“Why not? With each man a whole world dies.”
“But with each man’s end life continues. New children are born. Likewise, with the end of all things a new world might be born.”
“Whether or not a new age will begin is not said in the prophecy.”
“Well, let’s hope the lost are not found.”
“Who even knows what the lost are?”
Chapter 5: Agmar: Glede
Wulfstan examined the map, laid out on a trestle table in his command pavilion. His broad thick shoulders were set squarely, his large hands flat, holding the edges of the map. He lifted one hand and stabbed at three points on the map. “The last of the garrisons here, here and here has been destroyed by Aedgar.” The map was more than a century old, but still mostly accurate, other than where the Fiks had engineered the landscape. The motte and bailey castles Wulfstan had pointed out had been one such change, but the large artificial lake surrounding the eminence at the top of which the huge castle sat was the most dramatic change since his great grandfather’s time. “The path is now open to the main castle.”
“But only a narrow causeway, Your Grace,” said Agmar.
“Damn them! If we take The Cliff my city is encircled. Then we can starve them out.”
Wulfstan’s hair was cut close at the sides and behind, and a forelock hung across his dark, angry eyes. It had been seventy years since his great grandfather had held the city, Gleda as the Ropeuans knew it, though the Fiks called it Faar Utapes, “Our Outpost,” in their barbaric language. All that successive generations of his family since then had been able to accomplish was holding the outer reaches of the march of Glede. Even there they had no prestige. Men who had once been proud dukes of Gleda had been reduced to mere vassals of the eastern upstart, Augustyn, styling himself marquis Glede. Now the inner reaches of the march of Glede, the march of Faar Utapes, was all but Wulfstan’s. All the other castles had fallen. Only The Cliff, built strongly by his own ancestors, and fallen to treachery shortly before the city, held out.
At six and a half feet tall, Agmar towered over Wulfstan and the others, even as he slouched in the tent, long auburn hair flowing down over his wide, leanly muscled shoulders. He raised a hand with long elegant fingers to his freckled face, rubbing the stubble on his chin as his deep blue eyes, speckled with silver motes, looked firmly into the baron’s. “There are other ways,” he advised. He might not be a vassal of Augustyn, or even Wulfstan, but he hated the Fiks as much as any man could, and would gladly follow the lords of Glede for any chance of drawing Fik blood, but what the baron was proposing was suicide.
“Other ways? There is no way but the utter destruction of these vermin. When they lie dead in the city streets in bloody heaps we’ll sweep them into the sea like garbage. No more will our lands be subject to their depredations.”
“I don’t speak of the city, Your Grace, only of the castle. If we attempt a siege along the narrow causeway it won’t achieve anything but the death of your men.” He punctuated the statement with, “many of your men.” Seeing Wulfstan’s barely restrained anger he shrugged. “You are driven by anger against your own better judgement.”
“Oh, brave Agmar!” Kalogh O’Kuellan, the other Seltic bard in the baron’s service, mocked Agmar. He stepped forward now, his small, close set blue eyes as triumphant as the smirk of his overlarge mouth. He wet his lips with his tongue. “Trembling like a maiden at the mere thought of war.”
Agmar drew himself to his impressive full height, his head touching the canvas roof of the pavilion and pushing it higher, and pointed a long elegant finger down at his rival. “Oh, Callow a Quailing.” Even the usually gruff Wulfstan chuckled at the pun on Kalogh’s name, for Kalogh was in fact young and if it were not for the young bard’s skilful flattery the baron would have hanged him long ago for his cowardice. “None is braver than Callow at advancing to the rear in a rapid retreat.” Aedgar, a banneret in the service of Wulfstan, supressed a laugh. “Was it Agmar who cried out in fear as a few Fiks sallied forth from the palisades yester-week? Was it Agmar who ran with the swiftness of the doe to escape the swords of their womenfolk in the hills of Seltica. You speak of bravery, Callow, but have courage only in a contest of words. Oh, yes, your songs have power. Brave knights flee towards battle to escape the strangled notes. Such a power I must commit to legend.” More than one of the baron’s bannerettes smiled, though they knew Kalogh to be a fair bard, if a less than impressive warrior.
“Men rally to my song as to a banner.” Kalogh puffed himself up proudly.
“If they can’t flee your discordant screeches, soldiers bravely drop their swords and leave themselves defenceless so they might use their fingers to cork their ears. Those who don’t are braver yet to withstand the sound, more terrifying than the banshee’s wail.”
Not doubting his own talent, or the bravery he could demonstrate in song, Kalogh drew his eyebrows together as he said, “It’s you who wants to flee this engagement.”
“If I fled any fight I would never catch you. You would outdistance the greyhound and the hare. I have no such speed, and well it is. Only my sword need be quick.”
“Your sword will never be as quick as your tongue with lies.”
“Enough!” Wulfstan hammered the table with his fist, “I have no time for the bickering of bards.”
“My lord’s will.” Kalogh bowed deeply, his long black perfumed hair dangling to his knees, and stepped back. “I would only ask that Agmar heed the wisdom of Wulfstan.”
“The bard’s right,” said Aedgar, nodding at Agmar, “Given the castle’s elevation our catapults can’t reach the walls. Our archers can’t provide cover from the shore of the lake. We could get them within range if we launched boats on the lake, but not nearly enough, and we can’t get our roofed rams across that narrow causeway, so whoever tried to approach the gate to smash it down would have no cover against oil or crossbowmen. Even if we didn’t have to climb that narrow path, without any kind of effective cover or covering fire it’s just a killing ground up there.”
“We could damn the stream the Fiks diverted from the Selta,” suggested Edmer, another of Wulfstan’s bannerettes, “then we could drain the lake.”
“We have enough engineers to get it done,” Aedgar said, “but the Fiks dug the lake deep and the bottom will be all mud by now. We would have to fill it in. We don’t have the men to do that quickly. It wouldn’t be finished before winter.”
“Easier to just starve them out. The Cliff’s too well designed and sited. Even without the lake”
“I will not wait,” Wulfstan thundered.
“I have a better idea,” said Agmar. “Find me a score of your best climbers.”
“You want to scale the cliff? With the wall at the top?”
“Not quite. Not the latter anyhow. You’ve noticed the discolouration down the northern cliff face?”
“What do I care about the colour of stone?”
“It’s shit stains.”
Wulfstan’s face registered his comprehension. “The garderobes!”
“Precisely. I don’t know how large they are, so only small men. Maybe Callow will volunteer.” Agmar looked at Kalogh, then affected surprise when the other bard did not volunteer.
“A shithole would better suit your head than mine,” Kalogh grumbled.
“Afraid of a dropping turd? You eat too much meat, Callow. If only we had fruit to loosen your bowels. Never mind, for you the fear of a fight will serve well enough.”
Wulfstan scowled at both of the bards. “Even if we could get a score of men up there they couldn’t take the castle. It has a garrison of two hundred.”
“They wouldn’t have to take the castle.” He slid the map of the landscape aside, showing the plan of the castle. “Look. The gatehouse is separately defensible, but much smaller than the keep. The keep is where most of the men will be. If we can take the gatehouse and defend it long enough for the mass of your men to get there…”
“They coul
d still shoot from the battlements and towers to either side of the gatehouse.”
“Not by the looks of this gatehouse. It covers both the battlement walkways leading away from it. I’d say if you could get the men there and kill the soldiers inside and seal it you’d be able to sweep the battlements clear.”
“But they have to get to it. It’s not on the same side as the garderobes.”
“I didn’t say it would be easy. Any other way you’d lose twenty times twenty men and probably still not get in. This way you’ll lose twenty at worst. At best, you’ll gain the castle, or at least the outer bailey, and then you can bring up the catapults or turn their gatehouse catapults back on the keep. The keep would fall within a week. Then with all their marcher castles in your hands you can besiege the city at your leisure.”
Aedgar said, “I can’t fault his plan, my lord. We’d have to bring men up to the bottom of the path in readiness, which we can do with boats to keep them out of sight of the battlements. When we get the signal we’ll land against the causeway and come up the path.”
“And if you don’t get the signal you can go back to your tents to sleep. If we fail you can call it a crap plan.”
Aedgar smiled wryly at Agmar. The bard had proved his worth many times in battle, though his height made him such an obvious target the banneret always expected him to take a crossbow bolt in the neck. He was brave and skilful, and had a good head for tactics, provided some madmen could be found to carry out his plans. And when he sang you knew that here was a man truly favoured by Selteltathra, the god of minstrels and bards. His voice was preternaturally beautiful. Aedgar said, “I don’t plan to sleep. Let’s get started.”
“You have some men in mind?”
“I have a few, how about you, Edmer? They can’t just be good climbers, they’ll need to be hardy fighters too.”
“Finding the men won’t be a problem. Who’ll lead them though?”
“I will,” Agmar said. “I misspent much of my youth in the mountains of middle Seltica. I’m a pretty handy climber when I need to be. The skill has saved my skin at least a hundred times, but I’ll only tell you about one.
“Some Fiks were raiding into the hills with a treacherous bastard from the village of Drunquin. I had with me some of the best men of the hill tribes, who would have killed me as soon as a Fik if I hadn’t defeated their bard in a battle of songs. As much as the hill tribes hate lowlanders one thing they always respect is a good bard. The whole winter they sit around their fires in their long halls and tell tales taller than a giant on a snowy peak. The man who can make the most implausible nonsense convincing becomes their bard, so I was up against it. But that’s another story. I had their trust and they knew my honour, so they took me with them on many raids, just to show a lowlander how to thrash these sea dragons. The hill folk are a hardy lot, and they climb better than the mountain goats whose milk they ferment.
“As I was saying, the Fiks were raiding into the hills with this bloody traitor, may his father split his skull and his mother spit on his grave, when the ambush was sprung. He led us right into the trap then turned on us. If they’d been only three to every one we would have stood our ground and fought, but they were ten to one and so we fled up the slopes so that we might feed them their livers another day. I told you they climb better than mountain goats, and I’d learned a few tricks from them. I locked my eyes on the best climber of the lot, a gruff runt named Kearney, and chased him up the slopes, watching every handhold and foothold he found. I swear I learned more about climbing that day than most men will ever know, but still it’s only as much as a babe of those hills learns climbing to his mother’s tit. So don’t worry, I can climb.”
“But will you be able to get through the garderobes?”
Agmar patted his flat stomach. “I might be tall, but I’m skinny enough.
“There was this time I was avoiding debating with a lord of Navre about the virtue of his wife, a sweet lady, a great beauty…don’t remember her name, but she showed me a few tricks you wouldn’t imagine a chaste lady would know. The innovations of respectable ladies is always edifying for a man of learning like myself. I found myself in a dead end, and there was the husband only a few streets over searching with his men. I didn’t have time to get out of the dead end, but I was lucky, always have been in love and war. There was an opening from the gutters into the sewers. You wouldn’t think a child could squeeze through that space, let alone a man, but there’s nothing like a hundred heavily armed men asking polite questions about your whereabouts with their swords to encourage a discovery of new talents. Anyhow, I got through that opening and into the sewers. Narrow little pipe. Hooked up with another. When I squeezed out of that pipe into the bigger one I swear it felt like being born a second time. Made my way through all that shit and piss to the sea. Couldn’t get the stink off me for a week.”
“So no ladies for a week,” Aedgar said. All the men but Kalogh laughed. Agmar put on a mortified expression. “Only a tanner’s daughter. She said she couldn’t smell anything.”
“There’s no dishonour in the embraces of a tanner’s daughter,” Wulfstan said, smiling one of his rare smiles.
“Ah, yes,” Agmar said, “I hear queen Rose is a beauty too.”
“I think I’d better keep you away from the capital, lest you get us all hanged for treason.”
“No lady ever complained about my attentions.”
“It’s said the queen has joined the puritans,” Edmer said. “No man will squeeze through a passage that lot have gained.”
“Ah, did I tell you about the time I had a debate with a puritan priestess about the virtue of virtue?”
“No,” said Wulfstan, “and you can save it for another time. To business. You’ll lead the men. Ordinarily I’d make a diversionary attack, but anything of that sort from the front will only lead to them reinforcing the barbican and the adjoining battlement walkways. If we attack either of the other sides they’ll know something’s up, and start looking. Your best chance is if they think we’re all too far in our cups to fight. I’ll have the whole camp making so much noise they won’t think to look in your direction, or hear our boats near the causeway. So, you’ll be on your own till you’ve secured the gatehouse.”
“I’ll take a few arrows with naphtha soaked cloth. If we make the gatehouse and get the portcullis up and the drawbridge down I’ll shoot it through the arrow loops or from the top of the gatehouse if I can reach it. Be quick once you see it, ‘cause we’ll be fighting for what’s left of our lives by then.”
Chapter 6: Alex: Thedra
Blacksmiths’ Way.
The sound of forges, bellows, and hammers clanging on anvils filled the street. A farrier worked on a horse outside his workshop, holding its foreleg at the fetlock between his thighs and trimming then filing the hoof. He shoved the tools back in his leather apron pocket and signalled to his apprentice to hand him a shoe, took some nails out of the apron pocket and stuck them in his mouth. A blacksmith next door to him hammered out iron rings for a cooper’s barrels or a wheelwright’s wheels while his apprentice manned the bellows, blowing the coals hot enough to heat the next strip of iron red. A dog with matted fur barked in the street, chased back and forth by a pack of small children, who threw a stick and occasionally drew the wrath of a working father or brother with a skewed shot. A woman beat rugs from the window above one shop, and her husband, working below, choking on the dust, yelled at her, “Stop that bloody beating woman. I’m working down here.” “And I’m working up here,” she replied. “Well do it when I’m inside.” “You’d sooner live in filth?” “I’d sooner breathe clean air.” “With the amount of smoke I have to breathe in this house, I don’t know how you tell the difference.” But still, she stopped, and breathed in deeply. “Ah, the air is certainly cleaner this morning.” “Ay, it was, woman,” he grumbled in reply, “it was.”
Alex stopped in front of a shop where a hugely built man, with arms as thick as Alex’s thighs, ham
mered away at a piece of iron that was gradually taking shape as a sword. He turned back to the furnace and shoved the iron into the coals, taking out another, completed blade, which glowed as red as the coals, and shoving it into a barrel of water, which hissed as the metal cooled, then took it out to examine its length. With satisfaction he banged its flat against the anvil, then held it up again to eye down the edge from the tang to the tip.
He whistled his satisfaction, and lifted one eye to Alex. “How can I help you, young man.”
“I, uh, have a sword which my father left me. I was wondering what you could tell me about it.”
“Brandon’s the name and swords is me game. Here, give’s a squiz.” Brandon threw the completed sword on a workbench and rested his thickly calloused hands on his hips, his grey eyes, smouldering in a face blackened by the soot of his forge, lighting up immediately with the enthusiasm of an expert eager to demonstrate his professional knowledge to an interested amateur.
Alex took the sword from beneath his cloak, where he had tied it to his belt with string. “You don’t have a sheath. I could help you with that. Hmm. Looks like a bone sword. Not much use, ‘cept decorative like. Your late father not like you much?”
“How so?”
“You could hardly give something like this away. Wait…” He was looking more closely at it now. “No!”
“What?”
“No. Nothing, nothing. Just a dumb thought. I could take it off your hands if you like, not that it belongs anywhere but the refuse carts. Bit of a curiosity for someone in my profession. Let’s say, a couple of bronze.” But Alex had grown up on the streets and was not so easily played; he saw clearly that the contempt in Brandon’s eyes had turned to covetousness.
“All the same, I think I’ll keep it, in memory of ol’ Pa.”
The smith’s eyes flared for a moment. But it was not greed. Alex had seen the look before, on the faces of the male worshippers who castrated themselves for Dalthi, goddess of the harvest. It was religious fanaticism. Then the look was gone, but Alex knew fake indifference when he saw it, and the blacksmith did not hand the sword back. Alex reached out for it. The smith remained as unmoving as a mountain.
Horn of the River God: Book I of The Song of Agmar Page 7