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Captal did some quiet campaigning. At first he was received coolly, even with
mockery, but the swift parade of rebel disasters scrubbed the disdainful
smiles from Nordmen faces. A few began mustering at Maisak.
"There're so few of them," said Carolan.
"They don't know you yet," the Captal replied. "Besides, a lot of them want to
be King too."
"The man that's coming... He scares you, doesn't he?" There was no longer any
doubt that Ragnarson's swift march was aimed at Maisak. "Is he a bad man?"
"I suppose not. No more than the rest of us. Maybe less. He's on the law's
side. We're the bad ones from the Crown's viewpoint."
"Aunt Mist's scared too. She says he's too smart. And knows too many people."
Shifting subject suddenly, "What's she like?"
"Who?"
"My mother. The Queen."
The Captal had supposed she knew. Burla and Shoptaw could deny her nothing.
But this was the first time she had brought it up.
"I don't know. I've never met her. Never even seen her. You probably know more
than I do."
"Nobody knows very much." She shook her head, tossing golden curls, almost
lost the small iron diadem she wore, symbolic of Kavelin's Iron Crown, a
legend-haunted treasure tkat never left the Royal vaults in Vorgreberg. "She's
shy, I guess. They say nobody sees her much. She must be lonely."
The Captal hadn't thought of that. Hadn't thought of Fiana as a person at all.
"Yes. Probably. Makes you wonder why she stays on. Practically no one wants
her..."
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Shoptaw appeared. "Master, hairy men very close. In Baxendala now. Traveling
fast. Here soon. Maybe two, three day." Though the Trolledyngjans were in the
minority in Ragnarson's forces, they had so impressed the winged man that he
thought of all enemies as hairy men.
"How many?"
"Many, many. Twice times us, maybe."
"Not good. Shoptaw, that's not good." He thought of the caves, whose mouths he
had for years been trying to locate and seal. Ragnarson had a knack for
discovering his enemies' weak points. He would know about the caves.
"Shoptaw, old friend, you know what this means?"
"War here." The winged man shuddered. "We fight. Win again. As always."
Carolan hadn't missed their uncertainty. "You'd better tell Aunt Mist."
"Uhn." The Captal didn't like it, though. She would want to bring in her own
people. There were more Shinsaners in Maisak now than he liked, a half-dozen
grimly silent veterans who were training his troops and keeping their eyes on
him.
iv)... And the thing they fear comes upon them
The first troops came through next day, immediately behind Mist and several
masked Tervola. She had said she was bringing six hundred. The stream seemed
endless to a man who had often heard what terrible soldiers they were. Yet she
was honest. He counted exactly six hundred, most of whom left the fortress
immediately. Mist was considerate of his sensibilities.
And before long Ragnarson encountered the Captal's little ambushers.
The Captal followed the reports in quiet sorrow, standing rod-stiff in the
darkness atop Maisak's wall. It was murder, pure and simple. The little people
couldn't cope with the hairy men. He could console himself only
'beenwith the knowledge that none of them had conscripted. They had asked for
weapons.
There was a fierce, bloodthirsty determination in the enemy's approach that
startled and frightened him. It didn't seem characteristic of the Ragnarson
who had swept the lowlands. Then he learned what had been done to Ragnarson's
scouts.
He was enraged. His first impulse was to confront Mist and her generals... But
no, with their power they would simply push him aside and take over. He did
order his small friends to cease disputing the pass. In a small way, in
lessened readiness and increased casualties, Shinsan would pay for its
barbarity.
Ragnarson didn't come whooping in as expected, as past performance suggested
he would.
Many of the Captal's friends, and a startling number of Mist's troops, died
before the Tervola felt ready to commit Carolan's men.
Mist visited his station on the wall, from which he watched Shinsaners being
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harassed by bowmen. "We're ready." She had sensed his new coldness and was
curious. He had already told her he wouldn't discuss it till the fighting
ended.
"You're positive she'll be safe?"
"Drake, Drake, I love her too. I wouldn't let her go if there was a ghost of a
chance she'd get hurt."
"I know. I worry like a grandmother. But I can't help feeling this man's more
dangerous than you think. He knew what he was up against when he came here.
Why'd he keep coming?"
"I don't know, Drake. Maybe he's not as smart as you think."
"Maybe. If Carolan gets hurt..."
Mist wheeled and'went below. Soon she and Carolan, leading Kaveliner recruits,
departed Maisak's narrow gate.
When the swift-sped arrows dropped from the darkness, he said only, "I knew
it. I knew it," and plunged down steps to ground level.
In moments he was beside Carolan. "Baby, baby, are you all right?"
Subsequent events seemed anti-climactic. He bickered with Mist, dispiritedly.
"Sometimes, Drake," she once murmured, "I wish I could give it all up."
iv) What does a man profit?
Winter came early, and with a vengeance. The Captal had never seen its like.
In normal times it would have been cause for distress. But there were no late
caravans to be shepherded through the Gap. Hardly a traveler had crossed all
summer.
The Captal welcomed the weather. He would have no trouble with Ragnarson
before spring.
Mist damned it. She foresaw them facing a united Ravelin next summer.
The Captal kept his winged creatures watching the lowlands. Ragnarson seemed
unable to avoid success- yet each redounded to the Captal's benefit. Ever more
Nordmen turned to his standard. Because of his power, he thought. Because he
was the one enemy Ragnarson hadn't been able to reduce.
He realized these new allies would abandon him the instant the loyalists
collapsed, but that was a problem he could solve in its time. For the" present
he had to concentrate on old enemies.
Though his couriers brought news consisting entirely of lists of towns and
castles and provinces lost, he began to hope. In the free provinces several
hitherto uncommit-ted Nordmen were turning rebel for each turning loyalist.
The edicts flowing from Vorgreberg had changed the root nature of the
struggle. The issue, now, was a power struggle between Crown and nobility, one
which would preserve or sweep away many ancient prerogatives. And it had
become a class war. The underclasses, bought by Crown perfidy, strove to wrest
privilege from their betters.
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The Captal contacted Baron Thake Berlich in
Loncaric, a recidivist who had been captured by Ragnarson in the Gap and
paroled by Fiana. The man's response had been to raise stronger forces for the
rematch. He had been one of the Krief's commanders during the wars. He was the
logical man to bring Ragnarson to heel. But he was a conservative of a stripe
judged bizarre even by his own class.
Through Berlich, using the Baron's interlocutors- whom he kept in careful
ignorance of the messages they bore-he reached Sir Andvbur Kimberlin of
Karadja, in Breidenbach. Kimberlin had publicly voiced displeasure with the
Queen's tepid social reforms. The Captal invited the knight to help him build
a new society, hinting that while he controlled Carolan, he wasn't long for
this world and was looking for someone who understood, who could carry on
after he was gone.
As winter lugubriously progressed toward a spring that was no spring at all in
the Gap, the Captal grew less and less pessimistic. The rebel coalition,
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