One voice came from nine knight’s throats in answer.
“Any burden.”
* * *
Andus Carek was lying in the hollow of a wall, scratching notes on a piece of parchment by the early light of dawn.
The abandoned old fort wasn’t much account, really, he reflected. A simple stone wall, a couple of towers, a central bailey—if it could be called that. Most of the woodwork had begun to rot away after just a few years of disuse, and much of the stonework, too, was falling away. Still, its location along a north-bending road’s intersection with a primary east-west track made it too easy to find for someone used to finding places by feel and instinct in a country with poor roads, irregular post if any, and abominable weather.
Such shoddy work, he reflected, wouldn’t be tolerated in Fen Isiel or Wiefaldt, much less Cansebour.
The two years he’d spent traveling in the Baronies had done nothing to raise the esteem of their people in Andus Carek’s eyes. To someone used to the wide, clean streets of a Concordat city, its spires glittering with stained glass, its gardens tended with near-holy reverence, the Baronies couldn’t help but seem barbaric.
And yet, Andus Carek reflected, he’d chosen to come here, bringing his lute and his voice.
Like a missionary carrying his faith and his guilt, I suppose, he told himself. Even so, he had to admit he found the bumbling simplicity of most Barony folk refreshing, in a way. No plots were hidden, or at least not for long, and it seemed as though there was something vital and exciting about the people who lived here. Closer to the realities of war and death than everyone but the most hardened guards and soldiers among the Concordat’s patchwork quilt of peoples, their blood ran hotter. Quicker to fight, yes, but quicker to buy drinks when the fight was done, he thought.
He let his thoughts drift while he scribbled with a charcoal stick, trying to let images and rhymes come to him as he always did in the very early stages of composing. They were quickly reeled back when he heard a muffled footfall.
“That’s good technique,” he called out, from where he still reclined against the missing stones, “but you’ve not counted on the ears of a southern bard.”
With a sigh he set down his barely scrawled-on parchment and his stick and stood, slowly unfolding himself out of the hollow and holding his hands out.
As he’d more or less expected, there was a sudden rush of footsteps, then someone tried to plant a blade at the back of his neck. On the step before the one that would’ve reached him, he ducked to one side and pivoted away.
“I mean you no harm,” he was already saying as he came face to face with his potential assailant, stumbling away from him and trying to get their feet under them, “but I won’t have a blade anywhere near my throat.”
Finally, his attacker did find her feet, and proved to be a young, whip-thin blonde woman with an intense look about her eyes. She wore men’s riding clothes, cut small and sewed close to fit her, and had a dagger with a darkened blade extended from her curled fist. From the way she stood, her feet spread, blade leading, she knew how to use it.
She lowered it, though, as she studied his face. “You’re her pet bard,” the girl muttered, disappearing the dagger somewhere he didn’t pay close enough attention to spot.
“Andus Carek,” he replied with a courtly bow and a smile still fixed upon his face, despite how little he liked being called anyone’s pet anything. “I assume the her in question is the Shadow of the Mother.”
“Aye,” the girl confirmed. “That’d be her. What’re you doin’ here?”
“Enlisting in your cause, I suppose.”
“Did she kill him? Oyrwyn, I mean.”
“Alas, no,” Andus Carek replied with a shrug. “From what little I know of the man, it certainly seems that the world would not miss him. But the Arm of the Mother has forbidden it, so.” He shrugged again.
The woman scowled. He reflected that her face, sort of plain and ordinary, was improved by this anger; it went from a mask of disaffection to displaying honest emotion, and he felt he could work with the latter more effectively.
“I’m not sure,” she said, “that what the Arm of the Mother wants ought to take precedence over what the Shadow thinks ought to be done.”
“She does,” the bard replied quickly. “And if you’d spent time around him, you would, too,” he added.
“I have. I’m not impressed. Pompous, loud, a fool.”
“I think he is definitely loud,” Andus Carek said. “And I think you, perhaps, could now save us both some time and effort and tell me your name and your purpose here, since you know mine.”
“Shary,” the woman said. “And my purpose is to scout this place for the string of mounts being led here, and t’see if I can’t help Baron Harlach find the place.”
“How far behind you are the mounts?” Andus Carek asked.
“A turn or two at most,” she said.
“Listen. How about I take my horse, a note, or flag or emblem of some kind, and go along to the east, see if I can’t find Harlach. He’s a big loud brute of a fellow, so I doubt he’s much for woodcraft or stealth and I imagine the same is true of his knights. The sooner we get him through here, the better, because Gilrayan Oyrwyn knows the horses are coming. I don’t know how, but he does.”
“Cold, but you use a lot o’words where one or two’d speak jus’ fine,” the girl drawled, “but ya aren’t wrong now. Best we both go. Hurry.”
Andus Carek made for his horse.
CHAPTER 45
Foraging Parties
Brazcek Varshyne had not known he could be so tired, or so hungry. He had especially not known he could be both of those things and yet still walking the parapet of Pinesward Watch, crossbow in hand, rallying his men.
He wasn’t, in truth, entirely sure what effect rallying was likely to have, or if he was doing it properly. A congratulatory word there on a good shot, a pat on the back there, a casual reminder not to waste either bolts or bread, and the men all smiled and cheered him.
All too often those smiles were underneath eyes that were trying to understand that they were already dead, Brazcek thought.
Upon an empty stretch of wall, he looked out over the enemy encampment and wondered, not for the first time, just what the plan in place was.
A vast body of men without banners, seemingly without much organization, were camped just out of crossbow range along his frontage. Camped behind them, around clusters of blue and green pavilions, were the berzerkers. Small groups, usually led by a pair or so of the bare-chested terrors, would leave every day on foraging parties.
Gravek patrolled beyond them. Thankfully none had come too close to the walls, much less assaulted it, though in one case some horsemen from Greenforks answering their summons, had tried, boldly, to force their way past that outer screen.
From the highest parts of the tower, the Baron Varsyhnne and the seneschal Herrin had been able to watch some of the resulting battle. The thirty or so horsemen had accounted for one Gravekmir with their javelins and horsebows, but then more had fallen on them, cutting off their retreat.
A second Gravekmir had died in the resulting fight among the victors, as they fell out over sharing the remains of a score of men and horses.
Since then, three days prior, no forces had attempted a breakthrough. No banners had even been sighted. Pigeons had come back, confirming that the men of Treeline, Greenforks, and Crossing—the only three holds of any size the Barony had left, it seemed—were on their way. But scraps of parchment tied to a pigeon’s leg was all the force they’d seen besides that one company of horsemen.
Lost in the grim math, Brazcek was suddenly startled by Herrin’s voice. “Looks like they’re coming again, m’lord,” the old knight reported.
Wearily, Baron Varshyne looked back out. Sure enough, the mass of men in the first camp were forming themse
lves into ragged columns.
“Ropes and hooks?”
“Looks that way, m’lord.”
“Why do the berzerkers and the giants just sit? They could have rolled over us days ago.”
“I’ve a theory, m’lord,” Herrin said, narrowing his eyes and scratching at his bearded chin. “If they’re holding back, either they expect something more to come along and test them from behind, or, or we’re just for training.”
“Training?”
“Aye. The unblooded men they toss at our walls, well, they’re learning the hardest lessons of fighting, and they’re doing it all at once.”
“Cold-dammit,” Brazcek growled. He saw the columns starting to lurch forward, driven by pairs of berzerkers shouting at their backs. “Let us get to the lower curtain, then. If we’re to give them a lesson, let’s get on with it.”
* * *
Honored Choiron Symod stood at the head of a clutch of priests of Braech: two Marynths, a handful of Winsars, the rest lacking title due to want of ambition, intelligence, or age. One such young priest, a tall and broad-shouldered young Keersvaster named Theophraste, was vying for his attention as the attack rolled out in front of them. At least a dozen priests always gathered themselves together for each attack at Symod’s insistence, though typically it was more.
Dragon Scales ran along behind the lines of Islandmen, swiping at them with clawed gauntlets or aiming kicks at their heels if they didn’t move fast enough. The berzerkers shouted and howled in their native tongue. Jorn, erstwhile Dragon Scale headman, stood at a remove of some distance, watching with disdain. Symod ignored him and looked at Theophraste.
“What is it?”
“Honored Choiron,” the man began, “the foraging party of two days ago still has not returned. It is an oddity.”
“Like as not the men have stripped the lands closest to us and have to range farther,” Symod said. “They’ll return.”
“Even so, Honored Choiron,” Theophraste went on, “there are many possibilities we ought to consider. Did they encounter a relieving force? Did they desert our cause?”
Symod turned a frown and a furrowed brow on the man. “Desert the Sea Dragon? Such an idea is not to be borne.”
Symod turned to watch the ranks of Islandmen break into a run for the walls. Crossbow bolts came raining down among them, but not as many as had been shot the first day, nor the fifth, nor even the tenth.
“There were two berzerkers among them,” Symod suddenly said. “They would not simply run off like cowards. It is not in them.”
“No, Honored Choiron, it is not. But there were forty Islandmen. And forty might set upon two in the night, or in darkness. Please, Honored Choiron. Just give me leave to take men to find them. To hunt them down, or to bring their killers the Sea Dragon’s vengeance.”
Symod frowned as he saw men tossing ropes up at the top of the lower curtain wall. Too few reached their targets and even those that died were all too quickly dislodged. In the rare event that men managed to scramble up a rope, they were easily shoved away at spearpoint.
“You may go, on two conditions. You will return with heads, whether of deserters or attackers. You will discover a good source of lumber. It is time for ladders.”
“Yes, Honored Choiron. I will take a hundred of the men.”
“And three Dragon Scales,” Jorn said, showing evidence that he’d been listening. “They will not carry tools, or cut wood. But they will bring your heads, Honored Choiron.” Theophraste bowed low and hurried out of the circle.
A fat Marynth whose name Symod couldn’t recall spoke up. “Perhaps it is time we unleashed a few of the Gravekmir? We cannot simply continue spending men.”
“An army must be blooded,” Symod cooly replied. “This is only the beginning, and we have more than enough men. Once they carry the walls, the berzerkers will gain us the keep.”
“We could take the walls, too,” Jorn insisted.
“It may come to that. For now, let us watch our army blood itself.”
Blood themselves they did. The Islandmen had little enough in the way of training, but courage they did have in abundance. Here and there, singly and in pairs, men would reach the top of the wall only to be thrown off. Men who were halfway up the fastened ropes fell as they were cut, then immediately got up and ran for another descending line. Here and there, particularly brave or hardy souls tried to climb the wall itself, wedging their hands and feet into cracks in the mortar, pulling themselves along by sheer muscle.
We have the men, we have the Gravek keeping relief away, and most of all, we have the Sea Dragon, Symod told himself. They are doomed.
* * *
“You have got yourself,” Torvul muttered, “about as efficient a band of killers as I’ve ever known. And believe you me, I have known princes among thugs. Master craftsmen of violence. Adepts at killing men. And this lot just about beats them all.”
“They are not thugs, Torvul,” Allystaire said. “They are knights.”
“Whatever you call ‘em, they’ cut that batch of Islandmen down like it was a mere day’s work on the farm,” the dwarf replied. “If anyone sings songs o’that fight they’re goin’ to be using it t’scare their children to sleep.”
He stood, and Allystaire knelt, by the side of their mounts on the slight rise of a hill where they had paused to reconnoiter and rest. The Barons Machoryn and Telmawr and their knights gathered around him, while Landen and Arontis oversaw disposition of their own men, with the Damarinds, mother and daughter, moving along with the young Baron Innadan.
Allystaire had a folded section of map spread out on his bent knee. “If they are sending out regular foraging parties in that strength, they have not got the supplies to maintain a long siege,” he mused aloud.
“Or they’re just after plunder and food is all they’ve found,” Torvul cautioned.
He looked towards Gideon, who was feigning sleep against his saddle. To all but Allystaire, Torvul, and the two men of Keegan’s who stood over him, he might well have been. Those who knew what he was doing for their little army tried to guard the secret as well as they could, for the boy was entirely vulnerable when he projected his Will away from himself.
“We need to get someone close enough to the walls to give us a good count of their numbers,” Allystaire said. “If they are few enough, and poorly dispositioned, we might want to strike.”
“Gravek,” Torvul rumbled. “Got to get past them first.”
“I can handle Gravek,” Allystaire said.
“Gravekmir, not Graveklings. Though I’d wager you don’t see the one without the other. And one or two, yes, I don’t doubt you. But the boy said there were dozens.”
“Gideon cannot get close enough without revealing himself to the priests,” Allystaire said, “and it may well be that they obscure what he can see from afar. In other matters I trust him. In this, I need to be sure.”
“Wide open country approachin’ that keep. What about—”
They broke off as their talk as a shadow fell over them from behind: Rede. His robes were better tended than when they had left Thornhurst, he’d washed, and food and drink had put at least a bit of flesh back into his cheeks, but he had that same gaunt and fevered look as he held out his hands towards Allystaire and Torvul, carrying a wrapped bundle. The dwarf took it with a nod, and Allystaire thanked him almost absently while the dwarf unwrapped the bread and hard cheese.
Torvul frowned heavily as he bit off a mouthful of the bread, grumbling a few low and gravelly Dwarfish oaths.
Allystaire took his loaf and ate absently. “Keegan might be able to get close,” he mused. “He was a scout and he knows how to handle hill country.”
“Why not a quick ride close and round,” Ruprecht Machoryn called. The Baron walked stiffly towards them, clearly sore from the saddle and trying not to show it.
&nbs
p; “Because over open ground and a long enough time, a Gravekmir can outrun a horse,” Allystaire said. “We may not fight them often up in Oyrwyn, but we learn that part young. For the tallest of them, this country may as well be flat. A horse will have them in the sprint, but the giant will make up ground as the animal tires. It is a poor bet for the men who do the scouting, and the horses need to be conserved for fighting.”
“Rode them awfully hard just to get here in order to save them for battle,” Machoryn replied, his cheeks coloring.
“We did what was necessary to get close enough to make a difference,” Allystaire replied, standing and slipping the map into the case lashed to his saddle’s pommel.
Machoryn opened his mouth again, raising a gauntleted hand, and Torvul stopped him by clearing his throat. “I’ll wager you’re not a man used t’bein’ corrected, your lordship,” the dwarf said. “’Less you want continued lessons in it, I’d stop talkin’.”
The Baron’s thick cheeks colored more fully, and he stomped off awkward and stiff, back straight, taking small steps.
“There’s fresh men but a day away,” Torvul pointed out. “Boy said the Harlach banner is that close.”
“And if I wait for them to make any decision, might I also not spend precious days rounding up loose Varshyne men? And then hold out just a few more days for Oyrwyn troops to arrive? And then what, it is high summer, we have dug so many ditches and ramparts that a man can walk from here to Pineswatch Ward without laying his eye on a scrap of anything green or growing? No, Torvul. I will not fall into that trap. We will work with the men we have until we have more, or less.”
Allystaire looked as if he’d come to a decision and tossed a large final bite of cheese into his mouth, chewing fast, when hoofbeats turned him around.
Norbert had come pounding up and swinging off the saddle before his horse had reined in, with the enviable confidence of the young. Keegan, riding double behind him, slid a bit more cautiously.
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