Gren was standing in front of him, one hand on his shoulder, the other holding a dagger across his throat. The slightest movement would shave off the bristles under his chin, Tathrin thought inconsequentially. Mountain Men kept their blades astonishingly sharp.
"You have to move quicker than that," the blond man reproved.
"You're not going to learn how to fight with a knife and win. All you need to know is how to keep yourself alive. Same as you're only practising with that in case you get caught up in a battle by mistake." Sorgrad nodded at Tathrin's sword.
He was a little comforted to realise he'd instinctively reached for his weapon. Not that he'd have been able to draw it before Gren had cut his throat.
"Manage not to get gutted and one of us will settle whatever quarrel's going on. Now, watch," Sorgrad instructed.
With another lightning-fast move, Gren had the blade at his brother's throat, the same grip on his shoulder.
"End up pinned like this and you deserve all you get." Sorgrad stepped back and nodded at Gren. "So don't get pinned."
This time, as Gren reached for his shirt, as the dagger came sweeping up, Sorgrad stepped sideways just as fast. He shoved the back of Gren's elbow so hard that the knife swept past him, cleaving nothing but empty air. The calculated force of the blow twisted Gren half-around, leaving his back open to Sorgrad's own blade. Tathrin hadn't even seen the older Mountain Man draw the weapon.
"Watch again," Sorgrad commanded.
Tathrin concentrated intently. He already knew Gren could kill him without breaking a sweat if he chose to. He also knew the Mountain Man wouldn't lose a wink of sleep over it. But he would never wound him deliberately in one of their practice bouts, and he was far too skilled with his sword to injure a novice by accident. Which didn't mean Tathrin wouldn't get a nasty scrape if he made an egregious error, to remind him to pay closer attention. He'd been picking scabs off his knuckles all summer.
"Tathrin?"
He shivered, startled. He couldn't help it.
"Tathrin?"
"Yes?" He tried not to sound too reluctant.
"It's Aremil."
"Yes."
His friend's voice was no longer the almost imperceptible whisper it had been at first. It was like having Aremil standing behind him. Tathrin felt the skin between his shoulder blades crawling, as if he was being watched by someone he could never catch sight of.
"Where are you?"
"Some way upstream from Emirle Bridge." As he spoke, Tathrin felt recollections of these latest stages of his interminable summer's travels running through his mind.
As soon as Charoleia had ordered Sorgrad to distract the dukes, he and Evord had consulted briefly and Tathrin was told to ride south with the two brothers. As soon as they were half a day away, Sorgrad's magic had carried them to a remote corner of Carluse. Even fleeting recollection of that uncanny journey made Tathrin's head swim. They'd skulked around the byways until Sorgrad found the travelling maltster whom Charoleia trusted to get a message to Failla. Then Sorgrad had announced they were going to Draximal, back to the bridge where Tathrin had first found them. And still no one would explain exactly what was going on.
"I see."
Aremil was envious, Tathrin realised with incredulity, of all the new places he had seen, of the people he had met, of his newfound skills as a swordsman. Did he think Tathrin was enjoying some adventure fit for a minstrel's ballad? Those tales all left out the wearisome reality of endless walking and riding, snatching indifferent meals and broken sleep in hedgerows.
"Forgive me."
Tathrin was shocked to feel the depth of Aremil's chagrin. In the next breath, he sensed his friend's unease.
How did he know what I was thinking? Could Aremil pick whatever he liked from Tathrin's thoughts?
"I would never do that!"
But Aremil saying he wouldn't do something wasn't nearly the same thing as saying he couldn't. Tathrin tried to bury his instinctive response in some dark recess of his mind. His head was abruptly filled with a silence so loud that it drowned out the snatches of birdsong amid the papery rustling leaves.
"It's the cripple?" Gren was watching with interest, his dagger sheathed.
"Charoleia wants to know if this friend of Failla's has arrived yet."
"Not yet," Tathrin replied.
"Reher should arrive before sunset," Sorgrad said. "Then we'll move to the bridge--"
"Please." Tathrin shut his eyes, shaking his head. "I can't do this if everyone's talking at once!"
"I'm sorry."
Tathrin swallowed. "Sorgrad says this man Reher should--"
"I heard."
That was new, and unwelcome.
"I wouldn't hear anything you didn't want me to."
Aremil's earnest assurance couldn't quite cover the hurt Tathrin knew his friend was feeling. But how did he know Aremil was feeling hurt?
"Well?" Sorgrad's eyes were as opaque as blue slate.
Tathrin looked at him, exasperated. "Instead of being so secretive and asking me and Aremil to pass mysterious messages to Charoleia, why don't you just explain your plan? Aremil can hear you perfectly clearly."
Sorgrad pursed his lips for a moment. "I scouted downriver last night and this morning, and Arest and his company are still holding the bridge at Emirle. The Duke of Draximal has filled the town with a couple of companies of his militia and there are more dug in on the far side. Duke Orlin of Parnilesse's militia are huddling in the woods half a day's march to the south. No one's shuffled their feet since Solstice."
"What now?" As Tathrin spoke, he heard Aremil's voice echoing the selfsame words in his head.
"Now we persuade Arest to break his men out of their cosy billet. Half of them can convince the Draximal militia that the Parnilesse forces have finally stopped sitting around polishing their weapons and attacked. The rest can send Parnilesse's militiamen running all the way to their duke swearing blind they've been attacked by Draximal."
"That should be good for a few days' skirmishing," Gren said cheerfully.
"We need more than that," Tathrin objected. "Captain-General Evord needs time to raise his army."
"As soon as Reher joins us, we can set this whole border ablaze," Sorgrad promised. "Evord will have all the time he needs."
"How?" Tathrin's irritation grew.
"Hush." Gren disappeared into the undergrowth.
Sorgrad silently raised a finger to his lips as he retreated behind a tree.
Tathrin gritted his teeth and edged backwards into the cover of a leafy birch.
"What is it?"
"I don't know." Tathrin could barely hear his own whisper, but he still had to speak if Aremil was to hear him. Just thinking the words was never enough. But now every time he opened his mouth, Tathrin thought uneasily, it seemed his thoughts were laid ever more open to Aremil.
He stood motionless, his sweaty shirt clinging to his body in rank folds. If he moved, he'd get a tongue-lashing from Sorgrad, same as he had done on their hunts up in the hills.
"I cannot stay with you much longer."
Aremil's voice sounded further away.
"Till tomorrow," Tathrin breathed.
"Very well."
The unseen presence faded reluctantly. Tathrin was ashamed at how relieved he felt. Aremil was his friend.
"Here we are." Gren's cheery return provoked a glossy thrush into a chatter of alarm.
Tathrin knew he'd never met this friend of Failla's. He'd have remembered him, no question. There were precious few men who could look Tathrin in the eye and fewer still he had to look up to. He'd be looking up to Reher, unless he was standing on a step. He'd be minding his manners, too, given the black-bearded man's massive shoulders and his forbidding scowl.
"I'm Tathrin." He hesitated between offering the arm-clasp that he'd seen the mercenaries using and a more usual handshake.
Reher shook his hand, oblivious to Tathrin's dithering. "Good to meet you."
It was good to
hear another Carluse accent. With the sleeves of his loose linen shirt rolled up, Tathrin noticed tiny black scars pitting the man's hands and arms. His sister's husband bore the same marks. "You're a smith? Or a farrier?"
"A smith." Reher's scowl deepened. "When I get the chance to work an honest trade."
"I'm Sorgrad." The Mountain Man was all business. "What did Failla tell you?"
"That you have need of my particular talents." Reher's dark eyes glowered beneath the tumble of black curls sticking to his sweaty forehead. "In some scheme to finally bring peace to Lescar."
"There'll be fighting and dying along the way." Sorgrad looked steadily at him.
Reher shrugged one muscular shoulder. "No different from half my lifetime."
"Come on, then." Gren was gathering up their gear, impatient as a hunting dog seeing his master pull his boots on.
"Suits me." Reher shifted a grubby canvas sack from one shoulder to the other.
Tathrin hurried to gather up his own bag and tightly rolled blanket. Sorgrad and Gren were already moving away and this blacksmith Reher followed close behind. For a big man in heavy boots, he moved remarkably quietly through the dense summer undergrowth.
Had he seen Failla? Tathrin knew she had gone back to Carluse. Was she still safe? Aremil had told him she was, as far as he knew, but Charoleia seemed to share as little with Aremil as Sorgrad did with him. How soon would this woman Branca find someone to travel to Carluse and use aetheric enchantments to make sure Failla stayed safe? So many questions burned under his tongue. Perhaps he'd get a chance to talk to Reher when they next halted.
But they didn't stop. They left the dense woods unscarred by woodsmen's axes to walk cautiously through coppiced stands of hazel and beech. Soon after that, the sky opened up above them and they followed hedgerows bracketing sunken lanes that divided fields of standing grain from land given over to hay. In the distance Tathrin saw farmhouses, all surrounded by solid stone walls, readily defended in this imperilled region. Not so very different from the farmsteads on the far side of Losand, he realised, where Carluse territory ran up against Sharlac lands, only separated by the narrow width of the Great West Road.
They had to move slowly and quietly, with Tathrin and Reher walking bent almost double. Every hay meadow was busy with men wielding scythes, women following after to turn and spread the tangled grass. Children and dogs alike chased the mice fleeing for the refuge of the hedges. Here and there some of the wheat was already being cut, ripened to golden perfection by the hot summer sun.
If Duke Secaris of Draximal sent his personal guard to root out some explanation for whatever mayhem Sorgrad had planned, Tathrin knew these harvesting peasants would find a pair of Mountain Men and a couple of uncommonly tall Lescari unhelpfully memorable. But Sorgrad had reconnoitred a path that took them towards the river unseen.
They left the wheat fields and the land turned to damper, greener pasture. Curious cows watched them, beef cattle fat and placid, milking herds chewing, udders hanging heavy. The hedges around the grazing were quite unlike those Tathrin was used to. He hadn't noticed as he walked along the high road on his earlier journey, but now down among them, he saw that steep-sided banks half as high as a man enclosed each field, dense tangles of hedges growing on top.
Sorgrad signalled a stop just before the next gate. Tathrin took a drink from his travelling flask. His back was aching viciously. He offered Reher some of the water as a haywain rattled along the unseen lane.
Gren caught Tathrin's eye as the noise faded. "These cursed fields are why Parnilesse never gets the upper hand over Draximal," he whispered. "It's a drunkard's nightmare fighting through here, all ambushes and counter-strikes and ten men dead for every plough-length."
Sorgrad signalled with a silent hand and they crossed the next pasture to the shelter of a tangled blackthorn hedge. Sorgrad pointed to a curve of pollarded osiers sprouting grey-green withies. Tathrin nodded ready understanding. The river lay beyond the line of trees.
Reher picked a stray thorn out of the loose weave of his homespun breeches. "Can you swim?"
"Sorry?" Tathrin was remembering how itchy homespun could be. But at least Reher's clothes were neat and new. His own breeches and doublet of fine Vanam broadcloth were sadly worn and faded and his shirt was so stained no laundress could save it. "Yes, I can swim."
"Strongly enough to save a drowning man?" Reher grimaced. "Because I can't."
"I hope so." Tathrin did his best to sound confident.
Thankfully, when Sorgrad waved them forward through the osiers, he saw that the river fell far short of the boisterous torrent they'd ridden in Aft-Spring. It had sunk so far in the centre of its wide bed that shallow islets had broken through the sluggish flow, some sprouting clumps of weeds.
"There's no one on the banks." Tathrin looked up- and downstream.
"No one goes fishing till the harvest's home," grunted Reher.
"Do we have a boat?" Gren looked around.
"Of course," Sorgrad said scornfully. He slid down the crumbling clay bank and hauled a marsh hunter's punt out of a tangle of washed-up branches.
"Aren't we waiting till dark?" Tathrin looked up at the afternoon sky.
"It'll be dusk by the time we reach the bridge." Sorgrad dragged the shallow-sided boat towards the water.
"Do we have oars?" Tathrin tried to sound offhand.
"A paddle." Gren wasn't about to relinquish it.
"Get in, lie low, and we'll let the river do the work." Sorgrad waded into the water.
Gren sprang into the prow and knelt there, alert.
Tathrin shared an eloquent glance with Reher as they climbed cautiously aboard.
"Lie flat," Sorgrad ordered.
The two tall men stretched out as best they could. It was cramped and uncomfortable, and water soon seeped through the planking. Tathrin tensed as Reher shifted his bulk and the punt rocked alarmingly.
"Best to lie still." Sorgrad was crouching in the stern, watching where the current might take them.
The waters whispered on the other side of the planks. The chill of the river soaked the back of Tathrin's shirt and breeches and the marshy odour grew steadily stronger. Add the reek of his own sweat and Reher's and he wondered wryly if the mercenaries holding the bridge or the militias penning them in would need to see the little boat approaching. Surely they would just smell them coming?
He lay still and looked up at the cloudless sky, the blue growing steadily richer as the sun slid towards the horizon. This was at least preferable to the first trip he'd taken on this river.
What did Sorgrad or Gren have planned? Why had they gone to such lengths to bring Reher here? Doubtless Arest and his band of mercenaries could use a blacksmith's skills but why bring Reher to Emirle Bridge to fight in this battle? One man, however strong, surely couldn't make that much difference?
"You've known Arest for years, right, Sorgrad?" he said suddenly. "Why do you need me and Reher along to talk him into your plan?"
"I need you because you're the one Aremil talks to." Sorgrad shifted slightly.
"Can't he talk to you?" He remembered Sorgrad's magebirth. "Or to Gren?"
"That's not a good idea." Sorgrad's tone sent a colder shiver down Tathrin's spine than the river water he was lying in. "If he's caught unawares, Gren tends to lash out."
Tathrin heard a hiss as the paddle bit into the flow and Gren chuckled. "Some sheltya bastard tried getting inside my head once. He soon regretted it."
"What are you talking about?" Reher demanded.
"Never mind," Sorgrad said repressively.
Sheltya. These mysterious adepts who wielded their Artifice in remote mountain valleys. Tathrin had seen no sign of Sorgrad fearing anything but he certainly treated these unknown enchanters with wary respect as well as mistrust. They could pluck thoughts out of a man's head if they wanted to, without him even knowing--that's what Sorgrad had said. Reniack had talked about enchantments that could find out all a man's secrets.
<
br /> Was that why Sorgrad told him so little of his and Evord's plans? Tathrin suddenly wondered. Because he didn't trust Aremil not to pick things out of his mind? Not so long ago, that notion would have angered him. Now he wasn't inclined to be so affronted. Not when every time Aremil used Artifice to contact him, he seemed to see deeper into his friend's thoughts and feelings, just as Aremil saw further into his. Would bringing more adepts into their conspiracy mean he'd have strangers uncovering his innermost thoughts?
Uncomfortable, Tathrin turned his thoughts instead to the concerns that he knew he and Aremil shared. Where was Captain-General Evord going to get his army from? Just what could they hope to achieve before Aft-Autumn and then For-Winter put an end to all campaigning? The Mountain Men and the Solurans were supposed to be experts in waging war. Weren't they gambling everything on decent weather lasting past the Equinox?
He turned the endless questions over and over in his mind. Was there any way he could phrase a query that might prompt Sorgrad into an unguarded answer? He was tired of the Mountain Man's sarcastic answers that didn't actually tell him anything.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Tathrin
Emirle Bridge, in the Lescari Dukedom of Draximal,
37th of Aft-Summer
"There's lit windows in that village." Gren was kneeling in the prow, crouching so low that his chin rested on the rail.
Propping himself cautiously up on his elbows, Tathrin looked over the shallow boat's side. The day was definitely turning to twilight. "Where are we?"
"Nearly there," Sorgrad said.
Reher was snoring. Gren reached back to shake his massive shoulder. "We're coming up on the bridge."
Tathrin saw torches lit on the watchtowers at either end. The illumination threw the water and everything between the defences into deep shadow.
"Don't stare at the lights," Sorgrad chided him. "They're just to keep the militia looking and ruining their night sight."
"Don't move till I say." Gren reached for a coil of rope.
After the drama of his first arrival, Tathrin's second landing on the bridge was blessedly uneventful. A mercenary waiting beneath the arch caught the rope Gren tossed and drew the punt gently against the central pillar's footing.
Irons in the Fire (Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution) Page 30