By Heresies Distressed (65 page)

“But I'm still somewhat at a loss to understand why she collected all of the information you've described.”

“I realize that. And, although she didn't actually authorize me to tell you this, I'm going to have to give you some additional information if I'm really going to explain. Before I do, though, please understand that what I'm about to tell you could cost scores of lives if Clyntahn should ever learn of it, Your Eminence.”

“You intend to tell me this in order to clarify why you would like my advice on passing her offer along to Sharleyan?” Staynair asked, and she nodded. “In that case, Adorai, it comes under the seal of the confessional. Without your permission, I will never share it with another living soul.”

“Thank you, Your Eminence.”

She drew another deep breath and squared her shoulders.

“Your Eminence, there is, within the Church, at the very highest levels, a group of men who are as aware of the abuses around them as any Charisian could be. I won't reveal their names, even to you, without their permission. For that matter, I feel confident that I know only a handful of them. But Ahnzhelyk—Nynian—has been one of their primary agents for decades. They call themselves simply ‘the Circle,' and their purpose is—”

Sir Koryn Gahrvai watched grimly as the wounded limped towards the rear. Many of them used their weapons as improvised crutches. Here and there, one of them leaned on the shoulder of a companion—sometimes both were wounded and leaned together, supporting one another—and stretcher parties carried men too severely wounded even to hobble. There could be nothing in the world more terrible than a battle lost, he thought. It wasn't simply the defeat; it was knowing that so many men had died and been wounded under his orders for absolutely nothing.

Unlike many commanders, Gahrvai made it a point to visit the wounded as often as he could. Altogether too many of them were going to die, anyway, despite everything the Order of Pasquale could do, and he owed it to them to at least tell them how grateful he was for all they'd done and suffered. And it also kept him aware of the price of his failure.

That's not really fair, Koryn
, a corner of his brain insisted.
It's not your fault the Charisians have longer-ranged artillery and those damnable rifles
.

No
, another corner of his brain replied harshly,
but it
is
your fault you managed to get your entire army penned up in Talbor Pass like sheep in a slaughter pen
.

His jaw clenched and remembered fury guttered through his veins. The one thing he'd managed to do since that disastrous afternoon which gave him a fierce sense of personal satisfaction was to relieve Baron Barcor of his command. Yet even that sense of satisfaction was flawed, because he couldn't forgive himself for not going ahead and relieving Barcor the instant word of Cayleb's landing had reached him. The baron had taken over
four hours
to get any of his troops into motion. Even then, he'd moved with arthritic slowness, and the main body of the rear guard had still been inside the western terminus of the pass when the defeated remnants of Windshare's cavalry had come pelting back.

There'd still been time, even then, for Barcor to clear the pass and at least let some of the other troops trapped behind him get clear of Talbor's restrictive terrain. But the baron had panicked as he heard the defeated cavalry's inevitably inflated estimates of the Charisians' strength. On his own initiative, he'd suspended the advance and ordered his men to dig in where they were. By the time Gahrvai had managed to reach the rear guard to personally countermand Barcor's orders, the Charisians truly had been present in strength, and the attempt to fight his way out of the pass had ended in bloody wreckage and the loss of over three thousand in dead, wounded, and prisoners. Coupled to the losses Windshare's cavalry had taken, that had amounted to a total loss of over six thousand, and they'd actually ended up being driven the better part of a mile and a half farther east, deeper
into
the pass.

That had been two and a half five-days ago. Over the last twelve days, he'd launched five separate attempts to cut his way out, better than doubling his original casualties in the process. He'd known the effort was almost certainly futile, and so had his men, yet they'd responded to his orders with a stolid courage and a willingness to try anyway which had made him ashamed to ask it of them.

But it's not as if you had a choice, Koryn. With your supply line cut, you can't just stay here. There's no more waiting game when you've already had to start slaughtering horses and dragons. And even on short rations, supplies are going to run out in days, not five-days. It's either fight your way out, starve, or surrender
.

His mind flinched away from the last word, yet it was one he had to face. Even if Corisande had possessed another field army, it couldn't have broken through the Charisian lines to relieve him. Not against Charisian weapons. And not, he admitted harshly, against Charisian
commanders
.

Food was in short supply, and the healers were running out of bandages and medicines. They were already out of almost all painkillers, and his men were suffering and dying for nothing,
accomplishing
nothing . . . except to force the Charisians to expend ammunition killing them.

His fists clenched at his side. Then he drew a deep, decisive breath.

“General Gahrvai,” Cayleb Ahrmahk said quietly as the Corisandian commander was shown into his tent.

“Your Majesty.”

Cayleb stood with Merlin at his back and watched Gahrvai straighten from his respectful bow. The Corisandian had taken pains with his appearance, the emperor noted. He was freshly shaved, his clothing clean and pressed, but there was a tightness around his eyes, his face was gaunt, and that immaculate clothing seemed to hang loosely on his frame. Cayleb knew from Merlin's reports that Gahrvai had insisted that his officers' rations—including his own—be cut along with those of his private soldiers, and it showed.

“I thank you for agreeing to meet with me and for granting me safe conduct through your lines, Your Majesty.” Gahrvai sounded stiff, almost stilted in his formality.

“General,” Cayleb said, “I don't enjoy killing men. And I especially don't enjoy killing
brave
men who, through no fault of their own, can't even fight back effectively. If anything we say or do here today can keep some of those men alive, I'll count this meeting as time well spent.”

Gahrvai looked into the emperor's face, and his own expression seemed to relax just a bit. Cayleb saw it, and wondered how much of Gahrvai's tension had been due to the stories which had been told—and grown in the telling—of his ultimatum to Earl Thirsk after the Battle of Crag Reach.

“Since you've said that, Your Majesty, I suppose there isn't any point in attempting to pretend my army is in anything but desperate straits. I can continue to hold out for some days longer, and the men under my command will attack yet again, if I ask it of them. But you and I both know that, in the end, any further attacks will accomplish nothing. If I believed continued resistance could serve my Prince or Corisande, then resist I would. Under the circumstances which actually obtain, I must ask for the terms upon which you would permit my men to honorably surrender.”

“I can't say your request was unanticipated, Sir Koryn,” Cayleb's tone was almost compassionate, “and my terms are relatively simple. I will require your men to surrender their weapons. I will require the surrender of all of your army's artillery, baggage train, and surviving draft animals. Officers will be permitted to retain their swords, and any man—officer or trooper—who can demonstrate personal ownership of his horse will be allowed to retain it.

“I regret that I can't parole your officers or any of your men,” the emperor continued. Gahrvai's eyes narrowed, his jaw muscles tightening, but Cayleb went on calmly. “Under any other circumstances, I would gladly accept your parole, Sir Koryn. While we may have found ourselves enemies, I would never question or doubt your honesty or your honor. Unfortunately, as you may perhaps have heard—” Cayleb's tight smile bared his teeth “—the Empress and I have been formally excommunicated by Grand Vicar Erek. Well, actually by the Group of Four, via their puppet on Langhorne's Throne, but it amounts to the same thing.”

Gahrvai winced at the biting sarcasm of Cayleb's last sentence, and the emperor chuckled harshly.

“If I believed for a moment that Erek actually spoke for God, I'd be worried by that, General. As it is, I take it rather as a badge of honor. As my father once told me, it's true that a man can be known by his friends, but you can tell even more about him by the
enemies
he makes.

“However, it would leave
you
in a rather ticklish position if I were to ask for your parole. In the eyes of the Temple Loyalists, you'd be guilty of trafficking with heretics, at the very least. And, also in the eyes of the Temple Loyalists, any parole you granted to me would be invalid, since no one can swear any binding oath to someone who's been excommunicated. If you attempted to honor your word—which, by the way, I believe you would—then you would be twice-damned in the Temple's eyes.

“I will confess,” Cayleb admitted, “that I was tempted to offer you parole, anyway. It would have been one way to help accelerate the fragmentation of Corisande's internal stability, which could only help my own cause. But after considering it more maturely, I decided that using an honorable foe in that fashion wasn't something I wanted to do. However, since this little problem about oaths and my own religious status confronts us, I'm afraid that if you and your men surrender, I'm going to have to insist on moving all of you back to the vicinity of Dairos and establishing a prisoner camp there. Towards that end, you would be allowed to retain the use of all of your army's tentage, cooking gear, and other similar supplies. We would supply whatever additional needs, medical or food, you might have. And as soon as hostilities conclude, the formal release of you and all your men would undoubtedly be covered under the terms of whatever agreement is finally reached.”

Gahrvai looked at him long and hard, and Cayleb looked back levelly. He didn't know precisely what Gahrvai might be reading in his own eyes, but he waited patiently. Then, finally, the Corisandian's nostrils flared.

“I understand your concerns, and your reasons for them, Your Majesty,” he said. “To be honest, they hadn't even occurred to me. I suppose that, like you, I have a few . . . reservations about the validity of your excommunication. You're undoubtedly right about what would happen if I offered you my parole, though. Under the circumstances, your terms are most generous—more generous than I would have anticipated, in fact. I won't pretend it's easy, but I have no choice but to accept them . . . and to thank you for your generosity.”

It was remarkably quiet in the council chamber.

Prince Hektor sat at the head of the table. Earl Tartarian sat at its foot, facing him, and Earl Anvil Rock and Sir Lyndahr Raimynd, who had taken over the Earl of Coris' duties in addition to his own, sat to either side. No one else was present, and the prince's advisers' faces might have been carved from stone.

Hektor's was no better. News of the Talbor Pass surrender had arrived less than an hour ago, and the fact that everyone had known it was inevitable had made it no more welcome when it arrived. Anvil Rock, especially, looked gray-faced and ashen. It was his army which had been defeated . . . and his son who had surrendered.

“My Prince, I apologize,” the earl said finally.

“There's not anything to apologize for, Rysel,” Hektor told him. “Koryn did exactly what we told him to do. It's not his fault the Charisians have better weapons and control the sea.”

“But he still—”

“Did you, or did you not, recommend relieving Barcor?” Hektor interrupted. Anvil Rock looked at him for a moment, then nodded, and the prince shrugged. “I should have taken your advice. However important the man might have been politically, he was an obvious disaster as an army officer. You knew that, Koryn knew that, and I knew that. But instead of letting Koryn remove him, I told him to find something ‘important but harmless' for the idiot to do. Under the circumstances, and faced with those instructions from my prince, I would have done precisely the same thing he did. And it shouldn't have mattered, given the observation posts he'd set up along the coast.”

“I agree, My Prince,” Tartarian said. The admiral shook his head. “I still can't see how they could have broken the signal chain so completely.”

“The Ahrmahks, unfortunately, have this unwelcome tendency to produce highly capable kings, Taryl,” Hektor said with a wintry smile. “And it often seems to work out that when you get rid of
one
of the capable bastards, you get an even
more
capable one in trade.”