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Deep Water wasn't the largest of Glanharrow's holdings, and the manor had fallen into decay under its previous master. Under Sir Kelthys' careful husbandry, however, it had once again become a prosperous and productive steading whose rents enriched Mathian's coffers, and few lords of Mathian's rank had ever been blessed with a vassal with Kelthys' experience and skill. Indeed, Festian rather suspected Tellian had pushed the arrangement expressly to insure that Mathian had an older and wiser head to ride herd upon him. Yet Festian was also positive a certain rancor lurked under the surface pleasantries of Mathian's relations with Kelthys. Part of it was understandable enough. Given Mathian's comparative youth and lack of military experience, the younger man was bound to feel uncomfortable under the eye of a subordinate who was a proven veteran. But there was more to it than that, more even than Kelthys' relationship to Baron Tellian, for Kelthys was also a wind rider... and Mathian was not.
Festian knew how that rankled the younger man. The gods knew he had always longed to be a wind rider, but the coursers chose whom they would, and no power on earth could make them accept any rider against their will. Mathian knew that as well as anyone, yet that didn't keep him from resenting his vassal's good fortune.
But at least he'd agreed to summon Kelthys. Whatever his other feelings, he had to know how valuable Kelthys' advice and opinions could be, and Festian prayed silently to any god who might be listening that Mathian would have the wit to listen to them.
Marglyth Bahnaksdaughter tied the sash on her robe and tried to ignore the big, empty bed behind her as she dragged a brush ruthlessly through her hair. Her husband Jarthûhl was away with the army, commanding a battalion under her brother Barodahn in the flank attack curling up from Sondur to close on Navahk like a steel trap. The southern Bloody Swords had been driven back and held there by one wing of Prince Bahnak's army, commanded by Uralahk of Gorchcan, but Churnazh had managed to concentrate almost two thirds of his total fighting power to face the decisive thrust. He and his senior officers were battling desperately, only too well aware of what awaited them if they lost, and this time they had avoided their worst mistakes of the last war. Rather than charge out to fling themselves headlong upon their foes as they had then, they'd chosen to mount stubborn defensive actions, fighting for every ridge line and runoff-swollen stream. They were still losing ground steadily, but they'd slowed their attackers' progress to a crawl. Bahnak's advance was at least two weeks behind his original timetable, and his casualties had been higher than he'd hoped. Lower than he had feared , perhaps, but heavy enough to bring pain and loss to all too many Horse Stealer families.
But just this moment, her fear was not for Jarthûhl's safety, or her father's, or any of her brothers'. It was for their absence , and it cut deep into her. Jarthûhl had always taken a quiet pride in the way she stood second in authority only to her father in Hurgrum. Over the years, she'd grown accustomed to using him as a sounding board—much as her father often used her—when decisions had to be made, and he had always been there, quiet but supportive, when she needed him. Now he wasn't, and she felt his absence like a wound. For the first time in many years, she felt frail and alone in the face of responsibility, and she longed for the comforting embrace of his arms.
She yanked the brush through her hair one last time, then tossed it onto the dressing table with a clatter. That would have to do, she told herself, and rose, then looked at the servant hovering in the doorway.
"It's grateful I'd be if you'd tell the courier I'll see him in the Council Chamber," she said, and no one would have guessed from her voice how frightened she was.
Princess Arthanal was already waiting in the Council Chamber when Marglyth arrived. Arthanal had no official role on the Council, yet Marglyth knew how often her advice had been pivotal to Bahnak's important decisions, and a tiny part of the weight crushing down on her own shoulders seemed to ease under her mother's encouraging smile. She walked around the table to sit in her proper place as First Councilor, then looked up, heart suddenly racing, as the door opened once more. But it wasn't the courier—not yet—and her pulse eased slightly once more as the guards passed Bahzell and Hurthang into the chamber.
"Thank you for coming," she said, softly but from the heart. Bahzell only shrugged, then hugged her and stepped back against the wall behind her chair like an armsman behind his lord, and Hurthang joined him. Technically, the two of them had no more business here than Arthanal did, but Marglyth knew she would need advice, and it would have been impossible for her to summon a regular meeting of the Council in time. Even if it hadn't been the middle of the night, almost all of the Council's male members were at the front with Bahnak, and the other female members were scattered about Hurgrum trying to see to their absent fellows' duties as well as their own. Besides, this was one of the burdens that came with acting as First Councilor. In her father's absence, it was Marglyth's job to govern Hurgrum... and until she knew the full message the courier carried, there was no point in trying to assemble a quorum, anyway.
Someone else rapped on the door, and she made herself sit back in her chair as an exhausted, mud-spattered Horse Stealer was ushered in. He went down on one knee between the open ends of the U-shaped table, and she swallowed.
"Don't be crawling around on your knees, man!" she said tartly. "Get yourself up and say your say."
"Aye, Milady." The courier stood and reached into his pouch. The hastiness with which he had been dispatched was obvious, for the grubby piece of paper he produced hadn't been put into a message tube for safekeeping. In fact, it hadn't even been properly sealed, only folded into a screw. He held it out to Marglyth, and she was pleased to see that her hands didn't even quiver as she took it.
"Thank you," she said courteously, and straightened the tightly folded paper. The hand in which it was written was difficult to read, but not difficult enough, and she felt her ears fold tight to her head as she ran her eyes down the scrawled message.
"Would you be knowing what this says?" she asked, raising her eyes to the courier, and he nodded.
"Aye, Milady. Captain Garuth feared it might be lost, seeing as how he'd no time to seal it up proper. He was wishful to be sure I'd be able to be answer any questions should that happen."
"I see." She gazed at him for another long moment. "And your own estimate of the numbers would be?" she asked finally.
"Captain Garuth's the right of it, Milady. There's after being a thousand of them in the vanguard alone if there's one, and likely more following on behind."
"I see," she repeated. Then she drew a deep breath and nodded to him. "You've my thanks once again. It's grateful I'd be if you'd leave us to think on this—" she twitched the written note slightly "—for a bit. Tell the guards I'm wishful to have you wrap yourself around a good, hot meal."
The courier nodded, bowed, and withdrew, and Marglyth turned to her family. Her carefully calm expression wavered for just a moment as the door closed behind the messenger, but she forced it back under control.
"Garuth," Hurthang said softly. "He's after commanding the picket watching the Gullet if I recall aright."
"You do that," Marglyth confirmed grimly. She crushed the note in her fist and looked straight at Bahzell. "The Sothōii are coming," she said simply.
"Tomanāk !" Hurthang muttered, but Bahzell said nothing. He only looked back at his sister, and in the back of his brain he heard Kilthan's voice once more, describing the Sothōii's fear of a unified hradani realm. Well, if they wanted to prevent that, they'd chosen the right moment, he thought grimly. Bahnak had left five hundred men—a single battalion—to garrison Hurgrum itself, backed up by a half-strength City Guard. The other Horse Stealer cities were similarly vulnerable, for every warrior the massed clans had been able to scrape up had been thrown at Churnazh. His father had wanted to smash Churnazh as quickly as possible—partly in the hope that his allies, seeing how utterly he had been crushed, would surrender without further combat, and partly in order to free up the troops to guard his flank against just such an attack. But the Sothōii had managed to assemble their strength more rapidly than Bahnak had thought possible.
"They're coming down the Gullet?" he asked finally, and Marglyth nodded. Well, that made sense, too. Winter hung on late atop the Wind Plain, and the snow in its northern reaches and up near Hope's Bane Glacier was only now melting. The mighty Spear River was in full flood, but so were all the other, smaller streams which tumbled down the Escarpment, which meant most of the traditional routes from the high plateau to the lowlands remained flooded and impassable.
But not the Gullet. That long, narrow, tortuously winding crack stretched clear up the side of the plateau. Little wider than fifty paces in places, most of its length was protected from heavy snow accumulations. Once it had been the bed of the northernmost tributary of the Hangnysti River, but some long ago cataclysm had twisted and buckled the western edge of the Wind Plain, diverting the river further north and heaving up a steep shoulder of tilted rock to form an effective wall across the upper end of the Gullet and divert even the spring floods from it. The Gullet had never been flooded out in living memory, but it was also a difficult path. Most people's cavalry would have found it utterly impassable, and even the Soth?ii's war horses and coursers would require over two days to make the descent. That was the main reason it had been used far more often by hradani raiding parties, and even now he couldn't completely shake off a sense of surprise that the Soth?ii had chosen to attempt it.
Unfortunately, they had... and the Gullet's lower end was less than twenty-five leagues from Hurgrum's walls. If a Sothōii column debouched from it, it could sweep right through the heart of Prince Bahnak's realm—and there would be no warriors to stop it. Sothōii armies had penetrated that far before, if not in the last two or three generations, and each time the devastation had been terrible. Even as he smashed Churnazh's army to bits, Bahnak might find his own lands being put to fire and the sword behind him.