Steven Brust - Dragon

As I studied Fornia's face, I saw him concentrate briefly, and an instant later a mass of cavalry appeared in a long row over the lip of the hill behind us, about a hundred yards distant.

I watched, suddenly and temporarily oblivious to my own situation. The column rode down the hill, in no apparent hurry. I tried to estimate their numbers, but I'm not very good at that. At least several hundred, though, maybe a thousand, and as they drew closer I saw they carried spears.

As they came closer they spread out into a single line, and I couldn't help but admire the way they went about it; neat and precise, they formed up to charge into Morrolan's forces. I risked a glance at Morrolan, and saw him, now a bit back from the fighting, talking to someone and pointing at them.

"Watch closely," said Fornia. "Now it gets interesting."

I kept watching, and saw, behind the cavalry, a mass of infantry reach the top of the hill and begin marching down.

In military terms, Fornia had "committed his reserves." In my terms, things were going to get even uglier. I'd have done something if there had been anything to do. I admit I even gave another thought to trying to take Fornia down, but his personal guard had failed to be distracted by the battle; they were still watching me.

The decisive moment was approaching; not the best time for me to be indecisive.

Fornia said, "Are you prepared to hear my terms, then?"

"No," I said. "I don't have the authority to accept them."

He chuckled. "That doesn't make you the ideal negotiator, then."

"The negotiator will be arriving shortly, if you'd lower your teleport blocks—"

He laughed. "Don't count on that, Jhereg."

"It isn't a trick," I said.

"Oh, I believe that. It's much too crude to be a trick. But I have no intention of opening myself up to accidents. If your negotiator wants to show up, he can do it the hard way."

I was trying to formulate a response when Daymar appeared, either blasting through the teleport block or coming in around it; I don't know enough about either sorcery or psychics to tell you how he did it. But there he was, floating, cross-legged, about six inches off the ground.

"All right," I told Fornia. "The hard way, then."

There was an instant where I wasn't certain if they were going to strike us both down, but they were well trained, and they waited for the order. The order didn't come.

I suddenly felt Daymar's presence in my mind. It was shocking, and not entirely pleasant. For one thing, I'm not used to people I hardly know being able to communicate with me psychically; for another, well, imagine being gently picked up by a relative stranger who you can tell could crush your body with one hand if he wanted to. Sure, I said gently, but he's still a stranger, and he could still crush you. As I said, I did not terribly care for the sensation.

"What do you want?" he asked in a sort of psychic whisper—as if he were being very careful not to burn my brain out.

I said, "That fellow, him. That's Fornia."

"Well?"

"I want to know what he's up to."

"Certainly," he said, as if I'd asked him to pass me the tray of sweetmeats. Just how good was he, I wondered. I mean, his mind was strong, and he'd clearly trained it, but was he good enough to pull the information I wanted out of Fornia's mind? Well, he'd pulled information out of Kragar's mind.

Thinking of Kragar makes me, in retrospect, realize just how far away from my own world I was. He had picked exactly the wrong moment to get in touch with me, and then I never heard back from him until I thought of it, days later, when we were positioned to make a charge or await one in front of the Wall. I had suddenly thought of it, then, and gotten in touch with him.

"Kragar? It's me."

"Howdy, Vlad. How's the army life?"

"You should know."

"I tried to warn you."

"For the most part I hate it," I told him, "but then people try to kill me and I really hate it."

"It wasn't the trying to kill me part I didn't like, it was all the rest of it."

"I can sympathize with that. What was it you wanted?"

"A guy wants to open up a new game in our territory."

"A guy? What guy?"

"Don't know him. Jhereg, seems small time. He's willing to give us our usual cut, and he's willing to provide his own protection, but I didn't know if that would be too many games for the area."

"That was a while ago; what did you do?"

"I told him to go ahead."

"And?"

"Seems all right so far."

"Okay. Good. Anything else?"

"No, everything's quiet."

"Wish I could say the same."

"Oh?"

"Building up to a big battle here."

"I assume you're staying out of the battles."

"Not exactly."

"What? You're fighting? In the line?"

"I haven't always been able to avoid it."

"Do something conspicuous and you might make corporal."

"Let Loiosh make the wisecracks, Kragar. He's better at them."

"Sure, Vlad. Anything else?"

"No, I'll talk to you later."

I stared out at the place where the enemy gathered. It suddenly occurred to me that if Kragar had done something conspicuous no one would have noticed. That might explain some things that I'd never ask him about. As good an explanation as any.

I found Napper was watching me. I guess I don't always hide it well when I'm communicating with someone psychically.

"If your lips didn't move, Boss, it would —"

"Shut up, Loiosh."

"Well?" said Napper. "We got something to do?"

I shook my head and went back to watching the enemy gather across the field. There were now banners on most of the other hills, including the ones Virt had said we should have taken when we got here.

Someone came walking down the line passing out biscuits and cheese. I had several of the biscuits, ate the cheese, and drank some water. I turned back to Napper to ask him why he was so damned eager to get killed when there came the rattle of the juice-drum again, another call I didn't recognize. I knew, however, that I wasn't going to like it, because Napper broke into a grin.

"What's that one?" I said.

" 'Time to Be Alive,' " he said. "It means to form up for a charge."

" 'Time to Be Alive,' " I repeated. Is that someone's idea of irony?"

He didn't answer.

Rascha came along and placed us where she wanted us—elbow to elbow, hardly room to move. I realized that this was the first time I would be taking part in a charge; everything I'd done up to that point involved standing there and keeping the enemy from overrunning us; from our success, I was not encouraged about being on the other side. Napper was on my left, Aelburr on my right.

The Captain came out in front of our line, riding a dark-colored horse that seemed much too small for him; his feet didn't reach the ground, but it seemed like they could if he just stretched a little. The effect was vaguely comical. He spoke in a loud voice that carried easily, though he didn't seem to be shouting.

"We will," he announced, "be attacking light infantry, very much like ourselves. They have no bulwarks nor ditches, and they number significantly fewer than ourselves; however, we will as you see, be attacking uphill. We will go at a brisk march, charging the last hundred yards. We will take the hill and hold it until relieved." No one commented on the fact that yesterday we could have taken the hill by walking up it and planting our colors.

He continued, "I will expect you to maintain formation until we meet their lime. We will have additional support from the sorcerers corps, especially defensive. If we keep our lines dressed and strike quickly, I do not anticipate any difficulty. That is all. Attend to your squad leaders."