Mist damned it. She foresaw them facing a united Ravelin next summer.
The Captal kept his winged creatures watching the lowlands. Ragnarson seemed unable to avoid success— yet each redounded to the Captal's benefit. Ever more Nordmen turned to his standard. Because of his power, he thought. Because he was the one enemy Ragnarson hadn't been able to reduce.
He realized these new allies would abandon him the instant the loyalists collapsed, but that was a problem he could solve in its time. For the" present he had to concentrate on old enemies.
Though his couriers brought news consisting entirely of lists of towns and castles and provinces lost, he began to hope. In the free provinces several hitherto uncommitted Nordmen were turning rebel for each turning loyalist.
The edicts flowing from Vorgreberg had changed the root nature of the struggle. The issue, now, was a power struggle between Crown and nobility, one which would preserve or sweep away many ancient prerogatives. And it had become a class war. The underclasses, bought by Crown perfidy, strove to wrest privilege from their betters.
The Captal contacted Baron Thake Berlich in
Loncaric, a recidivist who had been captured by Ragnarson in the Gap and paroled by Fiana. The man's response had been to raise stronger forces for the rematch. He had been one of the Krief's commanders during the wars. He was the logical man to bring Ragnarson to heel. But he was a conservative of a stripe judged bizarre even by his own class.
Through Berlich, using the Baron's interlocutors— whom he kept in careful ignorance of the messages they bore—he reached Sir Andvbur Kimberlin of Karadja, in Breidenbach. Kimberlin had publicly voiced displeasure with the Queen's tepid social reforms. The Captal invited the knight to help him build a new society, hinting that while he controlled Carolan, he wasn't long for this world and was looking for someone who understood, who could carry on after he was gone.
As winter lugubriously progressed toward a spring that was no spring at all in the Gap, the Captal grew less and less pessimistic. The rebel coalition, spanning the extremes of political dissatisfaction and opportunism, waxed strong, reaching into Vorgreberg itself.
That fell apart.
"Stupid, greedy pigs!" the old man grumbled for days. "We had it in our hands. But they had to try cutting us out." Even Carolan stayed out of his way.
He decided there was no choice but to bring in eastern troops, to give the rebels backbone. And, to use a little wizardry.
News of the sudden shift at High Crag (where the ruling junta had for a decade discouraged mercenary involvement in actual warmaking), that had led to an offer of three veteran regiments to the Crown, again pushed the Captal toward despair. It was contagious. Mist became a sad, resigned woman. She returned to Shinsan to prepare a legion for transfer to Maisak when the snows melted.
The Captal, self-involved, overlooked her mood. Burla, Shoptaw, and Carolan understood Mist's unhap-piness. The man she had lost, and his brother, had reappeared. In Ravelin. Working the other side again.
v) Glitter of an enemy spear
Three men crouched beneath an ice overhang and, when not cursing the temperature, considered the fortress west of them.
"It'll work," promised the one with a single eye. "They can't sense us."
"The spells. The spells," another grumbled. "If that Shinsaner bitch wasn't in there, I'd believe in them."
"Just think about the gold, Brad," said the third. "More than... More than you've ever dreamed."
"I believe in that less than Haroun's spells. Maybe this's his way of getting rid of us. We know too much."
"A possibility," Derran admitted. "And I haven't overlooked it."
"If there's trouble, it'll come at payoff time," Kerth said.
"Uhm."
"It's dark enough," said Brad.
"Give it a few more minutes," said Derran. "Let 'em start thinking about bedtime. Some of those things can see like cats." For the hundredth time he patted his purse. Inside, carefully protected, lay a small bundle of plans of Maisak's interior, obtained by bin Yousif from a winged man taken several months earlier.
"You're sure there'll be no sentries?" Brad asked.
Derran concealed his exasperation. "No. Why the hell would they be watching for someone in this?" He gestured at deep snow now invisible in darkness: "Probably someone at the gate, but that's all that's logical." He checked the night, the few lights visible in the fortress. "Hell, you're right, Brad. Let's go."
It took a half-hour to slog the short distance to the castle wall, then just minutes to set a grapnel and climb up. Five minutes later they had finished the two owl-faced creatures at the gate and prepared it for their retreat. If all went right, they would be well on their way before their visit caused an alarm.
Maisak was thick with smells and smokes, but in the outer works, in the winter chill, they encountered no other evidence of occupation.
"Lot of men here," Kerth observed. "Wonder how they keep them fed?"
"Probably with transfers from Shinsan," Derran replied. "That door there, with the brass hinges. That look like the one we want?"
"Fits the description."
"Okay. Brad, you open. Kerth, cover." He went in low and fast so Kerth could throw over him, but the precaution proved unnecessary. The corridor was empty.
"All right," said Derran, "let's see. Commissary down that way. Third room this way."
In that room they found a half-dozen odd little people sleeping. "Look like rabbits," Brad said, after they had been dispatched.
"Place's supposed to be full of weirds," Derran replied. "Kerth, find the panel. We'll clean up." Soon they were climbing a dusty circular stair in complete darkness.
The stair ended in a landing. There was a wall with peepholes. Beyond the wall lay an empty, poorly lighted corridor.
"Brad, you watch." Derran felt for the mechanism that would allow access to the corridor. A small panel scraped aside. They awaited a reaction. Brad hastily assembled a crossbow.
"Go." Derran tapped Kerth's shoulder.
Daggers in hand, the man rushed the one door opening off the corridor. He paused beside it. Closed, he signaled. Derran joined him, pointed to the regular stair. Kerth checked it, signaled it was clear. Derran dropped to his stomach and peered beneath the door with his good eye. From his bundle of plans he took one of the Captal's library, indicated the position of each person in the room.
A final problem. Was the door locked? Barred? Haroun's captive had claimed there were no locked doors in Maisak, only hidden ones.
Derran stood, placed his back to the door, took its handle in his left hand, held his sword vertically in his right. Kerth readied his daggers, nodded.
Explosion. Derran slammed the door open. As his momentum carried him out of the way, one of Kerth's weapons took wing. Its pommel smacked the Shinsaner woman between the eyes.
Derran didn't pause to appreciate the throw. It was what he had expected. Kerth had spent countless hours practicing.
The woman was the key. If she weren't silenced, all was lost.
In passing he crossed blades with the old man, pushed through his guard, left him clutching his wound in amazement. He grabbed the woman, shoved a hand into her mouth, with his free hand tossed Kerth his dagger. Kerth took it on the fly and turned to two weird creatures who had thrown themselves in front of the little girl...
A wall opened up and men with swords stepped in. Ragnarson's men.