by Greg Keyes
"Business, eh? I can imagine what kind. That's what I should have done. Now see where I am. But it's good to have you here, Cassro. Me and the boys here are about at our wit's end."
"You couldn't have started far from there," z'Acatto said.
"He was your leader?" Cazio asked Hemm.
"Just me and old Piro there fought in the twenty-year war," Hemm said. "The rest of these are too young."
"Right, but I've heard of him," Jan said.
"Who hasn't?" someone else piped up. "The battle at Cummachio Bridge? Everyone knows that story."
"I don't," Cazio said, sending a sharp look z'Acatto's way.
The men just laughed and seemed to think he was kidding.
"What exactly are you men doing out here?" z'Acatto asked.
"Ask him," Piro said, gesturing at Cazio. "The queen gave us to him to play with, and he fair broke us. The horsemen that didn't die at Dunmrogh rode off and left us, so it's just us infantry left. We've been hounded for days. Gave 'em the slip for a bit, but they've found us again. They're forming up down the road to finish us off. I thought we were dog meat, but with you here I see a chance."
"There's nothing I can do for you that you can't do yourselves," z'Acatto said.
"Gone all humble on us, have you, Cassro?" Hemm asked. "Come on. We need you."
"No, you don't."
"We've got good men here," Piro said, "but no leader. Now the queen put the young Pachiomadio there in charge of us, didn't she? And he got us in a bad spot. The way we see it, he should get us out of it."
"Right," Jan said. "Help us get back to Eslen."
"It's where we're going, anyway," Cazio said.
"I only agreed to help you find Austra," the old man said. "You're on your own getting back to Anne. But either way, we'll have an easier time slipping out of here alone."
"I see how it is," Piro said. "Can't say I don't understand, even though I hardly believe it coming from you, Cassro. You were never one to protect your own stang when there were them around needed you."
"That was then," z'Acatto said.
"Leave him be," Hemm said. "He was man enough back then for four lifetimes. I owe him my life six times over, so when I die tomorrow, I'll still owe him five."
"After all, z'Acatto," Cazio said, "you've got wine to drink. What's more important?"
"Dog's piss on the lot of you," z'Acatto snapped. "And Cazio, you cover your fester hole when you don't know what you're talking about."
"Right," Cazio said. "I've no idea what these fellows are talking about, and whose fault is that? But it doesn't matter. I wish Anne had never put these men in my charge. I wish I had refused her. I'm a swordsman, a good one, but I'm not a soldier and certainly not a leader. But if they're going to fight tomorrow, I have to fight with them."
"Now," Piro said, "that's Mamercio's son."
"What about Austra?"
"What about me?" a voice said from behind. He turned to find her leaning against the carriage. "I wouldn't have him do anything else. And I'll be here with him, z'Acatto, and you will, too, because as much as you don't want it in you, as much as you try to drink it away, you have a noble soul."
Z'Acatto heaved a sigh and looked around.
"Now, that was a pretty speech, lady," Piro said.
Then all eyes turned to z'Acatto. For a moment he had the look of a caged animal, but then Cazio saw something firm up in him.
"All right, purcii," he said. "We're wasting time. Somebody tell me what we're facing."
"There's ninety of us. Our scout's last count of them was seventy horse, sixty heavy foot, twenty archers."
Z'Acatto looked around at the men. "I make you at about half and half heavy and light. Does that get it?"
"Yes."
"We need a narrow field," he said. "Forest or cliff on our flanks. Anything like that around here?"
"I'll find it," a young rusty-haired fellow said.
"Do it, then," z'Acatto said. "Now, someone talk to me about supplies."
Cazio stayed with z'Acatto, trying to absorb what the old man was doing, to be what help he could, but in the end he felt rather useless. Z'Acatto and the soldiers spoke a language he didn't understand, and it wasn't the patois of the king's tongue, Vitellian, and Almannish but something deeper, rooted in common experience. He said as much to Austra that night when he went to check on her.
"You've marched with soldiers before," she pointed out.
"We marched alongside them," he said. "But I never fought as a soldier. In fact, tomorrow I've no idea what I'll do. I'm not a pikeman, I can't shoot a bow, and a rapier isn't much use in a battle formation."
"Did you have any idea? About z'Acatto?"
"There were hints, I guess. Ospero called him 'Emrature' once, and I knew my father and he fought in the wars, but he wouldn't talk about it. I never imagined that soldiers somewhere were still telling stories about him."
"Well, it sounds like they trust him to lead them," Austra said. "And they know more about what we're up against than we do."
"They have no choice, though. You remember the army we fought at Langraeth? They were all infantry, like these men. Anne's horse destroyed them. It's hard to fight cavalry."
Austra leaned up and kissed him. "We've been in a lot tighter spots than this."
"True," Cazio said. "But those were situations where being a swordsman counted for something."
"You'll always count, Cazio," Austra said. "The saints love you as much as I do."
He smiled. "Errenda gave me you, so I know she loves me. I'm pretty sure Fiussa has a soft spot for me."
"Courting two female saints? That could lead to trouble."
He felt a guilty little start and then another at the novel feeling of guilt.
"I don't think I'll be courting any other women, saints or no," he said, suddenly feeling very out of sorts.
"I was just joking, Cazio."
"I'm not," he heard himself say. "In fact, I hope that you'll agree to marry me."
She frowned. "Look, don't joke," she said.
"I'm not. I can't offer you much more than you see, but I'll give you that."
She just stared at him. "You really do think we're about to be killed, don't you?"
"That's not it," he said. "I love you, Austra. I've just figured out how much, and I feel foolish for not knowing it earlier, for not marrying you the day we set foot in Eslen. I hope you'll forgive me for that."
"I really do," she said, her eyes watering. She kissed him, and it lasted a long time.
"Just another reason we have to go to Eslen," he said, stroking her hair. "I have to ask Anne's permission to steal you away."
"She's already given it," Austra said. "She told me before she sent me away. She said she's going to create you a duke or something and give me leave to marry you."
"Duke?" Cazio said.
"Or some title. Lord Dunmrogh, maybe."
"I have a title already," he said. "It's not much of one, but I was born with it."
"You can have more than one, you know."
"Hmm. Duke Cazio. Duoco Cazio. That doesn't sound half-bad."
Something rustled outside, and then there was a tap on the carriage door. He opened it, and found Jan standing there.
"Aeken found a place," the soldier informed them. The Emrature wants us there before sunup, so gangen we now."
The march took them about a league east to an old levee on the Saint Sephod River, and once there they went to work quickly, cutting stakes and digging trenches. The latter was easy, because the field the embankment looked down on had been plowed that spring and the soil was loose, without roots or other hindrances to the spade.
Z'Acatto paced about with more sustained energy than Cazio had ever seen in him. He wasn't even sure if the old man was drunk.
Taking a break from digging, Cazio went up on the levee to see how things were forming up.
On his right the field gave way to low, swampy forest, but on the left it was relatively unbo
unded. The carriage and the two remaining wagons of their supply train were drawn up as barriers there, but Cazio didn't imagine they would offer much protection. The dirt in front of the levee now had three wide toothy grins of stakes and trenches.
Z'Acatto joined him.
"Had enough of digging?" he asked.
"I'll go back to it in a moment," Cazio said. He gestured at the field. "Why have you backed us against a river? We can't retreat."
"That's a funny thing for you to say," z'Acatto replied. "I've never heard you talk about retreating before."
"It's not just me here."
The old man nodded. "Right. That's what I hate about it. You see?"
"I'm starting to," Cazio said. "But I wish you had told me more."
"I've just been trying to forget all that," the old man said. "I never meant for you to have anything to do with this sort of business."
"It's not your fault. My own choices led me here."
"I'm not disputing that," z'Acatto replied.
"So why no retreat?"
Z'Acatto shrugged. "They have greater numbers, and we don't have enough pikes to make an effective battle square. We need our backs and flanks safe."
"The left flank looks pretty open."
"It'll slow a cavalry charge," z'Acatto said. "It's the best we can do, given the time we have. Anyway, retreat isn't an option. We have to win. If we don't, we're done."
"What if they bring more men than we think?"
"Our scouts are pretty good. They might pick up another man or two, but for some reason the bulk of Hespero's forces seem to be going east."
"East? What's east?"
"I've no idea, nor do I care. We've problems enough here."
"Can we win?"
Z'Acatto lifted his hands but didn't answer in words.
"What's my part in all of this?"
"I'm putting half the archers on the field and half strung through the forest, there. They won't send horse at the forest, but they will probably detach infantry. You'll protect the archers."
Cazio nodded, relieved. He'd imagined himself in the press, holding a pike, and didn't care for the image.
Z'Acatto's gaze shifted.
"There they are," he said.
The horsemen formed a block in the center, and the footmen were lined up behind them with archers on their wings. Cazio had seen the formation before; it was essentially a cavalry hammer, ready to smash them. When the smashing was done, the foot would come in and clean up.
What he had never seen before, however, was the formation in which z'Acatto had put his men.
They stood tightly packed in columns five deep, with the ten columns arranged in a sort of hollow wedge open to the river. Z'Acatto called it a "hedgehog," and with their pikes bristling out, it resembled one. The men had the pikes braced at their feet and set at various angles from low to high so that anyone charging in had to deal with at least five wicked levels of sharpness.
The bowmen who weren't with Cazio in the woods had formed in ranks, too, out in front of the hedgehog.
No one had come out to offer terms, and it didn't look like they would. They just kept coming closer, the horses and the metal-clad men on them looking bigger and bigger.
The archers began firing into the horsemen both from the field and from the trees. The enemy archers returned fire, targeting those visible on the field, but after a moment, as predicted, a line of about thirty spearmen with large, heavy shields broke away from the enemy foot and started plodding toward them.
Concentrating on their progress, Cazio missed the start of the charge, but he heard the shouts and turned to see it begin.
Ignoring the approaching spearmen, the archers around him concentrated their fire on the cavalry, as did those on the field, and the effect was astonishing. Five or six of the lead horses and their riders went down, followed immediately by another ten or so tripping over the fallen. The hedgehog archers poured shafts into the confusion, creating further havoc. The charge slowed to a crawl under the deadly rain, but the forty or so horsemen who remained mounted quickly re-formed and charged at the archers. They were slowed by the stakes, however, and several dismounted and began uprooting them, giving the archers plenty of time to retreat behind the battle wedge and take their places on the levee, where they could send more darts down on the enemy line.
While half the bowmen in the woods were still helping to riddle the cavalry, the other half had begun firing at the approaching infantrymen, who were now only about thirty kingsyards away, moving their shield wall along with good discipline.
There had been sporadic fire from the enemy archers, but Cazio didn't see any more of them.
"Move back," Cazio said, echoing z'Acatto's orders. "They won't be able to keep that shield wall in the woods."
As ordered, the bowmen started backing into the swamp, continuing to fire at the infantry, whose shields were now pretty well feathered. Seven of them had already dropped out of formation, either dead or too gravely wounded to keep on, but that left the numbers pretty even, and although the archers had swords with them, they didn't have shields or spears.
The cavalry was charging again, and this time there was nothing between them and the hedgehog. The massed horsemen looked unstoppable.
Mirroring the horse, the infantry advancing on Cazio's archers sent up a hoarse cry and charged.
Cazio drew Acredo.
"Run," he told the archers. "Back to the wedge."
Although, glancing that way, he wondered if there would be anything to retreat to.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE WAY OF POWER
THE GRASS RIPPLED, shifting to trees and hills as Anne unraveled herself and moved like a cloud. She had been afraid at first of discorporation, but in the sedos realm, the body was more illusion than anything else. Once that deception was put behind, there was much fun to be had. She could twine like grapevines through massive forests or flow like rainwater down a hillside. She could choose another illusory body. She had played at being a horse, an eagle, a porpoise, a spider, a creeping lizard. They felt more welcome in her thoughts now, too, more easy. The more she used her power, the more secure her identity seemed to become.
She had to remind herself sometimes that she wasn't there just for simple enjoyment. She never wanted to leave and returned more and more often whether or not there was anything particular she was looking for.
In fact, sometimes she forgot what she was looking for.
But not today. Today she drifted back days and toward the south.
She saw the army of the Church massed in the thousands at Teremene. That was nothing new, and already half of her army was marching to meet them. Looking at them now, she felt a coldness in her belly. Crotheny was caught in a vise; the Hansans were being held at Poelscild, but to attack with enough force to drive them back would mean letting the Church come to her gates, and the south was poorly defended. She had seen, too, a new fleet of strange copper-skinned men sailing down from the north, from Rakh Fadh, in the company of tow-headed Weihand raiders. That sailing hadn't happened yet, and the results of it seemed inaugurable.
And in the south the future was also unclear. Sometimes she saw massive carnage, sometimes an unhindered march, sometimes nothing.
None of this was new, nor did it long hold her attention. She was looking for her friends.
She already had seen Cazio, captured by the Church. She knew there was something missing, someone he had talked to that she could not focus on. But she also knew he and z'Acatto were free again.
Austra had been the hardest to find.
She imagined her friend's face, her laugh, and the chagrined pucker of her forehead when she was afraid Anne was about to get them both into trouble.
And there was something, a reflection, a flicker in the distance of leagues and also time. But as Anne moved toward it to peek up from the sedos like a groundhog from the earth, a current of sickening power caught and twisted her misty form, a massive flow against which sh
e could not struggle. It slammed her into something, submerged her in pain and horror, and congealed her back into human form.
Someone was cutting her. She smelled the blood, felt the pain. His stinking breath was in her ear, and she saw her legs all exposed and smeared red. She felt the fear, sheer panic, the certain horrible knowledge that she was going to die, the animal need to tear away and run and the impossibility of doing so. She couldn't even think. She couldn't scream. She could only watch as the knife peeled her white skin.
Fight! she tried to scream. Stop him!
When the echo came back, she suddenly understood that this wasn't happening to her. The body being tortured was Austra's.
Fight, Austra, for the love of the saints! I can't lose you!
Something turned then, and Anne was yanked back out into the currents. For the first time she saw Austra's face, her empty, horrified gaze, and then she was dwindling away, gone.
Anne went frantically back, racing up and down, back and forth, but there was no longer any trace of her friend, and now she couldn't locate Cazio again. But she didn't give up; she had to find them. She had the power to find them, to bring them back from the dead if need be, and by all the saints, she would do so.
She woke shivering and shaking, wondering who she was, where she was, the sense of losing herself as bad as ever. She was weeping helplessly, and although she eventually understood that it was Emily who had awakened her, she wasn't able to respond. Only after Nerenai brought some of her tea was she able to muster the coherence to listen.
"Again, Emily," she murmured.
"Majesty," Emily said. "The army of Hansa."
She opened her eyes and saw the girl kneeling next to her.
"What about them?"
"You've been…gone for two days. We could not rouse you."
"What's happened?"
"Fifteen thousand more of the enemy arrived two nights ago. They attacked yesterday morning. They've just breached the canal and are surrounding the keep."
The keep surrounded. Austra and Cazio dead. The Church, the fleet from the north…
Too much. Too much.
