He rode his horse across the front of his column and then ahead, coming up on Commander Faithborn’s left flank. The thin and older man always looked regal on horseback, with his spine stiff and straight and his shoulders back. He looked at O’Hiam and smiled. “Good Morning, Busker. You just woke me from a nice nap.”
“Nice to be able to sleep in the saddle, but I think my horse would throw me just for spite.”
“That’s why I always pick fat mares.” Faithborn replied, giving his bulky bay a slap. “I assume you didn’t ride up here for amusement.”
“Have you looked at a map of the road to Northcraven City?”
“Looked at one? I daresay I’ve fair memorized it, O’Hiam. Aelfric could probably draw you one by memory, he’s spent so much time staring at it. What prompts the question?” His tone was sardonic.
“I was thinking of the drop off where the ridge breaks onto the lowlands and the road dips between the hills. There’s a nice forest there, and nice hills overlooking the road, all within bowshot.”
“Yes, I suppose you are right.” Faithborn replied. “Are you worried about an ambush?”
“Damn right I’m worried.” O’Hiam answered quickly in a low voice. “This plan was all well and good before Tuchek’s raid went sour, but I’ve been hearing the talking drums pounding all night. I’m thinking the Earthspeaker knows damn well we’re coming, and I’m thinking he’ll have nearly a full day to put bowmen up on those ridges. We need to tell Aelfric.”
Faithborn smiled. “You think he hasn’t thought of it? Really? Is that why you sent a scout north right before we marched? To look over the hills and see if the Cthochi are in them?”
O’Hiam blinked, too surprised to speak for a moment. “You knew about that?”
Faithborn nodded. “I knew. He knows, too. He’s still a step ahead of you Busker, and still half a league ahead of the rest of us.”
“Then what’s the idea? The men are dead on their feet, in no condition for a fight. If the Auligs are waiting there for us, we’ll be surrounded.” O’Hiam could see the battle in his mind, the Silver Run army trapped on a narrow road between two forested hills thick with Cthochi archers. First would come a rain of arrows, then a two sided horde of charging Cthochi with spears and swords. Irresistible. A massacre.
Just then a halt was called to the march. Aelfric came riding over from his position near the front of the army. “Busker, why aren’t you with your columns?”
“He came to warn us about the Cthochi that will be camped on the hills at the ambush site we saw on the map.” Faithborn replied.
“Yes, they’ll be there. I’m counting on it.” Aelfric replied.
“Do you mean to try to flank them?” Busker asked. “I can see us pinning them down on the east side, but the western force will be hard by the Redwater. How do we get around them? I don’t see a position.”
“We aren’t going to be there.” Aelfric replied. “We aren’t going to be on that road. We’re taking the village road that runs over to Wehnsford.”
“Wehnsford?” Busker asked, confused. “But that’s no closer to Northcraven city than we are now. We’ll be moving away from Northcraven city, not toward it. Besides, Wehnsford got took by the Auligs early in the summer. There won’t be any Wehnsford.”
“The maps, Busker.” Aelfric’s voice was patient. “Think about what lies north of Wehnsford.”
“There’s nothing there.” Busker answered. “I’ve seen the map. It’s open space.”
“It’s not.” Aelfric answered. “I asked around. There’s a creek or a stream that runs south of Wehnsford and feeds directly into the fens on the east side of Northcraven City. That stream is old, Busker, and it’s cut a deep ravine for most of its length. At the end of it lies the swamp, and in the middle of that swamp is Northcraven City’s east gate. There’s nothing on the map there because nothing can be built there. It’s all swamp and tidal morass, all the way up to the city wall. Two empty leagues on the map because no roads can be built there and no houses, or towns either. I saw that empty space right next to the city, and I’ve never seen a city that didn’t have towns and trading centers all around it, so it got me thinking.
“Wehnsford is a crossroads of sorts, Busker. Any army encircling Northcraven City has to pass through Wehnsford to get from one side of the city to the other. It’s a four hour march.”
“So you intend to seize Wehnsford?” The possibilities began to become clear to Busker. “You mean to cut off their eastern force.”
“There won’t be one, or at least not much of one. That was the point of Tuchek’s mission.” A look of confusion shot across Busker’s face.
“What does the one have to do with the other?”
“Suppose you are the Earthspeaker, and you find out that a group of scouts has tried to demolish all of the boats on the eastern shore. What would you conclude?”
“That you didn’t want him to be able to cross the river.”
“Right. And the only reason to prevent him crossing is to clear the passage of the king’s road to Northcraven city. The river road that runs along the Redwater to the west gate. So how does he respond? He can’t move his entire army across the river with only half of the boats or whatever he’s got left, right? So what does he do? You know he can’t allow me to reach the gates of the city.”
“He’s got to move other forces to intercept you. He’s got to pull them from somewhere else.”
Aelfric nodded. “Precisely. He’s got to pull them from the lines encircling the city. So where does he pull them from? He pulls them from the eastern side. The quiet side that’s been secured since early summer. The side that’s not in our line of march. We take Wehnsford and we put a sleeping fort there, then we clear whatever force remains to the east. There’s a spider’s web of roads that go in and out of Wehnsford, and he cannot possibly block them all. We take Wehnsford, this siege is over.
“Wehnsford sits on top of the hill overlooking Northcraven City. It’s an unassailable position.”
“It’s not in the city.” Busker observed stubbornly.
“No, but it divides the approaches to the city. The space between Wehnsford and the city is impassable, either a steep sided ravine or swamp. The Auligs will have to decide which side of the city to guard or defend. We can watch them from there and know in advance what they decide to do.”
Busker noticed that the lancers were forming up and moving off to the right. “They going to Wehnsford?”
Aelfric nodded. “To Wehnsford and through Wehnsford, or whatever is left of it. Hopefully all the way to the eastern gates of the city.”
It was only mid-afternoon when the army, following the road the lancers had taken earlier, stopped at the remains of the town that had been Wehnsford. All through the day they had marched, and all along their line of march they found the bodies of Auligs, run through with lances and left to lie in the cold. The lancers had done their work well. From his seat on the wagon, Haim told his men to get to work on their section of the sleeping fort. To his left he could see, faintly in the distance, the walls and towers of the city of Northcraven. When he got down from the wagon he landed wrong, and pain shot from his calf all the way into his spine, and he nearly cried out. He was glad he didn’t have to fight today, and he was glad the sleeping fort was lying mostly in the wagon, nearly half-built.
If his men noticed that he didn’t work as hard as he usually did in erecting the fort, they did not mention it. He spent a lot of time cursing at the new men in his unit, trying to instill in them the discipline that the Hedgehog fyrde was known for.
Soolit complained bitterly when a new pick was taken from the back of a wagon and put in his hand. When he’d thrown the old one away on the march back from Ugly Woman Hill, he thought he’d been done with pick work for good. “Out of my damn way.” He said to a new blue, standing there like an idiot with a post and a hammer in his hand. He drove the point of the pick into the tough and stony soil and began marking out his se
ction of trench, cursing all the while.
Berrfin was a relatively short man, compared to the rest of the lancers in his squadron, but he was probably the best horseman among them. He was the best lancer, and he was from the Dominion and he could ride anything with hair, and it was this skill more than anything that had landed him this position. It was a far cry from being a godsknight, but it was action, and he was in it.
The road was cold and hard and not particularly wide, but the fields to the right had been left to the weather since the beginning of the war, and the rains had flattened the furrows. Beneath the snow the ground was half-frozen, and it was as good as a high road for horsemen. To his left he could see the city, a crystal clear vision of walls and towers behind a broad moat, but the ground between here and there was broken and treacherous, a sometimes bog of half-hidden pools, aimless small streams and tidal pits among a dense thicket of reeds. Since mid-morning the lancers had ridden this road and swept across the fields to the south, and all along their line of travel they had encountered bands of Auligs on the move.
The Auligs were plainly not expecting them, and even in the long flat stretches, when their inexorable approach could be seen for a league or more, the Auligs were caught helpless. Many of them ran into the swamp to avoid the horsemen, and the High Cavalier let them go, for they could not gain control of the road from there, and speed was of the essence. He had no intention of leading his horsemen into the treacherous footing of the swamp.
The sun was shining brightly down, but it gave little warmth, and a cold wind followed the horsemen as they rode and slew. Berrfin wondered what it would be like to be one of the Auligs, and to see the line of horsemen coming in the distance. At first they would have seemed tiny and distant, no threat at all. But to a man on foot a distant line of lancers must have seemed the very epitome of doom, for there was no place to run as the spears and horses grew larger and larger in one’s vision.
He was lowering his lance when a Cthochi bowman appeared suddenly to his right flank, appearing as if by magic from a tuft of brush that Berrfin would have sworn could have hidden nothing larger than a badger. Like all Auligs, this one shot first at Berrfin’s horse, and the broad tipped war arrow found some gap in the barding and the hapless thing stumbled, then fell to its knees. In a moment Berrfin went from hunter to prey as he let go his lance and yanked his feet from the stirrups. He hurtled over the horse’s head and landed helmet and shoulder on the cold hard road, rolling and tumbling as buckles and straps broke and bits of his armor spread about him. When he came to a stop he was flat on his back, and the Aulig was coming fast, an iron-tipped spear held in both hands.
Hoofbeats pounded around him and a shadow fell over him, and then the Aulig disappeared, pulled from his feet by a lance point so suddenly it was as if the gods themselves had removed him from the world. Aurix reined suddenly and looked down at his fallen rider, struggling to rise to his knees.
“Get up and go the rear for a remount, soldier.” The High Cavalier ordered brusquely. “Hurry, man. We’re winning!” And then the shadow passed, the High Cavalier was gone, and the line of horsemen thundered away, leaving Berrfin to unsteadily rise, winded, with his hands on his knees. The ruined remains of the Aulig lay crumpled and bloody in the road not ten paces away.
Berrfin barely registered the words. Winning? What did that mean? When he caught his breath he staggered back to the hostler, coming along with the baggage train and the remounts, already saddled. Armed squires lifted Berrfin into a saddle and he turned to look at the hostler. “What did he mean, we’re winning?”
“We’re breaking the siege, you idjit.” The man replied caustically, and without any of the deference Berrin was used to hearing from his hostlers. Berrin looked more closely and recognized the hostler as a lancer who had taken a spear to his thigh at Ugly Woman Hill.
“Maxnor?”
“Aye, it’s me.” The man replied testily. “The High Cav put me with the remounts after the last fight. I can’t fight, but you can. Now get back to it! Don’t they tell you anything? This is the last battle of this war! Try to keep the Auligs from killing this one, Berrfin.” He pointed at Berrfin’s horse.
“You tell him to keep them from killing me.” Berrfin replied, reining the frisky beast in. When he was handed another lance he turned and spurred the horse, something he didn’t like to do, but the line of lancers was already nearly a quarter of a league away, leaving a trail of dead Auligs in its wake. He was determined to catch them up.
“Drive them from the road!” The High Cavalier was shouting as they rode forward. “Don’t chase them into the swamp, but run them down if they take to the fields.” From time to time Berrfin could see tents and the remains of trenches and the kind of half-hearted fortifications that Auligs built, but they seemed deserted. For some reason the Auligs had abandoned their camps and had let the horsemen catch them on the road. When chance offered the horsemen would stop and fire the tents, but speed was most important of all, so they did not stay to loot them.
The Auligs they encountered were travelling in small bands, and they seemed surprised to find the lancers on the road. Despite their surprise, they were Auligs, and their instincts and reactions were good. They tried to set up impromptu ambushes, and the lancers lost quite a few horses, but the speed of the attack made it impossible for the Auligs to make any kind of a serious defense. Unlike Kerrick’s men, these Auligs did not have pikes, much to Berrfin’s relief.
So he rode and he killed them where he found them, and this horse, a slab-sided bay with the heavy hooves of a draft horse and the frame of a battering ram, did not get shot from beneath him. Gradually the horsemen made half of a circuit of the city, and all the time the swamp was to their left with the city’s wall beyond it and the fallow fields of farms and burned out homes were to their right. They came to the remains of a walled town, and Aurix told them that this had been Wehnsford, although now it was merely an empty shell. Even the stone walls were half-ruined. “Remember this place, lads.” The High Cavalier said. “If we don’t sleep in Northcraven City tonight, we’ll be sleeping here. Either way the Privy Lord will be putting a sleeping fort here.”
After Wehnsford the road came closer to the city, and the Aulig resistance grew weaker. There were ravens here, great clouds of them that quickly descended upon any of the Auligs that they killed and left lying. They seemed to come from the direction of the city, and now Berrfin could see all the way around its eastern wall to the bay beyond. He saw the masts of one or two ships in the harbor, looking beyond the buildings of the city itself.
There came a last desperate stand by the Auligs on a broad plain on which their tents were numerous and looked to have been pitched and placed months ago. They hid among the tents, but the lancers’ charge was inexorable, and they pulled the tents down regardless of who was inside of them. Swords and lances gave way to torches and axes, and the last few hundred Auligs were cut down or burned within the encampment. Berrfin noted that the privies were full, and the Auligs had here a herd of cattle, no doubt stolen from the surrounding farms. About a hundred Mortentian women were here, undoubtedly taken as slaves, and the lancers freed them and set them to gathering food and loot from the camp.
To his left was the swamp still, but a wide and well-traveled road cut through it, flagged with ancient and worn stones that were placed before there was even such a thing as the hundred kingdoms. At the end of that road stood two towers in a high stone wall, and on the other side of the wall was the city of Northcraven. Berrfin heard a ragged cheer from the gates as the lancers approached them. This sound set a vast flock of ravens into flight, rising like a black cloud or pall of smoke over the city, and for a moment they darkened the westering sun.
Berrfin had never seen so many ravens in his life.
“Why have you brought me here?” Kerrick the Sword spoke Mortentian passably well, like many Auligs who lived along the border.
For a moment the commander of this Silver Run Army, th
is lord Aelfric, said nothing. Instead he looked north from the ridge upon which the two of them stood, oblivious to the sounds of hammering, cursing and digging not twenty paces behind him. The stonecutters were erecting yet another fort, and this one was going up swiftly, using materials that Kerrick himself had assisted in the loading of.
“Why have you brought me here when you left all of my other people in Redwater?” Kerrick insisted, standing between two burly guards that never took their eyes off of him, despite his bound hands. In the morning they had come for him, removing him from the warehouse where the rest of the Cthochi prisoners were held, under the eyes of Lord Mayor Manzer’s guards. The truth was their treatment had been quite good. The men of Redwater had always been friendly to the Cthochi, even if they were technically at war, and Kerrick knew that their Lord Mayor wanted to see that friendliness continue.
They had left him unbound, although not unwatched, and put him to work loading wagons. He was the only one of the prisoners made to do so.
Then, when he had expected to be returned to his people, instead he had been put in the bed of the very wagon he had loaded, bound hand and foot, and subjected to a hard ride over bumpy and rocky roads, with the army marching in columns all around him. It had been a long and painful morning for a man not used to riding in a wagon. Now he stood beside their young commander, looking north to the raven-spotted walls of Northcraven City.
“I wanted you to see this.” The man said at last. “I decided that you, out of all the Cthochi, would understand it best.”
“I see the great stonecutter city.” Kerrick replied. “I have seen it many times.”
“My lancers are sweeping away the Cthochi who held the eastern side of your siege, Kerrick. The east road is open, and I hold this place, called by us Wehnsford. Half a dozen roads go north from Wehnsford, and I’ve built fortifications like this one spaced less than a day’s march all the way to Walcox. You understand?”
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 129
