Ghost in the Yew: Volume One of the Vesteal Series

by Blake Hausladen

  “We cannot leave this enemy a way home,” I argued. “They will only return. If the ships are too well guarded, we’ll retreat and meet Thell at the bridge. We risk nothing by taking a look.”

  “The timber camp has a road we can use,” one of the greencoats volunteered. “It runs right up the coast—should be just on the other side of these hills. There is not one chance they’d be watching the road behind them.”

  Thell and Furstundish shared a long look. They were both from Hippoli, I realized then. They had history, and judging by their expressions, it was not good.

  Thell eventually said, “Your decision will be the right one.”

  This was clearly not what Furstundish had expected to hear, and he was visibly choked up. He shook it off quickly, and after looking across the faces of his eager men, he said to Thell, “We’ll try for the ships. I leave the army in your command. If we do not return by midday, lead them to Urnedi.”

  The lads whooped, and after a few quick farewells, the greencoat who knew the road led us south. We crashed through a wide thicket and south over rough hills of tall elm trees. On the far side, we rode down into an old, overgrown clearing. The road wound south from it, and through the trees on the east side, I could see the ocean.

  Grinning, we started south at once, and the ride became a race. I had not noticed it before, but the lad who led us had the only other stallion, and Clever did not like him. The geldings fell slightly behind us as the stallions vied for supremacy. Clever trailed for some time, but this race was long and my friend was good for it. We slowly took the lead—my great friend snapping his teeth menacingly as we moved by.

  Around a soft curve, the sight of ships and hundreds of soldiers sitting around campfires was startling. I did not think to slow, and we were upon the startled soldiers in a flash. I did not know what to do with the long spear I held other than to raise it high and scream murder at the Tracians as I galloped through. The greencoats knew, and the great crash of them upon the Tracians behind me was terrible, all screams and meaty whacks of heavy steel. I slowed and circled and tried to get my bearing.

  The soldiers’ campfires were at the northeast corner of a wide torn field. Inland were the bald hills Geart had described, and along the coast some thirty ships had been pulled up on the beach. A second large group of men, sailors perhaps, had camped south of the soldiers. They were sprinting toward the boats.

  “They’re getting away,” I shouted, but the boys were busy.

  I kicked Clever toward the hundred odd sailors, hoping to delay them if nothing else.

  Clever understood this differently. He shrieked angrily and leapt into a fresh gallop, and before I knew it, we had trampled straight into them. Clever rode four men down, turned quickly, and kicked another man so hard his head popped open like a juicy melon.

  The sailors stood momentarily in shock.

  “Surrender,” I cried as Clever gored another man.

  But they were not having it. One threw a hand axe at me, and it flashed past my shoulder. A dozen drew their swords. Clever reacted before I could. He leapt into the group with a defiant shriek, kicked out hard in both directions, and dashed back out. Somehow, six more of their number were down, but still they looked ready to fight. I nudged Clever sideways and got us between the sailors and their boat.

  Back by the campfires, the Tracian soldiers were fleeing toward the trees, desperate to get away from the wall of black and green that trampled upon them.

  I spotted a man in the group before me who wore something resembling a uniform, pointed my spear at him, and got Clever ready to charge.

  “Hold,” the gaunt, drunken-looking man shouted in terror. “Please stop. We surrender.”

  “No, we don’t, damn you,” spat the man who had thrown the axe. “Those are my damn boats.”

  He and a few others came straight at me, but Clever reared, shrieked, and leapt at them. They fell backwards.

  “Surrender, you fool,” I yelled down at their leader. “Our fight is not with you.”

  The man scoffed, “Girl, the Hessier are going to wear you for a hat.”

  “Order—rally,” I heard Sergeant Furstundish call. “Leave the rest. Rally on me.”

  The greencoats let the last of the soldiers flee west into the trees and followed their sergeant toward me. I held them up with a gesture, and they assembled behind me.

  I turned back to the man and smiled softly. “None of the Hessier will survive this day, sir. It is time to choose whom you serve, the Hessier or yourselves.”

  He eyed our horses. “Where did you get those?”

  Before I could answer, the gaunt officer slurred, “See, I told you, Elsar. The Hessier’s horses. I knew it. First the horse theft, then the healers deserted, ambush after ambush, and then Erd walks half the damned officers up the road to join Prince Barok. I told you. Barok and his gold have infiltrated the entire army.”

  “Shut it, man.”

  “That’s ‘sir’ to you, Captain Mercanfur.”

  A drunken admiral and his captain, it seemed—the latter a good one, judging by the way his sailors gathered tightly around him. I looked back at the boats, no longer content to simply see them burned. I wasn’t entirely sure what his drunken commander was blathering about but did not need to.

  “I know you,” I lied sweetly to the captain. “You’re on Barok’s list. My name is Dia Yentif, and I am very glad I haven’t killed you. The prince would be very disappointed.”

  The admiral looked near collapse. “A Yentif?”

  Captain Mercanfur ignored him and responded, instead, to my flattery. “What list? How do you know of me?”

  “The list of those Barok hopes to hire on from those that survive this foolish attack. We know the names of every man in Almidi. You and Erd are the top two names. The prince felt rather certain you’d want to be admiral of his fleet. It’s unfortunate we met in these circumstances.”

  “I’m sorry—an admiral? I don’t follow.”

  “Well, you are the best seaman along this coast, so it should not surprise you. The offer was supposed to be made after Kuren surrenders—after you’d had a chance to tour our harbor. Not quite sure what to do with you now. I can’t leave these ships here for Kuren to retreat to. They have to be burned, and I can’t quite see you parting with them peaceably.”

  “Him? An Admiral?” the drunk squealed and shouldered his way forward in an effort to catch up to the conversation. “He has less nobility in his whole body than I do in just one little finger. Ha! Wait until Uncle hears about this.”

  Captain Mercanfur glared for a long moment at the man but said to me, “Tell me about this harbor. I don’t believe you.”

  “Milady ...” our sergeant started to interrupt.

  “No, hold a moment,” I said over him. “This man is very important to the prince, and we will spare him one more moment.”

  To the captain I said, “A team of wrights from Bessradi started work on our harbor earlier this year, in a long bay on the opposite side of Enhedu. The sounding map they prepared made little sense to me, so I don’t know what I could really tell you. They did raise a flag though—yellow over white, if that helps.”

  Elsar Mercanfur looked around at his men. They looked impressed. The captain looked once back at the admiral with utter loathing. He said to me, “Let me save my ships, sail them around to this harbor. If the Hessier are dead when I get there I’ll hear the prince’s offer.”

  “You will do no such thing,” Kuren’s nephew said and spat on him.

  The captain slapped the man so hard that when he struck the rocky sand, he did not stir.

  “You can do with him what you wish.”

  91

  Arilas Barok Yentif

  All around Urnedi, the town’s archers continued to embarrass the men of Trace, while to the east, the enemy noisily worked in the trees with saws and axes. Upon the practice field below, Leger gathered with the senior greencoats and the many fit men of our militia. The heavy
wool of their felted green overcoats looked the right thing to be wearing—armor in its own right and warm.

  Our colonel got the town moving, and if it were not for the Hessier, I would have had little fear of our enemy. Fire pits were lit behind the palisade, and kettles of boiling water were prepared. Heavy rocks by the hundreds were carried up onto the wall, and teams of Fells were hitched to ropes tied with heavy iron hooks. Eargram’s jailors were at it, too—their rested horses similarly organized into teams along the south wall.

  The preamble to the attack came while the last of this work was finishing. Many hundreds of conscripts rushed out in three great masses northeast, east, and south of the town and began to clear wide avenues through the spikes and brambles.

  Leger got our archers positioned, and their arrows began to stab into the shabby men. But they did not falter. The Hessier were too close. The half-naked slaves pressed forward to the barricades, and managed at great cost to lift and roll the logs until they’d cleared a way through. The instant each group was done, they fled back, leaving their wounded and their dead behind. It was a miserable show.

  Leger’s call got others from town moving, and I was unsure what he was up to until Darmia and the Dame emerged from the Constant Pony at the head of a long column bearing kettles of water and baskets of fresh bread and apples. Darmia’s sister brought some up for us.

  “Thank you, Evela,” Selt said to her with a proper Bessradi bow. She looked thoroughly unimpressed but did toss him a second apple.

  Selt watched her go, and Gern and the rest of the archers harassed him for it while they ate. The battle seemed, for a moment, as far away as the tundra.

  Our colonel was very good at his business. The enemy was not organized enough to press the attack; he had known it, and the break was perfectly timed. We finished eating while he walked a calm course behind the palisade. I started thinking we were unbeatable.

  Sunlight broke across the town. The blanket of clouds had slid east leaving behind an uncluttered blue sky. The morning was nearly over. I could not decide if I should be pleased. Dia was still somewhere far to the north.

  “Movement in the trees,” Gern said to me, and before I could get a look for myself, he barked down, “Ladders. Ladders moving up. All points.”

  They could not be missed. Behind all three breaks in our barricade and up the road, the men of Trace and their slaves massed.

  “Rot. Eight Hessier, four groups,” the lieutenant said absently, and then to me. “With your permission, I will move myself and the greencoat archers down to the curtain wall towers. We can’t hit the tree line from here.”

  “Go,” I urged. “Keep the Hessier back, my friend. I am counting on you.”

  Leger’s voice drew my attention back down. He had half the militia moving in groups to face the coming storm and he had spread the town’s archers out along the entire length of wall. Buckets of boiling water and hot coals from the angry centers of the fire pits were carefully lifted up. Everyone was in position, crouched low as Leger had taught them, shields, spears, and bows at the ready.

  It began in earnest.

  The enemy emerged from the trees with tall, crude ladders and ran across the torn ground. Again, our arrows did a mean accounting. The Tracians bunched briefly at the gaps in the barricade, but one ladder and then another was carried through. Their archers emerged then as well along the east side of the barricade, and for every careful arrow we fired, six hasty shots came back. Too many were hit, and the slow walk of our wounded toward the practice field was misery to see.

  The ladders reached the wide trench before our wall, and then one after another was raised. The first were engulfed with showers of hot ash and embers. Others were hooked and torn down by our horses or smashed by massive stones flung over by teams of quarrymen. The pour of boiling water was next, and it was almost too cruel. The screams of the scalded men rose high over the din. Few of the ladders carried against the eastern and southern sections of our palisade survived. To the northeast, the scene was not as good. The brown of Tracian uniforms was visible atop the distant wall. I caught a glimpse of the blue crest of a helmet and took heart. Leger was there.

  “Order—adjust fire,” I heard Gern call from the tower below. “Aim for the ram.”

  The view downrange was dire. Along the wall around our gatehouse, a fresh wave of ladders was up. Sahin and the last of the greencoats, little better than one man to each ladder, struggled to knock back the Tracians as they climbed up. Upon the road beyond, a thousand conscripts carried thick bundles of brush toward the gate, and in their midst, Kuren’s timbermen had returned to their abandoned ram and had already centered it upon the road.

  Our concentrated fire slowed the ram’s forward progress, but no more. Meanwhile, nothing could be done about the slaves working to fill in the trench before the gate.

  I felt the black touch then and searched for the Hessier who caused it.

  “There,” Selt cried. “Shield wall. Eastern breach. Gern, shift fire.”

  The evil twinge in my guts got worse, and I found the thick group of bailiffs gathered just beyond the eastern gap in the barricade—thirty men with shields held tight and unmoving.

  “Longbows, order—adjust fire,” Gern boomed from atop the north tower. “Shift fire onto the shield wall. Make ready ... take aim ...”

  Again, the men of Enhedu took their time.

  “Steady,” I urged Selt and those around me as the terrible black weight settled upon us.

  “Loose,” came the order at last, the longbows barked, and their heavy arrows arched magnificently toward the shield wall. The heavy shafts smashed open its center, and inside we saw the glint of blued steel.

  Gern did not need to give the order. Each man drew and fired. A ping and clang of two arrows upon the Hessier seemed for a moment as useless as the Tracian arrows had been upon the brothers, but all at once the black grip weakened. The bailiffs gathered close around the Hessier but not before I caught a glimpse of the tall shafts sticking from his thigh and collar. The Hessier fled, chased by another flight of arrows.

  “Leave it,” Gern screamed. “Order—adjust fire. The ram, the ram.”

  The timbermen had taken advantage of our distraction. The ram was halfway to the gatehouse and moving fast. Before it, the conscripts had tossed their tight bundles of brush into the trench and were laying across it a platform of young tree trunks. All along the wall around the gatehouse, the fighting was still fierce. Fewer ladders were standing, but the same was true of the greencoats. The enemy was too many.

  I looked along the palisade for aid. Leger seemed to have things in hand at the north corner, but was too far away to help. The long, straight length of palisade between him and the gatehouse was also free of Tracians, but our archers and militia there were pinned by steady fire from the Tracian archers massed along the barricade.

  Then I spotted the militiamen Leger had so wisely held in reserve beneath the north tower. “Militia, order—rally,” I shouted down to them. “Rally to the gatehouse.”

  Sevat and his men were amongst them, and they had the 200-odd men moving instantly. They dashed south between the palisade and the curtain wall, halting long enough to open the gate that connected the two walls.

  The sound of many axes smacking wood caught my attention again, but I could not find the source.

  Boom.

  I spun at the sound. The ram had reached the gates.

  Boom.

  The townsmen surged up onto the wall around the gatehouse, and the bitter fighting turned. One and then another ladder was tipped over or smashed by a cascade of stones. Sahin and Sevat’s voices were loud, and the men moved around them with purpose.

  Boom.

  The gate shuddered and seemed close to failing, but heavy stones were rushed along the wall and lifted up to the gatehouse. The greencoats there, beneath shields held high against the arrows raining upon them, began at last to work against the timbermen below. But the first stones they threw
down did not seem to slow the swing of the ram.

  Boom.

  The conscripts gathered closer.

  Crack!

  The gate folded but held. The enemy cheered. Some of the militia rushed to reinforce the gate, while above, with great growls, the greencoats flung new massive stones over the wall. The next swing of the ram was an ineffectual thump, and the slaves massing upon the road stopped cheering. Our archers started to find more of them, and they began to edge away.

  The bright glint of the sun upon steel grabbed every eye. All eight of the Hessier had stepped out onto the road, their magic already flung against the gatehouse. The keep and its towers were too far back to feel them, but the affect of it upon the men below was too apparent. They slowed, hung their heads, and fled.

  Gern growled orders, and the heavy arrows of our longbows reached out. The tallest Hessier was struck once in the chest, but the monster yanked the shaft free and stood his ground.

  Selt was furious. “Rot. They found our range. Mine fell short.”

  Below, the greencoats and militia fled back toward the keep. In a last act of defiance, Sahin flung a fresh bucket of flaming coals over the wall. But he was struck high and hard by an arrow and then another. The ram swung again, and the gates crashed open.

  “Sahin,” Gern called but was as powerless as I was to help him. The stricken captain stumbled north along the top of the palisade while the timbermen and conscripts poured through the broken gate.

  The lieutenant sent a second and third flight of arrows at the Hessier, but they had already backed away—the damage had been done.

  The steady crack of axes frustrated my ears again, but I could not be bothered to search for the sound.

  I grabbed the brothers Chaukai and pointed at the spur of the palisade that connected it to the north tower. “Get down there and hold that gate.”

  They looked unwilling to leave my side but saw what I did. If the gate could be held, the enemy would be trapped between the keep and palisade. They charged down and left me again with nothing to do but watch.