Free Kingmaker by Rob Preece Page B

all over Rissel. I don't think they care who wins as long as we're stomped into the ground and worse off than we ever made them. Of course, they do want to make sure we hew to the orthodox faith."
    "I thought they were extremists."
    "That's what the bishop calls them. They call themselves orthodox and say the bishop is a schismatic."
    "How big is their army?"
    Dafed shrugged. “Nobody knows. Mostly they've sent over engineers to help with sieges and to garrison some of the port cities. But Rissel is about ten times as big as Lubica and they've got money to hire every mercenary from here to Zen."
    Okay, Dafed was a font of information, but none of the information could remotely be called good news. If anything, the bishop's reading of the situation had been optimistic.
    "One more question, then. What's the situation with our own army? Besides being outnumbered, I mean."
    Dafed muttered something but decided not to answer that question himself. Instead, he had each of the sergeants, who, it turned out weren't just from his unit but from all of the significant mercenary companies, and let them run through the arithmetic.
    The arithmetic and the situation were both dismal. Between desertion and usual casualties, the army was losing about ten percent of its force every month.
    "How does that relate to new soldiers coming in?"
    "The ten percent is net, after the new soldiers,” Dafed answered. “Our quality is deteriorating almost as fast as our numbers. Sometimes I think the Rissel think of us as a free training program rather than an enemy, because they hire most of our deserters. The ones worth having, anyway."
    "So if we're going to do something,” Ellie concluded, “we'd better do it now."
    "Not now. Now we drink. Tomorrow we plan. Thursday we'll have to do something."
* * * *
    A good plan should be simple, have clear milestones, and allow a fallback position if it is unsuccessful.
    Their plan had none of these elements.
    Dafed and Ellie, along with four of Dafed's fellow sergeants, snuck into Moray an hour after sunset on Wednesday. Mark stayed back in the army camp watching over Lawgrave, who was comfortably sleeping away the effects of a glass of wine spiked with a local drug that seemed identical to opium.
    The city gates closed with sunset, but Dafed had trained most of the guards. One of those guards dropped down a line and Ellie and the sergeants swarmed up.
    Inside, they split up. Two of the sergeants went to spring Arnold and his sisters. Ellie, Dafed, and the other two headed straight for the keep.
    The bishop used a combination of foreign mercenaries and martial monks to guard the keep so Dafed couldn't use any of his contacts to get inside. Instead, they bowled over the guards at the front door, tied them up, and left the two sergeants to guard their way out.
    She'd sparred with the King in his personal chambers and she led Dafed straight there.
    Two guards at the door saw them coming and took off.
    "Not the best security,” Dafed muttered. They were the first words either of them had said since they'd reached the city wall. “If we were assassins, Lubica would have a new king about now."
    "As it is, we've got about one minute until we're covered in the guards they'll summon."
    Dafed put his shoulder to the door, burst through, and tossed the king over his shoulder. “Mission one accomplished. Ready for mission two?"
    Ellie knew they should bolt and run. But they wouldn't get another chance this good. She nodded.
    Sergius looked like an oversized baby slung across Dafed's back. “Put me down, idiot"
    "Shut up, King.” Dafed's bass rumble would have inspired fear in a much braver man than the King. “We need you, but we don't need you conscious."
    "I'll meet you at the front gate,” Ellie said.
    "Right."
    He jogged off, the King, now silent, still slung over his shoulder.
    Ellie veered toward the throne room.
    It should have been empty. With the king absent, no one had any reason to be there.
    She