In an hour they would have disappeared without a trace. They came and went like the sandstorms of their native land, unpredictable and devastating.
"Hai!" Mocker cried as Bragi trotted up. "As always, one believed old fat windy fool, self, arrives in nick, to salvage bacon of friend of huge militant repute but, as customary, leaguered up by nearest congregation quadra-plegic. Self, am thinking same should admit same before assembled host..."
"Speaking of which," Ragnarson interrupted, "where'd you turn this crowd up?"
"Conjuration." The fat man grinned. "Self, being mighty sorcerer, wizard of worldwide dread, made passes in night, danced widdershins round yew tree, nude, burned unholy incense, called up demon legion..."
"Never changes, does he? Blows hard as a winter wind."
The speaker was a man even more massive than Ragnarson, mounted on a giant gray. He had the shaggy black hair of a wild man, and behind his beard a mass of dark teeth.
"Haaken! How the hell are you? What you doing here?" Haaken Blackfang was his foster brother.
"Been recruiting. Headed south now." Without alcohol in him Blackfang was as reticent as Mocker was loquacious.
"Thought that was where you were. With Reskird and Rolf. Speaking of Rolf, he turned up yesterday, three quarters dead, with that gang after him."
"Uhn," Blackfang grunted. "Not good. Didn't expect them to get excited this soon. Figured another year."
"What're you talking about?"
"Rolf's job to explain."
"He can't. Might never explain anything. Mocker, did you bring Nepanthe? We need medical help."
Before the fat man could reply, Blackfang interjected, "He didn't. I'll loan you my surgeon."
Ragnarson frowned.
"He's good. Youngster with a case of wanderlust. Now then, where to settle this lot? Looks like your fields have been hurt enough."
"Uhn. East pasture, by the mill. I want my animals near the house till this blows over." He wondered if there would be room, though. Blackfang's baggage continued rolling from the forest, wagon after wagon. This looked like a volkswanderung. "What you got here, Haaken, a whole army?"
"Four hundred horse, the same afoot."
"But women and children ..."
"Maybe word hasn't filtered down. There's trouble in Trolledyngja. Looks like civil war. The Pretender's grip is slipping. Fair-weather supporters are deserting him. Night raiders haunt the outlands. Lot of people like these, whether they favor him or the Old House, don't want to get involved."
A similar desire, after their family had been decimated in the civil war that had given the Pretender the Trolledyngjan throne, had driven Ragnarson and Black-fang over the Kratchnodians years ago.
"Had a letter from the War Minister a while back," said Ragnarson. "Wanted to know why there hadn't been any raids this spring. He thought something like Ringerike might be shaping up. Now I understand. Everybody stayed home to keep an eye on the neighbors."
"About it. Some decided to try their luck with us."
"What about the Guild? They won't like you showing their colors. And Itaskia won't want Trolledyngjans roving round the countryside."
"All taken care of. Fees paid, passes bought. Every man's a Guild member. At least honorarily. Doing everything by the book. We can't leave any enemies behind us."
"Will you explain?"
"Later, if Rolf can't. Shouldn't we put the doctor to work?"
"Right. Mocker, take him to the house. I'll help Haaken get his mob camped. You travel all night?"
"Had to to get here in time. Thought about sending the horse ahead, but they couldn't've gotten here before dark last night, and I didn't figure anything would happen till morning."
"True. True. You're a welcome sight."
iii) Missive from a friend
Rolf came round briefly while the surgeon, who doubted there was much hope, was removing the arrow. He had ridden too far and hard with the shafthead tearing his insides.
Preshka saw the anxious faces. A weak smile crossed his lips. "Shouldn't have... left," he gasped. "Stupid... Couldn't resist... one more try ..."
"Be quiet!" Elana ordered while fidgeting, trying to make him more comfortable.
"Bragi... In kit... Letter... Haroun..." He passed out again.
"Figures," Ragnarson grumbled. "This much going on, couldn't be anyone else. Haaken, you feel like explaining?"
"Read the letter first."
"All right. Damn!" He didn't like this mystery piling on mystery, and nobody leaking any light. "I'll hunt the thing up. Meet me in the study."
The country, Haroun's letter began, is Kavelin in the Lesser Kingdoms, among the easternmost of these, against the Kapenrung Mountains where they swing southwest out of the Mountains of M'Hand, and therein borders on Hammad al Nakir. In the southwest Kavelin is bounded by Tamer ice, in the west by Altea, and in the northwest and west by Anstokin and Volstokin. (I am assembling a portfolio of military maps and will get them to you when I can.) El Murid is an enemy, of course, though there has been no action since the wars, which Kavelin survived virtually unscathed. Altea is traditionally an ally, Anstokin mostly neutral. There are occasional incidents with Tamerice and Volstokin. The most recent war was with Volstokin.
Governmentally, this is a parliamentary feudality, power balanced between the Crown and barons. In force of arms the latter outweigh the Crown, but internecine intrigues dissipate the advantage. Under the current, mediocre King, the Crown is little more than an arbiter of baronial disputes. Although, unlike Itaskia, Kavelin has no tradition of intrigue for the throne, a struggle for succession is taking shape. There is a Crown Prince, but he is not the King's son. By listening at the proper doors one learns that the genuine prince was kidnapped on the day of his birth and a changeling substituted.
Historically and ethnically Kavelin is even more muddled than the usual Lesser Kingdom. The original inhabitants, the Marena Dimura, are a people related to those of the south coastal kingdoms of Libiannin, Cardine, Hellin, Daimiel, and Dunno Scuttari. They form the lowest class, the pariahs. Only the most lucky (relatively) are so well off as to be slaves, bond-servants, or serfs. The majority run wild in the forests, living in a poverty and squalor that would shame a pig.
When, between 510 and 520 in the Imperial dating, Ilkazar occupied the region, Imperial colonists moved in. Their descendants, the Siluro, today form that class which manages the daily work of government and business. They are educated, officious, self-important, and schemers of the first water, and through their hands flows most of the wealth of the kingdom. A lot, in the form of bribes, sticks.
In the last decade of the Imperial era, about 608, when Ilkazar crossed the Silverbind in the north and Roe in the east, whole villages of Itaskians were transported to Kavelin in what has been called the Resettlement. These people, the Wessons (most came from West Wapentake), still speak a recognizable Itaskian and constitute both the bulk of the population and of the peasant, soldier, and artisan/merchant classes. As with Itaskians, they are stolid, unimaginative, slow to anger, and slower to forgive a wrong. Their leqders still resent the Resettlement and Conquest and scheme to set those right.
The final group are the Nordmen, the ruling, enfiefed class. Their ancestors were proto-Trolledyngjans who came south with Jan Iron Hand for the final assault on Ilkazar. They decided life as nobles in a southern clime was better than going home to become commoners again in the icy North Waste. Can you blame them?