Scanaga had not been attacked in more than three years, and that last had been easily quashed, but much of the rest of the Westermarck was not so fortunate. Every week—even, sometimes, day upon day—Picts sought out what they thought the weakest points in the territories. Most such incursions were repelled, but a few lives were always lost.
By the time the first day had ended, it was all Nermesa could do just to walk. He ate his evening meal, allowed Quentus to aid him with the armor, then prepared for an early sleep.
But Caltero had other ideas. No sooner had Nermesa drifted off than his cousin prodded him awake with one booted foot. Clad in surcoat and breeches, the elder Klandes held up a jug of wine. “Come, come, Nermesa! ’Tis far too early to call an end to the day!”
Nermesa would have argued that notion, but Caltero followed his declaration by immediately pulling his cousin up by the arm. Overwhelmed by Caltero’s presence, Bolontes’ son could only obey.
“At least let me put on some clothes . . .”
His cousin granted that concession but, once Nermesa had dressed, dragged him out of the building to his own quarters. A few sentries saluted them, no one seeming to take Caltero’s cavalier attitude amiss.
“It’s good to have some family blood around,” he declared as he led Nermesa to the door. Pushing it open, he indicated that his cousin should enter first. “You are my guest! After you.”
Nermesa entered, noticing at first only the single, lit oil lamp set on the wooden table next to Caltero’s cot, a softer, wider thing than his own. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Nermesa saw that the room was several times larger than the space set aside for the new knight. Caltero had a separate area in which to hang his armor and on the right, near the bed—
The dark eyes of a Pict stared back at him.
“Mitra!” Nermesa reached for a sword he did not have. The Pict—a young female—crouched low. Her eyes grew lidded, and her lower lip thrust out in fear. Lush black hair spilled over her shoulders as she moved, falling down and draping over her uncovered bosom.
Caltero seized Nermesa’s arm. “Gods, cousin! Calm yourself! She’s no harm, only pleasure!”
The young, barefooted woman backed to the wall. She had only a dark leather loincloth that did little to cover her supple form. As Nermesa calmed, her full lips attempted a half-hearted smile.
“Look, man! She’s frightened of you! Relax!”
“Caltero . . . what’s she doing in the fort?”
The elder Klandes bent his head back and laughed. “Damn! It’s a good thing for you that you’re out of Tarantia! By Mitra, Nermesa, she’s here for company, what else?”
“But a Pict—”
“They’re like any other people . . .” Caltero walked over to the female, who quickly molded herself against his open arm. “Well, maybe a bit more open in their emotions. There’re Picts in Scanaga, cousin. They come to trade, to be paid for scouting . . .”
“But they’re our enemies,” Nermesa insisted.
“Which makes it all the more exciting . . .” Sweeping up the woman, Caltero kissed her long and hard. The Pict met his attack with at least equal passion.
Pausing, Caltero thrust the jug to Nermesa and indicated a stool against the opposing wall. “Have a drink, cousin! Let’s celebrate your arrival!”
Nermesa reluctantly took the jug and sat. After another kiss, Caltero led the woman to the bed. He sat down, the Pict settling herself in his lap.
“The west is different from home, cousin. You’ll learn that quick enough . . .”
“I think I have.” He suddenly noticed that the Pict’s lidded eyes were on him. Despite having tried to ignore her, Nermesa could not help appreciating her dark, exotic beauty. Dressed like a lady of Aquilonia, she would have put most of the elegant women of Tarantia to shame, including Orena. Still, she had a predatory look that made Nermesa want no part of her.
“Her name’s Khati,” Caltero remarked, mistaking his gaze for desire. “If you’d like to have some fun, I could leave her with you for a little while.”
“The wine’s enough, thank you.”
“Well, if she’s not to your liking, there are some other tasty females who come into Scanaga. You won’t lack for companionship here, not with the fine Klandes looks, eh?” He grinned, turning his head to show his own profile.
Caltero had always been the adventurous one, and Nermesa had, for most of his life, wanted to emulate him; but now the elder cousin had developed a reckless streak with which Nermesa felt uncomfortable. Trying not to show this, Nermesa took a sip of wine as Caltero again kissed his Pict woman.
The heir to Klandes choked, almost spitting out the wine.
The woman looked sympathetic, but the other knight laughed at his misfortune. “Forgot to warn you how strong this particular local vintage is! The one they officially serve in the camp is water in comparison! Almost spat on the Boar the first time I tried this! Had to swallow it, tears running down my eyes the whole time!”
“I can . . . well believe it . . .” Nermesa handed the jug back, Khati taking it instead of Caltero. Again, she gave him a sympathetic look but one that also somehow had a sultry, inviting touch to it.
Seizing the jug from her, Nermesa’s cousin took a huge gulp without so much as batting an eye. He put the container next to him. “Like everything else, you’ll become used to it, cousin.” For just a very, very brief moment, Caltero’s expression utterly changed. A hollowness invaded it, one that stunned Nermesa. “You’ll get used to it . . . you have to.”
Khati giggled, seizing the senior knight’s face and pressing her lips against his. Caltero’s brief melancholy vanished, and he lustily met her efforts.
Nermesa yawned, stretching his arms at the same time. “You must forgive me. I think that wine was too much to begin with after just settling in. I’m going to get some sleep after all, Caltero.”
“Sorry to hear that.” Caltero looked at the squirming bundle in his arms. “But, yes, it might be better if you did.”
Leaving his cousin to his pleasures, Nermesa departed. Only when he was outside did he relax. Both knew that his weariness had mostly been an excuse to leave. It had grown too uncomfortable for Nermesa. In truth, there was nothing with which he could fault Caltero, though. Perhaps, having been away from civilization for so long, the other had needed what comfort he could find. After all, unlike Nermesa’s, the military was Caltero’s future.
He grimaced. The military might be his cousin’s future, but Orena Lenaro was his . . . and Nermesa was not so certain that Caltero had the worse of the two fates.
NERMESA HAD PREPARED himself for weeks of tedious albeit bone-battering training, but General Boronius was not one to leave his men idle—if it could be called that—for very long. Eight days after Nermesa’s arrival, the general began redistributing his forces, assigning various units to where he thought them best suited. A large contingent under the command of General Octavio set out for Oriskonie, where Nermesa gathered from muttered comments there had been much trouble of late. He had hoped to be a part of that contingent, but, instead, the Boar had a different mission for him, one in which Nermesa would act as third officer.
A lanky, eagle-eyed knight with a perpetual frown stood with the general. “This is Commander Maxius,” the general informed Nermesa. “He’ll be leading your group.”
“Klandes,” was all Maxius, apparently a man of few words, said in greeting.
“Sir.”
Boronius indicated charts on his desk. “Since you’re unfamiliar with all this, I wanted to give you a brief rundown. The fort in southernmost Conawaga needs refitting, Nermesa of Klandes. You’ll have six wagons and fifty-one men, counting Maxius, yourself, and another knight. Six mounted men-at-arms will accompany the wagons. The rest will be men-at-arms on foot. I don’t have to tell you, I think, what it means for a fort to be low on food and other essentials. Unlike Scanaga, the smaller forts aren’t so self-sufficient. It’s vital this reaches them on schedule.�
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Nermesa saluted Boronius. “I won’t let you down, General.”
“The course is a straightforward one, as you can see from this map. You’ll have no trouble following it, and most of the men with you have gone there before. Make no mistake, though. Be wary all the time. That’s how you survive in the Westermarck.”
“Yes, General.”
“Gather your gear.” The Boar waved him off.
Outside, Nermesa briefly talked with Quentus, who did not at all like the notion of their separation. “Master Nermesa, I’m supposed to guard your back! That’s why I’m here.”
“I can take good care of myself, Quentus. You know that.”
“You’re one of the best damned fighters I’ve seen here, the senior knights included, if I may be blunt, my lord. Your father always said you had a natural gift, but you still can’t see behind you—”
“I’m not a child, Quentus.” Nermesa glanced over his shoulder. “They’re readying for the journey. Help me with my gear.”
“Aye, all right . . .” But the other man still did not look pleased.
With Quentus’s able if reluctant assistance, Nermesa soon joined the small column. Commander Maxius gave him a nod, then turned his attention to other matters. The other knight, one Remus, summoned Nermesa over.
“You’ll be back behind the wagons, with the last group of footmen,” the round-faced fighter informed him. Remus looked not all that much older than Nermesa save in his eyes, which were a weathered brown. “I’ll be in front of the wagons, in charge of them and the detail riding alongside. Understood?”
“Yes!”
Nermesa’s anxiousness must have shown, for Remus softened a little, saying, “This will be a boring trip, Klandes. We’re on the safest route in all the territories. The Picts there are subdued, and the Zingarans are too weakened by their own infighting to be a worry. Don’t even need any scouts for this one.”
He turned and rode off, leaving Nermesa with conflicting emotions. On the one hand, he was relieved that his first excursion would not be one in which men’s lives might depend on him, but, on the other hand, he had not joined simply to be nursemaid to wagons that likely could have made the journey unescorted.
A figure near the end of the ranks caught his eye. Gritting his teeth, Nermesa urged his mount there.
“Quentus!” he muttered. “What do you think you’re doing?”
The man-at-arms—his armor only half-secured—stepped away from the wagon he had been using to hide himself from Nermesa’s view. “What I swore I’d do. What I want to do. I’m coming with you. I’m guarding your back . . .”
But the knight shook his head. “No, Quentus. First, there’s no need. Second, I am my own man now. I can’t have you trailing behind me like an ever-present shadow.”
“Your father—”
“Is not out here. I am. Go back to your other duties. I don’t want you getting in trouble just because of me.”
The bearded fighter opened his mouth to protest, but something he saw in Nermesa’s expression finally struck home. With a grudging nod, Quentus abandoned the column. Nermesa watched until his friend and former servant had stepped back far enough, then nodded. Quentus returned the nod, then slapped his fist over his heart in salute.
A horn sounded. Nermesa glanced over his shoulder just in time to see Maxius raise one gauntleted hand.
At the top of his voice, Remus shouted, “Forward!”
Their route first took them through Scanaga and beyond, the contingent exiting through the main gate in the east and retracing for several minutes the path Nermesa’s original column had taken on its trek to the Westermarck. However, a few minutes past the outer settlements, the party veered abruptly south, heading along a less-traveled pair of ruts leading into a more thickly wooded region.
The column kept a standard marching pace so as not to weary those on foot, but Nermesa was soon glad that he was on horseback, regardless. While enough of the woods had long been cleared away for wagons, the going was still not all that even. Most of the footmen had to watch their steps at all times. Nermesa’s horse moved with more ease, but the bouncing that did occur gave him a good idea what the others were going through.
The morning gave way to the afternoon which gave way to the evening . . . all without the slightest hint of danger. Nermesa saw that Remus had the right of it; the more veteran soldiers kept watch as they walked, but it was with some confidence that nothing watched back.
“Stop,” was Maxius’s sole command, when it grew too dark to continue. Remus gave orders for the camp to be set up. The men moved with practiced ease, and, as he dismounted, Nermesa realized that the location chosen was one that had served the same purpose often in the past.
“Tomorrow we stop at a location called Hawk’s Ford,” Remus informed him, as they sat by one of the fires to eat. “Nothing much but a stream. After that, there’s a clearing overlooking a ridge . . .” He went on, detailing each of the places they would stay.
“How many times have you been assigned to this?”
The other knight gave a harsh laugh. “More than there’re men in this column. It could bore me to drink . . . if I wasn’t so grateful to be on it.” When Nermesa looked askance, Remus explained, “When I first came out here, it was with three friends and a brother. Was certain we’d be the ones to tame the west.”
“And?”
Nermesa’s companion raised one hand for him to see. He folded over the two last fingers. “Two of my friends died a week after we arrived. One with an ax in his belly, the other his throat full of arrows. It happened during a try to take back parts of Conajohara.”
Conajohara was a lost territory, reconquered by the Picts years ago. Although Aquilonia had managed to recross the old boundaries, they had never gotten much farther.
Remus folded in his thumb. “My brother died on a patrol in Oriskonie. They found his body completely skinned . . . done so while he was alive and bound to the earth.” Even though the other knight retold it without much emotion in his tone, Nermesa could see from his moist eyes that it still pained Remus much.
“What . . . what happened to the last of your friends?”
Remus folded down the index finger. “Was on his way home, of all things. He and a merchant wagon were slaughtered only a day east of Scanaga . . . by the brigand, Khatak, they said.”
“Khatak!” Without realizing it, Nermesa began searching the dark.
“Don’t worry yourself about Khatak! The foul bandit went north after that. Been up there ever since. There was some sort of terrible trouble in one of the forts just a short while back. Don’t know what it is, Klandes, but that’s where Octavio’s headed.”
And Nermesa was trapped in what now was clearly a very routine task. He hid his disappointment and slight anger. He had wanted to serve King Conan, but guiding a supply train through peaceful lands seemed more the work of simple foot soldiers. Why had General Boronius even talked of it as if it were so much greater a risk?
Nermesa brought none of this up with Remus. With much disappointment, Bolontes’ son finished his meal and settled down for the night, well aware that he had nothing to fear in his sleep other than some woodland pest crawling into his blankets.
This was how he was to serve his monarch . . .
THE NEXT DAY went exactly as Remus said, and the day after that. The most excitement the column had was when two of the wagons got stuck in a mud-soaked area. The struggle to free the pair put the column two hours behind schedule. Maxius pursed his lips, the only sign of his annoyance at the delay.
Although they pushed to make up the difference, night fell with them still at least an hour from the clearing. The drivers hung oil lanterns at the fronts of the wagons and designated soldiers carried torches to light the way. Most of the soldiers took the delay in stride, even though they understood that it would mean that they would lose that much sleep. Nermesa learned that such “disasters” were the worst he could expect on this particular route.<
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“We once lost a day to storms,” Remus told him during a brief pause. “Maxius pushed us hard to make it up. First time I ever heard him put four words together at once . . . all of them bad.”
The forest thickened before the clearing, forcing the Aquilonians to press closer together. Nermesa’s stomach growled and, for once, he looked forward to the evening fare. His disenchantment with his service to the king gave way to mere anticipation of finally dismounting.
A bird’s cry echoed in the darkness. Nermesa listened, trying to identify it.
Ahead, Maxius abruptly straightened in the saddle. “All men stand ready—”
His command, the longest Nermesa had heard from him, ended in a gasp.
The hilt of a dagger stuck out of his throat. Maxius dropped backward off the saddle, landing in a heap next to the road.
“Men-at-arms!” shouted Remus. “Face outward! Prepare to repel the enemy!”
With howls and wild whoops, a fearsome band exploded from both sides of the forest.
Many were Picts, the first of the males that Nermesa had seen. They grinned ferociously, their teeth sharpened and their faces painted in ghoulish designs. Several wore necklaces of teeth or bone or even dried ears. All had their hair tightly bound back, with parts of the skull shaven. Most brandished spears, axes, and long, cruel blades.
But with them came a number of other figures, these clad in grimy, torn shirts, pants, and worn breastplates mostly of Aquilonian make. Some even wore ragged boots obviously once belonging to knights. Despite their long, unkempt hair and savage beards, they could claim such heritages as Bossonian and Poitainian . . . and, yes, there were those who might have even been of the blood of Nermesa.
The brigands—for they could be nothing else but—poured into the column, slashing at the soldiers. One foot-man went down with a bolt through his midsection. Another’s head was cleaved from his body before he could get his weapon up.
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