used Geri as a mouthpiece, not a Sunpriest, and not inside the sacred confines of the temple. Everything in the temple was sacred, no matter how homely it seemed. Vkandis was the Lord of All, from the Sun-fire to the hearth-fire, and he did not scorn the small and commonplace. So even if what had spoken through Geri was not Vkandis Himself, it was certainly some spirit that was doing so on behalf of the Sunlord.
Be careful what you ask for. Well, now he had it, and now he knew, well in advance of everyone else, that Sendar and Selenay would go into combat, no matter who tried to stop them. Now he knew... and didn't dare tell anyone.
Now he knew but didn't know when. He only knew it would be soon. But how soon? Every night he went to sleep on edge, and every morning he woke with the feeling that a storm was coming. And certainly this was what everyone including the now-successful agents had been working toward, all this time—to lure the Tedrels into thinking that the Valdemaran defenses were a hollow shell, and a single concerted drive would crack through. And thanks to the four that he had planted, when that time came, Valdemar would know as soon as the Karsite troops themselves did. They would know days, weeks earlier than they would have before his four demi-Karsites got planted successfully on the other side of the Border.
Yes, he was expecting it. But when the word came, it still hit him like a blow to the gut.
It was Talamir who delivered the blow; that didn't make it better, but at least it was from the hand of a friend and delivered as calmly as that worthy could manage.
It was early spring—or tail end of winter, take your choice. Raw weather, in any event, the trees still leafless, though there were a few, far too optimistic for his way of thinking, that were swelling into bud. The snow was gone, but a bite in the air and the snarl of the wind suggested that it wouldn't be too wise to tempt fate by rejoicing aloud that it was gone. Half the days were clear and cold, half raining, that miserable, dripping rain that would come up without warning and then stay a week, and by the time it crawled away, half the Collegium would be down with head colds. It never stayed clear long enough for things to dry up, in any event, and it was a good thing that the Trainees' uniforms were gray, because you couldn't help ending up with mud from the eyebrows down by midday, no matter what you did. Tail end of winter, he would call it, for all that the days were longer, and you could, if you searched diligently, find a few foolhardy crocus and snowdrops coming up in the gardens.
Spring, and he hated to see it, because it meant at least another season of war. And Spring came sooner, the farther South you went. True, in the mountains at the Border, it actually came later, but once out of the mountains, or when you stuck to the valleys, Spring was well on the way.
Spring was no longer a season of hope and renewal, and had not been for some time. But would this be the last season of war, or only the latest? That was the question that hung suspended over his head like a sword.
For the past fortnight, he'd been running a cross-class with the Horsemanship teacher, an accelerated course in fighting while mounted, and each day it had taken most of a candlemark to clean Kantor up afterward; all the Companions had been mired to mid-flank and spattered above that line. He was cold as a frog, tired, and every time he licked his split lip, he tasted mud and blood. There was no other way of learning how to fight in this kind of muck except to do it, though, no matter how much everyone hated it. He was looking forward to a hot bath with utter longing, and he trudged into the quarters behind the salle, expecting only to see Dethor and perhaps get a little commiseration before he went back to see about that long soak in hot water.
It took him aback to see Talamir there—Talamir, sitting in one of the hearthside chairs, and the sun still in the sky, for Talamir never was free enough to come back here before sundown. Talamir's expression told him the worst even before the King's Own opened his mouth; he froze, feeling as if something had just petrified him in place. He knew; he knew. And it didn't take a Gift to tell him.
For a moment, he couldn't breathe. For a moment, he was stunned. The blow had fallen.
The Tedrels were moving.
'This is the season,' Talamir said, and that was all he needed to say. So the bait had been taken, the misinformation believed, This season, as soon as the rains stopped, the rivers subsided, and the ground was firm instead of mired, the Tedrels would make their all-or-nothing push.
He'd wanted it and dreaded it in equal parts, and now it had come.
He nodded, for there wasn't much that he could say at this point. Other than: 'Know where, do we? When?'
'When—well, they're going to take a little longer than usual. They're going to try and browbeat the Karsites into adding troops, and if they can't get troops, they plan to demand money so they can hire whatever non-Guild scum they can hold together under a banner.' Talamir sounded quite certain of that information, which meant that someone had overheard something he (or she) technically shouldn't have. 'They want shock troops to take the brunt of battle, so their own can move in behind, undamaged. And they'll want a bigger base to move from than before, one that will hold all of their people and possessions in it, ready to move into Valdemar as soon as they take it.'
'But where?' he persisted. That was critical. When they knew where the Tedrels were going to come across, they could set up their own defensive lines on ground of their choosing.
