Anderson, Poul - Novel 18

by The Winter of the World (v1. 1)

  Their leader carried the flag on a staff. Her cowl had fallen back from hair which caught the young sunlight like amber. Long before he could trace the curves and planes of her face, her name kindled in Sidfr, what he had not dared hope for and now knew he must. “Donya—” He half sprang to meet her. No. Not before my men. Or hers. He kept steady where he sat. The cymbals clanged only between his own temples.

  She stopped at the tent, cast down her banner to stand in the snow, followed it herself in a single bound. The mustang whickered, pawed, and waited. She smiled, she smiled. “Greeting, Sidfr, old strifemate,” said the throaty voice.

  “Greeting, Donya of Hervar,” replied a different voice. “If you come in peace, that is well. Enter.” Sit at my feet, like a dog? I wish this need not be.

  The men followed her. Four were of the same race, ranging from youth to the border of middle age, Kyrian, Beodan, Orovo, Yven—her husbands, she said. The fifth surprised Sidfr. At first he thought the fellow was a Rahfdian renegade, then wondered fleetingly if he might hail from Thunwa, then heard him call Josserek Derrain and knew he must be of Killimaraich. Yes, he remembered that name!

  And the jumbled tales which a trickle of loyal fugitives and subsequent spies had carried north—suchlike tales bespoke ships— For an instant, Sidfr well-nigh forgot Donya. “Be seated,” he snapped. “What have you to say?”

  At his right knee, she looked up with audacity he well recalled and answered, “If you surrender, you can still take your people home.”

  He must search for words until he found: “Donya, impudence isn’t worthy of you.”

  “No, I’m being honest, Sidfr,” she said, turning grave. Her eyes today had the hue of beryl. “We want to spare our folk, certainly. But we bear you no grievous ill will, now that you’re trekking out of our country. Even the Yair and Leno can stay their hands, when they see you bound away. Go. Leave your firearms, for surety to us, and go in peace. Don’t die in a strange land, don’t make mourning among your kindred.” She laid a moth-soft grip over his thigh and let it rest. He felt it like fire. “We were friends of a sort aforetime, Sidfr. I wish we could bid each other ‘live well,’ and mean that.”

  He knotted fists, mustered will, achieved a laugh. “I’ve no offer to make you haven’t already heard: Come into the peace of the Empire. But since you won’t take it, I have this advice for you. Get out of our way. We’re on business of the Throne, and if any seek to bar us, we’ll drive our highroad through them.”

  “Wild cattle stampede over cliffs because they don’t think,” said the husband Yven in a quiet fashion. “You suppose you’ll shoot, ride, saber us down. But what if we get at you first? Your cannon need minutes to reload. A cavalry charge can suddenly find itself surrounded by long knives. Hand to hand, man to man or woman to man, a Northlander can usually whip a Southron. Our kind of attack tears at his nerve.... All this you know. Worms down the length of the valley know it, from the corpses they ate.”

  Yes, responded Sidfr. But what you haven’t thought is that we might also have taken thought. At Elk Meadow, for example, our horsemen encircled yours and jammed them together for butchering, while afoot your lunatics dashed themselves to flinders against an infantry square. My tactics are forged and tested. Either you break and flee, or our killing machine rolls over you.

  Pain: Which do I want? I am well aware that if we destroy you completely here, the cost to us will be high.

  Yet if you escape back into your wilderness, we’ll spend a decade exterminating you like vermin, and lose no fewer men doing it.

  Still Donya’s hand rested upon him. Light through the door touched tiny gold hairs on her wrist.

  The big swarthy man, Josserek from Killimaraich, stirred. He lacked the feline serenity of his companions; for some unknown reason, bitterness radiated from him. “Keep this in mind, Sidir,” he said. “You’re off to regain Arvanneth. Supposing you get through us, can you afford the price?’

  The Barommian sketched a grin. Sardonicism was a relief: “You demand our guns. What use then our going on?’

  Josserek sneered. “The Rogaviki who took the place had none. And they’re gone.”

  “Are the Seafolk?”

  “We haven’t come to talk politics. I will, though, if you like ... after you’ve surrendered.”

  A chance to learn what really happened, what dark thing—No. “If you survive this day, Josserek, I’ll ask you again.” I could crook my finger, and my guards would arrest them for questioning under torture.

  No. Not while you are in their midst, Donya.

  Her tone lifted uneven. “I don’t understand.” Those were half-shed tears! “That folk who could be friends make war instead ... yes, outside their borders.. . . Who gains, Sidfr? Your people at home? Did ever my household threaten yours? Why are you here?”

  “For civilization,” he said automatically, and heard Josserek snort. The other men seemed as puzzled as Donya, though they did not show her sudden unhappiness.

  He wanted beyond measure to stroke her bent head. But his soldiers would see. He sat for a while in his discipline, until he could say: “I’d hate for you to have come for nothing. I did wonder—what made you think you can speak, decide, commit kithfolk in the thousands, not one of whom acknowledges a master? Can you tell me?”

  She gulped and gripped him.

  After a further time he said, “I thought not. Well, what do you owe them? Why are you here? In springtime I made you a promise: Let Hervar help us, and Hervar can stay free of the Empire till it freely asks for acceptance. Now I renew that”

  Nobody spoke. Chill seeped inward.

  “Well,” he finished sadly, “at least you might take this of me: Stay behind. In my tent... Donya, whoever else wishes.... Keep out of the fight. Keep alive. You can go away whenever you choose. But I, I hope I’ll find you here when I return.”

  Then she raised her face to his, and he saw that the regret had been just a cloud shadow across the pride. “Would you stay too?” she challenged. “I thank you, no.”

  And at once, like a rainbow called forth in the cloud: “Let us say farewell as friends do.”

  She waved. Her men nodded, rose, stepped from the tent. She also got up, but to undo the ties that held the doorflap. It dropped with a soft noise, making twilight. She turned back toward him.

  Maybe the kiss was brief. He never reckoned its time. Nor did he know how long he stayed watching, after she and her companions were gone from sight.

  It was his orderly who had the mettle to recall him, a grizzled Barommian sergeant. “Does the Captain General want his horse? They’ll be engaging soon.”

  Sidfr shook his shoulders. “Yes!” He realized he’d yelled. “Yes, let’s go. It’s fiendish cold.”

  Waiting, then riding, he wrestled. Was he bewitched? No, civilized men didn’t believe in spells and elf- women. Any man who was a man outgrew—before he became a man—this ... bull-rut craziness ... no, nothing so simple and decent as that, for a bull never let a single female creature become the sun around which the world went whirling toward springtime. . . . Donya, beautiful hellbeast, what had he let her do to him? Best she die this day. Let her lie slain, by the Devil Mare, by the Outlaw God, or let him, it didn’t seem to matter which, let there be an end.

  While he could wield a sword, though, he had his duty.

  His party reached the riverside. Through a minute’s pause to look things over, he won back to a kind of reality.

  His host was near the point where the bend swung east. Thus from above he saw both arrays. The shore tumbled downward in bluffs and bedrifted slopes, ruddy earth and icy boughs thrust out of whiteness. About half his cavalry was on top, divided between the two banks, horses murky below hard gleams of metal, a vividness of cloaks and flags. Tiny across the plains, scattered Rogaviki riders resembled beetles.

  Hereabouts, snow was mostly shoveled, kicked, or melted off the river ice, which reached scarred gray. On his right came the Imperials, cavalry stamping, infa
ntry tramping, artillery trundling, and steady throughout that noise the drums in their cadence. The army was in close order, each regiment a breath-smoky block nigh to its neighbor. Lances and pikes rose and fell above marching masses, like waves on an inbound tide. My invincible sons, passed though Sidfr, and the Empire is their mother.

  More distant on his left, the Horn of Nezh rose high, a glacier castle whereon grew many-branched spears. These flared and glittered beneath heaven. Enemy clustered along its sides. Behind them was a gap of half a mile downstream to their main body. But no, he thought, and contempt scorched through him, “body" is not right. They’ve no more formation than so many cats.

  Evidently they had the wit to know their horsemen were helpless against Barommians, for he saw no mounts. Numerous of the hundreds around the island did keep hounds in leash. Beasts of that sort had caused his soldiers losses before now. Like the savagery of their owners, they roused undue fear in civilized breasts. Rogaviki longbows would be troublesome too. But little else was there to fret about. Save for bits of stolen armor, he saw just leather and wool, drab after he had looked upon legionary uniform.

  The reserves in the rear, if such they were, appeared still less organized. They stood in separate small gangs, clotted toward either shore. Between them the river lay empty, an open road home.

  Develkai, who had stayed by the captain General, cleared his throat. “I believe I see their plan, sir,” he ventured. “As we approach, their archers will let fly; then everybody will scramble in among the woods for shelter before we can unlimber our cannon. They’ll be hard to dig out, I’m afraid. The land mass will make us split our forces or crowd past on a single side. Depending on which, their rear will take as much advantage of it for a shield against our fire as they can, while they move to engage us.”

  Sidfr nodded. “That’s about the limit of their tactical capability,” he said. “I’m surprised they’ve arranged things this well.” The will of Donya? And what about that Killimaraichan? “We could simply push through, but it’d be slow and expensive.” He turned his head toward his chief of couriers. “Bring down the troopers we have ashore—downstream of the island.”

  “Sir?” Develkai’s broad red countenance registered unease. “I thought you didn’t want to chance overcommitment.”

  Sidfr’s right gauntlet split air. “We’ll make an end, I say. Put cavalry to front and rear of their advance corps, and we’ll trap it while splitting it off from their main force—then go on and break the remainder to pieces— Make an end!” he shouted.

  Develkai pinched off an answer. His thought was clear: If nothing else, having the entire Imperial army on the river meant that when the Northfolk did retreat—no, when they fled in a rout—they would climb the banks faster than horses, and thus get away. Lancers could have hunted them.

  Sidfr pushed Donya from him and explained, “I’ve decided they’re not worth the cost of annihilation in detail. Not today, when we’re needed at Arvanneth. You know how mad-dog dangerous a cornered Rogaviki is. They’d take too many of ours to the buzzards with them. We’ll be back next year, and handle them if this defeat hasn’t snapped their morale.” I may not be back myself. I may have requested a transfer. I don’t know. “Our present job is to slash through them as fast and cheaply as possible.” To make an end, and get away from Donya.

  “Yes, sir,” Develkai said reluctantly. “Have I the Captain General’s permission to rejoin my regiment?”

  “You do.” On impulse, Sidfr added, “The gods ride beside you, comrade from Roong.”

  They embraced and parted.

  It was necessary to dismount and lead horses over the descent, slow work that brought sweat forth to freeze on skin. When at last he regained the saddle, Sidfr saw that the riders ashore had gotten his orders and were going through the same struggle. Their enemy should have attacked them meanwhile, though the Barommians held higher ground and proceeded three or four at a time, covered by riflemen above and below. But the natives stood as if paralyzed.

  Sidfr and his guards made haste across the ice. It rang beneath horseshoes. His standard awaited him, gold on scarlet, Imperial Star above the eagle of Clan Chalif. He wished it could have floated at the very head of his troops. Once it would have. But that was when the Barommians themselves were heedless barbarians. Since, they had become civilized, and knew it was bad practice to risk a supreme leader needlessly.

  Civilized.... Was Naxs indeed unreal in this chill waste? Donya had wondered why he fought, and not seen what he meant: law, stateliness, well-being, security, the brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of the Glorious Throne. When one day yonder emptiness was rich fields and happy homes, when the Horn of Nezh bore gardens, for humanity had conquered the inhuman, then would her ghost know peace?

  Make an end. “On the double!” Bugle calls went aloft. The Army of the North rolled down upon the Northfolk.

  They waited, at bay below the frozen forest. The cavalry at their rear was ready, reformed, walling off sight of the kiths beyond. The cavalry at their front went from trot to canter. Hoofbeats thundered.

  Longbows drew and twanged. Arrows leaped. But every native archer shot for himself. In places a horse screamed, a man toppled from his seat and lay barbed. Yet no single terrible loosing ever came. A trumpet gave command. Upstream and downstream, the lancers couched their shafts and galloped. Behind Sidfr, his infantry uttered a bass cry and followed in quickstep, to right and left. Thus they cleared a lane for the guns.

  His charger sped in such beautiful smooth bounds that he could use his binoculars. He saw men already among the trees ahead. They didn’t look like Rogaviki. What were those wires that ran from their positions, to holes which might have been cut for fishing? Killimaraich, triple traitor to civilization. Sidfr felt his saber ache to be at Josserek.

  Forward, forward. The foe were making no stand. They scrambled onto the island, in among woods and icicles. Their dogs did attack. Frightfulness must be loose ahead, where the great beasts howled and slashed. But swords and pistols would end that.... The two divisions of horse surged around the holm and together. Here came the foot, pikes and blades, drums and guns, the banners of the Empire.

  It roared.

  Sidfr felt the blow like a hammer to his skull. White world and blue heaven spun in a wheel, struck, fountained black.

  He was in the river. His horse threshed and shrilled among broken floes. That sound was lost in the noise of a drowning army. Water ran unchained, freezing cold, dark past the snows.

  Keep your stirrups, or your steel will pull you under! Around Sidfr, animal head upreared in a steam which humans churned to foam before they sank. Men grabbed at pieces of ice, until these turned over upon them. Close to him, a hand reached from below. A face was beneath, horribly rippled by the green-black current, stretched out of shape by terror, but he saw it was a very young man’s, a boy’s. He leaned over and tried to take hold. The gap was too wide. Fingers touched; then the boy was gone.

  The Killimaraichan, smote through Sidfr. He and more like him. They knew we’re not swimmers. They brought gunpowder from their ships, mined the ice, placed their barbarians not to fight us but to fool us. .., Did each single man and woman of those know? It could be. For surely every last Rogaviki can bury a secret as deep as the glaciers buried by the ancients.

  Across wreckage, he saw their rearward thousands move, to the edge of open water and along the river- banks. What few Imperials crawled forth, they slaughtered.

  Why did I not guess?

  Did Donya come to me knowing how she could lure me out of my mind? I think so. I am nothing to her but an enemy, and she said that there are no enemies except invaders, and for them there can be no honor. She is not human.

  The Horn of Nezh lifted before him, winter-pure save where blood shouted scarlet around slain soldiers. He drew his saber his horse swam toward it. The Rogaviki crouched waiting.

  CHAPTER 22

  Spring always came shyly to Hervar. But on a morning when
Donya rode forth alone from Owlhaunt, the season was fully there.

  A rainshower before dawn had left the long low ridges and valleys aglitter; but as warmth grew, the wet rose off in wisps of mist that glimmered and vanished. Hollows kept pools which a breeze ruffled. Grass was still short and tender, intensely green, studded in blue with forget-me-nots. Pine groves towered unchangeable, but willows now shook their blades and newborn leaves danced on birches. Cloudless, the sky was filled with sun, wings, and song. Far off, a moonhom bull watched over his cows and calves. Their coats were fantastic red. His crown gleamed. Closer by, hares bolted, pheasants left thickets, the earliest bees and dragonflies were questing. The airs eddied about so that sometimes they carried odors of earth, sometimes of the river.

  Donya followed the Stallion west until her garth was lost to sight. Finally she found what she wanted, a large flat stone which jutted partly out into the stream. She dismounted, tethered her pony, took her clothes off and stretched happily as light poured into her skin. When she settled on die rock, it glowed against leg, rump, palm of hand. For a while she watched minnows play above the pebbles on the bottom, and let the current lull her. Then she took up the letter she had brought along. It had come the day before, via a postal rider who had stopped at Fuld. She had not shared it with her household, and wasn’t sure she wanted to.

  The sheets crackled between her fingers. Awkwardly scrawled, frequently misspelled, the Rogaviki language was nonetheless as clear as it could ever be.