"Well, damn my eyes! I never seen such whining and carrying on."
Several Invincibles hustled the wizard into a captured house. His departure did not alter the outcome. The explusion of Guildsmen continued.
Bragi nearly waited too long. He had to fight his way out of the church. Haaken's only comment was, "We've got to quit fooling around here, Bragi. We're going to have too many people hurt to get them all back to camp."
"Scavenge all the warm clothes and blankets you can. And tools so we can build shelters. Find some harness animals and carts... "
"I took care of it already."
"You're not supposed to plunder... "
Haaken shrugged. "I'll worry about it when they court-martial me. What's the difference? These people will hate us no matter what. Which you already thought about or you wouldn't have told me to clean them out."
"I got that wizard."
"Shaghûn."
"What?"
"Shaghûn. That's what they call a soldier-wizard."
"Like Haroun is supposed to be? What's he doing here? With Hali, of all people?"
Haaken shrugged.
"He's going to be damned mad. Who's in good shape? We've got to let Reskird and Amin know what's going on."
"I sent Chotty and Uthe Haas right after Hali showed."
"You're getting too damned efficient."
A soldier approached them. "Captain, they're moving into this block."
Ragnarson withdrew as the sun set. The Guildsmen marched dispiritedly, sullenly, weakly. The cold was gnawing their wills. Bragi had to remind them that they were Guildsmen.
Several of the wounded died during the night. The company paused to bury them next morning. A messenger from Metillah Amin overtook them while they were chopping graves in the icy earth.
Amin had heard the Hali was on the middle road. The messenger bore a belated warning and the news that Amin was on his way to help.
"We're back in business," Bragi announced. "Haaken, take some men to those woods over there and start building shelters."
"You're not serious." Haaken wore a look of disbelief. "You are serious."
"Damned right I am. And get some fires going first thing."
Haaken grumbled away with the men. Their disenchantment was unanimous. For a moment Bragi feared he faced a mutiny.
Guild discipline held. He concluded his conversation with the messenger.
He joined his men at their hastily built fires. They huddled near the flames, taking turns rushing into the cold to assemble shelters of boughs and packed snow.
When he felt half toasted on each side he rose and trudged toward Arno, to see for himself what Hali was doing.
Twice he had to hide from Invincible patrols. They were not strong and not enthusiastic about their job. They were not ranging far from town.
Hali was doing nothing but keeping warm. He seemed content to wait till the cold spell passed. Neither his men nor his animals were fit to face prolonged exposure.
Bragi crawled into a haystack to sleep that night. When he finally returned to camp he found Amin and his men crowding the fires and looking forlorn. He decided to give them a day of rest.
The temperature did not drop that night, and it rose next day. It kept rising and the snow began a fast melt. The ground was soggy during the march on Arno.
"Looks like the cold is over," Bragi observed.
"Yeah," Haaken replied. "Our buddy, Hali, will be getting ready to move."
Hali was getting ready, but not to move. He had his shaghûn, and the shaghûn could see beyond the range of mortal eyes. The Invincibles were cooking up a little surprise.
Bragi walked into it. The fighting became savage. Amin's men were in a bloody mood. Hali's people, backboned by the shaghûn, stomped the eagerness out of them. Come nightfall, with only a few houses retaken, Ragnarson sent a whole train of casualties back to his camp in the woods.
"This is stupid, Bragi," Haaken declared. "It's like the time Father got into it with Oleg Sorenson."
"What?" Amin asked.
"My father and another man got into a fight one time," Bragi explained. "They were both too proud to give up and neither one was strong enough to drop the other. So they beat each other half to death. They couldn't get out of bed for a week. And nothing had changed when they did. They went right at it again."
"That shaghûn has to go," Amin said. "They'll eat us alive if he doesn't. We can eat them if he does. It's that simple."
"So go do something about him."
Amin smiled. "You mock me. All right. Loan me three of your best bowmen."
Bragi peered at the man. "Do it, Haaken."
"You sure?"
"He is. Give him his shot."
"Whatever you say." Haaken went looking for men.
"Still testing?" Amin asked.
"Always. You know it."
Amin was one of those curiosities which turn up in every war, the soldier of schizophrenic loyalties and ideals. He was twenty-seven years old. He had been fighting for ten years. For the first seven he had served El Murid. He had been one of the Scourge of God's Commanders of a Thousand.
He had become disenchanted with his fellow officers during the invasion of the west. They were making a mockery of the Disciple's law, and he saw little evidence that El Murid himself cared. When Nassef perished and el-Kader assumed command, Amin expected wholesale looting in the recovered provinces. He deserted.
Time had proven him wrong, but by then it was too late for Metillah Amin. He went to the mountains and swore allegiance to the King Without A Throne. His name was entered on the Harish lists.
Metillah Amin was an unfortunate man, and the more so because he knew no life but that of the warrior. In the tale of the El Murid Wars he was to have little significance save that he symbolized all the thousands of young men who found the conflict a slayer, not a mother, of dreams.
Bragi and his brother watched Amin's team vanish into the darkness. "That's a man looking for death," Haaken observed.
"It's his only way out," Bragi replied. "But he's got that fighter's determination, too. He can't just let it happen. He's got to earn it. Keep an eye on him. We'll hit them with everything if he gets lucky."
Haaken returned an hour later. He hunkered down and held his hands out to the fireplace. Bragi heard a rising clamor. "Well?"
"He earned it. But he got the job done. The shaghûn is gone."
"Dead?"
"As a wedge. For whatever good it'll do."
It did little immediate good. Hali's men were stubborn and desperate.
Uthe Haas, Haaken's messenger to Kildragon, returned next morning. He reported that Reskird was on his way.
"Ha!" said Bragi. "We've got them now." He sent another messenger to tell Kildragon to dig in across the road near the encampment in the woods. Then he gradually surrounded Arno, sneaking his strength to the north clumsily enough to be sure he would be detected. When he launched his "surprise" attack next morning Hali broke out to the south, driving down the road toward Hammad al Nakir and imagined safety.
The weather remained warm. The snow was almost gone. The earth was mush. The race was a slow one. Ragnarson and his infantrymen shambled along, pausing each few paces to knock the mud off their legs. Each time a man lifted a foot there was a schluck! as the mud surrendered its grip.
The Royalists and their foes exchanged the occasional arrow, but there was little fighting. From above, the road would have looked like a disorganized ant trail. The columns became ever more extended.
Bragi discovered some stony ground to his right. He guided his men into it and began gaining on Hali. Then his path suddenly dipped to a narrow, icy creek. By the time he crossed, Hali was in a brisk fight with Reskird and the Royalists. His men charged through the mud and closed the circle around the enemy.