Act of Will wh-1

by Andrew James Hartley

  “Why would I?” she said, her eyes on the straps of some ring mail she was adjusting. “You ran away to avoid a battle.”

  “And I came back to take part in two,” I inserted deftly. “Doesn’t that tell you something about who I am?”

  “Right now,” she said, “all I want to know about you is whether or not you told the Empire how to find us.”

  I had been prepared to fake a hurt surprise, but this was a lower blow than I had expected and my shock was genuine.

  “You thought I’d turn you in?” I said.

  “Did you?” she asked, and she was looking at me now, her eyes hard and cold and perfectly serious. I was aghast.

  “If I had, would I have come back and warned you the Empire was on its way?”

  She was silent and for a second I thought I had her, that she’d melt into apologies and confessions of how relieved she was to see me again.

  “How could anyone figure out the way your mind might work?” she said.

  That could, I suppose, have been a kind of compliment, but I doubted it. “Fine,” I said with dignity. “Fine.”

  I was on the point of storming out when Garnet burst in.

  “They’re coming,” he said. He seemed quite pleased.

  The “they,” it turned out, were the raiders. Mithos and the governor of Verneytha were pushing them south onto the planes before Ironwall. A few days ago I wouldn’t have believed the palpable good humor that the Greycoast soldiers exuded at the prospect of facing the raiders, but things had changed, and memories, it seemed, were short. The raiders were charging into our trap like sparrows flying full tilt at a pane of glass. Well, maybe not sparrows. More like a kind of buzzard. But our window was made of two hundred Greycoast infantry, forty cavalry, and a contingent of about fifty homeless villagers. In time, the buzzard would claw its way through, but with three hundred men at its heels, time was what it didn’t have. Then we could get inside Ironwall and close up the citadel while the Empire sat outside, mulled their options, and finally went home. We were headed into our final battle, and the relief that that idea brought drowned any fear for what would happen while the window cracked.

  I watched the villagers going through some basic training moves outside the city walls and then hurried up to the white buildings surrounding the duke’s palace. I met Garnet and forty cavalry from the Hopetown garrison, all humming with enthusiasm. Garnet was earnestly tightening the straps of his horned helm while Tarsha steamed quietly in the shadows. I was talking to him when Renthrette passed, scowling and looking away, ignoring Garnet as he called after her. He gave me an odd look, guessing that this had something to do with me. I gave him an awkward combination of nods, shrugs, and smiles all stacked precariously on top of each other, in an attempt to convey a sort of noncommittal goodwill. He returned a similar sequence and, thus sidestepping any recognizable species of communication, we parted, trying to figure out what the hell all that had been about. As I walked up to the palace I reflected that if meeting my friends was this strange, encountering His Pompous Immensity, the duke of Greycoast, was likely to be very bizarre indeed.

  He was waiting for us in the uppermost marketplace, reviewing the citadel garrison with the rest of the party, save Mithos and Garnet. A buzz of excitement hung about the soldiers as they readied themselves. He stood scowling and shooting petulant orders at the squire who was trying to spoon him into large pieces of plate armor. Hearing us approach, he turned, sloshing and quivering like a rich dessert. He sort of smiled at us through his thick reddish beard like he had somehow been vindicated about our uselessness, and when he spoke, his civility was tempered with superiority and disdain. “I am gratified that you have come to lend assistance,” he said. “I’m sure it will make a difference.”

  He gave me a long, cold look and I returned it blankly. I wasn’t sure exactly why I was there, but it certainly wasn’t to please him.

  “Orgos,” he said, “I want you to lead B Company.”

  He gestured behind him to a block of a hundred infantrymen. He went on, his manner declamatory, his heavy pinkish hands cutting the air like ax blades cleverly fashioned out of chopped pork. In his armor he looked hulkingly powerful and slightly ridiculous. He couldn’t turn his head without swiveling his entire body, and his arms stuck out short and awkward like the forelegs of a kangaroo.

  “Form a barrier at right angles to the citadel gate,” he said to Orgos. “The enemy will come right at you. As they close in, I will send A Company out of the city, joining your force and striking the enemy in the flank simultaneously.”

  “That will leave you no reinforcements in the citadel,” said Lisha. The duke glanced down at her as if he had forgotten she was there. His face crinkled into an avuncular smile. A bead of thick spittle stuck to his lower lip, and his voice was moist and thick.

  “Well, my dear,” he said, “we have a very dangerous enemy which needs to be destroyed quickly before it can damage us. If we hold anything back from the first clash, we may lose our advantage in the field, and a few reinforcements will never win the day back for us. We must hit them hard, putting all we have into a single counterthrust.”

  Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it, in other words.

  “And you’ll be leading them into battle, will you?” I said, absolutely incapable of keeping my mouth shut.

  “I shall be with them when they charge-” Raymon began.

  “What does that mean,” I said, “ ‘be with them’? Will you be leading them or not?”

  “Not leading them, exactly,” he said, as if it was a minor distinction. “But I will be there until they charge and, depending-”

  “On whether there’s any risk involved whatsoever,” I interrupted him, “yes, I think I get the picture. You’ll ride around in your armor and be ready with the waves and the patriotic victory speeches-”

  “I don’t think you, of all people, are in any position-”

  “Probably not,” I agreed hastily, wondering-not for the first time-what I was trying to achieve. “But you know what? There’d be no raiders without people like you. Remember that.”

  I don’t really know why I said it and I was far from clear what I’d meant, but it felt true and I was glad I had put it out there for him to think about. He didn’t, of course. He gave me a long, bewildered look, and then the squire tugged the strap of his breastplate too tight, and, with a snort of irritation, he turned on the armorer, barking indignation.

  As they started hoisting the duke astride his stallion, a messenger arrived to speak to him. Though the horse was larger than the duke (a little) it looked like it might collapse under his weight at any moment, struggling as it was like an ant with a grapefruit. He looked, I was pleased to note, quite absurd, and everyone knew it. One of the soldiers looked deliberately away and smirked at his friend. Maybe that’s what did it. I had wondered about telling him of the hidden rooms in the Adsine keep and flaunting the fact that it had been me who found them, but he wasn’t worth trying to impress. The identities of the raiders didn’t matter now anyway. We’d go over all that after they had been vanquished.

  The duke gave a single bark of laughter and set his horse to a laborious and unstable-looking trot, his face rosy and enthusiastic.

  “The raiders are in sight,” he announced, his stallion wheezing like an octogenarian pipe smoker on a twelve-mile hike. “They are coming this way with the Verneytha cavalry at their heels.”

  “I hope Mithos keeps his distance,” said Orgos. “If the raiders turn on him, he will never hold out.”

  “Mithos knows the situation,” Lisha replied. “He will hold back until we are ready to engage them.”

  “I must get that wagon set up,” I said to Orgos.

  The air was heavy with an oddly joyous anticipation, and I saw how battle could be thrilling when you knew you were going to win. It was like watching a play you’ve seen before and enjoying not what happens but how it happens, suspending your knowledge of the ending in y
our head so you can relish it even more. And, like a lot of plays, it was about revenge, and few things feel better than that.

  Orgos nodded briefly and clasped my shoulder. “Be careful out there,” he said.

  “Oh, I will,” I assured him. “And you too.”

  “Good-bye, Will,” he said. As he walked away I wondered why that sounded so final, but I was armored with optimism three inches thick and the thought glanced off like a spent arrow.

  SCENE LV The Enemy

  The gatehouse was a mass of soldiers waiting for their orders. The drawbridge was down and the portcullis hung on its chains high above us. Since it took an age to lower the thing and we would be sending soldiers out right up to the moment when the raiders hit us, it would probably stay open all day. I watched Renthrette and Lisha organizing a line of spears and crossbows. It was all oddly familiar, but this time the sun was high, the air was clear, and we outnumbered the enemy two to one.

  I moved around the wagon, freeing the bolts and folding the sides down halfway. I clamped the axles and began to assemble the massive crossbows. After that I slipped my head into my mail shirt, felt its coolness and weight through the soft leather beneath. All around me the village irregulars prepared themselves to meet the crimson raiders once more, the sun shining on their makeshift armor and newly ground ax bits. I belted my sword about my waist and laid a shield on the wagon floor as if I was a hero who knew what he was doing.

  Renthrette was already armored and ready, though she had yet to put on her helm. I watched her dig her heels into the sides of her horse and shout at the swelling and straightening line of boar spears and homemade pikes; then she turned suddenly and looked north. I stood up and could just make out a dust cloud, broad and low on the horizon. Trumpets sounded from the citadel turrets and a cry of wild joy went up around me like when the dogs see the bear.

  From the gatehouse came the first hundred of the Greycoast infantry, Orgos mounted on a white charger at their head. He wore a tunic of russet linen with dark leather armor, waxed and overlaid with rings of steel. A helmet of iron and boars’ tusks covered his head and the nape of his neck, topped with a black horsehair plume that trailed to his shoulders. Apart from the angular cheek guards, his face was exposed. While I felt like a hero but looked like an idiot in armor that didn’t fit-a fish out of water of the duke-of-Greycoaston-a-horse variety-Orgos was the real thing, and looked the part. He crossed our lines and nodded briefly to us, a nod of confidence and dignity. The men around me watched him and you could feel the way his presence lifted their hearts. I fiddled with my crossbows.

  In the mouth of the gatehouse I could see the first ranks of A Company waiting, pressed to the walls to allow Garnet and his Hopetown cavalry to exit the city and veer towards us. They wore silver scale armor and chromed helmets with short blue capes like the men who had escorted us from Seaholme, but they looked confident and professional. Their hooves clattered over the bridge, and an appreciative shout went up from the Greycoast soldiers. Garnet, sitting pale at their head in grey mail and a horned helm, adjusted his shield and gestured to the riders with his battle-ax. They wheeled in front of the wagon, then formed a block at the corner of the citadel facing towards the center of the plains. Garnet also looked the part, calm and impressive astride that bloody immense horse. I scowled and wondered why I was the only one who looked like he’d walked out onto the stage by accident. Whatever I thought about the coming encounter, I still felt like a sham. Even the bloody villagers looked like they knew what they were doing, and most of them were armed with gardening implements.

  The dust cloud was coming, but I figured we had a few minutes yet, more if they slowed their approach. I lifted one of the crossbows onto its assembled tripod and bolted it into place, swinging it round and looking down its twin grooves like an expert. Renthrette was unhitching the horses from the front of the wagon and leading them away, and as I snapped the last bolt into place she looked up at me silently, shading her eyes with her hand.

  “What?” I said. I couldn’t see her face but I knew she was looking hard at me and thinking.

  “Nothing.” She shrugged. “Good luck, Will,” she said, moving away.

  I wanted to call her back, but had no idea what I would have said, and it would have spoiled this I’m-so-collected-and-efficient thing I was working on. She lowered her heavy iron helm onto her shoulders and her face was lost to me.

  I was ready. The crossbows sat taut and deadly on their stands and I knelt behind them, consciously noting and re-noting where my personal weapons were so that I could seize them if necessary. The ranks had grown silent and expectant in the bright afternoon, all eyes towards the approaching riders. Orgos, still mounted, glanced over his shoulder to where the dust cloud had grown sharper and had sprouted men, distinct and shining in the sun. The sandy earth burst under their horses’ hooves like breaking waves and they sailed towards us, motionless in their saddles, crimson cloaks now visible at their backs, their pennanted lances raised. They were slowing down.

  Orgos called to his company and they lowered their spear heads in readiness for the charge. I snapped back the catches on the crossbows. In the gatehouse, the second company waited poised to rush the raiders as they came in close. Beyond the scarlet horsemen I could just make out the Verneytha cavalry pressing them towards us like the second half of a vise. Somewhere amongst them was Mithos. It occurred to me that he didn’t know what we had discovered in the Adsine keep, let alone the news of the approaching Empire soldiers, but then neither did Greycoast or Verneytha. Like most of the things I could claim to have had a hand in, it didn’t seem to matter much now. I saw them coming towards us and I thought it again: If we could withstand the initial impact of their charge, our flank and rear attacks should leave them powerless.

  Then the raiders stopped altogether just outside the flight of our arrows. We waited in silence as the dust cloud drifted away. A minute later, ten or twelve of the duke’s company came out to us.

  “What’s going on?” I demanded.

  “Your wagon looks a bit vulnerable, so we’ve been sent to reinforce these farmers, or whatever they are,” said a young corporal. He grinned and nodded towards the villagers bunched tightly around the wagon.

  “Good,” I said, reflecting that no unit that Orgos escorted would look “vulnerable,” “but that wasn’t what I meant. Why have they stopped?”

  “The raiders?” He shrugged. “Beats me.”

  On the plains before us the raiders still appeared to be waiting, as if they wanted us to go to them. An arrow or two was loosed by some patriotic citizens on the citadel walls, but they fell hopelessly short. I was watching the raiders sit there as still and controlled as I had ever seen them when another shout went up: a long, pronounced hurrah that started in the citadel and spread throughout the Greycoast forces, even echoing down from the Verneytha cavalry. I turned to Lisha and the spear line in front of the wagon for an explanation, but only the handful of reinforcements seemed to know what was going on and laughed and cheered with the rest.

  “Now what?” I shouted. At first they didn’t hear, and I had to clamber onto the front of the wagon and tap the young officer on the shoulder.

  “What are they shouting about?” I said, conscious of a laugh creeping into my own voice as I caught something of their mood. The corporal leaned forward and pointed westwards towards the Downs and the treetops of the border forests.

  I turned and looked. There was a dark ribbon of men and banners: the black flags of a great army of horsemen steadily advancing towards us.

  “Reinforcements,” shouted the corporal.

  “What?” I called back through the noise.

  “We got word this morning,” said the corporal, “Shale has sent its entire army to smash the raiders. Two hundred cavalry and over seven hundred foot soldiers.”

  I stared at him, suddenly cold.

  But before I could say anything, there was another shout. A ripple went through our force, and the cor
poral’s smile faded as he stared off to where men were pointing: not towards the raiders, or to the army from Shale, which was advancing from the west, but behind us, to the south.

  I turned, feeling a sudden swell of dread, and found that the plains at our back were suddenly awash in a thick grey mist. A moment later, the mist was blowing away, and in its place was an army that looked as if it had sprung from the earth like corn. But this army was not wearing the crimson of the raiders.

  They wore white.

  In the sparkle of their silver helms I saw our certain destruction.

  SCENE LVI Desperate Times

  I leapt down from the wagon and ran to where Renthrette and Lisha sat on their mounts with the villagers.

  “It’s the Empire!” I shouted, pointing wildly at the men who had appeared to the south. “Shale and the Empire! They’ve been working together all along.”

  Lisha was already driving her horse out of the throng, Renthrette quickly following. I didn’t need to explain what was about to happen. The raiders and their Diamond Empire brothers, joining with the strength from Shale, would turn on the unsuspecting forces of Greycoast and Verneytha and wipe them out. In one fell swoop Shale would destroy its rivals according to whatever cozy terms Arlest had agreed on with the Empire, and our armies didn’t even know it was coming. What had looked like a pair of manageable encounters had turned into one we could not hope to survive, let alone win.

  Lisha jumped down from the saddle and shouted to Renthrette, “Tell Garnet! Tell everybody. Ride to the gatehouse and tell the duke, then Mithos. Stay close to the citadel and move quickly.”

  Without a word Renthrette kicked her heels into her horse’s flanks and it lunged forward. Within seconds she had left Garnet shouting at his men and was galloping over the drawbridge into the gatehouse. The sound of cheering still echoed from the citadel and the Verneytha cavalry, but it was muted now, and there was confusion at the sudden appearance of these new soldiers clad in white. On my left, Orgos was addressing his troops, his voice uneven. He glanced round to the advancing black tide of horsemen that flowed towards us from the Downs, and south to the Empire cohorts who had appeared out of the fog and were now locked in a purposeful phalanx. We were surrounded.