Richard Baker - Avenger

A little before four bells, Kara waited for the House War Council to gather in Lasparhall’s fine old library. It was a broad, sunlit room on the upper floor of the manor’s west wing, and for the next few tendays, she intended to use it as her headquarters. A large map showing the lands lying between Thentia and Hulburg hung in the middle of one wall; a great table of gleaming dark mahogany was set up in the center of the room. The banquet hall in the middle of the manor was a larger room, but Kara preferred one that she could lock up and keep guarded without rendering half the house inaccessible.

She busied herself with reading through a small handful of correspondence that Master Quillon had given her earlier in the morning as the chief commanders of the Shieldsworn and the family’s key advisors filed in. First came the shield-captain Merrith Darosti, a sturdy woman of thirty who wore mail much like Kara’s and carried her bold red hair in a long braid. Sergeant Kolton, who looked distinctly uncomfortable at the idea of participating in the officers’ council, followed a step behind her; since he was one of the most experienced sergeants remaining in the ranks of the Shieldsworn, Kara had promoted him to head of the House Guard. Brother Larken, a tall young friar in a brown robe adorned with the yellow sunburst of Amaunator, filed into the room next. Behind Larken two former members of the Harmach’s Council made their way into the room and took their places: Deren Ilkur-formerly the keeper of duties-and Theron Nimstar, who’d been Hulburg’s high magistrate. Neither man was a fighter, but they had good minds and broad experience in running civic affairs. Bringing up the rear of the procession came the stockman Nils Wester, who’d brought more than a hundred Hulmaster loyalists from his Spearmeet company into exile rather than submit to Marstel’s rule. The assorted clerks and seconds for the council members took their own places in the row of chairs along the wall.

“It seems we’re all here,” she observed to Quillon. She handed the letters back to the old halfling, and adjusted the saber hanging in its scabbard by her hip. Since the assassins’ attack on Lasparhall, Kara had made a habit of wearing her arms almost every waking hour. Today she wore her light kit-a shirt of fine mail over a knee-length skirt of reinforced leather and half-greaves, all beneath a surcoat of quartered blue and white much like that worn by any Shieldsworn. She didn’t intend to be caught off guard by Hulburg’s enemies again. Unlike the soldiers’ coats, Kara’s featured a griffon of blue and gold embroidered on the upper left quadrant-the insignia of House Hulmaster, which was only worn by a member of the family under arms.

She approached her place at the head of the table. “Good day, gentlemen,” she said. With a scraping of wooden chair legs on the flagstone floor, the men and women in the room rose to their feet as she took her seat. “Please, be seated.” Her officers and advisors sat down again and turned their attention to her, waiting for her to speak.

Kara regarded them evenly as she organized her thoughts. This was more properly Geran’s task, not hers; it was frankly reckless and irresponsible of him to hare off to Hulburg and play at being a spy or assassin when there was serious work for the head of the household to look after in Thentia. It wasn’t entirely outside her experience-after all, Harmach Grigor had trusted her to lead Hulburg’s small army with hardly any guidance at all-but as the only Hulmaster in Lasparhall, she was more than the commander of the Shieldsworn. All of House Hulmaster’s interests and concerns were now in her hands, whether they were political, diplomatic, or simply administrative. She’d tried to convince Geran that she needed his help on those fronts, but her cousin had simply said, “I have complete confidence in you, Kara; you’ll manage better than I would,” as if that was sufficient answer to her worries. Part of her understood that Geran’s work in Hulburg could very well be just as important as her work in Thentia, especially if it brought hundreds of oppressed Hulburgans into the loyalists’ ranks. But it was even more clear to her that Geran was hazarding the fortunes of the whole Hulmaster family along with his own life by carrying on as if he were nothing more than the rootless adventurer he’d been for so long. If he managed to get himself killed, she’d be the only Hulmaster who could carry on the fight … and the burden of leadership would fall completely on her shoulders, with no hope of reprieve for decades.

No sense in returning to an argument already lost, she told herself. Especially not when Geran was already abroad, beyond her ability to recall or even contact for now. No, all she could do now was to throw herself into the challenge Geran had set out for her. She set her mouth in a determined frown and began to speak. “Today I struck a deal with Kendurkkel Ironthane of the Icehammer mercenaries,” she began. “With the Icehammers, we have the strength we need to defeat the usurper Marstel’s Council Guard wherever they meet us. On the tenth of Ches-fifty-two days from today-we march on Hulburg.

“For the next five tendays, we will be engaged in maneuvers and training, come good weather or bad. By the time we march, we will be fast, disciplined, organized, and aggressive-a well-balanced sword in the Lord Hulmaster’s hand.” She paused, measuring their reactions before continuing. “Fifty-two days may seem like a long time today, but it’s not. If any here have doubts or questions about a spring campaign, now’s the time to voice them.” Kara held the rest of the room with her gaze for a moment more, and then leaned back in her chair.

No one spoke at first. Then Nils Wester cleared his throat. He was a wiry man of fifty years with a weatherbeaten face and dark, fierce eyes under bushy gray brows; before he’d rebelled against Marstel, he and his large clan had kept hundreds of sheep on their pastureland high on the hills west of the Winterspear Vale. “I’ve little learning in strategy,” the wiry old stockman said, “but I suppose I don’t see why we’ve got to give that fat old bastard Marstel fifty days to get ready for us, Lady Kara. My warriors could march by the end of the tenday! Why wait?”

“Because we need time to reequip and train,” Kara answered. “Half the men from the old Spearmeet musters don’t have any armor heavier than a leather coat or a weapon better than an old hunting spear. We might be a match for the Council Guard even so, but if you count the merchant coster armsmen in Hulburg, the Cinderfists, and whatever magic Marstel’s master mage can employ, the odds are longer than I’d like. Trust me, we’ll need the five tendays to make a field army out of the fighters we’ve got here.”

“Marstel might find more sellswords by the time we march,” the old magistrate Theron Nimstar pointed out.

“True enough,” Deren Ilkur said, “but regardless of whether we wanted to strike quickly or not, we simply don’t have the provisions or material to march now. It will take me some time to gather a supply train that could support our little army in the field for more than a few days.”

“Do we need more?” Nils Wester asked. “Hulburg ain’t more than forty miles from here-two days if you’ve a mind to hurry.”

“In good weather,” Kara pointed out. “And assuming no enemy force takes a position to contest our march. Imagine that we find we have to march another twenty or thirty miles out of our way to avoid some obstacle Marstel puts in our path, or that heavy rains make the tracks-such as they are-impassable. I don’t care for the idea of marching back to Thentia for our supper three or four days into the campaign simply because we’d neglected to adequately provision ourselves.”