Crown of Renewal, Page 3

  “Enough,” Burek called, and the troop halted. “Our former squire’s doing so well, I think we can risk a little weapons practice—if he wants to.”

  Poldin nodded. Soldiers fetched odd-shaped lumps—balls made of rag strips, he saw—and put them on top of poles standing along one long side of the exercise area.

  “You’ll start with a wooden waster,” Burek said. “We don’t want to risk a cut on Commander M’dierra’s favorite mount. Start out at a walk, knock off two, then pick up a slow trot for the rest of the line.”

  The stallion was jigging before Poldin even got lined up and would not walk composedly along the line. Poldin missed the first rag ball, knocked off the second. When he lifted the reins slightly, the horse charged forward, straight along the line but so fast that Poldin missed all but two of the balls and almost fell off when the horse skidded to a halt, wheeled, and charged back down the wrong side of the line at full tilt. Poldin reached across and caught two more balls, then concentrated on stopping his mount, this time managing a straight stop.

  No one said anything. No one laughed. Captain Burek rode over, close enough to speak quietly. “I gather you didn’t plan that.”

  “No … sir.” He had a stitch in his side.

  “I saw that horse pull the same trick on your commander three years ago. I thought he’d have calmed down by now or she wouldn’t have let you ride across the city on him. You did well to stay on and take down four heads.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Take him across the field and walk him dry. I’m going to have one of the others walk with you.”

  Poldin could feel the flush rising to his ears.

  “Nothing to be ashamed of, Squire. That’s a top commander’s battle mount, and they do sometimes take over.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

  Kerin rode beside him as he guided the stallion across the field to the far side. “That’s some horse,” Kerin said. Poldin remembered him from his time with Fox Company. “Glad I wasn’t on him when he pulled that stunt. These fellows—” He patted his horse’s neck. “—are just transportation for the most part. Officers’ mounts learn that kind of thing.”

  “Commander M’dierra will be angry with me,” Poldin said. “I didn’t touch him too hard with the spur, did I?”

  Kerin looked down. “Not a scratch, not a rumple. Didn’t look like you used the spur at all. He’s just a warhorse, that’s all. Give him a bit more rein now; see if he’ll relax.”

  They rode up and down the length of the practice field; Poldin relaxed enough to watch the others. Walk, trot, swiping at the rag-ball heads. Some missed even at the walk. He felt better. By the time the stallion was cooled out, the rest had finished, and they all rode back into the compound together. Kerin took Poldin’s horse as well as his own to the stables, and Poldin followed Captain Burek into the captains’ office.

  Captain Selfer nodded to them both. “Squire, I have a message for you to take back when it’s time—two, in fact, one to be sent on to Count Andressat. For now, though, get yourself over to the mess hall. I need to talk to Burek in private.”

  Poldin found the mess hall busy but sat down at the nearest table and helped himself to slabs of beef, redroots, and steamed grain.

  “Growing lads,” someone said down the table.

  “Did well staying on that horse,” said another.

  He was watching unarmed practice in the courtyard when he heard the hail from the gate. He looked over his shoulder and gulped. His aunt had sent a sergeant and a full tensquad for him.

  The scolding began right then, in front of all the others. “You knew you were supposed to come straight back! What do you mean spending the better part of the day over here when there’s work to do with Commander M’dierra?”

  “I just—”

  “He was showin’ off that big stallion,” one of the men said. “Should’ve seen him ride—squire’s damn good. Even took off some heads in the weapons exercise.”

  “You were riding her horse in a weapons exercise?” Sergeant Valud’s tone cut like a blade. “Boy, she’s going to take the hide off you, and you won’t sit down for a week, let alone ride. If he’s got a mark on him—”

  “He don’t,” Kerin said. “Squire rode him easy; horse just took off.”

  “Well, of course he took off: it’s how he’s trained. You know that,” he added to Poldin.

  The scolding continued as he got the stallion out of the stable and mounted and as they rode out the gate, down into the city and across it. Boxed in on all sides by the tensquad, Poldin could do nothing but sit there, ears burning, as Sergeant Valud let all Valdaire know what he thought of spoiled boys taking advantage of their relationship to their commander, showing off when given the privilege of riding a high-bred, well-trained battle mount. One of Clart’s troopers, reining his own mount aside to let the tensquad pass, called, “Bet it was fun, though, wasn’t it, lad?” and Sergeant Valud yelled, “Don’t encourage him. He’s for punishment drill, he is.”

  Despite all that and his fear that his aunt really would take it out of his hide, when he was in her office with the door closed and had handed over the messages from Captain Selfer, she read through them then gave him one of her rare smiles. “You stayed on—that’s well done, Poldin; he’s unseated more experienced riders with that maneuver. I really thought Stony would behave better for you.”

  “You’re not angry?”

  “Not with you. You won’t get to ride him again for a while—you’re being punished, after all—but you did exactly what I hoped you’d do. Gave people plenty to talk about other than why you might have gone over there again today when you’d been yesterday.”

  “Do you really think it was too dangerous for me to ride back alone?”

  She clasped her hands on her desk. “You know what happened to Andressat’s son.”

  He shuddered; he couldn’t help it. “He … his … skin was sent to his father.”

  “Yes. I don’t want such a package coming to me or to my sister, your mother. War is never safe, but this is more than ordinary war. Our enemy is a mage; he has powers I do not understand. Tell me what you saw on the way over and back.”

  “On the way over, three thieves near an alley this side of the horse market—that one that angles off from the little fountain. Just standing there in those black clothes. A scuffle in the far corner of the main market, where the fruit sellers are, but I couldn’t see what, exactly. I watched for anyone coming too close.” Poldin scowled, trying to remember every detail he’d noted on the way over and back: known thieves, soldierly-looking men not in a recognized uniform, the city militia, down to the fellow peering out an upper window and then flipping a bit of cloth twice. “And the smell is worse this afternoon, on the way back, and I heard one woman complain that the well in the fruit market square was low, two turns low.”

  “A good report,” his aunt said. “And yes, there is danger, and danger to you more than to someone not related to me.”

  When she said nothing more for a moment, Poldin said, “I understand.”

  “That’s why I can’t tell you what Andressat sent me or what Captain Selfer wants taken to Andressat. We’re fairly sure Immer’s spies suspect you of carrying messages of more import than a joint training exercise or a social engagement between captains. If you’re captured—and I pray Camwyn’s Claw that you’re not—you will not know anything that can harm the Company. I thought of sending you home until this is over with—”

  “Please don’t—”

  She shook her head. “I won’t, because I don’t think you’ll be any safer there and because this is the life you wanted—you saw last campaign season what it’s like, and you said you wanted to stay.”

  “I do!”

  “You’ll spend a fiveday in camp, ostensibly punishment for your escapades today. The next time I send you out will be with a small escort, again on the grounds I need to make sure you don’t stray. Be especially careful any time you
eat or drink away from camp, Poldin. Food and drink can be drugged, and a ‘helpful’ person helps the victim into an alley or a small room … I don’t want to lose you.”

  “I will eat here, then,” Poldin said. “But what about water—are the public fountains drugged?”

  “No. That should be safe enough if you use your own mug. Don’t let anyone draw the water from a well for you. Do it yourself.”

  “Do … do we have spies?”

  Aesil grinned. “Indeed we do, and very busy they are right now. But again—I cannot tell you who or what they’re doing.”

  Six days later, one of Valdaire’s outbound scouts came back from the pass to report that it was open enough for foot and horse travelers, still not passable for wagons. A stream of couriers and scouts rode out at once, Fox Company’s official couriers among them.

  “Wherever you meet Duke Arcolin,” Selfer told the couriers, “let him know the situation here, but be sure he understands this one—” He tapped the packet. “—is for King Mikeli and has not been opened. It must go on at once; Andressat thinks it’s urgent to the welfare of the Crown.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Selfer tapped the courier’s knee, and the man nudged his horse into a trot. The courier did not know—no one knew, he believed—that a gnomish courier had taken Andressat’s letter on to the north the very night it arrived. Having a commander who was also a gnome prince had many advantages, though it added complications.

  Back in the stronghold, Selfer met Burek. “I have a word for you, Captain, now that the courier is off.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I have another letter from the new Count Andressat, to be handed to you once the pass is open, he said in his note to me. He says he is your father.”

  Burek nodded. “He told me that when I was coming back from Cortes Andres.”

  “He may want you to come there—to stay, I mean. I would, if I were … he has to recognize your ability.”

  “This Company is my home—”

  “Forever? I doubt that. But read your letter and see what he says.”

  Selfer went into his office. He liked Burek—his good sense, his steady personality, his courage—and hated the thought of losing him. This close to the new campaign season, he would wait until Arcolin arrived and let him hire a new captain if Burek left.

  The list of soldiers due punishment for various misdeeds lay precisely in the middle of his desk. One of his least favorite duties and one that grew more common as winter waned. No matter how they trained, in this season troops grew bored and stale, tired of winter quarters, bored by Valdaire. The list lengthened every tenday until the recruit cohort arrived, and this year was made worse by unseasonably warm, sunny weather and the increasingly bad stench near the bridges in the city.

  He sighed, looking at today’s list: two repeat offenders, both for drunkenness. One for brawling with a Golden Company soldier; as a first-time offender, still a worse offense than simple drunkenness. A first-term had wandered away from a work detail and come back late … a girl, of course, was his excuse. Another had been found asleep in the storeroom he’d been assigned to clean. Then there were the problems found at inspection: uniforms and weapons not cared for, missing items, and so on. He jotted down the punishment by each name, then called in the senior sergeant for each cohort and had them assemble their troops in the main courtyard, with the miscreants to one side, in a separate formation.

  After the regular daily inspection of the rest, Selfer called each of those on the list forward with the sergeant for that cohort. One by one he assigned punishments, and when it was done, he went back to his office to file the list. Burek was waiting.

  “He does want me to come back,” Burek said, his expression sober. “I am his oldest son by several years, and I have more experience, he says.”

  “Does that mean he’s naming you his heir?”

  “He offers that. I wish you’d met him. He’s a good man, I think.”

  “Who let you grow up without his name,” Selfer said, and then disliked the edge in his own tone. “I’m sorry,” he said then. “It’s not fair when I haven’t met him. And I suppose he was young.”

  “Yes. And he makes no excuses for how it happened. What he says is that since his father died, he must stay in Cortes Andres most of the time, as the Count. He has three brothers to help, but in the present threat he thinks it is not enough.”

  “He’s hiring Golden Company again this year, isn’t he?” Selfer noticed he was tapping his fingers and quit.

  “Yes. But he still wants me … When we rode together, when he escorted me back to the border, we found we liked each other. More than blood relation; Filis did not like me, or I him, for that matter.”

  “So … you want to go?” Selfer forced back what he wanted to say about Andressat’s family, about how hard it would be for Burek, how resentful the new count’s other sons would be.

  “I said I would stay here. Yet—he is my father by blood. Yet again—the man who raised me, the only father I knew—is also a good man. If I went back—he would be someone I gave orders to. It could not be the same.” Burek met Selfer’s gaze. “And I am needed here, as well. I know that. I owe Lord Arcolin a lot, and you and I are friends. I feel a responsibility for the troops. I know them, and they know me—”

  “You said you would stay here until you were needed there … maybe you will know when you feel the need there more than the need here. But you must tell Lord Arcolin when he comes.”

  “Of course.”

  “And for my part, Burek, I hope you stay. We do not want another Harnik.”

  “Gods, no!”

  “And you may have noticed we’re getting more misbehavior now. We need to get them out of the city and then back in time for Lord Arcolin and the recruits. A five-day march will do no harm and show up anything we need to work on.”

  “Agreed. And if it rains or we get a late snow, all the better to cool the hotheads among them.”

  By the third day of the march, Selfer had a long list of what must be done when they got back to Valdaire. They were more than a day from the city, in the rough outbounds that belonged to Foss Council, working their way along the foothills of the Dwarfmounts, where rotten snow lay in shaded hollows. No rain had come; the sky was summer-blue, and the wind from the south blew warm.

  They had seen few people the day before, and Selfer did not expect to see many until they were nearer the cities again. Besides keeping the Company busy, he had wanted to look for the old north track Arcolin had mentioned. So far he’d seen nothing but narrow trails. He rode with a wax tablet on his thigh, sketching the route they were taking and trusting his horse to pick its way on the trail.

  “Captain!”

  That cry brought his head up. He shut the cover on his tablet and shoved it and the stylus into the bag hanging from the front of his saddle as he looked around.

  And there, off to his left, was the evidence that someone intended to use a northern route. Below the hilltop route he’d chosen, on the north side of the hill, trees covered the slope … but a line divided them, running back to the east. It was clearly a new-cut track, straight and wide enough for a cohort in marching order and for the largest wagons. Selfer was sure it connected with the north road that ran from Pler Vonja to Sorellin and then on to the Copper Hills.

  The line stopped almost below their present position. He could not see the road itself … but with the company halted, he could hear the chunk and ring of axes biting into wood. Whoever was down there had not heard them … yet.

  Quick hand signals for silence, for change of direction. No movement of so many could be truly silent, but they came down from the ridgeline and into the upper trees, scouts deployed ahead of them, with as little noise as possible. Selfer had sent ten hands back, to descend well behind the sound of axes, and four hands ahead. The officers’ horses had been sent, with the pack animals, down the south side of the ridge, where they would not be seen or heard. When they we
re in position, he signaled all to descend, still as quietly as possible.

  He estimated they were halfway to the line itself when the sound of axes stopped. He halted the advance. Voices … he could not tell how many. It was nearing midday; were they stopping for a meal, or had they realized they were being stalked? Moments passed like days. Then he heard someone walking in the woods, grunting a little as he moved uphill. They had sent their own scout; some noise had alerted them.

  The enemy scout looked like a brigand, very like the brigands who infested Vonja outbounds. He passed the first line of troops without noticing them—and two, rising behind him, threw him down and gagged him before he could yell, trussing him thoroughly. It had taken no time; it had caused no noise. But, Selfer thought, it was time to move quickly. He still had no idea exactly what they faced below.

  As they neared the clear-cut trace, Selfer could see that those actually doing the work were gaunt, dressed in little more than rags, shackled together in pairs and trios. Twenty … thirty … as many as forty of them, some harnessed to a stoneboat, struggling to move rocks others loaded on. Some struggled to hack branches off newly felled trees and drag logs to the side of the track. Perhaps a dozen or so well-fed men in rough clothes with whips and clubs yelled orders.

  Selfer did not wait to find out who the workers were; he signaled for the attack. As his men charged from the trees, the guards turned on the workers, clearly intent on killing them. Only a few faced the soldiers to hold them back. These were overrun almost at once, and the rest of the fight was short and bloody as the troops tried to kill the guards while protecting the men in chains.

  When it was over, all the brigand-looking men were dead but for the scout they’d captured and left trussed up the slope. So were fourteen of those they had supervised, for some of the prisoners, unarmed as they were, had fought back rather than wait for Fox Company to finish the job.