It was a cool night, boding the approach of autumn. The stars were crisp and cold in the black felt sky. The encamp ment was orderly, and the cooking fires were low and shielded from the casual, distant eye.
These are good men, he thought. The best I've ever led. Perfectly honed, well-disciplined, and positively motivated. Were it not for the sorcery, they would stand up well to Shinsan.
What is the matter with me? Why am I doubting myself?
Why am I doing this? Logic weighs against it, as Gjerdrum and Hardle remind me with every look. Even if I do swoop in, and pull off the biggest coup of my life, what's really been gained? What drives me? Why do I have to do this? Because so much has gone badly at home? Am I trying to balance my failure as King with success at the one thing I can do well?
He stopped at the point of camp farthest south, stared toward where Throyes lay. His intuition had nothing to say. Instead, ghosts from his past hemmed him in. He remem bered the friends and loved ones lost, the triumphs and defeats, the good times and bad. „I'm here because I don't know any better," he whispered. „I've been hurrying to ward a fight, or running away from one, since I was fifteen years old. This peace since the end of the wars is the longest I've ever gone through. Maybe helping Mist woke some thing inside me."
A shooting star arced across the sky. „A man's life. One bright moment in the darkness. Am I looking for a flashy exit?"
When you got down to it, this raid had suicidal aspects. Hsung might be a renegade defying his Princess, but he was Tervola. If he were destroyed, or severely embarrassed, his brethren would be that much more incensed, that much more determined to settle scores... . Ragnarson jumped.
„Sire?"
„You startled me, soldier."
„I didn't mean to, Sire. I was being quiet on account of you might be thinking about something important."
Bragi chuckled. „Who can say?"
The soldier saluted and started to move on.
„Hold on a second."
„Sire?"
„What do you think about this?"
„This, Sire?"
„This march on Throyes. What do you think? What do the men think? Honestly, now. I was a soldier myself once."
„Well, Sire, I don't think anybody is happy about it. Nobody understands. But for the most part they figure you know what you're doing, and it must be important or we wouldn't be out here."
Curious, Bragi thought. They still trust me. „Not that much grumbling and second-guessing?" Every soldier was a general, figuring he knew better than the people up top.
„No, Sire. Like I said, a lot of wondering why, but the only bitching is about the food."
„Some things never change. Thanks, son. On about your rounds now." He fixed his gaze on distant Throyes once more.
Four days, he thought. A hard, fast march. Into the city. Capture Hsung's headquarters. Wipe out his puppets. Give the pro-western and faithful Throyens a chance to organize, then scuttle back home.
I hope we take Hsung alive... . Ought to put him in a zoo and charge admission.
Four days. Will my nerves hold out?
Day dawned brisk and clear. Bragi bounced out of his tent and did a few jumping jacks. „What's that?" he yelled to his cook. „Smells damned good." He felt fantastic. He'd had a restful night, with no troubling dreams. The morning was one of those when everything seemed right, when he felt ready to whip the world.
He walked around behind his tent, which stood atop a hummock, stared off in the direction of Throyes. Can't be more than sixty miles now, he thought. Push hard today, rest well tonight, and hit them tomorrow.
It was going to go right. He knew it. All that soul-searching and worry had been for nothing. Throyes would fall easily. If it went well enough he might push on south, help Yasmid wrap Hsung's army in a pocket where it could be destroyed.
Wouldn't that frost the Tervola? More of their legions casually crushed by the western bane? Ha! And Mist? He'd love to see her face when she got the news. Serve her right for not keeping Hsung on a shorter leash.
He was sure Hsung didn't have Mist's sanction. She must be having trouble getting the Tervola into line. Nobility could be restless, as well he knew.
„Good morning, Baron," he said cheerfully, as Hardle came up the slope to join him. „Isn't it a glorious day?"
Hardle smiled. „It is indeed, Sire. There's a magic in the air, isn't there?"
„I don't know what it is, but I feel great. I hope it's not just you and me."
It was not. The feeling infected everyone, though nerves should have been bowstring tight. But there are those mornings when things just seem ideal, and the world appears a beautiful place to all but the most sour of heart.
Even Sir Gjerdrum was cheerful. He hadn't smiled since Maisak. In private, he said, „I've been thinking, Bragi. You may be right about this. We might pull it off. And if we do, it might be the coup we need. It might get Shinsan off our backs for our lifetimes. It might be the stroke that silences our enemies at home. And they can't wait a lifetime. It's only the old Nordmen who want to get rid of us. There won't be many to replace them when they die off."
Bragi punched Gjerdrum's biceps. „Now you're getting it. This looked like a long shot when we started, but now I think we'll manage it. Wizard or no wizard." For days he had been looking over his shoulder, expecting Varthlokkur to appear. He assumed that the wizard would relent before the army reached Throyes.
„You think he'll show?"
„I'm confident. He's stubborn, so he'll try to make me worry, but he'll be here in time."
Breakfast finished, Ragnarson got the army moving. He had his scouts range far ahead, it wouldn't be long before they encountered some of the outlying farmsteads and manors orbiting Throyes. They were only seventy or eighty miles from the sea now. Though it was sparse, there was enough rainfall to support some cereal crops.
The night chill burned off fast. The day turned warm, though it never really became hot. The sky remained a clear, incredible cerulean blue. Bragi continued to marvel at how grand a world surrounded him. The hours slipped by.
„Look there, Klaus," he told one of his bodyguards. „That bird. It's a gull. We slide over the top of that range of hills and, if it stays this clear, you'll be able to see the sea."
The hills came closer. They were all rounded, humpy things, very old, carpeted with sere grass which gave them a tawny appearance. Off to the east there was a long black swath where a grass fire had run wild.
„Yo, Sire," a man shouted, pointing. „Riders coming in from the van."
Bragi stood in his stirrups, watched the men approach. They weren't hurrying. A routine report. He sat down, urged his mount forward.
„Sire," one scout said, „we've found a small watchpost." He indicated a hill slightly off the line of march. „Looks out over most of the plain. It wasn't manned, but there's a garrison in an adobe fort behind the hill. Twenty men, near as we could judge. Shinsan. They didn't act like they knew we were here."
„Uhm," Bragi grunted. He glanced back. The column was raising a lot of dust. „Is it that hill standing alone, out this way from the rest of the range?"
„Yes, Sire."
„Uhm. Did you see if there were any Tervola or Aspira tors there?"
„No sign of any, Sire."
„You left somebody to watch? To keep them off that hill?"
„Yes, Sire."
„Good. Messenger. Get me Captain Tompkin." Back to the scout. „That fort very tough? Any reason a light horse company couldn't take it?"
„It's not really a fort, Sire. More like an adobe blockhouse with a four foot curtain wall around it. The gate was off its hinges."