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

by D. S. Halyard

  The Mortentian lancers and the godsknights, though? What a mess that was. The day after getting the letter, he had invited the Mortentian High Cavalier (he didn’t know why the man refused to be called simply the lancer’s commander) and Celdemer, the High Captain of the godsknights, to meet him in the court square. This was a large open square in front of the south gate of Walcox, so named because it had been the site of Busker O’Hiam’s now famous trial for murder. The villagers had made something of a shrine of the place, hauling in carved benches from some abandoned church or other, and building a high court seat where Aelfric had sat. Rain and sun had faded the wood a bit, but it was still a nice open space. Celdemer practically choked whenever he was forced to visit Aelfric in his sweat-smelling tent.

  With Faithborn and Bishop Weymort standing by, Aelfric had simply handed the letter to Celdemer, who read it in some amazement, examining the signature twice, as if looking for some sign that it was forged. Tuchek had come with the godsknights, and Celdemer handed it to the big Aulig next. Tuchek handed it to Aurix O’Lio, the High Cavalier, and all three read it through at least once before any of them spoke.

  “Of course, dear Aelfric, you know that this does not apply to the godsknights.” Celdemer said, with an expression on his face like he was stating the obvious to a child. “We are under the church’s jurisdiction, not the king’s.”

  “And we serve the godsknights, of course.” The High Cavalier added quickly, attempting the same arrogant expression, but Bishop Weymort was already shaking his head.

  “Not true as to the lancers.” He said quickly. “The lancers wear crimson and are directly answerable to the king. In this case the delegation of authority is quite clear. The lancers fall under the auspices of the letter, and are commanded now by Lord Aelfric.”

  Aurix looked to Celdemer for support, but found none. “Oh, I’m very sorry Aurix, but I am afraid the bishop is quite right. What a pity you won’t be able to drill with us anymore.” His tone said that it was anything but, and from the wry look on Tuchek’s face, Aelfric suspected that Celdemer was glad to be rid of the man.

  Aurix stood stiffly, glaring at the faces around him, then he put his nose in the air and breathed in sharply, as if forced to do something that he loathed, which he probably did. “Very well, Lord Aelfric.” He sounded pained. “We shall await your command.”

  “I’m afraid that goes for me, too.” Tuchek had said, earning a hurt look from Celdemer. “I’m not actually a godsknight, and I’m sworn to the king. Lord Aelfric, I’m your man.”

  Which would have been all well and good, except the lancers and the godsknights had been sharing mounts, servants and squires, and the godsknights insisted on keeping the best horses and at least one remount each. The servants and squires all wanted to go with the godsknights, so Aelfric wound up with five hundred lancers with three hundred inferior horses and no remounts, no squires and only a dozen grooms to care for the lot. Aelfric tasked Edwell with procuring more trained warhorses, which was a nearly impossible task. Until the horses could be found, those lancers who knew the sword were put in sword fyrdes and those who didn’t were put in spear fyrdes. He didn’t trust any of them with bows.

  Losing the two hundred heavy knights was, in Aelfric’s opinion, more than compensated for by gaining Tuchek. The veteran warrior fit in well with Aelfric’s ‘Privy Council’ (yes, that’s what they called it), an informal group that included Bishop Weymort, Commander Faithborn, Edwell the Indispensable Masterclerk, Captain Busker O’Hiam, Fyrdman Haim and the head of their supply train Anbarius, a farmer with a gift for organizing and obtaining supplies. The High Cavalier insisted on being a part of their nightly meetings, but contributed just about nothing.

  Tonight they had a strategy meeting, and Aelfric had either ‘confiscated’ or ‘appropriated’ the High Cavalier’s large white tent for the purpose. Edwell brought in the best map of northern Mortentia that could be found, and spread it out on a large table. Most of the men took seats around it, but these kinds of meetings made Aelfric strangely manic, and he could not seem to think without pacing around. Tuchek did not sit either, preferring to stand like a wooden statue and stare ominously at the map from the foot of the table. Before Aelfric received his letter, Celdemer had frequented these meetings, but now the knight did not deign to appear, probably because he didn’t want to be seen as taking commands from this ‘upstart lord’. Four lampstands illuminated the inside of the tent, and it didn’t stink, a fact alone that made it well worth confiscating and probably justified Aurix’ obnoxious presence as well.

  Aelfric began the meeting without ceremony. “Edwell, what is the status of the fortification on Walcox’ common?”

  “Excellent, milord.” The clerk said. “The moat is three-fourths dug, the base wall is fifteen feet in the wood and nine in the stone. The stone should be at fifteen to match in no more than three weeks. The inner keep is progressing more slowly, but should have walls entire by mid-Kastanus. The drawbridges have been completed, as all here know, and the arrow towers are serviceable, if not fully cased in brick or stone.”

  “Good.” Aelfric replied. “Busker, you’ve inspected it, right?” The mercenary captain nodded. “And Faithborn?” The Hammer’s commander nodded as well. “What is the minimum and maximum garrison it needs, if it had to be defended in, say, a week?”

  “A week?” Haim interrupted. “Are we expecting trouble?”

  “I always expect trouble.” Aelfric replied. “In a week I expect most of our army to be leagues from here, and I need to know how many we need to leave behind so that we can return and not find Walcox burned out again.”

  “Minimum sixty bows, but that’s leaving no capability to launch sorties, only to hold the fort. Maximum four hundred, with a mix of archers, spears and swords. With a score of lancers thrown in that would be enough to hold not just the keep, but probably to police the town as well, depending on what comes at us.” O’Hiam said, and Faithborn nodded his agreement.

  “I’d be fairly comfortable with that.” He said. “Of course, there is this war going on, and if there was another substantial attack, all bets would be off. That keep won’t stop forty thousand Auligs again, I am certain. But normal raids like we’ve heard of up north? Three or four hundred of the piss-purples could do it, if you threw in a few reds and whites for seasoning.”

  “Do we have any wounded veterans who would be good for that kind of command?”

  “We have a lot of them.” Faithborn replied. “And many of them just itching for a chance to be of use.”

  Aelfric nodded. “Good. Then that’s what we’ll do.”

  Tuchek stood and watched him as he began to pace, pausing only to look at the map from time to time. “All right.” He nodded, although no one had asked him a question. The strange look of intense concentration took over his face, starting with a firming of his chin, then moving up to his eyes. They glittered fiercely while he spoke. “So the king has ordered us to secure a position of strength, if we can. He’s also asked us to relieve the siege of Northcraven, if we think it’s possible.”

  “If you think it is possible is what he said.” Faithborn corrected.

  “Right.” Aelfric nodded to the man. “And it’s plain from the letter that the king doesn’t think we can do it, right?” Faithborn nodded.

  “But what if we can?”

  Busker O’Hiam looked at the Privy Lord with that scary look on his face, and felt the tread of something dark across his grave. Seven hells, he thought, thinking of what the butcher was going to charge for this adventure.

  “The last word we had from the town of Redwater is that it is still in our hands, right?” The Privy Lord asked the group.

  “Yes, according to the last troop of refugees to come through. But that’s the word from three or four weeks ago.” Faithborn said.

  “But it’s a walled town, good stone walls with half of them overlooking the river, right? And there was a bridge there, across the narrows. I know the br
idge has been destroyed, but the walls should still be standing, and there is a good Tolrissan diamond keep on the south side of the town. No reason to think it’s fallen, is there?”

  “No, but it’s under siege, I’m sure.” Tuchek said, speaking for the first time. “I know the Ghaill wouldn’t ignore it. It’s no more than fifteen leagues south of Northcraven. It will have at least one good sized band surrounding it.”

  “One good sized band.” Aelfric repeated. “So a battle, but nothing we can’t handle, right?”

  “Sure we can handle them.” Faithborn said. “But to what end? So we can move our five thousand into a town that’s besieged and wait for the Auligs to come across the river at us?”

  “No.” Aelfric replied. “So we can gain access to the narrows and come across the river at them.”

  “Madness!” The High Cavalier declared, and Busker reluctantly agreed with him, even if he was a complete ass. Crossing the river would put them in the middle of the Cthochi territory, and they would be picked off like flies.

  “Madness, us in the open in the Aulig light forest, I agree. But what if we had a fort on the other side?” Aelfric asked. “A fort we could launch sorties from.”

  “You think the Auligs are going to just let you build a fort on their side of the river?” Demanded Haim. “They’d be on us like stink on a privy, no offense.”

  Aelfric laughed, the tension leaving his face for a moment. “None taken, Haim. No, I don’t mean for us to build a fortification on their side of the river. I mean to build it here and take it across.”

  Faithborn shook his head. “How do you think that’s going to work, Aelfric? How are you going to move a fortification across a river?”

  The Privy Lord answered with a question. “During the war between Dunwater and Arker in ought three, the Arker’s Hammers were holed up in a small keep at the frontier, right O’Hiam?”

  Busker found himself nodding and remembering. Seven hells, had Aelfric read accounts of every little skirmish in Mortentia? “Aye, and we were defending it.”

  “And the Duke of Dunwater built siege towers and nearly breached it, right?”

  Busker remembered, all right. He remembered firing flaming arrows at the damned things as they approached the walls and praying they would catch, which they didn’t. The Dunwater Dogs had soaked them in brine. He remembered a ramp coming down and fifty armored knights crossing, and he remembered fighting them step by backward step all the way down the outer bailey walls and into the courtyard. If the Hammers hadn’t had crossbowmen in reserve, that would have been the end of both the siege and the Hammers. As it was, their defense held, but only just. “They breached it all the way, Lord Privy. Nothing near about it. We nearly lost that one, but what does that have to do with this?”

  “Something I remembered from an account of that war written by the Earl of Chiam. Do you remember how long it took them to build the siege towers?”

  “Seemed like they put them up all in a day. Damned if we knew how they did it. They must have had a hundred carpenters working.”

  “Actually, they put the siege towers up in nine hours, and only twenty carpenters to do it.”

  “Bull dung.” Busker replied. “That’s ridiculous. Those things were huge, and they had two of them.”

  “That’s right, they had two. Both of them built in Dunwater a month earlier. They built them in pieces, put the pieces on wagons, carted them to the keep and assembled them overnight. Two siege towers, forty feet high, and all the pieces carried overland on ten large wains. Two siege towers is half of a diamond keep, gentlemen.”

  “You want to build a keep and cart it across the Redwater on a bridge that isn’t there anymore?” Faithborn’s tone was more than skeptical.

  “Exactly. Because we’re going to take a bridge with us as well. Anbarius, can you get us thirty large wains?”

  “I’ll put the old men on it.” Anbarius said, referring to himself and the two or three hundred other farmers like him who had come to fight for the Privy Lord, but were judged too old for the fighting fyrdes. Maybe they couldn’t fight, but they could build and they could work, and most of them had more sand than the spearmen, in Busker’s estimation. “You’ll have your wains. We’ll build your walls and bridges, too.”

  Of course, the plan was a lot more complicated than that. It involved a long march over dangerous territory, moving an army of four or five thousand men, protecting and concealing large wooden structures moving on wains, constant cavalry patrols to prevent ambush and half a hundred other things, but the basics were there. Busker listened and added details he thought were important, and everyone else contributed, too. The High Cavalier, which was a ridiculous title, actually contributed this time, for of course his lancers would have the toughest duty, riding patrol on the army as it marched and making sure no spies or raiding parties intercepted them. It would have to be a very fast forced march, but all of the infantry had been drilling hard lately. He knew the Tigers and the Hammers were up to it. The old men and the wagons would just have to keep up. They were discussing Redwater when the Aulig scout chimed in.

  “I have a problem and a solution, Aelfric.” He said. “The problem is preventing the Auligs from stopping us in the middle of construction of the fort.”

  “That is a soft spot in the plan, I admit it.” Aelfric agreed. “I was going to propose a reconnaissance in force and a hard shield wall, with a cavalry patrol while the fort was going up. I know that a determined attack by a large band of Cthochi might force us to abandon the plan if they come on us during construction.”

  Busker groaned to himself. Reconnaissance in Force was a euphemism for half-assed attack in his book.

  “Yes, that is what I was thinking, too.” The Aulig replied. “But what if there was a way to move a large group across the river beforehand? Get the shield wall up before you lay in the bridge. Maybe a group of scouts or rangers?”

  “Is there such a way? Are you thinking of canoes? I am pretty sure the Cthochi will have a lot of river watchers.”

  “Not canoes. A tunnel.”

  “You want us to dig a tunnel under the Redwater?” Aelfric’s tone was incredulous, and several people laughed out loud.

  “No need. It’s already there. Or at least it was fifteen years back. I’ve been through it. It is cut stone, maybe four paces wide, and starts south of Redwater town and crosses under the river. There was a place to come up just on the other bank, about where you want to site your fort, but the tunnel goes on beyond that, goes on for leagues, actually.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” Said the cavalier. “Who would build such a thing?”

  “I don’t know.” Eskeriel said, eyeing the cavalier coldly. “But it is there, it was built a long time ago and I wouldn’t suggest you call my honesty into question ever again.”

  Nearly every man in Aelfric’s army had taken sword instruction from the Aulig, and the cavalier was quick to apologize.

  Aelfric digested the knowledge that there was a way to cross the Redwater without going across the water, and his eyes sharpened. “A tunnel under the river. Tuchek, this changes everything.” Busker didn’t know who Tuchek was, but he was starting to see the possibilities inherent in a secret passage to the Aulig side of the Redwater. Aelfric’s mad plan to break the siege of Northcraven was starting to sound plausible.

  “What of the godsknights?” The Bishop asked, and Busker couldn’t help the quick feeling of contempt that took him. So far the armored knights had proven less than useless to Aelfric, and the manpower involved in housing, feeding and wiping their privileged asses could have been put to much better use. Not that anyone asked his opinion, but there it was.

  “What about them?” Aelfric’s tone suggested that he shared Busker’s opinion. “Celdemer’s made it clear that we have no say in what they do, and he can’t even be bothered to attend our meetings anymore.”

  “Actually, Lord Aelfric, they are technically mine to command.” The bishop said, drawing the s
harp attention of every man in the room. “They fall under the jurisdiction of Mereham Cathedral, and as I am the only ranking member of the clergy between here and Nevermind, they’re under my rule.”

  “Do you think Sir Celdemer is going to admit to that?” Aelfric asked.

  “He will.” Bishop Weymort replied, but Busker wouldn’t have put half a copper on it.

  The next day the camp came alive well before dawn, and every man working or drilling in earnest. Anbarius looked about his crew of old farmers and old crafters, and set about finding skilled carpenters. He’d never actually seen a siege tower, nor did he have the making of one, but there were many men there who could sort it out. He sent half of his old men into the forest to find and cut the right sized trees, and nearly half of his men scouring the countryside for wains or parts that could be put together into wains. He decided that the long beams that would be needed for the tower corners could be more easily moved by simply securing them to axles rather than building wains. Once he’d hit on this idea, half a dozen more possibilities sprang to mind, and he decided he wasn’t going to need thirty wains after all. He was going to need a lot of axles and a lot of rope, however, and he began sending men to find, fetch or build them.

  He was working harder than he could ever remember working on the farm, even during the haying, and using or learning new skills he didn’t remember possessing. Brythe, Jenna and Henna had left for Pulflover a week earlier, and he was a little sad that Henna couldn’t see how much use the Privy Lord was putting him to. He was proud of what he was doing.

  It was funny how much faith the men here had in young Aelfric, and especially after just one battle. Sure, some of the old men grumbled about beginner’s luck and the fellow being given credit for other men’s ideas, but to sit in a room with the man when that funny mood of his hit could make a believer out of anyone. It wasn’t just the faith the men placed in him, either. It was the faith he placed in them.