“So they’re fighting smarter,” Arsham murmured, and Trianal nodded.
“Fighting smarter and in greater numbers than they ought to be,” Vaijon expanded. “There shouldn’t have been that many males in a village that small, and they didn’t have anywhere near enough food animals to support them there for very long. If I didn’t know it was impossible-and given what’s been happening lately, I don’t know it’s impossible-I’d say some sort of ghoul…warlord, for want of a better term, is managing to impose some kind of discipline on them. It’s as if they’d deliberately pulled all of the ‘noncombatants’ out of the area and transferred in more fighting strength, instead.”
“Now, that’s a thought I’m not so very happy to hear,” Bahzell murmured.
“Nor I,” his father agreed, frowning as he scratched the tip of one ear thoughtfully. “And no more will Kilthan or Baron Tellian, come to that.”
“They’d have to be able to mass in substantially greater numbers before they could hope to actually defeat us in battle,” Vaijon said. “Their tactics are getting better, but ‘better’ is a purely relative term when you’re starting from what we normally see out of ghouls. I’m not saying they won’t continue to improve, and they’ve already moved well beyond their usual scream-and-leap approach. But until they get a lot better than anything they’d shown us yet, they’d still need a crushing numerical advantage before they could realistically threaten a field force the size of ours.
“Unfortunately, they can hurt us a lot worse than we’d anticipated, whether they can actually beat us or not…and we don’t know what kind of numbers they’ll eventually be able to assemble. Given what we saw in this instance, I’m inclined to think whatever ghoul military genius is managing to coordinate them may well be able to concentrate even more of them next time. And even if he can’t, as Trianal says, we can’t sustain that kind of exchange rate over the entire summer’s campaign.”
“No, and if it should happen as how there truly is a ‘military genius’ on the other side, I’m thinking he’s not so very likely to be letting us cordon off the Hangnysti from the rest of the Ghoul Moor,” Bahnak observed sourly.
“I think it’s certainly going to be harder to clear the riverbank and keep it that way, at any rate,” Trianal said grimly.
“Yurgazh’s report makes it clear he’s of the same opinion, Sir Trianal,” Arsham said.
“Well, then.” Bahnak’s chair creaked as he leaned back and tipped it up on its back legs while he surveyed the others. “I’m thinking we’d best not let it come to that.”
“And would it happen you’ve a notion as to how we might accomplish that, Da?” Bahzell inquired, and his father snorted harshly.
“It’s in my mind we’d best nip in there quick and hard,” he said. “It’s a rare strange ‘military genius’ as is able to exercise his genius if it should so happen someone’s been and disconnected his head from his neck. So I’m thinking it’s time and past time as we saw to that little thing.”
“I could agree with that, Your Highness,” Arsham said dryly.
“Good.”
Bahnak let his chair’s front legs come back to the floor and leaned forward over the table, folding his arms on its top.
“Trianal, your uncle’s after being stuck fast in Sothofalas, and well I know it. Would it happen as how you could be calling out more of his armsmen of your own authority and get his approval after?”
“Within limits.” Despite his youth, there was no hesitation in Trianal’s response. “I can call up the Riding’s first levy, as long as I don’t keep them in the field for more than sixty days. Any longer than that, or calling for the general levy, would require the Crown’s authorization, which we might or might not get, given the balance on the Great Council.” He smiled fleetingly. “And, of course, I’d better be able to give Uncle Tellian a very good reason for why I did it when he asks!”
“And the first levy would be giving you, what?”
“If I call up all of it?” Trianal shrugged. “About another eight thousand men.”
Bahnak nodded, his eyes distant for a moment as if he were doing sums in his head. Then he turned to Arsham.
“It’s checking with Gurlahn I’ll have to be, but it’s in my mind as we could put that many more-or it might be even ten thousand more-of our own into the field without pulling too many hands out of the fields or off the canal.”
Arsham looked a bit dubious, but he didn’t challenge Bahnak’s numbers. Gurlahn Karathson, Bahnak’s only living brother, had been Hurgrum’s chief of staff for over thirty years. If Bahnak was being overly optimistic, Gurlahn would lose no time in bringing him back to reality.
Bahnak’s ears flicked in amusement, as if he’d read Arsham’s mind.
“It might be as we won’t be coming up with quite so many as all that,” he continued, “but I’m thinking as how another sixteen thousand men might just come as a bit of a nasty surprise to yon ‘military genius.’”
“Hit them with a bigger offensive than they’ve seen out of us yet?” Vaijon murmured. “Enough bigger to punch through anything they could pull together to stop us?”
“I’ll not be going so far as all that,” Bahnak said grimly. “We’ve too little idea of exactly what’s been after changing. But, aye, it’s in my mind to cut a broader swath than we’d first intended. I know we’d planned on taking the rest of the summer to be clearing the river line, and I’ll not pretend I won’t begrudge the kormaks to pay for so many more men. But I’ll not be frittering away anyone’s men at this nasty rate if it should happen there’s a way to avoid it, and I’m thinking this is most likely the best way to do that. It’s go in hard and fast, we will, and take the ground of our choosing, and if it should so happen our ‘military genius’ is minded to be doing anything about it, then it’s fighting on our terms he’ll find himself.”
Bahnak Karathson, Prince of Hurgrum and of the Northern Confederation of Hradani, flattened his ears and showed his teeth as he let his gaze circle the council chamber.
“And any ghoul as chooses to cross swords with the likes of hradani infantry and Sothoii cavalry on ground of their own choosing…well, I’m thinking he won’t be making so very many more mistakes.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Varnaythus of Kontovar stood in his carefully concealed, thoroughly warded working area, hidden at the very heart of Sothofalas, and looked about him at the bookshelves, the scrolls, and instruments of his profession. Lamps burned in the corners of the scrupulously neat, meticulously organized chamber, and he allowed himself to contemplate the level of skill, training, and raw power it represented. He’d vanquished more foes and taken more lives than even he could remember as the price of amassing that skill and power. Over the many years of his life, he’d defeated more than a dozen rivals for his position on the Council in duels arcane, adding the spoils of their libraries and their research to his own, and among the handful of wizards who might truly be counted his peers, he was respected and feared as a subtle, dangerous foe-a master not simply of the art but of craftiness and guile-it was best not to challenge. Yet somehow tonight’s contemplation of his place of power, the very core of his strength and the unassailable proof of his skill and cunning, failed to provide the sense of assurance, of being the controller and manipulator of others’ fates rather than the victim of his own, that it normally imparted.
As one of the handful of wizards powerful enough to claim a seat on the Council of Carnadosa itself, he was…unaccustomed to feeling such acute anxiety. Very few beings capable of entering the mortal plane of existence frightened him. Wencit of Rum came rather forcibly to mind as an exception, of course. Although, to be fair, “ fear ” might not be precisely the right word for what he felt in Wencit’s case. Perhaps self honesty might be a better term, since there was no doubt in his mind what would happen if he and Wencit should ever meet, and he was in no hurry to embrace that experience, but he was scarcely alone in that. And while he was being fair about things, he wouldn’t have cared to face one of Tomanak’s or Isvaria’s champions without a handy escape route carefully planned for and laid out in advance, either. There was such a thing as prudence, after all. Demons could be a nasty handful, too, although even the brightest of them were thankfully stupid and easily diverted into attacking a properly prepared glamour. One wouldn’t care to try to fight one, perhaps, but if one had taken the elementary precaution of preparing ahead of time, evading even the most powerful demon was scarcely what one might call difficult. On the other hand, he could remember at least two practitioners of the art who hadn’t prepared properly ahead of time, but those were rather…messy memories upon which he tried not to dwell.