War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy

by D. S. Halyard

  As Barith had predicted, the men were furious. Nevertheless, Aelfric himself had mapped out the latrines to be dug, and when he’d described his plans to the Blackhill Gang, they had been roundly critical.

  “Aelfric, these privies will be too damn large.” Helyas O’Zoric, who normally supported Aelfric in all that he did, had complained immediately. “There will be room for the entire muster to shit here for five years and not fill them up.” Aelfric had insisted on his design, however, and despite constant bickering and argument from his men, they had started digging them. Every Red Tiger fyrde had its men digging Aelfric’s latrine, a long, deep trench with raised sides and poles to be suspended over them for the men to sit on while they emptied their bowels. The Red Tigers who weren’t digging out the massive latrine were gathering up lumber to reinforce them.

  Haim had approached him earlier in the day. “Aelfric, every spearman in my fyrde wants a chance to break your neck for this shithole fiasco.” The big half-breed had complained. “I can’t say as I don’t agree with them. They’re calling you the Lord of the Privies.”

  “Haim, I promise you, by this time next week you will be thanking me for these privies.” Aelfric had replied, then gone back to digging with a will. Time! He thought to himself. He needed more time!

  For hours he had thought about how to deal with an attack by as many as three thousand Karltan Island Auligs armed with bows that could pierce chainmail, with town walls that were closed to his band and commanders who did not believe the Auligs could possibly come this far south. In a perfect world in which he was in command of what would be left of the Silver Run muster once the horsemen galloped off to chase raiders, he would have had them building mantlets, movable walls of wicker or wood that would catch arrows and shelter infantry. As it was, he could barely convince his men of the need to wear armor this far from the city of Northcraven Deep.

  But taking his morning shit had inspired him as he looked down into the overflowing latrine, a shallow trench that had been dug into the ground and was woefully inadequate to the task of serving the needs of the several thousands of soldiers who had already mustered in Walcox or were passing through it.

  If he could not have mantlets, he could have trenches, even if they were supposed to be latrines, and the men who weren’t digging were cutting timber for seats. If they noticed that they had far more timber than they needed, they said nothing, or they kept their grumbling to themselves. The timbers would be an excellent cover from archery should Aelfric’s guess at the Aulig’s plan prove correct.

  At midmorning Tuchek rode up, and he surveyed the latrines with an experienced eye. “A nice earthwork. Very nice.” He added when he saw the lumber stacked nearby. “You’ll never finish it in time, though.” Then he drew Aelfric’s attention to a group of ragged refugees who were looking on dolefully. “Those men can dig, I’d warrant. And for a silver penny I bet you could get the lot for the whole day. How did you get permission to fortify this area?”

  “It’s not an earthwork, Tuchek. This is a luxury latrine, complete with a wooden roof to keep the rain off. My men are ready to hang me. You going to stick around to watch the fun?” Aelfric asked him, but the Aulig shook his head grimly, even as he reached into his saddlebags to stealthily hand Aelfric a handful of silver and gold coins.

  “No, we’ve been ordered north to hunt will o’ the wisp raiders between here and Northcraven Deep. You won’t have any cavalry to speak of.” Then he stood in his saddle, looking into the woods. “They’re watching you as sure as I’m sitting here. They’ll know as soon as we leave, and they’ll know when we’re too far off to come back and relieve you. I’d say you have until nightfall.”

  Aelfric nodded, then he looked at the refugees. There were some strong backs there, and a desperate need for silver. “I appreciate the suggestion.”

  “Good luck to you.” Tuchek concluded, then turned his horse and rode off to join the godsknights impatiently waiting for the return of their scout. Apart from the godsknights were several hundred ranks of armored cavalry, eager knights and lancers ready to move.

  When they were gone Aelfric felt terribly defenseless.

  It took less than half an hour for Aelfric to strike a bargain with Jember O’Craven, the self-appointed leader of the refugees. Once word spread that there was pay to be had digging the latrines, there were more men than shovels, and the work began to proceed rapidly. Skilled carpenters began knocking together roofs for the latrines, and over a hundred men were digging, stripping the branches from timbers and lining the trenches with wooden benches that incidentally would be quite effective at stopping arrows.

  The Red Tigers, amazed at the efficiency with which the freemen and peasants worked, willingly surrendered their shovels and let the more experienced men have at it.

  Around mid-afternoon a fyrdman from the second fyrde of spears stumbled toward Aelfric from the direction of the town. “Who is in charge here?” He demanded in a voice blurred by drink. When Aelfric raised a hand, the fyrdman half stumbled toward him and angrily shouted. “Who authorized this fortification? We’ve no writ to be raising a fort here!”

  Haim, overhearing this, looked at the latrines with a new eye, and it dawned on him what Aelfric had been doing all day long. “A fortification. I’ll be damned.” Other Red Tigers began to whisper among themselves excitedly.

  Aelfric turned to the fyrdman and replied in a voice loud enough to be overheard by all those around him. “You are mistaken, sir. This is a latrine. Tessil Barith authorized us moving camp, and we need a latrine if we’re going to have a camp.”

  “Latrine my bleeding arse.” The fyrdman replied. “You’ve put in a twin sided trench, and a fixed mantlet over the top. That’s a sunken barbican or I’m a Mortentia City whore!”

  “I assure you, what you are calling a fixed mantlet is merely a low ceiling so the soldiers may use the latrine without getting rained on. The Captain told me to build a latrine, and I’m building the best one I know how.”

  “And why does your fornicating latrine have arrow slits in it, might I ask?”

  “Arrow slits?” Aelfric replied in feigned surprise. “You mean those grooves cut into the timbers there? Why, privies must have seats, sir, and those grooves are for installing them. I decided that it would be good to have removable seats so that when the seats get soiled they can be changed for fresh ones. I heard a discourse once on dysentery, and the man said that he thought it spread through dirty latrines …”

  The fyrdman approached Aelfric closely, standing face to face and glowering. “I don’t know what kind of a fool you take me for, young man, but this is a gods damned fortification. We are a mercenary band, not a lord’s army, and we don’t have anyone’s permission to be building fortifications on Northcraven land. If the duke hears of this …”

  “The Duke of Northcraven is busy right now.” Aelfric interrupted. “He’s in a castle surrounded by fifty thousand Auligs intent on burning it down, unless I miss my guess. You want to ride to Northcraven City and tell him that the Red Tigers have built a first-class shitter in the ass-end of nowhere you go ahead and do that, but the Blackhill Gang has work to do. Why don’t you get back to town and back into your wineskin? Or better yet, go and tell Tessil Barth about this crapper, which he authorized by the way, and if you can drag him away from his cups, let him know that Aelfric O’Brownton is building a really nice privy.”

  “Don’t.” Haim warned the fyrdman when he saw his hand inching toward his sword. “This here Aelfric will take your head off. You seen him in the practice yard.”

  Evidently the fyrdman had seen Aelfric’s sword work, for he thought better of putting it to the test. “This isn’t finished you insolent pup.” He exclaimed as he turned his back, strutting angrily toward the city gate.

  “No, but I hope to have it finished by nightfall.” Aelfric replied. Then he turned toward Haim. “Thank you for that, Haim.”

  “You really think we’re going to need a fort here, Aelf
ric?”

  “There isn’t a doubt in my mind, Haim. And precious little time to get it finished.”

  If the exchange with the drunken fyrdman had accomplished anything, it had informed the Red Tigers of the true purpose of their work. Those who had accompanied Aelfric on the firewood assignment and heard of the dead woodcutters quickly spread the word, and from somewhere the broken end of the Karltan Island arrow, complete with white feathered fletching, appeared. Some of the Red Tigers laughed at crazy Aelfric, Lord of the Privy, but many more returned to the work with a will, the more experienced among them adding defensive features here and there.

  “Aelfric, I got some men digging some drainage pits on the outside of the latrine.” Blacwin Woodwright explained. “We buried some sharp stakes in the bottom to keep animals out of the shit. Thet way when it rains we ken pour out the shit without the latrine filling up.”

  “Lord Privy.” A man from one of the archer fyrdes addressed him. “We’ve done made some movable shutters to keep the wind out when the men is shitting, Lord. We can attach them to the mantlets … err, the roof, for when the wind blows. Have you a notion when the wind might be coming?”

  “I’m no lord. Just Aelfric.” He replied, looking up from his shovel at the nearly completed ‘latrine’. “But if I were a weather seer, I’d say there’s going to be a hard wind blowing tonight. Maybe around nightfall.”

  The archer turned pale. “Aye, Aelfric o’ the Privy. I will tell the men.”

  By the time the sun had settled into a wreath of orange clouds on the western horizon, Aelfric’s work was done. He surveyed it grimly. As a latrine, what he had built was perhaps excessive. It was fully five paces wide, nearly eighty paces long, and covered with a low roof of interlacing branches, timbers and wood. Beneath the roof was a wide trench nearly a pace and half deep, and timbers lining the sides raised the walls to man-height. There were long vertical slits in the wall for the placement of privy chairs, none of which had actually been built, and movable panels of wood placed throughout, in case the wind –or arrows- needed blocking. Beyond the latrine’s walls there were several drainage pits with spikes in the bottom to keep varmints out, and several long mounds of dirt that coincidentally would give the men on the latrines a great deal of privacy should they happen to want to run into the woods for some reason. In the bottom of the latrine someone had placed a great deal of cloth and several buckets of pitch in case someone wanted to wipe his ass with burning oil …

  Well, Aelfric couldn’t quite justify having the rigging for flaming arrows in the bottom of his latrine.

  As a fortification it was defensible. It had room for perhaps three hundred men and could be defended by as few as fifty, if they had bows, spears and swords. Most importantly, it was damned near archer-proof. It was the kind of fortification young Aelfric had built in miniature out of mud and sticks with his father’s approval and suggestions added in. Aelfric had not forgotten a moment of the wargames he had played with his father, for they were perhaps the only kind of game his father knew.

  The placement was important, too. It was the only defensible position between the town of Walcox and the forest, placed to provide good cover should the town need to be abandoned. Aelfric had deliberately positioned a number of the Red Tigers’ larger wagons and carts so that they formed a lane between the city gates and this latrine. Those running from the town could, with speed, luck and the favor of Lio, make it to the Red Tiger latrine even under a hail of arrows. Running from the latrine to the woods would mean facing the same kind of gauntlet, but at least there would be some kind of chance.

  Haim, covered in dirt and grime and looking half exhausted, walked up to Aelfric in the dying light. “If them Auligs don’t attack soon, you are going to look like the biggest horse’s ass in Mortentia. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I should have extended the line of the trench closer to the forest, Haim.” Aelfric replied. “And we are going to need men posted at the wagons with torches should the attack come tonight.”

  “We’ve already done that, your Privy-Lordship.” Haim responded, his tone amused rather than critical. “You ain’t the only one in this here army with a brain, you know.”

  “I hope you’re right, Haim.” Then he regarded his friend in the orange sunset glow. “I know that if the Auligs don’t attack tonight I’m going to look like fifty kinds of fool, but I still think they’re coming. If not tonight then soon. That town is going to go up like it was made of paper.” He indicated the town nearby, low wooden walls looking orange-black in the dying light, as if it were already in flames. Behind the walls but above them loomed the overbuilt buildings of Walcox, with roofs made of thatch or wooden shingles. Even Haim could see that half a dozen burning arrows would have the place in flames in minutes.

  “Aye. But just because you see a thing don’t mean everybody seen it.” Haim replied. Then he looked over at Aelfric’s finished construction. “Ah shit. I gots to go. That damned Berl O’Dunwater thinks he can take a piss in our privy.”

  Aelfric laughed.

  Tessil Barith was troubled, but he dared not let it show. Four hours into a long game of tiles and he had not seen nor even caught a smell of the five cups. On his left hand sat Uldred D’Marek, the fat and balding Lord Mayor of Walcox, who was driving everyone else at the table to distraction with his utter lack of tells. Uldred sweated nervously when he was winning and sweated nervously when he was losing and touched his beard pensively whether he was thinking or not. Kjor Ajin, the blond leader of Ajin’s Band, sat on Tessil’s right hand, and Walthin Dhoor, the pimple-faced leader of the Fire-Eaters sat at the foot of the table.

  Ajin, Dhoor and Tessil had been a bit in their cups when they decided that they would enter into this conspiracy to fleece the Lord Mayor of his coin, for they had played many a game of tiles together and believed their combination to be invincible. The Lord Mayor, as fat and stupid as he seemed, had turned out to be some kind of prodigy at tiles, and was steadily accruing a fat fund of mercenary gold at their expense. Every assault the three captains had led against his corner of the board had failed, and now he was in a nearly invulnerable position.

  But Tessil had been quietly building a sextet of cups, a combination that, combined with the positioning of the others, would leave him in sole command of nearly half the table. If he could but draw the five cups, or perhaps even swindle it out of one of his co-conspirators, he would carry enough gold away from this table to hire another fyrde of spearmen.

  He suspected the Lord Mayor knew the tile he needed and was withholding it, which would be well in keeping with tonight’s dismal luck. Tessil had even quit drinking an hour ago as the game continued to sour. The tavern was roaring with the noise of half-shouted conversations and a poorly played dulcimer and flute. Whores were gathered around the table like vultures above a battlefield, painted and primed to pluck the winnings from the victor.

  It was his turn to draw, and he said a silent prayer to the Angel of War that this tile would be the one he needed.

  “M’lord!” Tessil looked up with some annoyance to find Ardur Brenn, fyrdman of his Second fyrde of spears approaching the table where the four men played. Ardur looked half drunk, and since Tessil had seen him drinking steadily all day, this was no surprise. “M’lord, that Aelfric O’Brownton is building a fornicating fort.”

  Tessil closed his eyes and silently cursed the stupid man. What a bleeding cunt, to go and blurt that aloud in front of the Lord Mayor! He forced a laugh, grinning at the men around the table. “A fort, you say?” Then, turning to the Lord Mayor he explained, “I commanded him to move our camp and dig a new latrine.”

  Ardur continued angrily. “Aye, he said it were a privy, but any fool can see it’s a fort.”

  The Lord Mayor turned to Tessil, his eyes narrow with concern. “Commander Barith, is this so? The Duke will not tolerate armed men building and occupying a fortification in his territory.”

  “I assure you, ‘tis not a fort, your
Lordship.” Fires of Hell, he wished the fool Brenn would shut his mouth! “Let us get to the bottom of this. Fyrdman Brenn, where is this so-called fort?”

  “’Tis between the town and the wood, commander.”

  Tessil laughed. “In the empty space between the town and the wood where I told him to place the camp? Why, there is nothing there! Tell me, is he within bowshot of the walls?”

  “No, my lord.”

  “Well, if he’s not within bowshot of the walls, he can hardly be a threat to his Lordship’s town, can he?” The Lord Mayor seemed to relax at this. Good, good.

  “No, my lord, but it is still a fortification.” Brenn insisted. Was the fool mad?

  “A fortification.” Tessil nodded. “And what kind of stone is he using?”

  “Tis wood and earth, sir.”

  “Wood and Earth. Like a latrine, you mean.” Half of the men overhearing the conversation began to laugh. Tessil carefully observed that the Lord Mayor was grinning as well.

  “Aye.” Said Brenn, flushing angrily at the laughter. He struck a ridiculous pose with his hands on his hips. “But it has arrow slits and a mantlet, Lord.”

  “You mean it has a roof and windows. Like a latrine.” The Lord Mayor laughed aloud at this remark.

  “I think your man here has had too much to drink, Barith.” Kjor Ajin added helpfully.

  “I think he has.” Barith replied.

  “If you will but come and look, m’lord, you will see tis a fortification!”

  “What? Leave the game and this fine wine and all of these amazingly talented and skilled whores in the middle of the night to go and stare at a latrine in the darkness? Are you mad, Brenn?”