of M’Hand south of the Seydar Sea. Mocker is familiar with the eastern trade; he can explain more fully than I. He was in both Kavelin and the east before the wars.
Do you see the potentialities? Here is a kingdom, rich, yet small and relatively weak, beset by enemies, ripe for internal strife. If the King died today, as many as twenty armed forces with different loyalties might take the field. Most would be pretenders, but the Queen would attempt to defend her regency, and independent Siluro, Wesson, and even Marena Dimura units, under various chieftains, might align themselves with men they felt likely to improve their lot. Moreover, nobody would dare go all out because of greedy neighbors. Volstokin, especially, might loan troops and arms to a favorite.
Inject into all this a Haroun bin Yousif with my backing. (El Murid, much as he may want to, will not dare interfere directly in Kavelin’s internal affairs. He is not yet ready to resume the wars, which would be the inevitable result of his interference with a Western state.) Add a Bragi Ragnarson with a substantial mercenary force.
There would be battles, shifts of loyalties, a winnowing of pretenders. By proper exploitation we should not only become wealthy men, but find a kingdom in our pockets. In fact, I genuinely believe a kingship to be within your reach.
Ragnarson looked up and leaned back, fingers probing his beard. What Haroun really thought and planned was not in the letter. He didn’t explain
why
he offered kingship, or reveal what he himself hoped to gain. But it would have to do with El Murid. Bragi rose and went to the map of the west, looking for Kavelin.
“Ah, yes.” He chuckled. The mere location of Kavelin cast light on bin Yousif’s plan. It was ideally sited for launching guerrilla incursions into Hammad al Nakir. From the border to El Murid’s capital at Al Rhemish was less than a hundred miles. Swift horsemen could reach the city long before defensive units could be withdrawn from more distant frontiers.
That country, rugged, waterless badlands in which small bands of horsemen would be difficult to find, was suited to Haroun’s style. It was the same country in which the last Royalists had held out after El Murid’s ascension to power.
Haroun’s goal was obvious. He wanted a springboard for a Royalist Restoration. Which explained the presence of El Murid’s raiders here. They wanted to spoil the scheme. The western states, long plagued by El Murid and weary of supporting rowdy colonies of Royalist refugees, would, if Haroun could manage it, gleefully support a fiat.
Haroun’s letter continued. Br
agi read it out of a sense of debt to Rolf, but he had made up his mind. Haroun would not drag him in this time. Yesterday’s action, and his wounded leg, were all the adventure he wanted. Haroun could find another catspaw.
Haroun always talked fine and promised the moon, but seldom came near delivering.
The only crown Bragi felt likely to win, if he went to Kavelin, was the kind delivered with a mace.
iv) Knives in passing
Another dawn. Behind them the Trolledyngjan women were striking camp. Bragi, Mocker, Haaken, and Blackfang’s staff were already under way. Uthe Haas, and Dahl, rode with Bragi, ostensibly to help with his business in Itaskia, but, he suspected, more as Elana’s watchers. He had not had the strength to argue. His wound and another evening of drinking had washed the vinegar out of him.
“Why don’t you just ride along till we meet up with Reskird?” Blackfang asked. “He’ll want to swap a few lies, too. Been years since we’ve all been together.”
Reskird Kildragon was in the hills somewhere south of the Silverbind, near Octylya, training bowmen for service in Kavelin. These were prosperous times in Itaskia. Kildragon had been able to recruit few veterans. The youngsters he had assembled were all raw, with the customary, bullheaded Itaskian predilection for using their weapons their own ways. Bragi didn’t envy Reskird his job.
“I’ll think about it.” He wanted to say, “No,” but he would hear about that all the way to Itaskia. And if he indulged his emotions and agreed, he would hear about it from Uthe. “Ought to ride ready. Might be ambushed.”
The ambush didn’t come till after he had wearied of staying alert. The least likely place, he thought, was Itaskia itself. El Murid’s men would be too obvious there.
He overlooked the national prosperity that had eased suspicions. He was telling Dahl an exaggerated tale as they, Uthe, Mocker, Haaken, and two others entered Itaskia’s North Gate. The city watch had insisted that the main party remain outside, Trolledyngjans and alcohol having a reputation for not mixing.