Anderson, Poul - Novel 18

by The Winter of the World (v1. 1)

“I’d guess so,” Targantar nodded. “There weren’t many farms between the border and these wilds; and be like every party of us that passed near one had the wit to do what we agreed, and take the dwellers prisoner. A swampman or two might carry tales. But everybody who ever learned woodcraft, trading east of the Idis Mountains, ought to be out patrolling against that.”

  “Good. You see, we’ve decided it’s important to raise the countryside first, especially northward. If the Lords seize control of the provinces overnight, that should slow down news of what’s happened, on its way to the main invader army.”

  “Right thinking. Be quick, though. This place is too wet and glum for us.”

  “Three or four days at most. Then you’ll get your summons.”

  “What shall we do?”

  “Come around the city to the Grand East Highroad. You remember, don’t you, the causeway from it is the single footroute across the Lagoon. We’ve no rafts and boats as the Rahidians did when they stormed.”

  “Hm. I remember, too, a powerful bastion at the far end.”

  “That’s what the Knife Brotherhoods will do,” Fero said, “—attack it from inside, open the gates for you, show you where troops are posted about the place. Cavalry and artillery won’t count for much. Those lanes are like upland gorges.”

  “Very good.” Targantar drew his blade, ran thumb along edge, and smiled.

  Through the winter night, from end to end of Arvanneth, Rogaviki were hunting. They had light enough from stars, moon, its ice halo, frosty-brilliant Sky River. When they met any remnant soldiers, it was they whose senses kept sharp among shadows. Afterward they stripped the bodies of weapons, their hounds gave tongue till alleys tolled, and they flitted on in search of their next prey.

  Several Imperial squads found shelter in houses, whence their rifle fire cast back assault. No matter. Keep them besieged. Seafolk would soon arrive who knew how to use captured cannon. Word on the radio was that Newkeep had fallen after brief bombardment and tugs would bring a pair of warships upstream.

  Dead men sprawled before the Golin Palace. They had defended it with furious valiancy. But Northland archers reaped and, as the early darkness fell, bore steel across their barricades to finish the last of them.

  Josserek led the victors on inside. Until then he had kept somewhat back in the battle—the shapeless uncounted little battles which whirled and spat, hour after hour, street after street, passed on or panted to an end, leaving blood for curs to lick from between cobbles and meat for the great city rats. Donya needed him more. But Sidfr had had offices and an apartment in this building. He might find a clue to the Barommian, what to plan against him. Eaching would let a few skilled men join his venture northward. Yet those would be few indeed, in a chaos of untrained and untrainable kithfolk. Given superior numbers, help from behind, surprise, a labyrinth to fight in, the Rogaviki could take Arvanneth, if not hold it long. But none of these would be granted them when they met Sidfr....

  They got no further resistance. Terrified servants scuttled aside while red-stained bisonslayers loped down vaulted corridors, through magnificent rooms. Josserek identified one by his livery as belonging to the majordomo’s department. “Halt!” he cried. When the fellow fled on, sobbing his panic, a woman grinned, uncoiled a lasso at her belt, and snaked it out. The crash made a glass chandelier chime.

  Josserek pushed knifepoint against neck. “Where’s the highest-ranking person here?” he demanded. “Quick!”

  “The Im—Im—Imperial Voice—” gibbered back. “Moon Chamber—”

  Yurussun Soth-Zora himself? Marvelous! Hold the civil viceroy hostage, oh, most politely, with many protestations about this being for his own protection— “Guide us,” Josserek said. He helped the servant up by a hand to the collar and along by a boot to the rear.

  Where a single lamp picked out lunar phases upon the walls, an old man sat stem. As the attackers entered, he lifted a pistol. “No,” he breathed. “Abide where you are.”

  Josserek waved his followers back. Belly muscles tightened, aware of sweat and slugging pulse, he said, “You must be he who speaks for the Imperium. Sir, we mean you no harm.”

  “And you are of the Seafolk,” Yurussun responded, calm voiced, almost regretfully. “The wire from Newkeep, before it went dead, related— Ah, well, why should I feel angered that Killimaraich acts as it is in the nature of nation-states to act?”

  “That’s not true ... uh, begging your pardon, sir. The situation is complicated, and we—”

  Yurussun lifted his thin free hand. “I pray you, insult me not; for I am he who spoke for the Glorious Throne, and honor forbids that I let its enemies misuse me.”

  After a silence, he added in a gentler tone, “If you truly bear no malice, do a kindness ere I depart. Stand aside. Deploy those splendid animals of yours in my sight.”

  Dumbfounded, Josserek beckoned his Rogaviki through the door. For another while, Yurussun stared at the woman who bore a lasso. Finally he smiled, and in her language he asked, “What is your kith, dear?”

  “Why ... Starrok,” she said.

  “I thought it was. You have the look. Are you perchance kin to a Brusa who wintered at Pine Lake? She would be my age if she still lives.”

  “No—”

  “Ah, well,” Yurussun said. He brought the gun to his brow. Josserek plunged. He was too slow. The shot roared forth.

  Snow came again, this time dry and borne in spearlike streaks upon a wind that yelled and hooted.

  The day beyond Sidfr’s inner office was a wild white dusk; panes grew frost flowers, gloom beleaguered hearthfire and lamps.

  A sailor on guard duty announced, “Ponsario en-Ostral, sir,” and admitted the Guildsman. Josserek glowered from the desk where he was ransacking papers. The Arvannethan simpered, bobbed a precalculated two bows, folded hands over breast, and waited for acknowledgment. Melted flakes glistened in hair, whiskers, fur collar of tunic, where his cloak had not protected.

  “Sit down,” Josserek said. From what I’ve been able to discover, this fat fox needs bullying and cajoling in about equal proportions.

  “Yes, sir.” Ponsario chose a chair and lowered paunch onto lap. “Dare I say it was quite a surprise when I was summoned to Captain Josserek Derrain?”

  “You expected Admiral Ronnach? He’s busy maintaining order—a watch on the Lairs, getting essential work started afresh before people starve—while a dozen stupid factions squabble about how to organize a government.”

  Ponsario gave him a beady regard. “If the captain will forgive a plain man’s bluffness, may I suggest that more able, responsible leadership would manifest itself were the excellent Admiral Ronnach in a position to guarantee its survival? In our present state of uncertainty, none but fanatics, reckless adventurists, and those who hope to escape carrying coffers loaded from the public treasury ... none but their kinds will come forward.”

  “The rest are afraid, if they help out, Sidfr will return and flense them?”

  “Well, Captain, there has been a rebellion against the Empire and there has not, to the best of my poor knowledge, been an offer of protection by, ah, your country.”

  “Certainly not. It’s true that privateers from among the Seafolk have been—are still—involved in a three-cornered contest between Rahfd, Arvanneth, and the Rogaviki. That’s outside the jurisdiction of Killimaraich. Learning of the situation, our navy did, by request, send units which happened to be in these parts, to give humanitarian assistance.”

  Ponsario rolled his eyes, practically saying, Well, if that’s the language you prefer, I’ll not contradict.

  “A few of us plan to accompany the Rogaviki north when they depart shorty,” Josserek went on. “As neutral observers, you understand. However, we’ll mediate between them and the Imperials if we’re asked to.”

  “I understand perfectly, Captain,” Ponsario assured him.

  Josserek bridged his fingers and peered across them.

  “Now, I’ve learned that
you and Sidfr cooperated— grew quite intimate, in fact,” he said with tiger mildness. “It would be very helpful if we could discuss him ... at length ... you and I. That way I’ll get a notion of what to expect—what, for instance, might make him agree to peace terms.”

  “Nothing will that, sir.” Ponsario had begun sweating.

  “Well, then, what to expect militarily.... Nobody has to know what we two say within these four walls. Correct me if I’m mistaken, but aren’t the Guilds in a rather awkward position, after the way they let their interests get identified with the Empire’s? If Arvanneth does stay independent, I imagine the Guilds could use, um, influential foreign friends.”

  Ponsario was cautious but not laggard. “Yes, Captain, your point is well taken. You realize I cannot say anything treasonable. But you merely wish conversation about Sidfr, don’t you? A fascinating man—”

  For the most part, Josserek believed he heard truth.

  Everything he could check against different sources rang sound. Ponsario even revealed an excellent grasp of warlike practicalities. As a merchant who had connections up the Jugular, he knew the great river in all its seasons, all its moods. He knew the Imperial host well too; besides his direct relationship with its commander, he had sold it plenty of supplies. And he had considered the logical implications of what he learned.

  The army would not reach Arvanneth fast. Sidfr would move down from Fuld, bringing in his garrisons as he passed them. Their equipment must come likewise, especially guns and ammunition; for the Rogaviki would surely go through each abandoned stronghold and destroy what they couldn’t carry off. Transporting heavy materiel in winter was brutally hard. Doubtless he would use the Jugular itself for a highway, sledding, skidding, and carting stuff over its frozen surfrce. That would be easier than on rutted, drifted reads, though still difficult. When he got about as far south as the vague frontier, he must go entirely ashore, for the ice would no longer be thick enough. Yet boats couldn’t meet him, since floes made navigation too dangerous, nearly down to Arvanneth. By the same token, an expedition moving north to head him off couldn’t take along much gear of its own. Captain Josserek—ah, the barbarians among whom Captain Josserek and others would travel as observers—had better not count on artillery for themselves.

  “Indeed, sir, my solemn advice to you is that you stay behind,” Ponsario lectured. “The Northfolk have no chance, none whatsoever, except for a mercifully quick death from Sidfr’s gunners and lancers. Nor have the rebels any hope of resisting him when at last he arrives here. The whole affair will have cost him the fruits of a year’s campaigning, and he will exact vengeance for that. Yes, none will be left who harbored a subversive thought, by the time he turns his face back northward. Therefore—ah, since the distinguished government of Killimaraich does not wish to maintain a permanent military presence—its best possible deed will be to use its influence to negotiate immediate submission. You, Captain—

  “Captain? Captain?”

  Josserek shook himself. “Sorry, Guildsman,” he said. “My mind wandered.”

  His mind shouted, louder than the blizzared outside. He thought he saw now how he might go to Donya.

  If she lived.

  CHAPTER 21

  Halfway through the southernmost kithlands, Leno on the east and Yair on the west, the Jugular swung right, then left in a horseshoe bend. Midstream in the lower arm of this lay an island which shifting currents must have cut from a shore not long ago, for it rose almost as high as the banks on either side and even steeper, bedecked with icicle-glittery trees up to a sharp summit. Northfolk named it the Horn of Nezh, and here they gathered to make their stand.

  Sidfr heard of that days before he got there, when the garrisons he had not yet reached came to join him, reporting that more natives were swarming in than they could stand off by themselves. He reprimanded the officers. The barbarians had no gift for siegecraft or storm. Any stockade defended by firearms ought to cast back any number of them. If they had finally pulled themselves together for a mass hazard against die Imperials when those appeared vulnerable, give thanks to the gods of war.

  He did not. Donya of Hervar might be in yonder pack.

  His army labored onward. Scouts said the Rogaviki lay quiet, living off supplies, sheltered by tents, covered sleighs, igloos, while daily more of them arrived. No doubt they reckoned on an ally strong and cruel: winter. And in truth it wore down men and beasts, numbed, famished, frostbit, crippled, killed them. Wolves, coyotes, vultures trailed the legions of the Empire.

  Yet the march went unhalted. Weariness, pain, loss did not gravely weaken those who had borne their banners from the highlands of Haamandur to the rim of the Ice. Though metal might grow so cold that it peeled away bare skin which it touched, no Barommian took off his Torque of Manhood; he stuffed a rag beneath, and made a coarse joke about being glad he wore it around his neck, not elsewhere. When oxen faltered exhausted, the peasant endurance of Rahfdian infantry set men to drawing the wagons till animals had rested. After fuel supplies thinned out, and nobody knew whatever firemaking tricks the plains people did, soldiers ate their scanty rations raw, shared what tea they could brew, slept seated in clusters whose members took turns on the outside. Often in those wretched bivouacs, Barommians stamped through their dances, Rahfdians wailed forth their songs.

  They would last, Sidfr knew. They would soon reach sweeter country, where they could take care of their wants. Then they would regain Arvanneth, wreak justice on traitors, and feast until summer was reborn. And if, first, they met the enemy as a whole, horde against horde, and scrubbed the earth clean of those landloupers—why, next year they would possess the North as a man takes a bride.

  He wished his faith had more joy in it.

  Before dawn on Dragonsday, the seventeenth of Uhab, he roused to knowledge that this would see the battle. The evening before, he had reached the upper arm of the bend. Riding across the ground between his camp and the foe’s he had spied for a while from woods along the riverbank. It had not been especially dangerous for him and his escort. The Rogaviki knew of his arrival, but aside from their scouts had settled entirely on the hardened surface. Tiny fires marked bands of them, spread for miles around the island and downstream. He guessed their numbers might equal his, and that they had some crude idea of using the Horn of Nezh for a stronghold, bringing up reinforcements from the rear as needed. “Meanwhile,” Colonel Develkai snickered when Sidfr returned, “they’ve swept the ice clear of snow. Once around the western point of the curve, we’ve got a paved highway.”

  The commander scowled. “M-m, they can’t be total idiots,” he said. “From what little information we have on the fall of Arvanneth—by the Witch, how little!— Northfolk were not mere auxiliaries, they were the very force that took the town.”

  “Somebody made advance arrangements, sir, pointed them in the right direction, and turned them loose. Nothing more.”

  “No doubt. However, has that somebody abandoned them since? We’ll advance carefully.”

  Sidfr slept ill, as he had done most nights after Donya left him. When he awoke from time to time, though, he found himself fretting about his men. Conscience troubled him, that he should be warm and dry while they lay out beneath a winter-stark Argent Way. It was necessary, of course. Taking more than a few dome tents along would have added an impossible burden, to haul through hill-tall drifts with never a boat for help. And if the Captain General was sandy-brained when they entered combat, there would be extra deaths among them. Nevertheless, his comfort hurt.

  An orderly brought him coffee and a lit lantern. Eating before a fight was unwise. He dressed himself, undergarments, heavy shirt, fleece-lined jacket and trousers and boots, spurs, corselet, coif, helmet, side-arm, dirk, sword, gauntlets. Emerging, he found the Barommian garb not quite enough against this cold. Breath stung as it flowed heavily through his nostrils, out again in smoke-puffs. Air lay on his face like liquid. Beneath his tread, snow grated. Otherwise he heard mainly silence.
This upper camp lay in shadows beneath the last western stars, the first eastern bleakness. Trees stood skeletal. From a bluff edge he looked down and down to the river. There blurred masses roiled which were his supply train, gun carriages, draft animals, and attendant men. He heard a horse neigh, distant as a dream. Cannon caught sheens along their barrels. They would grow hot today, hurling stones into live bodies. Ice glimmered nearly a mile to the farther shore. Past those ramparts the land rolled hoar till it met the rearguard of night.

  Aloneness arose and struck him. High pastures of Haamandur, Zangazeng under the holy volcanoes, Ang the wife of his youth, her six children she bore him, lay beyond the moon. Nafs of the gracious mansions, Nedayin the wife of his power, had they ever been?

  He called his heart back to him and walked about among officers and ranks, greeting, jesting, ordering, encouraging. Light strengthened till the sun stood forth; then snow glistened clean and softly blue-dappled, ice became diamond and crystal. Bugles rang, drums racketed, voices called, metal clashed, as units assembled and the army got moving.

  Sidfr was also at the point of departure when a rider addressed his guards, passed by, and drew rein in front of him. “Sir, they seem to want a parley.”

  “What?” Startled, he remembered, They never did before.

  “Half a dozen, sir. They left the island area, carrying the green flag, brought their horses up the slopes, and’re bound straight our way. No other enemy activity observed, aside from lookouts ashore. Nobody near them, and they don’t show anything but hand weapons.”

  “Hail them,” Sidfr decided. “If they request a talk, bring them here.”

  During the half hour’s wait that followed, he had trouble staying calm—his blood would not at all— thought he denied himself the right to wonder why. He kept as busy as he was able. His warriors moved off fast. Not many steeds and spears remained when the Rogaviki arrived.

  He had placed himself crosslegged on a bench in his tent. Its door stood open southward, showing him treetrunks, trampled snow, a couple of his mounted sentries, flash off a lancehead, scarlet of a pennon which drooped in the frozen air, and then at last the envoys. They came on shaggy ponies which trotted more nimbly over the ground and had lost less weight than the Southron chargers. They themselves were simply clad, fringed, buckskins, hooded capes aflutter from unbowed shoulders. Though leanness, frostbite, sunburn, wind- chapping had marked their visages, haughtiness hel- meted them. They did not deign to slow as they came through the watch.