"Eanred Tarlson, Colonel, commanding the Queen's Own Guard, Kavelin. I have a letter from Haroun bin Yousif."
Ragnarson took the letter, sent a runner to prepare quarters. "Queen's Own?"
"The King was dying when I left Vorgreberg."
Ragnarson finished Haroun's brief missive, which urged that he waste no time moving south. "You came alone? With trouble brewing?"
"No. I had a squadron when I left."
"Uhm," Ragnarson grunted. "Well, you're here. Relax. Rest."
"How soon can you move?" Tarlson demanded. "You're desperately needed. The Queen had little but my regiment, and that likely to disappear if someone spreads the rumor that I'm dead."
"The problem of succession, eh? The changeling and the foreign queen."
Tarlson gave him an odd look. "Yes. How soon?"
"Not today. Tomorrow if it's desperate. If I had my druthers, not for weeks. The men are green, not used to working together."
"Tomorrow, then," said Tarlson, as if yielding a major point.
Ragnarson recognized a strong-willed man who might cause problems unless things were made clear immediately. "Colonel, I'm my own man. These men march to my drum. I take orders only from my paymaster. Or mistress. I appreciate the need for haste. You wouldn't have come otherwise. But I won't be pushed."
Tarlson flashed a brief, weary smile. "Understood. I've been there. I'd rather you took the extra days and arrived able to fight, anyway." He glanced at the Trolledyngjan encampment. "You're bringing families?"
"No. They're staying. Shouldn't you get some rest? We'll start early."
"Yes, I suppose."
Ragnarson turned to greet Kildragon and Blackfang, who were arguing as they rode up, Haaken claiming Reskird had cheated. "Looked good. They mightdo if we can get them an easy first fight. Any injuries?"
Headshakes. "Just bruises, mostly egos," said Black-fang.
"Good. We move out tomorrow. Haroun says the arrow's in the air."
Both men claimed they needed more time.
"You can have all the time you want. On the march. Haaken, get the families settled in the stockade."
The leading elements moved out at first light. By noon the rearguard was over the Porthune.
An officer from Kendel's army, as if by magic, appeared to lead them through back country, by obscure ways, out of the sight of most eyes, to the Ruderin border, where they were passed on to a Ruderiner for the march down the Anstokin border to the River Scarlotti, over which they would ferry to Altea.
Days went by. Miles and clouds of dust passed. Ragnarson did not push the pace, but kept moving from dawn till dusk, with only brief pauses to eat and rest the animals, for whom the march was punishing. Cavalry mounts were expensive. He had as yet received no advance from Ravelin's Queen.
Ten days into the march, in Ruderin, near the northernmost finger of Anstokin, he decided it was time for a rest.
Tarlson protested. "We've got to keep moving! Every minute wasted ..." Each day he grew more pessimistic, more dour. Ragnarson had tried to get to know him, but the man's anxieties got in the way. He grew ever more worried as no news came north to meet them.
Ragnarson, while his troops were involved in maintenance and training, asked Tarlson if he would care to go boar hunting. Their guide said a small but vicious wild pig inhabited the region. Tarlson accepted, apparently more to keep occupied than because he was interested. Mocker tagged along, for once deigning to mount a beast other than his donkey.
They had no luck, but Ragnarson was glad just to escape the cares of command. He had always loved the solitude of forests. These, so much like those around his grant, infected him with homesickness. For the most part they rode quietly, though Mocker couldn't stifle himself completely. He mentioned homesickness too.
Toward midafternoon Tarlson loosened up. In the course of conversation, Ragnarson found the opportunity to ask a question that intrigued him.
"Suppose we find the Queen deposed?"
"We restore her."
"Even if the usurper is supported by the Thing?"
Tarlson took a long time answering, as if he hadn't considered the possibility. "My loyalty is to the Throne, not to man or woman. But no one could manage a majority."
"Uhm." Ragnarson remained thoughtful. He hoped Haroun's scheme wouldn't put them on opposite sides. Tarlson was the only Kaveliner with any military reputation, and he clearly had the will to manage armies.
Ragnarson wrestled serious self-doubts. He had never commanded such a large force, nor one so green and ethnically mixed. He feared that, in the crunch, control would slip away.
It was nearly dark before they abandoned the hunt, never having heard a grunt.
On the way back they struck the remnants of a road.
"Probably an Imperial highway," Tarlson mused. "The legions were active here in the last years."
iv) A castle in the darkness
Darkness had fallen. There was a quarter-moon, points up, that reminded Ragnarson of artists' renderings of Trolledyngjan warships. "What warriors," he mused aloud, "go reeving in yonder nightship?"
"The souls of the damned," Tarlson replied. "They pursue the rich lands eternally, their captain's eyes fiery with greed, but the shores of the earth retreat as fast as they approach, no matter how hard they row, or how much sail they put on."
Ragnarson started. This was another side of Eanred. He had begun to fear the man was a small-minded, undereducated boor.
"Varvares Codice," said Mocker, "same being attributed to Shurnas Brankel, legend collector of pre-Imperial Ilkazar. Hai! They send fire arrows."
A half-dozen meteors streaked down the night.
"Ho! What's this?"asked Ragnarson. They had topped a rise. Something huge and dark lay in the vale below.
"Castle," said Mocker.
"Odd," said Tarlson. "The guide didn't mention any strongholds around here."
"Maybe ruin left over from Imperial times," Mocker suggested. There was hardly a place in the west not within a few hours' ride of some Imperial remnant.
They drew close enough to make out generalities. "I don't think so," said Ragnarson. "The Empire built low, blockish walls with regularly spaced square towers for enfilading fire. This's got high walls with rounded towers. And the crenallated battlement didn't become common till the last century."
Tarlson reacted much as Ragnarson had minutes before. Mocker laughed.
The road ran right into the fortress, which made no sense. There were no lights, no watchfires, no sounds or smells of life.
"Must be a ruin," Ragnarson opined.
Curiosity had always been a weakness of Mocker's. "We see what's what, eh? Hai! Maybe find chest of jewels forgotten by fleeing tenants. Pot of gold buried during siege, waiting to jump into hands of portly investigator. Secret passage with skeletons of discarded paramours of castle lord, rings still on finger bones. Maybe dungeon mausoleum full of ancestors buried with riches ripe for plucking by intrepid grave robbers..."
"Ghoul!" Tarlson snapped.
"Pay him no mind," said Ragnarson. "Weird sense of humor. Just wants to poke around."
"We should get back."
He was right, but Ragnarson, too, was intrigued. "Like the old days, eh, Lard Bottom?"
Mocker exploded gleefully, "Hai! Truth told. Getting old, we. Calcification of brainpan setting in. We go, pretending twentieth birthday coming still, and no sense, not care if dawn comes. Immortals, we. Nothing can harm."
That was the way they had been, Ragnarson reflected.
"We explore, hey, Hulk?" Mocker stopped his mount beneath the teeth of a rusty portcullis.
"Go ahead," said Tarlson. "I'm going to get some sleep."
"Right. See you in the morning, then." Ragnarson followed Mocker into a small courtyard.
He got the feeling he had made a mistake. There was something wrong with the place. It seemed to be waiting... And a little surreal, as if he could turn suddenly and find nothing behind him.