The survivors, to Ragnarson's dismay, suffered an attack of rationality. When they selected a new commander they chose the man he believed most dangerous, Sir Andvbur Kimberlin.
Kimberlin opted for Fabian tactics. He took up a defensive position at the site of his previous year's battle. His patrols tried to lure Ragnarson into attack. Bragi ignored them.
Though Kimberlin's force, at eight thousand, was the largest Ragnarson had yet faced, he was more concerned with the sorcery-rich army the Captal would bring out of Maisak.
Bragi waited, skirmished, fortified, scouted, husbanded his resources. He constantly reminded his officers of the need to stand firm here. To, if necessary, endure the heaviest casualties. The enemy would be stopped at Baxendala, or not at all. The west depended on them. There would be no stopping Shinsan if this stand failed.
ii) The waiting
Ragnarson stood on the parapet of Karak Strabger's lone tower and surveyed the power that was, for the moment, his. He had twenty-five thousand Kaveliners, plus the men he had brought south. In the west, on the horizons and beyond, great clouds of dust hung in the spring haze. Surprising allies were hurrying to join him.
One cloud, on the caravan route, marked Shanight of Anstokin with the regiments raised to invade Volstokin. North of him came Jostrand of Volstokin and three thousand puzzled veterans of Lake Berberich and Vodicka's defeat. In Heidershied, rushing in forty-mile marches, was Prince Raithel of Altea, a hard-driving old warrior who had won glory and honor during the wars. Ragnarson hoped Raithel would arrive in time. His ten thousand were the best soldiers in the Lesser Kingdoms. He had heard there were troops on the move in Tamerice and Ruderin and kingdoms farther away.
This curdling of the Lesser Kingdoms into a one-faced force with chin thrust belligerently eastward had begun the night of the red demon.
The sudden power and responsibility awed Ragnarson. Princes and kings were coming to be commanded by a man who had been but a farmer a year ago...
There were others who awed him more than Shanight, Jostrand, or Raithel.
Beside the sugarloaf, above Baxendala, stood a dozen tents set off by ropes. One housed his old friend Count Visigodred of Mendalayas, another Haroun's dread (acquaintance, Zindahjira. The denizens of the others he knew only by repute: Keirle the Ancient; Barco Crecelius of Hellin Daimiel; Stojan Dusan from Prost Kamenets; Gromachi, the Egg of God; The Hermit of Ormrebotn; Boershig Abresch from Songer in Ringerike; Klages Dunivin; Serkes Holdgraver of the Fortress of Frozen Fire; and the Thing With Many Eyes, from the shadowed deeps of the Temple of Jiankoplos in Simballawein.
One tent stood alone, as if the others had crowded away. Before it stood a battered Imperial standard. Within lurked the man whose capital-hopping had started so many armies toward Baxendala, whose name frightened children into good behavior and made grown men glance over their shoulders. Varthlokkur.
His appearance guaranteed the gravity of the conflict. The high and the mighty, from Simballawein to Iwa Skolovda, would hold all else in abeyance till they knew what was afoot.
Even the Greyfells party, Ragnarson had heard, had joined the truce.
Ragnarson had mixed feelings about Varthlokkur's presence. The man could, without a doubt, be an asset. But what about old grudges? Varthlokkur owed himself and Mocker.
But Mocker, who had most to fear, was in and out of the wizard's tent constantly, when not hiding from soldiers he had bilked with crooked dice.
Ragnarson smiled weakly. Mocker was incorrigible. A middle-aged adolescent.
He spied signal smoke up the Gap. Heliograph operators bustled about him. He returned to the war room he had set up in the castle's great hall.
While awaiting the report, he asked Kildragon, "How's Rolf?" Preshka had insisted on coming east.
"The same. He'll never heal if he won't take time out." "And the evacuation?" He had been trying to get civilians to leave the area.
"About hit the limit. The rest mean to stay no matter what."
"Guess we've done what we could. Can't force people... Colonel Kiriakos?"
He had surveyed the man's work from the parapet. He and Phiambolos were working hard to complicate Shinsan's attack.
Kiriakos was the sort who, finding a pot of gold, would worry about getting a hernia hauling it away. "Too slow. I won't get done if you don't give me more men." His projects were straining the army already. Trenches, traps, fortifications, cheveaux-de-fris, a pontoon across the marsh a few miles west, and finding raw materials, were devouring hundreds of thousands of man-hours each day. But Kiriakos was a bureaucrat born. There was no project that couldn't be done bigger and better if only he were given more money and men...
Am I getting old? Ragnarson wondered. What happened to my penchant for motion? His cavalry commanders had been asking too. Shinsan's was an army mainly infantry in orientation, with little missile weaponry. But Sir Andvbur was out there... All he could say was that he felt right fighting positionally.
A Sedlmayrese sergeant came from the tower, drew Bragi aside. "Captain Altenkirk," he whispered, "says he's taken prisoners. The men called Turran and Valther, and a woman. The Captain thinks she's the one you saw at Maisak."
Ragnarson frowned. A windy message for heliograph, susceptible of error. But justified if true. They had captured Mist? How?
"Thank you. Send 'Well done.' And keep it quiet." He retreated to a corner to think. So many possibilities ... But he would know the truth when Altenkirk came in.
He would have to take precautions. He headed for the wizards' compound.
iii) Prisoners
Altenkirk had taken no chances. He brought his prisoners in gagged, bound, and blindfolded, unable to twitch, inside the large wicker baskets farmers filled with grain and hung from their rafters to beat the rats and mice. Each was litter-borne by prisoners from Kimberlin's army and surrounded by Marena Dimura ready to destroy baskets and bearers in an instant. Each litter was piled with oil-soaked faggots. Horsemen with torches rode nearby.
In other circumstances Ragnarson would have been amused. "Think you took enough precautions?" he asked.
"I should've killed them," Altenkirk replied. "It's got to be a trick..."
"Maybe. Let's let the witchmen have them."
The baskets were grounded before the sorcerers. Soldiers who could do so absented themselves. Zindah-jira, the Egg of God, and the Thing With Many Eyes failed customary standards of what was human.
"What's the smell?" Ragnarson asked Visigodred, near whom he had positioned himself for his nerve's sake.
"The Thing's project. You'll see."
"Uhn." They had to make everything a mystery. He nodded to Altenkirk. "Turran first."
Altenkirk cautiously pried the lid off a basket. Sorcerers tensed like foxes waiting at a rabbit hole.
But Turran had been confined so long that he needed help getting out. Ragnarson went to the man, removed his gag. He beckoned Visigodred.
To Turran, "I'm sorry. Altenkirk's a cautious man."
"Understand."
"Water," Visigodred said, offering a cup. Turran drained it. While Bragi and a soldier supported Turran, Visigodred rubbed his legs. To Altenkirk the wizard said, "Let the others out. They'll cause no trouble."
There was a stir just before Mist came forth. Ragnarson turned. His eyes met the Queen's. So. She had ignored his advice again, had come to join the final battle. With perfect timing, he thought. Her eyes, on Mist, were hard and jealous.