He recognized the voice. “Begging pardon, sir, but I think this may be important.”
“Let him in!” The big Aulig ordered.
Celdemer’s face grew pink and his eyes widened. He looked at Tuchek as if he’d grown another head. “Eskeriel, what is the meaning of this?”
“Allow me to introduce a friend of mine.” The big Aulig replied, as Aelfric hesitantly walked into the tent, bowing at each of the seated knights respectively. In his hand he clutched the broken off haft of a white-fletched arrow. “This Aelfric from the Red Tigers.”
Aelfric’s roughspun, dirty and ill-fitting tabard, along with his uncut beard and hair, made him feel like the stenchcat at a wedding among the knights.
“By my nameday, Eskeriel.” Celdemer laughed, putting a finger beside his nose. “What an amazing odor you have contrived. It seems a very combination of horse dung, iron rations and sweat. Still, he looks a fit man for a mercenary.”
“My Lords, pardon.” Aelfric said, trying to act as Haim had, bowing and touching his fist to his chest. He spoiled it somewhat by looking up to see how they reacted.
“Oh, Goodness.” Said Celdemer. “You could have taught him some manners ….” Then he looked at Tuchek and reconsidered. “Well, perhaps you couldn’t, not having any yourself, but you could have had him taught.”
Aelfric blushed as the other knights laughed.
“What’s that you have there, Aelfric?” Tuchek asked gently, taking the proffered arrow into his hand and considering it.
“Where did this come from?”
“A woodcutter gave it to us, sir. He was shot in the Whitewood about a league from here.”
“This is a Karltan Island fletching or I’m a Brother of Faith.” Tuchek declared, turning the arrow about in his hands and examining it closely. “A league from here, you say?”
“Yes.”
“Well, take it with you when you leave.” Angon grunted angrily, pointing with his fork at the tent entrance. “We’re trying to break bread here.”
“Wait, Angon.” Tuchek replied, then to Aelfric: “Tell me everything, boy.”
“Outside!” Ordered Celdemer, and Tuchek bowed and took his leave, pushing Aelfric ahead of him.
When Aelfric told him about his quest for firewood and what he’d learned from the woodcutters, Tuchek grasped his shoulder.
“This explains a lot, boy. You did good bringing it to me. Tell me, did you see any other arrows?”
“No, but the woodcutter’s wife said they all looked the same.”
“Aye, well, they would. The Karltan Islanders don’t mix much with any other bands. There are half a hundred little tribes of them, and they hunt kraken and giant bears. They call themselves the Sons of the Bear. They use just such arrows and they have compound bows made of kraken bone that shoot like bloody crossbows. Did you find the points?”
“No, but they were all iron like this, according to them that took them out.”
“This just gets better, doesn’t it? Bands of Auligs who haven’t left their island for five hundred summers and now they’re here deep in Northcraven with bows that can punch through light plate. If the Karltan Islanders are in this, then every other band will be, too. This has to be their final war.”
“Final war?”
“Aye. There’s a prophecy or an augury that goes back more than thirty years. It says the Auligs are doomed to fight a final war, all the bands at once. There’s a priest they’ve got, he’s been trying to unite the tribes to start it up for that whole time.” He didn’t add that the augury said that the bands had to be led by a certain chosen warrior, him, or they’d be annihilated, nor that the priest was his own father. Stupid fools! Now northern Mortentia would burn until the king poured out enough men to drive the Auligs out, and that wouldn’t happen without piling the dead like cordwood from the Whitewood to the Deep.
All based on the rattle of a few damned bones thirty-five years back.
Aelfric told Tuchek about his suspicion that there were more Aulig bowmen in the wood and Tuchek nodded. “Makes sense. This crossroads is a big deal. You’ve got armies coming up from down south, armies coming west from Manavolle and Brinnvolle, armies coming in from the coast. All of them have to come through here to get to the Redwater, and it’s a sure bet the king has ordered them to. I’ve been hearing nothing but stories about Auligs crossing the river to go a’burning. He’ll have been hearing them, too. He’s going to want to move a strong force from here to the river, probably us.”
“Leaving this town undefended.”
“Yes.” Tuchek nodded. “You see it. It’s about logistics. You take after your father, sure enough.”
Aelfric ignored the compliment, trying to think in tactical terms. How many nights had he spent with his father, sitting around map-filled tables, moving pieces of wood shaped like swordsmen, bowmen and lancers? In his mind he reduced what he’d seen of Walcox to a map and then spread out the surrounding region mentally. “So as soon as we march out, the Karltan Island gang marches in. They fire the granaries, burn the bridge and smash the town, leaving the armies coming through here to forage, which means adding weeks before they can relieve Northcraven City.”
“Aye. It’s a smart play. And for the Cthochi, it costs them nothing. What happens to the Karltan Islanders isn’t going to matter much to them. Success or failure here isn’t critical, and it gets the Islanders out of their camps and reduces fights. The Sons of the Bear are known troublemakers.
“One good thing, though.” Tuchek said, nodding thoughtfully. “The Islanders aren’t worth a damn in the woods. Not like the Cthochi. They’re good on snow or on the water, but they’re not much better than Mortentians in the forest. If they attack the town, get your people into the Whitewood and make a run for Pulflover.”
“What about you?” Aelfric asked after considering his advice. “Aren’t you going to be with us?”
Tuchek shook his head. “I doubt it boy. Celdemer and his high-bred friends will probably start riding toward Northcraven Deep tomorrow morning. We’ve been called to break the siege. I suspect that you footmen will have orders to follow as you can, but the cavalry’s been ordered to get up there as soon as possible.”
“And the Red Tigers will be the last ones sent, of course.”
“Aye. Well. That’s what happens when you sign on with a mercenary band, young Aelfric the not-so-bright. Damned if I know what you were thinking.”
“That makes two of us.” Aelfric replied wryly.
Walcox formed at a crossroads time out of mind in the past, and many farms had come and gone in its vicinity. It was from the worm-eaten timbers of a fallen barn that the Blackhill Gang ultimately scavenged enough firewood to see the camp through the night, bringing in the hastily cut wood just before the first stars began appearing in the broad and open sky. Warin Bribiker was not happy with the wood coming in late to camp, and was in no mood to listen to Aelfric’s excuses or his reasons for delay. When Aelfric told him that the Whitewood was likely crawling with Auligs, his unhappiness burst into fury.
“By damn, soldier Aelfric!” He shouted, within full view of half of the Red Tigers. “I be the fyrdman here, not you. You’ve made dinner late for everybody with no wood to cook it, and I’ll not be having stories about ghost Auligs in the Whitewood. You’re lucky not to get a lashing!”
Seeing the way things stood, Aelfric did not argue, but made sure that the Blackhill Gang camped as close to the walls of Walcox as they could. If the Auligs attacked, the camp of the Silver Run Muster, situated as it was in a farmer’s fallow field, would be completely exposed to attack by bowmen, and he wanted to be as near to cover as he could get.
By morning, no attack had come, nor had Aelfric expected one, for the godsknights and the cavalry from the Nevermind Muster were still in camp. From everything he had heard, the Auligs did not like to tangle with cavalry.
But the horsemen were striking camp, and once they were gone Aelfric knew there would be nothing to stop
the Auligs from attacking. His bare ass was both literally and figuratively hanging over the edge of a stinking and overfull latrine when the big idea came to him.
Chapter 35: Lanae in the East Forest, South of Nevermind
Lanae looked up into the endless web of branches and leaves, searching vainly for a spot of blue. She could smell the sea, and when the night was deepest she fancied she could hear waves pounding on the shore, but she did not know in which direction it lay. The air smelled crisp and clean, and the humid and vaguely swampish odor of eastern Zoric seemed to be behind them now. As a king’s eye, she had been to most places in Mortentia, if only for brief visits, and she knew the smells, sounds and colors. If she’d had to guess, she would have placed them somewhere between Charnevolle and Nevermind on the eastern coast, probably closer to Nevermind.
The trees were tall and thick, but the underbrush was sparse, which made her feel like she was inside of Mereham Cathedral, but carpeted with pine needles and leaves instead of wool tapestries. For four days the Brizaki had camped in this gloom, showing neither impatience nor worry, waiting for a ship that was overdue. At night they chanced small fires in deep hollows, speaking quietly in their strange language that seemed a mixture of hard sounds and soft, sudden odd accents and long silences.
Fourteen of the Brizaki remained in camp, including Jahaksi, while two or three of them continuously scouted the area or went out of camp, presumably to watch for the ship to arrive. Lanae knew this area from the sky only, and she knew that there were several places where a ship could make landfall, even old abandoned piers of stone and rotted wood.
It had been several weeks since she had seen any eagles in the sky, and she wondered at this. Some new event must have taken place, something dreadful that required that the king’s eyes abandon their search for her, or perhaps they were searching in the wrong places. She felt stung by the abandonment of her fellow eagle-riders.
Worse, she was haunted by the guilt she felt at having allowed Sentinel to be taken. Each morning she spent an hour helping the giant eagle preen himself, cleaning the shit and the remains of the fawns and occasional lambs the Brizaki brought for the eagle to eat from his cage. It was no substitute for hunting the animals himself, she knew, and she felt the eagle’s rage at being penned. Her fault, she knew.
And the choice Jahaksi had laid before her yesterday. How she was tempted.
“Little one.” He had said. “Soon a ship will come here, and we must take the eagle to our home, which is very very far. The ship is Brizaki, her captain Brizaki, he have same orders as Da’all Khor, you understand?”
“You mean he is under orders to kill me?”
“Yes and no.” Jahaksi had replied. “His orders are that no Mortentian be left here to know what we do. He may kill you, or he may take you back.”
“Back to your country? Back to Brizaki lands?”
“Yes. Is not the same as here.” He explained patiently. “There your kind must serve. Your kind belong to my kind, like … like a thing that is owned, you understand?”
“A slave.” She replied.
“Yes. To be taken there is to be a slave for your kind. I would not have this for you, but I must, you understand? It is the command.”
“I understand.” She had replied.
“So. But you know that I have command here.” He gestured at the Brizaki gathered by the campsite. “You know I not always am following the command from that land. I have taken the right to allow you to live. I also take the right to allow you to flee.”
“You would let me go?”
He nodded solemnly. “Yes. Not far to north is your city, Nevermind. A walk of three, maybe four days. You go and never speak of us, I accept your promise.”
So there it was. She could go home, well, not home. She could never go home after allowing Sentinel to be taken, she knew that. The law was quite clear that she could never resume her old life, nor could she return to the people who knew her, not after her negligence in allowing his capture. The best she could hope for was to die in the Blackhill, if the headsman didn’t do for her first.
Her other choice was slavery in a foreign land, or possibly immediate death when the captain of the Brizaki ship arrived. But her duty was to Sentinel, as well as to the king in Mortentia. And here, too, her duties crossed impossibly.
It was part of her training that the King’s Eagle should not fall into the hands of any enemy of Mortentia, and this command, too, had been drilled into her head from the beginning of her training. This duty warred with her love for the great bird, for she well knew that she should have slipped a knife into the great bird’s throat weeks ago, but she could not.
Even today, she could not, despite the fact that she had a hidden dagger strapped to her thigh.
So.
Love had decided her choice. She would care for Sentinel as long as the Brizaki allowed her to, and if that meant death tomorrow at the end of a Brizaki crossbow bolt or death after fifty years being a slave in the land of the Brizaki, then that was her choice. She would take care of the bird until she no longer could. She knew no other way.
In the morning the Brizaki broke camp and packed up all of their belongings. They stripped the horses of their gear and left them ground-hitched by the dead fire of their last night’s camp. Some time in the night she had seen flashes of light coming from the open sea, and Tathaga had shuttered and unshuttered a lantern in reply, which meant the Brizaki ship had arrived.
Jahaksi pleaded with her one last time to leave them, explaining that once they were on the ship the ship’s captain would be in command.
“I do not know this one,” he explained patiently, “but many Brizaki hate the people of your race. It is likely that he will kill you, or make of you a slave. Once we have the bird on the ship my command ends, and he has his own orders. I would not like to see you die, and I cannot protect you further.”
“I must stay with him.” She stubbornly insisted. “He will be all alone with people who do not know him. I know that your men have kept him fed, but he will need someone to care for him who knows the ways of eagles.”
“I will tell this to the captain.” Jahaksi replied with a regretful sigh. “But I fear it will do you little good.”
Chapter 36: Gutcrusher, Muharl Ogre Country, the Wraithpit
The four ogres smashed at the rock surrounding the iron door with stone hammers and gigantic pieces of rock, careless of the noise they created. They cursed and roared and laughed, for this was the victory dance of Gutcrusher and Balls. They knew not what lay behind the door, in truth they did not care overmuch. Only they knew that they had killed the door’s eldritch guardian, and the spoils of their victory would be found here.
Gutcrusher had pounded on the rusty iron door, which was half a head taller than himself and equally wide, with his blacksteel mace, but the only result had been a lot of noise and a few scratches. Defeated by the door, the ogres determined to shatter the stone itself, and they were making good progress. Black gravel and razor-sharp chunks of obsidian lay scattered about their feet like cookfire bones after a good raid, and the glassy doorframe bore countless weblike fractures, evidence of their determination to have the door down.
“Sheepguts!” Wolf panted at the door. Sweat ran down his filthy face, etching it in lines like dripping blood. He picked up his stone hammer and slammed it into the rock. That was his way, to smash and bash with all of his strength until he was exhausted, then to curse and stand panting while he caught his breath.
One-eye took over for Wolf when he was winded, hammering at the right side of the doorframe with the remains of an iron mace he had found in the heap of discarded weapons and bones that surrounded the guardian field. On the left side of the door, Balls and Gutcrusher had achieved a rhythm, and they methodically hammered away, Gutcrusher with his blacksteel mace and Balls with a chunk of obsidian held two-handed. Bit by bit the doorframe fell to pieces, until the four ogres were able to tear the door loose with main strength, jerkin
g at it repeatedly until it lay behind them in the rubble.
A long and dark corridor, a finger’s length deep in dust and square cut as if by a sword of diamond lay before them, and straight into the heart of the black mountain it went. Wolf balked.
“Dung!” He exclaimed, looking into the yawning darkness. “I never lost nothing in there!”
“By the Hag’s Tits, Wolf!” Gutcrusher roared. “Where did you leave your tiny testicles? You’ve been turning into a wench ever since we come to this fornicating place.” He stood directly in front of Wolf, who was bristling at the insults. “We’re going in this damn hole, and I’m going to take what’s mine. You come with me and we share and share alike, see? Nobody ever treated his boyos as fair as Gutcrusher, by damn. But you stay out here in the sunshine with your guts turning into mama’s milk, you get nothing.”
“Fornicate the vulture that spawned you, Gutcrusher!” Wolf replied. “I didn’t say I wasn’t going in, did I? Did I?” The two ogres stared at each other, their massive foreheads inches apart, growling and bristling.
“Then quit your shebitch whining and let’s go!”
Gutcrusher understood the Wolf, and had insulted him on purpose. Wolf was like most of his kind. With his blood up he would dare anything.
After fifty paces the darkness became so profound that even the ogres’ vision failed them, until Balls produced a torch as if by magic and ignited it with flint and iron found near the entry way. Indeed, while Gutcrusher and Wolf had been arguing, both One-eye and Balls had taken the time to loot the many bodies near the doorway, finding many useful things.
In another fifty paces, the corridor opened into a wide circular chamber, at least forty paces across, and something metallic at the center reflected Ball’s torch. Gutcrusher approached it without fear, the other three ogres following in single file. The darkness lurked on all sides like a crouching black bear.
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 36
