Garth suppressed a derisive smile; he did not care to insult a fellow overman, but the absurd inadequacy of such a 'siege' was very obvious to him. If the humans had not yet broken out, it was not due to weakness, but either because they had not yet gotten around to it-probably because of poor organization-or did not choose to do so. He wondered what fool had contrived such a strategy even more than he wondered why his people had suddenly seen fit to take military action. 'Who devised this scheme?' he asked.
Thord smiled. 'Your wife, Kyrith.'
'What? Kyrith?' All mockery was forgotten in Garth's astonishment.
'Yes. She and Galt the master trader are our co-commanders, appointed by the City Council.'
Garth was momentarily dumbfounded. When he could speak coherently again, ignoring the plaintive questions Frima was asking, he demanded, 'What is going on here? Explain this!'
Thord was taken aback at Garth's fiat and dangerous tone, but replied, 'Kyrith was concerned about your safety, Garth. She thought that the Baron of Skelleth must have abducted you when you did not return with the others from your trading mission. Galt told her that you had been exiled and had gone off on your own rather than return home ignominiously, but she didn't believe it. She petitioned the Council for permission to raise a company of volunteers to march down here, confront this Baron, and demand your safe return. The Council agreed; the story is that, though they believed what Galt said, they thought such a threat might frighten the Baron of Skelleth and the other humans into treating us better in the future. They insisted, though, that Galt share the command, since Kyrith knew nothing of Skelleth or of human ways and might behave rashly in her anger.'
Garth interrupted. 'They might have done well to include a commander who knew something of military matters. This so-called siege cannot possibly have cut off communication between Skelleth and the rest of Eramma, and we, can only hope that no one in town has seen fit to summon reinforcements from the south as yet.'
It was Thord's turn to be struck dumb. 'Reinforcements?' he asked at last.
'Yes, reinforcements! Decayed as it may be, Skelleth is still an outpost of the Kingdom of Eramma, the nation that defeated ours in the last of the Racial Wars. They could probably have ten thousand men here within a week, to flay us all alive.' He had no real idea how large a force Eramma's High King could muster, or how quickly it could reach Skelleth; his figures were sheer guesswork. He had no doubt at all, however, that the Erammans would have no trouble in obliterating a force of overmen too small to lay a proper siege.
'Oh.' Thord's face remained impassive, but his discomfiture was plain in his stiff silence. Garth heard Frima suppress a giggle. He hoped that Thord hadn't noticed. He would undoubtedly be mortally offended to know that a human was laughing at him. Garth himself was slightly irritated at the girl's lack of respect and was equally annoyed at the stupidity of Thord and his comrades who had volunteered for so asinine and dangerous a scheme.
'Go on, then; you just explained how the Council came to grant their permission for this venture.'
'Oh, yes. Well, Kyrith had no trouble in finding sixty volunteers, and was allowed a dozen warbeasts as well. We marched down and arrived yesterday morning, but the Baron refused to see us; one of his guards told us he was sick in bed. Galt thought that we should just set up camp somewhere to the north, in the hills, and wait, but Kyrith didn't want to do that; she was afraid that the Baron might slip out unnoticed, I think. There was a vote, and Kyrith won, and we laid siege to the town yesterday afternoon.'
That was a relief, Garth thought; it was too soon for any messages to have reached the cities of Eramma. It was possible that Skelleth's people had not yet even noticed that they were besieged; things could still be handled peacefully.
'All right;' he said, 'you've done your duty, but I'm relieving you now. You go back and tell my wife to call off this ridiculous siege. I'm safe and well and I'll come and find her as soon as I've finished a little business of my own in town. Where is she camped?'
'The main encampment is on the Wasteland Road to the north, but I can't leave my post yet.'
'Nonsense. You go tell her I'm here.' Garth was in no mood to argue; if he left Thord standing guard here on the main highway, the fool might attack a caravan or an innocent traveler, should one happen along.
'I have my orders, my lord.'
'Forget your orders. I outrank whoever gave them and I'm countermanding them. This siege will end immediately; as a member of the City Council, the Prince of Ordunin, and a lord of the overmen of the Northern Waste, I am assuming command. Now, go tell that to Kyrith and tell her to wait for me and do nothing hostile toward the humans until I arrive. Is that clear?' Without his intending it, his right hand crept down toward the hilt of the great two-handed broadsword; the gem in the pommel gleamed blood-red.
Thord hesitated a moment longer, trying to decide whether Garth did in fact have the authority to overrule a commander appointed by a quorum of the City Council. Garth was here and annoyed; the Council was not. That decided him. 'As you wish,' he said, as he turned his warbeast's head northward.
Garth watched him go; he was growing angrier as he thought about the stupidity of the overmen who could plan and execute such an inept maneuver-his own chief wife among them? A siege was a delicate and sometimes dangerous operation, not a casual lark. It would serve the lot of them right if someone did happen along and take them in the rear. It would be only just and fitting if the entire sixty were slaughtered. For half a silver bit he'd go up there himself and teach them all something about war-teach them at swordpoint!
'Garth?' Frima's voice was not entirely steady.
The human had interrupted his chain of thought-the insolent creature! He almost snarled as he asked, 'What do you want?'
'The jewel's glowing again.' She pointed.
It was, indeed, and glowing relatively brightly. He looked at it and told himself that the anger he felt was not his own. There was no reason to be angry with the girl, who had acted as she thought best. There was no reason to be angry with Kyrith and her volunteers-at least, not reason enough for him to take action. They didn't know any better.
It took several minutes of effort to force himself back to a state of comparative calm. When he had managed it, he told himself that he would really have to get rid of the sword as soon as he possibly could.
Well, that was part of the personal business he wanted to attend to here in Skelleth; he intended either to deliver the loot he had brought from Dыsarra to the Forgotten King or dispose of it someplace where it wouldn't endanger anyone in the future.
With that in mind, he urged Koros forward toward the town's southwestern gate.
There was no guard; had the townspeople realized they were besieged, there almost certainly would have been, he told himself. Therefore, they apparently hadn't noticed. That was good; it meant that no act of war had yet taken place as far as the humans were concerned.
It struck him as curious that the only gate the Baron saw fit to guard was the one leading north. True, the other four all faced nominally friendly territory, and there was no real threat in any direction-except perhaps from his own people. Duty at the North Gate was a convenient punishment for guardsmen who had displeased the Baron; Saram had told him that, months ago. The other gates were less suitable, since they were more sheltered from the cold winds and more likely to have traffic disrupting the boredom.
Whatever the reasoning behind it, he was glad that the Baron did guard only the north. It meant he could enter the town unseen.
The gate before him was actually merely a gap in the wall where the road wound its way through the rubble of long-fallen towers; there was no trace left of the actual gate that had once been there. Koros had no trouble in making his way through it. The road through the West Gate was partially blocked by debris, but this one was not; it was kept clear for the caravans that provided Skelleth's only real contact with civilization.
Inside the wall, Garth found himself surrounded by ruins. The town had once been a fair-sized city, in the days when it was humanity's main bulwark against the overmen in the final years of the Racial Wars three centuries earlier; but when the fighting stopped, so did the flow of supplies and men from the south. Skelleth had withered, shrinking inward, until now it was mostly abandoned. The remaining village was clustered about the market square and the Baron's mansion, surrounded by acres of crumbling, empty buildings.
His goal was the King's Inn, the tavern where the Forgotten King lived. It stood on a narrow, filthy alley behind the Baron's mansion, right near the center of town, so there was no way he could hope to reach it undetected. That being the case, he saw little point in trying; skulking about through the ruins would just slow him down, and he wanted to get to Kyrith's encampment before she had time to do anything else stupid.
