by Roland Green
“It’s not marvelous that we don’t get along with nonhumans when two human settlements so close can’t make peace,” Epron said as the last soldier filed past the last clearing.
“It may not be a surprise, but something doesn’t have to be an ambush to be deadly,” Haimya said. She looked long and hard at Epron, and Pirvan remembered that Epron not only had solely humans in his band but also had not urged recruiting any other races. Not that there were that many such in Karthay, but one could wonder.
Except that in this matter, wondering led nowhere but to sleepless nights that Pirvan could not afford, if he was to keep putting one foot in front of another until they knocked on Waydol’s door.
* * * * *
Haimya thought for some time afterward that perhaps she had spoken an ill-luck word, in mentioning ambushes. For they encountered one not two hours past the forest of the charcoal burners. Blessed with greater strength or skill, the attack might have cost the marching column heavily.
As it was, the villagers who laid the ambush on the trail could not make up their minds which side of the trail they ought to take. So they were still darting back and forth across the road and sometimes standing to argue in the middle of it, when Pirvan’s scouts came within sight of them.
The scouts saw without being seen, slipping into the woods at once and creeping forward until they could count the enemy’s strength and positions. Then their messengers scurried back to Pirvan, who promptly halted the column while he listened to the reports.
Birak Epron thought that on the left at least the woods were thin enough that a small party might slip secretly behind the villagers and turn the tables on them. He even volunteered to lead it himself, but Pirvan thought he had more of an eye on a feat to impress Rubina than on sound tactics.
The Black Robe had been faithful to Epron, as far as Pirvan knew, but he also knew that Epron would always doubt, always be seeking some new way of making himself stand taller in the lady’s eyes. His remarks about not letting her turn him from his duty were much more than wind, but something less than the whole truth. Fortunately, his men seemed tolerant—as yet.
“Send your best sergeant, with ten or a dozen picked men,” Pirvan told the mercenary. “None among us doubt your courage. None among us could do your work, if you were to be slain in a skirmish against foes not worthy of your steel.”
Epron looked dubious. “Good sergeants do not grow on tarberry bushes either,” he said. “Nor have I kept faith with my men all these years by sending others to do what I would not.”
“All these years, you have not been so badly needed.” Weariness brought to Pirvan’s mind the notion that perhaps Birak Epron wanted a war between Istar and Karthay, which would surely fatten the purses of sell-swords from every land.
And leave a trail of burned towns, weeping widows and orphans, young men dead or crippled in their prime, and much else not beloved of the gods.
He kept the insult off his lips. “Epron, choose. I do not think the folk ahead are finished warriors, but they are not asleep or drunk, that we can wait forever to strike.”
Epron shrugged. “Have it as you will, Sir Knight.”
Epron’s sergeant and ten men swiftly vanished. Other men vanished into the woods on the other side of the road. Their task was to cover the retreat of the main body, if by some ill chance the ambush forced one.
The rest of the column was to simply march down the trail, like a worm dangled in a fishpond, to bait the ambushers into striking. Pirvan prayed briefly to Kiri-Jolith that the fish would not be unexpectedly large and hungry, then took his place at the head of the column.
Pirvan’s guesses as to the strength and skills of the enemy were not far off the mark. They were hardly more than fifty, and of all places to strike, they chose one where broad, deep ditches ran along both sides of the trail.
So when the first arrows flew from the trees, a soldier or two dropped. Most, even the less well trained, dove into the ditches on one side or the other. Both ditches held water, one up to a man’s knees, so the diving soldiers were neither dry, clean, nor comfortable in their refuge. Nor did all the archers keep their bowstrings dry.
But enough did so that they were able to beat down the enemy’s archery, picking off bowmen almost as fast as they showed themselves. A few minutes of this, and the enemy grew desperate enough to charge, even against more than thrice their number.
As they charged, so did Epron’s sergeant and his band. The enemy to the left of the road found themselves caught between two fires, driven onto wet ground where they could barely fight and not even hope to fleet, and they were subdued in moments. They could have been cut down to the last man where they stood, but Pirvan had given strict orders against needless killing. For the most part, he was obeyed. On the right, where Pirvan himself led, the fighting was more than a trifle sharper. Here were the village’s stouter hearts and more skilled sword arms, and Pirvan actually had to draw his sword to beat back one of two men who’d picked Haimya as an opponent.
The knight finally ended the affair by a feigned retreat, which drew the attackers out of the forest, across the ditch, and onto the trail. As they reached it, the rear guard came storming up at a run, drawing a band of steel around the villagers. They began to wave their bows, reversed and unstrung, and soon there was nothing left to do but bind the prisoners.
No, not altogether. It was in Pirvan’s mind to learn why the villagers had committed this particular folly. In spite of his orders against needless killing, of the fifty attackers some six were dead past healing, and Rubina found herself with burdensome work to do with many of the rest.
Pirvan sat on a stump before the oldest of the hale men and contemplated them. Then he motioned to the ground.
“Sit.”
“You have us in your power, Captain,” the man grumbled. “No need to be gracious.”
“On the contrary,” Pirvan said. “Great need, unless you are evil as well as foolish. Sit or stand as you wish, but tell me why you attacked us.”
It seemed that the village had heard, no doubt from a spy among the charcoal burners, that the mercenaries were marching to join Waydol. This meant they might ravage the country on the way. Also, if they were allowed to pass without resistance, the vengeance of Istar, in the form of one of Aurhinius’s captains and his riders, would sooner or later descend on the village.
“Then we’d lose as much as we lost today in blood, and more in treasure, women, and children, besides our honor. At least our blood today bought freedom from all that.”
Pirvan sighed. His own men had too little to spare of anything, save Rubina’s healing spells, to make up any of the village’s losses.
But there was parchment and an inkhorn in one of Pirvan’s pouches, and he could do something for the village with them. He drew them out, wrote swiftly, then called Haimya for wax. Into a blob of green sealing wax he pressed his ring with the sign of the crown on it, then folded the parchment and gave it to the villager.
“Take this to a keep of the Knights of Solamnia, as proof that a knight wishes you to be heard. They will listen, and I think you will have some justice, perhaps even more than you expect.”
The man looked dubiously at Pirvan. “It’s known about the country that the knights are not what they used to be.”
“The knights never were what the legends say, most of them. The gods know, I’m not. Do you know that I was once a thief in Istar, before the knights found more honest work for me?”
The villager now looked completely bemused. Pirvan stood and lifted the man to his feet. “So don’t kneel before me. Just lay that letter before the knights, and then judge how much we’re worth. You may find yourself surprised.”
“I’m already surprised, Sir—ah—?”
“Sir Pirvan.”
“Like I said, I don’t know what to make of all this. But maybe folk like you make the knights worth asking.”
By now, most of the wounded villagers had been healed enough to wa
lk or to be carried on improvised litters of branches and cloaks. Pirvan stood by Haimya and watched the villagers move out of sight, then turned to Birak Epron.
“Rally the men, put the crippled and dead on litters, and let us be out of here. I want to be well out of the forest before nightfall.”
* * * * *
Being out of the forest before nightfall proved impossible. Strips and patches of woodlands wandered all over what, from the ridge, had seemed open country. Pirvan would have sworn that some of the trees were following them about.
They finally made camp in an easily defended field with woodlands on one side and a clear stream on the other. The light tents went up, the wounded were laid in them under Rubina’s charge, and a party went off to bury the two dead.
Pirvan leaned back against a stout maple and took off his boots. He had neither removed nor dried them since the battle, and raw red strips around his calves told him that he had been less than wise. He was pulling off his socks and luxuriating in the feeling of grass against bare feet when a shadow moved in the darkness.
He was reaching for his sword when the shadow moved again and turned into a silhouette outlined by the campfires.
“Good evening, my lady Rubina.”
“Good evening, Sir Pirvan. I sense a need in you for healing.”
“Nothing that fresh air won’t cure without you needing to exert yourself.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. At least let me look at it, lest it grow so serious that I must weary myself further in healing it.”
“True. You have done honorably and well, and it would be ill-done to ask of you more than you can give.”
“I am known for my generosity, but thank you anyway,” Rubina said. Pirvan caught the double meaning, but knew that the best way to keep Rubina from going on in such a manner was to be silent.
It was hard for him to remain silent for long, however, once Rubina’s long, supple fingers began playing around his chafed calves. Little sighs of contentment escaped him, though at least she did not insist that he remove his breeches.
Unfortunately, it did not seem to matter much to Rubina’s subtle love spells what a man was wearing. By the time Pirvan felt a burning desire to pull Rubina down into his lap and kiss her, he knew he had to get away.
He lurched to his feet, conscious that anyone looking at him could tell that desire was in him, and Rubina stood also. She pressed against him so that it was plain that she wore little under her soldier’s clothes, then raised a hand to brush his cheek and lips.
Then she laughed—for once not a mocking laugh, but one in which real tenderness glowed—and kissed Pirvan on the chin. “I—well, you know what I wanted, and I know your thoughts. But because I know your thoughts, I also know that—I do not need that power over you, Sir Pirvan. Nor would I gain it by coming between you and your lady.
“You have something very rare, the two of you. I think it has a power to protect you both. If ever I could work a spell for you, it would be to bring out that power.”
Rubina kissed Pirvan again and strode off, with a hip-swaying motion that spoke plainly of her own desire and a firm intent to satisfy it. Pirvan stood against the tree for a moment, rubbing the places where the Black Robe had kissed him. Not to cleanse himself of some impurity, but simply to help himself believe what had happened.
Eventually Pirvan decided that the traditional remedy of cold water might serve. He walked upstream from the camp, beyond the sentry line, and in a secluded clump of bushes by a quiet pool stripped off his clothes and plunged into the water.
It was invigorating, soothing, cleansing, and much else, all at once. Pirvan was luxuriating in the water’s embrace as he never could have done in Rubina’s, when a splash too large for any fish sounded close by him.
He turned as a human head broke the water, a head with straight, fair hair hanging down all about it and eyes without color in the darkness, but with a familiar shape.
“Well met, my lady.”
“It seems a bath was in both our thoughts,” Haimya said.
“Indeed,” Pirvan replied. Although that was no longer his only thought; even cold water had its limits when he shared it with Haimya.
She took him by the hand and led him toward shore. As the water reached their waists, he put his arms around her from behind and kissed the back of her neck, wet hair and all. She turned to face him—and very little was said thereafter, for so long that what finally awoke them was the sound of searching parties from the camp.
They slept again soon after reaching their own tent, and Pirvan’s last thought before slipping down into oblivion was: All warriors should have mates like Haimya. But then, if they did, they would never want to leave them to go to war.
Is that a way of making peace everywhere, one that even the gods have overlooked?
Chapter 11
Tarothin was not the world’s happiest sailor, even aboard a large ship such as Golden Cup. He was even less happy now, clinging desperately to any handhold that offered itself, as the boat thrashed its way out of the west port of Karthay. The wind was blowing half a gale, the rain slashed his face like tiny knives, spray soaked everything the rain left dry, and Pride of the Mountains, the “Karthayan loyalists’ ” chartered ship, might have been on Nuitari for all Tarothin could see of it.
He had the modest consolation that he was standing up to the rough ride better than a good many of his boat-mates. The new recruits looked like the cheaper sort of sell-sword, the scrapings of every tavern in Karthay.
They also looked as if they would gladly sink to the bottom of the harbor if that would end their misery. How miserable they were, Tarothin’s nose told him plainly.
Then something cut off the wind, the sails flapped, someone shouted “Out oars!” and those few aboard fit to handle or even recognize an oar lurched to their task. Tarothin decided that it was not beneath his dignity to handle an oar himself, and he had worked up a good sweat by the time the boat slid alongside Pride of the Mountains.
He was sweating harder by the time he finished helping unload the boat. Both cargo and passengers had to be swung up on deck in nets, and Tarothin’s sweat stung the fresh blisters on his hands.
Eventually the last barrel and sack was stowed below, leaving the decks to the crew and the groaning, prostrate forms of the recruits. Somebody with what looked like a mate’s sash summoned Tarothin over to the break of the aftercastle.
“Can you do anything by way of healing for those poor clowns?” the man asked, pointing at the deckload of seasick victims.
Tarothin frowned. He didn’t want to use major healing spells this soon or on minor ailments such as seasickness. He needed to conserve his strength, the more so in that he knew Pride of the Mountains was very ill-provisioned and he would be doing all of his magic on scant rations. Also, the less these people knew about his real powers, the better his chances of surprising them when it came time to use them.
“Well, these lads can heal themselves, for the most part, if I can bring them to where they’ll keep down water and broth. If someone will show me the galley, I can mix up a kettle of any of two or three potions that will settle stomachs. All the magic I’d need is a little spell any hedge-wizard could do in his sleep.”
The mate looked dubious. Tarothin shrugged. “I can enspell them all back to health, but do you want that much magic hanging over the ship when we’re about to put to sea?”
“Who told you we’re about to put to sea?” The mate still looked dubious about whether he should call for help and have Tarothin clapped in irons.
Tarothin feigned total indifference to this fate and the mate’s goodwill. “Nobody told me, but I’ve eyes in my head, and this isn’t the first time I’ve been to sea. Also, ugly as this wind may be, it’s fair for heading offshore. Wait for the spells to blow away, and they could be blowing away on a dead foul wind.”
“Aye,” the mate said with a sour look. “And our Istarian masters will not be thanking us for that.”
Tarothin memorized the directions to the galley and left the mate trying to get a few of the seasick newcomers to help their worse-off mates. He also wondered if the mate’s remarks indicated some discontent on the part of the crew, or merely a sailor’s age-old reluctance to be at the beck and call of landlubbers.
At least he could do himself no harm with anyone aboard Pride, if his first work aboard was bringing twoscore seasick recruits back to a semblance of health!
* * * * *
Some days’ sailing to the northwest, Jemar the Fair peered out of a port in the aftercastle of Windsword and also contemplated a scene on deck. If he had been able to compare his emotions with those of Pride’s mate, they might well have found themselves kindred spirits.
Not that Windsword’s waist was littered with green-faced recruits too seasick to care whether they lived or died. It held, apart from the usual hands at work preparing to get under way, three women sensibly clad in hooded cloaks over tunics, trousers, and low boots, and surrounded by a modest ring of bags, trunks, and crates.
One of the women, even clad loosely, was plainly with child. And there was what soured Jemar’s mood. The woman he loved as much as life itself and almost as much as the sea was proposing to embark with him while halfway to bearing their fourth child.
At least no harm ever came of a civil greeting, even to a blood enemy, let alone to one’s own wife. Jemar took a deep breath and stepped out on deck.
A moment later he could hardly breathe at all, because Eskaia was hugging him so hard. She had surprising strength for a woman who barely came up to his shoulder, and warmth flowed through him from her embrace, even as he felt her roundness amidships.
“To what do I owe this greeting?” Jemar said with raised eyebrows.
“To your giving permission for me to come aboard and sail with you,” Eskaia said, her smile dazzling white in her olive-hued face.
“Indeed,” Jemar said, trying to avoid even a tone, let alone words, that would bring on a public quarrel. “And to whom do I owe the honor of your fellow passengers?”
