Devil of the 22nd

by Richard Nell

  “Fine day for a walk, Colonel,”Harmon called as Kurt rode by him.

  “Aye, and go fuck yourself, soldier!” Kurt waved and called pleasantly back, and the men around him laughed.

  Marching was tough business even without the rain. Nearly every soldier in the Eastern army carried a musket or pike and sword, as well as an iron helm and cuirass. Those with full kit carried an ammo pouch, a kettle, blanket, leather tools, hatchet, and a few days of water and rations. In total their equipment weighed over sixty pounds.

  Kurt’s precious horses in comparison carried very little. They held more or less the same gear as the infantry, plus their rider, but to the strong beasts this was a lesser load. Fighting against tribesmen meant small skirmishes and scout-battles, and so Kurt expected his cavalry would do most of the fighting. He wanted them light and fresh, and didn’t much care how anyone felt about it. Anyway by now the veterans knew the deal well enough.

  All day the men and horses marched. And despite an intermittent light drizzling from the clouds, the weather turned out to be less unpleasant than Kurt feared. The infantry sang marching songs, talked and joked, and for the most part seemed sleek and healthy save for a few of the skinnier recruits. The rough dirt road before them curved for several miles, and what remained of the East Army left the edge of empire.

  Kurt’s horse took the first step beyond into tall, yellow grass. The land East of Keevland was composed mostly of flat or rolling plain, though beyond that they’d find woods and valleys with rivers more like arteries than veins. Entering tribal territory brought a subtle but clear shift in mood for the men. The singing ceased; wary eyes roamed every tiny patch of trees, every boulder, rock and field of tall grass.

  It should all be farmland, Kurt thought as he looked at it, almost galled at the waste of such flat, fertile earth. This thought led to deeper, angrier opinions on the useless waffling of the new ‘republic’, and the apparent weakness of the imperial family. The Keevish people need more space, and more food, he almost spit. What in the name of God prevents their rulers from guarding and settling these plains? The valleys beyond? The whole damned continent, even, and bringing them the light of Keevish civilization?

  He noticed his hands clenched into fists on his reins, and forced his mind to the present. But then at present his mind wasn’t much required. Unlike the men he had no fear of any attack here. Only madmen would assault his cavalry in open field, and if they did then his veterans would ride them down with bow and spear until their corpses dotted the hills like so many stones.

  No, the tribes wouldn’t build so close to Keevish power. Even in the peace of the last several months Kurt had kept his scouts patrolling it, and in all that time they’d spotted nothing.

  As he’d expected they fully entered enemy territory before sunset. For a few hours the ground sloped, and the grass mixed and then changed entirely to larger, sparser shrubs of evergreens.

  “We’ll camp here,” Kurt announced. “Four captains to set up and defend the camp, the others can scavenge. We’ll swap which day by day.”

  He likely needn’t have added this last part, since it was the usual custom, but in such an army one tried to be thorough. Torsten nodded and dismounted then waved a signal to the captains.

  “Let’s take a look around.”

  At last Kurt looked to the only men in his army that technically served him directly—and they weren’t Keevish.

  Celtus, ex-chief and leader of a few dozen Averni horse-warriors, nodded. He and his hide-clad killers checked their scabbards and javelins, stringing their bows as they followed Kurt out of camp with a few other light cavalry.

  Unlike their standard Keevish counterparts, Averni wore little armor and often didn’t use saddles. Instead they fought as their ancestors had for a thousand years—with short, curved bows, javelins and sickle-like swords, all of which they wielded with a skill and ferocity few living men could match. They had eventually joined the Keevish army when an enemy tribe chased them from their lands. Celtus had come alone speaking bits and pieces of Keevish common, and Kurt offered them food and an equal place with his men. In truth, they weren’t ‘equals’ at all.

  Only Keevish nobility were riders of any skill. Kurt’s own cavalry were peasants, hunters and trackers from the provinces who’d grown up killing deer and boar and never ridden until they joined the army. They could shoot, or they could ride, but typically not both at the same time. With their spears and sabres they could charge and shatter infantry like the ancient knights of old, but Averni had been all but born on horseback. They could race circles around the Keevish cavalry and pick them apart, spreading and striking like a swarm of wasps.

  Now they dug their heels to their mount’s flanks and raced across the flat earth behind, and under their watchful eyes Kurt felt no fear.

  “No runners,” he called over his shoulder, meaning ‘kill or capture anyone you see’.

  Then he spurred his well-trained roan friesian, which snorted and pushed until Kurt had to draw back on the reins. The cool wind washed over his now nearly shaved scalp, and for a moment he closed his eyes and let the hot, sweaty march evaporate in the air. He let his mind wander through the details of men, and supplies, routes and terrain, absorbed and enthralled by the possibilities and conflicts, the self-made freedom to succeed or fail with hundreds of lives spinning on his plates.

  He breathed and opened his eyes, then pointed at the Western edge of a small woods ahead. He turned, and his men followed to skirt the trees. This close to the flatlands he still expected little sign of settlement, but he thought perhaps they might find some few families or lone hunters in shacks. In either case his scouts would know what to do. He preferred to move on and at least find the Pyne valley before returning to camp.

  Celtus rode close at Kurt’s side. He pointed his sickle-sword at a small cluster of cut and shorn trees without a word. Kurt nodded, and waved, but kept riding ahead as two men wheeled to investigate. He looked at the level, nearly stoneless ground and glanced at his scouts, knowing without speaking the men saw the same thing—another sign of human life.

  “When’s the last time we looked this far?” Kurt called over the wind.

  Celtus scrunched his flat, thick face, then shrugged. He removed his short bow and held it loosely in his left hand. His men did the same.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Kurt brushed a hand in reflex over his loaded wheel-lock pistol. Unlike his scouts he wasn’t much use with a bow on horseback, preferring instead a brace of pistols and the heavy cavalry saber he’d wielded most of his life. In truth, he preferred not to fight at all. Killing he didn’t mind, but fighting? No.

  “There.”

  Celtus again pointed his sword, and Kurt looked to see a woman and two small children running for the trees.

  His eye twitched. For a moment he allowed himself to wish it had been trappers, or hunters, or indeed nothing at all, and that his army might move through at least to the river undisturbed. The moment passed.

  “Go.”

  Five of the former chief’s scouts turned and sped their mounts to a wild gallop across the clearing, spears and bows held expertly as they ducked beneath the wind. Kurt kept straight, and ignored them.

  “Esephus,” he pointed and called to his own men, meaning the mountain on the horizon. “A valley is straight North, the Pyne runs along its Eastern edge and through it before breaking off.” He looked to Celtus. “I want three decent crossing points, and preferably to find a bridge.”

  The ex-chief nodded and spoke instructions in his native tongue, and two more men broke off from the pack.

  Kurt picked up his pace. He ignored the few screams wafting from the trees, and unfocused his eyes to try and spot movement from the denser patch of woods before him. Seeing none, he slowed and let his men enter first, then picked carefully through the cedar trunks and drooping branches, hoping not to stumble into a hunter’s trap.

  Inside the woods, the already dim sunli
ght faded to a dull green and gray canopy overtop a carpet of moss. The world seemed still, and quiet, and for a moment Kurt’s gut turned in the vague intuition of ambush. He considered turning around, but the chance that some few tribesmen would escape and warn others of an approaching army was exceedingly likely. And if he waited till morning to look for marching routes he might find a burning woods filled with smoke, and everything would get harder.

  “Bugger it.” He looked and noticed Celtus had seen him pause. “I want to see the valley, at least.”

  The tribesman nodded, but he showed mild concern in his clenched jaw.

  Over the years Kurt’s intuition for ambush had become something of a superstitious legend. The men often watched him carefully in tense moments, as if hoping to read their chances of danger in the lines of his face.

  Move. Now. Action is the same as courage.

  Kurt clicked his tongue and advanced, and the men followed. Together they rode North in eerie silence under the swaying shadows, their eyes leaping from tree to tree like the squirrels above them. In such dense trees an ambush could be hidden and sprung with ease, and the Helvati tribesmen were famous for such tactics. Kurt saw beads of sweat on Celtus’ brow, his neck jerking from side to side, his fear of anything but open ground clear.

  Every step seemed to echo through the world and last for hours, but Kurt soon saw sunlight. The trees ended almost in a straight line, which seemed unusual, but still he advanced. Then he saw the smoke. Celtus emerged from the line first behind him and ducked instantly, as if avoiding enemy fire. He waved a hand for caution, then raised three fingers. One meant enemy spotted; two meant multiple; three meant large group.

  Kurt dismounted and crept to a cluster of bush at the edge of the valley. It dropped here in a small series of rocky cliffs more like shelves, or a giant’s stairs, with little but harsh life growing on the hard ground. He looked out at the Pyne from his raised vantage, and his heart beat faster, sweat beading on his brow and armpits.

  The smoke he’d seen wasn’t woods burning as the enemy ran. It was campfires. From his vantage he could see huge swaths of cleared ground now sprouting with wheat, and maybe corn, and rows of green gardens built almost like a royal maze. He counted tents and small, wooden houses, easily numbering in the hundreds, noting the permanent look of the larger halls.

  “Helvati,” Celtus growled.

  Kurt didn’t have time to entertain the man’s hatred.

  “Get your men, and get back to camp. Not a word till I’ve decided what to do.”

  The former chief stared, but nodded, and with a last, lingering look at a tribe of warriors that had all but destroyed his people, he turned and moved back through the woods.

  * * *

  Later Kurt sat outside the command tent with a wide, hot bonfire. Celtus, Torsten and the captains sat with him drinking army brew and smoking tobacco from his personal stock. The tiny moon lit their eyes and little more, and their faces all flickered as the wind fanned the flames.

  “There’s too many.” Adalard shook his head. “We came for plunder, not a war.”

  Kurt said nothing. He wanted to hear what each man thought, and let them voice a few complaints.

  “Well we can’t just move on and leave them behind us, can we?” said another.

  “I say we go further East.” Adalard’s expressionless face matched his tone. It wasn’t fear, just calculation. “There’s plenty of other tribes. Slaves’ll be worth less but we’ll all be breathing.”

  A few men grunted their agreement.

  You’re thinking so small, Kurt thought, almost laughing at the wild idea that had formed on his ride. But why the hell not? And if it fails, then it fails. He struggled to be patient before he began to explain.

  “Won’t find no better target,” said another captain. “There’s enough slaves down there to make us all rich.”

  “Rich, or dead.”

  “Oh stiffen your spine, Larder, not like you’ll be in the front.”

  “Well, you all know I’m not shy of battle,” said Edmund, “but maybe we should get a better look? Figure out how many men, exactly, how many warriors?”

  “If we ever listened to you we’d be testing the wind after every bloody step.”

  A few grunts.

  “If we wait they’ll run or gather and either way it’ll get harder,” chimed in another.

  “They’ve spotted us by now, won’t make no difference,” Harmon said quietly.

  The captains silenced for a few moments at his words. Some now stole glances at Kurt, but he waited, staring into the fire.

  “You should have seen their crops,” he said at last. “Wheat, peas—corn as tall as Celtus. Beautiful land down there, boys, orderly and well planted, close to the river. And the ridges are mostly rock, and steep. They’d be hard to charge down but good for roads. There’s a big hill right near the center, too far from the slopes to be hit by cannon. You’d have to move down into the valley and all the while getting shot.”

  The captains squinted or glanced at each other.

  “They’re savages, brother,” said Edmund. “Don’t have no cannon.”

  Kurt tore his gaze from the flames. “Yes, thank you, your advice remains vital as usual.”

  The others laughed, and Kurt glanced from man to man.

  “And the river. It’s like the Vanu in Keev, wide and strong and clean. I bet you could sail it from here to the mountains with a proper ship. They’ve got the woods for firewood and lumber, the rocky cliffs to the North for stone, and who knows what might be mined there.”

  “Sounds like a lovely little savage paradise, Old Man.”

  The men laughed, save for Celtus.

  “It is.” Kurt kept any trace of mockery or insult from his tone. “And it’s defensible. You could put a good, angled fort on that hill, hide reinforcements in the woods, use the river for supplies or escape, maybe put another fort even on the cliffs.”

  He stopped here to wait for a reaction. A few pieces of fir cracked and slumped further in the bonfire’s embers, throwing sparks and popping. Adalard bit first.

  “I think I speak for all of us, Kurt, when I say I don’t know what the hell you’re on about.”

  A few men cleared their throats or grunted. Kurt stood.

  “Don’t you? Aren’t you tired of scraping a living off barren fields? Aren’t you tired of eating half-rotten bread and fighting over every chicken, every pig, every scrap of meat and ground and piece of god damn cloth? The Republic has left you to rot. Today it abandons you, maybe tomorrow it calls you criminals. God damn criminals. After a decade of blood and death for them, for them.”

  Kurt could see his sudden fury stunned the men, as he’d expected.

  “I don’t see as how we’ve much choice in the matte…”

  “You do,” Kurt cut Adalard off, “of course you do.” He raised his hands and looked about as if it were obvious. “We’re all free men. I don’t have any orders, do you?”

  The men shrugged at this, their natural, if tenuous loyalty to the empire giving them pause.

  “Speak plain, Old Man. What do you want?”

  “To take the valley.”

  “And then what.”

  “And then we live in it.”

  The men blinked or squinted and exposed gap-toothed mouths. Kurt knew it would take some time to sink in, and a little convincing.

  “The Helvati have already built enough housing for thousands,” he explained.

  “Savage tents and crumbling shacks,” said Adalard.

  “They’re better than anything in our shit camp. I’ve seen them. And they’ve got good, wide crops, whole herds of livestock, gardens as green as spring grass.”

  “We’re not bloody farmers, Old Man.”

  “No. But some of the recruits and camp followers are, or at least were. Others were fishermen and carpenters, metalworkers and builders. And we can send word to the provinces to recruit more. Many men will come for land and fortune. We’ll protec
t them all from the savages, for a nice, fat fee. And soon enough we’ll live like bloody nobles on our own land, with our own rules.”

  Fear now showed plain in the men’s faces. No doubt Kurt’s plan was starting to sound a lot more like ‘treason’.

  “We’ve got two thousand soldiers,” Kurt spoke slowly. “The finest in the world. We’ve got no orders, no officers, no salary, and no future.” He pointed at Harmon. “What would your woman say to her own house and her own garden, eh? An actual home for her children, surrounded by other civilians?”

  The big man glanced up, then at the others.

  “She’d ask what the other captain’s women are getting.”

  The men’s laughter broke a little tension, and Kurt joined them.

  “Good. That should keep them all busy. We’ll build them houses too.” He paused to let the madness sink in a little more. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t be soldiers, brothers. That’s what I am, all I’ll ever be. But don’t you want something worth defending? Something that’s yours? A place to hold the wealth you’ve earned with your own hands, a place protected by men you trust with interests of their own?”

  “And the republic?” Edmund looked lost. “The emperor? Have you forgotten about them?”

  “They’ve forgotten about us!” Kurt’s shout hung in the cool night air. “They can’t pay what they already owe. Don’t you think they’d be happy if we just…disappeared? And even if one day they noticed or cared, what the hell could they do? We’re the only damn army in the East. They can’t deal with bloody savages, so tell me, what the hell could they do to us?”

  The captains said nothing but certainly understood this to be the truth.

  “Besides,” Kurt added, quieting a little. “If it comes to it, we’ll just blame it all on Colonel Gottfried.”

  Another nervous round of laughter, but Kurt could still see the reluctance. As it died down the men stared into the fire, lost in their own thoughts, perhaps remembering old, and shattered dreams.

  “Even for you,” Harmon said, breaking the silence, “this is fucking crazy.”

  Kurt met his old friend and sometimes enemy’s eyes, and grinned. He felt his confidence spreading. Likely they’d think it some trick or feint, some opening gambit from which he’d later back down. These men were used to his plans shifting and molding—they’d grown comfortable with his half-truths and deceptions. But as he’d ridden back from the Pyne he’d been picturing it, plotting the details like puzzle pieces in his mind. And incredibly, unbelievably, he’d realized it was possible. More than possible. It was obvious.