War Maid's Choice-ARC (82 page)

“Markhos’ assassination was secondary to our main objective, anyway,” he told the magister, “and we damned nearly succeeded in it despite that busybody Brayahs and Tellian and his bitch of a daughter.” He shrugged. “Bahzell was always the main target, and no meddling mage is going to change a single damned thing that happens on the Ghoul Moor. It would take a
god
to change that!”

He bared his teeth, tapping his gramerhain, summoning up the view of Tellian’s marching army once more.

“We’ll wait,” he repeated, gazing intently down on the tiny, crystal clear images in the heart of the stone. “If Anshakar is half as mighty as
he
seems to think he is, we won’t need to worry about Markhos or the Sothōii. And if it should happen Anshakar
isn’t
strong enough to deal with Bahzell, there’ll still be time to kill the King and his precious family. And just between the two of us, Malahk,” his eyes were hard and hating as he glared at those distant images, “I find the notion of killing Bahzell’s wife and father-in-law curiously soothing at this particular moment.”

* * *

At least it wasn’t raining.

Bahzell Bahnakson would have been much happier if he’d been able to convince himself the absence of clouds was simply a natural change in the weather. Or, failing that, that it was because whoever or whatever had caused all those dreary days of rain had been dismayed by the steady advance of no less than three champions of Tomanāk and decided to take the rain—and himself—elsewhere.

Unfortunately, he could convince himself of neither of those things.

<
Neither can I, Brother,
> Walsharno thought at him. <
But at least it means we can see whatever’s coming before it gets here. And our two-foots’ bow strings won’t be wet!
>

“No, that they won’t,” Bahzell replied, his voice pitched too low for anyone else besides—possibly—Brandark, riding beside him, to hear. “And truth be told, I’ll take whatever it is we can get, and grateful I’ll be for it. Not that I’d be finding it in my heart to complain if it should happen we were offered more.”

<
Nor I,
> Walsharno agreed, tossing his head in assent. <
Nor I
.>

Bahzell stood in his stirrups, stretching and simultaneously trying (vainly) to see a little further. Not that he expected to see very much. The Ghoul Moor was both more uneven and more heavily overgrown with scattered clumps of trees than the Wind Plain. In fact, it reminded him very much of the land further north and west, around Hurgrum, except for the absence of farmsteads. Ghouls did raise some crops, as winter fodder for their food animals, and Trianal’s mounted foraging parties would be keeping a lookout for any such sources of supply they could sweep up along the way. But those crops tended to be closer to the ghouls’ occupied villages, and the villages in the area here along the Hangnysti had been largely deserted since mid-summer.

They’d scouted this region cautiously over the last week or two, confirming that the villages in it remained empty. Since the rain had finally eased, though, their scouts had found tracks churned across the mud, indicating that quite a few ghouls had at least passed through it. Nor was that all they’d indicated, unfortunately. Ghouls were scarcely known for tactical or strategic sophistication, yet at least some of those tracks clearly suggested they’d been sending out scouts of their own, keeping an eye on the allied expedition. The possibility that the other side might know more about
them
than they knew about
it
for a change wasn’t exactly comforting, but the Sothōii scouting parties had at least turned up sufficient tracks to suggest conclusively where the ghouls had gone. They were gathering along the Graywillow River, a tributary of the Hangnysti about three hundred miles west of its junction with the Spear, which made entirely too much sense from their perspective.

The Graywillow was scarcely two hundred miles long, but it had a lot of small, winding tributaries which drained an extensive, often marshy floodplain, and the main stream was close to seventy yards across where it joined the Hangnysti. That made it a significant water barrier, and the terrain along its course—especially as it neared the Hangnysti—was rough, its banks lined with thick, tangled thickets of the willows from which it took its name. Farther upstream the willows gave way to dense stretches of mixed evergreens and hardwoods which could provide dangerously effective cover for troops as irregular as ghouls...and which would break up the formation of any infantry which tried to go in after them. Taken all together, it was an unfortunately good defensive position. On the other hand, with all the rain which had beset the Ghoul Moor in the last month or two, the Graywillow had to be running high and deep—probably deep enough to be a barrier even for ghouls, if they could catch them between their own advance and the stream.

Beyond the riverline, between the Graywillow and the Spear, a rolling expanse of grasslands stretched east and south almost to the border of the Kingdom of the River Brigands, offering grazing space for enough meat animals to supply an enormous horde of ghouls, assuming any imaginable power could force the ghouls in question into some sort of cooperative effort. Which was a sobering thought, given what appeared to have been happening.

With the information available to him, Trianal had seen no choice but to move down the southern bank of the Hangnysti to the Graywillow. If that was where the enemy was, then that was where they had to go to find him. At the same time, however, he’d stayed within sight of the Hangnysti the entire way, using barges to carry food and fodder. And, with Tharanal’s enthusiastic assistance, he’d turned a score of barges into heavily armored missile platforms, with stout wooden bulwarks pierced by firing slits for arbalesteers and raised firing platforms mounting the much more powerful sort of crew-served ballistae Axeman cruisers mounted.
Those
“arbalests” threw “quarrels” up to five feet long for as much as four hundred yards, with steel heads capable of driving through a foot and more of solid, seasoned oak. Not even a ghoul would enjoy meeting one of them. And there were even a dozen barges fitted with catapults capable of hurling banefire, the dreadful incendiary compound of the Royal and Imperial Navy. With them to cover his riverward flank—and, for that matter, to provide supporting fire if they had to close with the mouth of the Graywillow—Trianal could afford to concentrate his army’s attention on threats away from the Hangnysti as they moved through the empty, deserted spaces between them and the ghouls’ suspected position.

And it’s no complaint they’d hear out of me if the bastards were never after coming back here
, Bahzell thought grimly as he settled back down in the saddle.
If they’d sense enough to stay clear of the river and leave us be, then it’s happy enough I’d be to leave
them
be, in return. But as soon as ever we’ve sent these lads home
...

Very few of the men in the expedition would have shared his willingness to let the ghouls alone, and he knew it. For that matter,
he
had no illusions about the creatures’ willingness to live in peace with any set of neighbors, and he knew it would be no more than a matter of time—and not much of it—before the hradani or the Sothōii would be forced to invade these same lands again to prune back the threat to their borders and their people. Yet however this year’s incursion ultimately worked out, all too many of the men marching and riding about him would be dead or crippled by its close. No number of dead ghouls could truly be an equitable trade for that, and his nerve-eating certainty that something as dark as it was powerful lurked behind the rain and the ghouls’ bizarre activities and tactics made him fear how high the final cost might be.

“Did you ever think that perhaps the
smart
thing for us to do would be to just go home for the rest of the summer?” Brandark asked lightly from beside him. Bahzell looked at him, and the Horse Stealer shrugged. “I know we have it to do eventually, Bahzell, but do we really have a deadline? We’re not going to be barging anything through here before next year, anyway. Maybe whatever’s been behind all this Phrobus-taken rain would get bored and go away over the winter? I know
I’d
go away rather than face a Ghoul Moor winter!”

“I’m thinking it’s a mite late to be suggesting such as that, my lad,” Bahzell observed mildly. “And if that’s the way your thought is setting, why, there’s naught to be keeping you here. I’m sure as how Tharanal’s bargemasters would be happy enough to be giving you space aboard, if it should happen you’re so inclined.”

“I was simply pointing out that it would be the smart thing to do,” Brandark replied. “The problem, though, is that doing the smart thing requires the person doing it to
be
smart.” He shook his head mournfully. “And
I
, unfortunately, seem to’ve been associating with Horse Stealers too long.” He heaved a vast sigh. “Who would’ve thought that I, of all people, could find myself swept away into foolishness like this by the childlike enthusiasm of a batch of hradani—oh, and let’s not forget the Sothōii!—too stupid to come in out of the rain and the mud?”

“Is that the way of it, then?” Bahzell cocked his ears at his friend, and Brandark shrugged.

“One way to explain it, anyway. And another way”—his tone darkened and his hand dropped to the hilt of his sword—“is to point out that whatever’s out there isn’t likely to go away whatever we do. I’d just as soon deal with it here before we find it moving up the Hangnysti towards Navahk and Hurgrum.” The Bloody Sword smiled grimly. “Call me silly, but I’d rather fight it somewhere none of our women and children are likely to get caught in the slaughter.”

“Aye, there’s something to be said for that,” Bahzell agreed.

He started to add something more, then broke off as a five-man section of Sothōii cavalry swept over the crest of a low ridge perhaps two miles ahead of them and headed towards their main body in a mud-spattering gallop. Hradani had excellent vision, and his ears came up and his eyes narrowed as he peered at them. Then his jaw tightened, Walsharno wheeled under him, and Brandark blinked in astonishment as the courser disappeared in a shower of mud all his own.

* * *

“What is it, Bahzell?” Trianal Bowmaster asked sharply as the huge roan half-slid to a halt beside his command group.

“There’s a scouting party coming in yonder,” Bahzell replied tersely, jabbing a thumb to the south-southeast. “They’re coming fast, like all Sharnā’s demons were at their heels, and there’s the stink of something else coming on behind them.” He bared his teeth. “It’s in my mind it won’t be so very long before we’ve proof enough of whatever it is as has been playing with the weather.”

“Bahzell’s right, Milord,” Vaijon said. He was gazing off to the southeast, his eyes focused on something no one else could see.

“And whatever it is wouldn’t be heading this way if it didn’t figure it could take us head-on,” Sir Yarran Battlecrow said flatly.

“My very own thought,” Bahzell agreed, and his expression was grim. “More than that, it’s the very stink of evil that’s coming behind them.” His ears flattened in frustration. “It’s an arm I’d give to know just what it is I’m feeling, but I’ve still no better idea than I had this morning. Except that whatever it is, it’s closer than it was then.”

“It’s not just closer, Bahzell,” Vaijon said. The others looked at him, and the younger champion shrugged. “It’s not just
of
the Dark—it
is
the Dark,” he said harshly. “And there’s more than one of it, whatever it is.”

<
He’s right
.> Walsharno tossed his head. <
In some ways, he’s more sensitive to it than we are, Brother. I hadn’t realized until he said it, but he’s right. I sense at least two of it now, both headed our way, and they’re both strong
. Very
strong
.>

<
As strong as that bastard of Krahana’s?
>

<
Stronger,
> Walsharno replied flatly. stronger
.>

Bahzell’s jaw clenched as he recalled their encounter with Krahana’s servant. Jerghar Sholdan had been quite strong enough for his taste. Indeed, it had taken all the power he and Walsharno together could channel to defeat him, and they might not have even then if he’d realized in time that he faced not one champion of Tomanāk, but two.

<
True, Brother
.> Walsharno had followed his thoughts yet again and tossed his head in agreement once more. <
But he had the souls of an entire courser herd at his disposal...and they still had their link to Wencit’s “magic field” to draw upon when he forced them to serve him. Whatever these may be, they don’t have that. They’re...individuals. Very strong, but reliant upon their own strength and no one else’s, I think
.>

“Walsharno’s after agreeing with you, Vaijon,” Bahzell told the others. “He’s the scent of at least two. It’s powerful they are, he says, and it won’t be so very much longer before they’re up with us.”

“That’s good enough for me.” Trianal’s voice was like iron, and turned to his personal bugler. “Sound ‘Stand and form,’” he said.

“Yes, Milord!” the bugler replied, and the urgent notes flared across the muddy grassland as he sounded the prearranged signal.

Trianal’s augmented force had been moving in the reverse of a typical mixed formation of horse and foot. The standard clouds of mounted scouts had been thrown out, but instead of stationing formed cavalry on the flanks away from the river to protect the infantry from surprise attacks, the
footmen
had been formed on the army’s right in column of battalions, with the cavalry between them and the river. Hradani infantry was simply better suited to taking the shock of a charge of blood-crazed ghouls, and it was important to protect the horses which provided the Sothōii’s mobility. The mounted archers would be able to fire over the heads of even Horse Stealer footsoldiers, supporting the hradani while they held their shield wall; there’d be time enough for cavalry charges once the ghouls recoiled.

The supply wagons, pack train, and—especially—the mules loaded with additional arrows for the Sothōii moved along the very bank of the Hangnysti, covered by infantry and cavalry alike. There’d been some—not many, but a few—among Trianal’s men who’d felt his youth had made him overly cautious, even timid, to adopt such a cumbersome formation, especially now that he had almost twenty thousand men, horse and foot, under his command. None of his senior officers or battalion commanders had been among those critics, however, and orders rang out as the bugler sounded the signal for which they’d been waiting half impatiently and half anxiously for the last two days.