Winds of Fury (39 page)

“This isn't like Ancar,” Kero said tiredly, as she and the Lord Marshal shoved counters around on a map in response to every message from the border. “He just doesn't
fight
like this. That garrison is of no value whatsoever; there's no one of any importance there, there's nothing valuable there, it's just one more place on the border. It isn't even
strategically
valuable. He just doesn't go after targets that aren't worth anything—he
certainly
doesn't continue to hold them afterward!”

“I'd say he'd gone mad, except he already was,” the Lord Marshal agreed, running his hand through his thinning hair. “I have never seen Ancar strike for anything that did not have a substantial value to it. That was why we didn't bother to fortify that town all that heavily.”

“Someone else is dictating his tactics,” Darkwind said suddenly, sitting up straight.

All eyes turned toward him. “He's never let anyone dictate his tactics before this,” Kero replied skeptically. “That's one reason why we've held him off for so long. He's very predictable, and bad losses have always made him give up. He
always
follows the same pattern; he tests us until he loses his test force, then he falls back. Resist him strongly, and he gives up.”

“That was so in the past, but it is not so now,” Darkwind replied emphatically. “He has given over his main strategy to someone else, and
we
know who it is that spends the lives of underlings like sand, and leaves a river of the blood of his own people in his wake.”

He looked significantly at Elspeth, who nodded. “Mornelithe Falconsbane,” she said.

“The
mage?”
was Kero's incredulous reply. “Since when does a mage know anything about tactics?”

“Are these sound
tactical
decisions?” Darkwind countered. “No. But they
will
win the war for Ancar. All he needs do is keep driving his troops in, and they will overwhelm you. He will conquer by sheer numbers. Recall, neither of them care at all for the state either land will be in when the war is over. Falconsbane would as soon both lands were decimated, and he could very well have prodded Ancar until he cares only for revenge.”

The rest of the Council stared at him, appalled. Elspeth felt her gut knot with cold fear. This was what she had felt, but had not been able to articulate, probably because she had not wanted to believe it. But now, hearing it spoken aloud, she did believe it.

“No one can win against something like that—” one of the Councillors faltered.

Darkwind only nodded grimly, and Elspeth seconded him.

“Then we are doomed. It is only a matter of time—” The Seneschal did not wail, but he might just as well have. His words, and the fear in them, echoed the feelings of everyone around him.

Black despair descended—eyes widened with incipient hysteria—and the High Council of Valdemar was only a heartbeat away from absolute panic.

“Not if we do something completely unexpected,” Elspeth heard herself saying, and she marveled absently at the calm she heard in her own voice. “Something atypical. That was how Darkwind and I defeated him before. We figured out what he thought we would do, and we did something that he couldn't anticipate.”

“He'll assume panic,” Darkwind put in. “He'll assume that you will mount a rearguard action and attempt to hold a line while the rest of your populace flees, becoming refugees. He will expect you to go north and south, I think; he will try to cut you off from Rethwellan, and count on the mountains to trap you. I would guess that once he panics you, he will come in from a southerly direction to drive you.”

Kero studied the map. “That fits,” she said at last. “That cuts us off from our allies, although he probably doesn't know about the new alliance with Karse.”

“We have an alliance with
Karse?”
squeaked someone to Elspeth's left. Kero ignored whoever it was. “So he's going to be expecting some kind of digging in, a defensive line, you think?”

“Isn't that what logic dictates?” Darkwind replied. “ A large defensive attempt. Fortification. So, what is
not
logical? How can we strike at him in a significant way that he will not anticipate?”

Kero stared at him for a very long time, then transferred her gaze to Elspeth. “A dagger strike,” she said slowly. “A very small counterattack, inside his own stronghold. We cut off the snake's head. Kill Ancar, Hulda,
and
Falcon's Breath, and the whole thing falls apart”

Darkwind nodded, his mouth set in a thin line, his lips gray with tension and fatigue.

Silence around the Council table, although Elspeth saw her stepfather nodding out of the corner of her eye. Prince Daren knew something of expediency.

“That's murder—” faltered Lady Elibet.

“That's
assassination,”
said the Lord Patriarch sternly. “Coldblooded, and calculated. A deadly sin by any decent man's moral code.”

“Oh, it's a moral dilemma, all right,” Kero replied, grimly. “It's murder, it's cold-blooded, it's wrong. If you face an enemy, you should give him a chance to defend himself. Hellfires, killing is wrong. I'm a
mercenary,
my lords and ladies, and I will be the first to tell you that there is no nice way to kill. But what choice do we have? If we try to run, we either abandon
everything
to him—and may I remind you, at least half of our population has no means to escape—or we find ourselves running into a trap he's set for us. So the half that
runs
gets slaughtered, too. If we make a stand, his numbers overrun us and destroy us. And while
we're
dying, so are his own troops. Remember them? They're poor mage-controlled farmers, graybeards, and little boys! In fact, once he starts taking
our
land, he'll start turning our own people against us!
Do we have a choice?”

Kero looked into the eyes of each Councillor in turn; some returned her stare for stare, and some only dropped their gazes to the table in front of them, but one and all, they only shook their heads.

Elspeth cleared her throat when Kero's gaze reached her. Kero nodded; since she was no longer the Heir, she had no real place in Council, but habit would make them listen to her anyway.

“We can baffle him with strike-and-run tactics,” she said. “That will delay him while he tries to take ground. If he is expecting either all-out panic or a defensive line, while the special forces are getting into place, we can puzzle him by not playing either of the games he expects.”

Kero nodded cautiously at that. “Is there a plan behind this?” she asked.

“One he wouldn't think of—evacuation,” Elspeth replied. “Strike north and lead him up while you evacuate to the south. Then strike from the south and lead him into scorched-earth while you evacuate in the west. That way we can get everyone out—and Captain—no one is going to like this—but if people won't leave, pull them out and burn their houses and fields. They won't stay if there's nothing to eat and nowhere to live.”

Someone gasped in outrage, but the Lord Marshal nodded, his face a mask of pain. “We have to think of the people first,” he said, “And if we deny Ancar any kind of sustenance, he will be forced to march far more slowly than if he can loot as he goes.”

“But how can we destroy our own land?” Elibet
did
wail. “How can we simply give him our Kingdom, and lay waste to it ourselves? How can we do this to Valdemar? And how can we explain this to the people?”

Elspeth did not stand, but held herself proud and tall. “Tell them this,” she said. “Valdemar is not grainfields, or roads, or cattle; it is not cities, it is not even the land itself. It is people. Grain will grow again—herds can be bred—houses can be rebuilt. It is the lives of our people that are at stake here, and we must preserve them.
That
is what we must fight for, every precious life! There is no book that cannot be rewritten, no temple that cannot be rebuilt, so long as those lives are preserved. So long as the people live—so does Valdemar.”

She looked around the table as Kero had, meeting the eyes of every woman and man on the Council.

“There is not a Herald in Valdemar who will not stand between those people and Ancar's forces—even if the only weapons he has are those of his mind and bare hands,” she continued. “That includes me—for, my lords and ladies, I will be the first to volunteer for the group that goes into Ancar's land. You know how much he hates me, personally, and what he will do if he takes me. Every Herald will defend our people to his last breath and drop of blood, and lament that he has no more to give. Tell your people that—and remind them that the Heralds have no homes, no belongings, and never have. All that Heralds have comes from the people—and it will all return to their service, first to last, until there is no more to offer.”

K
ero sent the trainees out of the Council Chamber—more for their protection than from the need to keep secrets from anyone Chosen. The trainees were as trustworthy as their Companions, but there were a lot of them. It would be difficult to protect all of them from enemy agents if word somehow got out that they knew the contents of a secret plan. Searchingly, she looked at each of the members of the Council in turn. “From here on, nothing leaves this room,” she said emphatically. “And I mean
nothing
. If I had a way, I'd put a spell on you people to keep you from even thinking about this when you're outside this room.”

Darkwind coughed politely, and Kero's head swiveled like an owl's. Her eyes met his, and he nodded, once. “Don't tell me; you
can
do that,” she hazarded. “I should have guessed.”

Darkwind shrugged. “It is called a spell of coercion,” he offered politely, “And we do not use it except in times of greatest need. We prefer not to use the version that makes one forget something important, unless we think that an enemy may also be a strong Mindspeaker. It can be broken, but the person in question must be in the physical possession of a mage stronger than the one who set it, at least in the areas of mind-magic. It can be worked around, but again, the person must be in the physical possession of a countering mage, and it takes a great deal of time. A Tayledras must also have the consent of the one it is placed upon; others are not so polite about it.”

Like Falconsbane,
Elspeth thought grimly. She recalled, all too vividly, what Starblade had endured to have his coercions broken.

The other members of the Council, including Heralds Teren, Kyril, and Griffon, stirred uneasily, and there was more than a shadow of fear in some eyes.
Magic;
that was the problem. Mind-magic they knew, but this was different, alien, and fraught with unpleasant implications. About the only times any of them had encountered true magic, it had been in the hands of an enemy.

:Now they know how the unGifted sometimes feel around them,
: Gwena commented ironically.

Prince Daren simply looked interested; after all, he had seen magic at work often enough in his days as his brother's Lord Martial. “I'd heard of coercions, but before today I'd never met any mage who could set them,” he said. “It was said that the Karsite Priests of Vkandis could set coercions, though, and some things Alberich told me from time to time seemed to confirm that.”

Talia, who sat secure in the knowledge her Gift of Empathy gave her, that Darkwind would sooner cut his own arm off than harm
her
or any other Herald, nodded gravely. “I can see where such a precaution would give our force a great deal of protection from slips of the tongue.”

“This would be for your protection as well as my team's,” Kero said flatly. “What you can't tell, no one can extract from you, even by using drugs. I don't think we need to fear Ancar sending agents in to kidnap any of you, but please remember that illusions work here now. He
could
get someone in to impersonate a servant, drug your food, and get you to babble anything you know, before leaving you to sleep it off. With the right drugs, you'd never even know it had happened.”

Talia paled, and rightly. Both she and Elspeth recalled how even when the magic-prohibitions had been in place, Hulda had managed to get in place as an assistant to Elspeth's nurse and drug that nurse so that it was Hulda who issued the orders.

Lady Kester blanched. “You're not serious—” she began, then took a second look at Kero's face. “No. You are. Dear and precious gods. I never thought to see Valdemar in such a pass that Councillors could not be protected in Haven.”

“Nor did I,” Prince Daren sighed, “But let me be the first to agree to such a spell being set upon me. We are many and the servants here are more numerous still. We have not enough mages to check for the presence of illusions at all times.” He raised an eyebrow at Darkwind, who bowed a little in response. “I trust this little spell of yours will be
limited
in scope?”