Guardians of the Flame - Legacy Page 9

  Jilla, one of only two women with the team, lay stretched out under an improvised lean-to, snoring like a dwarf.

  Aeia was the other woman, and while she wasn't really an experienced warrior, she had learned to sleep when possible. Napping, she huddled childlike under a blanket that Walter's fingers itched to pull up. Or simply to slip under and wake her for a quick non-nap.

  Naughty, naughty, he chided himself, with no seriousness whatsoever. I am supposed to think with an entirely different organ altogether.

  Meanwhile, the leadership and some of the newcomers were embroiled in a discussion. As was usual—the team's leadership had to plan while the opportunity presented itself; the tyros hadn't yet learned to get food and rest whenever the opportunity presented itself.

  Understandably, the group consisted of Ahira, Daherrin, Bren Adahan, and Valeran as the seniors, and Jason and a fifteen-year-old named Samalyn from the juniors. What surprised Walter was how Daherrin actually listened to the young ones; Walter's own tendency was to tell them to shut up and listen.

  Daherrin shook his massive head. "I don't like jumping 'em in the daytime." He tapped a stubby finger at his eye ridges. "Rather take advantage of darksight."

  Ahira shook his head and spat. "There are only thirteen of the True People," he said in dwarvish. "Do you think we can kill all the slavers by ourselves?"

  Jason Cullinane frowned. "Erendra or English," he half growled in the same language. "Your accent is too thick."

  "Be still, Jason," Valeran said, trying on his in loco parentis role.

  Bren Adahan hid a smile behind a hand. A human telling a dwarf that he didn't speak dwarvish right? He shook his head with clearly tolerant affection.

  Daherrin nodded. "Jason is right."

  Walter could have puked. First of all, Ahira had been part of the group since the beginning; if he figured that something needed to be said in dwarvish, then that was the way it was. A stripling boy had no business correcting him.

  On the other hand, to Daherrin, Jason wasn't just a boy, not just an apprentice warrior and engineer; he was Karl Cullinane's son, and to Daherrin that meant a lot, perhaps too much.

  Spoiled brat.

  Daherrin frowned again. "I don't like not being able to jump them like normal. Could wait for 'em in a clearing, but then there's the problem of the advance riders—"

  "Forget that." Ahira shook his head. "There could easily be worse. It's entirely possible that they've got somebody riding about a day ahead of them, doing a reconnaissance."

  Slovotsky nodded. "If you don't mind me trying my hand at a bit of brilliance, I think I may have it."

  He picked up a stick and drew a ragged line in the dirt. "Here's the main trail—they're about here, right now. Our road forks here, and we'll take this turn . . . figure that we can push ourselves fast enough to intercept them about here, a day outside of Wehnest. This side trail leads off to a small farmholding; we can hide our main force a ways down it."

  He picked up three stones and set them down in the dirt. "Here's their advance party. They ride past the trail, and get hit about . . . here by a quarter of our advance group—three, maybe four bowmen. They kill a few, maybe they just pin them down.

  "Meanwhile, the other half of our advance group—maybe ten—hits them from the front, and forces them to dismount."

  Daherrin smiled. "And then our main group hits them from the rear."

  Valeran smiled too. "But that leaves their reserves."

  Ahira turned to the grizzled warrior. "And why does that make you smile?"

  "Because I know Walter Slovotsky." He turned to Slovotsky. "You have something clever saved for them."

  "You betcha. Just as soon as the main body slips by the trail and the rest of you folks get to chasing after them, me and a couple others string rope across the trail, about head height. Then we duck back up the side trail and wait for the shit to hit the fan."

  Bren Adahan nodded a reluctant approval. "When the shots ring out, the slaver reserves break into a gallop; some of them might even get their necks broken by the fall." He clearly didn't like the way Slovotsky had been looking at Aeia, but that didn't stop him from a blunt assessment of the plan, or the situation.

  "Good man." Slovotsky nodded. "We pick off a few, maybe toss in a grenade or two—and then just pin the rest down. Once you're done with the main body of slavers, Daherrin, you split your main force in three: one part to stay with the slaves and mop up any straggling slavers, the second group to rush forward and join with the ones taking on the advance, and the last and most important group to pull my tender fat out of the fire. Assuming it needs pulling, that is."

  Daherrin looked around to the group. "Sounds good, 'cept for the part about the grenades—you'll kill the horses, and we can get a good price for them in Wehnest." He sat still for several minutes, his eyes distant, his face impassive. "I can't think of any other improvements—anybody?"

  A few ideas were brought up involving changing the proportions of the team to be sent with each group, but Daherrin allowed only minor adjustments. Finally, he rose to his feet and slapped his hands together. "Wake up, everyone. We ride."

  * * *

  Unable to find a clearing as darkness fell, Daherrin ordered that they camp that night along the trail itself, then paired dwarf guards and human runners, and posted a set a mile away on each side of the main body of the party. Dwarves could see an approaching party perfectly adequately in this light; humans could carry back the news more rapidly.

  In the chill of the dark, the leafy giants loomed darkly overhead, the light wind making them murmur both vague threats and unreliable benedictions into the night.

  His gear and his weapons tucked under one arm, a lantern held aloft with the other, Walter Slovotsky walked a few hundred yards down the trail before slipping off into the woods. He didn't like sleeping in the company of a hundred others, and he far preferred not to have to tune out camp noises; much better for any strange noise or strange silence to waken him.

  He hung his lamp on a projecting stub of a lower branch of a half-dead oak and cleared small plants from the mossy bed below before spreading a thin tarpaulin as a groundcloth, then covering that with two of his three blankets.

  He chuckled to himself, remembering how he hadn't believed his scoutmaster's tip, way back when, about how it was more important to worry about insulation from the ground than from the air; the ground thieved warmth much more quickly than the air possibly could.

  Walter Slovotsky had doubted the scoutmaster, of course, and when Walter's big brother Steven had soberly nodded and said that Mr. Garritty was telling the truth, Walter had been certain that he was being lied to.

  He'd woken the next morning colder, and in more pain, than he would have thought possible.

  He sighed as he stripped off his clothes and hung them over a branch before slipping under the third blanket. Sometimes those days seemed as if they had happened to another person. I wonder how Steve's doing? he thought, more conscious than he would have liked to concede that he hadn't thought of his brother in years. The two of them had been a study in contrasts; Steven was introverted and private where Walter was extroverted and—

  A rustling of branches sent him reaching for his oilskin-wrapped pistol.

  "Walter?" Aeia's voice whispered from the night. "Are you out there?"

  In the back of his mind, he had been wondering when this would happen, not if.

  "Over here," he whispered back, waving as a beam of light from her lantern caught him. She was dressed in a heavy cotton shift that fell to her calves. "I hope you don't mind," she said, as she seated herself on his blankets, "but I felt like talking."

  "No, you didn't."

  "Well . . ." She eyed him calmly. "Yes, I do. Before. Or do you want me to leave?"

  "I don't believe in coincidences," Walter said, quickly blowing out the lantern—he didn't believe in getting caught, either. "Which leads me to believe that your adopted mother talks too much."

>   I hope you don't mind, but I felt like talking. Those had been exactly the words Andy had used, way back when, the night she had come to his cabin, the night that Karl had come within inches of killing him.

  "Maybe." There was a rustle of cloth, and then she was warm in his arms. "Andrea once told me that the Other Side produced seven wonders, and that I was to keep my hands off one of them."

  "Your dad?"

  "Karl." She buried her face in his chest, her long, dark hair flowing over his chest and neck in a cool benediction. "I don't remember what the other ones were, except for you."

  Her mouth was warm on his for a pleasant eternity, until they broke, leaving him half-breathless.

  I may hate myself in the morning for this, but— "Don't take this the wrong way, but what about Bren?"

  "I don't know that that's any of your concern," she said, her voice holding a decided edge.

  Definitely Andy's daughter, he decided. And yet another blow for environment over heredity.

  "I'm going to marry Bren. I'm even going to sleep with him, eventually," she said firmly, "once he's properly broken in. And don't worry, I can handle him. If he finds out. Which he won't."

  I seem to have heard that before.

  She pushed away from him slightly. "Or don't you want me?"

  Then again, a gentleman doesn't keep a lady waiting. "Don't be silly." He pulled her toward him. "Don't be silly."

  CHAPTER SEVEN:

  A Walk in the Dark

  A councilor should not sleep the whole night through, for he is a man to whom the populace is entrusted, and who has many responsibilities.

  —Homer

  The silence bore down on Karl Cullinane's shoulders as he stepped out onto his balcony and stared out into the night.

  The night was dark and damp, the sky overcast, a west wind promising rain and cold. The darkness was relieved by no playful faerie lights; the only break in the curtain of black was the lights of the castle itself, and distant glows in a few stray windows in the town of Biemestren.

  Why couldn't he sleep? The night was half gone, and it had been all he could do to rest for a few moments.

  Was there something threatening out there? Had he suddenly developed some paranormal danger sense?

  Nah.

  Don't be silly, Karl.

  There was nothing out there but dark. Nothing important at all.

  There had been another time, when a young Karl Cullinane would have been out in the night, his mind on things of overriding importance, perhaps on hunting slavers, perhaps on other great deeds to be done . . . perhaps on just being young.

  Being young had been nice. But that was gone; the years had fled all too quickly.

  That was it. The years went by too fast. Just too damn fast.

  He closed the doors to the balcony and plopped down into his chair.

  Maybe it was the baronial council meeting. Perhaps the time wasn't right, but he had called for the session, and it would have to be done sometime. Holts and Biemish would have to sit down at the same table and get used to the idea that this was one country now. And Nerahan deserved to own his own barony again. Still . . .

  "Karl?" There was a rustling of cloth behind him; light flared as Andy used a piece of straw to bring fire from the fireplace to a lamp.

  "Yeah. Just me." He tried for a light tone in his voice. "Who were you expecting? Go back to sleep."

  Ignoring the halfhearted plea, she rose and came to him, her white, silken nightgown rippling in the wind.

  "There was a time, old girl, when we both slept raw."

  She smiled. "On the cold ground, with too few blankets between us and the ground." Her hand smoothed down her side, and then fluttered up to tug at his arm. "Come back in."

  He shrugged. "Okay." He closed the doors to the balcony, reflexively slipping down the crossbar. "Just sit with me for a while."

  "What is it?" Andy laid a gentle hand on his shoulder as he sat, scowling.

  Karl shook his head. "I don't know. Nothing."

  "Then will you please come to bed? Please?" She moved to the bed, pulled back the covers, and slipped between them. "You have a long day tomorrow."

  "You get some sleep." He jerked his head toward the bed and took the lamp from her hands. "Just because I have a little insomnia doesn't mean you should stay up with me. Just give me a while. I've got some paperwork to do."

  Ushering her back to bed, he padded across the carpet to his study, closing the twin doors quietly behind him. He set the lamp over his desk, then sat down and picked up a sheaf of papers, pretending to read.

  The subject was important—it was a précis of the latest land-tax collection in barony Adahan—but, as usual, there wouldn't be any discrepancy he could catch. Minor stealing by tax collectors was the rule, not the exception. While, officially, embezzlement of tax money was a hanging offense, in fact petty tax theft wasn't frowned on, as long as the collectors didn't get too greedy; baronial tax collectors were paid poorly, and there was always the temptation to collect a bit more than the records showed a freefarmer owed.

  But even double-entry bookkeeping couldn't catch that; it was the initial entry that was false, not subsequent reconciliations.

  But he didn't care. It just didn't seem to matter.

  He wished Ellegon were here. Karl could always trust the dragon to help clear his mind.

  Damn. He reached up and tugged at the bellrope, twice—the nonemergency signal for a guard.

  Boots thudded in the hall outside; the door swung open. "Yes, your majesty," the guard boomed, in a voice much larger than his slightly shorter than normal size warranted.

  "Shh; not so loud." Karl turned in his chair. "And good evening, Nartham," he said. He would have known who it was just by the volume.

  "I am at your service," the guard said, his voice rattling the night.

  "Ta havath, Nartham," Karl said. Easy, Nartham. Why this guard always had to talk as though he were a half-deaf artillery sergeant on a parade ground was something Karl couldn't fathom. "My wife's sleeping in the next room, eh?"

  "Sorry, sir," the guard said, at a barely reduced volume.

  "The prisoner cart—did it leave this afternoon?"

  "No, your majesty. Driver got here too late, I hear, and the bar—the judge told him to stay overnight. It should go out at first light."

  Karl nodded a dismissal—"Thank you—"

  —which Nartham didn't catch. "Is there anything else?"

  "No." Karl shook his head. "Good night, Nartham."

  "But—yes, sir."

  As the door closed behind the guard, the twin doors to the bedroom swung open.

  "Better talk about it," Andy said from the doorway, her arms crossed defensively over her chest.

  "I thought you were going back to bed."

  "No. You told me to go back to bed. There's a difference. Not that I was going to go back to sleep anyway, but Nartham's voice could wake up the dead. What is it? What's really bothering you?"

  "Probably the trial." He shrugged again. "It doesn't make much of a difference. It's just that . . . Vernim. Idiotic bastard. If only he'd kept his mouth shut, if only he hadn't been too stupid to see that Thomen was only trying to scare him—"

  She shook her head. "And that's what's bothering you? The poacher? Maybe I've gone a bit native, but so what? You declared an amnesty when you took the throne; all he and his family had to do was switch from poaching deer to snaring rabbits."

  "But he didn't."

  And it wasn't right.

  But was that what was bothering him? He honestly couldn't say.

  Didn't make sense. In Karl's time, he had had to put up with things a lot more raw than hanging a man who should have been, at worst, flogged.

  He shook his head. "Something more's bothering me about this, and I can't figure out what it is."

  Damn idiot thing, at that. A young Karl Cullinane always used to make fun of the California types who were always trying to "get in touch with their feelings
" and similar nonsense. Get in touch with your feelings? Not know what you feel? Could anything be sillier?

  Except when it happened to you. "Y'know, when I was younger, I wouldn't have put up with this."

  Maybe that was it. Then again, maybe not.

  "Put up with what?" She set her hip on the arm of his chair.

  He reached over and stroked her knee. "I wouldn't have put up with not even hearing you get out of bed, that's what I wouldn't have put up with. I'm getting old," he said, glad that Tennetty wasn't here.

  She shook her head and pushed his hand away, not falling for either distraction. "No. That's not it. You wouldn't have put up with a man being hanged for hunting for meat for his table, that's what's bothering you."

  He shrugged again. So what? "I had to. There wasn't any choice."

  She nodded. "So? You're going to let that bother you forever?"

  He shook his head. "Not forever." He'd had to do worse in his time. He'd once marched a bunch of friends into enemy gunfire, and not regretted it for a moment, even though only he and Tennetty had survived.

  No. His fists clenched. He had regretted it every moment. Aveneer, Peill, Erek . . . he'd always miss redheaded Aveneer's booming voice, Peill's unrelieved but strangely reassuring frown, Erek's expression of intense concentration—he'd always regret having marched them into the cannon's mouth.

  He'd always regret the action and the necessity, but not his obedience to the necessity.

  Some necessities were always to be regretted. Always; it was a debt to the dead.

  "Then what is it?" She smiled down at him. "You know, when you were Thomen's age, you wouldn't have pouted over something like this. You'd either have sprung the bastard, or let him hang without worrying."

  It wasn't so simple now. There were other things to be considered. On balance, it was better to let the idiot hang than to alienate Tyrnael.

  "You're right, though," he said. "When I was Thomen's age, I wouldn't have put up with it."

  "What would you have done?"