by J. V. Jones
It had been a very stupid mistake, not insuring that the retreat to the city hold was properly covered. It made Marafice angry with himself just to think of it. Who knew or cared how the grangelords had crossed the river? They didn’t have injured—anyone not able-bodied had been thoughtfully abandoned on the field—nor did they have carts, tents or supplies. Mounted men, all of them, they had probably used the dozen boats that were tied up back at the camp and swam across the horses. The boats had been scuttled, of course. That order would have given the Whitehog no end of delight.
There was the bridge of boats at Bannen, but Marafice knew no welcome would be offered to city men there. Bannenmen had fought with Blackhail for Ganmiddich, and Marafice had felt nothing but anxiety during the two days they spent crossing Bannen lands. Ban scouts had watched them as they headed west along the rivershore. Potshots had been taken, and there was a short exchange of fire. About two hundred swordsmen had appeared on the river cliff above Marafice’s column the next day. The Bannenmen had sat their horses, gray cloaks blowing in the wind, mighty longswords holstered at their backs, and sent Marafice a message he received loud and clear. Keep walking.
It was another piece of luck, Marafice reckoned. That Ganmiddich roundhouse was like honey to the bees. Word of Bludd seizing it had doubtless mobilized the might of Bannen, and the forces that remained behind were safe-keepers, insufficient in number to mount an attack on three thousand city men.
“God is good,” Perish had claimed the next night as they made a light and nervous camp on the Wolf. “He will see us home.”
Marafice had declined to tell Andrew Perish exactly what he thought of that. Home for God was heaven and to get there you had to be dead. Instead he had told Perish of his still-evolving plan to approach Scarpe.
When not talking about the One True God, Andrew Perish was as sharp as an iron tack. The white-haired former master-at-arms had leant in toward the fire so that that the crackle of burning pine needles stopped his words from traveling where he did not want them. “Iss had friends at Scarpe. He paid them good coin to secure that crossing. They must have pulled those barges all the way east to Ganmiddich—upriver, no less—and that’s the kind of service that doesn’t come cheap.”
Marafice nodded. He had already worked out some of this for himself. “Scarpe’s sworn to Blackhail—one of their former sons is the new Hail chief. How will it sit with them to aid the army that attacked Blackhail at Ganmiddich?”
Perish pushed his lips together and breathed deeply through his nose. Slowly and gravely he began to shake his head. “Not nearly as bad as it should. Do not forget they let us cross in the first place. What did they think we were going to do? Make parlor visits? Someone at Scarpe knew what we were about, and either wasn’t much concerned, or even worse it suited them.” Perish’s cataract-burdened gaze rested long on Marafice Eye. “If you’re asking me is it worth making overtures at Scarpe my answer is yes. If you’re asking me how to go about it I say use caution and be prepared to move out quickly. No clansman fears our God and all are damned, but some move in deeper hells than others.”
Marafice stood. The heat from the fire was hot upon his face and the blackening pine needles suddenly smelled like embalmer’s fluid. At that instant he wished he had something to crush between his fists, so deeply and completely did he hate the grangelords who had abandoned this army. How dare they? How dare they leave these men injured, unsupported, and cut off?
Aware that he was pacing and that his fists were pumping, Marafice made an effort to calm himself. Not for Perish’s sake—the man had taught him how to protect his balls from sword thrusts when he was seventeen; there was little room for pretense between them—but for the sake of others who were standing and sitting close by, marking the conversation between their commander and the former master-at-arms.
Finally, Marafice had been able to speak. “I hear your warning,” he told Perish. “We’ll be there in a couple of days. We will see how Scarpe lies.”
Looking around, Marafice reckoned there was a very good chance they were in Scarpe-held territory right now. He could see smoke in the not far distance, rising above ugly purplish pines that looked half burned. The river was not bonnie here. Dozens of streams and creaks drained the headlands, and the waters they transported ranged in color from gray and scummy, to tarlike black. Upshore, an abandoned and improperly sealed mine head leaked yellow fluid into a shallow river pool that had a dead raven floating on the surface. Everyone had to be careful with their horses, for the ground was littered with sharp-edged slate and seeded with devil’s thorns.
Down column, they were having difficulty pulling one of the carts up the stream bank and Marafice rode down the line to help them, nodding once to Jon Burden along the way. The command is yours.
The carts had originally been designed to transport those dozens of little luxuries that grangelords deemed necessary to life; silk pillows, perfumed oil, wooden salt scrapers, beeswax candles, back itchers, preserved fruit, field armor, war armor, riding armor, red wine, white wine, fine liquors and all manner of cured and exotic meats. A lot of that stuff had been left behind and it made for poor eating but good comradeship. Fruit fights had occurred. Pillows had been commandeered as targets; and the salt scrapers had found a brief but deeply satisfying use as firewood. The alcohol had run out three days back: it was the only taste his men and the grangelords shared.
Seeing that one of the rear cartwheels was wedged in the crack between two hunks of slate, Marafice ordered the horses to be unhitched. Forward was not going to work here: the cart needed to roll back. As the driver and others close by set to work on the horses, Marafice and a dozen other men dismounted to brace the rear. The driver had a steady hand and was able to warn those in the water the instant the hitch was released. Marafice accepted the great weight of the cart, and began barking out orders. Shoulder muscles shaking in intensive bursts, he and the other men controlled the backward roll into the stream.
It was smallest of the three carts, he was grateful for that. They’d padded it with blankets and a decent pile of sword-shredded silk cushions, but it was not an easy ride for the twenty-five men within it. As he looked over the tailgate he saw this was the cart containing the clansmen they’d taken as captives. Two Hailsman and two Crabmen, all wounded and chained to the posts. It wasn’t much of a headcount, but Marafice was close to glad there were no more. Captives were a headache. They needed to be watched, fed, doctored, and, in this particular case, protected from the zealous tendencies of Perish and his faithful who would like to see them burn.
The Hailsmen stared at Marafice with proud and wary faces. The two hammermen were big men with silvery stretch marks across the skin of their arm and shoulder muscles. One of them had been responsible for the deaths of a dozen brothers-in-the-watch; Marafice knew this to be so because he had watched the man fight with his own eye. He was young, with an unscarred face and clear brown eyes, yet Marafice had the feeling that he had been the one in command at the gate. He had been an untiring fighter and good rallier of men. Marafice doubted if they would have been able to take him if one of Steffan Grimes’ crossbowmen hadn’t softened him with a quarrel to the ribs.
All five of the clansmen had turned stone cold in protest when Tat Mackelroy had tried to remove their pouches of powdered guidestone. Marafice himself had issued the order to remove all weapons and personal effects from the captives, but seeing something akin to desperation in the eyes of the clansmen as Tat cut away the first man’s powder pouch, Marafice had modified the order. He knew fighting men and he knew desperate men. Let the five keep their clannish tokens: it would go easier on everyone that way.
Later Marafice had had to battle the point with Perish who counted it as an offense against God that men in this column were carrying, how did he put it? The ashes of pretender gods. It had not been a comfortable conversation for Marafice, for at some point he realized he was dead set on having his way. To tell the man who had first taught you ho
w to correctly balance a sword that you were favoring an enemy at his expense was hard. Yet something deep down in Marafice would not move. Strange enough, Perish had let it be and had not referred to the matter since.
It had been Jon Burden who brought up the subject of interrogating the captives. The commander of Rive Company had rightly pointed out that they needed to know the names and ranks of the five men. Marafice had allowed him to question them without use of force but that had yielded nothing. Burden now wanted to be free to rough them up and scare them. Marafice agreed that such measures were necessary, but told him to hold off until the worst of their wounds had healed. Who cared about clannish ranking anyway? They had chiefs, but not much else.
“Driver! Hitch the horses!” Marafice wanted to be gone. He and the other men had made the small adjustment necessary to take the cart on a different course up the bank and now they held it steady while the driver positioned the team and fastened the cinches and chest bars. Rusty water ran over the toes of Marafice’s black boots. Some got in. A clannish sword had pierced the leather during the final charge on the gate.
“Ride on,” Marafice commanded. The driver was back on his seat and he clicked his tongue, setting the team into motion.
Marafice realized he was sweating as the weight finally moved off his chest. The young hammerman stared at him as the cart climbed the bank and Marafice frowned back. Damn captives. More trouble than they’re worth.
When he was back in the saddle and riding up the column, Marafice found himself snapping out orders. The machinists were falling behind with their contraptions, a wounded mercenary had slumped over the neck of his horse and nobody had bothered to aid him, and a handful of free pikers looked drunk. The Knife was in a bad mood and the sight of that smoke above the rise north of the river did not do anything to improve it. It was one thing for the great Penthero Iss to do dealings and double dealings and dickerings—he enjoyed them—but not Marafice Eye. He feared being tricked.
Yet even as he joined Jon Burden at the head of the line he spied a movement between the sickly purple trees. The river was well used here, he noticed. As they followed the curve of the river north, plank jetties and worn paths came into view. Draglines told of boats hauled up the bank and concealed in the woods. A wooden gutting hut sat on piles at the water’s edge, and everywhere there were signs of men: burned out fires, moldy tarp, tattered fishing line, whittled sticks, apple cores, trout bones.
Marafice knew they were being watched and kept his chin high and back straight. He had told no one other than Perish about his plan to deal with Scarpe and he was glad of that because it meant no one in the column slowed. Iss’ advice moved like a cold mist through Marafice’s brain. Let them come to you.
The Scarpe roundhouse was a couple of leagues north of the river and you could not see it through the trees. The smoke from the house smelled oily and slightly poisonous—not good for children or asthmatics. Marafice wondered about Scarpe’s system of watches. How long had they known the city men were coming? Certainly long enough to abandon the riverbank and hide the boats. Was it long enough to plan a surprise attack? The Knife gave a silent order to Jon Burden to relay down the line. Stand ready.
He meant it for himself, he realized, for the column had already fallen into a quiet, jumpy watchfulness. None dared draw weapons without his say, but they were thinking about it. He could see it in their eyes. A quick glance down the ranks revealed that mounted brothers-in-the-watch were now heavily flanking the two carts that contained their wounded. The third cart, containing mercenaries, a handful of hideclads and the captive clansmen, deserved no such consideration apparently, and trundled along unguarded save for a lone spearman stationed there by Steffan Grimes.
When arrows were loosed from behind the trees, Marafice jumped in his saddle. Even expecting a surprise he had been surprised, and watched the missiles fly with something between panic and amazement. Long arrows, nearly four feet in length, pierced the dirt and grass in a near perfect line twenty paces ahead of the column, forming a barrier to the way ahead. Dozens and dozens of them continued striking the same thin stretch of beach until a wall of sticks was formed. The arrows’ feather fletchings riffled in the wind as the shafts vibrated, sending their message to the city men.
Do not pass.
Marafice and Jon Burden exchanged a glance. The head of Rive Company waited for his commander to speak. The wall was four feet high, two deep and eight long: any fool could pass it. Marafice raised an arm, calling the column to a halt. It was a technicality; most men had already stopped.
The woods surrounding the river were quiet. Marafice could not see anyone move within them. He waited, waited. A red-tailed hawk rose on the thermals above the river and swooped south in search of prey. Men in the column began to cuss and spit in mild shows of disapproval. Marafice ignored them.
He heard the mounted men before he saw them, horse hoofs pounding dully in ground softened by yesterday’s rain. Thirty warriors dressed in black cloaks and black leathers rode through a break in the trees. They were lean men, tall and pale, with thin braids fastened in complicated arrangements and gleams of silver at their throats and ears. Their weapons were couched, but as they drew to a halt all men save their leader drew swords.
Marafice’s hand shot up, commanding his army to stillness. It was an order he would never have given in the past. People who drew weapons in his presence usually ended up dead.
“Our chief denies you passage through this clanhold,” called out the head warrior. He had stopped about fifty paces upshore, insuring high ground and a quick retreat for his men.
Marafice forced himself to remember the bowmen concealed in the woods. Otherwise he would very much like to hack these men down. “I want passage south, not west. Take me to your chief.”
The head warrior showed no surprise. A hand gloved in expertly tanned black leather patted his horse’s mane. “Choose two men to accompany you. Your weapons will be ransomed but held within your sight.”
What the hell good will that do me? Marafice thought. Aloud he said, “Pick three of your own to stand as hostages for our safe return.” After taking a long and pointed look down his column, past crossbowmen, pikers, swordsmen, more swordsmen, spear-men, machinists and foot soldiers, he added nastily, “They can keep their weapons out and swinging.”
Two spots of heat colored the head warrior’s cheeks. He chose three of his men who couldn’t have looked less thrilled and directed them to stand by the wall of arrows. To Marafice, he said, “Follow me.”
He was a fine horseman, turning his horses with grace and precision and building up to a canter as he headed for the trees. All the Scarpemen moved swiftly, putting Marafice and his chosen at a distinct disadvantage: their horses were nervous of picking up speed in the woods.
Marafice had picked Tat Mackelroy and a mercenary from the ranks he did not know to accompany him. It was a decision made in an instant, but he was pleased enough with it. Perish and Jon Burden were too precious to lose—they would know what to do if he didn’t return. Cut their losses and force a path west. Tat was a good man, and Marafice had become used to having him at his back. As for the mercenary . . . well, the poor sod might learn something. Or die.
The head warrior cut a tight path through the pines. The tree boughs had been sheared off to a height approaching twelve feet to enable men mounted on horses to ride freely. Marafice felt a tightness in his chest all the same. His deepest fear was to lose his remaining eye. Sunlight razored through the pines at sharp angles, creating bands of light and shade. Seeing the way ahead was difficult. Marafice lagged behind. Tat and the mercenary stayed close, confused but loyal.
When Marafice took a hand from the rein meaning to push away a drooping pine bough, Tat warned him not to touch it. “Poison pines,” he murmured softly. “Scarpe’s known for them.”
They were led not to the roundhouse but a large clearing in the woods that had been seeded with dark green grass. A canopy made from the sa
me fine black leather as the head warrior’s gloves had been erected in the center. Under its shade sat the Scarpe chief, waiting.
Yelma Scarpe was small and sharp-shouldered with thin lips and dyed black hair. She wore a sword like a man, and every one of her ten bony fingers glittered with oversize jewels. Once Marafice and his two men were in open ground, she scribed a shape in the air, and two hundred men stepped from the shadows, swords drawn, points out, forming a circle of blades around the glade.
Marafice forced himself to calm. He had thought it would be a small thing to put himself in danger, but he realized now that it was not. Riding through the pines had thrown him off center and he could not recall what advantages he brought here. Part of him had assumed that once he was here he would know what to do. Iss had made negotiation seem effortless, like breathing, but this air was too rich for Marafice’s lungs. He wanted only to be gone.
The chair occupied by the Scarpe chief was high-backed and solid, made from a single block of oak. The armrests were carved in the shape of weasels and Yelma Scarpe rested her rubied and sapphired hands upon their heads. “You stand in my clanhold without my leave. This does not please me.”
Marafice was unsure whether or not this statement required a reply. He had remembered one piece of advice given to him by Iss and he held on to it like a talisman. Listen twice before you speak.
Yelma Scarpe drummed the weasel heads. “My nephew tells me you need to cross the river. I command the last crossing between here and the Storm Margin. That means you must make terms with me. It is possible that you would be able to force a path west through my clanhold, but that would cost us both men, and leave you farther away from Spire Vanis, searching for a crossing that does not exist. Five rivers drain into the Wolf beyond this point, three of them from the north. What this means to you and your army is that even staying on course along the Wolf will be difficult, and you may be forced into the northern woods.”