The Stricken Field - A Handful of Men Book 3

by Dave Duncan

  “I will be very grateful,” she said, and felt tears prickle in her eyes. Just dust, surely? Dust would not cause the strange lump in her throat, though.

  Not looking at her, Blood Beak said, “I shall come and visit you in Krasnegar one day.”

  “If you do, I shall make you welcome and send you away rich.”

  He did look up then, smiling. “You have taught me to dream impossible dreams, too, Little Princess. That is a bad habit for a goblin! I know really that none of us will return to the taiga, but I should like you to escape and remember me.”

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  “Slow down a bit,” he said. “If we camp near the rear you will have a better chance in the night.”

  Kadie eased back her game little pony and began whispering a prayer. She had prayed a lot in the last few months. She prayed especially to the God of Rescues, if there was one.

  A wonderful hour of anticipation followed.

  It ended in disaster. Perhaps she should have prayed a little harder. Perhaps she had prayed to a nonexistent God and summoned the God of Dashed Hopes instead, if there was one. After so many weeks, it seemed very cruel of the Gods to offer this wonderful chance and then snatch it away so soon.

  Suddenly there were goblins standing across her path. She rose in the stirrups to see as far as she could across the plain. The horde had come to a halt. By the time she reined in, there were goblins everywhere, standing around panting, shouting questions to and fro. The sun was a red ball in the smoke, not close enough to setting yet to explain this unexpected stop.

  She slid from the saddle and stood on her own weary legs. Blood Beak shot her a warning glance—meaning there were too many ears too close for the two of them to talk. She could guess what he was thinking, though. Her hopes of escape had just disappeared again.

  Blood Beak went in search of the chiefs. His bodyguard went with him, and so of course must Kadie. It took him an hour or so even to find the house, and a lot of arguing thereafter, but he eventually bullied his way into the conference. His guards remained behind, at the bottom of the stairs. He grabbed Kadie’s wrist and towed her along as he went running up. That was the first time he had ever touched her. He had a crushing grip.

  In the last few months, she had seen many great mansions and even palaces, but almost always they had been already burning, and she had never been allowed to look inside. She had made a very brief trip through Kinvale, but she had been too shocked that day to notice much of it. This house wasn’t as big as Kinvale, just a large country dwelling. It had been very beautiful, but already it stank of goblin and there was mud all over the rich carpets. She caught glimpses of chests left open and drawers tipped out and beds unmade, signs of a panicky departure. In the romances she had read as a child, princesses lived in sumptuous palaces, but she had always imagined something like the castle at Krasnegar, only warmer. This was no palace, and yet it surpassed her wildest fancies. She wanted to stay and admire the furniture and pictures, to touch the draperies, but she was given no chance.

  The big upstairs drawing room was full of smelly goblins, naked savages, all standing around arguing at the tops of their voices. Blood Beak, having won entry to the council with lies and threats, had no authority to join in the discussion. He would very likely be thrown out at once if his father saw him. He released Kadie’s wrist and left her standing by the door, while he went squirming off in the direction of the windows, which were the reason the chiefs had come indoors at all.

  Kadie had a much better idea. She stepped up on a chair, muddy boots and all. Then she could see over the chiefs, and one glance was enough to show her the extent of their problem.

  A tributary joined the river just a league or so ahead. There was a small walled town at the junction. More important, legions stood across the path. They were too far off to make out individual soldiers, but the sun shone on their shields and helmets. A glittering fence stretched from river to river—many, many legions. The Impire had reacted at last.

  She stepped down to the floor again to be less conspicuous, and struggled to make sense of the guttural dialect as the chiefs argued. The sun was in the goblins’ eyes, said some. It would set before battle could be joined, said others. Goblins fought better by moonlight than imps did. The men were tired. In the morning the sun would hamper the legions. The imps were trapped in the fork of the river. So were the goblins, because they could not use their greater speed to outflank their opponents . . . Talk flowed to and fro. No one seemed to be pointing out that Death Bird had strayed into a very bad position. He had a hostile army in front, rivers on both flanks, and a wasteland behind.

  A loud crash of splintering chair was the signal for silence. “Am deciding!” the king shouted. “Fight at dawn. Kill imps then!”

  There was a brief, halfhearted cheer. Chiefs moved rapidly out of the way as their leader headed for the door. He came face to face with Kadie before she had a chance to take cover. His angular eyes widened in shock at the sight of her and his hand flashed to his sword. The room went silent. Apparently he had forgotten about his hostage.

  She had not seen him in many weeks. He looked older, and certainly thinner. The barrel chest was streaked with sweat and dust, there were lines in his face and gray in his rope of hair. He was probably doomed now, he and his horde, but he would live on in memory as the worst butcher ever to humiliate the Impire.

  “Princess!” He grinned his big teeth at her, looking her over shrewdly. “Are not hot in so many clothes?”

  Of course she was hot, because she always wore a coat to hide her sword. He had remembered that, too.

  She bowed and tried not to look frightened. “No, Sire.”

  “Where son?” Death Bird looked around. Wearing a surly expression, Blood Beak emerged from the onlookers. His father regarded him mockingly. “Are growing! Ready for wedding soon?”

  Blood Beak hesitated, glanced at Kadie, and then puffed out his chest—which was quite large enough already. “Soon. Thinks carries baby.”

  Kadie felt herself blush scarlet at this outright falsehood. The spectators guffawed, the king pursed his big lips. He did not look very convinced. ”Told you not to lie with her!”

  The boy shrugged. “Begged me to. Get no sleep else.” There was more cruel laughter, but Kadie minded less now. She stared at the carpet, knowing that in some strange way Blood Beak was trying to protect her.

  Death Bird thumped his son on the shoulder. “Guard woman well tonight. Camp at my fire.” He glanced at Kadie again, eyeing that suspicious coat. ”Don’t get fancy ideas, Princess,” he said in impish. “The legions won’t save you.” He leered disbelievingly. “And look after my grandson.”

  Then he strode forward and out the door.

  Kadie relaxed with a gasp and a weak shiver. Blood Beak summoned her with a nod, and she followed him as he went after his father, leaving the chiefs to their jabbering talk.

  There would be no escape tonight.

  2

  “This is dull!” Jalon complained. “Dull, dull, dull! You never used to travel like this. Where is the flying spume, the bare poles burning cold fire in the tempest? I want a lee shore, waves higher than the crosstrees, and all hands to the pumps!”

  “Take my share, too,” Rap said, easing the wheel around. “Rock this tub and she’d fall apart.” The leaky, bedraggled old coaster had probably not ridden out a storm in fifty years. At the slightest hint of one, she would slip away into safe haven.

  The sea was a lazy silver mirror, whose only claim to excitement was the crimson wound burned across it by the setting sun. A sickly wind barely gave Dreadnaught steerage way, let alone blew spume, but Rap was enjoying the challenge of keeping the sails filled. He was standing first watch while the minstrel kept him company, sprawled on the dry boards of the deck nearby, leaning on his elbows. “Besides, it beats scrambling around in jungle.”

  “You have a point there.” Jalon rolled his head around to grin up at Rap with drea
my eyes of cornflower blue. “But then I wouldn’t! Darad is stupid enough to like doing that sort of thing. He finds hardship a challenge to his manhood. The rest of us are more than happy to humor him.”

  Jalon was the only one of the sequential five whose company Rap honestly enjoyed. He was short for a jotunn, but otherwise his appearance was unremarkable. With his silver-gold hair and fair skin—already peeling for the second time—he seemed barely more than a youth. His behavior, though, was anything but typical. Artist, minstrel, dreamer, hopelessly impractical, and unfailingly good-humored, he was a most unlikely jotunn.

  But then Rap was a most unlikely faun, and for the same reason. Jalon was a hybrid, also, and the elvish blood in his veins might explain why he seemed no older than he had on the day Rap first met him, twenty years ago. He must have added about four years to his tally in those twenty, but not a single day showed.

  It was enough to make a man nostalgic.

  So was the low shadow to the north, for that was the island of Kith, which also brought back memories of youth and adventure, and another quest, which at times had seemed just as hopeless as this one.

  Assorted anthropophagi sat around the deck, taking life easy. The multicolored tattoos on their walnut skins shone like flowers in beds of rich loam. The trolls were happier out of the sun, off by themselves. If a man opened any door on Dreadnaught, he would find a skulking troll. Larder or galley, cabin or pump room or chain locker—it made no difference, a toothy monster would be huddled in there, grinning sheepishly at being discovered. They were quite willing to be sociable if asked; they just could not keep it up for very long at a stretch.

  “You’re brooding,” Jalon said softly.

  Rap concentrated his attention on the sails.

  “No.”

  “You’re brooding,” Jalon said again, in exactly the same tone. “Tell me what’s wrong, sonny.”

  “Sonny! What way is that to address a reigning monarch?”

  “I am a hundred and ten years older than you are.” The minstrel flashed a grin that made him seem barely more than adolescent. “Now, tell Grandpapa what’s the matter. Not the Imperial Navy, obviously.”

  “No.” There were no other sails in sight. Dreadnaught’s crew might not even have reported the theft of their ship yet. They had been set ashore with a plentiful supply of gold. Being jotnar, they probably would not sober up until all the gold was gone.

  “Information,” Rap said. “I wish I knew how Shandie and Raspnex are doing.”

  “They’re doing fine,” Jalon said, rolling over on his back and putting his hands behind his head.

  “You don’t know that!”

  “Grunth says so. She says Zinixo must know roughly where her lair was. He’s had the Covin hunting her, off and on, but not much lately. If either of your playmates had been captured, the dwarf would have been after Grunth, too, like flies round carrion.”

  Rap had heard that theory before and found it unconvincing. Losing his magic scrolls was about the stupidest thing he’d ever done in his life.

  He was worried sick about Inos and the kids, back in Krasnegar. Had Shandie reached them and warned them? Had Inos had the sense to go into hiding at Kinvale? But he wouldn’t discuss his family with Jalon.

  “Sysanasso, then. Tomorrow or the next day, we’ll make landfall. There must be sorcery among the fauns. In fact I know there is. My mother came from Sysanasso.”

  If anyone was going to be set ashore as a recruiting agent in Sysanasso, it would have to be Rap himself, and he did not want that. Although he was by far the weakest of the many sorcerers aboard, he was the only one who could keep the peace between the two ill-assorted groups. So far both had deferred to him. That situation might not last, but he was sure they would fall out very quickly if he departed. He also hated the thought of being left behind while the others pursued the war without him. It was his war, Evil take it! To ignore Sysanasso as a source of recruits was unthinkable; to send a troll or anthropophagus in his place was even more so.

  “You need an agent in Sysanasso?” Jalon muttered sleepily. ”Thinking about Sagorn, maybe?”

  “Would he?”

  “No. Beneath his dignity. Also boring.”

  Which is what Rap had already concluded. Indeed, he had discarded all of the sequential gang for the job. Jalon was unassertive and totally impractical. Andor would be effective if he chose to be, but could not be trusted. Thinal was even less reliable than his brother, and would not be interested Darad was willing, but a moron. The gang of five had a man for almost any situation except that one. A troll clambered out of the hatch and peered around, his huge form swathed in a length of sail to keep the sun off. Even jotunn garments would not fit trolls.

  On the face of it, trolls and anthropophagi were the most improbable crew any ship could ever have. As almost everyone aboard was a sorcerer, Dreadnaught had no problem. A mere adept could learn any skill in minutes, and sorcerers did not even need lessons.

  “Forget Sysanasso,” Jalon said. “Ever been there?”

  ”Once, very briefly.”

  “You’re looking for mundane authorities, you said. Fauns don’t have any.”

  “They do so!” Rap retorted. “They have principalities galore. They even have some republics.”

  “But nobody pays any attention to any of them. Fauns do whatever they please. I know—I’ve been there. Well, Andor has. You’ll just be shoveling water in Sysanasso.”

  Two more trolls emerged from belowdecks. The sun had not set yet. Then two more . . . what was disturbing them? Rap wondered briefly about that, and then went back to considering Jalon’s suggestion. Forget Sysanasso? It was certainly a tempting thought. But then where did he take his crazy army? Even if Lith’rian remained at large somewhere in Ilrane, the warlock of the south would not appreciate an invasion by a force of assorted trolls and cannibals. Rap had ”Thume” tattooed on his arm, but that idea seemed very improbable in the cold light of day . . . the warm light of a summer evening, then. Thume was a dream. He could forget about Thume.

  He might grow old in this war and achieve nothing. Tik Tok came wandering aft, his bone kilt clinking. He was frowning. With his tattoos, the bone in his nose, and his pointed teeth, his frowns were enough to curdle arteries. ”Something amiss?” Rap asked.

  The savage shrugged his brown shoulders and wiggled the bone in his nose. ”Just a vague feeling of reprehension. You feel nothing wrong?”

  Rap checked the ambience. “No.”

  “Others feel it, also, a sense of forebearing.” He leaned on the rail and scowled northward.

  Jalon sat up and yawned. “Ready to teach me more drumming?” He was fascinated by the anthropophagi’s complex rhythms. They were unlike anything else in Pandemia, he claimed. He probably knew more about the music of Pandemia than anyone else did, so no one argued.

  Tik Tok turned to look him over thoughtfully, and Rap laughed.

  “He’d rather teach you cooking—the inside story.”

  The deck was becoming crowded now. Almost everyone aboard was in sight, and most of them were staring to the northeast. Rap’s skin prickled. Again he sniffed the ambience. He was the least powerful sorcerer of them all. He ought to be the last to understand. But perhaps that brooding Jalon had detected in him had been a premonition?

  There was something! He sniffed again—peered, listened, whatever . . . Something faint but tantalizingly familiar?

  A sudden ripple in the mainsail brought his attention back to his duties. He spun the wheel. Then a bestial howl from Thrugg distracted him.

  “Dragons!” Grunth roared from the bow. “The dragons are rising!”

  Jalon, the only mundane aboard, scrambled to his feet and stared at the horizon, but of course there was nothing to be seen.. Rap found himself clenching hands on the spokes and drawing deep breaths, fighting horror. Yes! Now he recognized that sinister, alien flavor, the occult spoor of dragons. He had almost been charred by a dragon once.

  All
over the ship, troll and anthropophagus stared at one another in dismay.

  “South?” Jalon demanded, scowling. “Is Lith’rian starting your war, King Rap?”

  “Can’t say. But the witch is right. The dragons are rising.”

  Rap doubted Lith’rian was responsible—not unless he was cornered and desperate. For him to raise the dragons against the Covin would be suicide. He would reveal his own location and find the worms turned on him by the greater power. Far more likely, Zinixo had preempted South’s prerogative and was stealing the dragons for some purpose of his own.

  The usurper already controlled the world. Why did he need dragons?

  3

  The westward roll of night across Pandemia had already veiled Hub in darkness. The city was still under siege by its own people, with refugees filling every temple, huddling under every bridge and gateway. Starvation and pestilence were taking a grim toll, and the summer had barely started. The XXth Legion had been pulled back into the capital in a vain attempt to keep order, but the food riots continued to spread. Here and there burning buildings fountained sparks to the black sky.

  Light still blazed in the great houses of the rich. The aristocracy knew where safety lay, and this year would not flee the summer heat of the capital for the comfort of country dwellings. They grumbled about the price of food and the expense of maintaining private armies to protect them, but they thrived.

  Music drifted out from the high windows of the Ishipole mansion. A mere war would not deter the old senator from celebrating her birthday with one of her sumptuous balls. Official mourning for Emshandar had not yet ended, but Ishipole was a law unto herself. She had brazenly invited everyone of consequence and they had all come, starved for their accustomed gaiety. The imperor had promised to attend, thus putting a stamp of propriety on the occasion and guaranteeing that it would be an uproarious success.