"Human waves," Varthlokkur said. "Will they break through?"
"Southern Army is outnumbered twenty to one. There'll be other waves. Lord Kuo is trying to assemble a reserve, but he might not have gotten started in time."
"When do you make your move?" the King asked.
"It's too early to worry about that." Concern creased Mist's perfect brow. "We have to find out what's happening first. If it gets too bad out there we'll drop it."
"What the hell for?" the King demanded.
"You forget she isn't interested in destroying the Dread Empire," Varthlokkur said. He eyed his friend. There was a touch of monomania in the man these days. "Only in seizing control."
"Yeah. Well. Let's set up in the War Room. Looks like we'll be busy for a while."
Mist said, "My place would be better. I'm already in touch with my people out there."
The King looked at Varthlokkur. The wizard nodded. The King said, "In two hours, then."
Varthlokkur turned and took another look at the fire-gutted sky. Worms writhed in his guts. What bold fools we are, challenging the man who has that dancing at his fingertips.
Once Mist was out of earshot, the King whispered, "Are we backing the wrong horse?"
"We? This was your idea."
"Uhm. So it was." Bragi made a sour face.
Lord Ch'ien made a small gesture. Mist glanced up. The King was standing in the doorway, agog. It had been years since he had been here on the top floor of her home. She had made changes.
He strode over. "How about I replace your sentries with mine? We'll draw enough attention without having orientals standing around."
"Right." She beckoned an Aspirator from the runner pool, gave him his orders. Taking the King's arm, she indicated a bank of seats which had been constructed along the nearer and side walls of the room. The entire third floor had been stripped of partitions. The windows were heavily curtained. The far wall was bare and shadowed. A huge table occupied the center of the room.
"Ask your staff to sit and stay put," she said. "And tell them to stay away from the south wall. They could get us killed if they stumbled through a portal."
A man stepped out of thin air. He reported to the gentleman in charge of the room's centerpiece. Mist listened with one ear. A routine report.
"I'd about give my left arm for a map like that in my War Room," the King murmured. The map atop the table was thirty feet long and fifteen wide. It represented Shinsan and the empire's tributaries. Every city of significance was noted, as were all major geographical features. The whereabouts and movements of the empire's many legions were marked in bright colors.
Another messenger popped into the room. A tableman listened, began spreading red sand.
Mist told Bragi, "Sit down." Then, "My people are doing better than I expected. I'm getting first-rate information. Probably because Lord Kuo is keeping his head down."
No probably about it, she thought. Lord Kuo was laying low somewhere, letting the thing take shape. She rose, took a pointer, tapped the map. "Somewhere in all this blank space he's hidden his reserve army. In a few days he'll drop a big hammer on the Matayangans."
"How is Southern Army doing?"
She kept her opinion to herself. "You see the map. It's maintaining the integrity of its lines. Against the odds, that's all you could ask of any army. Just a minute."
A messenger had appeared. She moved round to where she could catch snippets of his report. "Damn!" she said, though softly.
The table chief moved small, numbered black markers into a cluster at the map's easternmost edge. He moved others to a riverbank two hundred miles behind the cluster.
"What's all that?" the King asked.
She told the whole truth when she replied, "We're not sure. Communications are muddled. Eastern Army is under attack."
"Matayanga caught them with a surprise ally?"
"This started before the southern thing. It's been on more than a week."
"There's a whole second war there?"
"Something awful is happening... " She controlled herself. Bragi might be an old friend, and an old fighting companion, but he wasn't part of the family. One did not show one's fears to the outside world. "Before he disappeared, Lord Kuo gave Eastern Army a new commander. Lord Ssu-ma Shih-ka'i. He's an old peasant who came up the hard way. Goes way back. Very capable, and stubborn as hell."
"Uhm."
She sighed. Good. He wasn't interested in the east.
"Any notion when you want to move?"
"Not before Lord Kuo comes out of hiding. I don't want to jump in blind."
"If we're going to be a while, I'd better make arrangements for my people." The King rose, grunting as he did so. Mist watched him go. He was feeling very tired, very old. She felt a moment of empathy. She, too, felt tired and old. And she'd feel much more so before this was done. The danger would mount by the minute, and every minute would increase the odds against the coup attempt remaining secret. "Wen-chin," she murmured, "please don't waste any time."
The interminable wait became a deathwatch. The Matayangan attack went on and on and on, and still the time did not ripen. Tempers began to flare.
"Lord Kuo must have nerves of stone," Mist opined to Lord Ch'ien. "I don't think I could have held off this long."
Lord Ch'ien tapped the map with the tip of his pointer, sketching the outline of the bloody stain of Matayangan advance. His hand quivered. The red sand thrust deep into Shinsan. Mist's informants said the original Southern Army hardly existed anymore. Some hard-hit legions had been disbanded and their survivors distributed as replacements. There was a huge gap in the army's line. Matayangans were pouring through.
Lord Ch'ien said, "My limit has been surpassed. Maybe that's why Lord Kuo is in command."
"Tut-tut. No second-guessing at this stage of the game." The King appeared. He scanned the map. "It's been two days," he said. "All this courier traffic has to leave traces. How long before somebody starts adding things up?"
"I know! I know!" Mist snapped. "Pretty soon we'll have to assume they know. Damn the man! Lord Kuo, I mean. Why doesn't he move?"
"He hasn't got them where he wants them yet," Bragi observed laconically. He considered the map again. "But if he waits much longer, there won't be anything left for you to take over."
"Compare the size of the cancer with the whole," she snarled. Then, "Lord Ch'ien. The time. If he hasn't moved within fifty hours, I'll do so myself."
"In the dark?" the King asked.
"If I have to. I won't be able to trust my people much longer than that. By then if one defected they'd all stampede." Wearily, she added, "It would take ten years to put it all together again."
Aral seated himself beside her while she was talking. He said something meant to be soothing. He tried to take her hand. In front of Lord Ch'ien. She pulled away.
It was time to put paid to this nonsense. She shouldn't have started it. Fool. Man-weak fool. She'd lost the Tervola once because of Valther. She wouldn't make that mistake again.
She ignored Aral's look of pain.
Lord Ch'ien hadn't caught the byplay, she saw, but Bragi had. He was nodding to himself. She felt her cheeks reddening. He didn't comment, though. He said, "It's late. I'm going to get some sleep."
She watched him speak with his captains before leaving. Their continuous presence irked her. They had eyes like hawks. She had to keep them in mind every instant. Damn this having to depend on outsiders!
Her irritation mounted as the hours passed. Her men, too, were tense. They couldn't speak without snapping at one another. The conspiracy was about to shake itself apart. And still time twisted the springs of tension tighter.