"I don't see anything," Anyeck said. "Can you? Your eyes are better.''
Gathrid searched the east. "I don't see anything, either." His gaze followed the road that looped round the marsh and headed south toward Hartog and the Dolvin. Their father had long since disappeared. He turned slowly, scanning the marsh itself, the vineyards, the wild rolling hills to the north. They were the Savards, from which the March took its name. He and his brothers hunted there occasionally. He said, "The hills look dry. Be dangerous if there's a fire."
"Everything is dry. We need rain. They say the marsh is drying up."
They passed an hour speaking of nothing, afraid to talk about what was on their minds.
Ventimiglia seemed to weigh on their brothers, too. Their efforts on the practice field were decidedly feeble.
The Safire was gone a week. When he returned, he announced, "The King himself was there. Things may not be as bad as we feared. The Brotherhood knows about Grevening. The Fray Magister, the Emperor and Ki-mach, King of Bilgoraj, have called for a conference at Torun."
Bilgoraj, one of the west's leading kingdoms, was Gudermuth's neighbor to the west. Its capital, Torun, was one of the great cities of the day, and Kimach Faul-stich was sometimes called one of the great Kings.
The Safire continued, "They're going to form an Alliance of all the western states and Brotherhood Orders. The King says the Alliance's protection will include Gud-ermuth, so we won't stand alone.
Ahlert won't dare attack. Not unless he wants to fight the whole west at once."
Gathrid had never heard his father make a longer speech. He hoped it was all true.
"He sounds like he's whistling in the dark," Anyeck whispered.
"What? Why?"
"He doesn't believe in this Alliance. He's just trying to make us feel safer.''
The fighting in Grevening washed against the border next day. Gathrid woke to alarms. The Safire's men-at-arms had exchanged arrows with Ventimiglians who had strayed over the line. He rushed to the east wall.
Smoke obscured the dawn, catching bloody fire from the rising sun. Below, just across the frontier, one of the Mindak's patrols was passing. He watched for a few minutes. His father came up, stood beside him. After a time, he said, "Gathrid, go have your breakfast, then start your lesson."
"Yes, Sir." He had given up arguing.
He tried to keep his mind on his studies. He could not. There was skirmishing going on across the border. The noise of the watchers on the walls kept distracting him. Anyeck had run out earlier.
Plauen slammed his book back into its protective case. He snapped, "Very well. Go ahead. Go applaud the Mindak's barbarism."
Gathrid gathered his study materials. His heart began to flutter.
"Gathrid," Plauen called after him. "Don't fall into the trap that's caught Anyeck. Don't start thinking there's something romantic and wonderful about this. It's war. It's an ugly business."
The youth could not conceal his disagreement.
"I wasn't always a Brother, Gathrid. I saw a few battles in my time. I saw my comrades lying on muddy fields, their guts spilled, stinking of their own ordure, the terror of death filling their eyes. ..."
Gathrid shuddered and ran. He did not want to hear that part. He wanted romances and lays. Blood and pain were not real. The economics, politics and psychology of warfare just made the old stories dull.
He wanted adventures grim with dread perils overcome, but with the clear certainty of a strong hero standing victorious in the end. Plauen kept trying to kill the shine. He insisted that it was all hogwash. He wanted you to believe that heroes didn't always win, that putting your money on evil was usually the better bet.
He reached the wall in time to witness the passing of a large company of eastern troops. Sunlight twinkled off their wildly varied armor. Their equipment rattled and clanked in a steady, grim beat.
His gaze locked on the black figure at their head. "One of the Dead Captains," he murmured. His stomach did a flip.
As if hearing him, the Toal halted, faced Kacalief. It stared at the fortress a long time, as if quietly amused by its audience. Its gaze swept across Gathrid. He felt as though an icicle had been driven into his brain. He shuddered. For a long moment he was frightened.
"Aren't they gorgeous!" Anyeck bubbled. These easterners were richly and colorfully clad. Gathrid understood most brigades dressed more somberly.
He turned to his sister, his upper lip rising in a half-sneer. Her greed blazed through her common sense. He wished she would outgrow having been spoiled. "They're dreadful," he said. "Look at the Dead Captain. Tell me he's glamorous."
She gave him a nasty look.
"He does fit the particulars of the husband you want."
"Gathrid, don't take out your frustrations on me."
"And you'll get a chance to meet one soon enough, I think."
Their mother stepped between them. "They won't, Gathrid," she said. "The Alliance will stop them.
Ah-lert won't risk the united wrath of the western kingdoms and the Brotherhood."
Then Plauen was behind them, smiling a distant smile. "Don't blind yourself, My Lady. Ventimiglia is a dragon with one head. It speaks with one voice. It strikes with one sword. It marches to one will. This Alliance will be a beast of a hundred heads, every one trying to drag the body in a different direction. The Mindak will sneer at it. He'll spit on it. And he'll trample it into the dust."
Gathrid stared at the Brother in disbelief. Never had he heard the man speak with such despair.
"Plauen!"
"I'm sorry. I forget myself. The rage of frustration seethes within me. I'm afraid it's too late.
The Mindak has the scent of fell artifacts of which only a few Ma-gisters are aware. Had he been stopped farther east, he might never have learned that they had survived the Fall."
The Safirina asked, "What are you talking about, Mi-kas?"
The redness left the teacher's face. He seemed to fold into himself. "Nothing, My Lady. Unfounded speculations I shouldn't be discussing. Pay me no mind. I'm a long-winded fool."
Gathrid stared. There was a look, in Plauen's eyes, when the man glanced at himself ot Anyeck, which turned his heart cold. And behind the look was a poorly controlled fear.
It was a puzzle, the youth thought.
Chapter Two
Ultimatum The armies of Ventimiglia halted just east of the Grev-ening border. Their encampments covered the countryside. Gathrid tried counting tents. He would get into the thousands and lose track. He gave up.
Refugees poured into Gudermuth. They carried tales so cruel nobody believed them. They featured Nieroda and the Toal in such monstrous roles that Kacalief's people rejected the accusations.
Nobody could be that bloody and black.
The Easterners erected semipermanent fortifications and barracks throughout autumn. Their numbers diminished. Spies reported that many of the Mindak's soldiers had returned to their families for the winter.
It was a small thing, but a human touch which offset the alleged brutality of that somber army.
Gathrid's father continued to hope weakly for the Alliance. His mother was convinced the Mindak would not defy it.
The battles with his father became more heated. The youth thought the threat justified his being trained. His father refused with increasing vehemence.
Anyeck, too, knew her disappointments. The Safire refused to let anyone run to safety. "We're responsible for this corner of the March," he insisted. "Neither I nor any of mine will shirk. We have our duty. We stand here. We set no cowardly examples, come peace or come war." And that was the final word.
Gathrid could not help but admire his father's stubbornness. It was the stubbornness of the heroes he worshiped.
Winter came with its snows. The Ventimiglians remained out there, their nearest works just a mile away. Their presence became ever more grating, more fraying to the nerves. Each day one of the black-clad Toal would ride to the border and sit, sometimes for hours, staring at the fortress.