by John Dalmas
More important than that, his pursuers had lost time. The picture Macurdy put together was that the initial flight of arrows had felled several. And instead of driving through, the soldiers had fallen back and discussed it; apparently they had little stomach for casualties. Finally they'd sent their own flights of arrows toward the ambush, but from long range, skewering dirt and trees. Meanwhile they'd sent out strong detachments to enter the woods above and below the ambush, and flank it.
Then the reeve's main force had charged again, and experienced no further archery until almost to the woods, when more men and horses went down at point-blank range. The rest rode into the woods and dismounted, presumably to kill or run off whoever had been shooting at them, instead of doing what they should: riding on through, continuing their pursuit. In fact, no one continued up the road until the flanking parties arrived.
It seemed to Macurdy that whoever led them suffered from an acute case of stupidity, losing track of the objective.
Aloft again, Blue Wing spied their pursuers coming harder than before, closing the gap. "All right," Macurdy said to him, "we'll hit them again at the next wooded draw. Go tell Wollerda what's happened. You'll probably get to him before the courier I sent on horseback."
According to Blue Wing's earlier report, the next woods was a broader band, also following a stream, and as Macurdy visualized it, not more than two or three miles ahead. Now, as he rode, he shouted his plan to his men, then let them pass and repeated himself to the packers and drovers.
All of them pushed their tired horses a little harder. This next stand, Macurdy told himself grimly, would be their last chance. If even a dozen soldiers kept going and caught up with the pack animals, the raid would turn into a fiasco that could wound the rebellion badly, perhaps fatally. Even reaching the forest didn't guarantee safety, if the reeve's commander was willing to follow. Then another thought came to him, easing his grimness. They won't know there aren't some of us still with the pack train. If we down enough of them, they'll turn around and go back, especially if they lack the stomach for casualties.
The second broad draw, when they came to it, was wooded clear across the bottom and on both slopes. He trotted his horse down into it, then sent the packers, drovers, and noncombatants on up the road. The rest of his men he scattered along the road by threes behind cover, their horses tethered farther back in the woods. He was depending on their pursuers being little smarter than before. Though they should have learned one lesson-to drive on through, or try to.
When he reached the far slope, he had only six men left to post, and it occurred to him he should have saved more for the upslope, when the soldiers' horses would have slowed. And the last six included the three lowlander youths. Unordered, they'd stayed instead of continuing with the train. He wondered if they had any skill with their bows. He'd heard that flatlanders were forbidden to have weapons, which meant they'd had little practice. But at point-blank range… He placed them behind a locust thicket where the road started uphill out of the draw, then led his last three rebels upslope to the north edge of the woods, where he positioned them and himself out of sight, ready in the saddle, spears locked beneath their arms.
Now we wait, he thought, and promptly began to worry. He'd told his men to shoot horses instead of riders; particularly on the run, horses would be a lot easier to hit, and the soldiers probably wore mail byrnies. And if a horse went down in the thundering column, its rider was likely to be disabled anyway. But how many of his rebels would do it? These hillsmen valued horses, treating them well for the most part. And how well could they shoot, through gaps in the trees and undergrowth at galloping horses? Of course, the horses might not be galloping. He'd assumed the enemy commander would speed his column up through the woods, like running the gantlet, and by starting the gallop downhill on the far side, it wouldn't be so taxing. By the time they approached him, of course, they'd have slowed. It would kill horses already tired, to gallop uphill.
Minutes passed, then he heard the rumble of hooves. Coming down the far side of the draw at a gallop, he supposed. There was no shouting from either soldiers or rebels. In his mind he pictured falling horses, other horses falling over them, while others veered past.
Still the sound approached. He edged out far enough to peer down the edge of the road, and saw the foremost horsemen starting uphill, now at a slow trot. "Not yet," he cautioned. "Not yet… Not yet… NOW!"
The four of them spurred out onto the road and charged downhill. The soldiers' spears were in their saddle boots, out of action, for this was something they hadn't imagined. The foremost tried to swing aside, but there was no room for maneuver, no shoulder to the road; just packed dirt, then trees. And others were pressing from behind; they piled up instantly.
The shock of his spear striking a soldier nearly unseated Macurdy, and as his own horse braked staggering, he swung out of the saddle. He and his three rebels drew their heavy sabers, and hacking and hewing, attacked those horses and riders trying to get past the pileup. Then the soldiers began to dismount, sabers in hand, and he found himself bellowing "Break off! Break off!"
Then tried to break off himself, but a thick-waisted armsman pressed him, red-faced with rage, and he had to kill the man to disengage. It took several long seconds. Then he ran. After a minute, realizing he wasn't pursued, he slowed to a rapid stumbling walk, panting from exertion and excitement, to continue upstream among the trees. Wondering whether or not the reeve's soldiers had caught the packstring and cattle.
One of his rebels came along on horseback and pulled Macurdy up behind him. After a bit they rode out of the woods, and stopping, dismounted to let the horse rest awhile and graze. Then they continued on foot, leading the animal. More mounted men joined them, jubilant over the fight, and Macurdy allowed himself to feel a little optimistic.
Two hours later they were in unbroken forest; by evening they'd reached camp. The packstring was already there, and the cattle and tax girls. Everyone cheered Macurdy, acting as if he was some kind of genius. Melody kissed him soundly, while rebels grinned.
And Blue Wing was there, with news. He'd reached Wollerda before the mounted courier, and Wollerda, instead of going home, had led his company westward across the North Fork Road, pushing their horses in a forced march on country lanes, still determined to engage the reeve's company. Blue Wing had served as scout.
After Macurdy's second ambush, the soldiers had turned back. They traveled slowly, partly because of their wounded, and partly because some were riding two on a horse. Wollerda jumped them at a draw south of the first ambush site. Numerous soldiers were killed there, and most who fled were caught. Prisoners were disarmed, and their horses and boots taken. They trudged south barefoot, carrying the news.
It took two more days for all of Macurdy's survivors to straggle in, some of them wounded. All but eleven of the original fifty-two made it, and Tarlok was unscratched. The flatland teenagers weren't among them.
Meanwhile a messenger arrived from Jeremid. He hadn't been pursued, and was on his way with grain, twenty-three head of cattle, and several flatlander volunteers. He expected to bring more recruits from Three Forks. The only fighting had been brief, at the bailiff's stronghold; none of Jeremid's men had been killed, and only three wounded.
Macurdy sent a detail south with pack horses to strip the dead armsmen of byrnies and weapons.
Rebel morale was out the roof. Even their worrywart commander was feeling pretty good.
27: Of Truth and Lies
" ^ "
One of the nicest things Macurdy returned to was Melody. She didn't try to take him to bed, just ate breakfast and supper with him, teasing him hardly at all. She seemed reconciled to his marriage vow, though why she remained interested, he didn't understand. Meanwhile she had a women's tent set up to accommodate the tax girls and their guardian, as well as herself and Loro, the ex-captive from the Orthal days.
Three days after Jeremid returned, Macurdy sent him with a full company to hit the
reeve's stronghold. The guesstimate was that fewer than twenty of the reeve's company would have returned from their pursuit of Macurdy and his raiders. His fort would be thinly defended, unless he'd been reinforced. Not the usual stockade, its walls were stone, twenty feet high.
Jeremid had known what to use for opening the gate; he just hadn't expected to find one so handy. Scarcely two hundred yards from the fort was an inn, its taproom catering to armsmen. A new stable was being built for it, and there, waiting to be raised, was the forty-foot roofbeam. Now he wouldn't have to tear down someone's roof to get his battering ram.
It took him less than half an hour to have an A-frame made from other timber at the site, meanwhile sending a platoon around behind the fort with bows and scaling ladders. These then threatened an attack on the rear, holding defenders there, while construction laborers and stable horses, protected by byrnie-clad Kullvordi shieldmen, dragged first the A-frame, then the ram to the fortress gate.
It took a bit to set things up, and despite the shieldmen there were casualties, but within half an hour the gate had given way. The fort's defenders-fifteen escapees from Wollerda's massacre, plus a dozen household guards-surrendered promptly.
Jeremid didn't send all his men inside. Four galloped off toward Gormin Town, two miles east, to the tent camp outside its partially burned palisade wall. Less than an hour later, a mob was forming outside the fort, shouting that they wanted the reeve turned over to them.
Meanwhile Jeremid's men had commandeered the thirty horses in the reeve's stable, and across their backs put rope slings. Then they loaded most of them with tax grain brought in from the bailiwicks-two heavy sacks of wheat, and two of the much lighter oats per horse. A few, instead of being loaded with grain, would carry all the weapons his men could find.
At that they could load only a relatively small portion of the grain stored there. Then a long line of grinning townsmen was let inside, and the rest of the grain began disappearing out the gates on their shoulders.
The reeve and his chief deputy were turned over to a local "committee of justice." The A-frame was already being converted to a gallows, and briefly the committee discussed whether to "merely" hang them there, or to flog them and then hang them. Meanwhile Jeremid had a newly named "rebel X" slashed in the forehead of each captured soldier, with the warning that any of them recaptured in Gurtho's service would definitely be executed. His advice was to leave the country till the rebellion was over, to avoid being forced back into service.
Jeremid had arrived none too soon, a captive told them. A count's platoon was expected the next day, with a wagon train to haul the tax grain to Teklapori.
After the raid on the bailiffs' strongholds, Kithro had begun operating a rational supply system for the rebel force, assessing the hillsmen a lighter equivalent of the royal tax, which he pointed out was no longer being collected, a tax which would be used to secure and support their own freedom.
Meanwhile, problems of logistics and space had worsened. The camp was well-located for security, but with the growth of Macurdy's Company, it had too little pasture for its horses and cattle. And with more and more recruits, supplying them over rough trails by packhorse was becoming impossible. So they moved to a much more accessible area, taking over public pasture accessible by wagons from the North Fork Road.
There crews were detailed daily to build longhouses: cutting, dragging, and fitting logs, splitting out roof planks and shakes, and building mud and stick fireplaces. The hillsmen were handy and cheerful at almost every sort of work, and morale remained strong. Partly because they were busy, partly because they could see so much progress, and partly because they had no doubt that with Macurdy's leadership, this rebellion was going to succeed.
Gurtho, and not "the flatlanders," had become the focus. Macurdy continually made a point of their common cause, Gurtho being hated by both. As for what they might do when Gurtho had been thrown down, time would tell.
Meanwhile, Gurtho had embarked on a campaign to gain the affection of the Teklan commons, throwing a large and costly party in every town and major village to celebrate the eleventh anniversary of his coronation. It might have worked to a degree, if people hadn't had to sit through a speech, ill written and mostly ill read, on the virtues of King Gurtho and the dangers of the Kullvordi. If the virtues of Gurtho had been left out, it might have worked to a degree. As it was, both peasants and townsfolk failed to cheer it. What they cheered were the whole roast oxen, the bushels of roasted early corn, and the barrels of beer. Local musicians were paid to play, and people danced till they dropped from beer or exhaustion, or found a partner to have sex with in the shadows.
And of course, none of the counts, reeves, or bailiffs told Gurtho that the speech had failed, for Gurtho himself had written it, and he was highly sensitive to criticism. He'd had Idri read it in advance, for her opinion, and had she been honest with him, it might have been repaired. But she'd praised it. For Sarkia's ambassadrix sent two couriers a week to the Cloister, and received two. And the Dynast had quietly changed her position regarding the existing king of Tekalos.
***
Eight-Month was well underway, and the rebel ranks grew daily. One day after lunch, Macurdy, Kithro, Melody and Jesker began to go over the table of organization together. Wollerda had a raid in mind, a lot bigger than anything they'd done before, that required cooperation from Macurdy's Force. As yet, though, Macurdy had no units larger than companies-108 officers and men each, following the Ozian system. All in all he had 736 officers and men, as of the day before, but in his opinion, fewer than half had had enough training to be sent into battle, with many of those being only marginally ready.
So they sat sweating in Eight-Month's humidity and heat, cooking up a short cohort that could be brought to full strength later.
They were hardly well started when a courier galloped up. "Major!" he called as his feet hit the ground. (Macurdy had promoted himself with the growth of his command.) "There's two women want to see you! Out by the main road! They're Sisterhood. Got three guards with them, Sisterhood guards I think; their uniforms aren't Teklan."
"Did they name themselves?"
"No sir."
Macurdy's lips thinned. Not Idri, he guessed; not Gurtho's queen. She'd know better. One of her people then. "Tell them I'll meet one of them beneath the oak on the road in. Just one of them. The rest wait where they are."
"Yessir. Oh, and the boss of them-so pretty I couldn't believe it-she's got a tomttu riding up behind her with his arms around her waist. What I wouldn't do to be in his place!"
Flustered by Macurdy's hard stare, the man remounted and rode away. It took the conference about ten minutes more to agree on principles and begin assembling, on paper, a cohort of four companies: three of spearmen and one of bowmen (though all would carry bows and quivers); bowmen required less training. Then Macurdy, leaving the others to finish the job, started for the paddock. Aware that Melody was following, he stopped and turned. He could see the concern on her face and in her aura.
"Do you think one of them is your wife?" she asked.
He shook his head. "She'd have identified herself."
"Is there-any danger that one of them will spell you?"
"They can't. If they try, they're dead meat. Varia told me once that spells aren't worth much against other magicians. Between her work with me, and Arbel's, there's no danger of it."
Melody's expression didn't change. "I'll come with you. With a squad."
His grim face softened, smiled. Reaching, he touched her face. "I'll go alone," he said, then continued to the paddock to catch and saddle his horse.
As he left, her hand went to the cheek he'd touched. But he hadn't changed her will. She commandeered a squad of men and followed him. Not disobeying his order, she told herself. They'd follow only to the far edge of the woods and watch from there, ready to leave when he turned back. But if there was trouble…
Alone except for the tomttu, whom she'd moved around in front o
f her saddle, Liiset watched Macurdy ride toward her. She hadn't seen him since he was a gangling fourteen-year-old. Even at two hundred feet she could see the change in him, not only in his hard bulk-that was the least of it-but in the way he sat, the way he held his head. And as he neared, his steady gaze and the strength of his aura.
I wonder if Varia ever even imagined him like this, she thought. She could see why men gathered to him and followed his orders. Briefly she wondered if he'd think she was Varia.
He answered that when he halted his horse, fifteen feet from her. "Who are you?" he said. "What do you want here?"
She answered in English. "I'm an envoy from the Dynast, come to speak with you. You're looking well, Curtis."
He said nothing to that, nor did he look surprised. He simply sat waiting.
"Varia would be proud of you if she knew. A year and a half ago you were a farmer on Farside, knowing nothing about Yuulith. Not our language, our ways, our weapons-not even our existence. Now you lead an army here."
He answered in Yuultal. "Why did you come to me?"
"To offer you vengeance."
"Vengeance? I could make a good start on that right now," he said, and half drew his sword.
"Vengeance on the wrong target gives no lasting satisfaction. And if I let you, would you cut me down? I'm not only Varia's clone sister, I'm her favorite, her best friend."
He reseated his sword. "You're Liiset then."
She nodded. "I'm Liiset."
"So who am I supposed to take my vengeance on?"