Amazing. 'How can we just be learning this? Why are firepowder weapons effective when traditional weapons aren't?'
'But they are. You saw us finishing the undead with silver-tipped swords. A healthy entity can dodge traditional weapons and missiles. They're too slow. The shot from a firepowder tube, though, moves too fast to see. We're almost there. You might want to hang back a few steps.'
'One thing before you go get mauled by the undead. Just my personal curiosity. Why are you out here, openly directing Devedian forces? Grade Drocker knows your name. Why show your hand here, now? How did you know there'd be an outbreak from the Realm of Night?'
'That's several things, Colonel.' Stewpo gestured at his men to deploy. 'But it's all gone so well, I feel like crowing. My God is the True God.'
'Excuse me?'
'An Angel of the Lord came to me at night many times, to tell me that Hell would open its mouth here. I choose to be seen exactly because the sorcerer will remember my name from Sonsa. If he presses my people, they can honestly blame everything on me. And I've told them that the original information about firepowder weapons came from the Dreangerean provocateur who died during me uprising in Sonsa.'
Did a deeply veiled threat lie behind Stewpo's words?
'I don't expect Drocker to last much longer. He doesn't have the strength to give you much trouble. And no one else cares.'
'You aren't Devedian, Colonel. You don't see things as all being part of the river of time. You barely see beyond yesterday, today, and tomorrow.'
Else disagreed but kept his opinion to himself. Though the dwarf might honestly believe that he had been visited by an angel, not a rogue Chooser of the Slain arranging a cruel ambush for a father who had ripped out her heart.
Stewpo asked, 'Is that it? I do have your clumsy associate to salvage.'
'Go. Save.' Else clambered up a rock outcrop. The hillside fell away from the wall steeply. The slope below was littered with dead and wounded men, along with bits and pieces of northern heroes. Seventy yards away a dozen Braunsknechts swayed in a clump around Elspeth Ege. Else felt that same thrill he had experienced in Plemenza. The girl seemed angry and fearless.
Ghort and his crew had failed to break through. They were surrounded themselves. Neither party had much resistance left to offer.
'Do your stuff, dwarf,' Else muttered.
There was no thinking going on amongst the heroes. The Devedian fire teams fired their first volley from ten feet away. There were no misses. By the time the heroes realized that there was a threat the Deves had fired again. Heroes hit went down. And stayed down. It took only minutes to exterminate them.
'You took your sweet time,' Ghort gasped. He was pale, his expression strained. “Ten more minutes and there wouldn't have had been nobody to rescue.' 'You're bitching so I'm guessing I got here soon enough.'
'Oh, yes. I'm going to make your life miserable for a long time to come. Ow! Easy there, hairboy.' A Dainshau physician had begun to examine Ghort.
Else told the Dainshau, 'Those others need you more than this one. Let the vitriol leak out before you patch him up.'
Chuckling, Else headed for the Imperial survivors. Most had collapsed once the need to defend themselves ceased. Only the Emperor's daughter remained upright, beside her fallen mount, with a light sword in one hand and her father's standard in the other, taken over from her fallen standard-bearer. She wore some sort of toy mail, a light breastplate, and no helmet. Her dark hair streamed in the wind.
Else inclined his head. 'Princess.'
'I remember you. But not your name.'
'Piper Hecht, Princess. Of the Brothen city regiment'
'Your circumstances have improved.' She flashed a melting smile.
'Indeed. While yours appear to have deteriorated somewhat.'
'We had them right where we wanted them.'
Else could not help grinning. 'What can I do to help?'
'You could give me my brother back.'
'I'd love to. But I'm in no position to do that I'm a soldier. He's already in the hands of men more interested in politics.'
'Members of the Collegium.'
'Yes.'
'Is he all right?'
'I don't know. I haven't seen him. But I think so.' Else's gaze remained locked with that of the young woman. Clearly, she felt the electricity, too. 'What will you do?'
'We are the children of Hansel Blackboots.'
'I wish you luck, Princess. The best possible. I wouldn't want to face what you do, now.'
She flashed another melting smile. 'I told you. We’re the children of Ferocious Hans.' Her gaze shifted to something behind him. She gasped, astonished.
Else turned as a gout of darkness stabbed up at the belly of the sky.
The sound arrived. It was the roar of a dozen thunderstorms compressed into one minute of fury.
That could be one thing, only.
'I have to go,' Else said.
'I'll see you again,' Elspeth mouthed, having read his lips.
Ears ringing, Else had trouble discerning nuance. But that seemed to be a promise.
'Stewpo!' he shouted in the dwarf's ear. 'Was that what I think?'
'That was the death of a false god.'
Else watched patriarchal troops enter Al-khazen through a newly opened postern. Bitter fighting lay ahead. Masant al-Seyhan would not go quietly. Er-Rashal would not go at all. He would vanish and reappear in Dreanger, blaming all the disasters on others, getting up to some new sort of mischief.
Else said, 'You'd better go underground, little friend. Drocker is deeper than you think.'
'He can be as deep as he wants. The firepowder knowledge is loose. He can't make it go away. Not even your great Dreangerean sorcerer can manage that. He is much less clever as a puppet-master than he thinks.'
'Life will go harshly for the Deves of al-Qarn, now.'
'Life always goes harshly for the Deves of al-Qarn.'
'Do you know what er-Rashal was up to? Why he indulged in schemes that hurt his own side more than Dreanger's enemies?'
'I have a notion. It's most likely wrong. I'll tell you what an old man once told me. In politics and war you don't need to waste time looking for treachery or conspiracy if stupidity or incompetence will explain a disaster.'
Else nodded. His own people manufactured complicated, improbable conspiracy theories to explain their embarrassments. Those often referenced the secret schemes of the monolithic Devedian religion.
They neared the tower of black smoke. It was slow to dissipate. 'Well,' Else said. 'That's one hell of a hole in the ground.' A cone of earth and stone fifty feet across and sixty deep had vanished. The sides of me pit were glassy and had the droopy look of melted candle wax.
Else had worked hard to teach his soldiers to be innovative. To seize any opportunity. They were doing just that, flinging anything remotely flammable into the pit along with pieces of fallen hero. Else said, 'The lazy asses didn't want to dig their own pit' He made sure the demon's head and bronze sword went into the fire.
Else organized the removal of the injured and arranged for the Episcopal dead to be buried in al-Khazen's Chaldarean cemetery. Then he joined the troops inside the city. Most of the Calziran defenders had surrendered or fled. Their morale had collapsed. The remaining resistance was holed up in the citadel, under relentless attack by the dead heroes. Else kept his crusaders away from that.
The Imperials had lost interest. They were headed back to their camps. The nobility would be maneuvering to get control of Hansel's daughters.
