I really didn’t care to see the bloody kitchens and meeting hall, but we marched through them all the same. Garnet and Renthrette exchanged significant looks and made penciled notes on little squares of parchment. After a while I caught Garnet’s arm and asked him what the story was.
“You’d know if you’d shut your mouth and open your eyes once in a while,” he muttered. “What were you doing back there?”
“Being an adventurer,” I said. “I thought it was obvious. Admittedly I haven’t quite got the part down yet. . . .”
“The part?”
“Yes,” I explained, “you know, the adventurer role. The language, the mannerisms, and all that. But I’m working on it.”
“It’s not a role,” Garnet gasped, offended. “It’s a way of life!”
“Well, yes, kind of. But it’s still a performance, you know? And you can help me flesh out the role by telling me what you keep writing down. . . .”
“You have no idea, have you?” he said, still aghast. “You will always just be the same lying, deceitful—”
“Oh, thanks. Keep your precious observations to yourself then.”
He grabbed me by the shoulder and pushed me back against the wall, his favorite way of getting my attention, and snarled, “Just stay out of my way and don’t soil our profession with your playacting.”
“I’m only trying to get the adventuring, you know, the life, right.”
“Well, start taking notice of things for yourself,” he spat contemptuously. “We have just seen the living quarters of eleven hundred men,” he added. “That’s two hundred cavalry and seven hundred infantry for deployment in times of open conflict, without touching the two-hundred-strong guard force that holds the castle itself.” He gave me an excited look, apparently forgetting his irritation.
“So?” I said.
“That’s a lot of soldiers.”
“Yes,” I agreed, giving him the bewildered look he had given me, “it is.”
Just to score a private point I sidled over to Renthrette as we ascended the stairs to the second floor behind the silent chancellor and said, “Did you happen to figure out how many servants there are here?”
“Upstairs?” she said, consulting her notes. “Twenty-three.”
“Thank you.” I smiled simply. It was as I had suspected; they were both as mad as each other.
“Not at all, Will.” She half smiled, dubious but apparently pleased that I was showing interest. “Chancellor,” she said, raising her voice slightly, “what is the male-to-female ratio amongst the kitchen and cleaning staff?”
Hell’s teeth, I thought. This adventuring lark was one thrill after another.
The second floor’s two northbound corridors were hung with faded tapestries, the silk plucked and moth-eaten. Semiprecious stones that had once been stitched to them had been lost or stolen, leaving only spots of less-faded color and a few hanging threads. I considered grabbing some of the ones that were left but figured that this wasn’t the time.
We had returned to the dining room on the second floor and my boredom knew no bounds. The chancellor nodded to a staircase that spiraled up through this floor and beyond. “The third floor is merely ramparts and siege equipment, with a small watchtower in the center, but if you wish me to show you around—”
“No, thanks,” I said hurriedly. I knew Renthrette would be looking daggers at me so I added, “You have been so kind already and I’m sure we can look over the third floor by ourselves.”
His thin mouth smiled briefly, and with an “As you wish,” he saw us back to our rooms. He was making his farewells when we heard a cry of panic. The chancellor wheeled and muttered, “The count’s rooms!”
Mithos was the first to run, unsheathing his broadsword as he did so. Orgos drew a dagger and joined him in a couple of long, powerful strides. The others bolted after them and I followed, like a sheep who didn’t want to be left alone. Over the sound of their feet I heard the crack of a heavy weapon striking timber.
It had never occurred to me that I would need a weapon, since I was sharing a fortified building with over a thousand trained soldiers. The realization that I was completely unarmed (as the others plucked knives and swords from their clothes) came too late; I had already rounded the corner.
One of the guards at the count’s door was dead, his throat and shoulders slashed open. The other was slumped against the wall with a crimson-flighted arrow in his chest and blood running from his mouth. A wild-eyed man in the black cloak and heavy scale of a Shale infantryman was hacking at the count’s door with a huge two-handed weapon that looked like an ax, but bigger. Scarier. As we approached, he turned on us.
Mithos advanced on him, his sword held at arm’s length to parry the wide arc of that massive blade. I froze as Orgos edged closer, his knife drawn but pitifully inadequate. Mithos made to strike, but the soldier lowered his grip and swung the vast, curved ax bit at arm’s length, tracing a deadly semicircle around him. Every time he swung it, you could hear the sound as it cut the air. Mithos drew back, as close to uncertain as I had ever seen him.
The man in the black cloak turned suddenly and slashed that ax at us in a great whistling sweep. I took a step back and felt the air move against my face. The others gave him a little more ground, watching his eyes for a sign of what he was going to do next. He couldn’t turn back to the locked door, so unless he surrendered, he was going to try to come through us. I took another step back.
He seemed to scan our faces, as if picking the weak point of the circle that hemmed him in, and when his gaze fell on me—scared and weaponless—he seemed to decide.
Guards suddenly appeared from the main corridors, running and shouting, their spears leveled. He saw them, and his eyes grew wide and bright. With a cry of rage, he raised the ax high above his head and sprang right at me. I leapt back just as the guards arrived. At least two of their spears penetrated his chest and stomach.
As his ax fell and his roar became a fading scream I twisted my eyes away. I don’t think I was the only one.
Everyone looked at each other with stunned, bewildered relief.
“Do you know him?” asked Mithos, stooping over the corpse.
Dathel muttered, “Not one of ours. I’d swear to it.”
As the guards lifted him his black cloak fell open and we stared at it in silence. Stitched carefully to the inside was a lining that was clearly not regulation. There was no design or pattern on it. It was red. A crimson as deep and vivid as a new wound.
SCENE XIX
A Council Meeting
Dinner was a tense affair, to say the least. Apart from the six of us there were the count and countess of Shale, Chancellor Dathel, and the rulers of Verneytha and Greycoast and their military advisors. On each of the two doors into the dining room stood heavily armored infantrymen with swords and pikes, and the corridor guard had been doubled. They were taking no more chances.
We sat around a long mahogany table and toyed with our unexotic food, glancing round the bare walls to avoid looking at the concerned faces all around us. The beef in front of me might have been more constructively used by a cobbler but, sensing that it came from the remains of Shale’s last cow, I sawed at it with my knife and chewed respectfully.
I should add that, despite the miserable castle and the lousy food, I was in reasonable spirits. I figured the situation had been exaggerated and we stood to make some easy money, and lots of it. The attack on the count’s room had not seriously swayed my general optimism. Yes, the assassin would have killed me if the others hadn’t been there to deal with him, but they had been there, and I wouldn’t be going anywhere without a heavily armed escort from here on in. I was, after all, the party linguist. Mithos and the rest of them could handle the odd murderous soldier while I read books and shared pithy little observations about Shale’s cultural history. It was sort of cool to have been brought in as some kind of expert, even if I wasn’t really an expert in anything useful: I was a guest, a minor celebrit
y, even, and that was a part I could have fun with.
“In the light of today’s attempt on my life,” said the count, “I suggest we move rapidly to our principal business.”
Count Arlest of Shale was a sinewy man in his early fifties, but he seemed exhausted, almost frail. His hair was brownish, greying; his eyes were anxious; and his cheeks hollow. He wore a monkish smock of coarse cotton, belted at the waist with brown leather, and the only sign of his office was a thin band of copper around his temples.
His wife was younger and not unattractive, despite the worry lines around her eyes. Her hair was long and reddish, her eyes a soft, foggy green, and her skin was pale as new ivory. She wore a high-collared dress of blue cambric in a slightly outmoded fashion. Her slim white hand rested on her husband’s clenched knuckles throughout the meeting.
“Gentlemen,” said the count, turning specifically to his fellow leaders, “this is Mithos, the group leader.”
Mithos nodded to each of them and we followed suit as he gave our names. Duke Raymon of Greycoast was a robust, heavyset fellow with a ruddy complexion, a thick russet beard, and blue eyes that sparkled amiably. He looked like a port drinker. He wore voluminous robes of orange satin trimmed with fur and embroidered with gold thread, and heavy rings. He was the only person present who actually looked like a noble, and I rather took to him for not letting the situation get him down.
The other was an altogether different creature. He was introduced as Edwyn Treylen, governor of Verneytha. He was a small, wiry man with the sharp nose and tight, glassy eyes of a rodent, or—better still—some stoatlike predator. He clasped his thin hands and drummed his fingernails on the table very slowly, looking at us. He had a way of fixing you with his beady gaze for a minute or more as if you were an insect in a collection.
“Are they aware of the situation to date?” boomed the duke of Greycoast, his voice rolling like an empty beer barrel.
“I thought we could begin with a list of the attacks thus far,” said the count softly. The somber chancellor passed him a page of spidery writing.
“Here is a chart showing the territories of our three lands,” said the count. “Shale, Greycoast, and Verneytha, the last lying directly north of the other two.”
He paused as if he was unsure how to proceed, and then added, “It began eighteen months ago, during the winter months, though we did not deem the matter important at that time. We received sporadic accounts of attacks on merchant caravans between Ironwall, the capital of Greycoast, and the seaports twenty miles south. At this stage, of course, it was a purely regional affair, so I was not informed of the situation.”
Here the duke of Greycoast spoke up. “It was a few inadequately reported attacks. Nothing more,” he said, laying his palms on the table and leaning back with an expressive shrug. “These things happen on wealthy trade routes. There was little traffic on the road, so I just increased patrols slightly and thought no more of it.”
He hesitated, and the count took the opportunity to proceed. “Duke Raymon did all he thought necessary at the time and cannot be blamed for not raising the alarm earlier,” he said. Greycoast settled down, but from the quick glance he shot his neighbor from Verneytha, I got the feeling that this had been discussed less amicably before.
“Would you pass the mustard, please?” I inserted, trying to dress up the leather on my plate, having already tried some very disappointing chutney. Renthrette, who was sitting next to me, turned and gave me an incredulous look.
“What?” I whispered, slightly defensively, adding to the table at large, “Oh, sorry. I just wanted . . . you know . . . this meat . . . Sorry. Please go on.”
Arlest did so, hurriedly. “The attacks continued but spread west into southern Shale, concentrating particularly around the Iruni Wood, which marks the Greycoast border. Again traders were attacked, murdered, and robbed, as were the inhabitants of some of the smaller hamlets and villages in the area. No survivors were left. The apparently random nature of the attacks prevented us from making a connection to those in Greycoast until similarities came to light almost by chance during trade discussions with the duke. In every case, the attackers were mounted and shot arrows with crimson flights.”
I paused in my chewing and looked at him. I didn’t like that detail about the arrows. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it just made them sound organized, but there was something else: like they wanted people to know what they were doing. Bandits didn’t do that.
Arlest continued. “It was well into the spring before a survivor could confirm our fears, but by this time the assaults were widespread and had been reported as far apart as Hopetown in central Greycoast and just west of our capital, Adsine. The survivor had been taking the main trade route from Ironwall to Hopetown with a convoy of wagons and an escort of ten men. In former days such a guard would have been more than adequate. The road cuts straight through the Proxintar Downs, from whose hills the raiders came riding, heavily and uniformly armed, wearing scarlet cloaks and helms that left only their eyes uncovered.”
I looked around the room. The party was attentive. Renthrette looked eager, almost excited. Duke Raymon was staring at the table, though it was hard to tell if he was upset by the account of what had happened, or embarrassed to have their dirty laundry aired for our benefit. Edwyn Treylen sat quite still, his lips slightly parted, his eyes roving around the room as if sizing us all up. When his eyes met mine and held them, I turned back to Arlest.
“I am telling you this because later accounts illustrate that this is their habitual mode of assault. Sometimes they attack with only six or seven men. On other occasions there must have been eighty of them or more. In each case they have just enough to ensure a comfortable victory, losing few, if any, of their own troops. As they charge towards the caravan they shoot their bows, cutting down the mounted resistance to nothing. They circle the wagons, shooting all the while, often with burning arrows. Then they charge into close quarters with their lances. If they dismount, they use a long, two-handed axlike weapon. . . .”
He paused thoughtfully, and I saw the countess’s grip on his hand tighten encouragingly. We had seen the ax already.
“In the summer of last year the raiders reached southern Verneytha and led a series of forays into the Great Wheat Field region, firing crops and causing immense damage to villages. Cavalry from Verneytha went after them, but were unable to track them down. A week later, on the trade route from Hopetown to Harvest, Verneytha’s capital, a major cargo of metal goods was attacked, leaving eight arrow-ridden wagons and a pile of corpses. Verneytha sent three units of fifty cavalry to search the area. Two of them found nothing; the other was destroyed utterly.”
I stared first at the count and then at Treylen, the governor of Verneytha, who was sitting as still as ever, his face blank. I’d say the beef had turned to ashes in my mouth, but that wouldn’t mean much. What I had been thinking of as a sort of jaunt in the countryside, something a little more exciting than a picnic but of the same basic ilk, had suddenly turned into a bona fide death trap. We were out of our depth here. Something was very wrong, and it was the kind of something that Will Hawthorne did not wish to be part of.
As if to make me surer in my resolve, the count went on. “In October two villages close to Ugokan in northern Shale were robbed, fired, and their inhabitants brutally and methodically slain. In November some dignitaries of Greycoast and their forty-man armed escort were ambushed and executed as they crossed the Downs into Shale. Throughout the winter the attacks continued, targeting isolated, wealthy villages and trading groups in Verneytha.
“The three of us met and elected to use this castle as the base for our attempts to track and destroy the raiders. With financial support from Verneytha and Greycoast I was able to deploy my cavalry and certain units of infantry, but to no avail. I lost forty infantry in one fell swoop when their camp by the Elsbett Wood was assaulted. The cavalry spent two months pursuing red herrings and hoofprints that led nowhere.
“At that point we decided to bring in outside help. You are the third party to assist us. The first was wiped out as they escorted a vital fruit-and-vegetable convoy from Harvest. The second repaid their expenses and left. They were part of a group of fighters who hired themselves out to defend wagons leaving the Hopetown market. A huge force of what have become known as ‘the crimson raiders’ attacked the convoy. There were no survivors.
“Over the last month, the frequency of the raids has escalated to such a degree that we’ve felt obliged to close most of the major trade routes, including the vital Hopetown roads, to all traffic. The death toll of our soldiers and citizens is close to a thousand. We have lost a fortune in trade and our lands face bankruptcy and starvation. We must put an end to this situation.”
By now there was a desperation in his voice that had not been there earlier. His eyes passed over us and they shone for a moment as if he was close to tears.
If he was, he blinked them away as Duke Raymon rocked forward and growled, “I put my men at your disposal. My seal will admit you to any building in Greycoast. We will cover all your expenses. What do you say?”
“We will help you if we can,” said Mithos.
For a second I thought he was joking, but I should have remembered who I was dealing with. I was too dumbfounded to utter more than a sort of strangled gasp, which everyone seemed to associate, understandably, with the beef.
“Shale is not a wealthy land,” said the count after a short smile of relief, “but we can put our soldiers and this castle at your disposal. On behalf of the three lands I can offer you one thousand silver pieces and a quarter of whatever stolen property you recover if you can put a stop to the raids. We have soldiers enough to meet them in the field, but we need to know who they are and where they are if we are to do battle on even terms. I think that is all.”
Act of Will Page 13