The Deadliest Game

“He doesn’t care much about his people’s lives, if that’s the case,” Alla said. “But that wouldn’t be news.”

“Hmm.” Shel sat there for a moment, thinking about it. “Well, we’ll see. If it wasn’t us he was trying to fool…” He sat back, thinking which of his recent opponents might have been behind Delmond’s actions somehow. Who would it benefit? Argath maybe? Not him…he’s usually a little more straightforward than this. Elblai? No, she’s getting ready to square off with Argath, last I heard…some attempt to undermine the Tripartite Alliance.

Shel thought about that, letting his mind range briefly among the possibilities, and his eyes strayed to something else on his map table, a rolled-up piece of parchment that had been lying there quietly smoking. Alliances were shifting all over Sarxos at the moment, as the Dark Lord began his nine-yearly movement out of his mountain-bordered land, seeking the final conquest of all the lands of the Dominion. Every time he tried this, the Sarxonian lords united to throw him back, but the last union had been a little less organized than usual, the alliance taking almost too long to come together…and the Dark Lord had begun his next round of “diplomatic initiatives” much sooner than usual after his defeat. Almost as if he thought this time he might actually win….

It was complicated, but then most things in Sarxos were. That was what made playing the game worthwhile. Meanwhile, Shel would have to handle Delmond in such a manner as not to bring the man’s enemies down on his back right away — especially his mother, who was a power in the Dominion in her own right, with many potentially troublesome connections. He had to handle Delmond in some way that would seem fair, possibly even make him look good.

“I think you should kill him,” Alla said.

Shel gave her a slight, sidelong smile. “Not enough points in it,” he said, but that was not the real reason, and he knew Alla knew it. She rolled her eyes again.

“He’s a waste of your time,” Alla said.

“If one would be Lord of All the Wide Dominion someday,” Shel said, “one has to behave properly at the start of the game, as well as the finish. Let’s just call this practice, shall we? Anything else I need to know about the cleanup?”

Alla shook her head. “Quartermaster wants to know when we’ll be converting all this junk into money. The troops are getting a little, well, restive at being so close to so much gold.”

“I just bet. We’ll take care of disbursement in Minsar in the morning. Tomorrow’s market day; the jewelers and platemongers from Vellathil will be there, and they’ll be glad to take the stuff off our hands. Tell the troops it’ll be a straight percentage disbursement, and I’m turning over my share to be divided up as a contribution to their funeral funds.”

Alla raised her eyebrows. “You get hit on the head today, Boss?”

“Nope, just want to make sure I’ll have a volunteer force I can depend on in a few weeks. Meanwhile, broach a few barrels of that wine from our provident adversary’s baggage train and distribute it among the troops. And let loose the dancing girls. Assuming they want to be loose.”

“Most of them are ‘loose’ already.”

“Ouch. Just make sure they know they’re free to go where they want.” Shel sighed. “Anything else?”

Alla shook her head. “All right,” Shel said. “Talch?”

Talch put his head into the tent. “Lord?”

“Lord” meant that Delmond was right outside. “Bring in the prisoner,” said Shel.

A moment later, between two guards, Delmond swaggered into Shel’s tent. They had taken away his trademark black armor, but even left only in hose and his quilted haqueton, he was still an imposing figure: broad- shouldered, muscular and stocky, his face presently twisted out of shape with anger. The only item of dress not usual for him was the iron collar locked around his neck, the infallible method for keeping a potential shapeshifter stuck firmly in the shape he was presently wearing.

Following him was a tall, fair, slender man dressed in a herald’s tabard emblazoned with a large blue dog, seated toward the dexter. Both man and tabard were scrupulously clean, Shel noted, as the herald bustled forward to officiously dust off the remaining seat before the map table.

Delmond sat down with a grunt. The herald drew himself up and said, much more loudly than necessary, “I proclaim to your graces the presence of My Lord Delmond t’Lavirh of the Black Habiliment, Prince of Elster and Lord Paramount of Chax.”

Both these titles were accurate enough, but neither was worth bragging that loudly about. Elster was so hereditarily subdivided a country that it had princes by the dozen, and Chax was a small but population-heavy area of Sarxos best known for its ironwood forests, its light red wines, its strategically important position at the confluence of two large rivers, and its habit of being passed from hand to hand among the major gameplayers about once every two weeks. Delmond, however, had come to rule Chax by accident…a fact that seriously amused some of Sarxos’s more established and experienced players. Since he’d won it (by his adversary badly mismanaging a battle), he had been swanning around among the Kingdoms as if he were much more important than he really was.

You got this kind of response with new players, sometimes — people who were lucky early on in their history. Occasionally they steadied down and became forces to be reckoned with. More often, they hit runs of bad luck in diplomacy or battle as spectacular as their good luck had been, got burned out, and left the game; or else they so seriously annoyed their fellow players that the most wildly assorted forces would sometimes be assembled for the express purpose of stamping out the “new-sance,” publicly and with a flourish. So far Delmond hadn’t yet achieved that status, but he was getting close.

Shel glanced at the herald, and then at Alla, and Alla said, not raising her voice, “And here is Shel Lookbehind of Talairn and Irdain, free leader of a free people, who today has beaten you in battle. We will now dictate terms.”

The herald, Azure Alaunt, looked fastidiously shocked, as if someone had suggested a discussion about body odor. “Hear now the words of the Lord Paramount of Chax—”

“He doesn’t get to say anything,” Alla said, “until the victor has spoken and named the terms under which he will accept your surrender.”

Azure Alaunt bristled. “First my lord demands that you show proper courtesy to his army, the fiercely armed, the mighty-thewed, we who have labored to tragic effect in the terrible toils of war today—”

“Excuse me,” Shel said to the herald. “Were you in the battle today, Azure Alaunt? I don’t think so, because you don’t look at all like the rest of us, and you sure don’t smell like the rest of us. So you can just lose the ‘we’ part.”

“Ahem. Remembering that none can stand alone against the massing forces of the Dark Lord, if we do not all hang together, we will all hang sep—”

“Oh, please, leave Ben Franklin out of this,” Shel said. “As for the rest of it, well, ‘Dark Lord, shmark lord,’ that’s what I say.”

Delmond’s eyes widened. He opened his mouth, shut it again. “Let’s you and I get real now,” Shel said. “You shouldn’t find the attitude so odd, because you sold out your contract with the Dark Forces and went freelance as soon as you had a chance. A dim move, but you don’t need me to tell you that now, though everyone did try to warn you earlier. Even your mother. And now here you sit hoping that out of the dumbness — I mean the goodness — of my heart, I’ll be merciful, and ‘respect the usages of war,’ and save your butt from the mess you’ve gotten it into.”

He took a longish drink of honeydraft. “Well, I have news for you. The ‘usages of war’ as they are honored in Sarxos means that I can dispose of an unransomed prisoner as I see fit. My wizards have been talking to all potentially interested parties since earlier this afternoon. They can’t reach your mother, by the way; her under- wizards say this is ‘her day to wash her hair.’ There have been no offers of ransom for you…even when we discounted you. Sorry. So unless there is an offer by tomorrow at this time, which frankly I doubt, I can do with you, personally, whatever I like.”

Shel sat back and contemplated his cup of honeydraft for a moment. Alla watched Delmond unwinkingly, smiling, like a cat waiting to see which way a rat will jump. Then Shel spoke again. “Now, I for one think it would be just a ton of fun to see you dragged off into eternal servitude in the slave pits of Oron the Lord of the Long Death. See, here’s the note he sent me this afternoon, requesting the pleasure of your company.”