War Maid's choice

Chapter Six

Rain pattered down on the roofs of Hill Guard castle. It was a little late in the year for the persistent, day-long, soaking rains of spring’s first blush, and not quite early enough for the short-lived, torrential afternoon thunderstorms of midsummer, but there was enough water in the air to go around, Bahzell reflected, standing under the overhanging roof which projected over the central keep’s massively timbered front door. And probably enough to fill the Bogs knee-deep and send the overflow gushing down the old riverbed to join the water from Chanharsa’s tunnel culverts, he thought, regarding the waterfalls streaming like finely beaded curtains from the eaves of that protecting roof. That would be one explanation for the condition in which Baron Tellian’s latest guest had arrived at his ancestral keep above the city of Balthar.

Bahzell’s lips twitched in amusement as the muddy, soaked-to-the-skin, plainly dressed warrior climbed down from his saddle in Hill Guard’s courtyard, for the newcomer bore precious little resemblance to the dandified, arrogant Sir Vaijon of Almerhas he’d first met the better part of ten years ago in Belhadan. The changes were much for the better, in Bahzell’s opinion, although he hated to think about how Vaijon’s father must have reacted the first time his wandering son returned for a visit. The beautiful, jeweled sword at Vaijon’s side was about all that was left of his onetime sartorial splendor, and that sword had been even more profoundly changed than Vaijon himself.

“And aren’t you just the drowned rat?” the massive hradani inquired genially as Vaijon climbed the steps towards him while one of Tellian’s grooms led his horse towards the stable at a brisk pace.

“Drowned, certainly,” Vaijon agreed wryly, reaching out to clasp forearms with him. “The Gullet’s hock deep in a lot of places, and cold, too-somebody forgot to tell Chemalka it’s spring, I think-but surely you can find something better than a rat to compare me to!”

“Oh, I’m sure I could, if it happened I was so minded,” Bahzell replied, returning his clasp firmly.

“Which you aren’t. I see.” Vaijon nodded, then turned to Brandark, and extended his hand to the Bloody Sword in turn. “You could come to my assistance here, you know.”

“I could…if it happened I was so minded,” Brandark said with a grin, and Vaijon heaved a vast sigh.

“Not bad enough that I’m doomed to spend my life among barbarian hradani, but they have to insult me at every opportunity, as well.”

“Aye, it’s a hard lot you’ve drawn, and no mistake,” Bahzell’s tone was commiserating, but his eyes twinkled and his ears twitched in amusement.

“Yes, it is.” Vaijon pushed back the hood of his poncho, showing golden hair which had once been elegantly coiffed but which he now wore in a plain warrior’s braid very much like Bahzell’s own. The Sothoii-style leather sweatband he’d adopted made him look older and tougher, somehow (not that he wasn’t quite tough enough without it, as Bahzell knew even better than most), and the past six years had put laugh lines around his eyes and weathered his complexion to a dark, burnished bronze. At six and a half feet in height, Vaijon was “short” only in comparison to a Horse Stealer like Bahzell, and with his thirty-second birthday just past, he was settling into the prime of his life.

“The bit from Hurgrum to the Gullet wasn’t so bad, now that they’ve got the locks open all the way,” he continued. “A lot faster and easier than the first time I made that particular trip, at least! But I, for one, will be delighted once the tunnel finally breaks through and my poor horse doesn’t have to swim all the way to the top of the damned Escarpment whenever there’s a little sprinkle! I said as much to Chanharsa when I passed through, too. I even took her a basket of your mother’s cookies as a bribe, Bahzell. I was sure that would inspire her to greater efforts! But she only laughed at me.” He heaved a vast sigh. “I never would’ve guessed dwarves were just as disrespectful of birth and position as hradani.”

“Well, I suppose the least we can be doing is to get you out of the rain now you’re here,” Bahzell told him. “Tellian was all set to come out and greet you his own self, but I told him as how he should be staying right where he was.” The hradani’s expression darkened slightly. “I’m not liking that cough of his one bit, and the man’s too stubborn to be calling in a healer. Or letting me deal with it, come to that.”

“Is he still coughing?” Vaijon’s asked, blue eyes narrowing as he followed the two hradani into the keep and down a flagstoned corridor. It was a sign of how much things had changed in Balthar over the past six or seven years that none of the human armsmen or servants they encountered along the way so much as turned a hair when the unlikely trio passed them. Indeed, most of them smiled and nodded respectfully to Bahzell and his guest.

“Aye, that he is. Mind you, it’s not so bad as it was this winter past, but it’s easier in my mind I’d be if he could just be shut of it once and for all.” Bahzell grimaced, ears flattening slightly. “There’s no reason at all, at all, I can see why he isn’t shut of it, and I’m none so pleased when someone as so many like so little is after being plagued by something like this. No doubt it’s naught but my nasty, suspicious mind speaking, and so he’s told me plain enough-aye, and more than a mite testy he was about it, too-but I’m thinking it’s worn him down more than he’s minded to admit even to himself.” He shrugged. “Any road, Hanatha was more than happy to be helping me scold him into staying parked by the fire.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Vaijon said testily. “This isn’t the time for him to be sick, especially not with something that hangs on this way and won’t let go, wherever it came from. I know he realizes how much depends on him right now. Why can’t he grow up and let you take care of it for him?”

“And aren’t you just the feistiest thing?” Bahzell said with a laugh. “Not but what you’ve a point.” He shrugged again. “And I’ll not be brokenhearted if it should be you’ve more success than I at making him see reason. There’s times I think he’s stubborner than a hradani!”

“Ha! No one’s stubborner than a hradani, Bahzell! If anyone in the entire world’s learned that by now, it’s me.”

“A bit of the pot and the kettle in that, Vaijon,” Brandark pointed out mildly.

“And a damned good thing, too, given the job He and Bahzell have handed me,” Vaijon retorted.

“Actually, you might have a point there,” Brandark conceded after a moment. “And speaking as someone who always wanted to be a bard, I can’t help noticing that there’s a wagonload or two of poetic irony in where you’ve ended up, Vaijon.”

“I’m so glad I’m able to keep you amused,” Vaijon said.

“Oh, no! Keeping me amused is Bahzell’s job!” Brandark reassured Vaijon, as they turned a corner and started up the steps to the keep’s second floor.

“You just keep laughing, little man,” Bahzell told him. “I’m thinking it would be a dreadful pity if such as you were to be suddenly falling down these stairs. And back up them-a time or two-now that I think on it. It’s a fine bouncing ball you’d make.”

Brandark started to reply, then stopped and contented himself with an amused shake of his head as Bahzell opened a door and led him and Vaijon into a well lit, third-floor council chamber. Diamond-paned windows looked out over the gray, rainy courtyard, but a cheerful coal fire crackled in the grate and a huge, steaming teapot sat in the middle of the polished table. The red-gold-haired man seated at the head of the table, closest to the fire, looked up as Vaijon and the hradani entered the chamber.

“Good morning, Vaijon!” Sir Tellian Bowmaster, Baron of Balthar and Lord Warden of the West Riding, said. He rose, holding out his hand, then coughed. The sound wasn’t especially harsh, but it was deep in his throat and chest, with a damp, hollow edge, and Vaijon frowned as they clasped forearms in greeting.

“Good morning to you, Milord,” he replied, forearms still clasped. “And why haven’t you let Bahzell deal with that cough of yours?”

“Well, that’s coming straight to the point,” Tellian observed, arching his eyebrows.

“I’ve been dealing with hradani too long to beat about the bush, Milord,” Vaijon said. “And since, at the moment, you have not one but two champions of Tomanak right here in your council chamber, it seems to me to be a pretty fair question.”

“It’s only a cough, Vaijon,” Tellian replied, releasing his forearm. “I’m not going to run around panicking just because I don’t shake off a winter cough as quickly as I did when I was Trianal’s age. And there’s no need to be asking a champion-or two champions-to waste Tomanak’s time on something that minor!”

“I don’t think He’d mind, Milord,” Vaijon said dryly, “and I know neither Bahzell nor I would object to spending four or five minutes taking care of it. So perhaps you should balance your laudable determination not to pester Tomanak over ‘something that minor’ against the fact that we’re both going to be just about insufferable if you don’t let us take care of it and it gets worse again.”

“I think you’d better surrender while the surrendering is good, Uncle,” Sir Trianal Bowmaster said, smiling as he crossed the council chamber from his place by the windows and held out his own arm to Vaijon. “I’ve certainly been suggesting the same thing to you long enough, and so has Aunt Hanatha.”

“And why doesn’t one of you just go ahead and say ‘You’re not as young as you used to be and you need looking after, Tellian’?” Tellian demanded acidly.

“Because we’re thinking as how it would only be making you stubborner still?” Bahzell suggested in an innocent tone, and despite himself, Tellian laughed.

“Seriously,” Vaijon said, “you ought to let us get rid of it for you, Milord. Perhaps it is only a minor inconvenience, but there’s no point in your putting up with it, and I agree with Bahzell. There are enough people who wish you ill for something that just keeps hanging on this way to make me unhappy. I’m not trying to encourage you to look for assassins under your bed every night, but we know for a fact that the Dark doesn’t much care for you. You’re probably right that it’s nothing more than a simple cough…but you might not be, too, and it would make all of us feel a lot better if it went away. Especially if you’re going to be traveling to Sothofalas with Bahzell and Brandark and this damned rain hangs on the way it looks like doing. The last thing we need is for you to come down with something like you had last winter when you need to be on your toes dealing with Lord Amber Grass and Prince Yurokhas.”

Tellian glowered at him for a moment, then sighed and shook his head.

“All right. All right!” He shook his head again. “I yield. I still think you’re all worrying like a batch of mother hens, but I can see I’m not going to get any rest until I do it your way.”

“And why you couldn’t have been realizing that a week ago is a sad puzzle to me,” Bahzell told him with a slow smile.

“Probably because I’m getting so old, frail, and senile,” Tellian replied darkly, then pointed at the chairs around the table. “And I suppose we should all sit back down before my aged knees collapse and I fall down in a drooling heap.”

The others all laughed, although at forty-six, Bahzell was actually a few months older than the baron. On the other hand, he was also a hradani, and hradani routinely lived two hundred years or more, assuming they managed to avoid death by violence. That made him a very young man by his own people’s standards. Indeed, he was little more than a stripling, younger even than Tirinal of Balthar, by hradani reckoning.

They settled themselves around the conference table and Trianal poured a big, steaming cup of tea and passed it to Vaijon.

“This wouldn’t be more of that vile morning moss tea, would it?” the champion asked, sniffing the fragrant steam suspiciously.

“Not in Hill Guard,” Tellian reassured him. “Would you like me to drink some first to reassure you?”

“That won’t be necessary, Milord,” Vaijon said. “Unlike some of the people sitting around this table, I don’t think you’d deliberately set out to poison an innocent and unsuspecting man.”

“You’ve a way of holding grudges, don’t you just?” Bahzell observed. “We told you as how it would relieve your cramps, and so it did, didn’t it?”

“That’s your story, and you’re sticking to it, I see.” Vaijon sipped cautiously, then smiled and drank more deeply. “Thank you, Milord,” he said. “It’s good.”

“You’re welcome.” Tellian leaned back in his chair, covering his mouth as he coughed again, and Trianal poured him a cup and slid it across to him. The baron grimaced, but he also drank dutifully, then raised both eyebrows at his nephew. “Satisfied?”

“For now,” Trianal replied, and Tellian snorted.

“Well, pour yourself some,” he directed sternly. “I wasn’t the one running around out in the rain without even a doublet, now was I?”

Trianal smiled and shook his head. But he also poured himself a cup obediently and sipped from it.

“I trust you’re satisfied now, Uncle?” he asked, and Tellian chuckled.

“For now,” he said, drinking some more of his own tea, and then cocked his head at Vaijon.

“Prince Bahnak asked me to give you his greetings,” Vaijon said, responding to the silent invitation to begin. “And Princess Arthanal’s sent along that pillowcase she’s been embroidering for Baroness Hanatha. I understand this one completes the entire set.”

“Your mother’s skill with a needle never ceases to amaze me, Bahzell,” Tellian said with simple sincerity, “although how she finds the time to use it with everything she and your father have on their plates amazes me even more. Please tell her how much Hanatha and I appreciate the gift…and the thought that went into it, even more.”

“I will that,” Bahzell assured him. “I’m thinking as how that’s not all Father had to be saying, though.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Vaijon agreed. “A messenger came in from Kilthan just before I left Hurgrum. It seems Kilthan’s agents are reporting that the Purple Lords are finally waking up, and they don’t much like what they’re hearing.”

“My heart bleeds for them,” Tellian said sardonically.

“I don’t think anyone’s going to waste much sympathy on them, Milord. But Kilthan’s of the opinion they might try to do something to scuttle the entire project.”

“Like what?” Trianal asked. At twenty-seven, Tellian’s nephew was a broad shouldered, solidly built young man. He was also an inch shorter than Brandark, making him the shortest person in the room, as well as the youngest, but there was nothing hesitant about his manner. “They don’t exactly have an army they could send up this way-or not one worth a solitary damn, at any rate.” He snorted contemptuously. “And even if they had one, we are just a bit too far from their frontiers for that,” he added.

“No, they can’t get at us with troops, even assuming they had an army used to doing anything more strenuous than terrorizing ‘uppity’ peasants, but they do have influence,” his uncle pointed out, never looking away from Vaijon. “That’s what Kilthan’s thinking about, isn’t it?”

“He and Prince Bahnak both,” Vaijon confirmed with a nod. “Mind you, I don’t think the Purple Lords would be above trying to provoke some sort of more…direct action. I imagine the possibility of using the River Brigands as catspaws has to’ve crossed their brains, for example. It’s the sort of idea that would appeal to them. But I think they’re more concerned about behind the scenes efforts in Sothofalas itself, Milord.”

“Where Cassan and Yeraghor would just love to help them succeed,” Tellian said sourly.

“Something along that line, yes.” Vaijon nodded again.

“Which would be lending some added point to our visit,” Bahzell observed.

“Perhaps. No, probably,” Tellian said. “Not that Cassan and Yeraghor need any outside encouragement to do anything they can to break our knees for us.”

“From the construction side, I’d say it’s really too late for them to stop you, Milord,” Brandark put in.

“It’s never too late for that, Brandark,” Tellian replied. “If the faction that’s most worried about Prince Bahnak’s power base had its way, the King would lead an army down the Escarpment, burn Hurgrum and the rest of the Confederation to the ground, and take the entire project over in the Crown’s name. I suspect at least half of them have to be bright enough to figure out how Kilthan would react to that, even assuming Prince Bahnak didn’t hand us our heads-which I rather suspect he would-but that wouldn’t stop them from proposing it for a moment. And if they didn’t get it, their fallback position would be to insist that King Markhos embargo any trade between the Confederation and the Kingdom. For that matter, some of them are going to argue that the canals and the tunnel are only going to increase the Empire of the Axe’s ‘already disproportionate influence’ in the Kingdom’s politics and policy.”

“It’s not something they’ll find simple to be stuffing back into the bottle,” Bahzell rumbled, “which isn’t to say as how they won’t try to do just that. And I’m thinking they’ve more than enough ways to be causing us grief if it should happen they take it into their heads to be doing it.”

“Which is why you and I are going to Sothofalas,” Tellian agreed, then looked back at the window at the steady rain and grimaced. “Not that I’m really looking forward to the trip.”

“Ah, but it could be worse,” Brandark comforted him. “You could be headed in the opposite direction.”

“Not a feeble and ancient wreck like myself.” Tellian coughed again, quite a bit more dramatically than strictly necessary. “That’s a job for a younger-and more waterproof-man.”

“You’re so good to me, Uncle,” Trianal said dryly, and Tellian chuckled and reached across the table to clasp his nephew’s shoulder.

“You’ll do fine. And you’ll have Vaijon along to help out, once we get back from Sothofalas.”

“Isn’t that about like saying the tinder will have a spark along to help it out, Milord?” Brandark inquired.

“You’re welcome to come along yourself, Brandark,” Vaijon invited, but the Bloody Sword shook his head quickly.

“I appreciate the invitation-really, I do-but I’m afraid I don’t remember having lost anything on the Ghoul Moor.”

The others laughed, although the notion of the upcoming summer’s campaign wasn’t an especially humorous topic. The Sothoii had been forced to launch periodic campaigns into the Ghoul Moor for as long as anyone could remember. In fact, generations of young Sothoii warriors-like Trianal (and Tellian himself, if it came to that)-had been blooded there. Yet those had all been little more than spoiling attacks, designed to drive the ghouls back from the foot of the Escarpment and remind them to stay clear of the Sothoii’s horse herds on the far side of the Hangnysti River. With the approaching completion of the Derm Canal, something more permanent was required.

No one was foolish enough to believe the ghouls could actually be exterminated, although that would have been the preferred solution for anyone who’d ever had the misfortune to meet one of them. But if the entire canal project was to succeed, something had to be done to protect barge traffic on the Hangnysti. Ghouls, unfortunately, were excellent swimmers, and they had objectionable dining habits. It might be just a little difficult to convince bargemen to sail down the river knowing the ghouls-who regarded them as tasty snacks which were tastiest of all while they were still alive-were waiting to greet them.

That was the reason for the joint campaigns Tellian and Bahnak had mounted in the Ghoul Moor over the last two summers. The ghouls’ territory stretched over seven hundred miles along the Hangnysti, and there was no hope that anyone could possibly actually control that vast an area. But what they could do was to secure the strip along the riverbank itself with a series of blockhouses and forts connected by mounted patrols. Maintaining those blockhouses and garrisons-and especially the patrols-wouldn’t come cheap, but the projected earnings of the new trade route would more than cover the expense…assuming King Markhos wasn’t convinced by the anti-hradani faction in Sothofalas to forbid Sothoii participation.

At the moment, there seemed little probability their opponents would be able to persuade him to do anything of the sort, but the possibility couldn’t be ruled out. And, in the meantime, the thought of Sothoii cavalry voluntarily cooperating with hradani infantry on any endeavor was enough to reduce those opponents to frothing fury. Even many of those who were tentatively in support of the new trade route were…uncomfortable with the notion. After a thousand years of merciless hostility, the concept of an army which combined hradani and Sothoii into a single, unified force was a profoundly unnatural one.

In fact, the first campaign season had gone less than smoothly. The armsmen of the West Riding were deeply loyal to their baron, yet his decision to fight side-by-side with hradani had come hard for many of them. Even those who’d accepted that Bahzell truly was a champion of Tomanak and a wind rider had found it difficult to extend that same acceptance to hradani in general after so many centuries of bloodletting and mutual atrocities. There’d been a great deal of grumbling and more than a little resistance, not all of it from anti-hradani bigots, and Tellian had been forced to lead them himself that first year. And, of course, there were anti- Sothoii bigots in plenty on the hradani side, just to make the situation still better. Given the obstinacy quotient of Sothoii and hradani, the situation had been rife with potential disasters, and even with Tellian there in person, and with Bahnak’s heir, Bahzell’s oldest brother Barodahn, personally commanding the hradani contingent (and cracking heads where necessary), things had almost spiraled out of control on more than one occasion.

In the end, it had been the Order of Tomanak more than anything else which had held things together. The Hurgrum Chapter had earned a high reputation among the Sothoii in the bloody battle to avenge the desecration of the Warm Springs courser herd, and its destruction of Sharna’s influence in Navahk had won it an equally high reputation among the hradani. The respect it enjoyed from human and hradani alike had allowed it to serve as both a unifying force and a buffer between the two factions when tempers flared. It had also led the way once battle was joined, and whatever they might think of one another, the Sothoii and Prince Bahnak’s hradani were all fighting men. Where the Order led, they followed, and in the following they learned to respect one another, as well.

There were still occasional troublemakers from both sides, of course, although their fellows tended to quash them even more effectively than their officers might have. And the Order of Tomanak remained a unifying force, as well as the point of the spear. By now, however, the West Riding by and large had at least accepted the concept that fighting with hradani rather than against them was a possibility. The fact that the Hurgrum Chapter was headed by a human, despite its exclusively hradani membership, hadn’t been lost on Tellian’s armsmen that first summer, either. In fact, the Hurgrum Chapter now boasted almost a dozen human members besides Vaijon, although any Sothoii would have flatly denied the possibility of such an arrangement before Tellian had “surrendered” to Bahzell in the Gullet.

Once this summer’s campaign began, Vaijon would be personally leading the Order, and over the last half dozen years, he’d turned into a seasoned and skillful field commander. That was a transition not all knights, even of the Order of Tomanak, made, and Bahzell was proud of the younger man.

“So you’ve made up your mind as how Trianal will be after commanding your armsmen this time?” he asked Tellian now, and the baron nodded.

“I’ve got a feeling you and I are going to be spending more time than either of us might like in Sothofalas this year, Bahzell,” he replied. “Especially me.” He grimaced. “Besides, Trianal’s more than up to the challenge, and he’s senior enough-and old enough now-that I can delegate the job to him without worrying that any of my officers might feel they have to test the limits of his authority.” He grinned at his nephew. “And he’s still young enough I can downplay just how ticklish the situation in the Ghoul Moor is if I have to in Sothofalas. After all, if it were really important, or if our alliance with your father was truly shaky, then surely I’d be there myself, wouldn’t I?”

“And who was Father thinking about from his side, Vaijon?” Bahzell asked. “Barodahn? Thankhar?”

“Actually, no,” Vaijon said. “He’s sending Barodahn off to Silver Cavern for a conference with Kilthan and the other clan elders, and Thankhar’s busy acting as his eyes and ears with Serman and the Derm Canal work crews. So he’s picked someone else-Yurgazh.”

Bahzell blinked, ears flattening briefly in surprise, but then his eyes narrowed and he began to nod. Slowly, at first, then faster and more enthusiastically.

Prince Arsham Churnazhson had inherited the throne of Navahk following the death of his father. Despite his own illegitimacy, he’d always been popular with the Navahkan Army, and he’d fought well and hard against Hurgrum and her allies. In the end, he’d surrendered honorably, and while he was unlikely ever to be especially fond of Prince Bahnak or his sons, he’d also never had time for the perversions and cruelty of Churnazh’s legitimate sons. Besides that, he was smarter than they’d been, able to recognize the advantages the unification of the northern hradani had brought to all of them. Navahk had gone from starving misery to something which actually approached prosperity; that had done wonders to consolidate the legitimacy of his rule, if not his parentage, in Navahkan eyes, and the completion of the canals and the tunnel was bound to bring his city state even greater prosperity.

Yurgazh Charkson was cut from much the same cloth as Arsham, and he’d become the Navahkan prince’s senior general following the war. In addition, he and Bahzell had formed a wary semi-friendship during Bahzell’s days as a political hostage in Navahk, which hadn’t hurt his acceptability among Horse Steales. Yet, like Arsham, he’d distinguished himself in both wars against Hurgrum, as well, which meant he was both popular with the Navahkans and respected by Bahnak’s Horse Stealer officers. He had the moral authority to command the allegiance of both, and putting a Bloody Sword in command of the Northern Confederation’s half of the Ghoul Moor expedition would constitute another major step in Bahnak’s ongoing campaign to truly unify the northern hradani.

And letting deputies, however senior, represent both Tellian and Bahnak in the field would go far to suggest that human and hradani cooperation was becoming routine enough it no longer required heads to be knocked together on a wholesale basis.

“He’s a canny one, my Da,” Bahzell said with a smile. “Almost as canny as someone else as comes to mind.” He twitched his ears at Tellian, who snorted.

“It’s not canniness on my part, if that’s what you mean, Bahzell; it’s laziness. That’s why the gods gave us youngsters to send out and do the hard work while we lie about drinking wine and belching.”