But Keltos didn’t let the matter bother him personally. It was interesting to witness the business side of their hiring, but it was none of his affair as an enlisted man. He would go where he was ordered and do his part to see that the company prevailed.
The cavalry rode west from Painlock, passing tilled fields and soon coming to more scattered, independent settlements. The fields began to be interspersed with copses and groves. The track grew rougher.
Ahead, perhaps two leagues northwest, gray clouds lowered over wooded hills, and the wind suddenly carried the smell of rain, still far off. Green were the hills, green and soft. Keltos breathed deep.
This land…
“We ought to have challenged the pompous peahen to her face.” Makos ground his teeth, interrupting Keltos’ reverie. “We’re here to do a job her own men won’t, or can’t. That was an ill grace of hers!”
“Her men had us surrounded and dismounted in the courtyard,” Keltos said, wearily. “What would you have us do? She’ll respect us when we return victorious.”
“Perhaps,” was his friend’s surly reply. “But it is an ill beginning to our venture, to take insult without reply. Especially from cowards who cannot rid themselves of some ravaging apes.”
“Mouths shut, eyes open.” Sergeant Bivar had finished his conversation with the captain and silently fallen back among the other riders.
“Yessir.”
“The baroness has enough men to slay a few apes if it came to it, Trooper Vipirion. She seeks to lessen her own losses, to shift the burden to us so that her own fighting men remain in strength while we tangle with the wilderness. She hired us to be expendable, preserving her own soldiers for the raff or a rival baron.”
Makos digested this in silence for a time. “Doubtless she hopes we will sustain such losses in killing the apes that she can safely keep the five hundred silver,” he finally said.
“You learn quickly, young Vipirion,” Bivar murmured, amused. “Now hold your tongue and keep alert. Ostora has fangs.”
Makos waited until Bivar drifted down the column, then muttered to his friend. “Killing some lice-picking apes? We have a hundred horse. How deep could those fangs possible bite?”
Keltos watched the dark clouds forming on the horizon, and made no answer.
The road was rough and winding, and when Pelekarr’s cavalry finally arrived at the hamlet of Greenfield the sun was nearing the horizon. Greenfield was surrounded by an irregular but effective fence, almost a wall, of long poles sharpened at both ends, one end driven into the ground at an angle to form a row of huge wooden spikes. Inside this makeshift wall clustered some huts, well-kept but small. It was a poor place, and Keltos pitied those who lived there.
As they approached, men appeared from the huts, clutching bronze sickles and wooden clubs. Once they realized the company was there to rid them of the depredations of the apes, the women and children began to emerge from the huts and the menfolk gave a loud cheer.
“Grateful we are, my lords,” said the village headman. “We’ve been begging Lady Craya for help many days now.”
“What can you tell us of the apes?” Pelekarr asked. “Can you point us their way?”
“Indeed, my lords,” the headman replied, nodding and leaning on a staff. “Just this morning Jakius our woodcutter saw ‘em. North and west of here, maybe a league into the woods. They were watering at a small lake, the whole pack of ‘em.”
“Excellent. We will begin the hunt in the morning. Where, good sir, may we bivouac?”
The headman stared blankly.
“Camp. Sleep. Pitch our tents,” Pelekarr offered.
“Oh, aye! In that field yonder. It’s old Cobb’s melon patch. Poor devil won’t be harvesting melons anymore. Pale ones caught him six days ago. We found the body in the trees.”
The headman led the way to a large field, full of unripe melons still too early to be anything more than hard green lumps the size of a man’s fist. The sergeants barked out orders to the rest of the men and soon a classic Kerathi field camp began to take shape, laid out in orderly rows with lanes between tents.
“It’s little we can offer in the way of supplies, my lord,” the headman apologized. “What with the blonde devils picking off our workers, we’ve got to save what we have. I’ll have the lads bring you what bread we can spare, though. Bless you.”
“You owe us nothing,” Pelekarr explained. “The baroness is paying us well, and we bring our own rations. Though if you have any fresh bread, I’m sure the men will be grateful—they tire of dried biscuit.”
Tibion the cook, passing by with his little wagon to set up at the edge of the camp, huffed loudly at what he’d overheard.
“But tell me more of the apes,” Pelekarr said, ignoring the portly cook. “The baroness hinted that we might be drawn into more trouble than we at first anticipated.”
The headman nodded. “It is possible, sir. Cunning and treacherous they are. Last year we got up a band of men and chased them to get back a girl they had taken from us.” The man choked up briefly, and Pelekarr surmised the girl was closer to him than he wanted to admit. “The beasts led us in circles until, exhausted, we made camp on the edge of a ravine. They attacked during the night and picked several of us off. It is for that disaster that we’re now unable to fight back against this evil ourselves.”
The captain gazed at the man with sincere pity in his eyes. “Then pray the gods that we will resolve your troubles tomorrow. If my horse troopers cannot do the job, given enough time to run the creatures to earth, then none in Ostora can.”
“I have no doubt you’ll do it, sir,” the headman growled vindictively. “And again I thank you, pay or no. You’re what we’ve begged and prayed for these past six months.”
“Thank the gods, not us. We’ve done nothing yet.”
As twilight fell, campfires were lit. Guarded wood details returned from the forest with enough fuel for the night, and the company made their evening meal with loaves of fresh black bread brought by the villagers. A small stream flowed nearby, and the horses were picketed there under heavy guard. If the pale apes were daring enough to attempt a sortie from the trees under cover of darkness, they’d find a harder target than some desperate villagers this time.
Tibion didn’t have much to work with, but he managed to turn out a turnip stew that wasn’t half bad thanks to some locally-sourced seasoning and a handful of stringy waterfowl a farmer brought them. That, with fruit mashed with honey and spread over the bread, got the men through the night in decent spirits.
Keltos finished his food and lay back, belly pleasantly full, looking at the night sky. The moon was icy white, though he knew that later it would appear yellow. He had known all the constellations and their names back home, but here the stars were unfamiliar. He gripped the cool grass on either side of himself, inhaling the sweet scent.
“This isn’t too bad,” Aslom said, shoving another stick into the fire. He squatted back on his heels, staring into the fire with satisfaction. “Full bellies, warm summer night. I wager we’re better off right now than Captain Damicos and his mud-feet. Not bad at all for our first job.”
“Aye, and maybe our last,” said Somber Dom, finishing his last chunk of bread. “No telling what’s out there. Can’t spend your pay when you’re chewed up in something’s belly.”
“Just pointing to the truth of the moment, Somber.” Aslom was full and content and his voice remained congenial despite his gloomy compatriot’s dour words. “We’re official: The Tooth and Blade! And here we are, working for good pay. That’s got to mean something.”
“Might mean nothing. Might be the last pay we ever take.”
“How did you ever come to take up the fighting life, Somber?” Makos snorted. “If you had your way, we’d all lie around like dead men waiting for the worst to happen to us. And it likely would, and we’d deserve it!”
Somber Dom nodded. “Like as might.”
“What does that even mean?”
Keltos grinned in the darkness. Only Makos was stubborn enough to engage Somber Dom for long. Domnos was their own age, but a long jaw, bushy eyebrows, and a perpetually mournful drooping of the mouth made him seem years older and lifetimes more experienced. It was like talking to an aged grandfather who had survived a hundred misfortunes and felt impelled to pass on an ancestral melancholy to the younger generation.
Aslom shook his head. “Don’t encourage him, Makos. He thrives on this.”
“I don’t,” said Somber.
“You do. You take pleasure in dampening our spirits.”
“No.”
Makos threw a larger branch on the fire, causing sparks to blaze up in a shower that made Somber scramble backward. Makos laughed. “We’ll see. Maybe the apes will kill us all tomorrow.”
Arco spoke up, the smallest in stature of their unit, but a deadly lancer nonetheless. “You think we’ll lose anyone? Velzar says the apes are only dangerous to these unarmed yokels.”
“I still say so,” Velzar stated authoritatively, turning from his task of re-weaving a piece of harness that had begun to split. “I had it from a trooper in the Red Lancers who fought them several months back. He said they break and run at the first charge. Easy to spit them on lances.”
Makos stared into the fire. “I don’t know. Sergeant Bivar says never to rely on initial reports of enemy strength. If there’s enough of them, and they get us in the trees where we can’t maneuver…”
Keltos stared at the stars and smiled. Makos was a good soldier. He’d almost certainly be an officer one day; he had the tactical gift, the ability to read terrain in moments and understand how the fight must play out. Keltos studied hard, listened to the sergeants’ lectures, but couldn’t equal his friend. His fondest hope was to distinguish himself with some act of physical valor and gain a reputation as a sought-after fighter.
The talk died down after that. Their unit had been spared sentry duty, and one by one they wrapped themselves in their cloaks and nodded off. Keltos dreamed of riding down apes, one after another, riding them down and impaling them until his lance broke under the weight. His kill tally expanded until he could no longer keep track, and the dream turned into a troubling nightmare in which he tried to explain what he’d done, but no one would listen.
CHAPTER 22: IN TELROS’ SERVICE
The conflict on the coast turned out to be a dirty, troublesome affair, with no clear right side and only the promise of blood and gold.
Perfect, in other words, for hungry mercenary companies.
The country was all new to Damicos, and he studied the terrain with the attention of a man whose life depends upon understanding it. Open, flat cropland to the south, the forests long since cleared. Westward lay a range of low hills running north-south, and eastward there was the sea. They couldn’t see it, but they could smell it. Salt marshes lay to the north—a bad place to have to retreat into.
Baron Telros ruled his fief from a squat fortress one hundred yards square, with a crenellated tower at each corner. Like most of the barons, Telros’ initial structure had been constructed of logs, with stone added later as budget and labor permitted. The fortress was more than half stone now, only the eastern wall was still mostly stockade logs, and this was frantically being worked on day and night by teams of stone-layers working on scaffolds. From what Damicos had heard, many of the local barons were adding to their own defenses in the wake of the army’s departure.
It was a pleasant enough place, and the fields looked reasonably well-tended, but Damicos surmised that Telros’ ambition exceeded his grasp. There was too much work to be done here to take on more so soon. Typical for one of the Kerathi nobility that had come to establish a little empire in Ostora.
Accompanied by his three lead sergeants and his newly promoted lieutenant, Leon Stonehand, Damicos marched to the fort, leaving the bulk of his troops to join the Deep Shields in an encampment outside. The Deeps had arrived the day before, along with the Red Lancers, but the horsemen were staying aloof, forming their cavalry camp just northeast of the fortress gate.
Sentries on the ramparts had already notified their lord, and Telros greeted Damicos as he walked through the gates. The baron, sporting a thin black beard, shaven cheeks and a pair of calculating green eyes, offered the officers wine and then launched into a detailed explanation of the conflict’s situation.
It was all about access, to a sea port in this case. He who held the keys held the power.
Telros roundly accused his enemy Vocke of illegally blocking access to the port that the king had long ago decreed a royal asset, and extorting merchants who tried to get their commodities to market through ships passing through that part of the coast.
“He’s got armed men that turn away all who won’t pay up. His ‘port maintenance fee’ goes straight into his own treasury and never comes out, as evidenced by the state of the wharfs and the shocking ‘roadways’—his word, gentlemen, not mine!—into and out of the place. I haven’t gotten a shipment of copper ore out through the port since Vocke’s uncle died, for Beshkal’s sake!”
The baron swigged from a goblet of his own, poured from a separate bottle that looked much higher quality to Damicos’ eyes than what the soldiers had been offered.
“I know what he’s trying to do. His uncle did it before him, but on a less noticeable scale—he’s intentionally trying to drive some of us out of business while enriching himself in the process. Then when my mines are closed, he’ll move in and acquire them for a fraction of the price I paid His Majesty. Then he’ll set up a little monopoly, the cur, as the only copper merchant in the region who can use his port. It’s the foulest of treacheries!”
Damicos had heard the other side, too. Baron Vocke, of course, blamed Telros for evasion of legitimate taxes and fees. Telros had anticipated this and now took great pains to convince Damicos that the accusations against him were all foul lies. A feeling of impatience gradually settled over Damicos as he listened, which he took pains not to let show on his face.
Who cared, in the end? Coin was coin. The sooner the job was done, the sooner they could get paid, show the men that their company was viable, and move on to jobs that would set them up even better.
It was obvious that each baron coveted the lucrative operations of the other, and each secretly felt that with the army gone there was money to be made and power to be seized. Both had begun recruiting fighting men before the generals had even sailed for Kerath, and now it was an open race to muster the critical balance of warriors.
“I’ll burn in Taxases’ furnace before I’ll be driven away by that upstart,” Telros swore, gesturing for his servants to pour more of the cheap wine for Damicos and his men. “The army I’ve raised is far superior, and with your help we’ll have our justice tomorrow, or Vocke’s head on a pole. Preferably both.”
It would be a sordid and bloody engagement, Damicos had little doubt. He knew that Vocke’s uncle, the Baron Ancos, had been killed several months previously when a small army of barbarian raff took advantage of a lull in the royal troops’ vigilance and laid siege to his seaside fortress. It wasn’t until the Copper Men arrived by ship that the port town and its fortress were saved. Telros had seen the ease with which the barbarians entrapped Ancos, and now he hoped to use Vocke’s lack of experience and the weakened state of his fortress against him.
Damicos was bemused at what he’d gotten himself into, but knew well that any military engagement was ultimately driven by political machinations. Without an experienced general over him, and without the more experienced and higher-born Pelekarr to consult with, it was now up to Damicos to find a path through the tangled web before him, on behalf of his men.
To business, then.
After some haggling involving mutual pledges—which Telros seemed to think would be truly binding, to Damicos’ surprise—they reached an agreement. Damicos committed his men to fight as long as a set of minimum conditions were met: if a peace
ful surrender could be brokered by a show of arms or an honorable duel, the lives of the soldiers would be spared, and in any event the town would not be sacked, only Vocke’s fortress. Telros swore on Yillitha’s grave that the conditions would be honored, and Damicos left the fortress with his officers to prepare the men for battle on the morrow.
As they walked northward, up the road toward the field assigned to them for the night, Damicos’ party passed the edge of the Red Lancers’ encampment. The cavalrymen’s horses were being kept in the center of the great ring of cookfires and tents. Damicos waved in greeting at a few of the cavalry officers, but only one gave him the courtesy of a nod. Then his lieutenant, Leon, stopped in the middle of the road.
“Look there!” he whispered. “That’s her.”
The other men with Damicos craned their necks. All Damicos could see was a cluster of chariots lined up, awaiting their horses and riders in the morning. There were only six of them, and he wondered where the rest of the company might be. “What are you talking about?” he asked, exasperated by their conspiratorial whispering.
“It’s her, Captain. Right over there, with the flaming red hair.”
“Didn’t you hear the word from the Deep Shields, when we arrived? The Red Lioness herself is here.”
Damicos spotted a few of the charioteers sitting around a small fire with a tan and crimson tent behind them. One of them had long auburn hair in a thick braid at her back, and a sharp but strong nose and chin. Now that the men had pointed her out, he realized he was looking at Kallida, the only remaining chariot leader in Ostora. He’d heard that the legendary heroine of Lakidos (and a dozen other storied Kerathi engagements) was with the Red Lancers now. She didn’t look so magnificent sitting at a fire with her famous hair pulled back, but Damicos’ men didn’t seem to mind.
“So it’s true, she has but a handful of chariots left with her,” Leon said. “The rumors of slaughter in the southlands sounded tall in the telling, but if those are all that are left of her company…”
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