Exile's Honor

'Not yet,' Talamir admitted. 'Other than that we don't think it'll be Holderkin lands. The last taste of them that the Tedrels got didn't seem to agree with them.'

Alberich's lip curled a little. He didn't much care for the Holderkin, but they had surely proved to be too tough for the Tedrels to digest. And it wasn't that they'd actually formed any kind of a defensive army either. By law and custom, they kept enough food in storage at each of their Holdings to keep everyone minimally fed for two years— and in that way, no single bad year could bring them to their knees. So when the Tedrels descended last summer, instead of fighting them, the Holderkin had locked every man, woman, child, and beast into their fortresslike compounds and sat the Tedrels out. After looting what little hadn't been locked up, and burning the crops, there wasn't much the mercenaries could do, except circle the walls, trying to get in. That wasn't a very successful strategy, and they wound up getting shot full of arrows for their pains any time they got within range. The places were too small to justify the amount of effort it would have taken to breach those walls, and there was no real loot of any kind if you did. The Tedrel recruits being what they were, they fought for the loot as well as the promise of a land of their own. Yet you couldn't leave the hundreds of Holds intact if you intended to occupy the land; that wasn't merely asking for trouble, it was inviting trouble in and offering it a cup of tea, so to speak. So last season when the Tedrels had tried to take Holderkin territory, the season had been singularly profitless and unsatisfying for them. Perhaps that had added to the impetus that impelled them to put in their final push now. They could not afford two lootless seasons in a row; too many of their recruits were not fighting for a new homeland, and would break ranks and desert if they saw no profit coming for a second year. You couldn't even tempt them with the Holderkin women; if the walls were breached, as had happened in one or two instances, the ones that didn't kill themselves were slain by their menfolk.

Given that the Holderkin would only follow precisely the same strategy a second time, it was vanishingly unlikely that the Tedrels would attempt the conquest of the entire country of Valdemar from there. It was far more likely that their plan was to conquer all of Valdemar and then cut off the Holderkin, dealing with them one Holding at a time at their leisure.

'I haven't much else to tell you,' Talamir admitted. 'Only that they've fallen for our ruse, that they believe we have been beaten down and depleted, and that they are gathering every resource they can for that final campaign.'

'ForeSeers?' Alberich asked. He hoped the ForeSeers were getting something, although his own rogue and unpredictable Gift hadn't even warned him of this news.

Then again—hadn't it? How much of the dread he'd felt these past several moons had been due to his Gift? It didn't always give him visions; sometimes it only gave him warnings.

'The ForeSeers just confirm that the agents are right. But since the decision was evidently made in their council a few days ago, and only just announced to the general troops, I expect that will change.' Talamir sounded confident, and he had every right to be.

Mutable and unknowable Future....

Well, perhaps. What the Writ had to say on that subject was a matter of philosophy rather than reality—meant more to keep people from closing themselves off to all of the possibilities that free will gave them. And this was particularly true when Karsite Writ met Valdemaran reality, and the Gift of Foresight—which, often as not, showed many futures, not just one.

And if Vkandis really abhorred the knowledge of the future, would he have given me that particular Gift? For Alberich, like the Heralds, had used it to change the future he saw for a better one....

He began making calculations in his mind, trying to reckon how long it would take the Tedrels to coax or coerce the Sunpriests into adding Karsite troops to their numbers—or, more likely, come up with more gold and silver—how long it would take to get all the supplies together for such a campaign—establish a base four times larger than any they'd had before—

Then he realized that there were better heads than his who were already working on that very problem, and that their agents-in-place would be able to give Valdemar infinitely better information about what was actually happening than he could with what was only speculation. But there was one thing he could and would do.

'Two targets, and two only, they will have, should the King and Heir the field take,' he told Talamir and Dethor. 'Sendar to slay, and Selenay to take or slay. Take Selenay, they would prefer, and sword-wed to—whatever leader survives. It is the land they want. Behead the leadership, they must, to take the land. Better still, to behead the leadership, and make all right by wedding the Heir. Live with their neighbors, they must—' Now he could deliver his warning, the warning that Geri had delivered to him.

Dethor made a sound like a groan, and Talamir nodded. 'Just what I thought, and I told Sendar as much,' the King's Own replied bitterly. 'But trying to keep either of them out of the fight at this point is impossible. Stopping the Tedrels now is going to take everything we have, and Sendar believes that if he and Selenay stay safe in Haven, we will lose the fight before it even begins. If they take the field, there isn't a man or a woman who won't fight better for their presence. And much as I hate to say this, I have to concur.'

With a sense of sick agreement, Alberich nodded. The warning had been delivered and heeded, but it clearly would make no difference to the King and Heir. So—

The warning was given to me. Therefore, it is I who must act on it.

'Then this, I can do,' Alberich said firmly. 'Heralds there will be, and Guards, to shield them in a battle guard. So, to me, bring them for training. To make the shield-wall for a King, a special skill is, and each man, his place must know, and know that the right- and left-hand comrade will firmly stand.'