Helm

by Steven Gould

  He just wanted to get home.

  “Well, the worst of Cotswold, the Anvil, is between you and the river. This—” he gestured at the scrub and sand around them—“is wet in comparison.”

  Leland looked at Gahnfeld and said, “My senior halvidar has spent weeks on the Anvil. We’ll rely on his experience.”

  Roland nodded. “Very well. We’ve outpaced our intelligence and we’re advancing faster than we can get information on the areas we’re entering. If you get wind of Siegfried’s forces moving back this way, please get word to me.”

  Leland said, “Gladly. How much of Cotswold are you going to keep?”

  “The jury is still out. If worse comes to worst and you and yours don’t seriously hurt Siegfried’s army, we’ll settle for the lands east of Bottleneck. That’s several times the size of the Plain of the Founders. My people will be pleased and you don’t have to worry about us coming after Noram.”

  “What are the casualties so far?”

  Roland shrugged. “We’ve lost a hundred and fifty-seven men. Nothing, really. We outnumber the locals by a huge margin. We can play it safe.”

  “And their dead?”

  “Twelve hundred or so.”

  Leland closed his eyes. There was twice that number dead in Laal so far.

  MORE TO FOLLOW.

  Yes.

  “What about the noncombatants?”

  Roland laughed. “You’re talking about future citizens of Nullarbor. We’re not going to make this land too hot to hold. We’ve been talking with them—they know what they have in Siegfried and they seem willing to give us a chance. We’re treading as lightly as we can.”

  That’s something.

  “Good luck, then, your Majesty.” Leland lifted his hand in salute. “Long may you reign.”

  Roland returned the salute. “Long may you reign.”

  Leland shuddered and shook his head. “Not me.”

  Roland turned his horse and started to ride away. Over his shoulder he called, “We’ll see,” and then the dust of his party’s passage swallowed him.

  Marilyn’s face was resting on something hard and bouncing. She shook her head and found out that it was her own knee. Her head hurt, her mouth tasted foul, and she felt packed in cotton wool, disoriented and dizzy.

  She was in a basket, she realized, knees folded to her chest. Tiny specks of sunlight shone through the lid and danced on the cloth of her dress, back and forth, with the motion. She tried to pull her hands up, but they were stuck on something. It took her a moment to discover that both her wrists and ankles were bound and a short rope connected the two. Someone was drumming somewhere.

  She shouted, “Hey! Let me out of here!” Her world jolted and she realized that she was in a pack basket, one of a pair mounted on a mule or horse. Her shout had startled the animal. The background noise resolved itself into hoofbeats, not drums.

  The earth stilled as the animal carrying her basket was halted. Another horse rode close and there was a fumbling at the top of the basket. Bright light stabbed down and Marilyn winced as it set off an intense headache behind her eyes. She squinted up at a silhouetted figure and then Sylvan’s voice said, “Awake? All cozy in there?”

  She drew breath for a scathing reply and his hand darted in, covering her mouth and nose with a cloth. Fumes strong and searing bit her throat and lungs.

  “We’ll fix that, won’t we?” Sylvan said, and then she dropped back into darkness.

  “This is the last water for fifty kilometers.”

  It was early afternoon and though the temperatures weren’t intolerably high, the air sucked the moisture from their skin. The water in question was a midstream pool formed by a rock and clay dam. The water level was well below the spillway, and the bed, downstream and up, was dry as dust.

  Leland eyed the pool, a mere seven meters across, then looked back at the string of men and animals. He dismounted and took the unit banner from the standard-bearer and probed the bottom with the shaft. It was a little deeper than it looked.

  “Start filling the bags. And break out the shovels. We’ll be digging before we’re done.”

  Gahnfeld addressed the assembled Eight Hundred. “Each man will carry water for his horse and himself, plus corn fodder for two days. Trail rations for six days. Weapons, ponchos, one blanket, and two changes of socks and underwear, winter gloves and hats. Tents will be taken from the packhorses and split, one per squad. Five spare horses per Hundred carrying their own water and fodder.” He paused looking from unit halvidar to unit halvidar. “All other animals, equipment, and supplies will be abandoned here.”

  He turned to Leland and said, “Anything to add, Warden?”

  “I want the nets.” Leland shook his head. “Other than that, you know best.” He hoped that they’d have enough, supplies and equipment to survive the mountains.

  THEY HAVE TO SURVIVE THIS CROSSING BEFORE SURVIVING THE MOUNTAINS.

  True.

  They cooked a large meal, a feast, really, and fed the horses well. By late afternoon the water hole was a wide, muddy dish and ten men stood in the middle, digging down into the bottom while buckets of dirty water were passed to the shore, filtered through cloth, and given to the horses.

  “Who uses this water?” Leland asked. “I mean, who made the dam?”

  “Shepherds, usually. Fortunately, they won’t need it this winter. Roland’s commissary officers bought their flocks.”

  “Bought?”

  “Well, promissory notes. If Roland holds this part of Cotswold come summer, they’ll be redeemed.”

  “Hope they make it through the winter.”

  Gahnfeld said, “They did let them shear them first.”

  Leland looked at the muddy bottom of the water hole. It was already drying at the edges, the mud cracking into plates. “Waste not, want not.”

  They left after sunset, not so much to avoid the heat of day but to endure the cold of the desert night. There was a path, fortunately, since the Anvil was mostly broken rock and treacherous to horses. The formation of soil was limited to dust blown from outside the region and gravel created by temperature fluctuation stresses.

  “When we went after the bandits, we lost ninety percent of our mounts the first week,” Gahnfeld told Leland. “We lost thirty percent of our men before we ever drew bows.” They were leading their horses on foot, side by side. The path was wide enough only for two horses. They walked twenty minutes out of every hour.

  In ringlight the Anvil was cold silver, a rough plain stretching in all directions.

  Their eyes, accustomed to the dark, could make out the glimmer of snowcapped mountains seventy kilometers north.

  It was well after midnight and they were wearing their ponchos and gloves.

  Gahnfeld stared out into the waste, his head wreathed in exhaled fog. “I hate this damn place.”

  Gahnfeld kept them moving, with very short breaks, until the sun was two diameters above the horizon. Then he passed the order, “Tether your horses, feed and water them. Wet your mouth with your own water but no more. Rig shade and rest.”

  By noon heat waves were dancing off the rock and distorting the horizon. Despite walking and riding all night, Leland was restless and had trouble sleeping. He longed to keep moving, to rush to Laal.

  AND KILL YOURSELF, YOUR MOUNT, AND THESE BOYS WHO FOLLOW YOU. HASTE MAKES WASTE.

  He sought refuge in zazen, seated on a folded saddle blanket, knees crossed in a half lotus, back straight, counting his inhalations and exhalations. After two hours he was able to sleep. Gahnfeld woke him when the sun touched the horizon and they started moving again.

  “It doesn’t seem quite fair, does it?” Leland said as he put on his poncho as the temperatures dropped again near midnight. “I would’ve welcomed this cold in the afternoon. And now I’m wishing I had the heat we had then.”

  “Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch,” Gahnfeld said. After a moment he added, “Sir.” Leland smiled. “How are we doing on water consumption?�
��

  “We’ll be completely out by sunset tomorrow.”

  Leland frowned. “Is that bad?”

  “We’ll see. We’re going to make the river sometime tomorrow night. I just don’t know when. The last hours will be thirsty ones.”

  “What if we’re attacked? Kept from advancing?”

  Gahnfeld shrugged. “Then we’ll take their water. But only fools would be out here.”

  Leland frowned. “What does that make us?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  It was by far the strongest push into southwest Laal, five thousand of Siegfried’s troops under Marshall Plover sent down to deal with the increasing annoyance of Koss’s army. With the Falcons, the Pikes, and the steadily increasing militia forces, Koss was still a thousand men short of their number, but he didn’t intend to fight them man to man.

  This was their land they were defending and the land itself would fight.

  The Pikes and half the militia waited on the high plain, camped in the open where the Cotswold scouts found them and reported. The Cotswold column moved in, through Hindman Pass, intending to take advantage of their clear numerical superiority.

  “I bet Plover would like to flank them. I know I would in his shoes,” Koss said to Anthony.

  They were almost two kilometers above the Cotswold column, in a rock pocket that sheltered them from the worst of high winds. They were bundled to their eyebrows and Koss’s voice was muffled, coming from under his scarf.

  They had a clear view of the pass below and the plain. To their left was a snowfield, a cornice just below the bare rock ridge above. Fresh snow was piled high up here but it had melted in warmer regions below, where the Cotswold troops moved.

  Anthony nodded. “He could divide his forces but it would take the flanking unit a couple of days to get in position. Through the pass, he can close in one hour. Plover probably plans to split his forces once he gains access to the plain.”

  Koss nodded. “So he plans. We’ll help him split his forces, eh?”

  The column below moved inexorably through the pass. Koss smiled in satisfaction. These Cotswold troops knew the desert well, but none of his own troops would move through a pass this late in the year without checking above.

  “Now, I think,” he said conversationally to Anthony.

  Anthony took the red flag and stepped out of the pocket, bracing himself against the wind. He didn’t bother to wave it. Once he held it aloft, the wind flapped it wildly. He looked up to the ridge, above the cornice.

  Figures appeared, dots of men spread all along the rock edge, moving from whatever shelter they’d been able to find. He saw the first boulder roll down, gathering scree as it went, before it kicked up snow at the upper part of the snowfield and disappeared within.

  Nothing happened at first, but then the second boulder and the third hit, and then they came too fast to count.

  Koss, also standing out in the wind to watch, clenched his jaw. Come on, come on!

  Then they heard it—a crack, sort of half break, half oomph—and the snowfield began to move. Koss could feel it move, through his feet, grinding against the face of the mountain. He backed back into the pocket, pulling Anthony with him and checking above him for any rock debris that might start sliding from the vibration. A large boulder rolled past and then their backs were against rock, the overhang protecting them.

  The avalanche picked up more rock and snow on its way down, a mass of white shot with specks of dark rock and hazed by a fog of airborne snow.

  The troops below broke from a solid snake winding through the pass into scattered dots, but there was no place to go. They were knocked head over heels by the compressed air traveling before the avalanche, then enveloped by the white wave. When the airborne snow had settled, fully a third of the Cotswold column had disappeared, swallowed whole. The rear third was stuck in the pass, behind a wall of rock, snow, and the bodies of the dead and dying. The front third, in shock and disorganized, was between the blocked pass and the forces on the plain.

  Koss’s lips pulled back from his teeth and, for the first time since the fall of Laal Station, felt like something was going right. He turned back to Anthony and said, “The green flag, if you please.”

  Anthony was already bending to pick up the other flag pole. He held it up, in the breeze.

  Farther up the pass, too far to see with the naked eye, figures appeared above another snowfield and began rolling rocks down the hill. The Cotswold troops who weren’t caught in this new avalanche would be trapped between the two snow slides.

  Out on the high plain, Ricard’s Pikes and the militia started forward, at the walk, steadily, keeping in formation. The lead element of the Cotswold forces tried to regain some semblance of order, but they didn’t really stand a chance.

  Koss patted the icy rock beside him.

  Thank you.

  They reached the river at midnight, dry as dust. The horses had to be restrained, to keep them from racing ahead when the scent of the water came to them across the rock. When they came to the edge they found they were still short. The river was fifty meters below them at the bottom of a sheer rock face. They were at the Bauer Rent, where the Black cut through a thirty-kilometer canyon.

  “Don’t worry,” Gahnfeld said. “We’re near the western end.” He turned them due west, parallel to the river. Two more hours of gradual descent brought them down to the water itself.

  The shores at the canyon mouth were marshy and the mud, after their crossing of the rock Anvil, seemed alien. Papyrus dominated the shore along with low brush.

  It was not a good point to cross the Black for the bottom was treacherous, with quicksand common. In addition, they were only opposite Pree, still quite some ways upriver from Laal. Even though Pree bordered Laal, cutting across would put them in mountainous areas far from Laal Station.

  “There’s a good crossing fifty kilometers downriver,” Gahnfeld said, “but there’s one of the Cotswold border posts there. Or we can try a swimming ford once we’re past the marsh. It peters out about fifteen kilometers downstream.”

  It was an hour after dawn now, and the horses were being watered again. More than one soldier hadn’t been so careful—drinking too much and vomiting it out again.

  Leland was standing by the water’s edge looking out through the papyrus to the main channel. A piece of deadwood was drifting by in the current, faster than a man could walk. “How are the horses?” he asked.

  Gahnfeld shrugged. “Not great. They’ll need a day’s rest, and the fodder around here isn’t that good. We’ll have to go easy on them.”

  Leland nodded. “Easy indeed. We’re leaving them here.”

  “What?”

  “Have the men start cutting reeds. Bundle them in rolls half a meter in diameter and four meters long. Then we lash these together.”

  Gahnfeld was still staring at him.

  Leland stepped down to the water’s edge, drew his dagger, and began sawing through the reeds at water level.

  “We’re taking to the river.”

  By spreading their harvest over three kilometers, the Eight Hundred left a good third of the papyrus standing and still had enough of the reeds for their purpose. The Eighth Hundred included the son of a rope maker who was soon supervising the weaving of a portion of the reeds into ropes for the binding.

  At noon the signal officer gave Leland a message from Miyamoto’s heliograph line. He read it by water’s edge, watched by Gahnfeld.

  “What is it? You look so grim.”

  Leland exhaled. “Five thousand more dead, in Laal.” Gahnfeld’s eyes went wide. “Our troops? Our people?”

  Leland shook his head. “No. Siegfried’s troops. Koss lured them into Breathless Pass and dropped avalanches on them.”

  “But that’s good.”

  Leland tried to smile but it was a sorry effort. “Siegfried has a lot to answer for. You can tell the men if you think it’ll cheer them.” He looked downstream, to the activity on the banks. �
�Keep them going. I want to be on the water by sunset. They can rest as we float.”

  Gahnfeld left.

  Leland composed his response.

  To: Koss, Commander Laal Forces

  From: Leland de Laal, 800

  News of Breathless Pass recvd. Our current position western end of Bauer Rent.

  Taking to the river. Will join you in the Tiber Valley ASAP.

  Zanna waited with the council in her father’s formal staff room. He was late and they stood around the conference table, waiting, some fidgeting, some, like Zanna, perfectly still. Arthur was known for making people wait.

  He finally entered, his secretary at his elbow, taking in the faces and pausing when he saw Zanna. “Gentlemen. Daughter. I am here as requested. What business is so urgent that it can’t wait until the next council meeting?” He didn’t sit, so the others in the room continued to stand.

  Charly’s father, the Guide Michael de Rosen, inclined his head briefly and said, “I’ll come straight to the point, High Steward. Cotswold has broken their treaty and invaded the Stewardship of Laal.”

  Arthur blinked and looked surprised. “How do you know this? Are you going by the word of the deserter, Leland de Laal? He maintained this, but he was with de Gant’s forces on the plain and no such news came through Noramland.”

  Is that an act, Father? Zanna stood. “We have confirmation from Guide Kevin de Toshiko of Pree. A steady stream of refugees, mostly children with caretakers, have crossed into Pree at Apsheron. Cotswold troops have entered Laal in force.”

  Arthur’s shoulders dropped. “Well, then. We must take action. What does the council propose?”

  Michael de Rosen spoke. “Send the central reserves to Laal at once. Also recall the forces from the plain and have them make best speed.”

  Arthur shook his head. “De Gant’s forces are engaged.”

  Zanna shook her head. “Father, de Gant reports that Roland’s army is deep inside Cotswold.” Dammit, I know that report got to you! “Roland is currently closer to Laal than the plain. He’s also given his word to leave the Plain alone for the remainder of the season.”