Surrender to the Will of the Night - By Glen Cook Page 0,199

of state refused to yield. Those old men were slower than the Lucidian youngsters but they were crafty and they knew their ground.

The cost of taking the civil center grew too heavy. The invaders took Kaseem al-Bakr and settled in at one of the city’s great temples.

All this news reached Tel Moussa eventually, as it wended its way back to Shamramdi. Nassim strutted around as proud of young Az as if he were his own son.

Other news arrived as well, with Akir’s firepowder and two of the promised falcons. Bad things were happening in the Eastern Empire, specifics uncertain till Akir himself arrived. He had made a side trip to Haeti, to the Dainshaukin founders there. The rest of the four-pounder battery would not be coming.

Raiders from the Grail Empire had overrun the Devedian manufactory before those could be moved out. Akir himself had gotten away, “By the thickness of one of God’s whiskers. Had I wasted another half hour they would’ve caught me.”

There was more. The raiders had taken all the firepowder and weapons, and all the craftsmen as well. They had destroyed the works. Then they had crossed the Vieran Sea to invade Firaldia.

“Why would they do that?” Nassim was confused. Akir seemed unable to tell his story linearly. Too, he wandered off into speculations about what God must be thinking, causing these things to happen.

Nassim listened with the rest of the garrison, during supper. After the meal he told Akir, “Join me for prayers. I have a few questions.”

The Mountain fulfilled his obligation in the highest parapet, with the sun already set and a sliver of moon pursuing the evening star. It was getting chilly.

Akir prompted, “Your questions, General?”

“Your report was confusing. You had so much to say that you didn’t get it out in any sensible order.”

“And that would be the truth.”

The general did not push. Akir could not recall every critical fact if he became excited.

Nassim interspersed questions with comments about a remarkable meteor shower. “The angels are flinging death stones by the score tonight.” He wondered who and where the targets might be. The streaks of fire all headed west.

The Mountain’s efforts brought out news that would not reach his crusader neighbors for days, nor Indala for more than a week.

Three western kings were dead. The three who had crushed the flower of the manhood of al-Halambra. God is Great! The death of one had turned the Grail Empire against the Brothen Church. It now looked like the greatest of all invasions of the Holy Lands might be stillborn. God is Great!

The death of another king placed the heir to one throne right over there in Gherig. God is Great!

Nassim tried to winkle out what Else Tage might be doing along with the real prospects for the Grail Empress’s greatest of all crusades.

Surely she would set that aside, now. And once she fed her hunger for emotional equity, she ought to have no crusader spirit left. Right?

The history of the wars between the Patriarchs and the Grail Emperors was, largely, one of futility. The lords of the scores of little Firaldian polities played them one against the other. They had an interest in chaos. It inflated their importance.

Still … Much would depend on Captain Tage. He might be the man to shatter the deadlock so he could head east, to address his own grievances. Gordimer might survive Indala only to find himself chin to chin with the Grail Empire.

“Akir, tell me more about what happened at the place where they manufactured the firepowder weapons.”

Akir had nothing else to tell. He had had to flee before he could learn anything useful. “The critical point, General, is that the Grail Empire controls all those weapons and the craftsmen who make them.”

“My heart bleeds, Akir. No good will come of this.”

* * *

The Mountain knew almost to the instant when news of Regard’s death reached Gherig. Bells started ringing. Their clangor was annoying even at Tel Moussa’s remove.

Nassim had been awaiting the distraction. He began raiding immediately. He enjoyed some success, but only briefly. The Arnhanders of the region dashed inside their fortress. Gherig was like a tortoise pulling in head and legs. The foreigners regained their balance, then counterattacked.

Nassim hoped he could harass Anselin of Menand enough to keep him from leaving. The longer it took him to get home the more chance for chaos to breed there. Arnhand, more than any other infidel kingdom, fed and financed the crusader movement.

Anselin refused to be managed. He