Tale of the Fox gtf-2

by Harry Turtledove

"That's what I said, lord king." Fandil returned to rubbing the horse's back. Gerin sympathized with the animal. Fandil's father had been called Fandor the Fat. Fandil was more along the lines of the Chubby, but Gerin wouldn't have wanted to try carrying him on his back.

  "He doesn't plan on doing any more fighting out in the open, then?" Gerin persisted.

  "Not if he can help it," Fandil answered. "He and his army are holed up in the strongest keeps they can find, and he doesn't think the imperials can pry him out of them before winter comes and they get too hungry to stay in the field. If they tear up the countryside but then go home, what does he care? He's ahead of the game."

  "His peasants aren't," Gerin said, but that only made him laugh at himself. As long as the imperials went away, Aragis didn't care what happened to the peasantry. Gerin supposed he had to sympathize with that, but Aragis didn't care what happened to the peasantry any other time, either.

  Fandil said, "Looks like the imperials are settling down to the sieges, too. Don't know whether they'll try knocking down walls or just sit there and starve the places out one at a time-if they can."

  "If they can," Gerin agreed. "The one thing I'm sure of is that Aragis wouldn't put his men into castles that are easy to take, and he wouldn't put them into castles that don't have plenty in their cellars, either."

  "You know best about that, lord king," Fandil said. "But what it looks like to me is, we're on our own over here."

  Gerin sighed. "It looks that way to me, too, Fandil. We've been on our own over here all along, and we haven't done any too well so far."

  "You'll come up with something." Gerin might not have confidence, but Fandil, like a lot of his men, did.

  "I hope so," Gerin said. "To the crows with me if I have the faintest notion what it is, though." Fandil didn't seem to hear that, any more than Aragis had heard Gerin when he said he wasn't a sorcerer. Not for the first time, nor for the five hundredth, either, he wondered why people didn't pay more attention to what other people said. They already had their own ideas, and that seemed to be enough for them.

  The next morning, he and Van and Dagref rode out along the picket line of horsemen he kept west of his force to warn him if the imperials decided to come at him again. For the moment, the men of the Elabonian Empire were holding back. They had pickets out, too, in chariots, to warn of any sudden move Gerin might make against them.

  "They're not bad fellows," one of Rihwin's riders said, pointing toward an imperial chariot perhaps a quarter of a mile away. "For business like this, they don't bother us and we don't bother them. When the time comes to really fight again, they'll really go after us, I suppose, and we'll do our best to fill 'em full of arrow holes, but what's the use till then?"

  "None I can see," Gerin allowed. "It's a pretty sensible way of going about things, when you get down to it."

  He glanced over at Van. In the outlander's younger days, odds were he would have thundered out something about killing the foe whenever you found any chance to do it. Had Gerin had Adiatunnus with him, the Trokm- chieftain probably would have said the same thing now. But Van only shrugged and nodded, as if to say the horseman's words made good sense to him, too. Little by little, he was mellowing.

  A couple of riders farther along the line, Maeva patrolled a stretch of meadow. "No, lord king," she said when Gerin asked her, "I haven't seen anything out of the ordinary." As the earlier rider had, she pointed toward an imperial chariot out of arrow range to the west. "They're keeping an eye on us, same as we're keeping an eye on them."

  "All right," Gerin said. "Right at the moment, I'm not sorry things are quiet. We need the time to pull ourselves back together."

  "They're probably thinking the same thing about us, lord king," Maeva answered seriously. "We had to pull back, aye, but we bloodied them."

  "They have more room to make mistakes than we do, though," Van said. "By the gods, we didn't make any mistakes I could see in that last fight, and we lost it anyhow."

  Dagref said nothing at all. That was unusual enough to make Gerin keep an eye on his son, as Maeva kept an eye on the force from the Elabonian Empire and as the imperials kept an eye on Gerin's army. For his part, Dagref was keeping an eye on Maeva. As best Gerin could tell from watching the back of his son's head, Dagref's eyes did not leave her.

  She kept looking at him, too. Well, well, the Fox thought. Isn't that interesting? Gerin looked over at Van again, too. The outlander was also eyeing his daughter, but not, Gerin judged, with that kind of suspicion. Van was still trying to figure out why in blazes she wanted to take the field, and not worrying about anything else.

  Life would get even more interesting if Maeva's belly started to bulge. Gerin had had that thought before. He wondered whether Dagref worried about such things. He might well not have himself at that age. A man and a woman-or a boy and a girl-could enjoy each other a good many ways without running the risk. Did Dagref know about them? He had little in the way of real experience, but who could guess what all he'd heard, what all he'd read? Who could guess what all Maeva knew, either?

  Still shaking his head, Gerin tapped Dagref on the shoulder. "Let's get moving," he said. With obvious reluctance-obvious to the Fox, at any rate, and probably to Maeva, too-Dagref flicked the reins. The horses began to walk, and then to trot.

  Dagref was not so unsubtle as to look back over his shoulder at Maeva. Gerin, however, could look back with no fear of rousing Van's suspicions, and he did. Sure enough, Maeva was staring after the chariot. Maybe that was because it held her father. Gerin wouldn't have bet on it, though, not anything he couldn't afford to lose.

  After he'd finished the tour of his pickets and convinced himself the imperials weren't going to take him by surprise, he had Dagref drive back to camp. When he returned, Rihwin and Ferdulf were in the middle of a screaming row, each plastering the other with names that stuck like glue. Van descended from the chariot and tried to break up the fight, with the result that both Rihwin and Ferdulf turned on him.

  Gerin hadn't tried to interfere between his friend and the little demigod, knowing that was what would happen if he did. He'd had a sufficiency-indeed, an oversupply-of people shouting at him lately, and saw no need to encourage more. If Van was of the opinion he hadn't been getting his own fair share of abuse, he was, in Gerin's view, welcome to it.

  Van's furious bass roar blended with Ferdulf's baritone and Rihwin's higher, lighter voice to produce discord in three-part disharmony. Dagref rolled his eyes. "You'd think Uncle Van would have better sense than to get mixed up in that," he said.

  "Aye, good sense is hard to come by among these parts, isn't it?" Gerin said.

  He didn't think he was being much more than his usual sardonic self. His son's mind, though, worked in the same channel as his own. Dagref whirled around and gave him a look half stricken, half relieved. "You know, don't you?" he said.

  "I know now," Gerin said. "I'd wondered for a while, aye."

  "You don't think Van knows, do you?" Dagref asked in some alarm-not enough, as far as Gerin was concerned, but some.

  "If he did know," the Fox answered, "do you think he'd waste his time yelling at Rihwin and Ferdulf?"

  "A point," Dagref said, still not happily.

  "You had better be careful," Gerin said-useless advice to most youths, but Dagref was not-in some ways was not-cut from the usual cloth. "If you get her with child, you'll think the five hells had come crashing down on you, no matter how much fun you're having now."

  "Another point," Dagref admitted. "There are-" He paused and coughed and might have blushed a little as he searched for words. "There are… ways of doing things where we don't have to worry about that."

  "Yes, I know about those ways," Gerin said, nodding. "I wasn't sure whether you did."

  "Er-I do," Dagref said, and stopped there.

  Gerin was content to stop there, too. He couldn't very well keep an eye on his son, not in this matter he couldn't. He could-and did-hope Dagref and Maeva would stay content
to stop with substitutes when they found themselves alone together. Whatever Maeva did, she threw herself into it wholeheartedly. In that, she very much resembled both her parents. That meant Gerin would have to rely on Dagref's good sense, and on Dagref's having good sense at a time when good sense was supposed to go flying out the door.

  With any other lad of Dagref's age, it would have been the most forlorn of forlorn hopes. Gerin studied his son. He still didn't think the odds were any too good, but he didn't think they were hopeless, either. He sighed. Whatever the odds were, he had no choice but to accept them.

  He rubbed his chin. That wasn't strictly true. "Maybe I ought to send Maeva home, to keep this from getting any further out of hand than it is already."

  Dagref looked stricken. "Don't do that, Father. You didn't send her home for anything she did, so it wouldn't be fair to send her home for anything I'm doing."

  "Unless you're violating her by force, which I doubt you would do and doubt you could do, you're not doing it altogether by yourself," the Fox pointed out, at which Dagref blushed again. In musing tones, Gerin went on, "Maybe I should send you home instead."

  "I hope you don't send either of us," Dagref said. "If you have to send one of us, though, send me."

  Gerin slapped him on the back. "That's well spoken, for I know you aren't trying to get away from the fighting. But I do think I'll leave you both here." He found one other question to ask: "What will you do if Van finds out?"

  He didn't think Dagref would be able to come up with any answer for that. But Dagref did, and promptly, too: "Run."

  "Well, all right," Gerin said with a startled laugh. "That's probably the best thing you could do, though I don't know if you'll be able to run far enough or fast enough."

  "Have to try." Dagref risked a wry smile that reminded Gerin achingly of himself. "Maybe he won't be able to decide whether to set out after me first or Maeva, and we'll both be able to get away."

  "Maybe." Gerin laughed again. Van, though, was too automatically competent a warrior to dither at a time like that. He would settle on one of Dagref or Maeva-probably Dagref-first and then the other. The Fox hoped his son wouldn't have to learn that from experience.

  * * *

  After a few days, scouts brought back word that the imperials looked to be getting ready to push forward again. Gerin clicked his tongue between his teeth, far from a happy sound. "I knew it was coming," he said with a sigh. "I'd have been happier if it hadn't come so soon, though."

  "What will we do, lord king?" a scout asked.

  "Fight, I suppose." Gerin sighed again. "The only other choice we have is letting ourselves get pushed back into the valley of Ikos, and I don't want to do that. With everything else that's gone wrong in this campaign, I don't need to have Biton angry at me, too."

  "We lost the last time we tried to withstand the imperials," Dagref pointed out. "Why should this time be any different?"

  "Last time, they picked the ground-or they didn't leave me much choice, which amounts to the same thing," the Fox answered. "They struck faster and harder than I thought they would. We have better warning this time. I'm going to fight where I want to fight, by the gods."

  "What sort of ground are you thinking of?" Dagref asked.

  "I have a place in mind, as a matter of fact," Gerin said. "It's a long, thin stretch of meadow, with really heavy woods on either side. Off to the left, beyond the woods, there's a little hill I intend to screen off with a good many of Rihwin's riders. Do you see what's in my mind?"

  "I think so," Dagref answered. "You want to put men back there and trap the imperials between your two forces, don't you?"

  "That's what I'm planning, yes," Gerin agreed. "Now I have to hope the imperials don't see it as clearly as you've done."

  But the imperials, to his loud, vehement, and profane dismay, did see the trap, and refused to fall into it. When his riders picked off one of the scouts from south of the High Kirs, he found out why. "We've got Swerilas in command of us now," the prisoner said. "Swerilas the Slippery, men call him. He sent Arpulo Werekas' son back west to take charge of the sieges against Gerin-"

  "I'm Gerin," Gerin said.

  "Against Aragis, then. I can't keep you rebels straight," the captured imperial said. "Swerilas figured that was the easier part of the job, so he gave it to Arpulo. You've caused Arpulo trouble; Swerilas decided he needed to deal with you himself."

  "Were it not for the honor he shows me, it's a compliment I could do without," Gerin murmured, and then, "Swerilas the Slippery, eh? He'd be the fellow who was in charge of your second army, wouldn't he?"

  "Aye," the prisoner said. "Arpulo led the first."

  Gerin scowled. His life had just got more difficult. He had Arpulo's measure, even if he'd lacked the manpower to beat him in their latest clash. But Swerilas… an ekename like the Slippery was all too close to the Fox, and Swerilas had shown that he had more than a few ideas of his own. Gerin would have been happier fighting a bruiser who didn't think very well.

  After he sent the prisoner away, he decided he might have been lucky that Swerilas had stayed out of his trap rather than letting himself go in with his eyes open and then smashing out in both directions at once. Gerin's force was inferior to his in numbers. Against an average commander like Arpulo, the Fox had no qualms-well, few qualms-about dividing even an inferior force. Against someone who knew what he was doing, as Swerilas plainly did, dividing his force was asking to be destroyed in detail.

  With another scowl, Gerin did his best to come up with a new plan. Against Swerilas, he had fewer options than he'd had against Arpulo. And Swerilas, no doubt, would be able to think of more unpleasant things to do to him than would have crossed Arpulo's fierce but unimaginative mind.

  Gerin dispatched all his horsemen to harass Swerilas' scouts, to drive them back on the main body of imperials, and to disrupt the imperials' foraging as much as he could. "You riders are the one force we have that the imperials don't know everything about," he told Rihwin the Fox. "We'll wring every particle of advantage we can out of that."

  "Aye, lord king," Rihwin said. "We shall fall on the men of the Elabonian Empire like a whirlwind. We shall trouble them with continuous attacks from all directions, until they weepingly regret ever having stirred north of the High Kirs."

  That was as grandiloquent as anything Gerin had heard lately, even from Rihwin. But Rihwin, fortunately, was almost as long on fighting talent as he was on bombast. Gerin thumped him on the shoulder. "Aye, that's good. That's what I want from you. The harder he has to work against your horsemen, the less leisure he'll have to do anything against the main army here."

  "I shall think on this with gratitude as the imperials chew my force to pieces," Rihwin replied, bowing.

  "Go howl," Gerin said. "I don't want you to get chewed to pieces. I'm counting on you not to let yourself and your force get chewed to pieces. By the gods, I don't want to fight a pitched battle with this Swerilas. I want you to keep him running every which way, so he's too busy and hot and bothered to come and fight a pitched battle with the whole army."

  "Oh, I understand you, lord king," Rihwin said. "Whether what you want and what Swerilas wants are one and the same remains to be seen."

  "That's true in any fight," Gerin said. "I'll move forward as far as I can with the bulk of my force. If you do get in trouble, I'll support you as best I can." He set a hand on Rihwin's shoulder again. "Do your best not to get in too much trouble, would you?"

  "How can you say such a thing about me?" Rihwin drew back in an artful display of indignation. "Have I ever been anything in all my days save staid and sedate?" He had an excellent straight face.

  "No, never," Gerin agreed soberly. Both men laughed then.

  Rihwin said, "Will you let Ferdulf come along with me? It will be easier to annoy the imperials if I have the best notion I can of where they are, where they're moving, and what they want to try to do to me."

  "If you can talk Ferdulf into going with you, you're
welcome to him," Gerin answered. His grin was distinctly sardonic. "In fact, you're welcome to him as a general principle."

  "As a general principle, I don't want him, thanks." Rihwin's grin closely matched Gerin's. "Didn't you hear us going at each other a few days ago?"

  "Most of the northlands heard you, I should think," Gerin said.

  "I daresay. You can understand me, then. As a flying spy, though, he has his uses."

  "Whether he'll want anything to do with you, of course, remains to be seen," Gerin said. "He's liable not to be very happy with you, you know, after the rough handling Mavrix gave him-you were the one who was bound and determined to summon the Sithonian god."

  "Yes, that's what Ferdulf was screeching about before," Rihwin said, "but I'll take my chances now."

  "You certainly will," Gerin agreed, at which Rihwin gave him a dirty look. Gerin went on, "Talk with him, though. If, after he's done insulting you some more, he decides to go along, I think you're right-he'll be quite useful to you as a flying spy."

  "After something close to half a lifetime with you and Van of the Strong Arm, I shan't let insults from a bad-tempered baby demigod faze me," Rihwin said. Off he went, ostentatiously ignoring the sour stare Gerin sent after him.

  Sure enough, he managed to persuade Ferdulf to accompany the force of riders. After the shouting Ferdulf put up when he made the request, though, Gerin wouldn't have blamed Rihwin if he'd buried Mavrix's son upside down in the ground. That, at least, would have made Ferdulf shut up.

  Watching the little demigod wheel and swoop above the horsemen, Gerin was also just as well pleased not to be under there, in the same way he would have been just as well pleased not to be under a flock of crows with griping bowels. The crows would have let fly-or let fall-at random. Ferdulf, if the evil mood took him, could aim.

  Van was not watching Ferdulf as the riders trotted away. He was trying to spot Maeva among the warriors on horseback, and not having much luck. Turning to Gerin, he said, "I still wish you'd made her go home."

  "She's doing what she wants to do, you know," the Fox answered. "You couldn't stop it more than another couple of years at the most."