For the coyotes.
What a strange man you are.
He put them to sleep, lest they run. Then he raised the temperature around them too.
I feel a certain kinship with them, the Duke said.
In the morning, the Duke’s raiding party arrived at the edge of the Meander to find the remnants of a camp – felled trees, an abattis of beach and spruce, a palisaded citadel. There was a stone bridge abutment a third of the way across the Meander, and enough remnants of a collapsed ice bridge to suggest the means of crossing.
The Duke rubbed his two days’ growth of beard. He glanced at Zac and shrugged. ‘Mag built them a bridge. I can feel it. She froze the river and the whole army crossed.’
‘We’re out of food,’ Zac said.
The Duke nodded. ‘Best catch them today, then,’ he said, and waved his sword hand.
The Meander froze, the ripples of his power moving at the speed of a swimming otter, the ice visible against the black of the water.
‘Let’s move,’ the Duke shouted, and spurred his black charger down the bank.
Sixty men; one hundred and twenty-five horses. They crossed in minutes, and the Duke released his working.
‘You are one scary fuck,’ Count Zac said. He grinned. ‘I’m glad you are on our side.’
The Duke looked pale. ‘I’m not feeling very scary right now, Zac. Let’s go.’
They caught the army at sunset, when they were already too cold, when men who’d hoarded a little dry sausage could have sold it for its weight in gold. The horses needed water, and two had already fallen and been left for the coyotes and the wolves – now they had the coyotes’ larger cousins following them on the road.
But the army was encamped in an ancient legionary fort, four good earthen walls that the army had dug free of snow in the last hour, and there were tents lit orange by chimneys of stacked turf hacked from the ground with axes. An old fort like this one often had big piles of loose stone ready to be laid up into shelters or hearths.
The hillsides rang with the sound of axes as half the army gathered wood.
The Duke dismounted in the central parade and was embraced by Bad Tom.
It took less than a minute for him to understand the situation.
He winked at Random across the huge fire that lit the command area. He felt better immediately, for no other reason than that he was surrounded by friends. He found time with Harmodius very wearing.
Because the old magister scared him. He could have me any time.
I wouldn’t even know.
But surrounded by friends and warmth it didn’t seem so bad. He reviewed Tom’s decisions and found them good.
‘If we push through, we can be at Osawa tomorrow by sunset,’ Random said.
The Duke looked around. ‘Well then – let’s get what sleep we can.’
‘Did you get a fight?’ Tom asked. Heads turned – men looked at their Captain, or their Megas Ducas.
Father Arnaud frowned.
‘Not really,’ the Duke said.
Count Zac laughed. ‘He rode off alone, right in among them, and challenged Demetrius to single combat. Oh, you should have seen him!’
Bad Tom glared at his Captain. ‘But you didn’t get to fight?’
Ser Michael laughed. ‘Didn’t he? He unhorsed Demetrius’s uncle and took him prisoner in front of Demetrius’s whole army!’
Bad Tom grinned. ‘You’re a loon. But you steal all the good fights, and that’s not the place for a chieftain.’
The Duke shrugged. ‘Tom, I wanted to take a highly ranked prisoner. That’s all.’
Count Zac laughed aloud. ‘Bullshit, Cap-tan! You want a fight – you ride out and fight!’
Tom crossed his arms. ‘The Galles will gi’ us a fight, anyhap.’
The Duke raised a hand. ‘Not if I can help it. I plan to leave them a golden bridge to their boats.’
‘What?’ Tom roared.
‘Is good taktika,’ Zac said.
Tom’s face twisted up in frustration. ‘He’s taking all the fun out of war,’ he complained.
The Duke nodded. ‘In the lists I’m happy to oblige another gentleman. But this is war. And while the Galles may want a fight, we want them to go home so we can save our furs for the Emperor.’
Ser Giorgios scratched at his beard. They were all dirty – no one changed clothes in that cold. ‘I mean no insult,’ he said. ‘But men say that mercenaries avoid combat.’
The Duke shrugged. ‘Sauce – can we have a little demonstration for these Morean gentry?’
She smiled. ‘Anything. What do you want?’
The Duke drew his sword, and Sauce drew hers.
‘You watching, Giorgios?’ He lifted his sharp blade in a gliding thrust, two-handed, and Sauce’s blade moved to slap the Duke’s blade aside – but he slipped under her parry and the point of his sword just touched her chest. ‘Did my blade avoid her blade?’ he asked.
Ser Giorgios nodded. ‘The better to win the fight,’ he said.
The Duke nodded. ‘Most warriors are amateurs,’ he said. ‘It should come as no surprise that they are threatened by those who make war a profession. We don’t need to be manly or brave. All we have to do is win. There is no second place, and we get paid just as well whether we lose half our men or lose no men. Thanks, Sauce.’ He nodded to the men and women in the fire-circle. ‘Go to bed. Despite my best efforts, Tom may get his wish in the afternoon.’
Gelfred’s scouts located the Gallish force by noon. Zac took both squadrons of the Vardariotes, less only a single file who guarded their remounts, and they vanished into a snow squall to the north while the army, all mounted, advanced up the coast of the unfrozen lake at a trot. The road was broad and paved in heavy stones, and even covered in snow was an easy surface for rapid travel.
They could see smoke rising in a dozen places.
By mid-afternoon, a pair of Zac’s warriors had reported that the Galles were headed for their boats. There were no Outwallers with them, and the Southern Huran who lived in the towns near the northernmost Morean post were harrying the Galles every step of the way.
The Duke endured several hours of Tom’s growing anger and then laughed aloud. ‘Very well, Tom – take your pick of the men-at-arms and go bloody the protuberant Gallish nose.’ He leaned forward. ‘If it’s not too much to ask, get some prisoners.’
Tom lit up like a lantern with fresh oil. He took a quarter of Ser Jehan’s company and a quarter of Sauce’s company – and another dozen chosen knights, including Ser Gavin, Ser Alison, Ser Michael, and Ser Alcaeus. And all the drovers.
They galloped away, headed north, behind Count Zac’s screen of light horse.
The army continued, alternating their pace between the trot and the walk. It was cold, and speed meant less caution – most of the troopers had wet feet and some were wet through from exertion and a series of creeks and streams that they’d crossed without their usual precautions.
Jehan trotted at his Captain’s side. ‘What are we after?’ he asked.
The Duke raised his eyebrows. ‘Glory? Better pay?’
‘You have that smug look of triumph,’ Jehan muttered.
‘Does it ever occur to you that in five hundred years they’ll sing songs about us?’ the Duke asked.
‘Silence for the “Chanson of the Red Knight and the Adventure of the Avoided Battle”!’ said Ser Jehan. He laughed. ‘I think that this is your best work – taking Demetrius’s baggage? Brilliant. And now – why even let Tom loose?’
The Duke nodded. The tower of Osawa was just visible on the horizon. ‘Because he could be an unmanageable brute all winter if I’m not careful. And he has taken most of the men and women of his own stripe with him, and they’ll tangle with the Gallish rearguard – Jehan, what the fuck are the Galles doing in Nova Terra?’
Jehan trotted along a few more paces. ‘Here I was thinking that you knew,’ he said. ‘Silly me. You seem so well informed.’
‘There have been rep
orts. I wish the Emperor’s spies extended to Galle.’ The Duke nodded. ‘I wish I had my own spies, and damn it, Jehan, I mean to have them! Anyway, you asked what I want. I want to find out what’s happening – to get Gerald his furs and save our wages. And get the fuck out of the Morea, before it eats us alive.’
Bad Tom had taken a third of the best men-at-arms and their archers, and he was determined to press the Outwallers and their reputed allies as hard as he could – hard enough to provoke them to make a stand.
The Vardariotes made the first contact, north and west of him, fighting a stiff skirmish with crossbow-armed Huran and losing a man. Stefan Druse, a tall, thin man who looked like a monk and had a beard to match, saluted with his long steel mace and made a face.
‘Not for us, lord,’ he said to Bad Tom. ‘Formed infantry, big crossbows.’
Tom grinned. ‘That’s right, laddie. Just stay on our flank!’
He led the men-at-arms forward, angling to right across snow-covered Outwaller fields. The Drover and his clansmen had regular contact with this part of the world – the Green Hills were behind, them, the Wall just to their left. He’d traded cattle here, and raided for them, too. The Outwallers lived inside the Wall – but they were Southern Huran and no man’s vassals.
By his side, Ranald shook his helmeted head. ‘The Duke says there’s Galles with them – that’ll be heavy horse and drilled infantry in good armour—’
‘Stop that noise, cousin. Let’s have us a fight.’ Bad Tom was watching the distant woodline intently, aware that he’d already made a mistake in letting his mounted scouts outrun his heavy column, eager for a fight.
He saw the crossbowmen before they loosed bolts.
‘At them before they span!’ he shouted, and his horse leaped forward.
The Hurans in the treeline broke the moment his cavalry charged them. The woodline was too open to stop the horses, and it was winter. They ran into the woods, and the knights and men-at-arms pursued them.
Ranald had the archers – led by Twinter and Long Paw and with a dozen veterans in enough armour to be called men-at-arms. He shook his head.
‘Keep your visors open and watch the flanks,’ he said. ‘I mislike this.’
As they crossed the great snow-covered field, Tom and his men-at-arms vanished in the trees. The the north and south, he could see the red-clad Vardariotes trotting across the snow, watching their flanks.
All told, they had sixty men. Ranald waved his men forward faster, afraid he’d lose touch with his cousin and afraid, at the same time, of an ambush.
‘Steady!’ de Marche said.
The enemy cavalry – knights, they looked to be – were spread as thin as butter on bread, every man picking his won way through the deep woods. De Marche’s sailors were two deep behind a low barricade of fallen trees. They watched the Huran run past them.
As arranged.
‘Prepare to loose!’ de Marche called.
The leader of the enemy, a huge man on a big black gelding, made his horse rear.
‘Shoot!’ he called, and forty crossbows crouched together.
The effect on the knights was not as shattering as it should have been, but the big man went down, his horse thrashing and turning the snow red.
‘Span!’ he called.
‘Deus Veult!’ called the Black Knight, and he charged at the head of a dozen of his own men-at arms.
Bad Tom was already fully aware of his folly before he saw the felled trees. Tom’s creed didn’t include pretence – he’d been had.
He reared his horse as he saw the Galles. They looked like professionals—
Damn, I loved this horse, he thought as six quarrels struck the gelding. The horse crashed to earth, already mortally wounded.
Tom rolled clear, armour causing him more injury than the fall. He got to his feet and found his sword was still by his side.
They had cavalry.
Tom shook his head at his own foolishness even as the enemy knights shouted their war cries.
Then he grinned. It was, after all, a fight.
Francis Atcourt – easily identifiable with his red panache – rode to his rescue. The enemy men-at-arms – all appallingly well mounted for a fight in the wilderness – were coming from the left, and Atcourt joined three more company men-at-arms at a canter.
Tom watched them with solid satisfaction, as, badly outnumbered, they couched their lances and picked their men, closing from a spread pursuit formation to a compact melee formation in fifty strides of their horses.
The Galles – he assumed they were Galles – struck. They had about a dozen knights, and at the moment of impact, Ser Francis Arcourt and one of the company’s few Gallish men-at arms, Phillipe le Beause, each cleanly unhorsed a man. Chris Foliak killed his opponent’s horse and then swept his lance unsportingly sideways like a toll gate, taking another Gallish knight down. But Ser John Gage was unhorsed by a man as big as Tom himself.
Foliak, a canny fighter, didn’t slow his horse, but burst through, dropped his lance, and rode back south, away from the fight.
Atcourt hesitated, and was surrounded in a moment and unhorsed by three different men catching his bridle and wrestling him from his saddle.
Phillipe de Beause managed to put his dagger into another man and his horse – bigger, or perhaps better exercised – pulled him clear of the stour by main force. He saw Tom and rode to him—
Twenty crossbows spat together, and Beause died in an instant.
Tom’s other men-at-arms were rallying to the north. He could hear Ser Michael’s voice.
One of the enemy knights raised his visor and pointed his lance at Tom. ‘Yield,’ he said.
Tom laughed. ‘Usually we fight first,’ he said. He wished he had an axe.
The Galle charged him immediately, his great horse sending gouts of snow into the still air. His lance tip came down like a swooping falcon, and Tom uncurled and cut the last three feet right off the lance. His backhand carved a hand’s breadth of meat off the horse, and it turned, panicking at the pain.
Tom cut again, ignoring the rider and cutting deeply into his horse’s near side back leg.
The horse toppled.
Another Galle charged Tom.
Bad Tom set himself in a new guard to wait the lance, but this man had seen his trick, and he didn’t couch his lance at all. He rode forward, and he only lowered his lance at the last second.
Tom batted it aside and cut into the horse’s neck and was knocked flat as the rider moved the horse to his own right. But the cut landed – the horse slouched and fell.
Tom got up.
A thrown lance hit him like a thunderbolt in the side, the head piercing his mail. He staggered.
‘Deus vault! ’ roared the big knight as he thundred by. He turned his horse and came again, this time with a long-handed steel mace.
He cut – the expected cut, a heavy fendente from his right hand, and Bad Tom caught it on his sword and was staggered by the sheer strength of the man – but not so staggered as to not let the blow slide off his parry like rain off a steep rood, and counter-cut as the horse went by. Again, he struck the horse, who screamed.
The other knight reined in. Crossbowmen were coming up.
‘This is a mere butchery of horses,’ he said.
‘Get off yours and we’ll make it a butchery of men,’ Bad Tom said.
‘You are a fine man of arms. May I ask your style?’ asked the enemy knight.
‘I’m Ser Tom Lachlan of the Hills,’ Bad Tom said.
‘I am Ser Hartmut di Orguelleus,’ the other man said. He waited. ‘The Black Knight.’
Tom shook his head. ‘I think you’re waiting for your crossbowmen to come and kill me,’ he said.
Ser Hartmut laughed. ‘Of course!’ he said. ‘Why would I not? There is no such thing as a fair fight.’
Tom charged him. He roared, ‘Lachlan for Aaa!’ and ran as fast as his injured hips would allow.
But Ser Hartmut only let him come two
paces and then pricked his horse into motion. The Black Knight’s mace cut – Tom’s blade rose.
Both were deceived, and thus, both struck.
Tom took the mace in his left pauldron, and was knocked to the ground.
Ser Hartmut took Tom’s thrust on his breastplate, and was unhorsed. The difference was that Ser Hartmut rose uninjured beyond the blow to his dignity.
Bad Tom had taken the worst wound of his life.
Ranald entered the woods at a walk, his archers in a compact mass behind him. He could hear the fighting now – hear it in three places. But even winter woods blocked enough of his sight to keep him from understanding.
He heard Tom’s battle cry and went at it. But even then he didn’t surrender his caution. He trotted, visor open, looking left and right.
He saw the crossbowmen first, and then he saw Tom, alone, on one knee.
He turned to Long Paw. ‘Cover me!’ he yelled, but most of the archers were already sliding off their mounts, valets taking the horses in their fists even as the archers pulled their stung bows over their heads.
Ranald took his lance out of the bucket in his right stirrup and put his spurs to his charger.
Just off to the right, he saw the flash of winter sun on metal.
There were three knights – in a glance, he knew that none of them were company. And they were between him and his cousin.
He rode at them – reached up and slammed down his visor, and all four of them went to a gallop – no mean trick in snowy woods.
Six strides from contact, Ranald changed targets – his horse took a beautiful cross-step to take both of them a yard off line – and Ranald leaned forward as if he was in a Harndon tiltyard and his man went flying. A spearpoint struck his breastplate, but it didn’t bite – and the tip rode up the V-shaped reinforcement and shot past over his right shoulder, ripping the round pauldron from his body as it passed but doing no other damage.
Ranald didn’t turn.
Ten yards behind him, Chris Foliak’s lance unhorsed a second man before Foliak’s horse lost its footing in the now and went down in a spectacular spray of snow and dead leaves.
Ranald raced for his cousin.
Tom was on one knee, apparently unable to rise, defending himself with two-handed parries. A huge knight – at least as big as Tom himself – cut again and again with a mace – paused and hurled it like a lightning bolt.