Heavier Than a Mountain (Destiny's Crucible Book 3)

by Olan Thorensen

  “We won’t have much of anything if we don’t get moving.” Balwis turned to the woman. “You’ve got seconds to get dressed and follow us. We won’t wait for you. If you can’t keep up, you’re on your own.”

  Kales peered into the hallway, then hurried toward the stairs he saw at the far end. Balwis followed. There were no more firings or shouts. When they reached the stairs, Balwis glanced behind. The woman held clothing and dressed as she caught up with them. She had paused only to spit on Erdelin’s body as she ran after them.

  “Stay close,” Kales told her, and they carefully started down the stairs.

  “Keelan,” said a voice in the dark.

  “Caernford,” Kales called back.

  “That you, Fixton?” asked Balwis.

  “Yeah. Everything finished upstairs? Did you get him?”

  “Yes. Where are the others, and what about the other guards?”

  “Synton went running after the last guard, the one from the back. He took off over a fence. We shot the guards in front, but one of them got Ulrith. He’s gone. Right through the gut. He wouldn’t have lasted long. He said a prayer and asked me to finish him.”

  A door slammed open, and they heard running footsteps. All three crouched with blades. None had loaded firearms.

  “It’s me,” a form called out. “Couldn’t catch the fucker.” Synton walked into the lantern light and noticed the woman. “Who’s this?”

  “She’s coming with us,” said Balwis.

  “We have an extra horse now with Ulrith gone,” Kales stated, as if casually noting the weather. “So we invited her along.”

  “Whatever,” said Fixton. “I think we need to get the hell out of here.”

  The woman had finished dressing, and the five of them ran out of the villa, past the bodies of three guards and Ulrith, and through the main gate and into the plaza. Several windows of buildings surrounding the plaza showed light, from people awakened by gunfire. A man leaned out of one window, saw five persons, four of them carrying muskets, and ducked back inside.

  The rain had slackened back to a drizzle, and stars started to join Aedan, now fully shining. They ran across the plaza to the short piece of street and zigzagged through Hanslow streets toward the wall along the river. Three times they passed people without raising attention, until they were a few hundred yards from the wall. They turned a corner and almost ran into three Narthani soldiers carrying muskets over their shoulders. None of the three lived more than a few seconds, as Kales, Balwis, and Fixton each killed one before the Narthani could yell or brandish a weapon.

  Another fifty yards and bells began ringing, not the deep-toned abbey bells.

  “It’s the Narthani ringing out an alert,” said the woman. “The man who got away must have reached a watch station. There are several stations around the city, and each one has several gongs. They sound like bells. Three strikes like they’re doing means a threat inside the city. Continuous is the city in danger of being attacked.”

  “Keep up or be left,” Kales told her.

  More lights came on, as the alarm roused people, and they knocked several people down as they ran. When they reached the wall, a guard on the rampart called out for them to identify themselves. Fixton shot at the man, who disappeared, whether hit or hiding they didn’t know and had no further interest in finding out.

  They raced around the stone blocks and through the gap in the wall and found themselves on the outside and leaping down the slope. They were almost all the way down when the woman fell and tumbled past the men the last fifty yards. When they got to her, she was moaning and holding her ankle.

  “I think it’s broken,” she sobbed. “Please don’t leave me.”

  Kales revisited his repertoire of curses, but Balwis didn’t hesitate. He picked up the woman and headed into the river. Low flow or not, he almost lost his footing three times before reaching the other bank. They ran for the thicket, with first Fixton and then Synton taking turns carrying the woman.

  They reached the thicket where they’d left the horses three hours earlier—a span of time that seemed much longer. The woman couldn’t control a horse with her ankle broken, so they put her in front of Fixton and led the empty horse by its reins. They had barely an hour before daylight. They could still hear the alarms from Hanslow, and twenty or more riders thundered across the grassy flat between the thicket and the river.

  “Eywellese,” identified Kales. “Sweeping the perimeter of the city. There’ll be more any time now. We need to move!”

  First Light, Northern Rapid-Reaction Force

  Welman Stent watched, as the first company started from its muster point a mile from the Eywell border. Its men were Stentese and would lead the force, as it punched across the border and into any enemy patrols. Once clear of the border, that first company would fan out to serve as advanced scouts to warn against more trouble than they could handle. The main order of advance in column consisted of three companies, the artillery unit with the ten 6-pounders delivered from Keelan—Stent’s own foundry was not yet operational—and three more companies. Flanking the main column on both sides were two companies each. As they reached appropriate targets, companies would break off and rejoin the main column later.

  Welman had commanded more men at Moreland City, but they had been his own clansmen, and their order had essentially been a single mass of riders, instead of the more complex organization of dragoon and artillery companies from different clans. Theory and training exercises would never prepare men for actual combat.

  Not that their purpose was to fight fixed battles. They planned to raise as much confusion and consternation as possible and force the Eywellese and Narthani’s attention toward northern Eywell Province and away from Denes’s southern force, until it fulfilled its mission.

  They advanced at a walk until they reached the border, then moved into a trot. Distance was not a factor, so they could save their horses for when and if they needed to gallop. The artillery remained one limiting factor, because the horse teams plus cannon and limbers moved slower than the dragoons.

  It would take less than an hour to reach the ruins of the Eywell town of Parthmal. Welman Stent had led the attack on Parthmal after the Battle of Moreland City. They had surprised the Narthani camp, destroyed it, and gone on to burn the town. Stent didn’t know how much of Parthmal’s damage had been repaired, but now they would destroy whatever had been rebuilt.

  Once past Parthmal, Stent would order the flanking companies to spread out and burn any farm, ranch, or small settlement they came upon. If possible, they would circle Hanslow. However, the entire force would rejoin at the first sign of a significant enemy force and withdraw back to Moreland territory.

  Support Base, Eywell Province

  Yozef followed Mulron Luwis, supposedly to give advice, but Vortig Luwis’s son was a quick study and also possessed an inherent sense of how to use space, a talent his father lacked. Except for contributing to selecting the site for the support encampment, Yozef had felt more like a tag-along than an advisor. He had alternated between riding his horse or sitting in a supply wagon beside the driver, with Mr. Ed tied behind. Yozef’s horsemanship had improved enough that by the time they arrived in Dornfeld, he wasn’t sure whether a saddle or the wagon bench felt worse on his butt.

  Mulron hadn’t pushed the pace, to save the horses, because the men had ridden their own mounts all the way to Dornfeld. There hadn’t been any pre-positioned horses for the rapid-reaction force. Once in Dornfeld, they spent the night, then pushed on across the Eywell border the next day. The one Eywell village they passed had been burned by Denes’s men, and they didn’t stop. The villagers who didn’t hide at Denes’s men’s approach watched sullenly, while salvaging what they could.

  Twenty miles past Dornfeld and six miles inside Eywell, they found what they were looking for. Just before the hills gave way to the coastal plain from Wrexton to Ponth, they came upon a jumble of small buttes left by millennia of erosion. The slopes ros
e no more than fifty feet high, but steepness and disposition provided multiple defensible positions. Yozef and Mulron agreed on a site where the road passed through a four-hundred-yard gap flanked by two buttes. Scouts confirmed that for at least five miles in all directions, the gap was the only place horses could move.

  Mulron ordered six hundred men to dig positions for themselves and the cannon and sent two hundred men each to blocking positions north and south, should any Narthani or Eywellese force attempt to flank them. Mulron also sent a platoon as a picket forward to within sight of the still-burning Wrexton.

  Then they waited.

  CHAPTER 37: FIVE DAYS LATER

  Keelan Manor, Caernford

  Pain was Culich Keelan’s constant companion. Alcohol was the only anesthetic the medicants prescribed for the stump of his leg. He ignored the medicants’ advice. The pain from his leg helped dull the pain from Anid’s death. The funeral ceremony had been held in St. Tomo’s Cathedral in Caernford three days previously, with Abbot Walkot leading the congregation and giving one of several eulogies. Maera spoke for the family and broke down several times before gathering herself and continuing. No one paid attention to her tears, because many in the audience cried along with her. Of the four Keelan daughters, Anid had been most favored by the people who knew her. Maera garnered respect, Mared fondness, and Ceinwyn exasperation, but it was Anid who drew love to herself simply by her presence.

  As sorrowful as the funeral was, it faded under the blazing anger of Keelanders from all corners of the province. It was bad enough that the Narthani had crippled their hetman, but to kill Anid and threaten Aeneas, the first grandchild, lit a fire within the people that would have shaken the Narthani, had they witnessed the consequences of the attack.

  Nowhere did the fire rage more than within the Keelan family. Yet while Culich and Maera let their fury vent, Breda Keelan was the family rock. She tended both her husband and Ceinwyn, whose head was half-sheathed in a bandage covering her almost-severed cheek. The medicants said Balwis’s quick action of holding the flap of flesh back in place had greatly increased the chances the tissue would live and heal. Yet they had no doubt Ceinwyn would bear a great scar, an expectation not yet apparent to Ceinwyn, as she dealt with the pains of her wound and the loss of her sister.

  No one had seen Breda sleep since the attack, though she must have, because no one could stay awake for five days and still function. When Maera finally forced her mother to get some needed sleep, Maera sat with her father. By unspoken agreement, they didn’t talk of Anid.

  “Do you think we’ve done the right thing, Father, attacking Eywell and threatening the Narthani? All the action is so far from communication, we can only imagine what’s happened.”

  “I hope we did, Maera. It seemed so simple a decision at the time. The last several days I keep asking myself whether I approved out of anger, rather than rational reasoning.”

  “The plan was already in place as one of the contingencies,” Maera reminded him.

  “Hypothetical situations on paper are not the same as sending men out to fight. Even if everything works as we planned, men will be killed. By God’s grace, we pray it’s not too many. Still, however many it is will weigh on me. Denes and our reaction force are the most vulnerable. They’re going straight at the Narthani, whereas Hetman Stent is only feigning to keep the Eywellese’s attention. Denes needs to remember their objective is not to fight battles, only to do enough damage that the Narthani and Eywellese are circumspect about future aggressions.”

  “Do we have any idea who the new Eywell hetman is or, should I say, who the Narthani installed?” asked Maera.

  “No idea,” Culich replied. “Almost certainly their dead from Moreland City included other members of the hetman’s family, boyermen, and other leaders. It’s not much different from the Moreland Clan. Who is now giving orders in Moreland seems to vary daily.”

  “Speaking of the Eywellese capital,” said Maera, “I can’t help but wonder if we’ll ever see Balwis Preddi and Wyfor Kales again. I’m still surprised Yozef sent them to do something so dangerous. I’m afraid I can’t see how they expect to succeed. I hope that at some point they realize how ludicrous the idea is and turn back before it’s too late.”

  “I agree, Maera, I feel the same. If it weren’t for everything else, I’d be mad at Yozef. On the other hand, he’s had strange, even insane-sounding ideas before, and they worked out. Maybe this will be another of those times.”

  “Father, I also pray the support group isn’t needed to help Denes’s men, and if it is, that Yozef remembers he shouldn’t be in the forefront of any fighting.”

  Culich didn’t tell his daughter that he also worried about his son-in-law. None of the three men tasked with keeping Yozef safe were now with him. Balwis and Kales were somewhere north, hopefully safe and on the way back from their attempt on the Narthani colonel, and Carnigan was recovering from moderate wounds inflicted during the assassination attempt. Although Yozef avowed no interest in being directly involved in fighting, somehow the man managed to contradict that claim every time he was near a fight.

  Unbeknownst to Culich, the same worry dogged Maera. She prayed that Yozef understood he was more valuable to the clan than anything he might do in a battle. To divert her thoughts, she changed the subject.

  “No further word on the attackers, Father?”

  “Not since searchers found the camp and wagons we believe they came in. Pedr traced the wagons to a stable in Salford. They found the only full-time worker in the stable dead beneath hay in one of the barns. A search of his home discovered enough to establish him as a Narthani agent, probably the one who passed messages to Narthani ships, as you found happening in Abersford.

  “The problem is that it’s difficult to see how he could have been the source of information about where I would be on that particular night. It’s too much to assume coincidence, so I believe there had to be at least one more spy located in Caernford. I’ve just learned from Vortig that one of the Caernford semaphore station assistants is missing. The one named Esyl Havant. He’s been to our home and, I assume, yours many times. It would have given him more than enough opportunity to keep track of all of us. I know the man and never noticed anything about him—”

  “Great God!” said Maera. “Esyl? If he was a Narthani spy, not only did he pay regular visits to our homes, but he must have seen many of the semaphore messages! In fact, he was at our house the same day of the attack.”

  “As for Keelan Manor,” said Culich. “I’m afraid I may know one source of his information. Mared was particularly friendly with him. She often fed him when he delivered messages. Just hours before the attack, he was in the kitchen with Mared. He always seemed too chummy and, I guess I’d say, innocuous. It might not have taken much for him to get information from Mared about our plans to eat at your house that night.”

  “Oh, Father! If that’s true, you can’t ever tell Mared. She’d never forgive herself for Anid.”

  The mention of Anid brought them both back to a topic they had attempted to avoid. The failure ended their discussion, and Maera sat silently until her father eventually dropped off to sleep.

  Outside Ponth, Preddi Province

  Denes Vegga worried, as he had done the last two days and for the same reason. The rapid-reaction force had moved across southern Eywell Province as fast as they could without exhausting the horses. Their pace was a compromise. If they moved too slowly, the Narthani and the Eywellese would learn of their presence and have time to gather forces. If they moved too fast, they risked their horses being unable to get them out of danger if they ran into trouble.

  Three hours ago, they’d reached a crossroads six miles east of the Preddi border. The Preddi town of Ponth lay ten miles farther. The fork heading north led to the Eywell town of Neath, also ten miles away. Denes stood next to his two majors, their horses held by aides. He had to make a choice.

  “Neath is an easier target,” said Major Kildorn. The Oros
zian had, like Denes and the other force’s major, Sixworth, been at Moreland City. He’d lost a close cousin at the battle and had eagerly led the battalion that swept the right flank of the raiding force’s path along the coast and, to Denes’s thinking, took excessive pleasure in watching Eywell villages burn.

  “True,” said Sixwith, “but our main purpose is to threaten Narthani territory, not the Eywellese.”

  Denes thought the Keelan major more capable than Kildorn and had left written instructions with aides that if Denes were killed or incapacitated, Sixwith should assume command. While Yozef argued that such chain-of-command arrangements should be set in advance, Denes still struggled to integrate men from different clans and hadn’t wanted it to appear that he favored a fellow clansman, a decision he regretted once the force committed to this raid.

  “Both points are correct,” said Denes. “I have sympathy for wanting to see an entire Eywell town the size of Neath burning, especially when we never thought we could do the same to Ponth, because we know the Narthani have men stationed there and those might have been reinforced. The Narthani must be aware of us by now and had to have reacted. Major Kildorn, I’m afraid you’ll have to satisfy your urge to burn by destroying whatever villages and farms we find between here and Ponth.”

  Denes held up the map in his left hand. “From here on, we leave the poor soil along the Eywell coastal plain and get into good farmland. There will be more people and structures, so more opportunities to raise havoc. The road to Ponth moves farther from the coast, so we’ll spread out a little more. Instead of moving in battalion column, we’ll move the two battalions abreast, as the artillery stays with me and the support people between battalions. Major Kildorn, spread three of your companies in line, aimed at Ponth, and the fourth company screening our flank and a couple of miles to our rear.“Major Sixwith, you’ll also put three companies in line, with the fourth aggressively scouting ahead. If we run into Narthani soldiers, I want to know as soon as possible. This is going to be a dangerous dance, Sers. Move and burn, while not getting burned ourselves. We have sixty miles to retrace back to Keelan territory, and we don’t want to fight our way back.”