Horn of the River God: Book I of The Song of Agmar

by Frances Mason

  Nearby another common man at arms tried to pull a ring off a dead knight and, finding that it was firmly stuck, cut the finger off below the knuckle and held it up triumphantly, as if in that act he had demonstrated great valour. Another, seeing Vrongwenese knights nearby, chose not to waste his time, and dismembered a partially stripped knight, dropping his parts into a sack to drag away and investigate later at leisure.

  Jasper observed with disdain the looting of corpses and the unnecessary killing of defeated soldiers. The brothers of the temple did not hesitate to kill in battle, but there was no glory for Urysthra in this. He had seen it a hundred times before, but still it disgusted him. Uyrysthra was the master of strategy and valour, but War was not war. He had sent his brother knights among the wounded to aid them or, if death were certain, to make it quick. They would not loot the corpses, though to be fair to the common levies, his brothers were always paid. A Monk of War did not live for riches but a patron would have to provide sufficient funds to maintain him and his equipment in the field – tents, victuals, arms, armour, horses, carts and carters. These common levies of Vrongwe were commanded, told they would be paid, but more often than not would receive nothing, and were only able to survive by pillage and battlefield looting.

  Jasper looked to the castle and ford. If you only looked to the east of the river you would see triumph for the king. But though the valley floor was strewn with the dead and the dying the castle still held out, and across the river the forces of Augustyn ranged. They had been prevented crossing the ford and reinforcing the battalions of le Comte, and so catastrophe had been averted for the king, but their numbers had not been thinned, and they had been joined by several hundred of the routed irregulars, some having crossed the ford, others having swum across the river further south. All were hungry for revenge. And though le Comte had fought bravely at the front against the king’s superior forces, his household knights had dragged him from the fray and across the river before he could be taken captive or killed. Le Comte was now safely among the forces of his father in law; his muddied, tattered comital banner, with his coat of arms of a castle on a river of silver, fluttering alongside the crowned heart over a background of blue waves of Relyan’s clean, bright ducal banner.

  That emblem had been inherited with the county of Gwendur from Augustyn’s grandmother, Maria de Gwendur, princess of the blood royal of Vrongwe. In fact, the very name of Gwendur was a Ropeuan corruption of the Vrongwenese for Queen’s Dower. For queen she would have been, if eldest daughter instead of uncle had inherited the crown after all her brothers had died. And the county had indeed been planned for Maria’s dower. However unwilling the king and queen had been to see her married to the upstart son of a Ropeuan silk merchant, whom she passionately loved, she had taken the county as her rightful dower and held it with the love of its people while her father lived, then by the strength of their arms when her newly crowned uncle tried to wrest it from her.

  Jasper looked from the banners to the castle. He knew that re-victualling it from the river would be easy, and reinforcing its garrison also. It would not be taken by either mangonel or starvation within a month. The result was a stalemate. When the Vrongwenese knights and barons had provided their month’s service to their noble lords or to the king himself they would leave. The Kumese crossbowmen were mercenaries, and Amery could not keep them in the field much longer. Until now gold had flowed from the king of Vrongwe to the duke of Vrong Veld, and from him to the mercenaries of the archipelago of Kum. But that king was renowned for his vacillating character and tenuous finances. He could not be trusted to meet his obligations for much longer. However much Amery hated Augustyn, he would not take the whole burden without the king’s aid. So the crossbowmen of the archipelago would depart. That would leave Jasper’s brother knights of the temple of Urysthra. To the extent that maintaining their chapterhouse and fighting force required it, they also were mercenaries, though reliably paid by Amery, and Jasper knew their worth; but he also knew they would not fight more than a skirmish without the coordinated support of infantry and archers. War’s Monks did not shy from death, but they did not invite it either. So the ford would be crossed by Relyan’s army which, unlike the feudal arrays of Vrongwe, was organised on professional lines. They would stay when the king left, maintained by the great wealth of that duke. And then they would march north through the valley. Every castle that had been taken in northern Lurvale would be taken back. A season of campaigning wasted.

  “Amery won’t be pleased,” he said to Marcos. He shook his head, his scar smiling though his eyes did not. “If the king had acted sooner the far side of the ford would have been taken and the castle would have soon capitulated. Then all the gains of the last month would have been held. Now they’re sure to be lost.”

  Jasper watched a cluster of about a hundred longbowmen standing beside the boulders on the other side of the ford. Before the king had brought his army south he had issued a proclamation to the effect that any Gwendurian longbowman caught alive would have his string fingers chopped off. So now the archers defiantly and obscenely flicked up their two fingers at a contingent of approaching Vrongwenese knights, behind which marched Kumese crossbowmen. Then they stepped back behind cover. From where Jasper sat his steed on the slope he could see what the knights could not. The longbowmen were nocking arrows. The longbowmen did not step out from cover, but sent their arrows in an arc, which descended behind the knights, and the crossbowmen scattered.

  One of the knights yelled at the crossbowmen. They did not return, and so he yelled to several other knights. They rode after the Kumese, and reaching them began laying about with their swords. The crossbowmen who had fled the furthest turned and saw their friends being slaughtered by the knights. They turned their loaded crossbows on the knights. At close range the crossbow bolts tore through the plate armour, and all of the pursuing knights fell dead from their horses. Then the crossbowmen who had survived reloaded, and approached the other knights at the castle in an ordered front. The knights, outraged by these common mercenaries attacking them, drew their swords and charged en masse. The crossbowmen let fly their bolts, first a front line, bringing down the front-most charging horses. Many of the horses behind struck the wall of fallen knights and horses, throwing their riders. There was now a kicking, struggling pile of horseflesh and armour and swords flailing about. Other knights, on their quick, responsive destriers, reared or spun and avoided the scrimmage. Then, as the front line of crossbowmen knelt to reload, the second line, still standing, let fly their bolts.

  One knight galloped away from the carnage, toward the castle, and was felled by a bolt from the castle walls. Another cautiously rounded the fallen knights, only to be struck in the face by a bolt with such force that he rolled backwards off his horse like an acrobat, falling dead to the ground.

  Another contingent of Vrongwenese knights, further from the ford, seeing what had happened, now charged the crossbowmen. But more crossbowmen had been marching toward the castle, and now, instead of fighting the castle defenders, defended their own countrymen from the knights, forming up in ranks and sending a hail of deadly bolts against the knights. More knights, who had been wandering the battlefield, seeing this, mounted and charged this second tier of crossbowmen. But the crossbowmen quickly ran up a slope, and turned their flank into their front in a quick about face, scattering the knights with a hail of bolts. Then they marched toward their fellow Kumese, formed a solid mass with them, and marched to the river.

  More Gwendurian longbowmen were now lining up along the river, cheering at the rout of Vrongwenese knights by their allies. A crossbowman raised a flag of parley, and the longbowmen allowed him to approach unmolested. The castle defenders did not shoot either, but watched the turn of events curiously. One of the longbowmen crossed the ford halfway as the parleying crossbowman crossed to meet him. They gesticulated wildly and seemed to be laughing. Then they shook hands. More crossbowmen kept swelling the ranks, and soon there were thousa
nds. They turned their front to face the battlefield, with the ford at their back and the castle on their left flank, and set up their camp. Some of the longbowmen crossed the ford, helping the crossbowmen to dig ditches and place a palisade of pointed stakes around the front of their encampment. Soon provision carts were being brought across the ford, and within the new camp festive songs rang out.

  Jasper shook his head. One of the problems with hereditary knights was their tendency to look on common soldiers with contempt. They had paid for their hauteur. If the king’s cause had not been lost before, it certainly was now.

  Longbowmen and crossbowmen stood just outside the new ditches, sharing fine Gwendurian wine and shouting at any knights who came close enough to hear. The knights were more cautious now, but the archers goaded them. One crossbowman shouted through cupped hands, and the words sounded clearly across the valley. “Send your womenfolk instead. They’ll put up a better fight.” A longbowman threw a convivial arm about his erstwhile foe, swilled from a large wooden mug, then roared, “And their flesh will look prettier stuck on our shafts.” All of the archers laughed raucously at that.

  Occasionally one of the knights would break from the front, charge toward the ditch, then veer away across the valley floor to avoid the bolts and arrows. The archers would jeer more loudly with broad grins. One young knight, more brave than intelligent, his armour painted brightly and undented, did not veer away, charging full tilt with his lance. The archers feigned surprise and fear. Then, with bored nonchalance, raised their bows and brought down the horse with several shafts. The knight was thrown, his lance shooting forward ahead of him, shattering as it hit the ground, and its broken shaft impaled him through the throat as he followed. He did not die instantly, but hung there, half suspended, on his knees, blood pouring from his chain gorget to pool about him.

  Jasper watched the line of knights. He knew they would not deign to ask for honourable terms from common soldiers.

  “Damn them and their pride!” he muttered. He spurred his horse forward.

  “What are you doing?” Marcos asked in surprise.

  “What should be done,” Jasper shouted back over his shoulder.

  The archers watched Jasper curiously as he descended from the slope, passing the Vrongwenese knights. They could see clearly from his crimson armour that he was a Monk of War. They knew that he served Amery in the cause of the king of Vrongwe. The longbowmen and crossbowmen now started to argue among themselves. He approached with sword sheathed and raised his arms to show his peaceful intent, guiding his well-trained destrier with his knees. The Kumese crossbowmen convinced the Gwendurian longbowmen to lower their weapons.

  Jasper reached the fallen knight and dismounted.

  He placed a hand under each arm and lifted him, pulling him off the shattered lance and laying him on the ground. Taking off his helmet, he peeled away his shredded chain gorget. He was hardly more than a boy, perhaps sixteen years old. His mouth moved, but the splintered lance fragment had torn apart his throat, and he coughed and spluttered blood instead of words, much of the blood not even reaching his mouth but bubbling out of the wounds in his throat instead. He looked into Jasper’s eyes with desperation. But Jasper could not save him from drowning in his own blood. Looking into those eyes, seeing that fear, he could not utter the usual platitudes about honour. He opened his mouth, but was as lost for words as the boy. Instead he gripped the boy’s hand, mailed hand in mailed hand. Despite dying the boy’s grip was strong. He would have made a worthy knight brother. In the order boys did not take to the field until they had developed discipline and a head for battle tactics. In the order a knight commander would decide when he was ready, not the pride of a noble family. A boy as impetuous as this would have been drilled and disciplined for years more before seeing battle. The boy mouthed something, perhaps crying for his mother, perhaps words without meaning, perhaps not even words, just the spasms of dying muscles in his face. Then the light went out of his eyes.

  A crossbowman of Kum and a longbowman of Gwendur led a pack horse out from behind the makeshift palisade and approached Jasper, the Crimson Monk, and the young knight of Vrongwe. Together, they placed the boy’s body on the horse and tied it firmly in place. Then Jasper remounted his destrier and led the pack horse back to the line of knights.

  Chapter 16: Arty and Oly: Thedra

  The northern quarters of Thedra were the hub of activity in the city. In the east, in and around the market and along the bridge were much of the mercantile might of the city. In the west were gardens and palaces, lakes and fountains and canals for the pleasure of the nobles and the wealthiest merchants; there arranged marriages would join wealth and dynastic names, propagating both together down the generations. The southern quarters of the city, so far from the bridge, were mostly neglected, with the exception of small pockets, fortified against incursion as though towns in themselves. The largest such pocket of affluence surrounded South Gate, where duke Relyan’s palace rose, isolated and magnificent above the northern tower. Further north, between South Gate and East Gate or West Gate were endless warrens of close packed tenements and slums, long disused warehouses, crumbling palaces where once the great had proudly walked, now overrun by vermin, convenient refuse dumps or the haunts of violent criminals who used the fortifications to defend against any incursion of the orderly corruption of guilds or the city watch.

  Through these warrens two cloaked men walked slowly, stopping occasionally to listen. One was a giant, at six feet six inches, with broad shoulders to match, while the other, short next to his friend, was still taller than most men in Thedra at over six feet. Both hid their faces in deep hoods. They had bribed the guards at East Gate to let them pass from North East Quarter into South East Quarter half an hour ago. If they had been using the broad central avenue they would have reached South Gate by this time, but they had taken every available opportunity to merge with the shadows, and pass down barely visible streets, where they could be sure of not being followed. The smells of this quarter were unusually strong, and especially in the densely packed warrens they were choosing they could not help occasionally gagging. Though the city had great machines for clearing the air, engineered by great mages of the Arts Mechanic in ages past, they were poorly maintained, at least outside of the northern city and the court in the inner ring.

  If they had been paying less attention to what lay behind them they might have been more concerned with the two men who sauntered toward them now, carrying the pole with lantern on its tip common to the city watch. They might have noticed that the sword of one was drawn, though poorly concealed in the folds of his robes, and that the lantern pole was actually a halberd reversed in the watch guard’s grip.

  “Halt. Who goes there?” one of the watch guards demanded.

  It was too late for them to dodge into another alley. The nearest was overhung with low projections that two tall men would have difficulty getting quickly past. Expecting to have to bribe the corrupt watch in order to pass, the taller of the cloaked men reached into his purse and took out a couple of silver coins in readiness.

  “Good evening good man,” he said to the man with the lantern, noticing now the halberd blade near the ground. Though it was not uncommon as a weapon of the watch, to attempt to conceal it was odd. “Pity two poor travellers,” he continued, “seeking lodgings cheap enough for our limited means. Can you point us the way to a suitable place?”

  “Poor travellers?” the watch guard said, looking him up and down now. He had put on his plainest cloak. Despite that it was made of high quality fabric, and was coloured with the expensive blue dye the Selts extracted from oyster shells off their coast. Perhaps in the light of a lamp this would not be too obvious to anyone but a cloth merchant, but the cloak was not even slightly threadbare. The guard was sceptical. “A poor man would find it hard to find any lodgings outside of the prisons. Don’t you think, Raddy?” Raddy nodded and offered a rot toothed grin.

  “Perhaps you can direct us t
o something more comfortable than a cell.” He handed the silver to the guard, who looked at the coins and smiled at his friend.

  “It seems our friends have been holding out on us, eh Raddy?”

  “Yeah. It’s not being friendly is it, Gresha, when friends hold out on friends?”

  “No, not friendly at all.”

  It was never a good sign when men who did not know you started to call you “friend,” and Raddy’s clumsy repetition was even more ominous.

  “I think it’s pretty clear where this is going,” said the shorter cloaked man.

  The watch guards, if that was what they were, were not hiding their weapons now. Gresha lowered the lamp to the cobblestones and pointed the tip of his halberd at the taller cloaked man’s throat, and Raddy drew his long sword into the light. The cloaked men looked at each other, smiling, nodded, and stepped back, flinging open their cloaks to reveal the light armour beneath and draw their swords. The two guards were surprised but not deterred, and closed in. The taller man waited for the halberd’s spear point to be thrust at his face, and stepped just far enough to let it and the axe blade slice at the air. Gresha grinned, sure that his opponent had made a fatal mistake, and prepared to twist and yank the axe blade past his carotid artery. He himself had made the mistake though, because the tall man had so much reach that, combined with his long sword he had reached all the way to Gresha’s throat. The tall man had grabbed the haft of the halberd, and Gresha’s eyes opened in surprise as he pulled himself onto the tip of the long sword. He was even more surprised when the tall man drew back his sword point so that the wound, which should have passed all the way through his throat to sever his spine, was not fatal. The shorter cloaked man toyed with his opponent, parrying his thrusts, blocking his slashes and slapping his cheeks with the flat of his blade. Gresha let go the halberd and stepped away. Raddy, seeing his departure, followed him and they both ran as fast as they could away from their intended victims.