“No, Rik. It’s politics.”
“What if he is sincere? What if he really decides he wants to bring you down?”
Asea laughed. “Others have tried in the past, Rik. I am still here.”
Rik hoped she was not the one being over-confident now.
Chapter Seven
“I take it you’ve heard the news?” said Jazeray, sticking his sleek head round the office door.
Sardec tore his attention from the minutia of the supply lists: provisions, bullets, powder, all the myriad things that had to be accounted for with quartermaster’s requisitions, small foolscap boats floating down the endless river of paperwork.
“Heard what?”
“We’re getting ready to move out?”
“So soon in the season? Where are we going? Home?”
“We are not so lucky. It looks like we’re heading East. Scouts have just come in. Seems the Imperials can’t wait to get to grips with us. Their armies are already rolling over the border.”
“For certain?”
“The General believes it, and that’s what counts. The official letters of dispatch go out this afternoon but I thought you would appreciate getting the word as quickly as possible.”
“Any idea about numbers? Of the Imperials, I mean.”
“They say tens of thousands of thralls.”
“They are not afraid of the plague then?”
“Apparently not.”
“Maybe they know something we don’t.” Sardec had his suspicions about this ever since the Foragers had disrupted Jaderac’s ritual. The Sardeans were prepared to use any amount of dark sorcery to achieve their aims. It looked like it was going to be a difficult war, with plague and famine sweeping the land.
He supposed it had not been so different in his father’s day, save for the fact that then the enemy had not been other Terrarchs. During the conquest, the Exalted had presented a united front against the world. Now they fought proxy wars against each other through their human legions. It would only be a matter of time before it led to disaster.
Rulers were supposed to provide stability, certainty, prosperity. If they could not, loss of faith and rebellion inevitably followed. Terrarchs were supposed to be wiser than humans, able to take the long view, not be led astray by the clamour of mobs. His father had claimed that they were shepherds of their human charges, that they had a responsibility to them. It was only recently that Sardec had come to understand what he had meant and in some ways to share his feelings.
Jazeray said, “You’re looking thoughtful. I can tell by the blankness in your eyes. It reflects the emptiness in your skull.”
“I fear you judge me by yourself. I suppose it’s inevitable. We can only use our own experience as a guide.”
Jazeray laughed. “That sounded suspiciously like banter. You seem to be losing that famous stiffness of yours. Anyway, I had better go and let my Sergeant know what’s happening. Might as well have the troops ready for the off.”
“Your Sergeant knew about it before you did,” said Sardec.
“It never hurts to let them know we’re not completely in the dark.”
“Let me just sign these reports and I’ll join you.”
“We’re going where?” The Barbarian shouted. It was bloody typical. He had just got himself settled in this nice comfortable billet with a couple of jolly fat-bottomed whores and a decent supply of grog and tobacco and the army had to go and spoil it. It was enough to make a man sick. There were days when he really regretted leaving Segard, and this was one of them.
“We’re going East. Best get used to it,” said Weasel, looking as relaxed as he always did. He looked around the room where a dozen of the Foragers lay sprawled on their bedrolls. “Sergeant Hef asked me to spread the word. Seems like the Imperial hordes have crossed the border and are hot for blood.”
“Wankers,” said the Barbarian. “It’s bloody typical- I just got myself settled into a nice comfortable…”
“I know, I know,” said Weasel, looking like he’d heard all of this a thousand times before, intolerant bastard that he was. “Two or is it three plump lasses and a tavern with a good fire and a nice line in roasted rat, and now the army has got to go and spoil it all by giving us our marching orders. Who could have seen that coming?”
For a lanky thin bastard, Weasel did a pretty good impression of the Barbarian’s voice and manner or at least the other’s thought he did. They all laughed. The Barbarian glared around the room just to let them know he was not to be mocked, at least not by anybody but Weasel. They all looked away, abashed by his glare. They knew he could take any six of them, even though most of them were half his age. Actually he could take any ten of them on a good day and the way he felt now…
“You think we’ll be fighting any more dead men?” Toadface asked. Like all of the Foragers, he had grown heartily sick of the walking corpses. The Barbarian did not blame them. In his homeland. bodies remained decently in the ground when buried, and there was none of the need for burning you got in these devil-infested southern lands.
Weasel spread his huge long fingered hands and shrugged, pantomiming a total lack of knowledge.
Handsome Jan stopped admiring his profile in his shard of mirror long enough to say, “It seems like we’ve doing nothing else but deal with bloody sorcery since we crossed the Kharadrean border.”
“Since before that,” said Toadface, licking his lips with his long tongue. “Since the mountains and Achenar.”
The words filled the room with silence. None of them liked to remember that evil place and the Elder World demons that had filled it. They had all of them lost a bunch of friends to the spiders, and the Barbarian had come damn near to losing his life. He still carried the scars from where those huge claws had bitten into his flesh and it was not like he didn’t already have enough scars.
“I’m guessing we’ll see a deal more dark sorcery before this campaign is out,” said Weasel, always one to delight in bringing bad news. “The Sardeans are famous for it.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” said Toadface. “Like that bastard Jaderac up there in the graveyard, and that Nerghul thing that almost killed us all back in Morven. There are times when I think this whole bloody company is cursed.”
“Well, at least we’ve got the Inquisitor with us,” said Handsome Jan. “That fire of his put paid to the shadow-spawn.”
“I put paid to them with my blade,” said the Barbarian.
“Funny, that’s not how I remember it,” said Weasel.
“Well, I did my part, which is more than some here can say.” The Barbarian glared around, daring anyone to gainsay him, and as usual no one did.
“When do we move out?” Toadface asked.
“Day after tomorrow,” said Handsome Jan.
“No way,” said Weasel. “It’ll take weeks to get the provisions ready, and for the Terrarchs to make up their minds as to what to do.”
“Maybe the Sardeans will be here before then,” said Handsome Jan dubiously.
“Only if they come on dragon-back,” said Weasel. “It’s scores of leagues to the Eastern border, and the roads will be muddy as hell with the spring rains.”
“You don’t think they have enough dragons to move their entire army, do you?” the Barbarian asked. He didn’t mind fighting many things and he feared nothing, but the concept of roughhousing it with a dragon gave him pause.
“No. They’ll all be hibernating anyway, if our own are anything to go by.”
“Reckon there’ll be much plunder?” Handsome Jan asked.
Weasel shook his head. “Imperials will grab any they find on the way in, and Eastern Kharadrea is as poor as an honest magistrate anyway.”
“If the Imperials do have anything we can always take it from them,” said the Barbarian. He did not like to think that they might have to fight a battle without any prospect of loot. It was one of the few things that made a soldier’s life worthwhile.
“Nice that somebody is looking on the bright side,” said Weasel. “Now if I have answered all your questions, I am going to go and get a drink.”