Touched by the Gods

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “Why not put the whole army on the western bank to begin with?” Lady Luzla demanded.

  “Because, my lady, it's as Lord Graush says – a force that size, while it can move quickly enough once organized and set on the road, is sluggish and clumsy if any sort of sudden change is called for. If the Olnamian has some clever stratagem in mind the main body might be evaded or penetrated before it could bring its full power to bear. Suppose he does, indeed, somehow intend to cross by boat, and sails fifty miles downstream before we can prevent it. A small, mobile force can follow and impede a landing; three hundred thousand men and their supplies would be left far behind. No, we must first pin the enemy down, then demolish him.”

  The discussion continued for another hour, but little new was said, and at last the meeting was adjourned.

  Apiris happened to encounter Lord Kadan in the hallway on the way out of the Imperial Palace. “A very good plan, I would say, my Lord,” Apiris remarked.

  Kadan turned to him, startled. “What plan?” he asked.

  “Why, your plan, for defeating the rebels even though they've changed their own plans.”

  “We don't know that they've changed anything,” Kadan said. “Maybe the bastards planned this all along.”

  “Oh,” Apiris said, disconcerted. “Well, it's a good plan, all the same.”

  Kadan snorted. “It's not a plan at all,” he said. “It's just the only thing we can do until we know what we're really up against.”

  Apiris blinked in surprise. He felt a headache coming on. “Then you don't think the vanguard can hold the enemy until the main body arrives?”

  “How should I know?” Kadan asked. “They've never fought. For all I know, those six regiments will turn and run at the first sight of a nightwalker. Oh, Balinus is a good man, and his people fought well in Govya, but this is going to be different. These men are mostly raw recruits who just spent a long, boring winter doing nothing in Drievabor. There's no telling what that's done to morale.”

  “But... but the Company of Champions is there. They'll rally around the champion, surely.”

  “If they know who he is, maybe,” Kadan said. “And if he's really there at all. If there even is a champion any more.”

  “Oh, but there must be,” Apiris said. “Surely he's there.”

  “Surely,” Kadan agreed sourly. “But if he's not, we've got three thousand men against ten thousand nightwalkers, and if they can't use the bridge as a funnel they may be butchered like so many hogs. I just hope they can hold the rebels long enough for the real army to get ready.” He pushed past Apiris and stamped away.

  Apiris stood for a moment, staring after Lord Kadan.

  “Oh, but that can't be right,” he said quietly, to no one in particular. “The gods wouldn't allow it.” He turned and walked slowly down the stairs and paused in the entry hall, gazing out the open door at the gleaming dome of the Great Temple.

  “Would they?” he asked himself.

  Chapter Thirty- Two

  Lord Duzon shaded his eyes from the first rays of the morning sun as he gazed eastward across the Grebiguata. The fields seemed to stretch on forever. The horizon seemed higher than usual, which added to the effect; Duzon supposed that was actually due to a slight upward slope of the land to the east as it rose out of the river valley.

  Far above the eastern plain he could see Vrai Burrai, his staff glittering as he soared through the air.

  And now, on the eastern horizon, Duzon could see something dark, something more than the abandoned fields and empty farms that he had seen the day before – not just at one spot, but along a broad band.

  That would be Rebiri Nazakri's army, then. Vrai Burrai had said it was approaching, that it was now very near. They had left Drievabor a triad before and had, without undue haste, moved up to this stretch of river, arriving early yesterday afternoon. The New Magician had told General Balinus, the six regimental commanders, and Lord Duzon that this was where the enemy was headed. It appeared that Vrai Burrai had been right.

  He had also said that the enemy travelled only by night. Duzon strained to see whether those dark shapes were moving, or whether they had made camp. He couldn't tell. He couldn't see movement, but at this distance that didn't mean much.

  “Are they coming, Lord?” someone asked.

  Duzon turned and looked down at the speaker – though not very far down; it was a big man who spoke, and the folding camp-chair on which Duzon stood was not particularly tall.

  “Well, they're out there,” Duzon said, “but I couldn't say whether they're coming any closer yet. We'll have to wait until Vrai Burrai reports back, or until they move close enough that we can see for ourselves.”

  He started to step down from the chair, but something caught his eye, and he turned to look eastward again, trying to spot what had distracted him.

  “They've got archers,” the big man remarked.

  Duzon squinted, and realized the other was right. Arrows, invisible at that distance save when their heads caught the sunlight and sparkled briefly, were sailing up around Vrai Burrai. The New Magician wasn't foolhardy; he was ascending now, and moving westward, back toward the Imperial lines.

  “You've got good eyes, fellow,” Duzon remarked, as he stepped off the chair.

  The man ignored the compliment. “I guess the magician's coming back, and we'll get the news, then.”

  “So it would appear.” Duzon folded the chair and tucked it under one arm, then looked at the other.

  He was a big man, as Duzon had already noted – roughly Duzon's own height or a little taller, and definitely broader in the shoulder. He wore the scarlet and gold of an Imperial soldier, but didn't seem entirely at home in it; Duzon guessed that this fellow was one of the recent recruits that made up most of the vanguard, not one of the veterans who had been mixed in to provide the newer troops with the benefits of their experience. He had had all winter to adjust to the uniform, but he probably hadn't bothered to wear it much; many of the men had not, during their stay in Drievabor.

  “Are you eager to meet the foe, then?” Duzon asked.

  The man grimaced. “Hardly, Lord,” he said. “I'd rather not meet them at all; I'd rather they all dropped dead of plague, so that I could go home to my village and brag about my heroism without having to actually demonstrate it.”

  A bark of startled laughter escaped Duzon. “An honest man, by the gods!” he said. “What's your name, fellow? You aren't in my company, certainly, nor the Second Seidabar.” The Company of Champions had been attached to the Second Seidabar for the winter. That was one of the adjustments General Balinus had made after he and his staff finally made it through the snow into Drievabor.

  “No, my lord,” the other said. “My name is Onnell, Third Company, Biekedau Regiment.”

  “Then you're from Biekedau?” Duzon had heard of the town, of course, long before he ever saw the name on the regimental banner – Biekedau was the river port on the Vren, to the south of Seidabar somewhere. He had never been there; his family's concerns were all to the northwest.

  “I'm not really from Biekedau,” Onnell explained quickly. “I'm from Grozerodz. But there are only seven of us from there, not enough for our own unit.”

  Duzon nodded understanding. He had never heard of Grozerodz; it was presumably just another of the thousands of villages scattered through the Domdur heartland. “You're eager to get home to Grozerodz and regale all the pretty girls with tales of your adventures soldiering for the Empress, are you?”

  “Well, yes, sir, since you ask. But I'm ready to fight for the Empress, if it comes to that.”

  Duzon glanced eastward again. “It appears that it will indeed come to that, Onnell,” he said.

  Onnell shrugged. “I'm ready, then.”

  For a moment the two men stood in companionable silence, gazing eastward. Then Onnell glanced up at the white plume bobbing in Lord Duzon's broad-brimmed hat and said, “They tell me you're Lord Duzon of... Snafallia?”

  �
�Snauvalia,” Duzon corrected him automatically. He knew it didn't matter, and he was long past the point of taking offense or being amused at mistakes in pronouncing the name of his ancestral demesne, but enough family pride lingered that he couldn't simply ignore the error.

  Onnell accepted the correction, and continued diffidently, “Some of the men say you're the gods' champion, sent to defeat this Rebiri Nazakri.”

  This was the closest anyone in the vanguard had yet come to asking him straight out if he was, indeed, the divine champion, and Duzon hesitated, unsure just how to reply.

  He had thought about it, of course; he'd known the question would come. He'd hoped, though, that it would come in circumstances where his reply would be dictated by necessity, where the mood of his audience would tell him what to say.

  That wasn't the case here. He had no audience to be swayed by his answer, no troops to be inspired by his example – and as yet he had scarcely had any chance to set an example; the stay in Drievabor had been quiet, almost without incident. There had been a handful of drunken brawls, and one young idiot had gotten lost in a storm and almost frozen to death, but there had been no opportunity for the Company of Champions, or its captain, to show what they could do.

  Duzon didn't know this man Onnell, and couldn't read much of his mood. There could be little doubt, though, that whatever he said would be carried back to the Biekedau Regiment, and would spread through all the vanguard from there, and in time, when the main body finally arrived, through all the Imperial Army.

  He studied Onnell's face quickly, and thought he saw something hard under the outward friendliness, something challenging, ready to turn hostile. Somehow, he didn't think this man would take well to boasting.

  “It's not what any of the men might say that counts, though, is it, Onnell?” he replied at last. “It's what the gods say that matters.”

  “True enough,” Onnell said. He looked at Duzon expectantly, clearly not content with that response, in and of itself.

  The nobleman smiled wryly. “Whatever else I might be, I'm no oracle,” Duzon said. “These days even the oracles aren't oracles. If I'm the champion, the gods haven't told me – but then, who's to say they would have?”

  The look on Onnell's face after that struck Duzon as peculiar; the man appeared positively relieved, and that didn't fit Duzon's expectations at all. Thoughtful at the possibility that the champion might not himself know he was champion, yes; disappointed that Duzon was not claiming the title, yes; but relieved? An explanation occurred to him, and Duzon slapped Onnell on the back. “For all we know, friend,” he said, “you might be the chosen one!”

  Onnell shook his head. “Oh, no,” he said. “I know I'm not.”

  Again, Duzon was puzzled by the response.

  “But how can you know it, Onnell?” he asked lightly. “I've forty-one men in my company who all think they might be the champion, and at least forty of them must be wrong; how can you be certain you're not just as wrong in the opposite way?”

  “I...” Onnell hesitated. “I've promised not to say, my lord.”

  Duzon stared at him, more baffled than ever. Promised whom? Just what did this man, this common soldier, this ordinary citizen from a backwater village, know about the divine champion that he had promised not to tell?

  The sudden curiosity was almost unbearable, but Duzon resisted – to try to coax the information from Onnell when he had promised not to reveal it would be dishonorable. Question after leading question leapt to mind – was there an oracle in this man's village, in Grozerodz, who still heard from the gods? Had someone there had word of the champion's identity from an oracle before the silence? – but he stifled each before it reached his lips.

  It certainly seemed that Onnell knew something...

  Or thought he knew something. He could, of course, be wrong. Duzon tore his gaze away and looked out across the Grebiguata.

  Vrai Burrai had fled the arrows and was now over the river, nearing the Imperial camp.

  Rebiri Nazakri didn't seem to be worried about any divine champion. He seemed to think he could march his army right up to the gates of Seidabar. It was up to Lord Duzon and the Company of Champions and the Imperial Army to show this rebel the error of his ways! Maybe a real divine champion would emerge, and maybe not – and maybe the army would decide on someone, but not the one the gods had actually selected. Duzon didn't think the matter was as settled as Onnell seemed to believe.

  Still, it might be interesting to find out a little more about this Grozerodz place, once the war was over and Rebiri Nazakri had been dealt with.

  Duzon realized he had been staring rudely at Onnell for a second or two. He forced a smile that quickly turned genuine, and turned his gaze to the main Imperial camp.

  “Fair enough,” he said. “Have you had breakfast yet?”

  “No, Lord,” Onnell said. “But I – ”

  “Come and eat with the Company of Champions, then,” Duzon said. “I'll not pry at your secrets, I promise you.”

  Onnell hesitated. He glanced out across the river, at the distant enemy.

  He wished Malledd were here. Wasn't this where the gods' chosen defender should be? Malledd ought to have come. Onnell had been thinking that all winter; at times he had even thought that Malledd's absence meant that he and the other soldiers of the vanguard were in the wrong place in Drievabor, and the real fight would be somewhere else entirely.

  But so far as he knew Malledd was safely at home in Grozerodz, in his tidy little house behind the graveyard with his wife and children, with his parents just across the field, and surely the confrontation with Rebiri Nazakri would not happen there.

  In fact, the rebel army was out there, across the river, after all. The vanguard had not been misdirected. The battle would be here.

  Onnell wondered if perhaps he should tell Lord Duzon about Malledd, after all. He had promised Malledd he would not, and a promise should be kept, but Malledd ought to be here, leading the defenders against the rebel army. General Balinus and all these colonels and New Magicians and so on were all very well, but the Domdur ruled because the gods had chosen them to rule, not because of any generals or soldiers. The divine champion was the mark of the gods' favor, their representative to mortals; he should be here. There shouldn't be Lord Duzon and his Company of Champions, all of them pretenders to the title, a bunch of over-ambitious upstarts playing at the role. Lord Duzon himself seemed like a pretty good man, but the rest...

  But maybe it was all part of some plan the gods were following. There were no oracles to consult any more, so the gods' actions were more mysterious than ever; maybe Malledd wasn't here because the gods wanted him somewhere else. Maybe the gods wanted Lord Duzon here in Malledd's stead, even if Duzon wasn't the champion.

  Onnell thought he might have liked Lord Duzon if he hadn't heard the stories about how Duzon was probably the champion. As it was, though, he couldn't help thinking there was something false about the nobleman. True, Duzon himself had not claimed to be the champion, but he had left the possibility open.

  And since he had, Onnell could not trust him with Malledd's story.

  Besides, what if all the scurrilous rumors that had been whispered in Grozerodz were true? What if the priests had chosen a hundred “divine champions,” all over the Empire? Lord Duzon had not presented any claim of priestly support, but perhaps that was because he knew such claims to be worthless. Onnell didn't really believe that, but he had to admit that the possibility was at least theoretically there.

  He didn't like it, and didn't believe it – he had always seen something special in Malledd, quite apart from his size and strength, and he didn't think it was just because everyone had always said Malledd was special.

  Still, it wouldn't hurt to ask a few more questions of these people who claimed to be champions. He had started by asking Lord Duzon, indirectly, about the stories that Duzon was the chosen of the gods – Duzon was generally seen by Onnell's companions in the Biekedau Regiment, ot
her than the other six from Grozerodz, as the most likely candidate. Now Onnell had a chance to have breakfast with the entire company of claimants – he could ask more of them about their claims, and could find out whether they had any basis for their boasts.

  That would be a very welcome opportunity.

  Besides, they probably ate better than the common soldiers in the Biekedau Regiment.

  “I'd be pleased to join you, Lord,” Onnell said.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Malledd had been in Seidabar for some time now, long enough to grow thoroughly accustomed to the city's sounds, and the shouting outside the Armory didn't fit the regular patterns. Malledd couldn't make out the words, but people outside were yelling, almost shrieking, and it wasn't the normal shouting of irate merchants or drunken brawlers or any of the other urban phenomena Malledd had become familiar with. The shouts were mostly a long way off, but coming closer. Malledd could hear them distinctly, despite the clanging of hammers on steel.

  Some of the other apprentices had noticed the noise, as well. Three or four of them were looking at the small window, high in the west wall of the forge room, that looked out on the street.

  Fresh air suddenly seemed like a very good idea to Malledd. Technically it was a violation of the apprenticeship rules to leave the hall without permission, but Malledd was not the only one who sometimes ignored that particular stricture.