by Dave Duncan
And out of the gloom and the swirling snow emerged an incompetence worse than any yet. He had left strict orders that his pavilion was to be situated as close to the gun battery as possible, so that he could watch the bombardment when it began. But the fools were assembling it on a shingle bank only a third of the size it needed, so half of it would be in the river, and the rest strung through the boulders like a ribbon of colored silk.
“Idiots!” he roared. “What do you think you’re doing?”
An elderly servant—Wartislaw never bothered to remember menials’ names—looked up at him in terror. “Erecting your tent, Your Grace. You told—”
Wartislaw slashed him across the face with his quirt. “Pig-brained nincompoop! I’ll have you all flogged. Where is—”
Huh? Horses staggered, then reared in terror, even his own courser, until he hauled on the reins and beat it into submission. Several men had fallen over, and were scrambling to their feet again. Rocks clattered down the hillside.
“What was that?” he muttered, but nobody answered.
Thunder rolled and echoed. All heads had turned to stare back along the trail, the way they had come. Not thunder; a mine! He had never heard one that big, but the delay between shock and sound meant that it had been at least a mile away. So it must have originated within his baggage train. The train had still been working its way forward while the men were setting up camp. Had one of those cretinous wagoners driven too close to a campfire? Or was this more Jorgarian Satanism like that suspiciously defective ladder this morning? If a powder wagon had exploded in the middle of the column, Wartislaw might have to add two or three hundred casualties to the toll from this morning’s fiasco.
He spurred forward again, yelling for men to get out of his way. He must inspect the damage and get the bodies out of sight as soon as possible, or those superstitious churls …
And what was that? The roar of the falls was growing louder. Except that the sound was not coming from behind him, where the falls were. In front of him? Above him?
And then he was flying, horse and all.
CHAPTER 16
Vlad ran down the stairs to the armory, roaring orders to anyone he met on the way. He had divided Anton’s forces into three “battles,” naming them after city churches. Currently St. Andrej’s had the watch, St. Petr’s was on standby, and St. Sebastijan’s was off duty. By the time he reached the armory, the tocsin was clanging and St. Petr’s men were already running in to report for duty.
Dali Notivova arrived at his heels, bare to the waist, with shaving oil on one side of his face and two days’ beard on the other.
“Cute whiskers,” Vlad said. “Latest Italian style?” He peered around and located Sir Teodor looking for orders. He was a local rancher, well into his forties and too old for real roughhousing, but he’d fought for the Hungarians against the Turks and could handle men. Vlad had made him captain of St. Petr’s Battle.
“Muster,” he ordered, “and prepare to sortie out the north gate. Dali, muster the cavalry.” All twelve horses. “Take every horse we’ve got, but save the biggest for me.”
All around him jaws dropped, eyes widened.
Vlad raised his voice to address them all. “You felt that thump a little while ago? And heard thunder a little later? I’ve met that before, when a mine went off. I tell you now the Wends’ powder store was struck by lightning! If I’m wrong I’ll eat my own balls. Our Blessed Lord smote the evildoers for us! He blew half of them to hell. Now we’ll go and finish off the rest.”
They cheered like lunatics. Any action was better than being trapped in a cage while an enemy prepared to break in and kill you. Having God fighting on your side was good too. They would have to be lunatics to join a charge up that road in a howling blizzard, but he would lead them, and they would follow. He found the armor he had chosen for himself, the biggest in the castle but still damnably tight on him. Excited boys came running to help him.
Vlad felt no guilt about taking the Lord’s name in vain. Every action he had ever fought in—too many to count by now—had begun with someone assuring him—or him assuring others—that God was on their side. The Church, if it ever learned about young Wulf’s exploit with the bed warmer, would certainly claim that he had been helped by the devil, but that was just jealousy, because he could work miracles and they couldn’t. What a kid! Made a man proud to be his brother.
“No horse armor,” he told Dali. “No bows, just pikes and swords. Can’t see to shoot.” The snow was wet enough to soak bowstrings, and pike handles would make useful pry bars if they found the bombard where it might be rolled off the road. “You stay here and untie any knots.”
He eHad.was saluted by Sir Karel, who led St. Andrej’s Battle. Another local, Karel was younger than Teodor, with less experience and much less sense. “All quiet on north and south roads, my lord. Quiet as mice. Course, we can’t see anything in this snow.”
“I don’t think they’ll be crazy enough to attack in this weather,” Vlad said, arms spread as a boy struggled to strap his cuirass around him.
“No, my lord.”
“We are, but they’re not.” He leered.
Unwilling to seem less brave, Karel leered back.
Vlad said, “Don’t let your guard down on the south gate, but we’ll need men to work the north gates for us. We can go out by the sally port, but after we’ve gone and know it’s safe, you should open the outer gate to head height in case we need to make a fast return. Hey, Sir Teodor?”
The knight shouted acknowledgment through the mob, being halfway into armor and unable to move.
“See that you bring four men with shovels and two carrying spikes and mallets.” Shovels in case they needed to clear the road, spikes in case they were able to reach the great bombard. One spike hammered into the Dragon’s touchhole would make it scrap metal.
* * *
It took longer than Vlad wished but less time than he had feared to get the sally organized. The infantry were ready first, and marched off through the streets toward the barbican before he rode out with Jachym at his side and another ten horsemen at their backs, comprising the fearsome Castle Gallant cavalry. He thought the snow seemed less heavy than it had been. Word of the explosion had spread, and crowds cheered the forces. Out into the Quarantine canyon they rode, then through the inner gate into the barbican.
“Follow as quick as you can,” Vlad told Karel, “but you may have to clear some drifts. You must be ready for a very fast retreat if we run into a wolf pack. One other thing: don’t march your men over the edge of the cliff. It’s a long way down.”
“Aye, my lord. I mean, no, my lord.”
Vlad urged his mount over to the sally port. Men swung it open, snow swirled, in and he was shocked to see that the drift out there was thigh deep. His horse was even more discouraged. Seeing that it would take too long to get everyone out that way, he roared for the main gate to be opened. The men stationed up there must have been listening through the murder holes, because chains and wheels began to clank and squeak at once. If the enemy had crept close under cover of the snow, there would have to be a fight.
The instant there was enough clearance, Vladislav Magnus ducked his head under the steel base plate and rode out to war. He spoke the prayer thathe ava Father had taught him for that moment. For centuries it had served the warriors in the family well. It had not shielded all of them, but enough had survived to carry on the family line.
The drifts were patchy, and in places there was no snow at all. Already he had snow inside his helmet, up his nose, sticking to his eyelashes; and yet, the accursed stuff was certainly not coming down as fast as it had just a few minutes ago. He hoped that this might be just a lull between flurries, but soon he could see halfway to the bend where the road entered the gorge. The sun had gone behind the mountains, the wintery twilight was fading, and the flat light made it hard to judge the drifts or where the edge of the cliff was.
Still, no sniper was taking potshots at hi
m, and once he had made a trail the rest could follow more easily. Pressing his spurs against his horse’s flanks, he rode up the Silver Road. As a mercenary, he’d come this way four years ago, but that had been in summer. He’d not been senior enough to meet the count, and all he had seen had been the Quarantine Road, nothing of the town or castle.
Long before he reached the corner, the snow had stopped and the way ahead was clear. Still, he saw no Wends. Poor lads had given up and gone home to bed? The blindings they had set up at the bend had blown over, leaving no cover for snipers.
The post seemed to have been abandoned: not a soul in sight. He found that almost creepy. The bombard wasn’t there yet. He paused to inspect the work and let the rest of his cavalry catch up with him. Progress had been slow, but the size of the trench they were planning was impressive. He revised his estimate of the time the enemy would need to emplace the big gun. On the other hand, recoil usually shifted the seating after a few shots, but once the Dragon was nested in the bedrock, it should be able to fire indefinitely without adjustment.
Vlad looked back and saw that the hundred or so men of St. Petr’s Battle were making much harder work of the snowy road than the horses had. Whatever happened, the Wends would have to wait a few days for the thaw before they could attack. And before they could hope to move the Dragon.
Even if they still had powder to use it. Yea, Wulfgang!
The rough side of this situation, of course, was that if a company of Wend archers did break cover now, the Cardicians would be trying to flee back home through all that snow with a hail of arrows following them the whole way. So the cavalry had better advance smartly and flush the whoresons out.
He glanced at Jachym and realized that he felt as cold as the man looked. He waved his arm as a signal to follow him, and urged his horse forward again, past the litter of snow and timber the Wends had left, and around the bend.
He had taken part in some mad escapades in the last dozen years, but never anything quite this mad. The air and the ground were all white, even the rocky wall to his left. The corner was abrupt, taking him suddenly into the gorge, but the crossbow bolts he half expected failed to arrive. No sentries leaped to their feet in alarm; no trumpets blew. The footing became treacherous, covered with scattered spars and shorter timbers, rte, butcollapsed tents, a few barrels, shovels and axes. No people at all.
Vlad’s horse balked, understandably, so he dismounted and tied the reins to a heavy beam. Drawing his sword, he set off to pick his way through this appalling clutter, hearing Jachym shouting orders behind him. The going improved as he left the work site. He walked along the road unchallenged until he came upon a couple of empty carts with their oxen still yoked, but no carters. He glanced at Master Sergeant Jachym, who was one step back on his left. “You think the devil came and took them all to hell?”
The old warrior’s nervy grin barely showed under his helmet. “My guess, sir, would be that they heard the devil taking a lot of them, and the rest ran back to help the wounded.”
That sounded logical.
The snow had stopped, but the light was fading fast under the trees. To walk until nightfall would be ridiculous, asking for trouble. But still there was nobody! Still, no quarrels came hissing out from the quiet.
Where were all the Wends?
CHAPTER 17
Last night Wulf had been assigned a cubbyhole called the Blue Room, just large enough to hold a bed and a wicker hamper. He had not had a chance to sleep there yet, but he had asked a housekeeper to find him some clothes, and she had apparently succeeded, for the basket was almost full.
As he stripped, he reflected that he had killed men by the hundreds that morning and by thousands in the afternoon. He couldn’t do penance for such Satanism if he went back and forth between Jerusalem and Santiago de Compostela on his knees for the rest of his life.
Bed beckoned, for he had not slept at all last night and very little the two nights before that; but he had an appointment with Justina to discuss what might be done about the Dragon bombard. He had almost certainly solved that problem by himself, and she might refuse to give him any more help than she already had, but he enjoyed talking with her. He had just pulled on his trunk hose and was reaching for a shirt when the light of a nimbus flared up behind him. He whirled around to face the intruder.
For a moment he did not recognize the demure young lady who stood there in a billowing silken ball gown.
“Pretty,” Sybilla said. “Nice muscles.”
He stuffed his arms into the shirt he was holding and hauled the rest of it over his head. “Why don’t you go to hell and drive the devil crazy? Why pick on me?”
She leaned against a bedpost like a cat rubbing itself against a friend’s leg. “Oo! Do I drive you crazy?”
“Not crazy the way you’re crazy. What do you want?”
“You for a pet, but I can’t have you. I came to say goodbye. Dearest Wulfgang, this is farewell! We can never meet again!” She sighed and clasped her hands in an Our Lady of Sorrows pose.
“I am overcome with indescribable emotion.”
That was not the right answer, because she pouted. “I am about to be jessed!”
“Congratulations,” he said, as jessing was obviously something worth bragging about. Justina had dropped hints about jessing. And she had used other falconry terms: cadger, haggard, brancher. If he wasn’t so tired, he could probably work out how a bird could be a stand-in for a Speaker. “Who’s the lucky man?”
“Not a man! A lady.”
She had not answered with scorn, so a man would have been possible. If Wulf baited his hooks carefully, he might even start to learn something about the mysterious Saints.
“Ah, you mean your cadger?”
“Of course!”
“Anyone I know?”
That was again the right question, because she flashed a perfect set of pearl-white teeth at him. If her appearance was at all real, Sybilla truly was as beautiful as she thought she was.
“Certainly not, but you must have heard of her: Anne of France!”
“Sorry. I’m just a backwoods esquire with aspirations.”
The scorn returned. He had been expected to swoon.
“Anne of Beaujeu, then? Sister of King Louis, wife of Peter of Bourbon. She is fourteen. I am to be her mistress of jewels! I shall live at court. Probably never far from her side.”
“Wonderful! Congratulations. What will your duties be, apart from minding the lady’s jewels?”
“Oh…” Sybilla’s shrugs involved much more than just shoulders, and her smile could freeze blood. “Whatever she wants. Within reason, that is.”
“This was your father’s doing, I take it?”
Anne of Beaujeu’s pet witch strolled over to the little mirror to admire herself. “Well, the dean of the College of Cardinals does have influence, you know!”
A hand to wash and be washed by any other, no question. Wulf wondered what the other half of this arrangement was—how much the king of France had paid, in gold or political fav poheight="0eors, to obtain a sorcerous fixer-bodyguard for his sister.
“And of course my mother is Lady Umbral,” she added.
“I am not familiar with—”
“Prelate of the Saints.” From the way she glanced at him in the mirror, she was dropping hints. She had mentioned the Saints before in a way that suggested a non-standard meaning.
“But the Lady Anne is not another Speaker?”
“Of course not.” Sybilla did not turn.
She had been disappointed to hear him ask such a stupid question. Which was what he had expected. He was beginning to understand now.
At last.
“Well, I must go,” she said. “I have other friends who will be eager to hear my good news.”
“I am very happy for you, and I am sorry for any rude things I said. I am sure you will serve your lady well, and Anne of France is fortunate to have acquired such a promising, er, Speaker?”
Sybilla g
ave him a contemptuous sidelong glance. “Falcon.”
“Of course. Saints be with you.”
She disappeared into empty air.
He chuckled and laced up his doublet. He thought that Sybilla would make a better guard dog than a falcon, but Anne of Beaujeu should have no trouble keeping her court in line from now on. How soon would she find her tame Speaker flying her, instead of the other way about? The Speakers’ fondness for falconry terms verged on the absurd, but it was an obvious defense against dangerous talk that might be overheard. Falcons were also the fastest-moving creatures in God’s creation, which was probably no coincidence.
He reached for his cloak.
Justina was sitting in the vineyard, apparently just staring at the vines, but possibly Looking through Wulf’s eyes, which suggested the infinite regress of a pair of mirrors.
He stepped through limbo. Near to setting, the sun still shone on golden leaves, and once again the softness of the air took Wulf’s breath away. Justina greeted him with a look of sour dislike, but a bottle of wine and three glasses adorned the table, and she pushed the bottle over to his side. Taking that as an invitation, he sat down.
“You’ve been busy,” she said.
“Very.” Wulf wearily filled one glass and passed it to her. The evening alone was wine, compared to the weather in Ca wev heirdice, and if he drank another drop of the real stuff he would fall asleep. His eyelids were heavy as boots.
“When you went spying on the Wends, did you learn anything of value?”
“Not much.” Enough to do them a world of damage, but he was too ashamed of the carnage to brag about it. “You weren’t watching?”
“You cannot hope to keep a secret around Speakers,” Justina said impatiently, as if he were being stupid, “but sometimes secrets keep themselves. We cannot be in more than two places at once—one place in body and another in mind. You cannot watch someone every minute of every day. I know you took a stupid risk in going there, and for no real gain. Let that be a lesson to you.”
