“Where’s Dimed?” Teucer asked.
Pilad shrugged. “Shacked up, probably. Last taste of home, that sort of thing.”
“Do we wait?”
“No chance.” Musen stood up. “Catch me getting in trouble because he can’t be arsed to get up in time.”
Teucer glanced at Pilad, who nodded, threw away the apple and rose to his feet. “He’ll catch up,” he said.
On the way to Tophead, Pilad told them the latest from the war; Pilad knew these things, though nobody knew how. By all accounts, it wasn’t good. General Belot had crushed the enemy Third Army in the foothills of the mountains, which was all very well; but it turned out that the incursion was just a feint, designed to draw him away while the enemy unleashed their main offensive, which was headed straight at Choris Anthropou. Right now, there was no army in being between them and the capital, which was why they were scrambling all the levies and reserves in the north-east and rushing them south to block the way. Nobody expected them to turn back the invasion, no chance whatsoever of that; the idea was simply to buy time for Belot to get back across the sea and sort the buggers out for good. Whether even he would be able to do that was uncertain; it was a stupid time of year to be crossing the sea south to north; there wasn’t time to hug the coast round, and sailing across the middle with the summer storms just starting, you could end up anywhere, very likely the bottom. This time, it looked like Belot had been taken in good and proper—
“Don’t say that,” Musen interrupted. “Belot’s the best, there’s no one like him. He’ll get there, don’t you worry.”
“No one like him except his brother,” Pilad replied. “That’s the point.”
“What if he doesn’t get here in time?” Teucer asked.
Pilad shrugged. “They still got to take the city,” he replied. “If they can’t carry it by storm, there’ll be a siege. That’ll give old Senza plenty of time to get here and do the business, so I guess Forza’s putting everything on being able to bash his way into Choris damn quick. Don’t suppose he’d take that chance without he’s got a damn good reason. They reckon he’s got some kind of new weapon. But they always say that.”
They’d reached the stile at Clayhanger, where they were joined by the Lower Town contingent. Interestingly, Dimed was with them, which tended to support Pilad’s theory. Someone said that the Higher Town boys would meet them at the brook, and the West Reach crowd would be waiting for them at Fivehead. Lamin’s mother had sent them a large basket of freshly baked honeycakes, with instructions to leave the basket at the Truth & Patience. “Does she want paying for them?” Musen asked with his mouth full, and nobody could be bothered to reply.
Sear Hill is the highest point south of the Lakes. Teucer had been that far out twice before, both times on droves, taking cattle to Southanger market. He recognised the blunt sugarloaf profile of the hill and knew where he was.
“Don’t talk soft,” Musen said. “That’s not Sear; Sear’s fifteen miles away, due east. That’s Cordinger, and over there’s the Wey valley.”
“Right,” Pilad said. “And in that case, we should be standing up to our ankles in the river.” General laughter, and Musen pulled a sad face. “That’s Sear, and just over the skyline’s Southanger. We’ll be there in time for dinner.”
And they were. The muster was on Southanger Yards, the flat plain just outside the town where cattle were penned for loading on to river barges bound for Ennea and Choris Anthropou. Appropriate choice; when they got there, the whole plain was covered in sandy-white cotton tents, fifteen feet by ten, pitched in streets. The smoke from the campfires set Anser off coughing while they were still five hundred yards from the camp gates; they were burning coal and foundrymens’ charcoal, and the air was thick and oily. They knew where to go because there was a queue, about a hundred men with bows and knapsacks, lining up to get through a small gap in a fence they could easily have climbed over. Welcome to the army, Teucer thought.
Pilad got talking to some of the men in front of them, East Riding men from over the other side of Sear. They were all wearing their sashes; the wrong way round, too. Teucer quietly suggested pointing this out, but Pilad only grinned. The queue moved painfully slowly when it moved at all. They were all hungry, but they were reluctant to break into the provisions they’d brought from home for fear of spoiling their dinner. The East Ridingers must’ve been there considerably longer. They were munching on bread and cold meat, and passing round big stone bottles of cider. Suddenly they were called forward; they passed through the gate and disappeared, as though they’d been eaten.
A very short man in a very big green coat was sitting on a stool in the gateway. “Next,” he called out. Nobody moved. “I said next,” the short man shouted. “You there, where’s your sergeant?”
You there, who turned out to be Notker from Lower Town, shrugged and looked helpless. Pilad sighed and moved to the front. “That’ll be me,” he said. “We’re from Merebarton. My name’s Pilad.”
The short man studied a sheet of paper. It had been folded many times, and the writing was very small. “Where?”
“Merebarton,” Pilad said. “Just up from Coopers Ford on the South road.”
“Got you.” The short man looked surprised, as though the existence of Merebarton was too bizarre to credit. “Says here, twenty-six men.”
“Are you sure?” Pilad said. “There’s twenty-eight of us.”
The short man stared at his paper, then looked at Pilad; then very slowly, like a man throwing dust on his father’s coffin lid, he felt in his pocket, produced a little brass travelling inkwell, unscrewed the lid, put the lid carefully down on the ground, put the inkwell down beside it, felt in his other pocket, brought out a little bit of hazel twig with a nib served on to it with bootmaker’s twine, leaned forward, dipped the pen in the ink, found his place in the paper, pressed it hard against his knee, scratched something out and wrote something in. “Twenty-eight,” he said. “Is that right?”
“That’s right, yes.”
The short man nodded, then carefully reversed the procedure, with the tucking away of the inkwell as the final step. “You’re late,” he said.
Pilad didn’t even blink. “Sorry about that,” he said. “We got held up. Bridge down at Redstone.”
The short man clicked his tongue. “Through there,” he said, without the slightest indication of where there was. “See the master-at-arms, then the quartermaster.”
They moved through the gateway. As soon as they were through, Teucer asked, “Where’s Redstone?”
“No idea,” Pilad said. “Right, over there, I guess.”
Nobody seemed to mind that Pilad was now their sergeant, whatever that meant. Pilad had spotted the East Riding crowd who’d been in line ahead of them; they were now standing in another, even longer line that led to something Teucer couldn’t see. The Easterners were, Teucer noticed, very quiet and subdued; also, they’d taken off their sashes.
The queue was to see a large, bald man with three teeth, sitting on a wooden box. He grinned at them. “Who’re you, then?”
“Merebarton,” Pilad said. “That’s—”
“I know where it is,” the bald man said. He didn’t have any papers. “So where’s the rest of you, then?”
“We’re it,” Pilad said. “Twenty-eight.”
The bald man shook his head. “Merebarton,” he said. “South Riding. Thirty-two men. Where’s the other four?”
“Everyone’s here,” Pilad said. “There’s nobody left in the village but old men. Really.”
The bald man sighed. “No skin off my nose, boy,” he said. “But your mates are going to catch it hot when the proctors come round. All right, over there, where you see the big tent. You get your kit, and someone’ll point you to your tent.”
“Thanks,” Pilad said. “When do we get dinner? We’ve been walking all day.”
“Suit yourselves,” the bald man said with a shrug. “You brought your three days’ rations, di
dn’t you? Eat ’em soon as you like, for all I care. Right, move along.”
“You know what,” Teucer said, as they stood in line outside the quartermaster’s tent. “This isn’t how I thought the army would be like. It’s, oh, I don’t know—”
“All over the place,” Pilad said. “Doesn’t bode well, if you ask me.”
“Quit moaning,” said Notker from Lower Town. “I thought it’ll be all bull and shouting and saluting, all that stuff. Can’t say I was looking forward to it.”
“Maybe that comes later,” Musen said.
“No, I don’t think so.” Pilad was watching something; Teucer tried to figure out what it was, but he couldn’t see anything. “I think this is how it’s going to be.”
“Hope you’re right,” Notker said.
“I hope I’m wrong,” Pilad replied. “But I doubt it.”
The quartermaster was tall and very thin, missing his left eye and his right ear. The hair on his head was sparse and fine, like grass growing back on fallow ground. “Unit,” he said.
“Merebarton,” Pilad replied. “Twenty-eight of us.”
The quartermaster sat on an upturned barrel in the middle of a large tent, almost empty. There were about half a dozen tubs – old water barrels sawn in two. “Right, then,” he said. “You get one pair of boots each free of charge – look after ’em because after that you got to pay for them yourselves. You get one sheaf each three dozen standard arrows, one bowstring, hemp, one sash—”
“We’ve already been given those.”
“One sash,” the quartermaster repeated, “one roll standard bandage, one inspirational medallion depicting the triumph of the true emperor, pewter, one cap, wool. When you’re done, go out through the back, someone’ll point you to your tent.”
“Just a moment,” Pilad said. “What about swords? Don’t we get them?”
The quartermaster looked at him as though he’d just become visible. “Swords,” he repeated. “What you want them for?”
“Well, to fight with.”
The quartermaster shook his head. “You ain’t here to fight, boy. You’re here to shoot arrows. You get arrows. Swords cost money.”
“But what if we’re—?”
“Next,” the quartermaster said.
“Is there an officer I can talk to?”
The quartermaster looked as if he’d been asked for a unicorn. “There’s one around somewhere,” he said. “What you want an officer for?”
“Well,” Pilad said, “I just want to—”
“Now you listen.” The quartermaster took a deep breath, as though about to perform an act of charity for an unworthy recipient. “You boys aren’t soldiers, right? You’re levy. You need to be able to do three things, no, sorry, four. You need to shoot your bows. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“You need to walk.”
“Yes.”
“You need to do what you’re told. You boys all right with that?”
“Oh yes.”
“And you need to be able to run,” the quartermaster said. “Because when you’ve walked to where they tell you to go, and you shot off all your arrows, and them Western bastards are coming to get you, you want to be able to run like the fucking wind. You got that? Grand. All right, who’s next?”
There was no one outside the tent to tell them where to go next. After they’d been standing around for a minute or so, Pilad said, “This way,” and walked off.
Teucer trotted to catch up with him. “Where are we going?”
“Get a tent.”
“But we’re supposed to—”
Pilad smiled and shook his head. “Over there,” he said.
They found a tent with nobody in it. There were no blankets or anything like that. They piled up their gear, and Pilad told Anser to go and look for the latrines. “Won’t be hard,” he said. “Just follow your nose.”
The others were digging their provisions out of their packs. “I think I see what you mean,” Teucer said.
Pilad nodded. He didn’t seem to be hungry, so Teucer decided he wasn’t either. “It’s not good,” Pilad said. “Still, we’re country boys, we can fend for ourselves. Main thing is to stick together. If we do that, we’ll be all right.”
“We should go home,” Musen said, sitting down on the ground next to them.
“We can’t do that,” Teucer said.
Pilad said nothing. “I don’t see why not,” Musen replied. “Nobody gives a shit about us. We might as well not be here.”
“We’d get in trouble.”
Musen laughed. “Nah,” he said, “they’d just think we wandered off somewhere, got given the wrong orders, something like that. We should just turn round and go back home now, while we got the chance.”
Teucer looked at Pilad, who was thinking. “Well?” he prompted.
“I don’t know,” Pilad said. “I don’t think much to staying here. I mean, you heard the quartermaster. Doesn’t look like they’re going to make us into soldiers any time soon, and I reckon, if you’re in a war, you need to be a soldier, or you won’t last very long.”
“That’s right,” Musen said. “So, let’s get out of it while we still can.”
“I don’t know,” Pilad repeated. “It’s a mess all right, but they’ve got us down on a bit of paper somewhere, so if we just clear off, they’ll know, and that won’t be good either. I reckon the best thing is if we stick together, look out for each other, and think about what we’re doing, instead of just doing what they say regardless. We’re not stupid, we can look after ourselves, we should be all right. Just don’t expect those buggers out there to do anything for us, because they won’t.”
Musen gave a loud sigh of annoyance, got up and walked away. Pilad didn’t seem to mind. He lay back on the ground, his head propped up on his pack, and closed his eyes. Pilad slept where and when he could, like a dog, and always woke up instantly, fresh and ready for anything.
BY MILES CAMERON
THE TRAITOR SON CYCLE
The Red Knight
The Fell Sword
The Dread Wyrm
The Plague of Swords
The Fall of Dragons
Praise for Miles Cameron and The Traitor Son Cycle
“The magic system is one of the most difficult and interesting ones I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading about .… The plotting is dense and intricate—without sacrificing pace. The exposition is brief but effective, the rising action is gripping, the climax is powerful. The Red Knight is a modern myth, a legend to substitute the traditional tales of heroism and valor. It has all the trappings of a great knightly tale with contemporary sensibilities. There is violence and moral ambiguity, but at its core is the beating heart chivalry. Traditional idealism may be tempered with realism but it makes for a rousing read.”
—SF Signal
“Fans of hefty adventure epics will enjoy this dense, intricately plotted historical fantasy debut .… [Cameron] packs this thick volume with enough magic, violence, and intrigue for three books, flavoring the story with period detail and earthy dialogue.”
—Publishers Weekly
“The Red Knight is an excellent debut .… You will be won by the intricate story and sophisticated world-building.”
—Fantasy Book Critic
“The Red Knight is medieval-fantasy at its finest .… If you’re a fan of characters that are incredibly realistic and battles that put you right in the sweaty, gritty action, this is a book for you.”
—Fantasy-Faction
“Literate, intelligent and well-thought-out … George R. R. Martin comparisons will no doubt be in abundance … one to lose yourself in … a pleasingly complex and greatly satisfying novel.”
—SFFWorld.com
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Miles Cameron, The Fall of Dragons
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