Master of the Cauldron by David Drake Read Free Book Online Page B

a cloud. Logic didn’t have much to the feelings the image aroused, though.
    â€œStand to!” Lord Waldron bellowed from the other end of the marquee. “Form on the standards, Ornifal! Cold steel’s the remedy for all the kingdom’s enemies, phantoms or not!”
    Garric wasn’t sure how much good swords would be against a cloud, but the image was already breaking into tatters that drifted eastward like smutty spiderwebs. He looked around him.
    After the first frightened shouting, the troops had reacted pretty well. Squads were standing closely together, less formations than clumps but organized nonetheless. Most of the men wore only bits and pieces of armor, but they’d grabbed their shields and spears when the alarm came.
    You couldn’t train soldiers to deal with everything that might happen, but men whose response to panic was to find weapons and stand with their buddies were going to survive the shocks of war a lot better than other people did. Their commander was likely to survive longer too….
    The image in the sky had completely dissipated. Had it blown in from the sea or just appeared in the clear sky like a meteor?
    Liane was beside him, holding her closed traveling desk against her chest. There were undoubtedly secret documents in it, but Garric suspected it was her equivalent of his bare sword: the desk was a tool familiar from other difficult situations, though inappropriate in this one.
    He looked toward the mast of the City of Valles ; no signal flags were flying. He hadn’t expected an answer there, but it’d been worth checking. A trireme was beached beside Zettin’s flagship, though, between it and the Shepherd . When had that happened?
    â€œWhat Sister-cursed fool landed there ?” snapped Admiral Zettin, who’d been with the support staff behind Garric during the negotiations. His sword was drawn, and at a quick glance he looked like any of the other officers looking into the sky or around at their fellows. Then in a different voice he added, “Say—isn’t that the Spiteful ?”
    Zettin was the former Deputy Commander of the Blood Eagles. He’d known nothing about naval affairs when Garric put him in charge of the fleet, but he understood training, discipline, and the unit pride that’ll often carry a nominally weaker force through a stronger opponent. All those things had been in short supply in the force that Valence the Third had allow to decay. That’d changed abruptly under Zettin.
    â€œIs there a problem, milord?” Garric said, sliding his sword back into the scabbard. At times like this he always felt embarrassed to have drawn the blade, but the one time in a thousand he might need a sword was worth slight blushes the hundreds of times it hadn’t been required.
    â€œWhat’s that?” the admiral snapped before he turned his head enough to realize who’d spoken to him. “Ah! Ah, I’m not sure, your highness. You see, I left the Spiteful with the squadron on guard in Valles. If it’s here—”
    â€œSir?” said a junior officer with a sparkling helmet and gold-chased scabbard mountings. “The Spiteful ’s brought a courier to Lord Waldron personally. They’re talking now.”
    The young officer was one of the noblemen Zettin had brought into the fleet to lead, rather than one of the mariners who were responsible for ship-handling. It’d disturbed Garric, raised a peasant even if his lineage did go back to the Old Kingdom monarchs, to think that sailors might perform better under the command of lisping young snots of the nobility than they would for professionals of their own class—
    But they did. About the only thing these young officers were able to do was to stand on the quarterdeck, a target in dazzling armor for any missile the enemy wanted to launch, and look coolly unperturbed. For the most part they did that superbly, giving their own oarsmen