She saw how several scouts peeled off from the column. Very professional. If they'd had larger numbers and more horses they'd have been a force to reckon with. As it was . . . she wondered if they'd be better off on their own. They could move much faster, now that Kildai seemed to be riding reasonably well.
* * *
Erik, circling the column with Von Gherens, tallied men. "One dead, three injured. It could have been much worse," said the older knight.
Erik knew it could have been. But he also knew they had days of flight ahead. And that he had a very scanty force. He could barely afford to lose one man. If they were trapped by larger numbers, they'd lose many more. His foes knew the terrain. They rode faster and lighter. And they were far more numerous.
Erik was afraid for his charge.
Chapter 47
Elizabeth, for the first time in her long career, wished she knew a little more about the military. She'd never really paid the least attention to it. It had always seemed such a clumsy way of solving things when she had magic, murder, seduction, and treachery as possible options.
She was almost sure generals and princes did not normally lead their men on night-sorties and raids. Emeric didn't. Perhaps that was why he lost so many battles. Perhaps it really was necessary or just wise. But right now it was interfering with her plans. She really did not like that. She'd come, with a small but well trained staff of suitable 'loyalists'—if they'd known that they'd been chosen as expendables to make sure that her departure with Vlad was not interfered with, they might have been less loyal. She'd expected to be able to seduce him, work out where his defenses were. Overwhelm them, seduce him and get him back to her nearest facility. She had a suitable nunnery a little further south down near Caedonia. She really really needed to get off this vile primitive mountain. She hated it. Yes, she'd put up with far worse to gain the power she had. But she'd done it so that she would not have to do this sort of thing.
Well, she'd mostly done it for power and a perfect skin, and the appearance of a seventeen year old. She had all that provided she used the treatment—the blood.
She ground her perfect teeth in frustration. She could seduce—by magical means granted to her—anything that was still breathing. She just couldn't do it long distance. Vlad had acquired certain protection, had some power. He'd also taken the edge off his appetite with some other woman. He still should not have been willing to go off in the night. All she had been able to do was to get him to take one of her boyars with him.
She looked at herself in one of the mirrors she had had transported up to this place. She always had at least three mirrors. She liked to see what she had paid such a price for. It was very satisfying. Looking at her eyes she detected just the tiniest hint of a line developing. It was the sun up here! Thank heavens winter was coming. The leaves were starting to turn, and it would start to snow one of these days. She looked at her eyes again, and then at the other tell-tale areas. She'd need more blood, and soon. Royal blood if possible. She wondered what had happened to the girl. Vlad's little sister. Thirteen. Such a desirable age, thought Elizabeth, her lips quirking into a smile. Perhaps she would catch the girl, seduce her and then kill her slowly, with the whip and much screaming, before draining her of all that delicious blood. She would have to do it over a bath, so as not to waste any. She licked her lips slowly. Well, she would ask the Vila. Perhaps they would know where she was hidden.
In the meantime she needed to take some steps to investigate the military. She walked outside into the darkness to find suitable material. Vlad had put one of his best men to guard her tent. She supposed it was a compliment besides being convenient. "Sergeant," she said. "What is your name?"
"Emil, Duchess," he said, looking like a suitably hypnotized rabbit. He smelled. He was under-washed and his raiment was shabby. There was definitely stubble on his chin. Well, she thought, needs must when the devil drove. And the devil drove her, drove her harder with each passing year. "I need you to come and help me with something inside my tent, Emil," she said, exerting her will, stirring her magic. And her hips. He stood stock still. For a moment, an awful moment, she thought that she had lost her power somehow. That it was not just Vlad, that the magic of this vile land was robbing her of what she had given a mortgage on her soul for. Then he stepped forward and took her breasts in his big coarse hands. She ignored the roughness of them and, reaching her hand between his legs, led him into the candle-lit interior of the tent. She reflected that men were all the same. Once you had them by the testicles, their bodies, their hearts and the minds they contained would follow, for you to do whatever you wished with. And of course if the bodies didn't follow, then you could always have pleasure of ripping the testicles right off. Her victim gasped in pain. It gave her sufficient frisson to say: "I'm sorry. Did I squeeze? Let me kiss it better." She did, expertly and at length. She let him undress her. He would suffer later for the careless handling of the velvet.
She had arranged the mirrors suitably. At least watching herself was pleasurable. More pleasurable than his desperate rutting. "You are so enormous," she said throatily. It pleased him and he pushed her thighs higher. Ha. She'd experimented with a few non-humans that had seriously threatened to split her. Them she'd had to restrain. That had been back when she'd been curious about whether size or shape would provide her with pleasure. She'd since found that it was all in her mind. Inflict a little pain—or better, a lot—and the dwarf Ficzko could give her more satisfaction.
She could have bespelled him to believe he'd had the wildest orgy of his life. But she needed to lay some deeper enchantments on him. His spittle—on her breasts—his blood—she'd have that on her fingernails from his buttocks in a minute, when she faked a climax—and his semen. She'd bind with chains that would make him her absolute slave. Chains that would evade—after a day or two, magical detection. These spells altered the nature of the victim. They drew on what was there, but usually controlled. They drew on the beast in the man. That thought and sticking her nails into him was some consolation.
Afterwards, when the stupid rabbit was done, she lay there between her candles—the fool had not even noticed the number or the pattern—and traced the sigyls of binding on his forehead, chest and thighs, with the inks she had just collected.
And then she started to question him on the military and other matters she wanted insight into. He was in no state to realize that, however. He thought, now, that he was enjoying another round of exquisite pleasures, an illusion built within his own mind. She didn't need to put up with it twice.
"Who is this woman Prince Vlad is sleeping with?" she asked.
"Rosa," he answered. There are no real secrets from sergeants in an army camp.
"Some pretty little village maiden, who loves him dearly?"
"She's a whore."
Elizabeth was almost angry enough to kill Vlad right then.
Chapter 48
Vlad did not think much of the seat of the boyar volunteer Elizabeth had sent with him. Actually, if it wasn't for her, he'd have said his father was dead right, and he'd be better off without them and told the man to be off.
They'd been in the saddle barely five hours and the man was behaving as if Vlad was going to cripple him. Vlad thought he should send the fellow to the gypsies to train. He wondered what had become of them. He must set enquiries in motion, talk to one of his Sergeants. It was an amazingly effective way of finding anything out, he'd found.
He noticed how the leaves were turning, and indeed, starting to fall. That was another worry, more pressing than a saddle-sore boyar, or even what had happened to his gypsy rescuers. He just hoped that they were all right. Mind you, they were competent enough, and tough and fast enough. They were thieves too, and he'd become a little more accepting of this, with distance. He was never going to like it, but on the other hand, he might have to become one himself at this rate. Winter was coming and he had more recruits every day. Peasants and craftsmen, though, to a man. Other than the few nobles
that had come with Elizabeth—and thank God for her loyalty and help—his support seemed to be best among the poor, or at best, tradesmen. He needed money to provide for his men, and he needed a places for them to over-winter. It would be cruel in these mountains. They would die under canvas and lurking in caves. He had a few more weeks in which to take a few villages at least.
He also need to secure some horses. A lot of horses. His men fought best on foot—they were no knights. Smerek guns made them a decent fighting force, and, if he had enough men, and enough guns, he'd deal with any knights that King Emeric could send into these mountains. But they needed to be mobile, and the guns and horses and food had be paid for or captured. Vlad permitted himself a smile. King Emeric was going to be in for a nasty surprise with the new light four-pounders Stanislaw was making for his Prince. Cannon—even mere four pounders, that were mobile and could be transported about in wagons or carts, or even, if need be, on mules—were going to change the battle equation. Still, like the carts and wagons that Vlad had found that he and his and forces were accumulating, they had to be stored, and moved. And they could not move as fast as the infantry, let alone his mounted men.
Mounted men. They really weren't cavalry, his men, just men with horses. Mounted infantry was the best way Vlad could describe them. Still, they were more mobile than his camp followers' carts and wagons. It had obviously got around that he was their longed-for Prince . . . with a shortage of accommodation for his soldiery. More men were turning up with a covered cart than without one, these days.
"Can't I stop and rest for a while, Prince Vlad?" whined the boyar.
"We'll rest when we're there," said Vlad, wishing for the tenth time, at least, that he hadn't agreed to take the man along. The rest of this troop were his best men. It mattered not at all that some were poachers, ex-bandits and rogues. They were his forward scouts. The rest were good shots and the steadiest men he had. He'd had Emil and Mirko pick them out, and then let his feelings govern the selected ones. He was getting better at trusting those feelings.
"Where are we going?"
It was not a question Vlad wanted to answer. Not after his experiences in Gara. "A little ambush," was all he said.
"We're a long way out of the high mountains," said the boyar, who seemed to assume he was at liberty to interrupt Vlad's thoughts at will, and speak to him without the respect Vlad had come to take for granted. He tried to make his volunteer armies more comfortable, confident enough to address their Prince . . . until of course he found someone like this who took it all too far.
Vlad did not say anything. They were a long way from the security of those mountains. He was aware of that. Some of the recruits had been bandits in those mountains. They still had networks of contacts. Nothing moved in the high mountains for forty miles without Vlad or the sergeants being told. In the lower lands Vlad felt far more nervous.
But then King Emeric wasn't going to send his pay chests through the high passes.
"Where are we going?" The boyar asked again.
"Where the Drac needs us to go. Now hold your tongue," said Mirko . . . and suddenly realized that the man outranked him by birth. "I'll go and check on the rearguard, Sire."
The boyar looked after the man. "You tolerate such insolence, Prince Vlad?"
"He forgot whom he was speaking to, my lord." said Vlad. Elizabeth had brought him these allies. He ought to appreciate them. Besides they were of noble blood like himself.
"I hope you'll demote him and let me discipline him for you, Prince. That's what your army needs. More discipline."
Vlad disagreed, but said nothing. And he was going to have to find some way to avoiding this happening. Mirko was a good and valuable man. He wasn't quite as good as Emil, but Vlad had felt that he owed Elizabeth some duty of care. There were some rough men in his command, and she was a lady of high degree. Besides, she'd freed him from the tower; he would never forget that, and he would always be in her debt. It made him uncomfortable just thinking about her. She did odd things to his feelings. He should not lust for her, but he did.
A rider came up out of the dark—one of the scouts. "All clear ahead, Drac," he said respectfully. "And good hiding places next to the ford. Lots of cover."
It had been hard to guess that from the map. Vlad was relieved. Now all he needed was the scouts to report on the retreat-routes. Vlad was fairly sure this was not a trap. But he took no unnecessary chances any more. Information trickled in from all over now—it was amazing how it had picked up, in the weeks since Gara. He had this convoy, wagons under heavy escort, confirmed from two separate sources, let alone the tip-off that had come from the Smerek cousins down south. He had to move south too, and soon.
They positioned themselves carefully on both banks of the river in the gray light of a misty dawn. The ford was little more than a broad shallow area, with an entry and exit cut into the steep bank. The place really could use a decent bridge, Vlad thought. Like the roads it was not something that Emeric believed in spending money on. Vlad had had to swim and ford far too many cold mountain streams to not appreciate bridges.
And then there was just the inevitable waiting. Waiting with this annoying boyar, who kept asking him questions. Vlad tried asking a few of his own. The man had seen some military service as an officer with the levies that Emeric had raised from Valahia. But his experience and knowledge of military strategy seemed to amount to obeying the orders he had been given, and disciplining his soldiers. That didn't seem to stop him wanting to know all about Vlad's strategy and plans. "So what do you plan Sire? When do you hope to meet him in battle? What cities are we going to lay siege to?"
Vlad had not discussed his plans with anyone. Part of the reason for this was that he had not had a clear strategy when he had started, besides trying to survive. Now it had evolved into at least a medium-term strategy in his head. It still amounted to 'survive' but extended to 'and look after your troops'. Eventually, tired of being polite, Vlad sent the man across the river to the soldiers he had positioned to cut off the retreat.
First came three squads of Emeric's cavalry, sixty men in all, clattering and splashing through the ford, cursing the water. Then came the two heavily laden wagons, both with a driver and an armed guard next to him. Behind them, another squad of twenty cavalrymen. Bored cavalry. No one ever tried to steal from King Emeric. He had the unpleasant but effective habit of killing, slowly, and visibly, a suitable number of the closest locals. If that didn't work as an adequate deterrent, he would massacre a little further afield. Vlad had to admit that he had chosen this ambush site to pay the King back in his own coin. The nearest settlement was one of German and Hungarian miners. If Emeric reacted with his normal tactics he was going to lose the support of those foreigners too.
Vlad by now was reconciled to the fact that no military operation followed any sort of plan, after the first shot had been fired. All he could do was to train his men well and plan for as many contingencies as possible. When, inevitably, something you hadn't thought of came up, at least the training would stand you in good stead.
This ambush was no exception. Gunfire, a single shot, began just too soon. The second wagon was not quite down the slope into ford. The driver however tried to urge the horses on rather than trying to turn. Even if the massed volley of fire did not catch the cavalry bunched and unaware, it was still very effective. The water reduced the ability of a cavalry to maneuver, reduced their speed to that of a walk on dry land, and gave them no place to run or regroup. Out of the morning river mist Vlad heard the sergeant Mirko's "fire at will."
With his handful of horsemen Vlad waited to deal with escapees. Sure enough a few made it, having driven their horses up the bank rather than up the cut roadway. They were brave men, and now, behind the ambushing arquebus infantry, tried to ride them down.
Vlad rode into them instead. " Drac!" yelled his men—and that, and that alone, before the clash of arms, seemed to take the heart out of the surviving cavalry. They panicked and tried
to run. It was a short, bloody fight. Vlad learned another lesson. A retreat in good order might be survivable. Panicked flight was not.
A little later he met up with Mirko. The sergeant-cum-quartermaster was plainly uneasy. "Sire . . . I have to tell you something. That boyar. He tried to sneak off just before the attack. I told him I'd shoot him dead if he didn't stay just there, Drac. He threatened me, and . . . well. You heard the shot before it all happened. He started yelling at me. Said I was peasant scum, and had no right to tell him what to do."
"So you shot him."
Mirko looked startled. "No Drac. He tried to shoot me. One of the boys hit his pistol arm with an arquebus. That's why I'm still talking to you. Then the shooting started."
"Where is he?" asked Vlad.
Mirko chewed his lip. Looked awkward. "He ran off, Sire. Someone shot him again. But he got away."
Vlad nodded slowly. "I want two men, Mirko. I want the man who struck him with the arquebus . And I want the man who shot him."
Much Fall of Blood-ARC Page 36