War Maid's Choice-ARC Read online

  “Yes, it is.” Vaijon pushed back the hood of his poncho, showing golden hair which had once been elegantly coiffed but which he now wore in a plain warrior’s braid very much like Bahzell’s own. The Sothōii-style leather sweatband he’d adopted made him look older and tougher, somehow (not that he wasn’t quite tough enough without it, as Bahzell knew even better than most), and the past six years had put laugh lines around his eyes and weathered his complexion to a dark, burnished bronze. At six and a half feet in height, Vaijon was “short” only in comparison to a Horse Stealer like Bahzell, and with his thirty-second birthday just past, he was settling into the prime of his life.

  “The bit from Hurgrum to the Gullet wasn’t so bad, now that they’ve got the locks open all the way,” he continued. “A lot faster and easier than the first time I made that particular trip, at least! But I, for one, will be delighted once the tunnel finally breaks through and my poor horse doesn’t have to swim all the way to the top of the damned Escarpment whenever there’s a little sprinkle! I said as much to Chanharsa when I passed through, too. I even took her a basket of your mother’s cookies as a bribe, Bahzell. I was sure that would inspire her to greater efforts! But she only laughed at me.” He heaved a vast sigh. “I never would’ve guessed dwarves were just as disrespectful of birth and position as hradani.”

  “Well, I suppose the least we can be doing is to get you out of the rain now you’re here,” Bahzell told him. “Tellian was all set to come out and greet you his own self, but I told him as how he should be staying right where he was.” The hradani’s expression darkened slightly. “I’m not liking that cough of his one bit, and the man’s too stubborn to be calling in a healer. Or letting me deal with it, come to that.”

  “Is he still coughing?” Vaijon’s asked, blue eyes narrowing as he followed the two hradani into the keep and down a flagstoned corridor. It was a sign of how much things had changed in Balthar over the past six or seven years that none of the human armsmen or servants they encountered along the way so much as turned a hair when the unlikely trio passed them. Indeed, most of them smiled and nodded respectfully to Bahzell and his guest.

  “Aye, that he is. Mind you, it’s not so bad as it was this winter past, but it’s easier in my mind I’d be if he could just be shut of it once and for all.” Bahzell grimaced, ears flattening slightly. “There’s no reason at all, at all, I can see why he isn’t shut of it, and I’m none so pleased when someone as so many like so little is after being plagued by something like this. No doubt it’s naught but my nasty, suspicious mind speaking, and so he’s told me plain enough—aye, and more than a mite testy he was about it, too—but I’m thinking it’s worn him down more than he’s minded to admit even to himself.” He shrugged. “Any road, Hanatha was more than happy to be helping me scold him into staying parked by the fire.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Vaijon said testily. “This isn’t the time for him to be sick, especially not with something that hangs on this way and won’t let go, wherever it came from. I know he realizes how much depends on him right now. Why can’t he grow up and let you take care of it for him?”

  “And aren’t you just the feistiest thing?” Bahzell said with a laugh. “Not but what you’ve a point.” He shrugged again. “And I’ll not be brokenhearted if it should be you’ve more success than I at making him see reason. There’s times I think he’s stubborner than a hradani!”

  “Ha! No one’s stubborner than a hradani, Bahzell! If anyone in the entire world’s learned that by now, it’s me.”

  “A bit of the pot and the kettle in that, Vaijon,” Brandark pointed out mildly.

  “And a damned good thing, too, given the job He and Bahzell have handed me,” Vaijon retorted.

  “Actually, you might have a point there,” Brandark conceded after a moment. “And speaking as someone who always wanted to be a bard, I can’t help noticing that there’s a wagonload or two of poetic irony in where you’ve ended up, Vaijon.”

  “I’m so glad I’m able to keep you amused,” Vaijon said.

  “Oh, no! Keeping me amused is Bahzell’s job!” Brandark reassured Vaijon, as they turned a corner and started up the steps to the keep’s second floor.

  “You just keep laughing, little man,” Bahzell told him. “I’m thinking it would be a dreadful pity if such as you were to be suddenly falling down these stairs. And back up them—a time or two—now that I think on it. It’s a fine bouncing ball you’d make.”

  Brandark started to reply, then stopped and contented himself with an amused shake of his head as Bahzell opened a door and led him and Vaijon into a well lit, third-floor council chamber. Diamond-paned windows looked out over the gray, rainy courtyard, but a cheerful coal fire crackled in the grate and a huge, steaming teapot sat in the middle of the polished table. The red-gold-haired man seated at the head of the table, closest to the fire, looked up as Vaijon and the hradani entered the chamber.

  “Good morning, Vaijon!” Sir Tellian Bowmaster, Baron of Balthar and Lord Warden of the West Riding, said. He rose, holding out his hand, then coughed. The sound wasn’t especially harsh, but it was deep in his throat and chest, with a damp, hollow edge, and Vaijon frowned as they clasped forearms in greeting.

  “Good morning to you, Milord,” he replied, forearms still clasped. “And why haven’t you let Bahzell deal with that cough of yours?”

  “Well, that’s coming straight to the point,” Tellian observed, arching his eyebrows.

  “I’ve been dealing with hradani too long to beat about the bush, Milord,” Vaijon said. “And since, at the moment, you have not one but two champions of Tomanāk right here in your council chamber, it seems to me to be a pretty fair question.”

  “It’s only a cough, Vaijon,” Tellian replied, releasing his forearm. “I’m not going to run around panicking just because I don’t shake off a winter cough as quickly as I did when I was Trianal’s age. And there’s no need to be asking a champion—or two champions—to waste Tomanāk’s time on something that minor!”

  “I don’t think He’d mind, Milord,” Vaijon said dryly, “and I know neither Bahzell nor I would object to spending four or five minutes taking care of it. So perhaps you should balance your laudable determination not to pester Tomanāk over ‘something that minor’ against the fact that we’re both going to be just about insufferable if you don’t let us take care of it and it gets worse again.”

  “I think you’d better surrender while the surrendering is good, Uncle,” Sir Trianal Bowmaster said, smiling as he crossed the council chamber from his place by the windows and held out his own arm to Vaijon. “I’ve certainly been suggesting the same thing to you long enough, and so has Aunt Hanatha.”

  “And why doesn’t one of you just go ahead and say ‘You’re not as young as you used to be and you need looking after, Tellian’?” Tellian demanded acidly.

  “Because we’re thinking as how it would only be making you stubborner still?” Bahzell suggested in an innocent tone, and despite himself, Tellian laughed.

  “Seriously,” Vaijon said, “you ought to let us get rid of it for you, Milord. Perhaps it is only a minor inconvenience, but there’s no point in your putting up with it, and I agree with Bahzell. There are enough people who wish you ill for something that just keeps hanging on this way to make me unhappy. I’m not trying to encourage you to look for assassins under your bed every night, but we know for a fact that the Dark doesn’t much care for you. You’re probably right that it’s nothing more than a simple cough...but you might not be, too, and it would make all of us feel a lot better if it went away. Especially if you’re going to be traveling to Sothōfalas with Bahzell and Brandark and this damned rain hangs on the way it looks like doing. The last thing we need is for you to come down with something like you had last winter when you need to be on your toes dealing with Lord Amber Grass and Prince Yurokhas.”

  Tellian glowered at him for a moment, then sighed and shook his head.

  “All right. All righ
t!” He shook his head again. “I yield. I still think you’re all worrying like a batch of mother hens, but I can see I’m not going to get any rest until I do it your way.”

  “And why you couldn’t have been realizing that a week ago is a sad puzzle to me,” Bahzell told him with a slow smile.

  “Probably because I’m getting so old, frail, and senile,” Tellian replied darkly, then pointed at the chairs around the table. “And I suppose we should all sit back down before my aged knees collapse and I fall down in a drooling heap.”

  The others all laughed, although at forty-six, Bahzell was actually a few months older than the baron. On the other hand, he was also a hradani, and hradani routinely lived two hundred years or more, assuming they managed to avoid death by violence. That made him a very young man by his own people’s standards. Indeed, he was little more than a stripling, younger even than Tirinal of Balthar, by hradani reckoning.

  They settled themselves around the conference table and Trianal poured a big, steaming cup of tea and passed it to Vaijon.

  “This wouldn’t be more of that vile morning moss tea, would it?” the champion asked, sniffing the fragrant steam suspiciously.

  “Not in Hill Guard,” Tellian reassured him. “Would you like me to drink some first to reassure you?”

  “That won’t be necessary, Milord,” Vaijon said. “Unlike some of the people sitting around this table, I don’t think you’d deliberately set out to poison an innocent and unsuspecting man.”

  “You’ve a way of holding grudges, don’t you just?” Bahzell observed. “We told you as how it would relieve your cramps, and so it did, didn’t it?”

  “That’s your story, and you’re sticking to it, I see.” Vaijon sipped cautiously, then smiled and drank more deeply. “Thank you, Milord,” he said. “It’s good.”

  “You’re welcome.” Tellian leaned back in his chair, covering his mouth as he coughed again, and Trianal poured him a cup and slid it across to him. The baron grimaced, but he also drank dutifully, then raised both eyebrows at his nephew. “Satisfied?”

  “For now,” Trianal replied, and Tellian snorted.

  “Well, pour yourself some,” he directed sternly. “I wasn’t the one running around out in the rain without even a doublet, now was I?”

  Trianal smiled and shook his head. But he also poured himself a cup obediently and sipped from it.

  “I trust you’re satisfied now, Uncle?” he asked, and Tellian chuckled.

  “For now,” he said, drinking some more of his own tea, and then cocked his head at Vaijon.

  “Prince Bahnak asked me to give you his greetings,” Vaijon said, responding to the silent invitation to begin. “And Princess Arthanal’s sent along that pillowcase she’s been embroidering for Baroness Hanatha. I understand this one completes the entire set.”

  “Your mother’s skill with a needle never ceases to amaze me, Bahzell,” Tellian said with simple sincerity, “although how she finds the time to use it with everything she and your father have on their plates amazes me even more. Please tell her how much Hanatha and I appreciate the gift...and the thought that went into it, even more.”

  “I will that,” Bahzell assured him. “I’m thinking as how that’s not all Father had to be saying, though.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Vaijon agreed. “A messenger came in from Kilthan just before I left Hurgrum. It seems Kilthan’s agents are reporting that the Purple Lords are finally waking up, and they don’t much like what they’re hearing.”

  “My heart bleeds for them,” Tellian said sardonically.

  “I don’t think anyone’s going to waste much sympathy on them, Milord. But Kilthan’s of the opinion they might try to do something to scuttle the entire project.”

  “Like what?” Trianal asked. At twenty-seven, Tellian’s nephew was a broad shouldered, solidly built young man. He was also an inch shorter than Brandark, making him the shortest person in the room, as well as the youngest, but there was nothing hesitant about his manner. “They don’t exactly have an army they could send up this way—or not one worth a solitary damn, at any rate.” He snorted contemptuously. “And even if they had one, we are just a bit too far from their frontiers for that,” he added.

  “No, they can’t get at us with troops, even assuming they had an army used to doing anything more strenuous than terrorizing ‘uppity’ peasants, but they do have influence,” his uncle pointed out, never looking away from Vaijon. “That’s what Kilthan’s thinking about, isn’t it?”

  “He and Prince Bahnak both,” Vaijon confirmed with a nod. “Mind you, I don’t think the Purple Lords would be above trying to provoke some sort of more...direct action. I imagine the possibility of using the River Brigands as catspaws has to’ve crossed their brains, for example. It’s the sort of idea that would appeal to them. But I think they’re more concerned about behind the scenes efforts in Sothōfalas itself, Milord.”

  “Where Cassan and Yeraghor would just love to help them succeed,” Tellian said sourly.

  “Something along that line, yes.” Vaijon nodded again.

  “Which would be lending some added point to our visit,” Bahzell observed.

  “Perhaps. No, probably,” Tellian said. “Not that Cassan and Yeraghor need any outside encouragement to do anything they can to break our knees for us.”

  “From the construction side, I’d say it’s really too late for them to stop you, Milord,” Brandark put in.

  “It’s never too late for that, Brandark,” Tellian replied. “If the faction that’s most worried about Prince Bahnak’s power base had its way, the King would lead an army down the Escarpment, burn Hurgrum and the rest of the Confederation to the ground, and take the entire project over in the Crown’s name. I suspect at least half of them have to be bright enough to figure out how Kilthan would react to that, even assuming Prince Bahnak didn’t hand us our heads—which I rather suspect he would—but that wouldn’t stop them from proposing it for a moment. And if they didn’t get it, their fallback position would be to insist that King Markhos embargo any trade between the Confederation and the Kingdom. For that matter, some of them are going to argue that the canals and the tunnel are only going to increase the Empire of the Axe’s ‘already disproportionate influence’ in the Kingdom’s politics and policy.”

  “It’s not something they’ll find simple to be stuffing back into the bottle,” Bahzell rumbled, “which isn’t to say as how they won’t try to do just that. And I’m thinking they’ve more than enough ways to be causing us grief if it should happen they take it into their heads to be doing it.”

  “Which is why you and I are going to Sothōfalas,” Tellian agreed, then looked back at the window at the steady rain and grimaced. “Not that I’m really looking forward to the trip.”

  “Ah, but it could be worse,” Brandark comforted him. “You could be headed in the opposite direction.”

  “Not a feeble and ancient wreck like myself.” Tellian coughed again, quite a bit more dramatically than strictly necessary. “That’s a job for a younger—and more waterproof—man.”

  “You’re so good to me, Uncle,” Trianal said dryly, and Tellian chuckled and reached across the table to clasp his nephew’s shoulder.

  “You’ll do fine. And you’ll have Vaijon along to help out, once we get back from Sothōfalas.”

  “Isn’t that about like saying the tinder will have a spark along to help it out, Milord?” Brandark inquired.

  “You’re welcome to come along yourself, Brandark,” Vaijon invited, but the Bloody Sword shook his head quickly.

  “I appreciate the invitation—really, I do—but I’m afraid I don’t remember having lost anything on the Ghoul Moor.”

  The others laughed, although the notion of the upcoming summer’s campaign wasn’t an especially humorous topic. The Sothōii had been forced to launch periodic campaigns into the Ghoul Moor for as long as anyone could remember. In fact, generations of young Sothōii warriors—like Trianal (and Tellian him
self, if it came to that)—had been blooded there. Yet those had all been little more than spoiling attacks, designed to drive the ghouls back from the foot of the Escarpment and remind them to stay clear of the Sothōii’s horse herds on the far side of the Hangnysti River. With the approaching completion of the Derm Canal, something more permanent was required.

  No one was foolish enough to believe the ghouls could actually be exterminated, although that would have been the preferred solution for anyone who’d ever had the misfortune to meet one of them. But if the entire canal project was to succeed, something had to be done to protect barge traffic on the Hangnysti. Ghouls, unfortunately, were excellent swimmers, and they had objectionable dining habits. It might be just a little difficult to convince bargemen to sail down the river knowing the ghouls—who regarded them as tasty snacks which were tastiest of all while they were still alive—were waiting to greet them.

  That was the reason for the joint campaigns Tellian and Bahnak had mounted in the Ghoul Moor over the last two summers. The ghouls’ territory stretched over seven hundred miles along the Hangnysti, and there was no hope that anyone could possibly actually control that vast an area. But what they could do was to secure the strip along the riverbank itself with a series of blockhouses and forts connected by mounted patrols. Maintaining those blockhouses and garrisons—and especially the patrols—wouldn’t come cheap, but the projected earnings of the new trade route would more than cover the expense...assuming King Markhos wasn’t convinced by the anti-hradani faction in Sothōfalas to forbid Sothōii participation.

  At the moment, there seemed little probability their opponents would be able to persuade him to do anything of the sort, but the possibility couldn’t be ruled out. And, in the meantime, the thought of Sothōii cavalry voluntarily cooperating with hradani infantry on any endeavor was enough to reduce those opponents to frothing fury. Even many of those who were tentatively in support of the new trade route were...uncomfortable with the notion. After a thousand years of merciless hostility, the concept of an army which combined hradani and Sothōii into a single, unified force was a profoundly unnatural one.