'I repeat we are not here to conquer Kharadrea, Colonel. We are here to put its Queen on her throne. And if you believe the Sardeans are afraid of us I fear you are sadly misled.'
'Why have they not committed their armies then, Lord Azaar?' asked Colonel Xeno, the commander of the Seventh.
'Possibly because they have not been asked to, by the Pretender,' said Azaar. A round of groans told Rik how unlikely everyone present thought that to be. Only Asea did not join the general murmuring. Her attention seemed entirely focused on Lord Azaar.
'Perhaps because they wish his position to become precarious,' she said. 'They want him to know exactly how beholden he is to them. They want it to be obvious that he has no chance to defeat Queen Kathea on his own.'
That silenced the diners. 'And perhaps because they want us to be fully committed before they intervene,' added Azaar. 'Then they can sweep in as saviours of Kharadrea from the oppressive Talorean invader, and they can catch all our armies of the east in the field at once.'
Azaar's bright malicious gaze turned to Rik. 'What do you think, young man?' he asked.
Rik felt all eyes drawn to him. He was uncomfortable being the centre of attention but he considered the question for a moment. 'There is another possibility.'
Someone laughed. Rik kept his face composed. He knew that whatever he said someone among the Terrarchs would mock him for it.
'Go on,' said Azaar. If he was offended by the fact that a young half-breed was suggesting he might have missed something, he gave no sign of it.
'The Sardeans may be divided among themselves over what to do. There are always at least two factions at any court. There will be those who oppose this war.'
Colonel Xeno laughed. 'The Sardeans are the most war-like people on Gaeia.'
'They have kept the Peace of Oslande for over a century,' said Asea. 'We are the ones who have broken it.'
'In order to see justice is done and Sardean ambition is contained,' said the Colonel. His lips quirked. He knew exactly how cynical what he was saying sounded, but he was a Terrarch.
'Our young friend is right,' said Azaar. 'There will be those in Sardea who oppose conflict. War is always risky no matter how powerful your army or how just your cause.”
'You think it unlikely then that the Sardeans will intervene.'
'I think they are watching us now, gauging our strength and our resolve, measuring themselves against us. I believe they will let us stretch our line of supply as far as they calculate we will go, and then next year they will intervene with all their strength. And let us not delude ourselves, my lords and ladies and youthful friends, their strength is very great indeed. I think this will be the last of our easy victories.'
'You consider this campaign to have been easy, General?' asked the Colonel.
'You fought in the last great war between Talorea and the Dark Empire, Colonel. What do you think?'
'I think you are right, General.' After that the conversation became subdued and the taste of victory did not seem quite so sweet.
After the dinner Rik escorted Lady Asea back to her pavilion. She considered it best to keep up the fiction that they were lovers now that it was established in the minds of the army. Rik agreed with her there. It was better than having people know the grim truth about his heritage and the way Asea had chosen to exploit it.
Once they were inside her tent, she spoke a word and the glowglobe sitting in its tripod sprang to life. She spoke another word and wards sprang into place around them, dulling the sounds from outside, making the noises seem as if they came from a very long way off. She slumped down in a folding chair, looking suddenly very weary.
'Are you all right?' he asked.
'I am just tired.'
'It's been a long day,' he said.
'I thought my time had come when we faced that dragon earlier.' Rik looked at her in surprise. It was the first time he had ever heard her admit something like that. “I owe you my life. I will not forget that.”
'We are still here,' he said.
'Only just,' she replied.
'You do not sound very triumphant.'
'Let idiots like Elakar make speeches about victory. I know, you know and Azaar knows that the real war has only just begun.'
'You think the Dark Empire will intervene soon.'
'We both know that it has intervened already. You fought with the Nerghul in Morven. You saw what their agent Zarahel got up to in the mountains. I just wonder what their next surprise will be. I fear it will not be long till we find out.'
Rik was forced to agree. She smiled brightly. “Now, let us continue your education in the principles of sorcery.”
“No rest for the wicked,” said Rik.
“No rest indeed.”
Chapter Four
Rik looked out the window as the coach approached Parliament Square. Its wheels clattered jarringly on the cobblestones. Above Karim, Asea’s deadly South-born body-guard, rode beside the driver, his bow in his hand even here. A month after its fall Halim was still dangerous enough to require that. Some of the crowd filling the square looked well-off but there were plenty of starving people who knew their situation was only going to get worse as winter approached. Their pinched faces and patched clothes contrasted with the graceful lines of the beautiful old buildings. Halim was an enormous city, constructed on a monumental scale. It had been built to be the new capital of the Terrarch Empire only a few years before that Empire had torn itself apart. Now it had a curiously sick and sinister look, like an age-ravaged beauty dressed in the gown bought in a more prosperous year.
The coach swept them into the square. On its western side, the Temple's great dragonspire rose towards the sun. To the north lay the vast colonnaded frontage of the parliament building. To the east was the Royal Palace. It was a fairly traditional arrangement found in all the old cities of the Terrarchs. All of the buildings were gigantic, and had a curiously decayed look. Their upkeep was patchy at best but they had been built to intimidate, and they performed that function still. The sheer size of them spoke of the permanence and power of Terrarch rule. Humans had never built anything so big or so beautiful. For all their size they had a loveliness of line that moved the heart. In niches in the walls, enormous statues of Terrarch saints and dragon-riders and heroes gazed down upon the living, dwarfing them, reminding them of who ruled this world, and why.
Beside Rik, Asea sat garbed in formal courtly attire. Her hair was piled high revealing her pointed ears. Subtle makeup accentuated her large eyes, high cheekbones and broad-lips. The price of the jewelled Elder Signs around her throat could have fed the whole crowded square for a week. Rik studied them with the interest of a former professional thief. In his earlier life he would never have believed it possible he could be sitting so close to a queen's ransom and yet have no designs to steal it. How things change, he thought.
'Nervous?' Asea asked. She sounded like a bright young woman going to her first ball, not the two thousand year old near-immortal she in fact was. Her constant shifts of mood and image were hard for him to grasp. He had expected a formidable being set in her ways, not this mercurial personality. He suspected that if you dug deep enough you would find that truesteel core, but she was adept at hiding it. He supposed she had enough time to practise that.
'No,' he lied. He had been less nervous on nights when he had risked his life on a big theft or before a battle. Today, he was going to be ritually presented to Princess Kathea, now formally in residence in her Palace and awaiting the high holy day of her coronation, and he was uncomfortably aware that she, even more than
