Storm Rising

Bram, who had led no few charges in his time, nodded. 'I can agree with all of that—and I believe that I can speak for all of us in agreeing with your conditions.' He looked down at his feet for a moment, then looked up again, with a peculiar expression on his face. 'You are the best leader we could hope for in this situation, Tremane. You've got civilian experience we old war dogs lack; and where you get your foresight, I'll be damned if I know. And you've got two other things that can't be calculated; you've got luck, and you've got heart. We won't be rid of a leader with that combination.'

Tremane closed his eyes for a moment. Of all the many things that had happened here, this was of a piece with the rest. Luck, was it? Well, he was not about to spit on luck and he would capitalize on every piece of luck he got, but he was not going to count on it either. Perhaps that was the essence of luck.

He opened his eyes. 'Gentlemen, thank you. Never forget that we must all work together to save our people here. Remember that our people now include these Hardornens of Shonar, although they may not yet realize that fact—and never forget that in the future to continue to preserve all our lives, we may have to look for friends in strange places.'

The General saluted slowly in answer to this, and without another word, led the delegation of former spies out and back to their posts.

After the snow cleared off, they had steady cold but sparkling and beautiful weather for two days. The weather was so cloudless that Tremane began to wonder if the Hardornen weather- wizard was losing his talent at weather prediction to the mage-storms. The old man kept insisting that there was more bad snow on the way, and a great deal of it, but where was it?

If they couldn't rely on the weather-wizard for predictions, it would make preparations a great deal more difficult.

The third day dawned just as clear and beautiful as the first two, and Tremane was just about resigned to the fact that the old man was slipping. Restlessness made him eager to stretch his legs in the afternoon, after a long day of dealing with the paperwork needed to keep up with the state of the supplies in the warehouses, and he decided to go in an unusual direction. Rather than taking his walk down, to make another informal inspection, he would go up, to the walkway at the top of his tower. The weather was good, the air still, the sun bright enough that even up there, exposed, he shouldn't get too chilled until he'd walked out his restlessness. The tower was the highest spot in all of Shonar; he should get a good view of the surrounding countryside outside the walls from there. He might even spot one of the furtively lurking monsters.

It was a long walk, but worth it; he left his escort at the foot of the last stair, for he intended to savor the rare experience of being outdoors and yet completely alone.

I have not been alone except in my own rooms since I accepted this post. I have not stood alone beneath an open sky since my last hunt on my own land.

The stairs came right up onto the roof; there was a small slant-roofed affair covering the last few of them, rather than a trapdoor one had to push open. He approved of the arrangement; if there'd been enough heavy snow, he wouldn't have been able to budge a trap door.

He opened the door at the top to emerge into brilliant sunlight that made his eyes water even as it lifted his heart. What was it about sunlight that made a man feel so much better? He was glad now that he'd ordered a general standing-down for all the men during the past two days; he'd heard they were doing absurd, lighthearted things, acting like schoolboys, making snow forts and having snow fights—creating snow sculptures. I wonder if I ought to give out prizes for the best snow sculpture? Should I order a winter festival? That wouldn't be a bad notion! It would give the men something to occupy them that had nothing to do with duty! He resolved to find out what sort of festival these people celebrated; he could make it a joint effort of garrison and town, foster some friendly competitions between the two.

Skating races, sled races—an archery contest—could we somehow adapt stickball to snow or ice?

Someone had been up here already, clearing away the snow. The brilliant sun had evaporated what had been left behind, leaving bare stone beneath his sheepskin boots. He moved forward to the edge of the parapet and looked down.

Below him were part of the manor, a few of the barracks, and beyond them, the walls. His men stood at their regulation intervals along it; not at all like statues, for he had made sure his orders included that they move about to keep themselves warm, and that each man be permitted to chat with the ones next to him provided they kept their regulation distance and didn't bunch up. Some of them were stamping their feet to warm them, others leaned on the edge of the wall, talking, and one was even making snowballs and lobbing them off into the distance, while the ones stationed at either side of him watched. They were probably wagering on how far he was throwing them. There was no sign at all from here of the night-monsters, although prints had been reported in the snow and the mages were trying to work out what kind of creature could make such prints. Tremane wished them luck; judging by the spider-creature, there was no telling what odd beasts might suffer changes into something unrecognizable.

I would rather not imagine a vole, which must eat its own weight in prey three times a day, transmuted to something the size of a cart horse.

He made a quarter-turn, and now looked out at Shonar, all of which lay beneath the level of this tower. It was not a big town by the standards of the Empire, and from here it was easy to see the signs of decline; abandoned houses where the thatch had disappeared or rotted, warehouses and workshops where walls had fallen in or been broken down. There were a lot of them; more than he had guessed, and certainly more than the Town Council would want to admit. If Ancar had not been killed, he would have driven his land into oblivion in a few more years, by taking the able-bodied and leaving behind those unable to keep towns, farms, and businesses going.