began.
“No, you silly Ethsharite, that’s not what I mean.” She had glowered at him.
“What do you mean, then?” he asked, puzzled.
“I mean,” she said, “that for the last century or two it’s been traditional for a victorious army to execute the enemy’s warlord, as a symbolic gesture. You can’t go around killing off kings; it sets a bad precedent. And you don’t want to slaughter anyone useful, not even peasants. But a defeated warlord isn’t any good to anybody and he might go around plotting revenge, so he gets beheaded. Or hanged. Or burned at the stake. Or something.” She hiccupped. “Your great-great-grandfather, the Sixth Warlord, got drawn and quartered, back in 5150.”
Sterren, who up to that point had been more or less sober, had proceeded to finish the bottle and a second one as well.
He had no desire to die, but he was beginning to run out of alternatives. He still saw no way to escape from Semma; his door was always guarded, as was the castle gate, and any time he set foot outside at least one soldier accompanied him. He had not tried ordering his escort away; it seemed pointless.
Even if he did lose an escort and make a dash for it, he would probably be caught and brought back long before he could reach Akalla of the Diamond and get out to sea, and that was assuming he could find Akalla despite the lack of roads, maps, guides, and landmarks.
Chances of escaping back to Ethshar looked slim, and a failed escape attempt would mean execution for treason. That made it too dangerous to risk.
If he stayed, however, he would wind up leading his pitiful army into battle and inevitably being defeated. If he survived the battle, which was certain to be a rout and probably a bloodbath, he would still be executed by the victors.
He could not imagine any strategem whereby he could win, with his ninety-six men against more than four hundred. A purely defensive war would take longer, perhaps, the castle could probably hold off the invaders for a month or two, at least, but a long siege would not put the enemy in a very favorable frame of mind, and Semma had no friends who might come to lift a siege, nor much hope of outlasting the foe.
Sterren wished he had some way of coaxing his native Ethshar into aiding Semma; Azrad’s ten thousand guardsmen would make short work of these silly little armies that the Small Kingdoms fielded.
When Azrad VII had come to power a little over a year before, however, he had inherited from his father, Azrad VI, a long-standing policy handed down in unbroken line from Azrad I against interfering in the internal squabbling of the Small Kingdoms. On the rare occasions when an army from Lamum or Perga or some other little principality had strayed across the border into the Hegemony, it had been quickly obliterated; but Ethsharitic troops were never, ever, sent into the Small Kingdoms themselves.
Sterren leaned against the whitewashed stone wall of the barracks and told himself that he needed a miracle.
Well, he replied silently, every Ethsharite knows that miracles are available, if one can pay for them.
Miracles were available in Ethshar, though, in the Wizards’ Quarter; not in Semma.
The only magician of any sort that the royal family put any trust in was Agor, the castle’s resident theurgist. Other than a glimpse or two of that rather confused and confusing fellow, Sterren had not as yet encountered a single magician worthy of the name during his stay in the Small Kingdoms.
He hadn’t been able to do much looking, of course; his duties, and his desperate attempts to train his “army” into something useful, had not left him the free time to go wandering about investigating village herbalists and the like.
It was always possible that some eccentric hermit was lurking in a hut somewhere out there, a hermit with sufficient magic to defeat both of the would-be invaders, but how could Sterren locate him, if he existed?
Well, how had the Semmans located him, when they needed a warlord?
They had asked Agor, of course.
And Agor might actually be quite a good theurgist, for all Sterren knew. He might be all the miracle- worker Sterren needed.
Sterren glanced again at the dice-players, at the unmade bunks, at swords lying about unsheathed and dropped carelessly anywhere convenient, and decided that it was time he spoke with Agor. He had tried acting like the warlord he was supposed to be and had gotten nowhere; now, thinking like the Ethsharite he had always been, it was time to call on a magician. When all else fails, hire a magician, that was sound Ethsharitic thinking!
He turned and marched out the door of the barracks.
He knew exactly where he was going, for once. Princess Lura had pointed out the theurgist’s door to him a few days earlier. Agor made his home in a small room in one of the smaller towers, far above the barracks, but a level below Sterren’s own more luxurious quarters.
Sterren stood in the corridor for a minute or two, gathering his courage, before he knocked.
“Come in,” someone called from within.
He lifted the latch and stepped in.
Agor’s chamber was hung with white draperies on every side, covering all four walls. Two narrow windows were left bare, and provided the room’s only light, but given all that white and the sunny weather outside, that was plenty. The chamber smelled of something cloyingly sweet, incense, perhaps? Sterren was unsure.
A few trunks, painted white and trimmed with silver, stood against the various walls. A plump feather bed, also white, occupied one corner.
In the center of the room, seated on a grayish sheep-skin that had probably been white once, was Agor himself, a rather scrawny fellow of thirty or so, with a pale, narrow face and a worried expression.
He wore white, of course, white tunic worked with gold, and off-white breeches. His feet were bare. A scroll was unrolled on the floor in front of him.
“Yes?” he asked, looking at Sterren in puzzlement.
“I’m Sterren, Ninth Warlord,” Sterren said. “You’re Agor, the theurgist?”
“Oh, yes, of course, my lord. Yes, I’m Agor. Do come in!” He gestured welcomingly.
There were no chairs of any description, so Sterren rather hesitantly seated himself on the stone floor, facing the theurgist.
“So you’re Sterren,” Agor said. “I’m glad to meet you. I take a special interest in you, you know; I was the one who found you.” He smiled uncertainly. “I know,” said Sterren, while inwardly wondering just what sort of special interest the other was referring to. After all, in the dozen days since his arrival in the castle, Agor had not bothered to say as much as a single word to him and had apparently not even bothered to get a look at him, since he had not immediately recognized him.
He knew he should say more, but found himself unsure how to begin. He knew he wanted a miracle that would keep him from getting killed as a result of the coming war, but he did not know how to ask for it.
He didn’t really know just what sort of a miracle he wanted. He did not really want anyone to get hurt or killed.
He was still thinking about this when, after a slightly longer-than-comfortable silence, Agor asked nervously, “What can I do for you, my lord?”
Sterren resolved to simply present the situation to Agor and then see where the discussion went. Perhaps a way out of his quandary would appear.
“Well, first, you can promise me that anything I tell you won’t be repeated outside this room,” he replied.
“If you wish it so, my lord.”
“I do. Ah... tell me, have you taken any interest in Semma’s military situation?”
“No,” the theurgist immediately answered, “would you like me to?”
This response caught Sterren off guard, and his tongue stumbled over his answer.
“I... that... I mean, that’s not...” He paused, caught his breath, and tried again.
“What I meant was, are you aware that Semma is in very serious danger?”
“No,” Agor replied calmly. “Is it?”
“Yes!” Sterren collected his wits and continued. “This is what I don’t want you telling anyone. A war with both Ksinallion and Ophkar is coming, and soon. I expect both of them to attack as soon as the mud dries in the spring. And we don’t have a chance of defeating them; we’re outnumbered four to one, and our army is in terrible shape, and I’m the warlord, but I have no idea at all how to run a war, or even how to get these damn soldiers to
