Brother Candle kept up a conversation with the Duke, as though Tormond understood and was in charge. Tormond had been positioned in such wise that he could be seen by nearby defenders, all of whom conspired in the pretense.
In fact, there was no real command, insofar as Brother Candle could see. People just did what they thought needed doing, feeling around for what they could do best.
Soames Richeut went away for an hour, then returned to berate Kedle again. He was not kind. Nor were Kedle’s friends kind to him.
The Perfect lost patience with the bad husband. He went to admonish the man. Kedle’s crew shifted a hoarding so she could loose another deadly shaft.
Someone outside awaited that opportunity.
Richeut stepped in front of Kedle’s ballista to block her aim. The Arnhander bolt hit him in the right temple and passed on through his head. The marksman shouted, “Thirteen!” in an accent from the Pail.
In the calmest murder Brother Candle ever witnessed Kedle Richeut avenged her husband before his body stopped twitching. Almost before the celebrant outside finished congratulating himself.
A slowly building tumult developed amongst the Arnhanders. When Brother Candle dared look he saw gaudy King Regard being held erect by his heralds. Kedle’s shaft had transfixed him. He was alive but that would not last. The gut wound would kill him slowly. Only the absolute best sorcerer’s care would help now, unlikely in an army ruled by the Society.
Kedle did not wait on peritonitis. She sent a second shaft. It passed through Regard’s equerry, Thierry, then the King, then lodged in the haunch of the King’s confessor, Simon du Montrier.
Brother Candle started, turned, found that Tormond had been led up to see the enemy. Tormond gurgled something the Perfect thought sounded like, “There’ll be no getting over that.”
Brother Candle mused, “This is history. This is a tipping point. Three kings in one week. Possibly the three most important in the western world. Everything is going to change.”
The future could be bleak indeed. The successes of the Calziran Crusade, the Artecipean campaign, and the triumph at Los Naves de los Fantas might all have been rendered naught these past several days.
Only the Perfect thought that way. There was dancing and singing on the wall and a shower of abuse on the enemy. There would be city-wide drunken celebrations later, after the militia finally fought. And succeeded to the point where only the fastest scuttlers among the Arnhanders and Society scum managed to escape.
The Khaurenesaine had been saved, at incredible cost. But the storm still loomed over the rest of the Connec.
31. Lucidia: End Around
Per instructions from Shamramdi Nassim Alizarin shut down traffic past Tel Moussa. He drove his soldiers to exhaustion harassing the Unbeliever. The enemy, he was sure, would realize that something was up. Lone travelers could not all be intercepted. Those who did get through would carry rumors. Throughout the Crusader states the Arnhanders would gird themselves for the worst, though even Indala’s captains remained ignorant of what their ruler planned.
Indala’s grandnephew participated in every action. He distinguished himself each time. He worked harder than the Mountain himself till a courier arrived with a summons from Indala. The boy left immediately, accompanied by a few warriors his own age.
The Mountain stood in a high parapet. He watched till the only trace of Azim was a distant hint of dust. He had become emotionally invested. Azim was everything he could have hoped Hagid would become.
Someone said, “And a new age is about to dawn.”
Nassim came back to his everyday world. He shared the parapet with Bone and old Az, the core of Tel Moussa’s renegade Sha-lug.
Azer er-Selim had spoken. Nassim responded, “Meaning what?”
“Look out there. Farther than you were. Do you see a fuzziness that makes the horizon indistinct?”
Nassim looked but did not see. “Must be your bad eyes. I see what I always see out there. Don’t play games, Master of Ghosts.”
Bone remarked, “He can’t help it, General. When they teach these camel-fuckers their trade they whip them if they say anything in plain language. The point is to keep it murky so later nobody can claim they got it wrong.”
Nassim eyed Bone for several seconds. Bone seldom had much to say. This was a week’s worth of chatter in one lump.
Er-Selim was surprised, too. And irked. He said, “All right, but only so it’s all done before the old-timer embraces the Angel of Death. Our employer, never trusting us completely, has been hiding the fact that he’s going to invade al-Minphet.”
“What?”
“Indala has spent a year pretending he’s getting ready to charge into the Holy Lands. He’s convinced everyone. We’ve been key in convincing both sides.”
“But you know something different?”
“Yes. Because I took advantage of our visit to Shamramdi. I poked my nose in. I listened. I exercised my reason.” Old Az paused briefly, then added, “It’s obvious if you watch Indala’s family and trusted companions. And you ignore the chattering fools of al-Fartebi’s court.”
The Mountain said, “Dispense with self-congratulation. Tell me.”
“I did. Indala means to invade Dreanger, capture al-Qarn, and unify the two kaifates.”
Nassim let that simmer, then observed, “That poses a moral dilemma, doesn’t it?”
“Only if you insist. Though being in revolt against Gordimer the Lion isn’t the same as joining in a foreign enterprise meant to put an end to Gordimer and al-Minphet. The moral quandary is what Indala has spared us by keeping us ignorant.”
“We’ll suffer for this.”
“Whether Indala succeeds or fails the Sha-lug will blame us.”
“Should we send warning while we still have friends there?”
“Could we manage? Unnoticed? Won’t Indala know who to blame if he finds the Lion prepared?”
“He can lay that blame no matter what we do.”
“We do make convenient scapegoats.”
Nassim mused, “The Lion may have gone rotten, and the Rascal even worse, but they aren’t the Sha-lug, nor even Dreanger. There were Dreangeran agents in Shamramdi. Nothing this big is ever completely secret. Rumors have been reported back to al-Qarn. They’ll be given credence because geography compels Indala to approach from the north.”
“The prophecy. Certain to excite the Lion.”
Nassin reflected, then said, “It will be interesting if this is the prophecy fulfilled.” Then, “We’ll just do our job. Nothing more. Nothing less. That was our commitment.”
Nassim wondered if Indala meant to use him as a puppet Marshal. He said, “We’d best see to our defenses. If I were a Crusader prince I’d charge Shamramdi if Indala and Gordimer were locking horns behind me.”
Bone seemed to be somewhere else. Not unusual with him. But now he asked, “Do we have any idea what’s become of the Rascal?”
That sorcerer, only briefly rehabilitated, had had another falling-out with Gordimer, religious rather than based on bad behavior. The Lion did not mind er-Rashal being a murderous villain so long as he remained a devout Praman murderous villain. But he crossed a line when he kept trying to resurrect ancient devils.
It had taken the Marshal an age to understand that his henchman had no more love or respect for him than he had had for the apprentice Sha-lug Hagid, whom he had ordered murdered for a reason that, even today, only he understood.
Gordimer had not gotten the message meant to be conveyed by the presentation of the head of Rudenes Schneidel. He had been blinded by er-Rashal’s immense and ferocious utility. But he came to the truth eventually.
