“She’s no longer a commander, is she?” a sergeant asked. “Some of her charioteers died, some left her in the aftermath of the beach fight. Now she’s here, begging for a place with the Red Lancer corps.”
“Not begging. I heard tell she’s taken with Captain Rovos of the Lancers.”
“Well, she’s not in his tent, is she?”
“Way I heard it, she won’t share anyone’s tent. Hard as a rock, that one. They say that she gutted the last man who tried to get near her. Don’t know why the tribunal let her off.”
“That’s tall talk,” Leon said. “She’s as much a woman as any other, just has a strong arm to go with her other graces. She may have been humbled, but she’s still as beautiful as the legends about her claim. Gayar’s gizzard, I’d almost be willing to take the reins of a chariot if it meant riding along with her.”
Damicos put a stop to the yammering. “Shut up, all of you. Rukhal’s beard! Focus! We have a battle to fight in a few hours’ time. If it’s women you want, win me this fight so you have something to boast of.”
Back in their own camp, the sergeants were keeping tight discipline according to Damicos’ orders. He knew it was essential for his untested troops to see themselves as professionals rather than the green-as-grass recruits they really were. The weather was dry and warm, and the mood among the tents was nervous excitement.
Telros had provided several steers for meat, and now great joints of beef roasted and crackled over the fires, jacks of ale and mead were passed around, and the more optimistic spoke as though the battle was already won. The sergeants, more experienced, knew that east of them, closer to the sea shore, the same thing was happening among Vocke’s army.
The baron came out of his fortress after dark to hold a war council with the captains of the assembled companies in a large pavilion provided by the Red Lancers. But Damicos was disappointed in his hope for a useful exchange of tactical ideas. After a series of half-drunken vows to water the ground with Vocke’s blood, further strategy was dispensed with by Telros’ second-in-command, a bearded giant named Lorcos Longhand.
“We form into ranks an hour after dawn to march east, where we’ll confront the baron outside his castle on the flats. Infantry in the center, cavalry on the wings. Exchange some arrows, wait for the foot to engage, then both wings sweep in. It’s how these things always play out. They’ll try the same, I warrant, but the advantage will be in our favor: they will be pinned against the sea. By the beard of Rukhal, I’ve seen enough of these battles in my time. I even fought a skirmish against old Ancos in this very place, years ago when Telros here was but a youth.”
There was a ragged cheer, mostly from Telros’ own men, and the meeting broke up. The officers went this way and that in small groups, swilling Telros’ ale and laughing.
Damicos walked quietly down the lines of his own company in the gloaming, eyeing the tent lines and equipment racks. It was a clean camp, and he’d ordered the ale rationed carefully among the men to prevent drunkenness and the weakness it would carry into the morning. Some of the soldiers had retired early, he was pleased to note, and the others clustered around the low fires, talking low and checking their weapons. By walking quietly and using the tents as cover, he managed to overhear some surprisingly candid talk.
“This isn’t what we should be doing,” said a young trooper named Tamwrit Kaio, firelight playing on his lean face. “Private feuds between lords is beneath us.”
“It pays,” said his comrade shortly, a hulking spearman with bushy sideburns cut into horizontal stripes. Damicos made a mental note to have the man shave them off. He looked more like one of the barbarian raff than a soldier.
“So it does, Mast,” said Tamwrit. “But there’s honest folk in the villages being raided by barbarian and beast. Their flocks and livelihood are laid waste. Did you hear what happened to the settlement north of Crimson Falls? Good people lyin’ dead in their fields, just days after we passed through there. It’s them we should be fighting for.”
“Naw,” said the other. “Take what you have and be grateful, I say. Mishtan’s bowels, we have no right to hold our noses at one job over another. We’re mercenaries now.”
But Cormoran, the veteran transfer from the Copper Men, agreed with the young trooper. “Make no mistake. It’s a shame to be fighting Ostorans and other military men, no matter what anyone tells you. The raff don’t care about our family quarrels. They’ll kill us all regardless. They’re the real enemy.”
“Them and the monsters that come out of the wilderness,” Tamwrit added. “I can’t claim to have run into any of them yet, but some of the tales I hear about the things in the interior… they make me shudder, I’ll admit.”
“I’ve seen more than a few of them,” Cormoran said. “They’re unholy strong, and they don’t care whether you wear the king’s stripes on your shoulder. I’ve lost good comrades to apes, wolves, lizard-creatures. Other things I don’t even have a name for.” His voice lowered. “No one has a name.”
“Just keep your head down and collect your pay,” the big spearman insisted. “No Ostoran village will pay what these bloody-minded lords will. You want the good coin, you fight their battles.”
“It’s a waste, I tell you,” Tamwrit shot back. “We could be setting up for ourselves somewhere. Carve out a little slice of forest west of here. These lords are no better than us, most of them started out the same way.”
One of the men got up from the fire, and Damicos hurried onward so they wouldn’t notice he’d been listening. The stars had come out, and with the fires dying low it was easy to remain unseen.
At the next fire over, he stopped behind a tent and stooped, playing with his boot lace for several minutes while he eavesdropped again.
“This place is different. We have to be different with it.” The captain recognized the squeaky voice of his shortest infantryman, a sturdy recruit nicknamed Meeks by the men.
“Make sense, runt,” another soldier grunted, shifting to a more comfortable sprawl. His name was Pirim Triyor. A bit of a loudmouth but a good fighter.
Meeks continued, ignoring the jibe about his diminutive size. “I mean, Ostora could be more than this. More than just another brawl between greedy lords grabbing what they can. That’s all it ever is back home. Lords fighting ceaselessly, and the king watching it all and intervening when he wills it. It’s old and… and bad.”
“Bad? You mean, unrighteous?” the other soldier was incredulous. “You think Mishtan frowns upon such things?”
“Maybe he does,” Meeks nodded. “I’m no priest. But these people seem different. I mean the locals. Ostorans. Baron Telros, and the other one, Vocke, they’re just Kerathi nobility transplanted here, carrying on in the same tired old way. But the villagers I’ve come to know, the farmers and townsfolk, they’re real. They’re different, and they deserve better.”
Another trooper, dark-haired Fieron Tarmull from Damicos’ own home province, laughed. “Better than what? Peasant are peasants. Look in any kingdom under the sun, you’ll find their like. It’s all they know. Mishtan save them, they work hard enough, and they grow the grain that feeds us, but that’s all they know. It’s all they want. Takes warriors to make things happen in this world.”
Another voice, one Damicos didn’t recognize, argued back. “Meeks is right. They have a chance here.”
“A chance for what, philosopher?” Damicos could almost hear the sarcastic Fieron rolling his eyes. “They work their fingers to the bone here, there, everywhere. A peasant’s life is a tough crust to chew, I admit, but your pity is misplaced. We all have our part to play. Theirs is to work the land. Ours is to kill.”
“It isn’t pity I speak of!” Meeks was warming to his subject now, and his earnest tone was persuasive and eager. Damicos had to admit that the little man was a solid thinker in addition to being a useful fighter. “Look you, Fieron. A man can be anything here. The old ways, the old bonds and limitations, don’t seem to fit out here. The barons ca
n pretend to strut and hold sway like they do over the sea, but here we can all see how hollow it is. The pomp of court, the grand cities, the temples and sacrifices and parties and trials, it’s all just gilt. Here when you try to do the same thing, you realize how wrong-headed it is. Here there’s just the grass, the sky, and the mountains, and it’s raw and new and good. Food tastes better. Water is clearer—”
Fieron and Pirim snorted in derision. Meeks seemed to explode.
“Don’t you see, here I can stand up!” The little man rose, and in the firelight glowing through the tent his silhouette no longer seemed small to Damicos. “In Ostora I can be something! Anything! I can go as far as my wit and arm can take me. I can move and think and no one can say nay. I am a man here. A man! For the first time in my life, I don’t feel small. Ostora makes me feel… big.”
He sat down again, and no one said anything more after that. Damicos expected jokes and bawdy suggestions about Meeks’ big feelings, especially from Pirim. But his words seemed to have awoken something in the minds of the other men, and they refrained.
Each rolled into his cloak in silence and one by one they drifted into slumber, some crawling into the tent and others lying under the stars near the fire.
Damicos stood where he was, thinking over what he’d heard. Until that night, if he had been asked what the topmost issues in the minds of his men were, he’d have said pay amount, pay schedule, and women, in that order. It seemed he was wrong. His men, some of them at least, thought just as much as he did about what they were fighting for, and how best to use their strength.
Finally he crept to his own tent and went to sleep wondering if the decision to fight for Telros would be shrewd and rewarding in hindsight, or if it would be seen as a misstep, perhaps even a betrayal. It was too late to back out now, but the right answer might carry some weight in the days coming.
CHAPTER 23: BATTLE ON THE COAST
Damicos’ hoplites were up with the dawn, eager to prove themselves worthy of their pay. They wolfed down a hurried meal in the gray light and buckled on armor. Impressing their employer was of paramount importance, especially with rival companies a stone’s throw away.
Over an hour passed. The sun rose out of the east, and a morning sea breeze brought the scent of the salt marshes. There were no clouds, and the sun grew uncomfortably warm for the morning hour. The mercenary companies stood in formation, ready to march, sweating in their armor. The commanders, impatient, swatted at flies and cursed under their breath, watching the gates of Telros’ fortress.
Finally the war horns sounded and the gates creaked open. Telros appeared at the head of his garrison, gloriously armored in gleaming bronze edged with gold trim and mounted on a white charger. The column issued from the fortress in good order and the gates closed behind them. As the baron passed, companies fell in behind in a pre-arranged order that had been hotly debated the night before. For now the infantry tread in formation behind the baron, and the cavalry kicked up dust at the rear. That would change when they arrived at their destination.
The trek east to Vocke’s coastal town was uneventful. After the long wait, the men marched with the precise exuberance and swaggering high spirits of soldiers who believe the coming battle will be short and easy. The Tooth and Blade men were in the middle of the column, with the more experienced Deep Shields ahead and closer to the baron’s liegemen. This suited Damicos; he was feeling less and less inclined to form lasting attachments to the baron he’d signed on with.
What kind of pompous idiot lies abed this late on a day of battle?
At least they were moving now. And they kept moving until, some five miles eastward along the road from Telros’ castle, they crested a low rise and saw their destination before them.
The sea gleamed and shimmered along the vast eastern horizon, but all eyes were focused on the squat silhouette of Vocke’s fortress down on the shore, cradling a small port. Damicos was surprised to see the extent of the walled town occupying the ground around the fortress; it stretched up the beach in either direction for a full mile in each direction. The port itself, what he could see of it, could only be accessed by going through the town and right under the walls of the castle. Great engines for casting stones were placed on the ramparts. Damicos knew they would cover the small harbor easily.
Now he understood why Vocke had so greedily closed off the port to his rival. Although the port itself was open to ships, Ostorans hoping to traffic by sea were at the baron’s mercy for access to the water’s edge, and it was simply too tempting not to tighten his grip and solidify his control over the region. With a town that size, it was a prize worth fighting for.
Vocke’s forces had all camped within his town’s walls, but it was understood by both sides that the battle would be fought on the open ground outside. Neither baron was prepared for an extended siege and the resulting deprivation. Far better to end the conflict quickly in a pitched battle on the beach, winner take all. The loser could run south down the coast to another port and take ship for Kerath, there to pour out his grievances to whoever would listen.
The column paused but a moment on the rise and descended, Telros still in the lead. The place of battle was obvious: a small sandy plain just northwest of the town. The ground was smooth and open, perfect for the type of battle to be fought. Telros’ army wended their way to the site and began to deploy, casting glances at Vocke’s walls every few minutes.
They didn’t have long to wait.
Vocke and his forces sprang into nervous action at their arrival, just as Telros had hoped. To remain sequestered inside the town any longer would have been seen by both villagers and enemies as a reluctance to face battle. And if this engagement was to be anything like a traditional Kerathi military faceoff—equal parts bluster, ceremony, and intimidation—Vocke couldn’t afford to take such a black eye early on.
Telros called the captains into his newly erected command pavilion for a last-minute council. Damicos told his lieutenant to keep the men in tight formation and not to move, then proceeded to the tent, which had been set up behind the massed forces on a bit of high ground.
Upon entering, he found himself standing shoulder to shoulder with Kallida, the charioteer. She looked resplendent in burnished bronze pauldrons and a silver-chased helm that left room for her flowing red mane to fall down her back. Glancing quickly sideways at her face, however, he noted a grim sadness in her dark eyes. She was silent and did not return the greetings some of the other captains exchanged.
Telros hailed them and then presented his secret weapon: a young woman, buxom and well-dressed in cream-colored gown and greenstone girdle, with a sultry expression on her youthful face.
“This is Breyil, daughter of a local wool merchant. She grew up in Vocke’s town,” Telros announced. “She is the baron’s former mistress, though he will no longer admit it. Our ill-bred opponent cast her aside when his uncle died and he began his rise to power.”
The baron smiled at the girl he’d contracted (no doubt for a tidy sum, Damicos thought) to help him win the day. Her passionate glare and pouting lips made plain her willingness to see the spurner of her affections come to a painful end.
“By her words, Vocke’s cause is hopeless!” the baron continued. “Already many in the town have fled our coming, and rebellion simmers just beneath the surface. When we win through to the town,” and here Damicos noted that the baron did not say if, “we’ll likely be regarded as heroes.”
“The dry straw but lacks a spark,” Breyil declared, nodding and giving the baron a simpering look. “One that my lord Telros now provides. I swear by the gods that even if Vocke survives the day’s fighting, the people within the walls will rise up and refuse him reentry!”
Telros beamed.
Damicos had his doubts, however, and the baron’s reliance on this scorned coquette did nothing to bolster his confidence in his employer. Surely the officers weren’t expected to base their strategy on the word of a turncoat girl? Perhaps Breyil woul
d be valuable once the town fell, guiding them through the streets and into Vocke’s fortress. But her principal value seemed to be in stroking Telros’ ego—and perhaps more than that, if the coy glances passing between the two meant anything.
“What is that steep-sided hillock sticking up from the southern beach?” Lorcos Longhand asked the girl in an irritated growl. “It will hinder our cavalry, and Vocke’s flank may hide behind it. They didn’t throw it up themselves as a hindrance, did they?”
“My father called it Argos’ Wart,” the young woman explained. “It was here when the first baron came to these shores and drove the barbarians into the forest. The Wart is taboo to the raff. During the attack last autumn the wild people wouldn’t travel near it, so we had one less direction to defend against.” She shrugged. “The tale is that the first settlers on this part of the coast found human skulls on the hill.”
Telros laughed. “Human skulls? Indeed?”
Breyil nodded. “Mounted on sticks and dyed black. Part of their superstition.”
“Perhaps not a superstition,” said Barca Rovos, commander of the Red Lancers. “Perhaps a warning.”
“What kind of warning?” Kallida asked, speaking up for the first time. A look of deep suspicion was on her face, taking Damicos aback. He hadn’t thought much of the girl’s tale, but was now simultaneously intrigued and repelled by the sense of foreboding Kallida’s reaction instilled in him.
Breyil shrugged. “A territory marker, then. Who knows why the raff do anything? They worship dark gods, they tattoo their skin. But sheep wander that part of the beach all spring eating the seagrass, and no harm has come to them. The sheep are actually safer here than up by the woods, where a dire-wolf or hungry raff raiders might snatch them.”
The conversation quickly moved on to other aspects of planning the battle, but Damicos noticed Kallida silently leave the tent and return to her six fellow charioteers. Rovos Barca didn’t even notice her go, but Damicos’ eyes lingered on the form of the departing Lioness.
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