“It isn’t as if the orcs aren’t hard to kill,” Casper agreed. “And what about the necromancer?”
“He’s worth a hundred orcs,” Gaius said.
Emily snorted. The necromancer was the only thing holding his army together. If he died, the army would come apart at the seams and scatter. Killing him should be worth a great deal more. But, in truth, she didn’t care enough to argue. The boys could have their fun, if they wanted. She would be happy just to survive.
And win, she added, in the privacy of her own thoughts. The necromancer has to be stopped.
The tent flap opened. Cat stepped inside, followed by Cyprian. They’d both been maintaining the protective wards, Emily recalled; they both looked pale and worn, despite their tans. It seemed as though the effort had tired them out.
“We’re leaving tomorrow at noon,” Gaius said. “Better get your bags packed.”
“Daybreak,” Emily said, quickly.
Cat stumbled over to his bedroll and lay down. “Someone has definitely been spying on us,” he said, stiffly. “The defenses keep being probed.”
“We knew that,” Gaius pointed out. “Did you keep them out?”
“I think so,” Cat said. “But it’s hard to be sure. They’re proving to be very devious.”
Emily nodded. She’d never used spying magics, but she understood how they worked. The brute-force approach could be deflected easily, yet more subtle probes might get through the defenses. And even if they failed, the defenders might not know they’d been there. It was never easy to be sure one was completely safe from prying eyes, at least outside Whitehall or another heavily-warded building. No wonder magicians tended to be more than a little paranoid about their secrets.
“It’s worrying,” Casper said. “Necromancers are not known for spying on people.”
“You should tell your father that,” Gaius said. “I’m sure he doesn’t already know.”
Emily rubbed her forehead as Casper rounded on Gaius. Why did Gaius keep pushing Casper’s buttons? It was clear they didn’t like each other, but they would have to learn to work together if they wanted to survive. Sergeant Miles had warned her that she might have to take part in a ritual with the other magicians and she’d assumed that she would be the problem, yet it looked as if Casper and Gaius would be the real problem. They practically hated each other. There was certainly no trust between them.
“Father is the greatest general in the world,” Casper snarled. “He knows.”
“But he’s not a sorcerer,” Gaius pointed out, coolly. “Not a lick of magic in his powerless bones. Does he understand the implications?”
“Of course,” Casper insisted. “He’s a smart man!”
Emily considered it, briefly. Spying magics required both power and discipline, the latter something necromancers often lacked. Even the brute-force approach to spying on their targets was supposed to be beyond them, yet it was clear that someone was spying on the camp. Did the necromancers have allies? Or were countless magicians from the Allied Lands peering into the tents? It was possible, she had to admit.
“Make sure you are all ready to leave at dawn,” Cat said. “Unless you want to explain the delay to our masters ...?”
“We won’t be leaving until noon,” Gaius said. “You know we won’t be leaving until noon.”
“And yet, we will be the scapegoats if we’re not ready to depart on schedule,” Cat pointed out, rather sardonically. “But hey, if you want to take whatever punishment your master chooses to hand out ...”
“We’re apprentices,” Cyprian reminded him. “We get blamed for everything, anyway.”
Emily suspected he was right. The combat sorcerers were isolated from the infantry and the cavalry. On one hand, their magic gave them high status; on the other, they were apprentices and thus the lowest of the low. The combat sorcerers couldn’t blame the cavalry for being late, if indeed it was the cavalry’s fault, but they could blame their apprentices. And yet, she couldn’t imagine Sergeant Miles looking for a scapegoat.
The others might feel differently, she reminded herself. And they might take it out on all of us.
“There’s no reason to make it easy for them,” Cat said. He lay back on his bed. “Have any of you thought of any good taunts?”
Emily stared at him. “Taunts?”
“We shout insults from the battlements,” Casper said, in a tone that suggested he thought she was stupid for daring to ask such a silly question. “It makes them mad. Mad people make mistakes.”
Cat shot him a reproving look. “It does wonders for morale,” he said. “And it makes it clear we’re going to fight.”
“Oh,” Emily said. She wasn’t sure that antagonizing the invading army was a good idea. An angry army might commit all sorts of atrocities when it breached the walls. But then, necromancers paid no attention to the conventions of war anyway. The entire population was doomed if the invaders gained control of the city. “Does it work?”
“Sometimes,” Gaius said. “And sometimes it just makes people laugh.”
“Which is good for morale,” Cat said, firmly.
He glanced at Casper. “What do you want to shout?”
Casper shrugged. “Come and die? Or ... you’re going to die here, fat pig?”
“I don’t think a necromancer will care if you call him a fat pig,” Gaius said. “And the orcs won’t even notice.”
“You could always insult the twisted humans,” Sawford said. He smirked. “You sold your wives, you sold your kids, you ...”
“Or even remind them that they too will be necromancer food one day,” Gaius said. “But I’d much rather put an arrow through their heads.”
“And then they get eaten by the orcs,” Cat said. “They just can’t lose.”
“They can when they run out of people to eat,” Sawford said. “And they eat their own too.”
Emily felt sick. The orcs didn’t just eat humans, they ate each other. Every orc killed in the line of battle would go to feed his former comrades. It would keep them going for weeks, while the defenders starved. And then, when Farrakhan fell, the orcs would gorge themselves on dead bodies. They’d have the supplies they needed to push further into the kingdom.
We’ll have to burn the bodies, she thought. And not just to keep the orcs from eating them.
“Emily,” Cat said. “How do you plan to taunt them?”
Emily shook her head. Taunting an invading army still didn’t strike her as a good idea, particularly when a maddened necromancer might knock down the walls with a single blast of magic. And even if the necromancer kept his distance ...
“Come on,” Gaius said. “You must have something nasty to say.”
“I don’t know,” Emily said. She smiled, suddenly. “Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries?”
“That’s not much of an insult,” Casper sneered. He’d never heard of Monty Python. How could he? “You could do better by insulting his taste in clothes!”
“Or by baring your buttocks at him,” Sawford pit in.
Emily shrugged, despite their obvious confusion. The joke was less funny, she had to admit, if it needed to be explained. And besides, none of them had the background to understand it.
But it doesn’t matter, she thought, as she finished packing and lay down on the bedroll. I’m not going to be taunting anyone.
Chapter Fifteen
GAIUS, EMILY WAS SURPRISED TO DISCOVER, had been right.
The apprentices were ready at the crack of dawn, their bags packed, their tent dismantled and their horses outfitted for the march. But they were about the only ones who were ready to depart on schedule. The cavalry officers were running around, half trying to organize their men while the other half directed the loading of a dozen heavy wagons; the infantrymen sat on the ground, trying to catch up with their sleep while their officers tried to prepare for the march. Emily waited, wishing for a book or something to do, while the army organized itself. She dreaded to think
what would happen if the necromancer chose this moment to attack.
“You’ll be on the left flank,” Sergeant Miles told her. She’d expected him to be angry, but he looked quietly resigned. “Casper will be riding beside you. Stay close to him.”
Emily tried to keep her face expressionless, but the reproving look he gave her made it clear that some of her displeasure had leaked through. She would have preferred Cat or Gaius or Sergeant Miles himself, not someone who seemed to resent her. But she suspected she wasn’t being given a choice. The magicians had to be spread out, just in case the necromancer and his army put in an unwelcome appearance.
“Yes, Master,” she said, grudgingly.
“And try to be polite,” Sergeant Miles added. “We’ll be practicing rituals when we reach Farrakhan.”
Emily kept her opinion of that to herself as she scrambled onto the horse and looked around for Casper. He was standing next to a young woman wearing a fancy dress, chatting to her about something. Emily wondered, as she forced herself to wait for him, just what he thought he was doing with her. A woman like that would be the wife of an officer, not an unmarried girl or a common whore. Was he planning to try to seduce her?
Her patience snapped. “Casper,” she called. “We have to go!”
Casper turned. He looked ... irritated. The woman shot Emily an odd look — a strange mixture of fear and respect — as Casper mounted his horse, somehow managing to make it look easy. He’d probably found it easy before Emily had introduced stirrups, she thought rather sourly. Casper might have problems living up to his father, but he was far from incompetent. He cantered over to her, his face darkening. Emily spoke before he could say a word.
“We’re on the left flank,” she said. “Come on.”
The confusion only grew worse as they passed through the gates and onto the road. Clumps of soldiers were marching south, carrying their weapons as well as giant rucksacks. They didn’t have saddlebags, let alone horses. Giant carts were also heading south, pulled by horses and surrounded by armed guards. Emily couldn’t help noticing that one of them was carrying a coffin. She wanted to ask why someone had brought a coffin, but she doubted Casper would answer. He was already pulling ahead of her, his horse picking up speed as he flanked the army. She sighed and pushed her own horse to follow him.
What a mess, she thought, as she caught sight of an overturned cart. A dozen soldiers were trying to stand it back upright, even though magic could have done it in an instant. Their commander was practically spitting with rage, his face going purple as he shouted a series of contradictory orders. Emily was torn between going to help and staying close to Casper. I ...
She pushed the horse forward, trying to catch up with Casper. He was moving faster now, slipping out of position. Emily wasn’t entirely sure where they were supposed to be, but she was fairly certain that Casper was too far forward. And yet, the army was strung out along the road in bits and pieces. Where was the flank? She hoped — prayed — that the pickets would spot any advancing army before it was too late. A horde of charging orcs would cut the infantry to ribbons if they appeared out of nowhere, before they had a chance to prepare themselves to repel attack.
And to think I thought the army was efficient, she thought, ruefully.
Granted, General Pollack didn’t have an easy task. He commanded a multinational force, each unit headed by a prima donna who could complain to his monarch if he felt slighted ... it was a minor miracle that the army was marching in roughly the correct direction. But as the dust built up, the wind taking on a sharper edge as it blew from the south, she knew the whole army might dissolve into chaos. And if it did, there would be nothing she could do about it.
Casper glanced over his shoulder and shot her a challenging look, dug in his spurs, and urged his horse forward. Emily gritted her teeth, imagining what Sergeant Miles would say if she ran ahead of the army, but followed him. She had to stay close to him, whatever happened. And yet ... a dozen spells ran through her mind, suggesting ways she could slow him down. She knew better than to try any of them. Accidentally throwing him off the horse might well injure him.
It was nearly an hour before she saw the first refugees. They looked pathetic: men, women and children, carrying a handful of possessions as they made their way north. The women looked away, hastily, as they saw the army, turning to head east or west rather than risk being seen. Emily knew precisely how they felt. The army was staggeringly undisciplined, compared to a modern army on Earth. Its commanders wouldn’t take rape seriously unless the victim was rich, powerful, or very well connected. She wondered, darkly, if Casper would take his sexual frustration out on a peasant girl. It wasn’t as if the girl could either stop him or bring a complaint to his superiors.
I won’t let him, she thought, as more and more refugees came into view. Whatever he wants to do, I won’t let him.
She could hear the marching men hooting and hollering behind her, jeering at the refugees and mocking them for running. But really, what could they do? Most peasants were forbidden to bear arms, if only because they might turn them on their lords and masters. They didn’t have a prayer of stopping the orcs when they found the farms. Resistance would merely get them killed and eaten. Escape was the only hope they had.
Poor bastards, she thought.
Casper reined in his horse. “They’re scattering,” he said. It was the first thing he’d said to her all day. “They’re more scared of us than they are of the orcs.”
“They’re scared of soldiers,” Emily pointed out. The peasants had no reason to love the enforcers, the men who would kill them if they dared refuse orders from their betters. “And they have a point.”
Her eyes narrowed as she caught sight of a young girl — around seven, if she was any judge — waving to her. Another person was hunched down, her back to the soldiers; a third was lying face down on the ground, perhaps dead. No, he was moving ... Emily frowned, then pulled on the reins. If someone was beckoning for help, from soldiers they had no reason to love, it had to be urgent. She slipped off the horse, took a moment to gather herself and then pulled off her cap and headed over to the tiny family. Her long hair, unmistakably feminine, would be more reassuring than anything else.
Casper called after her. “Where are you going?”
“Stay there,” Emily ordered.
Up close, it was clear that both girls were peasants. Their shapeless clothes were near-rags, covered in patches that suggested they’d been repaired so often that little of the original garment remained. They smelled too, a darkly unpleasant scent that reminded Emily of the Cairngorms. Perhaps it was an attempt to make them unattractive, she speculated, as she bent down beside the wounded man. Their father was no longer able to protect them.
“Father’s been hurt,” the older girl said, without turning. “He ... he was knocked down.”
She turned. Her eyes went wide when she saw Emily, her entire body twitching as if she were on the verge of trying to run. A moment later, she prostrated herself in front of Emily, one hand tugging her sister down beside her. Emily flushed, feeling the old embarrassment. She still didn’t like people grovelling in front of her ...
She pushed the thought aside as she motioned for the peasant girl to sit up. The girl was pretty enough, although her brown hair was thin and her sallow face was pockmarked ... suggesting an early encounter with a disease that killed far too many who lacked magic. She was definitely old enough to marry, Emily decided; the girl might already be married. But that wouldn’t matter to the soldiers who caught her, if they caught her. They wouldn’t give a damn if they wanted some fun. She’d heard noblemen in Cockatrice arguing that it was impossible to rape a peasant woman. She didn’t own her body.
And they expected me to agree, Emily thought, as she examined the wounded man. Someone had struck his knee with a club, breaking his leg. They didn’t think I’d see anything wrong with raping peasant women.
She pushed the memory out of her mind as she cast a quick sp
ell. Thankfully, the break was a relatively clean one. Whoever had struck him had known precisely where to hit him. She tested the leg, just to be sure, then cast a healing spell. If she were lucky, there wouldn’t be any damage that would require a more complex spell.
The man grunted. Emily placed a hand on his back, silently warning him to stay still, as she tested her work. The bone had been knitted back together, perfectly. She grinned, and helped the man to his feet. The leg would be a little uncomfortable for a while, she thought, but the feeling would fade.
“Thank you,” the man stammered. He stared at her, then hastily lowered his eyes. “I ... what do I owe you?”
“Nothing,” Emily said, quickly. She’d had peasants try to offer her their children before, in Cockatrice. Apparently, selling children into slavery — or serfdom — had been perfectly legal under her predecessor. “I just stopped to help.”
She heard Casper riding up behind her and sighed, inwardly. “How did you wind up here?”
The man kept his eyes downcast. “We were told to leave the farm and head north, Great Lady,” he said, softly. “We don’t know where to go.”
Emily didn’t know where they should go, either. The camp was being dismantled now, even if the original schedule was dead and gone. And she wouldn’t have sent two defenseless girls to the camp anyway. But where else could they go? She concentrated, trying to recollect the map, but Lokane City was another fifty or sixty miles to the north. They wouldn’t have a hope of getting there before they starved — or worse.
She swallowed, hard. “The camp followers will be bringing up the rear,” she said, reluctantly. “They may have work for you. Or you could keep heading north.”
“We’ll keep moving,” the man said. “I thank you, Great Lady.”
Emily wasn’t surprised. There would always be work for a peasant with strong arms, but he had two daughters. Joining the camp followers would almost certainly result in the older daughter being sent to the brothel, unless she found a powerful protector. And even that would be only one step up from being a whore. Emily could protect them — if Sergeant Miles let her — but they’d be fools to place their trust in a stranger. No, continuing to head north was the safest course.
11- The Sergeant's Apprentice Page 15