“No?” Brown eyes twinkled down at her for a moment, then he shrugged. “I’ll not say as there isn’t maybe a mite of truth in that, but only think how lost poor Brandark would be finding himself if I was to suddenly come all erudite on him. It’s a dreadful mischief he might do himself.”
“Oh, we couldn’t have that! ” Leeana agreed, and looked back down at the courtyard as the latest covey of visitors drew up before the great keep and a fanfare sounded.
“I wonder where Mother’s going to put them all?” she mused as the Baron and Baroness of Balthar emerged from the keep to greet their guests. “King Markhos already has the North Tower, and your parents already have the South Tower, and the West Tower’s running over with war maids.” She shook her head. “I know Mother’s always enjoyed entertaining, but this is getting ridiculous, Bahzell!”
“Well, we’ve a month or so yet before first snowfall,” Bahzell pointed out philosophically. “I’m thinking pavilions on the parade ground might be working.” He smiled. “And now I’ve thought of it, I’ll wager it would be fair speeding things along, wouldn’t it just, with a Wind Plain winter coming on and them under canvas?”
“That’s an awful thing to suggest,” Leeana told him sternly. “Not that you don’t have a point.”
“Dreadful practical, we Horse Stealers are,” Bahzell assured her, and she snorted. Then her expression turned rather more serious.
“You’re not the only ones,” she told him. “Or perhaps I should say we’re not the only ones, since I’ve married into the family this way.” Her lips quirked another smile, but her eyes were grave as she looked down into the courtyard once more. “I have to say, though, it’s a good thing. Not that I ever thought practicality or-even worse! — reason would dare to rear its ugly head where Sothoii were concerned.”
“Best be striking while the iron’s hot,” Bahzell responded with a shrug.
“Oh, indeed,” a third voice said, and the two of them turned as a fiery-eyed, white-haired man stepped out onto the battlements behind them. He was far more simply, even drably, dressed than any of Hill Guard’s other visitors.
“And it’s wondering I’ve been where you’d gotten yourself to,” Bahzell said.
“Listening with bated breath while Sir Jerhas beats the speaker of the Kraithalyr about the head and ears-figuratively speaking, of course-about the Crown’s new attitude towards war maids,” Wencit of Rum said. He shook his head. “I’m getting just a bit tired of sitting around ominously while he does that.”
“Sure, and I’m thinking that’s what you’re after getting for being such a figure of legend, and all,” Bahzell told him, and the old wizard snorted.
“‘Figure of legend,’ is it, Bahzell Bloody Hand? At least no one’s trying to call me ‘Devil-Slayer’!”
“And if it’s all the same, I’d sooner no one would be calling me that, either,” Bahzell said in a much grimmer tone, and Leeana laid one hand on his forearm.
“No one’s forgetting all the others who died on the Ghoul Moor, Bahzell,” Wencit said much more gently. “And no one’s forgetting what happened at Chergor, either, Leeana.” He inclined his head slightly to her, although his eyes remained on Bahzell’s face. “But the truth is-and you know it as well as I do, Bahzell-that it’s what happened there that makes all of this possible.”
He waved one hand at the courtyard, where the Dwarvenhame delegation was in the process of being ushered up the steps into the main keep, and after a moment, Bahzell nodded.
As Sir Kelthys had observed that dreadful day, no one had truly seen one of Krashnark’s greater devils since the Fall of Kontovar itself. Indeed, their appearances even in Kontovar had been more matters of legend than confirmed fact. But with twenty thousand witnesses, not even the most skeptical Sothoii was inclined to doubt that was exactly what Trianal’s army had faced.
The price that army-and the Order of Tomanak-had paid to stop them had been horrific. Vaijon was only one of the eight thousand dead they’d suffered. Yurgazh Charkson would not be returning to Navahk. Over half the Hurgrum Chapter had died. Sir Yarran Battlecrow would spend the remainder of his life with one leg. Half of Tharanalalknarthas zoi’Harkanath’s barge crews had died, and Tharanal himself had lost his left hand to a ghoul’s jaws. He’d been thrusting a dagger down the creature’s throat at the moment those jaws closed.
Losses among the hradani infantry who’d held that line against the avalanche of ghouls had been especially heavy. Hurgrum would be years recovering from all the sons she’d lost that day, but their deaths had accomplished far more than simply clearing the line of the Hangnysti for the Derm Canal project. The Sothoii who’d been there with them, who’d shared that day of blood and carnage, had carried the tale of that grisly field back to the Wind Plain, and those battle companions had been…disinclined to listen to any more anti-hradani bigotry. It wasn’t just the fighting men of the West Riding anymore, either. Prince Yurokhas and his royal brother had seen to it that the truth of that fight had been spread far and wide.
It had come hard on the heels of the news of the assassination attempt at Chergor. Of the treason of Baron Cassan…and of the King’s rescue by the despised war maids of Kalatha. Some had tried to give the credit to Trisu of Lorham, instead, but Trisu would have none of it. Stubborn and stiff-necked he might be, but no man who lived could doubt Trisu of Lorham’s honesty or call him liar, and he’d already thrashed one particularly bigoted minor lord warden within an inch of his life for daring to impugn the war maids’ contribution.
They were the ones who’d discovered the plot in the first place, he’d told the spectators, standing over the semiconscious body of his opponent in the middle of the lists. It was a war maid, not one of his armsmen who’d carried the warning to Chergor in time. Who’d fought-unarmored and on foot-to save their King. Who’d claimed the traitor’s head and delivered it to King Markhos. And it was her sisters who’d taken Cassan’s armsmen in the flank and produced the victory his outnumbered armsmen-and, he’d added rather pointedly, the Quaysar Temple Guard and the Arm of Lillinara who’d commanded it-could not have won without them. In fact, he’d finished, one foot resting on the breastplate of the opponent who’d finally begun to stir once more, without the war maids of Kalatha, King Markhos would be dead, and Baron Tellian with him, and the traitor who’d killed them might very well have been named regent for Crown Prince Norandhor.
It had been quite a performance, and he’d capped it by escorting Shahana Lillinarafressa to the great banquet Baron Tellian had decreed (with King Markhos’ strong support) in honor of those selfsame war maids. He’d danced no less than six of that evening’s dances with Shahana, as well, and Bahzell had spotted the two of them with their heads together over tankards of beer well after everyone else had left for home or rolled unconscious under one of the tables. (With so many war maids in attendance, it had inevitably turned into that sort of party before the night was over.)
The sheer shock of the attempt on Markhos’ life, not to mention the disreputable nature of his rescuers, had rippled through the Kingdom of the Sothoii like the outrider of an earthquake. And then had come the terrifying news that greater devils had been seen for the first time in twelve centuries-and seen here, in Norfressa.
The majority of Norfressans had half-forgotten that they and their ancestors had ever lived anywhere else. They knew the tales and they sang the ballads, but aside from the historians among them, Kontovar was no longer truly real to them. It was a legend, a cautionary tale, something that had happened long ago to someone else entirely, and they’d grown accustomed over the centuries to coping with the handful of the Dark’s servants and creatures who emerged into the Light from time to time without sparing much thought for the Council of Carnadosa or the wizard lords of Kontovar who lay on the far side of an ocean, half a world away from Norfressa.