noise and confusion during the Harvest Festival.’
‘And lots of drinking,’ Itagne added. ‘The whole continent
gets roaring drunk.’
“It’s a general holiday, then?’ Bevier asked.
Itagne nodded. ‘Technically it’s a religious holiday. We’re supposed
to thank the Gods for a bountiful harvest. Most people
can get that out of the way in about a half a minute, and that
leaves them three days and nights to get into trouble. The harvest
crews are all paid off, they take their annual baths, and
then head for the nearest town in search of mischief.’
“It’s made to order for our purposes,’ Caalador added.
‘Will you be ready to move your forces against the Trolls in
three weeks, Lord Vanion?’ Sarabian asked.
‘More than ready, your Majesty. We weren’t planning to
gather them all in one place anyway. The detachments from
each garrison are only platoon-sized, and a platoon
can move faster than a battalion. they’re all moving toward staging areas
along the Atan border.’
‘Do we want to hit them all at the same time?’ ~Kalten asked.
‘We could go any one of three ways on that,’ Sparhawk said.
‘We can hit the Trolls first and pull Zalasta’s attention to northern
Atan, or we can murder the conspirators first and send him
scurrying around the continent trying to salvage what he can of
his organization, or we can do it simultaneously and see if he
can be in a hundred places all at the same time.’
‘We can decide that later,’ Sarabian said. ‘Let’s get word
to the murderers first. We know that we want them to go to
work during the Harvest Festival. The military situation’s more
fluid.’
‘Let’s make a special point of eliminating Sabre, Parok and
Rebal this time,’ Stragen said to Caalador. ‘Evidently the Atans
missed them in the last general round-up. Those Elene kingdoms
in western Tamuli are standing between Sir Tynian and
Matherion, and as long as those three trouble-makers are alive,
he’s going to have rough going. Is there any way we could get
Scarpa as well?’
Caalador shook his head. ‘He’s holed up in Natayos. He’s
turned it into a fortress and filled it with fanatics. I couldn’t pry
a murderer enough to try to kill him. The only way we’ll get
Scarpa is to mount a military expedition.’
‘That’s a shame,’ Sephrenia murmured. ‘The death of his only
son would definitely twist a knife in Zalasta’s belly.’
‘Savage,’ Vanion accused affectionately.
‘Zalasta killed my family, Vanion,’ she replied. ‘All I want to
do is return the favor.’
‘That sounds fair to me,’ he smiled.
‘i’m still dead set against it,’ Stragen said stubbornly when he,
Sparhawk and Ulath met in the hallway a bit later.
‘Be reasonable, Stragen,’ Ulath said. “It won’t hurt anything
to see what they have to say, will it? I’m not going to just turn
them loose without any restrictions at all, you know.’
‘They’ll agree to anything to get their freedom, Ulath. They
might promise to pull the Trolls out of Atan – or even to help
us deal with Zalasta and Cyrgon – but once they get back to
Thalesia, they won’t feel obligated to honor any commitments.
We’re not even members of the same species as their worshipers.
We’re just animals in their eyes. Would you feel
obliged to keep promises you made to a bear?’
‘That would depend on the bear, I suppose.’
‘The Troll-Gods might break promises they make to us,’ Sparhawk
said, ‘but they won’t break faith with Bhelliom, because
Bhelliom can re-absorb them if they try any tricks.’
‘Well,’ Stragen said doubtfully, “I want to be sure everybody
understands that I don’t like this, but I guess it won’t hurt to
hear what they have to say. I want to be present, though. I don’t
altogether trust you, Ulath, so I want to hear the promises you
give them.’
‘Do you understand Trollish?’
Stragen shuddered. ‘Of course not.’
‘You’re going to have a little difficulty following the conversation,
then, don’t you think?’
‘Sephrenia’s going along, isn’t she? She can translate for me.’
‘Are you sure you trust her?’
‘That’s a contemptible thing to say.’
“I thought I’d ask. When do you want to do this, Sparhawk?’
‘Let’s not be premature,” Sparhawk decided. “I still have to
take Caalador around to talk with his friends. Let’s get that all
set up and make sure that the Atans Vanion’s calling in are in
the staging areas before we broach the subject to the Troll-Gods.
There’s no point in getting them excited until we need them.’
“I think we’ll want to be out in the countryside when we talk
with them,’ Ulath suggested. ‘When we tell them that Cyrgon’s
stolen their worshipers, their screams of outrage might shatter
all the sea-shells off the walls of Matherion.’
‘His mind is much fogged by drink,’ Xanetia reported about
mid-morning the next day after she and Berit had returned from
the Cynesgan embassy, ‘and it is difficult to wring consistency
from it.’
‘Does he have any suspicions at all, Anarae?’ Stragen asked
with a worried expression.
‘He doth know that thou hast set thieves and beggars to watch
him in the past, Milord Stragen,’ she replied, ‘but it is his
thought that thou – or young Talen – must make these arrangements
in each city and that one of ye must go there to speak
With each chief separately.’
‘He don’t know nothin’ about the Sekert Cover-mint?’
Caalador pressed, speaking in dialect for some obscure reason.
‘His understanding of thy society is vague, Master Caalador.
Cooperation of such nature is beyond his grasp, for Krager himself
is incapable of it, being guided only by immediate self-interest.’
‘What a splendid drunkard,’ Stragen exulted. ‘Let’s all Pray
that he never sobers up!’
‘A-men.’ Caalador agreed fervently. ‘Well, Sporhawk, why
don’t yew have a talk with this yore joel o’ yourn, an me’n you’ll
go a-hippety-skippin”round about Tamuli. We got us folks t’
see an’ th’otes t’ cut.’
Xanetia’s face took on a pained expression.
Caalador was badly shaken the first few times Bhelliom whisked
him half-way across the continent, but after that he seemed to
grow numb. It took him about a half-hour each time to pass
instructions to the various criminal chiefs of Tamuli, and Sparhawk
strongly suspected that the ruddy-faced Cammorian
settled his shaken nerves with strong drink at each stop. Sparhawk
could not be sure, of course, since he was quite firmly
excluded from the discussions. ‘You don’t need to know who
these people are, Sparhawk,’ Caalador said, ‘and your presence
would just make them nervous.’
Vanion’s small Atan detachments were streaming into the
staging areas along the Atan border from all over Tamuli, and
Tikume had promised several thousand eastern Peloi in addition
to the three hundred bowmen Kring had taken with him back
to Atan. Bhelliom took Sparhawk and Vanion to the Atan capital
so that they could reassure Betuana that they were in fact
marshaling forces to come to her aid, Bud to explain why they
were holding most of that aid at the border. ‘The Trolls wouldn’t
understand the significance of those reinforcements, Betuana-Queen,’
Vanion told her, ‘but Cyrgon’s completely versed in
strategy and tactics. He’d understand what was going on
immediately. Let’s not give him any hints about what we’re
doing until we’re ready to strike.’
‘Do you really think you can spring surprises on a God,
Vanion-Preceptor?’ she asked. Betuana was dressed in what
passed for armor among the Atans, and her face clearly showed
that she had been functioning on short sleep for weeks.
‘i’m certainly going to try, Betuana-queen,’ Vanion rePlied
with a brief smile. “I think it’s fairly safe to say that Cyrgon
hasn’t had a new thought in the last twenty thousand years.
Military thinking’s changed a great deal in that time, so he probably
won’t fully understand what we’re up to.’ He made a wry
face. ‘At least that’s what I’m hoping,’ he added.
And then it reached the point where they could not put it off
any longer. None of them were really comfortable with the idea
of chatting with the Troll-Gods, but the time had come to put
Ulath’s notion to the test.
About an hour before dawn of the day none of them had
really been looking forward to, Sparhawk and Vanion went to
Sephrenia’s room to speak with Sephrenia, Xanetia and Danae.
Their discussions struck a snag almost immediately.
“I have to go along, Sparhawk,’ Danae insisted.
‘That’s out of the question,’ he told her. ‘Ulath and Stragen
are going to be there. We can’t let them find out who you really
are.’
‘They’re not going to find anything out, fatHer,’ she said
with exaggerated patience. “It won’t be Danae who’ll be going
along.’
‘Oh. That’s different, then.’
‘Exactly how are we going to work this, Sparhawk?’ Vanion
asked. ‘Won’t you have to release the Troll-Gods in order to talk
with them?’
Sparhawk shook his head. ‘Bhelliom says we won’t. The TrollGods