David Drake - Master of the Cauldron

In place of the night sky, the air above the hall showed giant images of what'd happened on the ramparts earlier: the Made Men coming on, and Cashel knocking them down with short, quick strokes that each ended an opponent with the certainty of a thunderbolt. Cashel'd never seen himself moving like that, from the outside. His lips pursed. He wasn't one to give himself praise-but judging what he saw with a critical eye, the first thing that went through his mind was thathe wouldn't look forward to fighting somebody as good as the fellow he was watching.

Again there was a whisper of response, the brilliantly clothed folk of Ronn talking among themselves. The Sons clustered around Cashel and Mab, their expressions a mix of hopeful and frightened. Cashel understood: this was the big chance they'd hoped for, trained for; but they must have a good notion, at least since he'd taken them apart with his quarterstaff that afternoon, that they weren't up to the job they'd set themselves.

"We don't know how to fight!" the voice of the assembly said. The Council of the Wise remained silent on the stage, the woman still standing but none of them trying to lead the discussion. "The big stranger fought the Made Men. Will he fight them for us again?"

Cashel gripped his quarterstaff harder. Everybody was looking at him. Everybody: the floor of the assembly hall wasn't flat any more, it sloped up in every direction like a bowl with him in the center and Duzi knew how many people staring. He supposed it was some trick of the light, or else the Councillors were more powerful wizards than he'd been thinking they were. Regardless, it was happening and he sure didn't like it.

"Tell them, Cashel," Mab said with her cool smile. She spoke to him alone, her hands tented before her. No matter what the rest of her appearance was, Cashel could always tell Mab by those dazzling fingernails. "Tell them what you think."

This is none of my business! Cashel thought. But because he was more angry than he was embarrassed, he blurted aloud, "You people can fight these Made Men yourselves! You saw them up there-"

He waved his left hand toward where the images had stepped and swung; the moon was back now.

"They can't fight, they're no more real soldiers than you are. If you've got swords, get them. When the Made Men attack you justfight. That's all you have to do."

"We need a leader," the assembly said. Somebody, some individual, had spoken the words but they were what the whole huge gathering thought. "In the past, the Heroes led the citizens of Ronn. Give us a Hero. Let the stranger lead us!"

Cashel looked at the faces, the tense and frightened faces, staring down at him. Suddenly he smiled. The answer was simple and so obvious that he didn't need the verbal push Mab was opening her mouth to provide.

"I can't lead you," Cashel said, "because you wouldn't follow me. You need one of your own people to lead, if you mean really lead and not stand out in front till I'm hacked to death and the rest of you turn and run."

He knew he was being more honest than they were going to like hearing. While Cashel wasn't as bad as his sister about not caring who his words hurt-nobody else was as bad as Ilna that way-he knew this was one of those cases where folks had to understand the truth. If they didn't really understand instead of just hearing words in a way that let them ignore them, theywere going to die or face whatever other thing the King and his monsters decided to do instead of kill them.

"We'll lead you!" Herron cried, his right arm raised with the fist clenched. He'd been shouting, Cashel could see. When his voice boomed through the hall, he looked as though he'd been dropped into ice water. Stumbling on his tongue he managed to add, "The S-sons will lead you!"

"You're only boys!" replied the assembly; the massed faces staring down at Herron. The people sounded irritated but not too much so, much the way adults would be when a child piped up in the middle of a serious discussion.

They're as old as I am! Cashel thought, but he didn't say that or anything because the Assembly was right. Cashel couldn't lead Ronn because he wasn't part of Ronn; the Sons couldn't lead because they weren't fit to lead.

"Master Herron?" Mab said, speaking for the assembly in a tone of cool superiority. "Are you and your friends willing to serve the city by doing something thatis within your powers? Are you willing to wake the Heroes in their cavern?"

The Sons went slack-faced in amazement. Enfero in particular had the look of a rabbit frozen by the eyes of a viper.

"You said you'd face the King and his Made Men," Mab said. Her words seemed carved from blocks of ice. "Do you have the courage to face the dark? Or are you little boys who'll shiver in the sunlight till the darkness comes to you?"

"We'll go," Orly said in an angry voice. "We'll find nothing but dust and bones, I think, but we're not afraid!"

"Yes, we'll go," Herron said to Mab, suddenly calm. "You'll lead us, mistress?"

"Of course," said Mab. "And I believe Master Cashel will accompany you as well, will you not, Cashel?"

Cashel wished there weren't all those faces looking down at him with desperate expressions, but he couldn't help that there were. "I said I'd help, didn't I?" he muttered, scowling because he sounded ill-tempered when he was really just embarrassed. "Anyway, I will. I'd be glad to."

And that much was true. If it really was a dangerous place to go, then maybe he could be of some real help for the first time since he came here to Ronn.

"Funny," said Trooper Lires, looking to both sides of the flagstone path with his usual bright interest. He grinned at Sharina to show he was speaking as much to her as he was to his fellow Blood Eagles. "In the old days there'd be half the clerks in the palace camped out here, hoping to get the king to sign something or do who knows what. It just about never happened, mind."

"Lires," said Captain Ascor, "the less talk about what happened here in the old days, the better I'll like it."

"Right, Cap'n," the trooper said. Perhaps he was mildly abashed, though Sharina couldn't be sure. The Blood Eagles were chosen from the line regiments on the basis of courage, military skills, and complete loyalty to whoever they were guarding. Social graces and the willingness to bow and scrape to their superiors weren't high in the selection criteria.

Sharina and her escort came around a high wall of prickly euonymus to see a low brick residence set near the wall of the palace compound. Two Blood Eagles were at the front door, alerted by the ringing of hobnails on the path. They smiled to see their fellows. "Hey Ascor," one of them said. "I thought you guys were off in Carcosa still."

Valence III had retired to this bungalow, within the palace grounds but at a distance from the Chancellery, while he was still as much of a ruler as the kingdom had. In the final days of his rule, he'd turned to wizardry and an alliance with black Evil to preserve his power. When his closest friends had transferred real power to Garric with themselves as his advisors, Valence had sunk into religious mania and guilt over what he'd done and allowed to be done.

"No, we're with her highness the princess here," the captain said. "She needs to talk to himself-as-was. Any problem with that?"

"Not if he's sober enough to talk," the other guard said. "Which he generally is, not that he has much call to be. He spends most days with a couple old friends. They're with him now."

So speaking, the guard pulled the door open and called through, "Your highness? Princess Sharina's here to see you."

He nodded the newcomers forward. Ascor and Lires stepped inside ahead of Sharina, while the rest of her escort waited outside with their fellows.

There was no doorman in the anteroom, though with guards outside there didn't need to be. Sharina didn't see servants in the bungalow's single large room either, however.