by Richard Nell
He snatched her hands, holding them fast as she tried to pull away.
“And now, you demand my help in their name. You threaten me? You look at me…as if, as if in judgment? When everything I’ve done, everything I am, has been to keep these soft, pretty hands clean?” He looked at her small, delicate fingers, and for a few moments only breathed.
Five seconds, that’s all you get. He counted, he counted slow, and released her.
She pulled her hands back and rubbed her wrists. The sheer terror he’d expected in her eyes—the terror he deserved—didn’t appear.
“You don’t know anything about me, but it’s irrelevant. This is the imperial seal. You’re sworn by holy oath to obey any man or woman holding it. So it’s simple. Are you a man of honor, or not?”
Her chin lifted, as if she’d struck some kind of blow. Kurt felt the familiar numbness drowning all frustration and hint of anger. For a moment he wasn’t sure why the feeling had come, teasing him with meaning that didn’t belong. But as he observed Clara’s stubborn strength, and yes, her curves and simple beauty, he supposed he knew. This was the kind of woman you married, the kind you raised children with and trusted to make them strong—the kind you asked to judge you worthy. He looked away.
“No, Miss Lehmann. I’m afraid not.”
He stood and crossed the room in three strides, then rammed open the door.
“Take her.”
His messengers glanced at each other, not in on the ruse, and no idea where to ‘take her’ in any case. Clara stood.
“Sergeant! I mean, Colonel, wait!”
Kurt stopped and gestured, as if telling his men to stop.
“There’s gold. Enough to pay your army and then some.”
Kurt twisted his mask into a sneer and turned.
“Why on earth would I believe you?”
“Because…I know I’m trapped, and what you’ll do to me if I’m lying, so why would I?”
He hissed in contempt. “Because for the moment it gives you some use to me, and therefore keeps you alive.”
She shrugged, her lack of fear still seeming genuine, and most annoying.
“My hands may be soft, but they’re not clean. I’m a soldier, too, Kurt, of a different kind. I’m not afraid to die.”
He felt another wave of anger at this comparison, and maybe self-loathing, too, but he hid it and looked to the men outside.
“Private, Miss Lehmann isn’t to leave this room. If she tries, shoot her. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.” The messengers stomped in salute.
Kurt glanced one more time at his ‘guest’, wishing for a moment he could stay and explain all his plans, could tell her why he had come to this, and how terrible and beautiful and meaningless life was. Instead he stalked into the night.
* * *
In the morning, Kurt checked his guns, then opened the Officer’s HQ door gently and found Clara huddled in a corner. She’d used three filthy rugs to sleep on. Her eyes were closed, uncolored mouth slightly ajar in sleepful repose.
“Time’s up.” He kicked the door, hard enough it slammed against the wall.
She jumped and blinked awake, backing against the wall as she drew a tiny slip of sharpened iron from her hair.
Clever. Kurt glanced meaningfully at his bodyguard, who turned a little pink.
She regained her senses rather quickly, considering, then sheathed the blade without hurry and rose in a rather dignified manner, brushing some dirt off her dress.
“Good morning to you, too. May I have some sort of basin? For washing?”
Kurt smiled, liking and hating her arrogance. He’d walked half the night ejecting all trace of anger from his heart and trying to sort out exactly why it came, then deciding if he believed this strange woman, and what he’d do. He’d slept only a few hours but woken refreshed, near bounding from the Helvati shaman’s sweat-stained furs to take his guard for a morning run.
Now he smiled widely, without malice or deception. “Of course.” He gestured, and one of his men went to the well for water. “You slept well, I trust?”
Clara walked to the closest chair and winced slightly as she sat, then rubbed a shoulder. He waited until it looked like she might answer.
“Actually I don’t give a shit. You’re going to tell me where the gold is, right now. I have things to do.”
She didn’t even pause.
“It’s North, and slightly East, under a Helvati temple. You’ll have to cross two rivers but it should take no more than a day or two.”
Kurt covered his surprise with a breath.
“How many men guard it?”
“Maybe fifty. Nothing you can’t handle.”
“Killing fifty men is not like powdering your nose, Ms. Lehmann. I’ll have to bring two hundred.”
She shrugged. “Two hundred and one. The gold is buried underground. You’ll need my help to find it.”
“Of course I will.” Kurt shook his head. “And I suppose part way through our little journey, you’ll suddenly remember it’s actually three rivers, and maybe a little further North, oh and maybe a little more East than you’d thought?”
“No. I’ve told you where it is. I haven’t lied to you since the moment we met, Kurt. Not once.”
The way she said it and looked at him seemed to convey the message: unlike you.
Kurt glanced at Rald. He’d intended to have this conversation privately, but something about this bloody woman made him feel the annoying urge to brag.
“Tell the captains we’ll only need half the men I asked for—they can decide who. But I’ll need Celtus.”
“Yes sir.”
“And tell them we leave in less than an hour, as intended.”
Kurt glanced back at Clara and grinned.
“I’ll take you to the well, Ms. Lehmann, you can wash there. But I wouldn’t worry much about getting clean. We don’t have any horses to spare, so you’re in for a long, sweaty march.”
* * *
They crossed the first river by noon. Kurt wiped a hand over his strained eyes, tired from staring at trees and bushes never hiding tribesmen. He took a long drink from his waterskin, and glanced back at Clara. This at least made him smile.
He’d made her carry her own supplies like any soldier. Her pack didn’t include any weapons, of course, and therefore weighed less than half of what it should. But she trudged in line with the other hundred and fifty unmounted men, eyes down, shoulders slumped, face pale.
“Go find us a better crossing for the next river, please. I’d like at least one dry gun before we find the enemy.”
Celtus nodded and gestured, and the ten scouts with him broke apart and trot their mounts through the woods.
Kurt had wavered on bringing any guns at all. But in the end, if he had to face a snarling pack of Helvati savages, he’d prefer a pack of heavy infantry to hide in. The two hundred men now marching or riding five deep behind him included fifty heavy infantry armed with pikes and muskets, steel cuirass, helm and chain. But he had a hundred light infantry, too, as well as Celtus and his scouts, and the best of Kurt’s cavalry.
Still, he wiped sweat from his forehead, and more dripped down his sides, though he wasn’t hot.
In a flat plain he would fear nothing except cannons, or a vastly larger force. But locked as he was in a huge, rising woods, where the only question was how dense or how ancient the trees, he felt vulnerable. His horsemen couldn’t chase much of anything here safely. His formations would be haphazard and less effective. And the Helvati—if there were any—knew these woods. No doubt he’d march by some rocky cliff hidden by hundred foot pine, only to look up and find skirmishers raining rocks. And if he did, whether he gave chase or simply fled, it might lead to ambush.
For the moment he saw no solution, so he kept the men moving. A glance at Captain Harmon and his keen-eyed pack of killers gave at least some comfort, and Kurt thanked God he’d thought to trick the man into coming.
“Oy, Old Man
, what you up to?”
Before dawn, Kurt and a few of his cavalry had ‘just happened’ to ride near the path of Harmon’s morning run.
He’d winked and shrugged and gone by without a word, and within minutes Harmon and five of his hounds were in the command post sniffing and making sure they didn’t miss out. Kurt had rolled his eyes and ‘broken down’ and mentioned the girl, and after the right amount of convincing, the gold.
“It’s all nonsense and lies, no doubt, which is why I didn’t tell the captains. But if you want to come waste your time with us by all means, come along.”
“God damn right I will. Should’a come to me first without all this sneakin’ around, Kurt.”
“Yes, yes, fine.” Kurt had raised his hands and feigned a little guilt, a little embarrassment. Harmon had snorted and stormed out to gather his boys. Then Kurt sent a messenger to wake the other captains with the message that both he and Harmon were going for a stroll in the woods. Within the hour, he had as many men as he wanted.
“Trees have eyes.” Harmon had apparently noticed Kurt’s glance. He returned it, then looked back to the gloom.
“So do we. Trust the scouts.”
The man spit but said nothing, and Kurt tried to follow his own advice. But still every snapped twig and bird call seized his attention. Every long branch that touched his shoulder made him flinch.
Distracted as he was he hardly noticed as the moss-covered earth went from soft to wet. He heard the roar of running water, and soon emerged from thicker trees to a swollen bank, and a rapid-filled river. Celtus waited at its edge.
“Is flooded.”
Kurt stared at him.
“Yes I can see that. We’ll wait here.” He sighed, then raised his voice. “Half-camp. Set barricades, no fires, and…”
“Colonel?”
Kurt and every other soldier in earshot blinked at the interruption of orders. Clara stood out from the line, her hair clung to her sweaty face and neck, shoulders slouched under her pack. But her eyes still had fire.
“The Helvati have a bridge to the North. We can use that.”
Kurt waited and waited until even the men near Clara looked uncomfortable.
“…and water the horses,” he finished his command, and the soldiers moved to action at once. They ignored Clara entirely.
Even Kurt’s ‘recruits’ in the heavy infantry were veterans by any other army’s standards. All had served in the army for a year or more—even the ‘rookies’. Every man had seen pitched battle, marched countless miles, fought in half a dozen skirmishes. To such men, especially Keevish-born, when a superior gave orders in the field, it was little different than the voice of God.
In minutes they formed a half-ring around the water and began shoveling dirt into a make-shift wall. Kurt deliberately ignored Clara. He dismounted to sit on a fallen tree and chew a ration, easing a cramp from his leg. Eventually, she approached.
“We’re wasting time. The Helvati bridge…”
“Helvati don’t build bridges suitable for soldiers, Ms. Lehmann.”
He enjoyed her flash of irritation.
“They do, I’ve used it. It isn’t far, and should be perfectly…”
“A soldier’s bridge is not made mostly of ropes.” He met her eyes and saw he’d guessed correctly. “A soldier’s bridge can support more than one or two men across at a time. Because even a soldier’s bridge is a terribly risky affair, which splits a force, puts them in danger, and leaves them open to any manner of molestation by an enemy.”
She clenched her jaw at his tone, but he could see she understood.
“So what do you suggest, then? The river is too high to ford.”
He smiled and took a brown apple from his pack, biting out a chunk.
“Something will come to me.” He flicked his gaze to the men digging. “I assume you noticed the shovel you’ve been carrying. Do you see the men resting? No? Go and use it.”
She glared at him, and he could see she was already exhausted. But she dropped her pack and with trembling hands untied the short spade dangling behind her like a tail. Without another word, she joined the line.
Kurt leaned back against his tree. He found a patch of sunlight that managed to break through the dark canopy above and closed his eyes, sighing at the warmth. He was asleep in seconds.
They woke him in an hour when four of Celtus’ scouts returned. They jabbered in their savage tongue until their chief explained.
“Nothing close. There’s a small bridge North.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Celtus raised a pierced brow.
“Nevermind. And forget the river. Get your men hunting.”
Kurt climbed to the top of the tree he’d been napping on, wondering if he’d need to send for more men.
“Gentlemen,” he called, and the general busyness of the camp ceased. “It appears we’re going to need to defeat this river.”
The recruits glanced at each other with squinted eyes, or at the captains. The veterans groaned.
“Start gathering lumber, lads. I’ll want a few little rafts and boats. We’re going to show these savages how to build a bridge.”
Chapter 7
“Higher, for God’s sake. Raise it higher.”
The men wielding the piledriver—a wooden contraption much like a catapult, but designed to send weight down instead of up—looked nervously at each other and cranked the winch a few more times.
The ropes and wooden beams creaked under the strain, and at Kurt’s gesture the men released the tension.
A crack echoed in the trees like a cannon shot as the iron smashed against the wooden rod. It drove deep into the riverbed, and the men cheered.
Kurt grinned and looked across the river to the men he’d sent to begin on the other side. He’d ordered them to set fortifications first in case of attack, so most of the men were still digging trenches and building walls. But nevermind. Soon he’d ferry more across and within the day they’d be driving piles and setting their own supports to meet Kurt in the middle of the river.
Well, at least he hoped. They’d measured the width of the river, and again Kurt calculated the number of piles, supports and overlying lumber and suspected they’d need more nails, and that it would all take longer than he thought. Several days more, maybe. But I have time, he shrugged, thinking tomorrow he’d send messengers back to the valley and get more men and supplies. They’d still seen no sign of the Helvati, and Kurt was beginning to suspect the fear they infested these woods was misplaced. So why do I still feel uneasy?
They could just be further North, he knew. But even so it would take time for them to organize and mount an attack, if they even bothered. And either way the bridge would be useful later—it would let the savages know: your river won’t protect you from us because we go where we please. And maybe in the future they’d think twice before trying a raid on the new masters of Pyne valley, then relying on the protection of their rivers.
With a last glance at his men Kurt wandered behind a large rock to relieve himself. Then he inspected the camp’s four foot dirt walls with satisfaction, the only gap now protected by a movable barrier of wooden palisade. Celtus and his men had been so successful hunting they’d set up drying racks, and apparently already hung several strips of venison.
Kurt finished and re-clasped the captain’s belt—possibly the only piece of kit he had still in decent shape save for his pistols. Then he spotted Clara resting near the river, drinking from a flask and wiping sweat-matted, greasy hair from her eyes. He grinned, noticing her raw and blistered hands earlier, the obvious pain in her slow movements and hunched posture. She’d annoyed him again in the morning when he sent men across the river.
“Isn’t that dangerous? Can’t we build it from this side?”
Some of the men had been in earshot and Kurt nearly slapped her off her feet.
“Build many bridges, have you Ms. Lehmann?”
Any listeners had grinned and walked away, and Clara
had gone tight-lipped, but at least had the good sense to leave it alone.
Of course it was bloody dangerous, he’d almost screamed, for several reasons. The first and foremost being that the river was deep and fast and the soldier’s little boats more like rafts. So he’d sent only a few men he knew could swim and taken across ropes, which they’d now strung taunt across the 30 meters of swift-flowing water, and others had used it to help drag their boats, and at least had something to grab and steady themselves. They’d had to move some food and supplies, too, which Kurt watched as if relaxed but really gripped iron shot with white knuckles in his pocket.
It had gone smoothly. Thank God. And twenty men now labored away on the walls and shelters, and tomorrow he’d send more and soon enough they’d be dug in and protected and setting piles.
But Kurt glanced at Clara’s eyes, her constant, furtive glances across the river, and considered the other danger. Attack is highly unlikely, he told himself again, not this quickly, at least not in any kind of force.
He put the feeling away, knowing the die had been cast and there was nothing he could do, and turned away to help cut more timber. They’d need at least seven hundred planks to lay across the under-structure of the bridge, and likely a railing would be wise, as well. He stooped to lift a piece of uncut trunk. Then he heard the horn.
Every man in camp froze and stood erect as they listened, like deer with tail raised in warning. Guards ran to the wall and lifted pikes and muskets until the half-ring bristled with iron. Kurt drew two pistols and stared out into the woods. He saw nothing.
“Sir. There.”
Rald put a hand to Kurt’s shoulder, and he turned, slowly, forcing his eyes not to close.
Another horn blasted from somewhere deep in the woods. The twenty-odd men Kurt had sent across the swollen river ran for their weapons, clustering together to protect the maybe two feet of dirt they’d thus far erected as a wall.
The other two hundred turned to watch, clutching their weapons, staring at the three little boats moored on the opposite bank. For a moment all stood in utter silence. The horses neighed and stomped, disturbed first by the horns, now by the anxious fear in the men all around them.