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never admit it, but they knew they were incompetent. They knew they couldn't
manage forces like these against Argon. That city's army was poorly trained
and equipped, and its officers as corrupt as they, but it did take war
seriously.
Finally, sluggishly, like a bewildered amoeba, the Necrem-nen host stumbled
southward, following the east bank of the Roe. A hundred thousand regulars,
levies, allies, and plunder-hungry auxiliaries had responded to the raising of
Pthothor's war baton. The movement went forward in dust and confusion. Despite
Aristithorn and the King, the mass never did quite sort itself out.
Its first skirmish nearly resulted in disaster, though the enemy numbered no
more than ten thousand. The regulars and levies almost panicked. But
hard-riding auxiliaries from the plains tribes finally harried the Argonese
border force into retreating, then swept ahead, burning and pillaging.
After the near-disaster the army began suffering seizures of near-competence.
Pthothor hanged fifty officers, dismissed a hundred more, and demoted scores.
When someone grumbled about losing traditional prerogatives, Pthothor referred
him to Aristithorn.
No one challenged the cranky old wizard.
The army eventually blundered into the Valley of the Tombs,where countless
generations of Argonese nobility lay with their death-treasures. The Argonese
came out to forestall looting and vandalism.
An unimaginative battle raged among the tombs and obelisks from dawn till
dusk. Thousands perished. The thing came to no conclusion till the steppe
riders broke free, circled the valley, and began plundering Argon's suburbs.
They captured the pontoons to a dozen outlying islands. During the night the
Argonese command brought up thousands of hastily mobilized citizens, and might
have turned the tide had the news not come that the Queen's bastion had
fallen.
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Mocker whooped when he heard that Bragi's banners flew everywhere over the
Fadem.
The Necremnens took courage. The Argonese began melting away, running to
salvage what they could from their homes.
Pthothor pushed on, occupying islands which had failed to destroy their
pontoons and bridges.
Mocker couldn't believe the confusion on both sides. This had to be why Bragi
believed he could best Argon. Kavelin's troops were superb compared to these,
and the quality of their leaders was incomparable.
Haaken and Reskird would be here, he knew, with the Vorgreberger Guards and
the Midlands Light. Ahring and Altenkirk, too, probably with the Queen's Own
and the Damhorsters. And, knowing Bragi's fondness for archers, TennHorst and
the King's Memory Bows.... Maybe even the Breidenbachers and the Sedlmayr
Light, and who knew what from the Guild....
The more Mocker thought, the bigger the army he conjured from imagination,
till he pictured the Fadem crawling with the entire adult male population of
Kavelin....
His depression began receding. He showed flashes of the Mocker of old, amazing
his girls with his lighthearted nonsense. For a time he forgot the
pressure....
The officers he entertained knew little about Bragi. Aristithorn and Pthothor
were tight-lipped, trusting none of their staff. Mocker wished he could get
the wizard into his tent.
His girls went along most of the time, but that they wouldn't tolerate.
Aristithorn had a reputation. He took home girls who caught his fancy. They
were never seen again.
So Mocker just tagged along, the officer's best friend, and awaited the
opportune event.
His moment came soon after The Valley of the Tombs.
A Necremnen barge came meandering up a delta channel. Aboard were Bragi, his
son, Varthlokkur, Haaken, Reskird, Trebilcock and his squat friend,
and-Nepanthe!
They were hunting Aristithorn and Pthothor, allegedly to arrange coordinated
action against Argon, most of which remained unconquered.
Mocker spotted Nepanthe long before she saw him. And couldn't believe what he
saw. She was laughing with Haaken and Reskird about the clown army of their
allies. The immaculate, perfectly disciplined troopers of the Queen's Own made
the ragtag Necremnen loafers at Pthothor's headquarters look pathetic. Like
poorly organized bandits.
Mocker eased as close as he could without revealing himself.
Nepanthe was supposed to be in the dungeons of Castle Krief.
He didn't see Ethrian, and that disturbed him more than his wife's presence.
The boy seldom strayed from his mother's side. She wouldn't let him.
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She was going to make Ethrian a mama's boy in spite of himself.
He was so intrigued by his wife's presence, and by trying to eavesdrop, that
he ignored everything else-especially the others in Bragi's party.
Beyond being able to get into trouble anywhere, Aral Dantice had one
noteworthy talent. He remembered. Now he remembered a dark face seen only
momentarily in Necremnos when he noticed the same face peeping from an
ornamental hedge. He whispered to Trebilcock.
It didn't occur to them that they shouldn't nab suspects on Necremnos's turf.
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