"Maybe. And maybe he's just a blind old fool."
Varthlokkur eased into his apartment an hour after his confrontation with Mist and the King. His hands still shook. He was scared. It had been centuries since he had flown into so towering a rage. He'd had to use old fear-fighting tricks from apprenticeship days to calm himself this much.
There was something wrong with him. Some madness smoked through his mind, twisting and knotting. It wasn't like him to lose control. Was Bragi right? Was his real problem a childish insecurity?
Could Nepanthe handle this? Was she more resilient than he believed?
Had he sold himself a false hope when he'd decided Ethrian would be defeated by sheer entropy?
He lighted a candle, sat, tried to read an old, handprinted text which claimed to be a true history of the origins of Man upon his world. The calligraphy kept sliding out of focus.
Damn! His world was falling apart. It had taken him ages to put a decent life together, and now, suddenly, the whole thing hung by a thread. Hell yes, he was insecure. And when you had fought as long as he had, you damned well deserved something good out of the rest of your life...
A shadow fell across his lap. He jumped, startled. "Nepanthe! What're you doing out of bed? You had your exercise. You should be resting... " His heart sank as he saw the look on her face. Fear hit like a hammer's blow.
She was dressed for heavy weather. She had the baby bundled and wrapped. "I need my son, Varth."
"Oh, no," he said softly. "Oh, no. Why?"
"Ethrian is alive, isn't he? You've known it all along. You've been lying to me."
"No, dear. I told you... "
"You told me lies. Lies and lies and lies. He's at a place in Shinsan called Lioantung. And you didn't want me to know."
The rage welled up again. "I told him... "
Nepanthe herself was powered by a cold anger. She weathered his outburst without flinching. "You warned who? What are you doing to me? Varth, I want to see my son. Do you hear me? Mist is here somewhere. She came to see you. I'm going back with her."
Varthlokkur ignored her. He ambled into their bedroom, stared down into Smyrena's empty cradle. After a time he went to the window. "Come, Radeachar. Come, my only friend."
"Why did you lie to me?" Nepanthe demanded. "Damnit, Varth, I'm talking to you. Answer me!"
He whirled. "Did they tell you what your son is?"
"What the hell? Who are you talking about? Tell me."
"Ragnarson and that Shinsaner bitch."
"I haven't seen either of them. What have they got to do with it? Never mind. Tell me about Ethrian. Then find Mist and tell her I'm going with her."
Anger fed upon anger. Their shouting increased in pitch and intensity. The Unborn arrived at the window and hovered there, unremarked.
"All right, damnit!" Varthlokkur suddenly shrieked. "We're going. Be it on your head, woman." He whirled, stamped out of the room muttering, "Bragi, you'll pay. You cut your own throat this time. The wolves are circling you right now. I'm just going to sit back and laugh while they pull you down."
Nepanthe watched her husband go, baffled behind her anger. What was that all about? she wondered. All that noise about Bragi and Mist. And she hadn't seen either in ages... They must have known too. They must have been keeping it from her. She never would have known had not the Queen come to see Smyrena and mentioned it in passing.
Poor Inger. Now she would get yelled at too.
The hell with them. All of them. She was going to see her son. What they liked didn't matter.
15 Year 1016 afe
Lioantung
E THRIAN'S DEAD WARRIORS brought a chair plundered from a manor near Lioantung. He settled into it. Sahmanan seated herself on the earth beside him, leaning against the chair. "Can you tell me your idea now?"
"I suppose." The fun had gone out of teasing her. "I'll use their animals against them. And the bodies of those the animals kill."
"Won't they destroy them?"
"Probably. The dogs, cats, horses, and such, that they can catch. But how do you guard against rats that attack you when you're sleeping?"
"It might work. You're planning a siege?"
"We can afford it. They don't expect help. This's the battle that'll make or break us."
"What about the army?" She nodded toward the nearest dead warriors. "They're only good for a few days."
"They won't go to waste. Let's get started. Guard me." He dropped the ties to his body, drifted into the city. Lioantung was a maze of twisty streets and alien architecture. Whole quarters were empty. He would recruit among abandoned animals...
The enemy were busily preparing for his assault. They seemed unconcerned. The battle in the forest had restored their confidence. Only the Tervola themselves were uncertain.
They were debating what to do about the animals...
He flung himself into the darkness-haunted streets, found a stable. He seized a horse's dim mind. It reared, broke down its stall, hammered a stableboy to the earth.
Ethrian seized the body, found a hayhook, slipped into the night. He stole up behind a legionnaire...
So it went, hour after hour. The enemy responded. By dawn no soldier went anywhere alone. Next day Lord Ssu-ma ordered all animals destroyed. Ethrian returned to his body.
"You look exhausted," Sahmanan told him.
"A little. Did they try very hard?"
She gestured at their surroundings. The earth was scorched. His chair had been reduced to toothpicks. "I thought they had us once. I barely hung on."
"They're going to kill the animals. It's time to send in the dead."
"Don't you want to rest?"
"I don't have time."
"Ethrian... "
"Be still." He reached out, gathered the threads. Corpses shambled toward the city. Dragons took the air. Some carried multiple riders, some supported the storming of the walls. The legions left off slaughtering livestock and rushed to the battlements.
Ethrian continued the attack till almost nothing remained of his army. He and Sahmanan were the only survivors outside the city. Inside, in the abandoned quarters, he squirreled away a thousand bodies.
He roamed the city in his out-of-body state, occasionally slipping into an animal to listen. His enemies were as tired as he.
Wearily, they resumed the slaughter. Some commenced a house-to-house search for the dead.
Ethrian returned to Sahmanan. "Rest, Ethrian," she insisted. "You're killing yourself."
"One more thing, just to keep them busy. Then I will."
He went back into Lioantung, seeking rats. And rats he found, of course, for Lioantung was an old city, well stocked with vermin.
He began in Lord Ssu-ma's citadel headquarters. In a hundred places rats suddenly streaked across rooms, overturning lamps. Most of the fires were extinguished immediately, yet a few started where there were no witnesses.
Ethrian returned to his body. "That should keep them occupied. Wake me if anything important happens."
He slept fourteen hours and wakened still only partially refreshed. "What's happened?" he demanded.
"Nothing. They've been too busy fighting fires."
He went into the city again. The last conflagrations were under control. Weary legionnaires were staggering to their barracks, cursing him, praying for rest. He gave them no respite.
Here, there, he sent rats to the jugulars of the sleeping. The dead he raised against the living. He shuttled from barracks to barracks. The Tervola mounted sleepwatches. He shifted his attention to the headquarters itself, then to the wall, hurling animal after animal at the sentries. He used dead men to open a gate, brought in beasts of the field and forest. Confuse and frighten, confuse and frighten, he chanted to himself.