Then he was awake enough to realize that he’d become tangled in the blankets piled on his cot. The desert night was chill. There were more blankets than he’d pulled over himself when he lay down. His servants were as determined as ever to take care of him according to their wishes rather than his own.
Ah, the omnipotence of a senior commander in the field, Aurhinius thought.
Then he realized that he had been awakened by more than blankets. From the camp outside came shouts, curses, more than an occasional obscenity, the braying of asses and mules, and the neighing of horses.
Since he first put on the captain’s belt at the age of eighteen, Aurhinius had slept clothed while in the field, with weapons in reach. He still did, although his belt was a good deal longer, his clothing much finer, and his weapons as decorative as they were useful.
He had his feet on the gravel floor of the tent when the flap burst open.
“Ah, Nemyotes. I would have sent for you to explain this uproar.”
Aurhinius’s secretary nodded. “I would have been here sooner, but en route I gathered that explanation. It is merely another band of tax soldiers joining us. Some of them had been long without wine and stole it from other bands better provided.”
Aurhinius rinsed his mouth from the water jug, then spat on the floor. He wished he could have spat in the face of the captains who had so mishandled their men.
“The watch commander asked that his men be allowed to remain on duty even after the change of watch. That will give us twice as many reliable men.”
“Did he perhaps ask this after a hint or two that this would please me?”
“I said nothing that a reasonable man could call a hint. Both captains are simply clearheaded men who know what to do when faced with such disorder.”
“And green dragons sell their eggs in the public market of Silversmith Square on the third day of every month,” Aurhinius said.
Nemyotes had the grace to flush. Aurhinius laughed. “You did well. Just remember in the future not to waste my time explaining that you did not do what you plainly did.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Aurhinius donned the rest of what would make him look like a general commanding armies and not a sleepy fat old man roused from his bed. Boots, back and breastplate (straps tightened with Nemyote’s help), helmet tied under his chin with that touching if impractical gold and silver clasp that was a love-gift from Synia-
As Aurhinius buckled on his scabbarded sword and slid his boot dagger into its sheath, trumpets blared outside. He started, then recognized the ceremonial guard-mounting calls. The new soldiers arriving for guard duty were doing so with as much formality as if they were changing the guard outside the kingpriest’s gates.
Not to mention as much noise. That should certainly draw the attention of even the most thoroughly soused sell-sword. Once you had such a man’s attention, you had begun the process of restoring him to discipline.
The trumpets blew one final flourish, a bit ragged as a few of the trumpeters ran out of breath. Then the drums took their place, beating out a steady, slow march-the one used when the regular foot of Istar was advancing into battle.
“The captain of the relief is a clearheaded fellow, even if you say so,” Aurhinius said. Nemyotes covered his embarrassment this time by helping his commander buckle on his white-bordered red cloak of rank.
“Now, let us go out and see what these fellows are about,” Aurhinius said.
Nemyotes opened the tent flap and stepped aside as the sentries beyond the opening slammed their spear butts on the gravel or raised their swords to the vertical in the salute of honor.
As Aurhinius stepped out of the tent, a high-pitched scream rose above the drums. It sounded like a woman’s cry, and Aurhinius grimaced.
“If the new men brought camp followers, in violation of my express orders-”
“That didn’t sound like a woman,” Nemyotes said. He swallowed. “If I were guessing-”
“We all are. Better guess than stand gaping.”
“A kender. A kender is hurt.”
Aurhinius would have kept all the “lesser breeds” away from the camps of both his men and the sell-swords, for their own protection if nothing else. But try to use gentle persuasion on a kender! Not in living memory had it succeeded, which made kender all the harder to deal with when some wine-swollen, hate-ridden fool saw a kender as sword meat.
Aurhinius briefly considered what might happen to his dignity if he thrust himself into the middle of this. He also considered what might happen to his aging stomach if he forced himself to stand outside the brawl, waiting for others to tell him what was going on. His stomach was barely equal to field rations; it would never survive such an ordeal.
Aurhinius did allow Nemyotes to take the lead, and refrained from drawing his sword. Otherwise they moved out at a trot that threatened to become a run at any moment.
Hawkbrother was nineteen, an age at which a warrior is often ready to die rather than admit that something is beyond his or her power. However, he was wiser than his years. On his father’s side he was descended from seven chiefs, on his mother’s from four, and none of the eleven had left behind the reputation of a witling.
The Gryphons lived near lands ruled by dwarves, Silvanesti elves, Istarians, hostile clans, and the sand spirits that reigned over the deep desert, no matter what city-bred clerics might say. Given their neighbors, Gryphons could not afford to be led by fools, or breed such among even their youngest warriors.
It took Hawkbrother only a short while before he saw that there was no easy approach to the animals. The sentries were too well placed and too alert. All that had kept them from detecting him so far was the lack of wind. On a night so still that a grain of sand fell straight from one’s hand to the ground, scents did not carry readily.
Hawkbrother briefly considered retreating to One-Ear’s position, and returning with at least one companion. That, however, would take time. More briefly, he considered making a gap in the sentry line. As a chief’s son, he would not sully his hands by killing the innocent with a garrote, but he had other equally sure methods of silencing folk who happened to be in the wrong place. But a kill, silent or not, would sooner or later be detected. Then even those who had been friendly or neutral before would owe Hawkbrother, son of Redthorn, a blood debt.
He also considered slipping in among the tents and learning of these intruders from what he found there. However, he would then have to make his escape on foot from a perhaps alerted enemy. He shuddered briefly at the idea of trying to outrun that long-limbed giant, who could probably run down an antelope on most ground.
This left only one way in among the animals, and that was the most perilous. He would have to slide down into the canyon, crawl like a fly along the wall, and come up among the animals from the unguarded canyon side. And he would have to do all this silently, or far enough from alert ears for rattling stones and bruising falls not to raise the alarm.
Hawkbrother decided that tonight would give him the reputation of either a shrewd and courageous warrior, or else a hotheaded fool.
If he thought too long about the odds in favor of either outcome, he realized, he might lose his nerve or at least go fumble-fingered into the canyon. Then he would have no reputation at all, a dead man being neither coward nor hero.
Hawkbrother studied the moonlit canyon rim until he found what seemed to be a promising gap in the rock. It was also far enough from the sentry circle that if he was wrong, he could try again.
Belly as close to the ground as a snake’s, knees and elbows moving with the precision of a well-greased mill, Hawkbrother crept toward the canyon rim.
As Gildas Aurhinius strode toward the scene of the riot (or whatever name the law counselors might later give it), he knew that he could not really cut an imposing figure for long, moving at this pace. Too many years of good living had taken their toll-and for the last ten of those years he had been drinking more than a wise man should.