by Tim Akers
“If this is what passes for wine in the north,” Martin muttered.
“You are an odd man, Sir Roard.”
“Odd enough. So.” Martin set his flagon aside and rested his hands on the table. “How’s the rebellion?”
“Rebellion?”
“That’s what they’re calling it,” Martin said. “The high inquisitor and his happy little band. They’re saying all manner of things. That Tener is withdrawing from the Celestial church. That you’ve appointed your own electors, and your own celestriarch. That MaeHerron is turning Suhdrin pilgrims away from the winter shrine, or holding them hostage, or planning on destroying Cinderfell.”
“All ridiculous,” Ian said. “Halverdt’s just trying to stir trouble in the south. Convince you to join your banners to this ridiculous crusade.”
“Why do you think I’m here?” Martin asked. He glanced over his shoulder at the ranks of spears, the rows of tents and pillared campfires spread out on the hills behind him. The banner of House Roard stirred lazily among the tents, alongside Marchand and LeGaere. “My father pressed to hold this flank alone. The high inquisitor doesn’t trust us, Ian.”
“And if Marchand and LeGaere march across this ford, will you march with them?” Ian asked. Martin drank slowly from his flagon, pausing to refill it and stare sightlessly down the river before he answered.
“Nothing is known today,” he said. “Sacombre is making a difficult case. House Adair’s actions cannot be denied, and they are deeply suspicious.”
“Suspicious in what way? That Gwen decided to stand up to Henri Volent, rather than stand aside and let him commit slaughter?”
“The gheist, the summoning, even the priest that rode with her. Apparently this Frair Lucas is something of a rogue in the inquisition. Not got the best reputation. It was his attendant vow knight who rescued you in Greenhall.”
“What in gods’ names has that got to do with any of this?” Ian sat up straight, forgetting the wine half-raised to his lips. “Martin, there was a riot in Greenhall. Not because of anything that we did, but because that monster Volent spread his lies and got Marchand to overstep the bounds of the tournament. That man tried to kill me.”
“It’s a tournament,” Martin mumbled. “People get hurt.”
“Gods, listen to you. I thought we were friends.”
“We are, and not just you and I. Our houses. Which is why I’m here.” Martin fiddled with his wine for a minute more, then set it aside and leaned urgently forward. “You need to promise me something.”
“I don’t like the way this is going.”
“Just listen for a minute. Sacombre has more than convinced the majority of the Suhdrin lords that this is the beginning of a war. Not against Suhdra, or the church, or even against Halverdt. People are starting to believe that this is a war against the gods themselves.”
“Martin, you can’t believe that,” Ian said. “You know my heart as well as any man. I’m faithful to the church, if not all of its priests. Especially not to the inquisition. But that doesn’t make a heretic of me.”
“Yet you have the tribal ink, and that pagan dog in your tombs…”
“That is a matter of tradition,” Ian snapped. “Not faith. I’m Tenerran, as you are Suhdrin. We’re not going to tear down our houses and put up white marble villas, just because our walls remind you of the old ways.”
“It makes things difficult. You must know that,” Martin said with a sigh. “There are murals of the Spirit Wars—”
“Call them what they are. The crusades,” Ian interrupted. “The pogrom.”
“Names, hundreds of years old,” Martin said dismissively. “There are murals of battles in the halls of my home. I have seen these murals since I was a child, of Suhdrin knights and godly priests fighting the hordes of the mad spirit warriors from your history. Abominations of man and god tearing through holy men, their blood painting the trees of the forest, and rank after rank of tribesmen, each face scrawled with the pagan script. It’s a difficult image to forget.”
“Men like Sacombre make sure no one forgets,” Ian said tightly. “Especially those in the north.”
“Ian, don’t take it personally. I have knelt with you at the Frostnight, drunk your health on the high days and seen your ashes on the low. I know you’re a man of the gods.” Martin paused and leaned back. He couldn’t bring his eyes to meet his friend’s gaze. “What I don’t know is the faith of your fellows.”
Ian was silent for a long time. The river flowed around them, the skip creaking roughly against the riverbed, the distant sounds of two war camps drifting over the water.
“You believe him,” he said finally.
“No, not… not entirely. Sacombre has an agenda, and there’s something else going on. I don’t know what. There were many priests, all traveling with him and his little army…”
“And I am supposed to surrender, simply because Sacombre has a couple dozen guards among your banners?”
“Half our number, maybe—but that’s not the point. Most of his priests are gone. Disappeared in the night, like bad dreams. No one’s seen Sir Volent, either.”
“Gone back to Greenhall?”
“Ian, you’re not listening to me. I think House Adair is manipulating you. All of you. I think they want a war with the south.”
“Was it House Adair that drove us out of Greenhall? House Adair that nearly killed me on the tourney ground, or hunted our host through the forests of Suhdra and chased us to the banks of the Tallow, killing our people as we ran?”
“No, but Gwendolyn Adair tossed the stone that created that avalanche,” Martin said. “And Gwendolyn Adair was waiting for you at the Tallow, ready to join your strength to hers. I think you know less of her than you should.”
“I know enough. I know her name, and I know her blood.” Ian stood, shifting the balance of the raft ever so slightly. The prow began to nose into the current. “We are Tenerran, and we will stand together.”
“There is more to faith than culture, Ian. Don’t forget that.”
“You asked for a promise,” Ian said. “What is it?”
“If we come across this ford… when we do,” Martin answered, “find me. I can offer you sanctuary. I’m not sure the other Suhdrin knights can make that promise.”
“When you come across this ford, Martin, you should find me.” Ian vaulted over the raft’s side and landed with a splash in the water. “But all I can offer you is my blade, and I’m sure the other Tenerran knights will be eager to make the same promise.”
25
A NEW FOREST WAS gathering at the border. It was a forest of banners, pavilion hills, and fields of spears massing along the Tallow, with another closer to the Fen, much larger. The survivors of the disastrous battle of the Tallow had reformed, reinforced by new columns from the south. An army of Suhdrin lords and their loyal men.
Gwen watched them from the limestone bluffs, an area of sheer cliffs and rough water known as the Redoubt. Her men were camped along the flat tops of the bluffs, all taken from the force alongside which Malcolm Blakley had refused to ride during the previous week’s battle. She counted five dozen good spears under her banners, most of them men-at-arms, with half that many archers and half again knights. All told, she had just over a hundred men to hold a border so long it would take five days to march from one end to the other. It wasn’t enough.
“I don’t think Houndhallow understands the task he has given us,” Gwen muttered.
“He knows it well enough,” Merret said. “Just as he knows only an Adair can hope to hold this land.”
“Perhaps, but the Suhdrin numbers grow by the day. It doesn’t seem as though Castian Jaerdin’s letters found many receptive ears.”
“True,” Sir Merret agreed. “Even spread across the whole border, there are too many.” He stood beside his lady on the bluff, supporting his weight on the banner that flew her colors. “More than enough to see us finished.”
“If met in the open field, yes
,” Gwen agreed. “Happily, the Fen is short on open fields.” Their view extended from the field of the battle of the Tallow to the east, all the way to where the Fen’s rolling forests crossed the river and spilled into Suhdrin lands. The Redoubt split this distance, and this section of the Tallow ran fast and deep. If Greenhall meant to cross into Adair land at any of the dozens of fords that covered this distance, Gwen’s knights would be ready.
“I count six of the great houses of Sudhra,” Merret said.
“I didn’t think to find Roard among them. They are close to the Blakleys, I’m told.”
“We are close to the Blakleys,” Merret answered, “but he had no interest in riding with us in battle. Their friendship may mean less than we thought.”
“As much as I hate to admit it, Houndhallow was right,” Gwen said. “Our place is on this side of the river. In defense.” She adjusted the buckling on her shoulder plates, squirming under the heavy metal. She wasn’t used to this much armor—it had taken her father’s direst warnings to get the huntress into plate-and-half. “We have much to protect,” she muttered, thinking of the witches’ hallow, tucked away in the forests near her ancestral castle, bounded by pagan wards.
“Still, to miss out on that first battle…” Merret said. “The Blakley victory seems only to have strengthened the Suhdrin resolve. We must hold them on that side of the river. If they make it beyond the Tallow, their numbers will bear against us. They can fill the forests with their banners, and drive to the Fen Gate in less than a month.”
“A bloody month,” Gwen said.
“Aye.”
“Once beyond the Tallow their horses will mire in the swamps,” she said, “and those shiny spears will get tangled in the Fen.”
“Houndhallow’s army holds at White Lake. His son defends the flank. All we must do is wait, and hope the armies arrayed against us strike elsewhere.”
“I’d rather not wait,” Gwen said. She pulled her banner from the ground and marched down the hill toward their campsite. “It is not in my nature.”
“Houndhallow tasked us with holding the Tallow,” Merret said.
“He did, and we shall,” she replied with a grim grin. “Just not this side of it.”
* * *
There were other ways across the river. Gwendolyn left Sir Merret in charge of the Redoubt, then took a handful of knights and forty men-at-arms—nearly half her complement—and marched west. They left their banners behind, so that any eyes that watched the Adair camps might not notice the deficit in their ranks.
Each man brought two horses and enough food to last a week. If they needed more than that, her plan had already failed, and food would be the least of their concerns. Gwen’s pack of hunting dogs followed at their flanks, sliding smoothly through the forest like gray fog.
Two days and they came to the ford at Highbeck, a dead place in the distant woods, once a village for shamans and the witching wives who used to attend some lost pagan site, abandoned after the crusade. A gnarled tree grew out of the village well, its limbs twisted and gray with moss. Still in the saddle, Gwen drew her men around her in its sparse shadow.
“We’ll camp here,” she said. “Camp and hunt. Brennan, Hogue, each of you take half the men and establish barracks here in the village. One of you will hunt while the other rests and guards the village. I want spears in the forest at all times.”
“There’s boar enough in these woods to keep us going for an age, m’lady, but why did we come all this way to hunt?”
“We’re not hunting boar, though we’ll need food soon enough. No, we’re here to hunt Acorns. The hunting party will cross the ford and find the Suhdrin flank. Harry their scouts, nip at their heels.”
“Halverdt will just turn his face to us, and we haven’t the men to resist him,” Brennan said.
“The bulk of Halverdt’s force remains at White Lake, and the rest are watching the Redoubt. He may send a lance or two in our direction, but nothing we can’t handle. Especially in this terrain.” Gwen stood in her stirrups and looked out over the gathered men. “There is nothing of value in these woods, nothing but the old, mad gods and broken villages. No army could pass along these trails. None would dare. If nothing else, fear of the gheists will keep them at bay.”
“These woods are haunted, my lady. Their fear is just,” one of her men said. He was one of the younger ones in her party. “We should not be traveling here.”
“You have your huntress with you, sir. Why should you fear?”
“What if our trouble is more mortal than godly?” another asked. “If Halverdt stirs and turns toward us? If he sends Volent to come at us with strength?”
“We fall back across the river,” Gwen said. “We run for our lives.”
There was grumbling at that, but the men knew that if they were to hunt, they must also be ready to retreat. The war had to be waged at advantage, or not at all.
“Listen to me,” she said, her voice rising. “We will not be gathering glory or ransom. We will not be capturing banners or freeing the land from the tyrant’s boot. Greenhall will not fall by our efforts, but if we are fast, and cruel, and committed to the blade, we may disturb the Acorn’s sleep. The duke of Greenhall will not rest easy while we hunt, nor Sir Volent reave without cost. Because wherever he walks, the ground will be soaked in the blood of his men. That is our prey, good sirs. That is our ransom.” She drew her blade and held it aloft, anger twisting her words. “The blood of lesser men! Their blood and their fear!”
The men stirred from their saddles, raising in their stirrups and cheering. Then Gwen divided them according to their ranks and handed command over to Brennan and Hogue. They established a camp in a ruined beer hall, building hidden guard posts to overlook the ford and the paths that approached the village. After a short rest, Sir Brennan drew his men together and led them across the ford.
Gwendolyn rode with them, her hounds eager at her flank, diving into the woods, the scent of blood in their noses.
* * *
They twisted their way through the Fen and brought their spears to the broad plains beyond. Their first prey was a hunting party of Suhdrin rangers, gathering meat for the war party to the east. Gwen’s men fell on their camp just as dusk reached the sky, coming out of the setting sun on horses as fast as the wind.
The rangers thought themselves far from the battle lines and their watches were lazy. Gwen led the charge, yelling her heart’s rage as she scythed into the camp. A few of the enemy reached their bows and sent arrows into the charge, but they were tipped with broad arrowheads meant for tearing flesh and bleeding deer. Their shafts rattled off Gwen’s men, whose armor was more than a match for the volley, and then it was down to the chase, horses overrunning soft huntsmen, hooves shattering bones and spears piercing bellies. The gore of their first kill was still steaming when Gwen’s men finished with the slaughter.
They found the only landed man among the dead, a lesser knight whose signet of a deer’s head and spear was unfamiliar to Gwen, and splayed his body on the long spit over the ranger’s fire. Then they burned the fatty corpses of the boar that the hunters had already gathered, denying the meat to Halverdt’s army.
“Let them eat their dead,” Gwen muttered as she led her men back. Brennan plundered the deer-banner from the hunting party, and they flew it whenever horses appeared on the horizon.
She took them farther east on the return trip, hoping to gather a few more dead from Halverdt’s army before she took her rest in Highbeck. In her head she kept hearing the animal screams of those peasants as Volent slaughtered them. The sound drove her on.
There was a thick orbit of scouting parties closer to the main body of Halverdt’s army, attentive men on swift horses who from a distance saluted Gwen’s party as though they were expected. That trick wouldn’t last long, she mused, once the bodies were found.
Two days out and three back, and they found themselves once again in the Fen. Gwen’s pack ran down a brace of deer to keep them fed. She
ordered Brennan to burn the banner and cover their tracks. Any party they stumbled across in the near hills and tight paths would be too close to trick.
* * *
She ambled at the head of the column, their ranks tight on the narrow path, spears stowed to keep them from getting tangled in the low-hanging branches of wirewood that clogged the horizon. She and Sir Brennan discussed their next turning, and whether it was time to head back to Highbeck to give Hogue’s men a turn at murdering Suhdrin bastards.
“They’ll be after us as soon as they find Sir Deer,” Brennan said, referring to the dead ranger left turning on a spit. “Best to be clear before Volent gets a sniff of our trail.”
“And let Sir Hogue face them in all their strength? As much as I’m sure he would appreciate the glory, it hardly seems fair to sneak away without leaving a few more bloody bones in our wake.”
“I’m okay with fewer bloody bones if it means getting home with all the men. There will be no proper burials on this trail, no priest to cut them into the quiet house, no cairns to pile. These are honorable men. They deserve a good death.”
“A good death,” Gwen said with a smile. “By which you mean a death on a field, under the sun, in the charge, and not skulking around the Fen, cutting down rangers, and burning wagons full of grain.”
Brennan shrugged. He wore the Adair colors, but his shield was blazoned with his family crest. The blue axe and fist were spattered with mud, as were his face, his hair, and the bright tackle of his horse’s kit. All the men looked the same, their faces grim and tired. Their voices mingled with the birdsong to raise a low murmur among the trees. The sound of it was mesmerizing. Gwen found herself swaying in her saddle listening to jangling bridles, the thwack of spear shaft on tree, the shing of chain mail, and grumbling voices and laughter.
The ford came into view, and the sound of the Tallow’s waters drifted through the trees. Gwen rode to the head of the column. One of the men who had been sent forward to scout was waiting for them. Sir Brennan spurred forward to get a report. He and the scout talked briefly, then he motioned Gwen forward.
