Harald (22 page)

"What's raising dust at the top of the ridge?"

"Don't know—maybe one of the scouts is scouting."

The two men, crowded into the top of the fort's single observation tower, watched.

"It's a wagon. Coming fast. Like someone's chasing it."

Marcus lifted the horn to his lips, sounded the alarm. The single wagon was coming down the slope towards the bridge. On the ridge above, one of the escorting leatherbacks clutched at something, fell off his horse. The rest of the troop followed the wagon down. Now the ridge was black with riders. More of the leatherbacks were falling. The wagon rumbled onto the bridge, stopped. The guards at the south end were behind their earthworks, crossbows ready. On the ridge, riders had been replaced by figures on foot. It was too far to see arrows, but Marcus had no doubt why the guards were under cover; the Karl archers had demonstrated before their ability to reach the south end of the bridgehead from the nearest point of the ridge. He looked down at the wagon. The driver was gone; a head bobbed in the river. Marcus hoped the man could swim. The leatherbacks were all down, their bodies spotting the slope. Below him, archers lined the fort's wall.

"What the hell. Look at that. Damn wagon's burning."

The plume of smoke rose into the air; in the fading daylight, Marcus thought he could even see a tongue of flame. In the fort below, men were yelling. The gate opened, a couple of legionaries with buckets ran for the bridge. Neither of them made it across. In front of the gate a group formed up—eight men with shields, a turtle formation four wide and two deep, behind them four with buckets—and moved onto the bridge into the rain of arrows. Smoke from the burning wagon—and the planks under it—blew back up the slope where the dead leatherbacks were coming to life, running for the ridge.

By full dark they had the fire out. The Order archers, with nothing to aim at, stopped shooting.

"Hard to say how much damage till morning, sir. Maybe eight, ten feet of planking gone. Whatever was in that wagon burned fierce."

The garrison commander thought a moment before putting the next question.

"What about the beams? Harder to replace."

"Doubt the fire got that far. "

"We'll have to send a boat in the morning to check from underneath. Anyone know how much spare planking we have?"

An officer with a gray beard spoke from the back of the room. "Not much."

"Send a messenger to the Prince's man in that village up north, get people to work. The Karls may have more tricks—a couple of spare beams would be nice too. By the look of that wagon, size of that army, I don't think Gavin's been getting his beans and beer lately. Might be coming home in a hurry."

He looked around the room; the officers were silent.

"Two jobs. Patch that bridge. Protect it—against five or ten times our number of Karls. How?"

There was a brief pause; the commander of the garrison's archer company broke it.

"From the walls, my men can reach almost halfway to the ridge, the engines a little farther. We have a hundred archers, a dozen engines. If the Karls try to storm the bridge, take it apart, use it for firewood, we can make things pretty unhealthy for them."

The graybearded officer spoke from the back: "They might be willing to give up a little of their beauty sleep. How do you hit them in the dark?"

"Half moon tonight, waxing."

The commander shook his head.

"We can't count on the moon—all it takes is one cloudy night. Besides, they could wait until it was down. Get the engines sighted in now, spear throwers at the far end of the bridge, stone throwers a little farther—no point smashing the bridge ourselves. Stack a couple of big piles of straw south of the bridgehead; if the troops on the far side can't fire them, you can use fire arrows. Enough light to shoot at an army."

The older officer spoke again.

"When we repair the end of the bridge, leave planks loose, tie them in place. Take them up at night. Eight foot gap. If they get to the end of the bridge all they can hack up will be the ends of the beams. If it's dark, some of them might find out the hard way."

The commander looked around. One of the legionary officers spoke.

"We have twenty men on the far side of the bridge. Dangerous but useful. Have them build up the earthworks in front. Behind too. If Belio's boys are shooting blind . . ."

"Messenger north tomorrow morning. Boat under the bridge to check the damage. Belio sees to getting the engines sighted in. When he's done, we send out tortoises, engineers, to start fixing the damaged bit. If there aren't enough planks to do all of it, half width, space out planks if we have to. Once that's done, send loads of straw across for bonfires. Orders to the troops the other side to build up earthworks in front, behind, best they can manage—they may need them. See to tying shields to one of the boats so we can get people across that way if we can't use the bridge. Word up and down the river to send more boats just in case. What have I forgotten?"

The answer was drifting downstream through the night. Egil put his question in a whisper.

"How do you stop one of these things?"

"Pole. Anchor. Run into a bridge."

"My pole's a quarter mile upstream; hadn't let go I'd be there too. Happen to see His Excellency Lord Stephen again, tell him to send two men next time. "

"You said you knew how to swim."

"Held onto the damn pole I'd have proved it. Doesn't mean I can steer a raft."

"Don't worry. A bridge is hard to miss."

He was right. An hour later the garrison commander woke up to horns, someone pounding on his door.

"Are they attacking?"

"The bridge is burning."

From the ramparts he could see the whole scene. The middle section of the bridge was a mass of flames. Men were running out the gate, shields up, buckets instead of swords. One of them was down. An arrow struck the rampart.

"That wasn't from the ridge; they've come downhill in the dark."

"Damn little we can do about it." He yelled down. "Gate is in range of their archers. Shields up when you come out."

He turned to the officer next to him.

"Time to rewrite my dispatches. We're going to need a lot more planks."

"Damn."

Kyro turned in the saddle to look at his commander. The bridge, its center a scorched ruin, was not what they had been hoping to see over the final ridge. Four days of half rations, harassment by archers, the continual threat of thousands of heavy cavalry, and now this.

Gavin sat his horse for a few minutes, looking down at the bridge, the river, the fort on the other side, then turned to his second.

"The legions on the ridge—full field fortifications. Cavalry, Bashkai on the flat by the river. Archers in the legion camp. At least the terrain is on our side—not counting that damn river. I'm going down there to talk to the idiots responsible. Tell Ivor to give me a squad for escort. A banner, too—I'd rather not be shot by my own people. Suggestions?"

"If they can't patch the bridge, can we ford it? What everyone did before."

"Not this time of year they didn't—look how high the river is. We might swim it with ropes to help, but we'll lose people, horses. Not to mention leaving most of our gear behind. We might get across on boats. Eight thousand men, three thousand horses, hell of a lot of boats. And the Karls won't be sitting on their hands. Not so bad if we weren't short of food."

The first good news was that the men guarding the bridge didn't shoot him. The second was a boat. On the far side the garrison commander was waiting.

"My boys are hungry. What do you have and how do we get it to them?"

"We've been accumulating supplies, waiting for more wagons. Seven or eight loads. The boat you came in, one more, are all we have. I sent riders upstream, downstream, but no more boats so far. The bridge needs one section of long beams, a lot of planks. I sent a rider to the Prince's town up north; no word back."

"Two boats aren't much, but better than nothing. Supplies over, wounded back. Start with a couple of barrels of beer. How long ago did you send the rider?"

"Two days. Should have been back today at the latest."

"Send again. With an escort; this isn't the only ford. The same thing up and down river for boats. Let me get a look at the bridge."

Two miles south, Caralla rode into the royal camp, ignored a dozen banners, found the pennon she was looking for. As she dismounted, her mother came out of one of the larger tents. Caralla turned to her.

"Three killed, twenty-four injured, four badly."

"Supplies?"

"Five days for the Ladies—resupply courtesy of our friends. Even brought us beer. Horses have grain for two days; we're grazing them now."

"And I already have your estimate of their losses. Doubt your father could have done better."

That silenced Caralla. Her sister's arrival provided a change of subject.

"Couldn't have done it without Egil. Kara too. 'Laina took half a tatave, brought them all back. She'll do."

"If she doesn't get herself killed first."

"Mother! I didn't even get wounded."

"Better than last time. Learn to be careful; you're good, but I've buried better. Don't have a lot of daughters. Council in the tent yonder."

Before following her, Caralla turned to Elaina.

"Get Father talking sometime—his trip this side the mountains during the troubles."

"Bergthora told me the part she saw, when the Wolves almost killed him. Said she had never seen anyone fight like that."

"When things go wrong. Mostly he makes sure they don't. That's the part you need to learn."

The next afternoon yells, men pointing south. Down the slope a line of wagons, heavy cavalry as escort. Elaina recognized the banner, turned to Caralla.

"What's Stephen bringing?"

"Something someone left behind."

Three of the wagons stopped in the camp to unload supplies. The rest continued over the ridge, down the other side, up; they came to a stop just below the top of the ridge that separated the camps of the two armies. The riders dismounted, started unloading. Two hours later the pile of lumber was gone; where it had been stood two trebuchets, just downhill from the archers on the ridge.

Elaina turned to her sister.

"Monsters. Where did Stephen get siege engines?"

"From a siege. Small engines get disassembled for the parts. Trebuchets are mostly wood, heavy to carry. They didn't get around to burning all of it."

The engines assembled, Caralla rode over to talk to Stephen.

"Brother says you damn near got him drowned."

Stephen looked up. "Did it work?"

"Whole middle section out."

"And Egil got a bath. Don't see what you're complaining about."

The next morning, Gavin woke to voices near the tent. When he came out, Kyro and a cluster of legionaries were staring at the opposite ridge.

"Archers still there?"

"Yes. Something new. At the west end—look."

The flagpole was almost a mile west of the enemy position. As Gavin watched, a flag ran up it, blew out in the wind—red. It dipped, came up again, down. A minute later it was followed by a pale blue flag; that one dipped twice. Then red again.

"Who the hell are they signaling to?"

Ten minutes later, the pattern was clear—two different flags, varying numbers of dips once the flag was up. Gavin shook his head, looked up and down the enemy position—nothing. Hoofbeats.

It was Ivor.

"Splashes. In the river. I think they're throwing at the bridge. Don't know where the engines are, how they're aiming them."

Gavin watched the flagpole a moment longer, turned, stood watching the river. A minute later he saw the splash, a little upstream from the bridge. A minute later another, downstream. He turned back to his officers.

"They must have trebuchets just the other side of the ridge—any farther they'd be out of range. Someone in cover farther west on this ridge, beyond our lines. He signals where the splash is, flags relay. Get Bertrand, the Hetman, tell the legion commanders to start their men forming up, then come here."

The three legion commanders showed up first.

"There are trebuchets just the other side of that ridge, trying to smash the bridge we plan to go home on. You're going to take them. Karls aren't fools; they have to know we're coming. Might be six or seven thousand heavies waiting for us; do it by the book. Lights to guard the flanks. Get close to the ridge, long spears down."

He turned to Ivor.

"The Karls have someone watching the fall of the rocks, signaling. Has to be on this ridge to see the river. The flagpole on the next ridge relays. Take five hundred heavies in case of trouble, down the ridge, catch the observer if you can, take out the flag pole. Circle back, maybe block their retreat if we break them. My guess is their army is south of here waiting for us to come after the trebuchets, but be careful. The rest of your boys, Bertrand, can make sure Karls don't get anyone behind us. Archers on the ridge till we need them somewhere."

Imperial discipline brought order fast. Three legions formed, down and south towards the next ridge, its archers, the hidden engines. Ivor's column went west at a gallop. The rest of the cavalry, heavy and light, formed up in two bodies, one west of the camp with its right flank on the river, one east with its left flank on the river, the supply wagons and the bridgehead protected between them.

One of Ivor's men yelled, pointed. A figure had broken from cover, was running down the slope towards the flag pole on the next ridge, the men around it. Ivor slanted left, led his column down the slope, up. Five hundred heavies against four Karls—five counting the runner—and a flagpole. It looked to be a one-sided battle.

A mile east the legions were moving up the slope. Gavin, his horse abandoned as too good a target, was with them. The rain of arrows from the ridge slowed, stopped. The legions broke into a trot, long spears coming down as they reached the ridge, came over it. Below them the trebuchets, abandoned, a mass of mounted archers—Gavin guessed a thousand or more—fleeing south. Something odd about the engines. One of the horses was dragging something—a long pole. The throwing arm. The legions came over the ridge, down. Men swarmed around the trebuchets, taking them apart under the orders of the legion engineers, loading the pieces on men's backs. Some way to replace the missing arms . . .