"It's my biggest headache."
"I can handle it."
There was no arrogance in his manner.
"All right." Ragnarson made the snap decision based on Hawkwind's reputation. "Derel, take Colonel Liakopulos to Blackfang. Tell Haaken to put him in charge of training, and don't bother him."
He remembered the name Liakopulos now. The Colonel had a reputation equal to his self-confidence.
"Thank you, Marshall."
"Uhm." He returned to his maps.
Too late to turn back. Advance parties were already in the Gap. A force had occupied Karak Strabger, to stop eastbound traffic at Baxendala so word wouldn't cross the mountains. Maisak backed the play. No one not authorized by the Marshall traveled east of that stronghold.
The cessation of eastbound trade would itself be a warning that something was happening in Kavelin. Bragi had sent loyal mercantile factors through to hint that another civil war was brewing. The trade community expected something savage to follow Fiana's death.
He had run himself and everyone else ragged. What more could he do?
Go, of course. And hope.
He went.
A post rider overtook him slightly east of Maisak. He brought news from Valther.
"Haaken, listen to this. That kid of Haroun's has invaded Hammad al Nakir." He hadn't anticipated that. "Twenty-fivethousand men, Valther says, in six columns. Headed for Al Rhemish."
And Ragnarson had expected Haroun's movement to collapse without him.
This Megelin bore watching.
"What about it?" Haaken asked.
"Will it affect us?"
"How? Unless people think we closed the Gap to cover his rear."
"Possible." His friendship for bin Yousif was well known.
"I hope Megelin makes it. This'll give El Murid an excuse for war."
"Should I turn back?"
"Go on," Varthlokkur advised. "Megelin will hurt him even if he loses. El Murid won't be able to do anything. Cooler heads will prevail before he recovers."
"The numbers worry me," Ragnarson told Haaken. "I didn't realize Haroun could scare up that many men." He turned to Visigodred. "Could Marco fly down there occasionally? To keep track?"
"Too damned much trouble," Marco protested. "Got me hopping like the one-legged whore the day the fleet came in now. What do you think I am? I need to sleep too. You guys think because I'm half size I can do twice the work?"
"Marco," said Visigodred.
The dwarf shut up.
"Skip some of your visits to your girlfriends."
"Boss! What'll they do? They can't manage."
Haaken rolled his eyes. Bragi whispered, "He's for real. I've seen him in action.
"So," he said aloud, "we continue. Ragnar, let's catch Jarl."
Ahring commanded the vanguard, a day ahead. He filtered westbound caravans through, then kept anyone from turning back.
The entire Gap was confusion. This was the height of the caravan season. In places several were crowded up nose to tail, their masters muttering obscenities about being shoved around. Ragnarson saw more than one wound. Jarl had had trouble here and there.
He asked questions. Kaveliners returning home answered. His advent in the east remained unanticipated.
After riding with Ahring a day he took Derel, Ragnar, Trebilcock, and Dantice and forged ahead, to overtake the scouts. In time he passed them, too.
He knew the risk was wild, yet his spirits soared. He was in the field again. Political woes lay a hundred miles behind. He let his beard go feral. Boldly, he took his friends to Gog-Ahlan, He and Ragnar spent a day prowling the ruins and ramshackle taverns and whorehouses.
Rumors of unrest in Kavelin were thick. Less daring traders were staying put till they knew what was happening.
Ravelin's army turned north twenty miles short of the town, following a side valley. It debouched on the plains away from routes frequented by caravans. A screening force broke contact and began herding cognizant caravaneers westward.
Ragnarson tightened his formation. He allowed his light horse troops to roam only a few miles. Marco would watch the plains nomads. Bragi increased the pace, and turned away whenever Marco reported riders approaching.
Marco also patrolled their back trail, to frighten off any nomads threatening to discover it.
A hundred miles east of the ruins of Shemerkhan, following marches of forty miles per day, the Power reasserted itself. The wizards scrambled to take advantage, but it faded before they could get organized.
The Power quickened again next afternoon, and again it faded rapidly.
The sorcerers debated its meaning for hours.
Ragnarson suspected that little man on the winged horse. In the lonely, quiet hours of riding he tried to think of ways to capture the man, to find out who he was and what he was up to. If legends were to be believed, that would be impossible. It had been tried a thousand times. Anyone who attempted it came to grief.
Nearing lands tributary to Necremnos, the army turned south. Bragi took Varthlokkur, Prataxis, Trebilcock, Dantice, and Ragnar into the city. He left Haaken with orders to move to the Roe halfway between Necremnos and Argon, in the narrow zone beholden to neither city.
People lived there. He counted on Marco and the horsemen to cut their communication with Argon.
He didn't plan on staying long. Just while he visited anacquaintance, a Necremnen wizard named Aristithorn.
He wasn't sure the man still lived. His own wizards had heard no reports of Aristithorn's death, though the man had seemed on his last legs back when Bragi had helped him make Itaskia's King Norton honor a debt.
Necremnos hadn't changed in twenty-some years. Varthlokkur said it hadn't since his own last visit, centuries earlier. Old buildings came down and new ones arose, but the stubborn Necremnens refused to borrow from foreigners. New buildings were indistinguishable from those demolished.
Aristithorn maintained a small estate outside the city proper. A miniature castle graced its heart. Continuous moans and wails echoed from within.
"He's very dramatic," Bragi told Varthlokkur. The wizard didn't know Aristithorn.
Aristithorn's door was tall and massive. Upon it hung a knocker of gargantuan proportions. It struck with a deep-voiced boom. That was followed by a sound like the groan of a giant in torment.
"Is this the man who married that princess?" Ragnar asked. "The one that you...."
"Tch-tch," Bragi said. "You forget I told you that story. He's old and retired, but he's still a wizard. And a cranky one."
The massive door swung inward. A voice which could have been that of the tormented giant boomed, "Enter!"
"He's changed the place some," Ragnarson observed.
They stood in a long, pillared chamber done in marbles. The only furnishings were several dozen suits of armor. Even whispers echoed there, playing around the chuckling of a fountain at the center of the hall.
Varthlokkur stood at Ragnarson's left. Trebilcock and Dantice remained a step behind, to either flank, facing the walls, their hands on their weapons. Prataxis and Ragnar tucked themselves into the pocket thus formed. The place was intimidating.
"Cut the clowning and get your ass out here," Bragi yelled. "That'll get him in here," he whispered. "He's got this this about scaring people. Bet you he runs a bluff about turning us into frogs."
He was right, though newts were the creatures mentioned. Decades had passed, but Aristithorn hadn't changed. He hadbecome more of what he had always been. Older, meaner, crankier. He didn't recognize Ragnarson till the third time Bragi interrupted to explain who he was.
And then Aristithorn wasn't pleased. "Back to haunt me, eh? Ye young ingrate. Thought ye got away with it, didn't ye? I tell ye, I knew it all along...." He was speaking of a woman. One of his wives.