The band moved out. The snowfalls were no less vigorous down there in the warmer foothills. They melted and created mud as though mud was a treat favored by all gods great and small.
The first six days of the new administration produced four coup attempts. The conspirators all died horribly. Some were mutilated and drained of blood before they moved against the Andorayans.
The day Shagot killed Ockska Rashaki the band numbered eighty-eight, counting all bodies but those of the sad handful of slatterns who followed the band with their snotty-nosed brats. When the band moved into the position Vondera Koterba desired they numbered sixty-five. Most of the missing had deserted, along with their women and children.
The band disrupted Calziran communications for two months. Lone riders and small groups just did not get through. Prisoners went to Ferris Renfrow somewhere to the east He paid excellent bounties. Life was no daydream but neither was it awful. And it showed promise of getting better.
Svavar soon realized that he was running things. Shagot the Bastard was this wild berserker thing he could conjure up at need. Daily administration and decision-making were his. And he did well. He held the band together. He got it through its assignment without another death, and with only four more desertions.
The Emperor's troops, with those of Vondera Koterba, overran the eastern third of Calzir far more easily than either side imagined possible. The Praman defenders were stunned by their own ineffectuality.
Those Calzirans, even inspired by advisers from Lucidia and backboned by cadre from overseas, could not withstand the disciplined Imperial heavy infantry and heavy cavalry. The Lucidians strove valiantly but insisted on fighting the wrong war. Johannes Blackboots was not interested in elegant maneuvers. He trudged from one town, city, port, or castle to the next, ignoring enemy forces unless they attacked — always a disaster for the Pramans. Imperial pikemen held them off while thousands of missiles sleeted down on them. When they ran, horsemen followed and butchered them.
Warships from Dateon and Aparion blockaded the eastern and southern coasts. The heel end of the Firaldian boot fell. Few Praman troops tried to flee west to join the armies there. Svavar dispatched any stupid enough to use his road.
He first saw Johannes Blackboots when the Emperor's own Braunsknechts Guards passed through, headed west in hopes of outgrasping the less vigorous forces fielded by Sublime and the Brothen Church.
'He's a fucking dwarf,' Shagot observed.
Not quite, but close.
The Emperor's whole family accompanied Johannes, a measure of his confidence. The brothers did not see the daughters or learn of their existence until later. They occupied a closed coach surrounded by large, alert, scowling, short-tempered Braunsknecht horse guards.
The Imperial heir, Lothar, rode beside his father, as miserable as one child could be, yet persevering with a will suited to much a stronger body. He was determined to make his father proud.
Ferris Renfrow found the brothers after the Emperor had passed. 'You've done a great job. Vondera Koterba says you deserve a bonus. I agree. Would you like to continue your service?'
Svavar accepted a sack of coins while Shagot said, 'We will go with you. We're looking for a man. He's west of here. He has to die.'
'All men die.'
'Soon. It's a holy mission.'
Svavar sensed that Renfrow knew who they were. He would have had reports from his agents.
'Tell me about the man you're hunting. Maybe I can help.'
Svavar, distracted by passing heavy infantry, which he had never encountered before, replied, 'All we know is that he's in Calzir and that we'll know him when we find him.'
A Patriarchal company passed. They had participated in the Imperial thrust in the east. Svavar glared at black crows from the Brotherhood of War. They unnerved him. Their order would harbor an eternal grudge because of what had happened in Brothe.
Renfrow kept him talking. Svavar knew Renfrow had pegged him as dim and naive. He didn't mind. He might be those things, but not so much that he could not let someone underestimate him.
Once Renfrow left, Svavar told Shagot, 'That fellow thinks he knows our man. He knows where he is, too. And he thinks he knows who we are.'
'With the Patriarch's armies?'
'I think so.'
'Makes sense. Fits my dreams. We'll get him this time.'
Svavar nodded. But he had doubts. Arlensul had not been factored into the All-Father's plan.
There would never be a better time to tell Grim about Arlensul.
Words would not come.
Svavar paid off the members of the band. 'Anybody who wants to stick can go west with me and Grim. They still want us.' Only a dozen men who had nothing else in their lives stayed on. The rest ran back to their cold, barren mountains with their newly found wealth.
32. Shippen and the Toe
Bishop LeCroes settled beside Brother Candle. Brother Candle was watching the sun set behind a vague hint of distant indigo peaks. He had his back against an almond tree, the vanguard of a grove. Almonds had come to Shippen with the Praman invaders.
The sun's lower limb squashed down on the far hills, a bloated, distorted vermilion egg that the eye could suffer for moments at a time.
Color flew round the sky as though slung from the palette of a mad artiste god. Shippen folk said that was because of a haze vented by a somnolent volcano off to the north.
LeCroes said, 'Sorry to bother you. I wanted you to know. The rumors are true. King Peter will cross over to the mainland.'
Brother Candle asked, 'Is that Sublime's idea?'
'You kidding? Once this war ends Sublime will be as nervous about Peter as he is about the Emperor.'
'Maybe the Emperor suggested the move.'
'Peter is clever enough to come up with it on his own.'
Brother Candle quickly saw why Peter would make this move.
It would give him a foothold on the mainland and enhance his reputation in Firaldia, where he was not yet well known. And it would establish forces friendly to the End of Connec behind the Patriarch should Sublime decide to follow a crusade against Calzir with another against the Connec. At little cost in lives and treasure Peter would triple the lands he held and make Navaya the strongest Chaldarean realm in the west.
Brother Candle had to admire King Peter. The man had foreseen vast opportunities before he decided to transport and support the forces Duke Tormond pledged to Sublime. Who might have done so at Isabeth's urging.
Sublime must be in a tight place now, desperately unable to seize and retain those expanded temporal powers that all Brothen Patriarchs coveted.
Brother Candle ascended to Perfection without losing his cynicism and skepticism. The sad truth was, none of the last dozen Brothen Patriarchs had shown much regard for their spiritual mission. And few had shown much competence in the political lists, either.
'I think I see where this will end up.'
'And that would be where?'
'Are you firm in your allegiance to Immaculate?'
'Absolutely! He's the only legitimate …'
LeCroes's tight tone and evasive eye told Brother Candle that he had been romanced by Sublime's agents and had not yet rejected them.
'Immaculate is likely to be the last Viscesment Patriarch.'
'Excuse me?'
