The snow stopped next afternoon. The accumulation showed no sign of melting. The Grand Duke's party climbed above the tree line. They had only what firewood they could carry.
There were no inns, hostels, or way stations. Those had been abandoned. Even the Imperial post remount stations stood empty. A couple of small castles held out, supporting the post. They would not open their gates. The Empress's party had picked their bones already.
Another night brought more screams.
Wrapped in blankets, shaking in the cold, his sword bared upon his lap, the Grand Duke crowded the only fire and fought to stay awake.
Omro va Still-Patter, the Protector, was a loathsome old man today. In his youth he had been bold and fearless. He had spent three years in the Holy Lands and two with the Grail Order knights converting the savages of the Grand Marshes. Age might be gnawing his bones and his tolerance for discomfort, but it had not stolen his capacity for staying calm in the face of terror.
Screams startled Hilandle awake.
They came from just a dozen feet away.
He jumped up, both hands gripping his sword.
Something came at him. Something he saw only for a moment. Something huge. Something carrying a bleeding man. Something insectile, like the biggest walking stick that could be imagined, with more legs. Its bulbous eyes seemed filled with fire.
It thrust a claw at Hilandle. The Grand Duke met the thrust. The grasper separated from the limb and fell. A second tore at his blankets, his armor, and left shoulder. The collision flung him aside.
In the instant of contact torrents of thought smashed into Hilandle's brain. A fraction seemed quite rational. Almost philosophical. From a mind that observed and cataloged. But overriding that was madness, founded in hatred, blood-lust, and a compulsion toward revenge unending, with a thousand images of murders past and hoped to come.
Then it was gone, still dragging its prey.
Sprawled in half a foot of bloody snow, stunned, trying to push the cruel visions away, the Grand Duke banged his nose on the severed grasper, which continued flexing.
'Hartwell,' he gasped at the first man to arrive. 'Find something to put this in. I want to take it along.'
'Your Lordship?'
'I didn't stutter, man. That may tell us something about that thing.'
The monster did not return. Not then.
To Hilandle it seemed he lay there for hours, mind ensnared in the thing's blood madness. In truth, it was minutes. One of his grooms began cleaning his wound. 'Did you see that thing?' he asked the man.
'What thing, sir?' Hilandle did not insist on formality in she field. Which surprised his enemies. They considered him a pompous, self-important stiff.
'The monster.'
'No, sir.'
'It was like…' A vengeful god. But he could not say that. There was only one God. And He was not a gigantic, ugly carnivorous bug. 'It was one of the Instrumentalities of the Night. One of the Great Devils, surely.'
The groom, Horace, appeared unconvinced. Despite the screams, the bloody snow, and the absent companions.
Twenty-three men moved on next morning. The missing left little evidence that they ever existed. Except equipment and possessions abandoned because there was no one to carry them.
The Grand Duke and his men pressed on, often cutting the day's travel short where there was no certainty of reaching a defensible campsite before nightfall. He was furious all the time, in constant pain from his wound. He was falling farther and farther behind the Ege chits. And he continued to lose men.
Twelve men, one the Grand Duke, reached the friendly foothills of northern Firaldia. Hilandle told his closest surviving associate, 'Remind me, after we recover. The most pressing problem facing the Empire today is the thing we just survived.' He winced. Any thought of the monster made him tense up. And his wound hurt worse than its constant ache.
Discovering that the Ege bitch had not suffered at all crossing the Jagos did nothing to improve his temper.
Nor was he cheered by the news from the Connec.
10. Caron ande Lette: Flood Tide
News seldom reached Caron ande Lette in a timely manner. Few travelers came through. The little the Raults knew of the world came to them courtesy of messengers jogging up from Antieux.
For Raymone Garete the saw about absence and hearts grown fonder was an understatement.
Socia alternated between excitement at so much attention and fright because Raymone was so intense.
Emperor Lothar had been dead a month before word came.
'This isn't good,' Brock said seconds after a courier delivered the news. Brother Candle suspected Brock had reflected on the possibilities from the moment that sickly boy took the ermine.
All the west had.
'I can't see any good coming of it,' Brother Candle confessed. 'This news will trigger all kinds of mischief.' Because no one, anywhere, believed that Johannes's daughter could pull on the black boots and show the iron hand.
Brother Candle knew nothing about the girl. Catherine? Something like that. But he had roamed the world long enough to grasp the essence of human nature.
All those people starting to wind the engines of conspiracy eyed reality through a fog of wishful thinking. Expecting the world to conform to their imaginings.
Reality enjoys harpooning self-delusion.
Usually silent, Thurm Rault observed, 'Interesting times are sure gonna get more interesting.'
Brock said, 'We need to put out more patrols. Trouble out of Grolsach is a sure thing once they hear the news. Thurm. Spread the word to the hamlets. The peasants need time to get ready. And we need to get their provisions safely in here.'
'Will they go for that?'
'I hope they still trust me.' Chaos had come close to prevailing during his absence. 'I should've left you here.' The people did not understand why he should be so completely subject to the whims of Tormond IV. The Mad Duke was almost mythological at this remove from Khaurene. Count Raymone was more real. Mainly because he had helped destroy Haiden Backe.
A less traveled, more ignorant and inflexible people Brother Candle could not imagine. That the Maysalean Heresy had taken root in a single generation was an amazement.
The Path did present a vision sharply at odds with the routine despair of everyday life.
The Raults prepared. The people joined in reluctantly. The threat had to be exaggerated. But what harm in making ready?
'Your layabouts are grumbling,' Brother Candle said one morning, on the parapet. Facetiously. 'If it didn't take so much effort, the peasants would revolt.'
Almost true. The Connec was generous, even here. People did not have to drudge and scratch from dawn to dusk every day of the year to barely subsist. Human nature being what it was they thought being asked to do anything extra was grossly unfair.
'Here comes Socia, riding like all the Instrumentalities of the Night are after her.'
They might be. The gentler sort. The peasants kept reporting strange lights and odors.
Socia always rushed when she rode. Brother Candle thought she was overdoing it this time. Feeling compassion for the horse.
The girl joined them, puffing from the climb. She reported all in a gush. 'It's starting, Brock. We ambushed some Grolsachers up by Little Thysoup. They were scouting.'
