Consent asked, “Who found him?”
The scouts responsible raised their hands.
“You didn’t try to waken him?”
“No, sir. Sir, if he wasn’t breathing we would of thought he was dead. He ain’t moved since we found him.”
Hecht lay curled on his right side, hands bunched in front of his mouth. “Sleeping like a baby,” Sedlakova observed. Sedlakova had a thin oval face and clover honey hair thinning all over. There was no fat on his lean frame. Excepting the absent arm he looked the perfect example of what he was: a career soldier. He was one of those men who remained clean and neat even in the roughest circumstances.
Titus Consent, on the other hand, remained permanently just over the line toward rumpled. He was lean, too. The Righteous were all lean. Even in garrison they lived an active, austere life.
All the fault of that man sleeping there in the cold.
Consent considered the gathered soldiers. Hecht had to be way out not to hear all their racket. He walked round his friend, saw no hint of anything remarkable-other than the man’s inexplicable presence.
Sedlakova said, “He isn’t dressed for this weather.”
“No. You’re right.” Hecht wore what he usually did in the field, nondescript clothing you could find on any workman. There were no layers. He had come from somewhere warm. “Good eye. I didn’t notice that.” Consent knelt, shook Hecht’s left shoulder.
It took more than a minute to get a response, and that was not the expected startle reaction. It was bleary-eyed confusion, then disbelief, then a baffled, “Where am I? How did I get here?”
“I was hoping you could tell us. We’re in the approaches to the Remayne Pass, just south of where they ambushed us before. How you got here is something you’ll have to explain.”
“I don’t know, Titus. I was in Brothe, at Principaté Delari’s townhouse. I had strange dreams about old-time gods. Not nightmares. Just dreams, like memories of things that never were. Then you shook me. And here I am, freezing.” He was sitting now, but looking like he would need help getting to his feet.
Titus Consent was not as skeptical as a good Chaldarean ought to be, nor even as skeptical as the Devedian he had been before his conversion. But he had spent a year in the Connec hunting and extinguishing revenant devils from antiquity. “We put them all down. Rook was the last one. You were there when we got him.”
“Different Old Ones, Titus. The northern ones.”
“Donner? Ordnan? Due? That crew?”
“I know the middle one. Remember that big explosion outside al-Khazen? That was him getting a taste of what we gave Rook, Hilt, Kint, and that lot later.”
“They have a bunch of different names, depending on where they were worshipped. Some even overlapped the bunch we cleaned up. The ancient Endonensins liked the northern war god. Their warriors hoped to be claimed by the Choosers of the Slain.”
“All right.”
“Due was the war god. He had more different names than anybody, including just plain War. Donner was Ordnan’s son. He was big and dumb and famous for a magic hammer that was so heavy nobody else could lift it. Thunder-which is what Donner meant-happened when Donner was playing with his hammer. Or, more likely, when he dropped it.”
“Red Hammer.”
“Uhm.”
The Righteous got their Commander upright and gave him a dead man’s coat. Everyone passing got as close as possible, to see if the rumors were true. Regimental field cooks brought food. The Commander ate heartily.
He seemed bemused. Or, better said, preoccupied.
Hecht’s staff eventually gathered round. They did not say much. Though good men and old friends, they were troubled. This latest mystery left them more uncomfortable than they had been since that assassin took the Commander down and dead-just before he got up and walked again.
His very title sheltered him from darker suspicions: Commander of the Righteous. Anointed captain of God’s Own Army, destined to cleanse the Holy Lands of an infidel infestation. The Commander of the Righteous would have no congress with devils, demons, or darkness. Would he?
Still, Hecht’s staff and captains worried.
* * *
The Righteous were short on mounts and drayage. The Commander ended up riding a mule. He refused to commandeer a mount. The mule’s name was Pig Iron. Hecht had known him and his human traveling companion, Just Plain Joe, from the beginning of his career in the west. Just Plain Joe liked animals better than people. Because of Joe that side of the Righteous functioned better than it did in most armed forces. Joe had had the same impact wherever Hecht commanded, all the way back. Just Plain Joe had no ambition greater than to ease life for his four-legged friends. By doing so he improved life for the two-leggers as well.
The officer corps of the Righteous stipulated Joe’s good work but disdained their Commander’s friendship toward, indulgence of, and adamant support for a dullard peasant.
It was simple. Just Plain Joe had set a sentimental hook. Hecht could explain, “There are only four of us left from the band that went to the Connec to punish Antieux for defying the Patriarch and Joe is the only one still with me. We have a bond.”
The other survivors were Pinkus Ghort and Bo Biogna. Ghort had become Captain-General of Patriarchal forces, a post little more than that of head policeman in Brothe, now. Biogna had gone missing. When last seen he had been an undercover agent for Ghort, or Bronte Doneto, or the Church. Or maybe all three. Biogna and Just Plain Joe were close. If Biogna was alive he would contact Joe eventually.
The Righteous moved on into the chill of the high Jagos. Their Commander spent most of his time brooding. He did not notice the cautious attitudes of his companions. He did recall that there were other survivors of that first murderous campaign against Antieux, but none who had been with him doing the grunt work. Bronte Doneto had been there. The deposed Patriarch still nurtured a fierce hatred for the Connec. Osa Stile had been there, as the plaything of the Brothen Episcopal bishop of Antieux, Serifs, and as a spy for the Empire.
Did any of that mean anything anymore? Other than emotionally?
Probably not.
Once the Righteous began the descent of the north slope of the Jagos, Hecht’s brooding shifted from the past to the future. There was no evidence that the new Empress would not want him to go on preparing for a crusade. And next spring was no longer far away.
Too, he had to prepare his people for the changes that would follow once the special assistance commenced.
The Old Ones, surely, would be smart enough to take on disguises. But how could they help giving themselves away?
Humility was not in their characters.
In which case they might not have to wait long to find out what Red Hammer had discovered already.
13. Tel Moussa: Two Devils Dancing
Black Rogert’s character did, indeed, prove to be a weapon that could be used against him, but not in the way Nassim Alizarin planned, and not nearly as soon as he hoped.
Every fault du Tancret had discovered and honed during his first tour as castellan of Gherig came back with him, exaggerated. He wallowed in his wicked reputation. His own people hated him. During a skirmish with Alizarin’s raiders a Navayan crusader named Matthias of Camargha tried to kill him from behind with a mace. At the critical instant their horses stumbled over a wounded infantryman. Both lost their seats.
Matthias surrendered to Alizarin rather than endure what awaited his return to Gherig. Du Tancret suffered a broken right shinbone.
Matthias was one hundred percent cooperative with his captors but would not change religion. Nassim drained him of what he knew about Gherig and Black Rogert, gave him a horse and passage money, and let him go.
Disaffection inside Gherig ran bitter and deep. The Brotherhood of War barely cooperated with the castellan. Servants who lived outside the fortress were no longer unwilling to talk to enemies of Rogert du Tancret.