Tale of the Fox gtf-2

by Harry Turtledove

  After he'd pressed west from the keep on his earlier incursion into territory the Gradi held, the weather had gone bad on him. When he woke now to find the sun rising in a cloudless sky, he smiled and murmured, "Thank you, lord Baivers." Every day the god of barley and the underground powers bought for him was another day in which to strike the Gradi.

  The wind did blow out of the west, but it was a natural wind, a warm wind. And, toward the end of the day, it brought a fresh scent with it, a tang he had known before but couldn't name at once. Duren noticed it, too, and asked, "What's that smell?" — for him, it was unfamiliar.

  Van identified it before the Fox could. "That's the smell of the ocean, lad. We're closer to it now than back at Fox Keep, and no rain washing it out of the air before your nose can find it."

  "You're right!" Gerin snapped his fingers in annoyance at himself. "When the wind swung round and blew out of the east, off the Greater Inner Sea, the air in the City of Elabon would smell like this."

  "And when the wind didn't swing round, the air in the City of Elabon would smell like all the privies and stables in the world, same as it does in every other city," Van said.

  "That's so," Gerin said. "When I lived there-back before you were born, Duren-I didn't notice the city stink, but by the gods I did when I first came into it. After a while, you get used to things."

  Later that day, the army he led came upon a group of Gradi in a peasant village who behaved more in the manner the raiders had done before their gods made the acquaintance of Baivers and the subterranean powers. They went down to defeat, but the large majority of them fought until killed, and several of those who didn't also did not surrender, but broke away into the woods to the west.

  Gerin sent men into those woods after them, but they got away. "I don't care for that," he said when his warriors brought back the news of their failure. "They didn't look like men running for their lives. They looked more like men who wanted to take warning to their friends."

  "Why do you say that, Father?" Duren asked.

  "Because they all went off in the same direction," Gerin replied. "If they'd been panicked, they'd have run every which way-woods just as near these huts to the north and south as to the west. But that's the direction they went."

  Adiatunnus walked up in time to hear that last. "You're after thinking it'll be harder now, Fox?"

  "I wish I could say no, but I have to say yes," Gerin told him. He tried to keep the Trokm-'s spirits up, adding, "Have you noticed how well your warriors have fought against the Gradi this time out? I certainly have."

  "That I have, and I thank you for seeing it, too," Adiatunnus said. "It's as if a great burthen o' fear's fallen off our backs, for the which I suppose you're the man I should be thanking."

  "I've taken the Gradi gods out of play," Gerin said. "Now it's you Trokmoi against them, not you against them and their gods, who had already put your gods in fear."

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wished he had them back. He did not want to insult Adiatunnus by calling Esus, Teutates, Taranis, and the rest of the Trokm- gods cowards. But the woodsrunners' chieftain only nodded. "Truth that-I've owned it myself. We do the best we can, is all-who can do more?" He stopped and thought about what he'd just said, then clapped a hand to his forehead. "The gods forfend, Fox, I'm after starting to sound like you."

  "We've lived next to each other too long," Gerin answered. "This wouldn't be happening if one of us had managed to kill the other somewhere back down the line."

  "And that's truth, too," Adiatunnus said. "We're both after having worse neighbors the now, though, the which makes me think I may be glad after all I didna overfall you. You never know till the end how these things turn out sometimes, do you?"

  "No, you don't," Gerin said shortly. "If you like, Adiatunnus, and if we come out the other side of these hard times, I'll teach you your letters. They'll make your world seem wider, and you'll profit for that."

  "I'll think on it, indeed and I will," Adiatunnus said. Gerin scratched his head. For years, he'd tried to preserve civilization in the northlands not least by driving the Trokmoi over the Niffet. For the first time, he wondered if, having failed to do that, he might civilize them instead. The idea made him laugh. If they invade my country, that's what they get, he thought.

  * * *

  Before he thought about civilizing the Trokmoi (and before he had time to do more than briefly wonder whether a literate Adiatunnus might prove a more dangerous Adiatunnus), he had to worry about the Gradi. The farther west he got, the bigger a worry they became. They fought harder and more cleverly than they had. He was no longer taking them by surprise, either: they knew he and his men were coming after them.

  The weather worried him, too. The breeze that smelled of the Orynian Ocean was cool and moist, which made him wonder whether Stribog was no longer busy battling the underground power who had taken him on. Only when local peasants assured him summers close by the sea were generally of that sort did the worry recede-a little.

  He kept scouting parties close by the Niffet, to make sure the Gradi could not use their war galleys to land a large band of soldiers behind him by surprise. That precaution paid for itself a couple of days later, when his men spotted two galleys full of Gradi going up the river. When some of the scouts brought that news back, he reversed the course of his army: two galleys' worth of warriors was not a force large enough to do much in the way of raiding upriver, and seemed likelier to be aimed at him.

  Had he guessed wrong there, he might have lost the momentum that had kept his troopers surging forward. But he guessed right: his men swept down on the Gradi close by the riverside, and apparently not long after they had left their ships. The fight that followed, on flat, open ground with the Niffet against which to pin the raiders, was more nearly slaughter than anything deserving the name of battle.

  Foot soldiers armed mostly with axes, the Gradi here found themselves at the mercy of Gerin's chariot-riding archers. The Gradi could neither close with them nor escape, and had no weapons able to strike their foes from a distance. One by one, they fell, until, seeing the end rapidly approaching, they began killing one another to keep from being captured.

  After the fight was over, the Fox sent a party east along the Niffet to find the galleys from which the Gradi had come. Two pillars of smoke rising into the sky said they'd not only found but fired them.

  "I wish they hadn't done that," Gerin said, pointing back toward the smoke.

  "And why ever not?" Adiatunnus demanded. "With the boats found and all, they should be getting rid of them, eh?"

  "Most times, I'd say yes," Gerin answered. "But people will see that smoke a long way. I'm afraid the Gradi army in the west just beyond our farthest advance yet will spot it and know we've smashed their friends."

  "What army are you talking about?" Adiatunnus said, and then, "It's daft y'are, I'm thinking, when all we've seen is dribs and drabs of Gradi, no proper armies to 'em at all. Not that I'm sorry for it, mind you now."

  "Think it through," the Fox told him. "Why would the Gradi have landed a force of that size behind us? Those men couldn't have caught us, not on foot, and they couldn't fight all of us by themselves if they did catch us. Am I right so far?"

  "Aye, belike," the Trokm- chieftain said. "What of it, and what has it got to do with a whole great whacking Gradi army up ahead?"

  Gerin too seldom got the chance to play games with logic. When he did, he used it to the hilt. "Think it through," he repeated. "These Gradi couldn't have caught us or fought us, not alone. What does that leave for them to do? The only thing I can think of is that they were meant to be a blocking force, to slow us down while we're retreating and let whoever we're retreating from catch up with us. We wouldn't be retreating from dribs and drabs of Gradi. The only thing that could make us retreat is an army. And so… does that make sense to you?"

  Adiatunnus' long, bony face was intent as he followed the Fox's reasoning. At last, he said, "You may be after ha
ving the right of it. What a tricksy wight y'are, to see that army or ever you set eyes on it. Have you been watching me the same way, all these years?"

  "As best I could," Gerin told him.

  "I hold myself lucky, then, for still being here for you to keep an eye on," Adiatunnus said, "though you'll likely tell me you'd be as pleased if I weren't."

  "More pleased," the Fox said, deadpan. Adiatunnus gave him a glare as heartfelt as he could have desired. Then both men started to laugh. Gerin went on, "Now let's go see what we can do to flush that army my mind's eye sees-or find out that I'm full of eyewash."

  "Indeed and I'll be surprised if it turns out y'are," Adiatunnus told him. "The way you laid out your thoughts, so neat and all, there I was, following along behind like you were lighting up a dark path with a torch."

  "You do need to learn to read," Gerin told him. "I'll make a philosopher out of you yet, see if I don't."

  "Och," Adiatunnus exclaimed, "maybe I should let the Gradi kill me instead." The Fox glared at him, only to realize the Trokm- had just taken his revenge.

  * * *

  Every so often, Gerin's instinct and his logic let him down with a splat. As he led his army westward, he began to wonder if this was going to be one of those times. He had scouts out well ahead of the main body of his force. They and then he passed a couple of spots where he would have judged the Gradi likely to stand and fight.

  Then a scout came back from the southwest with a frightened-looking peasant clinging to the rail of his chariot. "This fellow says he knows where the Gradi are," he called.

  "Good." Gerin waved, bringing his army to a halt. The scout came on at a slightly less intrepid pace, which made the elderly peasant seem happier, or at least less unhappy. "Who are you and what do you know?" Gerin asked him.

  "Lord, my name is Osar Pozel's son," he answered, though Gerin wondered if he'd heard the name aright. He might have felt happier speaking to Osar through an interpreter, for the serf had a western accent that would have made him hard to understand at best, and also spoke mushily because he was missing most of his teeth.

  "Well, Osar, what do you know?" Gerin repeated.

  The peasant pointed back in the direction from which the scout had brought him. "Lord, there's Gradi back there, lots of Gradi. Over by Bidgosh Pond, they are. Wish somebody could do something about 'em."

  "Why do you think I'm here?" the Fox said. "For my amusement? For the scenery, maybe?"

  "Who knows what lords do, or why?" Osar returned. "Anyone who's smart, he stays outen the way of lords."

  That saddened Gerin, but did not surprise him. "Where is this Bidgosh Pond?" he asked.

  "Where is it? What do you mean, where is it? How can you not know where Bidgosh Pond is?" Osar had, no doubt, lived in his village all his life. Everything in the neighborhood-this pond, wherever it was; a hill; a forest-would be as familiar to him as his own fingers, and would no more need locating than those fingers at the far end of his hand. He'd have trouble imagining someone who'd never seen Bidgosh Pond, as he'd also have trouble imagining the terrain more than a day's walk from his village, terrain he'd probably never seen.

  "Never mind," Gerin said, sighing. "Here, come up into my chariot. You tell me which way I have to go to get to the pond. If a fight starts, I'll let you jump out beforehand. Does that suit you?"

  "What choice have I got?" Osar asked, the peasant's age-old bitter question. He got up into the Fox's chariot and said, "All right, back the way I came from, back toward the fields I know."

  "Think what a hero you'll be to the other people in your village," Gerin said. "Now you've ridden in a chariot-two chariots, in fact-and you're going to help get rid of the Gradi so they don't trouble you any more."

  "I'm going to have all these fancy chariot things churning up the fields so we all go hungry," Osar Pozel's son said. He shook his head. "Wouldn't've had much crops anyways, not with the weather so bad till just lately."

  As soon as he found ground he recognized, he went from being nearly useless to being altogether authoritative, telling Gerin much more than he wanted to know about every crop, every herd, that had been on that ground for as far back as he remembered, which was about as long as Gerin had been alive. In his little corner of the world, he remembered everything: chuckling, he said, "Had my first girl back o' those trees, not that they was so tall in them days. Pretty little thing she was, too, and a pair on her that'd make you cry-"

  After a while, Gerin cut off the flow of amatory reminiscences by asking, "How much farther to this pond?"

  Osar gave him a dirty look. The Fox had trouble blaming him; remembered lovemaking was surely more enjoyable than thinking about battle. After a moment, though, the peasant pointed. "Just past that stand o' trees there."

  Sure enough, through the trees came the glint of sun off water. Also through the trees came shadowy glimpses of moving figures. "Rein in," Gerin told Duren. When his son obeyed, the Fox told Osar, "You'd better get out here. Those aren't the people from your village, are they?"

  "Not likely," the peasant answered, and jumped down. He scurried away from the chariots behind the Fox's, surprisingly spry. Given the fight that loomed ahead, Gerin would have been spry in his shoes, too (not that Osar was wearing shoes).

  Pointing ahead, Van said, "There's a whole great whacking lot of Gradi in amongst those trees."

  "There certainly are," Gerin said. "The next interesting question is, how in the names of all the Elabonian gods are we going to get them to come out into the fields and fight us on our own ground?"

  Van grunted thoughtfully in response to that, but made no more definite answer. Gerin pondered the problem. Out on open land, his men in their chariots could ride rings around the Gradi and fill them full of arrows without exposing themselves to much danger. Under the trees, everything changed. The horses would have to pick their way, and the men in the cars would be hideously vulnerable to enemies leaping out of the bushes or from behind tree trunks and not seen till too late.

  Gerin touched his son on the shoulder. "Ride up close to the woods," he said. "There's something I want to try." Duren did as he asked. Raising his voice to a great shout, the Fox called, "If the lot of you aren't sniveling cowards, come out and fight us!"

  Against Trokmoi, the ploy probably would have worked: the woodsrunners made a point of proving how brave they were. It might have worked against Elabonians; his own people, Gerin thought, were by no means free of brave blockheads. But from out of the forest came an answering shout in pretty good Elabonian: "If you are such a great fighter, you come make us!"

  It was exactly the reply Gerin would have given. Getting it thrown in his face didn't make him any happier. Neither did the cheers that rose from the throats of the Gradi who had understood their leader's answer. Only a man with a strong hold over the warriors he led could have so forcefully rejected the most openly courageous course of action. The Fox turned to Van. "You were right, worse luck. I think they've found a captain."

  "And what do we do about that?" the outlander asked.

  "What I'd like to do is set the forest afire and flush them out that way." Gerin bit his lip. "The only trouble being, I don't think it would work, not with no wind and not with the trees all wet and full of sap from the rains that have poured down on this place."

  Van nodded. "Aye, a fire'd be slow going. They might head out away from us, toward the pond, instead of at us, too. But what does that leave?"

  Gerin looked back at the chariots full of Trokmoi and Elabonians. He looked ahead to the woods full of Gradi. The Gradi captain had rejected the obvious choice Gerin offered him. He, in turn, had offered Gerin a choice just as obvious-and just as fraught with peril.

  Sighing, the Fox said, "If they don't come to us, we could go in after them."

  He had hoped Van would try to talk him out of it. Instead, the outlander whooped and grinned and slapped him on the back, almost hard enough to pitch him out of the chariot. "Every now and then, Fox, I like the way you
think," he said.

  "I don't," Gerin said.

  When the Fox shouted orders for his men to dismount from their cars and fight the Gradi on foot, Adiatunnus had his driver bring his chariot alongside and said, "Are you daft, to go fighting them under the trees? 'Tis the very thing they want you to do!"

  "We'll see how much they want it once they have it," the Fox replied. "I am not wild to do this: I plainly own as much. But this is our land by rights. If we can't beat the Gradi with their gods out of the picture, we might as well leave and hand them the whole countryside."

  "But they're Gradi!" Adiatunnus exclaimed-a fear-filled sentence freighted with the memories of long years of losses. "Fighting 'em in chariots, aye, or in the keep, but here-"

  "If you won't, then go back across the Venien," Gerin said harshly. If Adiatunnus and the Trokmoi did go back across the Venien, the fight was doomed. His heart felt packed with jagged ice. Doomed or not, he would go after the Gradi: a sentiment the raiders might well have understood. To Adiatunnus, he added, "If I win this battle with you, well and good. If I win it after you turn oathbreaker, your turn comes next."

  He meant it. Adiatunnus could see he meant it. The Trokm- chieftain bit his lip. Gerin coldly stared his way, trying to make Adiatunnus more afraid of him than of the Gradi. After a long moment, Adiatunnus said, "I am no oathbreaker. We fight beside you."

  "Prove it," Gerin said, and jumped down out of his chariot. Van thudded to the ground beside him. A moment later, so did Duren, who tethered the horses to a bush that wouldn't hold them more than a moment if they seriously decided to try breaking free.

  "To the crows with you, lord prince!" Adiatunnus said, and jumped down, too.

  Seeing their foes descend to the ground, the Gradi began shouting, "Voldar! Voldar!" The goddess' name rang in Gerin's ears. But however loud the Gradi yelled, the Fox felt no hum of power in the air, no sign that Voldar was near. He would not have to fight against an angry goddess, merely against her angry followers, who were apt to be quite bad enough.