by RW Krpoun
Gallows and pikes were frequent sights as well, bearing the decaying corpses of bandits, robbers, and road-murderers, although as spring was warming the land most were being buried within a day or two of execution.
The weather on the trip had been on the poor side, damp and rainy, although the frosts had died out in the first week. The Duke had set a brisk pace, although traffic on the road and occasional break-downs from amongst his over-loaded household wagons held them up somewhat. By noon on the eighteenth of Natterteil the Duke and his entourage reached Apartia, the capitol of the Kingdom of Ilthan, and the eastern end of the Royal Highway; as King Henry II had already left the city to join his forces near the Wall, the Duke merely stayed for the balance of the eighteenth at the city, long enough to pay his respects to the Queen.
The Badgers were in good shape after the weeks of hard marching to reach Sagenhoft, and the Duke’s pace, while fast for heavily loaded wagons, was still not much more than half the speed they normally maintained, so the stop at Apartia was very welcome opportunity for entertainment.
Rolf, Kroh, and Starr had ventured into the city to see the sights for an hour or two, but quickly tired of sight-seeing; buying a large jug of ale, some pastries, cookies, and sack lunches, they set off for the docks nearest their camp to see if they could catch some of the pikes for which the vast Lake Apartia was renowned.
They were sitting on the docks casting lines out into the lake with rods and tackle they had rented from a nearby stall, eating their lunch and bickering good-naturedly amongst themselves when Starr turned from the water to get another small bait-fish from the clay bucket and saw a slender girl in a very fine dress standing halfway down the dock towards the land pretending to study the panorama of the Lake. The two half-armored Lifeguards lurking at the landward side of the dock instantly identified the girl as the Duke’s daughter, but Starr chose to ignore the obvious. “Hello! Come to try your hand at fishing?”
The girl, who appeared to be sixteen or so and currently in the awkward stage between girlishness and womanhood, smiled shyly and shook her head. “No, I’m just admiring the lake.”
“Lots of it to admire,” Starr grinned, groping inside the bucket. “Drat, there goes my sleeve.” She ruefully wrung water out of the cloth and tried to roll it back up her arm. “By the by, I’m Corporal Starr Brightgift of the Phantom Badgers; the tall one is Corporal Rolf Lightseeker, and the hairy lump with the burning weeds stuck into his face is Corporal Kroh Blackhand.”
“I am the Lady Eithne Sorgen,” the girl, who had walked down the docks to join the three, sketched a quick curtsy. She was slender of build and no taller than average, with rather plain features and long walnut hair that, if released from the complex swirl of braids that crisscrossed her head and looped down to her shoulders, would have reached to just below her buttocks.
“Ah, yes, the Duke’s daughter and youngest child,” Starr nodded. “Got you, you little weasel; no, I don’t.”
“What is in your bucket?”
“Little fish we use to bait the hooks with, if we can grab the slippery little bu...ba...things.” Starr flushed.
“Why don’t you use a mug or ladle to catch them?”
The little Lanthrell stopped and thought about that for a second. “Brilliant.” Grabbing up an unused mug, she scooped out several of the fish. “Perfect. Would you like to try a cast?”
“No, thank you.” Eithne watched with interest as Starr threaded the barbed hook through the fish’s mouth and out the gill, flinching when the fish began to flop about in the air. “You are part of the mercenaries Bernian hired to act as his bodyguards.”
“That’s us,” Starr cast and began to draw the line back, wrapping it around the spool with long, easy sweeps of her arm. “And so far he’s been a good paymaster. How are you enjoying the trip?”
“It’s interesting, but I miss my cat. Do you have any pets?”
“I suppose you could count Kroh.” The Dwarf grunted. “Rolf has a pair of trained cave rats, Squeak and his son, Tumbler, but they’re more fighting beasts than pets.”
“How could a rat be a fighting beast?”
“A cave rat male in its prime weighs up to twelve pounds, and it very quick; they can jump off Rolf’s shoulder and land on a foeman’s face, clawing and biting to distract him. Would you like a cookie or some fudge?”
“No, thank you.” Eithne glanced back at her guards. “I’m supposed to be at a tea party, but I made an excuse and went for a walk instead. Have you caught anything?”
“No, but we’re not very good at fishing. Now if you want turtle races we’re your crew, but this fishing business hasn’t panned out so far. It’s sort of fun, though.”
“Do you always wear trousers?”
“Pretty much, unless there’s a party to go to, but I didn’t bring any dresses on this campaign, as we’re travelling light. We Lanthrell don’t look at clothes as you Humans do; we dress for Forest conditions, mostly, and dresses are not a proper garment to wear when you spend a lot of time up in a tree, not if you’re modest, anyway.”
Eithne colored a bit. “I see; I wear breeches when I ride, and I had hoped that I would be able to wear them a great deal on this trip, but mostly I sit in a carriage with my ladies-in-waiting.”
“What’re they waiting for?” Kroh asked abruptly.
“Excuse me?”
“What are they waiting for, those ladies?” The Dwarf repeated around his cigar.
“Oh, they don’t...it’s a title, it means they are in attendance to me, suitable companions of a similar age and station.”
The Dwarf thought about that for a moment. “So they’re sort of your friends.”
“In a manner of speaking; they are sent to my father’s court to be my companions, and we are all tutored together in the ladylike arts.”
“You’re what together?” The Waybrother raised his eyebrows, ignoring Starr’s dark look.
“Tutored, taught, by teachers who come to the court to train young women of good families. If my mother were still alive, some of her ladies-in-waiting would be the tutors.”
“So someone else picks your friends,” Kroh plowed on, oblivious to Starr’s facial signals.
“My father, yes, well, picks my companions,” Eithne explained patiently. “What are those marks on your hands?”
“Runic tattoos marking victories and things I’ve killed.” The Waybrother held up one inked paw to the girl for her examination. “I’m running out of room.”
“Why not tattoo them on your arms, where you have more room?”
Kroh hesitated, staring at his hand as if he had never seen it before. “Er, ahem, ahhhh, I don’t remember.”
“Oh.”
“I mean, I had a reason, back when I was a whelp equal to your age in development.” Exasperated at her signals being ignored, Starr began banging her fishing rod against her forehead in frustration. “But I don’t remember why. No one’s asked me for so long, if ever, I’ve forgotten. I suppose so they would show better.”
“I see. In a mercenary company, I suppose you can come and go as you please?”
“No,” Starr jumped in, grateful for the opportunity to steer the conversation away from Kroh, whose bluntness promised embarrassment. “We have free time, of course, but we also have guard rosters, training, and various work details as well.”
“I suppose that you have a lot of weapons in your Company, don’t you?”
“Yes, they’re the tools of our trade,” Starr nodded uncertainly.
“I want to buy a dagger, a good one, but the ladies in the court thing that such things are improper. If I could get money to you, could you sell me a dagger?”
Starr hesitated; technically, the Duke was their paymaster, which might suggest that getting his daughter a weapon might be a bad idea, but on the other hand, having a friend in the Duke’s court could be very useful. “All of the weapons we are carrying today are special to us from long use, but it wouldn’t be hard to get a dagg
er for you. What kind would you like?”
“A small one, the hilt I mean, I’ve small hands,” Eithne held up one hand to illustrate her point. “It doesn't have to be pretty, just a good blade that I can hide. I can send my maid to your camp with the money; how long would it take you to find one?”
“Not long.” There would be plenty of spare daggers floating about the Company, and if none were suitable one could be purchased in the city. “Send your maid over tonight just after sunset, if that’s possible.”
“It is very possible; how much money should I send with her?”
Profit is an ingrained mercenary response. “Sixty ducats.”
“Very well,” Eithne executed the simple curtsy again. “It has been very nice meeting you all, and I hope we can speak again sometime.”
Star bought an undecorated poniard of good steel from Henri for thirty ducats and turned it over to the maid, accepting the fat purse the serving girl gave her in return. The little Badger was unsure if she had done a good deed or not, but shrugged the matter off; if having a dagger made the prospect of an imminent war a little easier for Eithne to bear, than it was a good thing to sell it to the girl, the Lanthrell figured. Besides, Eithne seemed to be an intelligent young woman; certainly she would have found another source for a blade in the days ahead.
The Duke led his group further east at dawn on the nineteenth of Natterteil; Durek was gratified to see that the noble and his staff had learned from their travel down the Royal Highway: while the number of wagons had not been reduced, their individual loads were significantly cut back as the Duke gave orders directing his people to travel lighter. The two carriages that Eithne and other ladies of the court had ridden in were sent back to Sagenhoft, along with a quantity of baggage and a few excess retainers.
The lightening of the baggage-train helped, but it was not enough to off-set the primitive quality of the roads leading east, nor their battered condition. It was nearly dark on the twenty-sixth when the Duke finally joined the Army of the Heartland thirty miles west of Malker’s Wall, a full day and a half later than the noble had planned.
The Heartland Army was a large and disparate force; as the Hand had formed into three armies to strike into the north, center, and south regions of the Realms, so had the forces of the Light divided to meet the threat. The Armies of the North and South deployed to secure those regions, while the Army of the Heartland, or Heartland Army, arrayed itself to defeat the threat to the central region. The Heartland Army consisted of the forces of the central states, namely the Duchy of Sagenhoft, the Kingdoms of Ilthan and Lashar, and the Barony of Kordia, supported by the Arturian Gold Army (similar Arturia forces served with both the North and South Armies as well), and the Eisenalder Empire’s Eastern Field Force. The Heartland Army could deploy forty-five thousand infantry supported by three thousand medium and heavy cavalry, and some field artillery.
Command within this force was hardly as impressive as the army itself. The Imperial force was the largest element in the Army, followed by the Gold Army; however, the battle was being fought in the Realms, and thus command could not simply be delegated upon such niceties as the size of national contingents. After weeks of haggling, a compromise command structure had been hammered out: the Lord Commander of the Kingdom of Ilthan (upon whose land the first battles would be fought) would be the Grand Marshall of the Army of the Heartland, with the Grand Marshall of the Lasharian Royal Army as his deputy. Next in line of rank would be the commander of the Imperial Eastern Field Force, followed by the commander of the Arturian Gold Army. It was a situation that had pleased very few people, but it was the best that could be worked out under the circumstances.
The new Grand Marshal, Sambre Pecheux, had ordered the Heartland Army forward to within thirty miles of the Wall, planning on contesting any attempt by the Hand to enter the Realms at the Wall itself. It was a basic, uninspired strategy, but one which was generally accepted, even if many, notably the Imperial officers, did not believe that it would work. Malker’s Wall was an escarpment that ran for roughly fifteen hundred miles in a generally north-south direction, curving to the west at its northern end to join with the Thunderpeaks Mountains. The Wall was an average of two hundred feet high, a rugged barrier that served as an excellent defensive line under most conditions. Ten Crossings had been cut into the Wall over the Centuries, roads that had been hacked out of the stone through massive expenditures of gold and effort, allowing easy travel between the Realms and the Blasted Plains. Grand Marshal Pecheux expected the Hand to try and seize Crossings Six or Seven, as they had during the Ostwind War, and had positioned his force within a day’s march of either of the heavily fortified entries. All the garrisons at the Crossings had to do was hold for twenty-four hours, Pecheux reasoned, and the Heartland Army would arrive to drive off the Hand force. Even if a Crossing fell, should it hold out for at least half a day the Heartland Army would still catch the Hand in a disadvantageous position.
The forces of the Light drilled, planned, and organized as the ground dried out and the commanders plotted. Out on the Blasted Plains, the Hand’s Bohca Tatbik marched and counter-marched, shifting its forces and supply trains here and there to keep the Heartland Force off-balance and guessing while its commanders developed their own plans.
Durek was snug in his blankets; inasmuch as they were set deep within a massive army, he had reduced his sentries to one section under arms at all times and had allowed camp fires for heat, although the fine spring weather had made the latter unnecessary. Besides the section on guard, one Badger had to spend the night sleeping outside the Chancellor’s tent, ready to act as a runner. Durek had assigned that duty to the scout section, as it was hardly an onerous chore.
An insistent tapping on his foot jerked him from the pleasant depths of unconsciousness he had been occupying. “What?”
“Captain,” Starr hissed; the Dwarf could make out her shadowed form kneeling by his side, and recalled that she had had runner duty this night. “It’s a couple hours before dawn; the Lord Chancellor wants to you attend to him at once, there is going to be a Grand Council of the Army’s commanders and he wants you to attend as his bodyguard.”
“A council of war?” Durek sat up and rubbed his face. “Why now?”
“The Hand has crossed Malker’s Wall.”
Chapter Seven
A specially-trained Seer armed with an engraved staff was stationed at the entrance to the large command tent, along with a couple heavily armed guards. The commanders and nobility who had been invited to the meeting were allowed into the tent without ceremony, but any staff officers and bodyguards who passed through the flaps had to have the staff run over them before they were allowed within, presumably to ensure that no Hand spies would learn of what was to be said.
Inside the tent were gathered the force commanders, their rulers, and a handful of staff officers, advisors, and bodyguards. Chairing the meeting was the Grand Marshal of the Army of the Heartland, Lord Commander Sambre Pecheux, with his monarch, Henry II near to hand; also present were the deputy commander, Grand Marshall Xerin Laffery (who besides commander of the Lasharian Army was also currently the heir to his brother’s throne), Lord General Ruhland von der Strieb of the Imperial Eastern Field Force, Duke Joseph Radet of the Arturian Gold Army, Baron Nicholas Noury who was both ruler of the Barony of Kordia and commander of its army, and Lord Marshal Rhys Sorgen, commander of the Sagenhoftian force (and the Duke’s brother). Besides the King of Ilthan, King Xavier IV of Lashar was present, along with Duke Heth Sorgen, ruler of Sagenhoft.
The commander of the Heartland Army, a tall, spare man in his late fifties, opened the council with a quick word of thanks to all who came on such notice, then moved bluntly into the meat of the matter. “Bohca Tatbik is, as of this moment, engaged in crossing the Wall into the Realms some sixty miles northeast of our position; as of twenty-four hours ago at least one-third of the Hand army was in the Realms, and by now very nearly all of the fighting force shall be on
our soil, with the logistic elements following within a day.”
That brought a buzz of muted comments. “How did they manage to surmount the Wall, sir?” Grand Marshall Laffery asked.
“They created a Crossing using a Dwarf who had been trained as a Sobrann, a stone-master or stone-melder, depending upon the translation. A Sobrann uses a very specialized Art which allows the bulk manipulation of stone. It is unknown whether the Dwarf is a renegade or a Fortren, a Black Dwarf, but the point is moot; using Gates, the Dwarf has been moved north and by now should have created a Crossing for the Hand’s northern force. I expect that the southern army will receive his services next. Given the distance from our own position, there is no point in marching for a direct assault on this new Crossing. Instead, we shall move the army thirty-odd miles northwest to a point just north of the village of Mancin, where we shall engage the Hand forces in battle and drive them back across the Wall.”
The Lord Chancellor tapped Durek’s elbow and motioned for the Captain to follow him out of the tent. Outside and a safe distance away, he shook his head. “Bad news, but I suppose it was foolish to think that the Hand would not have given the crossing of the Wall careful thought over the years. Anyway, that is a concern for the military men, while my problems are much smaller.” The Lord Chancellor stepped over to a handy lantern and unfolded a map he took from a case hanging from his belt. “We have a workshop temporarily set up at Mancin to support our troops, a wagon and cart repair yard that fixes and overhauls our rolling stock. There are thirty-four men assigned to it, half of whom are experts in their fields, not to mention a large quantity of expensive tools and materials; we set up a complete travelling work shop...anyway, we can’t afford to allow those men to be placed in danger, for without their services our wagons would quickly be decimated by breakdowns and wear. In any case, I want you to send a detachment to Mancin at once, travelling with all speed; they are to deliver orders directing the shop leader to withdraw to Apartia until the situation stabilizes. Have the leader of this detachment report to me as soon as they are able to travel.”