David Weber - Empire from the Ashes

" Negotiate with the powers of Hell?" Surmal cried, but to Vroxhan's surprise, old Corada straightened in his chair with suddenly hopeful eyes. "Our very souls would—" Surmal went on wildly, but Corada raised his hand.

"Wait, brother. Perhaps Frenaur has a point." The High Inquisitor gaped at him, and the old man went on in a thoughtful voice. "God knows the peril we face. Would He not expect us to do anything that we can, even to pretending to treat with demons, to buy time to crush them in the end?"

"Your Grace," Surak said gently, "I doubt the heretics would fall into such a trap. Whatever the source of their intelligence, it's fiendishly accurate. They would know we were bringing up additional forces and act before we could do so, and—forgive me, My Lords, but I must repeat this once more—even if we brought up all of our strength, I fear their army could defeat us if we took the field against them."

"Wait. Wait, Lord Marshal," Vroxhan murmured, and his brain raced. "Perhaps this is God's answer to our prayers," he said slowly, intently, and his eyes snapped back into focus and settled on Surak's face. "You say we cannot defeat this 'Lord Sean' in the field, Lord Marshal?"

"No, Holiness," the soldier said heavily.

"Then perhaps the answer is not to meet him there," Vroxhan said softly, and his smile was cold.

"It sounds too good to be true." Sandy paced up and down the command tent, hands folded behind her, and her face was troubled.

"Why?" Tamman retorted. "Because it's what we've asked them to do for weeks?"

"Because it doesn't fit with anything else they've done since this whole thing started!" she shot back sharply.

"Perhaps not, My Lady," Stomald said, "but it does accord with the orders they've sent their commanders. Perhaps Lord Sean's messengers have finally convinced Vroxhan to see reason."

"Um." Sandy's grunt was unhappy, and Sean sat back in his camp chair. He shared her wariness, but Stomald was right; their remotes had snooped on the Temple's orders to all its commanders to stand fast until instructed otherwise. Lord Marshal Surak had, in effect, frozen every force outside Aris itself, in sharp reversal of his efforts to funnel every available man to the front.

He reached out a long arm to lift the Temple's illuminated letter from the table and reread it carefully.

"I have to agree with Stomald and Tam," he said finally. "It sounds genuine, and everything we've observed indicates they mean it."

"Maybe, but we haven't observed everything , now have we?" Sandy shot back. Her eyes flicked to Tibold, the only person in the tent who didn't know the truth about their origins—and the reason they couldn't snoop on the Temple directly—and Sean nodded unhappily. But, damn it, it did all hang together, and he was sick unto death of slaughtering armies of pawns!

"Tibold?" He glanced at the ex-Guardsman. "You're the only one who's lived in the Temple or seen their high command firsthand. What do you think?"

"I don't know, My Lord," Tibold replied frankly. "Like Lady Sandy, I can't help thinking it sounds too good to be true, yet they've followed all the proper forms. Promises of safe passage. An offer of hostages for the safety of our negotiators. They've even agreed to let us march our entire army to the walls of the Temple itself!"

"Why not?" Sandy demanded. "We've proven we can march anywhere we want and defeat any army they can field, but they know we don't have a siege train. The risk we could storm the Temple's walls is minimal, so why not invite us to come ahead when they can't stop us anyway? Can you think of a better way to make us overconfident?"

"And the hostages?" Harriet asked. "They're offering to send us a third of the Guard's senior officers, a hundred upper-priests, twenty bishops, and a member of the Circle itself! Would they do that if they weren't serious? And doesn't it make sense for them to at least try to find out what we want?"

"If they wanted to know that, all they had to do was ask us months ago!" Sandy objected.

"That's true enough," Sean agreed. "On the other hand, months ago they thought they could wipe us out. Now they know they can't." He shook his head. "The situation's changed too much to be certain of anything, Sandy—aside from the fact that they've finally agreed to parley."

"I don't like it," she said unhappily. "I don't like it at all. And I especially don't like the fact that they didn't ask for Stomald to attend but did ask for both you and Tam." She glared at him. "If they get you two, they cut off the army's head," she added in English, but Sean shook his head.

"By this time you and Harry could lead the troops as well as Tam and I," he said in English.

"Maybe so, but do they know that?" she shot back. Sean started to reply, then settled for shaking his head once more, and Stomald eased cautiously into the conversation.

"I understand your concern, My Lady, but I must be the man they most hate in all the world," he pointed out. "If there's one man they would do anything to keep beyond the precincts of the Temple, that man is me." He, too, shook his head. "No, My Lady. Lord Sean and Lord Tamman are our war leaders. If they prefer—as it would seem from their language that they do—to keep any parley on a purely military level, leaving any doctrinal questions untouched for the moment, then my exclusion makes perfect sense."

"Father Stomald's right, My Lady," Tibold said. "And the oaths of good faith they've offered to swear upon God and their own souls are not such as any priest would lightly break."

Sandy tossed her head unhappily and paced faster for several minutes, then sank into another camp chair and rubbed her temples tiredly.

"I don't like it," she repeated. "It looks good, and there's a logical—or at least plausible—answer to every objection I can raise, but they've turned reasonable too fast, Sean. I know they're up to something."

"Maybe so," he said gently, "but I don't see any choice but to find out what it is. We're killing people, Sandy—thousands and thousands of them. If there's any hope at all of stopping the fighting, then I think we have to explore it. We owe that to these people."

She sat rigid for a moment, and then her shoulders slumped.

"I guess you're right," she said, and her low voice was weary.

"They've accepted, Holiness," Lord Marshal Surak said.

He looked less than pleased, but Vroxhan was God's chosen shepherd. It was his overriding duty to defeat the forces of Hell and preserve the power of God's Church, and nothing he did in such a cause could be "wrong," whatever Surak thought. He stood at the council chamber window, watching distant, jewel-bright talmahks drift lazily above the cursed ruins of the Old Ones beyond the wall, and said a silent prayer for all of God's martyrs, then turned back to the Guard's commander.

"Very well, Lord Marshal. I shall draft our formal response to their acceptance while you see to the details."

"As you command, Holiness," Surak said, and bent to kiss the hem of the high priest's robe before he withdrew.

The city Pardalians called the Temple was an impressive sight as the Angels' Army halted just beyond cannon shot of its walls. The broken towers of a ruined Imperial city rose behind it, the shortest of the shattered stubs still three times the walls' height, and a single structure dominated its center. Most of the Temple was built of native stone, exquisitely dressed and finished with mosaic frescoes exalting the glory of God (and His Church), but the Sanctum was a massive bunker of white, glittering ceramacrete, untouched by any adornment. It clashed wildly with the spires and minarets about it, yet there was a strange harmony to it, as if the rest of the city had been deliberately planned and built to complement the Sanctum by its very contrast.