A Cruel Wind

by Glen Cook

  Back down the line he galloped, shouting, “Move it! Move it!” at every officer he saw. Dozens of pale, tense young faces ghosted past in the mist. He saw no smiles now, heard no laughter. It had stopped being an adventure. “Tarlson! Where are you? Stick close. And keep your scout. I want to know when we get to the steepest hillsides.” By the time he reached the column’s rear, Kildragon and the light horse, with a platoon of bowmen, had faded back.

  Soon he had done all he could, and was considering prayer. He had fifteen hundred men sandwiched between two superior, better rested, better trained forces—though as yet he had no idea where Breitbarth was. This was not the easy battle he had wanted for blooding.

  Trumpets sounded in the distance. Kildragon had made contact.

  On the column’s right, only yards away but invisible in the mist, the lake waters lapped gently against the shore.

  “Here,” Tarlson said at last.

  “To your left!” Ragnarson shouted. “Upslope. Move it!”

  The soldiers began climbing.

  The hills, barely tall enough to be called such, rose above the mist. In the dawnlight Ragnarson arranged his troops in strong clumps on their lakeward faces.

  He hoped the mist would not burn off too soon.

  Reskird’s party soon passed below, invisible, raising a clatter, and moments later were followed by a strong force of cavalry. Ragnarson signaled his officers to hold fire.

  The mist had begun to thin by the time the enemy main force moved to where Ragnarson wanted them. He could discern the vague dark shapes of mounted officers hurrying their infantry companies… He gave the signal.

  Arrows sleeted into the mist. Cries of surprise and pain answered them. Ragnarson counted a minute, during which thousands of arrows fled his bows, then signaled a charge. The Trolledyngjans led, shaking the hills with their warcries.

  Ragnarson leaned forward in his saddle, wearily, and awaited results.

  The Volstokiners had been in good spirits, confident of victory. The sudden rain of death had stunned them. They could see no enemies. And while trying to form up over the dead and wounded, the Trolledyngjans hit them like an avalanche of wolves.

  The fog cleared within the hour. Little but carnage remained. The surviving Volstokiners had run into the water. Some, trying to swim away, had drowned. Ragnarson’s archers were using heads for targets. Trolledyngjans on captured horses were splashing about, chopping heads. The water was scarlet.

  “Won’t you take prisoners?” Tarlson asked. He spoke not a word of praise.

  “Not yet. They’d just go home, re-arm, and come back. I hope this’ll put Volstokin out of the picture.”

  A messenger from Blackfang arrived. The commander of the Volstokin vanguard, some four hundred men, stunned, had asked terms after only a brief skirmish.

  “All right,” said Ragnarson, “they can have their lives and shoes. The enlisted men. Strip them and send them packing.”

  Below, his men, tired of slaughter, were allowing surrender. “Let’s see what we’ve caught.” He wanted to get down there before there were disputes over loot. The Volstokiners had even brought a bevy of carts and wagons full of camp followers.

  He dismounted and walked slowly through the carnage. His own casualties were few. In places the Volstokiners were heaped. Luck had ridden with him again. He paused a moment beside Ragnar Bjornson—no older than he had been in his first battle—who grinned through the pain of a wound. “Some folks will do anything to get out of walking,” Bragi said, resting a hand on the youth’s shoulder. Someone had said the same to him long ago.

  It was terribly quiet. It always seemed that way afterward, as if the only sound left in the world was the cawling of the ravens.

  A dead man caught his eye. Something odd about him. He paused. Too dark for Volstokin. An aquiline nose. Haroun had been right. El Murid had advisers in Volstokin.

  He shook his head sadly. This little backwater kingdom was becoming the focus of a lot of intrigue.

  Haaken came in with thirty prisoners and hundreds of heavily laden horses. “Got some odd ones here, Bragi,” he said, indicating several dusky men.

  “I know. El Murid’s. Kill them. One by one. See if the weakest will tell you anything.” The remainder he had herded together with officers already captured.

  Volstokin had lost nearly fifteen hundred men while Bragi had had sixty-one killed. Had his people been more experienced, he thought, even fewer would have been lost. It had been a perfect ambush.

  “What now?” Tarlson asked.

  “We bury our dead and divide the spoils.”

  “And then? There’s still Lord Breitbarth.”

  “We disappear. Got to let the men digest what they’ve done. Right now they think they’re invincible. They’ve got to realize they haven’t faced a disciplined enemy. And we’ll need time to let the news spread. May swing some support to the Queen.”

  “And to Lord Breitbarth. Hangers-back would join him to make sure of you. They’ve got to keep the Crown up for grabs.”

  “I know. But I want to avoid action for a few weeks. The men need rest and training. Haaken! See the Marena Dimura get shares.” He had noticed the scouts, as ragged and bloody as any of his troops, lurking about the fringes, eyeing plunder uncertainly. One, who was supposed to be a man of importance, seemed enthralled by a brightly painted wagon filled with equally painted but terrified women. “Give the old man the whore wagon.”

  That proved a providential act. It brought him warning, next day, of a party of Breitbarth’s horses ranging far ahead of the Baron. In a brisk skirmish he took two hundred prisoners, killed another hundred, and sent the remainder to their commander in a panic. Tarlson said Breitbarth relied heavily on his knights and was a cautious sort likely to withdraw after the setback.

  He did so. And more barons rallied to Damhorst. Breitbarth’s force swelled to three thousand.

  The westward movement of baronial forces left partisans from the under-classes free to slaughter one another elsewhere. More and more Marena Dimura gravitated toward Ragnarson, who remained in the hill country near the Volstokin border, moving camp every few days. The natives kept him informed of Breitbarth’s actions.

  Those amounted to patrols in force and a weekly sally north a day’s march, followed by a day’s bivouac, then a withdrawal into Damhorst.

  Ragnarson began to worry about Mocker. He should have heard from the fat man by now.

  Eanred left him, declaring it was time to resume his command. The Queen was under little pressure, but rumor had marauders riding to the suburbs of Vorgreberg. That had to stop.

  It was now an open secret that Breitbarth held the money intended for Bragi’s men, but they, fat on loot and self-confidence, weren’t grumbling. Everyone told everyone else that the Colonel would take them down to Damhorst and get it back.

  E

  IGHT:

  Y

  EAR 1002 AFE

  C

  AMPAIGN

  A

  GAINST

  R

  EBELLION

  i) In flight

  The news the Marena Dimura brought caused Ragnarson to grow increasingly unsettled. Breitbarth grew stronger by the day. His numbers reached four thousand, many heavily armed knights. The Baron’s sallies became more daring. Ragnarson’s patrols came under increasing pressure. He had added four hundred men to his force, but they were Marena Dimura and Wessons without training. He used them as guides and raiders.

  He began to fear Breitbarth would split his force and move against Vorgreberg.

  During his examination of the country toward Damhorst he had found the place where he wanted to do battle. It was on the north side of a dense forest belonging to Breitbarth himself. It began near the Ebeler a dozen miles northeast of Damhorst. Roads ran round both sides, from Damhorst to the town and castle of Bodenstead, but the western route was the shortest and likeliest way Breitbarth would come to relieve Bodenstead.

  This was gently
rolling country. A lightly wooded ridge ran from Bodenstead northwest a mile to the hamlet of Ratdke, overlooking plains on either side. From Bodenstead through the forest ran a hunting trail, unsuitable for Breitbarth’s knights, along which Ragnarson could flee if the worst happened. North of the western route were thick apple orchards on ground too soft for heavy cavalry. The Baron would have to come at him through a narrow place, under his bows.

  But even the best-laid plans, and so forth.

  To taunt Breitbarth, Ragnarson brought his main force south, moving swift as the news of his coming, laying a trail of destruction from one Nordmen castle to the next. He met surprisingly little resistance. The knights and lesser nobility who remained in their fiefs showed a preference for surrender to siege. The fires of burning castles and towns bearded the horizons as Ragnarson’s forces spread out to glean the richest loot.

  At first he thought Breitbarth was practicing Fabian tactics, but each prisoner he interviewed, and each report he received, further convinced him that the Baron was paralyzed by indecision.

  His train and troops became so burdened with plunder that he made a serious miscalculation. Hitherto he had kept the Ebeler, a deep, sluggish tributary of the Scarlotti, between himself and Breitbarth. But at the insistence of his followers, who wanted to get their loot to safekeeping with the men he had left at Staake, he crossed the river at Armstead, a mile from Altea and just twelve from Damhorst. It took two days to clear the narrow ford. Breitbarth missed a great opportunity.

  But the Baron didn’t remain quiescent long. When Bragi marched east into the wine-growing country on which the Baron’s wealth was based, Breitbarth came out of Damhorst in a fury.

  Whether Breitbarth had planned this Ragnarson wasn’t sure, but he did know that he had gotten himself into a trap. This was relatively flat country, clear, ideal for Breitbarth’s knights. He had nothing with which to face those. Even the fury of his Itaskian bows wouldn’t break a concerted charge across an open plain.

  He found the eastern Ebeler fords closed and had no time to force them. Breitbarth was close behind, his troops raising dust on all the east-running roads. There was nothing to do but run ahead of him.

  Breitbarth gained ground. His forces were unburdened by loot, of which Bragi’s men had already re-amassed tons, and his men were fresh. In a few days his patrols were within eyeshot of Ragnarson’s rearguard.

  He was in the richest wine country now, and the vineyards, with the hedgerows around them, reduced the speed he could make by compelling him to stay on the road.

  “Haaken,” he said as they rose on their fourth morning of flight and saw dust already rising in the west, “we don’t run after today.”

  “But they’ve got us three to one…”

  “I know. But the more we run, the worse the odds. Find me a place to make a stand. Maybe they’ll offer terms.” He had grown pessimistic, blamed himself for their straits.

  Just before noon Blackfang returned and reported a good place not far ahead, a hillside vineyard where Breitbarth’s knights would have rough going. There was a town called Lieneke in the way, but it was undefended and the inhabitants were scattering.

  Haaken had chosen well. The hill was the steepest Ragnarson had seen in days, hairy with large grapevines that could conceal his men, and the only clear access for horsemen was the road itself, which climbed in switchbacks and was flanked by tall, thick shrubberies. Moreover, the plain facing the hill was nearly filled by Lieneke, which would make getting troops in formation difficult. Ragnarson raised his banners at the hillcrest.

  The position had disadvantages. Though he anchored his flanks on a wood at his right and a ravine on his left, neither could more than slow a determined attack. He worried.

  He stationed every man who could handle a bow in the vineyards and behind the hedges. The rest he kept at the crest of the hill, in view from below, including the recruits gathered in Kavelin. He feared those, if committed, would flee under pressure and panic the bowmen. Haaken he gave command of the left, Reskird the right. He retained control of the men on the crest.

  Breitbarth appeared before Ragnarson completed his dispositions, but remained on the outskirts of Lieneke. Troops began piling up in the town.

  Late in the afternoon a rider came up under a flag of truce, said, “My Lord, Baron Breitbarth wishes terms.”

  So, Ragnarson thought, the man isn’t a complete fool. “I want the surrender of himself and one hundred of his knights, and his oath that no vassal of his will again stand in rebellion against the Queen. Ransoms can be arranged later.”

  The messenger was taken aback. At last he blurted, “Terms for your surrender.”

  Ragnarson chuckled. “Oh. I thought he’d come to turn himself in. Well, no point you wasting your trip. Let’s hear them.”

  Bragi was to return all plunder, surrender himself and his officers to the mercy of Breitbarth, and his men were to accept service in Breitbarth’s forces for the duration of the unrest in Kavelin.

  They weren’t the sort of terms usually offered mercenaries. They meant death for Bragi and his officers. No one ransomed mercenaries. He had to fight. But he kept up negotiations till dark, buying time while his men dug trenches and raised ramparts along their flanks. Breitbarth showed no inclination to surround the position. Perhaps he expected a diplomatic victory. More likely, he just did not see.

  Night brought drizzling rain. It made the men miserable, but Bragi cheerful. The hill would be treacherous for horsemen.

  Dawn came, a bright, clear, hot summer’s morning. Breitbarth ordered his forces. Ragnarson did the same.

  The Baron sent a final messenger. As the white flag came up the hill, Bragi told Haaken, “I’d better get this going before somebody down there suffers a stroke of smarts.” Breitbarth, confident in his numbers and knights, had made no effort to surround him or get on his flanks.

  The terms offered were no better. Bragi listened patiently, then replied, “Tell the Baron that if he won’t come surrender, I’ll come down and make him.” The negotiations had given him enough insight into Breitbarth to anticipate that the challenge, from a ragtag hire-sword, would throw him into a rage. These Kaveliners, even his Marena Dimura, were bemused by chivalry and nobility. It was a blind spot he meant to exploit mercilessly.

  ii) Second blood

  The baronial forces stirred. At the crest of the hill, Bragi and a handful of messengers, behind the ranks of Trolledyngjans and Marena Dimura, waited and observed. Ragnarson directed his brief comments to an Itaskian sergeant named Altenkirk, whose service went back to the wars, and who had spent years in the Lesser Kingdoms advising the native armies.

  “Now we see if they learned anything from the wars and Lake Berberich,” he said.

  “He’ll send the knights,” Altenkirk promised. “We’re only commoners and infantry. We can’t beat our betters. It’s a chance to blood their swords cheaply.” His sarcasm was strong.

  Ragnarson chuckled. “We’ll see. We’ll see. Ah. You’re right. Here they come, straight up the road.”

  With pennons and banners flying, trumpets blaring, and drums beating in Lieneke. The townsfolk turned out as if this were the tournament Breitbarth seemed to think. All night knights and men-at-arms had been swelling the Baron’s forces in hopes of a share of glory.

  As it began, Ragnarson received a messenger from Vorgreberg. The situation there had become grim because news of his entrapment below the Ebeler had reached the local nobility. Several had marched on the capital, hoping to seize it before Breitbarth. Eanred was playing one against another, but his job had been complicated by a Siluro uprising in Vorgreberg itself. A mob had tried to take Castle Krief by surprise, and had failed. Hundreds had been slaughtered. House to house fighting continued. Would Ragnarson be so kind as to come help?

  “Tell him I’ll get there when I can.” He returned to the matter at hand.

  Breitbarth’s knights started up the road four abreast, apparently unaware that it narrowed on
the hillside. At the first turn they became clogged, and the sky darkened with arrows.

  Breitbarth broadened his attack, sending more knights to root out Ragnarson’s archers. As they blundered about on the soft earth of the vineyards, becoming entangled in the vines, arrows sleeted down upon them.

  Turning to Altenkirk, Ragnarson said, “Send a Trolledyngjan company down each side to finish the unhorsed.”

  It went on. And on. And on. Attacking in three divisions, Breitbarth’s best seldom got close enough to strike a blow.

  On the left they began to waver. Ragnarson saw Blackfang appearing and disappearing among the vines as he prepared a counterattack.

  “I think,” said Altenkirk, after having returned and surveyed the situation, “that you’ve done it again. They’ll break.”

  “Maybe. I’ll help them along. Take charge of the Marena Dimura. Hold them back till it’s sure.” He led the mounted Trolledyngjans down the far left side of the vineyard, outflanking Blackfang, then wheeled and charged a mass of already panicky knights.

  Breitbarth’s right collapsed. Pressured by Bragi’s horsemen, under a terrible arrowstorm, they fled into their center, which broke in its turn and fell back on Breitbarth’s left. In a confusion of tripping horses and raining arrows, the slaughter grew grim.

  Resistance collapsed. Hundreds threw down their arms. Hundreds more fled in unknightly panic, with Reskird’s arrows pursuing.

  Ragnarson hastily solidified his line and wheeled to face Lieneke, where the indecisive Baron retained a strong reserve. Such of the enemy as remained on the hill he left to the Marena Dimura.

  In brisk order the Trolledyngjans formed a shield wall. The Itaskians, sure they could bring the world to its knees, fell in behind and began arcing long shots at Breitbarth.

  “I could still lose,” Ragnarson told himself, staring at the massed Kaveliners. The Baron’s reserves were mostly spearmen, but there were enough knights to make him uncomfortable.

  He need not have feared. Those knights broke at the first flight. Only Breitbarth’s infantry stood fast, and they seemed as dazed as the Baron, who did little to defend himself. The arrowstorm, applied from beyond the range of Breitbarth’s arbalesters, broke up the infantry formations.