"So far. Maybe it hasn't been needed. Weren't we here before?"
"Yes. There's a plain the other side of that ridgeline. I'd guess they'll meet there. A set battle. Lots of blood. Victory to the stubbornest. No strategy, no finesse. The only soldier I saw in that lot was Count Cuneo, and they gave him command in name only. They'll interfere all the way down the line. Politicians!" He snorted, shook his head, growled. "If war is too important to trust to generals, then policy is too important to trust to politicians.
"Well, that's neither here nor there. Right now I want a look from yon hill. Katich is only ten miles on."
"Where's the desolation?"
"You'll see plenty from the hill."
Rogala, Gathrid reflected, had a remarkable memory. "Has the land changed much? I mean, since the Impe-rium?"
The dwarf frowned, shrugged. "Some. It's wilder now. Unkempt, you might say. During the High Imperium, while the Immortal Twins reigned, the Inner Provinces were like parks. In those days they weren't preoccupied with wars, politics or juggling the Treasury. Life wasn't iffy till Grellner showed up. After that all you had to do was look around to see what was coming. The land started getting wooly, the way a man gets sloppy when he's preoccupied."
Rogala's loquacity puzzled Gathrid. How could he keep the dwarf talking? He might let some answers fall.
It also made him suspicious. Rogala seldom took a deep breath without having an ulterior motive.
They climbed the hill Theis had chosen, picking their way up slopes scattered with bodies and scolding ravens.
"Here we have an allegory of most warfare on the mortal plane," the dwarf growled. "The Ventimiglians had a force posted here. The Bilgoraji decided they wanted the hill. So they took it. And after all these lives were spent, they changed their minds."
"What?" Rogala was sliding out of character today. He was criticizing a bloodletting? This sounded like the pot calling the kettle black. What was going on?
Each time the man opened up, he became more a mystery. Gathrid sometimes felt there were three or four personalities behind the dwarf's haunted eyes. Or one so complex no mortal could hope to comprehend it.
The youth gasped, awed, when he saw the armies spread out beyond the hill.
To the west, gaudy as peafowl, lay the Alliance forces, spreading till their flanks climbed the sides of the hill-walled plain. The Ventimiglians, to the east, looked like a dun-flecked black glacier making an inexorable journey westward.
"So many!"
"I've seen larger." Rogala seemed far away. He stared intently. "The Alliance looks stronger, numbers-wise. But Ahlert has the advantage of a unified command."
Troops of cavalry roamed the plain between the hosts. "Why aren't they fighting?" Gathrid asked.
"They are. Skirmishing. Testing each other's nerve. They'll rest and bluff and look each other over today. The fighting will start in the morning."
They watched the horsemen race around, taunting one another, trying to isolate one another at a disadvantage. Nothing much happened.
"Not the best site, this," Rogala observed. "Just ground where chance brought them together.
Nobody has the sense to back off to a better place." He glowered at both camps. "The sorcery might make a difference. From the feel of them, I'd say Ahlert has the edge there."
The dwarf muttered along in total detachment. He was no more involved than if this battle-to-be were one that had taken place centuries ago, between nations which no longer existed. He seemed unable to connect with the blood and tears about to be spilled.
"We've got to do something," Gathrid insisted.
"They turned us down, remember? Anyway, you want to see about your sister. Right? Okay. That means we've got to travel. All night, maybe, to get around Ahlert to Katich."
"You don't waste time on life's frills, do you?"
"Frills?"
"Eating. Sleeping. Little luxuries like that."
Rogala grinned. "We're getting a sharp tongue on us, aren't we?" Then his humor evaporated. He muttered something about getting his debt paid as soon as possible. He added, "In troubled times no head rests easy, neither just nor unjust."
Dawn found them deep in the desolation round Katich, atop a rise facing the city. Since they had seen the city last a major effort had been made to breach its walls. Stains and wounds of fire and sorcery marred its ramparts and the surrounding earth. "The defense held," Rogala said. "But it looks like it was a close thing."
Countless biers, elevated on poles in the Ventimiglian fashion, stood ranked outside the combat zone. Beneath each, numbered according to the importance of the dead, were the bodies of natives who had been slain to provide the warriors with slaves when they reached the other shore.
Gathrid averted his eyes. The necropolis had taken the fight out of him.
"Gruesome custom," Rogala conceded. "But this is an old world. It's seen even stranger. Remind me not to ride downwind."
Gathrid ignored him. He was worrying about Anyeck. Her perfidy, if the witch were indeed she, had to be countered.
Where was the witch? He saw nothing unusual amongst the Ventimiglians surrounding the city. "You think she went with Ahlert?" he asked.
"No. There." Rogala pointed.
Gathrid saw it now, a gibbet-size platform that faced Katich's main gate, beyond the range of conventional weaponry. He had missed it because it was camouflaged by countless siege engines.
Rogala pontificated about the wisdom, or lack thereof, of placing one's dead where the enemy could count them. Then, abruptly, he demanded, "What're you planning?"
The query caught Gathrid off balance. Theis seldom asked. He told. "You'll back me?"
"I have no choice. It's my job. My fate. My curse. But try to finish in time for us to catch how the big battle turns out.''
He was so calm about it. So bloody indifferent... . Uncertainty racked Gathrid. How would he handle it? Deciding to stop Anyeck was easy. Doing so was something else. He had had no luck at home. Nothing swayed her once she made up her mind. "What can we expect?"
"Only way to find out is the hard way. I suggest you get started before we're noticed." He pointed.
There was activity round the gibbet now. Trumpets blared. A sedan chair came from among the Ventimiglian tents. That was the kind of thing Anyeck loved, he thought. Pomp and honors. If she was the witch, she would make sure there was plenty.
"I'd better go down."
His heart hammered. His hands shook. Perspiration beaded his forehead. Afraid Rogala would see him and mock him, he spurred his mount.
His mind darted off in a hundred directions. All he could extract from the chaos was an urge to flee. He seized the hilt of the Sword for comfort.
The horns became stilled. A curtain of silence swept across the world. A thousand faces turned his way. The sedan paused in its passage. A face peeped out. He could not be sure at this remove. It was pale enough. And Anyeck was vain. She always protected herself from the sun.
Sound returned to the earth. Horns and drums howled and growled in Katich. Their voices were defiant. A gate opened. A knight in glowing blue armor surged forth. He rode a prancing charger.
It was the biggest animal Gathrid had ever seen. The warrior's lancehead seemed to have been wrought of living fire.
The Ventimiglians ignored him.
"That would be Honsa Eldracher, eh?" Rogala shouted as he pounded up beside Gathrid. His yell seemed to come from far away.
"Probably." Gathrid found his own voice unnaturally loud.
"Watch the moon!" Rogala bellowed. "She's the lady of the moon."
Several Ventimiglians started their way.