The War God's Own

'You can sound dreadfully virtuous when you want to,' Brandark said admiringly.

'It's not my fault if simply reflecting on my duties makes me sound virtuous,' Kaeritha replied with dignity.

'So just how do you two virtuous champions intend to ginger up the sentries?'

'As to that, I'm thinking it's not that difficult,' Bahzell said comfortably, glancing back as the gate disappeared behind them. 'There's no moon tonight, and a strange thing it would be if Kaeritha and I couldn't be creeping up on the lot of them unseen.'

'And then?'

'Well, I'm not so very certain as to that,' Bahzell admitted, scratching his chin and squinting thoughtfully up at the sky. 'I suppose we could simply leap out and shout 'Boo!' or some such thing. I've no doubt at all that such as that would be getting the lot we jumped on back on their toes for a time, but I'm wishful to make a more… lasting impression on all the City Guard.'

'Don't worry your head about it, Bahzell,' Kaeritha advised him kindly. 'I know exactly how to achieve your objective. You just follow my lead.'

'And don't think the two of you are going to keep all the fun to yourselves,' Brandark warned them with a grin.

'I hate to interrupt you three when you're plotting,' Wencit put in, urging his horse up on Bahzell's other side, 'but I believe that gentleman is looking for you.' He pointed, and Bahzell followed the gesture with his eyes. A young man in the Order's colors made his way towards them, and Kaeritha's eyes lit as she saw him.

'That's Lynoth!' she said. 'Seldan wrote me he'd been transferred here as one of Sir Maehryk's squires,' she went on, then paused, eyes narrowing as she noticed the young man's white belt. 'I stand corrected. That's Sir Lynoth, one of the Lordenfel chapter's newest knights-probationer.'

The youngster reached them a few seconds later, and Kaeritha smiled hugely, reaching down from the saddle to offer him the clasped-arm greeting of equals.

'So, Nuisance! They finally broke down and made you a knight, did they?'

'Nobody 'broke down,' ' Lynoth replied with enormous dignity. 'It was simply time to improve the Order's quality. And I have it on the best of authority that they scoured all of Norfressa searching for the squire with the best qualifications, too.'

'And a sad disappointment it must have been that they had to settle for you instead!' Kaeritha shot back, and dismounted to throw her arms around him. She hugged him firmly, then turned to Bahzell, one arm still draped around his shoulders. 'I'd like you to meet another of Seldan's and Marja's strays,' she said. 'Bahzell, this is Sir Lynoth Seldanson; Lynoth, this is Bahzell Bahnakson, Champion of Tomanak .'

'I'm honored to greet you on behalf of the Lordenfel chapter, Milord Champion,' Lynoth said soberly. 'Sir Maehryk sent me because he knew Kerry was with you.'

'Did he, now?' Bahzell ran thoughtful eyes over the youngster and nodded mentally in approval. Lynoth wasn't very tall, even for a human, no more than five-eight or five-nine, but he had a wrestler's powerful physique. He couldn't possibly be more than a year older than Vaijon, and Bahzell liked his open, infectious smile. 'Well then, Sir Lynoth,' he went on after a moment, 'why don't you just lead the way home?'

Lordenfel was much smaller than Belhadan, and downright rustic compared to Axe Hallow. In fact, it was little larger than Esgfalas, capital of the Grand Duchy of Esgan. Bahzell had thought Esgfalas a large city when he first saw it, but he'd learned better since. Now, to his more experienced eyes, Lordenfel looked like a sleepy, provincial town, despite its walls and battlements. Winter probably contributed to its sleepiness, but the energy of its people and economy would never approach those of Belhadan. Yet the Lordenfel Chapter of the Order was almost twice the size of the Belhadan Chapter. That struck Bahzell as odd, at first, but Sir Maehryk explained it simply enough.

'Yes, we're larger than the Belhadan Chapter, Milord Champion,' he agreed. He was about Sir Charrow's age, but his dignified-'stuffy' was the word which actually sprang to Bahzell's mind-manner made him seem older. He also had a pronounced tendency to lecture, and Bahzell felt vaguely betrayed by how Kaeritha had abandoned him to Maehryk's undivided attention. He wouldn't have minded her eagerness to visit with her younger brother if he hadn't been pretty sure she knew Maehryk of old and had deliberately used the novelty of a brand new hradani champion to distract the chapter master from her own disappearance.

'But big as we are,' Maehryk went on now, 'less than half our people are here at any given moment. As I'm sure you'll notice when you move on into Landfressa, towns and villages are few and far between from here to the mountains. The soil's good enough, but the growing season is short, and most of our country folk are herdsmen of one sort or another. I'd guess that as many as half the villages in Landfressa shut down entirely in the winter when the cattle and sheep move south, and that leaves us with two problems.'

He paused, one eyebrow raised, like a tutor waiting to see if his student knew the answer, and Bahzell snorted.

'Wilderness breeds brigands-or hiding places for 'em, at least,' he said shortly, 'and without city guards or local militias to root 'em out, then it's up to the army… or someone else.'

'Exactly,' Maehryk agreed. 'And that's especially true here. Once winter closes the Esfresia-Dolmach high road, anything shipped out of Dwarvenhame has to follow the southern route through Lordenfel and Axe Hallow to Belhadan. There may not be much traffic compared to what passes through during the summer, but the pickings are still rich enough to draw bandits. So we lend a hand to keep the roads open. In fact-' he paused, frowning while he stroked his short, gray beard '-we've been busier than usual this year. The stretch just the other side of the border into Landfressa's been particularly bad. You might want to watch yourselves when you get to it, Milord Champion.'

'We'll do that.' Bahzell managed to keep from sounding short-again-but it was hard, and he felt a twinge of guilt. Maehryk was a conscientious man, or he would never have been chosen for this post, far less left in it for going on eight years. But he was obsessively formal and had about as much liveliness as a salted cod, and Bahzell simply couldn't warm to him as he had to Charrow or Sir Terrian.

He started to say something more, but the sound of the dinner bell interrupted him, and he rose with a bit more haste than was strictly courteous. He tried not to feel grateful for the reprieve-or glad they would be spending only a single night in Lordenfel-and ordered himself to be pleasant over supper as Maehryk led him to the dining hall.

Sir Lynoth was waiting in the morning to escort them on their way once more. Bahzell and his friends had risen early, eager to make as much distance as the short winter daylight permitted, but Lynoth and most of the rest of the chapter house clearly had already been up for quite some time. Whatever had roused them had upset Sir Maehryk, too, and there seemed to be quite a few uniformed members of the City Guard about. The prim and proper chapter master could scarcely be accused of discourtesy, but he was plainly preoccupied and perilously near to abrupt with the Guard lieutenant who followed him about so closely that he seemed to have been grafted onto his left shoulder. He didn't even put in an appearance until after the travelers had broken their fast, and when he did arrive to bid them formal farewell his attention was clearly elsewhere.

But whatever had upset Maehryk seemed to have had an opposite effect on other members of the chapter. The younger knights-probationer and knights-companion, in fact, appeared to experience some difficulty in maintaining straight faces, and Lynoth looked like someone who'd swallowed a bumblebee. Kaeritha gave him a glance of sisterly repression, but even so he broke out in coughing fits suspiciously like camouflaged laughter three times while Maehryk was bidding the chapter's guests farewell.

'-and may Tomanak's Shield go before you until He brings you back to us once again,' the knight-captain finished his formal speech at last, nodded briskly, and then hurried off once more with the Guard lieutenant bobbing in his wake. Lynoth watched them go, then started to turn and look at his sister once more, only to stop, as if he didn't trust himself to meet her gaze while Maehryk might still be in earshot.

'W-we'd better go now,' he said in a curiously breathless voice, and walked quickly down the chapter house steps to where the rest of their party waited, along with horses for Wencit, Kaeritha, and Brandark. The young knight swung up into his own saddle and deliberately looked anywhere but at Kaeritha while he waited for the others to mount. Bahzell watched his performance with a small, crooked smile, then waved to the others and strode off down the street while they followed in a clatter of hooves.

'And what, pray tell, has your drawers all knotted up this morning, Nuisance?' Kaeritha asked sweetly, and