There were more skirmishes. The Calzirans were not caught unprepared again. Else knew what to expect. He prepared accordingly.

ELSE'S NIGHTS WERE NOT HAPPY. HE FELL ASLEEP WRESTLING his conscience. Logic suggested that he ought to get the crusader forces bogged down. But the city regiment was just a fraction of the invasion, and isolated. The Emperor's forces faced the hardest fighting. That was where the overseas troops had landed. The Patriarchy's closest allies were advancing down the west coast of Firaldia, but most had not yet reached Alameddine, let alone Calzir. The city regiment advanced on an inland route, with Brotherhood troops and contingents from minor princ.i.p.alities close behind. Confusion of command was the order.

G.o.d was the answer. G.o.d was always the answer, whatever the question might be. Else needed only to trust in the Will of G.o.d. All would turn out according to His Plan.

Else feared he was not a good Praman. He could not surrender to the will of the night. Each evening, once the regiment went into camp, Else studied maps and intelligence reports, looking for a way to fail Sublime without discrediting himself.

Had he been sent to Firaldia, expected to fail, so that failure would devour him? Which meant that Gordimer wanted...

That math did not work out.

Else thought he knew Gordimer. Gordimer was subtle enough to put a potential rival out where death might overtake him. But would he do that to Else Tage? Else could not imagine Gordimer seeing him as that serious a threat Else chose to temporize. He would serve Brothe. How better to serve Dreanger than to soar in the councils of Dreanger's foes?

Pinkus Ghort turned up. "The Deves want to see you, Pipe."

"They say why?"

"Nope. I'm not one of their pals." Ghort glanced around, making sure no nearby shadow harbored anything unfriendly. Constant, unconscious examination of the local scene was second nature in the west "Not even a hint?"

"No. I a.s.sume it's news from al-Khazen. The vedettes found some Deves beside the road, bickering about whether or not to light a fire."

Ghort did a quick pantomime wherein the freezing-our-a.s.ses-off party battled the smoke-will-get-us-killed party.

The weather was miserable and getting worse. Today, there were several kinds, all cold. Bitter winds reminded Else that he had spent last winter cozily tucked into prison. Sleet became snow, falling thickly. There seemed to be a thousand ghosts behind the curtains of white, loping parallel to the road south.

The Instrumentalities of the Night became ever more active as the regiment approached al-Khazen.

The regiment had not yet moved five miles that day. But Else was in no hurry. He was out here alone with a mob of unblooded and poorly trained soldiers likely to panic at their first glimpse of the elephant. It was imperative that they avoid heavy pressure unless the Brotherhood of War joined in.

Else ordered camp to be made at a site less than an hour ahead.

He wanted to visit with the new Deves.

31. Andorayans Far from Home

Svavar hated life. Svavar hated Firaldia. Svavar hated the bandit mercenaries of Ochska Rashaki's company. Most of all, Svavar hated the Instrumentalities of the Night. He was ready to lie down and find peace.

s.h.a.got slept twenty hours at a stretch, now. Or more. Although his spans of awareness and activity now sometimes stretched out, too. He could be furiously active for twenty hours before he collapsed into a sleep deeper than any coma.

The lone spark in the darkness of Svavar's existence was his confidence that Arlensul stalked these cruel foreign hills beside him. Each day she let him glimpse her from the corner of his eye, or slipping into shadow ahead if the band was making one of its rare moves.

The rogue Chooser wanted him to know she was there. Was she guardian or death sentence? Or just a tool? The Arlensul of myth was obsessed with vengeance.

Svavar felt no empathy for Arlensul. She wanted him filled with nothing but an abiding resentment of his horrid immortality so powerful he would be her ally when her hour came.

Asgrimmur Grimmsson was not a brilliant man. Given time, though, he worked things out. In these mountains, taking the Emperor's shilling while giving little in return, he had time to brood and hatch ideas.

Svavar, the Imperial mercenary, was in no way the Asgrimmur Grimmsson sturlanger who had tagged along after his big brother a few hundred years ago. This Svavar bestrode the boundaries of the Realm of Night, slowly becoming the thing he hated, tiny fly on the verges of the shoals of the Instrumentalities of the Night. As had been the case a million times before, never noticed by those involved, he was drifting toward becoming something more than a man.

And the exiled daughter of the All-Father was easing his path.

Not one man in a million ever learned that there mortals might become something more. G.o.dhead itself was there for the man who enjoyed the will and the luck.

The one in a million seldom recognized the role of chance. A great sorcerer might devote his life to grasping ascendance and kill himself in the effort. An ignorant barbarian like Svavar might succeed just by not knowing any better. s.h.a.got's enchanted head once graced a shaman determined to become one of the Instrumentalities of the Night. The Instrumentalities already out there used him, manipulating him through his ambition, in an age when a warmer world was sloughing the rule of ice and both G.o.ds and men were simpler.

Svavar developed a sense for Arlensul's whereabouts. It worked better than his sense for s.h.a.got. He felt the cold and the empty, the hatred and the despair, that were the essence of Arlensul the Exile. Not normally interested in the feelings of others, Svavar nevertheless wondered what it might be like to swap war stories with the daughter of the Gray Walker.

s.h.a.gOT DEVELOPED A DISCONCERTING HABIT OF MOVING FROM the coma state to full awareness in a blink. Svavar was roasting a slow, stupid hare betrayed to him by Arlensul. s.h.a.got popped up and roared, "What the h.e.l.l is going on?" as though he had not been in another world completely for the last twenty-six hours. "There's something wrong." He ignored the two feet of snow that had not been there before.

"It's that a.s.shole Ockska," Svavar said. "He don't want to do what he's supposed to. Rabbit will be ready in a bit." Svavar knew s.h.a.got was not thinking about Rashaki.

"Huh?" s.h.a.got took a moment to orient himself. "He isn't watching the pa.s.s anymore?"

"It isn't that, Grim. Since you went to sleep we had three messages from Vondera Koterba. The Emperor wants us to move down past al-Citizi and cut the east-west road. Not to block it, just to intercept messengers." Svavar spoke softly so Rashaki's intimates would not hear. "He says he's holding out for a bigger payoff. I think he's afraid to show us what a stupid a.s.s he really is."

"He defied orders from Koterba and the Emperor both?"

Svavar relaxed slightly. s.h.a.got had been diverted from a strangeness surely to do with Arlensul.

s.h.a.got wolfed down more than his share of the hare. As he cleaned his fingers, he said, "I need you to back me up, little brother." He produced the monster head and the enchanted sword forged in the time before time.

Members of the band, scruffy bandit sc.u.m rather than real soldiers, gaped as s.h.a.got strode toward Rashaki's hut. s.h.a.got shattered the feeble door. Inside, he removed the head of one lieutenant and the face of another before saying, "You defied the Emperor's command." His tone was soft, gentle. It betrayed no strain. It was the tone of a man disinterestedly asking the price of a sack of turnips. He kicked his surviving victim for bleeding on his leg.

Ockska considered the old head, the b.l.o.o.d.y sword, and s.h.a.got. "I thought we could get more money."

"The Emperor is an honorable man. He keeps his word. He expects you to do the same. It's time for a leader who will do his job."

"I suppose you're right."

"Good. Good. You're a reasonable man, after all. You won't find me a harsh captain. And my brother and I will move on soon. Little brother, help our lieutenant rise so we can shake hands on the new arrangement."

Rashaki was an average size man who had made himself leader by being more clever and hard than the others, rather than through sheer wicked brawn. "Are you the Emperor's special agents?"

"Something like that," s.h.a.got admitted. He drove the ancient sword into Rashaki's chest. Svavar held Rashaki for the strike. "Though we serve a power higher than any ephemeral lord of the earth."

Ockska heard that before the light went out of his eyes. He believed because he saw what no one else could see.

Rashaki's surviving lieutenants quickly reported the change to the rest of the band.

No one argued. Everyone recognized that agents of the night walked among them.

Svavar knew Rashaki's lieutenants harbored the same thoughts that Rashaki had before the bronze sword relieved him of a need to think. Play along with the mad foreigner. It would be no trouble to murder his brother, then him, once demonic sleep reclaimed him.

s.h.a.got counted on the Old Ones to get him through. If he thought at all. Svavar trusted Arlensul. Arlensul was immediate and real and had a vested interest in sustaining the Grimmssons.

The band moved out. The snowfalls were no less vigorous down there in the warmer foothills. They melted and created mud as though mud was a treat favored by all G.o.ds great and small.

The first six days of the new administration produced four coup attempts. The conspirators all died horribly. Some were mutilated and drained of blood before they moved against the Andorayans.

The day s.h.a.got killed Ockska Rashaki the band numbered eighty-eight, counting all bodies but those of the sad handful of slatterns who followed the band with their snotty-nosed brats. When the band moved into the position Vondera Koterba desired they numbered sixty-five. Most of the missing had deserted, along with their women and children.

The band disrupted Calziran communications for two months. Lone riders and small groups just did not get through. Prisoners went to Ferris Renfrow somewhere to the east. He paid excellent bounties. Life was no daydream but neither was it awful. And it showed promise of getting better.

Svavar soon realized that he was running things. s.h.a.got the b.a.s.t.a.r.d was this wild berserker thing he could conjure up at need. Daily administration and decision-making were his. And he did well. He held the band together. He got it through its a.s.signment without another death, and with only four more desertions.

The Emperor's troops, with those of Vondera Koterba, overran the eastern third of Calzir far more easily than either side imagined possible. The Praman defenders were stunned by their own ineffectuality.

Those Calzirans, even inspired by advisers from Lucidia and backboned by cadre from overseas, could not withstand the disciplined Imperial heavy infantry and heavy cavalry. The Lucidians strove valiantly but insisted on fighting the wrong war. Johannes Blackboots was not interested in elegant maneuvers. He trudged from one town, city, port, or castle to the next, ignoring enemy forces unless they attacked-always a disaster for the Pramans. Imperial pikemen held them off while thousands of missiles sleeted down on them. When they ran, hors.e.m.e.n followed and butchered them.

Warships from Dateon and Aparion blockaded the eastern and southern coasts. The heel end of the Firaldian boot fell. Few Praman troops tried to flee west to join the armies there. Svavar dispatched any stupid enough to use his road.

He first saw Johannes Blackboots when the Emperor's own Braunsknechts Guards pa.s.sed through, headed west in hopes of outgrasping the less vigorous forces fielded by Sublime and the Brothen Church.

"He's a f.u.c.king dwarf," s.h.a.got observed.

Not quite, but close.

The Emperor's whole family accompanied Johannes, a measure of his confidence. The brothers did not see the daughters or learn of their existence until later. They occupied a closed coach surrounded by large, alert, scowling, short-tempered Braunsknecht horse guards.

The Imperial heir, Lothar, rode beside his father, as miserable as one child could be, yet persevering with a will suited to much a stronger body. He was determined to make his father proud.

Ferris Renfrow found the brothers after the Emperor had pa.s.sed. "You've done a great job. Vondera Koterba says you deserve a bonus. I agree. Would you like to continue your service?"

Svavar accepted a sack of coins while s.h.a.got said, "We will go with you. We're looking for a man. He's west of here. He has to die."

"All men die."

"Soon. It's a holy mission."

Svavar sensed that Renfrow knew who they were. He would have had reports from his agents.

"Tell me about the man you're hunting. Maybe I can help."

Svavar, distracted by pa.s.sing heavy infantry, which he had never encountered before, replied, "All we know is that he's in Calzir and that we'll know him when we find him."

A Patriarchal company pa.s.sed. They had partic.i.p.ated in the Imperial thrust in the east. Svavar glared at black crows from the Brotherhood of War. They unnerved him. Their order would harbor an eternal grudge because of what had happened in Brothe.

Renfrow kept him talking. Svavar knew Renfrow had pegged him as dim and naive. He didn't mind. He might be those things, but not so much that he could not let someone underestimate him.

Once Renfrow left, Svavar told s.h.a.got, "That fellow thinks he knows our man. He knows where he is, too. And he thinks he knows who we are."

"With the Patriarch's armies?"

"I think so."

"Makes sense. Fits my dreams. We'll get him this time."

Svavar nodded. But he had doubts. Arlensul had not been factored into the All-Father's plan.

There would never be a better time to tell Grim about Arlensul.

Words would not come.

Svavar paid off the members of the band. "Anybody who wants to stick can go west with me and Grim. They still want us." Only a dozen men who had nothing else in their lives stayed on. The rest ran back to their cold, barren mountains with their newly found wealth.

32. Shippen and the Toe

Bishop LeCroes settled beside Brother Candle. Brother Candle was watching the sun set behind a vague hint of distant indigo peaks. He had his back against an almond tree, the vanguard of a grove. Almonds had come to Shippen with the Praman invaders.

The sun's lower limb squashed down on the far hills, a bloated, distorted vermilion egg that the eye could suffer for moments at a time.

Color flew round the sky as though slung from the palette of a mad artiste G.o.d. Shippen folk said that was because of a haze vented by a somnolent volcano off to the north.

LeCroes said, "Sorry to bother you. I wanted you to know. The rumors are true. King Peter will cross over to the mainland."

Brother Candle asked, "Is that Sublime's idea?"

"You kidding? Once this war ends Sublime will be as nervous about Peter as he is about the Emperor."

"Maybe the Emperor suggested the move."

"Peter is clever enough to come up with it on his own."

Brother Candle quickly saw why Peter would make this move.

It would give him a foothold on the mainland and enhance his reputation in Firaldia, where he was not yet well known. And it would establish forces friendly to the End of Connec behind the Patriarch should Sublime decide to follow a crusade against Calzir with another against the Connec. At little cost in lives and treasure Peter would triple the lands he held and make Navaya the strongest Chaldarean realm in the west.

Brother Candle had to admire King Peter. The man had foreseen vast opportunities before he decided to transport and support the forces Duke Tormond pledged to Sublime. Who might have done so at Isabeth's urging.

Sublime must be in a tight place now, desperately unable to seize and retain those expanded temporal powers that all Brothen Patriarchs coveted.

Brother Candle ascended to Perfection without losing his cynicism and skepticism. The sad truth was, none of the last dozen Brothen Patriarchs had shown much regard for their spiritual mission. And few had shown much competence in the political lists, either.

"I think I see where this will end up."

"And that would be where?"