David Weber - War Maid's choice

“How many thousands?” Trianal asked calmly, and gave the scout a crooked smile when the man stared at him. “I realize you didn’t have time to actually count the number of legs and divide by two, Sergeant. A rough estimate will do.”

Two or three of his officers chuckled, and even the scout smiled. But he also shook his head.

“Milord, we couldn’t get close enough to tell how many. I’d say there had to be-what? Six or seven thousand? — this side of the Graywillow.” He looked at the other members of his section of scouts with an eyebrow raised, and heads nodded. “Problem is, they were already throwing those nasty javelins of theirs at us. They were pushing us back-pushing hard-and more of ’em were boiling out of the woods along the river like maggots. I’d be lying if I said I could tell you any more than that, but it seemed to me I’d best be getting the lads back here to tell you what we’d already seen.”

Without trying to see more and getting them all killed, he didn’t say, but Trianal nodded.

“Information’s a hell of a lot more valuable than dead troopers, Sergeant,” he agreed, and the scout’s shoulders relaxed almost imperceptibly.

“Should I assume they’re following along behind you?” Trianal went on, and the sergeant nodded back to him.

“Aye, Milord. I’d say they’re not in all that tearing a hurry-given how fast the buggers can run, you’d’ve seen ’em already if they were. But they’ll be along. And, Milord, they’re using drum signals.”

“I see.” Trianal glanced around his command group’s faces for a moment, then turned back to the scouts.

“You’ve done well, Sergeant. Now get your men back behind the supply element and rest your horses.” He smiled again, more thinly. “I think it’s time for the rest of us to do our jobs.”

“Aye, Milord. Thank you!”

The sergeant beckoned to his section, and the five of them splattered off across the muddy grass while Trianal, Bahzell, and the rest of the command group looked at one another.

“Drum signals,” Trianal repeated, as if the two words were an obscenity, and Bahzell snorted.

“Well, we’d signs enough already as how these aren’t your ordinary ghouls, lad,” he pointed out, and shrugged. “I’ve no doubt at all, at all, as how these bastards are going to prove a right handful, and that’s a fact. Still and all, it’s in my mind the tactical situation’s simple enough to be going on with. It’s not so very likely all the drum signals in the world are to matter all that much.”

“I’m afraid Prince Bahzell’s got that right, Milord,” Yurgazh said sourly. He looked out in the direction from which the scouts had come for a moment, then grimaced and looked back at Trianal. “I think it’s time I was joining my infantry, Milord.”

“Agreed.” Trianal nodded at him and gave Sir Yarran a glance.

“I’m off, I’m off!” the older Sothoii said, raising one hand in a mock defensive gesture. “Just you be remembering what bugles, staff officers, and couriers are for, young man!”

“I’m not planning on leading any desperate charges,” Trianal said dryly.

“What I really want to hear is that you’re planning on not leading any desperate charges,” Yarran said even more dryly. “Under the circumstances, though, I suppose I’d better settle for the best I can get, hadn’t I?”

“Not much point hoping for anything else, any road, Sir Yarran,” Yurgazh said even more sourly, and glanced at Vaijon. “I don’t suppose you could convince my idiot prince to get his unmarried arse back aboard one of those barges, could you?”

“Not unless you want me to have him physically dragged,” Vaijon replied with a tight grin. “Hurthang and a couple of the other lads are probably big enough to do it, but I can’t guarantee he wouldn’t get banged up around the edges in the process if he took offense. Which he probably would.”

“And then there’s Prince Yurokhas.” Trianal’s tone was even more sour than Yurgazh’s had been as he glanced over his shoulder at the wind tube gryphon standard in the colors of the royal house floating above the compact, neatly formed block of the Order of Tomanak.

“I might be able to order him onto a barge,” Vaijon admitted, following the direction of Trianal’s gaze. “He is a member of the Order, if not our chapter, and I am a champion. Although, now that I think about it, Bahzell’s senior to me. If anyone’s going to do any ordering, I think it ought to be him, since he’s at least older than Yurokhas on top of everything else.”

“And because you’ve got a pretty damned good idea how he’d react to the ‘order,’ too, I imagine,” Trianal said darkly.

“And because of that,” Vaijon acknowledged with a fleeting smile. Then the smile faded. “The truth is that in cold-blooded political and dynastic terms, he’s actually more expendable just at the moment than Arsham, Trianal. And he’s a member of the Order, too. Whatever’s coming this way, it’s exactly what the Order is pledged to fight.” He shook his head. “I can’t justify ordering him to safety without some overriding reason-like his place in the succession-and as a member of the Order, he has a right to be here.”

“I know,” Trianal sighed. “I know. Just…try to keep him in one piece if you can, all right? The King would be upset if anything happened to him. And more to the point, he’s my prince and Uncle Tellian loves him. Tomanak, I love him, come to that!”

“We’ll do what we can,” Vaijon promised, and chuckled harshly. “Besides, if our masterful battle plan works, what could possibly go wrong?”

“The enemy, lad,” Bahzell said with a grim smile. “That’s why we’ve the habit of calling him ‘the enemy.’”

The ground trembled as the devil named Anshakar followed the howling ghouls towards their prey. The massive drums-sawn sections of hollow log, the drum heads made of the tanned hide of ghoul tribal chiefs and so massive that carrying them required four ghouls to bear each of them, slung between them on poles-throbbed and bellowed, beaten by the ghouls’ new shamans to the glory of their new gods. He tasted the mingled terror, hunger, and rage swelling about him, and if most of that terror and much of that rage were directed against him and his two fellows, Anshakar could not have cared less. Terror was terror, and rage was rage; both were chained by desperate obedience, and when the moment came to unleash it, it wouldn’t matter in the least who had spawned it. Besides, it was always useful for sword fodder to be more frightened of its commanders than of the swords it faced.

He bared his fangs, nostrils flared as he raised his head, sucking in air, seeking that first delicious scent of the prey he’d been brought here to take. Eagerness tingled, burning in his blood like fire, and the hideous light of his eyes rippled and glared. The ghouls who’d learned to worship him meant nothing. Nothing! They were only a means to an end, and this- this — was what his Lord and Master had created him to be and do! It had been far too long since last he’d tasted the blood of a foe worthy of his hatred. Perhaps this new champion, this Bahzell Bloody Hand, would slake the need for destruction and slaughter that fumed at his core like a furnace.

His gaping, bare-fanged grin spread wider, lips wrinkling with contempt as he remembered the puny wizard’s warnings. Warnings! Warnings for Anshakar the Great! What did he care for a wizard’s repeated failures to rid this puling world of its so-called champions?! For the incompetence of creatures who followed that bitch Krahana, or the gutless pygmies who served Sharna the Timid? This world-this universe-was ripe for the taking. He could smell it, feel it, already taste the blood and destruction. His kind were even more sensitive to such things than those contemptible wizards. If the cusp point wasn’t here yet, it was coming, in no more than a few of the mortals’ little decades. That was the true reason his Lord had sent him and Zurak and Kimazh here, whatever the wizard or his mistress thought-to seize that point, to twist it out of the other Dark Gods’ grasp and give it over solely to Krashnark, where it belonged. And if this Bahzell was powerful, what did it matter? Anshakar was powerful, too, and far more ancient and experienced than any mortal champion of Tomanak could ever hope to be. His very name-Anshakar-meant “World Breaker” in the tongue of his own folk, and he’d earned it well. Hehe! — had led the final assaults which had given no less than two universes to the Dark. Now he would give it a third, and feast on the flesh of any feeble champion who’d dared to stand in his path!