Loida squeezed his hand. "The priests never tell us why the gods do what they do. They just say we have to go along."
"I don't think they are gods. That's the strange part. But they can't be human. Sometimes I think they exist only in our imaginations. One old guy in Senturia said they wake up because there's a need in the race. A collective mind that calls them forth."
"My father used to say that about the gods. That they exist only in the hearts of the faithful."
"One thing for sure. Rogala is real. The Sword is real. Nieroda is real. And they've all been around a long time. Sometimes they used other names. The Mindak's scholars say Grellner was really Nieroda. And she might be the Driebrant who made the Shield."
"Do you believe in reincarnation?"
"Only the way Nieroda does it. She's a continuous ego. Her identity isn't ever interrupted. Why?"
"I wondered if I played any part in Tureck Aarant's life."
"You believe in it?"
"Yes."
"The only woman in his story was his mother."
"And she would fill the same role as your sister. What you called the kin-death."
"I suppose." He scowled at the soldiers below. Their column seemed endless. He wondered how many would become sacrifices on the altar of this godlike family's game.
He forced a smile. "Guess I've been around Rogala too much. The thing goes on and on, but the scripts aren't fixed. Things are a little different each time. Maybe this time humanity will win."
"Gathrid, were you happy at Kacalief?"
"Most of the time. Why?"
"You take everything so serious. You make everything so important. You want to change everything to the way it should be. I thought maybe you had a bad time when you were little."
"You think Rogala is right? That we should just go along? Make it easy on ourselves? Loida, somebody's got to fight it."
"You can say that till the sun freezes, boy. It won't make a whit of difference." The dwarf joined them. Gathrid started to move away. He was doing his best to avoid Rogala still. Loida clung to his hand, holding him there.
"It hurts," Rogala said. "It hurts like hell sometimes. But that's the way things are. Even for us. And we're the shakers and movers. The ones who make things happen. Think how frustrating it must be for the ones we happen to."
A nasty chuckle drew Gathrid's attention. Rogala had installed Gacioch in a special carrying case, an ornate box. He carried it in the crook of his arm.
"See you've found a friend, Theis. Enjoy. You were made for each other."
"You don't have to like me, boy, but we're stuck with each other. You could try to get along."
"Try to get along? Why don't you take your own advice?"
"How do you mean? I'm willing to try."
"I've got a name. It's not Boy. I had enough of that from my father. And I'm tired of hearing about how we don't have any choice. A man always has a choice. Suchara can't control us every second. She can't make us live if we don't want to."
"This's serious," the dwarf grumbled. He considered Gathrid intently.
"Why not do a belly-buster off this here tower?" Gacioch asked. "It's been dull for days. Big news. Swordbearer commits suicide. That would liven things up."
"I just might try it."
"Don't be a fool," Rogala snapped.
"Appeal to his better nature," Gacioch suggested. "Remind him that he'll hurt the people he lands on." The demon hooted as if at one of time's great jokes.
"I don't need to," the dwarf replied. "He's right about the choice. Suchara can't control him all the time. But he hasn't thought it all the way through. She doesn't need to, thanks to Nieroda." He grinned evilly. "He's got this haunt. It would take him over if he died. And it wouldn't let him die all the way. It would keep him sitting there behind it, watching everything it did with his body."
Gathrid shook in an instant of fury. Rogala was right. It was that impotence which had made the souls of Mohrhard Horgrebe and Obers Lek so difficult to digest. They had spent ages despairing over their usage.
"That's still a choice," he blustered.
"Sure is. And as pretty a one as you'll ever have to face. You up to it, Gathrid? Really up to it? I didn't think so."
The Mindak and his wife came to the tower's top. Gathrid immediately forgot everything but Mead. The woman had a warmth, compassion and understanding lacking in his other acquaintances. Though she was twelve years older, he remained halfway in love.
Common soldier to high commander, Ventimiglians were interested only in survival, plunder and power. Hows and whys and who got hurt were matters of supreme indifference.
Mead cared.
Yet she believed in her husband.
It had taken Gathrid weeks to resolve the apparent contradiction. He finally concluded that the lady agreed with her husband's ultimate goal, an empire free of strife. What she loathed were his methods.
Gathrid bowed to the Lady Mead. She offered him a ghost of a smile. Loida scowled. The youth was more obvious than he thought. He said, "We were just discussing the traps of our lives."
"We're all trapped in our lives," Mead observed. "Either by the Great Old Ones or by ourselves. No use mourning it, Gathrid. Make the best of a bad situation. Try to leave things better for those who will follow us."
"Any success would be devoured by the Great Old Ones," Ahlert told her.
The lady smiled her serene smile.
"What?" Gathrid asked. He had missed something. Had the Mindak finally told Mead that he had been Chosen by Chuchain?
"You're picking an argument, dear," Mead told her husband. "I'm not going to play today." She guided Ahlert to a point twenty feet from Gathrid's group.
The youth reddened. He took a step in the Mindak's direction.
"Just hold it," Rogala growled. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Gathrid stopped. He was surprised at himself. "Oh. Yes. All right." He felt a moment of shame. He was becoming arrogant behind his despair. He was getting too confident of his immunity from every peril but Rogala's dagger.
He had not been born with this blade in his hand. Behind it he was nothing but Gathrid of Kacalief, a very unprepossessing youth.
He was getting antsy. He had to get out of Covingont soon. He had to start doing something.
Fate granted his wish soon enough. Messenger birds began arriving. Contact had been made with Nieroda. Her rebels were in Silhavy and Gorsuch. Patrol after patrol reported an encounter. The presence of Toal was mentioned in every message.
Nieroda had split her army into divisions commanded by the Toal, hoping to draw the Mindak into multiple engagements. Gathrid saw her strategy. He and Daubendiek could be but one place at a time. She was diluting the power of the Sword.
Selection of a suitable response generated a lot of debate. One of the Mindak's generals suggested, "Let's poke at them till we find out which group she's with, then go after that one."
Ahlert himself said, "I think if we worked out the assignments carefully, our best people could neutralize the Toal with each group while our troops handled hers. The Swordbearer could move from battleground to battleground while we kept them pinned."
Another general said, "I don't like the idea of us splitting up. It's not good tactics. We'd end up scattering our strength too much."
General Tracka, who commanded the Imperial Brigade, added, "Not to mention that that's obviously what she wants. Which makes it a trap of some sort."
Rogala coughed querulously. "Excuse me, gentlemen. It ain't my place to horn in, but you don't give me a whole lot of choice."
The Mindak's commanders looked at him as if he were a roach discovered in a half-eaten bowl of breakfast porridge.
"You'll grant me a certain familiarity with military procedures, won't you? I mean, I have seen a few wars."
"It didn't occur to me to consult you," the Mindak admitted. "Go ahead. Fire away. I'm always open to suggestion."
"Look at the bigger picture befo
re you start your planning."
"Explain."
"Nieroda has committed an unpardonable strategic sin. The general trend of this discussion indicates that you're going to let her get away with it. That you haven't yet noticed."
"I don't follow you."
"She's taken on a war on two fronts. The enemy on each side is stronger. She's risked it thinking she knows you well enough to predict your behavior. She's betting she can whip you before the Alliance gets its house in order. The way you're all talking, she made the right bet."
The generals muttered among themselves. Gathrid caught fragments of sentences involving sentiments ranging from embarrassment at not having seen the obvious to irritation at the dwarf for having interrupted his betters.
"So?" said the Mindak. "What would you do?"
"Make her sweat. Just plain don't fight her. Dig in right here. Hold the Karato. Time is on our side. Every day that passes will tighten the jaws of the vise. Sooner or later she'll have to come to you, and try to finish you, on your ground and your terms. In one place, where Daubendiek can do the most damage."
Ahlert reflected but a moment before nodding. "Tactically sound, Rogala. But let's note a wee problem. It's not springtime. If I sit my men down in one place, digging trenches and building stockades, how do I feed them? They wouldn't be able to forage. And we don't have the Power to keep the pass open."
Rogala smiled. "I didn't overlook that angle. I haven't forgotten the old saying that an army marches on its stomach. Nor the considerable likelihood that Nieroda's foragers have already stripped the countryside, the colonials out there being beholden to your family and therefore fair game."
The Mindak's eyebrows rose. He surveyed his staff. With a trace of sarcasm, he observed, "I don't recall anyone having made that point before."
One officer blustered, "We anticipated using stocks captured from the enemy."
"Oh. I see. Gentlemen, I never claimed to be a military genius, but even I can see the hole in that kind of planning."
"One giant hole," Rogala said, chuckling. "That's desperation planning. Easy! Easy! I've been round the quartermasters. I know what we have, down to the last bushel of oats. We can get through the winter."
"Would you tell us how?" Ahlert asked. "I know of rations for two months. The Karato will be closed four to five."
Rogala sucked air between his teeth. "Now we come to the part where I get unpopular." He grinned a big, toothy grin behind his wild beard. "First, there'll be casualties. Nieroda will have no choice. She'll have to attack. That will mean men dying. Dead men don't eat. That'll help some."
One of the generals muttered something sour about negative attitudes.
Rogala winked and went on. "Mainly, though, the way to manage is for the officer class to swallow a side order of pride with their meals. This army has almost as many animals as men. Not a lot of them will be useful if my strategy is adopted. So eat the animals, beginning with the non-workers. The warhorses. Then eat their food, that you worked so hard to haul over the mountains. Oats cook up just fine, and a two-month supply for one horse will support several men for the same length of time."
Ahlert's staff seemed to have gone into shock. Rogala's suggestion was so absurd, by their standards, that it took a half-minute to fully penetrate and generate an angry stir.
The Mindak raised an admonitory hand. "Wait!" he said. "Rogala, that's asking an awful lot." The warhorse, specially bred and trained to carry an armored man in battle, and extremely expensive if calculated by the man-hours invested in the animal, was the symbol of status in feudal society. Rogala's suggestion could not have been met with greater horror, east or west, had it been that they eat their babies.
Rogala clung to his point. "Look at it pragmatically. You won't need the animals. In my scenario you'd fight on foot anyway. Grab replacements from the enemy . . . . Meantime, let the animals forage. They can eat grass and leaves. Soldiers can't. Save the grain for them."
"What about pursuit?" someone demanded. Rogala had lighted a fire. The Mindak's staffers were wide awake and looking for a dust-up.
"Why worry about it? Where's she going to run? Just sit tight. Make her come to you, but keep her out of Ventimiglia. Let the Alliance mobilize behind her. Let her get desperate, attack and be defeated. Judging her troops by past performance, you won't need to chase them. They'll come begging to join up with you."
Gathrid followed the exchange in silence, often finding it amusing. Rogala was serious, he knew. Intensely serious, and probably right. The Mindak's officers sensed the logic of his suggestions, and that raised their hackles even more.
Ahlert gave them free critical rein. For a time the meeting turned into an enthusiastic verbal brawl.
Rogala, unfortunately, was blessed with a lack of tact and an ages-old habit of not explaining in sufficient detail. Both worked against him now. He answered most objections simply by saying, "You can't whip Nieroda in the field. She's got too much. Believe me." He failed to provide supportive evidence, so his arguments were not accepted. "Not even the Sword will help if you meet her on her terms. Damn it, you have to let her defeat herself. You have to sit here and look like you're going for a draw. You have to let the Alliance become a threat behind her. So she don't dare commit herself completely anywhere. If the alternative was defeat, I'd think getting my feet dirty was trivial. But that's just a coarse little peasant of a survivor's opinion."
Later, after an especially bitter denunciation by one of the conservatives, Rogala observed sadly, "You're always the same. In every age. What do they do to you when you're little? Suck your brains out your earholes and stuff your heads with wool? You always consider your illusions more important than winning. I just don't get it. Hold it there, your undeserved generalship. I'm going to pronounce an oracle on your enterprise, based on a few thousand years of experience. You damned fools are going to get smoked. Nitwits always do."
"Smoked?" the offended general demanded.
"Smashed. Stomped. Decimated. Wiped out."
Ahlert made a gentle, open-palmed gesture in the general's direction. The man subsided immediately.
He still awes them, Gathrid realized. Maybe he hasn't slipped as much as he thinks.
Musingly, Rogala continued, "The Swordbearer and me, of course, we're going to get out of it all right. The lad here, he's emotional. He's going to mourn you all. Your wives and families too. That's the way he is. Me, I'm just going to laugh. I get a kick out of seeing jerks get what's coming to them."
Rogala turned to Ahlert. "One other thing, Chief. Assuming somebody has an attack of smarts and listens to me, that gang of camp followers has got to go. Right now. They aren't nothing but eating mouths. The mouths you want to fill belong to your soldiers, not your harlequins and harlots." He stamped away. After a few steps, he paused to beckon Gathrid. The youth rose and followed.
Once out of earshot of Ahlert, the dwarf said, "We're not going to have any more luck here than we had with the Alliance Kings. These clowns would let their army get stomped like cockroaches in a cattle stampede before they'd swallow their pride and do what I tell them."
Rogala misjudged the mettle of the Mindak. The army remained encamped in the mouth of the Karato. Immense earthworks began to rise, more as a means of keeping the troops occupied than for their military value.
Magnolo Belfiglio relayed the news that the west's political problems were settling out. Yedon Hildreth was in Bilgoraj again, clearing the Beklavac narrows.
Nieroda continued to await a response from the Mindak.
Rogala did not win all his points. The horses did not go to the butchers right away. Their destruction was too much for even the Mindak to swallow in a single lump.
Nieroda moved steadily nearer, finally establishing a line of fortified camps five miles west of Ahlert's position. For weeks the only contact between armies came when scouting parties skirmished. Each host awaited the other's first move.
Ahlert lost patience first. He led Gathrid, a g
rumbling Rogala and a select company of warrior-wizards into no-man's-land, hoping to provoke Nieroda into some ill-advised action.
She refused the bait.
Ahlert tried again. And again. The Dark Lady responded by sending a Toal's brigade to savage the Ventimiglian right while her opposite flank was being irritated by Ahlert's raiders.