Irons in the Fire (Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution)

by Juliet E. McKenna

  "All quiet?" Sorgrad stepped lightly onto the stone stairway.

  "Cursed boring," the swordsman growled.

  "We'll see what we can do about that," Gren promised.

  "Shall I take your gear?" With dry stone safely beneath his boots, Tathrin turned to Reher.

  "Thank you." The big man answered Tathrin with a wry smile. "I don't like water and it doesn't like me." He handed his canvas sack to Tathrin and clambered awkwardly out of the shallow boat.

  "Where's Arest?" Sorgrad asked.

  The mercenary jerked his head. "On the east gate."

  As they climbed the narrow spiral staircase, Tathrin wondered if the burly captain would insist that Reher strip to his underlinen to prove he had no mercenary tattoos.

  "Going to see Arest." Sorgrad passed through the side room of the bridge's central tower with a brief wave. The swordsmen sitting round a game of runes barely looked up.

  Outside Tathrin heard the clip of an iron shoe as one of the horses stabled in the archway shifted. The roadway was dark, all the lit torches confined to the outer faces of the gates at each end. Tathrin still listened for the spiteful chirp of arrows coming out of the darkness. How many militiamen were camped on the banks? Could Arest's men break out, as Sorgrad planned?

  A solitary watchman stood by the oak door of the eastern gatehouse.

  "Zeil? Where's the boss?"

  Tathrin wondered how Sorgrad could recognise anyone in the gloom. But it was Zeil.

  "Up top."

  A narrow stone stair built into the width of the wall ran up to the room above the gate. Arest was leaning against the portcullis mechanism, looking out of a crossbowman's firing slit. Tathrin peered through another one. Campfires beyond the causeway were bright dots in the distant darkness.

  Arest reached for a candle lantern hung on a nail and slid its metal shutter up to let out more light. "Don't fret, lad. At least a third of those fires are false lures, just lit to make us think they have more men than they do." He looked at Reher. "Who's this? A new recruit?"

  Arest was half a head shorter than Reher but broader in the shoulder and sturdier in the leg. Tathrin wouldn't know who to wager on, if the two men were to wrestle.

  "He's a smith with a talent for starting fires." Sorgrad grinned. "Now, Lady Alaric reckons you'll be bored with this game by now."

  "I'll say." Arest spat on the floor. "Orlin, pissing Duke of Parnilesse, hasn't sent us a copper penny, for all his promises of gold for every day we hold the bridge. Duke Secaris of Draximal, the horse-kisser, he's not offering anything to get his river crossing back."

  "How's the pickings hereabouts?" Gren was still counting campfires.

  "We can keep ourselves fed. Send out boats at dawn and dusk and foraging parties give the militiamen the slip easy enough." Arest scowled. "Beyond that, anywhere within reach is picked clean of dainties and there wasn't much to send home to mother to start with. As for entertainment, Halcarion's tits, it's impossible to find a willing whore. Try for a taste of honey and you risk a pitchfork up the arse while your breeches are round your ankles."

  "So you and the boys would take a hire from Lady Alaric?" Sorgrad asked.

  Arest's narrow eyes brightened. "Her word's always gold in the hand."

  "She wants you and the lads to break out on both banks to start a panic." Sorgrad gestured back towards the town. "Convince the Draximal militia that Duke Orlin of Parnilesse is trying push his border north to the bridge." He nodded in the direction of the causeway. "Go through those peasants like a dose through a sick horse and kick the Parnilesse militia so hard they run back to Duke Orlin screaming that Duke Secaris of Draximal is seizing all the forest up to the southern margin."

  Arest looked doubtful. "Why would anyone believe either duke's found stones that big in his codpiece?"

  Sorgrad smiled. "Because every militiaman will be running with his breeches on fire, swearing by every god from Saedrin down that the enemy's got a wizard."

  Arest was astonished. "Lady Alaric wants to spit in the Archmage's eye?"

  "Lady Alaric has found this smith who knows all the secrets of Aldabreshin sticky fire." Sorgrad nodded at Reher. "There isn't a peasant between here and the sea who can tell the difference between that and real magecraft."

  Arest looked thoughtful. "But the dukes will have seen real wizardry. They'll know when they're looking at a sham."

  "They're not here to see it," Sorgrad pointed out. "All they'll know will be twice- and thrice-told tales."

  "Which will have them pissing themselves regardless, for fear their enemy's found some secret ally, renegade mage or Aldabreshin alchemist." Arest rubbed a broad hand over his chin, bristles rasping in the silence. "What's Lady Alaric got coming to the boil that needs this much lamp oil thrown on the embers here?"

  "She'll bar her door to me if I tell you." Sorgrad shook his head, regretful. "Tighter than Saedrin locks the door to the Otherworld. But when you break out of here, head west across the Triolle hills and then cut north to the uplands above Losand. You'll find Captain-General Evord there, and you can tell him I sent you."

  "Evord's back in the game?" Arest looked keenly interested.

  Warfare was just a game to these people? Tathrin hid his contempt behind an impassive face. Innocent men and women were no pieces to be played and discarded, lives worth no more than copper cut-pieces won and lost in a game of runes.

  "Only take men you know he'll accept on his muster," Gren warned.

  "Do you think I'm a fool?" Arest's scorn was half-hearted. Clearly, he was already thinking ahead.

  Letting the others go down the stair ahead of him, Tathrin caught Sorgrad's elbow. "How much mayhem will Arest and his men wreak as they pass through Triolle and Carluse?" he asked in an angry undertone.

  "Very little." Sorgrad shook his hand off. "Harvest's been good, so the farmers can buy them off with bread and beer and maybe a pig-killing."

  Gren's sharp ears heard their exchange. He looked back. "They won't be idling in hopes of casual plunder, long lad. Not if there's a chance of signing onto Evord's muster roll."

  "Don't begrudge them food and drink along the way, not if you want them to fight for Lescar's peace." Sorgrad looked up at Tathrin, his eyes hard. "Not when some of them are going to bleed and die for it."

  Reher turned, his face shadowed by some grim memory. "There'll be blood on all our hands before morning. Get used to it, friend."

  Tathrin swallowed and couldn't find anything to say.

  He followed the others back to the central tower and up to the wide room spanning the whole bridge. It was as loud and rowdy as he remembered. Mercenaries huddled over rune games in different corners and others were laughing raucously as they swapped tattered broadsheets. Lewdly illustrated tales and graphic accounts of hanged felons' crimes, Tathrin guessed. Over by the windows, men and women dipped horn cups into open barrels, talking loudly with expansive gestures, ale slopping to dampen the flagstones. Sorgrad and Gren were already by the fireside, greeting old friends and being offered their choice from the seething pots in the hearth.

  "I don't suppose their food will choke us." Reher glanced at him.

  So whatever else he might be, the blacksmith didn't count himself a mercenary. That was some comfort to Tathrin. He nodded, accepted the offer of a bowl of fishy stew with a brief word of thanks and found a space to sit. As he ate, he watched Arest moving from group to group, talking in low tones. Around the room, all eyes were intent on the captain. As Arest moved on, dark heads, red hair and tangled black curls drew close together in quiet debate. Every so often someone wandered over to the hearth to exchange a few words with Sorgrad or Gren.

  "No one owns the river fish, so no one's been robbed to feed us." Reher came to sit beside him with a second steaming bowlful.

  Before Tathrin could answer, a mercenary hunkered down in front of them. It was Jik, the tall, thin man who'd taken his dagger till Sorgrad made him give it back.

  "They say you know about
sticky fire?" He looked sceptically at Reher.

  "Do they?" The smith's bearded face gave nothing away.

  "Where's the makings of it?" Jik looked at Reher's canvas sack.

  "Only a fool would bring such things anywhere near a live flame." Reher used his spoon to point towards the hearth.

  Jik grinned. "Right, then."

  Tathrin watched him walk casually back to the men who'd first captured him when he was trying to find Sorgrad and Gren.

  "You've seen how dry the woods and fields are. Sticky fire could set half the dukedom alight, couldn't it?" If only half the tales that minstrels told were true, the Aldabreshin concoction was all but unquenchable.

  "You think we'd really use such gods-cursed stuff?" Reher said in a terse undertone.

  "Then what's the plan?" Tathrin was confused.

  "Sorgrad sets the fires on one bank and I set them on the other. We have the same talent for it." Reher glowered at him. "Don't breathe a word about that."

  The blacksmith was a wizard? Tathrin nodded mutely and ate his fish stew.

  Reher went over to the fireplace and exchanged a few words with Sorgrad. The Mountain Man glanced at Tathrin. Arest joined the two men for a brief conversation.

  The atmosphere in the room was changing. Tathrin saw the rune bones swept up and the ragged engravings folded away. Men were running whetstones along swords and daggers. He watched one pox-scarred man test the edge of his blade by shaving the dark hair off his forearm. Gren was wont to do the same. One of the men who'd been drinking deepest from the ale barrels thrust his fingers down his throat. Tathrin felt his own gorge rise as the man stuck his head out of the narrow window and vomited noisily.

  Sorgrad and the blacksmith came over. "Tathrin, you stick with me like a calf to its cow and you'll be safe enough. Reher, you're going over to the eastern bank with Gren. Once the peasants are pissing themselves for fear of magefire, Gren will see you safe back across the river. He knows where we're meeting up."

  "Don't fret." Gren appeared at the big man's elbow. "I can't lose someone your size."

  Tathrin cleared his throat. "Should I sharpen my sword?"

  Gren chuckled. "Only if you want to give the lads a laugh. You use a whetstone like you're cleaning a ploughshare."

  "Ploughman's an honest trade." Reher's stare challenged Gren.

  "True enough," the Mountain Man said equably.

  "Just sit still and don't get underfoot," Sorgrad advised Tathrin.

  The Mountain Man talked to him like his mother. Galling as Tathrin found it, he decided this wasn't the time to rebuke him.

  Sorgrad turned away with Gren to talk to some other mercenaries. Reher sat down beside Tathrin again.

  "So whereabouts are you from?"

  Sorgrad had told Tathrin to share nothing of his background with the mercenaries. But Reher wasn't a mercenary. He was from Carluse, and if he was a wizard, perhaps Tathrin could trust him to take word to his family. Because, as Tathrin was realising with a sinking feeling, he was going to be in a battle tonight. Would Sorgrad keep him alive?

  "My people keep an inn on the Abray Road."

  "I have family in Losand," Reher remarked.

  Tathrin dragged his attention away from the mercenaries' ominous preparations. "What are their trades?"

  "Pewtering." Reher stretched out a broad hand and clenched it so the muscles in his forearm corded. "My uncles reckoned I had the build for heavier work, so I was apprenticed to Master Findrin, the smith in Carluse."

  What had befallen Reher's father, Tathrin wondered, that his uncles were making such decisions? "My father buys pots and pans in Losand. What's your family's mark?"

  "The dog-rose." Reher looked at him.

  Tathrin grinned. "I've cleared a fair few of those plates and tankards from the taproom."

  Reher's smile was white against his dark beard. "Pleased to hear it."

  Tathrin looked to be sure no mercenary could overhear them and chose his words carefully. "You didn't want to pursue other opportunities? Given your natural aptitudes?"

  The big man's face darkened. "Not when I'd be forbidden to use whatever skills I learned to help my kith and kin."

  "Were you in Losand when Sharlac last attacked?" Tathrin wondered.

  Reher's fast-fading good humour vanished. "Not in the town. Nearby."

  Seeing the bleakness in the smith's eyes, Tathrin shrank from asking anything more.

  Reher got to his feet and beckoned to Sorgrad. The two of them retreated into a corner, the smith looming over the Mountain Man.

  Tathrin couldn't help wondering. They'd said Lord Veblen, Duke Garnot's bastard son, had been shrouded from head to toe when he was put on his funeral pyre. They'd said he'd been horribly burned when some Sharlac scum had thrown flaming oil all over him. The treacherous cowards had been out to avenge the death of Lord Jaras, Sharlac's heir, at Veblen's courageous hand. Was that really what had happened? Might Reher have used his wizardry to kill Veblen, captain of Carluse's militia? If so, to what end?

  He recalled the talk in the taproom once the dead had been recovered from the fields around Losand and the smoke from the funeral pyres had blown away. If Lord Jaras hadn't died, Sharlac mercenaries and militia would have ridden roughshod right into Carluse. But Jaras had died and Sharlac's attack was blunted. If Veblen had lived, Carluse militia and Wynald's Warband, Duke Garnot's favoured mercenaries, could have followed up their advantage and carried the attack on into Sharlac. But Veblen had died and that meant the Carluse forces had to settle for chasing the invaders back to the border.

  Tathrin sat and studied his boots. Reher knew Failla, and Failla was close to the priests and guildsmen who secretly connived to keep the ordinary folk of Carluse safe from fighting. How closely was Reher involved in their schemes? Could they be so ruthless as to kill their own duke's son? His father knew some of these men. Had he wondered the same as Tathrin? Could his father approve of such callousness? Would that make it easier for Tathrin to explain himself, and everything he was doing this summer, when the time came?

  Not wishing to pursue that line of thought, he turned his attention outwards and scanned the room, only to notice women armouring themselves alongside the men. A sturdy matron who looked as if she should be sweeping out her kitchen stripped off her tattered gown and donned buckskin breeches. As she stood, half-naked, turning her padded arming jacket the right way out, no one spared her heavy breasts a second glance. A younger woman, lightly built but harsh-faced, held out her arm as a swordsman buckled on her vambraces. As soon as he was done, she did the same service for him. With a shock, Tathrin realised a warrior almost as tall as him was another girl when she laughed at another mercenary's jest, kneeling to secure her metal-plated boots.

  Men and women alike were winding bandages and checking pots of salve. Some spread sticky concoctions on linen rags that they carefully stowed in pouches on their sword-belts. Donning helms that made it difficult to tell men from women, Tathrin saw that all of their faces were grimly determined.

  What kind of woman chose life with a mercenary band? Had they no family, no friends to shelter them from whatever calamity had deprived them of hearth and home? Tathrin knew there were such unfortunates. He'd seen maidens, desperate mothers and grey-haired matrons among the beggars trailing along the verges of the Great West Road. Had these bolder women chosen this dangerous life in preference to the insults and perils of whoring to keep from starving?

  What had driven Failla to play the strumpet in Duke Garnot's bed? Tathrin wondered. Did it matter? Wasn't her help in their quest to bring peace to Lescar enough to persuade Drianon to forgive whatever sins against chastity and motherhood the goddess might hold her to account for? Where was Failla? Was she safe? Whatever Tathrin's misgivings about Aremil sending some unknown adept to travel with her, it would be a relief to know what had become of her.

  "Here." Gren walked up and dumped a roll of chain mail at his feet. "You may as well look the part." He dropped a round hel
met on top of it and walked off.

  Standing up, Tathrin tried to don the hauberk like a tunic, but the slithering links didn't stretch like cloth. With it halfway over his head, he realised his arms and shoulders were firmly stuck. For one horrible moment he thought he was going to have to ask for help. His shoulders sagged, something slipped and he was able to wriggle free.

  Red-faced, he paused and watched how the other men threaded their arms through their hauberks' sleeves before throwing the weight upwards. Ducking their heads inside, they shook themselves like dogs as the steel rings flowed down their bodies. Taking a deep breath, Tathrin did the same, grimacing as the pinching links ripped stray hairs from his head.

  "Zeil, you're leading the horsemen along the causeway. I want you kicking Parnilesse arses before dawn." Arest strode into the centre of the room, massive in his gleaming hauberk, swinging a round shield broader than Tathrin's arm was long. His black helmet shadowed his face, his voice harsh and commanding. "The rest of you, Jik's got weapons we've taken off the locals out on the bridge. Take some to throw down and make this look like a real rout."

  With that, he walked off.

  Tathrin had been expecting some words of encouragement. Fear congealed the fish stew in his belly. How could he need to piss so urgently when he'd only drunk water and precious little of that?

  "Stick close to me." Sorgrad shoved his shoulder.

  Mute, Tathrin followed him down to the bridge. Zeil and the horsemen were already galloping out of the far gate. Sorgrad stooped to pick up a stained and notched sword from a heap on the roadway. Tathrin grabbed a pike with a broken haft. As they reached the gatehouse facing the sleeping town of Emirle, mercenaries were throwing the torches into the river, their shouts drowning out the hiss of quenched fire. There was enough moonlight to see by without them, with the Greater Moon full and the Lesser still at its half.

  "Ware! Ware! Ware!" Sorgrad banged the notched sword on the small metal shield strapped to his other forearm.

  The mercenaries took up the cry, roaring obscenities as they clashed purloined weapons in mock combat. The same commotion rose at the other end of the bridge, echoing down the river. Whatever their birth, Tathrin realised, Arest's men were all yelling with Draximal and Parnilesse accents. It sounded like battle to him.