Bragi took command. He set Hawkwind and Lauder to confine the bridgeheads. He sent help to Haaken to secure his flank, and flung his remaining horsemen after the spearhead plunging into Kuratel. His vast, confused mass of infantry he led in retreat again, up the Auszura Littoral, out of the pocket.
He adopted the Fabian strategy again. The Porthune crossings he cleared and abandoned without contest. Itaskia became his goal, winter his weapon of choice.
Legions caught him near Octylya. In the absence of Badalamen, Ragnarson proved he had some talent. He sucked them into a trap, beneath his bows, and annihilated twenty-five thousand legionnaires. But he didn't grow heady. He persevered in his strategy.
In early October he crossed the Great Bridge into Itaskia the City, where he, Mocker, and Haroun had spent much of their earlier lives.
Reskird Kildragon had problems. Some of the Rebsamen faculty were agitating for accomodation with Shinsan. It surpassed him.
Hellin Daimiel had withstood years of siege during the El Murid Wars. Those defenders had never lost spirit. And that enemy hadn't planned to obliterate them.
Kildragon couldn't convince the dons that Badalamen was truly destroying everything and everyone outside.
Chance had separated Prataxisfrom Ragnarson at Dichiara. Now he was Kildragon's assistant. He came to Reskird one autumn evening, pale as old sin.
"I've found the answer. Our own people...."
"What?" The inevitability of failure had eroded Reskird's patience, making him a small, mean man, all snarl and bite.
"A Nines conspiracy. Here. At the Rebsamen. I stumbled on it.... I was on my way to see my antiquarian friend, Lajos Kudjar, about the Tear of Mimizan. I overheard an argument in the Library, in the east wing, where they keep...."
"Skip the travelogue. Who? Where? How do we nail them?"
"In time, my dear man. This has to be handled properly. They have to be exposed carefully, every one identified. Else we risk turning Hellin Daimiel against us."
Kildragon stifled his temper and impatience. Survivalinstinct reminded him that a politically satisfactory outcome was critical.
A perilous month passed. Three times traitors opened the city gates. One quarter was irrevocably lost.
Then the member of the Pracchia, tricked with false directives, made his misstep. Prataxis made certain the right people were witnesses.
The mob destroyed the Rebsamen Nine.
Searching at Ragnarson's insistence, Radeachar uncovered a conspiracy in Itaskia.
The Greyfells group, an opposition party, had used treason as a political tool since the El Murid Wars. Radeachar destroyed every conspirator.
Itaskia's semineutral stance ended instantly.
Political victories, tactical defeats.
The big battle loomed. The bent man gathered his might on the south bank of the Silverbind. The contest, if he won, would shatter the west. Heads bent together. Famous men, old enemies from smaller wars, shared the map tables.
They dared not lose.
Yet winning would prove nothing. Not against Badalamen, armed with Shinsan's resources.
THIRTY-THREE: Itaskia
"When?" Ragnarson asked Visigodred. He and the lean Itaskian watched Badalamen's army from the Southtown wall. Southtown, a fortified bridgehead of Itaskia the City, stood on the south bank of the Silverbind. It was the last western bastion below the river, excepting Hellin Daimiel and High Crag. Simballawein, Dunno Scuttari, Libiannin, and even Itaskian Portsmouth, had fallen during the winter.
The wizard shrugged. "When they're ready."
For months the armies had stared at one another, waiting. Bragi didn't like it. If Badalamen didn't move soon, Ragnarson's last hope of victory would perish. Each day the opening of the Savernake Gap drew closer. Marco said hordes of reinforce-ments were gathering at Gog-Ahlan. Shinsan's new masters were stripping their vastly expanded empire of every soldier.
Ragnarson also feared an early thrust through Hammad al Nakir. There were good passes near Throyes. The route was but a few hundred miles longer, though through desert. Megelin couldn't thwart the maneuver.
Megelin had taken Al Rhemish and declared himself King. But El Murid had escaped to the south desert, round Sebil el Sebil, where his movement had originated. He would keep making mischief. Yasmid remained in his hands.
"We've got to get him going," Ragnarson growled, kicking a merlon.
Visigodred laid a gentle hand on his arm. "Easy, my friend. You're killing yourself with caring. And the augeries. Consider the augeries."
The wizards spent hours over divinations and could produce nothing definite. Their predictions sounded like the child's game of knife, paper, and rock. Knife cuts paper, paper wraps rock,rock beats knife. Every interpretation caused heated, inconclu-sive arguments among the diviners. Identical arguments raged amongst the Tervola.
Factions in each command insisted any attack would, like rock, knife, or paper, encounter its overpowering counter.
Drums throbbed. Their basso profundo was so old it bothered no one any longer. Several legions left Badalamen's encampment, making their daily maneuver toward Scjuthtown.
It had been the coldest and snowiest winter in memory. Neither side had accomplished much. Each had weathered it. Shinsan had the force to seize supplies from the conquered peoples. Ragnarson's army had Itaskia's wealth and food reserves behind it. Badalamen had tried two desultory thrusts up the Silverbind, toward fords which would permit him to cross and attack toward Itaskia the City from the northeast. Lord Harteobben, his knights, and the armies of Prost Kamenets, Dvar, and Iwa Skolovda, had crushed those threats.
Itaskia's fate would be decided before her capital, by whether or not Badalamen could seize the Great Bridge.
The structure was one of the architectural wonders of the world. It spanned three hundred yards of deep river, arching to permit passage of ships to Itaskia's naval yards, established upriver long before bridge construction began. Construction had taken eighty-eight years, and had cost eleven hundred lives, mostly workmen drowned in collapsed caissons. Engineers and architects had declared the task impossible beforehand. Only the obsession of Mad King Lynntel, who had ruled Itaskia during the first fifty-three construction years, had kept the project going till it had looked computable.
Despite a barbarian upbringing, Ragnarson cringed when he thought he might have to destroy the wonder.
The possibility had stirred bitter arguments for months, dwarfing the debate over supreme command. That had ceased when Varthlokkur had declared Ragnarson generalissimo. Nobody had argued with the slayer of Ilkazar.
The Great Bridge touched every Itaskian's life. Its economic value was incalculable.
Economics weren't Bragi's forte. He admired the bridge for its grandeur, beauty, and because it represented the concretiza-tion of the dream of The Mad Builder and his generation.
There were few sins in Bragi's world-view. He felt destroying the Great Bridge would be one.
H is had been a lonely winter. He had seen little of his friends. Even Ragnar had been away most of the time, dogging, hero-worshiping, Hakes Blittschau. Haaken Bragi seldom saw, though his brother roomed just two blocks away. Gjerdrum came more than most, often slighting his duties. Michael, Aral, Valther, and Mist had disappeared, pursuing some mysterious mission at Varthlokkur's behest. Few others had survived.
Bragi spent his time with the Itaskian General Staff, aristocrats who considered him down a yard of nose. They acquiesced to his command only because it was King Tennys' will.
They were above petty obstructionism, for which Bragi was grateful. They were professionals meeting a crisis. They devoted their energies to overcoming it. Their cooperation, though grudging, was worth battalions.
Varthlokkur sensed Bragi's alienation. A wizard, usually Visigodred, accompanied him everywhere, always providing a sympathetic ear. Ragnarson and Visigodred grew closer. Even pyrotechnic Marco acknowledged their relationship by accord-ing Bragi a grudging respect.