As they followed Silverweave through his camp, the pair looked around at the defeated Marmarkans. Battered, exhausted, filthy and wounded, they were scattered around in a disorganized bivouac, clearly having simply fallen where they stopped marching. As they spotted the two Cormarans, glowering expressions of resentment and anger appeared, and hot eyes followed them as they passed.
Towards the centre of the camp things were more organized, with the elite and the officers camped in better order. Reaching one of the few campfires, Silverwave gestured grandly. "I have no tent to guest you in," he said ruefully, "be seated at my fire." From the kit scattered nearby he pulled a bottle of wine, opened it, swigged himself with a meaningful expression, and passed it over. "Let us talk about Gates," he said without preamble.
Over the next hour, it became quite clear that both parties knew a fair bit about the lost Gates, and that the exchange of that knowledge was a benefit to both. Mehmet and Percinious were careful; they were under no illusions that Silverweave wouldn't kill them in an instant for Portalis were he to learn of its' existence. They did, however, make it quite clear that they had the ability to locate and open Gates at will.
One
of the things Silverweave told them was the location of a Gate. Marmarkan history
- unlike Cormaran - recorded the fact that the black sorcerer Ethandar,
tyrant of Vermar until his
overthrow in 932, had drawn his power from a Gate located somewhere on that
blighted island. All were aware that no man in his right mind went to Vermar.
As they spoke, however, the pair began to see through Silverweave's massive self-assurance. Having failed to invade Cormar, he couldn't go home. More and more, the concept of cooperation between him and themselves began to infiltrate the conversation.
Mehmet was direct in his desire to concentrate half-Qhal into the elite of whatever force was eventually assembled. "Our kind have been kept in ignorance and fear by the humans' prejudice for so long," he pointed out, "we should live to regain what we have lost - let the fools drown!"
"If we are to find the Vermaran Gate and learn its' secrets," said Silverweave, "we will need a powerful force. I have that here; but it will take a great deal to motivate them to set foot on that curséd isle. Moreover, they need to recuperate first before they can fight anyone." He put into words what they had all been thinking. "What happens if you step through the Gate, and find something hostile?"
"Take our chances," said Mehmet stubbornly, but without conviction.
"Better to take an army," rejoined Silverweave. "Led by a master tactician."
Finally, they shook on a temporary alliance. While not a flinging around each other of affectionate arms, it was something everyone could work with for the moment. Nutbolter and Mehmet were sure that Silverweave was never going to permanently accept a situation where he wasn't in charge, and Silverweave himself doubtless had some agenda of his own.
The next step was to look around for somewhere neutral to resupply, weld the half-Qhal into a solid elite, and allow the army as a whole to recuperate. It boiled down to a choice between Neudorn, with its' famed academies of magic, or Volhowe. Volhowe's capital Altenmark was (according to tradition) the oldest city on Mereval. Rumours also persisted of limitless tunnels under the city, with some source of dark and ancient power hidden within. This sort of thing was just what they were looking for...
Silverweave addressed his men, and introduced Percinious and Mehmet as the leaders of an allied force, as the men who were "going to get us out of here", and confirmed their authority as equal to his other officers as far as the army went. Once again, as he spoke, Mehmet and Percinious could feel the power of his personality reaching out to pull the strings attached to men's motivations.
The next
problem was to keep the Cormarans from catching their new allies and destroying
them. Evasion was impossible; a blind rabbit could track the army from the trail
they were leaving. That left deceit. Percinious and Mehmet decided that they
would take the three horses and Fellion the Marmarkan and spin a yarn for the
pursuers that would deflect or delay them.
Nutbolter handed a rubbing of the faces of the Chalice of Ryien that he couldn't read to Silverweave. "Any ideas?" he asked. The big man pondered for a while. "This one's 'Acid'," he said at last, "and this says 'Firestone' - may mean lava." Nutbolter tucked this piece of knowledge away and they left the camp.
Before heading out, they had the task of convincing their own men of the benefits of the new alliance. Mehmet spoke eloquently, but for once it was Percinious who wove the magic of words. It was his rhetoric that really sold their men on the Final Solution to the persecution of their kind by the humans. Leaving them under Skaven's command to get acquainted with Silverweave's men - and to begin quietly building the core cadre of the half-Qual company - the three rode away.
*
A few hours later, near dawn, the three drew rein in the camp of the pursuing Cormaran force. All were exhausted, and Mehmet appeared wounded and battered (this in fact was due to falling off his horse rather than battle!) Swiftly they were brought before the leader, a Captain Morten. They'd never met him, though they had heard of him; but he knew them by reputation and by sight, having been present in the throne room when they'd brought warning of the attack. "Ah! It's you," he greeted them jauntily. "What news of the murdering scum?"
As Mehmet 'explained' to him how they had witnessed the '400' survivors of Silverweave's army planning to meet up with 'the 500 men fresh from crushing Bloodwind and Skywhite in the south', Morten's face paled and his morale crumbled. Before they'd finished, he was snapping out orders to cancel the morning's march and begin fortifying their current position, and to summon reinforcements from the city. He totally failed to notice Nutbolter quietly eating his forgotten breakfast; it had been a long ride after all.
Finally he looked back at the three. "Get back out there, and confirm this for certain!" he rapped - exactly what they'd been hoping for. With feigned reluctance, they climbed back into the saddle and turned away. As they rode out of Morten's camp, the ditch-digging had already started.
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