However, on the upside, Wing thought, we now have a few horses.
They drug the dead Ka’ull across the soppy wet ground and into the trees at the edge of the valley. By the time they’d ridden back to the house SiQQiy’s men had disposed of the other seven.
That night the mood in the Cawutt Compound was subdued. It deepened further as the first big storm of Ime pushed over the tops of the Uki Mountain range covering Rieeve with nearly three steps of ice and snow.
Ime had come with a vengeance.
At his back window, Wing stood, aware of the blessing the storm provided in covering the evidence of the skirmish with the Ka’ull patrol. He was also aware of the curse it most certainly would be for SiQQiy’s Granj units traveling through the Nijen Range, not to mention those coming in from Legran and Jayak. Perhaps the Preak had been right in wanting to hold off till Kive…
Wing dismissed the thought; it was much too late for those kinds of considerations.
The sun had not reached its zenith the following day when another runner from the Hettha arrived at the compound. Wing, SiQQiy, and Nien stepped out to meet him.
“Empress, Netaia Wing, Commander Cawutt,” he said, addressing them quickly, “fifty Ka’ull, riding this way fast from the castle.”
The Ka’ull were taking no chances.
Forty of SiQQiy’s first contingent mounted and took for the tree line, including the same cloud of archers that had taken out the reconnaissance patrol.
Everyone moved to their positions with practiced efficiency, and waited.
The new band of forty Ka’ull approached the house with more caution than their predecessors had. The leader gave a brief signal and the riders behind him made a uniform split, each group taking a side to circle the house.
As they moved through the all-too-silent scene in a parting V, the crack of snapping branches ripped their attention to two separate bands of SiQQiy’s soldiers as they charged out from the sunsetting tree line, one to the northing of their position, the other lateral. Wing and Nien were with Netalf and Vadet of SiQQiy’s personal Guard as they went out to join the fray through the back door of the house.
But this second skirmish lasted little longer than the first. SiQQiy’s men had them all but routed by the time Wing, Nien, and SiQQiy’s Guard took on the four Ka’ull closest to their position.
Still, no one was breathing easy as SiQQiy’s men began, once more, to dispose of the bodies in the trees. With each minor victory the Ka’ull would become more serious about their investigations — they would not keep losing men in small lots to an unidentified counterforce.
The sun set over the day and settled like a rock in Wing’s stomach.
A fire had been built in the house, and smaller fires in the compound between the house and the barn. Some rough barracks had been constructed in the barn, and another structure had been completed with the help of SiQQiy’s soldiers next to the peeiopi coop. Still, most of the forces would, no doubt, be setting up in the fields to the southing behind the barn. Thankfully, as the Cawutt family ever had, there was a surplus of Mesko wood and tools to build with. Wing just never imagined they would be using them to build shelter for men, not only from another valley, but fighters, here to wage war.
Everyone slept rather fitfully that night, the tension in camp an alien presence, tangible and suffocating. If more forces did not arrive in Rieeve soon, they would be overrun. Destroyed. SiQQiy’s Granj units were expected any day. The Ka’ull were expected within hours…
The evening passed into the deep hours of night with belly-aching slowness. No new force came. Wing wasn’t sure if that was the best news or the very worst.
But then, just as the light of morning finally began to bleed into the darkness outside the window, Wing heard boots on the front door to the house and one of SiQQiy’s Guards shouting: “The Granj units have arrived!”
Heart pounding, it took Wing a beat to understand what he’d heard. The guard hadn’t said, ‘The Ka’ull have arrived’, he’d said the ‘Granj’.
SiQQiy’s forces.
Wing flung himself into the main room and met the rest in a flurry of movement as they all hopped into boots, crawled into coats, and rushed out to greet them. The commotion in the small tent city between the house and barn was exultant and familial as the Granj units rode in.
Wing stopped just outside the front door and was joined shortly by Nien, Carly, Pree K and the children, who stood in like manner, watching, in awe, at what their eyes beheld. Never had any of them seen such a congregation of men and materials. The line of man, horse, large drays and smaller carts, stretched from those who were just arriving at the camp all the way back to the tree line and then down it, to the point where the Nijen Range fed into the hills above Rieeve. The first to arrive were greeted by SiQQiy’s men and personal guard with laughter, back slapping, and the rumbles of story-telling. As the wagons and heavy horses came in, they shook themselves from their astonishment, and set out to meet them along with Netalf. Taking the reins of heavy draft horses, Wing, Nien, Carly, and Pree K led them to the barn and set up a quick bucket brigade, moving the supplies from man to man into the shelter of the barn.
By the time they’d finished moving the more perishable supplies inside and stepped back outside, they found the fields stretching behind the barn to the southing edge of the valley transformed into a small city. Just as SiQQiy’s personal contingents had done in the smaller area between the house and the barn, the Granj units had set up with precision and without delay. Across a sea of horses and men and white tents, Wing’s gaze traveled. His heart could hardly fathom the reality of it. Though there was snow on the ground the sun was up and it was surprisingly warm, and the men moved about, as happy as any woman Wing had ever seen setting up house.
He felt someone beside him and reached his arm out, wrapping it around Carly.
“Wow,” she said.
Wing nodded. “E’te.” He shook his head. “Can you believe this?”
“No,” she said. “Not at all.”
“Can you imagine our people seeing this?” Wing squeezed her a little. “I’m trying to picture the look on my mother and Fa’s faces.”
“I think they would have appreciated it,” Carly said.
Wing nodded. “Jake would have been itching to camp out with them. Even in the snow.”
“I never really believed I would see another valley. I definitely never imagined men from another valley would be in mine.”
“It’s nice to be wrong sometimes.”
Carly touched his belly, rubbing her cold hand against his shirt. He wrapped her hand in his, and said, “Cold.”
“E’te,” Carly admitted. She indicated the field of tents. “I kind of feel for them. Wish they didn’t have to sleep outside.”
Wing nodded. It had been on his mind, too.
In the tent city, the men were beginning to make preparations for dinner. Wing glanced at Carly. She smiled and nodded. “Me, too.”
Wing took her hand and they headed back round the barn toward the house to see what they could dig up for dinner themselves.
They found the house empty of inhabitants except for the two guards on watch in the back room. Apparently, everyone, including Pree K and Nien, were out with SiQQiy and the new members of the Granj units. They ate some salted meat and cheese, enjoying the rare quiet of the house together.
It wasn’t long, however, before the house began to fill up again with the familiar men of SiQQiy’s personal guard going through the night’s shifts at watch. There had been more watches set up since the arrival of the first Ka’ull patrol. They now had two on watch in the house, at the edges of the compound between the house and barn as well as from the sides of the tent city behind the barn.
Feeling chilled, Wing stoked the wood cooking stove in order to heat some water for brevec, needing something hot and rich in his belly.
As the large open space of the main room settled behind him, Wing contemplated the fire in the l
arge black wood stove, the tea pot popping as the metal heated. They were here. SiQQiy’s men. The first of the forces from three different valleys. Each and every one of those men were true volunteers and Wing wondered at the hundreds of choices, each as individual as the one to have made it, all leading to this one place, this one time.
“Tonight fear sleeps,” Nien said, walking up to stand next to him.
Wing blinked, looking over at his brother. “E’te,” he agreed. “Everyone settled in?”
Nien nodded. “They’re incredibly efficient,” he replied, and then added with a small chuckle, “especially when Quieness doesn’t seem to do anything small.” He held his hands over the stove, warming them, before indicating the large front window. Wing glanced out. The stars were out — high, bright, and clear. “A cold night.”
“E’te,” Wing said. With no cloud cover temperatures were sure to drop significantly. “I wish we could do better for SiQQiy’s men.”
“They have the materials but not the skin; it’s warm in Quieness. Still, their shelters are surprisingly warm.”
“I know we — the valleys — decided to do this now. Still, it seems the worst time to fight a war.”
“There won’t be a war,” Nien said. “Not really. Not if we win it here, now…” Nien hesitated a beat. “Which will most likely be in the next few days.”
Wing glanced at Nien. It felt unreal. But Nien was right, of course. It had to be any day now. And the forces from Legran and Jayak had still not arrived.
“Get some rest, brother, before SiQQiy gives me the eye for keeping you.”
“She’d never give you the eye,” Nien said.
“Not a theory I’d like to test.”
Nien clapped Wing on the back. “All right. Good night.”
Wing tested the water, found it nice and hot, poured it over the brevec in his cup and then, glancing toward the back room, pulled down another mug, added a healthy helping of brevec into the bottom of that mug as well and poured some more water.
Taking up both mugs, he stepped into the back room and offered one to Netalf. The man was good company, Wing had always thought. Quiet, and respectful.
Netalf took the steaming mug with a tilt of his head.
Standing beside Netalf, Wing took a moment to sip his brevec, letting his eyes move across the landscape. The heat of the mug in his hand was a warm, oddly comforting juxtaposition to the cold memory of the men who had been slain just outside that window the day before.
Inside, however, Wing felt a vague pull. To what exactly, he did not know, but the feeling itself was…
Peaceful.
An incongruous emotion to be feeling, he thought, standing on the edge of an event that would both create and undo so many lives.
He took another drink from his mug and sighed happily. Yosha, the brevec was good. Sipping from his own mug, Netalf echoed Wing’s sentiment. The two men smiled.
“Well, good night,” Wing said.
“And to you.”
Turning, Wing left the room. He found where Carly was sleeping and crawled carefully in beside her, leaving his brevec on the floor next to him.
The little brevec left in Wing’s mug was cold the next morning as Wing woke to Nien’s hand on his shoulder.
“Wing, word from the Hettha: Another sixty are coming from the castle.”
Carly roused as well and the three began reaching for armour and swords.
Once again, before the Ka’ull riders had come within view of the house, the children were secreted away in the barn, and SiQQiy’s men were ready for them. And once more, the Ka’ull were caught by surprise. From behind the house and barn, from the trees to the sunsetting, SiQQiy’s men charged. Finding themselves engaged on all sides, the Ka’ull began to panic, many of them breaking rank and scattering toward the mountains. Ten soldiers of SiQQiy’s Second Granj chased down the deserters. Nevertheless, when it was over, SiQQiy’s men reported that two of the Ka’ull had escaped.
Everyone felt the blow.
The force gathered at the Cawutt farm still couldn’t mount the offensive they’d planned without the other valleys. Where were they? On their own here in the valley, with only SiQQiy’s contingents and her Granj, they could handle the smaller numbers, but not if the Ka’ull decided to empty the castle.
Suspicion, guesswork, mystery had been on their side…
Until now.
Now the Ka’ull would know.
Chapter 91
Gift’s Origin
S omewhere in the strange land between sleep and wakefulness, Wing thought he felt a rumbling in the ground. It took a moment for him to realize it was not an imaginative spell from his dreams.
Opening his eyes, he recognized it instantly — the rumble was the trembling of earth beneath the hooves of galloping horses.
A lot of horses.
Rising to his feet and grasping his sword, Wing’s long legs brought him to the back window in only a few steps. Off in the distance he could see Ka’ull riders — more than he could count in a glance.
Nien ran in through the front door. “I can’t believe it!” he shouted. “They came out of nowhere!”
“Are the men alerted?” Wing yelled.
“Yes!” Nien shouted back.
With Carly on their heels, Wing and Nien ran out to SiQQiy’s men in the barracks behind the house.
“Did any of the Hettha get a count?” Wing asked.
The Captain of the Second Granj ran up. “About fifty — what we could see.”
“I saw many more than that out my back window,” Wing said.
“Wing!”
Wing turned toward the house and saw Carly.
“They’re upon the last field,” she called.
Men grabbed reins and swung onto mounts.
“Wing, more are coming!” Lead Netalf shouted as Wing and Nien ran back into the house. “A hundred at least!”
“Pree K!” Wing yelled up the stairs.
Pree K was already bounding down the stairs, sword in his left hand. He rushed out the door behind Wing, Nien, and Carly and they all swung up onto horses. By the time they’d raced around the side of the house a skirmish was already underway; the scene filled with a sort of wondrous terror. The glint of early morning light against drawn blades was blinding to the eye. Men were thrashing about; horses stumbling over bodies and losing their footing in the snow. Shouts of orders and retreat filled the air, underpinned by the wail of the wounded or dying.
And then, as if on some unspoken cue, the Ka’ull fell into retreat. But this time it was rather organized compared to the last confrontation when they’d fled in every direction, disjointed and scared. Clearly, the two Ka’ull that had escaped the day before had reported that the force they’d encountered was rather small and could be easily subdued.
As the rest of SiQQiy’s men came around the house to find the shockingly brief engagement over, they turned their hands to assisting with the wounded and dead. Twenty Ka’ull remained on the field. Fifteen were dead or dying, five wounded enough that they’d been unable to ride away when the order to retreat was given. Eight of SiQQiy's men had been killed, six more seriously wounded, and twelve more with minor wounds. That left fewer than three hundred and fifty men, to face...
Wing shuddered.
The Ka’ull would throw everything they had at them when news reached them of this, another defeat, and from what? A small rebel force?
Carly was tending to the fire when Nien came in that evening.
“Where’s Wing?” he asked.
“He’s out with the men — those of SiQQiy’s Granj that were wounded today as well as the uh, Ka’ull that were left.”
“Oh,” Nien said, and walked over to the washbasin, splashing his face.
Carly was watching the fire and tending to wet boots when the front door opened and Wing came in, followed by a rush of cold air. He closed the door quickly and huffed, a long shiver racing over his body.
Carly got to her feet and w
ent over to him.
“You look exhausted,” she said.
As Wing hung up his cloak, Carly rubbed her hands up his back, massaging deeply.
Wing’s shoulders sagged and his chin nodded to his chest. “You sound a little tired yourself,” he mumbled.
“Are you hungry?”
Wing shook his head.
Carly was rolling her knuckles into a knot in his shoulder when SiQQiy came in with Netalf, followed by another blast of freezing air. Drawing off her cloak, SiQQiy greeted Carly and then, to Carly’s surprise, stepped up to Wing and cupping one of Wing’s hands between her own said, “I don’t know how you do it, but thank you.”
“It’s little enough,” Wing replied.
Coming out from the back room, Nien said, “SiQQiy. There you are. I was about to head back out to look for you.” He had changed clothes, but was carrying his boots in his hands.
“Carly and I will take first and second watch,” Wing said.
Looking Wing over, Nien said, “Are you sure, Weed Farmer? Looks like you need it more than we do.”
“He does,” Lead Netalf said. “I have watches set. All of you get some sleep.” And before anyone had the chance to argue, Netalf kicked out of his boots and carried them along with his sword into the back room.
Nien turned to SiQQiy. “Hungry?”
She shook her head. “Just tired.”
“Take the room upstairs,” Carly said.
“Sure?”
“E’te.”
“I’ve still got stuff to dry down here,” Carly said, indicating her wet clothes and boots.
Taking SiQQiy’s hand, Nien said, “To bed then?”
SiQQiy nodded, turned her eyes briefly to Carly, and then to Wing. “Good night,” she said.
“Good night,” Wing replied.
After SiQQiy and Nien disappeared upstairs and Wing had blown out the last lantern, he joined Carly by the fire. Pree K and the familiars of SiQQiy’s personal guard had already fallen to their bedrolls, a chorus of snoring competing with the crackle of the fire in the fireplace and the kitchen wood stove. Wing started to divest himself of the day’s accoutrements and Carly stepped over to help, reaching around to unbuckle his sword belt before pushing him into a chair in order to tug off boots and socks.
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