Musfar approved. His cousin had earned his position. He was fearless as necessary in battle, yet his real value was his planning and cool thinking. Musfar knew of too many Buldorian men wasted because of stupid leaders. He took it as a matter of pride that his men suffered as few casualties as they did when balanced with the volume of booty this expedition had garnered. No small part of that success was the result of Abel’s careful planning and attention to detail. This might be the last trip with Abel as his second. He was due for a command, and Musfar would support him if he chose to go out next time as a commander. He’d miss him.
“If all goes as expected,” Abel went on, “we should be back at the beach within two to three hours. If there’s either more resistance or more booty than expected, I’ll balance time and booty potential. Whatever happens, I don’t expect the raid to take longer than four hours at the most.”
The two men returned to the deck and squinted to shore as their ship sailed toward the beach. Within ten minutes, they’d be anchored and the first men scrambling into the longboats.
“Good luck and good hunting,” said Musfar, and the two kinsmen clasped forearms, before Abel turned to lead the raid.
Alert!
The sun peeked above the eastern mountaintops on a typical morning on the southwest coast of Keelan Province. Scattered white clouds hinted at a clear day. The slight onshore breeze brought in the usual sea freshness. A morning haze still lay on the fields, and the same atmospherics allowed the haze hovering over the ocean to just start to clear with the sun’s first rays.
Sistian and Diera Beynom finished morning meal—both late this morning for their duties, but they were in charge of their respective orders at St. Sidryn’s, and no one begrudged their luxury of occasionally lingering at morning meal.
Abersford’s fighting men were organized into Thirds of fifty men each. Carnigan Puvey and Denes Vegga belonged to the one Third currently in Abersford. A second Third of the local levy was, “by chance,” on a scheduled patrol duty, this time farther north than usual. Eywellese riders had crossed several times into the northern districts, and Hetman Keelan had ordered increased patrols. Those fifty Abersford men were seventy miles away and a day out of semaphore or courier contact.
The final Third of the Abersford men spent the previous night thirty miles west at a Gwillamer Province coastal village that had spotted sea raider ships unloading men several miles farther west. No attack had yet occurred, but the local Gwillamer boyerman had invoked the Tri-Clan Alliance agreement, and Abersford, being the closest Keelan settlement, was obliged to respond. Denes Vegga, the local magistrate, the overall supervisor of the Thirds, and the direct commander of one of the three, vociferously objected to leaving the area with so few men. A rider carried Gwillamer’s request to Langnor Vorwich, the district boyerman, who reluctantly ruled the request had to be honored and promised to start additional men moving toward Abersford by that afternoon. The village and the abbey would only be short fighting men for a few hours the next morning.
Both Carnigan and Vegga were already at work—Carnigan helping a village smithy repair an iron railing at the abbey hospital, and Vegga at the local authority office, preparing to ride out accompanying the registrar to a farm delinquent in taxes. The farm itself was productive enough to pay the taxes, even in these times, yet the owner managed always to be late. The farmer was also a disagreeable character, and the registrar agent asked Vegga to accompany him.
Halla Bower had just walked her oldest child, Manwyn, to the village school. At six years old, he would attend the small local school for another three to four years before she and her husband decided whether to send him to the abbey school, where older children could further their education beyond that needed for most trades. Her husband worked in his father’s leather shop, and although he knew he would someday inherit the shop, he didn’t intend for his son to be obligated from birth to take over the business. Halla loved her husband for this attitude, for the consideration he always showed his family and other people, and just because … she loved him.
After returning home, Halla put down Manwyn’s sister. At eighteen months, the toddler was getting a little big for Halla to carry too long. As usual, it would be a busy day for Halla. Clothes to wash, clothes to mend, their vegetable garden to tend, turnips past ready to pull and store in their root cellar, a return trip to the school to collect Manwyn after the midday bell, and tending to the girl. The toddler was walking and running, sort of, and would soon start training to use the outhouse. If that training took hold in the next few months, then Halla would have a six-months’ respite; she hadn’t told her husband about another child on the way.
Yozef Kolsko had risen with only a slight hangover from the night’s pub session and had eaten a morning meal with Elian. Brak had eaten earlier and had been at work around the property before light. Yozef didn’t see the need for the elderly man to rise so early and work so hard, but his suggestions met with disapproving looks from the proud older man, and Yozef dropped the subject. Elian wasn’t as regimented as Brak. While she saw no need to rise as early as her husband, Yozef’s sleeping well past sunrise seemed decadent. However, since she wasn’t always hungry when she rose, and since she perceived that Yozef didn’t always wish to eat alone, many days she waited, and they ate together. Over the months, Yozef learned what he thought must be every detail of her life and Brak’s, the past and current lives of their four children, and the preferred methods of preserving local products and cooking the traditional Caedellium dishes. Despite his hearing most of it multiple times, somehow the gentle nature and kindness of the older woman and her pleasures at what seemed to Yozef a hard life never bored him. It was meditative and a lesson for finding life’s positives.
Today, Yozef was due to meet with Cadwulf to go over his total finances; then Filtin had another of his ideas about improving the petroleum distillation. Most of Filtin’s ideas proved impractical at the moment, others impractical now but perhaps someday implementable, and occasionally one was truly innovative, including several ideas that helped narrow the curve between kerosene production and demand.
After the morning meal, Yozef started off on the walk into Abersford. Brak thought he should ride, both because of his stature as a prominent citizen and because of his abysmal horsemanship. “How yuh expect to get better if yuh don’t do it?” Yozef declined most days, unless he had appointments. The walk didn’t take long, and he needed the exercise. It gave him a chance to think, and he still didn’t like horses or trust his horsemanship, even with Seabiscuit.
Yonkel Miron loved roaming the beaches near Abersford. Not every day, but often. By planning, he left home early for school, so he could detour half an hour along the shore. He bragged he had the best seashell collection in the district and occasionally found an intact and rare enough shell to sell for a few krun in the village. Then there was always the chance he would fine something mysterious washed up. After all, had it not been he who first found Yozef Kolsko—the strange man who washed up on their beach naked and within a year turned into an important figure and for whom Yonkel’s father and older brothers worked in the lantern-making shop, or factory, as Yozef called it?
His father kept telling Yonkel he should call Yozef by his formal title—Ser Kolsko. Yonkel always replied that Yozef himself had given permission to use his first name, and “You wouldn’t want to chance offending Yozef, would you?”
Yonkel attended the abbey school this year. Yozef had spoken with Yonkel’s father about how the boy was smart, and in the future there’d be many good-paying jobs and professions that required more education than was traditional on Caedellium. The father had been hesitant, but a family gathering decided that the pay from Kolsko’s various businesses had put the extended family in such a good financial position, and since Kolsko had taken a personal interest in Yonkel, that the boy could attend more schooling. Yonkel overheard Yozef telling one abbey brother that in a few years, Yonkel might be a candidate for a scholasticum—whatever that
was.
He took off his shoes to walk in the surf without ruining them, something his otherwise tolerant mother would be angry about for months. The spent water running up the sand swirled around his feet as he moved along, eyes sweeping back and forth for signs of shells worth collecting. The morning mist still hung over the beach and the sea, just now lifting in patches. The gulls and the murvors flew back and forth, scolding him when he came upon a cluster of them on the sand.
He had just inspected a glitter in the sand, which turned out to be only a fragment and not a buried complete shell. He shifted his pack containing his shoes and schoolbooks, when he raised up and faced out to sea. There, through a break in the mist, he saw a line of sailing ships right offshore, the first one only a few hundred yards from the beach. As he watched, startled, he could see the first ship drop anchor and a frenzy of activity on a deck crowded with armed men. The first longboat started to be lowered, and the second vessel likewise dropped anchor. Shoes, schoolbooks, and papers forgotten as the pack dropped onto the surf, Yonkel Miron ran toward the abbey as fast as his eight-year-old legs would permit.
Yonkel might have been the first to see the Buldorian ships, but Brother Alber gave the alarm. He happened to be in the cathedral bell tower. There had been signs of a leak in the cathedral roof the last time it rained on Godsday, and the abbot asked him to see if he could find the source. From the openings in the tower, he could look down on much of the cathedral roof. He hoped to spot a broken or misaligned tile or anything out of place, the alternative being to go out on the roof and inspect each tile, one at a time. He had done this before and left that option as a last resort. Thus, while he focused downward toward the roof, the motion of a distant figure running toward the abbey caught his attention. From there, his eyes elevated only slightly to take in the beach and the sea half a mile away. First, he saw the scattered breaking of the morning mist, then his brain registered five ships, sails gathered, and anchored.
He stared for a full minute, while his mind ran through options. Trading ships? He didn’t think so. The Narthani had blocked all trade, and even if they hadn’t, traders seldom came directly to Abersford, instead of the clan’s port facilities at Wilsford Bay. Ships seeking cover from a storm? What storm and what cover did this part of the coast provide? Caedellium ships? Certainly not from Keelan or any nearby provinces. Preddi had had vessels, but the Narthani controlled Preddi now. Could these ships be Narthani? It was the Narthani option that finally triggered a reaction. Warnings had been sent from the hetman and reinforced by Abbot Beynom. A raiding party!
The main bell was rung by using a thick rope attached by a block-and-tackle arrangement, the bell itself weighing several tons. Alber couldn’t ring the bell from atop the tower. He would have to climb down the stairway to reach the end of the ringing rope. Several brothers and sisters gaped at Brother Alber sliding down the rope, using his cassock to grip and protect his hands from rope burns, his bare legs and private parts on display as he descended the four stories in a few seconds. When he hit the block-and-tackle setup, he lost his grip and dropped the last ten feet to the stone floor. His ankle broke, but he didn’t notice and jumped to his feet, grabbed the lower end of the rope, and rang the bell. One ring signaled standard morning, noon, and evening times. Three rings repeated with breaks assembled the people for worship on Godsday, accompanied ceremonies such as weddings, announced visiting dignitaries such as the hetman, or called a general gathering of all people within hearing. Continuous ringing meant imminent danger. No one living in Abersford had ever heard the continuous ringing, but all knew the meaning. Armed men were to gather at the abbey, citizens living far enough away to escape inland, and those living close to the abbey to run to its protection.
Denes Vegga and the registrar were just leaving the registrar’s office to ride out to the tax-delinquent farmer when the peals started. They both froze in place through the first dozen peals. Then, “Hallon! Get on your horse and wait while I see what’s happening!”
Denes raced back into the two-story building and up to the roof, where he had a view of the coast. As soon as he saw the ships, he shouted and waved to the mounted registrar and yelled out, “Clengoth! Ride for help! It’s a raid!”
The district headquarters was fifteen miles away. Help would be dispatched from there, and a semaphore message sent on to the province capitol at Caernford. Unfortunately, the first help would be three or more hours away. They were on their own until then.
Denes raced back down the stairs, mounted his waiting horse, and galloped toward the abbey, where he would organize the defense.
The abbey appeared chaotic at first glance. Word of the ships as the explanation for the bell ringing spread quickly. Sistian and Diera had drilled the abbey’s staff for just such an event. They knew the abbey would become a receptacle for a flood of refugees fleeing from the village and the surrounding countryside. If the worst came, the defense would be here, at the abbey complex with its main stone walls. Given news of other raids, that defense would be to the death. No surrender contemplated, no matter what.
Carnigan moved without waiting for confirmation. He knew his immediate task and set out within seconds of the fourth peal. He was to assist the armorer in opening the block building that served as the area’s armory. The armorer had a key to the building, as did Denes Vegga. By chance, the armorer was one of the men called to respond to the request for assistance from the Gwillamese under raid threat and hadn’t given Carnigan the key before leaving. Vegga wasn’t at the abbey at the moment. Carnigan solved the problem his usual way—he grabbed a ball-peen hammer as he ran to the armory. He took one second to smash the lock on the door. Gonna need new locks, he thought inanely, as he flung open the door. Men would bring their own weapons, and the armory served as a reserve. Racks of muskets, crossbows, and spears of various lengths and blade shapes, along with a mélange of swords, axes, and knives, made up the accumulated stockpile of weapons discarded, inherited extras, and only God knew from what other sources. Carnigan didn’t know who would use what weapon. That was Vegga’s problem—his was to move the arms to the courtyard for distribution.
Halla Bower still rested from carrying the toddler to and from Manwyn’s school when the peals began. Her breath caught, and her heart seemed to stop as the peals continued. What was she supposed to do? She and her husband had spoken of it only briefly, since neither believed it would happen. Her husband would be on his way to the abbey and the gathering of his third group of Abersford’s fighting men. Manwyn would be watched after by the teachers at the village school. She couldn’t remember whether the students would flee inland or go to the abbey. There was nothing she could do for Manwyn, and she’d have to trust the teachers. She was supposed to take their other child to the abbey as the safest place. She grabbed the protesting toddler, who had just found a favorite ball under the table, and ran out of their house toward the road to the abbey, all tiredness from their previous trip forgotten.
Yozef was partway to Abersford when the peals started. He walked another fifty yards before his brain woke up, with the help of people running or riding toward the abbey. He remembered the talk of the possibility of Narthani or other raiders attacking the village, but it had seemed a theoretical discussion. Whatever it was, the answers lay at the abbey, now a third of a mile away. He joined the flow of runners.
Confusion at Sea
Musfar Adalan was not happy. The two-hundred-yard clearance reported by the Narthani for anchoring offshore turned out to be more than three hundred yards. Warrior’s Pride narrowly missed ramming onto barely submerged rocks, and Musfar ordered anchoring short of their goal. The three Narthani officers were impervious to his glares, and Buldorian curses leveled at the Narthani fell on uncomprehending ears.
Adel Adalan was even less happy. He was the one going ashore to command the raid. Not only were they farther off the beach, but several lines became snarled as they attempted to lower the longboats. They had carried out this maneuver a
hundred times in raids and training, but it didn’t help this day. They’d be a good fifteen minutes later ashore than his plan called for.
Chapter 31: Panic and Preparation
Denes and Yozef arrived at the abbey within seconds of each other, with Denes’s horse coming within inches of knocking Yozef down as they both hit the main gate. That’s where the two men’s actions differed. Denes knew exactly what he must do—create order out of the chaos and prepare to defend the abbey. Yozef had no idea what he was supposed to do. In fact, now that he was there, his immediate thought was that he wanted to be somewhere else. Anyplace else. What good was he going to be? Lacking a task or any idea of what to do, he instinctively followed Denes.
The available armed men gathered in the center of the courtyard, surrounding Denes and the abbot. Yozef edged closer through the group to better hear.
“How bad is it?” asked a grim abbot.
“Bad. Very bad,” replied an even grimmer Denes. “At full fighting men strength, we could hold off a raiding party of this size. That was what the defense plan was designed for. Unfortunately, we are not at full strength. One Third is away on a scheduled patrol in northern Keelan. Even with them gone, we should have been able to hold, but now a second Third is away to Gwillamer.”
“What does that mean for us now?”
Denes shook his head. “We can’t hold with fifty men. This is a nightmare. If we’d known we’d have so few men, it would’ve been better for all of the people to run or ride as far inland as fast as they could. Most would’ve gotten out of reach of the raiders. We told them to come here because this was the safest place. Instead, it’s turning into a trap,” Denes ended bitterly.
Cast Under an Alien Sun (Destiny's Crucible) Page 33