more of an issue, actually, but we’re late enough into the summer that we can graze the horses for at least some of what we’re going to need.”
“As to that,” Bahzell rumbled with the sort of wry resignation, “it’s in my mind as how feeding all our people’s likely the least of our worries.”
“Oh?” Arsham cocked his ears at him.
Theoretically, the Bloody Sword prince had come down by barge solely to attend this conference. He was supposed to be returning to Hurgrum the next day, although Bahzell entertained a few doubts about just how rigorously Arsham intended to hew to his official schedule. The same thing was true of another prince the Horse Stealer could think of, for that matter.
“Is that simply a prediction based on experience, or do you have a specific reason for thinking that?” Arsham continued. “The sort of specific reason that, oh, a champion of Tomanak might have, for instance?”
“I’ll not be saying as how it’s anywhere near to ‘specific’ as I might be wishing,” Bahzell replied. “Mind, we’ve every one of us more experience than we’d like as to how what can go wrong does, yet it’s something nasty Walsharno and I have been smelling this last two weeks.”
“And me,” Vaijon put in grimly. Bahzell cocked an ear at him, and the younger man shrugged. “It’s stronger down here on the Ghoul Moor, Bahzell, but I’ve been feeling it all the way from Hurgrum. I don’t know what it is, but I do know we’re not going to like it very much when we meet it.”
“And this is supposed to be a surprise?” Trianal asked, looking back and forth between the two champions with a raised eyebrow. In that moment, despite the difference in their coloration and ages, he looked very like his uncle, Bahzell thought.
“I’m sure there have been other summers as rainy as this one,” Trianal continued dryly. “The only problem is that no one I’ve been able to ask about it can remember when those other summers might have been. That includes your father and anyone else in Hurgrum, Bahzell, so some of those memories go back the better part of two centuries.” He snorted. “Anyone-or anything-who can arrange to dump this much rain on our heads is pretty likely to come under the heading of ‘something nasty,’ don’t you think?”
“Aye, you’ve a point there,” Bahzell acknowledged.
“What worries me more,” Yurgazh said frankly, “is why somebody or something that can actually control the weather has waited this long to do anything except rain on us.” The Bloody Sword general shook his head, ears half flattened. “I guess it’s possible rain is all it can produce, but I’m not very inclined to base our planning on that. And if it can do more than rain, why wait until we’ve reinforced before it starts doing it? Why not take us earlier, when we had less than a third this much strength?”
“I’d like to think it was because the presence of two champions of Tomanak gave it pause,” Vaijon said frankly, grinning tightly at Bahzell. “And I don’t know what whoever or whatever it is might be capable of, Yurgazh, but I take your point. You’re wondering if it’s just been waiting until we offered it a bigger, juicier mouthful, aren’t you?”
“Aye,” Yurgazh said, and shrugged. “Mind you, I know it sounds a bit foolish, given that we’re talking about ghouls, but this entire campaign’s been…wrong for an expedition against ghouls.” His expression was grim. “I’m no champion, and the gods know I’m no wizard, but I’ve got a hradani’s nose, and it smells the stink of wizardry.”
Eyes met around the table. All of them-including Trianal, now-knew what dark wizardry had done to the hradani in Kontovar during the Fall. Knew how the Council of Carnadosa had enslaved every hradani who fell into its grasp. Knew how the Carnadosans had driven them against the forces of the Empire of Ottovar, using them as unwilling, ravening sword fodder to overwhelm the last defenders of the White Council…and leaving them with the curse of the Rage.
“I’m thinking you’ve the right of that, Yurgazh,” Bahzell said after a moment. “But wizardry’s not the only stink my nose is after smelling. There’s more-and worse, I’m thinking-behind that stink.”
“Wonderful!” Trianal shook his head. “I don’t suppose you’ve managed to get hold of Wencit to ask him about it, have you?”
“Now that I haven’t,” Bahzell replied. “Mind, he’s not in easy fellow for a letter to be catching up with. And he’s a way of coming and going as suits himself best, but I’ll not deny it’s easier I’d be in my own mind if he and those eyes of his were to be walking in that door”-he twitched his head in the direction of the blockhouse’s door-“this very moment.”
“Not even Wencit of Rum can be everywhere,” Vaijon pointed out. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t be just as happy to see him as you are, Bahzell, but he’s usually got enough on his plate to keep at least a dozen white wizards busy, and there’s only one of him. Besides, unless I’m mistaken, you and Walsharno and I are the champions around here, aren’t we?”
“That we are.” Bahzell nodded with a slow smile. “And while I’d not want any of our lads to be getting their heads swelled, it’s not so very bad a little army we have here. Betwixt Trianal’s cavalry, Yurgazh’s infantry, and the Order, I’m thinking whatever might be minded to make us that ‘juicier mouthful’ of yours is like to find itself just a bit of a bellyache before all’s said and done.”
“Good,” Trianal said and looked at Yurgazh and Prince Arsham. “I’d like to give my lot a day or two to rest the horses before we move out. The day after tomorrow, you think?”
“Yes,” Yurgazh said without even glancing at Arsham, and the Navahkan prince smiled slightly. His general had been hinting-loudly-that a prince with no heir of his own body had no business wandering about the Ghoul Moor, especially under circumstances like this. He had a point, too, and Arsham knew it. Nor was the prince in question about to overrule his own hand-picked general’s orders or dispositions. In fact, he fully intended to climb into a barge headed back up the Hangnysti sometime soon. Like within the next two or three days.
Probably.
“Tell me, Sir Trianal,” he asked, his smile growing broader as he looked across the table at the young Sothoii, “just how exactly did Prince Yurokhas happen to accompany you all the way from Hurgrum? I thought you’d managed to convince him to go home.”
“I thought Prince Bahnak had managed to convince him,” Trianal said rather sourly. “Tomanak knows the King’s going to be just a bit upset if his brother manages to get himself killed in what’s essentially a freelance operation against ghouls.” He shook his head. “I don’t know that King Markhos actually ordered him to join the rest of the Chergor hunting party, but I’m pretty sure it was a most emphatic suggestion. Of course,” his expression turned even more sour, “you can see how well that seems to have worked, Your Highness.”
“And an odd thing it is that you’re here to be seeing it,” Bahzell remarked, gazing at Arsham, “as it’s in my mind as how my Da most likely said something along those selfsame lines to another prince I might be mentioning.”
“I don’t have the least idea what you’re talking about, Prince Bahzell.”
Arsham didn’t waste any particular effort trying to convince his audience he wasn’t lying, but he did do it with a certain flair, Bahzell conceded. The Horse Stealer opened his mouth, but Arsham held up his right hand and shook his head.
“I promise I’ll go home the instant you manage to convince Yurokhas to do the same thing.” His eyes glinted with challenge, and Bahzell felt his own lips twitch on the edge of an unwilling smile. Then Arsham’s expression turned more sober. “I know you and Yurgazh are both right, Bahzell. The last thing any of us need is for me to get myself killed doing something even hradani would consider stupid. Well, I don’t intend to do anything of the sort, but I do want to see what it is we’re up against with my own eyes. It’s not that I don’t have complete faith in Yurgazh,” he rested his left hand lightly on his general’s shoulder, “and I don’t have any intention of trying to interfere in his management of the army or of any battles. But I think you and he and Vaijon are right that something a damn sight worse than ghouls is roaming around down here, and there’s no way of knowing it will stay here. If it moves north, up the river, to hit the Confederation, I want the best idea I can get of what it really is.”
“I might be pointing out that before ever it’s able to move north, up the river, it’s the lot of us here to deal with, first,” Bahzell said mildly. “And if it happened as how I was so underhanded as to be using logic, I might be pointing out that if it should happen it can deal with us first, then it might just be any ideas you might have wouldn’t be doing so very much good-seeing as how you’d most likely be dead and all, I mean.”
“Then it’s probably just as well a champion of Tomanak wouldn’t stoop to such low tactics,” Arsham replied, and Bahzell shook his head.
He’d always rather liked Arsham, even when he’d been a political hostage in Navahk, although he’d never really gotten to know him before Churnazh’s defeat. And he’d understood why Arsham had to have mixed feelings,
