by Tim Stead
Their conversation was interrupted by an urgent slapping on the tent. A guard stepped through without waiting to be asked.
“My lord,” he said. “Riders approach from the east.”
“Did you see their colours?” the colonel asked.
“Avilian.”
Tilian followed his commander out of the tent and through the camp. He could see the riders by their dust, about twenty of them, riding hard on the long road that led up from the plains to the pass. Even so it took minutes for them to reach the outskirts of the camp. He could see that they were Avilian, like himself, like the colonel, and as they drew nearer he could make out their regimental badges. They were the duke’s own men, so from the main body of the army. He wondered what event drove them here.
The lead rider, a captain of middle years, slid from his mount as they approached and bowed briefly to the colonel, casting his eyes about the camp as though he expected some disaster.
“All is well here, my lord?” he asked.
“Very well, Captain,” the colonel replied. “And the duke?”
“Still marching south on the Wolf’s orders. There has been no emergency here?”
“None. You expected to find one?”
“Yes, my lord. The duke sent two thousand men north in case you should need assistance. They are less than half a day behind us.”
“Why?”
“The Wolf, my lord,” the captain said. “I did not see it, but it was reported that he armed himself and left the army in warlike manner. We assumed some attack, and knew that the southern enemy force had been depleted. The duke guessed the trouble might be here.”
“Nothing has occurred,” the colonel said.
“Four days ago, just after midday,” Tilian said. The words were out before the thought occurred to him that it was not his place to speak. The captain turned to him and nodded.
“Aye, just then. What do you know?”
“We were in the great forest, guided by a wolf, and at that hour the creature abandoned us and ran westwards. The same story from all our men.”
“Westwards?” The colonel frowned. “What lies westwards…?” He turned suddenly and looked at Sheyani who stood by his side. “Wolfguard,” he said.
Tilian could not help himself. “They attacked Wolfguard?” It seemed incredible. It seemed stupid and suicidal. Such a move would be guaranteed to enrage Narak, and Afael was an object lesson in what he might do when enraged: thousands dead, a city destroyed. Yet it would be the one thing guaranteed to draw him away. Could it be a trap? “A trap?”
The colonel nodded. “It may be,” he said. “But there are some things that you do not want to trap. Captain, was he fully armed when he left you?”
“Aye, he was,” the captain said. “He wore that red armour he wears in battle.”
“Then their trap has failed,” but the colonel’s voice lacked complete conviction, and he glanced again at Sheyani. Tilian understood. The miracle, the thing that had made Cain Arbak young again, had happened after Narak had gone to Wolfguard. It would be foolish to think that the two events were entirely unrelated, and none of them could say what such a thing might mean. The wolf could be dead. They had not been visited by any of the Benetheon since Narak and the wolves had gone to Wolfguard. It was not a comforting sign.
The colonel turned to the captain.
“Captain, make sure your men are fed and your mounts taken care of, then come and join us in my tent. Any man will show you the way.”
The man nodded and left them. Cain and Sheyani turned back towards their tent.
“Will you do nothing, colonel?” Tilian asked.
“What can I do? We will hear from Narak or not as fate dictates. If anything has happened, then it has happened and we cannot change it. Ours plans are set. Autumn is here.”
It was true enough. Although Tilian felt the desire to rush to Wolfguard to help where he could, he knew it would be pointless. It was a thousand miles away. It would take weeks to get there, and he would have to travel through Narak’s forest without Narak’s protection. Anyway, his duty was with his lord.
They returned to Cain’s tent and resumed their meal.
“Do you know where my lord Skal is camped, my lord?” Tilian asked.
“Skal? Camped? Of course, you do not know and I did not think to tell you. Skal is in Telas.”
“Telas? What’s he doing there?”
The colonel did not take offence at Tilian’s abrupt question. “Some plan of the Sparrow’s,” he said. “She managed to turn the Telans against Seth Yarra, the gods alone know how, and Narak permitted our brother regiment to help. The last we heard they were marching north to the Western Chain.”
Lord Skal was colonel of the second regiment of the Seventh Friend and responsible for much of Tilian’s good fortune. Tilian had a duty to rejoin his lord now that his greater duty to the wolf was discharged.
“Can I come to this Western Chain from the north?” he asked.
“Too late,” the colonel told him. “In peace time it would be so, but the journey would take many weeks and by the time you get there the place will be invested. You could not get through.”
It was worse than Tilian had thought. He did not know the Western Chain, but he guessed that it was a defensible position of some kind, and that Lord Skal would be trapped there by a Seth Yarra army.
“I am captain of my lord’s guard,” Tilian said, as though his insistence would change the facts. “I must go to him.”
The colonel shook his head. “Duke Quinnial wants to see you,” he said. “After that the White Road will be closed by snow, or so near to it that only a suicide would attempt the pass. You must go back to Latter Fetch.”
Tilian could see that the colonel understood, or thought that he did. It was not simply duty, however, that drove Tilian. He was not in the least keen to return to Latter Fetch for the winter. His problem was Lady Sara.
Tilian liked her far more than he ought to, seeing that she was Lord Skal’s blood now, and far above him. He knew that his lord had an eye for her, and knew just as well that she had an eye for Tilian. Both of them, Sara and Tilian, owed their station in life, their good fortune, to Lord Skal, and it worried him that he was so inclined to betray his lord in this manner.
“I do not want to go back to Latter Fetch,” he said. Best not to dwell with temptation daily to hand, he thought.
“Aye, it’s hard to sit by while the war waits,” the colonel said.
“You’re not married?” Sheyani asked. Tilian liked her voice. It had a different tone from the voices other women he knew. Despite her small size it was deeper than most, almost smoky. Yet he flushed at her words, so close did they touch to his fear.
“No, my lady,” he said.
Sheyani smiled. “But there is someone,” she said.
“There is,” he confessed.
“In Bas Erinor, perhaps?” the colonel suggested, misunderstanding yet again.
Tilian shook his head. “She is above my station, my lord,” he said. “To be honest I do not wish to speak of it.”
“As you will,” the colonel didn’t seem troubled by his frankness, and Sheyani smiled again, put a hand on his forearm.
“Life brings many surprises,” she said. “Sometimes the best things happen when you least expect them.” She looked across at the colonel, who beamed back at her.
The tent was slapped again and the flap lifted. The Avilian captain who had ridden north with his message came in, and the conversation turned at once to other matters.
Three – The Volunteer
Jerac Fane stood patiently in line. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the morning air was fresh and joyously filled with the scent of freshly baked bread that drifted over from the bakery in South Wall Street. He was also enjoying the experience of standing in line without an ache in his bones, and not worrying about how much his joints would bother him later.
A few weeks ago he had been Alos Stebbar, an elderly carpenter
bereft of kith and kin, alone in Bas Erinor and hoping that his apprentices would come back from the war, clinging to the last years of his unexceptional life.
Then there was a miracle.
In one night his old age had been stripped from him like a tattered cloak and he was as he had once been – young and strong. He had no idea why it had happened, but in truth he was glad to leave his life behind. It had been no more than the accumulation of careful and dull decisions, and he had been as a man who had travelled a thousand miles only to discover that his road was a dead end.
He had embraced the change, adopting a new name, selling his workshop and pocketing the money. He had sworn to live this new life as though each day mattered, as though each was his last.
So now he was standing in line outside The Seventh Friend. He was used to the Inn. As Alos Stebbar he had built the new bar here, designed the pulley system to bring barrels up from the cellar, and sunk hundreds of ales at its warm tables.
Now, though, he was not here to drink.
Jerac Fane was queuing outside the Tavern on a Thursday morning to join the regiment. He was going to be a soldier. He was well suited to it. In his youth he had been a strong man, and he found himself so again. The man in front of him was a head shorter, and to Jerac’s eye no more than a boy. He looked nervous.
“You’re from the city?” he asked. The boy jumped as though he’d been stung and looked at Jerac with troubled eyes.
“I am,” he said.
“Just turned sixteen,” Jerac said.
“Aye, yesterday, and you?”
“Just come to the city,” Jerac lied. “Family business, but that’s all done and now I’m doing what I should have done last year.”
“They say there’s a lot of Seth Yarra still to kill,” the boy said.
“So they say. You’re keen, then?”
“My duty,” the boy said. “My uncle was at Fal Verdan with Cain Arbak.”
“So a family tradition,” Jerac said. “And a worthy one.”
The boy smiled a nervous smile. “Have you been soldiering before?” he asked.
“Me? No. My family tradition is carpentry, so I’m breaking with the past.” The boy nodded and glanced forwards. They were getting close to the front of the line, and he they could see in through the door. There were two tables with men sitting behind them and a couple of grizzled old soldiers to either side.
A man pushed past them on his way out. He was smiling. They shuffled forwards and found themselves framed by the door.
“You two,” a soldier faced them. “Watch the tests so you don’t make fools of yourselves.”
Jerac looked. The two men ahead of him stood before the tables. Each was asked a couple of questions by the men behind the tables, and words were written down. He could not see or hear what they were. The men were then asked to pick up a bucket filled with sand. The buckets looked heavy, but both men managed to lift them waist high and put them down again with each arm.
There was another test. The recruiter dropped a stone down a glass tube and the recruit tried to catch it between his hands when it came out the bottom. One man did it, the other missed and the stone bounced on the wooden floor. It didn’t seem to make a difference, though. More words were written and the two men stepped away.
Jerac was led forwards.
“Name?” The man behind the desk didn’t even look up.
“Jerac Fane,” he said.
The man wrote. “Occupation?”
“I was a carpenter.” The man looked up at him.
“That can be useful,” he said. His eyes took in Jerac’s broad frame. “Where are you from?”
“Hornwood.”
The recruiter sighed and put down his quill. “If you’re from Hornwood you should be in the Earl of Brightling’s Regiment. What are you doing here?”
“Working for my uncle, Alos Stebbar.” He didn’t want to be in any Earl’s regiment, and cursed himself for not thinking of this. He should have made up a better story. But the recruiter smiled.
“You’re Deadbox’s kin?” he asked.
“Aye,” he said, biting back a protest at the nickname.
“Well, then, you’re kin to the regiment,” the man said. “Deadbox built half the tavern, and is well liked by the colonel. You belong with us.” He wrote something down, but Jerac had never mastered the art of reading upside down. “Can you read and write?”
“I can.”
“Lift the bucket above your waist.”
He picked it up with his left hand. It seemed lighter than he’d expected, and he lifted it easily.
“Left handed?” the recruiter asked.
Jerac grinned. “No,” he said.
“Still, let’s see you do it with the right hand.”
He did, lifting it easily and holding it up until the man nodded. “You’re strong,” he said.
Jerac nodded. “Born that way,” he said. It was true. He’d been a strong child.
“Now hold your hand either side of the tube and when I drop the stone catch it between them.”
Jerac watched carefully, and when the stone was dropped he found it easy to catch it between his hands. The recruiter wrote something down.
“Ever used a sword before?” he asked.
“No.”
“Ever ridden a horse?”
A couple of times as a child, over fifty years ago. “No.”
“Ever shot a bow?”
“No.”
The recruiter wrote something on a piece of paper and held it out to him. “Go to the training grounds tomorrow and find a man with a blue sash. Show him this. Do what he says. Don’t get so drunk tonight that you’re late or incapable.” He turned away, looking for the next man. Another soldier tapped Jerac on the shoulder and pointed to the door.
“You’re done,” he said.
He stepped away. The recruiter’s words had reminded him that he was in an inn, and he suddenly felt like an ale. He was a soldier now, even if only in name. He stepped to the bar, the one he’d cut and polished himself in his other life.
One of the advantages of having sold his house and workshops was that he was flush with gold. It had been a big place, and he’d got over two hundred guineas for it. Most of that gold he’d banked, but he had over fifty florins hanging from his belt.
“Oak Tree Ale,” he said to the barman. The barman filled a mug and pushed it across. Jerac paid him and pocketed the change, then he pulled out the piece of paper that the recruiter had given him and studied it. It made no sense.
It bore his name and seemingly random letters, one of them ringed: WY SY FY EN, and below that an S in a circle.
“Can you read?”
It was the boy he’d been with in the line.
“I can,” Jerac said. “But it makes no sense, just letters.”
The boy held out a piece of paper and Jerac took it, examined it as he had his own.
Hol Petch. WN SN FY EN. Beneath that an S in a circle.
“You’re name is Hol?” he asked. “Hol Petch?”
“Aye. It says that, does it?”
“It does. What questions did they ask you?”
Hol listed the questions, and they were the same as the one’s Jerac had been asked. He looked at the two papers side by side and saw the pattern.
“The W is for writing, because I can and you can’t,” he said. “You see there’s a Y by it on mine and an N by yours.” Hol looked blank. “You had trouble with the bucket, but caught the stone,” he guessed.
“Aye, that’s right. It says all that?”
“In a way it does. And I guess you’ve not soldiered before, nor hunted with a bow?”
“That’s true.”
Pleased that he had solved the simple puzzle, all but the circled letter, he offered to buy Hol an ale. The young man accepted.
“But I’ll have your name first,” he said. “I’ll not drink with a stranger, my Da taught me that.”
“Jerac Fane. My uncle built this bar,”
he slapped the gleaming wood. It still looked pristine after all this time. That extra coat of varnish he’d insisted on had done the trick. Hol seemed impressed.
“It seems a grand thing to do, to build something that other men use.”
Jerac hadn’t thought of it that way, but it pleased him to hear Hol say it. He thought of all the other useful things he’d made in the last ten years – most of them coffins. It wasn’t something he was going to tell Hol.