Fox and Empire

**

Down went the drawbridge. As soon as it had thumped onto dry land on the other side of the moat, Aragis' driver crossed over it and into Balser's keep. No hesitation, Gerin thought, standing there in the courtyard with Balser and Dagref and Van and some of his leading vassals. But then, Aragis the Archer seldom showed hesitation about anything, which was one reason the Fox wondered why they weren't already at war.

Without waiting for the chariot to stop, Aragis hopped out of it and strode briskly over to Gerin. He was a slim, hawk-faced man of about the Fox's age who leaned slightly forward as he walked, as if he were a hunting dog following an exciting scent.

Abruptly, he stuck out a hand. "I greet you, lord king," he said. As an obvious afterthought, he nodded to Balser. "Baron."

"I greet you, lord king," Gerin said, accepting the clasp. Aragis' grip was firm and hard, as it had been for as long as the Fox had known him. "You don't mind my asking, why aren't we trying to kill each other right now?"

"Don't worry, I thought we'd be doing just that by this time, too." Aragis bared his teeth in what was as much snarl as smile. "I think I'd have won, too. But something more important's come up."

"More important than which of us ends up ruling the northlands?" Gerin said incredulously. Aragis' head jerked up and down in a sharp, emphatic nod. Gerin whistled softly under his breath. A few times in his life, he'd been at the very edge of spreading news, the outermost boundary between those who knew and those who didn't. Aragis, plainly, was such an outer ripple now. The Fox said, "You'd better tell me, then, hadn't you?"

Aragis nodded again. "It's not a question of which of us ends up ruling the northlands any more," he said. "It's a question of whether we can keep our heads on our shoulders."

"By your five Elabonian hells, what are you talking about?" Van boomed.

"The Empire's come back to the northlands," Aragis answered.

For a few heartbeats, that didn't mean anything to the Fox. Save for memories of his student days down in the capital, he hadn't thought much about the Elabonian Empire in the more than twenty years since it had closed itself off from its former northern province. He'd thought about it as little as he could get away with in the days before it had done so, too; he hadn't paid the tribute required of him because he hadn't got the protection the tribute was supposed to earn.

But if the Empire had returned… "Father Dyaus," he whispered.

"That's the way of it, all right," Aragis the Archer agreed. " They've cleared two of the passes through the High Kirs, and they're sending soldiers through 'em. I don't know what all's been happening down there these past years, but it surely looks as though they've got a lot of soldiers to send."

"Father Dyaus," Gerin said again. He'd worried about Aragis. He'd worried about Adiatunnus and the Trokmoi. He'd worried about the monsters from the caverns under Biton's shrine at Ikos. He'd worried about the Gradi. He'd worried about Ferdulf. Worrying about the Empire of Elabon, long vanished from the northlands, had never crossed his mind.

Dagref spoke with his usual precision and accuracy: "Something might perhaps be done against the Empire if you two kings joined forces."

Aragis turned his clear, cold-eyed gaze on Dagref, but spoke to his father, saying, "No fools in your family, are there, Fox? This wouldn't be the lad who was kidnapped, would it, the one I got back for you from that cursed minstrel?"

"No, that's Duren, his older half brother," Gerin answered. "This is Dagref, whom I present to you with the warning that you'd better not ever be wrong in his presence, or you will hear about it."

"Ah, one of those," Aragis said, and then paused, the small grin he'd put on slowly fading. He gave Dagref another long look. "Mm, no, maybe not. Most of that kind think they know it all and turn out not to know a thing. If this one says something, he'll have a good notion of what he's talking about. You'd have been the same way before your beard sprouted, eh?"

"Oh, yes," Gerin answered, putting an arm around his son, who looked as if he could have done without the attention. "I was always sure in those days. I wasn't always right, mind you, but I always thought I was."

Dagref squirmed under the Fox's arm. "Let me be," he said indignantly. "The only other way either one of you could come through this mess would be to ally with the Empire against the other, and how far do you suppose you could trust the imperials? They'd use you and then sweep you aside."

Both Gerin and Aragis stared at him then. Gerin was pretty sure he eventually would have reached that same conclusion himself, but not with his son's effortless ease and ruthless clarity. Aragis made a sharp, short bow to Dagref. He said, "I came here to propose alliance to your father. You help me see I chose right. I am in your debt."

"Don't let it worry you," Dagref said tranquilly. "My father's in my debt, too. You didn't lose a bet to get there."

Aragis turned a speculative eye on Gerin. "Don't ask me about that now," the Fox said. "More important things to think about."

"As you say." Aragis the Archer managed a thin smile. "Still, anyone who gets the better of you at anything needs careful watching. Shall we speak, then, of what needs doing against the Empire?"

Balser Debo's son said, "Use my great hall as your own, lord kings." Of all the people in the courtyard, he was the only one who sounded delighted at the news Aragis had brought. Gerin had no trouble figuring out why: it meant Aragis and he wouldn't be fighting their war through Balser's holding. The noble might not even have to feed his new overlord's large, expensive army very long. If the warriors headed south to fight against the Elabonian Empire, they'd end up on Aragis' lands.

"They want the land back," Aragis said after he'd sat down and had a jack of ale pressed into his hand. "As far as they're concerned, it' s as if they've never been away. The one who came to my keep said I could stay on-as baron, mind you, not as king-if I paid twenty-one years' worth of back tribute."

"Dyaus Allfather!" Gerin exclaimed. "Did you let him live?"

"I'm afraid I did." The Archer sounded faintly embarrassed at the admission. "I wasn't ready to fight in the south then-I had all my strength shifted north to go to war with you." He spoke as if Gerin should have expected nothing else. Since the Fox had expected nothing else, he only nodded. Aragis went on, "I just sent him out of my lands naked, to let the Empire have a clue as to how much it could ever expect to take away from me."

"Well done!" Van boomed. Adiatunnus clapped his hands. Gerin admired Aragis' gesture, too, but probably would have handled the imperial envoy rather differently himself.

Before he could decide whether to say as much, Dagref did it for him: "Being less abrupt with the fellow might have proved more prudent." Dagref was still at the age where, if something seemed obviously true to him, he let the world know about it without troubling his head about things like tact.

"I thought about that later," Aragis said. After pausing to down his ale and hold out the jack for a refill, he went on, "At the time, all I thought about was that the arrogant bastard had angered me, and so I was going to anger him right back, by the gods."

"Are you fighting with the imperials down on the southern border of your kingdom, then?" Gerin asked.

Aragis shook his head. "They're holding some of the territory that's rightfully mine, the whoresons. I don't know whether you know it or not, but these days I rule almost down to the foothills of the High Kirs." Again, his smile was one that a wolf might have offered. " Easier pushing south against the odds and sods there than coming north against you, Fox."

"Good." Gerin gave back that same display of teeth. Aragis' concern about him was the only thing that had kept them from clashing years before. "So you want my help against the Empire, do you?"

"It's your neck, too," Aragis answered steadily. "If they beat me by myself, do you think they'll stop at the northern border to my realm? And if they look like beating me, do you think I wouldn't go over to them, as your boy says, and save what I can by helping them smash you flat?"

"No and no, respectively," the Fox admitted. Aragis gave him that fierce smile again. He sighed. "Equal allies, as we were against the monsters fifteen years ago?" Aragis nodded, as if that went without saying. From his perspective, no doubt it did. Gerin might have tried extorting more from him, since he was the one more threatened, but didn't bother. Aragis had a notoriously long memory for slights. Thinking as much, Gerin realized that, while he intimidated Aragis, Aragis also intimidated him.

Adiatunnus realized the same thing at the same time. "You're giving him better terms than ever you offered me," the Trokm? said indignantly.

"You've been my vassal the past fifteen years, and of your own free will, too," Gerin retorted. "Of course, you spent a lot of that time forgetting it of your own free will, but that doesn't make it any less so." Adiatunnus didn't look any less aggrieved, either. Too bad for him, the Fox thought.

Aragis the Archer coughed. "There's one thing more," he said.

Gerin didn't care for his tone. Of course, Gerin hadn't care for his tone since he'd come into the courtyard, or for any of the news he'd delivered. Wondering what he was saving for last, the Fox asked, "And that is?"

"They've got wizards with 'em," Aragis answered glumly. "Real wizards, I mean, trained in that Sorcerers' Whatchamacallit of theirs, down in the City of Elabon."

"Collegium," Gerin said, and Aragis nodded; he'd forgotten the unfamiliar term. "Well, isn't that jolly?" Gerin went on. "I don't think there's a single sorcerer like that in all the northlands. And they'll have more than one along, sure as sure. Thank you, my friend. I didn't think I could feel any worse. Now I find I'm wrong. They'll know what they're doing, too-really know." Every spell he'd tried, he' d tried knowing he was liable to make a horrid botch of it.

He needed a couple of heartbeats to recognize the expression on Aragis' face. For one thing, it didn't sit well there; Aragis had for years molded his features to project harsh certainty and very little else. For another, he hadn't thought the Archer granted him so much respect in this particular area. But Aragis said, "Another reason I want you with me, Fox, is the skill you've shown as a mage since the days of the werenight."

"You haven't got any idea what you're talking about," Gerin said, his voice not far from a groan.

Aragis went on as if he hadn't spoken: "And when Marlanz Raw-Meat came back from your keep, he told me you had a god's son living in the village close by. If we have a god's son with us, even those cursed imperials will have to sit up and take notice." The Archer grew eager. "Did this-Fergulf, was that his name?-come south with you to campaign against me? Can we use him against the Empire?"

"Ferdulf," Gerin corrected absently. "Yes, he came along. He didn' t come to campaign against you so much, I don't think. He said he came because Fox Keep would be boring once the army left." Aragis looked blank. Gerin sighed. Looking around Balser's great hall, he didn't see Mavrix's annoying son. He turned to Dagref. "Go track down Ferdulf, would you please? My fellow king here had better get a good idea of what he's pinning his hopes on."

Dagref took a deep breath, as if about to argue: he didn't want to miss a single word of what passed between his father and Aragis the Archer. Seeing Gerin's face, though, he sensibly decided arguing here wouldn't do him any good and would land him in trouble. He got up with no more than a small grimace and hurried out into the courtyard.

He came back soon enough, Ferdulf at his side-and, for a wonder, walking on the ground. Ferdulf, as the Fox had seen to his own discomfiture, got on with Dagref better than he did with almost anyone else. Gerin wasn't sure what that said about his son's character, and wasn't sure he wanted to find out, either.

Dagref pointed Aragis out to Ferdulf. The demigod strode up to him, inspected him, and shook his head. "This is supposed to be another king?" he said. Aragis' eyes widened when he heard the deep voice coming out of the small body. Ferdulf sniffed. "Doesn't seem so much of a much to me." His gaze swung toward Gerin. "Of course, you're not so much of a much, either."

"I'm so glad I have your respect," Gerin said.

Aragis stared from one of them to the other. Gerin already knew the Archer tolerated much less in the way of back talk and disrespect from subjects than he did himself. And now, despite having heard about Ferdulf, despite having heard for himself that Ferdulf was not the ordinary four-year-old his body made him out to be, he made the mistake of treating him as if he were: "You, boy!" he said, as he might have to any serf. "Who was your father again?"

Gerin could have told the Archer he'd just done something foolish. Before he got the chance, Ferdulf demonstrated it. As usual, showing proved more effective than telling. Ferdulf walked over to Aragis. Then he walked up Aragis' legs, treating their vertical as a horizontal. Then he walked across Aragis' lap. And then he walked up Aragis' chest, treating that in the same fashion as he had the Archer' s legs. Planting his feet on Aragis' collarbones, he looked acrosseffectively, down-at his startled face. "My father, man, was the god Mavrix of Sithonia. Who was yours, or didn't your mother know, either?"

Aragis had courage. Not even his worst enemy would ever have denied that. So, now, he heard only the insult, and forgot a demigod had delivered it. Grabbing Ferdulf by the ankles, he tried to throw him away. That didn't work; Ferdulf refused to be budged. Snarling an oath, Aragis sprang to his feet and grabbed for his sword.

Everyone who was anywhere near him snatched at his arm to keep him from drawing the bronze blade. "Enough!" Gerin said sharply. "My judgment is that dishonors are even here."

"What gives you the right to judge?" Aragis and Ferdulf said the same thing at the same time, then glared at each other for having done so.

"Aragis, I've put up with you since just after the werenight, and you, Ferdulf, I've put up with you for as long as you've been aroundit only seems like forever," Gerin said. "If I haven't got the right to judge, who does?"

"No one." Again, demigod and king spoke together. Again, they glared at each other. Neither was fond of the Fox. Each was fonder of him than of the other.

"Get off King Aragis, Ferdulf," Dagref urged. "Standing on him like that won't do any good."

"It does me plenty of good," Ferdulf said, but he took a step off Aragis' chest into midair, then drifted to the ground like a chunk of thistledown. Aragis rubbed at his collarbones; he must have felt the weight of the demigod on him.

"Ferdulf, you haven't got much use for Elabonians, have you?" Gerin asked, a question whose answer seemed obvious.

"Would you, were you I?" Ferdulf returned, rolling his eyes.

"Oh, I don't know." Gerin spoke musingly now. "After all, you're half Elabonian yourself."

"All the more reason to despise that half," the demigod said. " Without it, I'd be altogether divine."

Without it, you wouldn't be here at all, Gerin thought. But he didn't bother mentioning that. Instead, he said, "Well, from what King Aragis here tells me, the Empire of Elabon is coming. The Emperor wants to make this part of the world do as he says when he's down in the City of Elabon. He wants to make this part of the world obey him the same way that Sithonia has to obey him."

Even after more than four years, he didn't know just how much instruction Mavrix had given Ferdulf about Sithonia, or how much knowledge of his father's homeland Ferdulf had inherited, or whatever the process was by which Ferdulf knew what he knew. He did know Ferdulf knew enormously more than any purely human four-year-old had any business knowing. Would that be enough? He could but hope.

Ferdulf had disappointed his hopes a good many times, and blasted them a few more. This time, he lived up to them. "The Elabonian Empire will never do to this land what its overmuscled morons have done in and with and to fair Sithonia," the little demigod cried, his big voice echoing back from the roof beams of the great hall. "It shall not come to pass. I shall not permit it."

Aragis started to say something. Gerin caught the Archer's eye and shook his head ever so slightly. For a wonder, Aragis listened to someone other than himself. He kept quiet.

"I shall destroy the Elabonians, root and branch! I shall smite them, hip and thigh!" Ferdulf thundered. Some of Balser's men broke into applause. Aragis the Archer looked as if he was about to join them.

Gerin caught his eye once more. The Fox shook his head again, a gesture even smaller than the first one. As slightly, Aragis' ever so erect shoulders slumped. Gerin was glad Ferdulf wanted to take on the forces of the Elabonian Empire. He didn't think Mavrix's son would be able to beat them singlehanded. Elabon had ruled Sithonia for hundreds of years, no matter how much the Sithonians looked down their noses at their overlords. Divided into quarreling city-states, the Sithonians also looked down their noses at one another. Their gods squabbled among themselves. If all their men and all their gods hadn't been able to keep the Elabonians out of Sithonia, one bad-tempered little demigod wasn't going to keep the Empire out of the northlands, not by himself he wasn't.

As long as he despised the Elabonian Empire more than he despised either Gerin or Aragis, though, having him along wouldn't hurt.

"What are we waiting for?" Ferdulf demanded. "The sooner we strike these bronze-bound blockheads, the sooner we send them scurrying back into the south! When we fight, let us give no quarter."

Every once in a while, when trying to work magic, the Fox had a spell succeed too well. He hadn't worked magic here, not in the strict sense of the word, but got something of that feeling nonetheless. What would happen if and when Ferdulf discovered he couldn't beat the Empire by himself? Would all his joy in trying disappear? Would he turn on Gerin and Aragis instead?

This once, Gerin wished he weren't quite so good at coming up with unpleasant questions long before he had any answers for them.

Aragis said, "Are we allies against the Empire, then, you and I and Ferdulf here?"

"You and I are," Gerin said. "I already told you that. Having the Empire on my border I like even less than having you on my border." Aragis showed his teeth again in that snarling smile. The Fox went on, "As for Ferdulf-" He turned to the demigod. "Will you join with us against the Elabonian Empire?"

"I am against the Elabonian Empire," Ferdulf said. "If you want to stand against it, too, you may join with me."

Gerin remained of the opinion that one god's son, no matter how arrogant, was not going to prove a match for all the soldiers and, if what Aragis said was true, all the mages of the Empire of Elabon. But he did not feel like quibbling about definitions with Ferdulf. Instead, he held out his hand. Aragis clasped it. A moment later, the demigod set his warm little palm over both their hands. Gerin had made a good many unlikely alliances in his time. This one struck him as being as improbable as any.