Fox and Empire

by Harry Turtledove

  Rihwin's riders in the van, the Fox's army moved out the next day. Those of Aragis' vassals who had not gone to war along with their king held their keeps shut tight against Gerin. They were holding their keeps shut against everyone. They no doubt wished Gerin and the imperials would all go away and leave them at peace, or as close to it as they had known while living under Aragis' rule. No matter what they wished, they had not the strength to enforce their wishes.

  The Fox's forward move seemed to catch the imperials by surprise. The riders drove back the scouts the forces of the Elabonian Empire had posted to keep an eye on them. They killed a few, too, and captured several more.

  Maeva, beaming from ear to ear, brought one of those prisoners back to the Fox-and, not coincidentally, to her father and Dagref. "I caught him myself," she said, pride ringing in her voice.

  The prisoner looked indignant, perhaps at being captured by a woman, perhaps at being captured at all. The latter, it proved, for he burst out, "You cursed rebels are a tougher nut to crack than they told us you were going to be when we came over the mountains. They said some of you would want to come back under the City of Elabon, and the rest wouldn't be able to fight."

  "People say all sorts of stupid things," Gerin answered. "The trick is knowing whether they're stupid. For instance, I'll know if you lie, because I've already asked these questions to other prisoners. How many men have you got?…"

  He got the answers he wanted. They largely agreed with the answers he'd had from other imperials his men had captured. The soldiers of the Elabonian Empire outnumbered his own men, but not overwhelmingly. He had some reason to hope he could knock them back on their heels.

  "What will you do with me?" the prisoner asked.

  "What will you do with me, lord king?" Dagref and Maeva spoke together, in the tones they would have used to reprove younger siblings who'd said something stupid. They looked at each other, both seeming surprised and pleased.

  "What will you do with me, lord king?" For his part, the prisoner seemed grateful enough to be corrected with words rather than with something hard slammed against the side of his head.

  "Take him back that way, Maeva," Gerin said, pointing over his shoulder. "Don't do anything to him as long as he behaves himself. If he doesn't behave himself… well, the ghosts will have fresh blood to drink tonight." To the captured imperial, he went on, "I don't quite know what we'll end up doing with you. We may let you farm on a peasant village, but I won't lie to you-you may end up in the mines. It depends on where we can get the most and the most useful work out of you."

  "Lord king, if it's use you're after, I know something of smithcraft," the prisoner said.

  "If that turns out to be true, you won't go to the mines," Gerin said. "And if it turns out not to be true, you will, for having lied." The imperial didn't quail, from which Gerin concluded he was either telling the truth or had some small practice lying. "Take him away, Maeva."

  "I do thank you for getting her out of the brawling for a while," Van said.

  "You're welcome, for whatever it may be worth," Gerin answered, his voice mild; he understood what was in the outlander's mind.

  Dagref, on the other hand, spoke to Van in the same hectoring tones he'd used on the prisoner Maeva had taken: "You do understand, don't you, that she gets to go out of the brawling now because she was in it before?"

  "Oh, aye, I understand that, lad," Van said, manfully resisting the temptation to break Dagref over his knee or offer him some other form of great bodily harm. "Now if you want to ask me whether I like the idea or not, I may just have a different answer for you. Aye, I may."

  For a wonder, the brittle edge in his voice got through to Dagref, who suddenly made himself very busy steering the chariot. Gerin caught Van's eye and raised an eyebrow. Van coughed a couple of times. They both laughed.

  "Stop talking about me," Dagref said without looking back, which only made his father and Van laugh harder.

  More prisoners came back as the Fox's advance drove in the scouts the imperials had set up to keep an eye on him. He was mournfully certain his horsemen and chariots were not capturing all those scouts. He pushed south and west harder, to hit the main imperial army before the foe was ready for him.

  Instead of finding the imperial force concentrated to receive his men, he found it scattered in detachments. He hit them one after another, glad of his good fortune. They would skirmish with him and then draw off, retreating toward the west every time. The peasants in the eastern part of Aragis' kingdom did not seem delighted to have him foraging from the countryside rather than the soldiers of the Elabonian Empire.

  Some of them, in fact, probably would have preferred to have the imperials remain. Being strangers in the northlands, and unused to some of the ways of the peasants there, the men from south of the High Kirs missed stores that Gerin and his men had no trouble sniffing out. They'd dealt with the local peasants all their lives, and knew their tricks.

  Flatbread made from coarse-ground flour baked in the hot ashes of a campfire was not the most appetizing meal, but it kept a man going. Van said, "We may run those buggers right out of here yet. If they keep giving us ground, by the gods, we'll take it."

  "So we will," Gerin said, gnawing on flatbread. He kept looking toward the west. His expression was glum.

  Van noted that. "You ought to be glad we've broken out of that cramped little stretch of ground where they'd pinned us back. If you are, you've not told your face of it."

  "I am glad. We would have got hungry after a bit. But I'm not delighted. You see what they're doing, don't you?"

  "Running," Van said with a sniff.

  "Running, aye," the Fox said. "But running with a purpose." Van let out an interrogative grunt. Gerin explained: "They're keeping themselves between Aragis and us. They don't want us joining up with him until their other force has hit him hard, unless I miss my guess."

  "Ah." Van took a bite of flatbread, too. He chewed on the bread and the idea at the same time. By the look on his face, he didn't much care for the taste of either. He tried to make the best of things: " Well, they'll be the ones with the harder foraging now."

  But the Fox shook his head. "I have my doubts about that. If they can bring two armies up over the High Kirs, they'll have a supply train with 'em, too, to keep them fed." He listened to his own words. A smile slowly stole over his face. "And they've gone and let us out."

  Van's smile spread till it matched Gerin's. "Wagons and wagons full of good things to eat-that's what you're saying, isn't it, Fox?"

  "Good things to eat," Gerin agreed. "Probably more wine, to help Rihwin get drunk. Probably arrows and such, too. All sorts of things we could use. All sorts of things we'd be happier if the imperials didn't have. And they're falling back toward the west, to keep us away from Aragis the Archer."

  "Don't they realize you'd think of the supply train?"

  "Do you know, I don't believe they do," Gerin said. "To them, after all, I'm just a backwoods half-barbarian." He winked. "But I'll tell you something: I'm going to show them they're wrong."

  **

  "This will be grand fun," Van boomed as the chariot jounced along the stretch of the Elabon Way Gerin's counterattack had opened up. " Grand fun for us, I should say-the imperials won't like getting a door slammed on their prongs even a little bit."

  "Wouldn't much care for that myself." Gerin had all he could do not to clutch at himself at the very idea. "But aye, if it goes as we hope, it'll do us some good and make life harder for our chums from south of the mountains."

  He'd taken as many of Rihwin's riders as he could while still leaving enough to scout for the main mass of warriors he'd left behind. He'd also taken the chariots with the fastest horses and those with the fiercest crews, including a good many of Adiatunnus' Trokmoi. Set the prospect of booty in front of the woodsrunners and they'd go after it the way a pack of hounds would run baying down the scent track of a stag.

  He glanced east. Somewhere not far over there,
beyond forests and low hills, lay the village where Elise had her tavern. Gerin wondered what had happened when the imperials went through there after him.

  A rider came galloping north up the Elabon Way toward his force. " Wagons!" the fellow was shouting. "Wagons!" When he was sure the Fox had heard him, he pointed in the direction from which he had come.

  "Let's go," Gerin said, and waved his men forward. They whooped with glee. The troopers in chariots urged their teams ahead. The riders booted their mounts up from slow trot to quick. Sure enough, as soon as the paved highway rose a little, the Fox saw the ox- and donkey-drawn wagons coming toward him. The riders were already whooping and reaching over their shoulders for arrows.

  The drivers saw Gerin's oncoming men at about the same time as he spotted them. They had a few chariots along to protect them against bandits, but not nearly enough to hold back a force like the one Gerin had assembled. The charioteers did what they could: they rolled up the highway in a spoiling attack to try to give the wagon crews time to form a defensive circle.

  Gerin was having none of that. "Roll past them!" he shouted. "Don' t let them slow us down. Once we get in among the wagons, we'll be able to throw the chariots into the bag, too."

  Arrows flew as the imperials tried to delay his troopers. A couple of men on either side tumbled out of their cars. But then, despite shouts of scorn and dismay from the warriors from south of the High Kirs, the Fox and his followers were by, speeding on toward the wagons.

  A fierce grin stretched his mouth wide: the circle remained incomplete. His men knew they had to make sure it stayed incomplete, too. They broke in among the wagons. Some of the men from the chariots dismounted and set upon the wagon drivers. The drivers fought back as best they could, but they were not armored, and many of them carried nothing more lethal than knives.

  Pointing to the havoc the dismounted chariot crews were wreaking, Van said, "Wouldn't be so easy for riders to do that."

  "You're right-it wouldn't," Gerin agreed. "But men on horses can do things men in chariots can't, too: more things, unless I miss my guess." He raised his voice. "There go a couple, Dagref. See if you can run them down before they make it into the trees."

  "Aye, Father." Dagref steered the chariot after the closer of the two fleeing drivers. As it pulled alongside the fellow, Van swung his mace. Its wicked spiked bronze head slammed home with a meaty thunk. The driver shrieked and crumpled.

  "I would have let him yield," Gerin said mildly.

  "He wasn't yielding," the outlander answered. "He was running."

  As if the other driver had heard him, he stopped running and threw up his hands. Gerin waved for him to head back toward the Elabon Way. He obeyed, but, as soon as Dagref turned the chariot aside, he whirled and sprinted for the trees and got in among them before the chariot crew could do anything about it. Gerin shot an arrow at him, but missed.

  "There, you see?" Van said. "Try and be generous and look at the thanks you get."

  "He's not as smart as he thinks he is," Gerin said as the chariot bounced back to the highway. "If he comes out, either we'll scoop him up or Aragis' peasants will put paid to him. He'll have a thin time either way."

  "That's not the point," Van said. "The point is, we should have put paid to him, and we cursed well didn't."

  Since he was right, Gerin didn't try to argue with him. Instead, he said, "Let's see if we can keep their chariot escort from getting away and letting the rest of the imperials know we've made their wagons disappear."

  His shouts pulled other chariots from the northlands away from the wagons and into the pursuit. He and his men caught up with what he thought was the last imperial chariot a mile or so up the Elabon Way. Seeing they would be overhauled, the driver and the two warriors with him jumped out and ran for the woods, as the wagon drivers had done. Unlike the wagon drivers, they didn't get there.

  "Now, let's get these wagons back to our camp," the Fox said. "We haven't got time to waste. The faster we move 'em up along the road, the less the chance the Empire will have of getting them back."

  Some of the wagon drivers had surrendered. Gerin was glad of that, because his own men, while skilled with horses, had less practice with donkeys and oxen. The animals obeyed better when they saw what their fellow beasts were doing under drivers who knew how to make them work.

  Rihwin rode up alongside Gerin. "I wonder what all we've captured." For a wonder, he didn't say, I wonder how much wine we've captured.

  "Same sort of things we'd have along for our own troopers, I expect," Gerin answered. "Journeybread and sausage and onions and cheese-anything that keeps well. Dried fruit, too, maybe. There's a name for dried grapes." He snapped his fingers. "Raisins, that's what they call them."

  "Raisins," Rihwin agreed. "It's been a very long time since I've had raisins." He still didn't say anything about wine, which Gerin had made a point of not mentioning. Gerin eyed him suspiciously, as if wondering whether he was coming down with some peculiar ailment. Maturity? Gerin wondered, trying again to find a name. He shook his head. If Rihwin hadn't caught that yet, he probably never would.

  Van said, "Have to see what they've got in these wagons besides food, too. Sheaves of arrows, like you said. Those'll come in handy for us. Maybe swords. Maybe metal fittings for chariots, too. Those'd be nice."

  "Let's move faster," Gerin said again.

  "Captain, trying to hurry a donkey bothers you more than it does the donkey," Van said. "The only way I know to hurry oxen is to fling 'em off a cliff. What's that the Trokmoi say? Don't fash yourselfthere you are. We're making the best time we can."

  "It's not good enough," Gerin fretted. He knew his friend was right. He couldn't help worrying and barking and snapping anyhow. Eventually, more of his own riders came down to screen the wagons from any possible imperial revenge. Only then did he relax.

  His troopers cheered when the wagons came into camp. When they started going through them, they found about what they'd expected, including one wagon full of wineskins. Gerin stalked around that wagon, glum as a man with a toothache. "What in the five hells do we do with it?" he asked the air.

  Dagref was close enough to hear him. "My view is, we ought to drink it. If Mavrix didn't come up to the northlands in a cloud of purple smoke when Rihwin drank, why should he care about Widin Simrin' s son drinking, or Adiatunnus, either, for that matter?"

  "I don't know why he might care about Widin or Adiatunnus," the Fox answered. "I haven't the faintest idea. If he does care, though, is the risk in drinking worth the chance we're taking?"

  "No way to tell ahead of time, of course," Dagref admitted. "But then, Mavrix would surely be insulted if we spill the wine, and might be insulted if we don't drink it. Risks everywhere."

  "You so relieve my mind," Gerin said, at which Dagref bowed, as if to a compliment.

  Ferdulf came swaggering up to the wagon, walking with his feet far enough off the ground to let him look Gerin the the eye. "You've found more of my father's spoiled grape juice, have you?" he demanded.

  "If that's what you want to call it, yes," Gerin answered cautiously. "Why?"

  "Because I still aim to pay him back, that's why," Ferdulf said. " And now I know how to do it, too."

  "Wait!" Gerin said, and grabbed at the demigod. He missed-Ferdulf must have known he was going to try it. With a mocking laugh, Ferdulf floated up into the air. Gerin leaped after him, which proved how alarmed he was. He didn't leap high enough or fast enough.

  From above his head, Ferdulf mocked him. "You can't stop me this time. Nobody can stop me this time." He pointed a forefinger at the wine and muttered under his breath. Gerin couldn't hear all of it, but part of it was, "Take that, Father, and I hope you choke on it!"

  "Stop it!" Gerin said urgently, but Ferdulf had no intention of stopping it, not for him, not for anybody. He was going to do what he was going to do, and if the Fox didn't like it, too bad for the Fox.

  What if Mavrix didn't like it? That, obviously, was what Ferdul
f hoped would happen. He wanted the Sithonian god of wine to come up to the northlands. Maybe he even wanted Mavrix to punish him. Getting a rise out of his father might have looked better to him than the indifference Mavrix had shown at their first meeting.

  He drifted down to the ground, a brat doing an imitation of a snowflake. "Go ahead," he told Gerin. "Drink all the wine you like. I hope you and your troopers enjoy it."

  "What have you done?" the Fox demanded.

  Ferdulf gave him a nasty smile. "You'll find out." And off he went, before Gerin could make up his mind to try to shake some truth out of him.

  "What do you think he's done?" Dagref asked.

  "Something horrible," Gerin snapped. "What does he ever do? I ought to make Rihwin open a skin and find out what's gone wrong: he's wild for wine, so he should be the one to see how wild the wine's got. Doesn't that sound like justice to you, Dagref?"

  His son didn't answer. With a question like that, a long answer meant no. No answer at all meant no, too. With a sigh, Gerin went and got a tarred-leather drinking jack. He took a wineskin out of the wagon, undid the tie at the neck, and poured the jack full.

  He hadn't raised it to his lips when Rihwin called, "Oh no you don't, my fellow Fox. I was all but supernaturally patient, not even speaking of the blood of the sweet grape, but if you're going to go ahead and quaff-"

  "Justice," Dagref said, and sighed.

  "Here." Gerin pressed the jack into Rihwin's outstretched hand. " Since you want it so much, it's only fitting that you should have it. Go right ahead, my fellow Fox. Quaff."

  Rihwin should have been suspicious when Gerin yielded so easily. But he wasn't. "I not only want it," he declared, "I deserve it." He took a big mouthful-and then sprayed out as much of it as he could, coughing and choking on what had gone down his throat. "Feh!" he said. "Vinegar!"

  "Well, that's something of a relief," Gerin said. "I was afraid it would be donkey piss."