Heirs of Empire

all!) than anything they were likely to face, and if he’d been disappointed in Israel’s productivity, he’d been amazed by how quickly the Malagoran guilds had begun producing new weapons from the prototypes “the angels” had provided.

He’d been totally unprepared for the hordes of skilled artisans who’d popped up out of the ground, but he’d forgotten that Earth’s own industrial revolution had begun with waterwheels. Pardal—and especially Malagor—had developed its own version of the assembly line, despite its limitation to wind, water, or muscle power, and that required a lot of craftsmen. Most had declared for “the angels”—as much, Sean suspected, from frustration at the Church’s tech limitations as in response to any miracles “the angels” had wrought—but even with their tireless enthusiasm, there were never enough hours in the day.

Nor did the long year Pardal’s huge orbital radius produced ease things. On a planet where spring lasted for five standard months and summer for ten, the campaigning seasons of Terra’s preindustrial armies were a useless meterstick. Sean was devoutly thankful the Temple had seen fit to postpone operations for over two months while it indoctrinated its troops, but a delay which would have meant having to hold the Temple off only until the weather closed in on Terra meant nothing of the sort here. He faced an immediate, decisive campaign, and the sheer size of Pardalian armies appalled him. There were over a hundred thousand men headed up the Keldark Valley, and by tomorrow—the day after at latest—a lot of people were going to die.

Too many people, whichever side they’re on, but there’s not a damned thing I can do about that.

He clapped Tibold on the shoulder, and, despite everything, his heart rose at the older man’s confident grin as they headed for their branahlks.

* * *

Stomald rose as the Angel Harry entered the command tent to update the “situation map.” She smiled, and he knew she was chiding him for his display of respect, but he couldn’t help it. And, he reminded himself, he had finally managed to stop addressing her and the Angel Sandy as “angels,” even if he didn’t understand why they were so adamant about that. But, then, there were a lot of things he didn’t understand. He’d expected the angels to be angry when the army’s mood began to shift, yet they were actually pleased to see the troops becoming Malagoran nationalists rather than religious heretics.

He watched her work. She was a head taller than he, and even more beautiful (and younger) than he’d remembered, now that her face was alive with thought and humor, and he chided himself—again—as he thought of the body hidden by her raiment. She might not use his people with the authority which was her right, but she was an angel.

She cocked her head to check her work with her remaining eye, and he bit his lip in familiar anguish. Her other terrible wounds had healed with angelic speed, but that black eye patch twisted his heart each time he saw it. Yet despite all Cragsend had done to her, there was no hate in the Angel Harry. Stomald didn’t believe she could hate, not after the gentleness with which she always spoke to him, the man who’d almost burned her alive.

She turned from the map, and amusement deepened her smile as he blushed under her regard. But it didn’t embarrass him further. Instead, he felt himself smiling back.

“Sandy will have a fresh update in a few hours,” she said in the Holy Tongue. “We’re keeping a closer eye on them now that they’re approaching.”

“I’m no soldier—or,” he corrected himself wryly, “I was no soldier—but that seems wise to me.”

“Don’t belittle yourself. You’re fortunate to have a captain like Tibold—and Sean and Tamman, of course— but you’ve got a good eye for these things yourself.”

He bent his head, basking in her praise, but before he could say anything more Lord Sean walked in, followed by Tibold.

Lord Sean touched his breastplate in respectful salute, and the angel acknowledged it gravely, yet Stomald noted the twinkle in her eye. For just an instant, he resented it, and then shame buried his pique. She was an angel, and Lord Sean was the Angel Sandy’s chosen champion.

“Is that the latest update?” Lord Sean’s Pardalian had developed a distinct Malagoran accent in the past five days, and he smiled as the angel nodded. He moved closer to the map and leaned forward beside her to study it.

Tibold grinned at Stomald behind their backs, and the priest smiled back despite another tiny stab of envy. It was easier for Tibold, for whatever else he was, Lord Sean was a born soldier. Tibold took paternal pride in him, and Lord Sean seemed to return his regard. He certainly listened attentively to anything Tibold had to say.

Lord Sean was murmuring to the Angel Harry in that other odd-sounding language they often spoke. Stomald suspected they sometimes forgot no one else understood it (Lord Sean always fell back into Pardalian whenever he remembered others were present), and the young war captain’s ability to speak it awed the heretic priest. To be so close to the angels he spoke their own tongue almost unthinkingly must be wondrous, indeed.

Lord Sean stood back from the map at last, and his eyes were pensive. “Tibold, I think they’ll hit our forward pickets this afternoon. Do you agree?”

Tibold studied the map a moment and nodded.

“Then it’s time,” Lord Sean sighed. “I’ll speak to Tamman again, but you have a word with the under- captains. Make sure they keep their heads. We’re fighting for survival, not honor, and we don’t want any wasted lives.”

“I will, Lord Sean,” Tibold promised, obviously pleased by the Captain-General’s concern for his men, and Lord Sean turned to Stomald.

“I expect to hold them, Father, but are we ready if we can’t?”

“We are, Lord Sean. I’ve sent the last of the women back to safety, and the nioharqs will be in the traces by dawn, ready to advance or retreat.”

Lord Sean nodded in satisfaction, then nodded again as the Angel Harry murmured something too soft for any other ears to hear.

“Father, Captain Tibold and I will be unable to release the troops for services this evening with the enemy so near at hand, but if you’d care to send the chaplains forward—?”

“Thank you,” Stomald said. Lord Sean was always careful about such things, yet the priest wondered why neither he nor Lord Tamman nor even the angels attended the services. Of course, such as they had their own links to God, but it was almost as if they stood aside intentionally.

“In that case, I think I’ll go find lunch. Will you join me?”

Stomald nodded, and noted the amusement in the Angel Harry’s eye. She smiled on the captain, and a surprising thought flickered in Stomald’s mind. Lord Sean was as homely as the Angel Harry was beautiful, and the angel, for all her height, seemed tiny beside him, yet there was something…

It was the eyes, he thought. Why had he never noticed before? Lord Sean’s strange, black eyes, darker than night, were exactly the same shade. And the hair, so black it was almost blue. That, too, was the same. Why, aside from Lord Sean’s homeliness, they might have been brother and sister!

Like everyone else, Stomald knew Lord Sean and Lord Tamman were more than human—one had only to watch their blinding reflexes or see them occasionally forget to hide their incredible strength to know that—but it hadn’t occurred to him they might share the angels’ blood!

The thought was somehow chilling. Lord Sean and Lord Tamman were mortal. They both insisted on that, and Stomald believed them, and that meant they couldn’t be related to angels. Besides, Holy Writ said all angels were female, and how could mortal blood mingle with divine? And yet … what if—?

He thrust the idea aside. It was disrespectful at best, and, a hidden part of him knew guiltily, it sprang from an unforgivable yearning that would have appalled him had he faced it squarely.

* * *

Tamman leaned against the thyru tree, watching the road to the east, then glanced back up at the man perched in the branches with his mirror. Pardalian armies had surprisingly sophisticated signal systems, but both