“Clever woman. I rather admire her. You should marry her, Harvester. You need a wife.”
Huntsekker was aghast. “The woman has a tongue on her that could cut through steel. You know she is now looking after that murderous hound your son brought back? It behaves like a little puppy around her. One word and it sits. A flick of her fingers and it crouches down. Never seen the like. I don’t know if the hound loves her or is terrified by her. I suspect the latter.”
“You could marry in the cathedral. I could give the bride away.”
Huntsekker shook his head and stared hard at the Moidart. “There is a change in you, my lord. It is very unsettling.”
“Perhaps I am mellowing with age.”
The next two weeks brought a lull in the fighting. No new forces attacked the lands of the Pinance, and the news from the east was routine. Supplies were reaching the coastal cities, and Garon Beck had arranged convoys to Eldacre. Gaise Macon rode his two thousand cavalrymen south but encountered no enemy troops.
The attack when it came was sudden and deadly. Thirty thousand soldiers poured into the east, cutting through Garon Beck’s defensive lines. He pulled back expertly and re-formed, but the fighting was fierce and he was forced farther and farther back toward Eldacre. Gaise Macon sent Kaelin Ring and the Rigante to support Beck and waited. A second army, spearheaded by the dreaded knights of the Sacrifice, thrust like a lance into the lands of the Pinance. Hew Galliott tried to counterattack, but his troops were surrounded and all but annihilated. Hew himself was taken and publicly disemboweled. Gaise Macon led a series of lightning raids on the knights, temporarily halting their advance. Then he, too, pulled back to re-form.
Two thousand more Rigante, led by Bael Jace, arrived in Eldacre to support the army. Those men the Moidart sent west to join Gaise Macon and his cavalry. The generals Konin and Mantilan remained in Eldacre with six thousand men plus Bendegit Law and his fifty cannon.
For three days battles raged to the east and west. Beck and the Rigante took a heavy toll on the enemy but could not prevent them from inching ever nearer to the city. In the east Gaise Macon fought desperately to prevent the knights from advancing.
Then came the news that a third army, led by Winter Kay himself, was heading up from the south. Twenty thousand men and two hundred cannon.
“I think we should make plans to leave Eldacre,” said Huntsekker as he and the Moidart walked the battlements of the castle.
“I disagree,” said the Moidart. “There is nothing north of us now. The Rigante are here, fighting with us. Running would only accelerate the inevitable. You may leave, Huntsekker. I shall stay. I may even fight.”
“You have arthritis in your right arm, my lord. I doubt you could wield a sword for long.”
“Then I shall take a selection of pistols. This is my land, Huntsekker. Damned if I’ll flee like a wretch.”
Then a surprising event occurred. Winter Kay’s southern army suddenly ceased its advance. Scouts reported that it had stopped at the Wishing Tree woods and remained camped there for two days.
Winter Kay had awoken with a throbbing headache and a feeling of nausea. He had sat up long into the night holding the skull in his lap while reading reports from his generals. Eris Velroy was making slow progress in the east and taking heavy losses. He kept trying to draw the enemy into a major pitched battle, but Garon Beck was proving a wily adversary. Then there were the damned clansmen. Velroy had finally broken through and was in the act of encirclement, when the Rigante charged, ripping through his ranks. Velroy had fallen back and summoned heavy cavalry. By the time they had arrived, the Rigante had melted away into the woods. Of the original thirty thousand men he had led east only around twelve thousand were able to fight. The enemy had suffered, too. By Velroy’s estimation they had lost around half their men. That left between four and five thousand. Not enough to prevent him advancing but more than enough to take a terrible toll on the attackers. In the west the knights of the Sacrifice were faring little better. True, they had taken the castle of the Pinance, but Gaise Macon had won several small victories, and the main force was pinned down some thirty miles from Eldacre. Gaise Macon’s cavalry, split into fast-moving strike units, raided behind the lines on one day and on the flanks the next. Losses among the knights were also substantial. Yet day by day both armies were moving ever closer to Eldacre.
The plan was essentially simple. The three armies would converge on the city, closing in like a mailed fist, crushing the life from the defenders. The attacks from the east and west would draw away men from the center, and then Winter Kay would strike like a lance, leading his Redeemers on a sudden, deadly thrust to the castle.
On this day Winter Kay’s twenty thousand were due to march to within twenty miles of Eldacre.
Only they did not march.
Winter Kay had rolled from his pallet bed and sat up. His head was aching terribly, and his mouth was dry. He felt exhausted, drained of energy. It was then that he realized he was fully clothed and his muddy boots had stained the blankets. He stared down at the boots. It was inconceivable that he would have slept like this. He clearly recalled undressing some hours before dawn.
He rubbed at his temples in a firm, circular motion. The veins were like wire under his fingers. A water jug was placed on a folding table. Lifting it, he drank deeply. The water tasted sour and metallic. There was only one sure way to clear his head. Rising from the bed, he walked to where the iron box lay and opened the lid. The shock that struck him was like a blow to the belly. His body convulsed.
The iron box was empty.
Winter Kay spun around, his eyes scanning the tent. There was no sign of the skull.
The pain in his head forgotten, he stumbled to the tent entrance and dragged back the flap. Two Redeemers stood guard outside.
“Who has been in here?” yelled Winter Kay. Both men stood transfixed. Never had Winter Kay appeared so distressed before his men. “Answer me, damn you!”
“No one, my lord,” said the first. “We’ve been on guard ever since you came back.”
“Came back?”
“Yes, my lord. From your ride.”
“What are you talking about? What ride?”
The men glanced at each other. Then the second Redeemer spoke. “Just before dawn, my lord, you told me to saddle your horse. Then you rode off to the north.”
“Liar!” screamed Winter Kay. His fist hammered into the man’s face, hurling him from his feet. Dragging a knife from its sheath, he knelt over the fallen Redeemer. “Give me the truth or you die now!”
“It is the truth, lord!”
The knife point plunged through the man’s right eye. Blood spurted, and he writhed under Winter Kay’s grip. The knife tore into the man’s brain, and he twitched once and was then still. Winter Kay tore the knife loose and swung on the first man, who was backing away, horrified.
“The truth or you die, too!”
“What do you want me to say, my lord? I’ll say anything you want!”
“Just the truth!”
“He told you the truth. You called for a horse and rode out. Everyone saw you. The captain asked if you wanted guards to ride with you, but you ignored him.”
Winter Kay stood very still. The knife dropped from his fingers. “What was I carrying?”
“A black sack, my lord. Velvet, I think. It’s true, I swear it.”
“Did I have it when I came back?”
“I don’t recall. . . . Wait! No, sir, you did not. I remember helping you down from the saddle. You seemed weary, and we wondered if you were ill.”
“Fetch me a horse and find someone who knows how to track,” said Winter Kay.
Two hours later Winter Kay and a footman entered the Wishing Tree woods. The undergrowth was heavy, and Winter Kay needed to dismount and tether his horse. He followed the man deeper into the woods, down a long slope, and up to an ancient site of broken standing stones.
The tracker knelt and examined the soft earth ar
ound the stones. “You came here, my lord. You were met by someone with small feet. Likely a woman, though it may have been a child. Then you turned back.”
“Where did the woman go?”
The tracker took an age walking around the rim of the hill. “There are no fresh tracks at all leading away from the hilltop, my lord, save yours.”
“Check again.”
The nervous man did so and returned with the same story.
“Are you telling me there was someone here who did not leave?”
“No, my lord. She left, all right. She just didn’t leave a sign. Must have picked her way with care over firm ground. It’ll take me time to find anything.”
“How long?”
“Could be most of a day.”
“You need more men?”
“No, my lord. They’d only churn up the ground and make it even more difficult.”
“You find where she went. Your life depends on it.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Winter Kay walked away from the man. For a while he became lost among the old trees, but at last he found his horse and rode back to the camp. The body of the Redeemer had been taken away, and two new guards awaited him. Both looked nervous.
All day the army waited. By dusk the tracker had still not returned, and Winter Kay rode out with four men and another tracker to find him.
The second tracker walked around the hilltop, kneeling to study the ground. After an hour, with darkness approaching, he returned to Winter Kay.
“I found his trail, my lord. He ran off toward the east.”
“What other tracks did you find?”
“None, my lord. There’s a woman’s footprints in the circle of stone but none leading to them or away from them.”
Sick at heart, Winter Kay once more returned to camp. For the first time in many years he did not know what to do. Panic tugged at his mind.
That night he sat in his tent, trembling and frightened, refusing to meet with his officers.
The orb was gone. Soon it would be in the hands of his enemies. They would wield its power against him.
In his panic his first thought was to order the armies to withdraw from the north, to move away from danger. But what good would that do? Gaise Macon would gather men and, with the power of the orb, come south against him. No, his only hope was to win this war swiftly, before his enemies learned how to manipulate the magic. He felt calmer now. Kranos would not allow himself to be used by such wretches. The Redeemers were the true followers. Kranos loved them and would protect them.
“He will protect me,” Winter Kay said aloud. Closing his eyes, he prayed to Kranos: “Lord, show me the way. Help me in my hour of need.”
All was silence.
Winter Kay sat alone.
Somewhere in the night he fell asleep, and in that sleep he saw again his forgotten ride to the Wishing Tree woods and the long walk to the standing stones. A small woman in a pale blue and green shawl was waiting there, her hair silver white in the moonlight.
“Give it to me,” she said.
He handed her the velvet sack. She shuddered as she took it.
Winter Kay watched her walk back to the standing stones. A bright light blazed, and she was gone.
He awoke with a cry and scrambled to his feet. Scrabbling in a pack by the tent wall, he produced papers, a quill pen, and a cork-stoppered jar of ink. Then he wrote messages to his generals and called for riders.
There was no time now for an encircling action. That could take weeks. He would gather all his troops together and smash through to Eldacre in one ferocious battle. The enemy would be slaughtered, and Winter Kay would once more possess the skull.
With the army split there was no way for Gaise Macon to accurately gauge the losses suffered by the Eldacre forces during the last five days, but it was fair to assume they were heavy. Of the force Gaise led in the west more than a third had died, and half of the remainder carried some wounds. They were also close to exhaustion.
The enemy had taken more fearsome losses. Even so, they still outnumbered his force by more than three to one. Even with his daring and occasionally reckless attacks, Gaise knew that such attrition would soon render his force useless.
Earlier they had routed a section of heavy cavalry, only to be driven back by a charge from the knights of the Sacrifice. Gaise had wheeled his force and cut away to the left. His musketeers had then sent volley after volley into the attackers, forcing them to withdraw. Any other force would have fled the field. Not the knights. They swung their heavy chargers and pulled back in good order. Gaise estimated the enemy had lost around 600 men in that one encounter, but he had lost 270. Such odds still favored the Varlish.
Camped now on high ground, his remaining twelve cannon trained on a narrow open section of grassland between two stands of trees, Gaise Macon sent out scouts to report on the enemy’s movements. There was almost no need. Their plan was obvious and strikingly effective. Slowly and steadily they pushed ever nearer Eldacre, inexorably forcing Gaise back. The same thing was happening in the east. Within a few weeks at most only the town itself would offer shelter. Cavalry would be useless, and the forces of the Moidart would be contained within the castle. Unable to get supplies, they would be starved into submission.
It was galling in the extreme. Gaise had enough men to inflict terrible damage on the enemy, but not enough to ensure a victory.
News had also come in that Winter Kay and a further force of twenty thousand were marching from the south. Konin and Mantilan would not be able to stop them for long.
Lanfer Gosten approached where Gaise was standing alongside a cannon. “Another twelve, sir,” he said. “Not so bad.”
“It will get worse, Lanfer,” said Gaise. Twelve deserters a night would not damage his ability to fight, but soon the army would begin to hemorrhage. The more they were forced back, the more desertions would occur.
“I expect the enemy are losing men, too,” offered Lanfer.
“Aye,” agreed Gaise.
“If they didn’t have them damned knights, we’d crack ’em,” said Lanfer.
“But they do have those damned knights,” replied Gaise. “And great fighters they are.”
“We’re not doing so bad against ’em, though, sir.”
Gaise placed his hand on the older man’s shoulder. “No, my friend, we have done ourselves proud. We will continue to do so.”
Moving to the picket line, Gaise saddled a chestnut gelding. His gray had been killed under him two days earlier. He rode down the slope to the left and into the camp of Bael Jace and his Rigante. They had fought coolly and well since their arrival and were the match of any the enemy could offer—including the knights. They had lost eight hundred of their two thousand, and each man now carried two muskets as well as pistols, knives, and sabers.
Bael Jace strode out to greet him. There were no smiles or handshakes when Gaise dismounted. Jace had a bandage around his temples, and blood had leaked down, staining the right side of his face.
“What news?” asked the Rigante leader.
“None yet. I just wanted to see how you were faring.”
“We are fine, Stormrider. Never better.”
“We’ll draw back tomorrow. There is a good defensive site around four miles east, a high ridge and before it a killing ground.”
“Whatever you say.”
“I want you and your men to guard the left flank as we pull back. That’s where the attack will come from. I’ll keep the cavalry in reserve to come to your aid.”
“I saw a few of your men running away to the east tonight. They had thrown away their muskets.”
“A shame you didn’t stop them.”
“Not my problem, Stormrider. A man wants to leave, he is free to do so.”
“I note that no Rigante has left.”
“I wouldn’t stop them if they wanted to. They are fighting a war they cannot win.”
Gaise was irritated, but he struggled not to show it. “Ther
e is always a chance of victory no matter what the odds.”
“Oh, that’s true,” said Jace, “but in this case our fate is in the hands of the enemy. I may not be the strategist my father was, but I know what I know. The only way we can win is if the enemy makes a big, big mistake. As matters stand we are killing two of them for every one of us. Since they outnumber us more than three to one, you don’t need to be a scholar to know that when we are all dead, they’ll still have a few thousand men left.”
“Are there any more Rigante to call upon?”
“Aye, there are a thousand warriors back home, Stormrider, and that’s where they’ll stay. I’ll not see the clan wiped out down here. There are enough left there to man the high passes, and I doubt the enemy will want to march north after the pounding we’ve given them here.”
Gaise considered his words. There was wisdom in them. “We would never have held out this long without you and the Rigante. I want you to know that I am grateful.”
“Don’t be. We didn’t come for you. We came because the Wyrd said we should. I don’t care if Eldacre falls. I don’t care if your head and the Moidart’s end up on stakes. You are the enemy of my people. It grieves me to see men die in your cause.”
Gaise said nothing for a moment. “I have Rigante blood, Bael, and I value the clan highly. You know this. That is why you call me by my Rigante soul-name.”
“Aye, and that is why I despise you. You are a brilliant fighter, Gaise Macon. I’ve seen few better. You are fearless, and you lead men well. That is your Rigante heritage. That is what would make me proud. Yet you slay without compunction or compassion, and you cut off the heads of fighting men and plant them like a forest of death. You murder men who put up their hands, and you soak yourself in blood. That is your Varlish heritage. To see a Varlish do these things is bad enough, but we expect it from them. To see a man with Rigante blood do it is sickening beyond belief.”