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

by D. S. Halyard

  Anyway, they’d been on it, and making good time, when all of the sudden they come across a wall that’s been thrown across it. Not even a good wall, and Soolit knew the look of a good wall by now, thank you very much Anbarius, but just a crap wall made out of split rails thrown up maybe two paces, and going maybe fifty paces in either direction. Standing around the wall is this collection of jagtooths, wearing crap armor and toting shitty little pigsticker swords or bows, and not a shield or a helmet among them.

  The scouts had apparently told the Privy Lord all about it, and he comes up riding, looking all around, and one of these jagtooths popped up to talk to him, pretty as you please, like he owns the damned road, which apparently he thinks he does. Soolit looked down the road and saw this long line of wagons headed south, and mixed up with the wagons is maybe four, five hundred refugees, and Soolit had plenty reason to know the look. Not a silver to their names, toting the tools from their farms or whatever, little babies crying at their mama’s empty tits, you know, the usual. The jagtooths have a strongbox, and they’re maybe a score, maybe thirty, and strutting around all important-like.

  Well, the Privy Lord rides up and this jagtooth captain, who apparently they made captain because he’s got a hat, walks up to him and starts running his mouth. Second Swords had crash duty that day, which is what they call the poor sods who get to crash into the enemy first, so Soolit was there to see the whole thing. “Welcome, my lord.” Jagtooth says, all suck-up like. “We saw your men coming, lord, and of course you may pass freely.”

  Lord Privy’s having none of it. “Who built this wall?” And Soolit could tell he wasn’t too happy. “Why is there a wall on the king’s roadway?”

  Jagtooth answers. “This is a toll, your honor. The local authorities determined that the travel on the king’s road was so heavy that they would need to make repairs, and they have contracted us to collect a toll.”

  Soolit had looked around, and there wasn’t any local authorities that he could see, except maybe a tiny village of about four houses one and a half to two leagues out in the distance. Lord Privy looks at the long line of people waiting, and he asks who they are. “Those folks haven’t paid the toll.” Captain Jagtooth says. “We’ll let them pass when they do.”

  Lord Privy nods. “How much is it?” He asks, and Soolit can tell the Privy Lord is really furious, because he’s gone all quiet and has that spooky thing in his voice, like when he says ‘hang them all’ talking about Auligs.

  But Jagtooth apparently thinks Privy Lord is going to offer to pay it, because he comes out with some outrageous numbers. “A copper penny per child and a silver penny for each man or woman grown.”

  “And how much do you have in the box?” Lord Privy asks, and the man clearly doesn’t want to answer. After about a minute of ‘I’m not quite sure’ and ‘we haven’t tallied today’s amount’ and whatnot, Privy Lord just shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter.” He says.

  “I have a letter here, signed by your king. This is his road, not yours. This letter gives me authority to confiscate, draft and levy.” Then the Privy Lord turns to Captain O’Hiam. “Take down this fence and put the strongbox in the supply train. Put these men in the spear fyrdes and tell these people the king’s road is open.”

  Well, when Captain O’Hiam goes to pick up the strongbox, Captain Jagtooth starts to holler, because apparently he hasn’t figured out what the Privy Lord has just ordered. “That’s our money! You can’t take it.”

  “Weren’t you listening?” Captain O’Hiam says. “He just confiscated it in the name of the king. Also, you’ve just been drafted into the Silver Run muster. Welcome to the Red Tigers. You’ll get your money back a penny a day, just like everybody else.”

  Well, Captain Jagtooth’s face was a study, and his men tried to rabbit, but by then the lancers had come up and surrounded them, and half the men in the Second Swords and every other fyrde were laughing their asses off at them. That had been some kind of funny, and thinking of it, Soolit chuckled a bit and finally went to sleep.

  For a few hours he could forget his poor feet, sore back and blistered hands.

  Aelfric walked the walls of the fort, marveling that such a thing could be put together in less than a single watch. The scouts had located it first, making sure it was a suitable site, then Anbarius had lain down the center line himself, making the mark with a stick dragging behind a wagon. The pick and shovel men had been ditching at the same time the rough carpenters had been notching the wall supports and timbers, and half of the troops had formed shield wall companies to protect the work while it was being built and the lancers had run patrols. The dirt from the trench, which Anbarius called a dry moat, was all used in the walls, and suddenly here was a fortification. They pitched the tents in the center of it, two hundred empty paces in the middle, with the wagons around the tents for some protection, even though everything should have been well out of bow range, even if the Auligs got bowmen right up to the walls, which they couldn’t without them getting shot.

  The corner towers were ten paces high, and the wall four, and two smaller towers guarded the single gate. The walkway he was standing on was just over a pace wide, leaving room for not only archers but a single file of men to run behind them if a place on the wall needed reinforcement. Here in the middle of nowhere his men had built in four hours a fortification that was as stout as the Walcox town wall, and the space within it much less vulnerable to attack. Aelfric wondered what the local people would think when they found it standing there.

  Anbarius had amazed Aelfric with his ability to put these things up, and this was the third one, and each one made from local materials, for all they needed was a decently flat field and a reasonable supply of local timber. The king’s letter meant that Aelfric didn’t have to pay for the timber he took, not that many of the locals were still around to object to his usage of it. His soldiers had become journeyman carpenters overnight, and they handled saw, axe, adze and hammer with familiar ease.

  They marched beside the Redwater River now, and Aelfric knew that scarcely three hundred paces over the water the Cthochi were watching. The signal drums rattled through the night, and the Earthspeaker knew where he was. Here, just five leagues south of Maslit, he wasn’t worried, for the Cthochi were not concentrated this far south, and any raiding parties coming across the river would be smashed by his lancers. There was little cover for the Auligs on this side of the river. He knew that once he passed through the town that had been the site of his father’s famous victory, however, things would get dicier.

  He was leaving a line of forts behind him like some strange rectangular spoor, and he knew the local people could use them to take shelter in once his army had gone, making the perilous journey to Walcox much safer. Each fortification was large enough to easily hold the population of a large town.

  Anbarius had taken one look across the river and scrapped his plans to use the long timbers they’d taken from Walcox to build a fort on the other side. The Cthochi side was thick with pine trees, tall and straight forest giants that his Old Men called ship’s masts. “You could sell them for a golden penny each.” Said one old shipwright, gazing enviously across the river at the trees. “And worth every bit of it. Ten or twelve of them and you got yourself a galley.” Anbarius decided those timbers would do better for tower building than the ones they’d brought along, and he was confident the men could shape them more easily and quickly than they could rebuild the Redwater Town bridge.

  Now Aelfric’s only task was to get a column of eight or nine thousand men and supplies across the river. They had been stealing Aulig war canoes whenever they found them on the Mortentian side, more to inconvenience the Cthochi than for use, and a pile of ten or twelve of them was roped onto the axles that had carried the long beams. The long beams were now the tower posts here.

  From time to time they passed the barren sites of other old fortifications, circular mounds of earth that had been the bases of stone forts. The round fortress
design, with a large circular inner keep surrounded by a wide circular wall of stone, had been a hallmark of the hundred kingdoms, and such mounds could be found even around Root’s Bridge. The Tolrissans preferred rectangular or diamond keeps, with towers at the corners so that archers could protect the walls, like his sleeping forts.

  A few scattered villages lined the Redwater River, fishing towns that had all been abandoned with the raiding. Many of the houses had been burned, and occasionally the scouts spotted a few looters or refugees hiding in the ruins. Sometimes they found little bands of Auligs. If they ran, the lancers got to run them down. If they surrendered they got the drop and dangle. If they tried to fight? None of them had so far, but Aelfric had the archers and the crash duty fyrdes for that.

  Rumor of its coming ran ahead of Aelfric’s army like a grass fire, and every day they had new recruits. Most of these were men either too young or too old to stand in the fyrdes, but Anbarius found a use for everyone except the women and children, and sometimes they armed the boys and old men simply for escort and sent them south to Walcox. They still had plenty of provisions, but they tried to live off the country as much as possible, slaughtering abandoned cattle, sheep or goats and picking clean any gardens they found. Aelfric rationed the food as much as he could, for it was late summer, and fall and winter would be hard.

  He doled out the money carefully, too. Even if his plan worked to perfection, he’d coldly calculated that at least ten percent of his men would likely wind up paying the butcher’s bill, so there was no point paying them until he had to. He’d confiscated half a talent of silver from the stupid men with their stupid toll, but that much wouldn’t go far among so many. Edwell said they could pay the men through the end of Leath, barely two months away.

  Tomorrow his army would march into Maslit, and although his scouts told him the town was still in Mortentian hands, they had not ridden up to the walls. Aelfric wasn’t worried much about Maslit, frankly, for his father had defended it and then fortified it during the last war, with orders that it be further fortified. Knowing his father, he was confident that it was a strong town that it would take a prolonged siege to break.

  He walked on, gazing out at the quarter moon’s reflection on the Redwater, just a few hundred paces west of the fort. Whenever he encountered an archer or watchman, he shook hands and asked how things were. It was an important part of being in command, and Aelfric didn’t neglect it.

  It ain’t what you know but who, Busker O’Hiam thought to himself, but it wasn’t really true. At least, not in the Privy Lord’s army. In this army what you knew or who you knew didn’t really count for much at all. What counted was what you did, and Busker had been promoted twice now, because the men in his fyrdes slapped up their walls first, watched all night, never fell behind on the march, and always had all of their gear in squared away condition. No good deed goes unpunished and the shit runs downhill and if you do a good job, folks will give you more jobs to do. That was what his old man had said, and in a well-run outfit, it was pretty much true.

  He had three thousand men under his command, all of the sword fyrdes, and only Faithborn and the Privy Lord had more, and the Privy Lord didn’t count because technically all of them were under his command. Faithborn had the spears and the archers, The High Cavalier Aurix had the lancers and either the bishop or Celdemer had the knights. It was hard to tell who was in charge there. The bishop certainly ruled the knights in name, but when Celdemer spoke the bishop didn’t often gainsay him. Anbarius had all of the support staff, the engineers and the wall-builders and the vendors and camp followers, and he was basically in charge of logistics, but those weren’t fighting men except at desperate need, so they didn’t really count.

  He, Busker O’Hiam, a lowly mercenary from the Dunwater River Valley, was now Lord Captain Busker O’Hiam, the Lord part put on there to distinguish him from the regular captains, of which he had ten. His ten captains had thirty fyrdmen each, more or less, and every one of them subject to O’Hiam discipline, which was a new and terrible thing.

  Busker had never liked the lash, neither when he was on the receiving end nor when he was ordered to administer it, but it sure beat hell out of the starving box or the noose. He’d known commanders who used both frequently, and it had gotten work done he supposed, but the lash and a harsh word usually worked just as well. Still, he was a harder man than Faithborn, and he knew it.

  He’d caught a man of his sleeping on watch last night, and that had been a nasty business, but necessary. Fortunately it had been one of the men they’d picked up from the illegal toll road, so nobody much minded when they found him tied to the wall the next morning. Busker had hung a sign on him. “Fell Asleep on Watch” was all it said, but a bull whip was beside the man. Busker had told his captains to tell their men to give him one lash each. He’d been a tough man, and it had taken somewhere between two and four hundred to kill him, and they’d had to replace the whip twice. Busker figured it would be a while before he had to do that again.

  But a man sleeping on watch put every man’s life in danger, so the men didn’t balk when it came to punishment. Falling asleep on watch was the same as dropping a shield or turning tail in Busker’s book, and death was the only penalty that fit the crime. The dead man’s fyrdman only escaped the lash himself because the offender was so new you could hardly hold his chief responsible.

  The sun was shining and it was a warm day, but there was a forest breeze coming from the west where the Cthochi were, and it made the heat bearable for his fast-marching men. O’Hiam’s men could walk down the horses if they had to, and if Aelfric turned them loose, he’d have made eight leagues a day, maybe nine. That’s what he was thinking of when they came to a cutting between two low hills, looked down the road and saw the walls of Maslit in the distance, less than a league off.

  He’d never been to Maslit, and he wondered what it offered.

  “Really, fyrdman? Really?”

  “Don’t be insubordinate, Soolit.”

  “Oh, I’m not, fyrdman. I’m not. I just want to be absolutely sure I heard your order, fyrdman Sir. Because it’s a pretty fooking unbelievable order.”

  “Shut up, Soolit.” The fyrdman said. “I know you like to gripe, and that’s your thing, and that’s fine. But if the captain hears, it’s me who’ll get the lash. So shut up now, get your pick, and get to work. That’s an order.”

  “Fyrdman, sir, I don’t mean to question any orders, sir, but I would like to ask if it’s possible them issuing the orders can’t actually see that there’s a walled town right fooking there, sir.”

  “I’m sure they see it swordsman.”

  “Just making sure.” Soolit threw his pack on the ground and bitterly pulled out his pick. “Because I think it’s possible they’ve all gone bloody blind.”

  Gutwin Z’Ullmer, Earl of Maslit and Lord Mayor of the town of the same name, struggled with putting on his newly polished steel chainmail. His bodyservant, the stooped and ancient Gorrin O’Maslit, could not really help him with it, for his hands were crippled with age. Still, the Z’Ullmers were known for their persistence, and eventually he got it on over his gambeson, then draped the yellow tabard with the blue boar that was sigil of his house over everything, and belted on his broad sword with its worn and well-used scabbard. His belly only hung over the belt a little.

  Gutwin was a heavy man, tall and thick with the kind of flesh that wasn’t quite muscle but served nearly as well. His neatly trimmed beard was almost entirely gray, but the hair on his head was still mostly brown. At forty-nine years of age, he was a veteran of many a Cthochi raid, for the bucks liked to prove their manhood by crossing the Redwater and trying to plunder Mortentian farms. If they could prove their manhood by killing one of his spearmen, so much the better.

  On the other hand, Gutwin liked to put a little salt in his troops by having them stand to an Aulig raid, so over the past twenty years it had been a mutually beneficial, if occasionally bloody relationship. In the ye
ars when peace prevailed, as it did in most years really, Gutwin traded freely with the Cthochi, exchanging finished goods for furs, amber and rare timbers. He never sold them weapons, but he knew that some of his people did. If he caught them at it he hanged them, but the men of Maslit were clever on the river, and he rarely caught them at it.

  Now they were paying for their reckless trade, for many a Maslit man had been cut down by a blade forged in Arker or Orr this summer, and many a farm burned. For his part, Gutwin had burned many of their war canoes, and the Cthochi who strayed too close to his city soon found themselves at spearpoint. Gutwin wasn’t taking prisoners this summer. He couldn’t afford to support any knights, but his spearmen had fast ponies, and most of them could track as well as any Aulig.

  Maslit was intact, if some hungry and full to bursting with refugees, and Gutwin planned to keep it that way. He was rationing his store of grain strictly, and if all went as planned, he’d have enough to last until spring. Every morning saw the river harbor thick with fishermen, and he had employed netters at the river gate to catch the occasional spawning kraken. Dangerous work that, but a decent sized kraken could provide two or three hundred weight of meat. Besides which, their inksacs were useful and the candlemakers could make something out of the fat in their brainpans, not that Gutwin wanted to know what it was that they made.

  Northcraven City might be the major power in the duchy, but Maslit was no easy town, especially since the fortification ordered by General D’root after the famous battle.

  He walked to the arrow slit that served as his window and surveyed his town. He had a celebrity coming, and he wanted to make a good impression. The battle of Maslit had effectively ended the last Aulig war, and had also effectively ended Maslit, at least insofar as the town had existed prior to the battle. The old Maslit had been an open town, protected by a wooden palisade wall on the perimeter and a hundred kingdoms castle on a hill overlooking the harbor. The Cthochi had destroyed much of the wall and burned many buildings during that battle, but Hambar D’root’s strategy of continual harassment with sorties from the castle combined with cavalry sweeps on the plain beyond had made the town a trap for the Earthspeaker’s army, and the final blow had been an army of rivermen landing in the harbor and forming shield walls under the castle’s protection. The Cthochi hadn’t known how to fight in city streets and alleys, and Hambar had punished them for it, moving his much smaller force in ways that always gave it advantage. Once he’d cleared the town of them, he’d used his cavalry to chase the broken Cthochi down and kill them in droves, turning the defense of Maslit into the decisive battle of the war.