“Your wife? Yes, as a matter of fact I ran into her just last week. When things got crazy she took the kids, and went to hide out with some relatives of hers in the Fishermen’s Alliance.”
“Them cousins of hers ain’t the most reliable sort,” he said dubiously. “I figured they’d all be frozen by now.”
“Apparently someone got them all pulling together. I was down at their end of the docks doing some construction, and the fishermen had all pooled their efforts to build shelters and stand guard. I’m sure it wasn’t easy, but that’s over now. I built a big keep to defend that end of the docks, and moved them all into it. The Fishermen’s Alliance is going to run a militia to defend the place, and I put Aina in charge of the bathhouse.”
“You did? Well, that’s right kind of you, lord wizard. So she’s safe, then? And the kids?”
“As safe as anyone can hope for, these days,” I agreed. “The keep has stout walls and a strong gate, and the bathhouse is inside the building, so they don’t ever have to go outdoors if they don’t want to. There’s an enchantment that keeps the whole place warm, too, and we’re making good progress on the food problem. The city siege stores are good for a few more months, and we’ve got merchants coming up from the south to sell us their grain now.”
“Well, that’s a load off my mind, lord wizard. They say the gods are letting women into Valhalla now, but she can’t rightly leave the kids.”
“I wouldn’t advise that in any case,” I told him. “Valhalla wasn’t meant for men’s wives, Nat. It does things to them. I shouldn’t say too much, but if it were me I’d keep my girls as far away as I could.”
He sighed. “I thought it sounded too good to be true. Well, it ain’t like I’m suffering, what with the hall wenches and all. I suppose I should get to the reason I’m here, though.”
“Oh? It wasn’t to ask about your wife?”
“That’s personal. This is business. I ended up over in Othar’s Marauders, with a bunch of other guys from Kozalin, and we’re in Prince Caspar’s battlegroup. He heard the stories about a wizard over here, and sent me to see if it was really you.”
“Oh. Joy. What does Prince Caspar want with me?”
“I wouldn’t know, lord wizard. But he seems all keen to talk with you, if it’s really you. Maybe he wants to hear about how things turned out with them ape men?”
“He saw our last battle with the andregi, Nat. They stopped coming after we broke that last army of theirs.”
“Guess it must be something else then. But like I said, he’s all anxious to meet with you, and he’s the battlegroup commander. Kind of a step down for a prince, I suppose, but he still has plenty of weight to throw around.”
“I suppose I’ll have to talk to him,” I conceded. “I don’t take orders from him, but I’m sure he could cause trouble for the Moon Ghosts. What exactly is a battlegroup commander, anyway?”
“Oh, uh, I guess they didn’t give you the lecture, you being a guest and all. Every hall in Valhalla has a war band, with a captain leading it, but those don’t get bigger than maybe a couple hundred men. When a captain’s been here a good while and starts getting a rep they promote him to great captain, and give him a throng of four war bands to lead.
“But that’s the biggest group that sticks together permanent-like. When a great captain gets promoted to commander he gets to pick out throngs to make a battle group, but those come in all different sizes depending on what they’re for. A little raiding group might just have two or three throngs, but a big assault group could have a dozen.”
“I see,” I said. “So basically a band is a company, a throng is a battalion and a battlegroup is a regiment, or maybe a light brigade if it’s a big one. What about bigger forces?”
“The generals are all sons and grandsons of the gods, they say. They each get an army, but they come in different sizes too. They start them out with just a couple of battlegroups, and then they have to win practice battles to earn more.”
Right, so an army could be anything from a brigade to a corps or more, depending on the seniority of its leader. I guess it was a workable system, even if it was kind of disorganized. Or maybe that was just an illusion. If these guys really fought practice battles every few days they had a lot more experience than any normal army would accumulate, so they probably knew what they were doing.
“So how did the prince jump straight to being a commander?” I asked.
Nat shrugged. “It’s Ragnarok, lord wizard. Them Valkyries is working overtime collecting the fallen, and they gotta hustle to find places to put them all. There’s enough dead just from Kozalin to make up most of a battlegroup, so I guess they figured they might as well put them under someone they’re used to.”
“I guess that makes as much sense as anything,” I conceded.
“That, or he bribed someone,” Nat said. “Can’t imagine how, but he is a prince. Brand seems to like him, anyway.”
“Yeah, that sounds like the way these things go. It’s always who you know, not what you can do. Well, where does Prince Caspar want to meet?”
Nat scratched his scruffy beard. “There’s this club in town where some of the officers like to stay in between battles. He has a table there where he has all his meetings.”
Chapter 11
To my ears the phrase ‘officer’s club’ conjures up images of a stuffy, vaguely British establishment where gentlemen in uniforms can enjoy fine dining, play card games and discuss the art of war over tea.
The Slick Vixen was more like a strip club.
A team of four burly dwarves guarded the door. With their coppery skin, jet black beards and prominent tusks they looked like demons, an impression that their equipment did nothing to dispel. The plate armor they all wore was covered with wicked-looking spikes, and they were armed with steel quarterstaffs that had a starburst of spikes mounted on each end.
“Six pennies,” one of them barked as I approached, holding out his calloused hand.
Fortunately Nat had warned me there was a cover charge, so I’d already exchanged some of the gold in my pocket for local currency. I handed over the silver coins, and pushed through the door into a room that echoed with the sound of drums.
The room was dominated by a tall stage, where a blonde elf with the body of an angel gyrated to the smoky beat in a dance that was half Arab belly dancer, and half modern stripper. Her breasts were already bare to the warm air, glistening with sweat, pink nipples bobbing as she swayed to the beat. She was playing with her tiny skirt now, shifting it up and down to tease the audience with what they couldn’t quite see.
I tore my eyes away, and took in the rest of the room. There was a group of male elves in one corner that I realized after a moment was the band, pounding away on their instruments. A bar ran along one side of the room, with racks of bottles and a long row of kegs mounted on the wall behind it, and a mean-looking dwarven bartender who was busy filling a set of huge mugs with beer. The rest of the room was dimly lit, but I could make out booths along the walls and a crowd of cheering patrons clustered around the stage.
A fresh-faced elf girl with golden-blonde hair stepped up to me. “Welcome to the Slick Vixen, sir. Is this your first time with us?”
She looked maybe sixteen, and her outfit was like a sexy parody of a school uniform. Superficially classy, but the skirt barely came to mid-thigh and the top was cut tight to show off the curve of her breasts. Her heart-shaped face was simply beautiful, like every elf I’d seen here.
“Yeah, I’m supposed to be meeting Commander Caspar,” I told her.
She flashed me a dazzling smile. “Of course, sir. He’s in the dining room. Right this way.”
She spun, momentarily lifting her skirt enough to reveal a glimpse of the filmy bit of nothing she was wearing underneath, and led me into the club with a saucy sway in her hips. The motion drew my eyes down miles of shapely stocking-clad legs, and I realized she was wearing high heels. It figures that elves would invent something like that.
We came to a door on the far side of the room, and she turned and caught me looking. Her smile brightened, and she went up on tiptoes to whisper in my ear.
“Want me to pencil you in for some time after your meeting, sir? I’m on the menu, just twelve pennies an hour. But for you, I’ll make it ten.”
She slipped a metal token into my hand and opened the door, not waiting for a reply.
I tried to look composed, but I couldn’t hide my shock from Alanna. Her giggle sounded in my mind.
Didn’t expect that, did you Daniel? Vanir women used to guard their treasures more diligently, but it seems they’ve become completely shameless since I was last here.
I pulled my eyes away from the server’s backside, and glanced around the room instead. How old is she?
Sixty or so would be my guess, Alanna said. Thinking of giving her a try?
I’m married, remember? I pointed out. She’s not a servant or retainer of the coven, so she’s off limits. Besides, I don’t need to pay for sex.
I thought about that for a second, and frowned. Wait a minute. No one in Valhalla needs to pay for sex, so how does she get customers?
Ah, but the hall wenches aren’t elves. Vanir women are a rare treat in bed, Daniel. That elvish tradition of supreme skill applies to bedroom arts as well as war, and their women take great pride in their ability to drive a man mad with desire. I’m sure bedding an elf would bolster any man’s ego, especially if she’s making an effort to please.
I guess that explains it, I mused. But we’re here now, so you’d better let me concentrate.
The dining room was a little closer to my expectations. There were a dozen or so large tables distributed about an L-shaped space that left plenty of room between them, and the sound of the music next door was muffled pretty well. Less than half the tables were occupied, mostly by groups of burly men in blue uniforms.
I hadn’t realized Asgard’s forces even had uniforms until Nat had mentioned it. Apparently only officers and their personal staff wore them, while the fighting men went around in the same gambesons they’d wear under their armor when they went into battle. No one wore full armor unless they were expecting a fight, so I’d been forced to find a tailor and buy some normal clothes for this meeting.
Good thing the shops were mostly run by Vanir, who used magic to assist their crafting work. I wasn’t as stupidly huge as their typical customer, and my tastes didn’t run so much to fur and leather. But it took them less than an hour to throw together an acceptable outfit, with good boots, sturdy pants and a loose-fitting shirt that left room for Alanna to work a few tricks. She’d insisted that it was too dangerous for me to go anywhere in Asgard unprotected, so she was currently in the form of a snug wooden vest hidden under my shirt.
I was a little worried that her presence might show through the shirt, so I’d added a long coat like the one I’d taken to wearing back in Kozalin to the ensemble. This one might not have any protective enchantments, but I still liked the way it looked.
That sort of thing was too plebeian for Prince Caspar, though. He was sitting at the head of one of the tables with a glass of wine to hand, and as I walked up I saw that he’d done his best to recreate the courtly dress he’d worn in life. His ‘uniform’ had been modified with enough gold buttons, braid and gratuitous embroidery to satisfy a French monarch. His companions were a pair of men who must have been long-time veterans of Valhalla, judging from their size.
“Commander, your guest has arrived,” the serving girl said sweetly.
Caspar frowned, and raised his eyes to give me a cold look.
“It’s really you,” he said after a moment. “Lovely. Pull up a chair, wizard. We have things to discuss.”
What an auspicious beginning. He was playing his usual power games, too. The table was too long for me to sit at the opposite end and still talk comfortably, but taking a spot on one side while he occupied the end would be conceding the position of authority he was trying to claim.
Well, two can play that kind of game. I pulled out two chairs, turned one sideways, and filled it in an insolent sprawl while using the other as a footrest.
“Yeah, it’s just great to see you too, former prince. I hope you at least took a lot of the ape men with you.”
He scowled. “More than enough, Daniel. They won’t be troubling Kozalin again, which is more than your magic ever accomplished. Now are we going to trade insults all day, or can we have a civilized discussion?”
“We can talk,” I conceded. “Though I don’t see what there is to discuss. I’m not dead, and I’m only here until I finish this project for the Allfather.”
He raised his hand. “Wench! A drink for my… associate, here.”
Another stunning young elf appeared at my elbow. “Yes, commander. Wine, sir?”
“When you’ve got a dwarf at the bar and a row of kegs marked with runes behind it? No, I’ll go with a beer. Something dark and heavy.”
“Ostenbrew is as far as the einherjar usually go, but we have Black Gold if you want a real dwarven beer.”
“Sounds great.”
She hurried away, and it took me a moment to realize I was watching her go. Damn, that was a fine ass.
I turned back to Caspar, and shook my head. “War may be hell, but at least the gods have good taste in women.”
The guy to his left chuckled. “That’s for sure.”
“Asgard is full of surprises,” Caspar said. “As I’m sure you’re aware, since you’re apparently working on one of them. Although one wonders what use Odin could have for a mortal wizard’s magic.”
I shrugged. “What use would he have for a mortal warrior’s spear? There are only so many hours in a day, and he can’t do everything himself. But the whole thing is a secret, so I can’t tell you any details. All I can say is someone on the wrong side of this thing has a really nasty surprise coming.”
“The more of them the better,” he replied. “I hear there haven’t been any further attacks on Kozalin?”
“No, things have been quiet since we wiped out their last army. Good thing, since no one can agree on who’s in charge with you and Brand both gone. The dukes are busy scheming against each other, the Red Conclave has sealed their gates and your father is busy with his own problems.”
The server set a tankard full of dark, foamy liquid down in front of me. Ugh, right, European traditions. Of course they’d serve beer warm here. But my first tentative sip confirmed that the dwarves knew their beer. This was better than any microbrew I’d ever tried, let alone the mass-market brands.
“And you’ve just been peacefully biding your time?” Caspar said.
“Of course not. I’ve been fortifying the docks, and trying to lure the merchants into keeping our supply lines open. What about you? You got promoted pretty quick for a guy who just got here.”
His grimace told me that was a more sensitive subject than I’d expected. “Brand was persuasive. He made a long speech about our glorious assault on Gaea’s realm, and insisted that bravery should be rewarded.”
“It’s good to have connections,” I observed. “That sounds like it should be routine for you, though, so what’s with the long face?”
“That would bring us to my reason for speaking with you,” he said. “If you’ll give us a few minutes, men?”
The two guys who’d been sitting with him shrugged, and got up.
“I supposed I could check out the stage,” one of them said. “Been thinking about putting up a bid.”
“I’ll stick with the young ones,” the other man said. “Them dancers are a little too money-hungry for my taste.”
“The money’s just how they keep score,” the first one said, shaking his head. “By the time they start dancing they’re all hooked on the big D.”
They ambled off, shamelessly arguing the merits of precocious young girls vs. veteran sluts. I watched them go for a moment, and shook my head.
“This place is so weird. Are all the men here
like that?”
“More or less,” Caspar replied with a look of distaste. “Granted, chaste women don’t seem to get called to Valhalla. But good taste is in equally short supply.”
“Huh. So what is it you want from me?”
“A victory,” he said simply.
“You mean in the practice battles? What, are you having trouble beating these meatheads?”
I could almost hear his teeth grind.
“Brand talked me up so much they put me in a veteran army,” he explained. “My opponents have all spent hundreds of years fighting back and forth over the same terrain, with the same bands of warriors. I’d like to see you try to match wits with an opponent who has that sort of advantage.”
“Ah, well, I’m a wizard, not a general. I’d just blow up the enemy army myself.”
“Exactly.”
Suddenly, I saw where this was going. “Wait, I’m not an einherjar.”
“You’re a guest of the Moon Ghost band. They can invite you to do battle with them if they wish. That’s simple hospitality in Valhalla.”
“Caspar, I have my own problems to deal with. I don’t have time to bail your fat out of the fire.”
“It would only take a day,” he pressed. “Just one victory, to keep my standing at three stars until I get my feet under me. We won’t be doing practice battles for much longer, anyway.”
“They rate commanders with stars here? How precious. I told you, I don’t have time.”
“You know, Daniel, there are much more time-consuming tasks that you could be called on to perform. Just imagine, for instance, if someone were to explain the effectiveness of your mortars to the council of generals. Brand doesn’t seem to have described them in any great detail, but I’m sure he’d rectify that oversight if someone were to ask. No doubt they’d want a demonstration of the weapon that broke the andregi army twice, and we both know what would happen after that.”
I scowled at him. “They’d want me to make them some.”
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