Ormerod set a quarrel in the crossbow’s groove, yanked back on the bow to cock it, and steadied his finger on the trigger. Sticking some part of his head out to look for a target gave him a certain amount of pause-supposed one of the gray-clad southrons was waiting for him to do exactly that? He would kick mindlessly for a few heartbeats and then stop, too.
This is your duty to King Geoffrey, he told himself, and made himself do what was required. A quarrel slammed into the tree trunk a couple of inches from his head. He jerked back, cold sweat springing out on his brow. When he peered out again, it was from much lower down.
He shot at an enemy soldier. The fellow didn’t shriek, so he supposed he missed. Cursing under his breath, he loaded and cocked the crossbow as fast as he could. He wished he were ambidextrous, so he could have put the bow to his left shoulder and pulled the trigger with his left hand. That would have let him look out from behind the tree on the side enemy sharpshooters didn’t expect.
But no such luck. Like most men, he was doomed to predictability. “Forward!” he called to his men-at the same time as an officer on the other side was also shouting, “Forward!”
Ormerod’s men had learned in a hard, bloody school. They knew how to advance through woods. Some of them shot at the enemy and made him keep his head down while others actually moved forward. Then the two groups traded roles, the ones who had been shooting now leapfrogging past the men who, in new cover of their own, kept the southrons busy.
Against raw enemy troops, such tactics were almost bound to succeed. But the third company of the Twenty-Sixth New Eborac proved to consist of veteran soldiers who fought the same way as the men from Palmetto Province whom Ormerod commanded. The southrons offered his soldiers few targets as they worked their way forward-only the occasional glimpse of a gray tunic or a dark head or, now and again, a blond one.
Blond heads… When Ormerod realized what that meant, he let out a great, full-throated bellow of rage. “They’ve got runaways fighting for ’em, the bastards!” he shouted when he finally found words. “Now we really have to make them pay!”
He wanted to throw aside the dead man’s crossbow and charge the enemy swinging his sword, as if he were a conqueror from the heroic days not long after the Detinans first crossed the Western Ocean and cast down the kingdoms the yellow-haired men had made hereabouts. But the blonds who fought for King Avram didn’t lumber around in ass-drawn chariots and wield cumbersome bronze-headed axes. Their weapons were as good as his, and they had real Detinans alongside to help stiffen them if they faltered. The sword stayed in Ormerod’s scabbard.
As he ran forward, he wondered if any of those blonds there on the other side had escaped from his estate. Maybe we’d do better coming after them with whips, to make them remember they serve us, he thought. Then another crossbow quarrel snarled past him. He shook his head. The blonds had been serfs, but some of them were soldiers now.
“Avram!” they shouted. He recognized their accent-not so very different from his own, not much like the clipped tones most proper southrons used. “King Avram! Avram and freedom!”
“Avram and ass piss!” Ormerod yelled back. Freedom, he thought. As if the serfs deserve it. Not likely. We made Detina what it is by conquering them. What would it be if we let them pretend they were as good as we are? He didn’t know what it would be. He did know it wouldn’t be any place where he cared to live. He grimaced. Without serfs to work his fields and harvest the indigo, it wouldn’t even be any place where he could make a living.
“Forward!” the southron officer shouted again.
“Forward!” Captain Ormerod echoed. As if from far away, he heard other company commanders from Colonel Florizel’s regiment shouting the same thing, and other southrons as well. He paid them only scant attention. They weren’t directly affecting him, and so he didn’t worry about them. He had plenty to worry about right here-in these woods, he couldn’t tell what most of his own company was doing, let alone anyone else’s.
He ran for a pine up ahead. Somebody else was running for it, too-somebody in a gray tunic and pantaloons. Out came the sword he’d resheathed not long before. He set the crossbow down on the ground. Once he settled with the foe, he would pick it up again.
Had the enemy soldier had a bolt in the groove of his own crossbow, Ormerod might not have had such a good time of it. But the fellow’s crossbow was also empty. He threw it aside and yanked out his own shortsword to defend himself against Ormerod’s onslaught.
Steel belled on steel. Sparks flew. Ormerod’s lips skinned back from his teeth in a fierce grin. He had a proper blade, and knew what to do with it. The southron’s sword was intended for use only after all else failed. By the way the fellow held it, he hadn’t had to use it very often up till now.
“Ha!” Ormerod said. The slash would have split the southron’s skull, but the enemy trooper jerked his head aside at the last instant. The blade hacked off most of his left ear. Howling, dripping blood, he turned and fled, throwing aside the shortsword so he could flee the faster.
Ormerod took two steps after him, then checked himself. Any farther and he risked running into the gods only knew how many southrons. He snatched up his crossbow again, slid a bolt into the groove, and cocked the piece.
“Forward!” the southron captain, or whatever he was, shouted again. His voice didn’t sound as if it came from very far away. Ormerod froze into a hunter’s crouch, as he might have done going after tiger or basilisk in the swampy near-jungle of the woods of Palmetto Province. The enemy officer went on, “We can lick these bastards-they aren’t very tough.”
“No, eh?” But Ormerod’s lips shaped the words without the slightest betraying sound. Sure enough, there stood the southron, behind an oak not fifty yards away. Ormerod brought the crossbow to his shoulder. He pulled the trigger. The bowstring thrummed. The stock kicked against him.
And the enemy captain clutched at his ribcage and slowly crumpled to the ground. “Take that, you filthy, fornicating robber!” Ormerod yowled. “King Geoffrey and victory!”
The gray-clad soldiers cried out in dismay as their leader fell. But they had no quit in them. “Come on!” someone else-a lieutenant? a sergeant?-yelled. “We can still whip these bastards!” And, instead of falling back as Ormerod had hoped, the southrons surged forward more fiercely than before.
Some of them had their shortswords out, as did some of Ormerod’s men. Usually, one side or the other gave way in a fight like this. That didn’t happen here. Both Ormerod’s troopers and the southrons wanted to get their hands on their foes, and both kept coming despite everything their foes could do to them. It wasn’t an enormous fight, but it was as fierce as any Ormerod had seen.
A big blond fellow swinging his shortsword rushed straight at Ormerod, yelling, “King Avram and freedom!” at the top of his lungs. His slash would have taken off Ormerod’s head had it connected.
It didn’t. Ormerod parried and thrust. The blond-surely an escaped serf by his accent-beat the blade aside. “King Geoffrey!” Ormerod shouted. Then he stopped and stared-and almost got killed because of it. His next word was a startled bleat: “Rollant?”
* * *
“Baron Ormerod?” Rollant’s astonishment almost got him killed. For a quarter of a heartbeat, he started to duck his head and bow, as he’d been trained to do since boyhood when the baron went by. Had he finished the motion, Ormerod would have spitted him as if he were to go over the fire.
He’d dreamt of facing his old liege lord in battle, dreamt of killing him in any number of slow and nasty ways. He’d been sure Ormerod would take service with false King Geoffrey, just as he’d taken service with Avram, who was not only the rightful king but also the righteous king.
Reality proved vastly different from his dreams, as it had a way of doing. He’d never dreamt Ormerod would swing a long sword, while he had only a short one. He’d known the baron could handle a blade. In his dreams, it hadn’t mattered. Now… Now he backpedaled. However hateful his
liege lord was to him, Ormerod was also a better swordsman with a better sword. And he looked as if he wanted to kill Rollant at least as much as Rollant wanted to kill him.
“Run away from me, will you, you son of a bitch!” he shouted, and thrust at Rollant’s face. Rollant had no idea how he managed to beat the northern noble’s blade aside, but he did. Then he sprang backwards, to put a tree between them.
Cheers from the north said more traitors were coming in. Rollant darted back to another tree. Ormerod was bellowing orders. Rollant couldn’t make out the words, but he knew the tone. I’d better, he thought. He’s given me enough orders. He gave me one order too many, by the gods, and I’ll never take another one from him again.
While the baron-the enemy officer-directed his company, Rollant put more trees between them. No, the meeting hadn’t gone as he’d dreamt. He counted himself lucky that it hadn’t gone as Ormerod was likely to have dreamt.
“Back! We have to fall back!” That was Sergeant Joram. Captain Cephas was down-some traitor had put a crossbow bolt between his ribs. Rollant didn’t know what had happened to the company’s two lieutenants. He didn’t care that much, either. As far as he was concerned, neither Benj nor Griff made much of an officer: Joram was worth both of them and then some.
And if Joram said they had to fall back, they did. Rollant looked over his shoulder. No, he didn’t see any southrons coming up into this nasty little fight to give him a hand. If Geoffrey’s men had reinforcements, they were going to win it.
“I thought the traitors were running away.” That was Smitty, right at Rollant’s elbow. Rollant almost slashed at him; he hadn’t realized anybody was there. Smitty went on, “One more thing our generals got wrong. The list gets longer every day.”
“Sure enough,” Rollant said, and then, “You’re bleeding.”
Smitty looked astonished. “I am? Where?” Rollant pointed to his arm. His tunic sleeve was torn and bloody. Smitty stared down at it. “Wonder how that happened.”
“However it happened, you ought to get it seen to,” Rollant said.
“Yes, granny dear. When I have time, granny dear,” Smitty said, which made Rollant want to give him a wound more severe than the one he already had. He went on, “Besides, the thing I really need to do is get myself seen to. And so do you. If the traitors catch up with us, a scratch on the arm is the least I’ve got to worry about.”
He was inarguably right. He was, in fact, more right for Rollant than he was for himself. If the northerners caught him, he would just be a prisoner. If they caught Rollant, they were liable to send him back to Ormerod’s estate to work in chains the rest of his days. Or they might just knock him over the head, figuring a serf who’d not only run away but raised his hand against them was more trouble than he was worth.
In wondering tones, Rollant said, “That was my liege lord I was fighting back there. I did my best to kill him, but I couldn’t.” He grimaced. “I think he came a good bit closer to killing me than the other way round.”
“Your liege lord?” Smitty echoed. Rollant nodded. “The fellow who ran your estate, who told you what to do?” Smitty went on.
“That’s what a liege lord is. That’s what he does,” Rollant said impatiently.
“Don’t get all salty with me,” Smitty said. “I come from a province full of small freeholders, remember. We haven’t had liege lords in New Eborac for a demon of a long time. Anybody tried to tell me or my neighbors what to do, he’d get himself a crossbow bolt in the belly for his trouble.” He raised an eyebrow. “How come that didn’t happen more up in the north?”
There had been serf uprisings, especially in the early days of the northern provinces. The Detinans had crushed them all, without mercy. Over the past few generations, the subjected blonds had been quieter. Down on Baron Ormerod’s estate, Rollant hadn’t thought much about that. It was just how things were. When he’d fled from Ormerod’s lands to those where there were no serfs, though, it seemed more reprehensible.
He tramped on for perhaps half a minute without answering. At last, he said, “I suppose a lot of the ones who would’ve risen up went south instead.”
To his relief, Smitty nodded and said, “That makes sense, I guess.”
Sergeant Joram came over and slapped Rollant on the back. “I saw you tangling with the traitors’ captain. That was bravely done, by the gods-shortsword against an officer’s blade. Not many would have tried it.”
“Thanks, Sergeant.” Rollant knew he had to prove himself every time he went into a fight. A lot of Detinans-southrons included-had trouble believing blonds could be worth anything on the battlefield. If he’d run away, he wouldn’t just have disgraced himself. He would have let down every man of his blood.
Smitty said, “That wasn’t just the enemy captain, Sergeant. That traitor son of a bitch used to be Rollant’s very own liege lord before he ran off. His duke, or whatever in the seven hells he was.”
Rollant laughed. “Ormerod was no duke, just a baron scrabbling to get by.”
That made Smitty laugh, too. “If you had to be somebody’s serf, didn’t you ever wish you were tied to the land of someone really important?”
“I’ve known serfs who did put on airs because of who their liege lords were,” Rollant said. “I always thought it was pretty stupid, myself. It doesn’t change you any, and an important liege lord doesn’t have to treat you better than any ordinary baron.” He brought his mind back to more immediately important matters, asking Joram, “How’s the captain doing?”
“Don’t know if he’s going to make it,” the sergeant answered with a scowl. He put his hand to the right side of his chest to show where the bolt had struck. “It’s a nasty wound.”
“So Benj is in charge of us?” Rollant said.
Joram shook his head. “No, Griff. Benj took a quarrel that went like so” -he ran a finger along the right side of his head, just above the ear- “and he had to go to the rear; he was bleeding like a stuck hog. He’ll be back, though, unless the wound mortifies. If the bolt had been a couple of inches over, they’d have thrown his body on the pyre and his spirit would be standing on the Scales of Justice right this minute.”
Among the gods Rollant’s people had worshiped was the Merciful One, who’d done everything he (or, some people said, she) could to give souls a happy afterlife. The Detinans talked much more about justice than about mercy. That, as far as Rollant was concerned, was one of the more frightening things about them.
He looked back over his shoulder. “I don’t think the traitors are chasing us very hard any more,” he said.
Smitty cupped a hand behind his ear. “Doesn’t sound like it,” he agreed. “But I’ll tell you one thing: they haven’t all run away to Marthasville, the way our fancy-pantaloons generals were saying.”
“Anybody with an ounce of brains could have figured that out after Ned’s riders smashed up the front end of Doubting George’s column,” Rollant said.
“Anybody with an ounce of brains?” Smitty said. “Well, if that doesn’t leave out most of our generals, to the seven hells with me if I know what would.”
“You’d better watch your big mouth, Smitty,” Sergeant Joram said.
But Smitty shook his head. “I’ll think what I want, and I’ll say what I want, by the gods. I’m just as much a free Detinan as General Guildenstern is, and just as entitled to speak my mind.”
He sounded angry. In fact, he sounded furious. And, while Joram shook his head, too, he said not another word. Not for the first time, Rollant marveled at the way the Detinans defended what they saw as their liberties. He also marveled at the way so many of them didn’t think the serfs in the northern provinces deserved those same liberties.
After tramping on for a few more paces, he remarked, “You know, when I saw I was fighting my old baron back there, I wanted to kill him for trying to bind me to the land my whole life long.”
“Don’t blame you a bit,” Sergeant Joram said, and Smitty nodded. Perhaps because he
’d fought alongside them, they understood he craved liberty as much as they did.
He went on, “But the funny thing is, he wanted to kill me just as much, because I’d had the nerve to run away from his estate.”
“Not so funny if you’re on the wrong end of the bastard’s sword,” Joram said.
“I found that out,” Rollant answered. “If we ever get some time back in camp, Sergeant, will you teach me swordstrokes? I know we’re supposed to be a crossbow company, but this is the second time in a couple of weeks that we’ve come to close quarters with the traitors.”
“I’ll show you what I can,” Joram said, “but you’d better not think a few lessons will let you stand up against somebody who’s been putting in an hour’s practice every day since he got as tall as his sword.”
“That sounds fair enough,” Rollant said. “Still, the more I know, the better the chance I’ve got of going home to my wife after this miserable war’s finally over.”
Up ahead, Lieutenant Griff called, “Third company, rally to me!” His voice was high and thin. He couldn’t have been more than nineteen. Rollant was convinced he’d bought his commission-he didn’t see how Griff could have got it any other way. “To me!” the new company commander called again.
To him Rollant and Smitty and Sergeant Joram went. “Reporting as ordered, sir,” Joram said. “I don’t think the traitors are pursuing us any more.”
“I believe you’re right, Sergeant,” Griff answered. “But what are they doing here? What are they doing here in such numbers? By the gods, they’re supposed to be running, not sneaking back to bushwhack us. That’s not what our officers said they’d do.” He sounded furious. He sounded doubly furious, in fact: furious at the northerners for handling the company roughly, and as furious at them for turning up in an unexpected place.
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