Storm Rising

of course, you used it. But if you had a weapon and you had no idea what it was going to do—well, there was no sane reason to use it, not when it could harm you as badly as it harmed your enemies.

Now his head hurt, and he rubbed his temples with the heels of his hands. He hadn't liked sending that assassin in to destroy the alliance Valdemar was making. Something had told him at the time that he might be making a mistake, but he had persisted in order to make the mage- storms stop.

But they didn't stop, did they? In fact, they got worse.

Could he have made a major error in judgment? Granted, the alliance hadn't been disrupted, but at least one of the more important mages had been eliminated. Since the storms hadn't started until after that Karsite priest had arrived in Valdemar, it made sense that he was one of the prime forces behind the mage-storms, if they were indeed originating from Valdemar. With him gone, they should have stopped.

What if Valdemar was not perpetrator, but fellow victim?

His head hurt worse than before. If he'd had better spies—but he didn't. He'd done his best to break up the alliance with Karse, and it hadn't happened. He'd tried to scatter them, leaving them as disorganized as a covey of quail scattered by a beater. But they weren't disorganized, and his assassin hadn't even made an appreciable difference in their level of efficiency. Furthermore, and this was the important point, the mage-storms continued, increasing in frequency and in power.

So what if I was wrong?

He brooded on that for a while, feeling sicker and sicker the longer he thought about it. If that was the case, he had ordered the assassinations of people who could have been his allies against the storms.

Nothing like burning your bridges before you reached them.

I haven't heard from the assassin, and that fool of an artist would contact me if he thought he was in the tiniest danger. He shifted his position in the chair as his back began to ache and his legs to twitch restlessly. The fool must have gotten caught, though I can't imagine how. He's probably dead by now. Even the Valdemarans wouldn't keep an assassin alive. They're probably working out ways to pickle his head and send it to High Priest Solaris in Karse.

In fact, given the evidence from Valdemar, the assassin must have been caught before he did any damage. Only that would account for the seamless way in which Selenay and her allies were presenting themselves.

He botched the assassination, then he botched his attempt to escape. That's what I get for relying on operatives someone else puts in place.

He shook his head and checked in a desk drawer for a headache remedy. Like the Hardornens, he had other things to worry about besides far-off Valdemar. At the moment, there was nothing they could or could not do to him or the Imperial forces. And there was nothing he could do to or about them.

It was far more important to deal with the immediate survival of his own troops.

I must have those plans for winter quarters. Should I step up the patrols? What are we going to do about food supplies if the plan can't be carried out?

Could he get his men to help the locals make a really efficient harvest? There was always grain left in the fields, but if he sent his men out to glean behind the harvesters, there would be that much more—

It might not seem like much, but experience had taught him that many small gains often added up to a large total. If he could just find enough of those little gains, he might have enough to ensure his victory against his real enemy.

Not Valdemar, but the mage-storms, and what the storms gave birth to. Concentrate on one enemy at a time. I can't afford to divide my attention or my resources...

Frantic pounding at his bedroom door woke him. He had taken to leaving a single lamp burning, not because the darkness disturbed him, but because he might be awakened at any hour. He raised himself up on one elbow, instantly alert. 'Enter!' he called imperiously. Keitel, Sejanes' apprentice, burst in the moment he spoke the word. Behind him trailed his aides with more lamps and his clothing. Only one thing could have brought Keitel and the aides here at this hour, in such a state of excitement.

'The Portal?' he asked, reaching for his trews and pulling them on.

'It's up, Commander,' the skinny youngster blurted, every hair on his head standing up in a different direction. 'Sejanes sent for the men—he said to tell you the Portal's unstable, he doesn't know how long he can hold it open, but that you'll have the time for what we need most.'

'Get back to him, then; he'll need everyone to keep it open, including you.' Excitement chased the last sleep- fog from his mind. The youngster nodded, hesitated for a moment, then fled the room. Tremane pulled on the rest