War Maid's Choice-ARC (64 page)

Probably.

“Tell me, Sir Trianal,” he asked, his smile growing broader as he looked across the table at the young Sothōii, “just how exactly did Prince Yurokhas happen to accompany you all the way from Hurgrum? I thought you’d managed to convince him to go home.”

“I thought
Prince Bahnak
had managed to convince him,” Trianal said rather sourly. “Tomanāk knows the King’s going to be just a bit upset if his brother manages to get himself killed in what’s essentially a freelance operation against ghouls.” He shook his head. “I don’t know that King Markhos actually
ordered
him to join the rest of the Chergor hunting party, but I’m pretty sure it was a most emphatic suggestion. Of course,” his expression turned even more sour, “you can see how well that seems to have worked, Your Highness.”

“And an odd thing it is that you’re here to be seeing it,” Bahzell remarked, gazing at Arsham, “as it’s in my mind as how my Da most likely said something along those selfsame lines to another prince I might be mentioning.”

“I don’t have the least idea what you’re talking about, Prince Bahzell.”

Arsham didn’t waste any particular effort trying to convince his audience he wasn’t lying, but he did do it with a certain flair, Bahzell conceded. The Horse Stealer opened his mouth, but Arsham held up his right hand and shook his head.

“I promise I’ll go home the instant you manage to convince Yurokhas to do the same thing.” His eyes glinted with challenge, and Bahzell felt his own lips twitch on the edge of an unwilling smile. Then Arsham’s expression turned more sober. “I know you and Yurgazh are both right, Bahzell. The last thing any of us need is for me to get myself killed doing something even hradani would consider stupid. Well, I don’t intend to do anything of the sort, but I do want to see what it is we’re up against with my own eyes. It’s not that I don’t have complete faith in Yurgazh,” he rested his left hand lightly on his general’s shoulder, “and I don’t have any intention of trying to interfere in his management of the army or of any battles. But I think you and he and Vaijon are right that something a damn sight worse than ghouls is roaming around down here, and there’s no way of knowing it will
stay
here. If it moves north, up the river, to hit the Confederation, I want the best idea I can get of what it really is.”

“I might be pointing out that before ever it’s able to move north, up the river, it’s the lot of us here to deal with, first,” Bahzell said mildly. “And if it happened as how I was so underhanded as to be using logic, I might be pointing out that if it should happen it
can
deal with us first, then it might just be any ideas you might have wouldn’t be doing so very much good—seeing as how you’d most likely be dead and all, I mean.”

“Then it’s probably just as well a champion of Tomanāk wouldn’t stoop to such low tactics,” Arsham replied, and Bahzell shook his head.

He’d always rather liked Arsham, even when he’d been a political hostage in Navahk, although he’d never really gotten to know him before Churnazh’s defeat. And he’d understood why Arsham had to have mixed feelings, at the very least, where his own family was concerned. Yet any lingering resentment the Navahkan prince might feel at having been defeated by Hurgrum had vanished—for the moment, at least—at the prospect of action, and Bahzell found himself liking the other man even more because of it. Which probably said something he’d rather not think about too deeply where his own mental processes were concerned, since both of them knew Arsham was actually being an idiot.

But it was a very
hradani
sort of an idiot, Bahzell reflected.

“You know,” Trianal said thoughtfully, “since it’s obvious Prince Arsham has no intention of being reasonable about this, it may not be an entirely bad thing. From my perspective, I mean.”

“And would you be so very kind as to explain that?” Bahzell cocked his ears at the young Sothōii. “Seeing as how
I’ve
yet to see a single good thing about the entire notion, and all, I mean.”

“Well, if he’s serious about staying out of the fighting and just observing,” Trianal bent a moderately ferocious glare on Arsham, “he may be able to sit on Prince Yurokhas at the same time.” Trianal looked at Vaijon. “I’m thinking that
if
they stay, they both promise to stay with the Order and out from underfoot, and Prince Arsham sets the example for Yurokhas by doing exactly that.”

“And exactly how was it that you intended to make either one of us promise you anything of the sort?” Arsham inquired, cocking his head. “I ask only in the spirit of honest curiosity, you understand.”

“Actually, it’s fairly simple.” Trianal smiled, looking even more like his uncle. “Unless you both do promise, we’ll just sit here in camp letting the barges bring food down to us for however long it takes. I’m sure Yurgazh and Sir Yarran could always find the extra training time useful. Of course, that means you’d have to explain to Prince Bahnak and Prince Yurokhas would have to explain to King Markhos exactly why it was that a force this size stood idle for the remainder of the campaigning season. I’m fairly certain neither of them would want
my
ears over it.”

* * *

Darnas Warshoe muttered unhappily to himself as he carted another bale of fodder ashore.

Hradani were never going to be anything but a scourge to be eradicated—in that much, Warshoe was in complete agreement with his baron—but he had to admit the supply arrangements for this expedition were better than anything he’d ever seen back in the days when he’d been an officer in the Royal Army. Of course, most of that was probably thanks to the damned dwarves who were propping up Bahnak and the rest of his bloodthirsty scum, yet there was no point pretending it wasn’t so. And Warshoe had never minded getting his hands dirty (in more ways than one) when it came to getting the job done. For that matter, his current employment as little more than hired labor was an admirable cover for his actual reason for being here. And little though he might care for unloading cargo in the rain, at least Tharanalalknarthas had seen to it that his work crews had snug, covered quarters aboard the barges.

No, the reason for his current unhappiness had nothing to do with his cover or its demands. It was more...fundamental than that.

He swung the bale down from his shoulder and into the lean-to riverside warehouse where it would be out of the wet, and stood for a moment under the same roof, surrounded by the scents of rain, riverwater, and dry hay as he massaged the small of his back and gazed out into the gauzy veils of mist while he thought.

It had sounded forthright enough when Baron Cassan described his mission to him. Not without risk, but risk was part of the job, as far as Warshoe was concerned. And a part of him was looking forward to the opportunity to correct his failure seven years ago when Sir Trianal Bowmaster had been so disobliging as to move at just the very wrong instant. Darnas Warshoe didn’t miss very many arbalest shots, and he’d always taken that failure a bit personally. Assassinating Prince Yurokhas didn’t bother him, either. His loyalty to the Sothōii crown had disappeared along with his commission, and if Baron Cassan wanted the Prince dead, that was reason enough for Warshoe. Nor had he objected to the Baron’s insistence that the two of them had to die in the course of an open battle with the ghouls. Battlefields provided admirable cover for an assassin plying his trade, after all.

But there was something in the air, something Baron Cassan hadn’t warned him about. He didn’t know what it was, yet the sensitive cat whiskers of a successful assassin quivered incessantly.

It was just his nerves, he told himself. Only a perfectly understandable anxiety over the scale of this assignment. That was all it was.

He told himself that very firmly...and he never believed it at all.

* * *

“It’s going well,” Malahk Sahrdohr said with undisguised satisfaction.

With the court’s removal from Sothōfalas, Sahrdohr was able to move about the city more freely. Unlike the Prime Councilor, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had remained in the capital where he could stay in touch with the manifold details of his responsibilities. Sahrdohr had responsibilities enough of his own in his disguise as one of Whalandys Shaftmaster’s senior clerks, but even the Exchequer’s tempo had dropped with the King’s departure. “Mahrahk Firearrow” had much more free time than he’d had earlier in the year, and the exodus of everyone who’d possibly been able to get out of Sothōfalas had reduced the sheer congestion enough to make it far easier for him to drop out of sight without some busybody’s noticing. At the moment, he and Master Varnaythus sat once again in Varnaythus’ warded working chamber, watching the senior wizard’s gramerhain.

“It
appears
to be going well,” Varnaythus corrected him, but even his tone was more judicious than disagreeing, the voice of a conscientious man refusing to succumb to overconfidence.

“I think it’s more than just appearances,” Sahrdohr said, respectfully but firmly, and raised his left hand, ticking off points on its fingers with his right index finger as he made them.

“Arthnar’s men are on their way—they’ve already passed through Nachfalas without anyone noticing and linked up with those horses someone ‘stole’ from Cassan’s herds,” he said, and Varnaythus nodded.

The Fire Oar’s assassins weren’t the very best quality armsmen he’d ever seen, but they were tough, individually competent, and about as unscrupulous as they came. Even better, Arthnar had managed to retain an entire mercenary company of Spearmen who’d been too eager for work to worry much over what their new employer wanted them to do. That company provided better than two thirds of his total manpower, under its own officers, which gave it a much greater degree of cohesion and experience working as a unit than Varnaythus had allowed himself to hope for when he’d hatched the original plan. They’d passed through Nachfalas in groups of no more than a half-dozen, small enough not to draw attention to themselves...especially when Baron Cassan had taken some pains to see to it that they wouldn’t. Now they’d reassembled with their “stolen” mounts and were on their way to Chergor, and Arthnar’s hiring agents had successfully convinced them they’d been hired by the Purple Lords, exactly as planned.

“Second,” Sahrdohr ticked off his next point, “Bahzell, Walsharno, Vaijon, Trianal, and Yurokhas are all on the Ghoul Moor where Anshakar and the others can get at them. And just as an added attraction, Prince Arsham’s with them, as well.” The younger wizard smiled coldly. “Killing him’s likely to destabilize the succession in Navahk, and that can’t help the stability of this Northern Confederation of Bahnak’s.
And
, if we’re lucky, we might even get Tharanalalknarthas, too, which would be a much heavier blow to Kilthan than he’d want to admit to anyone.”

Varnaythus nodded again. Anshakar and his two companions were already cautiously moving their massed army of ghouls into position. Even the three of them found controlling that many ghouls difficult, but they were managing the task quite nicely, between their own more than natural powers and the sheer terror they’d instilled in their new worshippers.

“Third, Borandas has clearly decided to support Cassan.”

“That might be putting it a bit too strongly,” Varnaythus pointed out. Sahrdohr cocked an eyebrow at him, and the older wizard shrugged. “I admit he’s decided to support Thorandas’ marriage to Shairnayith, and that’s a major plus. But we still can’t be positive which way he’s going to jump when Cassan makes his move. Thorandas and Bronzehelm are both primed to push him into jumping Cassan’s way, but even the two of them together may not be able to overcome his common sense at the critical moment, and I’d be happier if we could keep a closer eye on Halthan.” He grimaced. “I’m not happy having Brayahs back home to muck things up, especially when I can’t be certain he won’t pick up on our scrying spells.”

“Granted.” Sahrdohr nodded. “But the mere fact that Borandas has agreed to the betrothal ties him to Cassan in everyone else’s eyes, and all the indications are that Tellian’s partisans are already taking that into their calculations. If the entire Kingdom looks like going up in flames, who’s going to believe his shift wasn’t orchestrated ahead of time as part of whatever Cassan’s up to, however hard he denies it?” the younger wizard shook his head. “No, if Arthnar’s men pull this off, Borandas isn’t going to have much choice but to back his son’s new father-in-law, especially if Tellian and his faction are saddled with responsibility for the King’s assassination. Brayahs would have a hard time undoing
that
even if he figured out that you’ve been meddling with Bronzehelm’s mind.”

He paused, eyebrow still arched, until Varnaythus nodded back to him. The older wizard remained uneasy over the possibility that Brayahs might realize someone was using wizardry to manipulate the Great Council’s members. If he did come to that conclusion, the logical thing for him to do, as one of the King’s trusted mage investigators, would be to warn Markhos, and the fact that he was a wind-walker made him just the man to do it. The last thing they needed was for the King and his personal guard to take additional precautions or even withdraw entirely from Chergor to the safety of Balthar. Fortunately, Varnaythus had learned and deduced enough about mage talents to construct a trap spell barrier around Chergor which he was reasonably confident would kill even a wind-walker if he tried to cross it.
Un
fortunately, he was
only
reasonably confident, since there’d never been any opportunity to test the underlying theory upon which it was based.

“Fourth,” Sahrdohr went on after a moment, continuing his count, “Tellian is going to be at Chergor when Arthnar’s men attack after all.” He smiled unpleasantly. “I really thought he’d spend longer at home with his wife after being away so much of the summer. It’s a pity that attentiveness to duty of his isn’t going to be better rewarded.”

He contemplated the four extended fingers of his left hand for a moment longer, then leaned back in his comfortable chair and raised both hands, palm uppermost.