He shrugged then, dismissing the whole thing. "The man was half-crazed, and was quite devoted to the defense of the Order. My guess would be that he decided some of you were likely to try something under cover of the storm, and climbed up to watch for attackers. That section of the wall does face on the area from which an attack could be expected."
Gortan nodded his acceptance of the story. "Well then—how do we 'manufacture' this incident?"
"There are among you a handful who have been passed over when the Shaman, Northwind, made his selection of those he would train." Halun looked at the swarthy faces in the flickering firelight, and noted the expressions of discontent on several of them. "I have tested you, and found those of you with wizard-power. I have been instructing you in its use. Now we will use it; all together, and together we will be a force truly to be reckoned with. Half of us will concentrate on Felaras, and half on Jegrai. I have no doubt that we will meet with success."
Gortan nodded, his expression one of smug self-satisfaction. "And we will be waiting for the mistake that must come?"
"Indeed," Halun replied, "We will be waiting."
The Pass was cooler than the valley—and Felaras could just barely hobble from her bed to her study, anyway. So Northwind and Jegrai were up here tonight, with detailed maps spread on the desk top, and herself and Ardun standing for the Order on her side of the desk.
She would have preferred Zorsha, but the lad was in the throes of creation—and with this particular creation, she'd as soon have him finished with it in the shortest possible time. It was something of a symbol to him; a symbol of his promise to Yuchai. Nothing was going to keep him from working on those canisters of that vile fire-stuff until the project was complete and ready to turn over to the munitions specialists for manufacture. He said he was on the verge of finding the way to seal the stuff in without setting it afire in the process, or making the canister so fragile it would break open in the act of being fired. If he was close to a breakthrough, best to let him be. Best to have that stuff out of the Fortress workrooms and back into the munitions sheds. As it was, he wasn't using his own workroom, or even one of the bigger, common workrooms. He had taken over an older workroom, the lower floor of part of the oldest part of the Fortress; one of the original stone towers in the north corner of the wall, small and cramped and drafty, and not much used by anyone for anything but storage these days. But Zorsha had not liked the notion of working with the fire where anyone else might be endangered, and Felaras had agreed with him. So the rubbish that had been put away there had been cleaned out, and Zorsha had moved his own instruments and tools in.
"So, you think the Talchai will come in through this way?" Ardun said, interrupting Felaras's thoughts. He traced a line on the map with his index finger, a line that did not follow the course of any of the roads across Azgun, but rather moved along the line of a fairly prominent ridge.
Kasha made a little movement and caught Felaras's eye. She made a subtle hand-sign: Somebody's ill-wishing again.
Felaras lowered her barriers. Strong. Damn. And this is not time for us to be distracted. Not only that, but we daren't take the time to do a proper deflection and send it back into their laps.
She caught the Shaman's eye and repeated the sign Kasha had made. He tightened his mouth, closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and gave a little nod in Jegrai's direction.
Wonderful. They're targeting the Khene, too.
She clasped her hands together; the Shaman considered, then nodded. In a heartbeat she could feel his shield meshing with hers—and his had the "feel" of more than one person.
Of course; he has Demonsbane, and whatever other shamans-in-training there are down at the camp, and probably all the Healer-women too—
Together they tightened a dome of protection over the Khene and Felaras herself that not even a sending that strong could breach. It would only bounce—and gods help whomever it hit.
Jegrai nodded, oblivious to the magic going on over his head. "I tell you my reasoning: first, there are many towns along this way, not too large, not too small, suitable for raiding. Like us, they will take what they need from those along their path. Second, they will be uncomfortable with the hills towering above them; we had some time to grow used to this, but Sen will be pushing them, they will be an army rather than a Clan with children, the old, and the ill to slow them, so they likely will not learn to ignore the hills about them. So they will move to the highest point in the land, not thinking that this will make them very visible. Being visible has never been a factor in our kind of battle; on the steppes one can see for many days' travel in all directions—one can see the approaching army long before it reaches one."
Ardun considered the route. "You know, if we wanted to move into Azgun, we could ambush them at dozens of places along their path, and weaken them considerably at very little cost to ourselves."
Felaras shook her head. "No good; our diplomatic relationship with the lords has never been all that healthy and bringing an army of our own will only make it worse. Especially an army of yet more nomads. No, much as I'd like to, sending in -ambushers is out of the question. Now, working on their minds—that's something else altogether."
Northwind looked up at her, his sharp eyes catching hers across the map. "How so, their minds?"
"Oh, well, an elaboration of the 'great wizards' show we put on for you," she said wishing her knee wasn't aching so persistently. "Consider: you people don't fight at night, correct?"
"Correct," Jegrai replied, plainly wondering what she was getting at. They didn't fight at night because fighting on horseback when the horses couldn't see was worse than stupid, it was courting suicide.
But fighting wasn't what she had in mind. "So, figure the Talchai are all bedded down for the night—not asleep yet, but settled in. Suddenly the skies fill with thunder and fire, and weirdly colored lightning, and when it passes, their attention is directed to the ridge beneath where the lightnings were. Because up on the ridge directly above the camp there's a flash of light. When they can see again, there are half-a-dozen Vredai riders with the Running Horse banner—and they're all glowing. What would they think?"
"That ghosts had come to haunt them," Northwind replied positively.
"Then the skies open up again, and there's another flash of light, and the riders are gone. Say this gets repeated, at irregular intervals." She grinned. "Like overcast nights, or nights with no moon, but I'd bet they don't make the connection."
"Sen would probably be able to convince them that these were demons, which would make them certain that they were in the right, but that would not keep them from being terrified," Northwind observed shrewdly. "We have too many tales where the demons are the ones who win. You can do all this?"
She shrugged. I need to take a pain-potion, and I need to stay awake. Gods, what a choice. Guess I'll stay awake. "It's fairly easy, actually. We already have the fireworks, we use them at festivals. The phosphor is easy enough to get. Slimy stuff, but glows very nicely after dark. Getting the riders in place without being seen is not any kind of a problem—cover them with blankets and move them in while the sky is lighting up, reverse the process when you're ready. We could even supply some fairly weird noises, but I personally think that silence would be more effective."