“The buck waited, and his anger grew when his people did not return. He stamped about and shouted. He went into the darkness of the forest and sulked. He cursed the gods for having sent him such failures as does. Finally he came back to his home. He was determined to find a doe who would accomplish his will, but when he returned, all of his people were gone, does and fawns all. None would follow such a fool.”
Stony silence followed his last pronouncement, and the Cthochi elders thought long on his words, staring into the fire with faces like tenth moon apples, fallen and dried on the forest floor.
Outside of the circle of elders sat the Ghaill Earthspeaker, for although he was a great chieftain of the Cthochi Auligs, he was not an elder. It was not his place to speak, but only to listen. He did not always come to these meetings, but when his people were troubled he did. He sat and listened carefully, for the wisdom of the elders was in their stories, and it was not their way to give direct advice.
Outside of the tent the snow still fell, although not as heavily today as it had the day before. It was the third day of the great blizzard, and now the footprints of the men in the snow did not fill as rapidly, and the sky was lighter, presaging the tail end of the storm. The great camp of the Cthochi was divided now almost evenly among the tents of the healthy and the tents of the sick, for the plague was upon them in earnest. He had put an end to the coming and going between those who were sick and those who were well, but there seemed to be no stopping the plague. Every day more of the healthy were forced to move their tents to the side of the camp where the sickness was.
In Walks Under the Moon’s story lay the solution to the plague, but a solution wrapped in difficulties that were as impossible to unravel as the plague itself. In the land of Valkaz, which was now called Walcox, the cure of the plague might lie, but Walcox was far away, and an army lay between the Cthochi and their salvation there. This army was small, but it had proven deadly effective, and even now the drums brought news of Kerrick the Sword’s defeat and capture at its hands.
But it was not Walks Under the Moon’s story that troubled the Ghaill. The story told by Fell From a Horse seemed aimed directly at the Earthspeaker. Time after time the Earthspeaker had sought to destroy the Mortentian army that now lay less than a day’s march from this great camp, and time after time he had been thwarted. The Sons of the Bear should have defeated them at Walcox, but instead had themselves been defeated soundly and nearly annihilated. Kerrick the Sword had taken the field against them several times, and each time had been beaten. Now the Earthspeaker’s main force was moving to isolate and surround that army, seventy-thousand warriors, and its defeat looked certain.
But it had looked certain before. Each time victory had seemed in hand it had turned to sudden and unexpected defeat. Was this the whiteberry tree? Was he the foolish buck?
The Earthspeaker thought back to the visit they had received from Jecha the Entreddi seer. She had made it plain to the Ghaill that in her mind the true enemy was not the Mortentians. But the Ghaill’s own seer, the great Allein-a-Briech, had made it clear that the Mortentians must be defeated if the Cthochi were to live. So which of them was telling the truth? Jecha had said that another enemy threatened the Cthochi. Was it the plague itself?
The elders were silent, passing small china cups of hot tea to each other while the Ghaill looked on. He felt as if events had slipped away from him, as if he were caught, like a branch in a roaring flood, moving at the mercy of streams and forces beyond his ken. He knew that he had spent too long in the elders’ tent already, for his army was moving and he needed to command it. He rose and stretched his full height, his head nearly touching the high ceiling of the tent, which was old and stained nearly black despite the fact that it was well made and the smoke from the fire drew upward and flowed into the night air cleanly. The tent was nearly as old as some of its inhabitants, and he felt the weight of long years and wisdom.
He stepped out of it and into the cold snow, making large tracks on the way to his gathered warriors. They had a long march tonight if they were to trap the Mortentian army.
Chapter 90: Tuchek, West of the Redwater River
The High Cavalier Aurix, as he insisted on being called, was going to be plenty upset when he learned what Tuchek had done. But although Tuchek could do many things well, controlling the weather was not one of them, and Aurix had the only white tent in camp.
Well, he used to have it. This morning the scouts had appropriated it, or requisitioned it, or stolen it, depending who you asked. They’d cut the canvas into tabard-sized squares, cut holes into the squares and draped them over their clothing. With the extra canvas they’d fashioned hoods to cover their heads, and now they blended neatly into the background of fallen snow.
Scouting was dangerous work, especially scouting against an army that was as cunning in the woods as the Auligs, and scouting in the snow was ten times as dangerous. Scouts leave tracks, so all scouting had to be forward-looking, and dark figures of men stood out against the snow like whores in a convent.
So Tuchek’s scouts wore the color of white canvas, and the High Cavalier no longer had a command tent, and Tuchek was a league ahead of the Silver Run Army as it made its weary way back to the Expanded Fort on the western shore of the Redwater River.
Winter’s wrath had not ended with the battle in the falling snow. Yesterday, the day after the battle, the grim business of recovering the dead and wounded had taken several hours, and many men and horses were engaged to bring home the bodies, frozen and stacked like cordwood on frames of cut timber, dragging behind horses or individual men.
Twenty-nine Cthochi had surrendered with Kerrick the Sword, cut off and surrounded by Aurix’s lancers at the end of the battle. Several hundred Cthochi had gotten away clean, for even the lancers couldn’t find them all in the midst of a blizzard. Still, Kerrick’s army was shattered, and the victory had been as complete as it could have been.
The Cthochi, both men and women, were enlisted to drag the bodies of fallen Mortentians, and they did so with seeming indifference. Their stoicism was despite the fact that the vast majority of the dead from the battle of Ugly Woman Hill were Auligs, and their bodies by the thousands had been left for the carrion birds and wolves that now covered the battlefield. There was nothing malicious in this, but there weren’t enough horses in the entire Silver Run Army to carry away the Cthochi dead, even had Aelfric been inclined to do so.
All of yesterday had been spent preparing for today’s march, and in the driving snow it would take at least two days to return to Redwater Town, by Tuchek’s estimation, taking into account the time it would take to build a fort tonight and the many rest stops that would be needed along the way. Tuchek was wary, for Kerrick’s army was not the only army in the region. Somewhere in this snow coated wilderness was the Earthspeaker’s host, an army much larger than that of Kerrick, if neither as disciplined nor trained.
Tuchek’s attention was drawn to Manderin, who had stopped behind a tree to his right and stood frozen in place, his left hand raised. Tuchek approached him stealthily, keeping a tree between him and whatever the scout was looking at. “What is it?” He whispered to the man.
Manderin was a half-breed out of Maslit, and he whispered back quietly. “Cthochi ahead. A troop of scouts.” Manderin had his bow in hand, but he had not put an arrow to it, which told Tuchek the Cthochi were still out of bowshot.
Tuchek followed Manderin’s eyes and saw them, a long line of warriors trailing along the slope of a snow covered hill, barely visible through the falling snow, perhaps a league to the east. “That’s more than a troop.” He said grimly. “That’s at least two hundred, and they’re looking for us. Get back to Aelfric and tell them. We’re going to have to stop the march.”
“Stop the march? For two hundred Auligs?”
“Think, man. If there are two hundred in this group, there must be more. The Earthspeaker would hardly send out just one party. There’s another army out here, probably meant to stop us f
rom reaching the fort at Redwater. Get back and tell Aelfric. I will round up the scouts.”
Haim bowed his head against the snow and kept his eyes on the ground ahead. A heavy strap lay across his shoulders, and he dragged a lightweight litter behind him, and on the litter lay the body of Limver O’Topwater, frozen solid now. Limver had died in the Shallow Pass, taken by a Cthochi arrow in the neck, although it might have been the pike in the guts that killed him. Either way he was just dead weight now, on his way to a burial plot in Redwater Town, if ever they got that far. Haim’s left leg was a riot of pain where the arrow had been removed, and a bloody bandage marked the injury, but even though the medics told him he had an excuse from carrying the dead, he’d insisted on taking a litter anyway. The steady ache in his calf chided him for the decision.
He had marched into battle with ten men under his command, and he was marching away from it with five. Brelic O’Dustin marched beside him, bearing a litter on which lay the body of a new blue named Garmin, or maybe it was Garvin. It was hard to keep the new blues straight, and Haim had only known the young man from Redwater for a few days. He wouldn’t be getting any older. The Hedgehogs had fared about as well as any of the spear fyrdes, and better than many. Haim knew that their feint against the Aulig front had been a necessary part of the victory behind them, but it had been a bloody bad business, and the spear fyrdes had suffered greatly for it. He was exhausted and in pain, but the pain meant he was alive, and for that he was thankful. Snow had gotten into the tops of his boots, and his feet were wet and cold. A cold wind stung his cheeks but he was sweating inside of his gambeson.
He looked up to see a white-clad scout running past him, down the long column of marching men toward the commanders in the back. The scout looked nervous, and that was not good.
Aelfric received the scout’s report calmly, then nodded. Busker O’Hiam sat on a dapple-colored mare beside him. “Do we stop and make a fort?” He asked, looking at his commander expectantly.
Aelfric turned to him and shook his head. “No. We aren’t stopping.” Then he turned toward Aurix. “New orders, Aurix. Assemble your lancers as quickly as you can. We are going to show these Cthochi what the Silver Run Army is capable of.” Then he turned to Busker.
“Tell your commanders and captains to drop all of their fortification gear. Just stack it somewhere on the line of march. We won’t be building any more sleeping forts for a while. I want the men carrying nothing but food and weapons. We are going to sleep in the Expanded Fort tonight.”
“Aelfric, we’ll never make it today.” Busker protested, but Aelfric turned on him.
“We will. I’ve watched this army march for months now, and I know what they are capable of. We are going to form up into fyrdes and march straight through the day, no stops. If any Auligs get in our way we’ll leave them dead where we find them. Right now they are looking to intercept us, maybe force us to fort up where they can surround us. We’ll put the siege engines and engineers in the middle of our force and march in two columns. I want archer fyrdes between the spears and swords. Aurix, I want the lancers riding point in formations of fifty, and I want them to smash into anything they find between us and Redwater. We are going to double time this army all the way to Redwater Town tonight.”
“You’re taking a hell of a risk.” Busker complained.
“I’m taking a measured risk.” Aelfric replied, then he began explaining, drawing a picture with his hands. “Right now the Cthochi are like a scattered pack of wolves, and each wolf a unit of maybe five hundred men or so, moving through the forest and trying to locate us. They want us to stop so that they can bring us to bay. If we fort up, all of the wolves will circle tight around us, and we’ll be under siege. If we go back to Ugly Woman Hill, the same thing happens, even though we could make a good defense there. Stopping and going back both carry a greater risk than moving forward.
“Another thing I’ve learned from these fights with Kerrick, Busker. We are faster than they are. We retreat faster than they attack, our columns move faster than their scouts, and we can outpace them on the march, even in this snow. If we press through at full speed we will hit some of them, but with cavalry we can hit them and keep moving. The lancers will clear the way for us. The snow negates their advantage in the forest, too. They can’t hide in this and they can’t hide their tracks, either. Hit and run tactics won’t work against our horsemen.”
When the latest orders reached Soolit’s fyrde he gleefully stopped marching, threw his pack to the ground and pulled out the heavy iron pick. He gave it an extra kick on its way to the stack of shovels, ropes and nails the Second Swords were assembling at the base of a pine tree nearby. He was practically singing. “No fornicating sleeping fort tonight, boys!”
“A damned double time march in the snow instead.” Complained Emdahal O’Brinnvolle, but Soolit just laughed at him. Emdahal was a shovel man, and when it came to putting up the sleeping forts, his job was easy compared to Soolit’s.
“I’d rather be marching than trenching, by Lio.” Soolit replied happily. “I’m good to march all fornicating night!” Into the stack went several hundred feet of rope, nails, finished planks, shovels, hammers and axes, and the pack weight of the Second Swords was more than halved.
The snow along their line of march had been largely broken up by the lancers, and the large drifts from the blizzard knocked down, and their path forward was easy enough to follow. The Second Swords assembled into a mixed formation with archer fyrdes, spear fyrdes and engineers behind, and they began marching quickly to the east, as if into battle.
It was less than an hour after Tuchek sent word back to the main force to halt the march when he had his reply. He had just gathered in the scouts, a hundred white-clad foresters moving quietly in the snow under the cover of the trees when he heard the sound of galloping horses. He looked up to see Aurix, riding at the head of a formation of no less than fifty lancers, with several other similar sized formations coming up behind him.
“Eskeriel!” Shouted the High Cavalier. “Where are the Auligs?”
“What are you doing here?” Tuchek demanded. “They will see you as clear as day. They’ve probably seen you already!”
“Good.” Aurix replied. “Let them see us. They’ll see plenty of us today. Where are they now?”
Tuchek frowned and pointed to the east. “Other side of that hill, Aurix. Does Lord Aelfric know what you are doing?”
Aurix smiled as he tightened the strap on his helmet. “He ordered it, Eskeriel. He also said to tell you to wait here for the rest of the army. They’ll be along in less than an hour.” Then the High Cavalier raised his lance and began to wave the red banner near its point back and forth. Horsemen formed into ranks beside him and they rode straight toward the position where last Tuchek had seen the Cthochi. In less than ten minutes at least a score of formations rode past his position, each of which was fifty lancers, plowing furrows through the heavy snow. Tuchek looked on in amazement, wondering what Aelfric was thinking.
In the late part of the morning, judging by what light there was beneath this overarching gray and falling snow, it came to Kerrick the Sword how he had suffered so many defeats at the hands of this army. He had the leather straps of a litter slung over his shoulders, and a dead man was strapped to it, dragging behind him in the snow. All around him other Cthochi carried Mortentian dead, under the hard and watchful eyes of a fyrdman who carried a spear in his right hand and a whip in his left. Other men marched around them, here at the center rear of the army, and none complained, even as their backs bent beneath similar loads.
When the fyrdmen spoke, the men obeyed almost instantly, and strong legs pumped through the snow with vigor, and only the Cthochi seemed to grow weary. Kerrick had thought his people well-conditioned, but he saw now that this was an army that marched daily under heavy packs, and when they were done they built fortifications or drilled or exercised. No fat lay beneath their chainmail, and their eyes were hard in lean and weather
ed faces. Kerrick had thought of his Cthochi as men of iron, but they were soft compared to these men. He had thought of his men as disciplined, but compared to the way these men leaped to obey commands and moved in tight formations, his men might have been unruly children.
He had been surprised to find himself assigned to carry a Mortentian corpse, for it was usually the way of things that commanders and chiefs were accorded treatment better than that given to common soldiers after a defeat, but whoever commanded this army used every bit of muscle and bone available. An old man had come by to look at the prisoners, sized them up physically, and another group of old men began building litters for them to carry the dead. There were no idle hands in this army, not even the hands of prisoners.
At noon time, more or less, the men passed skins of water around and chewed strips of dried beef or mutton as they marched, but they did not slow or stop. This was a march of the kind the Mortentians called double-time, and they maintained the pace ruthlessly as the leagues faded behind them. Several Cthochi began to collapse under the burden of the march, but the Mortentians simply pulled them from beneath the litters they carried and took up the litters themselves while the Cthochi walked alongside them. They neither whipped them nor drove them to do more than they could, and the shame-faced Cthochi wound up marching beside the Mortentians, struggling to keep up while the soldiers took over their burdens without complaining. Kerrick saw that this Mortentian army was making better time than even the best Cthochi could make in this weather and in this terrain. Their discipline was both marvelous and dreadful to see.
Shortly after noon they came upon the site of a battle, and freshly slain Cthochi lay scattered about a wide field where they had been killed by horsemen. The Mortentians did not pause in their march to look at or loot the dead. Kerrick saw that some of the dead wore the symbols of the Earthspeaker, and he realized that these must have been the reinforcements who were to have taken part in the battle at Ugly Woman Hill. The snow was churned with mud and blood and the marks of many horses. Kerrick looked around and saw that perhaps two hundred of his people had died here, along with half a dozen of the Mortentian lancers, who were taken up on litters. They walked through two more such battlefields before the sky began to grow dark, and still the Mortentians did not slow their march, although they passed around the water and meat again. They took neither more nor less than they gave the prisoners.
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 118