Glen Cook - Surrender to the will of the night

Hauf chuckled. “That might work. Though she’d probably strip the Holy Lands of treasure and sacred artifacts and abandon them to the Unbeliever.”

Hecht nodded. An exaggeration. But where Anne of Menand was concerned, every canard contained an element of truth. “My vigil is complete. I should get back to the Castella, see if there’s news from the Connec.”

“Difficult, managing a campaign from hundreds of miles.”

“Difficult, indeed. I had almost unnatural luck putting together a competent, trustworthy staff and officer corps. They don’t miss me much when I’m gone.”

“An interesting phenomenon. Unseen outside the warrior orders, at least since the Old Empire.”

The Captain-General grew uncomfortable. Master Hauf might be implying something. Might even be accusing. “Sir?”

“Just reflecting on the unique thing you’ve created these past few years. An army that doesn’t disperse during the winter, planting, or harvest. An army not structured around leaders who command by right of birth.”

Hecht interrupted, “My little heresy. So long as my employer doesn’t object, I’ll choose my officers based on talent. Too, no one of exalted birth ever asks to become one of the Patriarch’s men.”

“Men of noble birth come to us. Or raise forces of their own to take into the Holy Lands. Do you hear much about our comrade order, the Grail Knights?”

“Last news I had from up there was that one of my brothers might still be alive. Which I’m not prepared to believe. I left in the worst season. The pagans had found a war leader acceptable to most of the tribes.”

He stopped, shivered as though retreating from painful memories.

Master Hauf nodded. “Some new horror is afoot up there. News came down the amber route, through the Eastern Empire, about an attack on a Grail Order stronghold called Stranglhorm. The Grail Knights were victorious. But the behavior of their attackers, and the sorcery supporting them, is unsettling.”

Hecht was moving now, headed for the Castella, slowly. Addam Hauf paced him. The Master was headed the same way. “We faced strangeness and sorcery in Calzir and Artecipea, both. We’re still cleaning up a mess in the Connec.”

“I’m guessing this is more of the same.”

“Kharoulke the Windwalker.”

Master Hauf looked startled.

“There’s been talk. The Principat?s are interested. So were people in Alten Weinberg when I was there. So. Work is being done. Of what value time will tell.”

“Include the Brotherhood when you learn something interesting. If you can.”

“Of course. Though you seem better informed than I. I hadn’t heard about an attack on Guretha. How bad was it?”

“The pagans were particularly destructive.”

“I’ve never visited Guretha. It was supposed to be a great city. By the standards of that part of the world.”

“I suppose the ice will have it before long, anyway.”

Piper Hecht closeted himself with his cronies inside one of the Castella’s quiet rooms. Force of habit. He did not expect to share any secrets but you never knew what someone would say to excite an eavesdropper.

“I want to know more about Master Hauf. He doesn’t have a reputation that precedes him.”

Buhle Smolens said, “Bechter says he was new to the commandery at the Castella Anjela dolla Picolena. He came to Runch out of the Holy Lands with a solid reputation as a battlefield leader. His family has connections with the lords of several Crusader states but he’s no politician himself. His claim to fame is that Indala al-Sul Halaladin counts him a friend.”

“How could that be?”

“They’ve had chances to do malicious harm but never dishonored themselves. Bechter thinks Hauf was promoted because he’s too honest and honorable. There were men who wanted to get him out of the Holy Lands. Where a lack of scruples, morality, and honor has begun making the Brotherhood look bad. Bechter thinks Hauf is here looking for a few good Brothers to help scour out the corruption.”

“Interesting. Strange, but interesting. Slip him what we know about the Witchfinders in Sonsa. Tell me more about Hauf and Indala.”

Colonel Smolens launched a convoluted tale of treachery and chivalry centered on one Rogert du Tancret, the violation of a holy truce, the kidnapping of Indala’s sister, and the Brotherhood’s intercession. In the person of Addam Hauf. Whose effort forestalled a war that might have pulled in Pramans from across all three kaifates. As it was, several mountain counties in the northern Holy Lands passed from Chaldarean to Praman control.

Rogert du Tancret remained unabashed. He continued to provoke the Pramans.

Smolens said, “Rogert fears no one because his fortress, Gherig, is unassailable.”

Once, when he was Else Tage, Hecht had seen Gherig. And even from many miles away that fortress had been grimly intimidating.

Some-most-strongholds were just piles of rock, however big they became. Gherig, though, had a personality. It lay crouched on its stony mountaintop like the home of earthly evil. It radiated the sense that something terrible could happen at any moment.

No. Evil was not right. Gherig was more like the Night. Neither good nor evil, except as one chose to behold it. Gherig simply was powerful and predatory. And, evidently, was these days in the hands of a master suited to it.

“Not important to us,” Hecht said. “We have troubles of our own. In the Connec.”

“Letter from Sedlakova came this morning. They’re having real trouble cornering Rook. Who gets a little stronger and smarter each time they take out some other revenant.”

“How did they get him the first time? Are there records?”

“You mean the Old Brothens?”

“Yes. Find out how they pinned him long enough to bind him.”

“The ancients exploited the nature of the god they meant to confine.”

“Research it. I’m going home. Which, this once, I’m not looking forward to. Anna and I are going to have a row about Pella going with us when we go out again.”

There was little reason to remain in Brothe. Bellicose’s ascension was not being disputed. The loud grumbling was all about his not yet having selected a more clement reign name. Hecht only needed the new Patriarch’s confirmation before he returned to the Connec.

“I’ll be glad to get out of here. What’re you going to do with the Braunsknecht?”

“Drear?”

“Him.”

“Take him back to Viscesment and put him in charge of the Imperial pullout.”

“And me?”

“Drag you back and make you work. You’ve had your holiday.”

Smolens snorted derisively.

Hecht said, “We don’t need to be here. Good guys and bad, they’re doing what they’re told.”

“Only because they’ve seen the new guy and he looks like death on a kabob skewer. They figure he won’t last a year.”

Hecht had seen Bellicose, briefly, and agreed. But the Ninth Unknown thought the man might not be beyond help. “He might surprise them.”

“I hope he does. I liked working with him in Viscesment.” Smolens shifted footing dramatically. “We really do need to maintain a presence here. A lobby with the Collegium and an inspectorate to ride herd on Krulik and Sneigon. Those bastards will sell weapons to anybody with money.”

“I’ll leave Rhuk. Like Prosek, he keeps coming up with marvelous ideas. Being here, he’ll have the chance to try them right away. I’ll get him the tools he’ll need to handle those people if they don’t behave.”

Smolens put his feet up. “I think, was I Krulik or Sneigon, I’d have seen this coming. I’d be setting up a manufactory somewhere secret. Maybe several.”

“Worth thinking about.” Hecht decided to mention it to Cloven Februaren. The old man would find the potential for mischief invigorating.