Warautumn

by Tom Deitz

  “Wine,” he called to the chamber squire—who had arrived but a dozen breaths ahead of them. “The best there is in the camp, and keep it coming. Some of us have had to stint for far too long, and for now—I don’t care. Everyone have what they will, and let’s relax, and then, much as I hate to say it, we need to consider a number of important matters.”

  And with that, Avall flopped down in his chair of state—where he remained exactly long enough to note that everything he had on was somewhere between damp and sodden, whereupon he disappeared into what had been his private chamber and found a pair of fresh house-hose and a long robe, both in Argen’s colors. Not bothering with shoes, he belted the robe with a plain black belt and returned to the outer chamber, which was rather less populous than when he had departed.

  Most of his court had followed his example regarding dress, it seemed, and came trickling back by ones and twos, drier and without armor, with Lykkon and Bingg last of all—by which time the chamber squire had managed to secure the requested wine, along with a spread of cold meat, cheese, bread, nuts, and an assortment of sauces.

  Though plain fare for a Royal Court, to Avall, who had not seen its like in several eights, it seemed a feast indeed. Helping himself to a slice of roast venison with hot mustard on dark bread, he tallied those before him: Merryn, Rann, Lykkon, Bingg, Vorinn, Veen, Tryffon, Preedor, and a number of men and women he barely knew, whom he assumed Vorinn had appointed to replenish the Council’s ranks when Rann had abdicated. These last traded uneasy glances with each other, as though wondering if they should, in fact, be present. Avall, in turn, wondered what they thought about sharing the room with Rann and Lykkon, whom some of them surely considered traitors.

  “Welcome, all!” he cried when the silence grew too strained. “Things have changed somewhat since I was here last, so I apologize for any discomfort, either physical or otherwise, you may experience. I also see a certain amount of concern on some of your faces as to whether you should indeed be here, so let me address that first. All here are welcome here, and welcome to remain here until we return to Tir-Eron. Your presence implies both competence on your own part and the confidence of those in whom I place confidence in turn; therefore, welcome all. But be warned: You will soon learn that I conduct affairs in a certain manner, so do not be surprised at anything you hear—or see. Not that anything is likely to surprise anyone after today.”

  “No indeed,” Tryffon snorted. “Not hardly.”

  “Now then,” Avall continued, after a deep breath, “I know that we all want to catch up on what has transpired of late, since we’ve all been separated in a number of interesting ways and at a number of interesting places. Unfortunately, much as I hate to say it, the particulars of that should probably come later. Frankly, too, I don’t have the energy to rehearse it all again, having just done a short version of that very thing earlier today. For now”—he paused, gazing around the table—and beyond, to those who had found no seats there and settled for benches against the wall or, in Bingg’s case, the floor—“we need to address two things before any other. One, of course, is how to conclude our business here; the other is what our business henceforth will be. There is one obvious answer to the latter, but I would like to hear the latest word on that before anything is decided. Which leaves us with our present situation.”

  “What is our present situation?” Vorinn inquired, with scarce-controlled impatience. “I never made it into the hold, as you remember, and you never properly answered my question when I arrived. I assume, however, that the Ninth Face has been defeated.”

  “It has been defeated here, as far as we can tell,” Avall acknowledged. “They fell victim to a fatal moment of indecision and disarray, and from investing too much authority in one person. Which may be a kind of national curse of ours,” he added. “Comes from all those damned rites and rituals—but that’s not what we’re here to discuss. So, to continue with your answer, Vorinn: we have taken Zeff’s second—his adjutant, officially—a fellow named Ahfinn—prisoner, and he will be tried in Tir-Eron, either by our folk or by Priest-Clan, if we can get them back in their place. For the rest, Zeff’s people didn’t put up much resistance once we got into their hold, which implies that theirs was, in part, a cult of charisma, not of dogma. In any case, there were more of us than of them, and more of us all over again, as we began freeing the hostages in the hold. There were casualties—a few. Crim was murdered, and justice has already been served for that. Several Ninth Face soldiers killed themselves, and there were a few fights and some wounds taken on both sides, but we suffered no fatalities—which I know is hard to believe.”

  “But good to hear,” Vorinn countered, nodding.

  “We also find ourselves in something of an awkward situation, for two reasons,” Avall went on. “First of all, we have to decide what to do with the people we’ve just freed—”

  “Leave them here, those who want to stay,” Lykkon broke in. “Appoint a new Hold-Warden, and find a Lore Master to see who’s where in their rotation and if any vital skills will be needed.”

  Avall shook his head, frowning ever so slightly. “Won’t work—not like that, anyway. First of all, while the hold—any winter hold—always has more than year’s worth of supplies on hand, most don’t have their population effectively doubled during the summer, and certainly not at the same time that shipments of supplies are curtailed. They should have been stockpiling for the winter all last quarter, but the only new resources to have made it here are ours, which I’m afraid we will need if we’re to accomplish what we intend. In fact, I rather suspect we’ll be on short rations ourselves before we get back to Tir-Eron, and maybe after.”

  Rann cleared his throat, glancing at Avall for permission to speak. “There’s also the matter of the safety of the hold itself. I know it’s hard to think of something so huge and solid being vulnerable. It was built for the ages, and looks it. But Merryn will tell you that War-Hold looked that way, too, and one third of it now lies in ruins. In this case, however, the problem is that while a good portion of Gem-Hold was hollowed out of a subsidiary peak of Tar-Megon, part of it—the front third, in fact—was built over the Ri-Megon, which was harnessed for various purposes inside—and which was turned to the hold’s defense when they closed it off and flooded half the vale. Trouble is, they flooded the mines as well, which has rendered them, and with them the entire foundation, unsafe.

  “Not that I know firsthand,” he added quickly. “I haven’t been down there yet, though I plan to go later today. But I have found the former Mine Warden—one of the few survivors of the initial explosion—and he confirms it. In other words, until their safety can be assured, the mines are useless, which effectively negates the reason for this hold. Moreover, those parts of the hold that give access to the mines have suffered the most damage, and the raw fact is that the whole place is in danger of collapse. The north end may be fairly safe, but my feeling is that no one should live there until we can give it a thorough inspection. Now, with that in mind, I would suggest that you leave a team of stonesmiths here over the winter to undertake such an inspection. There would certainly be resources on site to accommodate fifteen or twenty, which is all that would be required—and all we can spare in the bargain. There’s also the small matter of winter. Winter will be especially hard on this place because water will have reached places where water has never been, and will freeze, expand, thaw, then freeze and expand again. All of which will render the hold less stable. Which is another reason it needs to be abandoned for the nonce.”

  Silence, briefly, while everyone stared at each other.

  “There should be no problem with people retrieving personal goods,” Rann went on eventually. “As long as they realize they’re acting at their own risk. But unless this Council rules otherwise, I’d say the place should be closed until we can determine for certain that it’s safe.”

  “What about the … magic gems?” From Tryffon. “They’re the reason this started in the first place.�
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  Avall regarded him squarely. “As far as I know, there are no more gems of that kind—not here, and let’s say I have a good reason for that assumption. And if there do turn out to be more, I have every confidence that a means exists to retrieve them. And about that I will say no more.”

  “And the Ninth Face prisoners?” Veen inquired. “What do you say about them?”

  Avall started to speak, but noted that Vorinn was seeking recognition. “Lord Vorinn? You have a suggestion?”

  “We can’t leave them,” Vorinn stated flatly. “We can’t, because we can’t trust them. But it occurs to me that they owe a massive debt to Gem-Hold, above all else. What I would therefore suggest is that they bear the brunt of carrying whatever goods need to be salvaged by their former hostages. We would have to chain them, but surely with so many able smiths about, there’d be no problem contriving sufficient fetters.”

  Everyone laughed at that, including Avall, but something about Vorinn’s casual tone made him uneasy. “That’s until we get back to Tir-Eron,” Vorinn continued quickly. “Once there … we have a number of options as to their specific disposal, depending on what kind of resistance their clanmates mount. But in any scenario I can think of, the idea of Ninth Face knights stripped naked and tied to tabletops seems to figure prominently.”

  More laughter followed—but not from Avall this time. “I would prefer a more humane option,” he said carefully. “That said, labor is more humane than death, so perhaps we should give your idea consideration. Your real idea,” he added.

  “What about Tir-Eron?” Merryn broke in. “I’m sorry to speak out of turn, especially when the rest of you may know things I don’t, but it seems to me that if we’re going to return to Tir-Eron, we should have some idea what we’ll find when we get there.”

  Avall chuckled. “You doubt that we’ve got spies there, or will have? I’ve more faith in Tryffon than that!” He peered at Tryffon expectantly.

  For his part, Tryffon looked as uncomfortable as Avall had ever seen him, to the point of shifting in his seat. “The fact is, lad,” Tryffon began, “we don’t know as much as we’d like. We’ve sent people there to find out, of course, but you have to remember that Eron Gorge is a long way from here, even with good horses in high summer, and that’s not considering the fact that one isn’t wise to make a direct approach to the place if one’s intentions are other than they appear to be. The whole west end of the gorge cuts through grassy plains, after all, saving those ridges to the south where we fought that last battle, so one can’t come upon it by stealth, not from the nearest end. The only chance for that is to follow the north rim farther east, find one’s way to the bottom, then work up-gorge again. Which we’ve done, I hasten to add.”

  “And?” Avall prompted through a sudden yawn.

  “Actually,” Tryffon went on, “what we’ve found most reliable has been a series of messengers that have been sent by various folk in the gorge. Tyrill sent several, then seems to have run out of trustworthy squires, but from what we’ve been able to determine from them and by other means, things are bad there and getting worse. Priest-Clan apparently intended to kill as many High Clan Chiefs as they could manage and slot themselves into those positions, post double guards on everyone else, and assume it would be business as usual. They assumed Common Clan would bend to their will, but Common Clan relies on goods from High Clan, and High Clan goods were suddenly not forthcoming.”

  He paused for a long draught of wine, then went on relentlessly.

  “As far as goods and the distribution of same, in which category I include food—well, to put it bluntly, everything south of Eron Gorge is still in chaos. On the one hand, you’ve got the traditional poor, who’ve always depended on royal largesse, but who have suddenly found that royal largesse has dried up, so they’re petitioning Priest-Clan for help. Only now they’re finding out that those truly good Priests who used to help them can’t anymore, because most of Priest-Clan’s southern resources were decimated along with everyone else’s; never mind that the planting’s been done late if at all; and their seniors in Tir-Eron have been too busy keeping a peace they destroyed in the first place to oversee planting and harvest up there; and all that’s ignoring the fact that they’ve got their hands full of refugees.”

  “Which means,” Preedor took up, “that they went looking to their local Priests for help, and when those—mostly—good men and women tried to help, they found they couldn’t. Which has them angry at their seniors.”

  “Which basically means that Priest has made enemies among the poor when they sought to make allies,” Lykkon summarized.

  “And as for what stirred them up to start with—the fact that Priest said we had a means to access The Eight directly and weren’t sharing—they’re suddenly having to explain why The Eight have let things get so bad when it’s Their minions who are supposed to be in charge.”

  “Which isn’t even counting the refugees,” Tryffon took up again. “Normally, they would have been absorbed back into their clans, propped up, helped out, and sent away again with whatever they’d need to rebuild, and Common Clan would have made a good profit selling their own licensed wares and whatever surpluses they’d managed to buy up cheap now and then. But suddenly their home clans aren’t there anymore, and half the subchiefs from South and Half are prowling through their armories in search of weapons while trying to figure out who they can get to fight for them in order to defend their property against their own, even more unfortunate, countrymen, along with trying to restore order in the name of absent Chiefs and an absent King. Fortunately, honor is pretty deeply embedded in anyone who’s wound up with any kind of chieftainship, but what was supposed to have been a neat little change for Priest hasn’t worked out that way at all.”

  Avall puffed his lips thoughtfully. “That’s a lot to digest in a small space. I wonder again why you didn’t abandon the siege and return.”

  “Because,” Vorinn replied quickly, “we were almost here when we got word of the coup, and then they took you prisoner, and we felt like we couldn’t leave you. And then, when you disappeared, we expected every moment that you’d return with the Lightning Sword and everything would be better. But even if we had left as soon as you vanished, we would have been taking a risk, because that raised the possibility that we would find ourselves with foes before us and behind us, both.”

  “And now we’ve got an even larger army—in theory,” Preedor added. “If we can figure out how to feed them. In fact, I’d suggest we start recruiting from Gem as soon as possible. We should at least be able to acquire a spare hundred or so. We might even—might, let me stress—get a few from the Ninth Face, if you make them swear mighty oaths, say on the Sword of Air.”

  “All of which means,” Vorinn finished, “that we may actually have helped matters in the long term by waiting. We’re stronger, while Tir-Eron is in worse chaos than before, and therefore better primed for retaking. The problem is going to be toppling those in command without ourselves running afoul of other, lesser opposition, and getting tangled up in that. But I think we can manage that,” he concluded. “We make a pretty formidable team, all things considered, especially now that we’ve got more magic than we’ve ever had before.”

  “Which we need to use with extreme caution,” Avall warned. “There was a reason we sent the regalia away to start with. I’m willing to use it now—and Zeff’s new sword as well—which I guess should become yours for the present; The Eight know you’ve earned it—but after this. Well, I’ll decide after we resolve affairs in Tir-Eron.”

  “Before or after Sundeath?” Tryffon asked pointedly.

  “After we resolve affairs in Tir-Eron,” Avall repeated quietly, and said no more, though he knew Tryffon was referencing his oft-stated intention of ruling only until Sundeath, and then trying, very hard, to step down.

  “Now,” Avall continued through another yawn, “I think we’ve said as much as most people can digest as full of good food and wine as
we are, and so soon after a major battle. So what I’d suggest is that everyone disperse to quarters and take a bath—or a nap. Whatever you can manage. Let your squires, subchiefs, and seconds-in-command run things for a while; it’s what they’re supposed to do. We’ll reconvene at supper and hash out more of this then—and get what reports we can regarding hard points, like number of people who’ll be coming with us, number of prisoners and casualties, potential supply problems, and that sort of thing. And tomorrow—not at dawn—let’s say at noon; we all need to spoil ourselves a little—we ride out for Tir-Eron.”

  “For Tir-Eron!” everyone shouted, leaping to their feet. “Tir-Eron!”

  Avall watched them file out by ones and twos, until only Merryn, Rann, Lykkon, and Bingg remained, all of whom regarded him expectantly.

  He took a long draught from his glass of wine, filled it, and took another, savoring the vintage. “Merry,” he said at last, “something tells me that you’ve got a season’s worth of anger built up in you, and that that you didn’t get to do nearly as much fighting today as you would have liked. So how about you go find young Ahfinn and squeeze everything out of him you can—and I mean that literally, if you have to. It wasn’t Priest-Clan that tortured you during the war, but Ahfinn’s friends were in camp when Barrax did, and they could have helped you and they didn’t. Remind him that all the Ninth Face are legally traitors because of that. See what he says. It strikes me that Ahfinn likes information and the kind he likes best is the kind that keeps him alive.”

  Merryn grinned, rose, and managed the sketchiest of salutes before departing. Avall turned his gaze to Lykkon and Bingg. “Lyk,” he said, “your tent should still be here, but I doubt there’s much left in it that would be of use to you. Feel free to move in with me—you and Bingg both—until you’ve got your own gear like you want it. You might also want to keep an eye on Myx and Riff’s kit, since no one else will be around to do that and I’m sure they’ve got some keepsakes in their quarters.”