His blood was rising, responding to years of frustration. "How many hundreds, nay, how many thousands of men have lost their lives over this abomination upon a hill? I have grown old here. Old before my time. Your sons have grown up here, made ancient by endless hatred and treachery and war. And now you want to abandon the place to the Disciple. For shame!"
Radetic planted himself in front of the Wahlig, fists on hips. He almost grinned. Even Fuad was shaken by his fury. "What have we lived for? What have we died for? If we go now, have we not wasted all those years and sacrifices?"
"We fought for an ideal, Megelin." Yousif's voice was soft and tired. "And we lost. The Disciple did not overthrow us physically. We ran him off again. But the ideal lies dead beneath his heel. The tribes are deserting us. They know where the strength lies, where the future lies. With the man we couldn't kill. With the man who, in a few weeks, will command hordes eager to swarm over our broken walls to plunder our homes, defile our women and murder our children. There is nothing we can do here—unless we want to die valiantly in a lost cause, like the knights in your western romances."
Megelin could not sustain his anger in the face of the truth. He and Fuad were being stubborn out of sentiment and pride. Death could be the lone reward for harkening to either. The Wahligate was lost in all but name.
Yousif continued, "Things aren't yet hopeless up north. Aboud opened his eyes enough to see the need for the General. Maybe reports from his own men, who have seen the enemy, will widen the crack in the wall around his reason. He still commands the strength and faith of the kingdom—if he'd just use them."
Torment and despair muddied the Wahlig's words, pain he would never confess. The decision to flee had cost him. It may have broken him as a man.
"You'll have your will, Lord. I haven't the strength to deny it. But I fear you'll find more heartbreak in Al Rhemish. There's nothing else to say. I must pack. It would be a sin if my labors of years were destroyed by ignorant fools in white."
For an instant torment controlled the Wahlig. His face reflected the horrors of hell. But he steadied himself, like the great lord he was. "Go, then, teacher. I'm sorry I've been a disappointment."
"Not that, Wahlig. Not ever." Radetic surveyed the others. Hawkwind remained inscrutable. Fuad was a study in inner conflict, an almost trite portrait of a man compelling himself to remain silent.
"Megelin," Yousif called as Radetic neared the door. "Travel with Haroun. I have very little else left."
Radetic nodded, stamped out.
"There you go," Kildragon said. "March all the way from High Crag, forced march, killing ourselves, so we can save this dump, and what do we do? Walk away. Why do they always let the morons do the military planning?"
"Listen to the old strategist," Haaken mocked. "He don't have sense enough to hold his spot in the line, but he knows better than the General and Haroun's old man, who've only been leading armies since before he was a twinkle in his father's eye."
"Keep it down," Bragi said. "We're supposed to be sneaking out of here."
"With all this racket? You could probably hear these wagons four miles away, they're making so much noise."
The Wahlig's horsemen had ridden out at nightfall, several hours earlier, in hopes of scouring the area of enemy spies. Now the main column was under way. The Guildsmen would guard its rear. The Wahlig hoped his getaway would not be noticed till he could not be overhauled.
"Ragnarson."
Bragi faced Lieutenant Sanguinet. "Sir?"
"Too much noise from your crowd. Tell Kildragon to keep it down or I'll leave him for the jackals."
"Yes sir. I'll gag him if I have to, sir."
That should have been it. But Sanguinet remained rooted, staring. Bragi began to wilt. Once the man finally did leave, Bragi told Haaken, "He knows. He has to pretend he don't on account of if he doesn't he'll have to do something about it. Even if we did save the Wahlig's kid. We're going to be walking on eggs. He'll be looking to get us on something else. Reskird, you better pretend you never learned to run your mouth."
"What did I do? I just said what everybody is thinking."
"Everybody else has sense enough to keep it to themselves. Let's move out." Bragi left el Aswad and never looked back. A glance over his shoulder would have been a glance into his past, and he did not want to rue his decision to enlist. A fool's decision, that, but he was here now, and he was of that stubborn sort which insists on enduring the consequences of its acts.
Looking ahead, he saw nothing promising. He expected to shed his life's blood somewhere on the sand of this savage, alien, incomprehensible land.
Haroun did look back. He had no choice. The litter he rode, despite insisting he could ride a horse, faced the castle.
He wept. He had known no other home, and was certain he'd never see it again. He wept for his father and Fuad, for whom el Aswad meant even more. He wept for all the valiant ancestors who had held the Eastern Fortress, never yielding in their trust. And he wept for the future, intimations of which had begun to reach him already.
Megelin joined him, and walked beside him, sharing a silence no words could give more meaning.
Before dawn arrived the column vanished into the Great Erg, unmarked by a single unfriendly eye.
Chapter Thirteen
Angel
S tunned by unexpected shifts of fortune, El Murid retreated into his fastness in Sebil el Selib. He did but one thing before further retreating into the fastnesses of his mind: he summoned Nassef from the Throyen front. He did so in a message sufficiently strong that it would be subject to no misinterpretation. Nassef must appear or face the wrath of the Harish.
Nassef made record time, urged on more by the Disciple's tone than by what he actually said. He feared El Murid might fall apart. He was not reassured when he arrived. His brother-in-law acted as if he did not exist.
For six days the Disciple sat on the Malachite Throne and ignored everyone. He drank little and ate less while venturing deep into labyrinths of self. Both Nassef and Meryem became deeply disturbed.
Nassef. Cynical Nassef. Unbelieving Nassef. He was half the problem. He was an infidel in the service of the Lord. El Murid prayed that his God forgive him for compromising. He should have shed the man a decade ago. But there was Meryem to reckon with, and there was Nassef's unmatched skill as a general. And, finally, there was the grim chance that some of the Invincibles now felt more loyal to their commander than to their prophet. It had been a mistake to hand them over to Nassef.
But the heretics within would have to wait till he had cast down the foes of the Lord without.
But Nassef... He took bribes from Royalists willing to buy their lives. He sold pardons. He appropriated properties for himself and his henchmen. He was building a personal following. If only indirectly, he was suborning the Movement. Someday he might try to grab it all. Nassef was the Evil One's Disciple within the Lord's camp.
But no spiritual malaise had driven El Murid into the wasteland of his soul. No. Nor was it so much the debacle before the Eastern Fortress. That hadn't proven as bad a defeat as it had seemed at the time. The enemy had loafed at the pursuit, fearing another ambush. The cause of his inturning was the decampment of the Wahlig of el Aswad.