“Venetia? Ravenna?”
Both women turned about, startled.
Garth Baxtor entered the tent, looking unsure of himself. “Is this a bad moment?”
Venetia and Ravenna exchanged a glance, then Venetia smiled, set aside the blanket she
had been folding, and walked forward to hug Garth.
“No, it is not a bad time. Garth, it is so good to see you.”
Garth hugged her back, relieved at the warmth of her welcome. He had seen Venetia on
several occasions over the past few years, stopping by her hut in the marshes to exchange news
and information about herbal remedies, but it was strange to see her here, and under these
circumstances.
Then Venetia stepped back, and Garth looked at Ravenna.
The moment stretched out awkwardly. She was so different from the girl he remembered.
She had grown into a beautiful woman, but there was a hardness about her, and a singular
determination that Garth found unsettling.
But perhaps his discomfort was too much influenced by the tale Maximilian had told him
and Egalion last night.
“Ah,” said Ravenna, very softly. “I see by your eyes, Garth, that Maxel has been chatting
to you.”
Garth tried to inject a little more warmth into his smile. He stepped forward and kissed
Ravenna lightly on the cheek, his hands on her shoulders.
Maximilian’s son, he thought, sending his Touch through Ravenna”s body, and healthy.
“I could have told you that,” Ravenna murmured, pulling herself away from Garth”s
touch, and his smile slipped a little.
Why was it that he was always making an ass of himself with Maximilian and his
women?
“Garth,” said Venetia, “I”ll let you and Ravenna talk. I”ll ride a little with you later, yes?
We can talk then.”
“That would be good, Venetia,” Garth said, then turned back to Ravenna as Venetia left
the tent. “It has been a long time. We”ve all changed. Maxel…I had no idea that he should inherit
another, and stranger, crown and I wager you didn”t either, Ravenna, when you helped rescue
him from the Veins. As for Vorstus…” Garth shook his head. “I trusted him with my life, as
Maxel did, and he was our friend for these past eight years. To now find that he helped imprison
Maxel…it is difficult.”
“These are difficult times, Garth.” Ravenna stuffed the last of her things into a pack, then
picked up her cloak.
“Ravenna—”
She turned to face him. “Do you speak for Ishbel now, Garth? Am I no longer your
friend?”
“Ishbel and I do not have a history of friendship, Ravenna. When I first met her I
instinctively distrusted her. I never truly liked her as Maxel”s wife.”
Ravenna visibly relaxed. “She is a hound from hell, Garth. Maximilian is fixated by her,
to his shame.”
“He loves her, I think, despite the distance currently between them.”
Ravenna waved a hand dismissively. “So he may, but Ishbel will murder him, and spread
disaster throughout this land. She will ally with evil, Garth, and betray everything for which you
and I have ever worked. You must speak to Maximilian, make him see sense where I have failed.
He must put Ishbel aside.”
Garth”s sense of discomfort grew more intense. “I do not think Maxel is a man who takes
well to being told what he must or must not do.”
Ravenna gave a soft, bitter laugh. “As I have discovered. Why does he not see reason,
Garth? Why?”
“Ravenna…you and he…” He stopped, not knowing how to say gently what he thought
best.
“What?” Ravenna said. “He and I…not suited to each other? Is that what you want to
say?”
“I think he has only ever wanted to be your friend, Ravenna.”
“Then he should be my friend and listen to what I say to him.”
“He feels trapped by the baby. He thinks that—”
“That I trapped him? That I conceived this child to bind him to my side? No marsh
woman does that, Garth. I conceived this child not to win Maximilian to my side, but to save
Elcho Falling, should he refuse to see Ishbel for what she is.”
She threw the cloak about her shoulders, tying it closed with angry jerks. “Enjoy your
ride with my mother, Garth. I am sure she, too, will speak nothing but poison against me.”
Garth stood looking at the tent flap for a long time once Ravenna had gone. He could
barely believe the woman she”d become. It was as if Ravenna the girl had been the promise, and
Ravenna the woman the…
“What, Garth?” he murmured. “What?”
He thought about what Ravenna had said to him just as she left the tent. She had
conceived the child to save Elcho Falling.
What did that say about her loyalty to Maximilian?
What if Ravenna ever came to believe that Maximilian threatened Elcho Falling?
Garth shivered, and, hearing the soldiers outside move impatiently, went to mount his
horse.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Outside Margalit, the Outlands
Armat stood in the doorway of his command tent, studying the scene before him. Men
scurried about the encampment, readying for a sortie west; horses were being brushed and
saddled; weapons cleaned and sharpened.
He wasn”t concerned about being seen from the air—by either a passing Icarii or the
Lealfast which Ravenna had told him about—as Ravenna”s sorcery still kept him concealed from
any eye not belonging to a friend or ally.
Armat, as Kezial and Lamiah, had managed virtual miracles since they had abandoned
Maximilian”s camp—such miracles aided, of course, by a little more of Ravenna”s sorcery.
Armat had taken the leadership role within the group of three generals. He was the youngest, but
he was the more decisive, and Kezial and Lamiah had made no murmur as Armat began to take
an ever more commanding role.
Armat knew they would be easy to manage when the time came. And if not, then they
could be killed as easily.
Armat currently controlled almost eighty thousand soldiers, all grouped just beyond the
city of Margalit. This number was composed of the forces Isaiah had left at Margalit itself, as
well as several Rivers of ten thousand men that the Tyrant had left stationed in the Central
Outlands and within a few day”s march south of Margalit.
There were many tens of thousands more soldiers to the south, and Lamiah and Kezial
had ridden south many days ago to gather them together. Kezial had the task of combining the
forces about Adab; Lamiah, the forces stationed between Adab and the Salamaan Pass.
Armat expected them to consolidate the forces, certainly, but did not truly expect them to
rush back to his aid. Out on their own, with armies of their own, both generals were likely to
succumb to their own personal ambitions.
Armat didn”t care very much. He could outgeneral both Lamiah and Kezial and, in the
end, he would likely control the much larger army. Not right at the moment…but soon. Armat”s
eyes lost their focus as he looked further to the west. Maxel was leading some two hundred
thousand Isembaardian soldiers east toward Elcho Falling, but Armat didn”t expect Maximilian
to have two hundred thousand for very much longer. He had his own men among Maximilian”s
army, and he knew that they”d be spreading the soft word of treachery: Ride for Armat. He can
give you what you need—safety for your families and land on which to prosper.
Lamiah was supposed to also discover as much news as he could about Isembaard, but
Armat didn”t care one way or the other what he discovered. Isembaard was the past, Elcho
Falling the future.
And Armat didn”t intend to allow the witch-woman Ravenna to control the mountain and
all its riches and power.
Elcho Falling was going to be his.
But for now, Armat thanked Ravenna every time she appeared to him—which was every
second day or so—and promised that the army he gathered would be used to destroy Maximilian
and take Elcho Falling for Ravenna”s baby son.
Armat did not care that Ravenna would discover his duplicity eventually. In the end,
witch-women were as vulnerable to the sword as any other man or woman.
“But that joy is in the future,” Armat murmured to himself, one hand checking that his
sword lay correctly in its scabbard. “For now, there are more entertaining amusements to be
had.”
Axis and the Lealfast.
Ravenna had told Armat all she knew about the Lealfast, which proved to be an
extraordinary amount. On the face of it the Lealfast were terrifying, with powers which would render them almost unbeatable in any military confrontation.
After all, Armat had been there when one of them had made the assassination attempt on
Isaiah, and had seen for himself just how easily the Lealfast assassin had escaped Isaiah”s
soldiers.
Imagine what a force of twenty thousand or more would be like, attacking from the sky.
And now such a force was sent to hunt him down, with the great StarMan Axis SunSoar
at its head.