Peregrin

  “This is as far as we can go,” said Vul. “We can try and work our way around to the front.”

  “I can climb it. No problem,” said Canu, leaping onto the stub of a broken column.

  “Canu … there’s no need,” said Pari.

  “There’s a clear view into the valley from the top. Let me go!”

  Canu picked his way up an irregular staircase of broken columns until he reached the intact face of the pillar, sweeping up unbroken to its summit. Unfazed, he exploited the many cracks and finger-holds and toe-holds in its chipped and weathered surface to ascend.

  “Careful!” called Pari.

  Ever since he was a child, he had been a good climber: the best in his play group. ‘Monkey boy,’ they had called him, intending to deride him, but throughout life he had turned the insult on its face into a source of pride.

  He had climbed the height of four stacked houses when he reached for the next handheld to find only air. He pulled himself up onto a slanted table, barely wide enough for a single person to recline. He didn’t dare stand against the strong gusts battering the summit. He anchored his forearm in a crevice and slumped, to catch his breath.

  He crawled across the summit and peered over the brink. His stomach did a loop. The drop on the valley side was twice again as deep as the face he had climbed.

  The Venep’o had been busy since the last time he looked into the valley. Supply wagons crowded the river road. Three wide corridors of forest leading up to the cliffs had been completely leveled. Hundreds of men worked to position rolling siege platforms with towers and ladders against the cliff face. Hundreds more followed along the ramps and an equivalent force of Crasacs and Cuasars waited in reserve in the fields beside the river.

  The thinly deployed Nalkies and militia in the meadows had no chance against the army amassing below. The handful of Urep’o weapons scattered among them would not be enough to sway the outcome.

  “What do you see?” said Pari, called up from the heap of rubble below, her voice muffled by the whip of the wind. Canu slid back from the edge and looked down at his expectant comrades.

  “Crasacs,” said Canu, shouting down. “Too many Crasacs.”

  “Where?” said Vul.

  “Everywhere,” said Canu.

  “Which way are they coming?” said Pari.

  “Every way,” said Canu.

  “Can you be more specific?” roared Vul.

  “They have ladders. They’re coming up the vale. They’re coming to the right and they’re coming to the left.” He looked across the meadows and noted several clusters of riders circling wide on the extreme flanks of the defenders. “They’re coming around both sides as well.”

  Canu felt for the signal mirror he had attached to his belt. It was gone.

  “My mirror. I lost my mirror.”

  He rose up on his knees to look for it. The wind caught him and nudged him towards the brink. He dropped to his stomach and stuck his edge out over the void to see Pari fishing it out of a patch of grass.

  “Can you … bring it up to me?”

  “I can’t climb like you,” said Pari. “You’ll have to come down.”

  Canu peered down at the route he had climbed. His muscles still trembled from the climb. He didn’t have the strength to get down just yet, never mind climb back up.

  “You have to flash Feril yourself,” said Canu.

  “What do we say?” said Pari.

  “Tell him, they’re coming.”

  “How many?”

  “Hundreds. Maybe a thousand. Maybe more.”

  He slid back to the other face on his belly. As he absorbed the scene before him, Canu realized that the enemy forces were arrayed asymmetrically and the main attack would not be directed at the vale as Feril expected. Crasacs had already swarmed into the vale, driving the villagers defending it up into the ravines, but Canu could see that it was just a bluff. The bulk of the force was preparing to mount the cliffs to Feril’s right. Igwa’s Nalkies would bear the brunt. Clearly they would be over-run if they weren’t supported.

  Canu crawled back from the brink and poked his head down to meet the upturned gaze of his comrades, who had climbed partway up the spire.

  “To his right. They’re coming to the right,” said Canu. “What’s coming up the vale is a feint.”

  “It’s a what?” said Vul.

  “A trick,” said Canu. “A misdirection. The real attack is coming from the east.”

  Pari scrambled down and worked her way over to the side of the bluff.

  “I see ladders on the cliffs,” she said. “He’s right.”

  “Good job, Canu,” said Vul. “Finally, you tell us something useful.”

  Pari stepped out into the sun and began flashing a signal up into the meadows, repeating every phrase twice, to ensure it was read.

  The militia at the headwall flashed signals back requesting that Pari’s message be repeated, as if Feril didn’t believe what he had been told. His troops remained in place, arrayed in force against the Crasacs in the veil.

  Ladders fixed in place, Crasacs swarmed up and formed up into ranks opposite Igwa’s scattered knots of riders. Crasacs had breached the cliffs on both sides now and were well entrenched in the vale.

  Lizbet’s farm burned. The villagers who had been guarding it waged a fighting retreat, harassing a small band of Crasacs before fleeing up the gullies to the temporary safety of Feril’s defense line.

  A formation of Crasacs moved out from the cliffs to make room for the next. Feril’s fighters finally reacted, abandoning the ambush they had set around the vale, while his undermanned flank braced for contact with the first block of Crasacs advancing up a slant of meadow. Some of Igwa’s horsemen swarmed out of hiding to fill the void, but the far end of their flank was now threatened by enemy horsemen galloping under a blue flag – Cuerti – who had ridden all the way around the cliffs to the East. Canu could not spot any evidence of the Western Nalkies. Either they were well hidden or they had fled.

  “What’s it look like up there?” said Vul.

  “Disaster,” said Canu. “I see a rout in the making.”

  Crasacs flowed up the ladders as if they were spigots. A second block formed and maneuvered alongside the first, cutting off Canu and his comrades from Feril’s lines. They were cornered against the pinnacle, blocked by enemy and precipices.

  They had no recourse now but lay low and watch the unfolding battle. Canu grew agitated, frustrated to be a mere spectator, powerless to influence the outcome. With the enemy now arrayed in plain view of Feril and Igwa, his scouting had been rendered moot.

  “Canu, come down from there,” said Pari.

  Canu tested himself, but his fingers and forearms shook when he put weight on them. He felt took shaky to attempt a descent.

  “I can’t,” said Canu. “Not yet.”

  “We should stay low,” said Pari, hunkering down among the stones. “Not show ourselves. Maybe they’ll ignore us. Pass us by.”

  “Unlikely,” said Vul. “All that flashing. They had to have spotted us.”

  “We need to find a way out of here,” said Pari, pacing the base of the pinnacle like a mouse cornered in a granary.

  “Calm down. There is nowhere to go,” said Vul. “We can’t return to the vale. Where we don’t have cliffs, we have Crasacs.”

  “What do we do, then?” she said, her voice gone reedy. “We’re going to die here, aren’t we?”

  “We fight as long as we can,” said Vul. “Then we lay down arms. Pray they’ll take prisoners.”

  Vul’s words seemed to placate Pari, offering her a slim hope where she saw none. But Canu saw no way these Crasacs would bother to take them alive.

  When he looked out over all the empty space between him and the valley, Canu felt a revelation. There were a few things in life worse than death and becoming a Venep’o slave was among them. Once doom became inevitable and imminent he would take a running leap off the spire. Better to be
dashed against the rocks than be impaled by a filthy Crasac blade or bolt.

  His decision returned to him a sense of calm. Once again, he controlled his fate. While he could, he tried to appreciate the smell of the wind and the glories of the landscape below, despite the carnage about to stain it. His stomach fluttered, but at least the queasiness quelled the hunger that had nagged him all morning.

  “I’m staying up here,” said Canu. “I will be your eyes. I won’t let them surprise you.”

  He wedged his foot into a crack and tried to find a position that was both stable and comfortable, one that didn’t make him feel like he was constantly about to slide off the summit. He found a pit to bed his knee down into, and hooked his forearm into a deep cleft. He became one with the pinnacle, blending flesh with stone.

  His eyes drifted to the hills where he had last seen Ara wander into the trees. His mouth went dry and his breath came quicker. It had nothing to do with the altitude. He cursed the vision that kept returning to haunt him, of Ara parting the branches and disappearing into the trees. He should have followed her. If he had, maybe he could have prevented whatever had happened to her, and avoided his present fate, as well.

  He closed his eyes and forced himself to think only positive thoughts, promising himself that he would see her again somewhere, somehow.

  “Canu … are you watching … or sleeping?” shouted Vul. “I hear someone coming up behind us. Can you see? Are they friend … or foe?”

  Six Crasacs bearing dark, sleek crossbows climbed up the side of the vale.

  “Foes! Foes!” Canu shouted “To your right!”

  Chapter 53: Insurrection

  At the head of the excavated amphitheatre, Ingar’s security detail stood firm against the initial onslaught. Stones bounced harmlessly off shields and helms; sticks and clubs no match for their pikes and swords. The mutineers fell back.

  “Where are their weapons?” said Ara. The dagger she held was one of the rare few she could see.

  “Locked in the armories, by Ingar’s decree,” said Daraken.

  The second band of enforcers, led by Drialeun, Ingar’s lieutenant, pushed across flats, heading straight for Seor, who faced them calmly, awaiting, accepting her fate.

  Daraken watched behind a post, confused and aghast at what he had unleashed.

  “Say something!” hissed Ara. “Do something!”

  “This is … out of my control,” said Daraken.

  Ara shoved her way through the milling crowd to get to Seor. When she got there, a group of Esayos’ fighters had already closed around her protectively.

  The enforcers stopped, faces grim. It was a standoff.

  “Surrender her,” said Drialeun. She glanced towards Ara. “And that one as well. Give us both and we’ll leave you be.”

  “They’re with us,” said one of the militia folk. “You want them, you’ll have to take us all.”

  “I don’t want to have to hurt you,” said Drialeun. “You all know this is wrong.”

  Drialeun’s enforcers showed restraint with their weapons, using them only to prod those who got in their way and to keep the mutineers at bay.

  A piercing cry from atop the amphitheatre indicated that Ingar’s group had no such qualms when it came to shedding blood. Casualties accumulated around them, their brutality created a buffer between them and the wary mutineers, giving them clear passage down to the flats.

  More militia arrived and circled Drialeun’s band. Some appeared to be only spectators but that distinction seemed lost on Drialeun, who drew her enforcers back. The militia folk, sensing her reluctance, edged forward, forcing them out beyond the fencing. Ara caught Drialeun’s eye, sensing more perplexity than hate.

  The woman first felled by Ingar’s blade was conveyed gently through the crowd. Blood trickled from her chest, from blued lips, dripping along the ground, anointing those who carried her, galvanizing those who watched her pass, Hands reached out as she went by, consoling, praying. To Ara, the wounds looked mortal.

  Ingar’s livid visage was visible even beneath his helm. He stormed about like a mad rooster. “Cease!” he shouted. “Get back to your compounds now … or die!”

  Resistance began to waver. Many complied with Ingar’s request, respectful of Ingar’s authority as steward and commander of the camp, fully expecting Ingar and his detail to re-exert control. And for a time, the enforcers held the upper hand, driving the mutineers out of the amphitheatre.

  But Ingar’s words seemed only to incite the more committed mutineers. Unarmed, they danced at the edge of the bands of enforcers, taunting them, parrying pikes with poles torn from the fencing. Ingar’s detail, augmented by his fellow cadre officers, responded with brutality.

  Arrows flew overhead, some finding purchase among bystanders. Some among Ingar’s group shot blindly into the amphitheatre, sowing mayhem and fear. Onlookers, uncommitted to either cause, got caught in the kill zone and scrambled to get away. Confusion reigned. Chaos ruled.

  “He’s desperate,” said Ara. “Thinks all of us are against him.”

  Daraken’s eyes darted. “Are we not?”

  Arrows continued to fly. The amphitheatre cleared as panicked militia squeezed into adjacent compounds, piling over those who stumbled and fell.

  Each bloodied face, each fallen comrade, stirred more outrage, giving second thought to some leaving the scene in compliance with Ingar’s order. They reversed direction, rejoining the smoldering insurrection.

  One group tore through the mud and wattle wall of a nearby armory and started handing out pikes. Suddenly, it was no longer a matter of sticks against swords. The enforcers’ boldness waned in the face of the growing numbers of mutineers coming at them with real weapons. Drialeun’s detail was forced into the marsh, wallowing through a moat to reach the reeds.

  Sympathizers from the far side of the camp arrived, responding to the commotion, eager for action. Mutineers from every Province intermingled, acting independent of their officers.

  Esayos and his sergeant whisked Seor out of the amphitheatre with an escort of their Suulep’o comrades. Ara struggled to catch up with them, dodging around bands of militia coming to fight.

  “Where are you taking her?” said Ara.

  “Someplace safer,” said Esayos. “Who knows what’s going to happen here? I have no idea how many are with us. It looks like a lot, but …”

  Seor looked drained, but she smiled faintly as she retreated with Esayos and his fighters.

  Several small, but growing groups of mutineers advanced against Ingar behind chunks of lath panel. Other bands rallied behind them and converged into a mob that surged up the side of the amphitheatre.

  Ingar and the remnants of his detachment retreated down an alley, heading back towards the Cadre compounds.

  ***

  The mutineers stood atop the amphitheatre and celebrated their victory over Ingar, brandishing their tools of their insurrection over their heads: fence posts, sling shots, scythes, pikes and even some bows and swords liberated from the enforcers.

  Fighters gathered around Daraken and Ara, their energy contagious.

  “You’ve done it now,” said Ara.

  “What have I done?” said Daraken. “Besides encourage the inevitable?”

  “Did you not intend to take on the Cadre?” said Ara.

  “I intended nothing,” said Daraken. “I just wanted to share what you told us to our comrades. I never expected—”

  “Never?”

  “Hoped,” said Daraken. “Not expected.”

  “Don’t look at me,” said Ara. “I had given up all hope.”

  She gazed across the central lane towards the Cadre sector, where loyalists had taken up positions to fend off any follow-up attacks by the mob.

  “We have to leave camp,” said Ara. “Ingar will counter and soon. He wasn’t expecting this level of resistance. Next time he’ll mobilize entire companies against us.”

  Daraken looked grim. “But … how many c
an possibly be with him?”

  “Steward or not, he is this camp’s commander,” said Ara. “His rank alone will sway the dutiful.”

  “Let’s let the dust settle,” said Daraken. “See where we stand.” He smiled faintly. “This … may not be up to the captains.”

  Throngs of excited soldiers surged around them as they made their way back to the Suulep’o compounds. More armories had been opened and emptied, some by force. Mutineers strapped on armor, honed blades and overstuffed quivers with bolts and arrows accumulated from months of bored crafting from local reeds and flint, fletched with the feathers of marsh birds

  Sergeants ran up to Daraken, peppering him with questions.

  “Where do we form up?”

  “Should we draw a new perimeter?”

  “We should strike now, before the bastard organizes.”

  “Hold on,” said Daraken. “I’m just the facilitator. I’m not your commander. We need another assembly.”

  Ara could see that the sergeants disagreed. “I suggest that we leave the marshes,” she said. “Cross north to the river. You will find allies there. Nalkies … maybe others.”

  “From the looks of it, we have all the allies we need right here,” said Daraken. “Let’s not be too hasty about running off. I sense the momentum gathering. We can’t force it. We need to let it happen on its own.”

  One of the sergeants spoke up. “We can barricade the central lane and set up a cordon,” she said. “We let anyone cross who wishes to join us. Confine those who openly express sympathies for Ingar.”

  “Excellent!” said Daraken. “Helps concentrate our supporters. I like it! Do it! I’m not too keen on punishing the fence-sitters, though. How about we just disarm them?”

  The sergeant tipped her chin and scurried off.

  “Anyone sitting on a fence right now deserves to be knocked off,” muttered Ara.

  “In due course,” said Daraken. “Let’s cultivate our true constituency first. They’ll reveal themselves as the truth spreads.”

  Esayos and Seor were already at the compound when they arrived, along with another group of captains and sergeants waiting to consult with Daraken.