Conqueror

Suzette's fingers touched his wrist; the contact was like cool water on the red-hot heat of his anger. He drew a deep breath and continued reading, lips pulled tight over his teeth.

'Our good Colonel Clerett,' he said at last, throwing down the paper-Suzette scooped it up and tucked it into a file of her papers-'has decided that it's pointless to join us here. Instead he's going to head straight southwest across the Brigade heartland, wasting the land, and head for Carson Barracks to draw off Ingreid's main force and free up the situation.'

The shocked silence held for a full minute. Then Gerrin Staenbridge spoke: 'You know, mi heneral, that might just work.'

Raj gulped water and spoke, his voice hoarse. 'It might work if I was leading the detachment. I might've told you to do that if you were leading it. Cabot Clerett-'

observe, Center said.

Reality faded, to be replaced by a battlefield. He had an overhead view, of three hills held by ragged squares of Civil Government soldiers. Columns of smoke rose from each, as rifles and cannon fired down into a surging mass of Brigaderos that lapped around like water around crumbling sandcastles. As he watched the wave surged up over one of the squares, and the neat linear formation dissolved into a melee. That lasted less than a minute before nobody but the barbarians was left alive on the hilltop. Those men turned and slid down the slope in a charge like an avalanche to join the assault on the next formation.

A flick, and he saw Cabot Clerett standing next to his bannerman. A dozen or so men were still on their feet around him. Cabot's face was contorted in a snarl that would have done credit to a carnosauroid. He lunged forward and drove the point of his saber through a barbarian's chest. Six inches of metal poked out through the back of the Brigadero's leather coat. The blade was expertly held, flat parallel to the ground so that it wouldn't stick in the ribs. It still took a moment to withdraw, and a broadsword came down on his wrist. The sword was sharp and heavy, with a strong man behind it. The young noble's hand sprang free; he pivoted screaming, with arterial blood spouting a meter high from the stump. The bannerman behind him drove the ornamental bronze spike on the head of the staff into the chest of the swordsman who'd killed Clerett, then went down under a dozen blades. The Starburst trailed in blood and dirt as it fell.

probability 57 % ±10, Center went on dispassionately.

Raj blinked back to reality, feeling the others staring at him.

'Well,' he said calmly, 'the way I figure it, there's about an even chance or a little more he'll get himself killed and his force wiped out.'

Kaltin filled his wineglass. 'You've taken the odd risk yourself, now and then,' he pointed out.

Raj shrugged, loosening the tense muscles of his shoulders. 'Only when it's justified. We don't need to take risks now. With those four thousand men, I can wrap this war up in a year or two. The Western Territories have waited six hundred years for the reconquest, a year won't make any difference.'

Kaltin's right, he thought. A couple of years ago I'd have done the same thing myself. For a moment he felt Center's icy presence at the back of his mind, wordless.

'Anyway,' Ludwig said thoughtfully, 'they'll have to detach a pretty big force to deal with Cabot. That should give us an opportunity.'

'Expensive if it costs four thousand of the Civil Government's elite troops,' Raj said. He shrugged. 'Let's deal with the situation as it is. Bartin, bring the map easel over here, would you?'

* * *

'Most Excellent mistress, there's been a terrible disaster!'

Marie looked up from the pile of samples the merchant was showing her.

'News from the front?' she said tonelessly.

The steward shook his head and continued in his Spanjol-accented Namerique. 'No, the main granaries down by the canal, mistress.'

He wrung his hands; Marie stood and swept out of the room, up the grand curving staircase to the rooftop terrace. It was a clear spring night in Carson Barracks, smelling as usual faintly of swamp. Some previous General had bought an astronomical telescope. Marie had ordered it brought out of storage and set up here, on the highest spot in the city; she wasn't allowed out of the palace much, but she could see the whole town. When she put her eye to the lens the squat round towers of the grain storage leapt out at her. Smoke was billowing out of their conical rooftops, red-lit by the flames underneath. The warehouses were stone block, but the framing and interior partitions and roofs were timber. . and grain itself will burn in a hot enough flame.

One of the towers disintegrated in a globe of orange fire that swelled up a hundred meters above the rooftops. Burning debris rained down on the surrounding district, and on the barges and rail-cars in the basins and switching-yards near the end of the causeway.

Flour will not only burn: when mixed with air, as in a half-empty bulk storage bin, it is a fairly effective explosive.

'Manhwel,' she said crisply to the steward, standing and drawing her shawl about her bare shoulders against the slight damp chill. The ladies-in-waiting were twittering and pointing about her. 'Send all the Palace staff but the most essential down to help fight the flames.'

'At once, Most Excellent Mistress,' he said.

'The rest of you, back to your work. Don't stand there gaping like peasants.'

All of them surged away, except Dolors and Katrini. And Abdullah, bowing with hand touching brows and lips and heart, a slight smile showing teeth white in his dark beard. He didn't say a word: none was necessary. Thanks to a few gallons of kerosene and a few loyal Welf followers, and the Arab's timing devices, Carson Barracks was now in no state to stand a siege. With harvest four months off, the central provinces around the rail line to Old Residence devastated, and every city short of food as winter stocks dwindled, it would probably be impossible to resupply to any meaningful degree.

'And Manhwel, send my personal condolences immediately to General Manfrond.'

There was a fairly good courier service between the capital and the forces in the field. Her lip curled. Good enough for her to learn how that fool Ingreid Manfrond was wasting his fighting men. Every second family in the Brigade was in mourning for a father, a son, a husband. With Teodore prisoner and Howyrd Carstens dead, he'd be even worse.

We cannot win this war, she told herself. And if Manfrond remains General, he will destroy the Brigade trying to.

The flames were mounting higher, and the red glow was beginning to spread as timbers from the explosion caught elsewhere, for thousands of meters around. Bells clanged and ox-horn trumpets hooted, but Carson Barracks was a city of women and old men and servants now.

Ingreid Manfrond must go. . and there would be revenge for her mother and for the House of Welf. The servant shivered as he watched her smile.

She motioned Abdullah closer as the steward left. The guards at the corners of the terrace were well out of earshot.

'I suppose you'll be reporting as well,' she said. He shrugged expressively. 'Those devices you showed us worked well.'

'They are of proven worth, my lady,' he murmured, bowing again.

'Everything I've done has been my own decision,' Marie said after a moment, looking at his bland expression. 'Why do I get this feeling that you're behind it?'

'I merely offer advice, my lady,' he said.

'We're like children to you, aren't we?' she said slowly.

He must be conscious that the guards would hack him in pieces at her word, but there was a cat's ease in the way he spread his hands.

'There is much to be said for the energy of youth, Lady Welf,' he said.

'Send my regards to Teodore,' she went on. 'Tell him I was right about Manfrond.'

* * *

'He's definitely pulling out,' Raj said.

The windows of the conference room were open to the mild spring day; the air smelled fresh and surprisingly