A Handful of Men: The Complete Series

by Dave Duncan

  Darad was a sadistic killer with the brains of a crocodile and the loyalty of a pit bull—just the sort of companion a man needed in a tight spot. He would be useless against sorcery, of course, but very functional if the legionaries came in pursuit.

  And the old rascal would be really handy if there were bears around.

  4

  At Kribur, Gath was walking across the dwarvish camp in the dark, helping Kadie around the obstacles—tent ropes and ditches and things. Mom was following close behind. They were doing much better than their guards, except for the ones with lanterns. He couldn’t see in the dark like a real sorcerer, but he knew which steps meant fall down and which steps did not, so his prescience was almost as good as farsight for this sort of thing. It was hard work, though, and giving him a headache.

  He was glad to have his clothes on again. Most of them weren’t his, just things he’d picked up in the last week, some of them bloody or burned at the edges and smelly, but it was nice not to feel like a shelled oyster.

  Morning was near. The moon was just setting, a blur in the clouds. Snowflakes swirled in the air. There was a lot more daylight here than there was back north in Krasnegar at this time of year. He had stayed up all night! He had never done that before. He and Kadie had tried once or twice, and they’d always fallen asleep without meaning to. Tonight Kadie had slept for a while during the long arguments and the waiting, but he hadn’t. It was a funny feeling, sort of dizzy-making.

  “Where are we going, Gath?” They’d been told not to talk, but there was no one close enough to hear Kadie’s whisper.

  “To a little house.”

  “Why? What happens?”

  She was scared. So was he, but he must try to sound brave and cheer her up. His new man-voice was good for that.

  “That’s where they’re going to have their meeting. Don’t know what happens inside, though.” It was a creepy feeling. He could foresee arriving at the cottage, but when he went inside everything stopped, as if someone was waiting there to bang him on the head with a club. He’d had prescience for almost a year now and he felt blind when it was taken away like this. Fortunately, he’d met that same blankness before, home in Krasnegar. When he was going to leave the castle, he could not see what would happen outside. Outside, he could not tell what would happen when he went in again. Whenever Brak had come hunting for him, he’d had no warning until Brak actually stepped through the gate.

  “Why not?” Kadie sounded annoyed, as if he were being difficult. A year ago she’d been taller than he. Now he was a lot taller than she was. He was turning out jotunnish like his coloring, going to be a big man. Bigger than Dad, even, perhaps.

  He tried to explain about the castle back home, and how Dad had said it was because the castle was shielded, magic-proofed the way a boat was waterproofed with tar. Obviously this runty little building was shielded, too. That seemed to have been what the arguments had been about, or some of them. The old goblin Long Runner had insisted that they all go to this cottage to hear what the imperor wanted to tell them. Some of the dwarves had argued a lot, but Death Bird had agreed with the old man and won in the end. So now everyone was walking to the cottage.

  Gath steered Kadie around a pile of firewood. “Must be a sorcerer’s house,” he concluded. “Or it was a long time ago. Shielding lasts a long time. Dad says.” Nice to sound knowledgeable.

  “You knew about the goblins!” Kadie said crossly. She was grouchy because she had been asleep, and perhaps because she was tired and frightened. He wasn’t going to lose his temper with her, though, at least not before they reached the cottage.

  Tricky ditch here…“What goblins?”

  “When Brak knocked you out, you told Mom about the goblins at Kinvale. We didn’t believe you.”

  “Don’t remember.”

  “Well, you did!”

  “Must have foreseen it outside then.” He’d had his fight with Brak at Oshi’s house, outside the castle. Maybe he’d foreseen the goblins then and been too busy to notice. Now he had stopped hurting, he could chuckle when he thought of the fight with Brak. It had been worth being knocked out—although not worth what had happened as a result. Maybe it had been silly. He thought Dad would say so, if he knew.

  “Wasn’t it wonderful how Mom saved the imperor?” Kadie sighed. “Just like Princess Taoi’dor rescuing Prince Ozmoro from the cannibals!”

  Gath hoped the imperor stayed saved. The meeting in the cottage must be going to last a long time, because he couldn’t foresee coming out again.

  * * *

  The little house must have more magic than just a shielding spell on it; it was the first unburned building Gath had seen since leaving Krasnegar. Just two rooms with stone walls and a thatched roof, it stood a short distance outside the dwarves’ camp, all by itself. If there had been sheds or fence or trees, they had gone for firewood. Now there were guards all around it, to protect the goblin king and the dwarvish general when they arrived. Light shone welcomes in the little windows, and the wind swirled sparks from the chimney pot.

  Stepping inside, into brightness and heat, was a real shock for Gath. Prescience crashed in upon him—all the things that were going to be said. He couldn’t sort it all out. It was like waking up and trying to remember everything that had happened the day before all at once. One of the dwarves was ordering him to go to a corner…

  He spun around. “Mom! Dad’s all right! The imperor met him in Hub—”

  The dwarf threw him into the corner. He struck a wall and tumbled to the ground.

  That hurt! He rolled upright with his jotunn blood bubbling. The dwarf had stopped being an armored soldier and was just an ugly, squat old man a lot smaller than Brak. Gath’s legs twisted under him, his hands found purchase on the floor, and he was almost into a leap when Kadie flopped down on top of him.

  “No! Gath!”

  Then Mom huddled in on his other side and took a firm grip on his shoulders. Maybe he was a coward. Maybe he was smart. Maybe he was just too tired. He didn’t struggle much. He pounded the floor a few times with a fist and then forced himself to unwind. He gave Mom a smile and saw her relax, also. He didn’t lose his temper very often, but it had been a long day and a man could only take so much from those bowlegged hairy runts… He always tried not to behave like a jotunn. He knew that fighting an army of dwarves single-handed was the sort of thing that would make sense to a jotunn, but not to anyone else.

  He stayed sitting on the ground between Mom and Kadie because there was no furniture. They weren’t allowed to talk. Didn’t matter to him—he had all the conversations for the next hour or two to foresee… fore-hear?

  Dad had gone to Hub and met the imperor. They’d parted before Winterfest, but Dad had been all right then. That was good! He squeezed Mom’s hand to comfort her.

  Now Death Bird was arriving, with the old man. Long Runner, and another goblin, Moon Baiter. Stupid names! And General Karax had come in, and more guards brought the imperor. They’d untied him earlier and given him something to eat. He was still as filthy as a gnome, but he wasn’t behaving like a prisoner in great danger. He looked pleased. He should! Without Gath’s prescience he’d be a heap of charred pieces by now.

  Later there was going to be a big argument about what to do with him and Mom and Kadie and Gath. Sounded—would sound—as if they might be sent to Dwanish as prisoners of war. That would be better than staying with the goblin army.

  Everyone else was leaving. No, two dwarves would be staying. One of them had been referred to as Wirax earlier, and the other would be called Prazkr in a few minutes. So three goblins and three dwarves and the four prisoners. That was what all the arguments had been about earlier—where this meeting should be held and who should be there, apart from the two leaders. Little of it had made sense to Gath, because he hadn’t heard everything said and people had been meaning more than they put into words. Now prescience told him why those four underlings had been included, and he shivered. They were going to b
e asked if the imperor was telling the truth.

  They were sorcerers! Of course the invaders would want to have sorcerers on their side. Mom had said it was quite likely Death Bird would have sorcerers around, even though they mustn’t use sorcery against Imperial legions. The legions belonged to the warlock of the east, meaning only he could use magic on them, and of course he did it only to help them. But even if sorcerers mustn’t fight directly, they could still do a lot of things to help an army: cure disease or wounds, spy out the enemy, interrogate prisoners—which was why those four were here tonight. Mom had explained a lot of this in the last few days; things you never bothered with in school came to mean a lot more when you were stuck in the middle of a war.

  His own name was going to be mentioned. The imperor had seen him in a magic pool and been coming to Krasnegar to meet him! Wow! That must be why he’d seen a vision of the imperor, of course, although Shandie had been only prince imperial then, and that was how Gath’d been able to recognize him and save him, so the pool must have known that… how could a pool of water know anything?

  The imperor was going to talk a lot about Zinixo. Gath knew the name. When they were kids, Kadie’s games had often involved a villain called Zinixo. Gath had usually been the Zinixo, because none of the others had ever wanted to be bad guys. He’d never understood why that had bothered them, it had just been a game. Kadie had usually been the good witch of the south, of course, or Allena the Fair.

  Zinixo had been a very evil warden, warlock of the west years and years ago. They’d heard of him even in Krasnegar, although no one had been quite sure exactly how he had been evil. He’d been killed by a faun sorcerer and everyone in Krasnegar believed that had been Dad, but Dad had refused to talk about it even after he’d admitted to Gath that he was a sorcerer, which he’d never admitted to anyone else.

  But this wasn’t a game, and Zinixo wasn’t dead, after all. Now—so Shandie was going to say—he’d gathered an army of sorcerers and made them all loyal to him. The Covin, the imperor would call it. Zinixo’d overthrown the wardens! Holy Balance! Even Kadie had never invented that!

  That was going to be one of the times the goblin king asked Long Runner if all this was true and the sorcerer was going to say yes, the imperor was telling the truth.

  Gath glanced around as the last guard left, wondering why everyone did not look more excited. But of course Shandie was just starting to speak. They hadn’t got there yet. The seven men were still arranging themselves in a horseshoe—dwarves one side, goblins the other, and the imperor in the middle, facing the fireplace with his back to the prisoners.

  And there was going to be some really ferocious stuff about how the imperor and Dad and the impress and some others had escaped from the Covin with the help of the warlock of the north, who was a dwarf called Raspnex. Kadie would love that bit!

  But the bit the goblins and dwarves were going to be interested in was about Zinixo—and Dad was going to be mentioned again.

  “So the Protocol doesn’t work anymore,” the imperor would say. “The wardens all ran away, except Raspnex, and I don’t know where he went after he left us. Lith’rian probably headed home to Ilrane, and Witch Grunth to the Mosweeps, but we can’t guess where Olybino went.”

  Gath tried to recall more of the stuff Mom had told him and Kadie in the last few days. Lith’rian was South and an elf. The witch of the west must be a troll if she went to the Mosweeps, because that was troll country. East was an imp, Warlock Olybino.

  The bit about Dad… “King Rap and the warlock have invented a new protocol. It’s going to outlaw votarism.”

  What was votarism? Sure was hard to think straight when your eyes felt full of sand. The warmth was making him sleepy. His jaw ached from the effort of not yawning. Sounded—would sound—like votarism was one sorcerer putting a loyalty spell on another, making a slave out of him, like Zinixo had done to all the people in the Covin. Dad would not approve of that, so it made sense.

  Trouble was, there was so much of it, and Gath wasn’t listening to a bit at a time as the others were, he was trying to take it all in at once. Then he realized that the best way was to concentrate on Death Bird’s questions. The general’s, too, but Death Bird’s would be really sharp.

  “How can you hope to defeat this Covin if it’s so powerful?”

  “We can’t, unless we can collect more power than it has.”

  “But if the Covin’s still hunting down all the sorcerers it can find, then how can you hope to find them faster?”

  “We can’t. What we can hope to do is to spread the word about the new protocol to all the sorcerers still at large. The new protocol is their only hope, because otherwise the Covin will get them all in the end. If they will help us, we can build a bigger army.”

  “And how do you spread the word?”

  “We’re telling all the mundane leaders. Like you, your Majesty. And you, your Excellency. You can help us by spreading the news so the free sorcerers will hear of it. This is our only advantage—you couldn’t help Zinixo that way, even if he made you want to.”

  The goblin was going to look very mad then. And he was going to ask Long Runner and, er… Moon Baiter… what they thought. And he was going to be really mad when they said that it sounded like a good idea to them.

  And the two dwarves would agree, too, which wouldn’t please the general, either.

  And then Shandie was going to tell them they had better call off their war, because there were no rules anymore, no wardens to take their part. The Covin might just wipe them out, and even Long Runner and the others couldn’t save them and would just get enlisted in the Covin, also.

  Now that was really going to make them cross!

  Gath felt his hand squeezed. Mom was beaming at him with tears in her eyes. Huh? Oh, now the imperor had got to the bit about the escape with Dad.

  He smiled back at her uncertainly.

  Trouble? Yes, there was something bad coming after all this argument… He couldn’t quite see it yet, but he wasn’t going to like it. He felt a shiver of fear.

  The imperor was smiling at him, everyone was looking… Oh, yes. The bit about the imperor coming to Krasnegar to see him.

  He puffed out his chest and tried to look useful.

  What was so bad at the end, that he couldn’t quite see yet?

  Dad had gone off hunting for sorcerers. Kadie would say that was romantic. He thought it was very brave, but it worried him. Dad could be just about anywhere now.

  Something else was going to worry him much more. It would come after the goblin king and the general announced that they had heard enough and were going away to talk it over. The prisoners were to be left in this cottage—well, it would be a better place to sleep than anything they’d had in a week. Besides, the windows were starting to brighten with dawn, so there wouldn’t be much sleep for anyone.

  And the last thing discussed would be what was going to happen to the prisoners. Death Bird would insist that they be kept with the army. Karax was going to demand that they be sent off to Dwanish as hostages.

  Suddenly it came. Gath foresaw the decision, and Mom screaming and being shouted down. He saw the leaders and the sorcerers all leaving. He turned to stare at his sister, clenching his fists. Intent on the story, she didn’t notice him. She didn’t know yet. Oh, Kadie, Kadie! I can’t save you this time, Kadie! Don’t cry, Kadie!

  5

  Death Bird stormed out of the hovel, with the dwarvish general scowling along at his heels. The four sorcerers followed, the dwarves taking the lanterns. That didn’t matter—the fire gave light, and the windows were bright.

  For a moment Shandie just sat where he was on the floor, a crumpled heap of weariness older than the Impire, and yet somehow exultant. Or feeling as if he would feel exultant if he could feel anything ever again. Dawn was coming and it was a dawn he had not expected to see. He had survived, and he might even have turned the awful horde aside from the Impire, his Impire. He might have saved thousands
of lives. Even if he hadn’t, he’d made an evilish good try at it! If he ever got back to Hub, he ought to award himself a medal of some sort. And he had also made a start on promoting the new protocol—he had told four sorcerers about it.

  Then he pulled himself out of his pit of exhaustion and peered blearily at Inosolan. She was staring down at him reproachfully, her eyes red-rimmed, her hair a tangle. Not reproachfully—furiously. The two kids were still sitting in the corner. They hadn’t moved since they arrived, except the boy was now hugging the girl, and they were both white as ice under their dirt.

  He heaved himself to his feet and faced the woman’s blazing green stare. “I tried, ma’am! We all tried.”

  “She is only a child!”

  “Do you think Death Bird doesn’t know that? We did all we could. You offered yourself in her place, ma’am, and so did I.” He wondered if he would have had the courage to make that offer if he had not been so certain it would be refused.

  She crumpled suddenly. “Yes, you did.” She stared at the floor.

  He stepped closer, and for a moment was tempted to lay a hand on her shoulder as he would have done with a man. “It makes sense. It makes sense to move us to Dwanish. In similar circumstances I have always sent important prisoners back to my base. It is better for us that we not stay with this rabble. And it makes sense that Death Bird would not trust his allies with all four of us. Be grateful he only demanded one.”

  She wrung her hands and turned away. She was admitting the logic, even if she could not bring herself to say so.

  “She is a valuable hostage, ma’am… May I call you Inos? She is the daughter of a sorcerer, a friend of Death Bird’s. She will be well treated, I am sure. Better than any of the rest of us could expect.” He was lying, of course, and they must all know that.

  Inosolan did not reply. How in the Name of Evil had she ever landed in this Evilish perdition, and with her children? Time enough tomorrow to get the story.