The Redemption of Althalus (50 page)

“I wouldn’t count on it, Sergeant,” Althalus told him.

“Well, we’ve fought wars without him before,” Khalor said with a slight shrug. “Gebhel’s barricades and those Wekti shepherds can hold off assaults anywhere along the trench line until we can bring in reinforcements. If it’s the best we can manage, it’ll have to do.”

Emmy.
Althalus sent out a searching thought as he and Leitha moved along the back of the trench line.

Please don’t shout, Althalus,
she scolded.

Sorry. Can you see what’s happening in the tent?

Of course I can.

How’s Eliar doing?

The surface bleeding’s stopped. He’s still oozing a little in a few places, but
it’s pretty much under control.

Is the rest of his brain getting enough blood?

As far as I can tell, yes.

Good. It’ll still be quite a while before he completely recovers though, won’t it?

Obviously. Why do you ask?

The notion of having Khalor run this battle from your window fell apart on us when Gelta bashed Eliar on the head, so we’re going to have to improvise a bit. Khalor’s been telling Gebhel that he’s got scouts out front keeping an eye on the Ansus. That wasn’t really true, since Khalor was going to do his own scouting from your window. That isn’t possible now, so we’ll have to rearrange things a bit. Khalor can’t get to your window, but
you
can. I think that means that you’re going to have to do the scouting for us. Then you pass what you’ve seen to me, I’ll hand it off to Khalor, and he can use runners to keep Gebhel advised. Won’t that more or less give us the same results as what we’d originally planned?

Probably so, yes. Use a few of those Wekti shepherds for runners. A shepherd needs to be fast on his feet. I think Salkan might be a good choice.

That won’t make him very happy, Em. That young hothead
really
wants to unlimber his sling at the Ansus, and in spite of all the pious instructions Yeudon gave him, I’m fairly certain that Salkan has no plans to start wasting perfectly good rocks on horses. I’m sure that he planned to miss fairly often and kill the Ansus instead of their mounts.

That’s another reason to get him out of the trenches, pet. Let’s not upset Exarch Yeudon any more than we have to. Let’s get the runner business all set up and ready to go. Don’t dawdle, Althie. Dawn’s just over the eastern horizon, so things are likely to start getting noisy before much longer.

“Seventy-seven hundred and seventy-seven, seventy-seven hundred and seventy-eighths,” Leitha murmured. “Divided by sixteen and a quarter,” she added almost absently.

“What’s that fellow in the hood doing, Khalor?” Sergeant Gebhel demanded.

“He’s one of my engineers,” Khalor lied with a slight shrug. “He’s working on a trajectory for the catapults.”

“I’ve
never
been able to understand those people,” Gebhel admitted. “They do all their talking in numbers. Sometimes I think they even tell jokes in numbers.”

“I don’t have much time, Gebhel,” Khalor told him. “My scouts have given us the locations of all the places where the Ansus are massing. This place is fairly central, so you might want to set up your command post here.”

Gebhel glanced off to the east, where the sky was beginning to grow lighter, and then at the flaring torches across the valley. “Well, this obviously won’t be the place where their main attack’s going to hit my lines,” he said. “Nobody waves torches around like that in a place he wants to keep secret.”

“Don’t lock your head in stone on that, Gebhel,” Khalor cautioned. “That might be what they
want
you to believe.”

“That’s true,” Gebhel conceded. “I’ve done that myself a time or two.”

“Just stay flexible,” Khalor cautioned. He turned and pointed toward a hill behind their trenches. “I’m going to set up back there. I’ve still got scouts out to the front, and we’ve worked out a set of signals so they can let me know what’s going on. I’ll have one of those Wekti shepherds bring you any information we pick up.”

“How’s young Eliar doing?”

“He’s still dead to the world. That ugly sow really bashed him a good one. We’ve got a couple of field surgeons working on him, but it’s a little early to tell if he’ll fully recover.”

“All we can do is hope, I guess,” Gebhel said, looking off to the east. “It’s coming on toward daylight, Khalor, so we’d all better get to our posts—even though this won’t be much of a war. I’ve fought some stupid people in my time, but these Ansus are pretty much the pick of the litter when it comes to stupidity.”

“They’re cavalry, Gebhel,” Khalor snorted. “Their horses do most of their thinking for them.” He glanced at the eastern sky. “It’s getting lighter, so I’d better get back up the hill. The young fellow I’ll be using as a runner has bright red hair, so you’ll know him when you see him.”

Gebhel nodded. “Get out from underfoot, Khalor,” he said gruffly. “I’ve got work to do.”

“Eliar seems to be stirring a bit,” Chief Albron advised Khalor, Althalus, and Leitha when they reached the tent, “and his breathing’s stronger.”

“We’ve
got
to get that boy back on his feet,” Khalor said. “I’ve got a huge army piled up in the corridors of the House, but I can’t use a single man until Eliar recovers enough to open the doors for them.”

“I think Gebhel’s good enough to hold off the Ansus for quite a long time, Khalor,” Albron replied.

Althalus,
Dweia’s voice murmured,
take Leitha back into the tent. I need to have a quick look inside Eliar’s head.

All right, Em,
he replied silently. Then he spoke aloud. “Let’s look in on our boy, Leitha,” he suggested.

“All right,” she agreed.

Dweia needs to talk with you,
he murmured as they entered the tent.

Yes, I heard her.

Move aside, Althalus,
Dweia’s voice told him.

He sighed.
Yes, dear.

“Now,” Bheid was saying wearily to Andine.

The tiny Arya carefully inserted the glass tube into the young Arum’s mouth.

Reach into his head again, Leitha,
Dweia instructed.
Tell me what you can see.

Leitha nodded, and Althalus felt a peculiar sense of reaching out and heard a kind of murmuring.
What’s that odd sound?
he asked.

Don’t interrupt, Althalus,
Dweia’s voice told him.
She’s busy right now.

The bleeding seems to have stopped,
Leitha reported.
No, wait.
She frowned slightly, and Althalus could feel her reaching out.
There’s still one place that’s seeping just a bit. It’s not very big, and it’s deep inside.

Is his mind awake at all?
Dweia asked.

Well—sort of,
Leitha replied.
It’s a bit disconnected. I think he’s dreaming.

He’s starting to come around then,
Dweia said thoughtfully. “Brother Bheid,” she said then, “it’s time to change the procedure. Go to two hundred heartbeats between doses.”

“Is he getting better?” Andine said hopefully.

“The bleeding’s almost completely stopped, dear,” Leitha reported.

“Will he wake up soon?”

“Not for quite some time, Andine,” Dweia replied. “He’s dreaming now, and that’s only the first step. Keep on giving him those regular doses until he starts to stir. Then space them out even more—once every four hundred heartbeats. When he wakes up and starts talking, stop dosing him and call Leitha. Then I’ll come back here and have another look at him.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if you stayed here, Dweia?” Bheid asked.

“Possibly so, but we’ve got this little war on our hands, too, Brother Bheid. I need to attend to that as well as to Eliar.”

———

Khalor and Albron were looking out across the valley where the drunken Ansus were saddling their horses in the steely first light of dawn.

“How’s Eliar?” Albron asked.

“I think he’s out of the woods,” Althalus replied, “but he could be better.”

“I don’t want to criticize, Althalus,” Khalor said, “but why did you insist that I use Salkan for my runner? He’s a nice boy, I suppose, but he can barely tell the difference between a sword and a spear.”

“We don’t
want
a trained soldier carrying our messages to Gebhel,” Althalus explained. “Koman’s out there listening, and Salkan’s going to be carrying
two
messages every time he runs down to Gebhel’s trench. He’ll have one message for Gebhel and a different one for Koman. Practice putting on a long face, gentlemen. Dweia’s almost certain that Eliar’s going to recover, but I’m going to tell Salkan that there’s no hope for him. We don’t want Ghend to find out that Eliar’s not dying. If he’s aware of that, he’ll throw everything he’s got at the trenches to try to finish up before Eliar’s back on his feet again. If he’s positive that Eliar’s dying, he’ll take his time and try to hold down his losses. Eliar needs that time to regain his senses, and Salkan’s false messages are going to buy us that time.”

“Didn’t that medicine work?” Salkan asked.

“I’m afraid not, Salkan,” Althalus replied somberly. “Eliar’s taken a turn for the worse, and I don’t think he’s going to make it. Sergeant Khalor here needs somebody to take Eliar’s place as a runner.”

“That’s one more reason to kill all those Ansus, isn’t it?” the young redhead said fiercely. “I
liked
Eliar. He was my friend, and those people killed him.”

“People get killed in wars, Salkan,” Sergeant Khalor said gruffly. “It happens.”

“What do you want me to do, General Khalor?” Salkan asked, his boyish face hardening.

Althalus drew Leitha off to one side. “Well?” he asked her.

“He’s an enthusiast,” she replied. “He doesn’t really understand what’s going on, but he’ll do anything we tell him to do. He’s terribly excited about this war—and very angry about what happened to Eliar.”

“Good. Is he clever enough to notice that certain things don’t quite match?”

“I don’t think so. He’s very excitable—and he’s in absolute awe of Sergeant Khalor. He’ll do anything Khalor tells him to do, and he’s so worked up right now that his thoughts aren’t really coherent. I don’t think Koman’s going to get very much from him—except for the story you just made up about Eliar’s condition.”

“He’s earning his pay, then.”

“Are you actually paying him?”

“I might—if it starts to look as if we’ll need him in the next war.”

C H A P T E R     T W E N T Y - S I X

I
t was slowly growing lighter in Sergeant Gebhel’s trenches and along the opposite ridgeline, but the valley between was in deep shadows. The drunken Ansus on the far slope were building up their bonfires and waving their torches. Their war cries began to echo from the nearby hills.

“Subtlety doesn’t seem to be part of the Ansu nature,” Chief Albron observed. “Only an idiot would believe that those howling fools over there are the main force.”

“Actually, it’s not bad, my Chief,” Khalor disagreed. “They’re overdoing it a bit, but they’re fairly drunk. This
is
the place where the main assault’s going to hit Gebhel’s trenches, and the playacting’s supposed to make us believe that nothing serious will happen here. Our main problem is that Gebhel’s probably being taken in by the fakery, and I can’t tell him about those people in the cave with Koman out there listening to every message I send down to the trenches. At the first hint that we know about the hidden army over there, the enemy Generals will change their plans and hit us from someplace else.”

“Gebhel’s been around for quite a while, Sergeant Khalor,” Althalus told the kilted Arum. “I’m sure he’s shrewd enough not to be taken in by the nonsense across the valley.”

“I’d still be a lot happier if he had more men in this stretch of his trenches,” Khalor said bleakly, “but I don’t dare send him any messages that can’t be explained.”

Gher tugged at Althalus’ sleeve. “Ask Emmy if she could make some fog near that cave,” he said.

“I suppose I could, Gher,” Dweia replied through Althalus, “but why?”

“I’m not sure if this would work,” the boy said, “but sometimes fog looks a lot like smoke, doesn’t it?”

“Not too much, no. Where are you going with this, Gher?”

“Well, I was sort of thinking that we don’t really have any snoopers over there near that cave, and Koman can’t hear
us
talking, because Leitha’s busy counting bits and pieces of numbers, and that makes him wild. That sort of means that the only thing he can hear is what Salkan’s telling Mister Gebhel. If we wanted to, we could tenlike we had one of our snoopers over there and—”

“ ‘Tenlike’?” Althalus asked in a puzzled tone.

I think he means “pretend like,” Althalus,
Dweia murmured.
Gher tends to mash things together when he gets excited.

“Oh. Go ahead, Gher, but don’t jump over too many things.”

“All right. It goes sort of like this. Emmy puts fog around the front of the cave, see, and Mister Khalor hears from his tenlike snooper that smoke’s coming out of the cave, and he right away sends Salkan zipping down to the ditch to tell Mister Gebhel that there’s somebody in the cave, but he can’t really say how many. Ghend would take a quick look and see the fog, and he’d think that our tenlike snooper wasn’t smart enough to be able to tell the difference between fog and smoke, so he’d just think that Mister Khalor’d made a mistake. Mister Gebhel’s not the kind who takes chances, though, so he’d bring in extra men because there
might
just be an army in the cave. Ghend might swear a lot because we’d made a mistake, but he wouldn’t know that
we
know for certain sure, so he won’t have any reason to change his plans, will he?”

Sergeant Khalor squinted off at the eastern sky, scratching thoughtfully at his cheek. “This boy’s a treasure, Althalus,” he said finally. “Stupid blunders like the one he just described happen all the time in wars, so there’s nothing remarkable about it. It’ll keep Gebhel right where he is, and Koman won’t be able to find anything the least bit unusual about
why
Gebhel’s staying put. Ghend loses the element of surprise, and things settle down to a protracted siege of Gebhel’s trenches. That should give Eliar all the time he’ll need to recover, and once he’s back on his feet, we can go back to the old plan.”