The Redemption of Althalus (42 page)

“I think I’ll have to fix that,” Khalor said, “but we can get to it later. Now, these men who attacked you—what kind of weapons did they have?”

“Spears,” Salkan replied.

“Short ones? Or were they long?”

“Pretty long.”

“Were they throwing them? Or were they riding along stabbing your sheep with them?”

“That’s the way they were using them. I don’t remember any of them throwing their spears.”

“Were they carrying any other kinds of weapons?”

“I think they had curved swords.”

“Were any of them carrying axes?”

“Not that I saw.”

“If they were on horseback and you were on foot, how did you manage to kill those three?”

“I used my sling, sir. All Wekti shepherds carry slings. We have to drive off packs of wolves every so often, so we practice with our slings all the time.”

“Where do you aim?”

“Usually for the head.”

“You don’t carry spears or bows?”

“They’d just get in the way, sir. A sling doesn’t weigh hardly anything, and you can find good rocks anywhere.”

“I thought the sling was just a child’s toy.”

“Oh, no, Sergeant Khalor,” Althalus told him. “I carried a sling for years myself when I was younger. It kept me eating on a regular basis.”

“Could a man kill a horse with one?”

“Easily. The bone between a horse’s eyes isn’t very thick. I haven’t used a sling for a long time, but I’m fairly certain I could drop a horse in midstride from a hundred paces.”

“That’s a little hard to swallow, Althalus.”

“I’ve taken rabbits at fifty paces—and a horse
is
quite a bit bigger than a rabbit.”

Sergeant Khalor suddenly grinned broadly. “I think my job just got a lot easier. You were dead wrong, Althalus. The Wekti
do
have an army, and it’s exactly the force I’m going to need.”

“I’m not sure I follow your reasoning, General Khalor,” Yeudon said with a puzzled look.

“Infantry’s at a distinct disadvantage in a fight with cavalry, your Reverence,” Khalor explained. “Mounted men can move faster than my foot soldiers can, and they use the bulk of their horses to push us back. I’ll build the standard earthworks along the top of the hills and line the hillsides with pointed stakes and trip lines, but that’ll be mostly for show. Our enemies are cavalry units, and they’ll charge up the hillsides to attack my trenches. As soon as they come in range of your shepherds’ slings, though, they’ll stop.”

“Our religion frowns on the killing of our fellow men, General.”

“Young Salkan here killed three, didn’t he?”

“That was in the defense of his sheep, General. In those circumstances, killing men
is
permitted.”

“Don’t worry, your Reverence. I don’t
want
your shepherds to kill men. I want them to kill horses. Our enemies are cavalry, and they’ve probably spent their whole lives on horseback. They’re so bowlegged by now that they can scarcely walk. After your shepherds kill their horses, though, they’ll
have
to walk to reach my trenches. Their spirits will already be broken, and they’ll be fighting—uphill—in a manner they aren’t accustomed to. I’ll have them for lunch.”

“How do you know that their spirits are going to be broken?”

“A cavalryman gets very attached to his horse, your Eminence. He loves his horse even more than he loves his wife. We’ll be facing an army of blubbering cripples trying to charge uphill through obstacles and in a hailstorm of arrows and javelins. Very few of them are going to reach my trenches. I’d better go have a look at the ground and find a suitable location for the earthworks.”

“Won’t it take quite a long time to dig trenches all the way across northern Wekti?” Yeudon asked.

Khalor shrugged. “Not too long, really. I have a lot of men, your Eminence, and they’ll dig diligently, since the trenches are the only defense they’ll have to keep them alive.”

“We’ve still got some daylight,” Althalus said when they returned to the House, “so we’ve got time enough to go have a look at the ground. Bheid, why don’t you go tell Dweia what we’ve accomplished so far today? Don’t make
too
big an issue of killing horses, though; she’s sort of sentimental sometimes. Tell her that we’ll be back in a little while. All right, Eliar,” he continued, “let’s go look at northern Wekti.”

It was a murky afternoon when Eliar led Althalus and Khalor through a door that opened out onto a grassy hillock. Sergeant Khalor looked around. “No trees,” he said.

“That’s why people call it grassland, Sergeant,” Althalus told him. “We call the places with trees
forests.
”

“You really ought to try to get over that, Althalus. My point was that we’ll need stakes, so we’ll have to bring them with us when we come here.”

“Althalus!” Eliar hissed. “Pekhal’s out there someplace!”

“Where?”

“I’m not sure. He’s close, though. The Knife’s singing to me.”

“Why don’t you see if you can get it to be more precise.”

Eliar closed his hand around the Knife hilt, and a look of intense concentration crossed his face. “They’re right on the other side of this hill,” he whispered.

“They?”

“I think it’s Ghend who’s with him.”

“Take us back to the House! Now!”

“But—”

“Do as he says, Eliar!” Khalor snapped in a half whisper.

“Yes, sir.”

Eliar led them back to the place where the door was located, and they went through it to emerge back in the corridor of the House. “Where do we want
to go now, Althalus?” Eliar asked.

“I’m not sure if this is going to work, but I want you to find a door that’s about ten feet from where Ghend and Pekhal are standing. Then open the door as quietly as you can. I don’t want to go
through
the door, though. What I want to do is stand here in the corridor and listen to what they’re saying.”

“Now
that’s
something I hadn’t even thought of,” Khalor said admiringly. “Do you think you can mange that, Eliar?”

“I’m not sure, Sergeant. We can try, I suppose.” Eliar put his hand on the door next to the one they’d just used. “This one feels about right,” he whispered. He slowly turned the handle and inched the door open.

Just beyond that door Althalus saw Ghend and Pekhal standing in knee-high grass. The sky to the west was an angry red, and seething black clouds raced across that fiery sunset. Beyond the two men, Althalus could see a vast encampment that spread out over the next valley.

Ghend still wore that peculiarly archaic helmet he’d worn in Nabjor’s camp, and his burning eyes flashed angrily at the brutish Pekhal. “I want you and Gelta to stop all this playing around. Quit running across the border to murder everybody you come across.”

“We’re just taking out scouting parties, Master,” Pekhal replied.

“Of
course
you are. Sometimes she’s even worse than you are. Put a leash on her, Pekhal. Tell her to stay on her own side of the border. How long will it be until the rest of her army’s in place?”

“Two weeks at least. She’s got three tribes that haven’t arrived yet.”

“Tell her that she’s got
one
week. We’ve got to move before Althalus can fortify that frontier. Tell her to pull back and stop these raids across the border. We move in one week, whether you and Gelta are ready or not. I’ve
got
to stay ahead of Althalus.”

“You worry too much about him,” Pekhal scoffed harshly.

“You’d better
start
worrying, Pekhal. He’s moving faster than I thought he possibly could. He’s learning more about that House every day. Now pull back and quit raiding down into Wekti. All you’re doing is alerting him.”

“Yes, Master,” Pekhal replied sullenly.

C H A P T E R     T W E N T Y - T W O

S
hut the door, Eliar,” Althalus whispered.

Eliar nodded and quietly closed the door.

“Well, Khalor?” Althalus asked the hard-bitten Sergeant. “Have we got time enough to be ready for them?”

Khalor squinted thoughtfully. “It’ll be close,” he said, “but with a little luck . . .” He shrugged.

“I’ve always been sort of lucky,” Althalus said, “but just to be on the safe side, I think we’d better have a talk with Dweia.”

“Who’s he?” Khalor asked.

“He’s a she, Sergeant,” Eliar said, “and I think you’re going to like her.”

“Where does she live?”

“Right here,” Althalus told him. “This is her House.”

“She’s a noblewoman, then?”

“She goes quite a ways past noble, Sergeant,” Eliar said.

Althalus led them along the corridor to the granite stairs at the base of the tower. “She stays here—most of the time,” he said as they started up.

When they reached the top of the stairs, they found the others there. Dweia, Andine, and Leitha were deep in a discussion about hairstyles, Bheid was reading the Book, and Gher was staring out the north window at the mountains of ice with a bored took of discontent.

“How nice of you to stop by, Althalus,” Dweia observed drily.

“Busy, busy, busy,” he replied.

“Stop that!”

“Sorry. We’ve been jumping around quite a bit. This is Sergeant Khalor. He’ll be commanding our forces in Wekti.”

“Sergeant.” Dweia greeted their guest with a slight inclination of her head.

“Ma’am,” he replied. “You have quite a house here.”

“I’m glad you like it. My brother left it to me quite some time ago.”

“It’s an unusual sort of place.”

“Indeed it is, Sergeant,” she said, with a peculiar smile touching those perfect lips.

“We’ve made quite a bit of progress in Wekti,” Althalus reported. “I’m sure Brother Bheid’s told you about our conference with Exarch Yeudon. The Exarch’s a little suspicious about our motives, but he’s in no position to argue with us. Sergeant Khalor here looked over the ground where we’re going to meet the Ansus, and he thinks it’ll be defensible after he puts up some earthworks. Oh, I almost forgot. We saw Ghend.”

“You
what
?” Her tone was decidedly unfriendly.

“He looked well. We didn’t get the chance to talk, but I’m sure he’d have sent his regards to you if we had.”

“You’re starting to make me cross, Althalus.”

“Althalus came up with a way to use the doors that hadn’t even occurred to me,” Eliar broke in eagerly. “Did you know that if you open one of those doors near where some people are talking, you can stand out in the hall and hear what they’re saying?”

“I suppose you could,” she replied. “I have alternatives available to me, so I’ve never really needed to do it that way.”

“What makes it so good is that the people you’re listening to don’t even know you’re there. As long as you stay on your side of the door, they can’t see you.”

“How did you come up with
that
particular notion?” Dweia asked Althalus curiously.

“My shady background, probably,” he replied. “The point, though, is that we were eavesdropping while Ghend was giving Pekhal a fairly thorough dressing-down. It seems that Pekhal and Gelta have been amusing themselves by raiding down into Wekti, and Ghend spoke quite firmly to Pekhal about that. Then he ordered the brute to start the invasion one week from today.”

“Can you be ready for them, Sergeant?” Dweia asked.

“I think so, ma’am. Once we get some troops up along that frontier, I’ll send out scouts. I’d like to know whether I’ll be facing cavalry or infantry.”

“It’ll probably be both,” she said. “Pekhal’s a foot soldier, and Gelta’s spent most of her life on horseback.”

“That’s useful to know, ma’am. Althalus here tends to gloss over details sometimes.”

She smiled. “I know,” she said. “He can be
very
offensive sometimes, can’t he?”

Khalor shrugged. “He’s useful right now, ma’am, so I can put up with his little quirks. I think his whole problem springs from his notion that he’s amusing. When you get right down to it, he’s not really that funny, but I suppose I can learn to live with him.”

Althalus gave Khalor a hard look.

“Is everybody teasing you, Althie?” Leitha asked with feigned sympathy. “Poor baby.”

“I gather that you’re the one in charge, ma’am,” Khalor said to Dweia.

“More or less. Althalus usually does what I tell him to do—eventually. Will taking orders from a woman disturb you, Sergeant?”

“Not particularly. I’d rather take orders from a clever woman than a stupid man, but we’re facing a policy decision right now. I’ll handle strategy and tactics, but I’ll need to know what policy you want me to follow.”

“Could you clarify that, Sergeant?”

“Our enemies, Pekhal and Gelta, are going to make their move next week, and I’m going to meet them. Just how far do you want me to go? I can give them bloody noses and let it go at that, if you want.”

“But you’d rather not do it that way, I gather.”

“No, ma’am, I wouldn’t, but I’m not involved in the political side of this war. A good soldier avoids politics and religion, but if all you want me to do is spank them and send them home, we’ll do it that way.”

“But you wouldn’t like it.”

“No, ma’am. If all I do is rough them up a little, they’ll be back again next month, and I’ll have to tie up troops I might need someplace else just to guard that frontier.”

“What’s the alternative?”

“Annihilation, ma’am. If I kill everything that moves along that border, I won’t have to go back and do it again. It’s brutal and messy, but this is a war, not a tea party. You’re a lady, and ladies are tender-hearted. My best advice, though, is for you not to put any restrictions on me.”

“Burn, fight, kill?”

“Exactly.”

“All right, Sergeant, your leash is off.”

“You and I are going to get along just fine, ma’am,” Khalor said with a steely smile.

Despite Khalor’s impatience, Dweia insisted that they all stay for supper. “The ladies are feeling sort of left out, love,” she explained privately to Althalus. “Let’s keep peace in the family, if possible.”

“I’m a little pressed for time, Dweia.”

“You’re forgetting where you are, pet. These golden moments won’t interfere with your schedule at all, since time here moves—or doesn’t—as I tell it to.”