Glen Cook - Splinter Of The Mind's Eye

Radetic shook his head. Bragi said, "Let's get rolling. Hoist him up, Haaken."

Two riders came up, stared down. "Father," Haroun croaked.

"Haroun." The Wahlig eyed Radetic. "He start this, Megelin?"

"He did."

The Wahlig sucked spittle between his teeth. "I see." He considered Bragi and Haaken. "Aren't these the lads who brought him out of the pass?"

"The same. Making a career, aren't they?"

"So it would aeem. See to Haroun's injuries, then get their stories. And I'll want to talk to you once we're finished down here."

"As you will."

"Fuad. Let's go." The Wahlig and his brother rode on into the confusion.

"Can we go now?" Bragi asked.

"By all means." Megelin eyed Haroun, who could not conceal his trepidation. "It'll be all right, lad. But you did get out of hand. Just as you did at Al Rhemish."

Haroun forced a laugh. "Didn't have a choice."

"That's debatable. Nevertheless, it turned out well. Assuming we save your teeth. I hope you have it out of your system now."

"What?"

"The rebellion. The foolishness. You're young. You have a lot of years left, if you don't squander them. These lads won't always be around."

Haroun closed his eyes, shivered. He had been a fool, throwing himself in like he was one of El Murid's Invincibles, with never a thought to how he would get away. There were a lot of tomorrows, and through thoughtlessness he'd nearly squandered his share. He owed the northerners more than he had realized.

Megelin scowled.

"Well?" the Wahlig demanded.

Radetic looked at Hawkwind. The General's leathery countenance remained blank. His vote was "present," nothing more. Megelin considered Fuad. The Wahlig's brother was abubble with rage. He had an ally there, but he and Fuad made a pathetic marriage of purpose.

Megelin recalled an instructor who had intimidated him terribly in his youth. It had taken him a decade to conquer his unreasoning fright. And only then had he been able to analyze what the man had done. He adopted the fellow's method now.

"For more years than I care to recall I have slaved thanklessly in this armpit of the world." Excessive ferocity and bombast were the keys, accompanied by exaggerated gestures and body movement. These wakened the father-fear in one's listeners. "Time and again have you asked my advice. Time and again have you ignored it. Time and again have I prepared to return home, only to have my will thwarted. I have fought for you. I have suffered for you. I have wasted a career for you. I have endured ceaseless, senseless humiliation at the hands of your family and men. All for the sake of salvaging a rockpile in the middle of nowhere, a rockpile that protects a godforsaken wasteland, inhabited only by barbarians, from the predations of bandits whose mercies the land most assuredly deserves."

His blood was rising, responding to years of frustration. "How many hundreds, nay, how many thousands of men have lost their lives over this abomination upon a hill? I have grown old here. Old before my time. Your sons have grown up here, made ancient by endless hatred and treachery and war. And now you want to abandon the place to the Disciple. For shame!"

Radetic planted himself in front of the Wahlig, fists on hips. He almost grinned. Even Fuad was shaken by his fury. "What have we lived for? What have we died for? If we go now, have we not wasted all those years and sacrifices?"

"We fought for an ideal, Megelin." Yousif's voice was soft and tired. "And we lost. The Disciple did not overthrow us physically. We ran him off again. But the ideal lies dead beneath his heel. The tribes are deserting us. They know where the strength lies, where the future lies. With the man we couldn't kill. With the man who, in a few weeks, will command hordes eager to swarm over our broken walls to plunder our homes, defile our women and murder our children. There is nothing we can do here—unless we want to die valiantly in a lost cause, like the knights in your western romances."

Megelin could not sustain his anger in the face of the truth. He and Fuad were being stubborn out of sentiment and pride. Death could be the lone reward for harkening to either. The Wahligate was lost in all but name.

Yousif continued, "Things aren't yet hopeless up north. Aboud opened his eyes enough to see the need for the General. Maybe reports from his own men, who have seen the enemy, will widen the crack in the wall around his reason. He still commands the strength and faith of the kingdom—if he'd just use them."

Torment and despair muddied the Wahlig's words, pain he would never confess. The decision to flee had cost him. It may have broken him as a man.

"You'll have your will, Lord. I haven't the strength to deny it. But I fear you'll find more heartbreak in Al Rhemish. There's nothing else to say. I must pack. It would be a sin if my labors of years were destroyed by ignorant fools in white."

For an instant torment controlled the Wahlig. His face reflected the horrors of hell. But he steadied himself, like the great lord he was. "Go, then, teacher. I'm sorry I've been a disappointment."

"Not that, Wahlig. Not ever." Radetic surveyed the others. Hawkwind remained inscrutable. Fuad was a study in inner conflict, an almost trite portrait of a man compelling himself to remain silent.

"Megelin," Yousif called as Radetic neared the door. "Travel with Haroun. I have very little else left."

Radetic nodded, stamped out.

"There you go," Kildragon said. "March all the way from High Crag, forced march, killing ourselves, so we can save this dump, and what do we do? Walk away. Why do they always let the morons do the military planning?"

"Listen to the old strategist," Haaken mocked. "He don't have sense enough to hold his spot in the line, but he knows better than the General and Haroun's old man, who've only been leading armies since before he was a twinkle in his father's eye."

"Keep it down," Bragi said. "We're supposed to be sneaking out of here."

"With all this racket? You could probably hear these wagons four miles away, they're making so much noise."

The Wahlig's horsemen had ridden out at nightfall, several hours earlier, in hopes of scouring the area of enemy spies. Now the main column was under way. The Guildsmen would guard its rear. The Wahlig hoped his getaway would not be noticed till he could not be overhauled.

"Ragnarson."

Bragi faced Lieutenant Sanguinet. "Sir?"

"Too much noise from your crowd. Tell Kildragon to keep it down or I'll leave him for the jackals."

"Yes sir. I'll gag him if I have to, sir."

That should have been it. But Sanguinet remained rooted, staring. Bragi began to wilt. Once the man finally did leave, Bragi told Haaken, "He knows. He has to pretend he don't on account of if he doesn't he'll have to do something about it. Even if we did save the Wahlig's kid. We're going to be walking on eggs. He'll be looking to get us on something else. Reskird, you better pretend you never learned to run your mouth."

"What did I do? I just said what everybody is thinking."

"Everybody else has sense enough to keep it to themselves. Let's move out." Bragi left el Aswad and never looked back. A glance over his shoulder would have been a glance into his past, and he did not want to rue his decision to enlist. A fool's decision, that, but he was here now, and he was of that stubborn sort which insists on enduring the consequences of its acts.

Looking ahead, he saw nothing promising. He expected to shed his life's blood somewhere on the sand of this savage, alien, incomprehensible land.

Haroun did look back. He had no choice. The litter he rode, despite insisting he could ride a horse, faced the castle.

He wept. He had known no other home, and was certain he'd never see it again. He wept for his father and Fuad, for whom el Aswad meant even more. He wept for all the valiant ancestors who had held the Eastern Fortress, never yielding in their trust. And he wept for the future, intimations of which had begun to reach him already.