Scarlotti ferries and reappeared days later at the hamlet of Norr, well behind the Kavelin-Altean border.
Mocker arrived after the men had already gone to the fields. The women were gathering at the well. Even the youngest was a tangle-haired mess, but they were Wessons and clean.
“Hai!” the fat man cried, trying to look pathetic and harmless. “Such visions eyes of poor old wanderer have not seen in age. Hand of Queen of Beauty fell heavily on town.” Suspicious eyes turned his way. “Where are menfolk? In land of humble traveler, self, husbands never stray from sprites like these.” He tried not to wrinkle his nose as a crone smiled and shifted a babe from breast to wrinkled breast.
“But wait. Must observe proprieties. Must introduce self lest same be suspect for wickedry. Am called Saltimbanco. Am student philosophic of Grand Master Istwan of Senske in Matayanga. Am sent west on quest for knowledge, to seek same at academies in Hellin Daimiel.” Children too small to work gathered around him. He did a ventriloquism trick and made the donkey ask for a drink. That frightened some women and disarmed others. Then he asked a meal for himself, for which he offered what he claimed was his last copper, and while he ate told several outrageous lies about the shape of the earth. He then traveled on.
He repeated the performance in every hamlet till he reached Damhorst, thus building himself a small reputation. It was a hurry-up specter of his usual meticulous preparation. He hoped that in the disruption no one would have time to check his back trail.
Damhorst was a large town with a substantial castle atop a tall hill. As happened where armies gathered, leeches were common. One more wouldn’t be noticed. A common ground at town’s center was crowded by the tents of whores, ale sellers, a tattoo artist, fortune-tellers, amulet sellers, and the like. Saltimbanco would fit like a fish in water.
He arrived early. Few of his colleagues were stirring, but he quickly learned that Bragi was approaching Staake. Mumbling, he spread a rug where he would be outof traffic, yet could watch everything.
“Identical spot.” He chuckled. A long time ago, when he really had been coming west, he had paused here to bilk a few Damhorsters. “And same props. Should have thrown away, Nepanthe said. Might need someday, self replied. Hai! Here is husband of same, in business at old stand.” Around him he spread a collection of arcana that included bleached apes’ skulls and bones from little-known eastern animals, moldy books, and glass vials filled with nasty concoctions. “So many years. Am getting old. But bilking widows hard work even for youngest, virilest man.” He chuckled again. He had made his first fortune in Damhorst, by making promises to a lusty young widow named Kersten Heerboth, and had gambled it away in Altea.
He settled against a wall, nodded sleepily. Occasion-ally, when a rider or lady in a litter passed, he would lift his head to call desultorily, “Hai! Great Lady,” or Lord, “before you sits mighty thaumaturge out of mysterious, easternmost east, with secrets of life as unlocked by mightiest of mighty eastern necromancers. Have gold-rare vials of water of fountain of youth, to suppliment beauty of already most beautiful damsels of glorious Damhorst. Have potation guaranteed to banish wrinkles forever. Have cream to end eternally ghost of whiskers on great ladies’ lips. Husband getting shiny on top? Have secretest dust, made at midnight full moon by Mata-yangan magicians, heretofore unseen west of Necremnos, guaranteed to restore hair on statue. Just mix same with blood of Escalonian snow snake, only furry snake in world, and will correct same. Snake blood also available here, prepared by adepts of bearded turtle cult deep in darkest heart of Escalon.” And so forth.
It was river water, mud, and the like, but there had been a time when he had made a living selling it to ladies on the downhill side of thirty.
Near noon a shadow fell on his lap, into which he stared sleepily. He looked up into one of the nastiest faces he had ever seen. It was scarred, one-eyed, neither clean-shaven nor bearded, and wore a grin with several teeth missing and the rest rotten. Before he could say a word, the man left.
“Derran One-Eye,” he muttered. “Hired blade of friend Haroun.” He looked around quickly, thought he saw a familiar back vanish round a corner a block distant. Haroun? Here? He was tempted to follow. But Haroun would contact him if necessary.
Later, he decided Derran’s appearance was an ill omen he should have heeded. He should have gathered his props and fled, and damn finding out what Breitbarth was up to.
Things soured that afternoon. A lady came by, a lady getting a bit paunchy and looking more than a bit wealthy. She appeared a certain victim. Did he still have the true touch? He accepted the challenge.
“Hai! Great Lady, shadow of Goddess of Love and Beauty on Mundane plane, glow of desire, harken to words of acolyte of greatest mage of east, self. Am in possession of one only packet rarest of rare herbs of Escalon, well-known but impossible of finding amantea, famous to corners of world for efficacy of treatment of teeny, tiny bit less than perfect waistlines...”
“It’s him!” the woman shrieked. “And he hasn’t changed a word. Harlin, Flotron, seize him.”
The armed men who had been walking before and behind her sedan, puzzled, started toward the fat man.
“Woe!” Mocker cried, stumbling to his feet. “Of all ill fortunes,” he shouted at the sky, “of all potential evils...” He shook a fist, gathered the skirts of his robe, and ran.
He had been seated in one position too long. Kersten’s bravos overhauled him. “Self, should have stayed home,” he moaned as they dragged him back. “Should have listened to Nepanthe. Should have stayed pig farmer and mud grubber. But evil gods, maybe wicked sorcerer, lured poor foolish self to fateful appointment...”
“You’ve been a long time delivering those emeralds,” the woman said.
“O Light of Life, Doe Eyes, Dove’s Breast, humblest of humble cowards encravens self. In past time, still remembered with great joy as happiest hour of otherwise miserable life, while returning from goldsmith, self was set upon by rogues. Fought like lion, armed with love, breaking bones, maiming, leaving five, six crippled for life. But dagger thrust ended resistance. Still havegruesome scar on fundament, result of same...”
“Thrash him, boys, before he breaks my heart by telling me how he couldn’t possibly face me after losing all my money.”
Harlan and Flotron tried to follow orders, but Mocker never accepted thrashings meekly. He got the best of it, briefly, with tricks that would have embarrassed Derran One-Eye. But he got no chance to escape. Kersten carried more weight than avoirdupois. Damhorsters by the dozen piled on. Soon he found himself being hustled to the castle and its dungeon.
There he learned things he feared he would never pass on to Bragi-because the grimmest news was that Kersten had married Baron Breitbarth.
Hour after hour, day after day, he sat on the straw-covered floor and mumbled to himself about his stupidity. When self-pity grew boring, he wondered how Bragi was doing. Well, he trusted. His companions in durance assured him that their turnkeys wouldn’t be so tight-lipped and sour were things going the Baron’s way.
IV) First blood
“Haaken! Reskird! Close it up! Don’t worry about noise. They know we’re here. Move it! They’re on our ass. Eanred, ask him what’s ahead.”
“He came from behind.”
“He knows the country, doesn’t he?”
Tarlson talked with the, scout.
“The lake, he says. A talus beach on the right, narrow, along the lakeside. Hills and some bluffs on the left. Very rugged, bushy country, full of ravines, but not high.”
“What about this fog? Is it common? How long will it last?”
Questions and answers, questions and answers. It went so slow. “Haaken. Reskird.” He gave orders.
The Trolledyngjan infantry, which had been marching at the rear, began double-timing forward. The Itaskianscrowded the edge of the road till they were thoroughly mixed.
“Reskird!” Ragnarson bellowed, “get those horses back. I want contact within the hour.
” He galloped to the head of the column where Blackfang was replacing the vanguard with heavily armed horsemen. “Hurry it up, damn it. If the Volstokiners knew we were coming, so did Breitbarth. He’ll be moving north.”
Back down the line he galloped, shouting, “Move it! Move it!” at every officer he saw. Dozens of pale, tense young faces ghosted past in the mist. He saw no smiles now, heard no laughter. It had stopped being an adventure. “Tarlson! Where are you? Stick close. And keep your scout. I want to know when we get to the steepest hillsides.” By the time he reached the column’s rear, Kildragon and the light horse, with a platoon of bowmen, had faded back.
Soon he had done all he could, and was considering prayer. He had fifteen hundred men sandwiched between two superior, better rested, better trained forces-though as yet he had no idea where Breitbarth was. This was not the easy battle he had wanted for blooding.
Trumpets sounded in the distance. Kildragon had made contact.
On the column’s right, only yards away but invisible in the mist, the lake waters lapped gently against the shore.
“Here,” Tarlson said at last.
“To your left!” Ragnarson shouted. “Upslope. Move it!”
The soldiers began climbing.
The hills, barely tall enough to be called such, rose above the mist. In the dawnlight Ragnarson arranged his troops in strong clumps on their lakeward faces.
He hoped the mist would not burn off too soon.
Reskird’s party soon passed below, invisible, raising a clatter, and moments later were followed by a strong force of cavalry. Ragnarson signaled his officers to hold fire.
The mist had begun to thin by the time the enemy main force moved to where Ragnarson wanted them. He could discern the vague dark shapes of mounted officers hurrying their infantry companies... He gave the signal.
Arrows sleeted into the mist. Cries of surprise and pain answered them. Ragnarson counted a minute, during which thousands of arrows fled his bows, then signaled a charge. The Trolledyngjans led, shaking the hills with their warcries.
Ragnarson leaned forward in his saddle, wearily, and awaited results.
The Volstokiners had been in good spirits, confident of victory. The sudden rain of death had stunned them. They could see no enemies. And while trying to form up over the dead and wounded, the Trolledyngjans hit them like an avalanche of wolves.
The fog cleared within the hour. Little but carnage remained. The surviving Volstokiners had run into the water. Some, trying to swim away, had drowned. Ragnarson’s archers were using heads for targets. Trolledyngjans on captured horses were splashing about, chopping heads. The water was scarlet.
“Won’t you take prisoners?” Tarlson asked. He spoke not a word of praise.
“Not yet. They’d just go home, re-arm, and come back. I hope this’ll put Volstokin out of the picture.”
A messenger from Blackfang arrived. The commander of the Volstokin vanguard, some four hundred men, stunned, had asked terms after only a brief skirmish.
“All right,” said Ragnarson, “they can have their lives and shoes. The enlisted men. Strip them and send them packing.”
I Below, his men, tired of slaughter, were allowing surrender. “Let’s see what we’ve caught.” He wanted to get down there before there were disputes over loot. The Volstokiners had even brought a bevy of carts and wagons full of camp followers.
He dismounted and walked slowly through the carnage. His own casualties were few. In places the Volstokiners were heaped. Luck had ridden with him again. He paused a moment beside Ragnar Bjornson-no older than he had been in his first battle-who grinned through the pain of a wound. “Some folks will do anything to get out of walking,” Bragi said, resting a hand on the youth’s shoulder. Someone had said the same to him long ago.
It was terribly quiet. It always seemed that way afterward, as if the only sound left in the world was the cawling of the ravens.
A dead man caught his eye. Something odd about him. He paused. Too dark for Volstokin. An aquiline nose. Haroun had been right. El Murid had advisers in Volstokin.
He shook his head sadly. This little backwater kingdom was becoming the focus of a lot of intrigue.
Haaken came in with thirty prisoners and hundreds of heavily laden horses. “Got some odd ones here, Bragi,” he said, indicating several dusky men.
“I know. El Murid’s. Kill them. One by one. See if the weakest will tell you anything.” The remainder he had herded together with officers already captured.
Volstokin had lost nearly fifteen hundred men while Bragi had had sixty-one killed. Had his people been more experienced, he thought, even fewer would have been lost. It had been a perfect ambush.
“What now?” Tarlson asked.
“We bury our dead and divide the spoils.”
“And then? There’s still Lord Breitbarth.”
“We disappear. Got to let the men digest what they’ve done. Right now they think they’re invincible. They’ve got to realize they haven’t faced a disciplined enemy. And we’ll need time to let the news spread. May swing some support to the Queen.”
“And to Lord Breitbarth. Hangers-back would join him to make sure of you. They’ve got to keep the Crown up for grabs.”
“I know. But I want to avoid action for a few weeks. The men need rest and training. Haaken! See the Marena Dimura get shares.” He had noticed the scouts, as ragged and bloody as any of his troops, lurking about the fringes, eyeing plunder uncertainly. One, who was supposed to be a man of importance, seemed enthralled by a brightly painted wagon filled with equally painted but terrified women. “Give the old man the whore wagon.”
That proved a providential act. It brought him warning, next day, of a party of Breitbarth’s horses ranging far ahead of the Baron. In a brisk skirmish he took two hundred prisoners, killed another hundred, andsent the remainder to their commander in a panic. Tarlson said Breitbarth relied heavily on his knights and was a cautious sort likely to withdraw after the setback. He did so. And more barons rallied to Damhorst. Breitbarth’s force swelled to three thousand.
The westward movement of baronial forces left partisans from the under-classes free to slaughter one another elsewhere. More and more Marena Dimura gravitated toward Ragnarson, who remained in the hill country near the Volstokin border, moving camp every few days. The natives kept him informed of Breitbarth’s actions.
Those amounted to patrols in force and a weekly sally north a day’s march, followed by a day’s bivouac, then a withdrawal into Damhorst.
Ragnarson began to worry about Mocker. He should have heard from the fat man by now.
Eanred left him, declaring it was time to resume his command. The Queen was under little pressure, but rumor had marauders riding to the suburbs of Vorgre-berg. That had to stop.
It was now an open secret that Breitbarth held the money intended for Bragi’s men, but they, fat on loot and self-confidence, weren’t grumbling. Everyone told every-one else that the Colonel would take them down to Damhorst and get it back.
EIGHT: Campaign Against Rebellion
I) In flight
The news the Marena Dimura brought caused Ragnarson to grow increasingly unsettled. Breitbarth grew stronger by the day. His numbers reached four thousand, many heavily armed knights. The Baron’s sallies became more daring. Ragnarson’s patrols came under increasing pressure. He had added four hundred men to his force, but they were Marena Dimura and Wessons without training. He used them as guides and raiders.
He began to fear Breitbarth would split his force and move against Vorgreberg.
During his examination of the country toward Damhorst he had found the place where he wanted to do battle. It was on the north side of a dense forest belonging to Breitbarth himself. It began near the Ebeler a dozen miles northeast of Damhorst. Roads ran round both sides, from Damhorst to the town and castle of Bodenstead, but the western route was the shortest and likeliest way Breitbarth would come to relieve Boden-stead.
T
his was gently rolling country. A lightly wooded ridge ran from Bodenstead northwest a mile to the hamlet of
Ratdke, overlooking plains on either side. From Boden-stead through the forest ran a hunting trail, unsuitable for Breitbarth’s knights, along which Ragnarson could flee if the worst happened. North of the western route were thick apple orchards on ground too soft for heavy cavalry. The baron would have to come at him through a narrow place, under his bows.
But even the best-laid plans, and so forth. To taunt Breitbarth, Ragnarson brought his main force south, moving swift as the news of his coming, laying a trail of destruction from one Nordmen castle to the next. He met surprisingly little resistance. The knights and lesser nobility who remained in their fiefs showed a preference for surrender to siege. The fires of burning castles and towns bearded the horizons as Ragnarson’s forces spread out to glean the richest loot.
At first he thought Breitbarth was practicing Fabian tactics, but each prisoner he interviewed, and each report he received, further convinced him that the Baron was paralyzed by indecision.
His train and troops became so burdened with plunder that he made a serious miscalculation. Hitherto he had kept the Ebeler, a deep, sluggish tributary of the Scarlotti, between himself and Breitbarth. But at the insistence of his followers, who wanted to get their loot to safekeeping with the men he had left at Staake, he crossed the river at Armstead, a mile from Altea and just twelve from Damhorst. It took two days to clear the narrow ford. Breitbarth missed a great opportunity.
But the Baron didn’t remain quiescent long. When Bragi marched east into the wine-growing country on which the Baron’s wealth was based, Breitbarth came out of Damhorst in a fury.
Whether Breitbarth had planned this Ragnarson wasn’t sure, but he did know that he had gotten himself into a trap. This was relatively flat country, clear, ideal for Breitbarth’s knights. He had nothing with which to face those. Even the fury of his Itaskian bows wouldn’t break a concerted charge across an open plain.