The Grand Crusade (52 page)

Adrogans studied the shipyards from a hilltop to the north, and the hills upon which the old city had been built did shield much of the ruins from view.

It reminded him of what Svarskya probably would look like after decades of weathering. All immediate signs of violence had been erased, and the crumbled edges of once-proud buildings had softened. The whole city looked as if it had eroded, and aside from the port area, it showed few signs of life.

The shipyards were another thing entirely. That area had been rebuilt on a massive scale. To the north were the foundries, mills, and curing houses for the wood. Beyond them were lumberyards, with small ships moving back and forth with loads. In the center and along to the south of the crescent bay, four shipyards were in full production, and the ships they were working on dwarfed anything Adrogans had seen before. Two of the ships would be ready to launch inside a week where, if the half-dozen behemoths already bobbing in the bay were any indication, they would be finished and made seaworthy. Based on reports he’d had of the pirate attack on Vilwan, he assumed these big ships would carry dragonels.

In addition to the big ships, the shipyards also were working on a bunch of smaller galleys. The little boats would be fast and would keep southern ships away from the big transport craft. They would clear the way, and the big ships would shoot dragonels at ports while the small ships took battalions off and landed them onshore.

Further from the sea stood barracks. Because of the landscape, Adrogans could only see a couple and parts of a couple more, but he could guess that there were ten in all, and each would be capable of housing a full regiment. Unseen but also implied were warehouses bulging with food and supplies for these troops, as well as small shops for making barrels, sails, oars, and anything else they would need.

Adrogans made some quick mental calculations. He chose to estimate that each ship could carry a regiment. If three of them were to hit Lakaslin, three Yslin, and the others to raid selected ports, they would do serious damage to the war effort. The alliance would be shattered as nations fell or rushed to defend their homes.

The only logical plan would be for him to bring all of his troops up and stage an immediate attack. If the barracks were full already, his troops would be outnumbered two to one, and would be attacking an enemy already behind fortifications. The enemy would be able to bring dragonels to bear, and likely more than he could. He had visions of two or more of the ships—each of which looked as if it carried at least as many dragonels as his entire force—blasting his troops as they came in. The ambush in the road would be a raindrop to a flood when compared to that slaughter.

But to wait was to risk many other things. For all he knew, a half-dozen ships were already seaworthy, loaded, and out on trials. If they returned, there would be evenmoretroops and dragonels to deal with. Waiting might also mean that if the barracks were not already full now, they would be later, and he would miss his only chance to destroy the fleet.

He snarled. “I need more information.”

Phfas shrugged. “For a decision like this, is there ever enough?”

“No. At least we know now why the Aurolani commander isn’t worried about a cavalry regiment on the border. It’s not disrupting her supply of wood, and it is no threat here.”

The Zhusk shaman looked at him oddly.“ ‘Hersupply’?”

Adrogans frowned. No one had made any mention of the gender of the Aurolani commander, but in making his comment, he knew he had the right information. He searched his mind for how he had come to that conclusion, then slowly turned inward, seeking something.

In the past, that inward journey would have brought him to Pain. He would have felt her raking claws over his flesh and gnawing on nerve endings. Since leaving Okrannel, however, the touch of theyrunhad faded. As he looked inside himself, he expected to find nothing.

There was something there, however.

It came to him dimly and faintly. At first he thought it might be his connection with Pain returning, for the presence definitely was female, but quickly he realized it was not his mistress. The new presence did have claws and fangs, but felt far more feline. Her blatant sense of sexuality surprised him, for Pain had always been intimate, but had never excited carnal interest—merely the perversion of same by substituting pain for pleasure. Not so what he felt now. And, if he cared to draw a further conclusion, he would have said that the being he sensed was either currently involved in sating base desires or lingered in the afterglow of satiation.

Adrogans’ eyes focused again. “Uncle, when we metsullanciribefore, did you have a sense of them through the vrwn?”

The old man shook his head slightly. “No. They had no connection to the old spirits.”

“Then there is something different about the one down there, assuming it is asullanciri”

“Safe to assume.”

“I agree.” Adrogans rubbed a hand back through his short hair. “This one has a bit of Pain in her. I can feel her, read some things. She seems very open. She has concerns, but none at the moment is military.”

“You read her thoughts?”

“No, not yet, not in any organized sense. I get emotions and desires. It’s as if, in listening to someone talk in his sleep, you tried to figure out what he was dreaming.”

“This could be good.” Phfas nodded. “And dangerous.”

“I agree. I have to assume it will be possible for her to read the same from me. I will be careful.”

“Good. Do not try to get into her mind.”

“I wouldn’t know how.”

Phfas chuckled. “That would not stop you if you needed to. That mind will be the lair of nightmares.”

“How fitting.” Adrogans looked back at the city. “She exists in a lair of nightmares I need more information, and I’m going to have to get it. Some of our people will have to take a load of wood in there and get back out with samples from the buildings.”

“Choose volunteers.”

“I will.”

“Make sure they are orphans.”

“Yes, Uncle, I shall.” Adrogans raised an eyebrow. “Anything else?”

“Her goal and your goal are not the same.” The little man smiled slowly. “Use her goal against her, and the road to yours will be much better.”

fT] he three days spent hunting Bloodmasks were very harrowing. Erlestoke

I halted his army and engaged, daily, in conversations with Sambell Malviston.

A. The two of them made quite a show of it, even having serious shouting

matches. Erlestoke wished their interchanges had been sham discussions, but

they were not. Even though Malviston had come to accept that Erlestoke had not

murdered his father, the old Midlands resentment against Meredo still poisoned

their relationship.

Erlestoke remembered Sambell from his youth, but only barely. After all, he was just a lordling from the Mids. The prince realized that when Malviston provoked him enough, he still thought of him dismissively in those terms. To his credit, he never voiced his outrage at the upland noble’s berating him.If I do that, everything comes apart.

Malviston did have a great deal of anger to deal with concerning Erlestoke. The Midlands, and most of the country for that part, had hated having pockets of Aurolani forces in Oriosa. All the nobles labored under the same burden his father did: fearing Nefrai-kesh or anothersullanciricoming to twist their heads off. They resented their fear and wanted to show their courage by opposing Chytrine, but to do anything overt would invite her wrathandthat of King Scrainwood.

Where Erlestoke was seen by many as having gone wrong was in abandoning Oriosa in favor of Fortress Draconis. There was a time when his service had made the nation proud, but that had all been twisted after Chytrine had smashed the stronghold. Erlestoke’s return and his rift with his father, especially with an Aurolani army so close by, seemed designed to provoke the Aurolani to attack. From the point of view of people like Malviston, Erlestoke wanted to strike at Chytrine, and would sacrifice his nation to do it.

Malviston likewise berated him for not knowing his own people. “How they

have suffered under your father has to be obvious. Could you not hear our laments in Fortress Draconis?“ He reminded Erlestoke that even if he hated his father, he still had a duty to the people of Oriosa.

And Erlestoke had to allow that Malviston had a point: he had abandoned his people. The prince told himself he had done so for two very good reasons. The first was that he was needed at Fortress Draconis, and that Fortress Draconis performed a vital function in keeping Chytrine bottled up in the north. The second was that for him to return and oppose his father, directly or indirectly, would be to spawn a civil war in the nation—or get me murdered.

Both of those reasons were true. Both of them were good. Still, the prince understood that neither absolved him of the duty incumbent upon him because of his blood. His father did have to be balanced and even opposed, and no one else in the whole world had the legitimate right or position to be able to lead that opposition. As much as he did not want to take a blood-drenched throne, better the throne should run with the blood of his father than the countryside with the blood of the citizenry.

Erlestoke resolved to deal with his father’s control of Oriosa once he’d completed the war against Chytrine.If I survive it. He couldn’t tell Malviston his decision, since that would be open treason, and sharing the idea would be an invitation to have Malviston join him. That would be delicate politically, for while Malviston could join him in opposing the Aurolani with no internal political difficulties, to join a rebellion would make him a target for all manner of grasping lordlings throughout the nation.

So while the two of them argued and rumors flew through both armies, Dranae, Nay, Borell, and the Addermages conducted their search for the Bloodmasks. Nay and Borell knew how to talk with crofters and herders, and even knew some of them from market days in Valsina. From them they learned how the Bloodmasks operated. The Addermages used spells both to repair some of the damage done and to gain impressions of the Bloodmasks.

Rumbellow reported their findings to Erlestoke in the early evening before they mounted their final hunting expedition. “The impression we have is of two groups of people. Some are soldiers, a company or so, and a similar number of mages. I’m sure they’re Vilwanese, which, among other things, means they are wearing masks under false pretenses.”

Despite his having been away from Oriosa for so long, that comment flared Erlestoke’s nostrils. Muroso, Alosa, and Oriosa had long ago revolted from the Estine Empire, and those who led the revolution had worn masks to conceal their identities. Their descendants had the right to wear masks to honor the sacrifices their ancestors had made to free their nations. For someone who had no right to a mask to wear anything but a courtesy mask was enough to sour the stomach of any true son of Oriosa.

The fact that their using masks had to have been sanctioned by his father made Erlestoke feel even more ill.

“They have tried to be crafty in how they work, but we have plotted their appearances.” Rumbellow spread a map of the Midlands out on a table and used candlesticks to hold the corners down. “While they struck in a vast arc, making it look as if they were sweeping down from the north and around to the west, all of the strikes are a day’s hard ride from this place here.”

Erlestoke nodded. “Nyresina.”

Rumbellow looked up. “You know it?”

“Yes. It was my mother’s dowry. Before she died we would summer there, away from Meredo.” Erlestoke’s hands convulsed into fists. “We’re within striking distance, yes?”

“A day’s ride. They know we’re here, and they’d know we’re coming.” The Addermage shook his head. “I would guess they will leave soon, if they have not already gone. Don’t worry, we’ll find a way to track them.”

“I don’t want them tracked. I want themdead!‘ Erlestoke knelt by the chest in his tent and flipped the lid back. He pulled out his quadnel, pouch of shot, and powder horn. ”We go tonight.“

Rumbellow shook his head. “I and my fellow mages are good, but even we can’t get us there that fast.”

“I know.” Erlestoke slung his sword belt over his right shoulder. “You can’t, but Dranae can. Get your ten best combat mages. They’ll be watching the roads for us, which means when we come in, they won’t know what hit them.”

Never having seen the estate at Nyresina from the air, it took Erlestoke a moment or two to recognize it. He spotted the oxbow in the river as it reflected silver moonlight. The trees had been thinned, and it looked as if the vineyards to the north had been expanded, but the estate building itself had run to ruin. The original tower at the northeast corner had partially collapsed and the old coach house’s roof sagged. Other than that, however, the boxy main house appeared to be habitable.

Dranae dove fast, then flared his wings, touching down softly in the courtyard on the west side of the main house, between it and a small lake where Erlestoke and his brother had sailed as boys. Since the road came in from the east and reached the house on the other side, they assumed any watchers would be most alert there. In reality, the sentries were stationed much further down the road witharcanslata, so they offered no warning at all to those in the house.

In an eyeblink Dranae shifted from dragon to manform. Erlestoke tossed him his draconette and a swath of cloth that the man fashioned into a kilt. The Addermages spread out before them, running for the house. None of them were willing to imagine that a dragon could land without notice, and they knew that magickal alarms need not make any sound. If they did have surprise on their side, so much the better.

Rumbellow smacked the door with an iron-shod baton and the weathered

wood exploded inward. The Addermages poured into the building. Erlestoke followed with Dranae at his heels. The doorway admitted them to the kitchen, then a cut to the left brought them into the hallway that led to the Grand Hall.

By the time they got there, a thaumaturgical battle had begun to rage. Lurid red bats and glowing green eagles wheeled and dove, twisted and flapped within the room’s vaults. Gouts of golden flame lit the room, and smashed impotently on magickal shields. A mage’s hand opened, releasing a shower of sparks that transformed into blue arrows. The flight curved in at a Bloodmask mage who raised a shield that stopped all but two. They hit, spinning him and dumping him to the floor with smoking holes breast and back.