Kel wasn’t sure that she would ever get to Riversedge, since Raoul didn’t go. With the fort built, she rode along for one of every three patrols. She would have liked to go more often, but Flyndan insisted that as the owner of a spyglass she take duty shifts atop a tall tree on a bluff, serving as lookout.
“I’ll override him, if you like,” Raoul had offered her quietly.
Kel shook her head and climbed with grim determination. Her walk down Balor’s Needle had broken her fear of heights, but she would never like them. At least her time in the tree was limited by the watch schedule. Several hours after dawn she gladly handed her post and spyglass to someone else.
Soon she discovered what most of Third Company knew: war was boring. They were ready for the Scanrans in April. The Scanrans were not ready for them. There were no reports of enemy activity until May—even then the action took place on the coast. Third Company planted small gardens inside the stockade and a large one outside. Lerant found an orphaned squirrel and raised it as May wore into June. Kel entered a chess tournament and found herself in pitched battle with Osbern for third place as Qasim and Raoul duelled for first. They practiced weapons and horseback riding. Men hunted with dogs and hawks, and fished, in squad strength. Kel celebrated her eighteenth birthday.
One foggy June day the squads commanded by Aiden and Volorin found the enemy. By the time Raoul brought up five more squads in response to their horn calls, the Scanrans had fled. Five of Third Company were wounded. One was dead.
Kel was ashamed that she had longed for battle. She’d forgotten that people might die when she chafed at the top of a tree.
Osbern’s squad found a Scanran band robbing travelers five days later. This time the enemy left two men dead and three wounded. The wounded were sent to Northwatch to be questioned, nursed to health, and shipped to Sir Myles for more questioning.
Two days later Gildes of Veldine was the first rider in Osbern’s squad as they followed a game trail on patrol. He didn’t see the danger until his horse walked onto it, breaking through the leafy cover of a wolf pit. Down fell horse and rider onto sharpened stakes.
“Stupid!” growled Osbern, his sergeant, wiping away tears at the funeral pyre. “I told him, keep your eyes ahead—Scanrans love traps.”
Raoul and Kel were on patrol with a squad when the sparrows, flying as scouts, came in shrieking. Behind them was a Scanran war party, fifteen men armed with swords or double-bladed axes. They plainly thought they outnumbered the Tortallans, but they reckoned without the horses. Peachblossom, trained as a warhorse, trampled a man who tried to pull Kel from the saddle. The man who followed him carried a sword: Kel parried his cut at Peachblossom and ran him through.
Raoul was pressed by two men, one on either side, who kept trying to pull him down as they dodged Drum’s hooves. Kel clubbed one with the butt of her glaive; she remembered Myles’s plea for prisoners. Her hardest battle was to keep Peachblossom from killing her captive. By the time she got her mount under control, the fight was over, the Scanrans gone.
“Is that the kraken?” Kel asked, wiping sweat from her forehead. “It felt like bandits to me.”
Raoul, dismounting to inspect the fallen, sighed. “Me too.” He riffled through one man’s clothes, grimacing as he shook lice off his hand. “These aren’t much better than bandits.”
“A diversion?” asked the squad’s sergeant.
Raoul glanced down the road. This patrol area included the silver mines. “Leave ’em,” he ordered. “Mount up!”
They hit the Scanrans besieging the mines from the rear. Caught between the Own and the miners, most surrendered. Kel joined the party that rode to Northwatch with the prisoners. It was anxious duty that left her with a headache. Even with the sparrows and Jump to warn them, she feared the enemy might come to take their people back.
Thus it went throughout the summer: multiple small attacks like biting flies as Scanrans hit and ran. Kel fought twice in June, five times in July. A bout of overconfidence—she had thought she was immune to arrows and forgot to wear a helm—resulted in a painful head graze.
“Could be worse,” Osbern told her cheerfully as he escorted her to the healers. “I know a fellow . . .” He regaled her with absurd wound stories, taking her mind off the pain of her wound. Mental pain was another matter.
“I was stupid,” she told Raoul when she saw him next.
“Good. You know it. Now you won’t make that mistake again,” he said with a grin. “You’ll get to make others. Try to remember that armor works much better when it’s on.”
The hit-and-run battles had one good result. No one, not even Flyn, questioned her ability to fight anymore.
Summer, in the 20th year of the reign of Jonathan IV and Thayet, his Queen, 459
seventeen
THE KRAKEN
The worst thing about her observation post, with its sweeping view of the forested lands between their camp and the river, was that in mid-August it was hot. The tree was a pine: beads of sap that were hard in April were glue. Every time she found a new position, blobs of resin clung to her.
Kel fanned herself with her broad-brimmed hat, wiped her face on her sleeve, replaced the hat, and put the glass to her eye. Slowly she scanned the horizon, then the middle ground, then nearby terrain. She froze. There, northwest. Movement.
She took the glass from her eye, wiped her forehead, and searched the area again. Movement for certain, on a road abandoned twenty years before. It was overgrown but still offered easier marching than untouched forest.
Sun glinted off metal. This was no raiding party. It was a small army, headed for Northwatch. Kel put her things away and slowly, carefully, began her descent of the tree.
Raoul and Flyndan heard her out. “Flyn, send a messenger to Northwatch,” said Raoul when Kel had finished her report. “Vanget will put his army in the field against this lot. It’s stragglers and side parties we have to worry about. One squad to the logging camp, one to the mines. Get those people out of there, I don’t care what excuses they give to stay. Send Osbern to the mines as well. Tell him to break heads if they don’t heed sense. That’s three squads. Three to defend this camp. Who’s in Riversedge this week?”
“Volorin’s squad,” replied Flyn and Kel together.
“Flash them a warning with the mirrors. Flyn, you’re in command here. I want Dom’s squad, Balim’s squad, and whoever’s left with me.”
“Sir?” asked Flyndan. “Where will you—”
“They’ve been making two-pronged attacks all summer,” Raoul reminded him. “And that merchant caravan is due at Riversedge today.”
Flyndan swore. Riversedge was normally a raider’s plum. A big merchant caravan like the one expected made it juicier still. The town could hold for a time with their own fighters and Volorin’s squad, but how long depended on the enemy’s numbers and weapons.
Kel saddled Drum and Peachblossom—with so little time they took only one horse each. Once they were ready, she donned her armor. She didn’t worry about Raoul. Lerant was probably there already, thinking he’d stolen a march on her as he assisted Raoul with his full suit of plate metal armor.
Dressed, she gathered her weapons. After a moment’s hesitation she took the quiver that held her griffin-fletched arrows instead of her everyday one. Today she might need all the help she could get.
She returned to the command tent to find Lerant securing Raoul’s greaves to his shins. Raoul winked at Kel as she collected his weapons. By the time she had fetched their mounts, he was armored. He slung a long-handled, double-bladed axe on his back. His lance he kept in his hand. There had been reports that giants fought for Scanra. They might be with the force Kel had seen, invisible among the trees.
Lerant already wore his own mail and weapons. He ran to get his horse, saddled by one of his friends, as Kel and Raoul mounted up. Kel held the banner as they waited for him and for the rest of the men to assemble.
Raoul urged Drum to the gate as the squads formed
a double column. Kel followed, Jump in his carrier behind her, the sparrows clutching perches on her gear, Peachblossom, and Raoul’s saddlebags. When Lerant rode into his place, Kel gave him their flag.
“Try to stay in one piece, my lord,” Flyn, at the gate, told Raoul. “The king’ll have my head if you get killed.” The gates swung open. Raoul raised a gauntleted hand and chopped down twice, briskly, the signal for the horses to trot. The column followed him onto the road.
The gates closed. The locking bar thumped as it was thrust into place. The camp was on its own.
Halfway to Riversedge Raoul called a halt and sent Lerant up a tree with his spyglass. Lerant came down fast in a half-fall that Kel envied, though she would never try it. She could live with heights; she couldn’t defy them.
“They’re at Northwatch, my lord,” he said, flipping sweaty hair from his eyes. “There’s fires burning that way. And it looks like a second party’s headed for Riversedge. They’re about three miles off and there’s two giants with ’em. Maybe sixty or so men, and a covered wagon.”
Raoul swore. “Time was they never had enough warriors to hit two places at once. Mithros curse this Maggur maggot.” He signaled for a trotting pace. “A wagon for a raiding party?” Kel heard him mutter.
At Riversedge the gates were shut, the walls lined with armed men. Sergeant Volorin and the town’s headman came out through a small door in the main gate. “The caravan?” Raoul asked.
“No sign of ’em,” the sergeant replied.
“Scouts saw ’em camped by Trebond Gorge last night,” added the headman. “Loaded heavy, moving slow. They might be as far as Forgotten Well by now.”
Raoul ran his fingers through his hair. Kel tried to guess what he was thinking. Forgotten Well was five miles away. Riversedge was fortified. It had a steep-sided ditch lined with stones at the base of its wooden wall. Like so many isolated towns, its back was to the river. Nearly all of the men were archers. They should be able to hold the enemy off.
“Which, Kel?” he asked quietly. “Town or merchants?”
“Merchants, sir,” she said promptly. “They’re just about naked out there. This is a bad time to think the enemy won’t try a three-pronged attack.”
“Or that after going for one tough nut in Northwatch, they’d also want a second tough nut in Riversedge,” Dom commented. “Smarter to go for the easier fight and merchant loot.”
Raoul turned to Volorin and the headman. “I’ll see to those merchants. You’ll manage fine without us, for now.”
“Good hunting, my lord,” said the headman.
“Mithros ward you,” added Volorin before he followed the headman inside the walls.
Raoul looked at the five squads behind him and signaled for a trot. Kel’s skin prickled. She listened hard, trying to hear what lay under the jingle of tack and thump of hooves. Was that movement deep in the woods to her right? She sent the sparrows after it: they could now read hand signs. They’d picked up “go there” and “scout” within days of their arrival in the north. Now five went and returned quietly, which meant they’d found nothing.
Kel sent other sparrows farther ahead. The company had ridden a mile when the birds came back in a straight line, peeping their alarm call.
“Pox-rotted, money-blinded, mud-wallowing, donkey-whipping merchants,” snapped Raoul. After three summers with the sparrows he knew their signals. He gave the sign for “gallop.”
They heard battle sounds: the clash of metal, the whistle of arrows, the screams of men and animals. Sergeants ordered men off the sides of the road to sweep the woods for the enemy. Kel sent two sparrows to watch the road in back of their column to make sure no one fell on them from behind. She hoisted her glaive, checking that her grip was firm as they galloped around a bend in the road.
The caravan was backed against tumbled boulders at the foot of the hill where the village of Forgotten Well had been. Three wagons were turned on their sides to give archers cover. The merchants were behind the wagons, fighting the enemy with coolness and precision: they were used to attacks on lonely roads.
Facing them were about thirty Scanrans, mounted and afoot. Kel saw no giants. From the bodies, abandoned goods, and spent arrows littering the road between them and the merchants, the Scanrans had already tried an assault, and been driven back.
Raoul’s force slammed the Scanran left like a hammer, breaking up their columns. Drum and Peachblossom reared, flailing at anyone foolish enough to approach. Jump leaped at a man about to attack Kel, thudding into his chest. The Scanran yelped and fell. Kel chopped an enemy down with her glaive and closed with Drum, not wanting to get separated from Raoul. She saw only a sea of arms, legs, and weapons ahead, rising up and down as Peachblossom wielded his murderous hooves.
Suddenly the enemy turned and ran for the shelter of the trees. Raoul’s high-raised hand kept his squads from chasing them, though the archers continued to shoot until the last Scanran was out of range.
Raoul turned Drum and signaled the order to fall back on the rocks, where the caravan waited. “They came out of nowhere,” said a man whose arm was being splinted. “Our wounded, our animals . . . Are we to lose everything?”
“No,” Raoul told him. “This was only half of the war party reported in this area, and two we didn’t see were giants. We’ll stand here until it’s safe to move. Vanget haMinch has five companies of infantry and two of light cavalry at Northwatch—he’ll be along as soon as he can.” He didn’t say that Northwatch was besieged.
He’s afraid they’ll spook if they know, Kel realized.
Raoul looked at the stones, pulling a handkerchief from under the poleyn that covered his right knee to wipe his face. They had been over this place several times that summer. Kel knew he was visualizing it as a map, seeing a series of natural walls to fall back on. Behind these boulders that girdled the hill rose a small stone bluff. Trees grew at irregular intervals on its sides. The ruins of Forgotten Well’s stockade and buildings crowned the top.
He looked at the merchants. “Let’s get you up there”—he pointed to the overgrown dip that was the original road—“behind the walls, what there are of them.”
“My wagons,” said an old man, clutching a bundle.
“Buy new ones. Get moving,” he snapped. “Put your wounded on blankets and carry them up. The animals can go if they’ll follow. If not, leave them. Who’s in charge?”
“My—my husband’s dead,” said a small, fragile-looking brunette with huge brown eyes. “I suppose—”
“If he was in charge, let’s make it you, unless someone argues. Get going,” Raoul ordered. “Don’t flutter, mistress, just do it.”
The brunette turned away from Raoul. Kel watched her, thinking she would crumble or delay. Instead the woman squared her shoulders against the no-nonsense gray cotton of her dress. Her chin went up. She began to call out names, her voice firm as she went on. A slender man carrying a longbow and quiver came to stand beside her. Those who hesitated at her orders behaved after that.
“Kel, will your sparrows tell us when the enemy gets within a hundred yards of the tree line?” Raoul asked, nodding to the woods just twenty yards away. All but four birds flew off without Kel saying a word.
“Nice to have sentries,” Raoul commented, scratching a rough map in the dirt. “Squad leaders, to me.”
They gathered around.
Raoul marked his points on his map. “As we face the enemy, I want the squads out along the base of the hill, behind these boulders. Drag dead animals and the wagons to cover the bare spots between them. We hold them here,” he told the squad leaders grimly. “Detail two men to walk your horses up to the merchants. Lerant, picket Drum behind those rocks—I may need him in a hurry. Kel will take Lerant’s mount and Peachblossom up.”
Kel raised a hand. “Peachblossom will go on his own.”
Raoul looked at her. “As long as you’re sure. He’d probably cripple anyone else who took his rein. Now. Keep your weapons and your wat
er bottles. It’s going to get hot. Places. Balim’s squad has the far left flank. Woodcutters left a huge pile of dead trees and trash on that side, like a natural wall between you and the river.”
He named squad after squad, showing positions at the base of the hill. Dom’s squad would take the far right flank, the other end of the crescent anchored by Balim’s squad. “I’ll be here, by this road, and I’ll roam afoot—unless those giants show. I need to go up there”—he jerked a thumb at the bluff—“get them to send up a smoke signal for Northwatch. If you even smell a giant, horn call. Lerant, you’re message runner. Kel, you’re with Dom’s squad.” He straightened and looked at them all. “Move. It won’t take them long to find their friends. When they do, we’ll reap a field of hurt.”
Kel sent Peachblossom to the top of the bluff: he hadn’t wanted to go, but finally obeyed. The four sparrows not on scout duty stayed with Kel. They were led by the new chief female Kel had named Nari, the Yamani word for thunder. On her way to her post she checked the hill just in time to see Peachblossom walk through what had once been a gate. Above the ruins of the stockade wall a pillar of smoke began to rise. It would be visible for miles. If the general saw it, he would come with troops, if he could.
Dom’s position was sheltered by trees on the hill and in front. They wouldn’t bake in the sun, as the men to their left would. On the other hand, more trees made it easier for the enemy to get close. At Kel’s request Nari and the other three sparrows went to scout.
Dom signaled her to take the rock next to his. She slid down behind it and whispered, “Jump, sit. If anyone gets close enough, you know what to do.”
Jump wagged his tail in agreement and took his post. Like the company’s wolfhounds, he had done his share of fighting that summer.
Squire Page 26