“You should always hold something back,” Hildreth said. “You’ve got to keep a surprise or two tucked away. And you should, by damn, have an exit in case things go sour.”
Gathrid peered across the countryside. The Mindak’s western friends were having a good time plundering the farm villages.
Count Cuneo continued to think aloud. “He can’t starve us out. He’d have to close the lanes to the sea to do that. I don’t see how he can take the Maurath and cross the Causeway, either. He’s in a spot. He has to take Sartain before Malmberget arrives. If he doesn’t, he’s dead.”
“He’s got a plan,” Rogala said.
“Of course he does. He wouldn’t be here if he didn’t. I’m just trying to figure out what the hell it is. Wish I’d beaten him to Avenevoli.”
As soon as he had convinced himself that Ahlert was coming, Hildreth had taken the Guards east in hopes of repeating his famed victory. The Mindak, probably through the agency of Magnolo Belfiglio, had anticipated him. His cavalry had taken the ferries and the heights overlooking them. The Count had retired without offering battle.
“I doubt he’s found anything to replace Nieroda and the Toal,” Gathrid said. “And he knows the Sword is here. He’s trying to bluff us. Or his dreams of conquest have driven him completely mad.”
Rogala’s permanent companion, Gacioch, chuckled wickedly. He refused to reveal what he found amusing. When the dwarf threatened to put chains through his ears and wear him as a necklace, he did remark, “The caverns of Ansorge contain more evils than you ever thought, Theis.”
Gathrid could not fathom the remark. Rogala seemed aggravated by it.
Magnolo Belfiglio, by informing his master of Count Cuneo’s thoughts, would allow Ahlert a tactical advantage, Gathrid thought. But that would not reduce the Maurath and its satellite sub-fortresses. They were too formidable for the host the Mindak had brought.
“He’s not wasting time,” Rogala remarked.
It was early. Ahlert had spent the night camped beyond the promontory from which Gathrid had first seen Sartain. His forces were dividing into units facing the outer line of fortresses. Some of them would have to be reduced before the Maurath could be approached. Their war engines had punishing, overlapping fields of fire.
Attacking those outer works would be expensive. Each boasted a garrison of six hundred seasoned Guards supported by a dozen skilled Brothers. The fortilices had been designed by the best military architects of recent centuries. Neither Rogala nor Hildreth believed Ahlert’s manpower resources sufficient to reduce more than two or three.
Then there was the Maurath, the elephantine, wolverine fortress designed to withstand the efforts of a hundred-thousand attackers.
The more he thought about the situation, the more nervous Gathrid became. The Mindak had to be armed with something really devastating.
Ahlert’s forces moved with a swiftness and precision amazing for such a mixed bag of fighting men.
Men in dark armor, on dark horses, advanced under a flag of truce. Behind them, Ventimiglian quartermasters spread out across the abandoned fields, staking out campsites and erecting biers for the expected dead. They trampled the freshly planted crops. A company of peasant militiamen near Gathrid cursed and shook their fists.
“There’s confidence for you,” Rogala muttered. “He figures he’ll be here long enough to properly care for his dead.” No biers had been erected before the battle at Kacalief.
“At least he’s still realist enough to expect casualties,” Hildreth replied.
The parleying party stopped at a respectful distance. Only the Mindak and his standardbearer came closer.
“Don’t look directly at him,” Gathrid warned. “He’s wearing the Ordrope Diadem.”
“Grellner’s toy?” Hildreth asked. “I wasn’t sure he’d recovered it.”
“Don’t be surprised by anything. Ansorge is a cellar filled with black miracles.”
“Let’s go see what he’s got to say.”
Above the tunnel through the Maurath was an alcove-balcony for confrontations such as this. The tunnel itself had been sealed by massive stones forced up from road level by water pumped into chambers beneath them. The tunnel, in theory, would be harder to break through than the immensely thick wall of the Maurath itself.
“Gathrid. Theis.” The Mindak wore what appeared to be a genuinely friendly smile. “Glad to see that you’re still well. I’d feared for your health. These westerners are treacherous.”
Aarant prodded Gathrid. “They are that. It hasn’t been that long since I heard one of their Kings plotting to betray the rest to you.”
“Ah. Poor Kimach. You see? He was a greedy man. And a fool. He was a flawed tool at best. He would have broken in heavy work. And he knew it. No doubt he’s happier where he is now. The gentleman with you, I presume, is the renowned Count Cuneo?”
Hildreth bowed slightly. Because Ahlert had chosen to speak Old Petralian, the formalities had to be observed. “I’d hoped to meet you earlier, Sir.”
“At Avenevoli? But I was there! I heard you were in the area. I’m sorry we missed each other.”
“Such is luck. Such is luck. I suppose conditions weren’t propitious for any early meeting.”
“And Mead?” Gathrid interjected. “I trust she’s well?”
Ahlert managed to look startled, wistful, and mildly annoyed. “Magnolo says she’s as well as can be expected. She bore me a son two days ago.” He glanced eastward for a fraction of a second, his dream momentarily interrupted by the anxieties of a husband. “Your lady, too, is resting well. I knew you would’ve wanted the right thing done. I took the liberty of having artisans prepare a suitable resting place. And another for your sister as well.” He peered at Gathrid intently, as if trying to determine whether or not the youth was surprised. “May we all have the good fortune to revisit those places and people whence our heartroots spring.”
Hildreth was puzzled by the personal exchange. He brought the conversation back to the present. “That’s a big traveling party you’ve brought on your pilgrimage to pledge fealty to the Empire.”
“When one visits Sartain, I’m told, no display of pomp and power is too great.”
“This one isn’t great enough.”
“Perhaps not. Yet we petition entry, and audience with the Emperor and Fray Magister. I note that the latter isn’t represented in your party. That’s curious.”
“He finds himself occupied elsewhere. No doubt he’ll be heartbroken when he hears that you departed without making his acquaintance.”
Mulenex and the best minds of the Brotherhood were deep in the bowels of the Raftery. They were trying to discover the source of the Mindak’s confidence. And some means of negating it.
“That would never do. I’ll have to insist on paying him a visit.”
“The Emperor has bid us tell all would-be visitors that the Causeway is closed. My apologies, Sir.”
Gathrid found the evasions and false politenesses amusing. Petralian was a language for diplomats. It seemed to have been specially shaped for men who wished to avoid being pinned down.
“That’s final? Beyond compromise?”
“Unfortunately.”
“A pity, though not unanticipated. Gathrid, my best. Theis, the same to you. Have you heard from our friend from Sommerlath? She’d be interested in our reunion, I think.”
So, Gathrid thought. He knows Nieroda survived. And he doesn’t consider her a danger at the moment.
“No. Nothing,” he replied. Probing with little hope of illumination, “You wouldn’t know where she is, would you?”
The Mindak smiled a tired, wary smile. “She’s where she always is when you don’t see her. Looking over your shoulder. I suppose there’s nothing more to be said. Count?”
Hildreth’s frown suggested he was puzzled by the exchange. “That’s all.”
“So be it, then. So be it.” Ahlert returned to his party. As he went, he thrust an arm toward the east, making
a come hither gesture.
Hildreth asked, “What’s that about?”
Gathrid shrugged. “I don’t know him that well.”
“We’ll find out the hard way,” Rogala said. “Let’s get back upstairs.”
When they reached the battlements they saw that a low, dense blackness now masked the eastern skyline. Occasional clouds surged up, collapsed back into the onrushing wave.
“A storm?” Hildreth wondered. “Out of the east? Signalmen. Pass the final alert.”
Men with wigwag flags and mirrors communicated with Sartain and the satellite fortresses, bringing them to maximum readiness.
The Mindak reshuffled his forces but did not attack.
Gathrid stared eastward. The darkness drew closer. In places great banks of blackness rose to obscure the morning sun. His nervousness grew, though there was nothing to do but wait. There were no more preparations to make.
“Those are birds or something,” he gasped. “Big ones, too.”
Hildreth swore. “We should have nets.”
“Too late,” Rogala said.
The Count signaled the island anyway. “We’ll strip the fishing fleet. For the next attack.”
Gacioch laughed. “That’s what I like. A man with a positive outlook.”
“Shut up!” Rogala snarled.
It grew dark. Gathrid muttered, “I hope this place is as invincible as everyone claims.” He had his doubts now.
The things were terrier-sized. They had long leathery wings and jaws like crocodiles. Hundreds of thousands descended on the Maurath. Their stench was overpowering. Gathrid felt as though he had fallen into a bat cave as big as the world. He swung Daubendiek in a murderous blur.
The things had no flavor. There was no evil in them, nor even the rage of attack. Their little animal souls were bland. Hunger was all they knew.
They had been created in a time more eld than Nieroda’s Sommerlath, as tools for just this sort of attack. Like knives, they cared not how they were wielded. Their only imperative was to increase their numbers against their next employment.
The Dark People of Ansorge had removed them from the earth and sealed them in stasis in caverns far beneath their city. Ahlert’s investigators had stumbled onto readable instructions for controlling them.
Gathrid suspected a twitch of the hand of Chuchain.
Daubendiek howled with joy. It preferred drinking the blood of men, but was happy enough with this.
The Guards Oldani, Imperial army and Sartain’s militia merely howled. The attackers had no more self-concern than army ants. They drove through a storm of arrows and flung themselves against upraised blades. They plunged past the massed defenses of the Brotherhood, and ripped spellcasters to pieces.
The only defense was cover.
Ahlert began his advance. The winged things did not harry his people. His allies, in forces a thousand strong, assaulted each of the satellite fortresses. The defenders managed a few wild shots from their engines, but were so preoccupied with flyers that they could not reload.
It seemed a hundred flyers replaced every dozen downed. The attacking cloud grew more and more dense. Bodies piled a yard deep atop the Maurath.
A larger cloud swarmed over Sartain. Gathrid hoped the civilians would bar their doors and windows and wait the storm out.
It did not break. It did not let up. The winged things forced the Guards to retreat to the interiors of the smaller fortresses. Ahlert’s troops threw up ladders and climbing ropes. Arrows shot from embrasures too narrow for the flyers took their toll, but the point had been won. The defenders would be overcome inside their citadels.
The embittered Ventimiglian veterans began advancing on the Maurath.
Hildreth, Gathrid and Rogala fought as a team. While the taller men stood back to back, keeping the air around them clear, the dwarf finished wounded flyers and pitched carcasses off the wall.
It was rough work for everyone but Gathrid, who received energy from the Sword. Hildreth was first to confess exhaustion. “Got to get under cover and rest,” he gasped. “This way.” They were the last to leave the roof.
Gathrid examined the Ventimiglians as he shielded Hildreth’s effort to open a door. It had become so dark the easterners had to carry torches. They were advancing with drill-ground precision.
The Maurath, unlike the outer works, had towers and turrets. The Ventimiglians encountered heavy arrow fire and a rain of burning pitch balls spewed by an engine of Hildreth’s invention. The latter caused more confusion than damage.
The masonry shuddered.
“What was that?” Hildreth demanded. The Count had collapsed the moment they were safely inside. Now he clawed at Rogala, trying to regain his feet.
Calls of “Count Cuneo! Count Cuneo!” echoed up from the lower levels. Gathrid and Rogala trailed Hildreth round and round a circular stair, back down to the level where they had spoken with Ahlert. A Guards officer directed the Count to an observation port opening on the tunnel through the fortress.
Ahlert’s thaumaturges had begun pulverizing the blocking stones. “That’ll take them forever,” the Count said, unworried. “I need a messenger.”
“Here, Sir.”
“Go up top and round me up four Blues. Bring them here.”
“Yes, Sir.”
The Brothers were still trying to decimate the flyers. Their task appeared hopeless. The roof of the Maurath was buried four feet deep in bodies. Blood flooded the scuppers meant to drain the roof. It was backing up. In places it leaked through, clogging the Maurath’s upper levels with its smell.
Gathrid found the magnitude of the assault stupefying.
Four shaky Blues reported. At Cuneo’s direction they began exchanging sorceries with the Ventimiglians in the tunnel.
Gathrid peeped through an aperture into the gloom outside. Bochantin’s banners now flew over several satellite fortresses, though fighting apparently continued within them. “What time is it getting to be, Theis?”
The dwarf growled something.
“Been going on only an hour? Seems like all day already.”
More lead-footed hours slogged past. Hildreth’s men fought stubbornly, but the Ventimiglians established a foothold on the ramparts. They began expanding it, bringing up men for an attack into the Maurath’s interior.
“It’s going to be long and bloody,” Hildreth predicted. He remained undaunted. “Despite his numbers, he can’t capture the Maurath. It’ll be a different story when his men have to come inside.” He checked the tunnel. A stubborn enemy persisted in his efforts to clear it. “That’s his main thrust there. Trying to break through to the Causeway.”
“I could go after Ahlert,” Gathrid suggested.
Hildreth laughed.
“With a million flyers to swarm you?” Rogala snorted derisively. “There you go getting romantic again. Listen, son. Don’t start getting the idea you’re invincible. Bet there’s nothing Ahlert would like better than to have you come after him.”
Aarant concurred. “Be patient. The confrontation will come when both Suchara and Chuchain think it’s to their advantage.”
“You just don’t want to risk getting killed.”
“Damned right I don’t. This isn’t exactly living, but it’s damned well better than being dead.”
“Then so was being run by a Toal.”
Aarant became very cold and vacant. “No. Death would be better than that.”
Gathrid reflected on the Mindak and grew cold. Ahlert was as much Chosen as he. They were pawns of the Great Old Ones. Soon one of them would have to die.... The inevitability of it made him want to scream. He checked the smaller fortresses. “Hey. Looks like he’s breaking off out there.”
Hildreth edged him aside. “You’re right. Figures he’s done enough damage, and the flyers will keep them neutralized.”
The Count sounded deflated. Aarant suggested, “He’s in over his head and can’t admit it.”
“You’re right. Sartain doesn’t have an
ybody else to turn to. The responsibility is getting to him.”
Count Cuneo had faced no sorcery at Avenevoli, and at the Beklavac narrows control responsibility had rested on other shoulders. When it fell entirely upon him, he could not make quick decisions. He did not know what to do. He was wasting his men of Power by deploying them as he would ordinary soldiers. The Brothers were his most valuable tools, and he was frittering them away because he understood neither their strengths nor limitations.
Gathrid prowled his backbrain, trying to locate the memories of Sagis Gruhala. Aarant saw his thrust. He contributed the memories of witchmen he had slain. Many were the great ones, the old ones, whose names still rang in legend.
What Gathrid wanted was not to be found in any of their minds. “Messenger,” he said to one of the youngsters who dogged the Count. “I want you to assemble me a list of all the Brothers assigned to the Maurath. Find out where they’re stationed and what their specialties are.” He hoped something in writing would jar his mind into yielding what he needed.
“What’re you doing?” Hildreth demanded.
“We can’t do much about the flyers, right? So why don’t we address ourselves to something we can handle? And I think we’ve been taking too defensive a stance.”
Historically, Hildreth had been at his best on the defensive. As a young mercenary he had won his reputation defending small lords from the predations of their more powerful neighbors. It was that skill which had brought him to Elgar’s attention. The real miracle of Avenevoli was not that Hildreth had won there, but that he had done so with essentially offensive maneuvers. The results at Katich were more characteristic of his few offensive attempts.
After the one challenge Cuneo seemed content to permit Gathrid his way.
Rogala whispered, “The man’s had his head under the axe so long that he’ll jump at any chance to share the responsibility.”
“Won’t matter who’s responsible,” Gathrid replied. “Unless we can scrounge up a miracle.”
“Folks would get in line to claim credit in that case. But don’t be so pessimistic, son. Ahlert has his limits. Like no reserves. He’s losing his momentum now.”