by Damien Lake
Bowmen shifted to hand-to-hand combat, allowing the other Dornory squadrons to start their long advance across the intervening ground.
An arrow shot past Marik’s head. A fast glance around showed him the men on the wall below firing upward at the attackers. With the tower-top archers engaged and outnumbered by attacking swordsmen, he sheathed his blade and retrieved his enemy’s fallen bow. The quiver required a hard tug to free it from the dead man. Marik sighted along the arrow. He silently thanked Landon for the few times they had been on the archery range in Kingshome.
Marik released the arrow. Unsurprisingly it completely missed his target. It did make the target jump back, so he did not count it as a total loss. If he could keep the bowmen below busy, it would give his unit’s real archers a chance to ready their own bows. At least he could shoot in a straight line.
He fired twice again before he saw Edwin dispatching a man with his sword.
“Edwin!”
The archer noticed Marik gesturing frantically. Edwin joined him to look down. “Good idea. How many have you got so far?”
“None.” At the look this garnered, he replied, “I’m not an archer! That’s why I called you!”
“A good thing, too,” Edwin muttered while he strung his bow.
“They’re making for a door below us! I bet it leads over….there! That’s how we go down, through that trap door.”
“Right. Tell Landon and the other archers, then see about guarding that thing. I don’t need a hundred pissers jumping on me from behind!” He drew and fired, taking a man with his first shot.
Most of the skirmishing had ended. The Fourth Unit mercenaries searched for opponents while the other Ninth Squad units arrived. Marik shouted for the archers to line the edge and fire below. Men started moving an instant before Fraser yelled the same orders. He had learned that men will obey anybody’s shouts in the midst of battle as long as they sound like they know what they’re talking about.
The regular archers strung their bows with uncanny speed. Others picked up the fallen arms of their enemies. While this occurred, Marik found Fraser talking to Earnell and quickly explained that a force of men were probably climbing the tower, that they might pour through that trap door any moment.
Earnell shouted clipped orders. Swordsmen threw open the hatch to reveal a room filling the tower’s width. It lacked any interior walls. A ladder had been removed, forcing the attackers to jump the distance to the floor. Soon Marik stood inside the tower, listening to rolling footsteps climbing upward. As he had imagined, the room held a large wheel with many grips jutting from it set on one wall. Thick rope connecting it to the sluice gate angled through a square hole in the wall.
Across the room, a second trap door burst open. Men swarmed through, swords drawn. Marik used the newest form of his combination attack to engage a man who proved much better than any he had faced so far. His foe blocked all Marik’s strikes before unleashing his own series that Marik found difficult to fend off. The assault forced him back, bare steps from the south wall, before he turned aside the blade and renewed his attack.
The man was very good indeed, and must be one of the shining stars in Fielo’s forces. For the first time on this contract, Marik felt unsure of the fight’s outcome. He would never find out who was better though, because Sloan suddenly appeared at the man’s back. With astonishing ease, he thrust through the man’s centerline from behind, splitting the mail with his strange sword.
Sloan waited for no words of thanks. He put a boot to the man’s back, yanked his sword free from the gurgling corpse, then jumped through the open trap. Marik collected himself before following. The hollow space below had been constructed as a catwalk of stairs spiraling down the walls in a square corkscrew. No wonder Fielo’s men were able to swarm into the upper room so quickly. The stairs led straight to the trap door.
Fighting raged below. By the time Marik reached it, it was over. Sloan had defeated most of the men, with Talbot and Duain cleaning up the remains. They reached the bottom, then waited for the rest of the group. Two men discovered the ladder for the roof trap and carried it back up. Once everyone assembled, Sloan opened the door onto the dam wall.
The wall was ten feet wide. Most of the defenders had retreated to the far side under the raining arrows. The Kings advanced fifteen feet before Earnell shouted from above, telling them to hold their position. Beside him stood Dornory, who had caught up and resumed command now that the fighting had mostly ended. Across the dam, the last defender slipped inside the west tower and slammed the door behind.
And so the fighting ended with the two sides staring at each other across the dam. Dornory sent his men down to take charge of the tower interior with Balfourth in the lead. Marik passed him on the stairs and saw the young noble shaking his boot with a disgusted expression twisting his face since he had stepped in a puddle of blood.
* * * * *
“There he goes,” Hayden said from the canyon edge. “I was wondering how long that would take.”
Across the canyon, a small group could be seen riding away to the west. At the head on a magnificent midnight-black mount rode a man who could only be Fielo himself.
“Dornory’s just going to let him go?” Marik could scarcely believe it.
“Of course. If we killed him, it’d cause all kinds of uproar and the king would need to get himself involved to demonstrate his leadership. That’s why you should never kill a noble if you have a choice.”
“How stupid!”
“Better to capture him and ransom him back to his family. It’s the best way to make coin as a merc.”
“Where’s he going?”
“Back home to his roost probably, or off to lodge a petition with the king against Dornory.”
They watched the group ride further away.
“What surprises me,” Marik stated, “is the fact that the tower was empty when we stormed it. Why didn’t Fielo fill it with his men? We would have had a lot more trouble taking it.”
Hayden answered, “It’s a bad idea to let enemies over your head. Our goal is to destroy this dam, right? If he had packed it full, we could have poured oil down the trap and burned up all his men along with it.”
“But he risked that anyway, sending his men up.”
“Not really. Once he saw we weren’t planning on torching the tower, he knew it was safe to send in his men. Or safe from that anyway.”
“So that’s it for us then? The contract’s over?”
“For the most part. Earnell will collect the rest of the fees for the Kings and if we can buy or steal a wagon, we’ll collect a bunch of those swords still laying around from the night fight for the armory. Then we’ll be on our way. We’ll probably have to wait around for Dornory to finish off the dam, but that’s all.”
“How’s he going to do that? I wouldn’t want to be in front of it with an axe, chopping holes with that lake on the other side.”
“Nah, nothing like that. Just you watch. Dornory’s pet alchemist will go to work on it.”
“What? I didn’t know an alchemist was here.”
Hayden looked surprised. “You never saw his wagon? It’s the one with all the yellow tarps and the ‘Keep Away’ signs.”
“I can’t read, remember?”
“Oh yeah, I always forget that. Anyway, let’s come up here tomorrow for the show. I don’t think they’ll do it today.”
Marik spent the evening tending to his minor wounds and working on his equipment so Sennet would have no cause to yell at him when he returned. The next day, he waited on the canyon edge with Hayden and the others.
Below, a man in a hooded yellow overcoat gave directions to several guardsmen. Under his instruction they had built several rock piles against dam’s base. The piles were actually a covering over several small casks and burlap bags the alchemist unloaded from his wagon. Constant shouts from him not to get the bags wet in the water bubbling up from under the sluice gate drifted to the men lining the canyon’s rim.
He stuffed empty grain sacks into openings through the tops of each pile, then poured liquid over the coarse materiel from a different cask.
Once everything was set to his satisfaction, the men returned to the top. He informed Dornory that they could begin.
At his signal, five archers on each side lit their fire arrows and simultaneously fired them at the sacks. Several missed, but others landed on the bags. The burlap caught fire rapidly, blazing within moments.
Suddenly, in a flash of fire and a thundering crash that Marik thought would stop his heart, the right side of the dam exploded. Fiery fragments whistled through the air, many fluttering while others streaked like arrows. When the smoke drift away on the slight breeze, he could see the outer log wall had mostly been destroyed. The earth and stone fill crumbled outward, unsupported by the shattered wall. A second explosion rocked the ground, decimating the left side.
The debris interiors collapsed into mounds, yet the second log wall, the one holding back the water, remained intact.
“Now what,” asked Marik, speaking louder to hear himself over the ringing in his ears. “Do they do that again?”
“No, look!”
The weight of the water slowly bent the second wall forward. While Marik watched, the entire eastern side gradually toppled until water flowed over in a waterfall. Newly freed water poured over, quickly washing away the loose earth mounds. After several moments the west side collapsed with a crash when the dirt pile dissolved, taking the gate with it.
Marik looked downstream. He hoped no one miles away had walked to the middle of the bed to fill a bucket with precious water. They would likely be swept away!
“That black powder’s some powerful stuff,” Hayden commented in admiration.
“The towers are still there.”
“That’s Dornory’s and Fielo’s problem. They can work it out themselves. Let’s get going. The sooner we leave, the sooner we get home.”
Chapter 16
The injured slowed the Ninth, delaying their arrival home until an eightday before true summer. Lieutenant Earnell reported to Commander Torrance upon their arrival. This time of year, the Kings were never short of work. Earnell received their next assignments along with a three day rest period. Everyone drew their pay for the eightdays they had been gone. Most opted to spend their rest period in a tavern on Ale House Row.
As soon as Marik learned their next contract’s location, he dragged Dietrik to the records office to help him study the various maps of the area.
“You really should learn to read. Do you want to rely on other people like this forever?”
Marik scowled. “Half the men in the Ninth can’t read. Why should I bother? People like you and Landon and Hayden are the exception, not the rule. Now, where are we going?”
Dietrik shrugged, then reached up high to tap the large map of Galemar hanging on the wall. “Right here, I believe.”
“That’s right on the border with Perrisan. Why don’t the guardsmen handle it?”
“Didn’t you hear Fraser?”
“No, I was still half asleep when he came in.”
“They’ve already tried, but the rogues cross over the border long enough to raid a town and then they hop back across. The guardsmen are all affiliated with the crown so if they cross the border uninvited, it would get taken the wrong way.”
“Everyone knows they’d only be after the bandits!”
“There’s a certain protocol involved. You don’t want to offend your neighbors, especially if they happen to be irritable ones.”
“But we can?”
“We’re not affiliated with the king personally. That’s why the Crimson Kings can take contracts from outside the borders. Well, two of the borders anyway. I understand Torrance is not particularly enamoured of Nolier at the moment.”
“Nolier.” Marik said this thoughtfully. “That’s right, their king died and the son took the crown.”
“Most people preferred the father, if you listen to the talk.”
“After Dornory and the mighty Balfourth, I have no trouble believing that.” Marik turned back to the maps. “So the bandits are along here?”
“These are all the villages that have been raided to date,” Dietrik answered, running his finger along the eastern end of the border between Galemar and its northern neighbor. “Right along here, and as far southeast as the Cliffsdains when they grow daring. I do not believe they have gone further west than the eastern quarter. The best guess is that the group has a home base within these fifty miles. I wonder how all these little villages came up with the contract fee?”
“Where’s Spirratta,” Marik asked suddenly.
“Uh, wait a moment…right here,” Dietrik said, moving his finger across three-fourths of the kingdom. It lay considerably south and west of the area they would travel to.
“Well, this is as good a time as any then,” Marik muttered to himself.
“For what?”
“My father. All the information I have is from a King my father traveled with before he vanished. He left in Spirratta, heading north without saying why.”
“If he made it all the way to the border, you might find information there. But after so many years, most likely no one will remember anything at all.”
“I have to try, Dietrik.” A longing glaze filmed his eyes. “I was going to ask Sennet about him since he seems to know a little about everyone in the band at any given time, but he left with his weapons caravan for Thoenar before we got back. Maybe I’ve found a place here with the Kings, but I still need to know what happened to him.”
“I didn’t mean you should give up,” Dietrik hastily assured, feeling guilty.
Marik bowed his head. “Yeah, I know.” He perked up after a moment, adding, “Besides, I can ask along the way when we stop.”
“Not to put a damper on it again, but we usually camp outside of the towns, mate.”
Smug knowledge replaced the lingering poignancy. “Not this time! I guess you weren’t so awake yourself since you missed that part!”
“What might that be?”
“Since it’s so far off and it’s only the Third and Fourth Units and the spring is already over—“
“Not quite.”
“Right, not quite, the band’s letting us take mounts out of the corral. We have to stop over in towns to replenish the feed for the horses and the like, so I can ask my questions then.”
“Oh, that’ll be nice. It will still take at least three eightdays.” He suddenly weighed Marik with his eyes. “Have you ever ridden a horse before?”
“No, but I’ve looked after several, from the caravans coming into Tattersfield.”
“Perhaps you should practice for the next day or so.”
“Maybe. We can see the stable master later. Let’s finish with these maps.”
* * * * *
They set out two days later, having claimed mounts from the Kings’ corral. A fenced area forming a long, wide corridor ran from a gate in the eastern wall down the hill. This side was less steep, with firmer ground than the trial hillside to the north where Marik and Dietrik had first met. At the hill’s base the ground continued descending, forming a sunken, enclosed valley. The valley sides were far too steep for a horse to climb so it needed no fences beyond the corridor. Once in the valley, the only way out lay up the fenced slope to Kingshome.
The vale contained enough space for the horses to run. It could support all the horses needed by the band since the vale could have contained Kingshome itself ten times over. At the eastern end, a large pond bordered by trees and berry bushes provided water, and the valley supported an abundance of delicious grasses. In addition to the grazing, the grooms scattered feed across a corner every day.
It seemed odd to Marik that he’d spent an entire season living in the town, yet had never once come down to the horses’ vale.
He chose a dark bay mare, the black of her mane and tail contrasting with her mahogany coat. She appeared to like him and gave
him little trouble. Her only flaw appeared to be a desire to wander after anything that caught her attention. Marik considered naming her, but she did not belong to him and he would only have the use of her for a half-season.
He rode beside Dietrik’s brown roan, the white hairs sprinkled throughout her coat making her look a grandmother rather than a war-horse in her prime.
The first days Marik spent adjusting to the peculiar sores and bruises the saddle gave him. Only after they had been on the road a good while did he begin making inquiries in travel shops and from suppliers in the towns they stopped at. As he expected, none bore any interest in his story. Still, the shopkeepers willing to deal with mercenaries usually stopped a moment to think back. Invariably, they apologized and gave him nothing.
He persisted in the face of futility. The odds of finding any clues were against him, he knew, especially during his first attempts. Marik would continue nonetheless. This greatly relieved Dietrik, who had anticipated a depression descending on his friend.
For fifteen days Marik asked questions. His journey for answers had ground to a dead halt over two seasons ago. Though he had little chance of learning anything except by pure luck, making his inquiries felt good. The shift months back from an active search effort to a free wanderer had been the only apparent alternative at the time. He had hated the change but acknowledged the truth. Working toward his goal again lifted his spirits, despite the lack of progress toward the final answer.
After Dietrik’s predicted three eightdays, they arrived at the village of Dollet where they found a warmer greeting than Marik had become accustomed to.
It was a small village. The population could not have exceeded two-hundred. Their mayor, if the head man of such a small gathering could be called by that title, rushed out to great them the instant they stopped in the village square.