War Maid's Choice

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Latest Update: 2012/Jul/09 (21:47)

==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 01 <== toc ==> War Maid's Choice By David Weber Prologue Cables of blue-white lightning, tangled with knots of livid green, streaked down the ebon heavens, crashing to earth in a coruscating circle around the stupendous, many-turreted structure. The shortest of those turrets towered hundreds of feet above the endless, smooth pavement stretching away in every direction as far as any mortal eye might have seen, and the glare of lightning danced and glittered from the mirror smooth obsidian of which the enormous palace had been built. Or formed, perhaps. There were no tool marks, no lines between blocks of masonry, on that titanic façade, and the light -- such as it was -- that glowed from its narrow window slits was a pestilential green, less brilliant than the corruption of that lightning yet more sullen, more…poisonous. Fresh lightning hammered down, replenishing the glaring circle, feeding it, keeping it alive while thunder echoed and rolled and bellowed. Each braided strand lit the purple-bellied clouds from within, momentarily etching their swirling depths upon the eye, and strange, unclean shapes flew in those briefly illuminated deeps. One of those shapes plummeted from the clouds, sweeping lower, riding through the chinks of darkness between the lightning's pickets. Larger it grew, and larger, insectlike head armed with brutal pincers, enormous bat wings and mighty talons throwing back the glare of lightning until it seemed gilded in the eye- tearing fury of the seething heavens. At the very last moment it flared its wings and settled upon the balcony of the very highest turret, a thousand feet and more above the lightning-crowned pavement. The size of that obsidian palace dwarfed even its stature, and a rider stepped from its back to the balcony and disappeared within. More lightning sizzled and howled out of the darkness, smashing into the earth with redoubled ferocity, bolt following bolt, driving that circle of fury higher and brighter as if that flying shape's arrival had been a signal, and perhaps it had. * * * The throne room was impossibly vast. It couldn't possibly have been as large as it seemed, and yet it was. In some way no mortal could have described, it was vaster than whole worlds and yet small enough the purple-cloaked figure which swept into it could cross it in no more than a dozen strides, and a strange perfume -- sweet and seductive, yet undergird by the scent of something long dead -- drifted on its air. The newcomer ignored the six others who had been gathered there, awaiting his arrival. He stalked past them, ascending the high throne against the huge chamber's rear wall and seated himself, and the wan, green radiance which had filled the room flared abruptly higher and brighter as he sat. A nimbus of deadly green fire hissed above his hooded head, and balls of the same lurid radiance crackled into existence high overhead, dancing and swirling beneath the soaring, vaulted ceiling like lost galaxies trapped in the throne room's miasma of incense. Like the palace itself, the throne was a single, seamlessly extruded outcropping of obsidian, but this obsidian was veined with gold, and its surface glittered with diamonds, emeralds, and precious gems. The arms ended in carven demon's faces, each encrusted with more gold, more gems, and each held a mangled, dismembered body in its fangs. Rubies dripped from their jaws in glittering, lovingly detailed streams of blood, and a huge, haughty face looked down from the wall above the throne, etched across the stone in bas-relief and glittering with still more gold. As the figure seated upon the throne threw back the hood of his cloak, the face which was revealed matched that upon the wall. Phrobus Orfro, once the seventh son of Orr All-Father and Kontifrio, gazed down upon his chosen mate and their children, and his expression was not a happy one. "I wonder, sometimes, which of you is the least competent," he said abruptly. "The competition is so fierce I can't make up my mind between you." His voice was deep, beautifully modulated, yet something seemed to scream somewhere inside those resonant, perfectly articulated tones, and only one of the six beings gathered before him returned his glare levelly. Krashnark Phrofro stood with square shoulders, arms crossed, refusing to cringe, and Phrobus' eyes glittered. Yet he let the defiance -- if such it was -- pass. Krashnark was the strongest of his children, the only one who might have openly challenged his own position, but there was scant fear of that. Not from Krashnark. There was no lack of ambition or surfeit of mercy in his second son, and he was the most powerful of all of Phrobus children. Yet that strength was hobbled by his perverse, inner code of honor. He neither gave nor asked quarter, but his oath was unbreakable, which was why Phrobus felt no fear of Krashnark's rebellion, for he had sworn fealty to his father. It was unthinkable that he might raise his hand against Phrobus after swearing that oath…and none of the others, not even -- or perhaps especially -- Shigu would ever have dared. "All of you know the stakes for which we play," he continued, "yet none of you seems capable of accomplishing even the simplest task." "In fairness, Father," one of his other children said, raising her head and using one hand to draw glorious red hair back from her face to reveal pupil-less eyes as black as his throne's obsidian, "that isn't precisely correct. Things have gone…poorly in several universes. That's unfortunately true, but we've succeeded in others." Her voice was calm, respectful, yet pointed, and Phrobus gritted his teeth. Carnadosa was his youngest child, and although she'd been careful not to say it, many of those other successes had been her doing -- a point she obviously wasn't above making by not making it. Yet not even a god or a goddess could deal with all the possible alternative realities of every potential universe. There had to be some division of labor, and in all too many of those realities which Carnadosa -- and Krashnark -- had not overseen, Phrobus' plans had failed catastrophically. He could feel his other children's, and his wife's, hatred seething like the lightning outside his palace as they glared at Carnadosa for underlining their failures, yet they dared not speak. "Yes," he said after a moment. "We have succeeded in some, but we've failed in far too many others. We can afford no more losses, especially in those where victory had seemed within our grasp. Too much hangs on what happens there, which is the reason your accursed uncle is striving hard to snatch them back from us, yet none of you seem capable of stopping him. I've looked into the future, Carnadosa. If we fail to stop this slide of events in the Light's favor, if Tomanak's successes continue, our power -- the power of all of us -- may suffer catastrophic damage." He paused, letting the implications sink into all of his listeners. It wasn't as if they shouldn't have been able to figure out for themselves just how dire their situation might become, but sometimes they needed to be shaken by the scruff of their collective necks before they could step back from their plotting and mutual betrayals long enough to really think about the nature of their struggle with the Gods of Light. ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 02 He leaned back in his throne, glaring down at them, his own thoughts running back over the ages since his failed rebellion against his own father. It was his brother's fault, he told himself once more, thunder rolling outside the palace in echo of his inner rage. It had been Tomanak who'd rallied the others after the devastating surprise of Phrobus' initial attack. Tomanak who'd personally struck Phrobus down, taken his original name from him and given him the one he bore now. "Truth Bender," that was what his name meant, and in the depth of his defeat, he'd been unable to reject it when his brother fastened it upon him forever. Not even he now remembered what his name had once been, and he thought perhaps he hated Tomanak most of all for that. Yet much as he hated -- and feared -- Tomanak, he hated the myriad worlds of mortals even more. His attempt to seize Orr's power as his own had very nearly succeeded, but in the moment in which Tomanak ripped it back out of his grasp, that power had fractured, broken into more pieces than even a god could count. Worse, each of those pieces had taken on its own life, its own existence, and when that happened, the fates of all the gods had become captive to those insignificant, puny mites crawling about all of the worlds upon worlds which had spilled from the riven, shattered power he'd hungered to make his own. A new concept had come into existence in that moment -- the concept of time. The concept of a future…and an end. And not even the gods themselves were immune to it, able to ignore the endless, steady trickle of years sliding one after another into the maw of eternity. Yet worse still, far worse, was the intolerable discovery that those ephemeral mortals held his fate in their hands. In many ways, only the fragmenting of Orr's power had preserved Phrobus' own life, for there was no doubt what Tomanak would have done with him if only he could. But all of them were entrapped in the uncertain fate Phrobus had unwittingly, unintentionally, created. Orr himself had been diminished, weakened, stripped of his ability to command the tides of fate and left as captive to those capricious mortals as Phrobus himself. The restoration of his power was beyond his own reach, and neither the remaining Gods of Light nor Phrobus could repair it for him. It must heal itself in the fullness of that mortal creation -- time. But how would it heal itself? It had taken Phrobus centuries to realize the question could even be asked, for no one had ever considered the possibility that Orr's power could be shattered, and so no one had ever considered what might happen if it was. He knew how frustrated Tomanak was that the cataclysmic collision of so many potential alternate futures had prevented him from slaying him for his treachery, yet Tomanak had no choice. The death of a god, any god, would have released far too much additional power, poured far too much additional uncertainty into the shattered present and chaotic future of Orr's realm. And so Tomanak had been forced to let him live, let him leave the home from which he'd been cast for his crimes, let him carve out his own realm in the broken confusion of too many realities. And as he'd paced the confines of that lesser realm, contemplating the far vaster one he'd held so tantalizingly within his fingers, it had come to him. The entire universe -- the original, un-shattered universe, his father's great creation -- had broken with Orr's power. It was as if a glass had been dropped upon a stone floor, and the shattered bits and pieces had flown in every direction. It had been impossible for anyone, even a god, to predict where any of them might land, far less where all of them might end their bouncing journeys across the stone. Now they lay scattered, tumbled into confused windrows without rhyme or reason, separated from one another and yet longing on some deep, fundamental level to become whole once more. To become one once again. And as they lay, they could be gathered back up by the proper set of hands. They could be…reassembled, put back together, and the hands which put them back together would control what they became on the day that they were one once more. If he could reclaim them, gather enough of them together in the pattern of his choosing, he could remake them not as a reflection and restoration of Orr's power, but of his own. Of course, that infernal busybody Semkirk had reasoned it out before him, and his accursed brothers and sisters -- even that flighty fool Hirahim and that pathetic simpleton Sorbus -- had set themselves to restoring the broken bits and pieces themselves. But there was a catch. Those bits and pieces had minds of their own. They were…malleable. They could be shaped, convinced, seduced, even taken, but only from within. In the end, they would choose their own fates on the basis of their own decisions, and those choices -- and only those choices -- would decide whose hands they came into in the fullness of time. It was a race between him and his brothers and sisters, and so he'd taken to himself a wife and begotten children of his own to aid him in the struggle. Even with them, he was badly outnumbered, but not all of the Gods of Light were equally suited to the nature of the struggle between them. And the most ironic thing of all was that individual strength was of secondary importance, at best. They were forced to contend for each reality separately, individually, and the nature of the contest leveled the difference between their abilities. Any god could have destroyed any single fragment of that broken power, yet none of them knew how many fragments could be destroyed before the whole failed, and so none of them dared to destroy any of them. They must confront one another within the limits and constraints each individual mortal reality could endure, until that reality reached its tipping point and fell as the possession of the Light…or of the Dark. And in the fullness of time, enough of those individual realities would fall to one side to give that side possession of them all. Which meant, that despite his failure all those ages ago, Phrobus might yet win all he'd sought. But that could happen only if those mortals he loathed with all his being -- loathed because they ultimately held his fate in their hands -- gave him that victory. Fortunately, only a tiny fraction of them realized the prize for which the gods truly contended, and their puny lifespans made most of them shortsighted and easily duped. Many of them could scarcely wait to give themselves to him and to his children, and his hatred for them only made the taste of their souls still sweeter. Yet not all of them were blind, not all were easily seduced. Their resistance to the Dark ran through their realities like ribs of steel, and some of them…oh, yes, some of them were far more dangerous than others. "All of you know how much Tomanak has poured into Orfressa," he said now. "All of you know how many possible outcomes run through that single cable of universes." ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 03 His eyes burned even hotter as he glared at them, his anger smoking in the air as he contemplated how close they'd come to victory, to seeing that reality -- all the facets of that reality -- safely locked into their possession twelve hundred of the mortals' years ago, only to have it slip through their fingers at the last moment. It lay now like a strand of fire wrapped in shadow, its central core surrounded by the penumbra of all its potentialities, not quite within his grasp, not quite beyond it, and the long wait to determine the side to which it must ultimately fall burned in his bones like slow poison. To be sure, centuries were but the blinks of an eye to one such as himself. Or they should have been, at least…had he been one bit less aware of the galling chains the mortal concept of "time" had set upon him. "Father, the advantage is still ours," another voice said. "No one in all of Norfressa -- except, perhaps, Wencit -- even imagines what's preparing in Kontovar. Surely --" "Don't speak to me of 'surely,' Fiendark!" Phrobus snapped, turning the full power of his glare upon his eldest son. "There was a time when Orr's power was 'surely' mine! And I tell you that I've looked long and hard into the future of this reality and all those spinning from it, and I see confusion. I see uncertainty. And I see threads of Tomanak's weaving that lead to places I cannot see. Places where this reality -- all of these realities, and all the myriad others which might spring from them yet -- fall from our hands into his unless we cut those threads of his, and do it quickly." "But how, Father?" Carnadosa asked. "As Fiendark says, the advantage is still clearly ours, and Tomanak can no more act openly in Orfressa than we can. So how can those threads of his snatch it away from us now?" "The answer to that lies in those places beyond my vision." Phrobus growled his reply, and Carnadosa frowned as the thunder outside the palace rolled darker and louder. Her father was stronger than any of them, and his ability to see the strands of future and past was greater. Yet there were limits even for him, for no one could predict what future any given reality would experience. There were too many variables, too many uncertainties, and until an event actually occurred, all possible outcomes of that event were equally valid, equally possible. Some were more likely than others, and outcomes became increasingly more likely -- or unlikely -- as a reality approached that particular event. Yet that uncertainty meant no one could predict precisely what would happen, or exactly how it would come about, and that, too, was the fault of those maddening, unpredictable mortals. Still… "But it continues to depend upon Bahzell, doesn't it?" she asked. Her father glared at her, and she bent her head slightly. "I ask because that's my own reading of this reality, Father. If yours is different…?" She let her voice trail off on a questioning note, fading into the rolling peals of distant thunder, and her father glared at her. Yet the question lingered, requiring answer. "Yes," Phrobus replied after a fulminating moment. "Bahzell is the key, but perhaps not precisely as you think. It revolves about Bahzell; yet there are so many elements in play, and Tomanak has worked so skillfully to confuse the possibilities, that I truly can't say it depends upon him. Still, certain aspects are clear enough, aren't they? The Hradani are supposed to be our tools, not Tomanak's. They and the Sothoii are supposed to be at one another's throats, not allies, and these accursed 'war maids' are an entirely new ingredient. Whatever else may be happening, Tomanak and his meddling 'champions' are in the process of creating a fundamental realignment which threatens all our future plans for that reality, and Bahzell is the catalyst that brought all of them together." "I would never question your analysis, Father," Fiendark said, his voice an alloy of obsequiousness and arrogance, "yet it seems unlikely to me that anything Tomanak might accomplish where the Hradani and Sothoii are concerned could truly threaten our ultimate plans." "You think not?" Phrobus returned his attention to Fiendark. For better or worse, Fiendark was his senior deputy, yet there were times when his son's delight in destruction for destruction's sake got in the way of more…constructive approaches to a problem. He was too likely sometimes to think in terms of simply destroying an opponent to look for more subtle opportunities…or threats. "I admit what I have seen shows it could be highly inconvenient," Fiendark replied now. "Their efforts might make our task more difficult, yet what if it does? In the end, the destruction will only grow greater and even more complete as their resistance delays their final defeat, and that can only serve our own ends." "That might seem reasonable enough," Phrobus conceded after a moment. "But Tomanak's invested too much in the effort for me to simply assume it to be true, and I don't like those threads I can't see. No. We will assume nothing, and we will bring this Bahzell Bahnakson and all those other threads which revolve about him to nothing. Am I understood?" Heads nodded around the throne as fresh thunder exploded outside the palace to underscore his question. "Good," he said with a thin smile. But his smile was only fleeting, and a frown replaced it as he gazed at Carnadosa thoughtfully. Of all his children, she was the most subtle. Indeed, there were times when even he sometimes wondered exactly what game she might be playing. And, whether he chose to admit it or not, she was the one who most worried him. Not because he thought she was actively plotting to supplant him, but because if she ever did decide to overthrow him as he'd attempted to overthrow his own father, she was the one most likely to succeed. She was unimpressed with the taste for cruelty which infused Sharna, just as she disdained Krahana's hunger and Fiendark's lust for destruction. But neither did she have any use for Krashnark's perverse sense of honor. Pragmatism was all that mattered to her, and she was a past mistress of the indirect approach. Very few of her victims ever even suspected her presence until she pounced from the shadows. Yet she was also capable of direct -- very direct -- action when it seemed called for, and her status as the patron of dark wizardry and knowledge made her followers a force to be reckoned with in any mortal reality. It was possible -- indeed, probable, given the outcome -- he should have given her primary responsibility for the last attempt to disrupt Tomanak's plans for this Bahzell Bahnakson, whatever those plans might be. He'd chosen not to because it had seemed a case in which wizardry couldn't be openly utilized -- not yet, at least. And, he admitted, because Shigu had been so insistent on doing it her way. But now his options were limited. Sharna and Shigu had both been badly damaged in their recent confrontations with Tomanak and his accursed champions, and it would be mortal decades yet before even Krahana fully recovered. ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 04 There were times Phrobus was forced to admit there were at least some advantages to the fashion in which Tomanak and the other Gods of Light interacted with mortals. Their insistence that their "champions" had to give their allegiance knowingly, aware of the implications of their choices, made it far more difficult for them to enlist followers, and their refusal to simply enter into those champions and turn them into avatars limited their freedom of action. Seduction and corruption made recruitment far simpler for the Dark Gods, especially for mortals too foolish to suspect what their ultimate fate would be, and far more could be accomplished by turning those strong enough to bear the touch of godhood without being instantly destroyed into mere appendages. Not every mortal was strong enough, by any means, to be turned into an avatar, but those who were became conduits and anchors -- doorways (so long as they lasted), through which their masters and mistresses could reach directly into the reality of mortals at will. But Tomanak and his fellows' refusal to suborn the wills of mortals meant they could act in the mortal world only when they were allowed to -- when they were invited to -- by those who'd chosen to serve them. And their refusal to burn out their servants limited the total amount of their own power and presence with which they could invest them. No mortal could long survive the direct embrace of godhood, even when the god in question sought to protect him, and so the Gods of Light treated their champions with silk gloves. They gave only so much of their power as their servants could channel, and in the process they surrendered control of what their champions did with that power. No Dark God would give up that control, nor would one of them worry himself unduly over the fate of one of his servants. Avatars existed to be used, after all, even if they tended to be…consumed quickly. Replacing them could be inconvenient, yet that was acceptable, because while they lasted, they gave their masters direct access to their own reality, and there were always others who could be recruited to replace them afterward. Yet there was a disadvantage to that, as well, as Sharna and Shigu had both discovered. It was one thing for a god to decide to withdraw his power from an avatar in an orderly fashion; it was quite another when that avatar was destroyed before he could withdraw. When that happened, the power, the fragment of his own essence, which had been poured into his mortal tool was lost with the avatar. Worse, it left him temporarily maimed, unable to reach back into that particular reality until the strength he'd lost regenerated itself once more, and that was precisely what had happened to Sharna and Shigu. Sharna had largely recovered from the damage he'd taken when Bahzell slew Harnak Churnazhson, but he'd been foolish enough to invest even more of his essence in the sword with which he'd armed Harnak. He'd seen that as a way to ensure Harnak's victory and avoid his avatar's destruction, but it hadn't worked out that way, and the sword touched by his essence now lay at the bottom of the sea. It would be centuries before he recovered from that, and until he did -- or until the sword could be recovered from Korthrala's keeping and returned to him -- he had no personal access to that reality. Phrobus knew his son well enough to feel confident Sharna was far from brokenhearted by the knowledge that he couldn't have faced Bahzell and Tomanak in personal combat once more even if he'd wanted to…which he most definitely did not. Shigu had managed not to leave any of her being lying around in cursed weapons, but she'd never been noted for her rationality, and she'd poured herself wildly and recklessly into her avatar when she confronted Dame Kaeritha Seldansdaughter. Indeed, she would have emptied even more of herself into her tool, even at the risk of completely destroying that reality, had Tomanak not blocked her. Given the possible consequences of any universe's destruction, it was as well Tomanak had, but that same block had prevented her from withdrawing any of the power she'd invested, and her avatar's destruction had cost her even more dearly than Prince Harnak's death had cost Sharna. Krahana -- wiser than her brother and saner than her mother -- had committed her most powerful servants to the attack on Bahzell Bahnakson, but she'd declined to face him directly through an avatar of her own. As a result, she continued to have access to Bahzell's reality, but her resources there had been seriously curtailed. Until she could recruit or breed new servants powerful enough to replace those she'd lost, her capabilities would be only a shadow of what they had been. And Fiendark had too many other responsibilities elsewhere (and was too fond of sheer destruction to be trusted with this task, anyway), which left only Carnadosa…and perhaps Krashnark. "I think this has become a task for you, Carnadosa," he said finally. Her expression never changed, but her obsidian eyes glittered as she contemplated the possibilities. She'd been involved only peripherally in the last attempt, as the coordinator and link between Shigu and Krahana, and her mortal servants had been wise enough to remain safely in the shadows rather than confront Tomanak's champions directly. More than that, she was unique among the Dark Gods in that she practically never used avatars of her own. Her wizard followers were usually quite powerful enough for her ends, and she had no desire at all to see her power diminished if a confrontation with one of the Light's champions went poorly. Giving her primary responsibility in this instance would increase the odds that she would be forced to confront Tomanak or one of the others openly, whether she wished to or not, and it would definitely raise the probability that sorcery would be used openly sooner than Phrobus could have wished. She was too canny and too well informed not to recognize at least some of the potential consequences of reintroducing the arcane into the long, simmering conflict between Norfressa and Kontovar too soon, yet if she succeeded where Sharna, Shigu, and Krahana had all failed, that entire reality would become her personal possession, and all the power generated by every mortal living in it would be added to her own. "Obviously, our original strategy failed miserably," he continued. "You have a free hand to formulate your own approach to the problem, although I want nothing done without my approval. We've failed twice already; I refuse to fail a third time. And because I refuse to fail yet again, Krashnark will assist you." A flicker of disappointment showed in her eyes as she contemplated being forced to share the spoils of victory with her brother, but she was too wise to protest. And too wise not to recognize what a powerful ally Krashnark could be, as well. "I understand, Father," she said, bending her head. "I'm sure you do." Phrobus sat back in his throne once more, listening to the crash and bellow of the thunder, and his eyes were hard. "I'm sure you do," he repeated.

==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 05 <== toc ==> War Maid's Choice By David Weber Chapter One "I always love watching this part," Brandark Brandarkson, of the Bloody Sword hradani, murmured from behind his hand. He and Bahzell Bahnakson stood in an enormous lantern-lit tunnel, surrounded by what anyone would have had to call "an unlikely crowd." He and Bahzell were its only hradani members, and Bahzell was a Horse Stealer of Clan Iron Axe, which had been the Bloody Swords' fiercest rival for generations. In fact, he wasn't just "a" Horse Stealer; he was the youngest son of Prince Bahnak Karathson, ruler of the Northern Confederation of Hradani…who'd conquered the Bloody Sword little more than six years ago. As if that pairing weren't bad enough, there were the dozen or so dwarves, a matching number of humans, and the huge roan stallion behind Bahzell. Up until a very few years ago, the possibility of that eclectic blend being gathered in one place without swordplay, bloodshed, and mayhem would have been ridiculous. And the fact that all of the humans in question were Sothoii, the bitter traditional enemies of all hradani, Horse Stealers and Bloody Swords alike, would only have made it even more unlikely. Of course, Brandark was a pretty unlikely sight all by himself. Very few Norfressans would have been prepared to behold a six-foot, two-inch hradani dressed in the very height of foppish fashion, from his embroidered silken doublet to his brilliantly shined riding boots -- black, with tasteful silver tassels -- and the long feather adorning the soft cloth cap adjusted to the perfect rakish angle on his head. The balalaika slung across his back would only have completed their stupefaction. His towering companion, who was well over a foot and a half taller than he, was an almost equally unlikely sight, although in a very different way. Bahzell wore finely wrought chain mail and a polished steel breastplate, and instead of a balalaika, he carried a two-handed sword with a five-foot blade across his back. Aside from his size (which was enormous, even for a Horse Stealer) and the high quality of his gear, his martial appearance would have suited the stereotype of a hradani far better than Brandark's sartorial splendor…if not for his green surcoat, badged with the crossed mace and sword of Tomanak Orfressa. The notion of a hradani champion of Tomanak wasn't something the average Norfressan could be expected to wrap his mind around easily, and the roan courser watching alertly over his shoulder made it even worse. After all, if there was one being in all of Norfressa who could be counted upon to hate hradani even more than two-legged Sothoii did, it had to be a Sothoii courser. "Shhhhh!" one of the dwarves scolded, turning to glare at Brandark. "If you distract her now, I'm going to have Walsharno step on you!" "You don't scare me," Brandark retorted (albeit in an even softer tone), grinning down at him. Sermandahknarthas zoi'Harkanath was three times Brandark's age and the senior engineer on what had been dubbed the Gullet Tunnel, but he was also barely two thirds as tall as the Bloody Sword and his head barely topped Bahzell's belt buckle. "Walsharno likes me. He won't step on me without a lot better reason than your petty irritation!" The colossal stallion -- he stood over eight feet tall at the shoulder -- tilted his head, ears cocked thoughtfully. Then he reached out and shoved Brandark between the shoulder blades with his nose. Despite his dandified appearance, the hradani was a solid, thick-boned plug of muscle and gristle, with shoulders so broad he looked almost squat, in spite of his height. He easily weighed two hundred and fifty pounds, none of it fat, and no one would have called him an easily brushed aside lightweight. But the stallion weighed over two tons, and Brandark staggered forward under the "gentle" push. He turned to look over his shoulder, his expression betrayed, and Bahzell laughed. "Walsharno says as how he'll always have a 'better reason' when it comes to stepping on such as you, little man," he rumbled in an earthquake bass. "Mind, I think he's after exaggerating a wee bit…but not so much as all that." "Will the both of you please be quiet?" Serman demanded. "This is a very ticklish moment and --" "Yes, it is," a female voice agreed tartly. "And I would be grateful if all three of you could manage to keep your mouths shut for fifteen seconds at a time! Unless you'd like the next section of this tunnel to go straight down…and begin directly underneath you!" Serman closed his mouth with an almost audible click, and Bahzell chuckled softly. It was a very soft chuckle, however. He didn't really think Chanharsadahknarthi zoihan'Harkanath would suddenly open a yawning pit under his feet, but he was in no tearing hurry to test the theory. Besides, she had a point. Brandark contented himself with one last glower at Walsharno -- who only curled his lips to show his teeth and shook his head in very horselike, mane-flipping amusement -- then crossed his arms and concentrated on looking martyred. It wasn't a very convincing performance, especially given his obvious interest in what was about to happen, and Bahzell smiled and patted Walsharno's shoulder as he watched his friend's long nose almost quiver in fascination. Quiet fell. It wasn't really a silence, for the shouts and sounds of construction gangs came up the steadily climbing tunnel from behind them, but those noises were distant. In a way, they only made the quiet even more profound, and Chanharsa closed her eyes once more. Her hands were outstretched, palms pressed flat against the smooth, vertical wall at the end of the tunnel, and she leaned forward, resting her forehead between them. She stood that way for several minutes, her posture relaxed, yet the others could literally feel the concentration pouring off of her. It wasn't the first time Bahzell had watched this same scene, but the dwarvish art of sarthnaiskarmanthar was seldom seen outside the dwarves' subterranean cities, and like Brandark, he found it endlessly fascinating. Sarthnaiskarmanthar was the talent which truly set dwarves off from the other Races of Man and allowed them to undertake their monumental engineering projects, and they guarded their sarthnaisks (the word translated roughly as "stone herds" or "stone shepherds") like the priceless treasures they were. There'd been occasions, especially during the dark and dreadful days of the Fall of Kontovar, when enslaved sarthnaisks had been valued by their captors above almost all other prisoners…and all too often driven until their talent consumed them. The dwarves had sworn that would never happen again, and any sarthnaisk was always accompanied by his personal armsman on any trip beyond the safe caverns of his -- or, in this case, her -- home city. Chanharsa, on the other hand, was accompanied by eight armsmen, and another sixteen waited at the tunnel's entrance for her return. It was an impressive display of security, but Chanharsadahknarthi zoihan'Harkanath wasn't just "any" sarthnaisk. According to Serman, the tunnel's chief engineer, she was the strongest sarthnaisk Dwarvenhame had seen in at least two generations (which Bahzell, having seen her work, readily believed), not to mention a blood kinswoman of Kilthandahknarthas dihna'Harkanath, the head of Clan Harkanath. It would be…unfortunate if anything were to happen to Lady Chanharsa. At the moment, the diminutive sarthnaisk (she was well under four feet in height) didn't really look all that impressive. In fact, she didn't look as if she was doing anything more than simply leaning against the rock, but Bahzell knew how hard she was actually concentrating as she extended her senses, using her talent to run immaterial fingers through the solid stone in front of her. She was feeling fault lines, sampling quartz and rock, tasting the elusive flavor of minerals, metal ores, and water. He also understood exactly why sarthnaiskarmanthar fascinated the keenly inquiring scholar who lived inside Brandark, but unlike his Bloody Sword friend, Bahzell understood what Chanharsa was doing, just as he understood why she could never truly explain it to Brandark or anyone who didn't possess the same talent. Or one very like it, at any rate. ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 06 As it happened, Bahzell did possess a similar talent. He had no ability to taste or shape stone, but he was a champion of Tomanak, and the war god gifted his champions with the ability to heal. Yet not all of them were equally skilled as healers, for it was an ability which depended on the clarity with which the individual champion could open his mind to an injury or illness and truly believe he could do anything about it. It depended upon his ability to understand that damage, to accept it in all its often ghastly reality, and then to not only overlay his mental "map" of that damage with a vision of health but actually impose that vision upon the injury. To open himself as a channel or conduit between his deity and the mortal world and use that conduit -- or allow it to use him, perhaps -- to make that internal, personal image of restored well-being and vitality the reality. It all sounded simple enough, yet words could describe only the what, not the how of accomplishing it, and it was extraordinarily difficult to actually do. Sarthnaiskarmanthar functioned in a similar fashion, although according to Wencit of Rum (who certainly ought to know) a sarthnaisk's work was at least a little simpler because living creatures were in a constant state of change as blood pumped through their veins and oxygen flowed in and out of their lungs. Stone was in a constant state of change, as well, but it was a far slower and more gradual change, a process of ages and eons, not minute-to-minute or even second-to-second transformations. It didn't clamor and try to distract the way living bone and tissue did as the sarthnaisk formed the detailed mental image of what he intended to impose upon the stone's reality. Of course, stone was also more resistant to change, but that was where his training came in. Like a skilled mishuk martial artist, the sarthnaisk used balance and precision and focus against the monolithic resistance of stone and earth. He found the points within the existing matrix where a tiny push, a slight shift, began the process of change and put all the weight of the stone itself behind it, like deep mountain snow sliding down to drive boulders and shattered trees before it. The trick was to stay in control, to shape the avalanche, to fit that instant of total plasticity to the sarthnaisk's vision, and steering an avalanche was always a…challenging proposition. He smiled at the thought, and then his eyes narrowed and his foxlike ears folded back slightly as Chanharsa drew a deep, deep breath. Her shoulders rose as she filled her lungs, and then the stone changed. Bahzell had seen her do this over a dozen times now, yet he still couldn't quite force what he saw to make sense. It wasn't that it happened too quickly for the eye to see, although that was what he'd thought the first time he'd watched it. No, the problem was that the eye wasn't intended to see it. Or perhaps that the mind hadn't been designed to understand it…or accept it. The smooth, flat wall of stone flowed like smoke under Chanharsa's palms, yet it was a solid smoke, a surface which continued to support her weight as she leaned even harder against it. A glow streamed out from her hands, spreading across the entire face of stone in a bright web of light, pulsing in time with her heartbeat, and that glow -- that web -- flowed away from her, sinking deeper and deeper into the smoky rock. In some way Bahzell would never be able to explain, he could see the glow stretching away from them, probing out through hundreds of cubic yards of stone and earth. He couldn't estimate how far into the rock he could "see," but the glow grew dimmer as it moved farther and farther away from him. A minute slipped past. Then another. Three of them. And then -- Chanharsadahknarthi zoihan'Harkanath staggered ever so slightly as the stone under her hands vanished, and an abrupt, cool fist of breeze flowed over them from behind as air rushed up the tunnel to fill the suddenly created cavity before her. Her shoulders sagged, and one of her armsmen stepped forward quickly, taking her elbow and supporting her until she could regain her balance. She leaned against him for a moment, then inhaled again and shook her head, pushing herself back upright, and Bahzell heard a mutter of awe from the spectators…most of whom had seen her do exactly the same thing at least as often as he had. On the other hand, it wasn't something a man got used to seeing. The tunnel had suddenly grown at least sixty yards longer. The tunnel roof was thirty feet above its floor, and the tunnel walls were sixty-five feet apart, wide enough for three heavy freight wagons to pass abreast. Its sloped floor was ballroom smooth yet textured to give feet or hooves solid traction, and two square-cut channels -- six feet deep and two feet wide -- ran the tunnel's full length, fifteen feet out from each wall. Every angle and surface was perfectly, precisely cut and shaped…and glossy smooth, gleaming as if they'd been hand polished, without a single tool mark anywhere. The new tunnel section had freed a sizable spring on its southern wall and water foamed and rushed from it like a fountain, but Chanharsa had allowed for that. Another, shorter channel had been cut across the tunnel floor, crossing the first two at right angles, this one deep enough that none of the newborn stream's water escaped into the first two as it flooded into its new bed and sent a wave front flowing across the tunnel to plunge gurgling and rushing into an opening in the northern wall. Two broad, gently arched bridges crossed the sudden musical chuckle of water -- not built, but simply formed, as strong and immovably solid as the rock around them -- and sunlight probed down from above through the air shaft piercing the tunnel roof. That shaft was two feet in diameter and over eighty feet deep, and patterns of reflected sunlight from the stream danced across the smooth stone walls. "Well, I see I managed to get it mostly right despite all that distracting chatter going on behind me," Chanharsa observed, turning to give the hradani her best glare. It was, Bahzell admitted, quite a good glare, considering that it was coming from someone less than half his own height. It wasn't remotely as potent as the one Kilthan could have produced, but she was twenty-five years younger than Serman, which made her less than half Kilthan's age. In another fifty years or so, possibly even as little as thirty or forty, he was sure she'd be able to match the panache Kilthan could put into the same expression. "And it's not surprised I am, at all," he assured her with a broad smile. "For such a wee, tiny thing you've quite a way with rock." "Which means I ought to have 'quite a way' with hradani brains, doesn't it?" she observed affably, and his smile turned into a laugh. "You've a way to go still before you match old Kilthan, but I see you've the talent for it," he said. "I'm thinking it needs a bit more curl to the upper lip and the eyes a mite narrower, though, wouldn't you say, Brandark?" "No, I most definitely wouldn't say," the Bloody Sword told him promptly. "I'm in enough trouble with her already." Several people laughed, although at least one of Chanharsa's armsmen looked less than amused by the hradani's levity. Chanharsa only grinned. Despite the many differences between them, hradani and dwarves were very much alike in at least one respect. Their womenfolk enjoyed a far higher degree of freedom and equality -- license, some might have called it -- than those of the other Races of Man. Besides, Bahzell and Brandark were friends of the family. "Uncle Kilthan always said you were smarter than you looked, Brandark," she said now. "Of course, being smarter than you look isn't that much of an accomplishment, is it?" She smiled sweetly. "Why is it that he's the one who insulted your ability to glare properly and I'm the one who's getting whacked?" The Bloody Sword's tone was aggrieved and he did his level best to look hurt. "Because the world is full of injustice," she told him. ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 07 The sarthnaisk gave her armsman's shoulder a pat, then walked to the edge of the bridged channel and gazed down into the rushing water. Despite the tartness of her exchange with the two hradani, a curiously serene sense of joy seemed to fill the air about her, and Bahzell stepped up beside her. He understood that serenity; he felt something very like it every time he was privileged to heal, and he let one enormous hand rest very gently on her shoulder as he inhaled the damp, fresh breath of moisture rising from the boistrous stream. "It's a fine piece of work you've done," he told her. "And it's grateful I am for your help. And for Kilthan's, of course." "I suppose it's a bit undutiful of me to point out that Uncle Kilthan -- and the rest of Silver Cavern -- is going to be minting money when this little project is completed," she replied dryly, but her hand rose to touch his gently as she spoke. "Aye," he acknowledged. "And so are my folk and Tellian's. Which isn't to say as how I'm any less grateful for it." "Well, I imagine you've accomplished the odd little job or two to deserve it. That's what Uncle Kilthan said when he proposed this whole notion to the clan elders, anyway. Along with pointing out the fact that the clan was going to make fairly obscene amounts of profit, even by our standards, in the long haul, of course." She shook her head. "It's amazing how successful that second argument usually is with our folk." She looked up at him, and the topaz eyes she shared with her uncle gleamed wickedly in the sunlight pouring through the air shaft. Of course, Kilthan wasn't actually her uncle, Bahzell reminded himself. Only a dwarf could possibly keep all of the intricacies of their family structures and clan relationships straight. Serman really was Kilthan's nephew, the son of his younger sister, but the exact nature of Chanharsa's relationship with Clan Harkanath's head was rather more complicated than that. In fact, Bahzell didn't have a clue what it truly was, although the fact that she was "dahknarthi" rather than "alknarthi" indicated that it was a blood relationship, rather than solely one by marriage, as did those eyes. And dwarves understood that proper explanations of consanguinity, collateral family lines, and connections by marriage quickly caused the eyes of the other Races of Man to glaze over, which made "uncle" or "aunt" -- or the even more splendidly ambiguous "kinsman" -- perfectly acceptable (if scandalously imprecise) substitutes. "Aye, and money's not so bad an argument where my folk are concerned, come to that," he acknowledged. "Not that there's not those amongst us as would still prefer to be plundering those trade caravans like good, honest hradani! Still and all, I'm thinking my Da's in a fair way to convincing them to change their ways." "True," Brandark said, stepping up on Chanharsa's other side. "I find it sad, somehow, to see so many good, unwashed barbarian Horse Stealers succumbing to the sweet sound of kormaks falling into their purses." He heaved a huge sigh. "Such decadence. Why, the next thing I know, they're all going to be taking baths!" "Just you be keeping it up, little man," Bahzell rumbled. "I've no need to ask Walsharno to be stepping on you, and I'm thinking as how you'd be getting a bath of your own -- aye, and making a fine dam -- if I was after shoving your head into that drain hole yonder." "Speaking of drains," the Bloody Sword said brightly, pointedly not glancing at Bahzell as he looked down at Chanharsa, "where does that one come out?" "Into the Gullet, like the others." She shrugged. "By the time we're done, we'll probably have a river, or at least a fairly substantial stream, flowing back down it again. Year-round, I mean, not just whenever the snow melts up on the Wind Plain." Brandark nodded, but his expression was thoughtful. They'd gotten farther and farther away from the narrow chasm which twisted down the towering height of the Escarpment from Glanharrow to the hradani city state of Hurgrum. The Balthar River had once flowed through that channel, before a massive earthquake had diverted it, long, long ago. That diversion had created The Bogs, as the vast, swampy area along the West Riding's border with the South Riding were called, when it pushed the diminished Balthar to the north and cut it off from the tributary which had drained them into the Hangnysti, below the Escarpment. The Gullet remained, however, still snaking its own broken-back way to the Hangnysti, which made it a natural place to dispose of any water that turned up in the course of boring the tunnel through the Escarpment. By now, though, the head of the tunnel was the better part of a mile from the Gullet, and he rubbed the tip of his truncated left ear as he cocked an eyebrow at her. "I thought you could only do this sort of thing" -- he waved at the newly created length of tunnel -- "a few dozen yards at a time," he observed. "Most sarthnaisks could only do 'this sort of thing' a few dozen feet at a time," she corrected him tartly. She gave him a sharp look for good measure, then shrugged. "Still, I take your point. But cutting a drainage channel is a lot simpler and more straightforward than cutting the tunnel itself. Each section of the tunnel is new and unique, and that requires a lot of concentration and focus, but I've made scores -- probably even hundreds -- of simple culverts and drainage systems. By now, it's almost more reflex than thought to throw one in whenever I need it, and it's even simpler than usual in this case. It's mostly just a matter of visualizing a straight line with the proper downslope, and I just…tell it which direction to go and what to do when it gets there." She shrugged again. "I'm sorry, Brandark. I know you're still trying to figure out how I do it, and I wish I could explain it better, but there it is." "Unsatisfied curiosity is my lot in life," he told her with a smile. "Well, that and following Bahzell around from one scrape to another." He shook his head. "It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it. Hirahim only knows what would happen to him if I weren't there to pull him out again!" "A fine dam, I'm thinking," Bahzell murmured, and Chanharsa laughed. "You two deserve each other," she declared. "I, on the other hand, deserve a glass of good wine and a hot bath for my labors." "And so you do," Bahzell agreed as Walsharno came over to join them. Coursers, by and large, were only mildly curious about how the Races of Man, with the clever hands they themselves had been denied, accomplished all the things they seemed to find with which to occupy themselves. Those of them who bonded with human -- or, in one highly unusual case, with hradani -- riders tended to be more curious than others, but even Walsharno was more interested in results than processes. He looked down into the flowing water for a moment, then turned his head to Bahzell. The Horse Stealer looked back at him, listening to a voice only he could hear, then nodded. "Walsharno's a suggestion," he told Chanharsa. "He does?" "Aye," Bahzell said simply, and then he picked her up like an infant and set her neatly on Walsharno's saddle. The sarthnaisk gave a little squeak of astonishment and clutched at the saddle horn as she suddenly found herself perched more than twice her own height above the tunnel floor. A saddle sized for someone of Bahzell's dimensions was a very substantial seat for someone her size, however. In fact, it was almost large enough to serve her as a sofa as she sat sidesaddle on the courser's back. The armsman who'd frowned at her exchange with the hradani took a quick step towards them, then stopped as Chanharsa relaxed and her face blossomed into a huge smile. However happy she might have been, he obviously wasn't at all pleased about having his charge on the back of such a monstrously tall mount. Even a small horse was huge for a dwarf, and a courser was anything but small. On the other hand, very few people were foolish enough to argue with a courser…and the coursers honored even fewer people by agreeing to bear them. "I'd not be fretting about it too much," Bahzell told the armsman with a sympathetic smile. "Walsharno's not one for letting folk fall off his back. Why, look at what he's put up with from me! And your lady's the right of it; she is after deserving that hot bath of hers, so what say we be getting her to it?"

==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 08 <== toc ==> War Maid's Choice By David Weber Chapter Two "Nobody better get between me and the hot tub tonight. That's all I've got to say." Garlahna Lorhanalfressa wiped sweat from her forehead with one muddy hand and glowered up at the sun. "Or the cold tub, either." "Oh?" Erlis Rahnafressa glanced across at her. "And just what makes you think you get priority over me? I believe the phrase is 'Rank hath its privileges.'" The commander of three hundred was a tough, sturdy looking woman, almost twice Garlahana's age. Her fair hair was lightly streaked with gray, and she possessed an interesting collection of scars and only one arm. She was also the second in command of the Kalatha City Guard, and her brown eyes missed very little, even when they gleamed with amusement. "Besides," she continued, "my bones, not to mention other portions of my anatomy, are older than yours. They're going to need longer to soak, and you uppity youngsters have to learn to respect your elders." "Goddess!" Garlahna shook her head. "I can't believe you're actually going to stand there -- well, sit there, I suppose -- and pile two platitudes on me at a time!" "That's 'two platitudes at a time, Ma'am,'" Erlis said. Military duty was the only place war maids used that particular form of address with one another, and the three hundred's smile grew broader as Garlahana rolled her eyes. "And we only get to argue about it if we win. Not that there's going to be any argument, of course." "Tyrant," Garlahna muttered. "War maids are supposed to be free of this sort of petty oppression. It says so right in our charter." "That's free of petty male oppression," Erlis pointed out. "Now watch your flank. I don't think Leeana's going to give up just because she missed us back at Thalar, do you?" Garlahna stuck out her tongue, but she also turned her attention obediently back to the left flank of the small column making its way across the rolling grasslands of the Wardenship of Lorham towards the free town of Kalatha. It didn't occur to her to think about the fact that that sort of exchange between a lowly commander of twenty and a commander of three hundred -- the equivalent of a very junior lieutenant or a very senior noncom and a major in the Empire of the Axe -- would never have been tolerated in most military organizations. She was aware that other armies put far more emphasis on things like saluting and standing at attention and titles of rank, but the awareness was purely intellectual and such antics left her with a sense of bemused semi-tolerance rather than any desire to emulate them, for war maids had little use for the sort of formality which infused those other armies. Most of them regarded the aristocratic, birth-based power structure of their own birth society with outright contempt, and the spit and polish of standing armies like those of the Empire of the Axe and the Empire of the Spear filled them with amusement. Their own warriors were trained to operate as light infantry -- scouts, skirmishers, and guerillas -- and they valued initiative and ingenuity far more than unthinking obedience to orders. War maid officers came in all flavors and varieties, of course, but martinets were few and far between. Discipline was always maintained, yet that discipline rested upon an esprit de corps which didn't require formality, which had led more than one of their adversaries into underestimating them…with fatal consequences. Unfortunately, there'd been quite a few of those adversaries over the years, given the disapproval with which Sothoii society regarded them, and there were those who wouldn't have hesitated for a moment to rob them. Some of those people would actually have felt a sense of virtuous justification at punishing such an uppity and unnatural bunch of women, if they could only figure out how to get away with it, which was the main reason Garlahan and her six-woman detachment were out here sweltering in the heat. Erlis, on the other hand, was just a bit senior for this sort of nonsense. The three hundred would normally have let Garlahana get on with her routine task without looking over her shoulder this way, but she'd had business of her own in Thalar, so she'd decided to come along and turn the trip into a training exercise. Not that anyone was taking the trip lightly. "Routine" was quite a different thing from "unimportant," and the two large wagons at the heart of the formation were piled high with supplies and raw materials for Kalatha's craftswomen, especially for Theretha, the town glassblower. Garlahana didn't know exactly how much their contents were worth, but the weight of the purse Erlis had turned over to their agent in Thalar had been impressive, and the wagons were heavily laden enough to be an unmitigated pain in the arse. That would probably have been true under any circumstances, but the condition of the road didn't help a bit. The muddy track (even Sothoii notions of a "highway" would have made an Axeman engineer cringe, and this ribbon of muck was little better than a country lane) ran between tall walls of prairie grass. The good news was that it was still early enough in the summer that the grass hadn't had time to turn into the sort of sun-dried tinder which all too often flared into rolling walls of flame later in the year. The bad news was that there was absolutely no wind today and the rains of spring, while nourishing the grass quite nicely, had not only turned the road into a quagmire which seemed bottomless in spots but stoked a humidity that turned the grass-hemmed roadbed into a steam bath. The entire escort, including Erlis, had just finished helping the drivers and their assistants wrestle both wagons out of yet another knee-deep pothole full of soupy mud, and Garlahna had not been amused. Nor had her horse, when he'd found himself hitched to the lead wagon to add his own weight to the effort. The gelding was no prize example of the Sothoii warhorses which were the pride of the Kingdom, but he'd obviously found the role of dray horse far beneath his dignity…as he'd demonstrated with an indignant crow hop or two when she'd climbed back into the saddle. Garlahna wasn't the horsewoman her friend Leeana was. Most war maids were infantry, more comfortable on their feet than in a saddle under the best of conditions, and she'd been born to a family of yeomen, not in the house of a great noble. For her, horses were simply a means of transportation -- a way to get from one place to another without using her own feet -- and while Leeana would undoubtedly have taken the gelding's misbehavior in stride and actually enjoyed it, Garlahna was just relieved she hadn't parted company with her saddle. Well, by that and the fact that her spine seemed not to have collapsed after all. She chuckled at the thought and wiped another stripe of mud across her forehead as she blotted fresh sweat and thought longingly of her chari and yathu. The short, kilt-like chari was definitely not the most comfortable garment for a lengthy horseback ride, however. Trousers were a far better idea for that (another reason to prefer feet to saddles, she thought darkly). They were at least a little less offensive to traditional Sothoii patriarchs than the short, revealing, comfortable chari (and even more scandalous yathu!), too, and unlike some of her sister war maids, Garlahana didn't have a problem being unconfrontational for trips to non-war maid towns, at least when it could be done without appearing weak. Outside such towns, the traditionalists could like it or lump it as far as she was concerned, and if she'd been traveling on foot, she'd have worn chari and yathu this time, as well, and let the townsfolk think whatever they liked. The war maids weren't about to kowtow to anyone's prejudices after their long, bitter fight for equality. Yet she had to admit that, as towns went, Thalar was more accustomed to and comfortable with war maids than most. Now, at least. Garlahna wasn't going to object if the trousers she'd donned for utilitarian reasons soothed any potential ruffled feathers someplace like Thalar -- she wasn't that enamored of making a statement everywhere she went -- but that didn't mean she liked the wet, sticky misery her present attire helped create in this kind of humid heat. ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 09 At least her horseback perch put her high enough to see across the green sea of grass baking under the windless sun. That was fortunate, given what she was pretty sure was out there somewhere doing its best to sneak up on them, and she shaded her eyes with one hand, making a slow, conscientious sweep of her own area of responsibility. So far, so good, with no sign of trouble, and she nodded in satisfaction, then glanced back at those muddy, creaking wagons with mixed feelings. She would far rather have spent the last couple of days in one of the Kalatha Guard's nice, shady barracks, but she did have a proprietary interest in the larger of the two vehicles, since it carried (among a host of other things) a dozen bolts of fabric in rich colors and textures destined for Tomarah Felisfressa. Tomarah and her freemate Selistra were the best seamstresses and dressmakers in Kalatha, and Garlahna had paid the better part of two months of income for the length of amber-colored silk that was going to turn into her new gathering gown. At, she reflected, the expense of another week or so of her income for Tomarah…whose skilled fingers and flair for design would be worth every copper kormak. Of course, my income would be a little better if it wasn't my year for Guard service, Garlahna reflected wryly. Still, even with little jaunts like today's, serving in the Guard isn't that bad. Aside from Erlis' and Ravlahn's idea of "restful" morning calisthenics, that is! Unlike certain others of Kalatha's younger citizens, she didn't really object to serving her stint in the City Guard. It was inconvenient, and it interfered with her thriving business as a tinker, yet she'd never even considered hiring a substitute, as quite a few Kalathans did. Partly because it would have cost at least half of her earnings, but also because she was young enough it was no physical hardship…and because it was important for the town to maintain a reserve of trained and experienced war maids to back up the standing Guard just in case. It wasn't all that many years since Kalatha had come entirely too close to finding itself under attack, after all, even if the town hadn't known anything about it until it was all over. Garlahna's good humor dimmed at the memory, and she grimaced and reached down to adjust the short sword at her hip. No one in Kalatha liked to think about how close the Dark Gods had come to setting the town and Trisu of Lorham at one another's throats. And Garlahna suspected very few in Kalatha liked to think about the fact that Trisu had been in the right during their bitter dispute over land and water rights, either. There was no love lost between Kalatha and Trisu even now, but any fair-minded war maid would have been forced to acknowledge that he'd actually shown remarkable restraint under the circumstances. Not that all war maids were precisely fair-minded, of course. In fact, some of them seemed to prefer to go on blaming Trisu rather than accept that Shigu had perverted the Kingdom of the Sothoii's most sacred temple of Lillinara and affected the minds of quite a few Kalathans along the way. If it hadn't been for Dame Kaeritha Seldansdaughter… Garlahna decided -- again -- not to think about where it all could have ended. War maids were accustomed to being less than popular, especially with hard-core traditionalists like Trisu Pickaxe, but it was frightening to think how close Shigu had come to provoking an open, violent confrontation between them and the rest of the Kingdom. If the Twisted One had succeeded, the consequences would have been catastrophic. Indeed, she might have achieved her goal of destroying the war maids once and for all. That hadn't happened, and it wasn't going to, either, but it had come frighteningly close to reality, and relations with Thalar had become strained and overtly hostile as a result. They'd recovered their normal, even tenor once the townsfolk realized what had happened, though…which was actually quite generous of them, given the way Jolhanna Evahlafressa, Kalatha's previous agent in Thalar had acted. Jolhanna was one of the war maids who'd gone completely over to the Dark, and she'd done her very best to completely destroy Kalatha's relations with the largest town in the Wardenship of Lorham. Thalar's willingness to accept Dame Kaeritha's explanation of what had led to her actions -- and that they'd been her actions, not Kalatha's -- was one reason Garlahana didn't mind making at least a few concessions to the town's sensibilities where things like attire were concerned. The war maids had taken the lesson to heart, however, and no one was ready to assume Shigu and the other Dark Gods had simply given up on the project, either. That was the reason the Kalatha City Guard was half again the size it had been and why the tradition of requiring war maids between the ages of eighteen and thirty-eight to contribute one year in four to militia service had been revived. There'd been a few changes to the militia requirements, too. One new profession -- that of glassblower -- had been added to the exempted trades list, and the town charter had been amended to allow people to discharge their entire Guard obligation in a single five-year stint, if that was their preference, rather than breaking it up into five separate terms of service. Garlahna was seriously considering combining at least two years of her own service into a single term, but she hadn't made up her mind yet. There were arguments in favor of either decision, but the biggest one against it was Barlahn. He didn't have any objection to her discharging her militia responsibility; it only made the logistics complicated because she had to be on-post every night, except when she could get leave. It wasn't too bad during the winter months, when he was able to share her assigned quarters in town at least three or four nights a week, but that wasn't very practical once he could get his crops into the ground again. She'd grown up around farmers, and she knew all about the hours they worked. It would have been silly for him to be hiking the six miles in and out of town every morning and every evening, especially when he was already worn out from his labors, and she knew it. None of which made her any happier about the currently empty state of her bed. It would be nice to get her present year of service out of the way and get settled back in with him, but then again if she discharged two of her remaining three years of obligation back to back, she'd have six years, not just three, in which to do that settling. That would be nice. Time enough for a couple of children, perhaps, and to help get them past the toddler stage before Mommy had to report for duty again.… One of the wagon drivers swore wearily, and Garlahna turned in the saddle to look back over her shoulder as the front wheels of the woman's wagon splashed down into a puddle which was obviously even deeper and muckier than usual. Garlahna's gelding had automatically made his way around the pothole's lip on one side while Erlis circled it on the other, but the wagons didn't have that option, and the hole was the next best thing to wheel hub-deep. The lead wagon came to an abrupt halt, the mules whuffing against their collars in surprise, and Erlis shook her head as she drew rein. "Mother, this one's deeper than the last one!" the three hundred said sourly. "Looks like it," Garlahna agreed even more sourly. "I hate paying Trisu the road toll, but I have to admit he keeps the main roads in a lot better shape than this! Maybe we should start charging tolls?" "Who'd pay them?" Erlis snorted. "We're the only ones who use this miserable excuse for a road. And in case you've forgotten, we only use it because the shortcut lets us stay off his stupid toll road. Not that our 'shortcut' seems to be saving us all that much time today, does it?" "Not so you'd notice. But it's the principle that counts, isn't it? Well, that and the kormaks, I suppose. And at least this damned swamp isn't as wide as the last one. It's only big enough to eat one wagon at a time." "And this is supposed to make me feel better because -- ?" Erlis inquired, turning her mount and trotting back towards the mired wagon. "Give me a few minutes and I'll think of a reason," Garlahna promised from behind her, and Erlis chuckled. But then she shook her head and swung down from the saddle in a creak of stirrup leather. "Best be getting on with it, I guess," she sighed. ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 10 Garlahna nodded and touched the gelding's sides with her heels, heading back towards the wagons in Erlis' wake as the three hundred looped her reins around the stump of her left arm, pressing them in against her side, and walked up to the edge of the pothole to survey the problem. The rest of the escort had already dismounted, as well, and the six of them were uncoiling their saddle ropes as they prepared to add their own horses' efforts to disinterring the wagon. Garlahna knew all about leading by example, but she'd already done that three times today, and her boots and trousers were caked with dried mud to the knee to prove it. "Follow me!" was all very well when it came time to lead her people into actual combat, but this time, she decided, she was perfectly prepared to let the members of her detachment wade out into the mud while she confined herself to a proper supervisory role. She knew she was going to have to climb down out of the saddle and help out eventually -- the hole was so deep it was undoubtedly going to take all of them to wrestle the wagons across it -- but there was no point doing it until somebody else had gotten thoroughly muddy this time around, and she drew up beside Erlis on the lip of the swamp. "That really is a deep hole," she commented, swatting irritably at a horsefly as two of the other war maids kicked off their boots and started wading towards the wagon. Erlis looked up at her, smiling faintly as she found Garlahna still in the saddle, and the younger woman shook her head. "The wagons were even more heavily loaded on the way to Thalar. Thank Lillinara we didn't put one of them into this mess then!" "Absolutely," Erlis agreed fervently. She looked back at the mudhole stretching almost all the way across the road. "That would have been the perfect way to start this little expedition, wouldn't it?" Garlahna nodded, but then she frowned as another thought struck her. Why hadn't they encountered the pothole on the way out? As wide as it was, it should have been impossible to avoid. It was possible one of the spring thunderstorms could have dumped enough rain on this stretch of the road to make the hole worse without having rained on them in Thalar, but it wasn't all that likely. Besides, enough fresh rain to have created this morass should have generated even more mud along the road's shoulders, shouldn't it? But that meant -- "I think --" she began sharply, but it was already too late. A chalk-covered beanbag came flying out of the grass on the south side of the lane and smacked Erlis right between the shoulder blades in a puff of colored dust. The three hundred jerked, then whirled around with an oath born of twenty-plus years' service as a professional soldier…just as three more beanbags thudded into the trio of war maids standing in the mud on the north side of the road. An instant later, more of them smacked into two of the three on the south side of the road, as well, and the single dismounted war maid who hadn't already been hit ducked under the wagon in a geyser of muddy water, snatching out her short sword with one hand and reaching for her bandolier of throwing stars with the other. Despite her own surprise, Garlahna knew better than to try to stand and fight. Instead, she reined her gelding's head around and slapped her heels in -- hard -- trying to break free of the ambush before one of those infernal beanbags found her. If she could circle back around to counterattack -- It was a good idea, but before the horse had even moved, a very tall, redhaired young woman bounded out of a stretch of grass Garlahna would have sworn couldn't have hidden a rabbit. The newcomer took three strides, tucked a bare foot into the front of Garlahna's offside stirrup, pinning her own foot in place, grabbed the saddle horn with her right hand, and pivoted on the stirrup, swinging her left leg over the horse's croup and dropping to sit neatly behind the saddle. It happened too quickly for Garlahna to react, and the newcomer's hands settled on her shoulders and gripped tightly. "You're turning blue, Garlahna!" the redhaired war maid announced cheerfully. "Too bad, I really liked you." "Very funny, Leeana," Garlahna growled, looking over her shoulder with a disgusted expression as the last war maid of the escort, despite the protection of the wagon, was hit by three different beanbags flying in from three different directions. "You're dead, too, Saltha!" another voice crowed from the grass. "Oh, yeah?" Saltha Mahrlafressa, the war maid under the wagon, sounded as disgusted as Garlahna felt. "Well, I'm mucky enough already, Raythas," she retorted, raking a glob of mud out of her graying hair and looking at it distastefully. "If you think I'm going to die dramatically and bellyflop into this mudhole, you've got another think coming!" "Spoilsport." Raythas Talafressa emerged from the grass with a grin, followed by two more, equally delighted young women in traditional war maid garb. They'd added leather leg guards to protect their otherwise bare legs from the prairie grass, but aside from that they looked revoltingly cool and comfortable, Garlahna thought from inside her sweaty trousers and shirt. They also looked revoltingly pleased with themselves. "Nicely done," Erlis acknowledged, shaking her head as she looked at their attackers. "Not that we didn't help you by acting like drooling idiots who shouldn't be let out without a keeper." She grimaced. "What a convenient mudhole you just happened to find to stop us for you." "Yes, it was, wasn't it?" Leeana agreed. She slid down from the back of Garlahna's horse and grinned impudently up at her friend as her left hand twirled the garrotte she hadn't wrapped around Garlahna's neck. "It only took us four or five hours to get it dug. The biggest problem was hauling in the water to fill it after we got it properly excavated." She looked back at Erlis. "We were only an hour or two behind you on the way out, so the mud had plenty of time to cure." "So I see." Erlis stretched out her hand to help Saltha out of the mudhole while she considered the victors. The three hundred didn't like losing, but she had to admire Leeana's tactics. The manufactured pothole had been a masterstroke, an obstacle which was certain to stop the wagons but which hadn't set off any mental alarms because they'd already had to deal with so many mudholes. And as she looked further into the grass on either side of the road, she saw the blinds Leeana and her three companions had painstakingly constructed to conceal them until they struck. It's a good thing they weren't really trying to kill us, she reflected with more than a little chagrin. All eight members of the escort -- except Garlahna -- bore large, bright splotches of chalk dust from the beanbags which had been substituted for the far more lethal throwing stars (or knives) which would have come their way if Leeana had been serious. I must be getting old to let the young hellion get away with it this way! Yet even as she thought that, she knew that wasn't the true reason. Yes, she really should have been more suspicious -- or alert, at least -- but that wouldn't have mattered in the end, given how carefully Leeana had organized things. The girl had come a long way in the six and a half years since she'd fled to the war maids. She was still not quite twenty-two years old, yet she was already a commander of seventy-five, and whether she realized it or not, Erlis and Balcartha Evahnalfressa, the commander of five hundred who commanded the City Guard, were quietly grooming her for far higher rank. Indeed, Erlis was beginning to wonder if Kalatha would be allowed to keep her. The war maids were legally obligated to provide troops in the Crown's service in return for the royal charter which had created them in the first place, and any field commander in his (or her) right mind was going to want an officer of Leanna Hanathafressa's caliber. No matter what challenge Erlis and Balcartha threw at her, she took it in stride, and she was so cheerful even old sweats like Saltha couldn't seem to take offense when she effortlessly ran rings around them. Or got promoted past them, for that matter. "All right," she said finally. "You won; we lost. So you get the bathhouse first tonight and you get the three-day passes." Leeana and the other members of her team looked at one another with broad grins, and Erlis let them have their moment before she gave them a rather nasty smile of her own. "And now that you've won, why don't the four of you just wade out into that marvelous mudhole of yours and help us get this wagon out of it?"

==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 11 <== toc ==> War Maid's Choice By David Weber Chapter Three The small, carefully nondescript man sat back in his chair and rubbed his eyes as the flickering glow died in the heart of the water-clear gramerhain crystal on the desk before him. His name was Varnaythus, or that was the one he most commonly went by among those who knew who (and what) he truly was, at any rate. He looked to be no more than in his mid-forties, yet he was actually well past eighty -- there were some advantages to being a wand wizard willing to manipulate blood magic -- and no one had learned his true name in at least the last sixty years. It was safer that way. Of course, "safe" was a relative term. He climbed out of his chair and began pacing back and forth across the small, luxurious (and carefully hidden) room. There were no windows, and the light from the oil lamps was dim, despite the highly polished reflectors, to eyes which had become accustomed to the grammerhain's brilliance. He could have flooded the room with clear, sourceless light, but black wizards who wanted to stay alive in Norfressa avoided that sort of self-indulgence. Wizardry was outlawed upon pain of death in virtually all Norfressan realms, and however much Varnaythus might resent that, he couldn't pretend he didn't understand it. That reaction had been inevitable after the Wizard Wars destroyed the Empire of Ottovar and turned the entire continent of Kontovar into a blasted wasteland which had needed a thousand years to recover. It was actually quite useful to Vanaythus' Lady and her fellows, in many ways. It certainly reduced the opposition's strength and ability to respond to arcane attacks, at any rate. There were wizards here, but most of them tended to be at best a dingy shade of gray. The fact that they were already outlawed and condemned made it far easier for the Carnadosans to recruit them, as well, and not even the ones unwilling to actively serve the Dark themselves would be interested in calling attention to himself if he happened to notice that another wizard was practicing the art in his vicinity. Unfortunately, if Varnaythus didn't have to worry about being turned in by another wizard, he did have to worry about magi. He puffed his lips in familiar frustration as he paced. The wizard lords of Kontovar still didn't understand how the mage talents worked. Varnaythus himself had picked up far more about the effects and consequences of their various abilities, including some interesting…intersections with the art, but he'd gathered that information very cautiously indeed. Much of it had been gleaned by picking the brains (in some cases literally) of other nonmagi, while the rest had come from wary, circumspect observation with the stealthiest scrying spells he could command. And all of it, unfortunately, remained largely theoretical, since he had absolutely no desire to risk his own personal hide in order to test his conjectures. Quite a few wizards who'd done that sort of thing had never found the opportunity to report back on their success, for some reason. Still, they did know at least a little about them. For instance, it was obvious the talents themselves were products of the Wizard Wars, the result of some deep change in the very being of the current magi's ancestors, although it had never manifested in Kontovar even after the Fall. He suspected there'd been very, very few of them in the beginning, when refugees from all of Kontovar first flooded into Norfressa. There couldn't have been many, since no one had really recognized their existence at all for over seven hundred years, and they'd only become sufficiently numerous to begin organizing their mage academies in the last three or four centuries. The Carnadosan lords of Kontovar hadn't even noticed them at first, and by the time they'd begun to realize just how…inconvenient they might prove to their own ultimate plans, the magi had been too firmly entrenched to eliminate. Efforts to acquire live magi for study hadn't worked out well, either. The bastards were slippery as fish and even more elusive, and trained magi had a nasty tendency to die, often taking any wizard unfortunate enough to have been interrogating them at the moment with them, if they were captured. Not to mention the fact that many of them could call for help telepathically over even lengthy distances. Varnaythus knew of at least three expeditions to capture magi which had come to unfortunate ends when the magi in question managed to guide cruisers of the Royal and Imperial Navy to intercept the ships carrying them to Kontovar. The effort hadn't been abandoned, but it was one of those tasks to be approached very, very cautiously, and he was more than happy to leave it to someone else, like Tremala. Or even better, now that he thought about it -- however serious a rival Tremala might be, he actually liked her, after all -- someone like that insufferable, egotistical, irritating pain Rethak. More to the point, however, the accursed magi could sense the use of the art. Some were more sensitive than others -- in fact, some of them were damned bloodhounds where sorcery was concerned! -- but all of them had at least some sensitivity to it. And unlike Norfressan wizards, they had no reason not to report any sorcery they detected. In fact, the mage academies' Oath of Semkirk required magi to fight dark wizardry and blood magic, and the bastards had been growing steadily into ever more of a pain in the arse for the last two hundred years. Nor was their ability to sense wizardry the only threat they posed to Kontovaran ambitions. They had other talents as well -- from the ability to speak mind-to-mind across vast distances, to healing, to distance- viewing, to the ability to unerringly detect lies, plus Phrobus only knew what else. Thankfully, none of them had more than three or four such talents each, but groups of them could combine their abilities into the sort of threat which had to make any wizard wary, and they were oathbound to use their abilities to serve others, which made them disgustingly popular with the very people who most hated and feared wizardry. Many rulers welcomed them into their realms, often relying upon them as agents, investigators, and representatives, and King Markhos of the Sothoii had opened his arms even more broadly to them than most. There was no mage academy in his kingdom -- Sothoii mages were trained in one of their Axeman allies' academies, usually at either Axe Hallow or Belhadan -- but there were dozens of them wandering around Markhos' capital of Sothofalas, and all it would take was for one of them to stroll past when Varnaythus was using the art, at which point all manner of unpleasant things would happen. A soft, musical tone sounded out of the empty air, and Varnaythus turned towards one of the office's featureless walls. Nothing happened for a moment; then the outline of a doorframe appeared in the middle of the wall. It glowed dimly, seeming to quiver a little around the edges, then solidified. "Enter," he said, and the glowing door swung open to admit two other men. One of them looked to be about the same age as Varnaythus, and he was even more nondescript and bland looking. The other was younger, with red-blond hair and gray eyes. At just over six feet, he was also considerably taller than the other two, and his clothing was much richer, that of a mid-level functionary at court, perhaps. Looking through the door by which they'd entered the office, it was as if that single door had opened into two totally separate locations…which was fair enough, since that was exactly what it had done. "You're late," Varnaythus observed brusquely, waving the newcomers to chairs in front of his desk. He waited until they'd seated themselves, then sank back into his own chair, leaned his elbows on the blotter on either side of his gramerhain with his fingers interlaced above it, and leaned forward to rest his chin on the backs of his raised hands. "I don't want to belabor the point," he said then, "but using the art is risky enough without having our timetable screwed up." "I couldn't get to the portal," the older of his two guests said. He shrugged. "Someone decided to choose today to drop off two dray loads of tea. Somehow I didn't think you'd want me activating it from my end with half a dozen warehouseman carrying crates of tea in and out." "No, I don't suppose that would have been a very good idea," Varnaythus acknowledged. He straightened, then leaned back in his chair and folded his hands across his stomach. "I never was very happy about that location. Unfortunately, moving it at this point would be too risky. As a matter of fact, it would be safer to build an entirely new portal somewhere else." He raised one eyebrow. "Would you happen to have a more convenient -- and safer -- spot in mind, Salgahn?" "Not right this minute, no," Salgahn replied. "I'll think about it. There aren't really all that many options, though. Not unless I want to risk letting some of the other dog brothers find out about it." His final sentence ended on the rising note of a question and he raised one eyebrow. "Not yet." Varnaythus shook his head quickly. "With all due respect, Varnaythus," the younger of the two newcomers said, "we've been saying 'not yet' for over six years now. Are we ever really going to move at all?" Varnaythus regarded him thoughtfully. Unlike himself, Magister Malahk Sahrdohr truly was as young as he looked, but he'd proven himself to be smart, ambitious, and capable. As his title indicated, he ranked well below a master wizard like Varnaythus in both training and raw strength, but he'd risen high and quickly in the service of the Church of Carnadosa through a combination of the intelligent use of the skills he did possess and a degree of absolute ruthlessness Varnaythus had seldom seen equaled. ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 12 "You do remember what happened the last time we 'moved' here in the Kingdom, don't you?" he inquired mildly. "Of course I do." Sahrdohr shrugged. "I read all the reports before I even left Trofrolantha. And I understand why we had to let things settle back down. But it's been six years. Forgive me for pointing this out, but the original plan indicated we were rapidly approaching one of the critical cusp points, and it's only gotten closer since. If we don't do something soon, it's going to be right on top of us!" Varnaythus nodded. Sahrdohr had a valid point, although Varnaythus suspected his impatience had more to do with his current role here in Sothofalas than with approaching "cusp points." In his alter ego as Mahrahk Firearrow, Sahrdohr was a mid-level bureaucrat in the Exchequer. His position gave him access to all sorts of sensitive information but it was junior enough to keep him from attracting unwanted attention, and he did his job well. Unfortunately, it restricted him to a much less luxurious lifestyle than the one to which he had been accustomed in Kontovar and required him to be civil to and even take orders from men without so much as a trace of the magical ability which would have given them authority there. That had to be irksome enough by itself, yet his position inside the Palace itself meant he dared not employ the art at all. The King kept at least two or three magi at court permanently, and the magister would have been promptly detected if he'd done anything of the sort. Varnaythus felt an unwilling ripple of sympathy for the younger man. Being forced to restrict his use of the art was hard for any wizard; renouncing it entirely, even if only temporarily, as Sahrdohr's role had required him to do, was the next best thing to intolerable. All questions of power and ambition aside, there was a splendor to the art, a glory no wizard could truly resist. He had to reach out to it, for better or for worse, and Sahrdohr had been denied the chance to do that for over four years, ever since his own arrival here in Sothofalas. No wonder he was feeling impatient. "If you've read the reports, Malahk," the older wizard said after a moment, "then you know I'm the only one of the senior agents originally assigned to this operation who's still alive. Salgahn here and I did our jobs just about perfectly, and I still barely got away with my skin. Jerghar and Paratha were less fortunate, and Farrier is…still laboring under the Spider's disapproval, shall we say?" He grimaced at the thought of how the Twisted One had chosen to express Her unhappiness with Dahlaha Farrier. He'd never liked the woman, but seeing what had happened to her made him uncomfortably aware of what could happen to him. And that was with Shigu's decision to be "lenient" with the servant who'd failed Her. "Worse," he continued, "our last little escapade almost certainly warned the other side -- Wencit, at the very least -- that we've become far more interested in the Sothoii than we ever were before. Don't you think it makes sense to proceed with a modicum of caution when all of that is true?" "Caution, yes," Sahrdohr agreed. "But we can't afford to allow ourselves to be paralyzed, either. Especially not if we really are coming up on one of the cusp points." "And would you happen to know why it's a cusp point?" Varnaythus asked mildly, extending his thumbs and tapping them together. He raised both eyebrows and cocked his head, and Sahrdohr looked back with a stubborn expression for several seconds. Then the younger man shrugged irritably. "No," he said shortly. "Neither do I," Varnaythus told him. It was Sahrdohr's eyebrows' turn to shoot upward and his eyes widened with surprise. Surprise that turned into skepticism almost instantly, Varnaythus noticed. "I'm telling you the truth," he said. "I realize that's a novel approach, but we're in rather an unusual situation here. They haven't told me why They want us to do what They want us to do. All They've told me is what They want us to do. Now, to me that suggests this may be even more important than They're prepared to admit even to us. Either that or They don't know everything that's involved here. Either way, there's no way I'm going to rush in and blow this operation a second time. Is that understood?" Sahrdohr gazed at him for at least a minute. Then he nodded slowly, and Varnaythus nodded back just a bit more emphatically. Both of them understood the subtext of what Varnaythus had just said. He'd avoided the Dark Gods' displeasure because unlike his deceased associates, he'd carried out his own portion of the operation almost flawlessly. Perhaps even more importantly, he'd covered his backside by carefully sending very complete reports -- including reports of the several times he'd warned those associates that things were slipping -- back to Kontovar. Coupled with the years of successful service he'd given to Carnadosa, that had sufficed to protect him from divine wrath. It was unusual for one of the Dark Gods' minions to survive the failure of a single mission remotely this important, however; it was unheard of for one of them to survive a second failure. Varnaythus understood that, and he had no intention of failing, yet he wished passionately that his mistress had explained more about the reasons for this operation. What he'd said to Sahrdohr was nothing but the truth, and he hated operating blindly. It wouldn't be the first time he'd had to do it, but he'd never liked it. It was difficult -- and risky -- to improvise or modify strategies when he didn't even know what the ultimate motives of and reasons for his orders were. The orders themselves were remarkably clear and unambiguous, however. That was something. "All right," he said after a moment, allowing his chair to come back upright. "Having just told you we're not going to move until we're ready, now I'm going to tell you that we are ready…almost." "We are?" Sahrdohr straightened with a jerk, and even Salgahn's eyes narrowed speculatively. "'Almost,' I said," Varnaythus cautioned, raising one index finger. "There's been a certain degree of…discussion back and forth, and I've convinced Them we need a narrower focus this time. One of the reasons we failed last time was that each of Them had His or Her own objectives and strategies. This time our Lady is in charge, Sahrdohr, and we're going to avoid the kinds of distractions that got in the way last time." Both Sahrdohr and Salgahn nodded in understanding. The Dark Gods' greatest weakness was their unwillingness to truly cooperate with one another. The same weakness afflicted their servants, but it was even worse among the gods themselves. "That's good to hear," Sahrdohr said after a moment, and to his credit, he sounded as if he actually meant it. Which he might, Varnaythus reflected. The mortality rate among the Dark Gods' servants who had actually faced Bahzell Bahnakson or Tomanak's other champions here on the Wind Plain had been effectively total. Sahrdohr could well be analyzing how his own position might be improved if something unfortunate happened to Varnaythus. Of course, if whatever happens to me is truly unfortunate, it'll probably happen to him, too. I wonder if he's factoring that into his analysis? "I think it's good news, too," he replied aloud. "But let's not any of us start thinking this is going to be simple, because it's not." "If it were going to be simple, they wouldn't need us," Sahrdohr said with a grin which made him look even younger. "A reassuring thought, I'm sure," Varnaythus said dryly, and Salgahn surprised him with a chuckle. "All right," the elder wizard continued. "We've been 'authorized' to assassinate Bahzell and Tellian ourselves if we can find a way to do it." He rolled his eyes, and both of his companions grimaced. The Dark Gods had tried that approach more than once now…with uniformly disastrous results for their mortal instruments. None of the present trio were in favor of encountering those same results in person. "Obviously," he continued, "there are limits to how directly we can approach that sort of thing. I'm, ah…doing my best to encourage our good friend Arthnar to organize an attempt, and he's certainly got more than enough motivation, given what their canal projects are going to do to his own arrangements. Unfortunately, he's not an idiot, either, so I don't know how successful I'll be in getting him to move." He shrugged. "I think we can probably get him to at least see what a few anonymously hired mercenaries can accomplish, but it would be foolish to expect a high chance of success out of that sort of attempt." "I can understand his reluctance," Sahrdohr said drily. "On the other hand, what about an attempt on Bahnak or Kilthandahknarthas? Killing either of them would probably derail their damned project, as well, wouldn't it? I'll admit they could probably survive better without the dwarf than without Bahnak, even if Kilthan was the one who got Silver Cavern and Dwarvenhame to put their weight behind Bahnak in the first place. But losing him would still have to be a major blow. And Bahnak, now…he's the glue holding this entire hradani 'Confederation' together, and there have to be enough Bloody Swords who'd love to see him dead." Varnaythus regarded him thoughtfully for a moment, then glanced at Salgahn. "Would you care to undertake either of those assignments?" he asked the assassin, and Salgahn snorted harshly. ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 13 "Get an assassin close enough to Kilthan of Silver Cavern? Not bloody likely! We don't have that many dwarven dog brothers to begin with, and the security around any clan head -- and especially that clan head -- is far too tight for any stranger to get to him. We might be able to manage it the next time he heads out with the trade caravans, but do we have the time to wait that long?" He looked the question at Varnaythus, who shook his head. "Almost certainly not. And, frankly, it sounds like investing the effort it would take to get to him would be a waste of our resources. Not to mention coming entirely too close to spreading ourselves too thin with the same kind of 'let's kill everyone in sight' stupidity that screwed up Their plans last time." "That's about what I thought." Salgahn shrugged. "And as far as Bahnak is concerned, his security's almost as good as Kilthan's. I'm pretty sure we could get to him, but there's no way we could make it look like anything except a very obvious assassination…and not by hradani." "We couldn't simply…assist one of the Bloody Swords who hate him?" Sahrdohr asked. "There aren't as many of them as you might think," Varnaythus said grimly. "He's actually making this Confederation of his work, and the Bloody Swords who still have enough of a power base to risk going after him and infuriating every single Horse Stealer in Norfressa are smart enough to recognize that they've never been as well off as they are now. For that matter, they remember how Harnak's and Chalgaz's association with us turned even some of their fellow Bloody Swords against Navahk before the war. They're not going to be in any hurry to do anything that could make people think they're signing up with Sharna and the Dog Brothers. Besides, Bahnak's done too damned good a job of training up those children of his. All of them, not just Bahzell. He may be the glue that put the hradani together in the first place, but I think Barondir and the rest would almost certainly manage to hold them together if he were to die suddenly." "You're probably right about that," Salgahn agreed after considering it for a moment or two. "And, to be honest, hradani are hard to kill under the best of circumstances. You may remember how much trouble we had trying to take Bahzell and Brandark even before Bahzell became a champion! Of course, they're both special cases, even for hradani, but trying to get through Bahnak's bodyguard with anything except a full frontal assault would be…unlikely. And hradani are damned near impossible to poison with anything except an instantly fatal dose. Considering all the difficulties, taking Bahnak with any normal tactics would probably be at least as hard as taking Bahzell. Our best odds would be with Tellian, frankly, and even that would be a challenge. Not impossible, by any stretch, mind you, but definitely a challenge. Which is the reason Arthnar's not going to be all that keen on trying it, I suspect." "Oh, I agree," Varnaythus said. "Which doesn't mean I won't be trying as hard as I can to talk him into it. In fact, I think we're going to have to get you involved in that as well, Salgahn." "Oh?" The assassin raised an eyebrow at him, his expression wary. "And just how did you have it in mind for that to work?" "I need someone to help do that convincing…and to make sure things are properly organized if we can talk him into it. He's cleverer than Cassan thinks he is, but he does have a certain tendency towards brute force solutions. We need something a bit more subtle than that. Or, at least, we need it to be something that steers any suspicion towards Tellian's purely local adversaries, since we" -- he met his fellows' gazes levelly -- "are specifically forbidden to make any attempt which could be traced back to us." "We are?" If Sahrdohr was dismayed by the restriction, he hid it remarkably well, Varnaythus thought dryly. "The overall operation is too important, and the odds against a successful assassination are too high, to justify risking it," he said calmly, not mentioning that he was the one who'd made that argument -- successfully, thank Carnadosa! -- when he first received his instructions. "If we launch a direct attack that's powerful enough to have a decent chance of success, the Order of Tomanak is entirely too likely to be able to prove we were behind it…and that would prove They were behind it." Varnaythus shook his head. "We absolutely can't risk providing any evidence of that until all the other pieces are in place -- not if we hope to succeed in our other plans, that is." His fellows nodded gravely, and although it was obvious their approval had more to do with their own odds of personal survival than any tactical constraints, that didn't make anything he'd just said untrue. If -- if -- they succeeded in killing both Bahzell and Tellian, they would probably succeed in their overall mission. If they tried and failed, however, and if the effort proved the Dark Gods were trying to eliminate the two of them, it would strengthen Tellian's position in the Kingdom immeasurably. Sothoii were often impulsive and always prickly where things like honor and family feuds were concerned, but despite the stereotype certain of their enemies nourished, they weren't stupid. Certainly they weren't too slow to figure out that if the Dark Gods wanted someone dead it was because whoever they were trying to kill stood in their way, at any rate. That might not bother some of their…more self-serving nobles, perhaps, but whatever their internal political squabbles might be, the vast majority of the Sothoii could be expected to close ranks instantly against any recognized intrusion by Phrobus and his offspring. And if that let Varnaythus stay far, far away from any direct attack on Bahzell Bloody Hand, that was a wonderful thing as far as he was concerned. "That doesn't mean we won't be involved, of course," he continued out loud, "but we are going to have to be as certain as we can that our cutouts will work. I think we're going to have to send you down to talk to Arthnar, Salgahn -- I can arrange an introduction that will get you in to see him -- to help move him gently in the proper direction. We don't want the Guild openly involved. The last thing we need is any suggestion of dog brothers stirring up trouble, so we'll have to cover you as a mercenary with the right connections. I haven't decided yet whether or not we want you involved in the actual attempt or only in setting things in motion, and I don't see any way we can decide until we have a better idea of what he's willing to do, but I want to keep our options open in that respect." Salgahn nodded, and if he looked less than delighted by the prospect, Varnaythus found that understandable enough. "In the meantime," the wizard went on, "I've maintained my contacts with Cassan, and he's been kind enough to provide me with an introduction to Yeraghor, as well. Needless to say, neither of them is the least bit happy over what Tellian's up to, although I'm not positive Yeraghor truly realizes how close to finished that damned tunnel is. Or how profoundly the entire project -- assuming it succeeds, of course -- is going to change this part of Norfressa, for that matter." "How close are they?" Sahrdohr asked, and Varnaythus shrugged irritably. "I was just watching that unmitigated little pain Chanharsa." He gestured at the gramerhain. "She's putting in a forty or fifty-yard section every day or so now, and she's only got about another three-quarters of a mile to go. That's only another two months. And the locks in the Balthar are already finished -- they've had barges hauling construction materials all the way from Hurgrum to The Gullet for two months now. The Derm Canal's taking longer, but I expect it to be finished by next spring, even allowing for construction shutting down over the winter months. In fact, they might even get it done before first snowfall, if the weather favors them over the summer." Sahrdohr pursed his lips in a silent whistle, but Salgahn shook his head. "That's all well and good," he pointed out, "but they've still got the River Brigands and the Ghoul Moor to worry about. As you just pointed out, Arthnar isn't going to take Bahnak's and Tellian's plans very cheerfully." "Neither are the Purple Lords," Varnaythus agreed. "But exactly how do you think they're going to discourage a trio like Tellian, Kilthan, and Bahnak? Unless we -- by which I'm afraid I really mean you, this time around -- can convince Arthnar to try to kill them…and he succeeds, of course." Salgahn snorted in acknowledgment, but he also shook his head again. "I'm just saying it's going to be a little more complicated than simply building a couple of canals and digging a tunnel," he said. "And that's exactly what Yeraghor's been counting on -- and Cassan, too, I suspect." Varnaythus shrugged. "Which, frankly, is…shortsighted of them, to say the least. Given the success rate Tellian and Bahnak -- and Kilthan; let's not forget him -- have demonstrated to date, how likely do you think it is that they won't succeed this time, as well?" It was Salgahn's turn to shrug, conceding the point. "As it happens, the Ghoul Moor is going to figure rather more prominently in our plans than I'd thought it was," Varnaythus continued. "I don't know that it's going to give us everything we want, although the chance that it might is actually better than I expected before She told me what resources we'll have there. Even if it doesn't work as well as expected" -- he grimaced, and the others joined him as they recalled other plans which had failed to work exactly as the people who'd made them had expected -- "it's still going to hurt them badly. It may actually stop the canal project completely, although I expect it's more likely just to slow them up for a year or two. More to the point, it ought to both draw attention to the foot of the Escarpment and away from what we're really after on top of it. It may well fan the fire under Cassan and Yeraghor, as well, and whether it does or not, nothing that goes wrong for them on the Ghoul Moor is going to suggest any special interference on our part." ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 14 "Ah?" Sahrdohr cocked an eyebrow, and Varnaythus smiled unpleasantly. "I don't have all the details yet, myself, but apparently the Ghouls are going to be receiving just a bit of a reinforcement. Quite a sizeable one, actually -- possibly even enough of one to give one of those damned champions of Tomanak pause. And since the Ghoul Moor's always been a…chancy proposition for the other side, let's say, no one's likely to be very surprised if this year's expedition suffers an accident or two, even if the accident is rather more spectacular than most." The younger wizard nodded, and Varnaythus nodded back, then leaned back in his chair. "The only downside in helping the ghouls slow them up is that if it does slow them up, it's likely to undercut the sense of urgency we've been trying to encourage among Tellian's opponents. One of my jobs is going to be keeping that urgency alive, and that means convincing Yeraghor and Cassan of just how close to success they are at court. Cassan's had too much personal experience with the ghouls to expect them to stop Tellian's and Bahzell's plans unless they succeed a lot more spectacularly than I expect, but Yeraghor will probably tend to overestimate their chances, and even Cassan's likely to see it as a reprieve. He'll expect it to give him more time to build opposition in Sothofalas and on the Great Council, and he may figure the losses Tellian's about to take will help his own arguments that the entire idea is going to cost more than it's likely to be worth to the Kingdom in the long run. I need to knock both of those notions on the head, and for that I'm going to want access to Tellian's correspondence with Macebearer and Shaftmaster. Can you get it for me, Malahk?" "I don't know." Sahrdohr frowned thoughtfully. "Shaftmaster's, yes. I'll have to be careful, but I can get to it without too much difficulty. If it will be all right to use a capture spell on it, that is?" It was Varnaythus' turn to frown. A capture spell was a very minor working, one even one of those accursed magi probably wouldn't notice unless he was right on top of it at the moment it was triggered. It required the use of a very small gramerhain, however, and if that was found on Sahrdohr's person… "You're not concerned about carrying the stone with you?" "I didn't say I wasn't concerned, but I think the risk would be manageable." The younger wizard smiled crookedly and held out his left hand, then tapped the ring on his second finger with his right index finger. It was an obviously old piece, set with a rather cheap looking opal. "I've been wearing this ever since I got here just for a moment like this one," Sahrdohr continued. "Everyone knows it has great sentimental value to me, despite the poor quality of the stone -- it was a gift from my grandmother to my grandfather -- so nobody thinks anything more about it. But --" He touched the opal itself and it flashed into sudden clarity, like water-clear quartz. It stayed that way until he took his finger away again, when it turned just as quickly back into the milky stone it had been to begin with. "Very nice," Varnaythus said sincerely. The fact that Sahrdohr had put the ring into place so long ago was yet another demonstration of his basic intelligence and foresight. And even at this short range, even after having had the glamour concealing the gramerhain demonstrated to him, Varnaythus could detect barely a whisper of the spell. If that was a sample of Sahrdohr's craftsmanship, he was further along towards the rank of master than Varnaythus had thought. "All right, if you're comfortable using a capture spell, I'll leave that in your hands. But what about Macebearer?" "That's going to be a lot harder," Sahrdohr replied. "I've at least got an excuse to be in Shaftmaster's office. I work for the man, after all. But I'm not high enough in the Exchequer to be wandering into the Prime Councilor's office and examining his personal correspondence with Baron Tellian." "I really want to get our hands on those letters," Varnaythus said. "Shaftmaster's estimates will help -- probably a lot -- but Cassan's still keeping his head down, even without our gingering up the ghouls. I need proof of how much ground Tellian is gaining with Macebearer and Markhos to get him stirred back up again." "Why don't we just forge it?" Sahrdohr asked. "It wouldn't be difficult -- I can at least get samples of Macebearer's signature and his personal secretary's handwriting, and we already have samples of Tellian's. We could create correspondence that said whatever we needed it to say, then mix it in with genuine correspondence between Tellian and Shaftmaster." "Tempting," Varnaythus conceded. "Unfortunately, Cassan's almost as good at this game as he thinks he is. I wouldn't be surprised to find out he's managed to get someone of his own inside Macebearer's staff. Probably not someone with the kind of access he'd like to have, but he might well have enough access to realize we're feeding him doctored documents." "I might have a solution," Salgahn offered, and shrugged when both wizards looked at him. "I have a couple of men of my own inside the Palace. One of them's covered as a stable hand, but the other's on the housekeeping staff. He happens to be quite a good burglar, as a matter of fact." "Does he, now?" Varnaythus considered the other man thoughtfully. Like most dog brothers, Salgahn was officially a follower of Sharna, although he was scarcely very devout. In fact, Varnaythus doubted Salgahn had ever seen one of Sharna's actual rituals. It wasn't the sort of thing which would have appealed to him any more than it would have appealed to Varnaythus himself. But every profession required at least some support structure, and the Assassins Guild had found its support in the church of Sharna. Which meant that from time to time, whether they liked it or not, the dog brothers found themselves "urgently requested" to assist the church. Of course, the fact that Salgahn hadn't bothered to mention his men's presence in King Markhos palace until this very moment made Varnaythus wonder just how completely Salgahn had thrown himself into this operation. And I don't blame him a bit if he's been thinking from the very beginning in terms of ratholes to dash down the instant this ship hits a reef, the wizard reflected, then chuckled mentally as he realized how liberally he'd just mixed metaphors. "Just how obviously could your burglar burglarize the Prime Councilor's files?" he asked out loud. "Obviously?" Salgahn raised an eyebrow. "If everyone knows Macebearer's office was successfully broken into, then Cassan's a lot less likely to worry about whether or not we're trying to feed him forged documents. If we're going to physically steal them anyway, I'd like to leave enough evidence behind -- evidence that Macebearer and the Crown would be able to keep from becoming general knowledge -- to prime the pump with Cassan. His need to show how smart he is his biggest weakness, when you come down to it. So if he knows about the 'secret burglary' when I show him copies -- or even originals -- from Macebearer's files, he'll be so smug about knowing how I got them that he won't even consider whether or not any alterations were made before he saw them. Letting someone convince himself always works better than trying to sell it to him from the outside." "It'll make it a little riskier for my man," Salgahn pointed out. "I'll triple the Guild's usual fee." "Then I'm sure something can be worked out." Salgahn smiled, and Varnaythus chuckled. "What about Borandas?" Sahrdohr asked, and Varnaythus frowned thoughtfully. Borandas Daggeraxe was the Baron of Halthan and Lord Warden of the North Riding. The oldest of the four great barons of the Kingdom, he was also of no more than average intelligence, and he knew it. He was aware of the political power games swirling around at Court, but he was wise enough not to fish in such troubled waters and let himself be drawn into the toils of smarter but less scrupulous players. His son, Thorandas, was sharper than Borandas, and he'd been his father's primary political advisor for years. He understood the value of maintaining the North Riding's neutrality in the bitter power struggle between Cassan and Tellian. With Yeraghor of the East Riding supporting Cassan and the wind rider's representative supporting Tellian, that neutrality allowed the North Riding to effectively hold the balance of power on the Great Council, and Thorandas was unlikely to favor any course which would endanger that situation. On the other hand, he was also one of the hard-line anti-hradani bigots.… "I'm not sure about Borandas," Varnaythus admitted. "But if Tellian's correspondence with Macebearer says what I think it says, then showing certain select passages to Thorandas might pay a very nice dividend in the fullness of time. I'll have to think about that once we see what it actually does say." Sahrdohr nodded, and Varnaythus drew a deep breath. "Now," he said, "the reason I want to get my hands on all that documentation is that the time has come -- or is coming very soon -- for us to…restructure the Kingdom of the Sothoii. And this is how we're going to do it. First --"

==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 15 <== toc ==> War Maid's Choice By David Weber Chapter Four "Careful, lummox! That's my head you're dumping crap all over!" The hradani stopped, parked the wheelbarrow carefully, and then leaned sideways, looking over the edge of the excavation. "And would you be telling me what in Fiendark's name you're doing down there right this very minute?" he inquired testily. "My job," the dwarf standing in the bottom of the steep-walled cut replied in an even testier voice. He took off his battered, well-used safety helmet to examine its top carefully, then rubbed a finger across the fresh patch of dust (and dent) the falling piece of rock had left in the steel and looked up accusingly. The hradani hadn't actually "dumped" it on him -- his wheelbarrow had simply dislodged a small stone in passing and knocked it over the edge -- but the result had been the same. "If I hadn't been wearing this, you'd have splattered my brains all over the cut!" he said. "Now that I wouldn't have," the hradani replied virtuously. "They'd not have covered more than a handspan of dirt at most, and likely less, come to think on it. And you've still not told me what it was you thought you were after doing down there when it was yourself told us to start pouring in the ballast." "Checking the form, if you must know," the dwarf growled. "No one signed the check sheet." He waved a clipboard irritably. "Somebody has to do a walkthrough before the voids get filled in!" "Well, you'll not be doing any 'walkthroughs' so very much longer if you don't get your sawed-off arse out of the way." "'Sawed-off arse,' is it?" the dwarf demanded. He stumped over to the ladder fixed to the face of the massive, freestanding wooden form and started swarming up it. "For about one copper kormak I'll use you for ballast!" "Ah? And how would you be doing that?" The hradani propped his hands on his hips and looked down at the dwarf from his towering inches. "I'm thinking a wee little fellow like you's likely to strain himself moving someone who's properly grown!" The dwarf made it to the top of the ladder and across the wooden plank between the form and the solid ground beyond the cut, and stalked towards the enormous hradani. He was barely four feet tall, which made him less than two thirds the hradani's height, and he looked even smaller beside a massive, hradani-scaled "wheelbarrow" larger than most pony carts. But his beard seemed to bristle and he jabbed an index finger like a sword as he halted in the wheelbarrow's shadow and glared up at the hradani. "It's a pity all a hradani's growth goes into his height instead of his brain," he observed acidly. "Not that I should be too surprised, I suppose. After all, when a skull's that thick, there can't be all that much room for brains inside it!" "Sure and I'm thinking such envy must be a hard thing to bear," the hradani replied. "Still and all," he gripped the wheelbarrow's handles again, "such as me, being full grown and all, would look right strange creeping about in those squinchy little tunnels your folk favor." He lifted, straightening his spine with a slight grunt of effort, and the heavy wooden handles -- well over six inches in diameter -- flexed visibly as the wheelbarrow's massive load of gravel went thundering down into the excavation. A plume of dust rose, blowing on the hot afternoon breeze, and he glanced down with satisfaction. "Which isn't to say such as you wouldn't be looking right strange pushing around wheelbarrows as are all grown up, either, now I think on it, now is it?" The dwarf shook his head with a disgusted expression, but his lips twitched slightly, and the hradani smiled benignly down upon him. "You're like to do yourself a mischief venting all that spleen, Gorsan, and a sad thing that would be," he said. "Well, sadder for some than for others, now I think on it." "Somebody's going to suffer a mischief, at any rate," Gorsandahknarthas zoi'Felahkandarnas growled back. "And so I have already, I'm thinking," the hradani sighed. "Why, I might be off lounging around on guard duty somewhere -- or at least mucking out a stable -- and instead, here I am, wheeling around loads of gravel to fill a hole I had the digging of my own self in the first place, and all of it with a wee little runt no higher than my knee yammering and whining the time." He shook his head dolefully. "It's enough to make a man tear up like a babe in arms, it is, and I'm after wondering just what it was I had the doing of that got me on Prince Bahnak's bad side and landed me here." "You really don't want me to answer that one," the dwarf told him with a chuckle. "Or maybe you do. Listing all the reasons he doesn't want to trust you doing something hard would take long enough to keep both of us standing here till the end of the shift after yours, wouldn't it?" The hradani grinned, conceding Gorsan the last word, and trundled back off for another load of fill. Gorsan watched him go, then stepped back out of the way as another hradani wheeled another massive wheelbarrow down the pathway of wooden planks which had been laid across the muddy ground. The newcomer had clearly heard most of the exchange, and he shook his head, foxlike ears cocked in amusement, as he dumped his own load of gravel into the gap between the form and the side of the excavation. Gorsan shot him the expected grumpy look, but the dwarf's brown eyes twinkled when he did. The truth was that he got along extraordinarily well -- indeed, far better than he'd expected -- with the hradani laboring on the Derm Canal. The canal was the longest and (in most ways) most vital portion of the massive construction project conceived by Kilthandahknarthas of Silver Cavern, Bahnak of Hurgrum, and Tellian of Balthar six years earlier, and it had been an enormous professional compliment when Gorsan was named its chief engineer. It had been inevitable that it would go to someone from Clan Felahkandarnas, given that Felahkandarnas stood second to Clan Harkanath in Silver Cavern by only the slimmest of margins and that not even Harkanath had been in a position to finance something like this solely out of its own resources. All of Silver Cavern was deeply invested in it, and the other clans had a right to nominate their own fair share of its supervisors. There'd still been at least a dozen possible candidates for the assignment, however, and Kilthandahknarthas and Thersahkdahknarthas dinha'Felahkandarnas had made the choice based on proven ability. On the other hand, that ability had been demonstrated working with other dwarves, and although Gorsan would never have admitted it to a soul, he'd approached the notion of supervising a mixed crew of hradani, dwarves, and humans with pronounced trepidation. Actually, he conceded, watching another outsized wheelbarrow approach, it hadn't been the humans who'd concerned him. The hradani's reputation as the most dangerous of the Races of Man had been well earned over the twelve hundred years since the fall of Kontovar. Their tendency to erupt in berserk, homicidal fury when struck by the Rage -- the inherited madness of their race -- was enough to make anyone nervous, especially people who'd lived in the same vicinity as them for the past several centuries, and the old adage about burned hands teaching best had come forcibly to mind when he first contemplated his assignment. In theory that had all changed now, and Gorsan admitted that he'd seen no episodes of the Rage during the five and a half years he'd supervised the canal's construction. Despite that, he still wasn't certain he believed all the stories he'd heard about how the Rage had changed, even if they were vouched for by Wencit of Rum and a champion of Tomanak. For that matter, he still had a few problems wrapping his mind around the concept of a hradani champion at all! But whatever might be true about the Rage, he'd discovered there were definite advantages to a work force whose laborers had the size, strength, and sheer stamina of hradani. They took workloads in stride which would have made even a dwarf blanch, and for the first time in Gorsan's experience, a job actually looked like it was going to come in ahead of schedule, even with the miserable weather of northern Norfressa to slow things up! And there was no question that Prince Bahnak of Hurgrum was a far cry from the stereotypical barbarian brigand most people thought of when anyone said the word "hradani" to them, either. Gorsan had met the prince and most of his almost equally formidable offspring, and he suspected the rumor that Bahnak had suggested the project to Kilthan rather than the other way around might well be true. The dwarves of Dwarvenhame were far more accustomed to interacting with the other Races of Man than any of the ancestral clans had been back in Kontovar, and Kilthandahknarthas was even more accustomed to it than most, but the sheer boldness and scale of the Derm Canal -- and its implications for all of Norfressa -- were staggering. ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 16 We should have thought of it years ago, he reflected now, clasping his hands behind him as he strolled down the brink of the canal cut. Except for the minor matter of its being impossible until Bahnak came along! He snorted at the thought, but it was undeniably true. Even for dwarven engineers, the thought of building a canal almost four hundred leagues long between the human city of Derm and the hradani city of Hurgrum could never have been anything but a fantasy as long as the hradani city states had been at one another's throats. But Bahnak of Hurgrum's Clan Iron Axe had finally brought hundreds of years of ongoing conflict to an end. For now, at least. Gorsan grimaced as his mind insisted on adding the qualifier, yet it was hard to believe anyone or anything could truly turn the northern hradani into a single realm and keep it that way. But Bahnak and his Horse Stealers hadn't hammered the Bloody Swords into surrender by simple force of arms. Oh, he had hammered them -- that was the only way anyone ever convinced a hradani to do anything he didn't want to, after all; that much hadn't changed whatever might have happened to the Rage -- yet it had been Bahnak's shrewd diplomacy which had made his victory possible…and which looked like making his conquest stand up. Even the name he'd chosen -- the Northern Confederation -- only underscored his shrewd understanding of his own people. No one doubted for a moment that the "Northern Confederation" was actually a kingdom and that Bahnak was its king, yet he'd been careful to avoid the other clans' stubborn, hardheaded, not to say intransigent noses in that reality. Instead, it remained a simple confederation, no more (officially) than an upgrade and an enlargement of the old Northern Alliance he'd forged amongst the Horse Stealers, and he remained a simple prince, no more (officially) then first among equals. It was true, perhaps, that he stood "first among equals" by a very considerable margin, yet he was careful to show what Gorsan believed was a genuine concern and respect for the opinions of the members of his newly created Council of Princes. No one was going to be so foolish as to cross him or mistake him for anyone but the Confederation's undisputed ruler, but that was due in no small part to his demonstration that he understood the responsibilities of a ruler. The fact that he was already proving one of the canniest rulers in Norfressan history didn't hurt, either, Gorsan reflected. He wasn't afraid to think, as his ability to conceive of something like the Derm Canal and drive it through to success amply demonstrated. No doubt it had been difficult to convince the newly conquered Bloody Swords to take the proposal seriously, at least at first. Getting them to realize there could be more profit in supporting commerce than in plundering it couldn't have been easy, at any rate! It had probably helped that the canal would stretch right across the traditional Bloody Sword holdings, giving them ample opportunity to make plenty of money off of the freight it would soon be carrying. And, after the initial labor of building the thing, for far less effort than more traditional wealth-gathering hradani practices, like looting and pillaging. And once shippers get accustomed to the notion of actually sending their cargoes through hradani lands, they'll probably take a certain comfort in the fact that the hradani will be providing security rather than raiding their goods. It would take a lunatic to cross hradani guards on their own ground! He stopped and gazed out across the sprawling construction site. Close at hand, crews used rollers and muscle-powered, footed pile drivers to tamp down the gravel ballast filling the gap between the wall of the excavation and the finished wooden forms which awaited the concrete. Gorsan would have preferred to use even more gravel and have a sarthnasik like Chanharsa fuse it, but other portions of the project were already eating up the efforts of at least two-thirds of Silver Cavern's available sarthnaisks, and concrete worked just fine for something as routine as a canal. Further west, the next lock in line was nearing completion, and more crews were tearing down the heavy forms now that the concrete had set. And, further west still, barges loaded with construction material moved steadily up and down the portion of the canal which was already operable. The Derm Canal had been the most exhausting and exhilarating project of Gorsan's career, and his heart swelled with pride as he watched those barges moving across the gently rolling grasslands of Navahk. Another six months, he thought hopefully. Assuming they could finish before winter set in, that was. He shuddered as he remembered other winters, but he was determined they were going to beat this one. And with the Balthar locks already open and the Gullet Tunnel almost completed, the entire route could be ready and open as early as sometime next spring. He could hardly believe it even now, but those construction barges were the clearest possible proof that it really was going to work. And those Purple Lord bastards down in Bortalik are going to be dropping in droves out of sheer apoplexy when it does, he thought with grim satisfaction. Which suits me just fine. * * * "Do you think Shaftmaster's estimates are accurate?" the man across the table asked, and Cassan Axehammer reminded himself not to roll his eyes. Yeraghor Stonecastle, Baron Ersok and Lord Warden of the East Riding, was of little more than average height for a Sothoii -- two inches shorter than Cassan himself -- and as dark and swarthy as Cassan was blond. He had very long arms, and his powerful wrists accurately reflected the rigorous traditional training regimen he maintained, despite his high rank. He and Cassan were kinsmen and close political allies, but there were times Yeraghor's ability to belabor the obvious grated on Cassan's nerves. In fact, it bothered him more because he knew how intelligent Yeraghor actually was, which only made his tendency to ask obviously rhetorical questions even more irritating. "I don't know whether they're accurate or not," Cassan said once he was sure his voice would come out the way he wanted it to. He sipped expensive Dwarvenhame whiskey, then set the crystal glass down very precisely in front of him and leaned back. His comfortable rattan chair creaked under his weight, and he gazed out across the rolling green fields of the Barony of Frahmahn. He could see literally for miles from the roofed balcony set on the west side of his castle's central keep, and everything he saw was his. But somewhere out there, beyond what he could see, beyond the borders of his own South Riding, lay Tellian of Balthar's West Riding, and he felt his jaw muscles clench as he considered the reason -- the real reason -- for this meeting with Yeraghor. "I don't know whether they're accurate, but I think it's obvious Shaftmaster thinks they are -- or will be, when all's said and done. And given that he's the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I'm not prepared to say he's wrong." "And you're sure they're genuine?" Yeraghor asked, his eyes narrowing shrewdly. "Master Talthar's a resourceful soul, but we both know he has irons of his own in this fire." "I'm sure," Cassan replied grimly. "And I've spent some time looking at the reports his estimates are based on, too." His expression wasn't getting any happier. "I'm not sure I agree with all of his analyses, but he can't be too far off." "Shit," Yeraghor said flatly. Unlike Cassan, Yeraghor preferred beer to whiskey, and he buried his nose briefly in his silver chased tankard. Then he slapped it back on the table and glowered at Cassan. "And this business about Macebearer signing on? It all looks genuine enough… I doubt he'd hesitate to offer us false information or even outright forgeries if it would serve his purposes. And capable or not, actually getting his hands on Macebearer's records -- or even just getting access to them -- couldn't have been easy. I know." He smiled thinly. "I've tried myself on more than one occasion!" "They're not forgeries," Cassan said with a grimace. "I haven't managed to get anyone inside Macebearer's staff yet, either -- not high enough to get his hands on this sort of documentation, at least -- but I do have my sources in the Palace. Which is how I know someone broke into his office a few weeks ago. They've all done their best to hush it up, of course, but the investigation was as thorough as it was quiet. Talthar hasn't mentioned it to me specifically, but I'm pretty sure the 'servant' who disappeared the same night Macebearer got himself burglarized was his man." He shrugged. "I recognized Macebearer's handwriting, too. I don't think there's any question the documents are exactly what Talthar told me they are, and that means those estimates are about as accurate -- or official, at least -- as they get." ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 17 "Wonderful," Yeraghor said bitterly. "Things are bad enough the way they are. The last thing we need is Tellian getting Crown approval for that kind of boost to his revenues!" It was nice that Yeraghor agreed with him, Cassan thought acidly, but it would have been even nicer if he could have foregone -- just this once -- his compulsion to restate the obvious. But then Cassan made himself stop and draw a deep breath. His temper, he reminded himself, remained closer to the surface and faster to flare than he would have liked, and however irritating Yeraghor might be, Cassan had no business taking out his ire on his kinsman. Nor was it reasonable to expect any other initial response out of him, given the circumstances. Yes, Yeraghor's conclusion was blindingly obvious, but Cassan had had the advantage of two additional weeks to study the documents the other baron had seen only in the last hour or so. And obvious or not, he had a point, Cassan conceded sourly. One of the unfortunate realities of life was that the water transport of trade goods was far and away safer, faster, and much, much cheaper than trying to ship the same goods overland. That was true even in the Empire of the Axe, with its superb highways; here on the Wind Plain, or in the Empire of the Spear -- where even the best of roads were dirt and the worst were…well, pretty terrible -- moving anything remotely bulky by land over any really extended distance was far too expensive for anyone to show a profit on it. As a consequence, it had always been difficult for Axeman merchants to ship their goods into the Kingdom of the Sothoii. It was possible to move at least some of them (mostly low-bulk luxury goods) overland from Dwarvenhame through the West Riding, but the Ordan Mountains and their foothills were a formidable barrier even over dwarf-designed high roads, and roads in the Duchy of Ordanfalas and the Duchy of Barondir, between Dwarvenhame and the West Riding, were no better than those of the Kingdom itself. For that matter, Barondir had a perennial problem with brigands and raiders, and the duke himself had been known to charge unexpected and sometimes extortionate "tolls" with very little warning. Most of the Axeman goods that did reach the Sothoii made their way up the long, majestic stretch of the mighty Spear River, and even that was barely a tithe of what it might have been. Bortalik Bay, at the mouth of the Spear, lay well over twenty-five hundred leagues south of the Wind Plain. That was an enormous voyage, and Axeman goods coming up the river first had to sail clear down around Norfressa's western coast just to reach Bortalik. Yet distance was only the first hurdle they faced, for the half-elven Purple Lords who ruled Bortalik were deeply resentful of the Empire of the Axe's economic dominance, and they regarded the entire basin of the Spear as their own private preserve. The tolls they charged to permit Axeman goods to pass through Bortalik and up the river were damned close to confiscatory, and they also used their strategic position to fasten a stranglehold on the foreign trade of the Empire of the Spear -- one that frequently drifted over into outright control of Spearman politics. Any Spearman noble who angered the Purple Lords was apt to find all access to foreign goods embargoed by them, with consequences ranging from the merely painful to the ruinous. Neither Cassan nor Yeraghor had any particular problem with that arrangement. What happened in the Empire of the Spear was no concern of theirs, and if Axeman goods found it difficult to make the voyage from Bortalik to Nachfalas, Cassan's clifftop port above the Escarpment, Purple Lord goods made the trip just fine. True, it made the Kingdom's economy almost as vulnerable to Purple Lord manipulation as the Empire of the Spear's in some ways, but that was actually advantageous in many respects, especially from Cassan's viewpoint. That "unavoidable Purple Lord pressure" gave the Kingdom another card to play when it came to managing its relationship with its Axeman allies, who could be counted upon to cough up occasional concessions to sweeten the alliance as a counterbalance. And, on a more personal level, Cassan showed a pretty profit on all of the trade, Purple Lord or not, that passed through his lands on its way to Sothofalas and other points north. As for Yeraghor, the East Riding was the site of most of the Kingdom's iron mines and smithies, and Yeraghor's smiths and craftsmen had absolutely no desire to find themselves competing with the smithies and forges of Dwarvenhame. But that, unfortunately, was exactly what was going to happen if Tellian succeeded in his latest intolerable scheme. The so-called Derm Canal was going to make it possible for Axeman merchant barges to sail up the Morvan River to Derm, the highest navigable point on that river, and then across to the Hangnysti River at Bahnak's capital of Hurgrum and up the Balthar River to the very foot of the Escarpment and their accursed "Gullet Tunnel." Once their goods reached the top of the Escarpment, the Balthar would be available again to ferry them all the way to Tellian's capital, or they could be delivered directly to Sothofalas by way of Glanharrow in less than a third of the time it took for them to reach the capital from Nachfalas…all without paying a single kormak in tolls to the South Riding. And worst of all, it would break the Purple Lords' monopoly on the Spear River. Those same barges could sail down the Hangnysti to the Spear and as far south as they pleased with cargos of Axeman goods and return the same way with cargoes from Spearman merchants without ever going near Bortalik Bay. The Purple Lords were about to lose a disastrous portion of their wealth and power, and while Cassan would have lost no sleep over that, the thought that largish chunks of that same wealth and power would be pouring into Bahnak's accursed Northern Confederation and the West Riding, instead, was another matter entirely. While it was likely his own income would actually increase, given the Nachfalas location and the greater volume of trade which would be passing up and down the upper Spear, that increase would be only a shadow -- and a very thin, dim shadow, at that—of the revenue increase Tellian was about to see. Cassan's nostrils flared as he contemplated that grim future and a dull tide of resentment burned through him yet again as he remembered how close he'd come to defeating Tellian for good. The two of them had been locked in combat for dominance on the Great Council for over twenty years now, and their respective houses had fought that same battle still longer -- all the way back to the Kingdom's very first Time of Troubles -- with the struggle seesawing back and forth with the shifting of political tides. Under King Sandahl, the present King's father, the House of Axehammer had enjoyed a pronounced advantage, but Cassan's position had slipped under King Markhos…thanks, in no small part, to the advice the King had received from his younger brother, Yurokhas. Prince Yurokhas had been fostered at Balthar under Tellian's father at the insistence of the Great Council, which had feared the South Riding's influence with King Sandahl. He'd known the present baron since boyhood, and to make bad worse, he too was a wind rider, like Tellian. Besides, Cassan was forced to admit that he'd overplayed his own hand during Markhos' brief regency. Markhos had been fostered at Toramos, the seat of the Barons of Frahmahn, under Cassan's father, and Cassan had expected to capitalize on that relationship. It had been a mistake. He admitted that freely, if not happily. He'd put the boy's hackles up, and he'd probably been just a bit too open -- well, heavy-handed, if he was going to be honest -- about using the advantages of his riding's position on the Spear. He'd been younger then, himself, barely a dozen years Markhos' senior, and he'd come to his own dignities only a few years before, but that was no excuse for his clumsiness, and he knew it. ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 18 Still, he'd been confident of regaining all the ground he'd lost, and then some, when Tellian "surrendered" over four thousand of his men to less than eighty hradani. The hatred between the Sothoii and their hradani "neighbors" was deep as the sea and bitter as brine, and Tellian had passed up the perfect opportunity to ride down into the Horse Stealers' lands and burn their cities behind them while their own warriors were off battling their Bloody Sword enemies. He'd been right there, poised to carry through the attack, with plenty of reinforcements available to follow his original spearhead down The Gullet. He could have destroyed "Prince" Bahnak's alliance, prevented the Phrobus-damned abortion of a unified hradani "Confederation" on the Wind Plain's very flank before it even began, and he'd let eighty of the barbarians stop him! And, even worse in some ways, he'd actually accepted the blasphemous claim that Tomanak Orfro could conceivably have chosen a hradani as one of His champions! For that matter, he'd accepted Wencit of Rum's preposterous lie that it was the Sothoii who'd begun the millennium and more of bitter, brutal warfare between themselves and the hradani. The court faction which had been most concerned about the possibility of a unified hradani realm had been furious, nor had they been alone in that. Even some of those who'd been prepared to take a wait-and-see attitude had been shocked -- and more than a little frightened, whether they'd wanted to admit it or not -- by the idea that Tellian had actually connived to create the "Northern Confederation." And the notion that he should recognize the champion status of a Horse Stealer hradani, the most hated and reviled of all the hradani clans, had triggered an upsurge of bitter anger. Cassan would never be able to be certain, but he strongly suspected that only Prince Yurokhas' support for Tellian -- and his acceptance that Tomanak might actually have been so insane as to take a hradani as His champion -- had motivated Markhos to resist the furious demands that Tellian be stripped of his membership on the Great Council. Indeed, there'd been demands that he be stripped of his barony and lord wardenship, as well. Yet even though Markhos had stopped short of accepting those demands, Cassan had known how thin the ice had become under Tellian's feet, and he'd been confident that this time he could finish off his rival's influence in Sothofalas once and for all. Unfortunately, it hadn't worked out that way. That his strategy to undermine Tellian's rule with a series of safely deniable attacks on Festian of Glanharrow had collapsed would have been bad enough, but then that bastard Bahzell had been given credit for saving the tattered remnants of the Warm Springs courser herd and actually going on to defeat a pack of demons set upon the coursers by none other than Krahana herself! Cassan still found that tale too ridiculous to accept. He was willing to admit Bahzell might have had something to do with rescuing the surviving coursers -- certainly something had inspired them to accept him as a wind rider, which was almost as blasphemous as the idea that he might actually be a champion -- but Cassan Axehammer would believe Tomanak had accepted Bahzell Bahnakson as one of His champions when Tomanak turned up in person in his own great hall to tell him so! And then, as if that hadn't been enough, that meddlesome, common-born bitch Kaeritha Seldansdaughter had seen fit to interfere in the Kingdom's internal affairs, as well. Of course Cassan wouldn't have wanted someone like Shigu to succeed in destroying an entire temple of any God of Light, but Lillinara was scarcely his favorite deity, either. If it had had to happen to someone's temple, he would have managed to bear up under the knowledge that it had been Hers. And as for the war maids --! Anything that got rid of those unnatural bitches once and for all couldn't be all bad. King Markhos appeared to see things differently, however. Worse, he'd sent his accursed magi to investigate Tellian's and Kaeritha's claims. Personally, Cassan had never trusted the magi, anyway. Oh, he knew all about their precious Oath of Semkirk and how it bound all of them to use their powers only within the law…and as far as he was concerned, that and a silver kormak would get him a cup of hot chocolate. No one with the unnatural powers the magi claimed could be trusted. If for no other reason, how could anyone but the magi themselves verify that they were telling the truth about what they did -- or didn't -- do with those powers of theirs? And the last thing he wanted was anyone peering around inside his head, which was why he always wore the amulet that blocked any mage from doing just that. Fortunately, at least some people had naturally strong blocks which made them all but impossible to read without a major -- and obvious -- effort (assuming the magi were telling the truth about their abilities, at least), and since his amulet simply duplicated that natural block, its protection hadn't triggered any alarms in and of itself. That had prevented the magi from denouncing him as part of the "plot" against Tellian. But it hadn't prevented them from uncovering almost all of the minor lords warden who'd been involved, and one of them -- Saratic Redhelm of Golden Vale -- had been Cassan's own vassal and distant kinsman. That had almost proved disastrous, but Cassan had installed enough layers of insulation between him and Saratic to at least confuse the issue. The danger that Saratic might have chosen to trade his testimony against Cassan for some sort of clemency, or even outright immunity, from the Crown had presented itself…but only until Darnas Warshoe, that useful armsman, saw to it that Saratic suffered an accident. And given what Saratic had been up to, at least a sizable minority of the Kingdom's nobles strongly suspected Tellian had been behind that "accident," not Cassan. It wasn't the sort of thing Tellian normally did, but mercenaries hired by another Sothoii noble didn't normally try to kill Tellian's nephew and heir-adoptive, either. There were some provocations no one could allow to pass unanswered. Cassan doubted anyone in the entire Kingdom believed he hadn't been behind the raids, yet with Saratic's death, there'd been no proof, and not even an irate monarch proceeded against one of the four most powerful nobles of his realm without incontrovertible proof. Not openly, at any rate. Still, whatever anyone else might think, King Markhos obviously knew who'd instigated it all, and he'd made his displeasure clear by stripping Golden Vale from the South Riding and incorporating it into Tellian's West Riding…officially as a form of reparations for Saratic's actions, although everyone knew whose wrist he'd actually been smacking. Nor had he stopped there. He'd summarily dismissed Garthmahn Ironhelm, Lord Warden of Chersa, who'd been his Prime Councilor -- and Cassan's firm ally -- for over ten years. And he'd also informed Cassan in a cold, painful personal interview that he himself would be unwelcome in Sothofalas for the next year or two. The King had stopped short of expelling Cassan formally from the Great Council, yet Ironhelm's dismissal and his own banishment from Sothofalas, however temporary it might be, had reduced his web of alliances and influence to tatters. He'd only recently begun putting those alliances back together, and they remained a ghost of what they had been. Which was, after all, one of the reasons Yeraghor had become even more vital to all of his future plans. "You're right, of course, Yeraghor," he said finally. "And it's not just the revenues Tellian's looking at, either. There's the correspondence from Macebearer, as well. This isn't just about money. Tellian's climbing deeper and deeper into bed with the Axemen and that bastard Bahnak. He's not only going to drag the entire Kingdom into actually endorsing Bahnak's rule, but he's going to get our foreign policy tied directly to Dwarvenhame! And when the dust settles, he's going to be the real power broker here on the Wind Plain. Don't think for a minute that that isn't exactly what he has in mind in the long run, and when he gets it, don't think he's going to forget anyone who's ever done him an injury, either." He looked across the table into Yeraghor's eyes, and his own were grim. "He can rhapsodize about how much good this is going to do our economy, but Shaftmaster and Macebearer are blind, drooling idiots if they can't see the downside! And even if they don't think it's a downside for the rest of the Kingdom, it's damned well going to be one for us. Assuming, of course" -- he smiled thinly -- "that we were so foolish as to let Tellian and Bahnak get away with it."

==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 19 <== toc ==> War Maid's Choice By David Weber Chapter Five The clouds looked less than promising Lady Sharlassa Dragonclaw thought, looking unhappily at the overcast settling lower about the shoulders of Hill Guard Castle. Lady Sharlassa sat under the branches of the castle's apple orchard, but they were barely beginning to bud, and it was far too early in the year to expect them to offer her any protection if Chemalka decided to go ahead and release the rain hovering in those clouds. The breeze was strengthening, too, blowing through the apple branches and lifting stray locks of auburn hair on puffs of blossom-scented perfume, and her nostrils flared as she drew the green, living incense of the world deep into her lungs. She felt alive at moments like this in a way she'd never really been able to explain even to herself, far less to anyone else. It was as if her nerves were connected directly to the trunks of the apple trees, as if she could feel them yearning towards fruit, tossing their branches like widespread fingers to the caress of the wind. Her mother had only smiled fondly and mentioned things like active imaginations when a much younger Sharlassa tried to describe moments like this, and Sharlassa knew she was right. Yet imagination or not, she did feel the life moving with the breeze, tantalizing her with that damp kiss of rain to come. Personally, Sharlassa had no desire to find herself soaked to the skin, but that sense of oneness with the apple trees whispered to her that they were looking forward to it. Well, it was nice that someone was looking forward to something, she thought, and heaved a deep, mournful sigh as the reflection returned her to the reason she was sitting here on a rather damp wall of rough, unmortared stone in an apple orchard almost two hundred leagues from her home. Or, rather, from her new home, since she'd been born and raised less than six miles from where she sat at that very moment. That was another reason she found this apple orchard so restful; she'd spent enough hours sitting here as a little girl for the trees to be old friends. Or gleaning windfallen fruit between meals. Or clambering around in their branches like a squirrel during harvest. In fact, one of those trees, not so very far from where she sat at this very moment, had her initials carved into its bark. She could still remember the thrashing she'd gotten from her mother for "defacing" one of the Baron's trees! A smile flickered across her face at the memory and she put her palms flat on the top of the wall, leaning back slightly to rest her weight on them while she arched her spine and looked up at those clouds. Life had been so much simpler then, without as many opportunities, perhaps, but without as many prices, either. And no one -- except her parents, of course -- had really been that concerned if a hoyden teenager wandered off to sit in an apple orchard somewhere once her chores were done. Now, of course, everyone cared, and the nature of her "chores" had changed rather drastically. She looked back at the castle whose walls had loomed protectively over her parents' modest stone house when she was a girl. Somewhere inside those walls, at this very moment, Tahlmah Bronzebow, her harassed maid, was undoubtedly searching for her. On the basis of past Sharlassa hunts, she estimated that Tahlmah wouldn't quite be ready to call out Duke Tellian's armsmen yet. That would take, oh…another hour and a half. Possibly two. Unless, of course, it occurred to Tahlmah to come check the orchard again. Sharlassa was certain her maid had looked here first, but the initial phase of Sharlassa's current truancy had taken her to the stables, instead, to spend fifteen or twenty minutes communing with the one being in all the world who always commiserated with her. Muddy -- known on official occasions as Summer Rain Falling -- might not understand the reasons for his mistress' moodiness and occasional aspirations to rebellion, but he never stinted on his sympathy. Which, she sometimes reflected, probably had something to do with the lumps of sugar that were customarily nestled in her pocket when she went to call upon him. She smiled at the thought and took her right hand off the wall long enough to pull one of the dark green ribbons out of her hair. She held it up between thumb and forefinger, listening to it snap gently as the breeze played with it, then opened her hand and let it fly. It swooped up into the branches of one of the trees, wrapped itself around a limb, and flew bravely, like a banner against the steadily darkening charcoal of the sky. You're being silly, she told herself…again. Every single one of the girls you grew up with would give her eyeteeth for your life, and you know it! Well, all but one of them, maybe. Of course, her life went the opposite direction from yours, didn't it? She laughed at the thought, but that didn't make it untrue. Yet what all those other girls she'd grown up with probably wouldn't believe for a moment was that she'd never wanted to be a lord warden's daughter. She'd been perfectly happy -- well, almost perfectly happy -- as the daughter of a simple armsman. Oh, she'd been proud of her father and the officer's rank he'd gained. And being a wind rider's daughter had made her even prouder. She could still remember the first time Kengayr, her father's courser companion, had presented his huge, soft nose to a grubby five-year-old's hand, towering over her like a vast gray mountain. A single one of his forehooves had been as big as she was, and his head had been bigger -- she could have used one of his horseshoes for the seat of a swing, and he could have squashed her with a thought -- but all she'd felt was the wonder of him, and she'd known even then that Kengayr meant her father really was as wonderful as she'd always thought he was. But Sir Jahsak Dragonclaw could have stopped at Major Dragonclaw in Baron Tellian's service, as far as Sharlassa was concerned. In fact, she wished he had! If wishes were fishes, we'd never want food, she told herself tartly, quoting one of her mother's favorite maxims. Yet there were times she suspected Lady Sharmatha wasn't a lot happier about the "Lady" in front of her name than Sharlassa was about the one in front of hers. In fact, she was certain there were, although Lady Sharmatha would no more ever admit that than her father might admit that he, too, must cherish occasional second thoughts about the consequences of the honor Baron Tellian had bestowed upon him. And it is an honor, you twit, Sharlassa told herself sternly. From a common armsman to a knight and a wind rider and a major all the way to lord warden?! It's the kind of honor other people only dream of, and you should spend your time being happy for him -- and proud of him -- instead of worrying about all the problems it's made for you! Unfortunately, it was easier for Sir Jahsak -- and for her brothers -- than it was for Sharlassa…or her mother. The rules were so hard for a girl who'd been raised as a tomboy until she was thirteen years old. She was still trying to figure them out, six years later, and she dreaded the even greater number of rules -- the endless number of rules -- she'd have to worry about in years to come. She knew her mother found her new role as Lady Golden Vale an uncomfortable fit, and not just because so many of "their" retainers and tenants hated and resented them as interlopers and usurpers. It would take someone much braver than Sharlassa to show Lady Sharmatha disrespect to her face, yet Sharmatha had to be aware of the way all those hostile eyes scrutinized her, watching for any miscue or misstep they could pounce upon as fresh proof of how uncouth and unworthy of his lord wardenship Sir Jahsak was. ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 20 Sharlassa was only too well aware of it, at any rate. Yet she could have handled that hostility if it had been the only problem. Or she thought she could have. She might have been wrong about that, the way she'd been wrong about so many other things in her life. She sighed again and leaned forward, picking at a bit of moss on the stone wall, feeling the unseen, damp pressure of the rain growing slowly more omnipresent. A patch of the moss came loose and she held it up, studying it, feeling the velvety softness of it against the ball of her thumb. The back, where it had kissed against the stone, was rougher grained, papery, so different from its front, and she wondered if that was some sort of metaphor for her life…or if she was only being maudlin again. She snorted softly, with bittersweet regret for what might have happened. It was strange, and it made her feel guilty sometimes, but she could hardly remember what Sathek had truly looked like. They'd been supposed to have his miniature painted for her before he'd ridden off with Sir Trianal to deal with the mystery attacks being launched on Lord Warden Glanharrow's herds and fields. She ought to remember anyway, painting or no painting -- she'd been madly in love with him, hadn't she? -- but she didn't. Not truly. She remembered how she'd felt about him, how she'd looked forward to the marriage as soon as she was old enough, sometimes she even remembered the feel of his arms around her, but his face was slipping away from her. In an odd way, and one which frequently made her feel almost unbearably guilty, she had a far clearer memory of Sir Trianal's face on the day he'd personally ridden up to her father's house to tell her that Sathek Smallsword had died in his baron's service and under Sir Trianal's command. Well, of course you remember Sir Trianal's face better! Her inner voice was tart this time. Sathek is gone, and you never got that miniature painted, and they say the mind forgets what the heart remembers. Besides, Sir Trianal isn't dead, now is he? It's been -- what? All of three hours since you saw him at breakfast? That probably tends to keep him a little fresher in your memory, don't you think? True enough. That was true enough. And it still didn't keep her from feeling guilty when she couldn't remember. Just as the fact that life was what it was, and Lillinara knew Sharlassa couldn't change it just by wishing it was different, didn't make her any happier about it. At least Mother knows you need all the help you can get, she reminded herself. No matter how much you wish she'd stop beating herself up for "not having done right by you" when you were a girl! She didn't know where we were going to wind up any more than Father did. Or than you did, for that matter! And when it comes down to it, teaching you to think of yourself as a fine lady would have been the cruelest thing she could have done before Father became a lord warden. So, yes, she was deeply grateful to Lady Sharmatha for sending her where she could get the schooling she needed as a proper Sothoii noblewoman, even if it did seem like one of Hirahim's worse jokes to find herself in that position. And no one could possibly have been more understanding or kinder or a better teacher than Baroness Hanatha. Yet sending Sharlassa here -- sending her to the place she still thought of deep in her bones as "home" -- had its own sharp, jagged edges. She was no longer the person she'd been when she'd lived here in one of the neat little houses maintained for the garrison's officers. The girls she'd grown up with -- those that weren't married, at any rate -- had no better idea of how to act around her now than she had of how to act around them. Even her closest friends felt awkward and uncomfortable, divided by that invisible armor of rank which lay between them, afraid someone -- possibly even Sharlassa herself -- would think they were being overly familiar if they dared to treat their old friend as a friend. She sighed yet again -- she was getting a lot of practice at that this afternoon -- and tossed the moss up into the air. Unlike the ribbon, it plummeted to the ground, disappearing into the orchard's grass, and she found herself wishing she could do the same. It was a potentially dangerous thought, especially here in Balthar, and she knew her mother was concerned about that, however careful she'd been to never discuss it with her daughter in so many words. But there wasn't any point pretending the idea hadn't crossed Sharlassa's mind more than once. Lady Leeana Bowmaster had been just as much a tomboy as ever Sharlassa Dragonclaw had been, and she'd gone through life with a fearlessness Sharlassa deeply envied. She'd wondered sometimes if that was because Leeana was not simply one of the most nobly born young women in the entire Kingdom but also an only child, treated more like a son than even she'd realized at the time. Now, with her own closer acquaintance with Baron Tellian and Baroness Hanatha, Sharlassa knew it wasn't that Leeana's parents had treated her like a son but that they'd treated her as a unique person in her own right. Baroness Hanatha treated Sharlassa the same way, and she'd seen the easy affection and love -- the trust -- in the way they treated Sir Trianal, as well. Yet there was no denying that Sharlassa had deeply admired and respected Leeana. Of course, Leanna had been not simply the daughter of her liege lord but also over two years older than Sharlassa. They'd never been anything someone might have described as friends, for they'd lived in different worlds which simply happened to overlap from time to time. But those worlds had overlapped -- sometimes in one of the paddocks or the stables, sometimes right here in this orchard when both of them had helped gather apples -- and whenever they had, Leeana had been unfailingly friendly and kind. More than that, she'd…radiated something, something Sharlassa had seemed to sense the way she sensed the apple trees around her now. There'd been a sparkle, a strength, a sense of vibrant, flickering energy. No doubt that was as much her imagination as sometimes dreaming she was a tree, but that hadn't made the sensation feel any less real, and she couldn't quite convince herself that it had all been imagination. She frowned moodily, with the expression her father had always called "scratching a mental itch" when she'd been younger, just before he chucked her under the chin or snatched her up onto his shoulder or tickled her unmercifully. She wished he was here to do that now and distract her from her brown, unreasonably moody mood, although it would, of course, be unspeakably improper for Lord Jahsak to do such a thing with Lady Sharlassa. In a way, that feeling that she could almost reach out and touch the innermost being of the orchard's trees was to blame for much of her present mood, and she knew it. She treasured the feeling, took strength from it as if it helped to center her and remind her of who she was deep down inside, not simply who she had to learn to be as Lady Sharlassa. Yet she'd always secretly thought she would someday outgrow the absurd fancy that she could sense the trees at all, and she hadn't. In fact, it was actually growing stronger, and she sometimes thought she was reaching deeper and further. Was the problem that she wanted to be able to do that? That she was so unhappy, so uncertain, about who she must learn to be that she longed for escape into some warm, comforting dream? Or into something which could distract her from learning the lessons her life had set her? Or was she simply losing her mind in a pleasantly harmless sort of way? ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 21 Her lips twitched at that last thought, remembering Granny Marlys. All Balthar's children had loved Granny growing up, although even the youngest of them had realized she was what some of the adults in their lives called "not quite right." As she'd grown older, Sharlassa had realized that people who were "quite right" didn't firmly believe they were the goddess Chemalka and could summon rain on a whim or make the sun shine whenever they wanted to. Yet aside from that minor foible, Granny Marlys had been the warmest, kindest person -- and greatest storyteller -- imaginable. Not a parent in Balthar would have hesitated for a moment to ask Granny to care for a child, and her kitchen had been a magic land where the scent of fresh cookies or gingerbread had a habit of ambushing a youthful visitor. But, no, she wasn't another Granny. Granny had simply ignored the fact that she couldn't always make the sun shine whenever she wanted to…and that she frequently managed to get herself drenched working in her kitchen garden because that rain she'd forbidden to fall had fallen anyway. And she'd regarded all of the mortals around her with a benign sense that all of them were there to serve her whims but that she didn't really need them to do anything for her just at the moment, so they might as well go ahead and get along with their own lives until she did need them. Sharlassa didn't live in that comfortable sort of imaginary world. That was the problem, after all! And that was why it…worried her, if that wasn't putting it too strongly, that she seemed to be becoming more sensitive, not less, to at least portions of the world around her. And if you're going to become "more sensitive" to part of the world, why not all of it? she asked herself bitingly. But, no, you can't do that, can you? It has to be just some of the world and just some of the people in it! To be fair, she'd always thought she could sense Kengayr whenever the courser was around. And there'd been that feeling that she could tell thirty seconds ahead of time when her father or her mother was about to walk through a door or someone like Leeana had been about to come around a corner. She'd mentioned that to her mother once, and Lady Sharmatha (only, of course, she hadn't been "Lady" Sharmatha at that point) had told her about something called "syn shai'hain." Sharlassa had never heard of it, but her mother had explained that it meant "something seen before" or "something already seen" in ancient Kontovaran. Sometimes, Sharmatha had told her eleven-year-old daughter seriously as they'd peeled apples -- apples from this very orchard, in fact -- for one of Sharmatha's peerless pies, someone had a flash, a feeling, that they'd already done or seen or experienced something. No one knew exactly why or exactly how it worked, but it happened to a lot of people, especially those -- she looked up under her eyelashes with a smile -- who had particularly active imaginations. For a long time, Sharlassa had simply accepted that her awareness of the world about her was simply syn shai'hain, something she was imagining after the fact but so quickly it seemed to have come before the fact. Unfortunately, that had been easier when it happened less often. Because the truth was, whether she really wanted to admit it or not, that it was happening more and more often. Practically every time she saw Prince Bahzell, for example. Or Walsharno. Or, on a lesser scale, Dathgar or Gayrhalan. Or…one or two other people. She grimaced and ran her hands over her wind-tousled hair, trying not to feel…trapped. That wasn't the word for it, but it came so close. She was being hammered and squeezed into a shape that wasn't hers, and the fact that the people who were doing the shaping had only her best interests at heart -- that so many of them genuinely loved her -- made it no more pleasant to be turned into someone she wasn't. Which was why her mother was concerned about her youthful admiration for Lady Leeana, she knew. Lady Sharmatha would never say so, but she had to worry that Sharlassa might decide to follow Leeana's example and seek refuge among the war maids' free-towns. And, truth to tell, there were times when Sharlassa had been tempted, especially now that she'd had the opportunity to meet Leeana Hanathafressa on her occasional, brief visits to Balthar. That sense of energy and focused purpose and sheer passion for living which she'd sensed -- or thought she'd sensed -- in Leeana when they'd both been so much younger was brighter and stronger than ever. She never had the sense that there weren't things about Leeana's life and the decisions she'd made which she regretted, some of them bitterly, but regret was part of life, wasn't it? Sometimes there were no perfect solutions or choices, only better ones…or worse. And Sharlassa had never once sensed from Leeana any feeling that she'd made the wrong decisions, given the choices which had lain open to her. Yet Sharlassa faced a life of very different choices, for much as she'd admired Leeana, Leeana Hanathafressa was larger-than-life. Like Prince Bahzell, she met the world head on, unflinchingly, making the choice that seemed best to her and accepting the consequences, whatever they might be. And she was braver than Sharlassa. Or perhaps not so much braver as more fearless, for there was a difference between those two things. And when it came down to it, as unhappy as Sharlassa might feel about who she was being forced to become, she wasn't brave enough to give up the parents she loved so dearly. She'd seen Baron Tellian and Baroness Hanatha, and she knew they'd never stopped loving their daughter for a moment. She was confident Lord Jahsak and Lady Sharmatha would never have stopped loving her, even if she'd done something as outrageous as to run away to the war maids. But she also knew how deeply that separation would pain them -- and her -- and at least there was no prospect of her being forced into marriage with someone as disgusting as Rulth Blackhill! In fact -- She stopped that thought ruthlessly in its tracks. She wasn't going to think about that again, even though it did seem bitterly unfair that she should be forced out of the world in which she'd grown up and yet not allowed into the world in which -- Stop that! she scolded herself. It's not going to happen. Or at least the moon will fall and the sun will freeze before it does! And how much of all this doom and gloom and worrying about being able to "sense" trees is all about that kind of foolishness? A lot, I'll bet. She gave herself a shake. Maybe it's a pity you're too old for Mother to put over her knee when you start being this foolish! Your brain always seemed to work better as a child when she stimulated your posterior, after all. She startled herself with a giggle at the image that thought evoked, given that she was two inches taller than her mother these days. Not that Lady Sharmatha had become one bit less formidable, by any means! Besides -- Something struck the back of her left hand ever so lightly. She looked down, and her eyebrows rose as she saw the spot of dampness. Another appeared on her sleeve as she watched, and she felt more light impacts on her head. Told you those clouds were going to rain, didn't I? She told herself tartly. And you didn't listen, did you? You never do. Honestly, I don't know why I put up with me! The rain was falling faster -- well, more thickly, at any rate. It was still more mist than rain, and she sensed no thunder behind it, but that didn't mean it wasn't going to thoroughly soak anything -- or anyone -- foolish enough to be caught out in it. Not to mention a specific young lady (of sorts, anyway) who'd managed to get herself caught in an apple orchard the better part of a mile from Hill Guard's snug, tight roofs. ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 22 Well, you're not going to get any dryer standing here than you'd get walking back to the castle through it, are you? The prosaic thought made her chuckle, although she had a gloomily good idea of how Baroness Hanatha would react when she turned up wet, muddy, and bedraggled. Worse, she had a very clear appreciation of how Tahlmah was going to react to the same sight. She started down the orchard's central aisle, suppressing a useless urge to scurry like one of Hill Guard's home farm's chickens. Unless she thought she could somehow run between the raindrops -- which seemed, on the face of it, rather unlikely -- she was still going to be soaked by the time she got back to the castle. That being the case, there seemed little point in adding breathless and exhausted to the wet, muddy, and bedraggled she was already going to be. Besides, she was wearing those new shoes Tahlmah had insisted she put on this morning, and they'd already rubbed up a blister on her right heel. The raindrops were thicker and somehow wetter feeling by the time she reached the gate in the orchard's stone wall. She was just reaching for the latch when someone pulled it open from the other side and she slid to a halt in surprise. "There you are!" Sir Trianal Bowmaster, heir-adoptive to Balthar, announced triumphantly. "I thought I might find you here! Hiding from the dance master again, were you?" "I --" Sharlassa stopped, blushing rosily, and shook her head. "I was not hiding from the dance master, Milord!" she said then, a little spurt of laughter bubbling under the words. "Master Tobis is far too kind for me to be that rude to him." "Really?" Sir Trianal cocked his head, looking at her skeptically. "Are you going to tell me you actually like learning to dance? Don't forget, I had to learn -- from Master Tobis, as a matter of fact -- and so did Leeana, and between the two of us, I don't think either of us really enjoyed being taught." "Really," she told him firmly, and, in fact, it was true. The blister on her heel had her feeling a little less than eager about her next lesson with Tobis Yellowshield, but she truly did enjoy them. Unlike altogether too many of the other things she was being forced to learn. "Besides, I'm not scheduled for another lesson with him until after lunch." "Oho! So you're hiding from Sir Jahlahan and his etiquette lesson!" "I am not!" she declared even more forcefully (and mendaciously) than before. "I just…went on a walk and lost track of time, Milord." "Since I am a belted knight, and no true knight would ever doubt a lady's word, I won't go into how…likely I find that explanation of your absence, Milady," he told her with a twinkle. "However, I did run into Mistress Tahlmah. She was walking very purposefully along the Great Gallery at the time -- heading, I think, to call on the master huntsman to borrow a couple of his bloodhounds." "Oh, dear!" Sharlassa shook her head, her contrition genuine. So, unfortunately, was the amusement she felt at Sir Trianal's disrespectful but no doubt highly accurate description of her maid. "Have no fear," Sir Trianal said, touching one hand to his heart and bowing to her. "Being the noble and kindly soul that I am, I assured Mistress Tahlmah that I would take it upon myself to check the orchard just in case. She informed me that she'd already searched -- I mean, checked -- there for you, but I felt it was worth another look. And if we hurry," he straightened, "I think we can probably sneak you back into the Castle before Mistress Tahlmah gathers up her nerve and informs Aunt Hanatha that the fairies have stolen you again." Sharlassa hung her head, hearing the serious note under his humor and blushing more darkly than before. "It's not as if you were the first person to ever sneak out for a little time of her -- or his -- own, you know." She wiggled at the note of amused but genuine sympathy in his tone. "I've been known to sneak away on occasion -- generally from my tutors, not the arms master," he confessed. "In fact, I'd do the same thing today, and I'm the next best thing to ten years older than you are." "I know," she sighed, "but I really shouldn't do it. Especially not when Baroness Hanatha is being so kind to me." "Aunt Hanatha is kind to everyone -- even me," Sir Trianal told her firmly. "It's the way she is. Although I will confess that she seems especially taken with you." He considered her thoughtfully. "Sometimes I think it's because you remind her of Leanna, but mostly I think it's because she simply likes the person you are. And even if she didn't, she knows how hard this all is for you." "Milord?" She looked up quickly, startled, and he chuckled. "You're not the only one who found out his life was going places he hadn't planned on, Milady. I never expected to be Uncle Tellian's heir-adoptive, you know. I knew he and Aunt Hanatha had a kindness for me, and I knew I'd always have a place here at Hill Guard if I needed it, but I always expected that to be as of vassal of whoever Leeana married. Of course, that changed." His tone was much drier with the last sentence, but he also smiled and shook his head. Sir Trianal, Sharlassa had realized long ago, was not one of those who believed Leeana had disgraced her family or herself. Sharlassa was reasonably certain he was less than fond of war maids in general, but at least he seemed to respect them. She supposed a cynical person would say that was because Leeana's desertion to the war maids had worked out quite well for him, but Sharlassa knew that wasn't the reason for his attitude. She could feel the genuine affection, the love, for his cousin whenever he spoke about her. In fact -- Stop that, she told herself again. "I do feel a little bit like a duckling trying to become a swan, Milord," she confessed after a moment. "I know." He smiled again. "And, trust me, it does get better…eventually. Although --" A much stronger wind gust blew through the orchard behind a vanguard of rain, drenching Sharlassa's spine, and Sir Trianal broke off. "A duckling -- or a swan -- is what you're going to have to be if we're going to get you back to the house unsoaked!" he said, looking up at the clouds. He considered them for a moment, then whipped off his doublet and draped it over her shoulders and head. "Milord, you can't --!" she began. "Nonsense!" He laughed at her while the strengthening breeze plucked at his fine linen shirt with damp fingers. "I'm sure one of those lessons I evaded when I was younger said that any gentleman was required to give up his cloak or poncho -- if he had one -- to prevent a fair maid from getting drenched. Unfortunately, I seem to have left the house without either of those, so this will have to do." "But you'll get soaked, and --" "In that case, you really should stop arguing with me and get moving so we can get me under a roof before I become soaked to the bone and expire with pneumonia," he said sternly. She looked at him helplessly for a moment, then laughed. "Whatever you say, Milord! Whatever you say."

==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 23 <== toc ==> War Maid's Choice By David Weber Chapter Six Rain pattered down on the roofs of Hill Guard castle. It was a little late in the year for the persistent, day-long, soaking rains of spring's first blush, and not quite early enough for the short-lived, torrential afternoon thunderstorms of midsummer, but there was enough water in the air to go around, Bahzell reflected, standing under the overhanging roof which projected over the central keep's massively timbered front door. And probably enough to fill the Bogs knee-deep and send the overflow gushing down the old riverbed to join the water from Chanharsa's tunnel culverts, he thought, regarding the waterfalls streaming like finely beaded curtains from the eaves of that protecting roof. That would be one explanation for the condition in which Baron Tellian's latest guest had arrived at his ancestral keep above the city of Balthar. Bahzell's lips twitched in amusement as the muddy, soaked-to-the-skin, plainly dressed warrior climbed down from his saddle in Hill Guard's courtyard, for the newcomer bore precious little resemblance to the dandified, arrogant Sir Vaijon of Almerhas he'd first met the better part of ten years ago in Belhadan. The changes were much for the better, in Bahzell's opinion, although he hated to think about how Vaijon's father must have reacted the first time his wandering son returned for a visit. The beautiful, jeweled sword at Vaijon's side was about all that was left of his onetime sartorial splendor, and that sword had been even more profoundly changed than Vaijon himself. "And aren't you just the drowned rat?" the massive hradani inquired genially as Vaijon climbed the steps towards him while one of Tellian's grooms led his horse towards the stable at a brisk pace. "Drowned, certainly," Vaijon agreed wryly, reaching out to clasp forearms with him. "The Gullet's hock deep in a lot of places, and cold, too -- somebody forgot to tell Chemalka it's spring, I think -- but surely you can find something better than a rat to compare me to!" "Oh, I'm sure I could, if it happened I was so minded," Bahzell replied, returning his clasp firmly. "Which you aren't. I see." Vaijon nodded, then turned to Brandark, and extended his hand to the Bloody Sword in turn. "You could come to my assistance here, you know." "I could…if it happened I was so minded," Brandark said with a grin, and Vaijon heaved a vast sigh. "Not bad enough that I'm doomed to spend my life among barbarian hradani, but they have to insult me at every opportunity, as well." "Aye, it's a hard lot you've drawn, and no mistake," Bahzell's tone was commiserating, but his eyes twinkled and his ears twitched in amusement. "Yes, it is." Vaijon pushed back the hood of his poncho, showing golden hair which had once been elegantly coiffed but which he now wore in a plain warrior's braid very much like Bahzell's own. The Sothoii-style leather sweatband he'd adopted made him look older and tougher, somehow (not that he wasn't quite tough enough without it, as Bahzell knew even better than most), and the past six years had put laugh lines around his eyes and weathered his complexion to a dark, burnished bronze. At six and a half feet in height, Vaijon was "short" only in comparison to a Horse Stealer like Bahzell, and with his thirty-second birthday just past, he was settling into the prime of his life. "The bit from Hurgrum to the Gullet wasn't so bad, now that they've got the locks open all the way," he continued. "A lot faster and easier than the first time I made that particular trip, at least! But I, for one, will be delighted once the tunnel finally breaks through and my poor horse doesn't have to swim all the way to the top of the damned Escarpment whenever there's a little sprinkle! I said as much to Chanharsa when I passed through, too. I even took her a basket of your mother's cookies as a bribe, Bahzell. I was sure that would inspire her to greater efforts! But she only laughed at me." He heaved a vast sigh. "I never would've guessed dwarves were just as disrespectful of birth and position as hradani." "Well, I suppose the least we can be doing is to get you out of the rain now you're here," Bahzell told him. "Tellian was all set to come out and greet you his own self, but I told him as how he should be staying right where he was." The hradani's expression darkened slightly. "I'm not liking that cough of his one bit, and the man's too stubborn to be calling in a healer. Or letting me deal with it, come to that." "Is he still coughing?" Vaijon's asked, blue eyes narrowing as he followed the two hradani into the keep and down a flagstoned corridor. It was a sign of how much things had changed in Balthar over the past six or seven years that none of the human armsmen or servants they encountered along the way so much as turned a hair when the unlikely trio passed them. Indeed, most of them smiled and nodded respectfully to Bahzell and his guest. "Aye, that he is. Mind you, it's not so bad as it was this winter past, but it's easier in my mind I'd be if he could just be shut of it once and for all." Bahzell grimaced, ears flattening slightly. "There's no reason at all, at all, I can see why he isn't shut of it, and I'm none so pleased when someone as so many like so little is after being plagued by something like this. No doubt it's naught but my nasty, suspicious mind speaking, and so he's told me plain enough -- aye, and more than a mite testy he was about it, too -- but I'm thinking it's worn him down more than he's minded to admit even to himself." He shrugged. "Any road, Hanatha was more than happy to be helping me scold him into staying parked by the fire." "That's ridiculous," Vaijon said testily. "This isn't the time for him to be sick, especially not with something that hangs on this way and won't let go, wherever it came from. I know he realizes how much depends on him right now. Why can't he grow up and let you take care of it for him?" "And aren't you just the feistiest thing?" Bahzell said with a laugh. "Not but what you've a point." He shrugged again. "And I'll not be brokenhearted if it should be you've more success than I at making him see reason. There's times I think he's stubborner than a hradani!" "Ha! No one's stubborner than a hradani, Bahzell! If anyone in the entire world's learned that by now, it's me." "A bit of the pot and the kettle in that, Vaijon," Brandark pointed out mildly. "And a damned good thing, too, given the job He and Bahzell have handed me," Vaijon retorted. "Actually, you might have a point there," Brandark conceded after a moment. "And speaking as someone who always wanted to be a bard, I can't help noticing that there's a wagonload or two of poetic irony in where you've ended up, Vaijon." "I'm so glad I'm able to keep you amused," Vaijon said. "Oh, no! Keeping me amused is Bahzell's job!" Brandark reassured Vaijon, as they turned a corner and started up the steps to the keep's second floor. "You just keep laughing, little man," Bahzell told him. "I'm thinking it would be a dreadful pity if such as you were to be suddenly falling down these stairs. And back up them -- a time or two -- now that I think on it. It's a fine bouncing ball you'd make." Brandark started to reply, then stopped and contented himself with an amused shake of his head as Bahzell opened a door and led him and Vaijon into a well lit, third-floor council chamber. Diamond-paned windows looked out over the gray, rainy courtyard, but a cheerful coal fire crackled in the grate and a huge, steaming teapot sat in the middle of the polished table. The red-gold-haired man seated at the head of the table, closest to the fire, looked up as Vaijon and the hradani entered the chamber. "Good morning, Vaijon!" Sir Tellian Bowmaster, Baron of Balthar and Lord Warden of the West Riding, said. He rose, holding out his hand, then coughed. The sound wasn't especially harsh, but it was deep in his throat and chest, with a damp, hollow edge, and Vaijon frowned as they clasped forearms in greeting. "Good morning to you, Milord," he replied, forearms still clasped. "And why haven't you let Bahzell deal with that cough of yours?" "Well, that's coming straight to the point," Tellian observed, arching his eyebrows. "I've been dealing with hradani too long to beat about the bush, Milord," Vaijon said. "And since, at the moment, you have not one but two champions of Tomanak right here in your council chamber, it seems to me to be a pretty fair question." "It's only a cough, Vaijon," Tellian replied, releasing his forearm. "I'm not going to run around panicking just because I don't shake off a winter cough as quickly as I did when I was Trianal's age. And there's no need to be asking a champion -- or two champions -- to waste Tomanak's time on something that minor!" ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 24 "I don't think He'd mind, Milord," Vaijon said dryly, "and I know neither Bahzell nor I would object to spending four or five minutes taking care of it. So perhaps you should balance your laudable determination not to pester Tomanak over 'something that minor' against the fact that we're both going to be just about insufferable if you don't let us take care of it and it gets worse again." "I think you'd better surrender while the surrendering is good, Uncle," Sir Trianal Bowmaster said, smiling as he crossed the council chamber from his place by the windows and held out his own arm to Vaijon. "I've certainly been suggesting the same thing to you long enough, and so has Aunt Hanatha." "And why doesn't one of you just go ahead and say 'You're not as young as you used to be and you need looking after, Tellian'?" Tellian demanded acidly. "Because we're thinking as how it would only be making you stubborner still?" Bahzell suggested in an innocent tone, and despite himself, Tellian laughed. "Seriously," Vaijon said, "you ought to let us get rid of it for you, Milord. Perhaps it is only a minor inconvenience, but there's no point in your putting up with it, and I agree with Bahzell. There are enough people who wish you ill for something that just keeps hanging on this way to make me unhappy. I'm not trying to encourage you to look for assassins under your bed every night, but we know for a fact that the Dark doesn't much care for you. You're probably right that it's nothing more than a simple cough…but you might not be, too, and it would make all of us feel a lot better if it went away. Especially if you're going to be traveling to Sothofalas with Bahzell and Brandark and this damned rain hangs on the way it looks like doing. The last thing we need is for you to come down with something like you had last winter when you need to be on your toes dealing with Lord Amber Grass and Prince Yurokhas." Tellian glowered at him for a moment, then sighed and shook his head. "All right. All right!" He shook his head again. "I yield. I still think you're all worrying like a batch of mother hens, but I can see I'm not going to get any rest until I do it your way." "And why you couldn't have been realizing that a week ago is a sad puzzle to me," Bahzell told him with a slow smile. "Probably because I'm getting so old, frail, and senile," Tellian replied darkly, then pointed at the chairs around the table. "And I suppose we should all sit back down before my aged knees collapse and I fall down in a drooling heap." The others all laughed, although at forty-six, Bahzell was actually a few months older than the baron. On the other hand, he was also a hradani, and hradani routinely lived two hundred years or more, assuming they managed to avoid death by violence. That made him a very young man by his own people's standards. Indeed, he was little more than a stripling, younger even than Tirinal of Balthar, by hradani reckoning. They settled themselves around the conference table and Trianal poured a big, steaming cup of tea and passed it to Vaijon. "This wouldn't be more of that vile morning moss tea, would it?" the champion asked, sniffing the fragrant steam suspiciously. "Not in Hill Guard," Tellian reassured him. "Would you like me to drink some first to reassure you?" "That won't be necessary, Milord," Vaijon said. "Unlike some of the people sitting around this table, I don't think you'd deliberately set out to poison an innocent and unsuspecting man." "You've a way of holding grudges, don't you just?" Bahzell observed. "We told you as how it would relieve your cramps, and so it did, didn't it?" "That's your story, and you're sticking to it, I see." Vaijon sipped cautiously, then smiled and drank more deeply. "Thank you, Milord," he said. "It's good." "You're welcome." Tellian leaned back in his chair, covering his mouth as he coughed again, and Trianal poured him a cup and slid it across to him. The baron grimaced, but he also drank dutifully, then raised both eyebrows at his nephew. "Satisfied?" "For now," Trianal replied, and Tellian snorted. "Well, pour yourself some," he directed sternly. "I wasn't the one running around out in the rain without even a doublet, now was I?" Trianal smiled and shook his head. But he also poured himself a cup obediently and sipped from it. "I trust you're satisfied now, Uncle?" he asked, and Tellian chuckled. "For now," he said, drinking some more of his own tea, and then cocked his head at Vaijon. "Prince Bahnak asked me to give you his greetings," Vaijon said, responding to the silent invitation to begin. "And Princess Arthanal's sent along that pillowcase she's been embroidering for Baroness Hanatha. I understand this one completes the entire set." "Your mother's skill with a needle never ceases to amaze me, Bahzell," Tellian said with simple sincerity, "although how she finds the time to use it with everything she and your father have on their plates amazes me even more. Please tell her how much Hanatha and I appreciate the gift…and the thought that went into it, even more." "I will that," Bahzell assured him. "I'm thinking as how that's not all Father had to be saying, though." "No, it wasn't," Vaijon agreed. "A messenger came in from Kilthan just before I left Hurgrum. It seems Kilthan's agents are reporting that the Purple Lords are finally waking up, and they don't much like what they're hearing." "My heart bleeds for them," Tellian said sardonically. "I don't think anyone's going to waste much sympathy on them, Milord. But Kilthan's of the opinion they might try to do something to scuttle the entire project." "Like what?" Trianal asked. At twenty-seven, Tellian's nephew was a broad shouldered, solidly built young man. He was also an inch shorter than Brandark, making him the shortest person in the room, as well as the youngest, but there was nothing hesitant about his manner. "They don't exactly have an army they could send up this way -- or not one worth a solitary damn, at any rate." He snorted contemptuously. "And even if they had one, we are just a bit too far from their frontiers for that," he added. "No, they can't get at us with troops, even assuming they had an army used to doing anything more strenuous than terrorizing 'uppity' peasants, but they do have influence," his uncle pointed out, never looking away from Vaijon. "That's what Kilthan's thinking about, isn't it?" "He and Prince Bahnak both," Vaijon confirmed with a nod. "Mind you, I don't think the Purple Lords would be above trying to provoke some sort of more…direct action. I imagine the possibility of using the River Brigands as catspaws has to've crossed their brains, for example. It's the sort of idea that would appeal to them. But I think they're more concerned about behind the scenes efforts in Sothofalas itself, Milord." "Where Cassan and Yeraghor would just love to help them succeed," Tellian said sourly. "Something along that line, yes." Vaijon nodded again. "Which would be lending some added point to our visit," Bahzell observed. "Perhaps. No, probably," Tellian said. "Not that Cassan and Yeraghor need any outside encouragement to do anything they can to break our knees for us." "From the construction side, I'd say it's really too late for them to stop you, Milord," Brandark put in. "It's never too late for that, Brandark," Tellian replied. "If the faction that's most worried about Prince Bahnak's power base had its way, the King would lead an army down the Escarpment, burn Hurgrum and the rest of the Confederation to the ground, and take the entire project over in the Crown's name. I suspect at least half of them have to be bright enough to figure out how Kilthan would react to that, even assuming Prince Bahnak didn't hand us our heads -- which I rather suspect he would -- but that wouldn't stop them from proposing it for a moment. And if they didn't get it, their fallback position would be to insist that King Markhos embargo any trade between the Confederation and the Kingdom. For that matter, some of them are going to argue that the canals and the tunnel are only going to increase the Empire of the Axe's 'already disproportionate influence' in the Kingdom's politics and policy." "It's not something they'll find simple to be stuffing back into the bottle," Bahzell rumbled, "which isn't to say as how they won't try to do just that. And I'm thinking they've more than enough ways to be causing us grief if it should happen they take it into their heads to be doing it." "Which is why you and I are going to Sothofalas," Tellian agreed, then looked back at the window at the steady rain and grimaced. "Not that I'm really looking forward to the trip." "Ah, but it could be worse," Brandark comforted him. "You could be headed in the opposite direction." "Not a feeble and ancient wreck like myself." Tellian coughed again, quite a bit more dramatically than strictly necessary. "That's a job for a younger -- and more waterproof -- man." "You're so good to me, Uncle," Trianal said dryly, and Tellian chuckled and reached across the table to clasp his nephew's shoulder. ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 25 "You'll do fine. And you'll have Vaijon along to help out, once we get back from Sothofalas." "Isn't that about like saying the tinder will have a spark along to help it out, Milord?" Brandark inquired. "You're welcome to come along yourself, Brandark," Vaijon invited, but the Bloody Sword shook his head quickly. "I appreciate the invitation -- really, I do -- but I'm afraid I don't remember having lost anything on the Ghoul Moor." The others laughed, although the notion of the upcoming summer's campaign wasn't an especially humorous topic. The Sothoii had been forced to launch periodic campaigns into the Ghoul Moor for as long as anyone could remember. In fact, generations of young Sothoii warriors -- like Trianal (and Tellian himself, if it came to that) -- had been blooded there. Yet those had all been little more than spoiling attacks, designed to drive the ghouls back from the foot of the Escarpment and remind them to stay clear of the Sothoii's horse herds on the far side of the Hangnysti River. With the approaching completion of the Derm Canal, something more permanent was required. No one was foolish enough to believe the ghouls could actually be exterminated, although that would have been the preferred solution for anyone who'd ever had the misfortune to meet one of them. But if the entire canal project was to succeed, something had to be done to protect barge traffic on the Hangnysti. Ghouls, unfortunately, were excellent swimmers, and they had objectionable dining habits. It might be just a little difficult to convince bargemen to sail down the river knowing the ghouls -- who regarded them as tasty snacks which were tastiest of all while they were still alive -- were waiting to greet them. That was the reason for the joint campaigns Tellian and Bahnak had mounted in the Ghoul Moor over the last two summers. The ghouls' territory stretched over seven hundred miles along the Hangnysti, and there was no hope that anyone could possibly actually control that vast an area. But what they could do was to secure the strip along the riverbank itself with a series of blockhouses and forts connected by mounted patrols. Maintaining those blockhouses and garrisons -- and especially the patrols -- wouldn't come cheap, but the projected earnings of the new trade route would more than cover the expense…assuming King Markhos wasn't convinced by the anti-hradani faction in Sothofalas to forbid Sothoii participation. At the moment, there seemed little probability their opponents would be able to persuade him to do anything of the sort, but the possibility couldn't be ruled out. And, in the meantime, the thought of Sothoii cavalry voluntarily cooperating with hradani infantry on any endeavor was enough to reduce those opponents to frothing fury. Even many of those who were tentatively in support of the new trade route were… uncomfortable with the notion. After a thousand years of merciless hostility, the concept of an army which combined hradani and Sothoii into a single, unified force was a profoundly unnatural one. In fact, the first campaign season had gone less than smoothly. The armsmen of the West Riding were deeply loyal to their baron, yet his decision to fight side-by-side with hradani had come hard for many of them. Even those who'd accepted that Bahzell truly was a champion of Tomanak and a wind rider had found it difficult to extend that same acceptance to hradani in general after so many centuries of bloodletting and mutual atrocities. There'd been a great deal of grumbling and more than a little resistance, not all of it from anti-hradani bigots, and Tellian had been forced to lead them himself that first year. And, of course, there were anti-Sothoii bigots in plenty on the hradani side, just to make the situation still better. Given the obstinacy quotient of Sothoii and hradani, the situation had been rife with potential disasters, and even with Tellian there in person, and with Bahnak's heir, Bahzell's oldest brother Barodahn, personally commanding the hradani contingent (and cracking heads where necessary), things had almost spiraled out of control on more than one occasion. In the end, it had been the Order of Tomanak more than anything else which had held things together. The Hurgrum Chapter had earned a high reputation among the Sothoii in the bloody battle to avenge the desecration of the Warm Springs courser herd, and its destruction of Sharna's influence in Navahk had won it an equally high reputation among the hradani. The respect it enjoyed from human and hradani alike had allowed it to serve as both a unifying force and a buffer between the two factions when tempers flared. It had also led the way once battle was joined, and whatever they might think of one another, the Sothoii and Prince Bahnak's hradani were all fighting men. Where the Order led, they followed, and in the following they learned to respect one another, as well. There were still occasional troublemakers from both sides, of course, although their fellows tended to quash them even more effectively than their officers might have. And the Order of Tomanak remained a unifying force, as well as the point of the spear. By now, however, the West Riding by and large had at least accepted the concept that fighting with hradani rather than against them was a possibility. The fact that the Hurgrum Chapter was headed by a human, despite its exclusively hradani membership, hadn't been lost on Tellian's armsmen that first summer, either. In fact, the Hurgrum Chapter now boasted almost a dozen human members besides Vaijon, although any Sothoii would have flatly denied the possibility of such an arrangement before Tellian had "surrendered" to Bahzell in the Gullet. Once this summer's campaign began, Vaijon would be personally leading the Order, and over the last half dozen years, he'd turned into a seasoned and skillful field commander. That was a transition not all knights, even of the Order of Tomanak, made, and Bahzell was proud of the younger man. "So you've made up your mind as how Trianal will be after commanding your armsmen this time?" he asked Tellian now, and the baron nodded. "I've got a feeling you and I are going to be spending more time than either of us might like in Sothofalas this year, Bahzell," he replied. "Especially me." He grimaced. "Besides, Trianal's more than up to the challenge, and he's senior enough -- and old enough now -- that I can delegate the job to him without worrying that any of my officers might feel they have to test the limits of his authority." He grinned at his nephew. "And he's still young enough I can downplay just how ticklish the situation in the Ghoul Moor is if I have to in Sothofalas. After all, if it were really important, or if our alliance with your father was truly shaky, then surely I'd be there myself, wouldn't I?" "And who was Father thinking about from his side, Vaijon?" Bahzell asked. "Barodahn? Thankhar?" "Actually, no," Vaijon said. "He's sending Barodahn off to Silver Cavern for a conference with Kilthan and the other clan elders, and Thankhar's busy acting as his eyes and ears with Serman and the Derm Canal work crews. So he's picked someone else -- Yurgazh." Bahzell blinked, ears flattening briefly in surprise, but then his eyes narrowed and he began to nod. Slowly, at first, then faster and more enthusiastically. Prince Arsham Churnazhson had inherited the throne of Navahk following the death of his father. Despite his own illegitimacy, he'd always been popular with the Navahkan Army, and he'd fought well and hard against Hurgrum and her allies. In the end, he'd surrendered honorably, and while he was unlikely ever to be especially fond of Prince Bahnak or his sons, he'd also never had time for the perversions and cruelty of Churnazh's legitimate sons. Besides that, he was smarter than they'd been, able to recognize the advantages the unification of the northern hradani had brought to all of them. Navahk had gone from starving misery to something which actually approached prosperity; that had done wonders to consolidate the legitimacy of his rule, if not his parentage, in Navahkan eyes, and the completion of the canals and the tunnel was bound to bring his city state even greater prosperity. Yurgazh Charkson was cut from much the same cloth as Arsham, and he'd become the Navahkan prince's senior general following the war. In addition, he and Bahzell had formed a wary semi-friendship during Bahzell's days as a political hostage in Navahk, which hadn't hurt his acceptability among Horse Stealers. Yet, like Arsham, he'd distinguished himself in both wars against Hurgrum, as well, which meant he was both popular with the Navahkans and respected by Bahnak's Horse Stealer officers. He had the moral authority to command the allegiance of both, and putting a Bloody Sword in command of the Northern Confederation's half of the Ghoul Moor expedition would constitute another major step in Bahnak's ongoing campaign to truly unify the northern hradani. And letting deputies, however senior, represent both Tellian and Bahnak in the field would go far to suggest that human and hradani cooperation was becoming routine enough it no longer required heads to be knocked together on a wholesale basis. "He's a canny one, my Da," Bahzell said with a smile. "Almost as canny as someone else as comes to mind." He twitched his ears at Tellian, who snorted. "It's not canniness on my part, if that's what you mean, Bahzell; it's laziness. That's why the gods gave us youngsters to send out and do the hard work while we lie about drinking wine and belching."

==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 26 <== toc ==> War Maid's Choice By David Weber Chapter Seven I really hate this, Shahana Lillinarafressa thought moodily as the right leaf of Thalar Keep's heavy wooden gates swung open at her approach, and the fact that her own fair-mindedness told her she was being unreasonable only made her mood even worse. Unfortunately, she didn't have a lot of choice in the matter, and since that was true, she was determined to discharge her duty well. However badly it set her teeth on edge. Her mail jingled as her horse trotted through the gatehouse entry tunnel, hooves noisy on the pavement, the sound echoing under the circles of the murder holes in the passageway's roof. Then she was out into the sunlight once again, drawing rein in the keep's cobblestoned courtyard. It wasn't much of a keep to someone who'd seen the massive engineering works and fortifications of the Empire of the Axe, but she supposed it was a fairly impressive pile of stone for a relatively minor lord warden of the Sothoii. Poorly designed and laid out by the standards of competent fortress engineers, perhaps, not to mention easily dominated by proper siege engines on the nearby high ground and with an equally easily-mined earth footing instead of solid stone, but impressive for a Sothoii keep. Of course, for anyone else… She grimaced mentally as the reflection flashed through her brain. She was being cattish again, she thought, and reminded herself -- again -- to keep her opinion of Lord Trisu's family seat to herself. However justified it might be. Stop that! she scolded herself. Behind her, the combination honor guard and delegation from Kalatha rode out of the same tunnel, and she sensed the male eyes watching all of them with the combined curiosity and flicker of hostility to which any arm of Lillinara became accustomed, at least in the Kingdom of the Sothoii. The hostility quotient was probably a little higher in this case, she reflected, given her war maid escort and memories of what had so nearly happened six or seven years ago. However -- "Welcome, Dame Shahana," Sir Altharn Warblade, the senior officer of Thalar Keep's garrison, greeted her with a bow. Shahana was no knight -- no arm was -- and the title was yet another thing about her current duty that set those teeth of hers on edge, but she couldn't seem to break the Sothoii of the need to append some sort of title they recognized to her name. Even now, she wasn't certain whether that was because they needed that formal label to feel remotely comfortable with any woman who lived her life under arms, or if it was because of her champion's status. Of course, the arms weren't quite like any other deity's champions, but it was probably too much to expect any Sothoii to grasp that point. They were doing their best to be courteous, and given how hard it must be for any new thought to claw its way through their brains, she had no choice but to take it in the spirit in which it was -- probably -- intended. "And greetings to you, Sir Altharn," she replied pleasantly, half-bowing in the saddle. "As always, it's a pleasure to see you," Sir Altharn lied politely. "Will you step down from the saddle and let us see to your horse?" "With pleasure," Shahana said, swinging down from her mount. One thing she had to admit was that the Sothoii deserved every bit of their reputation as horse breeders. Her own mare was a case in point, a gift from the man she was here to see. And another of those little irritations with which she had to cope, considering how little she relished having to feel grateful to Lord Warden Trisu for any reason. Sadly, she had little choice from that perspective, since Spring Storm Cloud Rising, the name the Sothoii had inflicted upon the beautiful creature, was undoubtedly the finest horse she'd ever ridden in her life. She'd shortened the splendiferous name to "Stormy," of course -- not even the Sothoii routinely used the names they bestowed upon their horses -- and she paused to rub the iron gray's satin nose before she handed the reins to the waiting groom. Stormy nosed back affectionately, and Shahana smiled for a moment before she turned back to Warblade. "We'll take good care of her, Milady," the armsman promised as the groom led the mare away, and Shahana nodded. "I know," she said, and she did. Despite all the things about the Sothoii which irritated her, there were almost as many things she liked, when she had the patience to admit it to herself, and their near universal dedication to the four-legged wonders they bred was high on the list. "Then if you'll accompany me," Warblade invited, and she nodded again and fell in at his side as he escorted her into the main keep. * * * Leeana Hanathafressa dismounted from her own gelding as Sir Altharn led Arm Shahana off to her first meeting. She didn't envy the arm -- a stubborner, more iron-headed individual than the current Lord Warden of Lorham would have been impossible to imagine -- and she wasn't looking forward to her own visit with him, either. But whatever his other failings, Trisu was at least unfailingly (if coldly, disapprovingly, and stiffly) courteous, even to her. The same could not be said for some of his armsmen. She felt eyes upon her as she came lithely down from the saddle. She knew it wasn't because of her horsemanship, and she suppressed an urge to tug down her chari's hem. It was ridiculous, of course, and one of the reasons she most hated her occasional trips to Thalar Keep, where every single armsman and servant knew exactly who she'd been born to be. The knowledge behind those eyes made her much more aware than usual of just how much thigh the chari showed, and she could imagine only too readily how the minds behind some of those eyes were stripping her the rest of the way naked. The owners of those eyes would undoubtedly have done the same to any war maid, but there was no point pretending they didn't pay special attention to her. Legally, all war maids were equal before the law, absolved of all previous family affiliation and duties, yet it seemed every living Sothoii knew who her father was. That made her an object of special interest to almost everyone…and one of special contempt to those who insisted on thinking of all war maids as unnatural creatures, the best of whom were little better than common harlots and all of whom were dark dish0nor to their family names. The thought of successfully bedding her held a special attraction for quite a few Sothoii males, and not just because she happened to be young and good looking, and she knew exactly why that was. And what was almost worse, there were countless "proper" Sothoii women who undoubtedly figured that was exactly what she deserved after the humiliation and shame she'd inflicted upon her parents. There'd been a time when her awareness of those watching eyes and the thoughts behind them had embarrassed her more than she would have believed possible; now, it only made her angry. She had no intention of revealing that to her audience, though, however much pleasure it would have done her to rip off a few heads and shove them up their owners' bodily orifices. The tart thought woke an unexpected sparkle of welcome amusement, and she reached up and patted Boots' neck. The bay brown gelding blew heavily, trying to convince her the journey from Kalatha had worn him to the bone, but she knew better, and she smiled. "Don't lie to me," she told him. "I've known you too long for that." Boots tossed his head with a snort, recognizing her tone, and she laughed. Yet even as she did, she felt those eyes, and that pissed-off part of her still wanted to go turn some of them black and blue. "Kitty, kitty, sheathe those claws," a voice murmured very quietly beside her, and she glanced at Garlahna. "I know what you're thinking," her best friend said. "For that matter, I'm thinking the same thing, but if you go and start kicking their arses the way they deserve, Mayor Yalith and Balcartha will have a few sharp things to say to you when we get home." "I don't know what you're talking about," Leeana replied, elevating her nose. "Although, I do notice no one's offered to take care of our horses for us…again." "As if you'd let anyone else take care of Boots!" Garlahna snorted. "That's not the point. The point is that they didn't offer." Garlahna shrugged, and Leeana reminded herself not to grimace. Her friend was unaware of the finer points of etiquette among the Sothoii aristocracy. As such, she didn't recognize the deeply offensive insult the Kalathan war maids had just been offered. For that matter, most war maids wouldn't have recognized it, given the relatively humble origins from which the majority of them sprang, which was probably one reason Trisu's armsmen and grooms took such delight in offering it. They knew how they'd just slighted the two of them, and the fact that war maids in general were too stupid to even know they'd been insulted only made it better. And then there was Leeana herself…the one war maid they could be certain would know how profoundly she'd just been insulted. She found a certain degree of revenge in smiling at the grooms and hostlers standing around with their hands ostentatiously in their pockets as she and Garlahna passed on their way to the stables. It wasn't the kind of smile Sothoii were accustomed to seeing from war maids, and she knew her mother would have been appalled if she could see it. There were advantages to having been raised as the daughter of one of the Kingdom's foremost powerful nobles, however, and she knew exactly how to put the proper cold edge of contempt into an otherwise pleasant expression. ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 27 "Thinks her shit doesn't stink," she heard someone mutter in a voice she was perfectly aware she was supposed to hear. She ignored it…except to give her hips a slight swish which would also have appalled her mother. "One of these days, you're going to get us mobbed," Garlahna told her quietly. "You do know that, don't you?" Leeana arched an eyebrow at her friend, and Garlahna chuckled. "When it happens, I'm hiding behind you," Garlahna warned, brown eyes gleaming with amusement in the stable's dim light as she and Leeana began un- saddling their horses. "Coward," Leeana said, smiling back. "No, just practical; I know my limitations -- relatively speaking, of course. Besides, Barlahn doesn't like it when I bring back black eyes from one of these little jaunts with you. I think he thinks it's unladylike." "Barlahn?" Leeana laughed out loud. "He'll just want to hear about what you did to the poor jerk who gave it to you in the first place!" "I don't know where you get those ridiculous ideas about him," Garlahna said severely, swinging her saddle up onto a tack rack. "He's a very delicate and refined man, you know." "Sure he is. And I know just what part of his 'refined' personality most attracts you, too. I have seen him swimming, you know!" Leeana rolled her eyes, and Garlahna smacked her lightly on the shoulder. Leeana racked her own saddle, whisked off Boots' saddle blanket, and began briskly rubbing him down. It was a task she'd performed hundreds, even thousands, of times before, and she flared her nostrils, inhaling the familiar, welcome scents of horseflesh, saddle soap, leather, oil, and hay. Whatever she might think of Trisu's armsmen's standards of courtesy, they kept Thalar Keep's stables in meticulous order, and she was prepared to forgive them quite a bit as long as that was true. "So, are you going to try to talk to him today, or wait until tomorrow?" Garlahna asked, rubbing down her own horse with considerably less pleasure than Leeana. "I think Arm Shahana's going to keep him pretty fully occupied today," Leeana replied. "Besides which, you don't want to talk to him one moment sooner than you have to." "I didn't say that." "No, but you were thinking it pretty loudly." "Is it my fault the man's an idiot?" Leeana demanded, shaking her head disgustedly. "I swear, sometimes I wonder what Mayor Yalith is thinking, sending me to talk to him about something like this!" "I'd imagine it has something to do with, oh, I don't know…the fact that you understand 'something like this' better than any of the rest of us?" Leeana snorted, but she had to concede that Garlahna had probably put her finger on it. There weren't many -- in fact, she admitted, there weren't any -- other war maids with her perspective on the internal workings of the aristocracy and its obligations under the Kingdom's laws and traditions. That made her the logical person to "informally" discuss minor points of contention with Trisu before they turned into formal complaints. Once it reached the complaint stage, someone older and more senior would be sent to handle the matter, but Mayor Yalith had gotten into the habit of using Leeana to keep things from ever getting to that point. Of course, there was the minor fact that the mayor couldn't possibly have found an envoy who would have been more offensive to Trisu's prejudices. Which, Leeana had suspected a time or two, might well be another reason she kept getting selected for these little visits. I do wish the mayor could find another way to tweak Trisu's nose, she thought moodily, her arm moving rhythmically while she continued to rub Boots down. Not that I don't sympathize with her. And not that she isn't making a valid point, for that matter. War maids aren't supposed to cater to the prejudices of our male "betters," and sending someone Trisu has to be polite to despite himself is one way to underscore that for him. Unfortunately, understanding what she's doing doesn't make it any more pleasant to be her clue stick. "I'll talk to him about it tomorrow," she said out loud. "Try not to do it until after breakfast," Garlahna advised. "That's the most important meal of the day, you know. I'd hate for you to lose your appetite that early." * * * "Welcome, Arm Shahana," Trisu Pickaxe said as Warblade personally ushered Shahana into his spartan, whitewashed office high in Thalar Keep's central tower. "Thank you, Milord," she replied. As much as she and Trisu grated on one another's nerves, he was always punctiliously polite whenever they met. And he was apparently the only man in all of Lorham who could remember the proper form of address for one of Lillinara's champions. "May I offer you refreshment?" Trisu continued, waving one hand at the small side table, where a bottle of Dwarvenhame whiskey and two crystal glasses kept company with a moisture-beaded pitcher of beer and a much larger beer stein. At least he'd learned that much about her, she thought. "That would be most welcome, Milord," she replied with a slight smile, and he personally and expertly poured beer into the stein and handed it to her. She sipped with unfeigned pleasure, since Trisu had one of the better brewmasters she'd ever encountered. "This is good, Milord," she acknowledged. "I'm pleased you like it," he replied with a genuine smile. Then he waved her into the chair facing his desk and waited until she sat before seating himself once more. "May I ask to what I owe the pleasure of your visit?" "Nothing earth shattering…this time, Milord." Shahana smiled thinly. "The Voice knew I had business in Kalatha, and she asked me to stop by and visit you while I was in the vicinity. She wanted me to extend her respects, and to tell you Quaysar expects a very good harvest this year, if the weather holds fair. She hopes to be able to make good on the taxes you so graciously deferred last fall." "It's good of her to take the trouble to inform me of that," Trisu replied. He took a sip from his own glass of whiskey, and Shahana wondered if it was to erase the taste of that courteous response from his mouth. Then she scolded herself. No, he didn't like the war maids, and he would have been far happier if Quaysar had lain in someone else's wardenship, but she'd never heard an overtly discourteous word out of him. Bluntness that verged on rudeness, sometimes, for he was a plainspoken, almost painfully honest man who took a certain pride in being that way, but never deliberate discourtesy. "Please inform the Voice that there's no urgency in making up last year's shortfall," he continued after a moment. "Bad harvests can happen to anyone, but it looks like a good harvest for almost everyone this year if, as you say, the weather holds. That's what I'm hearing from my bailiffs, at any rate, which means we're anticipating a strong income stream, and I realize the Temple has yet to fully recover." He smiled thinly. "Given the way events almost worked out, I fully understand that her treasury is still under considerable pressure." "Thank you, Milord." It was a bit difficult for Shahana to get the words out in a normal tone as Trisu reminded her of how close the Quaysar temple of Lillinara had come to total disaster. He was right about the strain the temple's treasury had been under ever since, although that pressure was finally beginning to ease, thank the Goddess! But the last several years have been hard ones in the wake of Shigu's devastating attack. And the real reason you're pissed off by Trisu's "understanding tone" isn't just because he was right all along when he claimed there was something seriously wrong in Quaysar, either. It's because Dame Kaeritha got the call to straighten that entire mess out instead of you, isn't it? She didn't much like admitting that. In fact, she was self-honest enough to know she spent as much of her time as she could not admitting it. That, unfortunately, didn't make it untrue. No, it doesn't. But, dammit, we should have seen what was happening, and the Mother should have sent one of Her arms to deal with it! The thought flashed through her mind, and she raised her stein, taking another long swallow of the clean, rich tasting beer to hide her expression while she dealt with it. The truth was that Lillinara's arms wouldn't have been remotely as well equipped as Dame Kaeritha had been to deal with the assault on the Quaysar temple, and Shahana knew it. Arms of the Mother, like Shahana herself, were trained warriors, but Shahana wasn't remotely Kaeritha Seldansdaughter's equal in that respect. Partly that was because of the difference in the deities they served, of course; Tomanak was the god of war, after all! His champions were primarily warriors, but that function was secondary for most arms. Most arms, as Shahana herself had, heard Lillinara's voice early in life and began as arms of the Maiden -- students, scholars, and explorers taking their first steps on the road of life, studying and learning in order to prepare themselves for greater responsibilities in the course of time. The majority of them eventually became arms of the Mother, although not all ever made that transition. The ones who didn't tended to become the Church's librarians, researchers, and scribes or sometimes envoys, but they certainly weren't Lillinara's mailed fist. Arms of the Maiden had some training under arms, yet it was minimal, just enough to let them look after themselves in an emergency, because they were supposed to be concentrating on other things. ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 28 Arms of the Mother were fully engaged with life. They were trained warriors, but their primary function was to nourish. Many of them, too, remained scholars, serving as teachers and educators. Others, like Shahana, were skilled healers and midwives or surgeons in addition to their weapons training. As warriors, they were guardians and protectors, the custodians of the precious fire of life Lillinara shared with her mother Kontifrio. More than one arm of the Mother had died defending that flame, but they were defenders, not the spearheads of justice Tomanak's champions so often were. And then there were the arms of the Crone. Not all arms of the Mother made that transition, and Shahana sometimes wondered if she had the moral fortitude to make it herself. Arms of the Mother defended life; arms of the Crone were focused on the proper ending of life. The healers among them served the hospices which offered care and support for the elderly, the dying. Where those slipping into Isvaria's shadows were given the dignity and comfort they deserved. It took a special bravery to open one's heart to those who must inevitably fade, to embrace the natural tide and ease the final flicker of the flame arms of the Mother protected so fiercely, and Shahana wasn't at all certain she had that much courage. But arms of the Crone weren't just healers. They, too, were warriors, yet their function was not to defend life, but to avenge it. An arm of the Mother would seek, far more often than not, to capture a criminal and deliver him to justice, whatever his offense; when Lillinara dispatched an arm of the Crone, it was to slay, not to capture. And that was why neither an arm of the Mother nor an arm of the Crone would have been remotely as well suited to dealing with Shigu's attack on Quaysar. However much Shahana might dislike admitting it, that had required a sword with a keener edge than hers. Once Shigu had replaced the legitimate Voice with her own creature and corrupted the captain of the Quaysar Temple Guard, nothing short of Tomanak Himself and His champions could have pried her loose again without the utter devastation of the temple. For that matter, even Dame Kaeritha and Bahzell Bahnakson had inevitably left broad swaths of destruction in their wake, and the Temple Guard had been devastated. Well over two thirds of its armsmen and war maids had been corrupted to a greater or a lesser extent -- many of them knowingly; others without even realizing what was happening -- and the survivors' morale had been shattered by the realization of how utterly they'd failed to protect the temple they'd been called upon to serve. And that was why Shahana had been permanently assigned to Quaysar for the last six and a half years. Rebuilding the temple was a task to which arms of the Mother were far better suited, and she and the current Voice -- trained healers, both of them -- had carried out that rebuilding with slow but steady progress. It helped that the Voice was a native Sothoii…and that she'd never been a war maid. Trisu, for example, found it much easier to interact with her than he did even now with Mayor Yalith at Kalatha. For that matter, he found it easier to interact with her than he did with Shahana, who'd been born and raised in the Empire of the Axe. And he still gets along better with Dame Kaeritha than he does with either of us, Shahana thought moodily. Is that because he's more comfortable thinking of her as "just" another warrior? Or is it because in the end, she realized he was right and the war maids were wrong about what was happening? Does a part of him think of her as his partisan and not simply as an impartial judge sent by Scale Balancer? Of course, she admitted, it was also entirely possible that only a champion of Tomanak could have been impartial in a case like this one. Lillinara's arms dealt regularly with prejudice -- especially here in the Kingdom of the Sothoii and especially against war maids -- and they did have a natural tendency to react defensively first and consider impartiality second. So the Gods probably knew what They were doing when they sent Dame Kaeritha and not you, she told herself yet again. Maybe you should just go ahead and accept that They usually know what They're doing? The familiar tartness of that thought restored much of her humor, and she lowered her stein and smiled at Trisu. "I'm sure the Voice will appreciate your generosity and understanding," she said. "We're making continued progress in rebuilding, and Quaysar is becoming prosperous again, but there's no point pretending it couldn't very easily have gone the other way." "I know." Trisu's gray eyes went cold and distant, looking at something Shahana couldn't see. They stayed that way for several seconds before he shook himself and refocused on her face. "I know," he repeated. "And the truth is, Arm Shahana, that I blame myself, at least in part." "You do?" Shahana couldn't quite keep the surprise out of her own voice. As far as she knew, this was the first time Trisu had ever said anything like that. "In fairness, Milord," she said a bit unwillingly, "yours was the only voice raising the alarm. It's scarcely your fault that no one listened to you until Dame Kaeritha came along." "You think not?" Trisu sat back in his chair, elbows on chair arms, cradling his glass of whiskey in both hands, and smiled in what certainly looked like faint amusement. "I think perhaps you're being overly generous, Milady." "In what way?" she asked, trying not to bridle at the honorific he'd chosen. "It's tactful of you and the Voice not to remark upon it, Arm Shahana," he said, still with that faint smile, "but my own attitude, and that of my family, towards the war maids is scarcely a secret. Indeed, I've been known to express myself, ah, somewhat intemperately, I suppose, upon the subject in private conversation from time to time. Nowhere near as intemperately as my Uncle Saeth or my cousin Triahm, perhaps, but still intemperately enough. I won't pretend I don't believe many of my…less than flattering opinions where the war maids are concerned are justified, either. Obviously, you and I aren't going to agree with one another in that regard. However, it's a lord warden's responsibility to discharge his duties as impartially as he possibly can, and I've come to the conclusion that I'd put myself into a position where I wasn't able to do that." "As nearly as I can tell, Milord," Shahana said a bit stiffly, "you did discharge them impartially. It certainly turned out you were the one who was correctly interpreting the situation and the provisions of the Kalatha town charter. Whatever anyone may have thought at the time, you were completely within your legal rights." "Oh, I know I was," he acknowledged with a slightly broader smile, eyes glinting as he recognized how unhappy it made her to acknowledge that point. "But the problem, Milady, is that everyone else knew about my…let's be courteous and call them prejudices where the war maids were concerned. And because they did, there was an automatic assumption that I wasn't acting impartially. I put myself in that position by not watching my words more carefully, and I can't quite free myself of the suspicion that Shigu chose Lorham and Quaysar specifically because I'd allowed myself to be far more outspoken about my feelings than a responsible lord warden would have done. Those opinions of mine were too broadly known, and without Dame Kaeritha's intervention, that would have made Shigu's lies entirely too plausible." Shahana blinked. She couldn't help it, because she would never have expected that analysis out of Trisu Pickaxe. It was entirely too insightful to be coming from someone like him. Only it just did, didn't it? she thought. And the fact that you would never have expected it probably says more about you than it does about him, doesn't it? Damn the man! Now I can't even congratulate myself for overcoming my prejudices against him better than he overcomes his against me! "Milord," she said, regarding him levelly, "there's probably something in what you say, but perhaps it cuts both ways. I'll concede you've been a bit more…outspoken than I might have wished upon occasion, but so have the war maids. And, for that matter, the Quaysar Temple has been more confrontational than absolutely necessary from time to time. I think you're right that it was the tension between all parties, and the fact that that tension was so widely known, that cleared the way for Shigu's attempt in the first place. But you weren't the only source of that tension." "Oh, I never said I was!" Trisu actually chuckled, leaning even further back in his chair. "Milady, it would never do for me to say I was more at fault than the war maids! Just think of the consternation that would cause among my armsmen and anyone else who knows me! Besides, the entire situation would never have arisen if not for the unnatural and perverse lifestyle the war maids have chosen to embrace now would it?" Shahana had just raised her stein for another sip of beer. Now she spluttered into it and lowered the stein again to glare at him as he delivered his last sentence in a tone of perfect, matter-of-fact sincerity, as if he'd simply remarked that the sun was likely to rise in the east tomorrow morning. She started to open her mouth, then paused as their gazes met and she saw the amusement sparkling deep in his eyes. She drew a deep breath and shook her head. "Milord," she said tartly, "if you're not careful, I'm going to decide you have a sense of humor after all, and then where will you be?"

==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 29 <== toc ==> War Maid's Choice By David Weber Chapter Eight < Do you think that if I asked Dathgar to just sort of nudge his horse -- you know, just hard enough to knock him out of the saddle -- he'd stop that racket? > Walsharno asked rather wistfully in the back of Bahzell's mind. "Now isn't that a dreadful thing to be asking?" Bahzell replied, quietly enough not even another hradani could have overheard him. "And him doing all he can to wile away the leagues and all!" < You do realize coursers' ears are even more sensitive than yours, don't you? > The mental voice was considerably more tart this time, and Bahzell chuckled, glancing ahead to where Brandark rode easily in the saddle, strumming his balalaika. The musical tastes of individual coursers, he had discovered, varied at least as widely as those of the individual members of the Races of Man, and Walsharno's ran more to stately measures which relied heavily on woodwinds, viols, and cellos. He was not a fan of balalaika music, and he had even less taste for the dwarves' latest musical invention. They called it a "banjo," and Brandark was already showing what Walsharno considered a most unhealthy interest in the infernal new device. If he was going to be honest, Bahzell shared his courser brother's reservations where Brandark's new attraction was concerned, but the Bloody Sword's current selection didn't bother him anywhere nearly as badly as it obviously bothered Walsharno. At least he wasn't playing the "Lay of Bahzell Bloody Hand." That was something, Bahzell reflected. And he wasn't singing, either, which was even better. In fact, taking everything together, and considering how much worse it could always get, Walsharno shouldn't be complaining at all. < I wouldn't dream of "complaining." I'm only thinking about helping him have a little accident. > "Oh, and isn't that ever so much better? I'm not so sure at all, at all, as how a champion of Tomanak should be thinking such things." < And you don't? > "Ah, but it's only mortal I am, when all's said," Bahzell replied mournfully. "And I never said as how I'd never the slightest temptation of my own, come to that. The spirit's willing enough, but somehow…" He shrugged, and Walsharno snorted in amusement. Baron Tellian heard that snort and turned his head, raising one eyebrow quizzically. No wind rider could hear another courser's voice, but all of them got quite adept at reading courser body language. "Brandark?" the baron asked, gray eyes gleaming appreciatively. "I'm sure I've no idea at all what it might be you're referring to, Milord," Bahzell replied innocently. "I thought I'd heard somewhere that champions of Tomanak weren't supposed to lie," Tellian observed to no one in particular, and Walsharno snorted again, louder than ever. He also tossed his head in an unmistakable nod. "Traitor," Bahzell said wryly. < Nonsense. Is it my fault I recognize the truth when I hear it? > "It's not really all that bad," Tellian said thoughtfully. "And at least he's not singing. That's something." < Two minds with but a single thought, > Walsharno said, and Bahzell chuckled. "Truth to tell, though I'd not like to be admitting it to him, you understand, the little man's not so bad as all that when he plays. In fact, he's better than most, if it comes down to it." "Agreed. It just seems…wrong, somehow. Or perhaps the word I really want is frivolous." Tellian gazed up at the brilliant blue sky and the white drifts of cloud blowing about its polished dome. The day, for a change, was both dry and not too oppressively hot, with a breeze that was just short of brisk blowing out of the north behind them as they headed south along the Balthar-Sothofalas high road. It was over two hundred leagues from Balthar to King Markhos' capital as the bird might have flown -- just under two hundred and sixty for road bound mortals -- and they were roughly halfway to their destination. This particular stretch of road was better maintained than many of the Kingdom's highways, largely because it lay in the West Riding and both Tellian and his father had made a point of seeing to the proper upkeep of the high roads passing through their riding, but it was still intended for horses and coursers, not heavy foot traffic or freight wagons. Instead of the broad, paved stone of the Empire of the Axe, it had a surface of river gravel, theoretically rolled level and bordered with wide shoulders of firm, hoof-friendly turf. Even in Balthar, the gravel surface left quite a bit to be desired, especially where the ravages of winter had not yet been repaired, but it was wide enough, and Tellian's escort had stretched out a bit, moving towards its western edge to take advantage of the band of shade projected by the trees along that side of the road as the sun moved towards afternoon. All Sothoii high roads, like most of those in the Empire of the Axe, for that matter, were bordered by carefully planted rows of trees intended to provide windbreaks, shelter, and firewood for travelers forced to bivouac along the way. The penalties for casually felling those trees were stiff, but fallen limbs and branches were another matter, and the road crews thinned and tended them every year when they repaired the ravages of winter. The trees they took down were sawn into convenient lengths, with the thicker logs split, and stacked in neat wood piles at semiregular intervals for travelers' convenience. Combined with natural deadfalls, that was enough to keep most travelers from poaching on the living wood for fuel, and over the centuries, the neat rows of saplings had turned into gradually wider and wider belts of towering trees. Some of them were as much as three feet in diameter at the base, and Bahzell could hear the songs of birds and the rapid, drilling tattoo of a woodpecker through the rippling notes of Brandark's balalaika. Tellian Bowmaster was far less self-important than many a man in his position might have been. In fact, left to his own preferences, he would have made this trip without fanfare, preferably accompanied by only Hathan Shieldarm, his wind brother, and Bahzell, Brandark, and Vaijon. That, unfortunately, was out of the question for one of the Kingdom's four great barons, especially now, and so he was accompanied instead by no less than thirty armsmen and ten pack horses loaded with the camping gear, provisions, and other paraphernalia for a party that size. (An Axeman noble probably would have used wagons; a Sothoii nobleman, painfully familiar with the Kingdom's roads, knew better than to try any such thing.) The armsmen in question wore the boiled leather armor and cuirasses of typical Sothoii light cavalry, and however unassuming Tellian might have preferred to be, the men of his personal guard hadn't been selected at random. They rode easily and comfortably, relaxed in their saddles, but their eyes were busy and alert, watching for any threat even here. "It makes me feel like a troupe of traveling actors," Tellian grumbled now. "I mean, he's playing drinking songs! When he isn't playing something better suited to a brothel, that is. I mean, did he have to treat us to 'The Madam's Cross-Eyed Daughter,' of all things? Couldn't he at least play something serious?" "Fair's fair, Milord," Vaijon put in with a grin. "I'd say your armsmen are enjoying the music. Of course, I could always get one of them to ask him for something more serious. Like, oh," he glanced at Bahzell, blue eyes dancing, "what was the name of that song…It's on the tip of my tongue. Something Bloody Hand, wasn't it?" "And if you were to be so foolish as to put any such notion into his head, it's in my mind you'd likely come to a nasty end, my lad." "It might be an improvement after all, though, Bahzell," Tellian said helpfully. "That it wouldn't be," Bahzell informed him firmly. "Besides, I know it's been a while, but I'm not so sure as how your lads are really all that happy even yet with that verse of his about the 'Battle of the Gullet.' It might just be that if he was after starting in on that one they'd be having a thing or three to say to him about it." "That was the entire idea, Bahzell," Vaijon explained. < And a good one, too, > Walsharno said helpfully. "I heard that!" Brandark called, never turning his head as he rode along in front of them. "And I've been working on another little piece, Vaijon. It's about a human who ends up running a chapter of the Order of Tomanak full of hradani." "Oh, it is, is it?" Vaijon grinned. "Go ahead -- I'd love to hear it! But if you do, then next time I set out on a trip with you, I'm bringing along the dancing girls and the troupe of acrobats to help you entertain." "I've a feeling the lads wouldn't be all that happy about the acrobats, Sir Vaijon," Tarith Shieldarm, the commander of Tellian's escort, said. "But the dancing girls, now -- they might not be so very bad an idea." ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 30 "Yes, they would be a bad idea, Tarith," Tellian told him. "Especially when Baroness Hanatha heard about them!" Tarith laughed, and Bahzell was glad to hear it. Tarith was a first cousin of Hathan Shieldarm, Tellian's wind brother. He and Hathan had both been armsmen in the baron's service when Hathan bonded with Gayrhalan, and Tarith had taken over Tellian's personal guard when Sir Charyn Sabrehand, who'd commanded it for over ten years, finally retired. Before that, though, he'd been Leeana Bowmaster's personal armsman, and he'd taken Leeana's flight to the war maids hard. He and Hathan were both naturally and intensely conservative by inclination, and Tarith had always been one of those Sothoii who thought war maids were "unnatural." He'd been stubbornly unwilling to accept that the young woman he'd watched over literally from her birth -- the young woman he loved as if she'd been his own daughter -- could have done such a thing. It had turned him dark and bitter for entirely too long, and for years he'd blamed Dame Kaeritha for not stopping Leeana before she could ruin her own and her parents' lives that way. His expression the first time he'd seen Leeana in chari and yathu on a visit to Hill Guard had been almost physically painful to watch, and he'd quickly turned and disappeared into the barracks. Bahzell had seen the hurt in Leeana's eyes as she'd watched him vanish, but he'd scarcely been the only inhabitant of Balthar to react that way. Still, he did seem to have come to terms with it, by and large, over the last couple of years, and it might just be that some of his prejudices against the "unnatural" war maid way of life had faded in the process. He still seemed acutely uncomfortable around her on her fleeting visits, as if all the habits of fourteen or fifteen years of watching over her remained steadfastly at war with what she had become. And, like someone else Bahzell could have mentioned (although for rather different reasons), he managed persistently to find reasons he had to be somewhere else during those visits. Yet the wounded look had disappeared from his eyes, and taking over Tellian's personal guard had helped. He'd even learned to admit that he still loved Leeana, no matter what she'd done with her life, Bahzell thought. < And about damned time, too, > Walsharno agreed. < You two-foots spend an awful lot of time worrying about other two-foots' "mistakes"! Think how much wear and tear you could avoid if you only let them do what they want with their lives. > The courser had a point, Bahzell reflected. Of course, it was different for the coursers with their herd sense. Each courser was an individual, but all of them shared a sort of corporate awareness that left far less room for misunderstandings and hurt feelings than the Races of Man seemed to manage so effortlessly. Not that one courser couldn't develop a lively dislike, even hatred, for another one, but no courser would have questioned Leeana's right to do whatever she chose with her own life. < No, we wouldn't have, > Walsharno agreed. < And we wouldn't waste so many years of our lives denying our love for someone, either, > he added rather more pointedly. < No matter who they were or what they'd done. > Bahzell looked down at the back of the courser's head for a moment, but Walsharno didn't turn to look back at him. Not even his ears moved as he continued calmly along, and Bahzell turned his attention back to Tellian. "Surely you're not thinking as how one of your very own personal armsmen would be after running off to the Baroness to be telling her such as that, are you, Milord?" he asked out loud. "If they wouldn't, Dathgar would," Tellian retorted. "Yes, and she'd bribe the traitor with as many apples as he could eat, too!" Dathgar snorted loudly and shook his head hard enough to set every bell on his ornamental halter chiming, and Bahzell heard Walsharno's mental laugh. < Dathgar says he'd hold out for at least a feed bag full of sugar, > he explained, and Bahzell chuckled as Tellian shook his head in smiling disgust at his companion's treason. < I'm glad he finally let you do something about that cough of his, > Walsharno said more seriously as he and his rider watched Tellian. < I still don't like the way it was hanging on. > I wasn't so very happy about it myself, Bahzell replied silently. < No, and you thought the same thing I thought about it. > The courser's mental voice was sharp, and Bahzell shrugged without replying. Neither he nor Walsharno could quite shake the suspicion that Tellian's "cough" had been entirely too persistent. Bahzell had chosen not to make an issue of it, but he'd also conducted his own quiet yet very thorough investigation. If anyone had been responsible for…helping that cough along, however, he'd failed to find any trace of it among Hill Guard's inhabitants. That wasn't the sort of thing it was easy to hide from a champion of Tomanak, either, which ought to have put their suspicions to rest. Ought to. < It certainly would be convenient for a great many people if something permanent were to happen to him, > Walsharno pointed out, and Bahzell had to agree. On the other hand, they couldn't blame everything that happened on Tellian's enemies. There were such things as a genuine accident or coincidence, after all. < Of course there are. I'm sure that's the reason you and Vaijon -- oh, and the Baroness -- gave him so much trouble about that armor he decided not to wear, too. > The irony in Walsharno's mental voice should have withered half the Wind Plain, and Bahzell's ears flicked in acknowledgment. They had tried to convince Tellian to take the precaution of wearing his own armor for the trip, only to have him decline. His argument that the extra weight would have been a needless burden for Dathgar had been specious, to say the least, given any courser's strength and stamina…not to mention the fact that Dathgar had agreed with the others, not him. His fallback argument that it was hot, sweaty, and damnably uncomfortable had at least a modicum of plausibility about it, but the real reason was pride. Now that's being a mite unfair of you, my lad, Bahzell told himself sternly. Aye, he's prideful enough, and of no mind to look like a man as jumps at shadows, too. But he's a point or three about keeping those as wish him ill from thinking as how they've frightened him, and it may be as how he's wishful to keep his own men from thinking so. Which is even dafter than worrying his head about its weight! There's not a man amongst 'em but knows he's guts enough for four or five. Aye, and wishes he had the sense to go with 'em, as well! "-- still think the 'Lay of Bahzell Bloody Hand' would be the best choice," Vaijon was saying. "He wouldn't have to sing, you know. I'm sure your armsmen all know the words by heart by now, Milord! They could avoid any little verses they didn't care for, and a few rousing choruses as we ride along would have to make the journey seem shorter." "Aye, that it would," Bahzell agreed genially. "And a mite shorter for some than for others, though we'd not all be reaching the same destination." "I don't understand why you're so sensitive about it, Bahzell," Vaijon teased. "It's not every man whose noble deeds are known to every wandering minstrel in half of Norfressa!" "Only half?" Brandark turned to look back at them, shaking his head. "I see I really have to get back out on the road!" "You just go on laughing, the lot of you," Bahzell said. "There's a saying amongst my folk -- that as goes around, comes around, and it's in my mind I'll have my day soon enough. Aye, and it's looking forward to it, I am." The others only grinned at him, and he shook his head, then glanced up towards the westering sun. It would be sliding towards the horizon in another three or four hours, he estimated, but the last milestone they'd passed indicated a sizable village or small town lay no more than ten or twelve miles ahead. Personally, he actually preferred making camp on the road, since inn beds tended to be more than a little cramped for someone his height. Sothoii averaged considerably taller than most humans, but they still weren't Horse Stealer hradani, and their furniture simply wasn't sized to fit someone like him. For the others, though -- His thoughts paused, and he felt his ears flattening. For a moment, he wasn't sure what had caught his attention, but then it came to him. The woodpecker had stopped its tattoo…and the birds who'd been singing among the trees had stopped. No, they hadn't all stopped, only the ones along the eastern side of the road. ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 31 < Brother -- ! > he heard Walsharno begin in the depths of his brain, and the courser's head was swinging to the right, as well. "Ware right!" he shouted, and Walsharno was surging forward, swinging to face that silent sweep of trees, moving between them and Tellian as the first venomous arrow shafts came sizzling out from under them. Something buzzed viciously past Bahzell's ear. Something else struck his breastplate like a mallet and bounced away, ripping the green surcoat of the Order of Tomanak and scoring a bright line across the polished steel. He heard shouts of alarm, screams, the bark of almost -- almost -- instant commands from Tarith, and he flung himself from the saddle. He hit the ground already running, followed by Walsharno's bitter, wordless protest, but the courser knew better than to voice his complaint, for whoever had chosen the ambush site had chosen well. Those trees were simply too dense for something Walsharno's size, even with a courser's impossible agility. There were too many places under their branches where a man with a blade could get close enough to use it, and there was no place at all where Walsharno could have made use of his speed and size. "Come!" Bahzell cried, and a five-foot blade answered his summons, materializing in his right hand even as he charged towards that impenetrable wall of trees. His fingers closed on the familiar, wire-wound hilt, and his left hand found the basket-hilted dagger at his belt. "Tomanak!" he heard Vaijon's shout and knew the other champion was no more than a stride or two behind him. More arrows whizzed past him and a human voice cried out -- in agonized denial, not pain, this time -- but he had no time for that. The shade of the trees reached out to him, and he saw the muted gleam of steel as someone rose out of the shadows before him. "Tomanak!" The warcry bellowed out of his own thick throat, and the sword in his hand -- a massive, two-handed weapon for any merely human arm -- lashed out in a lightning thrust that ended in a gurgling shriek as a foot and more of glory blade drove clean through his victim's chest. The spasming weight slid off his sword, but another assailant came at him from the left. He engaged the newcomer's saber with his dagger, twisting his wrist, locking the blades together. He drove the human's sword out and to the side as he recovered his main weapon, and more steel rang and clashed beside him as another unfortunate assassin found himself face-to-face with Vaijon of Almerhas. There were more of them than he'd thought, Bahzell realized, and slammed a knee into his opponent's crotch. The other man saw it coming and twisted, managing to block with his thigh, but he was a foot and a half shorter than Bahzell. The brutal force of the blow lifted him off the ground and knocked him back several feet, and Bahzell saw his face twist in horror as he realized the hradani had gained enough space for his swordarm. He threw his own left arm up in a futile blocking gesture…just in time for that enormous blade to come down, sheer through his forearm, and half sever his head in a fountain of blood. Bow strings were still twanging, but not as many of them, and at least a half dozen more men were coming at Bahzell and Vaijon. Most of them seemed to be armed with the normal Sothoii saber, but others carried shorter, heavier blades, and he saw at least one battleaxe among them. He gave back a step, falling into place with Vaijon on his left, and his own sword came thundering down in a brutal, overhead stroke that split a man's head from crown to chin. He kicked the body aside as two more attackers split up, trying to come at him from both flanks at once, but then the one on his right turned with a panicky expression as Brandark came hurtling into the fight. Unlike Vaijon and Bahzell, the Bloody Sword was unarmored, yet that made him no less deadly, and the man who'd turned to face him went down with a high, wailing scream as Brandark opened his belly. Steel clanged and belled, grunts of effort turned into screams of anguish, and a dozen of Tellian's armsmen surged into the woods on Brandark's heels. No Sothoii would fight on foot if he had any choice at all, and no one would ever confuse them with properly trained infantry when they did. For all their mounted discipline, individualism was the order of the day when they simply had to fight on foot. But these Sothoii had profited from exposure to Bahnak of Hurgrum's infantry, and they'd taken the lesson to heart. They hit the woods as an organized unit, driving in under the branches, and they'd brought their light shields with them. "Tellian! Tellian!" There was something hard and dangerous about the way they shouted their warcries, something with more than the usual Sothoii ferocity behind it, and the sounds of combat were ugly as they slammed into the ambushers. There were no more bows firing now; there was only the desperate clash of steel, screams, and somewhere on the other side of the trees the thunder of hooves as at least some of the attackers got to their horses. "Tomanak!" He cut down another opponent. Then another, and they were no longer coming at him. Instead, they were trying desperately to get away, and he felt the Rage, the bloodlust of his people, rising within him. But the Rage had become his servant, not his master, over the years, and he controlled it with the ease of long practice as he, Vaijon, and Brandark hammered forward on their enemies' heels. Someone on the other side was shouting orders. Bahzell took down yet another of the attackers and chanced a look in the direction of all the noise, and his eyes narrowed as he saw a small knot of archers who still retained their bows. They were clustered around the one doing all the shouting, and the loud fellow was pointing urgently in the direction of the road. The archers raised their bows, taking careful aim at whoever he was pointing out, and Bahzell threw his dagger in a flat, vicious arc. It was a long throw, especially left handed, even for Bahzell Bahnakson, but the blade flickered in sunlight and shadow as it flashed straight to its mark. It went home with a grisly, meaty thud, driving quillon-deep in his target's collarbone. Over two inches of bloody steel projected from the man's back, his commands died in a gurgling crimson spray, and the sheer force of the dagger's impact lifted him from his feet and hurled him into two of the archers who'd been listening to him. That was enough for all those archers. Whatever force of will their leader had used to hold them together vanished with his death. They scattered, most of them discarding their bows so they could run faster, and Bahzell smiled in satisfaction through the cold, icy focus of the Rage. An assassin who'd been coming at him saw that smile and tried frantically to brake, but he was too late. Before he could stop, he ran into a steel whirlwind that crashed through his feeble attempt to parry and split his skull. "Oath to Tomanak!" someone shouted. "Oath to Tomanak!" "Damn it!" Brandark grated. "I hate it when they do that!" Bahzell grunted a harsh, unamused laugh, but the Bloody Sword only snarled. "You think they'd show the least damned bit of interest in letting us surrender if we were the ones shouting it?" he demanded as the man he'd been about to skewer threw away his sword and raised his hands. "Likely not," Bahzell conceded. Another of the ambushers went to his knees, and the Horse Stealer grunted again -- this time in disgust -- as the gripped the man by the nape of the neck and lifted him back to his feet. His unfortunate captive squealed in pain as he was hauled onto his toes and Bahzell half-threw and half-shoved him back towards the high road. "I'm thinking you'd best not do one damned thing I could be taking as breaking your oath," he told the would-be assassin, and the man nodded desperately. Another one of the attackers tried to fade into the shadows, only to freeze as Bahzell cocked his head at him. "You just go on running," the hradani encouraged coldly. "Those as don't come quiet when they've given oath to Tomanak, why, they're not protected by it, now are they?" The human stared at him wide-eyed for a moment, then nodded even more violently than Bahzell's first prisoner and started stumbling back towards the high road himself. Vaijon had rounded up a prisoner of his own, and Brandark sent the man who'd surrendered to him hurrying after the others with the Bloody Sword's sword tip prodding him to encourage more speed. ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 32 The time compression of combat never ceased to astonish Bahzell, even after all these years. The fight had seemed to last at least an hour, yet the whole thing had taken mere minutes. But they'd been bloody minutes, and his jaw tightened and his ears flattened as he came out of the trees and saw the carnage. Eight or nine of Tellian's armsmen were down on the roadway where the initial volleys of arrows had slashed into them, but men were smaller targets than horses. At least a dozen of their mounts had been hit by arrows intended for their riders, and equine screams of pain tore at his ears with that special heart- rendering intensity of wounded horses without the ability to understand why they'd been hurt. Battle hardened or not, Bahzell had never been able to listen to those screams without hearing the beasts' pleas for someone to explain, someone to make it go away. Here and there armsmen had already cut the throats of mortally wounded horses. It was second nature to any Sothoii -- their duty to the horses who served them so loyally -- and not one of Tellian Bowmaster's armsmen would have even considered seeing to his own hurts until he'd seen to those of his mount. Nor would he flinch from doing his responsibility to end that uncomprehending agony when he must. It was one of the things Bahzell most liked about them, and -- < Quickly, Brother! > Bahzell's head snapped up at Walsharno's mental cry. The unbreakable link between them would have told him if the courser had been wounded, and he and Walsharno had learned not to distract one another on those occasions when one or both of them had to enter battle without the other. But now the raw, burning urgency of Walsharno's summons burned through him and he turned quickly, then froze. Dathgar was down. The huge bay had been hit by at least four arrows, and there were limits to even a courser's vitality. His coat was saturated with blood, his sides heaved weakly, and bloody froth blew at his nostrils. He tried to raise his head feebly, eyes glazed, and Tellian lay half under him, unconscious, with two snapped-off arrow shafts standing out of his chest. His right leg was twisted, obviously broken where Dathgar's weight had smashed down on it, and Hathan was on his knees beside him, trying desperately to staunch the bleeding, while two more of Tellian's armsmen knelt over Tarith. "Do you be taking Dathgar!" Bahzell said sharply to Walsharno. The stallion nodded, and Bahzell looked over his shoulder. "Brandark --" "I'll keep an eye on these bastards," Brandark promised him, brown eyes grim as he glared at the prisoners. "Go!" It was Bahzell's turn to nod, and Hathan looked up with desperate eyes as the enormous Horse Stealer went down on one knee beside him. "I can't stop the bleeding!" the wind rider said. "Aye, I can be seeing that," Bahzell said grimly. Behind him, he sensed Vaijon heading for Tarith, but all of his own attention was focused on the dying man pinned under the dying courser. "Leave him to me," he told Hathan. "You be drawing those arrows out of Dathgar for Walsharno!" "But --" Hathan began, then chopped himself off. "Of course," he said instead, his voice harsh, and Bahzell touched the shaft of the arrow which had driven into Tellian no more than an inch or two from his heart. I'm thinking if ever I needed you, I'm needing you now, he thought, his eyes closing briefly as he reached out to that inner link which glowed between him and the god he served like some glittering golden chain or an inextinguishable torch blazing against the dark. This is a good man -- a friend. There were no words from Tomanak this time, only that comforting sense of the god's presence, that feel of two huge hands settling on Bahzell's shoulders. Warmth spread into him out of them, warmth he needed badly as he saw the damage, heard the wet, weak wheeze of the baron's breathing while blood bubbled from his nostrils, and realized Tellian was no more than half a breath, possibly two, from slipping away to Isvaria's table. But that was as far as he was going, Bahzell told himself with all the grim, iron purpose which had made him a champion of the god of war, and felt Tomanak's strength fill him as he opened himself once more to the power of his deity. His eyes opened again, focused and clear with purpose, and blue light crackled around his hands. He laid the palm of his left hand flat on Tellian's feebly moving chest, and that blue light flowed out from it, flooding across the baron like a layer of azure ice. It flickered and glowed, burning more brilliantly than the afternoon sunlight, lighting Bahzell's face from below, embracing Tellian like a shield, and Bahzell reached out with it. He felt Tellian's flickering life force try to sink away from him, and he refused to let it. He locked the grip of his own will upon it, drawing on Tomanak's power to forbid its extinction, and his right hand gripped that broken arrow shaft and pulled. The broad headed arrow ripped out of Tellian's chest with a wet, ghastly sound, making the terrible wound still worse. Blood pumped from rent and torn flesh, and Bahzell reached for the other arrow. This one had driven into the baron's ribs, and bone and cartilage crunched and tore as he wrenched it out of that dying body. He threw it away and his sword reappeared in his bloody hand -- reversed, this time -- as he summoned it back to him once more. He closed his eyes again, leaning his forehead against the sword's quillons, left hand still pressing against Tellian's almost motionless chest, and reached out to the brilliant presence of his god. Bahzell Bahnakson had healed many times in the years since he'd first become Tomanak's champion. He'd faced the challenge of torn flesh, of poison, even of the touch of Krahana herself, and he recognized the smile of hollow-eyed death when he saw it. He recognized it…and he threw his own bared-teeth challenge in its face. The blue light wrapped around his left hand swept up his arm, enveloped his torso, blazed up about him like a forest fire, and he knelt at its heart, eyes closed, emptying himself of everything except the power of Tomanak and his own fierce, stubborn refusal to let the enemy who had become his friend go. He closed his mind to the picture of Tellian's broken, bloody body. He closed his ears to the baron's failing, gasping effort to breathe. Those things were no longer real, no longer mattered. Instead, he filled himself with the image of Tellian as he should be. Of Tellian laughing as they discussed Brandark's music. Tellian frowning thoughtfully as he leaned forward across a map, discussing strategy. Tellian smiling across the breakfast table at Baroness Hanatha, looking up with his heart in his eyes as his disgraced war maid daughter returned to Hill Guard Castle for her first visit. Tellian sipping whiskey on the first visit any Sothoii baron had ever paid to a hradani warlord as Prince Bahnak welcomed him to Hurgrum. Of Tellian strong and determined and whole once more. Bahzell forged that image from memories, from hopes, from friendship…from love. He made it be, demanded it, rejected any other possibility, and when it had filled him, when there was no room in him for anything else, he gave himself to it. He poured everything he was, everything that made him who he was, into that reality, and the levin of Tomanak's cleansing, healing power ripped through him like a hurricane. It exploded down his arm, erupted around the hand on Tellian's chest, swept outward down that tree-lined high road like a thunderbolt. For an instant -- one, fleeting moment -- Bahzell Bahnakson and Tomanak were truly one, fused into that eruption of purpose, power, and determination. It didn't last. It couldn't last for longer than one heartbeat, or perhaps two. Yet it lasted long enough, and Bahzell felt Tellian's chest heave convulsively under his palm. The baron sucked in a deep, wracking breath, then coughed convulsively. His faltering, flickering heart surged within his chest, and his eyelids fluttered. Then they rose, gray eyes unfocused, the blood from his nostrils clotting his mustache. "Dathgar," he whispered, and Bahzell sagged back on his heels, every muscle drained, filled with the joyous, wondering exhaustion of being allowed to be a bearer of life, not death. Something snorted beside him, and he looked down, then smiled as Dathgar's ears shifted, pricking forward. The hradani looked up, saw the same joyful exhaustion in Walsharno's eyes, and let the hand Walsharno didn't have rest on Dathgar's neck. "There, now," he told the courser. "Don't you be doing anything hasty. It's work enough Tomanak and I had putting him back together, so just you bide a bit. Let's not be breaking him all over again getting off of him!"

==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 33 <== toc ==> War Maid's Choice By David Weber Chapter Nine Well, that's disappointing, and in more ways than one, Master Varnaythus thought glumly, gazing into his gramerhain as a huge, bloodstained bay courser rolled very, very cautiously off of Tellian Bowmaster. The courser took three tries to make it back to his feet, and two more coursers moved in on either side, leaning their shoulders against him to help him stay there. It was obvious he needed the help, but he stood there stubbornly, refusing to move until Tellian had been helped back to his feet, as well. The baron was pale, clearly at least as shaky as his courser and just as soaked with blood, but he leaned on Bahzell Bahnakson's arm and reached up to caress the courser's ears. Dathgar lowered his head, resting his nose gently, gently on his rider's shoulder, and Tellian threw both arms around his neck, leaning into him. It was all very touching, Varnaythus thought with a sour expression, but it would have been ever so much more satisfactory if at least one of them had been standing disconsolately over the other's dead body. And we came so close to getting both of them, that's what really pisses me off. He shook his head. I'd almost rather have missed them completely than to have come that close and fallen short! Damn it, I thought Salgahn was better than that! He wasn't really being fair, and he knew it. He also didn't care. He sat back, arms folded, glowering at the gramerhain as Bahzell left Tellian to Dathgar while he joined Vaijon in seeing to the other wounded. Without Salgahn, Arthnar Fire Oar's assassins would never have come as near to successes they had, and he knew it. For that matter, he hadn't really expected he and the dog brother would be able to talk the River Brigands' warlord into even making the attempt! It had been worth suggesting to both him and Cassan, though, and no doubt the sizable bag of gold which had passed from the South Riding to Krelik had quite a bit to do with the fact that Arthnar had been willing to run the risk. Well, that and the fact that he'd been able to hire his killers without their ever realizing who was actually paying them. That was deft of him, Varnaythus acknowledged grudgingly. And he thought of that part without even any prompting from Salgahn. Of course, Cassan may not think it was all that clever once Bahzell gets around to interrogating his prisoners. The wizard had presented Salgahn to Fire Oar as a Sothoii renegade who'd been sufficiently familiar with Tellian's movements and habits to provide the sort of inside information that might make a successful assassination possible. As he'd hoped, that had inspired Arthnar to use Salgahn to organize the attempt itself, but he hadn't expected the twist Arthnar had come up with. Arthnar himself had retained his anonymity as their ultimate employer, since it would have struck any interrogator as highly suspicious, in the unfortunately probable event that any of the assassins were taken alive, if the assassins' ultimate paymaster hadn't concealed his identity. But he'd instructed Salgahn to emphasize his Sothoii accent when he recruited them…and to casually "let fall" the fact that he was in the service of an undisclosed Sothoii noble. Salgahn had never actually said he was working for Cassan or Yeraghor, of course, but assuming Tellian followed up on what the surviving would-be assassins could tell him, there wasn't much question who he was going to end up blaming for it. And Cassan could hardly argue that it had been Fire Oar, not him, without facing the embarrassing question of just how he knew it had been Fire Oar. Not too shabby, Varnaythus admitted. Get paid by someone to be his deniable assassin, then avoid drawing suspicion yourself by arranging things so that the fellow who paid you is the one people are most likely to suspect! I think I may have to revise my estimate of Arthnar's capabilities upward. And however pissed off I am, I also have to admit he came closer to getting Tellian than anyone else has! Of course, a lot of that was due to Salgahn. Too bad he won't be around to make any other attempts. He shook his head. I'm beginning to understand why the dog brothers are so reluctant to go after Bahzell, given how uniformly fatal their failures have been so far. Who would have thought even Bahzell could throw a dagger that far and that accurately with his off hand? But, damn it, I really thought this time he was going to pull it off! The truth was, the wizard thought, blanking his gramerhain with an impatient wave, that if it hadn't been for the presence of not simply one, but no less than three champions of Tomanak, either Tellian or Dathgar would definitely be dead. And if one of Salgahn's men had managed to get an arrow or two into Bahzell or Vaijon -- or even Bahzell's Phrobus-damned courser! -- Varnaythus would have counted the operation a resounding success, despite the dog brother's spectacular demise. But they hadn't, and it wasn't, which turned the attempt into an equally resounding failure. Although, now that he thought about it, increasing Tellian's suspicions of Cassan would probably be worthwhile in its own right. After all, it wasn't that the Dark Gods actually needed Cassan to win; they only needed him to destroy the Kingdom's cohesion trying to win. In fact, it would actually suit them even better to see the entire Kingdom dissolve into something like that interminable bloodletting in Ferenmoss. Twenty or thirty years of civil war, preferably with enough attention diverted to break up Prince Bahnak's experiment in hradani unity, would be just about perfect from his Lady's perspective. Well, since you never expected them to succeed in the first place, at least the fact that they didn't hasn't dislocated any of your own plans, he told himself as philosophically as he could. And you should probably make sure Cassan finds out about this as soon as you can do it without raising any suspicions about just how you learned about Arthnar's failure that quickly. Not that a little delay couldn't be useful. He smiled unpleasantly. After all, it'll give you more time to decide exactly how you want to let Cassan know about Arthnar's …misdirection. It never hurts to add a bit of salt to the wound when it comes to sowing dissension, now does it? * * * < So there you are…at last, > Walsharno said as Bahzell Bahnakson stepped out of the village inn's back door. A cool, still dawn drifted under the towering oak which shaded the inn, and the hradani stretched hugely, foxlike ears half-flattened while he yawned, as the courser ambled over to greet him. "And a good morning to you, too," Bahzell said, recovering from his yawn and reaching out to rub Walsharno's nose. "I'm hoping you had a restful evening?" < It's a hard, hard life, > Walsharno said mournfully, raising his head to lip playfully at the hradani's ears. < Some people get nice, snug roofs overhead, and other people get left out in the freezing cold all night long. > "Freezing is it, now?" Sunlight was already slanting golden shafts through the leaves overhead, promising plenty of warmth to come, and Bahzell chuckled and patted the side of Walsharno's neck. < Well, it could have been. In fact, it could have been raining or snowing for all you'd know about it, and if it had, I still would've been outside in it! > Walsharno returned with spirit. < It's not like I would've fitted into that wretched little stable, at any rate! > "And no more did I fit into that 'wretched little' bed," Bahzell pointed out. "It's a hard floor that bedchamber has!" He reached back to knead the small of his back, and someone laughed behind him. He turned his head, looking over his shoulder, and smiled as Hathan Shieldarm joined him and Walsharno. ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 34 "Making you feel guilty, is he?" Hathan asked. "Oh, not so much as all that," Bahzell demurred with a grin. "But not for lack of trying. Is that what you mean?" < Tell him a champion of Tomanak doesn't resort to trickery to get what he wants, > Walsharno said. "Now that I won't." Bahzell shook his head with a laugh. "First, because it's a fearful lie it would be, and, second, because he'd not believe a word of it." Walsharno snorted and shoved hard enough with his nose to stagger even the massive hradani, and Hathan laughed. He obviously didn't need to actually hear what Walsharno had said to make a pretty shrewd guess about its content. He started to say something else, then paused and turned his head, shading his eyes with one hand as another courser -- this one an iron gray, smaller (though no courser would ever actually be called "small") than Walsharno and obviously at least a few years older -- came drifting over. "Good morning, Gayrhalan," Bahzell said courteously, and the newcomer snorted with a very horselike head shake before he nodded to the hradani. There'd been a time when Bahzell Bahnakson had not been Gayrhalan's favorite person in the world. Those days were long gone, but Hathan's courser had been well named. "Storm Souled" -- that was what Gayrhalan meant -- and the gray's temper was as stormy as his name suggested. Despite which, he whinnied like a child's pony in delight as Hathan reached into his belt pouch and extracted a large lump of maple sugar. "Greedy!" the Sothoii said as Gayrhalan lipped the sugar delicately from his palm. The courser ignored the charge with lordly hauteur…and crunched the sugar loudly. < It's nice to see that some wind riders actually appreciate their brothers, > Walsharno observed. "Ha!" Bahzell shook his head. "'Appreciate,' is it, now? More a matter of who's after being under whose hoof, I'm thinking!" "That sort of honest evaluation isn't going to make you any friends, Milord Champion," Hathan said. "Aye," Bahzell sighed and shook his head again, his expression mournful. "It's a hard lot, this being an honest man. There's never an end to the trouble it can be landing a fellow in! If I'd the least notion then where it would be taking me, I'd not have fallen so easy for Himself's little invitation. I mean, when it comes to the sticking point, what's one wee little demon one way or the other compared to a man's spending his whole life long speaking naught but the truth? And me a hradani, to boot." Hathan laughed. But then he gave Gayrhalan's neck one last pat and turned to face Bahzell fully, and his expression was far more serious than it had been. "Gayrhalan says Dathgar's strength is coming back nicely. Has Walsharno spoken with him this morning?" < Yes, I have, > Walsharno replied, and from the strength of his mental voice Bahzell knew he was speaking simultaneously to Gayrhalan, as well. < I think he's almost fully recovered, although I'm none too enthusiastic about putting that to the test just yet. > He shook his mane and blew heavily. < He's not so young as he used to be, and I don't think it would hurt a thing for him to have another day or so of rest before we head on to Sothofalas. > Hathan's eyes had narrowed as he listened to Gayrhalan relaying Walsharno's comments. Now he smiled and nodded his head vigorously, but his expression was quizzical. "I don't know that I'd like to be the one suggesting to Dathgar that he might be getting a bit past it," he said, regarding Walsharno with a raised eyebrow. "In fact, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't, even if I were a somewhat younger fellow than him and a champion of Tomanak. Having said that, though, I agree there's no need to rush getting back on the road. And not just for Dathgar's sake, either." "Well, I'll not deny it's easier I'd be in my own mind if it so happened we could convince Tellian of the same thing," Bahzell acknowledged. "Mind, champion of Tomanak or no, I've no mind to be suggesting to him as how he's 'getting a bit past it, either,' if it's all the same to you." "I think that would be an excellent thing to avoid doing," Hathan agreed fervently. "In fact, I can't think of anything you could possibly say that would be more likely to inspire him to insist on leaving before breakfast!" < There's no need to do anything of the sort. > Walsharno flipped his ears in the courser equivalent of a shrug when Bahzell and Hathan looked at him. < We'll just suggest to Dathgar that it would be better for Tellian to rest for another day or two -- and, of course, that we don't want anyone telling Tellian that, given how stubborn he is. And then we'll suggest exactly the same thing to Tellian about Dathgar. > He flipped his ears again. < They'll both jump for it the same way Gayrhalan jumps for sugar. > "Sure, and a sad thing it is to see such deceitfulness so early in the morning," Bahzell sighed. < Oh? > Walsharno cocked his head, examining his wind brother with one skeptical eye. < And do you have a better idea? > "That I don't," the hradani conceded cheerfully. "And it's no quarrel I have with deceitfulness so long as it's after working, when all's said." "From your lips to Tomanak's ears," Hathan said feelingly. "And if convincing the two of them to go easy on each other doesn't work, we can always add Tarith. For that matter, I'm pretty sure we could convince him to hobble around for a day or two -- with a properly stoic expression, you understand -- to convince Tellian he needs the rest!" "No doubt," Bahzell agreed. "Good." Hathan reached up to rub Gayrhalan's nose again for several seconds, then looked back at Bahzell and Walsharno, and his expression was far more serious than it had been. "Things were a bit hectic yesterday," he said. "I'm not sure I got around to thanking the two of you for saving Tellian's and Dathgar's lives. If I didn't, I should have." His eyes darkened with emotion. "I knew they were both gone, and all I could think of was telling Hanatha. I think it would have killed her, too, you know." "I'm thinking she's a stronger woman than that," Bahzell disagreed. "Still and all, it's happier I am we've no need to find out one way or the other." "The gods know I agree with you there!" Hathan said. "When you pulled those arrows out of his chest, Bahzell…I was afraid you were going to finish him off on the spot!" He shook his head. "Of course, I knew even then that we were going to lose him anyway if you couldn't heal him, but still --!" "I'll not deny it gave me a twinge or two," Bahzell admitted. "Yet I couldn't be leaving them where they were, and there was no time at all, at all, for being gentle about it." "No, and I knew it at the time. For that matter, I had to do the same thing with Dathgar!" < And a good thing he did, too, > Walsharno said, looking at Gayrhalan. < Tell him he was my hands, Gayrhalan. Without him, we'd have lost Dathgar for certain. > Hathan cocked his head as he listened to the other courser relaying that to him. Then he nodded to Walsharno with a courteous formality. "It was my honor," he said quietly. "But we were all lucky to have the two of you and Vaijon along! Toragan only knows how many we would've lost without you." His mouth tightened. "For that matter, it was bad enough with all the three of you could do." "That it was." ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 35 Bahzell's ears flattened and his eyes darkened. Not even a champion of Tomanak could recall someone who'd already crossed the wall between life and death, and seven of Tellian's armsmen had made that journey before he or Vaijon could summon them back. Walsharno had helped with that effort as much as he could, but one thing he and Bahzell had learned over the years since he'd become the very first courser champion of Tomanak was that there were differences in their healing abilities. Bahzell wasn't entirely certain why that was so, but they'd discovered that Walsharno's ability to heal coursers or horses was far stronger than Bahzell's…and that Bahzell's ability to heal the Races of Man was greater than Walsharno's. They'd discussed the difference often, and they'd come to the conclusion that the difference lay in who -- and what -- they were. The degree to which any champion of Tomanak could succeed in a healing depended in large part upon how completely and deeply he could visualize his patient's restoration…and how deeply into that patient's soul and innermost being he could reach. Coursers and the Races of Man were simply different from one another in some deep and fundamental ways, and that affected how deeply and intimately they could fuse with those they sought to heal, become the essential bridge between the hurt and dying and Tomanak. Whatever the reason, Walsharno was plainly better than Bahzell at healing coursers or their smaller equine cousins while Bahzell was better at healing fellow hradani and humans. That was why Bahzell had concentrated on saving Tellian and entrusted Dathgar to Walsharno. It was also why Walsharno had lent his strength to Bahzell and Vaijon, putting all his driving will behind them as they'd plucked as many of the wounded back from death as they could. They'd done all any man could do, and without Walsharno's aid they would have lost still more of them. Bahzell and his wind brother both knew that, and so did Vaijon, yet the hradani also knew it would be a long time before any of them fully forgave themselves for having lost so many. < Don't be silly, > a deep, rumbling voice said in the back of his brain. < You did well -- all of you. But there are limits to what even my Swords can accomplish. > And I'd've done still better if I'd spent less time making bad jokes and more seeing what it was the lot of us were riding into, Bahzell thought grimly. < Or if I'd taken you by the hand and warned you about it. Or if Tellian had been wearing armor the way he ought to have been. Or if it had been raining, instead of sunny, and their bow strings had stretched in the wet. Or if an earthquake had swallowed them up or they'd been nibbled to death by tree frogs. > The voice of Tomanak Orfro took on a decidedly testy edge, and Bahzell had a mental image of his deity standing there with his hands on his hips and a stern light in his eyes. < Oh, and while we're on the subject of "if," if Walsharno had been able to maneuver under those trees and if the both of you had had wings. Have I left anything out? Or do the two of you have something else to feel guilty about? > Bahzell started to reply, then stopped himself. < Better, > Tomanak snorted in the spaces of his mind, and the god's voice turned a bit gentler, though its edge didn't disappear entirely. < Done is done, my Sword. All I've ever asked of you is that you do your best -- which you always have -- and not even I can undo the past. You know why that is, and I think you might bear that in mind when you consider your own actions and their consequences. I have nothing against remorse when it's merited, Bahzell, but there's something a little childish about blaming yourself for being merely mortal, and that's what you're doing when you go borrowing guilt for things not even a god can change. > Bahzell felt a twinge of resentment at being called "childish," but it disappeared as quickly as it had come. After all, Tomanak was the God of Truth. Which was undoubtedly the very reason the word had stung. I'll try to be bearing that in mind, he thought a bit tartly. In the meantime, though, would it be as how you've any more to be telling us? < No, > Tomanak replied. < Too many threads are flowing together here, with far too many possible outcomes. Even if I were tempted to give you more detail, it would be too likely to simply confuse the issue for you -- possibly even make you hesitate at a critical moment. I can tell you this, though: you were right about Tellian's cough. I know you never found who was poisoning him, Bahzell, but that's because you couldn't look in the right place. > Bahzell frowned for a moment. Then his eyes widened, and he sensed Tomanak's nod. < That was the first sign that the Dark Gods have decided to take an active hand again, > he confirmed. < And if the truth be known, Carnadosa's a much shrewder adversary than Sharna or Krahana, and far closer to sane than Shigu's ever been. Nor is she so arrogant as to confront us without careful planning and all the support she can muster. Watch yourselves, Bahzell, Walsharno. You can't begin to reckon how dearly Phrobus and all his children would love to see the two of you dead. > < Could you tell us why they've waited this long to try again? > Walsharno asked. < I can't tell you all the reasons, > Tomanak replied after a moment. < I will tell you, though, that between the two of you, Kaeritha, and Vaijon, you've done more damage to the Dark Gods' access to this universe than you can imagine. > Walsharno and Bahzell sensed his fierce satisfaction, his pride in them. < I suspect none of them would be willing to admit it, especially not to themselves, but they're actually afraid of you. That's one of the reasons they've waited, and if they had a choice, they wouldn't cross swords with you -- or me -- again even now. But they don't have a choice. Those threads I mentioned aren't just flowing together any longer; they're becoming a cascade, gathering power like snowmelt in the East Walls, the sort of flood that washes away mountains, and it could turn in any of dozens of directions. Be warned, My Swords -- there are few limits to what they will do to control that direction if they can. > And here they've been so shy and hesitant about all they've been doing so far, Bahzell thought in a wondering tone, and Tomanak chuckled. < Fair enough, Bahzell, > he conceded. < Fair enough. But rejoice in what you've accomplished so far, the two of you, and rest here until Dathgar and Tellian and Tarith and the others are ready to travel once more. It will take more than a day or two for most of those who wish you ill to discover just how badly yesterday's ambush failed. > Bahzell looked at Walsharno as he felt a huge, immaterial hand rest on his shoulder for just an instant. Then it was gone, and as he drew a deep breath he realized the entire conversation had taken place between one heartbeat and the next, without Hathan or Gayrhalan sensing a thing about it. "Aye, Hathan," he said, resuming the conversation the other wind rider had no idea had ever been interrupted, "it's lucky we were to lose so few. And speaking of luck," he straightened, smiling wickedly, "what say the lot of us go have a word or three with those lads as were giving oath to Tomanak yesterday? I've the oddest feeling as how it might just be they'll find it in their hearts to be telling us what it is we'd like to know."

==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 36 <== toc ==> War Maid's Choice By David Weber Chapter Ten "Leeana is here, Five Hundred." Commander of Five Hundred Balcartha Evahnalfressa looked up from the paperwork on her desk, one eyebrow raised as she regarded the youthful war maid currently detailed as her aide. It was a rotating assignment which was usually shared by the newest and most junior members of the Kalatha City Guard…much to their trepidation. Most of them thought that things were arranged that way to be sure they were suitably terrified by the Guard's commander before they were released to the general population. In fact, it was so that they got an inside look at how the Guard ran as early in their careers as possible…and so that Balcartha had the opportunity to personally evaluate each of them. The Guard wasn't all that enormous, after all. Certainly, it wasn't so big that she couldn't actually know each of her war maids, yet new recruits had a pronounced tendency to hide from their commanding officer in the underbrush, at least until they got their feet under them. Balcartha understood that. She even sympathized with them. Yet she had no intention of allowing them to get away with it, either. "Leeana, Taraiys?" the five hundred asked in a musing tone, and the girl -- she couldn't have been a day over seventeen -- blushed rosily. It was a fascinating shade of deep red, Balcartha noted, and Taraiys' blond hair, blue eyes, and very fair complexion made it even more spectacular. "I beg your pardon, Five Hundred," she said stiffly. "I meant to say that Seventy-Five Leeana is here. She says she has an appointment." "Ah -- that Leeana," Balcartha murmured, and watched Taraiys' blush turn even darker. For a moment, the five hundred wondered if smoke was actually going to curl up off of the girl's skin. But she didn't quite burst into spontaneous flames, and after a moment, the Guard commander relented and smiled slightly. "As a matter of fact, I've been expecting the Seventy-Five. Please ask her to step into my lair." "Yes, Five Hundred!" Taraiys actually came to attention and touched her chest with a raised fist in salute, and Balcartha managed not to crack a smile as she solemnly returned it. Then she leaned comfortably back in her swivel chair, legs crossed, propped her elbows on the chair arms, and steepled her fingers under her chin. "Seventy-Five Leeana, Five Hundred!" Taraiys announced with sharp formality a moment later, opening the door and ushering the considerably taller Leeana through it. Her head barely topped the older war maid's shoulder, and Leanna's jade-green eyes danced with devilish delight as they met the Five Hundred's over Taraiys head. Her lips quivered with her womanfully struggle to restrain the smile obviously dancing right behind those eyes, but somehow she managed to maintain a suitably solemn demeanor when Balcartha gave her a warning glance. "Thank you, Taraiys," the Five Hundred said solemnly. "That will be all, I think." "Yes, Five Hundred!" Taraiys saluted again and disappeared through the office door with the air of a rabbit escaping down its hole, perhaps half a leap in front of the fox. The door closed behind her, and something suspiciously like a giggle spurted out of Leeana. "That will be quite enough of that, Seventy-Five Leeana," Balcartha said primly. "Oh, I beg your pardon, Five Hundred Balcartha!" Leeana said earnestly. "Mother! She was so red when you sent her back out I thought you'd set her on fire!" The tall, redhaired young woman shook her head. "What did you say to her?" "That's between her and me." Balcartha smiled and shook her own head. "She does color up spectacularly though, doesn't she?" "Oh, I think you could certainly say that," Leeana agreed. Then she smiled a bit penitently. "I really shouldn't make fun of her for it though, I suppose. I can produce a pretty spectacular blush of my own, can't I?" "On the rare occasions when anyone can manage to embarrass you, yes," Balcartha agreed. "Are you implying that such a low person as myself no longer has the delicacy to feel embarrassment?" Leeana asked innocently, and Balcartha chuckled. "Something like that…these days, at least," she agreed, and Leeana threw up her right hand as if she were acknowledging a touch in a training match. "I deserved that," she acknowledged. "But she really is awfully young, isn't she?" "This from the broken down old grandmother in front of me?" Balcartha raised both eyebrows. "I seem to remember a fourteen-year-old who didn't know which end of the dagger to hold when Erlis and Ravlahn first evaluated her. Now, let me see, let me see…what was her name?" She gazed up at the ceiling, lips pursed in obvious thought, and Leeana laughed. "You really are training with live blades today, aren't you, Five Hundred Balcartha?" "Only against some," Balcartha replied with a twinkle. As the commander of the Kalatha Guard, she wasn't supposed to have favorites, and she never allowed favoritism to govern her actions, but there was no point pretending she didn't have a special place in her heart for Leeana Hanathafressa. She did remember -- vividly -- the pampered fourteen-year-old noblewoman who'd fled to Kalatha almost seven years before. Not that Leanna had realized she'd been pampered, and by the standards of her birth rank, she hadn't been. Which hadn't changed the fact that, as Balcartha had just pointed out, she'd been totally unequipped with the skills her new life was going to require of her. Her embarrassment at finding herself clad -- more or less -- in the traditional chari and yathu had been only too apparent to someone with Balcartha's experience, and unlike most war maids, Leanna hadn't fled to Kalatha to escape an intolerable, all too often abusive family situation. Indeed, she'd escaped to Kalatha no more than hours in front of her pursuing father because of how much she'd loved her parents, and she'd been miserably homesick and unhappy at leaving them, however bravely she'd tried to hide it. Looking at her now, Balcartha could still see that fourteen-year-old inside the poised, confident, athletic young woman who had replaced her. Not the misery or the uncertainty, but the dauntless, uncomplaining spirit which had risen to meet the demands of a life so utterly different from the one to which she had been raised. Now Leeana smiled at her, and Balcartha unsteepled her fingers to point at the empty chair in front of her desk. "Sit." "Yes, Ma'am," Leeana said meekly and settled obediently into the indicated chair. She also folded her hands neatly in her lap, planted her feet very close together, and sat very straight with a demure, earnestly attentive expression. "You do realize you're about to draw two extra weeks of patrol duty for being such a smartass, don't you?" Balcartha inquired. "Oh, I suppose something like that might happen in some other city guard," Leeana replied. "My five hundred is far too broad-minded and much too far above the sort of petty mindedness which would permit that sort of mean-spirited retaliation…Ma'am." "You just go right on believing that until you see the patrol roster," Balcartha advised her. Then she shook her head. "Although truth be told, and given how much you actually seem to enjoy running around out in the grasslands, I suppose I'd better come up with some other way to demonstrate my petty mindedness. Maybe I should convince the mayor to send you back for another conversation with Lord Warden Trisu." "Mother forbid!" Leeana leaned back and raised both hands in a gesture of surrender, the dismay in her expression only half-feigned. "I'll be good. I promise I'll be good!" "That bad, was it?" Balcartha swung her chair slowly from side to side. "Didn't Arm Shahana's visit give you any cover? I thought he was on his best behavior when she comes to call on him." "I suppose he is, really." Leeana cocked her head, and her tone was more serious. "I'd say he's at least trying, anyway. Unfortunately -- as you and Mayor Yalith are both perfectly well aware -- Trisu can't quite seem to forget who my father is." She grimaced. "He's not very good at hiding his conviction that becoming a war maid is about the most disgraceful thing a properly reared young noblewoman could possibly have done. I'm pretty sure he doesn't try very hard, really." "What do you mean?" Balcartha's chair stopped swinging and her eyes narrowed. "Oh, I'm not saying he goes out of his way to offer me insults, Balcartha," Leeana said quickly. "On the other hand, you know he doesn't believe in operating under false pretenses, and becoming a war maid isn't some sort of minor faux pas like getting myself caught sleeping with someone else's husband or producing a child whose father I can't name. It's a seriously reprehensible thing for anyone to do!" There was a genuine bite under the humor in her tone, Balcartha noted, continuing to gaze at her intently, and the younger woman shrugged. "Whatever he may have thought or felt, he was perfectly polite in the way he addressed me, Balcartha. And let's face it, we both know Mayor Yalith chooses me as her envoy to make a specific point to him. I understand that. That doesn't mean I don't get a little tired sometimes of being used as the mayor's hammer, but I understand it." She shrugged again. "If putting up with the occasional visit to Trisu is the worst thing the war maids ever ask of me, I'll figure I've been a lot luckier than I deserve." "I see." Balcartha considered her for another few seconds, then tipped back in her chair once more. "Should I take it, then, that you accomplished whatever it was Yalith sent you there to deal with?" ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 37 "I think so." Leeana nodded, but she did not (Balcartha noted) tell her exactly what it was Yalith had sent her to Thalar Keep to do. The younger woman's reticence didn't offend the five hundred. In fact, she approved of it -- strongly -- and the fact that Leeana wasn't the sort to gossip about any diplomatic missions upon which she might be sent was one of the reasons she tended to get sent on them. Well, that and the fact that she's smart as a whip, not to mention better educated than at least three quarters of our war maids, and better informed on the Kingdom's politics than Yalith and me combined. And equipped with a confidence in her ability to handle even people like Trisu that most war maids twice her age could only envy. The really funny thing is that as smart as she is, I don't think she fully understands even now just how unusual that confidence of hers is. Part of it, the five hundred knew, was simply who and what she'd been born. It would have been ridiculous to expect someone like her friend Garlahna, who'd been raised on a farm, to have the same confidence and poise as the only daughter of one of the Kingdom's four most powerful nobles. There was reason in everything, after all. Yet birth alone couldn't explain Leeana Hanathafressa, and neither could the young woman's knife-edged intelligence. The truth, Balcartha admitted to herself just a bit more grimly, was that the majority of war maids had been damaged -- or at least scarred -- by whatever it was which had driven them to revolt against all the rules and expectations of "proper conduct" which had been trained into them. Not all of them, of course. There would always be those who simply discovered they wanted something more out of their lives. That they wanted to step beyond the mold and the restrictions, and thank Lillinara for them! But there was no point trying to deny that the war maid community was a refuge -- a place to heal, or even hide -- for the majority of women who sought it out. In a sense, that was true for Leeana, as well, but what she'd come to hide from was the proposal of an arranged marriage she'd known her father's political enemies had contrived as a weapon against him. And if she'd had the inevitable regrets, shed the inevitable tears at giving up her family, there'd been nothing damaged or scarred about her. There'd been only that deep, abiding, astounding strength, and over the years, Balcartha had come to have an equally deep and abiding respect for the parents who'd given it to her. "And did Lord Trisu's grooms offer to take care of Boots for you?" the five hundred asked out loud, her eyes gleaming faintly, and Leeana snorted. "Lillinara, no!" She shook her head. "How can you even ask such a thing? Any properly bred Sothoii male offer to care for a war maid's horse? They were far too busy undressing Garlahna and me with their eyes!" "Alas, that doesn't seem to happen to me anymore," Balcartha said mournfully, running one hand over her gray hair. "Trust me, I wish it didn't happen to me, either!" Leeana said vehemently. "Oh, hush, child!" Balcartha stopped running her hand over her hair to shake an index finger at the younger woman. "Trust me, the day men don't look at you, you'll notice! I know what you'd really like to do is wring their necks, and I'd pay good kormaks to see you do it. For that matter, I'd offer to help if I thought you'd need it! But you're only as young and good-looking as you are once, so go ahead and rub their noses in it. In a properly ladylike way, of course." "Oh, of course," Leeana agreed, but a faint echo of Taraiys' fiery blush seemed to touch her cheekbones, and Balcartha frowned mentally. Quite a few war maids, especially the ones who'd fled to the free-towns like Kalatha rather than being born there, took full advantage of the sexual freedom their new lives offered. Some of them took too much advantage of it, in Balcartha's opinion, and the behavior of certain war maids she could call to mind didn't help the bigoted stereotype which viewed all war maids as perhaps a half-step above common harlots. Or below them, perhaps. Of course, it was hard to blame them, after what many of them had endured, and whoever any individual war maid might choose to bed was her concern and hers alone. Whatever else might be true, war maids belonged to themselves, not anyone else, in all ways. They'd given up far too much of the rest of their lives to compromise on that, however much their "licentious ways" offended the society they'd rejected, and they were perfectly prepared to make their defiance of that society's rules abundantly, one might even have said flagrantly, clear. Expecting anything else would have been not merely foolish but wrong, and as a general rule Balcartha didn't make it her business to worry about what any of her war maids did whenever they were off duty. Still, she'd become aware Leeana wasn't one of the ones who took advantage of that particular aspect of her freedom. Or if she did, she was incredibly discreet about it, at any rate. Bacartha had thought for a while that she and Gharlana might decide to pair up, but that obviously wasn't the case…especially now that Barlahn Ironsmith had come on the scene! And it wasn't as if someone with Leeana's looks and warm, open personality hadn't attracted plenty of attention, male and female alike, especially over the last few years. But she'd rebuffed all of them -- with a smile or a laughing, wicked joke that made it abundantly obvious she was no prude, whatever else might be true, far more often than not. And she clearly had a healthy appreciation for her own attractiveness. Aside from an occasional flash of resentment like her comment about Traisu's armsmen -- and the gods knew Balcartha understood that well enough! -- she never seemed the least…repressed, or unhappy, but still… "But still" it isn't any of your business, old woman! the five hundred scolded herself. It's up to her who she does -- or doesn't -- sleep with, so just you let her worry about it! "Well," she said out loud, "I'm glad to hear your mission was a success and you didn't leave any bruised or broken armsmen in your wake." "Not this time, anyway." Leeana grimaced. "I can't guarantee that won't happen another time, though!" "Just make sure there's a witness who can honestly testify that he made the first move, and you've got my blessing." Balcartha's tone was light, but there was a genuine note of warning in it, as well, and she waited to continue until Leeana nodded back. "And now that I've issued my stern injunction, what was it you wanted to see me about?" she asked then. "Actually, I wanted to talk to you about a furlough," Leeana said, and Balcartha's mental ears pricked. The younger woman looked as relaxed and comfortable as she'd been from the moment she entered the office, yet there was some subtle change. Some tiny shift in her body language, or perhaps something in her eyes. Balcartha couldn't put a finger on what that "something" was, but that didn't prevent her from knowing it was there. "A furlough?" she repeated. "Yes." Leeana shrugged. "It turns out I've been running up unused leave time for quite a while now. In fact, according to Erlis, I've got over three months of it on the books. With your permission, I'd like to use some of that up now." "Over three months?" Balcartha blinked. To have accrued that much unused leave time, Leeana must have pretty much not taken any leave at all for the last couple of years, and the five hundred rebuked herself for not having noticed. Attention to duty and hard work were always praiseworthy qualities and much to be encouraged, but it was important for anyone to save a little time for herself, as well. In fact, it was as important as attention to duty, and if she'd realized Leeana was shorting herself on leave to that extent… "Yes, Ma'am." Leeana made a small, almost apologetic gesture. "It just sort of…piled up." Those mental ears of Balcartha's twitched again as Leeana's tone registered. Now why don't I believe it just "piled up"? And if it didn't, why has she been saving it up on purpose? "I suppose that happens sometimes," she said after a moment, "if not usually to quite that extent. And if it has, then by all means let's get some of it used up. Unless you're planning on letting it go on 'piling up' until you can retire a year or two early!" "That's not what I had in mind." Leeana grinned and shook her head. "In fact, if the Guard can spare me, I'd like to go ahead and take a month or two of it, starting next month." "I'm sure we can survive without you for a few weeks," Balcartha said dryly. "May I ask exactly what it is you have in mind to do with all that time?" "Well…" Leeana shrugged. "Next month is my birthday, and I'd like to go home -- to Hill Guard, I mean -- for it." Balcartha's eyes narrowed in sudden understanding. "That's right. You'll be twenty-one this year, won't you?" she said. "Yes, I will," Leeana replied, meeting her gaze levelly, and Balcartha nodded slowly. ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 38 Twenty-one was the year of majority, the official beginning of adulthood, for a Sothoii noblewoman. For noblemen, it came two years earlier than that -- just another of those little natural advantages which accrued to someone who'd had the good sense to be born male. Among those scandalous war maids, of course, the rules were somewhat different, and unlike Leeana Bowmaster, Leeana Hanathafressa had been legally an adult from the moment she completed her probationary period. Several questions followed one another through Balcartha's mind as she and the younger woman gazed at one another. But the only one who had the right to ask Leeana those questions was Leeana herself, and so -- "I don't see any problem about arranging a couple of months of leave for you," the five hundred said. "You'll have to discuss it with Erlis, of course -- make sure she's covered while you're away -- but I feel confident we'll manage in your absence somehow." * * * "Leeana! Over here!" Garlahna's shout cut through the friendly, noisy, dimly lit din of The Green Maiden's common room, and Leeana turned her head, peering through the rather smoky air until she spotted her friend at a corner table. Unlike her, Garlahna had exchanged her chari and yathu for a gown for the evening, and its amber silk clung to her like a second skin. It was interesting, Leeana thought, how the gown actually emphasized Garlahna's undeniably curvaceous figure so much more…emphatically than the far more "revealing" traditional war maid attire did. It was a point she'd been paying more attention to of late herself, and she admired the embroidery on her friend's deeply plunging bodice. Of course, some people had more curves to emphasize in the first place, she reflected, although she had to admit she was less challenged in that area herself than she'd once expected to be. It was simply that Garlahna could have challenged anyone in that particular competition. She smiled at the familiar thought as Garlahna waved, beckoning her over. Then she waved back and started working her way through the crowd. The Green Maiden was always crowded, especially on the evenings like this one, when fresh rain clouds had come swelling up along the western horizon as the sun settled towards evening. It didn't feel like it was going to be one of the Wind Plain's tumultuous thunderstorms, but unless Leeana missed her guess, they were in for a long, steady soaking. In fact, the first drops had already begun to fall, although no one could possibly hear them pattering on the The Green Maiden's roof through the chattering voices, the clatter of tableware, the calls for refilled mugs and glasses, and the preliminary tootling of the three musicians setting up for the evening's entertainment on the tiny stage beside the huge fireplace. Leeana reached the table Garlahna had snagged and paused to use both hands to slick beads of rainwater off of her bare shoulders and upper arms before she hooked a toe under the unoccupied chair on her side and pulled it out. "Didn't think you were going to make it before the floodgates opened," Garlahna observed. "I didn't -- quite," Leeana pointed out wryly. "And I've got gate duty tonight. Third watch, in fact." She grimaced. "It ought to be coming down nicely by then." "And Barlahn and I will be thinking of you with the deepest sympathy as we listen to the rain drumming on the roof and gurgling in the gutters," Garlahna assured her, leaning comfortably against Barlahn Ironsmith's shoulder. It was a well muscled shoulder, connected to powerful arms and calloused, capable hands, one of which was draped possessively around Garlahna at that very moment. "Assuming we can spare any of our attention from more…pressing matters, that is," Garlahna added with a smile. "Knowing you?" Leeana snorted. "Somehow I don't think I'd better be counting on you to come make sure I haven't come down with pneumonia." "Are you suggesting anything could possibly distract me from my deep and burning concern about my very best friend's well-being on a dark and stormy night like this?" "I'm suggesting it would take Chemalka's own thunderbolt to get any 'spare attention' out of the two of you!" "Well, that's only because we're going to be enjoying a few thunderbolts of our own," Garlahna replied, arching her spine ever so slightly to round her bosom provocatively, then batted her eyes in Barlahn's direction. "Shameless hussy," he remarked comfortably, smiling down at her, and she laughed and patted him on the thigh. "Yep, and you love it," she told him. "Don't try to pretend differently to me!" "Happen I'm not so likely to be doing that. 'S long as you don't take t' taking me for granted, anywise." "Trust me, that's not going to happen," she purred, raising her head far enough to plant a kiss on the side of his neck. "Good." He smiled again, then looked across the table at Leeana. "And a good evening to you, too, Leeana," he said blandly. "Why don't the two of you just go ahead and get a room here at the inn?" Leeana asked sweetly. "It would save so much time. And I'd be happy to wait to order until you got back." "I tried, but they were all already taken," Garlahna said mournfully. "Still," she brightened, "I understand Raythas told Shallys she'd only need her room for an hour or so." She smiled wickedly at Leeana. "I'm sure Barlahn and I could get it when she's done…if you'd care to join us before you go on watch, that is." "Garlahna, if I thought you were really willing to share Barlahn for even one moment, you might actually manage to embarrass me," Leeana told her with a smile of her own. "Since I know perfectly well what a greedy bitch you are where he's concerned, I'm not really worried." "Spoilsport!" Garlahna laughed, then looked up as one of The Green Maiden's servers appeared at the edge of the table. Like quite a few of the other war maids scattered around the common room, the woman had a pipe clasped between her teeth, and smoke curled up from its bowl to join the haze drifting overhead as she cocked an eyebrow at the three of them. "So are you finally ready to order, Garlahna? Or do you and Barlahn want to sit over here in each other's laps for another hour or so, first? Oh, and hi, Leeana." "Hi, Barthyma." Leeana shook her head and jabbed a thumb in Garlahna's direction. "You know the two of them are lowering the tone of your entire establishment, don't you?" "I keep telling them to get a room," Barthyma Darhanfressa replied, and raised both eyebrows as Garlahna went into a fit of giggles. "I said something especially funny?" she asked. "Only to someone like Garlahna," Leeana assured her. "And since I've got the duty in another couple of hours, I'll go ahead and order a beer now, if you don't mind. And is that venison I smell?" "Shallys' special recipe," Barthyma confirmed. "Then I'll have that, too. With the buttered potatoes and lima beans. Oh, and don't forget the cornbread! And --" "And make sure it's a generous portion," Barthyma finished for her with a smile, and shook her head. "Girl, it's a good thing you're as fanatical as you are about those morning runs of yours!" "I'm just making sure I get to go on enjoying the good things in life," Leeana replied with a smile. "Some of them, at least," Garlahna said. "Personally, I prefer to burn off the pounds without running around barefoot in the misty morn." Leeana shook her head fondly. Garlahna might miss the occasional morning, but the two of them ran together at least four days a week. "So, are you two going to order?" Barthyma asked the dark-haired war maid, and Barlahn laughed. "O' course she is. In fact," he smiled down at Garlahna, "I'm thinking you'd best fetch her an extra portion, too." He looked up at Barthyma and winked. "Happen she'll need her strength tonight." "Mother, take me now!" Barthyma rolled her eyes, and looked back at Leeana. "If it gets any deeper back here, you're going to drown before you have to go out in the rain, Leeana. You're always welcome at the bar if you need to escape." "Thanks," Leeana said wryly, "but I think I'll just stay here and take notes." "Take notes?" Garlahna sat up a little straighter, brown eyes narrowing slightly. "And the cause of this sudden curiosity of yours would be --?" "Who said anything about 'curiosity'?" Leeana retorted. "I'm just looking for blackmail material." "Blackmail material?" Garhlahna laughed. "You've got to be kidding! I was a farm girl, not a 'noblewoman' like someone I could mention, before I ran off to the war maids!" "Oh, I know it wouldn't have any effect on you," Leanna shot back. "But Barlahn was a respectable fellow before he took up with you. He may still have a reputation to worry about, you know!" She grinned at her friend, green eyes dancing, but Garlahna gazed back at her with that same speculative air for a heartbeat or two. There was something about Leeana's tone, she thought. And was that the slightest edge of a blush along the other war maid's cheekbones? Their eyes met for just a moment, and then Garlahna snorted. "Don't be ridiculous," she said, snuggling comfortably back down beside her freemate. "If Barlahn was going to worry about his 'reputation,' he never would've 'taken up' with me in the first place!"

==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 39 <== toc ==> War Maid's Choice By David Weber Chapter Eleven Bahzell leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, arms folded across his chest, and whistled tunelessly as he gazed out from the balcony across the roofs and busy streets of Sothofalas. They were worth gazing at, although they couldn't hold a candle to Belhadan or Axe Hallow. On the other hand, those were Axeman cities, with dwarvish engineering readily available and located in a far more densely populated land. Sothofalas was substantially smaller than Axe Hallow, although it actually covered a greater area than Belhadan, he estimated. But the dwarven sarthnaisks who'd contributed to Belhadan's construction had buried at least half of that city's housing, shops, and warehouses in the solid stone of its mountainous terrain. Sothofalas sprawled out in every direction from the towering battlements of King Markhos' great fortress of Sothokarnas, and beyond the rib of granite which had broken the Wind Plain's surface like a broaching whale to serve as Sothokarnas' foundation, the terrain was flat as a griddle on either side of the Pardahn River. The Pardahn, yet another of the mighty Spear River's countless tributaries, wasn't all that much of a river, but it did offer the Sothoii capital a reliable source of water. And it was deep enough for barge traffic, he thought, watching a horse-drawn barge creeping towards the city. Hradani eyes were much better than human ones, and Bahzell could easily make out the crossed battleaxe and warhammer of Frahmahn flying from the stumpy flagstaff on the vessel's stern. It was a lengthy haul from Nachfalas to Sothofalas, but he didn't doubt Cassan was going to show a tidy profit on the barge's cargo. For now, at least, he told himself with grim satisfaction, and let his eyes sweep back across the steeply pitched, brightly colored roofs of Sothofalas. They built in stone or brick, the Sothoii, and they burned coal in winter. There wasn't that much wood here on the Wind Plain, and what there was of it was far too precious to be used as a mere building material or fuel. In that respect, they really did have quite a bit in common with the subterranean cities of Dwarvenhame, he reflected. And, even more than his own people, they built thick walls, too, fit to stand the blasts of the far northern winter even at the Wind Plain's altitude and thick enough to shed the sometimes fierce heat of the brief northern summer, as well. There were few exterior windows, however, and all of the larger, more prosperous homes clustered around his present vantage point had obviously been designed with an eye towards defense, even here in the very heart of the Kingdom's capital. It was a reminder that feuds between the great Sothoii clans could be just as bloody as among Bahzell's own people, but it was more than that, as well. Without handy terrain features, the Sothoii had deliberately constructed defensive strong points within their city. At least two thirds of Sothofalas' present area lay beyond the old city walls, which had last been extended more than two generations ago… and whose maintenance was scarcely the first charge on the Exchequer. That faintly offended Bahzell's sense of the way things ought to be, but stone walls had never been the Sothoii idea of a proper defense, and the capital was far from unguarded. Indeed, if a hostile army ever managed to reach it at all -- an almost insuperable challenge, given what Sothoii light cavalry and wind riders would do to any invader here on their home ground -- those fortified villas would make Sothofalas a tougher nut to crack than it might expect, he thought. Not that the city was any sort of grim, gray fortress. Its streets were as clean and well kept as any Axeman town might boast, and streamers, pennants, and wind-tube banners flew from the towers of Sothokarnas. The great royal standard which indicated the King was in residence snapped and cracked above its central keep, and every manor in the city appeared to sport the brave banners of whatever noble house had built them, as well. Nor was that the city's only color. The Sothoii didn't favor the bas relief sculptures and intricate mosaics Axeman architects incorporated into their public buildings, but the walls of Sothofalas' buildings were bright with painted frescoes and murals. Those on more public buildings tended to reflect each structure's function, but the competition between private homes was often fierce, and mural painters were both highly prized and lucratively paid. From where he stood, he could see artisans touching up at a dozen or so of those murals, apparently repairing the last of the winter's ravages. And the streets themselves were full of pedestrians, carts, and -- inevitably -- mounted riders. The clatter of hooves, the rattle of cart wheels, the buzz of conversation, the cries of vendors and shouts of children…all the vibrant, living noises of the city came to his ears like the music of life. He'd considered stepping out onto the balcony proper, the better to enjoy its bustling life, but he'd decided against it. He wasn't the hardest person in the Kingdom for people to recognize, and he and his fellow hradani remained less than fully welcome in the eyes of all too many Sothoii. There was no point calling unnecessary attention to his presence here in the city…and especially not to the fact that he was an honored guest in this particular house. That was why he'd been careful to remain well back, where -- hopefully -- none of those who continued to cherish less than warm and welcoming thoughts might spy him. He'd been careful when he first opened the balcony's glass doors and propped himself here, as well, since the diamond-paned panels looked suspiciously fragile, and he'd had entirely too much experience with furnishings -- and buildings -- which hadn't really been intended for a hradani who stood nine inches over seven feet to go about leaning on them. He'd tested the strength of the frame with a thoughtful expression before satisfying himself it was truly up to his weight, studiously ignoring the obvious amusement of his two companions while he did so. < They're only jealous of your noble stature, > Walsharno assured him in the back of his brain, speaking from the enormous, spotless stable appended to the mansion. < We coursers get that sort of thing from the lesser cousins all the time. And, of course, I understand that some of us actually get it from our…less well grown fellow coursers upon occasion, as well. > < Do they now? > Bahzell responded silently, continuing to whistle. < And who might it be as hears such a thing from such as, say, Gayrhalan? > < I'm sure I wouldn't know, > Walsharno replied primly, and Bahzell chuckled. "Dathgar says you and Walsharno are being full of yourselves again," Tellian Bowmaster remarked from behind him. Bahzell stopped whistling and glanced over his shoulder at the baron, ears cocked interrogatively, and Tellian chuckled. "Walsharno's mind voice is a little stronger than other coursers', you know. And, ah, Dathgar's been around longer than he has and developed a bit better 'hearing.' If you two really don't want him eavesdropping, Walsharno's going to have to learn not to shout when the two of you aren't nose-to-nose." < Shout, is it? > Walsharno demanded indignantly. < It's no more than a…firmly voiced discussion! > There was a brief pause. Then: < And I don't recall asking for your opinion, either, Dathgar! > Tellian's eyes twinkled, and he shook his head. "Dathgar just suggested that perhaps Walsharno thinks it's only a 'firmly voiced discussion' because of the volume you two normally need to get through one another's thick skulls." "I'm thinking you and your four-footed friend need to be finding yourselves another insult," Bahzell said genially. "Mind, I'll not say as how either of us are after having the very thinnest skulls in the whole wide world, but it's in my mind as how someone who's of a truly inventive turn of phrase could be coming up with something a mite fresher." "We can only do our humble best in Brandark's absence," Tellian replied with an apologetic air. "Besides," Vaijon put in, looking up from his book in the chair he'd tilted back against one of the handsomely decorated chamber's walls, "we've found the simplest insults are best. You seem to miss the more complicated ones every so often." ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 40 "Oh! That was a clean hit!" Tellian congratulated, and Vaijon nodded in acknowledgment with a suitably modest expression. "Aye, so it was," Bahzell agreed, glancing at the younger champion. Vaijon grinned at him, and the hradani shook his head. His human friend had reverted -- partly, at least -- to the Vaijon he'd first met in Belhadan. He was never going to attain such heights of magnificence again, thank Tomanak, but he'd definitely turned his regular attire up a notch for the occasion. The plain woolen surcoat he'd adopted for normal wear had been replaced with one of green silk, glittering with genuine gold bullion, and the spurs on the glistening black boots stretched out before him as he lounged inelegantly on the base of his spine in the comfortable (and expensive) chair gleamed with silver inlay. "Of course," Bahzell continued, "while I've no choice but to admit it's true as death hradani can be a mite slow noticing as how someone's trying to get through to them, I'm thinking someone as lives in a glass house might be a mite careful how he lobs cobblestones about. It's in my mind as how I recall a young Axeman popinjay as was a bit behind hand himself when it came time to be listening to others." "Ouch!" Tellian's smile turned into a huge grin, and he shook his head wryly. "I'd say you're playing with fire today, Vaijon!" "If I were minded to be bringing up people who deliberately did their dead level best to shove their fingers into their long, hairy ears to avoid hearing someone rather than simply being…too preoccupied to notice someone trying to get their attention, I would undoubtedly respond in kind," Vaijon observed, then sighed. "That would be conduct unbecoming a champion of Tomanak, however. Besides, it would be taking unfair advantage of someone whose more ancient -- uh, excuse me, I meant more senior -- mental processes have reduced him to bringing up something that happened seven years ago in an effort to divert attention from the sad decay of his own acuity in his declining years." "Oh ho!" Bahzell laughed. "That's cost you an ally or two, I'm thinking!" He twitched his ears impudently in Tellian's direction, and Vaijon glanced at the baron, who was regarding him with a distinctly beady eye. "'Declining years'?" Tellian repeated. "Are you sure that's the way you want to describe someone all of three months older than I am? And a hradani, to boot? Unless I'm mistaken, Bahzell is actually considerably younger for his people than you are for ours." "Perhaps I should re-think that particular, possibly unfortunate choice of words," Vaijon replied. "It does seem to imply I was ascribing Bahzell's less than blindingly fast thought processes to the inevitable deterioration of age, which couldn't have been farther from my intent. After all, it would have been disrespectful for someone as youthful as myself to make such an…indelicate observation about one of my elders. Either of my elders." "If you grab his shoulders, I'll grab his ankles, and I'm sure between the two of us doddering old wrecks, we can toss him off the balcony," Tellian said. "Tempting as the thought might be, I'm thinking as how it's a nasty mess we'd make in Sir Jerhas' courtyard," Bahzell replied. "Come to that, there's no need. It's a long journey back to Hill Guard, and no knowing what sort of mischief might be befalling a fellow out on the high road and all. Indeed, we've but to ask, and it's certain I am Dathgar and Walsharno betwixt them could manage to tread on him just a bit." "I'm sure they could," Tellian said, but his smile had faded. His expression was much more sober as he gazed at both the champions, and Bahzell grimaced slightly. "It may be as how my brain is slowing a mite," he rumbled. "I'd no mind to recall such as that to you, Tellian." "I know." Tellian shook his head quickly, one hand just brushing his chest where the arrowheads had driven into him. "And I should have listened to the two of you -- Tomanak! The four of you! -- and gone ahead and worn the damned armor." < Eight, actually, but who's counting? > Walsharno observed, loudly enough Bahzell knew he was making certain Dathgar could hear him and relay to Tellian. < I make it you, me, Brandark, Vaijon, Hathan, Gayrhalan, Dathgar, and -- especially! -- Baroness Hanatha. Did I leave anyone out, Brother? > "No, you didn't," Tellian said before Bahzell could respond. "And I'm not looking forward to what Hanatha's going to have to say to me when I get home." His shudder, Bahzell thought, wasn't entirely feigned, and the hradani didn't blame him. Tellian had written his wife the evening immediately after the attack…and her reply letter had arrived via a courier whose lathered horse spoke eloquently of the urgency with which she'd dispatched it. Bahzell didn't doubt for a moment that she intended to rehash her initial reaction to how close Tellian had come to death the instant she got her hands on him once again. Well, not the very first instant; she'd be too busy hugging him until his ribs needed healing all over again before she got around to bashing his head for him the way he deserved. But she'd get around to it in time, and take the time to do it properly when she did. And a good thing it will be, too, the hradani thought, looking at the man who'd become one of his closest friends. For a man as is one of the canniest, hardest headed fellows I've yet to meet, that was about as addlepated a decision as ever I've seen. He knew he was being at least a little unfair to Tellian, but he didn't really care. Some people were less entitled than others to take chances with their own safety when they knew they had enemies who would vastly prefer to see them dead. And then there's the little matter of that cough of his, the hradani thought grimly, glancing at Vaijon. None of the three champions had shared Tomanak's confirmation about that with the baron yet, but it was going to have to be addressed eventually. On the other hand, if Wencit of Rum ran true to form, they ought to be seeing him in Hill Guard sometime in the next two or three months. If dark wizardry was indeed to blame for the baron's "illness," it might be best to have the world's last white wizard available for any discussion of how a repeat performance could be avoided. "I got another letter from her yesterday, you know," Tellian said after a moment, and rolled his eyes. "Did you now? And should we be taking it she's still a mite put out with you?" Bahzell inquired genially "You could put it that way, I suppose. Although, to be fair," Tellian's tone was judicious, "that would be a little like saying the Ice Sisters are a 'mite' chilly. In mid-winter." Both his companions chuckled at that one, since the Ice Sister Lakes spent three months out of the year under frozen sheets of ice several feet thick. Tellian joined their laughter, but then his expression sobered and he sighed. "What?" Vaijon asked, and the baron shrugged. "Hanatha got a letter from Leanna. She's coming home for a visit for her birthday." "A visit, is it?" Bahzell's ears twitched. "Yes, and I'm going to be stuck here in Sothofalas!" Tellian's frustration was plain. "I hardly ever get to see her, and now this!" He glowered, and Bahzell smiled sympathetically as he heard a father's unhappiness. He had no children of his own -- as Tellian had just suggested, he was actually on the young side, by his own people's standards, to even have been thinking about that yet, and champions seldom had the time to even consider parenthood -- but he had nieces and nephews in plenty. Some fathers -- too many of them, in fact, in Bahzell's opinion -- would be less than devastated by missing a visit from a war maid daughter, but Tellian wasn't one of them, and Bahzell understood the baron's disappointment only too well. In fact… "And did your lady write how long she'll be visiting?" he asked, and Tellian snorted. "Not long enough, I'm afraid. Or not for me, anyway, if I end up stuck here as long as I'm afraid I'm going to. You should at least have a chance to see her on your way through to Hurgrum, though." ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 41 "Will I, now? That's good to be hearing." Tellian raised an eyebrow at him. "I'm thinking as how by that time she and your lady will have had time enough and to spare to agree with one another about those as don't wear armor when they ought," Bahzell explained with a smile. "Indeed, it's in my mind as how if I'm truly lucky, they'll've worn themselves down to a nub without the strength to be starting in on me for having let you be doing something so daft as that. Mind, I'm none too optimistic about it, though. Like as not they'll see me as naught but a setting up exercise for Hanatha once she's after getting you home again and safely into arm's reach." "Um," Tellian considered that for a moment, then grimaced. "I'm afraid you may be onto something there. But I'm going to expect you to protect me from her if you are, you know." "Ah? And would it happen you could explain just why I might be daft enough to do anything of the sort?" "It's an ancient Wakuo tradition," Tellian assured him. "Wakuo, is it?" Bahzell cocked his ears and arched one eyebrow, wondering where Tellian was headed. The fierce nomads who dominated the vast, rolling wastelands beyond the Spearmen's Great Eastern Forest had more traditions, customs, and practices (not to mention rituals, ceremonies, and taboos) than even the dwarves. No one -- not even the Wakuo themselves, he suspected -- could possibly keep all of them straight. "Of course! If a Wakuo warrior saves someone's life, he's responsible for that person for the rest of his own life. And if you don't protect me from Hanatha, you'll be derelict in your duties!" Vaijon laughed out loud, and Bahzell shook his head as Tellian looked at him guilelessly. "If it happened as how I was Wakuo -- or even as how you were Wakuo, come to that -- I might be thinking as how you had a point. But as I'm not, and no more are you, and seeing as it happens I'm more than a mite in agreement with her, I'm afraid as how I'll be otherwise occupied at the moment. Probably counting the knotholes in Walsharno's stall. Or something nigh as important as that, leastwise." "Traitor!" < Prudent! > Walsharno countered with a silent equine laugh. < A lot more prudent than I ever would have expected out of you, as a matter of fact, Brother! > "Now, that's no way for a Sothoii baron to be carrying on," Bahzell chided. "In fact --" He broke off as the chamber door opened to admit the two men for whom they'd been waiting. Sir Jerhas Macebearer, Lord Warden of Amber Grass, was in his mid-sixties, white-haired, blue-eyed, and richly dressed, with a luxurious mustache that drooped almost to his chin. He'd never been of more than average height for a Sothoii, and he'd grown slightly stooped with age, but his stride was still firm and powerful, despite the polished ebony cane in his right hand. His shirt was of the finest, snow-white linen, with its full sleeves gathered into embroidered wristbands; his tabard-like tunic was even more richly embroidered, as befitted the Kingdom of the Sothoii's Prime Councilor; and the intricately worked golden chain of his office flickered with brilliant reflections about his neck. The plain leather scabbard of the businesslike dagger sheathed at his left hip should have struck a jarring note, but instead, it simply looked inevitable. Prince Yurokhas Silveraxe was over four inches taller than Sir Jerhas, with the same red hair and blue eyes as his older brother, the King. He was five years older than Vaijon, and two inches shorter, yet the two men bore a decided resemblance to one another. Partly, that was because Prince Yurokhas's court tunic was neither the deep blue of royalty nor marked with the simple silver ax of his house. Instead, it was exactly the same shade as Vaijon and Bahzell's surcoats and emblazoned with the crossed swords and mace of Tomanak. Almost more even than that, though, was the fact that Yurokhas, despite his princely rank, believed in keeping himself in training. He was broad-shouldered, powerfully built, and sinewy, and he even moved like Vaijon, with an unconscious, almost feline grace. "Your Highness," Tellian said, rising quickly from his chair and dropping to one knee before Yurokhas. "Oh, get up, Tellian!" the prince said testily. "We both have better things to do than to waste time with you crawling around on the floor. Besides, I've heard about that little adventure you got yourself into on the way here!" Blue eyes scrutinized Tellian closely as the baron rose obediently. "Hanatha's going to have your hide, and my only regret is that I won't be there to watch her take it. What in Fiendark's Furies did you think you were doing?" "Always so tactful, so diplomatic," Tellian murmured, and Yurokhas cracked a laugh. "I'll give you 'diplomatic' if you ever let anything like that happen again!" The prince reached out, resting one hand on each of Tellian's shoulders, and looked deep into his eyes. "There's too damned much going on for you to let people go poking arrows into you, damn it! And that doesn't even consider how I'll feel if you let something like that happen to you again." His voice softened on the final sentence, and he gave Tellian a gentle shake. The baron smiled crookedly and shrugged. "Nobody seems to believe this," he said a bit plaintively, "but I genuinely didn't expect anyone to go 'poking arrows' into me. I suppose the event demonstrates that I should have, but I didn't actively set out to help… parties unknown finish me off, you know. That could have happened to anyone." Yurokhas snorted with panache. "You were doing pretty well there, until that last sentence," he told the older man. "You aren't just 'anyone,' and things like that aren't supposed to happen to one of the Kingdom's barons. Especially not when it's one of the other barons who's behind it!" "Your Highness." Sir Jerhas spoke quietly, but his tone carried an edge of admonition, and he shook an index finger at the prince when Yurokhas looked at him. "I'll dissemble all you want me to in public, Jerhas," Yurokhas replied unrepentantly. "In private, though, I'm not going to pretend we don't all know who was really behind this. Or that his holdings don't lie somewhere roughly, oh, south of here!" "As for that, Your Highness," Bahzell rumbled, "while I'll not say as how he didn't have a finger in the pie somewhere, there's not a one of the fellows as surrendered to us who'd a word to say at all, at all, about Duke Cassan." Sir Jerhas rolled his eyes and puffed his mustache disapprovingly as Bahzell mentioned Cassan's name, although he didn't waste his time denying that the Baron of Frahmahn could possibly have been involved in the assault on his fellow baron. Yurokhas, on the other hand, didn't even try to disguise his skepticism. "I'm not one to question one of His champions in the normal order of things, Prince Bahzell," he said, reaching out to clasp forearms with Bahzell. "Especially not when the champion in question's accomplished all you have. But I find it very difficult to believe anything like this could have happened to Tellian without Cassan being involved in it somewhere." "Aye, and so he may've been," Bahzell acknowledged. "And I'll not deny I'd find more than a mite of pleasure in seeing him take the tumble he's more than earned. But for all that, it's a rare man as is willing to try to lie to one of Himself's champions, and I've yet to meet the one as can actually do it! So if it were to happen as you called me to testify, it's no choice I'd have but to swear under oath as not one of them so much as mentioned Cassan by name. In fact, it's in my mind as how whoever did buy their swords for this was never a Sothoii at all." "What?" Yurokhas' skepticism was clearer than ever, and even Sir Jerhas' eyes widened at Bahzell's assertion. ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 42 "I'll not say it didn't surprise me, as well," the hradani confessed. "But the more I thought on it, the more it came to me as how there's more folk than I can count betwixt here and Bortalik as might just feel the kormaks slipping from their fingers these days. There's not a Purple Lord ever born, for instance, as wouldn't cut his own mother's throat to stop such as the Baron and my Da and old Kilthan are about. And Vaijon" -- he flipped his ears at the human champion as he spoke -- "and I each questioned the lot of them separately, and more than one time apiece. They'd a mortal lot to say in hopes of avoiding a nasty end on someone's rope, yet the thing that struck me strongest was every one of them laid to it as how the 'armsman' as paid for Tellian's death 'let slip' as how he was in the service of a Sothoii lord. Now, I'm naught but a simple hradani, when all's said, yet it's in my mind as how a clumsy fellow might let such as that slip out once or twice, but it's a true work of art to be 'accidentally' telling every single one of the men as you're sending out to kill the second or third-ranking noble of the entire Kingdom as how it was one of the Kingdom's other nobles hired them." Yurokhas' eyes narrowed, and Sir Jerhas frowned. The Prime Councilor had been chosen for his office in part because Amber Grass lay in the North Riding, which was traditionally neutral in the struggle between Cassan and Tellian. Following the King's dismissal of Garthmahn Ironhelm, he'd needed an obviously "neutral" choice, and there were those who'd been inclined to think that was the only reason he'd settled on Sir Jerhas. The new Prime Councilor was a bluff sort of fellow, with little time to waste on things like book learning. He was not, to put it mildly, broadly respected as a scholar, and he wasn't above being flattered and cajoled by someone who approached him the right way. But he was also personally incorruptible, highly experienced, and one of the shrewdest negotiators Bahzell had ever encountered. Despite his impatience with formal learning and erudition, there was nothing at all wrong with the brain behind those blue eyes of his. And for all of his efforts to dissuade Yurokhas from flinging Cassan's name about, there was no more doubt in his mind than in the prince's about where Tellian's most dangerous enemies were to be found. "A truly clever conspirator might expect us to think exactly that, Prince Bahzell," he pointed out after a moment. "Aye, and so he might." Bahzell nodded calmly. "Yet truth be told, Sir Jerhas, Cassan's not so clever as all that." The Prime Councilor looked as skeptical as Yurokhas had a moment before, and Bahzell chuckled coldly. "Don't you be forgetting who my Da is! If you're minded to watch a clever conspirator at his trade, you'll not do better than him. Ruthless, yes -- I'll grant Cassan that. And crooked-minded as Sharna. But it's only the power he was born with and the blackhearted greed of him makes him truly dangerous. It's that as gives him so many others to be hiding behind and using. Aye, and throwing away as soon as ever it suits his needs." The huge hradani's expression was grim. "I've no use at all, at all, for a man as sets out to betray not only his oaths but all of those as have a right to look to him for justice and protection, and that's a frame as fits Cassan like a glove. But it's in my mind he's not nearly so clever as he's thinking he is, and it's that will bring him down in the end." Sir Jerhas grimaced. Clearly he wasn't precisely overjoyed to hear Bahzell predicting Cassan's ultimate downfall, and in many ways, the hradani couldn't blame him. Bringing Cassan down, however satisfying and however obvious the rogue baron's guilt might become, would be a deadly dangerous business. The ties of personal loyalty ran deep among Sothoii; that was one of their greatest strengths. Yet it was one of their greatest weaknesses, as well, for many a lord warden and armsman would consider himself bound by his personal oath of fealty, no matter how great the guilt of the one to whom he'd given it. Cassan and Yeraghor of Ersok had far too many retainers who were likely to feel exactly that way, even in an open confrontation with the Crown, and it hadn't been that many years since the Sothoii's most recent "Time of Troubles." Which, after all, went a long way towards explaining how cautious King Markhos and his Prime Councilor had to be in their dealings with the emerging alliance of Tellian, Bahnak, and Kilthandahknarthas. "You may well be right," Yurokhas growled. "In fact, I hope you are, because the bastard can't be 'brought down' too soon for me!" The prince's sincerity was obvious, and Sir Jerhas' grimace became a genuine wince. "I'd like to see him a foot or so shorter, myself, Your Highness," Tellian observed mildly. "In fact, at the moment, with all due respect for Bahzell and Vaijon's opinion as to who hired this particular lot of assassins, I probably have even more motivation than you do. Having said that, however, I'm not so certain your brother would thank you for saying that where anyone else might hear you. For that matter, I don't think you're doing Sir Jerhas' peace of mind any great favor even now." Yurokhas looked at him for a moment, then gave himself a shake and barked another laugh. "You're right, of course, Brother," he said, addressing Tellian not simply as one wind rider to another but as the long-ago youth who'd been fostered by Tellian's father in Balthar. "I never was exactly noted for my patience, was I?" "No, not so much," Tellian agreed in a judicious tone. Then he chuckled and smacked the prince gently on the shoulder. "On the other hand, much as I would never have admitted it to you when you were a scrubby young terror, all elbows and knees, Your Highness, you're not exactly the most thick-witted fellow I've ever known, either." "Spare my blushes," Yurokhas snorted with a smile, and Bahzell wondered how many other Sothoii -- if any -- could have spoken to the prince that way. Yurokhas stood for a moment, looking back and forth between Sir Jerhas, Tellian, and Bahzell, then gave himself another shake and drew a deep breath. "Well," he said briskly, "now that I've had the opportunity to get all that out of my system, I suppose it's time we got down to business." "By all means, Your Highness," Sir Jerhas said, bowing his guests towards the large, polished table set to catch the breeze billowing the silk hangings as it swept in off the balcony. It would, perhaps, have been unfair to call the Prime Councilor's expression relieved at the prince's willingness to step back from his anger at Cassan, but it would have been headed in the right direction, Bahzell thought as he settled somewhat gingerly into his own chair. It creaked alarmingly under him, but it didn't collapse. Immediately, at least. "Should I assume the fact that you came along for the trip indicates you and Tellian have settled your plans for the summer well enough to discuss them with me, Sir Vaijon?" Yurokhas asked once they were all seated, and Vaijon shrugged slightly. "Mostly, Your Highness," he agreed. "To be honest, I couldn't actually have told you the real reason for my decision to accompany Bahzell and the Baron this time." He smiled crookedly. "Tomanak has a tendency to send us where He needs us without necessarily explaining it all to us ahead of time. Unless I'm badly mistaken, though, this time around it was more to send another healer than another sword." "And I'm grateful for it," Yurokhas said quietly. "But you do have a campaign plan?" "We do." Vaijon nodded. "Or the skeleton of one, at any rate. Baron Tellian and I still have to work out the exact number of armsmen he can make available." "Under Trianal?" Yurokhas asked, glancing at Tellian, who nodded. ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 43 "I really wish you wouldn't risk him quite so readily, Milord," Sir Jerhas said. Tellian looked at him, and the Prime Councilor shrugged. "I understand your thinking, and I won't say you're wrong, but the lad's not even married yet." Sir Jerhas shook his head. "It was difficult enough getting the Council to settle the succession on him in the first place." There might have been a faint flicker of distaste in his eyes for the circumstances which had made that Council decision necessary, but no trace of it touched his voice as he continued. "If something happens to him before he produces an heir of his own, all of that work will have been for nothing in the end." "I appreciate that," Tellian replied after a moment. His own tone was level, and he held Sir Jerhas' gaze with his own for just a moment before he continued. "I appreciate it, and I've pointed out to him that it's past time he be thinking about that. Hanatha…has some thoughts on the subject, as well. I think they're very good thoughts, as a matter of fact, but the truth is that there's no wife officially on the horizon for him yet, and in the meantime, someone needs to lead my armsmen and lords warden when I can't. Besides, he's already demonstrated his ability. He's not simply my heir; he's also one of my two or three best field commanders." Sir Jerhas nodded in unhappy acknowledgment. Not necessarily agreement, Bahzell thought, but in acceptance. No one needed to explain to the Prime Councilor how important it was for any baron's heir, especially an heir-adoptive like Trianal, to prove his mettle in the eyes of the fighting men sworn to his service. Tellian couldn't keep Trianal home if he himself wasn't to take the field, not without some of his retainers' questioning his own confidence in the youngster's capabilities. That much, Sir Jerhas understood perfectly. However little he might like the thought of exposing Trianal -- and, through him, the security of the West Riding's succession -- to that sort of danger, it came with the young man's position and duties. But Bahzell also suspected the Prime Councilor was less than delighted with Tellian's failure to demand Trianal settle down and choose a wife. Or, for that matter, to select a bride for him. That was the way it was supposed to work among the great Sothoii houses, after all. Yet Tellian's tone made it obvious that whatever "thoughts" Hanatha might be having, he had no intention of forcing the issue any time soon, despite the near-disastrous consequences of his own…lack of marital resolution. More than one of King Markhos' nobles blamed Tellian's soft heartedness for the fact that Balthar had ever required an heir-adoptive. In their opinion, Tellian should never have settled for a single girl child in the first place! No one blamed Baroness Hanatha for the riding accident which had left her unable to bear additional children, but her barrenness would have constituted a perfectly acceptable cause for him to set her aside and remarry. Indeed, given who he was and how much depended upon Balthar's succession, it had been his duty to remarry. No one could have faulted him for it, nor would any dishonor have attached to Hanatha, under the circumstances, and two or three healthy sons would have obviated the entire mess that disgraceful hoyden Leeana had left in her wake when she scandalized the entire Kingdom by running off to the war maids. Bahzell was reasonably confident Sir Jerhas tended to agree with those critics. He'd never said so, not in so many words, and the hradani was certain he never would. Yet there was no escaping the Prime Councilor's basic conservatism, and he would vastly have preferred for Trianal to be settled in a nice, stable, carefully arranged marriage -- preferably one which constituted a solid political alliance -- rather than see yet another Baron of Balthar sliding off into Tellian and Hanatha's mushy-minded romanticism. That sort of thing might make for good bard's tales, but it was also the sort of thing that gave prime councilors sleepless nights. "Well, I'll want to discuss exactly what you and Tellian -- and Prince Bahzell's father, of course -- have in mind for the campaign," Yurokhas told Vaijon. "My brother's going to want a report as soon as I can put one together for him." "Of course, Your Highness." Vaijon gave Yurokhas a polite half-bow across the table. All of them understood that Yurokhas was the Crown's true go-between. Sir Jerhas' presence made it abundantly clear King Markhos continued to support both the Derm Canal and Tellian's increasingly close relationship with Prince Bahnak's Confederation, but Sir Jerhas was only his Prime Councilor. In a pinch -- as Sir Jerhas understood perfectly well -- he could be dismissed, banished back to Amber Grass in official disgrace, if it became politically expedient to do so. In fact, Bahzell suspected the old man would probably prefer to return to his own estates. Life would certainly be simpler then, and he wouldn't have to worry quite as much about whether any of Cassan's assassins might be looking his way, as well as Tellian's. Yet Markhos himself could have only the slightest personal contact with Bahzell or any other hradani envoy. The delicate balance of factions and attitudes among his own nobility precluded anything closer, and probably would for years to come. It was inconvenient, but there was no point pretending it could be any other way. Yurokhas, on the other hand, was not only a wind rider -- like Bahzell -- and a devout, well- known follower of Tomanak -- also like Bahzell -- but Tellian of Balthar's foster brother, as well. If there was a single high ranking member of the Sothoii nobility who could afford the "contamination" of hobnobbing with Bahzell while simultaneously staying in close touch with Tellian and the King, that person was Prince Yurokhas. One or two of King Markhos' nobles might be sufficiently irate over Tellian's unforgivable actions to regard Yurokhas' ongoing relationship with him with distaste, even anger, but the prince was far too wellborn for anyone to actually say so. And in the meantime, everyone maintained the fiction that Yurokhas' association with Tellian -- and Bahzell -- had nothing at all to do with canals, Axemen, hradani kingdoms, or any of the rest of that appalling business. Nobody believed it for a moment, perhaps, but no one dared admit that. "Should I assume you'll be taking the Order into the field, as well?" Yurokhas asked Vaijon now. "I will." Vaijon's smile was crooked. "We're no longer at the point of our lads needing to keep the Baron's armsmen and Prince Bahnak's warriors from each other's throats, but Hurthang tells me we'd probably have something like a mutiny on our hands if we tried to keep them home!" He shook his head. "There are just some things you can't seem to get a hradani to do, and staying home from something like this is one of them." "I've come to the shocking conclusion that Sothoii and hradani are even more alike than Wencit's always insisted they are," Yurokhas said wryly. "In fact --" "No," Tellian said firmly. Yurokhas looked at him, and the baron snorted. "You are not invited, Yurokhas. Norandhor may mean you aren't the King's heir any longer, but if anything were to happen to you, it would be just as bad -- probably worse! -- than having something happen to Trianal. Can you imagine how Cassan and his lot would react if you managed to get yourself killed on the Ghoul Moor fighting alongside hradani as part of this entire plan they're opposing as a threat to the Kingdom's very existence?!" "His Lordship is entirely correct, Your Highness," Sir Jerhas said with unwonted, decidedly frosty formality. "The very possibility is out of the question!" Yurokhas looked back and forth between them for a moment, then shrugged. "Well," he said mildly, "if that's the way you both feel about it, I suppose that's all there is to be said about it. Which means we should probably turn to the rest of the reason for your visit. I assume you have a progress report on the canals and the tunnel, Tellian?" "I do," Tellian replied, regarding the prince's apparent meekness with an air of pronounced suspicion. "Then I suppose we should go ahead and get started on that," Yurokhas said equably, and Bahzell hid a smile. He might not yet know Yurokhas as well as Tellian did, but he'd come to know him well enough to understand the baron's skepticism perfectly. And to profoundly doubt that the matter of where Prince Yurokhas was going to spend the summer was remotely close to resolved.

==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 44 <== toc ==> War Maid's Choice By David Weber Chapter Twelve "Lovely!" Baroness Myacha breathed, looking down at the sparkling amethyst glory displayed on the swatch of black velvet. The cloth -- and the exquisitely cut gem on it—had been arranged on the polished mahogany table in the exact center of a shaft of golden sunlight, and sun reflections danced in eyes that were almost exactly the same shade as the stone. Neither the placement of the cloth nor the choice of the gem had been anything remotely like random, and Master Talthar Sheafbearer (who bore very little resemblance to a wizard named Varnaythus) smiled broadly behind his trader's carefully bland expression as Borandas Daggeraxe, Baron Halthan, winced ever so slightly. "It is quite a nice stone, Milady," Talthar acknowledged after a moment, "although I fear it's a bit over large for a lady's delicate hand." "Oh, I quite agree," the dark-haired baroness replied. "But set into a proper pendant, in silver, perhaps, not gold, I think…" Talthar decided to let himself meet Baron Borandas' eyes. Borandas gazed back at him for a heartbeat or so, then smiled wryly in acknowledgment of his inevitable defeat. "Do you truly want it, my love?" he asked, and Talthar's mental ears pricked at the baron's gently teasing, undeniably tender tone. "Yes," Myacha sighed, looking up with a slight smile. "On the other hand, I fear Master Sheafbearer has far too good a notion of his wares' worth! I have entirely too many fribbleows and pretty toys to justify paying him what I have no doubt he would demand from you, Milord." She actually sounded as if she meant it, Talthar noted, and that was interesting, too. Myacha was barely half Borandas' age. She was also his second wife, two years younger than Borandas' eldest son, Thorandas, and when their marriage had been arranged by Myacha's father three years earlier, the near-universal opinion had been that Borandas was buying himself a sweet, toothsome morsel to warm his bed and flatter his ego as he moved into his sixties. In fact, that had been Talthar's opinion until perhaps thirty or forty seconds ago. I tend to forget sometimes how much…detail and nuance you can lose relying solely upon scrying spells and the gramerhain, he thought. I should have paid more attention and not relied so heavily on Court gossip, I suppose. Of course, having to worry about that bastard Brayahs didn't make it any simpler in this case. His professional merchant's expression hid his inner frown as readily as it had hidden his smile, which was just as well. Thoughts of Brayahs Daggeraxe, the son of Borandas' deceased uncle, tended to have that effect upon him. Having any mage that closely related to one of the Kingdom's barons would have been bad enough, but Brayahs was considerably more strongly talented than the majority of his fellows. He was not simply a wind-walker and a healer, but (if the rumors were true) had the gift of foresight, as well. And to make Talthar's unhappiness complete, he was a mind-speaker, to boot, and one who'd come to his mage powers late. That mind-speakery of his made him particularly good at sniffing out any use of wizardry in his vicinity, and the fact that he'd been a man grown before his mage talents awoke meant he'd also been trained as a knight before he became a mage. After which he'd gone on and added the martial arts training of a master mishuk to his repertoire. His weapon (and weaponless) skills would have been more than enough to make him particularly resilient to assassination attempts, and successfully ambushing any wind-walker, even one without those skills, was no easy achievement at the best of times. All of which meant that while it wouldn't necessarily be impossible to assassinate him, it would be extraordinarily difficult to do it in any way that didn't require the obvious use of sorcery or some other less than natural agency which would draw all sorts of unwanted attention. Talthar was perfectly prepared to have Brayahs murdered -- indeed, he was looking forward to it -- and he was more than willing to use whatever was required to make that happen, but he couldn't afford any moves in that direction at this point. The last thing he needed was to focus the attention of other magi on the North Riding before he had his hooks firmly into Borandas or his heir. Time enough for that later, he reminded himself now. Patience and cunning are just as important as -- and more reliable than -- brute power, especially at a time like this. Once all the pieces are in place he'll have to go, but let's not joggle our own elbow just because we find his continued existence inconvenient as hell. All of which was true enough, although "inconvenient" was a pale description of the situation. The one good thing about Brayahs' birth and ability was that King Markhos had enlisted him as one of the Crown magi who served as his investigators and agents. That made him even more dangerous, in some ways, but it also meant he'd been called to Sothofalas for the summer session of the Great Council, which would keep him busy for at least a month or two. His talents -- and his influence with his cousin -- were the real reason Talthar had deferred his first visit to Halthan until he could be certain the mage would be somewhere else. And why it had taken him over six months to prepare the ground properly for this first approach at all. "Oh, I'm certain the Baron and I could come to a reasonable agreement, Milady," he said out loud, allowing a very slight flicker of amusement into his eyes in response to Borandas' smile. "Why do I have the feeling that your idea of 'reasonable' and my own aren't going to be precisely the same, Master Sheafbearer?" the baron responded, and Talthar permitted himself a chuckle. "Because you, Milord Baron, are a shrewd, hardheaded bargainer, while I, alas, am an equally shrewd, clutch-fisted trader. Nonetheless, when such a fair lady is involved, it's likely -- well, possible, at any rate -- that even such as I may find myself giving at least a modest amount of ground." "You, Master Sheafbearer," Baroness Myacha told him with a smile of her own, "are a very dangerous man. Milord," she looked at Borandas, "I forbid you to pay this man what this stone is truly worth." "A shrewd blow, Milady!" Talthar congratulated her. "Not that I would ever have expected the Baron to willingly part with this gem's true worth." He sighed heavily. "Unfortunately, that state of affairs is one any master trader is unhappily accustomed to confronting." He sighed again, his expression mournful. "In order to make our way in the world at all, we become accustomed to being regularly out-bargained by our customers!" "I trust you'll forgive me for asking you this, Master Sheafbearer," Baron Borandas said a bit tartly, "but would it happen that your mother was particularly well acquainted with Hirahim?" "Borandas!" Myacha laughed and smacked him across the knuckles with her hand-painted fan. "Actually, Milord Baron," Talthar allowed with a smile, "when I was a mere lad, my father did remark once or twice upon how little like the rest of the family I looked." "I'm not surprised," Borandas said, then drew a deep breath. "Very well, I already know this is going to hurt. Why don't you go ahead and name your starting point. And in the meantime, my love," he looked at Myacha with a warm smile of his own, "would you be so kind as to ring for Trelsan and request beverages. And perhaps a plate of sandwiches, as well." He looked back at Talthar with a challenging glint in his blue eyes. "I believe we might be here long enough to require the sustenance before we're done." ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 45 * * * Much later that evening, Talthar Sheafbearer carefully locked the door of his bedchamber on the second floor of The Halthan Arms, the most prestigious -- and expensive -- inn in Borandas' capital city, behind him. It was a large, luxuriously furnished chamber, as befitted a merchant of his obvious wealth, but that wasn't the reason he looked around it for several moments with careful, intent eyes. Then he drew a deep breath and closed those eyes, reaching out with other senses and trained abilities. He extended his feelers delicately, carefully, with all the hair-trigger sensitivity of a nervous cat, searching for the aura he'd learned to associate with Brayahs Daggeraxe. Brayahs wasn't scheduled to visit his cousin for at least the next couple of weeks, but Phrobus knew schedules were subject to change, and if that accursed mage was anywhere close to Halthan… After the better part of five minutes, Talthar drew a deep breath and opened his eyes once more, this time with an expression of satisfaction. He crossed briskly to the chamber's window and carefully closed the drapes before he set the hard-sided leather case in his right hand in the center of the table placed in front of the window. There was nothing particularly remarkable about that case -- any gem-trader would have carried something very like it -- and he drew a finely wrought key from where it had nestled inside his tunic on a silver chain and used it to unlock the case. He returned the key to its normal place, opened the case, and reached into it for the fist-sized lump of almost clear quartz stowed away at its very bottom. The quartz was no more remarkable than the case itself, aside from the fact that it was an extraordinarily plebeian piece of rock for a gem merchant of Talthar's obvious wealth to carry about with him. Except, of course, for the fact that it wasn't quartz at all. He laid the gramerhain on the table, then closed the case and set it aside. He wasn't entirely happy about what he was going to do next, but there were limits in all things. He could have continued to hold the glamour which disguised him while using the gramerhain, but the combination of the glamour and the scrying spell he was about to use would have required him to expend considerably more energy. After all, scrying spells were intended to provide True Sight, so in many ways the two workings would be diametrically opposed to one another. Worse than the drain upon his own powers, however, that opposition would produce a far stronger, brighter signature and make him even more vulnerable to detection by any other wizard -- or mage, damn it -- in the vicinity. Besides, the glamour was a relatively low-energy construct tied into the diamond stud in his left ear, and artifact-bound spells were not only harder to detect but could be activated (or reactivated) very quickly. He knew all of that, and none of it made him any happier. Nor did it make the decision any less inevitable, unfortunately, and so he drew a deep breath, touched the stud with his index finger, and murmured a single word in Old Kontovaran. Talthar Sheafbearer seemed to waver like a reflection in moving water. And then, between one breath and another, he vanished, replaced by Master Varnaythus. Varnaythus exhaled, then smiled mirthlessly as he caught his slightly blurry reflection in the chamber's mirror. Talthar was no more remarkable looking than Varnaythus himself, but he was an inch or two taller, at least ten years older, and fair-haired where Varnaythus' hair was a nondescript brown. Neither of them would ever stand out in a crowd, but neither would either ever be mistaken for the other, which was rather the point. He'd seriously considered creating yet another persona for his activities here in the North Riding, but he'd decided against it in the end. Cassan and Yeraghor both knew him as Talthar. While they had every reason in the world to keep "Talthar's" existence a secret, they knew what he looked like, and as Varnaythus was able to burrow deeper and deeper into the North Riding it might become important for Talthar to be able to function as a known go-between for the various conspirators he intended to put into play and keep there. Bringing in yet someone else he'd have to remember to be would only complicate things still further, and unlike some of his fellow wizards, Varnaythus had never delighted in complexity for its own sake. Nor had he ever been foolish enough to confuse mere complexity with subtlety, which was probably one of the reasons he'd been so much more successful -- and longer lived -- than some of those selfsame fellow wizards. He smiled again, more naturally, at the thought, then seated himself at the table and drew the gramerhain towards him. He cradled his hands around it, gazing down into its depths, and spoke the quiet command that woke a gradually strengthening glitter deep in its clear, flawless depths. The flicker of light grew stronger, glowing up from the table to light his face from below, throwing his eye sockets into shadow. Had the window's drapes been open and had anyone happened to glance in the inn's direction, they would have seen an improbably clear, bright brilliance flooding out into the night. Fortunately, the drapes weren't open, and so no one disturbed him as the brilliance flared up, brighter than ever, and then coalesced, settling back into the gramerhain. It flowed together, darkening steadily, until it became the closed-eyed face of Magister Malahk Sahrdohr in Sothofalas, more than three hundred and fifty leagues from Halthan. It took Sahrdohr almost three full minutes to become aware of him and activate his own gramerhain. Then the eyes of his image opened as he settled into the working from his own end, and he arched an eyebrow. "I expected you two hours ago," he pointed out mildly. "I'm aware of that." Varnaythus' tone was just a bit testy. "You may remember, however, that there are a few additional difficulties from this end?" "True," Sahrdohr responded, apparently oblivious to his superior's testiness. "On the other hand, you only have to worry about one mage. A powerful one, I'll grant, but still only one. By my current count, there are at least three dozen of the bastards here in Sothofalas…including the one you're worried about. Which means I'm just a little more likely to be detected by one of them than you are." "Really?" Varnaythus smiled thinly. "Your wards are that inferior, are they?" Sahrdohr's eyes gleamed. He was obviously pleased by his ability to get a rise out of Varnaythus, but he also bent his head in acknowledgment of the other wizard's point. His own chamber in Sothofalas had been carefully shielded and warded with every detection deflecting glamour the Council of Carnadosa had been able to devise. As far as they'd been able to determine -- so far, at least -- those glamours ought to baffle even a mage. There was no way to be certain of that, however, and putting them in place required a series of workings which had to be accomplished in a very precise order and over several days' time. There was no way Varnaythus could possibly have erected matching wards here in Halthan. "So now that I have contacted you," Varnaythus continued in a brisker tone which accepted both Sahrdohr's point and his unspoken concession, "is there anything interesting to report from your end?" "I'm not sure, really." Sahrdohr shrugged. "Bahzell and Tellian are still here; according to my sources, Bahzell, at least, will be heading back to Balthar sometime in the next two or three days. Vaijon's already left, probably to get the summer campaign into the Ghoul Moor properly underway. The only really interesting thing about that side of things" -- the younger wizard smiled -- "is that Yurokhas went with him." "Ah?" Varnaythus arched an eyebrow and pursed his lips. "That is interesting," he acknowledged after a few moments' thought. "Are you suggesting Yurokhas is going to be involved in Tellian and Bahnak's campaign?" ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 46 "According to my sources, Yurokhas is most definitely not going to be involved," Sahrdohr replied. "One of Sir Jerhas' senior clerks told me -- confidentially, of course -- that His Majesty was very firm about that and that His Highness was very meek and dutiful about accepting the King's instructions." "Of course he was." Varnaythus shook his head. Prince Yurokhas was almost certainly the only person in the entire Kingdom of the Sotho-ii who would meekly and obediently accept his monarch's instructions…and then cheerfully go and do exactly what he'd intended to do all along. It wasn't something for the faint of heart, even in Yurokhas' case, but by now he'd had years of practice. More than enough of them to accustom King Markhos to the notion that it was going to go on happening. In fact, it had gotten even worse since Crown Prince Norandhor's birth four years ago, when Yurokhas had suddenly become second in line for the crown. He'd always chafed against the restrictions imposed by his place as Markhos' heir, and now that he'd become so much less irreplaceable… "That could work out quite well, couldn't it?" Varnaythus continued. "Assuming that campaign goes as well as I'm sure we all hope it will, at any rate." "That's true. Such a tragic possibility for any good, loyal Sotho-ii." Sahrdohr allowed himself a suitably mournful expression for a moment, then shrugged. "Of course, we still have a long way to go before we can convince Cassan to take advantage of the opportunity at his end, and unless we can move against both of them simultaneously --" He grimaced, and Varnaythus nodded. Eliminating one of the royal brothers would be a less than optimal outcome. In fact, it might well prove disastrous, depending upon the circumstances under which that elimination occurred. "That's a worthwhile point," he acknowledged, "but if this was going to be easy, They wouldn't have needed us, would they? They could have gone on trusting it to idiots like Jerghar or Dahlaha." "Agreed" "I take it the numbers Tellian provided to Shaftmaster confirmed what we'd expected?" Varnaythus asked, changing the subject. "Unfortunately." There was no amusement in Sahrdohr's grimace this time. "I'm not senior enough to have sat in on any of the meetings myself, but I was able to get my hands on a true copy of Sir Whalandys' notes courtesy of my capture spell. I'll transfer a copy to you at the end of our conversation, but I don't think you'll be any happier with them than I was. Assuming Kilthandahknarthas' estimates are accurate -- and when was the last time one of his estimates wasn't accurate? -- Tellian Bowmaster is about to become the richest Sotho-ii noble in history. Phrobus only knows how much Bahnak is going to make out of it, but the Exchequer's share of Tellian's income alone is going to add somewhere between ten and twelve percent to its annual revenues. And that's from its direct share of his income; it doesn't even count all of the indirect revenues the Crown is going to generate off of the increased trade." Varnaythus' jaw clenched. He'd known the numbers were going to be bad, but he'd continued to hope they wouldn't be quite that bad. Unfortunately, the wizard lords of Carnadosa weren't very good when it came to estimating trade revenues and opportunities. The economy they'd rebuilt in Kontovar depended upon totally different means of manufacture and transport, and the truth was that he'd been slow to fully recognize the implications of the Derm Canal. As it was, he'd come to suspect Kilthandahknarthas was being deliberately conservative in the estimates he was sharing with his partners in the project, which suggested all sorts of unpleasant possibilities if it couldn't be stopped after all. On the other hand… "The Purple Lords aren't going to like that at all, are they?" he said thoughtfully. "I think that would be putting it rather conservatively, actually." Sahrdohr's irony came through the link quite well, Varnaythus thought. "This is going to literally ruin at least a dozen of their major trading houses. In fact, it's probably going to be a lot worse than that, especially if the Spearmen come on board with Kilthandahknarthas and Tellian as enthusiastically as I expect they will. If Bortalik Bay suddenly isn't the only -- or even the best -- gateway to the Spear, the consequences will be devastating for them." "Yes, and they'll resent it, won't they?" Varnaythus' eyes gleamed. "And while they're resenting it, who are they going to blame for it?" "Ah?" It was Sahrdohr's turn to pause, eyebrows rising in speculation. He sat that way for perhaps fifteen seconds, then nodded. "Yes, that would have unfortunate repercussions for any sense of loyalty they might feel for their neighbors to the north, wouldn't it?" "Which might make them more open to conversations with their neighbors to the south, don't you think?" Varnaythus almost purred. "I suspect it might," Sahrdohr agreed. "Of course, that doesn't change our instructions, does it?" "No, but it might not be a bad point for me to include in my next report." The two wizards' gazes met in shared understanding. There was very little chance they would be ordered to cease their efforts to strangle the entire project before birth, but it never hurt to have a fallback position ready. Pointing out the potential benefits -- especially when that potential was as large as it might well prove in this instance -- which could still accrue if they failed in their mission could well contribute to their own continued existence if worse came to worst. "I think that would be a very good idea," Sahrdohr said, and Varnaythus snorted in amusement. "And may I ask how your mission in Halthan is faring so far?" the magister asked after a moment. "Reasonably well," Varnaythus replied. "I think we need to look more closely at Baroness Myacha, though. She's not the bedchamber trophy we thought she was. Worse, I think she has a brain that works, and she seems to be unfortunately…resilient." "Another one with a latent Gift?" "Possibly. Quite possibly." Varnaythus shrugged. "We'll have to see what we can do about tracking back on her pedigree, but I wouldn't be a bit surprised if she has at least a touch of it. It runs in too damned many of the old families to make me happy." "You think she has the True Sight?" Sahrdohr's unhappiness with that thought was obvious. "If she does, it's completely untrained, and without training, the worst likely outcome would be for her to be vaguely uncomfortable around me without being able to put her finger on why. I didn't see any sign of that this afternoon, although that doesn't prove anything." Varnaythus grimaced. "I'll just have to add her to the list of people in this accursed barony that I need to avoid as much as possible. It would help if Borandas weren't as besotted with her as he obviously is, though." "Wonderful." Sahrdohr shook his head with a disgusted expression. "Oh, it's not that bad. Potentially inconvenient, I agree, but as I say, I'm not that concerned about her realizing Talthar is a glamour." "No, but what if she should find herself feeling 'vaguely uncomfortable' around him and happen to discuss that with her husband's cousin the mage?" Sahrdohr challenged. "And what if her husband's cousin the mage has already figured out she could have a touch of the Gift herself?" "Which is the reason I'm going to do my best to avoid her," Varnaythus pointed out in an oblique acknowledgment of the magister's point. The magi had made it a matter of high priority to collect every scrap of information they could on the art, and that unmitigated pain in the arse Wencit of Ru-m had made it an equally high priority to answer their questions and hand over the not inconsiderable personal library he'd managed to salvage from the wreckage of Kontovar. As a result, they were far better informed about wizardry than their Carnadosan opponents were about the powers of magi, which meant Master Brayahs was probably as conversant with the symptoms of a latent Gift for the art as Varnaythus himself. "In the meantime," he went on in a determinedly brisk tone, "the rest of my visit here seems to have gone quite well. It's remarkable how gems of high quality open doors, isn't it?" ==prev===next==War Maid's Choice - Snippet 47 Sahrdohr snorted. Given the possibilities of the art, "Talthar's" wares could have been still better, but it was unwise to draw too much attention. His stones were of just about the highest quality anyone could reasonably expect a single trader outside Dwarvenhame to possess; anything more than that might well have drawn the very questions they were so eager to avoid. "And our friend Bronzehelm? Is he as…suitable as we'd hoped?" "I believe so." Varnaythus leaned back in his chair, stapling his fingers under his chin. "He's more devoted and loyal to Borandas than we'd estimated -- quite a bit more, to be honest. But he's nowhere near so resilient as Baroness Myacha seems to be. I think we're going to have to be as careful to avoid using the art to…shape him appropriately as I was afraid we were, but I also think he's going to be even more amenable to suggestion with the appropriate enhancements." Sahrdohr's smile would have done credit to a shark, and Varnaythus smiled back. Sir Dahlnar Bronzehelm was Baron Borandas' seneschal, responsible for the management and administration of the baron's household here in Halthan. He was also one of Borandas' closest confidants, and he'd been with the baron for the better part of thirty years. Very few people could be better placed to subtly shape Borandas' views, which didn't even consider how valuable a listening post within the North Riding he could become. It would have been far more convenient if they'd been able to use the art to…modify his existing loyalties and views, but there was too much chance of a mage noticing that sort of tampering. Especially if the mage in question was so inconsiderate as to be both a healer and a mind-speaker. Fortunately, there were drugs which could produce the same effect, albeit more slowly and gradually. Even better, that slow and gradual process was virtually indistinguishable from the fashion in which anyone's opinions might naturally come to change over time. There was some risk, of course -- nothing could completely avoid that when one was forced to deal with a mage -- yet the probability that even as strongly gifted a mage as Brayahs would notice their meddling would be far, far lower than the chance of his detecting the art. "And Thorandas?" Sahrdohr asked. "I haven't had an opportunity to come within reach of him yet," Varnaythus admitted. "Hopefully I'll manage that before 'Talthar' is scheduled to leave. In the meantime, though, judging from what I've been able to pick up about him from the more open minds here in Halthan, I'd say our original impressions are probably fairly accurate. Borandas clearly relies heavily on his advice -- that was obvious from the way his aura peaked each time I mentioned Thorandas' name. I think it's safe to say he trusts his son's judgment in most ways, if not all." "That fits pretty well with everything I've heard about them here in the Palace," Sahrdohr agreed. "And I had an opportunity to drop his name into a conversation with Shaftmaster day before yesterday, which led to a couple of interesting tidbits. For one thing, Sir Whalandys made it pretty clear that most people think Thorandas is a sharper blade than his father…and that Baron Borandas realizes it." "Really?" Varnaythus cocked his head thoughtfully. "That's helpful, especially if Cassan's right about Thorandas' attitude towards the hradani. He has to be as well aware as his father that at the moment the North Riding holds the balance between Tellian and Cassan on the Great Council. The question is how he's likely to react when he realizes just how thoroughly this Derm Canal is going to scramble all of the traditional balances of power here on the Wind Plain. If he's as prejudiced against the hradani as Cassan and Yeraghor think, that's bound to play a role in his evaluation of the new…realities, shall we say? And that's going to have an effect on the advice he gives his father about it, now isn't it?" "Exactly." Sahrdohr's smile was even thinner than before. "And if Sir Dahlnar starts giving the same advice?" "Especially if he comes slowly and gradually to share Thorandas' concerns, yes." Varnaythus nodded. "Not too quickly, though. Borandas may not be the very smartest man in the entire Kingdom, but he's not exactly a fool, either. He's going to think twice -- more likely three or four times -- before he steps into any sort of arrangement with Cassan. For that matter, Thorandas isn't going to be in any hurry to forget how badly Cassan burned his fingers last time he and Tellian squared off." "No, but I've had a thought about that." "What sort of thought?" Varnaythus' tone was a bit cautious, and Sahrdohr chuckled. "It's not that inventive," the magister assured his superior. "But that's the second interesting tidbit I got from our good Chancellor. According to Shaftmaster, Thorandas is in the market for a wife. In fact, Sir Whalandys approves of that; he thinks it's past time Thorandas settled down and started breeding heirs of his own. Unfortunately -- from my esteemed superior's perspective, at any rate -- Sir Thorandas seems rather taken with Shairnayith Axehammer." "He does?" Varnaythus' eyes narrowed, and Sahrdohr leaned back and raised both hands. "That's what Shaftmaster seems to believe, at any rate, and he's not very happy about the notion." "I can see why he might not be, given how enthusiastically he's been supporting Tellian at Court," Varnaythus observed in a tone of considerable understatement. Then he frowned. "I can see why he might not be," he repeated, "but I didn't pick up a hint of anything of the sort from Cassan the last time I was in Toramos." "Maybe he isn't aware of Thorandas' thinking," Sahrdohr suggested. "Cassan?" Varnaythus barked a laugh. "Trust me, if Shaftmaster's right and Thorandas really is looking in Shairnayith's direction, Cassan knows about it, all right. He'd never miss something like that, especially where Shairnayith is concerned! In fact," his eyes narrowed again, "that could be the problem. He dotes on the girl, after all, and it could be that he's perfectly aware of the opportunity and simply chooses to ignore it. If he'd been in any rush to marry her off, they could have managed it long ago, I'm sure. There have to have been plenty of other offers for her by now, at any rate. She's -- what, twenty-two? -- for Carnadosa's sake! Do you seriously think nobody's even so much as tested the water where a prize like her is concerned?" "Maybe there've been quite a few offers and he simply hasn't thought any of them were worth accepting," Sahrdohr pointed out. "She's his older daughter, after all. As you say, that makes her the kind of prize that doesn't come along often. That's a political token a man like Cassan isn't going to be in a hurry to use too soon!" "That's true enough," Varnaythus acknowledged. "But she's a deep one herself, and the Lady knows she worships the ground her father walks on. The possibility of a direct marriage alliance between the Axehammers and the Daggeraxes?" The wizard snorted. "She'd have to recognize the potential advantages Cassan could wring out of that! And short of Yurokhas himself -- and Fiendark knows Yurokhas would never marry an Axehammer -- where's she going to find a better marriage than to the North Riding's heir?" "Agreed. On the other hand, the consequences would be fairly obvious to just about everyone," Sahrdohr pointed out, "and the Great Council would have to approve the marriage." "If Borandas approved it, he, Cassan, and Yeraghor between them would have a clear majority." "And would Markhos be foolish enough to let it go through, anyway?" Sahrdohr challenged. "He'd have to assent, too." "If he were around to do the assenting," Varnaythus pointed out in turn, his voice soft. "If he wasn't -- if the Great Council happened to be acting as regent to a minor heir -- then that wouldn't matter, would it?" "No," the magister said slowly. "So if Cassan and Yeraghor were to decide this marriage would be a good idea, and if Thorandas is as receptive to the notion as your good friend the Chancellor seems to be suggesting, then we might just have found another argument to help sway Cassan to our thinking about the best way to deal with the Crown's unfortunate support for Tellian's little project, mightn't we?" The two wizards gazed at each other through their linked gramerhains and slowly, slowly smiled.

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