Fyella breathed deeply of the cold air and gave forth a contented sigh once they were out of the Whitewood. “I like it.” She said, after a moment. “It seems peaceful.”
“It’s eastern Arker.” Levin replied. “There’s a long history of fighting here. It’s little wonder the farmers all pull together and live in big houses. Has to be more for self-defense than anything.”
“Why do they fight here?” She asked.
“Well, they’ve Dunwater to the west, for starters.” Levin answered. “Dunwater’s a different world. There’s no freedom there, at least, not like here. Even the freemen in Dunwater live like serfs. The gentry in Dunwater are hard and rule by force. Arker is the opposite. The baron lets his people live as they will and hardly taxes them at all. His wealth comes from his own lands and from his investments in several shipping ventures, I’m told. He’s a man with money on his mind, but not a slaver. There’s bound to be conflict between the two territories.
“Also, these are rich lands. You can see it in the darkness of the earth and in how new and clean and well-built all of the houses and barns are. I can see how a Dunwater man looking east would have a covetous eye, and Thimenian raiders used to sometimes land here looking west from the sea. The border isn’t clearly defined in all places, and the Dunwater gentry seek to define it eastward. There’s a line now, though. The Hammers of Arker cut a road and put in towers.”
“Horsemen, Levin.” Kuljin said.
“Where?” Levin looked all about with his single eye, but could see nothing.
“Behind us. Back from the way we came.”
“Following us?” Fyella’s voice was tremulous.
Kuljin nodded. “Have to be. There’s no other reason for them to be coming from the Whitewood. I think from the shadow they make there must be a score of them or more, and they’re in formation.”
“How do you see so far?” Fyella asked, forgetting for a moment who he was.
“It doesn’t matter.” Kuljin replied. “I see them and they’re back there, maybe a league and a half, no more. They’re coming right on, too. I don’t know if they’ve seen us or if they’ve just guessed we’d be on this road.”
“You think it was the guardsman at Nevermind? You think he learned we disobeyed their order to go back north?” Fyella’s voice was tense, but she was not frightened.
“Who else?” Levin replied. “I guess they put somebody on us to make sure we didn’t cut through the Whitewood. Or maybe it was the eyes we sensed there. Maybe they’re lookouts.”
“We need to ride.” Kuljin said. “It little matters who they are. They’re a military company, I can tell from their formation. Plus their gear all appears to be the same color. Red, I think. If they stop us, they’ll search us, even if all they want to do is question us. They find the gold and they’ll take it, and likely kill us on the spot.”
“By what right?” Fyella demanded, but Levin agreed with Kuljin.
“No right involved in it, dear Fyella. It’s more than their entire twenty earns in as many years. They’ll take it all right, and they won’t leave any witnesses behind.” Levin’s opinion may have been cynical, but he knew he was right.
“Well, I’ve been wondering what these little Sparli ponies were worth. Let’s see how fast they can go.” Kuljin spurred his pony as he spoke, and the rest of them fell in behind.
Half an hour later Kuljin looked behind them. “They’re gaining.”
Even Levin with his one good eye could see them plainly, a crimson colored mass moving along the bare column of the road between the snow-spotted fields. “Royal regulars.” His voice was bitter. “Drive your ponies for all they’re worth. Those will be fine horses.”
“Well, they know we’ve seen them and they know we’ve run, so we’d better keep running. If we can keep ahead of them until sunset we can lose them in the dark.”
“We’ll lose ourselves, halfman.”
“Not with me to guide you, Ghoulslayer.”
But the sun hung in the sky despite it being mid-Arianis, and it seemed not to budge in the cold copper cauldron of the endless Arker sky. The ponies were marvelous, with tremendous stamina and endurance, but they were not full-sized horses. If the race had been ten miles longer, Levin was sure that the pursuers would have been forced to quit the race, but as it was the Mortentian cavalry steadily gained on their quarry, and nightfall seemed days away.
In the distance to the left of the road Levin saw a thin line of green rising behind the endless patchwork of farmer’s fields. “Forest, Kuljin. If we can get among the trees…”
“We’ll be cutting across farmer’s fields.” Fyella said warningly.
“I’m sure trespass will be the least of our sins should they catch us.” With that he turned his mount, and the others fell in around him, arrowing toward the distant trees, at least a league away. The pack pony ran along with them, tethered to Kuljin’s saddle as he brought up the rear, and the courageous little ponies ran their hearts out.
After a few moments Levin saw that they were not going to make the tree line. Outriders from the patrol were already visible to his left and to his right, coming toward them and hemming them in while the main body of horsemen came up behind. They were still out of shouting range, but closing fast. “We aren’t going to make it.” He said, a fact that was obvious to the other two already.
“I’ll turn about and give them a fight.” Kuljin declared. “Buy you two time to escape.”
“Seven hells you will.” Levin replied, and Fyella echoed the sentiment. “We’re in this together halfman. It’s too late now anyway.” Already the outriders were streaming ahead of them on their flanks, even as a few scattered trees began to appear here and there. The main body of the forest was still out of reach, however, and the trees they encountered were only enough to hang from. The horses to the right and left, groups of perhaps four or five riders, began to close in. The soldiers carried lances, but they had not lowered them to charge. Plainly they expected little resistance once they had the three surrounded. Levin loosened his sword in its scabbard.
“Damn them all to the seven hells.” Levin said, preparing to turn about and give them a fight.
But Kuljin sawed his reins back and forth swiftly, causing his pony to rear in confusion, and the pack horses stumbled around him. The halfman had plainly seen something ahead.
Just then a bowman wearing a leather jerkin of green and brown rose up before Levin, not ten paces away, drew back the string on his long Mortentian bow and loosed. Levin fancied he could feel the wind from the arrow, but the truth was it wasn’t aimed at him at all. All around him, appearing from hidden places in the scattered brush, bowmen appeared, and arrows began to fly into the ranks of the royals.
“For the Queen!” One archer shouted. “For Arker!” Shouted another, and the cry became general, and the archers were shouting together.
“For Arker and the Queen!” Several men yelled, and then a body of horsemen appeared, wearing tan or yellow tabards with orange hammers sewn to the front of them. They rode past the bewildered trio on their doughty little ponies and gave chase to the royal regulars. Levin turned to watch.
“Kuljin, look!” He rasped, surprised, for there at the rear of the royal cavalcade he saw a familiar tiny figure with a halo of golden curls streaming about behind her. She was trying to gain control of her mount and turn it.
“Damn the girl.” Kuljin said. “It’s Limme.”
“How in the seven hells?” Fyella asked, but Levin already knew. Somehow Limme must have been in Nevermind, and found out they’d been there from their descriptions. A tall blond Thimenian and a one-eyed swordsman would have been an easy riddle for her.
“It was her following us, not the guardsman. Now we have to save her.”
Limme D’Cadmouth saw Captain Riffin take an arrow to his lower back and realized that her attempt to reunite with her friends had turned into a disaster. His warning to her this morning that it might not be safe to take her esco
rt out in full uniform came home to her in a sickening wave of guilt. Already they had ventured farther into Arker than Riffin felt was wise, and the guardsman, a veteran with experience in the continuously roiling politics of Arker and Dunwater, had cautioned her more than once that tensions between the Regency and Arker were near the burning point.
A troop of royal armsmen riding hard into Arker’s eastern frontier might just be the spark that ignites a civil war, he had warned her, but when she heard three travelers who could only be Levin, Fyella and Kuljin described by the guardsman, she had been determined to find them. Too late and bitterly she realized what her reckless disregard of his advice had cost the man as he fell from his horse and lay still amid the furrows of a field plucked clean for winter.
There were far too many of the tan colored tabards for her crimson clad guardians to fight, and she yelled at them to retreat, but they weren’t taking orders from her, nor had they previously.
When she had been recovered from the little pox-killed village on the Emerald Peninsula three months earlier she had at first been treated more as someone captured than rescued, and the forty or so men of the Mixed Company, as they called themselves, spent more time hiding from the Sparli than moving, slowly making their way south when they could. They left Grissel and blind Ivetta in a town on the king’s road called Mentlecap, safe from the Sparli for the moment.
It had taken months for them to reach the king’s road that ran along the northern boundary of the Whitewood, and then they had crossed it to make their way from hiding place to hiding place, moving east through the Whitewood, for their captain, a gruff but fear-stricken man of maybe fifty, had been afraid to travel any open road. Even bandits they avoided, fearful of them. The men were a collection of the defeated, really. Men who had run when their companies came under attack by the Sparli, but who had managed to find each other amid the chaos that was Northcraven Duchy. Limme had never encountered a group of soldiers who were as broken and cowardly as these men, and she attributed it to the broken spirit of their leader, but they had the skill to survive at least. They sometimes saw Sparli riders in the distance, but they never had to fight them. They finally reached the little coastal freehold of Nevermind in late Kastanus.
There Limme had found turmoil, for the news of King Falante’s death had been no more than a week old, and already there was talk that her father was behind it. All of the talk in the street was of Arker’s baron, and his refusal to answer Maldiver’s demand that he come to the Regency and acknowledge him as liege. The merchants of Nevermind supported Maldiver’s claim, if only because no other claimant could be found, and they valued stability above all things. This was creating tension between the many Arkermen in Nevermind and the locals, as well as the royal garrison, to whom she was delivered.
The garrison was Captain Riffin’s command, and he tried to keep his men out sight as much as possible, but he recognized immediately the importance of Limme’s arrival. She was housed in a fine apartment and news was dispatched by riders to the Regency that she was alive. Whether the word ever reached the king was doubtful, however, for the riders had to pass through Arker, and Arker was nearly as close to open revolt as Diminios. She did not see a king’s eye the whole time she stayed in Nevermind.
To keep her mind occupied she made a habit of listening to any gossip or idle chatter of the men, and it had been a chance remark by one of the guardsmen that had led to today’s wild chase, and now this disaster. While she doubted that this was the first killing in Arker of royal troops since Maldiver’s ascension, it would certainly be the worst, and would prompt retaliation. This was to say nothing of the fact that her own life and that of her friends was now in peril.
She saw immediately that they were outnumbered, and she pulled sharply on her mare’s reins and pounded her heels into her flanks. The horse turned about and began riding back toward Nevermind and the Arker border, but she had been driving the horse for hours now, and the poor beast was exhausted. Around her the detachment that had been sent out with Captain Riffin as her escort, or what remained of it after the first volley of arrows, milled about in some confusion, but most of them joined her in fleeing.
Like her, their horses were spent, while the Arkermen had fresh horses that had been resting for several hours. She watched with horror as the royal horsemen were overtaken one by one and either forced to surrender or cut down from their horses. Gudlo O’Bassin, at barely eighteen, was one of the youngest of her escort, and he wore the king’s colors proudly. He tried to guide his white gelding between the pursuers and her, to aid in her escape, but an Arkerman with a long scar running from his forehead to his chin drove a lance into the horse’s withers. The stricken animal screamed and started to fall, and Gudlo managed to get himself out of the saddle before it rolled on him. His helmet was knocked loose by the fall, and when he tried to rise the Arkerman split his skull with a long handled axe. Limme screamed at the sight, even as other Arker horsemen surrounded her.
“It’s her, by Lio!” Shouted a huge man with cords of rank on his shoulders and a dirty red beard. “Opman din’t lie. It’s the bloody princess herself.”
“What do you want?” Limme demanded. “Why have you attacked us?” The entire royal detachment was now captive, either unhorsed or disarmed, and the triumphant Arkermen were rounding up the horses and leading the prisoners within a circle of pale tabards. They were stripped of their helmets and weapons, and a man came and pulled her rudely from her horse.
“Why you, of course. Limme D’Cadmouth, daughter of the lying king.” Limme saw that the man was huge, but not fat, and his neck was corded with powerful muscles. His thick beard was red, just a shade darker than the hair on his head. “Our man in Nevermind sent ahead that you were rounding up your garrison and heading our way. We’ve had eyes on you since ever you entered the Whitewood. Mighty convenient you coming my way.” He grinned like a wolf.
“You act at your peril, sir.” She said, but the man just laughed.
“You haven’t heard then, I reckon. The baron’s rose up for queen Eleinel and the babe. We’re at war against your father, and you’re a prime hostage.”
Levin, Kuljin and Fyella had arrived upon the scene, and several of the Arker horsemen were escorting them. Limme looked at Levin and tried to signal him to be cautious about their association, but she needn’t have bothered. Levin was well aware of the dangerous ground he was on.
“I thank you for saving us, captain.” He said to the Arkerman. “They’d have hung us for sure.” Levin put his hands on the pommel of his saddle, careful not to make any sudden moves.
“Hung you lot?” The captain’s voice was curious. “Whatever for?”
“I’m Levin D’root, captain. The king has a grudge against my family.”
Just then one of the Arkermen, a chinless little man with long arms and legs on an oddly round body, reached into one of the saddlebags of the pack ponies trailing behind Levin. “It’s gold, captain. They’s carrying gold!”
With surprising speed the Arkermen gathered around the packhorse, pulled the bags from it and poured the gold and silver on the ground. It made an impressive heap, and Levin watched in dismay as the soldiers began picking up individual items and showing them to each other.
“Stolen, I don’t doubt.” Said the captain, looking at Levin with a triumphant leer on his face. But Levin had been prepared for something like this, and had concocted a thin tissue of lies to face the situation if it arose.
“Not stolen, captain. I took it from the Sparli in Northcraven. That’s D’root family gold, on its way to our kinsmen in Zoric, and not a penny’s worth unaccounted for. They’re expecting us.”
The second mention of the D’root family name finally seemed to register with the captain, and his expression changed from avaricious to suspicious. “D’root, you say. Any kin are you to the O’roots out of Bolter?”
“Cousins, captain. And kin to the Roots of Kremston and the Arouths, too. Like I said, they’re expect
ing us.” The captain frowned deeply. This was eastern Arker, and Levin well knew the kind of reputation his extended family enjoyed in this region. Sometimes having a family known for centuries old feuds and vendettas could come in handy.
“There’s a fortune here.” The long armed soldier declared, and it was plain that none of the men were eager to see it let go of. It was also plain that the captain was considering killing the three of them out of hand and taking the swag.
“Aye, it’s a fortune, all right.” Levin responded. “And every bit of it intended for the Black Duke’s get. Well, almost every bit of it.”
“What’s that mean? Almost every bit?” The captain asked, rubbing his beard speculatively.
“I’m allowed some of it for expenses, captain.” He let his pony drift closer to the pile of plunder, noting with satisfaction that many of the soldiers had put their pieces back into the heap at the mention of the Black Duke’s get. They may have taken their hands from it, but their eyes were still focused on the gold. “Take that chalice, for example.” He pointed out the chalice he’d received from Jarlben months ago as a share. It was a thick and solid drinking chalice, heavy with gold and liberally decorated with gems, the kind of thing a king might treasure. It could easily buy half a dozen large farms by itself.
“It’s beautiful.” Long-arms declared, lifting the piece and bringing it over to where the captain and Levin were, Levin still on his horse and the captain having dismounted to talk.
“Aye, beautiful it is. And a fitting reward for your having rescued me from a hanging, captain. Take it and you’ll be a wealthy man.” Unstated was the alternative, which was that the man could take everything and never live to spend it. The man considered for a moment, then spoke.
“You men, put that swag back into those saddlebags. We’re not highwaymen.” Then he directed his attention to Levin, Kuljin and Fyella. “You three will come with us to Arker town. The baron is going to want to speak to you. And tell your cat-eyed friend to keep his hands away from his sword and put his hat down over his eyes. Just because the baron’s declared them kind free to travel about in Arker don’t make it any easier on the rest of us to look at him. There’s plenty would split his skull for being what he is.” He spat then, and a string of spittle lay across his chin for a moment.
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 133
