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

by D. S. Halyard

  Anbarius had been but two days working with the supply train when he’d been called before the man. “I understand you took it upon yourself to reorganize the wood milling for the town walls, masterfarmer. Is that right?”

  “Yes, milord. I thought to make things work more smoothly.”

  “You thought right. You’ve cut the time needed to repair the north gate by nearly six days, according to my clerk.” The smallish man Anbarius had come to know as Edwell there nodded with his dry smile. “Is there anything else around here you think needs reorganizing?”

  Anbarius had hesitated, but the Privy Lord encouraged him, and the truth was he had a list of about a dozen ways the men could be doing things more efficiently. He’d sat down and given the Privy Lord a full run down of his notions, and the man had not only listened, but he’d paid close attention, interrupting, although politely enough, with smart questions and suggestions. The interview had lasted over an hour, and once Aelfric found out that Anbarius had his letters, he’d written up and handed a piece of paper to him. It was a priority list of his own ideas, written out in the order in which the Privy Lord thought they should be done, and on top of that he had the man’s signature on the paper giving him the authority to order other folks to do as he asked. Then he’d left Anbarius to do it, never once looking over his shoulder to make sure, but just trusting him to get the things done. And he had.

  When he’d come to the Red Tigers he’d imagined himself standing in a shield wall or shooting at the Cthochi with a bow, never this. Aelfric used him for what he was good for, though, and Anbarius came to realize that he’d have been completely wasted in a combat fyrde. Now he felt useful, and he helped the other old men feel useful, putting their many lifetimes’ worth of experience to good service for the war.

  With Anbarius running the supply and construction side of the camp, there weren’t but a few idle hands anywhere, and most of them in the tents of the godsknights. The only reason he hadn’t put them to use was because he had no authority to, but if ever he caught one of their squires or servants standing about, he soon had the man leaping. The Secret Gods knew, there was plenty of work for all hands to be doing and more.

  He went to fetch his pen and scroll.

  Busker O’Hiam was happy to be saddled and riding a quick and steady cream colored gelding, wearing some obnoxious tangled brand on its shoulder and eager to run. He was happy about it because the Lord Regent of Diminios himself had ordered the horses delivered to the Walcox camp, and they had come yesterday afternoon, just two days before the army was scheduled to leave for Redwater Town. The Lord Regent was a veteran of the first Aulig war, and he’d apparently been hearing enough about this one to get concerned. He’d held a muster at a cattle common he maintained across the river from Riverdun, and five hundred of his field knights and a thousand spearmen had attended. Along with them came about seventy drovers and a thousand half-wild horses, along with this one.

  The High Cavalier was happy, because he now had remounts as well as doubling the size of his striking force, and everyone else was happy, too, except possibly the godsknights. Aelfric had refused to give them any more horses. More horses meant more teams to pull wains, more scouts that could be sent out, more messages delivered swiftly and, to Busker’s delight, officers could now ride instead of slogging across the fields.

  He probably couldn’t take horses into a tunnel, however, and Busker regretted that. He’d been given the assignments for his fifty spear fyrdes, and they just about scared him witless.

  Autumn Falling Leaf put powder on her face to lighten her complexion and carefully wiped redberry juice on her lips to make them appear fuller than they were. She dressed in a sheer black linen shift and hid her hunting leathers in a bag that she stowed in a small wooden chest beneath her lady clothes, as she called them. In four summers working for the farmers near Redwater she had rid herself of her Cthochi accent completely, and she’d grown out her hair and lightened it with bitter-root soap. She put up her hair in a silver brooch the way the captain liked, and she went and stood in front of her tent. It was Waterday, and she knew he would be coming with his silver penny.

  She watched him as he walked through the disorderly lines of the camp-follower tents, his rust red tabard freshly washed. He stopped and lingered at the bootmaker’s tent, idly handling a pair of black boots that she knew he wouldn’t buy. She watched him hanging around the tent of the wineseller. Sometimes he brought a bottle, but usually he did not. Tonight he did not, and she was glad. She did not really like the taste of wine, although she pretended that she did.

  Finally he came to the front of her tent, gave her a quick wink, and after a quick look to see that he wasn’t seen, slipped inside. She smiled and closed the tent’s flap.

  “Good evening, love.” He said. “How are things?”

  “I missed you, captain.” She replied. “I was afraid you would all be leaving.”

  “Not for a couple of days.” He said.

  “Where are we going?”

  “It’s not us this time.” He said regretfully. “Just the army. You lot are to remain in Walcox.”

  She frowned prettily. “Where will you go? When will I see you again?” She dropped the top of her shift, revealing her powdered nipples to him, and letting him smell the perfume she had received as a gift from him two nights earlier. He leaned close and kissed her.

  “Going north to Brinnvolle, then up north to Theotman Common.” He replied after a bit. “We’ll be gone from Walcox maybe a month. The Privy Lord wants to gather more men before the next battle.”

  “Surely you aren’t going to Northcraven?” She whispered. “You will all be killed! Please say you aren’t going that way.”

  “I’m afraid we are, love. But it will be a couple months before we ever go that way. It’s like he says, ‘what men can do we will do’. They’re starving in Northcraven, but we need a lot more men to break the siege. We’ve got to break through from the east. It’s the only way.” She took his cock in her hand and guided him to the thick layer of blankets on the floor.

  “I will miss you so much. Please say you will stay safe.” She whispered, then she let her shift fall to the floor. It took him a long time to finish, and she closed her eyes and endured it. When he was done, she took his silver penny and put it in her belt pouch. Then she washed herself with clear water from a basin she kept warm in a small jug over her lamp. She still didn’t feel clean, but she had a long way to go tonight. She didn’t want to feel his leavings in her.

  An hour after midnight she dressed in her hunting leathers and crept out of camp, careful to stay in the shadows. Half a mile south and west there was a pony waiting, tended by a half-breed brother in the livery of a godsknight retainer. It was already saddled, so she said nothing to the man, whose name she did not even know. She had a long and hard ride to reach the hidden camp where the drumspeaker waited with his secret codes.

  Busker O’Hiam whistled cheerfully and stepped out of the night and into the command tent. Aelfric turned to look at him. “Is she gone?”

  “Aye, she’s gone all right. Took off like there was a devil on her tail.”

  “Did she ask?”

  “She did. I told her just what you wanted me to.”

  “You want your penny back?”

  “Naw, she earned it. She’s a good little whore for a spy.”

  “When she comes back, see to it she gets her throat cut. I don’t want her hanging around to see our true intent.”

  “Aye, boss. I surely will.” Busker promised, regretting it only a little.

  Anbarius lay in the tent, staring at the ceiling and listening to the other two old men snore. He couldn’t sleep. Indeed, he thought his head would explode with all of the new ideas he had. He could hardly contain himself, and he leaped from the bed at the first bell, eager to speak to the Privy Lord. He dressed quickly, grabbing the bundle of scrolls that he’d spent half the night covering with his choppy beginner’s script, until his two
tentmates had finally told him to blow out the lamp so they could sleep. He strode quickly through the camp, only to find himself standing impatiently in front of the command tent, waiting for the men to come awake for another day’s labor.

  A disheveled and wearily blinking Aelfric approached him just before first light. “Anbarius, the watch tells me you’ve been waiting in front of my tent since first bell. What is so urgent?”

  “I’ve an idea, Lord Privy.” Anbarius replied. “A really interesting idea.”

  “Well, come on in and we’ll talk about it.” The Privy Lord said, and Anbarius was so eager that he forgot about protocol altogether, stepping into the tent ahead of the Privy Lord and ahead of masterclerk Edwell.

  Aelfric smiled. “Let’s light the lamp first, Anbarius, if you can stand the wait.”

  Half an hour later Aelfric was still listening. “You see milord, I got the idea when I was finding things for the idle men to do. It can be done, I am sure of it.”

  Aelfric shook his head. “But it will slow us down so much. If the men have to construct this … this sleeping fort each night, when will they sleep?”

  “If every man has a shovel or an axe, milord, it can be built in three hours, once they get the knowing of it. Right now it takes the men an hour to put up their night tents, and only maybe one in ten men actually doing the work. The rest of the men stand idle waiting for them to finish. Then it takes an hour for the baggage train to get established and the night orders to be issued, and again, nine of ten men standing about idle.”

  “I know you can’t stand to see men idle, Anbarius, but where do we get the materials to build this?”

  “Well, you see milord, it was your idea to build a fortification on the other side of the Redwater that made me think of it. I determined that rather than building wains, the larger timbers could just be tied onto axles, and then untied and levered into place once we arrived. Well, that got me to thinking, you know? How many men would it take to put up the four towers you needed, and how long would it take.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, that was a sticking point. We haven’t enough carpenters to do it, milord, not in a single night. So I thought to myself, where will we get the men? The answer was clear, of course, all of the soldiers standing about idle while their tents were being pitched. So I added up how many men would be needed, and then I asked commander Faithborn how many men we would have. More than enough, milord. Far more than enough. As for materials, we take timber where we camp, and what we can’t find we carry along. The whole thing is naught but dirt, wood, a few nails and a lot of rope.”

  “You’re talking about soldiers doing carpentry work.”

  “Yes, of course, but the simplest work. Nothing more than any new apprentice would be doing. So I thought, what about the other men? Why should three of ten men be helping the carpenters and seven still be layabouts?”

  “My men are hardly layabouts, masterfarmer.”

  “Of course not, milord. And certainly I understand that soldiers must drill and train. But I have been watching the camp, and the men only spend about two hours in drill each day, and about an hour taking care of their gear and weapons and such. The rest of the time they are talking, whoring, dicing and such. Please understand that I’m not judging. I understand that men who have to die sure enough have to live.”

  “Once we get going they will be spending about eight hours marching, too.” The Privy Lord observed. “And marching is hard work.”

  “Of course, of course.” Anbarius said. “And perhaps ‘tis because I am a farmer, lord. For a man on a farm must work from sun up to sundown, six of six days each week, every week of the year excepting the King’s Day Feasts, to be a success. I don’t know much about soldiering, but not a man here knows more of work than I do. You have said, and we take it for a motto, that ‘what men can do, we will do,’ and I like that very much.

  “The point is, if every man has a shovel or an axe in his kit, and if the scouts are searching for a suitable location each day, and if the officers have a standardized plan that they follow each night, I think the men can do it. I think we can march seven leagues each day and still build a defensible and fortified camp each night, with four watchtowers at the corners and a defensible wall. The men can then sleep in peace at evening without fear of harassment by the enemy.”

  “Let me see your plan for this fortification.” Aelfric replied. “You know if this works, it changes the way we’ve done war for hundreds of years, don’t you?”

  “I know nothing of that, milord. I’m just a farmer.”

  Aelfric went over the scrawled figures and drawings on the scrolls for at least two hours, and Edwell sent for breakfast to be brought to the tent. Finally he sat back in his chair, put his head back on his palms and looked at Anbarius thoughtfully.

  “By the seven hells, Anbarius, you are right.” He concluded. “At least I think so. I’ll have Faithborn and O’Hiam check your work.”

  “I believe I am right, milord.”

  “Well, whether you are right on this particular matter or not, you’ve been a tremendous help to this army. I’m promoting you to captain, effective immediately. You will have your own tent, a body servant and captain’s pay. Additionally, the old men are now yours to command. I am going to have Edwell draw up an order officially drafting them into this army. It’s going to put them under military law, which means no deserting or disobedience, and you are going to have to enforce that law. Can you bring yourself to see a man flogged or hanged?”

  “I don’t know … I guess if I truly needed to …” Anbarius looked pale.

  “You will likely need to, Anbarius. Also, you are going to have to learn some sword skill. Go and see Eskeriel, the master of scouts, and tell him I said so.”

  “No, no and double no.” Soolit of the Second Swords said to his fyrdman. “I already gots to carry a sword, a shield, my bedroll, two day’s rations, a spear, all my clothes and small clothes, extra boots, tent pegs and ten stone of food and other shite, and now I’m expected to haul it seven leagues each day. Now you’re telling me I gots to haul a shovel and I gots to dig a trench each fornicating night on top of all that? It’s bollocks, fyrdman. A man can only do so much.”

  “It’s orders.” The fyrdman replied. “Are you saying you won’t foller orders?”

  “I’m saying these orders is mad. Crazy blinking mad. You gots to stand for us. You gots to protest. It’s not right. I’m gone for soldiering, not digging peat. If I wanted to be a peat digger or a carpenter or a woodwright, I’d have ‘prenticed for that. This an’t fighting, this is naught but labor.”

  “All right, Soolit.” The fyrdman said. “You don’t have to carry a shovel.”

  “I don’t?”

  “No. You’re going to carry a heavy pick and fifty ells of rope. Any other man here want me to make a protest? Because someone’s going to have to carry forty weight of nails if they do. Anyone?”

  Nobody spoke, but Soolit was quietly cursing. The fyrdman turned to him. “You want to carry the nails, swordsman?”

  “Seven hells, fyrdman, I can’t do it.” The man whined.

  “Then shut your fornicating mouth, Soolit. Just because you was in the Whitewood don’t mean no special treatment in the Second Swords, you got that?”

  “Aye, fyrdman, but fook it all.”

  Busker O’Hiam looked up from the scrolls after an hour of reading them and discussing them with the Privy Lord. He was lucky he could read, and read well, for Anbarius’ childish scrawls sometimes took a few minutes to decipher, like a strange and arcane code. “We can do it, milord. And it’s a good idea. I like it a lot.”

  “I like it too.” Faithborn agreed. “And it will serve many good purposes. The men will sleep better, once they get over bitching about the labor. It gives us a place to fall back to should we be routed, not that the ever victorious Privy Army ever will, of course. Also it should prove pretty damned intimidating to the Cthochi, when they see us behind walls e
very night.”

  Aelfric regarded the two men for a moment, then he spoke. “You know, I’ve been thinking.”

  “You’re thinking all the damned time, milord.” Busker observed wryly.

  “There could have been a hundred thousand Auligs in the Whitewood.”

  “Glad there wasn’t, or we’d all be dead.” Busker replied.

  “That’s just it, Busker.” Aelfric replied, gently shaking his head. “We wouldn’t. The battle would have gone the same way.”

  “You think so?” Faithborn asked, curious.

  “I know it.” Aelfric replied. “Once we had the hedgehogs moving, there was nothing they could have done to change the result. Not the way they were fighting.” Busker raised his eyebrows skeptically, but reflected that the Privy Lord was probably right.

  “There was an Earl in Dunwater who once stated the rule that when half of a force is killed, that force breaks. Generals and captains have taken that as holy writ for generations, but it wasn’t true in the Whitewood. We had probably eight of ten of them down before they finally broke, and then they only retreated a little ways and we had to break them again.”

  “Aye, that was the way of it.” Busker agreed. “But they didn’t have any way of knowing how many casualties they’d took at that point. They didn’t know that they were eighty percent killed.”

  “No, but they had to know they were being smashed.” Aelfric replied. “And the Earl’s axiom isn’t supposed to depend on their knowledge. They fought with incredibly high morale, but we broke them just the same, and us with maybe one man to their ten. The point is, it was our methods that beat them. Our men certainly weren’t any better. Man to man we were probably worse.

  “They used to say of my father that if he could pick the terrain, he could beat a thousand armored knights with fifty spearmen. I always thought that was just, you know, bragging or what have you. Now I’m not so sure. Every time I go for a ride around Walcox I look over the terrain, since we may have to fight here again. I’ve seen half a dozen places where I think I could stand five fyrdes of spearmen against any number of knights.”