Brothers in Arms

by Margaret Weis

  “I can imagine,” Ariakas muttered. He eyed Kitiara. He wanted her so badly, the pain was unendurable. “Your Eminence, would you be so kind as to wait a moment outside. I want a word in private with uth Matar.”

  “My time is valuable,” said the dragon. “I agree with the female. We should set out immediately.”

  He rose majestically to his feet. Gathering his robes in one hand, he swept out of the tent, paused at the entrance to glance behind. He raised the scroll, pointed it at Ariakas. “Do not test my patience, worm.” He departed, leaving behind a faint smell of sulfur.

  Ariakas seized Kitiara around the waist, pressed her body against his, nuzzled her neck.

  “Immolatus is waiting, sir,” said Kitiara, allowing herself to be kissed but again not yielding.

  “Let him wait!” Ariakas breathed, his passion overtaking him.

  “You will not like me like this, sir,” Kit said softly, seductively, even as she fended off her seducer. “I will bring you victories. I will bring you power. No one and nothing will be able to withstand us. I will be the thunder to your lightning, the smoke to your devouring fire. Together, side by side, we will rule the world.”

  She put her hand over his questing lips. “I will serve you as my general. I will honor you as my leader. I will lay down my life for you, if you require it. But I am master of my love. No man takes by force what I do not choose to give. But know this, my lord. When I surrender to you at last, our pleasure on that night will be well worth the wait.”

  Ariakas kept firm and painful hold on her for another instant. Slowly he released her. He found pleasure in bed, but he found far more pleasure in battle. He enjoyed all aspects of war: the strategy, the tactics, the buildup, the clash of arms, the exhilaration of overcoming a foe, the final triumph. But the sweet feeling of victory came only when he fought a foe as skilled as himself, defeated an opponent worthy of his steel. He took no real pleasure in butchering unarmed civilians. Likewise, he found no real pleasure in making love to slaves, women who yielded to him out of terror, who lay shivering in his arms, limp and lifeless as corpses. In love as in war, he wanted—he needed—an equal.

  “Go!” he said to Kitiara gruffly, turning aside, turning his back on her. “Go now! Leave while I am still master of myself!”

  She did not leave immediately, did not flaunt her victory. She lingered. Her hand caressed his arm. Her touch sent fire through his veins.

  “The night I return in victory, my lord, I am yours.” She kissed his bare shoulder, then left him, opening the tent flap and slipping out into the rain to join the dragon.

  That night, to the astonishment of his servants, Lord Ariakas took no woman to his bed. Nor did he, for many nights to come.

  16

  THE TWINS’ TRAINING CONTINUED WITHOUT LETUP, WEEK AFTER week. The food was monotonous, the training monotonous, the same practice day after day, until Caramon could have performed the maneuvers while sleepwalking with a bag over his head.

  He knew this because they were up so early every morning, he felt as if he were sleepwalking, and one day Master Quesnelle ordered bags to be put over their heads and told them to go through the same drill—thrust, recover, thrust, recover. Except by this time, they’d added pivot left, pivot right, lockstep, sidestep, retreat in formation, lock shields, and a whole host of other commands.

  Not only did they drill every day, they cleaned their barracks every day, hauling off the straw from the day before, mopping the stone floor, shaking out their blankets, and replacing the straw. They bathed every day in a cold, rushing stream—a novelty to some of the men, who took baths once a year on Yule whether they needed it or not. One symptom of the Mad Baron’s madness was that he insisted that cleanliness of the body and the living environs reduced the possibility of disease and the spread of fleas and lice—the soldier’s customary companions.

  The men marched up and down Heave Gut hill every day, carrying their heavy packs and weapons. Every man could make it now without difficulty, with the exception of Scrounger. His body was too light, and though he did as Caramon advised and ate twice as much of the tasteless, monotonous food as any other man in the ranks, Scrounger did not gain in either height or bulk. He refused to admit defeat. Every day he collapsed in a gasping heap on the trail, half-buried beneath his shield, but Scrounger was always proud to point out that he’d gone “quite a bit farther today than yesterday, Master Quesnelle, sir.”

  The master-at-arms was impressed with Scrounger’s spirit. Quesnelle confided to the Mad Baron in the weekly commanders’ and officers’ meeting that he wished to the gods the lad’s body was as big as his heart.

  “The men like him, and they cover for him, especially the big guy, Majere. He carries Scrounger’s pack when he thinks I’m not looking. He holds back when they fight one on one or pretends that the little fellow’s struck a blow that would have served an ogre proud. I’ve turned a blind eye to it so far. But there’s no way he will make a foot soldier, my lord,” said the master, shaking his head. “His friends are doing him no favors. He’ll end up getting himself and the rest of us killed.”

  The other officers agreed, nodding their heads. The weekly meetings were held in the baron’s castle, in an upper-level room that provided a fine view of the parade ground below, where the troops could be seen working on their equipment, oiling the leather straps to keep them supple, making certain that the sharp eyes of the sergeants could not detect a speck of rust on sword or knife.

  “Don’t muster him out yet,” said the baron. “We’ll find something for him to do. We just have to figure out what it is. Speaking of weaklings, how is our new mage shaping up, Master Horkin?”

  “Better than expected for a Tower mage, Baron,” Horkin replied, comfortably settling his bulk in his chair. “He seems a sickly chap. I passed through the mess hall the other night and heard him coughing until I thought he would hack up a lung. When I spoke to him about his illness, suggested that he was too weak to be part of my army, he gave me a look that shriveled me to ashes and swept me into the dustbin.”

  “The other men don’t like him, my lord, and that’s a fact,” said Master Quesnelle, his expression dark. “I don’t much blame them. Those eyes of his give me the creeps. He has a way of looking at you as if he sees you lying dead at his feet and he’s about to throw dirt into the grave. The men say”—the master lowered his voice—“that he’s bartered his soul in the marketplace of the Abyss.”

  Horkin laughed. Folding his hands calmly over his rotund belly, he shook his head.

  “You may laugh, Horkin,” said the master-at-arms dourly, “but I’m warning you that I think it likely one day we’ll find your young mage lying dead in the forest with his head on backward.”

  “Well, what do you say, Horkin?” The baron turned to the master-at-wizardry. “I admit that I agree with Quesnelle. I do not much like this mage of yours.”

  Horkin sat up straight. His keen blue eyes boldly confronted each of the officers, not sparing the baron.

  “What do I say, sir?” Horkin repeated. “I say that I never knew the army was a midsummer’s picnic, my lord.”

  The baron was perplexed. “Explain yourself, Horkin.”

  Horkin coolly obliged. “If you’re holding a contest to name the Queen of the May, my lord, then I admit that my young mage will not be a candidate. But I don’t think you want the Queen of the May joining us in battle, do you, my lord?”

  “That’s all very well, Master Horkin, but his sickness—”

  “Is not of the body, my lord. It is not catching,” said Master Horkin, “nor is it curable. No, not even if the clerics of old were to return and place their healing hands upon him and call on the power of the gods could they restore Raistlin Majere to health.”

  “Is the sickness magical in nature?” The baron frowned. He would have been more comfortable with an ordinary, run-of-the-mill plague.

  “It is my belief, my lord, that the young man’s sickness is the magic!” Horkin no
dded sagely.

  The commanders and officers were dubious, they shook their heads and grumbled. Horkin’s forehead furrowed in thought, furrowed so deeply that it seemed to draw his whole scalp into the process. He looked to the master-at-arms.

  “Quesnelle, you wanted to be a soldier all your life?”

  “Yes,” said the master, wondering what this had to do with anything. “I guess you could say I’ve been a soldier all my life. My mother was a camp follower, my cradle was my father’s shield.”

  “Just so.” Horkin nodded again. “You wanted to be a soldier from childhood up. You, like our lord here, are a Solamnic by birth. Did you never think of becoming a Knight?”

  “Naw!” Quesnelle appeared disgusted.

  “Why not, if I may ask?” Horkin asked mildly.

  Quesnelle considered. “Truth to tell, such a thing never crossed my mind. For one, I was not of noble birth—”

  Horkin waved that aside. “There have been Knights in the past who were not of noble birth, who rose through the ranks. Legend says that the great Huma himself was one of these.”

  “What has this to do with the mage?” Quesnelle demanded irritably.

  “You will see,” said Horkin.

  Quesnelle looked at the baron, who quirked a black eyebrow, as much as to say, “Humor him.”

  “Well”—Quesnelle’s brow furrowed—“well, I guess that the main reason would be that when you’re a Knight you have two commanders. One’s a flesh-and-blood commander, and the other commander is a god. And you have to answer to both of them. If you’re lucky, they both agree. If you’re not …” Quesnelle shrugged. “Which do you obey? The torment of that question can rip a man’s heart in two.”

  “True,” murmured the baron, almost to himself. “Very true. I had never thought it about like that before.”

  “Me, I like my orders coming from only one place,” said Quesnelle.

  “I feel the same,” said Horkin, “and that is why I am, in the ranks of magic, a humble infantryman. But our young mage, he’s a Knight.”

  The baron’s black eyebrows shot up into his thick curling black hair.

  “Oh, I don’t mean literally, my lord.” Horkin chuckled. “No, no. The Solamnics would curl up and die first. I mean that he is a knight of magic. He hears two voices calling to him—the voice of man and the voice of the god. Which of them, in the end, will he choose to follow? I don’t know. If, indeed, he chooses either of them,” Horkin added, scratching his hairless chin. “I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he ends up turning his back on both, walking his own road.”

  “Yet, you’ve tipped a bottle with the goddess yourself from time to time, I believe,” said the baron, with a smile.

  “I am an acquaintance, my lord,” Horkin replied gravely. “Raistlin Majere is her champion.”

  The baron was silent a moment, digesting this. “Let us return to our original discussion. Do you think it advisable for me to keep Raistlin Majere in my employ? Will he be of benefit to this company?”

  “Yes and yes, my lord,” said Horkin stoutly.

  “Master-at-arms?” The baron looked to Quesnelle. “What do you say?”

  “If Horkin vouches for the mage and will keep an eye on him, then I have no objection to his remaining,” said Quesnelle. “I’m just as glad of it, in fact, for if the one twin left, we should lose the other. And Caramon Majere is shaping into a fine soldier. Far better than he gives himself credit for. I was thinking of transferring him to Flank Company.”

  He cast a glance at Master Senej, the commander of Flank Company, who nodded, interested.

  “So be it,” said the baron. He reached for the pitcher of cold ale that always ended the officers’ meeting. “By the way, gentleman, we have our marching orders for our first battle.”

  “Where is that, my lord?” both officers asked eagerly. “And when?”

  “We leave in two weeks’ time.” The baron poured the ale. “We are marching at the request of King Wilhelm of Blödehelm, a fine king, a good king. A city under his rule has been taken over by hotheaded rebels, demanding that they be permitted to break away from Blödehelm and become an independent city-state. The rebels have, unfortunately, convinced most of the citizens to join them in their cause. King Wilhelm is gathering his own forces, he will be sending in two regiments to deal with the rebels. We will be there to assist. His hope is that once they see the force of our might arrayed against them, the rebels will realize that they cannot win and give up.”

  “A damn siege,” said Quesnelle grumpily. “Nothing I hate worse than a boring old siege.”

  “There may be hot work for us yet, Master,” said the Mad Baron soothingly. “According to my sources, the rebels are the type who would rather die fighting than be hung for traitors.”

  “Come now,” said Quesnelle, brightening. “That’s more like it! What do we know about these other two regiments?”

  “Nothing.” The baron shrugged. “Nothing at all. I guess we’ll find out when we get there.” He winked. “If they’re not any good, we’ll show them how to fight.” He raised his ale mug. “Here’s to Hope’s End.”

  “What?” The commanders stared, dismayed.

  “That’s the name of the city, gentlemen,” said the baron with a grin. “Hope’s End for our enemies!”

  The commanders drank the toast—and many more after that—with relish.

  17

  GOOD NEWS, RED,” SAID HORKIN, ENTERING THE LABORATORY, MORE or less steady on his feet. He smelled very strongly of ale. “We have our marching orders. Two weeks we leave.” He heaved a beery sigh. “That doesn’t give us much time. Lots of work to do between now and then.”

  “Two weeks!” Raistlin repeated, feeling a little flutter in his stomach. He told himself the flutter was excitement and it was—partly. He looked up from the mortar and pestle he was wielding. His assigned duty this day was to grind up spices, which were to be used by the cook for their meals. Raistlin wondered why he bothered. Thus far the most exciting thing he’d found in his rabbit stew—which appeared to be cook’s only known recipe—had been a cockroach. And it was dead. Probably of food poisoning.

  “What is our objective, sir?” he asked, proudly using the military term he’d learned from the Magius book.

  “Objective?” Horkin wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, mopping up the froth that still lingered on his lips. “Only one of us needs to know the objective, Red. And that’s me. All you need to know is to go where you’re told, do what you’re told, when you’re told to do it. Got that?”

  “Yes, sir,” Raistlin replied, swallowing his ire.

  Horkin was perhaps hoping to set the young mage off so that he would have a chance to slap him down again. The knowledge helped Raistlin exert unusual self-control. He went back to pounding his spices, putting such effort into it that the cinnamon sticks smashed into bits, filling the air with their pungent scent.

  “Pretending that’s me in there, eh, Red?” Horkin asked, chuckling. “Want to see old Horkin smashed into a pulp, do you? Well, well. Put away the spices for today. Blasted cook! I don’t know what he does with them anyway. Probably sells them. I know darn good and well he doesn’t cook with them!”

  Muttering, he waddled over to the shelf where the spellbooks stood, newly dusted, and reached up an unsteady hand to grasp the “fancy black one” as he termed it. “Speaking of selling things, I’m headed into town to the mageware shop to sell these books. Now that I have a Tower mage to read that black book for me, I want you to examine it and tell me how much you figure I should ask for it.”

  Raistlin clamped his teeth over his lips to keep his frustration from bursting out. The book was far more valuable for its spells than the piddling amount Horkin was likely to receive for it at the Langtree mageware shop. Shopkeepers generally paid little for spellbooks belonging to the followers of Nuitari, god of the Dark Moon, mainly because they were difficult to resell. Few black-robed wizards had the temerity to walk boldly int
o a shop and browse through the spellbooks belonging to their kind, spellbooks dealing with necromancy, curses, tortures, and other evils.

  Like other wizards, Black Robes were well aware that truly powerful spellbooks were not likely to be found in mageware shops. Oh, you would hear tell now and then of a wizard who happened across a wondrous spellbook of old, lost to the ages, lying forgotten under a layer of dust on the shelf of some backwater shop in Flotsam. But such occurrences were rare. A wizard who wanted a powerful spellbook did not waste his time going from shop to shop, but traveled to the Tower of High Sorcery at Wayreth, where the selection was excellent and no questions were asked.

  Horkin tossed the spellbook down upon the laboratory table and spent a moment admiring it—the spoils of battle—his bald head cocked to one side. Raistlin gazed at the book as well, but with a critical eye and a ravening curiosity to see what wonders it might contain. The thought occurred to him that perhaps he could buy it from Horkin himself, save up his pay until he was able to afford it.

  There was small chance he would be able to read any of the spells yet, spells that were undoubtedly far too advanced for him. And most of the spells, especially the spells of evil, were spells he had no intention of casting. But he could always learn from the book. All spells—good, bad, and indifferent—were constructed using the same letters of the magical alphabet, which went together to form the same words. It was the way those words were spoken and arranged that affected the spellcasting.

  He had another reason for wanting to study this spellbook. The book had been in possession of a Black Robe war wizard. Raistlin might have to someday defend against these very spells. Knowing how a spell was constructed was essential to knowing how to deconstruct it or how to protect oneself from its effects. All sound reasons. But, as Raistlin was forced to admit to himself, the true reason he was interested in this book was his passion for knowledge of his art. Any source—even an evil source—that would provide such knowledge was precious in his sight.