The Redemption of Althalus (47 page)

C H A P T E R     T W E N T Y - F O U R

I
t was early the following morning when Eliar led Althalus and Andine through the door into Lord Dhakan’s study high in the palace at Osthos.

The silver-haired Chamberlain looked up from his desk angrily. “Who gave you permission to—” He broke off.
“Eliar?”
he asked incredulously. “What on earth are
you
doing here?”

“Just following orders, my Lord,” Eliar replied.

“And Althalus?” Dhakan said. “Is that really you?”

“It was the last time I checked, Lord Dhakan. You’re looking well.”

“I’m still breathing, if that’s what you mean. I thought you were going to sell Eliar into the salt mines in Ansu.”

“I decided to keep him instead, my Lord. He’s a very useful young fellow now and then.”

“You don’t even recognize me anymore, do you Dhakan?” Andine, still dressed as a page boy, said archly.

“My Arya!” he exclaimed, coming to his feet. “Where have you been? I’ve been tearing the world apart looking for you for over a year now!”

Andine rushed to him and threw her arms about his neck impulsively. “Dear, dear Dhakan!” she exclaimed. “I’ve missed you so very much!”

“I don’t understand this at all, Althalus,” Dhakan said. “What have you done to my Arya?”

“Well, I sort of borrowed her, Dhakan.”

“I think the word is ‘abducted,’ Althalus,” Dhakan corrected.

“It wasn’t his fault, dear Dhakan,” Andine told him. “He was acting on orders from the one we both serve now.”

“You’ve changed, Arya Andine.”

“Grown up a bit, you mean?” She laughed then. “How in the world were you able to stand me before? I was absolutely impossible.”

“Well, a little, maybe,” he conceded.

“A
little
? I was a monster. Would you be willing to accept a blanket apology for all the trouble I caused you after I ascended the throne? Your patience was almost inhuman. You should have turned me over your knee and given me a good, sound spanking.”

“Andine!”

“Hadn’t we better sort of move along?” Eliar suggested. “We’ve got a lot of things we have to do.”

“He’s right, Andine,” Althalus said.

“Yes. He’s so irritating when he’s right.”

“I gather that your feelings about the young man have changed, my Arya?” Dhakan suggested.

“Well, sort of, yes. Most of the time I don’t even want to kill him anymore. Now I feed him instead. It wasn’t really his fault that he killed my father, you know. I know whose fault it
really
was now, and Eliar’s going to kill
that
one for me. Isn’t that nice of him?”

“I don’t understand any of this, Althalus,” Dhakan admitted.

“The world’s going all to smash, Lord Dhakan,” Althalus told him, “but my associates and I are going to fix that. You’d better tell him what’s about to happen, Andine. We don’t really have very much time here.”

“I’ll be brief,” she promised. “The turmoil Althalus spoke of isn’t accidental, Dhakan. There’s a man in Nekweros who’s behind it all, and he has allies all over, stirring up trouble so that he can rule the world. The idiot is in Kanthon’s part of that alliance, and it won’t be very long before he comes knocking at the gates of Osthos again.”

“Has the fool hired more Arum mercenaries?”

“No, the Arums aren’t available to him. I’ve already hired every able-bodied man in all of Arum.”

Dhakan paled visibly. “Arya Andine!” he exclaimed. “You’ll strip the treasury bare! How much did you promise to pay these heathen barbarians?”

“Althalus provided the money, Dhakan. It didn’t cost me a penny. You’d better tell him what to do, Eliar. Let him know what to expect.”

“Yes, Andine,” Eliar said. “It sort of goes like this, Lord Dhakan. We’re not sure exactly when the Kanthons are going to invade your territory, but it probably won’t be very long. We’ve got an army, and we’ll come to your aid, but we’re in the middle of another war right now. We’ll have to finish that one before we can come here. I know how good your soldiers are, since I’ve fought them before.”

“I seem to remember that, yes,” Dhakan said drily.

“We can’t be sure just how big an army the Kanthons are going to throw at you, my Lord, but they’ll probably outnumber you by quite a little. You won’t be able to hold them back out in open country, so you’d probably better not try. Your best course would be to fight a delaying action. Kill as many of their men as you can without losing too many of your own—little skirmishes, ambushes, that sort of thing. Keep pulling back the way Andine’s father did last time. The walls of your city here are the one advantage you’ve got. Pull your men back inside and close the gates. I promise that I’ll come and raise the siege before you run out of food.”

“I can’t stay, Dhakan,” Andine said in her vibrant voice, “so you’ll have to hold my city. Please don’t let our enemies destroy my Osthos.”

“All I can do is try, my Arya,” Dhakan said dubiously. “I think time’s going to be as much our enemy as the Kanthons, though. The best intentions in the world can’t move an army overnight.”

“Eliar
will
be here when you need him, Dhakan,” Andine told him. “You have my absolute promise on that.” Then she impulsively threw her arms about the old gentleman’s neck and kissed him soundly. “Until later, my dear, dear friend,” she said in her throbbing voice.

It was about noon on that day when Eliar and Althalus located Sergeant Khalor and Chief Albron in the trenches near the east bank of the River Medyo. “It’s not done that way, my Chief,” Sergeant Khalor was explaining. “Only an idiot mounts a mass attack along a broad, general front. The normal strategy is to mass your troops at one specific point and then strike like a spear thrust.”

“But where?”

“That’s the problem, my Chief. We don’t
know
where the Ansus are going to hit us. We know that they’ll come at us the day after tomorrow, but we can’t be certain where their main attack is going to be.”

“Can’t we make any guesses?”

“I can think of a dozen places where
I’d
attack if I happened to be on the other side. When you’re going to mount a main thrust, you always want to choose someplace with terrain features that’ll help you—woods to hide your movements, a gentler slope to the hillside, weaker defenses, things like that. Then you pick several places a long way away from there and throw away a few battalions with diversionary attacks. The diversions are intended to draw the bulk of the defenders out of position—
and
to force them to commit their reserves. Then, when you mount your main attack, the defenders don’t have any troops left to meet you.”

“I see,” Chief Albron said thoughtfully. “If I understand you, then, the best strategy would be to just ignore those first attacks and hold fast until the
real
one starts.”

“Exactly, but how do you know which one
is
the real one? I was working a war down in Perquaine a few years back, and my opponent was one of those ‘let’s wait and see’ fellows. I outsmarted him by starting my main thrust at first light. I made my diversionary thrusts
after
I was already on top of him. He was so certain that my first attack was only a diversion that he pulled men out of the main fight to meet my false thrusts.”

“It’s almost like a game, isn’t it?”

“It’s the best game there is, my Chief,” Khalor said with a sudden grin. “The word ‘strategy’ means outsmarting your enemy,
and
recognizing all the tricks he’ll use to deceive you.” Khalor tapped his forehead. “Wars are won
here,
my Chief, not out there in the trenches. Right now I’d give a month’s pay to know where Pekhal’s going to make his main thrust.”

“Really?” Althalus said. “I don’t suppose you’d care to put that down in writing, would you, Sergeant?”

“Not when I’m talking to
you,
I wouldn’t.”

“Spoilsport,” Althalus accused him.

“I think I see where you’re going with this, Althalus,” Eliar said. “You
do
know that Bheid’s going to go right through the ceiling if you even suggest it, don’t you?”

“Oh, he’ll come back down—eventually. I won’t really put Leitha into any danger. We’ll bring her up here to the trenches tomorrow evening and let her snoop around in Pekhal’s mind a bit. We’ll have her back in Keiwon before the fighting starts.”

“Shouldn’t we bring her here this afternoon?” Chief Albron asked. “Wouldn’t that give us more time to make preparations?”

“We don’t
need
time, my Chief,” Eliar reminded him. “That’s what the doors are all about.”

“Pekhal’s got access to doors of his own, most likely,” Althalus added. “That’s why we don’t want Leitha here until about ten or twelve hours before the battle. Ghend knows about Leitha’s abilities, so he might try to dupe her with false information. If he’s told Pekhal and Gelta to hit our lines
here,
and that’s the information Leitha picks up, we’ll be massing our forces
here.
If Ghend issues new orders about midnight and the attack comes
there,
we’ll be out of position. Even with the doors to help us, it might be touch and go.”

“Doesn’t that mean that Leitha
has
to find Pekhal?” Khalor asked. “Ordinary soldiers usually don’t have any idea of where they really are. Could Pekhal trick her? I mean, if he keeps thinking ‘over there’ instead of ‘right here,’ would that deceive her?”

“Pekhal’s not bright enough for that,” Althalus replied. “
Speaking
a lie is one thing, but
thinking
one is quite beyond his capabilities. Gelta
might
be a bit more convincing, but not by very much. They’re primitives, Sergeant, so don’t expect anything exotic from them. They’re still at the ‘burn, fight, kill’ level when it comes to strategy, so they won’t do anything very complex. We’ll find out tomorrow night when Leitha gets here.”

“We’ve got some people coming up from the south,” Eliar said. “I think it’s Salkan and his shepherds.”

“They made good time,” Chief Albron said.

“They aren’t really carrying very much equipment, my Chief,” Khalor pointed out. He shaded his eyes with one hand and stared at the approaching shepherds. “Pitiful,” he snorted.

“What?” Chief Albron looked puzzled.

“They can’t even march properly. They look like a bunch of schoolboys on holiday. They’re wandering all over out there.”

“They’re picking up rocks, Sergeant,” Althalus explained. “The selection of good rocks is fairly important when you’re using a sling.”

“A rock’s a rock, Althalus.”

“Not really. I found a perfect rock once, and I carried it for about five years until I found a target worthy of it. It was perfectly round, about the size of a hen’s egg, and the weight was exactly right.”

“What did you kill with it?” Eliar asked, “A deer, maybe?”

“No, Eliar. I wouldn’t waste a rock that good on a deer.” Althalus chuckled grimly. “I was in Kagwher when I finally used it. There was a fellow who was chasing me over some picky little thing that wasn’t really worth all that much. After a week, I got tired of dodging him, so I gave him my pet rock—right between his eyes—and he stopped chasing me.” Althalus sighed. “I still miss that rock,” he mourned.

———

“I won’t permit it!” Bheid exploded late the following day in the temple at Keiwon when Althalus explained his plan. “I wouldn’t even
consider
letting you put my Leitha into that kind of danger!”

“
My
Leitha?” the blond girl murmured.

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I think I do. Things seem to be moving right along, don’t they? Maybe we should talk about that—
after
I come back from the trenches.”

“You’re
not
going there! I forbid it!”

“Forbid?” Leitha’s usually gentle voice turned steely. “You don’t own me, Bheid. ‘My Leitha’ is one thing. ‘Forbid’ is quite another.”

“I wasn’t saying . . .” Bheid floundered for a moment. Then he tried another tack. “I’d really rather you didn’t, Leitha,” he said in a pleading tone. “I’d go crazy if anything happened to you up there.”

“You’re already crazy if you think you can order me around.”

“Stuck your foot in your mouth, didn’t you, Brother Bheid?” Andine suggested. “You should really think your way through things before you just blurt out the first notion that pops into your head.”

“I’m not going to put her in any danger, Bheid,” Althalus assured the young priest. “There’s a whole army in those trenches to protect her, and she’ll spend most of the time in the House. All we’re going to do is drift up and down the corridors and peek through the doors until she locates Pekhal and Gelta. Sergeant Khalor
has
to know where they’re planning their main attack so that he can make preparations to meet them, and Leitha’s the one who’s supposed to listen. As soon as she finds out what we need to know, I’ll have Eliar bring her right back here so that you can spend the next few weeks apologizing and trying to pry your foot out of your mouth.” He glanced at the west window. “It’s almost time for the sun to go down,” he observed. “Let’s take Leitha to the trenches, Eliar.”

“It’s perfectly safe, then?” Andine asked.

“Absolutely,” Althalus replied.

“If it’s really
that
safe, why don’t we
all
go? Brother Bheid can hover over Leitha, and Gher and I can look over your preparations and perhaps make a suggestion or two.
My
suggestions might not be worth very much, but Gher’s another story, wouldn’t you say?”

“It wouldn’t hurt, Althalus,” Eliar agreed. “Gher doesn’t see the world in the same way the rest of us do, so he might come up with some things that wouldn’t occur to anybody else.”

He’s got a point, pet,
Dweia’s voice murmured to Althalus.

“I don’t care,” Althalus said, throwing his hands in the air. “Take us all up to the trenches, Eliar.”

“Anything you say, Althalus,” Eliar replied.

Eliar looked around rather cautiously when they joined Albron and Khalor in the trench near the banks of the River Medyo. “Where’s Gebhel, Sergeant Khalor?” he asked.