Lord of the Silent Kingdom

Sergeant Bechter nodded. 'Of course, sir. Of course.'

A moment later, Consent said, 'You didn't need to send him away.'

'That wasn't the point. I do want to know what happened. There was an explosion. It sounded like one of the hounds blew up. Those things are expensive. And almost as dangerous to their crews as to their targets. So. Why are you back already?'

'They aren't taking us serious. It's business as usual over there. The Duke's men and some advisers from the Grail Empire have been looking at the defenses and talking about reinforcing the gates, but they aren't in any hurry. Two hundred men don't scare them. They don't expect us to get help from our garrisons. And they expect reinforcements of their own.'

'How soon?'

'I don't know. Because they didn't. But Lothar promised to send a company of Braunsknechts.'

'Not good, that. But the first shipment of money from Anne of Menand has arrived. That should alter the balance of power.'

Consent looked skeptical. 'In that case, I recommend we move right now.'

'Tell me what you're thinking.'

Titus Consent had in mind jumping on Clearenza with both feet before anybody thought there was the least chance that the Captain-General would do anything but show the flag.

The night sky began to clear as the Patriarchals stole toward the city. They made very little noise, except by snarling at one another to keep quiet. A fragment of moon kept trying to peek through cold clouds that promised snow.

Clearenza's north gate was a minor one. It served agricultural traffic. The gate was shut, but not so the sally port built into it. That was not secured because illicit traffic, avoiding tariffs and customs duties, moved in and out by night. Titus Consent and several obvious Devedians took point. Those who were not Episcopal Chaldareans were subject to a weighty head tax by day.

The guards were not alert. So much not so that all the sneaking went to waste. The only guard awake enough to demand bribes was so focused on a jug of wine that he found himself tied up before he understood what was happening. His only comment was, 'Oh, shit!'

Piper Hecht muttered, 'Is this a trap? Can they possibly be this lax with an enemy outside?' Though he saw the same loose attitude every day, everywhere. There was no professional tradition amongst Firaldian soldiers. Maybe because they did not get into many real fights. 'Please tell me this isn't a trap.'

'They've been setting it up for ten years if it is.'

'Really?' Did Pinkus Ghort's adventure here predate that time? Or was his story about service here another tall tale?

'This was the easy part,' Consent said. 'Now we have to reach the citadel without raising an alarm. If they lock us out…'

'Thought the Duke goes whoring every night.'

'Not every night. He's not as young as he used to be. But a lot.'

'None of us are as young as we used to be. Send your lead teams.'

Three teams of three men each headed for sporting houses Duke Germa was known to frequent. They would do nothing but find out if the man was there. That would be obvious. He dragged a retinue everywhere he went. A runner would carry word from each location to Consent. He would be waiting outside the citadel. If fon Dreasser was out, they would try to capture the citadel gate. The Duke always left it open when he went out on the prowl. Or such had been his custom since the advent of the Patriarchals had forced him to abandon his manor outside the wall.

Hecht told Bechter, 'If we don't bring this off, I'll make him hurt by using his manor for our headquarters.'

'Aren't we supposed to respect his properties? Sublime wants him back in the fold.'

'I must've misunderstood my instructions.'

Bechter grunted. He was recovering from the hike from camp. He was in shape for his age, but he was his age, trying to keep up with men mostly younger than the Captain-General.

Hecht said, 'That's enough head start.' Consent's band was five minutes gone. 'Move out by squads. Quietly.' The group leaders had been briefed by Titus Consent but Hecht was sure somebody would get lost. Clearenza was not vast but it was old and had grown organically. Streets meandered and were not marked.

Confusion was the natural state of combat. Hecht hoped to cause more of that on the other side than plagued his own. His men supposedly knew what to do even if they got turned around.

Hecht offered an encouraging word to each departing team leader. He did not want anyone getting killed.

He shuddered suddenly, touched by an unexpected chill. It was not the weather. Maybe it was his imagination.

Or maybe not. Sergeant Bechter murmured, 'You felt that, sir?'

'Sergeant?'

'You shivered. It was a cold presence. I don't know how else to put it. Like there's something here. Right behind you. Looking over your shoulder.'

'And there's nothing there when you look.'

'Yes, sir.' That almost defined the Instrumentalities of the Night. 'I've been feeling that a lot, lately.'

'As have I.' But that just puzzled him more. If there was something of the Night out there, close by, of the magnitude suggested by the creeps he and Bechter felt, his wrist ought to be hurting so bad that he would be thinking about cutting his amulet off.

'Stay alert,' Hecht told the men who would stay at the gate. 'Let those guys tied up in the guardroom be your inspiration. Sergeant, let's go.'

In the dark street, headed for the citadel, Hecht concluded that there was only one way his amulet would not function in the presence of the Instrumentalities of the Night. Because er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen, the man who had created it, did not want it to work.

Only Gordimer the Lion and the Rascal knew the amulet existed. Gordimer would not know how to get around it.

But why would the sorcerer want to kill Else Tage?

Hecht had not been able to work that out. He was sure er-Rashal had been trying from the moment he had left Dreanger. And possibly from even earlier.

Someone had raised that bogon in Esther's Wood, near the Well of Calamity, beside the Plain of Judgment. He had slain it. And by doing so had demonstrated a hitherto unsuspected vulnerability of the Instrumentalities of the Night.

Death had stalked him ever since.

There was fighting at the citadel entrance. There were occasional pops inside, suggesting that the men were discharging their handheld firearms in spite of orders to save them for something supernatural. Hecht understood why. Those weapons could bring an enemy down while he was still too far away to hurt you back.

One of his subalterns reported, 'We surprised them, sir. But we had some bad luck. They surprised us back.'

'How?'

'There are Braunsknecht guards in there. We don't know how many, but they aren't staying neutral.'

'What about that, Titus? You didn't know they were here?'

'I knew there were advisers. I told you. I thought there were only a few. That's what people outside thought. We don't have to take the citadel, though. The Duke is holed up in a sporting house. I've sent men to dig him out.'

Rapid popping inside signaled a counterattack by the defenders.

'Good.' Hecht gathered his officers. 'We don't push back unless Lieutenant Consent has his signals crossed. But we'll hang on here till we have the Duke. Titus. Don't wander off. Bechter. I need stuff to start a fire.' That ought to win Sublime a new crop of hatred.

A fresh chill made him shudder. He looked around. Spectators had begun to gather in the moonlight, at a distance. They twitched every time there was a pop inside the fortress. 'Bechter. Break that crowd up before it gets