Legends II (Shadows, Gods, and Demons)

by Robert Silverberg (Ed. )

  Perhaps with a successful year under his belt, spending the winter with his family on their estate outside LaMut, he might gain the confidence he feigned. At least with a safe return home, his mother might stop her constant message writing and demands that he return at once.

  Terrance reached the tent he shared with Charles McEvoy, from Tyr-Sog, and found Charles lying on his bedroll, on the cold ground, reading a message.

  “From Clarise?” asked Terrance as he entered.

  “Yes,” said the other young man, four years Terrance’s senior. “You’ve got the run?”

  “It’s my turn,” said Terrance.

  “Where to, Terry?”

  With a grin, the younger boy leaned over and said, “The three staging points. Orders to the Barons for home. You’ll be back with Clarise in a couple of weeks. Winter withdraw.”

  The older rider sat up. “About time. It’s cold enough to freeze my manhood off! Then what use would I be to her?”

  Terrance laughed. Charles had wed the winter before and had been away from his wife since the last spring thaw. “The question is, what use are you to her now?”

  “Get out of here!” said the older rider with a playful swipe of his hand.

  Terrance said, “Just need to get my coat and ride.”

  “Ride safe, Terry,” said Charles in the traditional farewell of the messengers.

  “Ride safe, Charlie,” Terrance returned as he departed his tent.

  He hurried to where his horse was staked at the picket. She was a nine-year-old bay, with a sure foot and quick response. She wasn’t the fastest animal in the corps, but Terrance loved her even temper and stamina. She would run all day if he asked her, and collapse without complaint. He called her Bella.

  She picked up her head as he neared, and while a couple of the other mounts nickered in question, she knew it was her rider approaching and that it would be her turn to run today. He patted her neck and said, “Let’s be off, girl.”

  He moved to the saddle rack, under a shed roof on four poles a few yards behind the picket, and got his saddle. He quickly tacked up the horse and made sure he had a full water skin and a bag of oats. The trip should only take two days, one out to the first staging point, where he would sleep the night and get whatever food the camp had to offer, then one day back, circling to the southwest, then southeast, stopping at the other two staging points on the way back. He glanced at the sky. It was only two hours after sunrise, so the trip should be an easy one if he didn’t encounter any troubles. He should be back by sundown tomorrow.

  He untied his horse, mounted up, and started riding west. Once outside the camp, after Bella had warmed up, he settled into a rocking canter and let her do the work.

  The wind was cutting through his greatcoat, and his face was numb. His nose was running freely, and he had given up wiping it with the back of his sleeve. Now it was completely stuffed and he was forced to breathe through his mouth, which was starting to irritate his lungs. His chest felt tighter than it had early in the day. He knew he could have begged off riding for a serious illness, but to have stepped aside for something as simple as a cold was unthinkable. Yet there was a nagging doubt that this was what he should have done, simply told the Captain of Messengers he was too ill to ride and stayed in his tent.

  Terrance had stopped twice since midday to take shelter while he rested Bella. He stood shivering behind a stand of birch trees, which cut the wind a little, while the horse rested. It wasn’t good to linger too long in those conditions, as Bella would stiffen up and that increased the chance of her pulling up lame.

  Still, she was a fine horse, reliable and levelheaded, the perfect mount for a messenger. She would obey his commands and react quickly. And she was calm; earlier in the summer he had paused on trail and looked down to see a viper slithering toward the horse. Many animals would have responded with panic, yet Bella had calmly lifted one hoof and crushed the snake before it could react.

  He mounted up after she was rested and headed toward his first destination. Glancing skyward, he realized he had fallen behind schedule and resisted the urge to gallop. He would reach the camp a few hours later than anticipated, but the message would still arrive in a timely fashion and he would have a hot meal and a relatively warm billet. He knew that if the wind didn’t relent, tomorrow’s ride would be more punishing, for he had two camps, higher in the foothills and closer to the enemy lines, to visit.

  He kept his mind on the task at hand, getting through the woodlands, avoiding the few Tsurani patrols sweeping the frontier before the winter snows fell, and not letting his horse come to harm. On foot he would risk freezing to death during the night, for it would take him until midday tomorrow to reach the first camp.

  After two hours of steady riding, he again rested Bella, though she snorted in protest at having to endure walking with him in the lead, when she knew oats, hay, and the relative warmth behind a windbreak with other horses were waiting at the end of this ride.

  A half hour’s walk and he mounted up again. He urged Bella to a steady canter and kept his eyes moving around the landscape. It was easy to be lulled into daydreaming or drawn into looking at one feature of the landscape. A messenger was nearly the most vulnerable member of the Duke’s army, second only to the boys who rode in the luggage and served with the Commissary. Two or three armed men in ambush, and the Earl’s orders would never reach his barons.

  Three hours before sunset he saw movement to the north. A hint of color in the tree line and nothing more, but it was enough. A Tsurani patrol, without a doubt, for the bright orange trim used by those invaders called Minwanabi on their black armor was found in no natural plant in these forests, as was the scarlet and yellow of those called Anasati. He urged Bella to a faster pace and sought more signs of the invaders, but the forest revealed nothing.

  He kept alert the remainder of the day, and didn’t relax until he was within minutes of his first objective.

  As he approached the first camp, he could smell the smoke from the campfires, as the wind blew right into his face. He welcomed the acrid sting of it, and knew he was only a few minutes from rest.

  He heard a sentry shout, “Rider coming in!”

  Had he been on foot, Terrance most probably would have been challenged a half dozen times since leaving the contested woodlands and entering Kingdom-held territory, but the Tsurani had no horses, so a rider was never challenged. Terrance wondered why over the years the Tsurani had never trained riders to use captive horses, but as no one he knew had spoken to a living Tsurani, he was left to wonder.

  Terrance knew the location of the commander’s tent, and rode there. The frontier was being held by soldiers from Yabon province, bolstered by levies from as far south as the Southern Marches. This commander was Baron Gruder, one of Duke Sutherland’s men put under the Earl’s command. Terrance had spoken with him three times since becoming a messenger and found him a no-nonsense type, very straight to the point, and utterly lacking in any social skills.

  A guard ushered him into the command tent, while another took Bella to the windbreak where the remounts were kept. LaMutian lancers were billeted here, as well as a company of light cavalry from Zun. Two companies of heavy foot from Ylith and Tyr-Sog rounded out this army, and they had spent a long hard year fighting the Tsurani and their Cho-ja allies, or “Bugs” as the men from the south had come to call them.

  Terrance came to stand before the Baron and said, “Orders from the Earl, m’lord.”

  “Well, are we to withdraw?” said the stout Gruder, his face showing that he already anticipated the order.

  “Yes, m’lord. You’re to withdraw in orderly stages, to the winter billets assigned to you by the Duke.” The politics of the Kingdom’s Western Realm made minor nobles jealous of their prerogatives, and this Gruder had been voluble about being seconded to a “foreign” Earl, so the messengers had learned to refer to orders coming from Lords Brucal and Borric as often as they could, to keep the Baron from another ra
nt. Terrance was nearly frozen, and starving, and was eager to avoid another long diatribe regarding Vandros’s leaving Gruder here without enough men, food, weapons, gold, and anything else he judged necessary to the conduct of his portion of the war. “Defensive combat only.”

  “Anything else?”

  “About three hours ago I glimpsed movement in the trees north of the trail from the east. The colors were Tsurani.”

  “Could you tell who?”

  “Minwanabi and Anasati, my lord.”

  Gruder considered this silently for a moment. “From what our intelligence tells us, those two Houses don’t like each other very much. They must be up to something to be marching under a unified command. I’ll have to keep an eye out.”

  “Sir,” said Terrance, as neutrally as possible. He wondered how the Kingdom had come to learn anything about the Tsurani, given they preferred death to capture, but kept his curiosity in check; he was there to carry messages, not to interpret or understand them.

  The Baron looked at the messenger as if realizing he was still there and said, “Very well. Get some food and rest, then carry on. We’ll begin the withdrawal at first light.”

  As Terrance left the command tent, he heard the Baron shout for an orderly. The page would be carrying word to the officers along the line in minutes. Terrance glanced skyward as the light faded. Clouds were coming in fast from the west and while sunset was just commencing, it was rapidly getting dark.

  That meant the clouds were heavy with moisture and, judging from the cold, it wouldn’t be rain that came down that night, but snow. Terrance wanted a hot meal and to rest, but first he would check the remounts to see how Bella was being cared for, and then he would take care of himself.

  As he headed toward the remounts, moisture touched his cheek and again he glanced skyward. A scattering of flakes was beginning to fall. He paused a moment, while soldiers hurried past him and the activity in the camp increased as word to prepare to withdraw for the winter was passed.

  As the mood of the men around him brightened, for many would be home for the winter within a few days, Terrance felt a dark concern rise up inside; if the snows fell heavily tonight, his second day would be difficult, and he might have to remain at the third camp before returning to the Earl’s command position. Silently he wished Killian—the goddess of nature—would hold off the snows for another day at least. Glancing at the faces of the men eager to be home, he amended that thought; a week would be better.

  He brought himself out of his reflection and moved off to find his horse.

  The groom had taken good care of Bella, and she snorted a greeting as she looked up from a pile of hay. Terrance still went through the process of inspecting her feet, ensuring she was properly dried, and was pleased she had been afforded a relatively warm spot behind the windbreak rather than being tied to the picket line at the ends, outside the shelter.

  Then Terrance realized there were fewer horses than should have been tied down. He turned to the groom. “Big patrol out?”

  “No,” said the old soldier. “We’ve just lost a lot of lads this year.” He motioned with his chin at the far end of the line. “Lot of horses, too.”

  Terrance nodded, and patted Bella’s neck. “Thank you for taking care of her.”

  “That’s the job,” he said, moving off.

  Terrance smiled, and turned away. He hurried to the mess tent and got into line behind a young officer of horses. He was handed a wooden plate and a metal cup by a kitchen boy, as it was obvious from Terrance’s uniform who he was; most of the soldiers in the line had their own plate and cup, which they kept with their gear in their tents.

  The food was hot and filling, if unremarkable, and the tea was bitter, but also hot. He ate alone, sitting on the ground under the lee side of the tent. As was usual, most of the soldiers ignored him. When he was finished, he returned the plate and cup to the boy in the tent, then set out to find a place to sleep.

  As a messenger, he was expected to find a billet where he could, and often that meant sleeping on the ground with only a saddle for a pillow and his greatcoat for a blanket. Most of the year that was acceptable, but the cold tonight would make it impossible.

  As he was approaching the row of tents used by the cavalry, Terrance coughed and suddenly found himself unable to control a racking attack. He reached out and gripped the bole of a tree, half bent over, and forced himself to breathe deeply, then brought up a large amount of nasty green phlegm. He spat and grimaced at the bitter sulfur taste at the back of his throat and the itching that had turned into a hot soreness. “Damn,” he said softly. He was getting far sicker than he had thought and he still had a day’s ride ahead, perhaps more if the weather turned worse, before he could return to the Earl’s camp and get a cure from the apothecary who served in the infirmary. Still, there was nothing for it but to soldier on.

  He moved to the first line of tents, and began asking, “Have you room?” The first half dozen queries netted him negative replies, but at the seventh tent he found a single cavalryman who looked at him for a moment, then nodded.

  Terrance moved into the tent and looked down at the empty bedding, separated from the reclining cavalryman by the tent’s support pole. “Go ahead,” said the man, his words accompanied by a slight shrug. “He won’t need it.”

  Terrance didn’t ask who “he” was, as it was obviously a fallen comrade. He sat down and exchanged glances with the cavalryman. The man was at least ten years Terrance’s senior, but looked twice that. His eyes were sunken and rimmed with red, as if he hadn’t slept in days, and dark circles accentuated the appearance of a deep-in-the-bones fatigue.

  Terrance said, “Just get in?”

  “Yesterday,” said the man. “Caught a Tsurani patrol-in-force out in the open . . .” His voice trailed off and he fell back on his own sleeping mat. “Our captain didn’t realize we’d charged just the vanguard until the rest of them came rolling out of the trees. It was a close thing.”

  “Combined force? More than one House?”

  The man nodded. “Our thirty against their hundred or more. It wasn’t pretty.” He sighed. “Don’t think me rude, but I need sleep. We ride out again tomorrow.”

  Terrance resisted the impulse to tell the man he would get new orders in the morning, for it wasn’t his place to do so. He just said, “Sleep well,” but the man was already breathing deeply and evenly.

  Terrance untied the cord that kept the tent flap open, letting the flap fall into place; he then pulled the thick blanket around him as he settled down on the thin sleeping mat. The blanket was sour with another man’s sweat and dirt, and the ground underneath was cold and uneven, but Terrance had slept on worse and, moreover, was young and tired. He had two attacks of coughing, and both times looked to see if he had disturbed his tent companion. He hadn’t. Like most soldiers, the cavalryman had learned to sleep soundly no matter what noise was made nearby.

  Terrance closed his own eyes and tried to relax. He felt perspiration running down his neck and back despite the cold, and pulled the blanket tightly around him. His mind seemed to race with images of home and family, but nothing was coherent. After a few fitful moments, sleep came quickly.

  Morning saw a flurry of snow. While Terrance made his way to the mess the pace in the camp quickened, as word spread that the order was to leave the front for winter camp. Men who were grim with anticipation that this day might bring another battle breathed deeply, hardly able to contain smiles or tears of relief as they realized they were almost certain to live until next spring.

  Terrance’s body ached and he felt as if he’d gotten no rest. Still, he had a mission to finish, so he grabbed a quick meal of hot bread, fresh from the oven, honey, butter, some dried fruit, and a long cut of beef that had been cooked the night before. The cook was being generous, for the more the men ate this morning, the less he had to pack up and transport back to LaMut.

  As he finished his morning meal, Terrance was approached by a sergeant,
a scarred veteran with a patch over his left eye. “Baron wants you,” he said. Without another word he turned, expecting Terrance to fall in behind, which the messenger did.

  Terrance announced himself at the tent flap and was ordered into the pavilion. Baron Gruder held out a packet of messages. “Add this to your pack, boy,” he said. “It’s for the Earl. Barons Moncrief and Summerville will no doubt also have reports for you to carry back.”

  Terrance nodded. “Yes, m’lord.”

  Gruder muttered to himself, “Defensive combat, indeed. What is Vandros thinking?” As if needing someone to voice his opinion to, he added, “I’ve got word of another outpost being overrun just four days ago! The Tsurani aren’t just sending out patrols, they’re moving large numbers of men; they’re up to something.

  “If we’re to ever win this war, we need to carry the fight to them.” He looked down at a map on a table to his right, and his eyes darted from mark to mark, as if trying to read the future in it.

  He looked up and said, “Some of the lads ran into a Tsurani patrol-in-force day before yesterday, and it wasn’t the one you saw, so keep your eyes open. I think our playmates on the other side of the line might be thinking of trying to move in behind us as we withdraw. They’ll dig in and establish fortifications, so they’ll have expanded their territory come spring when we return. Pass that along to the other Barons, if you will, and advise them I’m withdrawing in stages, ready to turn and fight if I need. Defensive combat, indeed.” He waved at the packet in Terrance’s hand. “And make sure Earl Vandros gets my messages, boy.”

  Terrance nodded, committing all the Baron’s remarks to memory. He waited to see if there was anything else. Finally, Gruder realized Terrance was waiting to be dismissed and waved him away.