Despite the hours of practice, Paks found the curved blade strokes of the enemy hard to counter. She took several minor cuts before killing her first opponent, and was just in time to help Keri with the one who had shattered his shield. She fought on, trying to keep an eye on her recruits when she could. The cohort had nearly halted under the enemy rush, but they had not faltered, and the front ranks still held a good line.
“Arcolin’s cohort! Drive ‘em!” It was the Duke’s voice, from behind them; the cohort surged forward, flattening the arc as they came. The enemy softened, rolling left away from their pressure. Still the fighting raged; Paks had no time to wonder how the battle was going. Jenits went down in front of her; she lunged across him to strike the enemy who was about to kill him. Jenits screamed as she stepped on his arm; she shifted a pace and hoped someone would get him away safely. His attacker fought wildly; she finally dropped him with a thrust to the neck. She spared a glance for Jenits and didn’t see him. Good, she thought, and thrust at the oncoming soldiers.
The enemy in front melted away, though by the noise the left flank was busy enough. Paks looked around and spotted Volya and Keri. Volya was bleeding from a bad slash to her right arm; Keri’s shield had fallen apart, though he still clutched the grip.
“Keri! Pick up a good shield—drop that—” He looked at her in surprise, then at his arm; she watched until he stripped off the broken one and picked up an enemy shield nearby. “Volya, get that wound tied up—drop back—one of the sergeants will tell you where to go.” Other wounded were shifting to the rear, and those still sound drew together.
Paks looked for Arcolin or the Duke; she spotted Arcolin on their left front. Stammel was with him. Arcolin waved a signal to Cracolnya, who sent his cohort forward. The Clarts, having rearmed, rode up on the far right, and the right wing wheeled, compressing the enemy against Dorrin’s cohort and the Halverics. Paks still could not tell how many they faced. They fought on; the enemy lines, though wavering, hardly seemed to diminish. The sun edged down; as light faded out of the sky, the enemy made one more frantic attempt to break through. Favored by the downward slope, they penetrated between the Halverics and Dorrin’s cohort, pouring away downhill in the darkness. Paks heard curses from the Clarts, who spurred after them recklessly. Paks hoped the Duke would not command a foot pursuit. She was suddenly almost too tired to move.
Arcolin rode back to them, talking to a Clart captain. Then he turned to Stammel. “Take them to the enemy camp; the Clarts hold it. Set up a strong perimeter. I think Dorrin’s cohort is pursuing, but some of them may circle back. I’ll be near the tower entrance if you need me.” He rode toward the tower; light spilled from its narrow windows. Paks wondered who held it.
The enemy camp was full of supplies. The Clarts had overridden some of the tents, but most were still standing. Cattle roasted over a long trenchfire. Paks’s mouth watered. She and the other veterans stood guard while uninjured recruits helped the surgeons and set up camp. She wished she knew how her recruits were, and her friends. She had seen Vik and Arñe only at a distance.
It seemed long before Stammel returned to the perimeter. Paks cleaned her sword and sheathed it, then slipped off her shield and stretched. Her shoulders were stiff where the pack straps had dug in; she hadn’t fought in a pack except in drill. Reluctantly she picked up the shield, yawning. Now she could feel every cut and bruise. The wind blew the smell of roasting meat past her nose, and her stomach knotted. At last a recruit came, grease still streaking his chin, to relieve her post. Stammel met her as she turned away.
“Here.” He handed her a slab of beef on a split loaf. “I meant to get to you earlier. You’ll want to see Jenits; his arm’s broken. Volya needed stitching, but she’s up and around. Keri’s fine; hardly scratched.” Paks mumbled her thanks past a mouthful of food.
“Whose tower?” she asked, after swallowing a huge lump of beef.
“Andressat’s. Their colors are blue and gold. You’ll see tomorrow.”
“Why didn’t they come out? I thought they hated Siniava.”
“They do. But they’ve only got forty or fifty in there. They don’t want to lose the tower to anyone: not even us.”
Paks nodded as she ate, and walked on to the surgeons’ tent. It had evidently belonged to an enemy officer; it was large and divided by yellow hanging panels into several rooms. Jenits lay on a straw pallet with his shoulders propped up on a frame, his left arm bound in splints. Volya sat beside him with a flask; they both looked pale, but well enough.
“Have you had any food yet?” asked Paks. They both nodded. “Good. I’ll finish my supper.” She squatted beside Jenits. “Did they give you numbwine?”
“Yes—they did.” His voice was slightly blurred.
“I’m sorry I stepped on you,” said Paks. “But that—”
“That’s all right. It was—broken already. That’s why—I fell.”
“It’s a good thing it was your shield arm,” said Paks. “You won’t be fighting for weeks, but it won’t be as hard to retrain. You did well, Jenits. I suppose Stammel told you that—”
“Yes. But I—I forgot which strokes, after awhile—and it was so fast—”
“I forgot too, in my first battle; that’s when I got the big scar on my leg. As Stammel said to me, we’ll just drill you more until you can’t forget.” Jenits managed a shaky grin. Paks turned to Volya. “Volya, you did well too. What I could see of your shieldwork was much better. Now—did the surgeons tell you to stay with Jenits?”
“Yes. They said give him more numbwine if he needed it.”
“I can do that, and let you get some sleep. We’ll all be pulling watch tonight, and fighting again tomorrow, I expect.”
“Oh, I couldn’t sleep. I’m still too excited.” Volya’s eyes were very bright.
Paks sighed. “Volya, you’re tired, whether you know it or not. Go roll up in your cloak, and if you aren’t asleep in a half glass, you can come back and take over for me.” Volya got up reluctantly, and handed Paks the flask of numbwine. “And don’t start talking to anyone; that will keep you awake.” Volya nodded and went out. The surgeon came through from another part of the tent and looked at Paks.
“Is that your blood, or theirs?”
Paks looked at her arm. “Both, I think. Nothing serious, though.”
“But you’ve been on guard, and haven’t had time to clean them. I know the story. Let me see.” With painful thoroughness the surgeon scrubbed the various cuts she’d taken, grumbling the while. “If I could just convince you heroes that cleaning these things out does as much good—no, more good—than a healing spell. It’s cheap. It’s easy. They don’t fester and give you fever if they’re clean—”
“Ouch!” said Paks, as the cleaning solution stung in a slice across her hand.
“Hold still. I have to see if that got into the joint—no—lucky. Maybe we need thicker gloves.”
“I didn’t have mine on,” muttered Paks. The surgeon snorted and went on.
“Are you sure you aren’t hiding something else?” he asked when he had finished wrapping bandages around her hand.
“Nothing else.” She looked down and found that Jenits had followed the whole proceeding with interest. So had others in the room.
“Are you staying with him?” asked the surgeon.
“Do you need me to? I can.”
“Yes. Please. We’ve got Clart and Halveric wounded coming in, and there’ll be more later. You can give him enough numbwine to make him sleep. Three or four swallows more should do it. Same for the others—call if anything goes wrong.” The surgeon passed on to the next room, and Paks lifted Jenits’s head so he could drink more easily. In a few minutes, he was snoring. She glanced around at the others; they all seemed to be dozing. Paks propped the flask nearby and took off her pack to get her cloak. She wrapped it around her shoulders. From the other end of the tent came a sudden flurry that subsided after a few minutes.
When she opened her eyes next, sh
e was stiff as a board and the surgeon was laughing at her in the lamplight. “Some watcher,” he said. “If you were going to sleep, you should have found a pallet and stretched out.”
Paks yawned and tried to focus her eyes. “I didn’t know I was going to sleep. Sorry.” She looked at Jenits, but he slept peacefully.
“No sign of fever,” said the surgeon. “This time get comfortable before you go back to sleep.”
Paks pushed herself up, shaking her head. “I won’t sleep. What watch is it, anyway?”
“Don’t worry. Stammel came by to tell you he wouldn’t need you—”
“And found me asleep.” Paks blushed.
“Well,” said the surgeon, “he didn’t wake you, and told me to let you sleep till dawn. That’s another four hours.”
Paks yawned again. “It’s tempting—” The surgeon turned away. Three years’ experience told her to take sleep when she could find it—but now she was awake, and curiosity kept her so. With a last look at Jenits, she left the tent and headed for the area assigned to her cohort.
Kefer was snoring by the watchfire, but roused when she spoke to the sentry. He confirmed what the surgeon had said, and told her to get what sleep she could.
“We’ll march tomorrow, and if we catch them, we’ll fight.” Kefer yawned. “Clarts got many of ‘em, but six hundred or so are loose.”
Paks held her hands to the fire; the night was cold after the surgeons’ tent. “Stammel said our losses weren’t bad—?”
“No—not in our cohort. Three returned veterans. One recruit. Dorrin’s was harder hit—but still not bad, considering. Go on, Paks, get some sleep.” He pointed to a nearby tent; Paks edged in, found an empty space, and slept until day.
Despite Kefer’s prediction, they did not march the next day; instead they dismantled the enemy camp. Several squads went to the battlefield, returning with salvageable weapons and armor. Others cleared the camp itself of supplies: bags of grain and beans, great jars of wine and barrels of ale. One tent held all the gear for a smith’s shop: anvils, hammers, tongs, bellows, and bars and disks of rough iron.
Most of this they carried into the storage cellars of the tower, each load tallied by a scribe from each company. Siger and Hofrin chose weapons to replace those damaged, and reserve supplies to take along. The enemy’s mules were distributed to each company too, along with the feed for them.
From the talk she heard while working, Paks gathered that Siniava’s army had come from the west. Before reaching this tower, they had taken those along the western border, and these were now garrisoned by Siniava’s troops. But a survivor had escaped to warn the commander of the north watch, the Count of Andressat’s son-in-law; when the enemy force arrived, it found the tower sealed and well defended. Clart scouts, riding ahead of the Halverics, had discovered the siege in progress, and the Halverics attacked the besiegers. Though heavily outnumbered, they had held the enemy close under the tower walls, where the Andressat archery could do its worst, until the rest of the Clarts and the Phelani arrived in force.
“They should have got out of here,” said a Halveric corporal as he and Paks dragged sacks of grain across the tower court. “Only they thought they could break us and get rid of us—the fools—and we kept ‘em busy enough they didn’t think of anyone else.”
“You had a rough time, then,” said Paks.
“Oh—we fight close order, same as you. We just drew in and let ‘em pound. We knew you was comin’. And we had some Clarts, to mess ‘em about on the flanks.”
“It’s too bad they broke loose,” muttered a Halveric private. “After what they did last year—”
“Too many of ‘em,” said the corporal. “We mauled ‘em enough, they’ll be wary of us awhile. Besides, let ‘em go tell their master they were beat again. Enough times running away like that, and they won’t be good for anything—nor the ones they tell the story to, neither.”
By that night, the enemy camp was dismantled. Everything else was piled and burned, a great fire that leapt into the dark and told everyone for miles around that the enemy’s camp was gone. Paks had a share marked to her in the account books. Her recruits were recruits no longer; they had all been promoted.
When they marched the next morning, Paks found herself moved up in the column; she was sorry about those whose death and injuries gave her the place, but she liked seeing ahead. All along the way she saw evidence of the enemy’s flight: broken weapons, blood-stained clothing and armor, and bodies. Not all had been killed by Clarts or Halverics, as the wounds showed.
By midafternoon they reached the next tower to the west. A black and yellow banner flew from its peak, and a hail of arrows met them when they ventured closer. Their assault failed, and the two companies camped around the walls. The Clarts had ridden afar ahead, to scout the tower beyond, and returned with the news that it too was held by an enemy force.
At dawn the next day, Paks saw about fifty black-clad fighters come over the wall, barely visible in the dim light. She yelled an alarm and darted forward; an arrow glanced off her helmet. The archers were awake in the tower. She threw up her shield and plunged on with the rest of the sentries, as the camp came awake behind her. For a few desperate minutes, the sentries were outnumbered and hard pressed.
Simultaneously, enemy troops tried a sally from the south entrance, where the Halverics were just taking their positions for an assault. In minutes a howling mass of fighters swayed back and forth in front of the gate. More and more of Siniava’s troops poured out, as Paks heard later from one of the Halveric soldiers.
“We had to give back; they had us outnumbered, but then your Duke brought two of your cohorts around, and it was stand and stick. That went on all morning, near enough. They couldn’t break out, and we couldn’t get in. Then they backed in a step at a time, and got that portcullis down—I’ll say this for Andressat: they know how to build a fort.”
Paks had been on the fringe of that battle, as one of the sentry ring on the other side. She met Barranyi in the cook tent.
“I’ll tell you what, Paks,” said Barra. “He’s no fool, their captain. They came near breaking through more than once, and if they pick the right time, they might yet.”
Paks mopped up the last of her beans with a crust of bread. “Not with the Halveric and the Duke. He won’t surprise them. What I wonder about is how many more there are—at the next tower, and the next. We can hold these—but more?”
“Andressat has troops somewhere—”
“What—sixty or so in the first tower, and maybe as many in the next one or two? And they won’t leave the towers unguarded.”
“No, more than that. I heard Dorrin say something to Val about it this morning. Troops on the way, she said, and could be here this afternoon or tomorrow.”
“I’ll believe that, Barra, when I see it. Did you hear whether the Honeycat was in there?” she cocked her head at the tower.
“No. They all say not. And I haven’t seen the banner his bodyguard carried last fall.”
“I hope we don’t waste too much time here, then. I wonder where that scum is.”
“And what troops he has. All we can do is hope the Clarts don’t miss anything.”
“If he’s clear off east—back toward Sorellin or those other cities—we could wander around here all season and never catch him.”
Barra shrugged. “That’s the Duke’s business. Not yours.” Paks stood up, and Barra eyed her. “Are you upset about anything in particular? More than Canna and Saben?”
“That, and—Barra, you know what he did to some of the prisoners last year—?” Barra nodded. “We found a set of tools in one of the tents. I just want to be sure we do kill him.”
“But his army’d still be—”
Paks shook her head. “No, I don’t think they’ll be the same, even if there’s much army left. I think it’s his doing.”
“Maybe.” Barra turned to greet Natzlin, coming from the serving line, and Paks waved and went back to her s
tation.
The rest of that day the two forces did not change their positions. The Andressat troops arrived midmorning the next day. Paks thought they looked much more professional than the city militia she’d seen. They numbered just over a thousand, organized into four cohorts, each with two hundred foot and fifty horse. Paks watched as the Duke and the Halveric rode out to meet them. The Andressat troops moved into siege positions, and the mercenaries withdrew a space.
“I heard we march in the morning,” said Vik, as he and Paks lugged tent poles from one camp to another.
“I hope so,” said Paks. “That group can handle the tower without us.”
“They do look good,” conceded Vik. “But why d’you suppose they make their cohorts so big? They can’t be as flexible.”
“Huh. If we had that many men, we might find four units easier to move than—” Paks wrinkled her brows, trying to think how many it would be.
“Ten,” said Vik smugly. “I wish we had—then nobody could stand against us.”
“Nobody’s going to.” Paks grunted as they heaved the poles up in their new holes. “I hope we don’t have to raise all the tents for only one night.”
“I don’t think so.” Vik rubbed his sunburnt nose. “I’d like to know how many troops Siniava has—altogether.”
“Not enough to stop us,” said Paks grimly.
“I hope not. But look, Paks—if he could send eight hundred or a thousand up here—and he’s not with them—he must have another army someplace. And his cities garrisoned. He could have a much bigger army than the Duke’s put together.”
“That’s true.” Paks frowned. “Well—if it is—”
“We’ll do like the man with the barrel of ale,” said Vik with a grin.
“What’s that?”
“Don’t tell me you never heard that! It’s old, Paks.”
“I never did. Tell me.”
The Deed of Paksenarrion Page 35