Keltos scanned the room. The frontiersmen he didn’t know much about, so he focused on the Kerathi soldiers. Different units could be recognized by their armor, or lack of it, as well as certain unit-specific identifiers. The Black Manes, for example, all wore crests of jet-black horsehair on their helmets. They were a crack cavalry regiment, well-known across the sea, and had covered themselves with glory in several engagements with the barbarians in Ostora during the past few years. Every man of them was a noble scion of a great house. They looked down on all other horse troopers, and the infantry might as well not have existed at all. But Keltos couldn’t fault them for their arrogance, such was the legitimacy of their renown.
Their famous captain, Menier Oltan, sat at the head of his men, sipping from a goblet he had probably brought himself. Next to him sat young Oel Treliam, of the Sun Swords. Fresh from Kerath, Treliam had been attached to the Black Manes while his men finished their training. He was related to Menier by blood, a cousin of slightly lower status in Kerath, and so far he had fawned over his high-born relation and shadowed him closely.
Infantry units often carried striped armbands to tell each other apart in the dust of battle, and many of these aided Keltos in recognizing the spearmen now. The Copper Men, led by Captain Serram, were in attendance, though he’d heard their ranks had been halved in the past few days.
There were a few Storm Furies too which hadn’t been signed yet, still in their kit. When these caught sight of Damicos and Leon, they hastened to join their former leaders and strike up a conversation about terms of pay and position in the new company.
Pelekarr, sitting next to Damicos, had been busy scanning the room as well, and when the added infantrymen had taken their seats behind Damicos, Keltos noticed his captain gesturing at a man across the warehouse with the bulk of the cavalrymen. “There he is, the dog. See him, Damicos?”
“Felca? I see him. An ill-favored lout, isn’t he?” Damicos replied. “That carven cheek you gave him doesn’t improve his looks.”
Pelekarr snorted with laughter. Chiss Felca, watching as he was watched from across the gathered body of men, smiled slowly. He raised a finger to his cheek, slowly tracing the course of a stitched cut. He licked his finger when he was done, and pointed at Pelekarr.
Pelekarr lifted his cup in a mocking toast, drank, and then casually spat the ale out on the ground.
At that moment, Lofeg rose to address the assembled men. The lanterns threw his angled face into a pattern of shadows.
“Soldiers of Kerath,” Lofeg began, looking around as a hush fell over the room, “we’ll begin our business with hearty thanks to our hosts, the good merchants of Belsoria. Pledge with me to their health, and pledge that we will all honor their hospitality tonight by holding our tempers in check.”
He raised a full drinking horn high, then put it to his lips and drank deep, followed by the entire room, those that had cups. The merchant chiefs bowed to the crowd from their table, smiling.
Lofeg set down his horn. “Hear me, all,” he began. “Our Lord Governor’s burdens are many, but his most pressing responsibility is the protection of the colony. This charge is direct from the king himself and in practical terms it must supersede all the others.
“Thus Lord Spatha feels able to extend to you the charters that have brought you together this evening, and with the king’s good grace to also pardon any difficulty arising from the necessary abandonment of Kerathi military rank. For we find ourselves temporarily cut off from the king’s favor, and,” Lofeg frowned deeply, “from his exchequer’s purse.”
There were laughs at this, and Lofeg acknowledged it with a rueful smile. Keltos, watching, felt an odd sense that the governor’s deputy was playing a part. Lofeg’s eyes did not smile with his lips, and he studied the crowd almost clinically, gauging the effect of his words. A born politician.
“It rests with you, men and women of the spear, to rise up and fill the gap our departed generals have left. I will be frank: his lordship the governor has not the troops now to man all the garrisons needed. Some of the frontier forts already sit empty. The raff will soon grow bold without the legions to check them.
“We stand in peril, grave peril. Without chariots, with only a few companies of horse left,” Lofeg nodded to the Black Manes sitting in front of him, and to Pelekarr off to his right, “the governor cannot hope to fulfill every obligation he bears for the safety of the people of Ostora. We stand at a crossroads, and only the gods know what the next few years will hold.”
Menier Oltan spoke up, bluntly. “Are we being overrun, milord? I ask you to speak plainly. If the raff are advancing, then we must know now. And if they aren’t, then how long have we to prepare?”
“As to that, I cannot yet say,” Lofeg replied. “At present I have not received reports of significant incursions. But such would take a week or more to arrive in Belsoria, so it is difficult to tell when and where the barbarians will move. Move they will, though, and sooner than the governor would like, that much is guaranteed.”
“That’s the gods’ truth,” another captain said, speaking up for the first time. It was Clift Serram of the Copper Men. “I’ve seen already too much blood spilt in this land, but I fear me it will be as nothing compared with what we’ll lose every year now that we’re a third of the force we once were. The beasts will take their toll, and the raff even more so. For every barbarian we cut down, it seems two more take his place. Soon they’ll realize how thin we’re spread, and then we’ll all be hard beset. Mark you!”
Lofeg nodded in agreement. “Those of you who have seen action in this country know that for the most part the barbarians are simple raiders. They move quickly and strike hard, but seldom stand up to real troops. The legions, by their very presence, have thus far discouraged more comprehensive activity. But all that can change in a moment. We have heard disquieting rumors from the interior in past weeks. There is strife among the clans, but we cannot tell if this be good or bad news. If it keeps them squabbling among themselves for another season, well and good. If not, if they unite under one chieftain, then we’ll all be fighting for our lives.”
“What of the barons?” Menier Oltan asked.
“Each baron holds his own royal charter outside of the governor’s authority,” Lofeg replied. “They are a law unto themselves inside their lands. Tread carefully if you choose to work for them; Lord Spatha cannot interfere on behalf of mercenaries if a baron takes issue with your presence.
“Also, there is the unfortunate possibility that, as free companies operating in competition with each other, you could end up on opposite sides of a squabble between the bickering barons. And be faced with the distasteful prospect of killing each other for money.”
The assembled soldiery looked around at one another in the silence that followed these words. Some apparently hadn’t considered this and appeared uncomfortable, but many nodded grimly. There was a long history in Kerath of bloody internal fights between free companies; it was the way of violent men left to their own devices without sufficient discipline. What bothered Keltos was that despite Lofeg’s words, he had a growing suspicion that the man would privately rejoice if a few of the companies killed each other off.
“In any case,” Lofeg continued, “it is not the barons but the common people of Ostora who need protecting. The freemen farmers, merchants like our good hosts, and, of course, the royal mines. It is these the Kerathi legions protected, and now you free companies must fill that role. Not an easy task.”
Menier tossed his mane. “Then we should not spread ourselves at all,” he retorted. “By solidifying our numbers in the half-dozen towns along this coast that matter, we’ll keep the majority of the ground we’ve gained and beat back any insurgencies without further loss. It’s a holding game now. That should be clear to anyone.”
From the Copper Men rose a new voice, hard and edged like a sword. “The ground we’ve gained?” the speaker sneered. “You know little of what we’ve seen the last ten years i
f you think we’ve gained anything ourselves. Now the settlers’ outposts, that’s a different matter. Most of them were won—or lost, often as not—on their own, with no help from the king’s soldiers.”
This was an unexpected turn for the meeting, Keltos thought. Everyone in the room stared at the Copper Men, some in disdain and some in agreement, but all in expectation of a quick set-down. It wasn’t an enlisted man’s place to interrupt a commander, a punishable offense in the legion.
And yet none came. Clift Serram looked embarrassed, but neither did he censure the man who spoke. A week ago, the speaker would have just earned himself a flogging, but now it seemed none of the captains wished to test the newly assembled men by punishing an outspoken trooper merely for being outspoken. The captains were still feeling their way forward, and realized all too well that an overzealous display of harsh discipline in this public setting could turn a critical balance of opinion sour among the ranks—ranks which now bore no particular duty to any man.
Menier was so taken aback that he hadn’t yet responded, and before he could, Pelekarr spoke up. “That man is correct in his assessment of ground gained, unfortunately. The legions, for all their deterrent effect, have not been as successful as His Majesty would have liked. We must all admit that.
“But Captain Oltan makes a point as well: we cannot hope to hold all the lines and pursue all the objectives we had when we had the full strength of cavalry and chariot.”
“No, we can’t, but that doesn’t mean the other settlements don’t matter,” a sergeant growled from the west wing of the dining hall. Now that the unseen speaker from the Copper Men had opened up the discussion and Pelekarr had tacitly approved the interjection, it seemed that more of the men felt comfortable adding their voices to the mix. “The larger villages shouldn’t be the only ones to get a guard.”
Menier regained his poise. “One of the first rules of tactical warfare, which you enlisted men don’t seem to grasp, is to hold your core territory before all else. If we scatter ourselves up and down the coast trying to put out every brush-fire, if we chase after every frontier brat that’s been dragged off into the forest, we will never be able to keep the integrity of our lines. We’d be overrun by this time next year!”
Damicos held up a hand. “All right, so the odds are stacked against us. We knew that before we came here tonight. But we’ve got to do something. And after the rest of us have been mustered out of Belsoria, our recruiting pool will be entirely Ostoran. We cannot afford to alienate the people or do anything to merit their anger. We have to cooperate with them, earn their trust.”
Menier gave a tight, patronizing smile. “Indeed, Captain? Perhaps you could inform us how allying with the local farmers will help us win battles.”
Some of the Black Manes grumbled agreement with Menier. “We’re soldiers, not nurse-maids for the common-folk in the villages,” one sergeant blurted. “If that’s your best idea, perhaps you should retire early and take up farming yourself.”
“All in good time, I lack ten years yet to earn my farm!” the anonymous voice from among the Copper Men called back, and there was some laughter.
Twenty years in the legions got you a farm and twenty gold talentas, Keltos knew, one for each year of service. A few generations ago, these farms were all in Kerath, usually in the outer provinces. But the discovery and colonization of Ostora had opened up vast amounts of cheap land, perfect for attracting retiring soldiers.
Where a man chose his land had become something of a class distinction: the poorer soldiers of common background opted for a larger share of Ostoran land, while the more genteel element often returned to Kerath and the ancient lands of their birth. Many did not live long enough to claim it, of course, and others found that farming was weak tea after army life. But all of them held the promise close. It was something to pretend to work toward, the bucolic ideal that kept them marching in the rain.
Pelekarr came to Damicos’ rescue. “Spare the farmers!” Pelekarr retorted. “‘Mock not the hand that makes the bread,’ as our poets have said. Sitting under a peach tree drinking my own brandy as a fat old man is a pleasant picture, indeed. It ill becomes us, gentlemen, to reject Ostora so handily. These settlers have survived much that should have wiped them away. With the aid of our free companies, they stand a far better chance of surviving whatever the raff throw at us.”
“Well spoken,” Lofeg said. “The terms of the charters you’ve been given are clear. For you captains who have not yet signed a charter, I urge you to consider it; come to the castle on the morrow and receive your own. Take charge of your destinies! Lord Spatha gives you free rein to take what work you will.
“But remember too, gentlemen, that your good faith and justifiable behavior is requisite for Lord Spatha’s intercession on your behalf with His Majesty. Serve well this land, and our ruler will repay in kind. Once yearly, in this month of the Oak, you will present yourselves here in Belsoria for audit and re-charter. May the gods protect you and grant you success!”
He raised his drinking horn again, and all the captains followed suit. Lofeg made a show of draining his horn, then dabbed the foam from his lips with a napkin—to Keltos’ eyes, a bizarre mixture of the rough and the refined. Then he bowed to the merchants and left the warehouse, followed by his guard detail.
A dozen heated conversations sprang up in his wake, and some soldiers approached the merchants’ table to talk business.
Before the room dissolved entirely into chaos, Captain Damicos rose and raised an arm high. The hubbub quieted somewhat as men paused to see what the junior infantry captain wanted. It was the first time most of them had heard him speak.
“Gentlemen, soldiers. Look around. Most of us are well below the full troop strength we’re accustomed to, and there are whole units that aren’t here,” the captain called out. “The Hammer Hooves and the Red Lancers are up north somewhere. Kallida is with them, the only chariot corps left in Ostora.
“I’m Captain Damicos of the Storm Furies, and we’ve banded together with Captain Pelekarr’s Cold Spears to form a single stronger unit. Even combined, however, we are well under the governor’s limit of two hundred men per company, as I suspect many of you are. If there are any captains who wish to consider joining in with our combined company, we are open to negotiations.”
Keltos noticed the traitor, Chiss Felca, leering and whispering to his friends under his breath. But Serram of the Copper Men spoke up in reply for all to hear.
“I won’t be joining anyone else’s game, Captain, and if you try to steal my men away with pretty promises you’ll meet my spear tip. But the governor’s deputy has said nothing against the formation of alliances between companies. I say we could all profit by cooperating to tackle the larger jobs that come along, with ongoing pledges of friendship. I’ll admit, I’m accustomed to working with a cavalry company on my left and my right, and I don’t like to go without them now.”
Menier Oltan scoffed loudly. “It’s always the infantry that screams loudest for sticking together. The hoplites could never hack it alone.”
Serram’s face turned red, but he did his best to ignore the jibe. “It would be a temporary alliance, nothing more, Oltan. Just until we get some coin, replenish our ranks. Take it or leave it as you will.”
“Why don’t you admit that your hiring power will increase three-fold if you can convince some cavalry to join with you?” Oltan demanded.
“Without a solid core of foot, your prancing horses are but froth on milk, Oltan!” Serram spat. “It’s the infantry that anchor the battles, and enable siege-craft, garrison cities, and break chariot-charges. It’s fool’s talk to boast of one without the other. You need us as much as we need you.”
“I need you not at all,” the cavalry captain replied with a haughty smirk. “I’ve already received an offer of glory and wealth with a baron on the north coast, one who knows the value of cavalry in battle on the open shore.”
Serram swore and gripped the sheath of
his short sword. Three of the Black Manes rose to their feet, ready for anything, and the merchants drew back against the wall with nervous looks.
Damicos spoke up quickly. “Captain Oltan, remember the deputy governor’s words of warning. Surely you can see the benefit of an oath of friendship and commitment to the common good. If we all turn against each other whenever it suits our wallets, we’ll limit ourselves to small jobs only and there will never be a longer campaign with lasting outcomes. The alliance enables all of us to attempt greater things.”
“Your talk of the common good is as stale as flat ale, spearman. Let me guess—you and Pelekarr will be the leaders of this alliance you propose, have I guessed aright?”
“No one’s vying for leadership yet,” Pelekarr replied. “In my view the alliance would be between equals. With equal bidding power, taking fair turns with the jobs available to us all.”
“But we are not equal,” Oltan shot back as he folded his arms across his chest. “And if my company is to be part of any such agreement, deferring a job here and there to lesser men, it will have to include a substantial cavalry bonus.”
“A small one, perhaps, for maintenance of our steeds,” Pelekarr allowed. “Anything more is avarice.”
“I don’t like it either way,” Serram replied, “but I could live with it if there’s a similar bonus for units with greater experience and renown. Those of us who’ve been serving in Ostora longer than others deserve longer pay.”
“No one discounts the experience of the Copper Men, Captain,” Pelekarr called back. “But in this alliance, all men should be equal.”
“What? Surely the officers must be at double the pay of enlisted men,” Oltan said.
“That’s not how we’re organizing our company,” Damicos replied. “If we’re all risking our necks on a campaign, then we all draw equal pay. The newest recruit as much as the oldest veteran. Anything less will lead to resentment, infighting, and ruin.”
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