Glen Cook - The Tyranny of the Night

"Your circumstances have improved." She flashed a melting smile.

"Indeed. While yours appear to have deteriorated somewhat."

"We had them right where we wanted them."

Else could not help grinning. "What can I do to help?"

"You could give me my brother back."

"I'd love to. But I'm in no position to do that I'm a soldier. He's already in the hands of men more interested in politics."

"Members of the Collegium."

"Yes."

"Is he all right?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen him. But I think so." Else's gaze remained locked with that of the young woman. Clearly, she felt the electricity, too. "What will you do?"

"We are the children of Hansel Blackboots."

"I wish you luck, Princess. The best possible. I wouldn't want to face what you do, now."

She flashed another melting smile. "I told you. We’re the children of Ferocious Hans." Her gaze shifted to something behind him. She gasped, astonished.

Else turned as a gout of darkness stabbed up at the belly of the sky.

The sound arrived. It was the roar of a dozen thunderstorms compressed into one minute of fury.

That could be one thing, only.

"I have to go," Else said.

"I'll see you again," Elspeth mouthed, having read his lips.

Ears ringing, Else had trouble discerning nuance. But that seemed to be a promise.

"Stewpo!" he shouted in the dwarf's ear. "Was that what I think?"

"That was the death of a false god."

Else watched patriarchal troops enter Al-khazen through a newly opened postern. Bitter fighting lay ahead. Masant al-Seyhan would not go quietly. Er-Rashal would not go at all. He would vanish and reappear in Dreanger, blaming all the disasters on others, getting up to some new sort of mischief.

Else said, "You'd better go underground, little friend. Drocker is deeper than you think."

"He can be as deep as he wants. The firepowder knowledge is loose. He can't make it go away. Not even your great Dreangerean sorcerer can manage that. He is much less clever as a puppet-master than he thinks."

"Life will go harshly for the Deves of al-Qarn, now."

"Life always goes harshly for the Deves of al-Qarn."

"Do you know what er-Rashal was up to? Why he indulged in schemes that hurt his own side more than Dreanger's enemies?"

"I have a notion. It's most likely wrong. I'll tell you what an old man once told me. In politics and war you don't need to waste time looking for treachery or conspiracy if stupidity or incompetence will explain a disaster."

Else nodded. His own people manufactured complicated, improbable conspiracy theories to explain their embarrassments. Those often referenced the secret schemes of the monolithic Devedian religion.

They neared the tower of black smoke. It was slow to dissipate. "Well," Else said. "That's one hell of a hole in the ground." A cone of earth and stone fifty feet across and sixty deep had vanished. The sides of me pit were glassy and had the droopy look of melted candle wax.

Else had worked hard to teach his soldiers to be innovative. To seize any opportunity. They were doing just that, flinging anything remotely flammable into the pit along with pieces of fallen hero. Else said, "The lazy asses didn't want to dig their own pit" He made sure the demon's head and bronze sword went into the fire.

Else organized the removal of the injured and arranged for the Episcopal dead to be buried in al-Khazen's Chaldarean cemetery. Then he joined the troops inside the city. Most of the Calziran defenders had surrendered or fled. Their morale had collapsed. The remaining resistance was holed up in the citadel, under relentless attack by the dead heroes. Else kept his crusaders away from that.

The Imperials had lost interest. They were headed back to their camps. The nobility would be maneuvering to get control of Hansel's daughters.

Those girls would need to be strong and clever.

Lothar ought to be under special guard. Sublime might have the boy murdered as an expedient means of dulling the Grail Empire's teeth.

That could not be allowed. Sublime must always have the threat of me Emperor behind him.

Al-Khazen was dead except for the excitement at its heart. Sorceries flared there. But the efforts of the denizens of the citadel were ineffective. The Collegium had begun harrying them, leaving them little attention to spare for the dead heroes.

A last band of Calziran fugitives eluded the foreign Pramans and dead warriors alike. Mafti al-Araj el-Arak and his courtiers, their families, and certain formerly resolutely stubborn lords of the Calziran kingdom were making their escape. In an exchange of messages they had promised to surrender to King Peter of Navaya at al-Negesi. They had sworn their paroles against the Written. Else thought the weather would keep them honest. They had nowhere else to go if they wanted to be warm and fed.

Else watched them move out, shielded by his troops. He hoped the hint had gotten through, that there would be familiar faces among the refugees.

Ah. There were. Bone and the Master of Ghosts, Az, who needed help from his companions. Looking very Calziran today. Bone had found a loophole in their oath.

Wait! There was another face he knew. Not included in the offer of parole. "Stop that man. Chiotto. Brench. In the gray jebalah, with the hood. Cut him out."

The Mafti's chief chamberlain materialized. He had initiated negotiations originally. "A thousand pardons, Lord!" he gasped at Else. "Forgive the Mafti! This gray rat forced himself upon us. He was desperate to escape the mad Dreangerean. It was not the Mafti's plan to violate our parole."

"I see. You drugged him somehow?"

"Indeed. Yes, Lord." His evasive eye suggested that poison was more likely.

"Is this Masant el-Seyhan?"

"The same, Lord. He is a terrible man. We didn't dare …"

"Enough. You lie like a dog. But I have no complaint now. Remind the Mafti that he'll be followed to el-Negesi. I've ordered that no mercy be shown parole breakers."

"Your generosity is heroic, Lord. Worthy of a Believer. Your mercy won't be forgotten."

"Go. I can still be overruled by my superiors." There would be, for sure, an outcry about his having let potential ransoms get away. Foo on how many soldiers' lives the arrangement saved.

There were always more soldiers.

He was improvising, not only to save lives but to give old friends a chance to elude the doom er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen wanted to call down on the remaining Sha-lug.

Else was angry. The Rascal had betrayed al-Prama and Dreanger on behalf of some obscure ambition of his own. But he would pay, in time. Maybe even here, at the hands of Devedian fusiliers. They would be eager to get off a shot at the man who had invented firepowder weapons. They loved irony as much as gold. Or maybe the payback would come later, after news of his treachery crept back to Gordimer the Lion.

Once the groggy man in gray had been hustled off for an encounter with Grade Drocker, Else settled in for a siege of the citadel. Which did not happen.

Private soldiers not as weary as he, still able to reason, saw an opportunity to penetrate al-Khazen's citadel through the some postern the Mafti had used to get away. The undead paid no attention. They were occupied elsewhere.

Er-Rashal el-Dhulquarnen could not be found. Likewise, the commanders of the Dreangeran and Lucidian expeditions. Nor was much treasure discovered. The few servants left behind were so resolutely ignorant that it was obvious their memories had been bewitched.

"Here's what you do," Else told one of his captains. “Put the servants into a slave coffle. We'll question them again later. Then set the citadel on fire. If they're hiding in some secret place that'll bring them out. You can let them surrender if they offer."