by Tom Deitz
“Then why didn't they capture Avall when he wound up underground, if they knew he was down there?”
Tryffon stroked his beard. “I don't know, Rann. It was a rash—a crazy—thing to do. They can't have been expecting him to do anything quite like that. They also had good reason to think he was wearing the Lightning Sword, and I guess they assumed it was foolish to stand against that.”
“The same way,” Vorinn continued calmly, “that they knew it was foolish to attack our army with any real intent to defeat us.”
“How so?”
“Because we almost certainly outnumber them.” Vorinn paused and produced a sheet covered with tightly spaced but very neat figures. “I've been doing some ciphering. It's easy enough to guess the basic dimensions of their citadel. Based on analogy to other structures, we can make a rough guess as to how many rooms the place contains and how many of those are barracks. They'll have read the same manuals we have regarding such things, and I don't think they'll depart from them much, since men who are comfortable tend to be happier than those who aren't. Therefore, the place can't have been crammed to capacity, so that leaves us with a finite number it could actually hold. Subtract the number we think would be needed to subdue Gem, and we're left with a force maybe a tenth our size. And obviously not all of them took part in the attack.”
“So you agree that the attack on the camp was a ploy?”
Vorinn nodded. “Put together on the spur of the moment once they realized Avall had all but walked into their hands.” He glanced sideways at Tryffon, whom he'd effectively contradicted.
Rann pounded the table—hard. “And I'll never forgive myself, either.”
Preedor regarded him tolerantly. “It could've been worse,” he observed. “If that link you lads share hadn't alerted you that something was wrong and given us a notion of where he was, which at least gave us time to make a stab at protecting him—”
“What?” Rann snapped. “He'd still be here? I don't think so! The first torches were already being thrown when Riff caught up with me. I couldn't find anyone—”
“Enough,” Preedor said quietly, but the force of his personality silenced the assembly. “I was going to say that if you hadn't gone out there, we'd have even less idea how to proceed than we do now. They threw him on a horse and rode west, correct? They did not take him into the hold, that much is clear. That tells us two things. It tells us that whoever is in charge of this enterprise is probably at Gem-Hold; and it tells us that whatever stand they intend to make, they don't plan to make it here.”
Tryffon nodded. “I think they've written this place off, frankly. Which implies that they have other bolt-holes. But I think that if we follow the route Avall took into that place, we'd find it all but deserted. We already know there are several ways out just in the field of fumeroles. There have to be others.”
“At least one of which has to be large enough to accommodate horses,” Riff noted. “We really should put a ring of scouts around the place.”
“Several rings,” Vorinn corrected, “if we're going to do that at all—which I think is like pouring drink from a broken bottle. In any case, we have no idea how far outside the hold itself such an exit might be. The one at War-Hold was almost a shot.”
Rann glared at him, though he had no reason to. “So what you're saying is that there's no sense staying here to besiege what may now be an empty citadel, when we now have two reasons to proceed to Gem?”
Vorinn fixed him with a calm, if compassionate, stare. “That's exactly what I'm saying. And another thing I'm going to say, though I may be out of line. They won't kill Avall as long as he's King and they have—or think they have—the armor. They'll want him to explain how it works, and he won't. He'll know we're out to rescue him, and that will give him strength to endure … whatever they do to him.”
“They can do a lot!” Rann shot back. “Avall could still be alive and not have even one of his fingers. We've already seen their thinking about that. But if they really want to hurt him, they'll do it in a way that hurts forever.”
“Oh, Eight!” Bingg groaned in the corner, then blushed furiously. Rann spared him a glance. The boy, though he fought very hard against it, was crying.
And that did it. Oblivious to the powerful men and women gathered round him, Rann likewise buried his face in his folded arms and wept. Lykkon was there in an instant, holding him, as was Myx, from the other side. The rest—he could feel their tolerant stares as though he actually saw them. Probably some of them were misty, too. For not one of them didn't have—or once have—a beloved bond-mate.
Finally, Preedor cleared his throat. “Rann,” he began softly, “you were his second because he trusted you and you knew his mind and had actually met the Ninth Face. But I'm telling you nothing you don't know when I say, that for what may be coming up, you might not be the best commander.”
“No,” Rann managed. “I wouldn't be. I assumed Tryffon—”
Tryffon cleared his throat in turn. “It should be me in theory, but in fact there's someone better qualified to lead this army.”
Rann looked up, blinking, startled and confused.
Tryffon smiled at him, then shifted his gaze to the right. “Vorinn has the best grasp of the minutiae of campaigns like this I've ever seen. He thinks well on his feet and he's charismatic. I know Avall was already talking of making him subcommander.”
Rann shifted his gaze to the young man beside him. He was sitting there completely unself-consciously, neither beaming with pride nor denying the praise they'd already heaped upon him. Impervious: That was a good word for him. And thorough. He would make an excellent commander. And since he was from War-Hold already, as well as being brother-in-law to the King, he effectively united two potentially disparate factions: the royal party and Warcraft. Preedor was too old for actual battle, he freely admitted. And Tryffon was a better fighter than strategist—which deficiency he likewise acknowledged. But since they'd known Vorinn for years, they'd have no qualms about calling him down if need be. And Vorinn would know to a fine degree what they knew about this or that, and what they didn't.
“Well,” Rann managed through a troubled grin, extending a hand to Vorinn, “it would seem that this army has a new commander.”
“As you will,” Vorinn replied calmly. “But only on one condition.”
“What's that?”
“That in Avall's absence, you'll serve as Regent here in the camp.”
“That's preposterous!”
“Is it?” Tryffon countered. “You're more a soldier than Avall was when we made him King, and he's done a fine job for one so young and indisposed to ruling. You know more about the gems than anyone here except maybe Lykkon, and half of what he knows is theoretical. You've been inside Gem-Hold more recently than the rest of us; you've actually met the Ninth Face, however briefly; and you represent a powerful clan and craft in your own right—and without Avall to lead it, the army will want proof that this is not simply a Warcraft venture. You're also—”
Rann silenced him with a raised hand. “Fine,” he conceded. “You've convinced me—if for no other reason than because it'll put me in the best position to effect Avall's recovery.” A pause, then: “Now: If I'm to be … Regent, I have a couple of orders to give. I have no idea what time it is, but I want a full report of damage and casualties delivered to me at sunrise. I intend to sleep until then, if I can. And I'd advise the rest of you to get some sleep as well. Because a hand after sunrise, we're riding out of here to rescue the King of Eron.”
“Eron!” Tryffon cried, rising.
“Eron!” Preedor and Vorinn echoed as one, also on their feet.
“Eron!” the rest yelled in unison.
“Eron!” Rann shouted with them, at the top of his lungs. “And Avall!”
CHAPTER XXIII:
TREPIDATION
(NORTHWESTERN ERON: GEM-HOLD-WINTER—
HIGH SUMMER: DAY LXIV—MIDDAY)
Zeff twisted the key in the lock and
regarded Ahfinn sourly. “He didn't look much like a King, did he?” he said, after a moment. His gaze swept the empty corridor, noting the guards at either end and the additional barred archways beyond. Who— or what—Gem-Hold had expected this nice little suite of dungeons to restrain, he had no idea, but he was desperately grateful they were present. Save for the fact that they were windowless, they weren't much worse than some students' cells he'd seen. That and the fact that they were utterly devoid of anything that could be used to effect escape.
“What does a King look like, I wonder,” Ahfinn replied amiably. “Put any High Clan man you know in a plain robe and house-hose and I defy you to tell the difference.”
“Kings should be different, though,” Zeff shot back, starting up the corridor toward the nearest guard station. “Not in face or figure, necessarily; or even age—we've had Sovereigns younger than Avall, though not in a while—but in bearing. In the look in their eyes.”
“And how do Avall's eyes look?”
“Like yours or mine, except that he squints a little. That could be the drugs, of course. Or all that complex metalwork he does.”
“He could see well enough to defeat Barrax.”
“Barrax's surrogate,” Zeff corrected. “And he had help. He had that wretched regalia.”
“Which we have now.”
Zeff scowled and hissed Ahfinn to silence. What did his secretary mean, discussing such things where the guards could overhear? Equals, the fellows of the Ninth Face might be, but some were more equal than others; and the fewer who knew what lay locked in the table-safe in what had been Hold-Warden Crim's quarters, the better. Too many knew about the gem already—because too many had been there when Sian, who'd commanded the party that had captured the King, had fished it from inside the King's tunic.
It had been an afterthought, he conceded—and a potentially deadly mistake. They'd known to secure the regalia as soon as they'd set Avall's Guards to rout. And trapped as he was, it had been fairly easy to divest him of it. As to why Avall hadn't used it, Zeff wasn't certain, but had a pretty good idea, which centered around the fact that, from what he'd heard reported by certain spies at the Battle of Storms, the regalia worked as an ensemble, and all three pieces had to be activated. Avall hadn't had time to don the shield before he'd been overpowered. That was what Zeff was choosing to believe, in any case.
They'd reached the gate by then. “Out,” he barked to the guard by the lock. He didn't recognize the … woman, this time, for she wore the same mouth-mask the rest of the Ninth Face did. But he did recognize quick and efficient execution of commands, which she summarily performed after looking at him keenly, as though she suspected Avall had taken his place and was even now escaping.
Ahfinn had been infected by her example, too, and was now proceeding in the silence appropriate to his station. And while Zeff knew the lad was seething with questions, he also knew he'd let them wait until he had a more suitable time to voice them.
Too many of them, sometimes; for curiosity could be a dangerous virtue or an innocuous vice. Certainly Rrath had evinced both extremes. Zeff wondered what he should do with that troublesome little neophyte. The force that had first pursued Avall had retrieved him, of course, and brought him here as they cleared out that citadel. But beyond that—well, who knew what would become of the unfortunate lad. Death, if he was lucky, since he'd had the bad grace to betray both his clan and his King.
Far more troubling was how they'd found him: in bed in the middle of one of the exit tunnels, surrounded by a smattering of boxes, all atop a rug. It was completely irrational, is what it was. Nor was Avall saying anything.
Zeff was still pondering that conundrum, when he reached the stairs that led up to the level on which his suite lay. For a moment, he contemplated the beauty of the mosaics that lined this particular corridor. But only until he turned the last corner and saw the door to the suite ahead, and, beside it, a figure in distressingly dirty Ninth Face livery.
A messenger, it evolved. Straight from the Wild that moment with the latest intelligence on the progress of the Royal Army.
“They're still advancing,” the youth told Zeff, once the ritual drink had been offered and accepted. “They're moving slowly because there are so many of them, and because they're taking extra care to scout every shot before they enter it—but they are still advancing. They apparently do very nicely without their King.”
“He was a figurehead, anyway,” Zeff spat. “He yea-said everything War told him.”
“I'm not so sure about that,” Ahfinn offered. “From what I've heard of this Vorinn—”
Zeff rounded on him. “And what have you heard?”
“That he's got the levelest head in his clan, and that he's also one of their best all-around … warriors, I guess.”
“Then why haven't we heard more about him?”
“Because he's spent the last two years as War's subchief in North Gorge, except for a stint at Brewing. That's how he missed the war. I understand he was mightily peeved about that. It would also explain his thirst for battle.”
“If he's the strategist that rumor suggests,” Zeff snorted, “it would likewise explain why they didn't attack our citadel.”
Ahfinn raised an eyebrow, looking confused.
“Because it would take more effort than it was worth,” Zeff explained tolerantly. “And increase the odds that we'd either make good on our threat to destroy this place—which we probably still will—or that we'd contrive weapons even better than his.”
Ahfinn nodded sagely, which looked rather silly and affected on someone his age. “Have you any other thoughts on that? The regalia, I mean. On why he didn't use it against us? Either as an aid to spying, or when he was attacked?”
“Because he hoped to negotiate, I suspect,” Zeff sighed. “Avall's like most of us: He'd prefer to avoid confrontation if he can manage it. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he hadn't planned to arrive here at a carefully chosen time in full panoply and threaten to bring this place down around our ears if we didn't surrender. We won't, of course, but he'd have been counting on the effect the mere notion of confronting the sword would have on our troops. In other words, he'd have tried, first of all, to prompt defections if not actual rebellion.”
“Is that what you think he'd have done? Or what you'd have done in his place?”
Zeff fixed Ahfinn with a glare that could've melted the goblet in his hand. “I will concede that Avall is the best goldsmith in generations. But I will not concede that he is, or is likely to be, anything more than an indifferent King. The problem is that he's young enough, smart enough, and reckless enough to question things. And questions are the enemy of equilibrium, therefore our enemy as well.”
“As you say, Lord.”
Zeff quaffed his wine, and only then remembered that the messenger was still present. “You heard none of this,” he snapped. “None of it. You may think what you will, but your tongue, young sir, is mine.”
The messenger nodded, wide-eyed. And looked mightily relieved when Zeff dismissed him with a wave of his hand.
Would that he could dismiss Ahfinn so easily. Yet for all his flaws, the lad had a good head for exactly the kind of minutiae that Zeff's position generated so copiously, but which were too dull or time-consuming to trouble a commander. The problem was, he never knew when he would need Ahfinn's services. Too, the lad did make a good sounding board, though Zeff was probably letting him see too many of his flaws.
“The regalia,” Ahfinn asked boldly. “What about it?”
“What do you mean?”
“I assume you're going to try it on. You were imagining Avall wearing it to lead an attack against this place. I was imagining his army arriving to see you clad in it, threatening to call down lightning on them all!”
“It's an amusing image, I'll admit,” Zeff chuckled. “And I will tell you this much. It isn't cowardice makes me delay donning it; it's circumspection. We know almost nothing of how the magic is triggered. And
if we act from ignorance, we could undo everything we've accomplished.”
“In other words—”
“In other words, if Avall risked capture rather than use it, we would be well served to be very cautious indeed.”
“Indeed,” Ahfinn echoed solemnly. “Indeed.”
CHAPTER XXIV:
MEN AND HORSES
(SOUTHERN ERON—HIGH SUMMER: DAY LXV—AFTERNOON)
Merryn had discovered one of the disadvantages to having been a member-in-training of the Night Guard: that training, in effect, never left you. One of the Guard's stated goals had always been to subdue the enemy without harming him or her, which had included a fair bit of schooling in unarmed combat as well as instruction in securing a foe once he'd been defeated. Unfortunately, her tutor for all that had been Krynneth. The same Krynneth who, though clearly dancing close with madness, nevertheless had known enough to subdue her and keep her that way for the last five days.
Which was not to say he was inconsiderate or that she was uncomfortable—as much as she could be comfortable with her wrists bound before her by day, and behind her back at night—and with her ankles hobbled.
She walked because Krynneth did. Why Krynneth walked, she had no idea, save that riding might remind him too much of that mad ride he'd made back in the winter to report the fall of War-Hold to a startled King of Eron. He'd killed two mounts under him, then; perhaps that had been enough. Perhaps he now assumed he owed horsekind a favor. She was probably lucky he'd bothered to keep Boot, the packhorse. Then again, Boot carried the regalia, among other things. And Krynneth dared not let her touch it, nor would he wear it himself. She knew that much without asking.
“It calls fire,” he kept saying, over and over. “I've had enough fire to last a lifetime.” He'd sounded completely sane, too. Only his words were mad.
She stared at his back as they marched along. West, as it happened, following the spine of a mountain spur that ran just above the timberline, so that they navigated a sort of alpine meadow covered with knee-high gorse mingled with heather. They traveled below the ridge, however, once more in accordance with training. It didn't do to be visible against the sky if one was expecting enemies.