War Maid's Choice-ARC (61 page)

He fixed the image in his mind, locking it there until it was more real than the bird cries coming down from above, or the sun on his face, or the distant, murmuring, thousand-tongued multivoice of Sothōfalas. He took that image in his mental grasp and heard the wind rising at his back. The wind only he could hear, only he could feel, summoned by his talent, sweeping around him in an invisible, silent cyclone. It wrapped itself about him, plucking at his hair and garments with a thousand tiny, laughing hands, and he smiled again, released his grip on Sothōkarnas, and stepped from everyday reality into the laughter of the wind.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“I don’t like this one bit,” Brandark Brandarkson said quietly, sitting in the saddle and peering into the misty rain. His cap’s jaunty feather drooped under its own sodden weight, and a thin, persistent stream of droplets dripped from its end. “I know it rains more down here, close to the river, than it does up on top of the Wind Plain this time of year, but this is just plain wrong.”

“Aye, it is that,” Bahzell acknowledged grimly.

The Horse Stealer stood leaning against Walsharno’s shoulder, his oilskin poncho gleaming with wet, and the courser’s ears moved restlessly as both of them strained to sense and identify what instinct told them was out there somewhere. Bahzell’s ears were almost as busy, but Brandark’s were half-flattened, and his warhorse stamped uneasily as it sensed its rider’s mood. The Bloody Sword had returned to Hurgrum from Dwarvenhame six days before, bearing with him greetings, letters, a fresh supply of books for his library, and a brand new specimen of the dawrves’ latest musical invention. He’d been welcomed warmly on his arrival (despite his new instrument), yet he clearly didn’t care for what he’d heard—and seen—since then. He’d come ahead with Bahzell to join Yurgazh and the field force on the Ghoul Moor while Trianal personally returned to Balthar to raise the riding’s first levy. The additional Sothōii should be arriving in the next few days, and Vaijon would be close behind them with Bahnak’s infantry reinforcements, but summer or no summer, there was a cold, ugly feel to the air. A sense of something building, of a malevolent force biding its time and assembling its strength before it struck.

The expeditionary force had encamped along the bank of the Hangnysti while it awaited its reinforcements. Its dwarven engineers had laid out, and human and hradani fatigue parties had constructed, field fortifications that would have done the King Emperor himself proud, and the small army should have been secure against anything the Ghoul Moor had ever produced. Yet every man in it knew no one had ever seen or heard of ghouls acting as their enemy was acting now, and that left them feeling unanchored despite their fortified camp. Off balance. It wasn’t
fear
, but it was uncertainty, made all the worse because ghouls had always been so predictable before.

And the weather wasn’t helping, Bahzell thought. Brandark was right about that. The wet, sloppy mud and rain was more like what one would have expected in late fall or even early winter, not this time of year. It would have been enough to depress anyone’s spirits at any time; coming now, in what was supposed to be high summer, the effect was even more pronounced. And the eerie emptiness around them, the lack of activity from the ghouls who should have been swarming about their fortifications, trying to pounce on scouting parties, gibbering and hooting their challenges from the weather’s concealment, only made that even worse. Yurgazh and Sir Yarran were undoubtedly right about the need to patrol aggressively—as much to keep the men focused as to seek contact with the enemy—but those patrols persistently found nothing. It was almost as if the ghouls knew about their army’s expected reinforcements and were deliberately
waiting
for them to arrive before offering battle, and wasn’t that a cheery thought?

Well, it was your own stiff neck got you out in the muck and the mud today
, he told himself sardonically.
There’s more than a mite could be said for sitting snug with a fire on a day like this, but could you be doing the smart thing?
He snorted mentally.
Of course you couldn’t! And if you and Walsharno were after being so bent on wading about out amongst the weeds and the rain just to see for yourself as how there’s never a ghoul stirring, of course the little man had to be coming along with you, didn’t he just?

“I wouldn’t want to say this kind of weather was deliberately
designed
to make horse bows less effective,” the Bloody Sword continued now, “but it does rather have that effect, doesn’t it?”

“Aye,” Bahzell grunted even more disgustedly.

Bows were less susceptible to rain than some people thought, but even a Sothōii’s well-waxed and resined bowstring lost power when it was thoroughly saturated. Fletching tended to warp and even come completely unglued, for that matter, which did bad things to accuracy. Because of that, the Sothōii rode with their bows unbent, strings tucked into their ponchos’ inner pockets to keep them dry, and their quivers capped to protect their arrows. That meant they were going to be slower—much slower—getting those bows into action than they might have been otherwise. Even worse, these blowing, misty curtains of rain reduced visibility badly, and
that
meant they were likely to have less warning before they needed those unbent, unstrung bows.

It wasn’t quite as bad for the hradani’s Dwarvenhame arbalests, with their steel bowstaves and wire “strings” and their quarrels’ wooden slot-and-groove stabilizing vanes, but even they found their effective range reduced in this sort of weather, simply because of the visibility. And given that even a Dwarvenhame arbalest was slower-firing than a horse bow, their front ranks were likely to have time for no more than a single volley before they were forced to sling their missile weapons and bring their shields and swords into action.

It could have been worse, of course. For example, they could have faced a hard, driving rain rather than this billowing grayness. But it was quite bad enough, even if Brandark hadn’t been right about the unseasonable nature of it. This was the third straight day, with no end in sight, and the sense of being closed in, half-blinded, was enough to make a man’s skin itch.

<
Especially when both of us know
something
’s on the other side of it,
> Walsharno murmured in the back of his brain. <
And Vaijon, too
.>

<
Well, it’s not as if it was after being the first time we’ve smelled such as that,
> Bahzell replied silently. <
Mind, it’s happy I’ll be to have Vaijon along this time, but there’s times I wish as how himself
could
be telling us just a
mite
more before we’ve stepped full into it
.>

<
I wish that, too, Bahzell,
> a far deeper voice said. <
Sending those who trust you and who have proven you can trust
them
, even to the death, into battle without all the knowledge you possess...that’s a hard thing, my Swords, even for a god. Perhaps
especially
for a god
.>

Most people, perhaps, might have flinched just a bit when a god’s voice rolled through their brains with no warning at all. Bahzell and Walsharno, however, had become accustomed to it over the years, and the hradani’s ears didn’t even twitch in surprise.

Anymore, at least.

<
As to that, it’s no god I am,
> he said, <
yet I can see as how it could eat on a man
.>

There was no recrimination in his tone, only acceptance of the way it must be, and he felt a vast, immaterial hand rest lightly on his shoulder.

<
I don’t think you have anything to worry about today,
> Tomanāk’s voice rumbled in his mind. <
I can’t be certain of that, however. You’re right that there’s something ugly, something powerful, behind this rain, yet my nephews and nieces have prevented me from seeing as clearly as I might otherwise. What I do see is bad enough, though
.> The voice was deeper, grimmer. <
When it comes, my Swords, it will demand all that all of you have to offer...and perhaps even that will be less than enough this time. I know you’ll give all I could possibly ask of you, yet the Dark has planned better this time, and I see too far and too deeply to see
clearly
. There are too many possibilities, too many strands weaving together, for me to see any one of them unambiguously, and this time battle is fully joined beyond the edges of your universe, as well as within it.
>

Bahzell’s ears flattened and he turned his head far enough to meet Walsharno’s eye, remembering a cold, windy night in the Empire of the Spear when Tomanāk had explained to him why the gods dared not contend openly with one another, strength to strength, lest their unleashed power destroy the very reality for which they fought.

<
No, Bahzell,
> Tomanāk said. <
We do not contend
in
your universe, nor for this universe alone. We meet
between
them, beyond their fringes, and it’s less a matter of sheer strength than of...leverage, perhaps. Balance. The proper grips and counters
.>

It was evident Tomanāk was seeking the best way to describe something in terms a mortal might grasp.

<
When a mishuk grapples with another mishuk, the outcome depends far less on who has the most powerful muscles, the longer reach, than on who has the superior
technique
,
> Tomanāk continued. <
All of those other factors matter, but in the end, he who’s more skilled—and experienced—has the greatest advantage. Yet in the struggle between Light and Dark, there are still more factors which must be taken into consideration. There’s a tide, a current—a flow—to the seas of possibility and the current of history. Deities see that flow far more clearly than mortals, and with that clarity we can assist the mortals who must contend with it, yet we ourselves can never lay hand upon it and shape it as we will. For us, much of the struggle lies in not simply what we can perceive but what we can prevent the
other
side from perceiving. And when too many strands, too many possible outcomes, flow together it becomes harder for us to see clearly ourselves...and easier for the other side to blind us to critical possibilities
.>

Bahzell gave a slow mental nod and sensed Walsharno’s understanding along with his own.

<
For the last twelve centuries of your universe,
> Tomanāk continued in the voice of someone choosing his words with exquisite care, <
events have been spiraling through the echoes of the last great clash which doomed Kontovar and gave birth to most of the evils which have afflicted Norfressa since. It took far too many of your years for those echoes to be damped, but now they have, and they’re poised to rebound. There are literally uncountable variations on
how
they may rebound, but there are really only two basic outcomes. Either the Light will hold its ground, strike back, and reverse the verdict of Kontovar, or else the Dark will conquer all. One way or the other, my Swords, the decision will be reached in your time. If you fail, if you fall in your current struggle, the Dark triumphs; if you succeed today, then it will only be to face another and still sterner test in the uncertain mists of your future, but that other test
will
come to you. All I can tell you is that you have the strength—the strength of will, of heart, of mind and courage—to meet Evil sword-to-sword. You have my trust, and my confidence, and you have the power of your own belief in what’s right and your willingness to fight—and die—for it. That, my children, is all anyone, god or mortal, can ask of anyone else or demand of themselves, and I know—I
know,
if I know nothing else in all the universes that may ever be—that you
will
give it. And when you do, I will stand beside you and give you of my strength. There’s no shame in defeat, my Swords; there is shame only in surrender, and that is something neither of you, nor Vaijon, know how to do
.>

Neither hradani nor courser said anything. They simply reached back to their deity, feeling the bonds between them, the interweaving of their very essences with Tomanāk’s, and that was enough.

Bahzell never knew exactly how long the entire conversation had lasted, although he was confident the interval had been far briefer for Brandark than it had for him and for Walsharno. He inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring, as Tomanāk withdrew once more, and then he turned to look at his friend.

“Well, I’m thinking we’ve splashed about mud enough for one day,” he said.

“Really?” Brandark cocked his ears. “Odd, I didn’t think it was
my
idea to go out and squelch around all day.”

“No more it was,” Bahzell agreed. “Still and all, I’m thinking that was because it’s so very rare for you to be having an idea at all.”

“Given the handicap under which you labor, that actually wasn’t such a bad effort,” Brandark said judiciously. “Not very subtle, a little heavy-handed, but overall, and bearing in mind it had to work its way through a
Horse Stealer’s
so-called sense of humor...”

He shrugged, and Bahzell chuckled and swung back up into Walsharno’s saddle.

“Such a small, nasty attitude,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ll not be making any comments about lack of size and the smallness of brains that might be coming along with it. But I
will
mention as how I’ve just this morning taken delivery of a brand-new bottle of thirty-year whiskey—the Silver Cavern Granservan Grand Reserve, as it happens—courtesy of old Kilthan. If it should so happen you could be minding that silver tongue of yours—aye, and leaving that curst ‘banjo’ of yours in its case!—it’s pleased I’d be to share it with you while I’ve the writing of a letter to Leeana.”

“Granservan Grand Reserve?” Brandark’s ears perked up instantly, and he squared his shoulders and gathered up his reins. “Well, if
that’s
the case, why are we still standing here?”

* * *

“It’s good to see you home, Brayahs,” Baroness Myacha said, smiling as her husband’s nephew entered the sunny breakfast chamber. “It does Borandas’ heart good whenever you can find time—and whenever the King lets you go long enough—to visit us.”