The Swordbearer - By Glen Cook Page 0,57

Grab replacements from the enemy . . . . Meantime, let the animals forage. They can eat grass and leaves. Soldiers can't. Save the grain for them."

"What about pursuit?" someone demanded. Rogala had lighted a fire. The Mindak's staffers were wide awake and looking for a dust-up.

"Why worry about it? Where's she going to run? Just sit tight. Make her come to you, but keep her out of Ventimiglia. Let the Alliance mobilize behind her. Let her get desperate, attack and be defeated. Judging her troops by past performance, you won't need to chase them. They'll come begging to join up with you."

Gathrid followed the exchange in silence, often finding it amusing. Rogala was serious, he knew. Intensely serious, and probably right. The Mindak's officers sensed the logic of his suggestions, and that raised their hackles even more.

Ahlert gave them free critical rein. For a time the meeting turned into an enthusiastic verbal brawl.

Rogala, unfortunately, was blessed with a lack of tact and an ages-old habit of not explaining in sufficient detail. Both worked against him now. He answered most objections simply by saying, "You can't whip Nieroda in the field. She's got too much. Believe me." He failed to provide supportive evidence, so his arguments were not accepted. "Not even the Sword will help if you meet her on her terms. Damn it, you have to let her defeat herself. You have to sit here and look like you're going for a draw. You have to let the Alliance become a threat behind her. So she don't dare commit herself completely anywhere. If the alternative was defeat, I'd think getting my feet dirty was trivial. But that's just a coarse little peasant of a survivor's opinion."

Later, after an especially bitter denunciation by one of the conservatives, Rogala observed sadly, "You're always the same. In every age. What do they do to you when you're little? Suck your brains out your earholes and stuff your heads with wool? You always consider your illusions more important than winning. I just don't get it. Hold it there, your undeserved generalship. I'm going to pronounce an oracle on your enterprise, based on a few thousand years of experience. You damned fools are going to get smoked. Nitwits always do."

"Smoked?" the offended general demanded.

"Smashed. Stomped. Decimated. Wiped out."

Ahlert made a gentle, open-palmed gesture in the general's direction. The man subsided immediately.

He still awes them, Gathrid realized. Maybe he hasn't slipped as much as he thinks.

Musingly, Rogala continued, "The Swordbearer and me, of course, we're going to get out of it all right. The lad here, he's emotional. He's going to mourn you all. Your wives and families too. That's the way he is. Me, I'm just going to laugh. I get a kick out of seeing jerks get what's coming to them."

Rogala turned to Ahlert. "One other thing, Chief. Assuming somebody has an attack of smarts and listens to me, that gang of camp followers has got to go. Right now. They aren't nothing but eating mouths. The mouths you want to fill belong to your soldiers, not your harlequins and harlots." He stamped away. After a few steps, he paused to beckon Gathrid. The youth rose and followed.

Once out of earshot of Ahlert, the dwarf said, "We're not going to have any more luck here than we had with the Alliance Kings. These clowns would let their army get stomped like cockroaches in a cattle stampede before they'd swallow their pride and do what I tell them."

Rogala misjudged the mettle of the Mindak. The army remained encamped in the mouth of the Karato. Immense earthworks began to rise, more as a means of keeping the troops occupied than for their military value.

Magnolo Belfiglio relayed the news that the west's political problems were settling out. Yedon Hildreth was in Bilgoraj again, clearing the Beklavac narrows.

Nieroda continued to await a response from the Mindak.

Rogala did not win all his points. The horses did not go to the butchers right away. Their destruction was too much for even the Mindak to swallow in a single lump.

Nieroda moved steadily nearer, finally establishing a line of fortified camps five miles west of Ahlert's position. For weeks the only contact between armies came when scouting parties skirmished. Each host awaited the other's first move.

Ahlert lost patience first. He led Gathrid, a grumbling Rogala and a select company of warrior-wizards into no-man's-land, hoping to provoke Nieroda into some ill-advised action.

She refused the bait.

Ahlert tried again. And again. The Dark Lady