by David Drake
Chapter Ten
Warm sunlight falling through the mansion's open doorway had brought Cashel back to consciousness. Back to life, pretty close. He'd felt strength returning slowly to his limbs as if he was a bean sprout unfolding in the bright sun.
The woods had a balm of their own, though, because they were bubblingly full of life. Landure's mansion and the sloping meadow on which it stood were coldly pure. That was well enough in itself, but it wasn't an atmosphere that Cashel would've wanted to stay in for very long.
He smiled, maybe a little sadly. You got that feeling around Ilna sometimes, when she was having a bad day. Which was more days than not, when you came right down to it.
Cashel sauntered along at the pace he'd have used if he'd been following sheep. He ached all over, and he felt weak as a kitten besides. On a better day he'd have moved a mite faster, though he'd rarely seen as much need for haste as pushier folk did.
Thinking about it, Cashel spun his quarterstaff around in a half circle in front of him, then crossed his wrists and finished the rotation. The staff moved as easily as water down a mill's spillway.
He grinned. Not quite as weak as a kitten, then.
Plants called Spring Apples carpeted the ground, though high summer had shrivelled their leaves. Their swelling fruit was already a bright shade of orange.
Cashel didn't have to hurry this morning. Landure wasn't going anywhere.
When Cashel had to deal with wizardry, it always took a lot out of him. The business with Landure--killing Landure--was maybe why he felt like he'd been dragged behind a wagon for most of a day.
But Colva had done something to him too. She'd like to sucked the life out of him, and he wasn't sure a few hours sleep and bright sunlight had been enough to recruit the strength the woman drained with those tendrils of gray ugliness. Colva had stood there like leeches grew from her scalp, smiling the way a weasel does as it rips the throats out of chickens.
Colva was loose in the world because Cashel had let her loose. There was no point in pretending that it hadn't happened that way.
Air ruffled the treetops. Not much of the breeze reached down here to the forest floor, but when the broad leaves of the big white oak fluttered, sunlight touched Cashel and the viburnum sprouting beside the path. It felt good.
Cashel was sorry as anything that he'd knocked in the head of the fellow that Tenoctris sent him to for help, but looking back on it he didn't see much he could've changed. If Landure had bothered to explain instead of throwing out orders the way a man does to his dog, well, things might've worked out better.
Chances are Landure would claim there hadn't been time enough for him to go into the whys and wherefores. Well, maybe not; but Landure doing things his way had gotten him time aplenty. Given the way it worked out, even the wizard would say he should've been more polite to a stranger.
A crow in a hickory cawed an angry warning. Cashel looked up. The bird swooped away, putting the crown of the tree between itself and the man on the ground. It called again, a sound as harsh as a branch splitting in a storm.
Cashel came around the stand of birches and saw the great bronze doors set into the bluff before him. He stopped and reflexively crossed his quarterstaff before him.
Landure wasn't quite where he'd fallen after all. A group of little animals had dragged the body off the threshold and--by the Shepherd!--were digging a trench alongside it for a grave.
The raccoons had already vanished into the spicebushes fringing the base of the hill, though Cashel caught a glimpse of a ringed tail. Two of the possums were ambling in the same direction, though the third blinked several times at Cashel before swaying off toward cover.
The squirrel stood its ground, hissing and chattering with its head low and its slashing tail held high. Before the little rodent lay the white length of root it'd chopped out of the deepening grave.
"Go on!" Cashel said, flicking the tip of his staff in the squirrel's direction. "Shoo!"
The squirrel's hind legs bounced up and down. Cashel didn't remember the last time he'd seen anything so mad at him. Things had tried to kill him now and again, but that was generally because of what was in their head rather than for anything Cashel had really done.
He'd done this, all right. He'd killed Landure.
Keeping his eye on the squirrel, Cashel squatted down and felt for a pebble in the damp clay soil. Squirrels were agile little critters, no mistake, and their teeth were no joke. If Cashel tried to swat this one, chances were good it'd come swarming up the staff at him; and if the staff did connect with a solid blow, well, he wasn't in the mood just now to kill something that maybe had right on its side.
Though what Cashel had been supposed to do when Landure came at him with a sword, that he didn't see.
He cocked his arm back with the stone. "Get on off!" he said, a last warning and meaning it. He didn't often miss when he shied stones at targets as close as the squirrel was.
The squirrel either figured as much or just generally ran out of meanness. It spun sideways, then sprang for the branch of a dogwood high off the ground. The critter bobbed and cussed him for some moments more, then disappeared like the other animals and birds that ought to be going about their noisy business among the trees.
Cashel grimaced. What's done is done, he thought. They'd mounded up the dirt at either end and the near side of the would-be grave. He walked around it, then squatted to view Landure close up.
Nobody looks grand with his forehead dished in, but Landure had a strong jaw and pretty impressive shoulders for a fellow who wore robes as fancy as his. His bleached white tunic would show dirt like a cloud in a clear sky if you did any real work in it, and the apron was thick brocade and stiff with gold embroidery besides.
Cashel wasn't sure what he ought to do. Carry Landure back to his house and bury him on the hillside, he supposed. Or maybe just finish the grave the forest animals had started? He wondered if there was a shovel somewhere. He hadn't seen tools when he was at the house, but there might be an outbuilding on the other side.
There were more questions too, pushed toward the back of Cashel's mind by the need to do what he could for the dead man. He didn't see how he was going to get from here to where Sharina was, now that he'd killed the man Tenoctris had planned would help him. As a matter of fact, it was hard to see how Cashel was ever going to get out of this place, period.
Well, he had to go back to the house to look for a shovel so he might as well take the body with him. If he decided to finish the grave here, he'd just carry Landure back again.
Cashel set his quarterstaff down and started to reach under the body. The wizard had been dead long enough that the stiffness had passed, leaving his muscles as flaccid as wet wool. Cashel would take the staff in his hands again as soon as--
"Now what?" a shrill voice demanded. "You've already loosed a monster on the world and killed the guardian. Do you plan to eat the body to end the business with a flourish?"
Cashel jumped, spinning in the air so he came down facing the other way. His left hand snatched the quarterstaff and brought it up across his body.
He'd thought somebody had crept up behind him. Nobody was there.
"Cute," the voice said. "Do you balance a plate on your nose for the next act?"
Cashel spun again. He peered into the open portal to see if somebody was hidden there. The cave went a long way back into the bluff, but there was nobody standing in it for as far as the sunlight penetrated. Besides, echoes would thicken the voice of anybody speaking from inside the rock. What Cashel heard chirped like a cicada.
He turned to the forest again. "Who said that?" he called. His legs were spread and he dug his toes into the ground to give him a firm base if he needed to swing the staff.
"Well, let's consider the possibilities," the voice piped. It was coming from beneath him. "There's Landure, but I guess he'd have a hard time speaking with his upper jaw broken into about twenty pieces. Not to mention his brains leaking out."
Cashel knelt, reaching for Landure's right hand. The wad of mud Colva had smeared over the ring had fallen off when the body was moved.
"Or there's you talking to yourself," the voice continued. "Personally I wouldn't be a bit surprised if you did talk to yourself, but I doubt you make this much sense when you do. And last--"
Cashel turned the ring to look at the jewel in the setting. It was a huge thing, the size of a duck's egg, polished instead of being faceted to sparkle more. Deep in the stone's purple-black depths was a wavering star of light, five streaks like a stick figure's head and limbs.
"--there's me, Krias, the demon of the ring," said the voice. Cashel could feel the ring vibrate like the breast of a stunned bird against his palm. "Which do you suppose the right answer is? Being it's you, I'll give you three chances."
Cashel slid the ring off the dead man's finger and held it so that a shaft of light fell across the setting. It was a sapphire, he guessed, but so dark it wouldn't be worth much to the gamblers who came to Barca's Hamlet during the Sheep Fair. They wanted jewelry that flashed and tricked their victims' eyes away from what the gamblers' fingers were doing.
The dim star in the jewel's heart had changed. Now the stick figure stood arms-akimbo. "Well?" the ring demanded.
"Good morning, Master Krias," Cashel said politely. "I'm a stranger in these parts, and I'm hoping you can help me get my bearings."
Master Koprathu, the Chief Clerk of the Fleet Office, stood at the left end of the dignitaries who watched with Garric as the warships maneuvered in the river. "Your highness," he said, "this is a bad course, a dangerous course for the kingdom!"
On the other end of the line Lord Waldron snarled, "Sister take this nonsense of soldiers pulling oars, boy! You need real soldiers to keep the kingdom, not rowers with spears--and not a mob of artisans and city layabouts, either!"
"That's probably the first time those two agreed on anything in their lives," King Carus murmured with a smile even broader than his usual. "Not that they'd have had much call to stand in the same place before you took over."
"In truth, I thought they were shaping rather well," Garric said mildly. He tried to keep his own amusement out of his voice. "It seems to me that they keep stroke as well as anyone could ask, Koprathu; and stamina will of course come with practice."
The demonstration was taking place in the basin formed when the River Beltis' burden of silt formed a natural impoundment below Valles. From here water drained to the Inner Sea through three mouths. The first squadron of the Royal Fleet, ten triremes, was crewed with pikemen from the new phalanx.
The basin was deep enough for a fully laden warship. Its breadth was enough to allow a squadron to practice evolutions without danger--much danger--to commercial shipping. Finally, the enclosing shores were vastly safer than the open sea for new-minted sailors who'd never before been in a body of water larger than the puddles that formed in the streets below their tenements after a rain.
"Why, most of those fellows never set foot aboard a ship before you hired them on as oarsmen, your highness!" Koprathu said, as though he were reading Garric's mind. Of course Koprathu put a different emphasis on the undoubted fact.
At the time of Admiral Nitker's rebellion, Koprathu had been quartermaster and in real charge of the naval arsenal in Valles, though a nobleman had the title of Lord of the Arsenal. Most of the Fleet's bureaucracy had perished when the queen's forces overran the naval base on the small island of Eshkol off the mouth of the Beltis. Garric had promoted Koprathu to the responsibility of outfitting the fleet. For the most part, the warships themselves had survived the rebellion, but Garric was having to rebuild the personnel from the waterline up.
"I'm more concerned about what they do now, Master Koprathu," Garric said. "And it appears to me that they're doing quite well for two months' training."
Lord Zettin, a former Blood Eagle promoted to Admiral of the Fleet over Waldron's protests, must have spotted Garric watching this afternoon. The squadron paused in facing divisions of five ships each. The flagship blew a three-note call, two long trumpet blasts followed by a clash of cymbals.
"May the Lady save me!" Koprathu gasped. "That titled idiot is going to sink himself and all the ships' furniture that I had in store!"
"Master Koprathu, watch your tongue!" Garric said loudly. He wasn't terribly concerned about the clerk's language. He knew that if he didn't react instantly, however, Lord Waldron would very likely reprove the commoner with the back of his hand--if he didn't use his sword. Waldron didn't have any use for Lord Zettin, but he was very punctilious about the deference owed a nobleman.
Garric was reforming the kingdom's military on the model of King Carus' phalanx of oarsmen: former urban and rural laborers who could row the fleet to the shores of a rebelling island, then disembark carrying light shields and twenty-foot pikes. A phalanx of pikemen could stop heavy cavalry like a stone wall and drive through opposing infantry the way a cobbler's awl pricks holes in shoe leather.
Unless the phalanx was very well trained, it was dangerously unwieldy: slow to turn and unable to react to a flank attack except by collapsing into rout. That wasn't a reason not to use the formation, but it made close training absolutely necessary.
The same was true of what Admiral Zettin was attempting right now. Garric frowned. Zettin wasn't an idiot, but Garric was willing to agree that he was acting like one. The admiral had ordered his ships to execute a sweep-through.
The sections began to stroke toward one another. The ships were operating in pairs, each against the vessel facing it in line.
If warships struck another straight on, ram to ram, they were likely both to sink. In a sweep-through, the helmsman guided his vessel to graze its opponent instead. At the last instant the rowers on the side to the enemy drew in their oars so that their vessel's bow swept through the other's extended oars. The oarshafts broke and the looms flailed within the enemy's hull: wrenching limbs, crushing chests, and completely disabling the stricken vessel.
That was if your own crew got its oars in in time. If not, you'd disabled your own ship as well.
The ten triremes were up to ramming speed, a fast walk. Top speed was used only for maneuvering since too fast an impact would smash the attacker's hull as well as that of the victim. Doubled by the fact the lines were approaching, even the ships' moderate speed closed the gap with shocking abruptness.
Cymbals clashed again. For a moment Garric heard only the hiss of water past the lithe hulls. Then--
Wood crackled, then the screams started. Two of the vessels drifted sideways in a tangle; the screaming continued.
Lord Waldron was cursing; Master Koprathu moaned the damage to his stores, half a dozen oars at least on one of the triremes. The other councillors gasped or gaped depending on whether they were more horrified or entertained by the spectacle.
Garric was glad Liane was in the palace, arbitrating in the handover of accounts between Lord Tadai's aides and those of Pterlion, the new treasurer. She knew better than most of the men what the carnage would be like within the vessel whose crew had been too slow.
Carus watched through Garric's eyes, grimly approving. "Not bad, considering," he murmured silently. "They're coming along."
"There's men dead there," Garric said, barely aloud.
The king in Garric's mind shrugged and said, "Lose a few in training, or lose an army the first time they do it for real. You've got a good commander in young Zettin."
"I doubt you'll ever make scum like that into sailors," Waldron growled. "And I know on my oath as a bor-Warriman that they'll never be soldiers!"
"I disagree, milord," Attaper said, politely but without deference. His family was as good as Waldron's, though the older man could buy Attaper a hundred times over. They were careful to keep emotion out of their exchanges, but neither was willing to pass a point where it looked like the other was grasping for power or status. "I can't say what they'd be like fighting as individual duellists, but that isn't wh
at they're trained to do. Shoulder to shoulder in a block sixteen ranks deep, they'll stand as firm as the Customs Tower."
"If the Kingdom of the Isles is to be more than Ornifal," Garric said, "the rulers of other islands have to believe we're able to force them to our will if needs must."
"We beat the Earl of Sandrakkan at the Stone Wall and put King Valence on the throne!" Waldron snapped. "Using proper soldiers, landholders and not lower class dirt who can't even afford to buy their own pikes and shields!"
"Aye!" said Garric. Carus spoke through him, and it took all of Garric's control to prevent his hand from straying to the hilt of his sword. "And the king's soldiers lay becalmed for three days on the sailing ships that carried them, baking in the heat and puking their guts up as they rocked on the swells. How near was it that Valence left his head on a Sandrakkan spear, Waldron, and the Earl of Sandrakkan became King of the Isles as a result? How near?"
"Fagh!" Waldron shouted. His right hand clenched. Blood Eagles standing discretely in the background suddenly shifted their attention from spectators eyeing the group of dignitaries to the dignitaries themselves. Lord Attaper reached up with his left hand and loosed the clasp of cloak; he was preparing to wrap the garment around his left arm for a shield.
Waldron turned his back, then kicked angrily at the servant standing nearby with a tray of gauze-covered marzipan for the councillors to nibble as they watched. The fellow yelped and leaped back, but he didn't drop the tray.
"Lord Waldron," Garric said. He was shuddering; furious at his ancestor's temper and furious at himself for not checking it sooner. "I apologize for my tone. I will not be swayed from my plan of using a phalanx of oarsmen as the core of the kingdom's battle line, but I meant no disrespect to you. Your troops held at the Stone Wall."
"Sorry, lad," whispered Carus. "I won't let you down again."
Waldron nodded, but he didn't trust himself yet to turn. "You weren't born when we fought at the Stone Wall, boy," he said in a voice like stones sliding. "Prince Garric. I commanded our left wing, and I say to you--"