Part 48 (2/2)
”The enemy who crossed over are cut off in Wharf Street South, west of the Bridge....”
”Crossed? To the city?” He tried to rise.
She pushed. ”Father says it's still b.l.o.o.d.y in Southtown, but going our way. When Lord Harteobben attacked from the Fens....”
Bragi's head swam. He hadn't planned any operation from upriver.
”.. .and half the Tervola are dead. The Power went away for a while. It didn't save them.” She made a sign against evil. ”That thing.... The Unborn.... They say it melts their bones.... The Power is back. Really, I don't know who'll win. I just know I'm not getting much sleep. The wounded.... It's sickening. So many....”
”We're winning,” he whispered, awed. ”If Haaken's grabbed the initiative....”
Her fingertips brushed his stomach. Perhaps it was accidental. But Itaskian women, when their menfolks weren't looking, could be d.a.m.ned bold. And he was a celebrity. He had had some interesting offers, offers he wasn't emotionally ready to accept.
He was too weak this time. He drifted off cursing a missed opportunity.
There had been a change. A psyche as well as a body had begun healing.
Her name was Inger. He thought that a delicious irony. His first love had worn that name.
They had been pledged till Trolledyngjan politics had led to conflict between their parents. Inger's father had slain his. And now, so quickly, he was getting involved with a family he had fought from his arrival in Itaskia following the El Murid Wars.
She was a Greyfells, of a branch that had remained neutral in the Dukes of Greyfells's periodic a.s.says at seizing the Itaskian throne. One of those Ragnarson himself had thwarted through the expedient of a.s.sa.s.sination. His arranging the murder had sent him flying to Kavelin....
That Duke had been Inger's father's eldest brother.
It's a b.l.o.o.d.y strange world, he thought, lying beside her, concern about the war briefly forgotten.
Possibly there was a more efficacious therapy, but neither Wachtel, VisiG.o.dred, nor Varthlokkur could name it. A week of Inger wrought miracles.
Ragnarson even stopped suffering from the wounds Mocker had dealt him. He left that hospital renewed, with plans, with a destination, a goal for after-the-war.
He had broken another resolve. Another woman had penetrated his soul.Only Inger updated him during his convalescence. No one came for his advice. His pride was bruised-till he heard that Varthlokkur had ordered his isolation. He had, like an athlete, been off his form. The wizard, selfishly, wanted to give him time to find himself.
Haaken managed well enough, both at battering Badalamen and cowing aspirants to supreme command. Adopting Haroun's style, he jabbed from every direction, avoiding haymakers, fading when the enemy turned to fight. In Southtown he succeeded on stubbornness, knowledge of his men, and devotion to Bragi's planning. He, like Bragi, respected the Itaskian bow. Plied from housetops, it gave him mastery of the streets.
He used them as killing zones, letting Badalamen commit ever more men to Southtown's capture. He buried the pavement in corpses.
Now, Bragi saw from the Great Bridge, Southtown was so grim even the vultures s.h.i.+ed away.
VisiG.o.dred's and Zindahjira's tunnel attacks had taken them to the heart of s.h.i.+nsan's camp. They had started a few fires, then had withdrawn. The damage was more moral than physical.
'. Attacked from every direction, mundanely and magically, the Tervola were in disarray. Blittschau and Lord Harteobben harried all but the largest foraging parties.
They made occasional forays against the main encampment.
The dismay of the Tervola communicated itself to the Pracchia. Badalamen argued that victory couldn't be attained in present circ.u.mstances. Soon his superior force would be leagued up in its own camp. Forcing the Great Bridge was plainly impossible.
Attempts to outflank it had failed. He urged a staged retreat calculated to draw Ragnarson into the open. There, hopefully, he could be lured into pitched battle and obliterated. Magden Norath backed him.
The bent old man was impatient. He wanted the holocaust now. He demanded another try at the river. Or, if Badalamen had to move, he should take the entire army up the Silverbind, to Prost Kamenets, Dvar, and Iwa Skolovda, depriving Itaskia of her allies, returning south after fording the river's upper reaches.
The Tervola refused. They wanted to escape Varthlokkur's fury long enough to develop a counter to the Unborn. And Norath wanted to rearm with his own special weapons.
”It's good, Haaken,” Ragnarson kept saying. ”The only sane course.”
”You'd think so. You did the planning.”
”The trouble with nibbling is we have to finish before the Gap opens.”
”How?” Ragnar demanded. ”He'll treat us like a stepchild if we try to take him heads up.”
Despite Badalamen's severe losses recently, that remained immutable. s.h.i.+nsan couldn't be beaten on the battlefield.
Quiet, gentle, loving VisiG.o.dred offered an answer.
It was disgusting. It turned Bragi's stomach.
VisiG.o.dred said, ”Remember when Duke Greyfells brought the plague from h.e.l.lin Daimiel? With the s.h.i.+ps filled with rats?”
Ragnarson remembered. He, Haroun, and Mocker had foiled that cunning play for Itaskia's throne and had won the eternal grat.i.tude and indulgence of the Itaskian War Ministry.Volunteers returned to the fetor and horror of Southtown, trapping rats. Radeachar scattered them through the enemy camp.
The inconclusive fighting continued. Bragi applied more pressure, trying to keep the legions crowded so plague would spread swiftly if it got started.
Only sorcery could stop the disease.
Could Varthlokkur protect his allies? Plague ignored artificialities like national allegiance. Itaskia, packed with refugees and soldiers, made fertile disease ground.
The wizard didn't know.
Days pa.s.sed. Then Badalamen suddenly came alive. He narrowly missed luring Lord Harteobben to his destruction near Driscol Fens. Later the same day Hakes Blittschau rode into an ambush Marco had missed seeing from above. While they licked their wounds, Badalamen moved.
Nighttime. Ragnarson galloped across the Great Bridge, answering VisiG.o.dred's summons. The wizard was directing the cleansing of Southtown.
He showed Bragi a southern horizon aflame.
Badalamen had won his argument with the bent man.
”What's happening?” Ragnarson demanded.
”They're pulling out. He summoned his dragons at dusk, fired everything.”
”Marco. Radeachar. Where are they?”
”Staying alive.”
The dragons had rehea.r.s.ed handling the two. Marco was impotent against their ganging tactics. He remained grounded. The Unborn could go up, but under pressure could accomplish nothing.
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