Harald (36 page)

"I saw a snake, a big one—of course I yelled. I have no idea where my lady is, and if I did I wouldn't tell—you or His Majesty."

Another voice, this time in Tengu, slow enough for her to follow.

"Don't waste your time; we know where the Karl queen is. On the plain, as far west as she can get, on your damn stallion that you told her was the fastest horse in the army. Better hope you were wrong." He moved off. Anne hugged her daughter, listened. The young officer was speaking again.

"That horse isn't safe for most men, let alone a lady carrying a baby. Hope we don't find them both lying out there someplace."

"Half Estfen is pasture; my lady rode before she could walk. If you can handle him with two hands she can manage with one."

The two moved off, still talking. Branch by branch, with infinite care, up. Finally a wide fork. Anne settled her back against the trunk, legs around the branch, unwrapped the green cloth from her waist, wrapped it tight around waist and tree. Closed her eyes.

Twice during the night the baby woke, nursed, fell back to sleep. In the morning Anne made faces to keep her daughter quiet while the men below broke camp and, with increasing difficulty, for most of an hour after they had left. With the world's best baby reaching the limits of her patience, Anne climbed down, changed her daughter under the sheltering boughs of the fir tree—the green wool might not be as smooth as linen, but it was better than nothing—and set off south. A slow hour through the forest with no sign of stray legionaries, then back to the road.

Late that afternoon she stopped to nurse the baby, rest her legs, and explain to her daughter the one clear advantage of her original plan.

"Not a problem for you, love—you've got your beast of burden. But it's a long way, you aren't as little as you used to be, and I can't eat grass."

The sound of horses; she looked up. Coming north along the road. Too late to hide, too many to fight. Anne came to her feet, the baby in her arms, stood watching the approaching riders.

The smallest slid off her horse, took the baby from her mother's arms, lifted it into the air, kissed it on the stomach, was rewarded with gurgles.

"My namesake behaving herself?"

Anne nodded, blinked away tears.

"Like a lamb. Stayed quiet when it mattered. Are you scouting for Harald? You know your mother's a prisoner? They took Esthold, captured the garrison."

Elaina shook her head.

"Not any more she isn't. We haven't seen Harald and the army for weeks—came north hoping to steal a couple of horses."

"Is there something wrong with the ones you have?"

"Horses with people on them—two ladies and the world's best baby."

"You were planning to steal us out from the middle of the Imperial army?"

One of the riders spoke—young, bow, quiver, no armor, a stranger but something . . .

"Managed 'Laina's mother and three hundred of her friends. You're Anne?"

Elaina cut in.

"Your Majesty, this is our friend Asbjorn. 'Bjorn, Her Majesty of Kaerlia."

Anne responded with a friendly nod and a curious look.

"You rescued the Lady Commander and the rest of the prisoners? How? Where are they?"

"Legionaries are good soldiers—obey orders. Don't always check on where the order came from. Second time would have been harder. Aunt 'Nora and her friends should be back in Eston by now, sitting down to dinner a day late. Speaking of which, might consider the matter of food."

" 'Bjorn!"

Kara, pointing north up the road. A moment later the others heard it too—at least one horse. Elaina handed the baby back to its mother, reached for her sword, moved past Anne; Asbjorn nocked an arrow.

A slight figure on a horse. Elaina let her sword slide back into its sheath.

"My lady. You're safe. Both of you. What happened to the stallion?"

"No idea; we weren't on him. Spent the night up a tree—little one as quiet as a mouse. In the morning you went north, we went south."

"Up there all night? I thought . . ."

"So did they. How did you get away?"

Elen dismounted, leaned over to kiss the baby.

"His Imperial Majesty sent me with a message. He says when the war's over, you're invited to guest with him in the Capital. Brought little 'Laina's linen, too."

She reached into the saddlebag. Asbjorn, hands again empty, turned to Jon and Hen.

"Set up camp out of sight of the road. We'll see what we can find for dinner, back when we find it."

He dismounted, said something to his horse—Anne caught tone but not words. Kara joined him. The two vanished into the woods. Anne looked after him, turned back to Elaina.

"Interesting friend you have. He reminds me of someone I know."

"His grandson. Parents died when 'Bjorn was a baby, Harald and Gerda raised him. Mother told me. Don't worry about dinner—only person I've ever seen Kara willing to hunt with."

Some legions added something new every campaign; the Fourteenth was content with its red flame on a gold field. Marko remembered, two years back, one of his men asking with a straight face if it was true that after the Sixth brought in cats to protect their grain stores they had added a mouse to their banner to commemorate the victory. The riot that followed nearly wrecked the Boar.

Nobody but the First in the capital now, nobody else but him and his boys this end of the Empire. Not counting the legions on the other side of the low pass. The Emperor hadn't quite said so, but he figured they were why he was sitting on this side. Dangerous times.

A rider on the lower slopes, heading this way. Farther down, twenty or thirty more. South and east, smoke still rising. Maybe he would find out why. The legion commander stood up, brushed himself off, climbed down from the low observation platform, set off for the gateway of the camp to wait for the first rider and whatever news he brought.

"They drive off horses, cattle, burn what they can't steal. Thousands of them. Pania, garrison ran for their lives. Burned it."

"What about . . . Oh."

"Just you and the legion in the capital. Nothing else but city guards, a few locals. Everyone else down south fighting the barbarians."

"Commander. More visitors."

Marko turned, looked out the gate. They were sitting their horses a little out of range of the camp wall. Armor, leather by the look of it, brightly decorated. Bows, quivers. One rode a little forward, hands up, empty, palms out.

"Anyone here speak plains jabber?"

One of the men by the gate raised his head.

"I know a little, sir. Not much."

"Leave your weapons here."

The commander unbuckled his own sword belt, leaned the weapon against the wall, stepped out of the gate.

The leader of the nomads, brighter armor than the rest, stylized fox head tattooed on his forehead, greeted the commander in fluent Tengu.

"Me and my friends have a problem. So do you."

The commander looked curiously at him, said nothing.

"Our problem is getting home. You and yours are in the pass, more of you the other side."

"That's your problem, what's ours?"

"Us. Have to eat. The longer we stay this side of the pass, the less left behind when we go home." He gestured at the smoke still rising from the general direction of Pania. "Don't know if we can force the pass, damn sure you can't catch us on the level."

The commander thought a moment, looking out, down, where the plain funneled up to the pass.

"We both have a problem. What's your solution?"

"You get out of the way, we come through. Talk to your people on the other side of the pass first."

Two days later, Marko was wondering if his choices were right. The officer Artos had sent had agreed to the proposal—both forces to draw back, each watched from the top of the pass by a few of the other's men. The nomads free to come through the pass, out onto the western plains. Marko wondered if Artos planned to keep his side of the bargain with the nomads. Perhaps. Artos had to live with the plains as neighbors.

Marko didn't. From where he stood he could just see his men under cover, ready to come down on the nomad column where the road narrowed. Five hundred in ambush, five hundred more ready to move out of the camp, fall on the rear of the enemy. With Artos he would keep his agreement, but barbarians who burned an Imperial city were another matter.

"Commander."

The man sounded worried. From the top of the tower Marko could see why—a mass of men and beasts spread out across the valley floor. Too far to count heads, but after twenty years he had a fair idea how long, how wide, a column of a thousand cavalry should be. A thousand nomads he could manage, two thousand if the gods gave him luck. Five thousand were a problem for someone else to deal with. Maybe Artos. He started back down the stairs, yelling for a runner.

Sitting his horse a little below the top of the pass, Kiron looked west across the plains—at the limit of his vision a patch of green, again held by Eagle clan. Turning the other way, the first of the nomads coming through the pass.

One rode down to him. The leather armor was bright with elaborate designs. No tattoo—not a war chief. Bow one side, quiver the other, hand raised, empty. Time to see if they had a language in common. Not nomads—Westkin.

"Name Kiron. Speak for commander, Governor. Know you Valestalk, Tengu?"

"Getting better, but I still speak your language better than you speak mine."

A long pause.

"Niall?"

"In the flesh. Got bored with rabbits."

"This is your army?"

Niall shook his head.

"My brother Donal is war leader for Fox Clan at the moment, four hundred clan brothers. Eagle, Bear, half this end of the plains sent someone along for the ride. Some day you try to get a couple thousand Westkin, fourteen clans, all moving in the same direction. Make running the Empire feel like a vacation."

"And you came along to . . ."

"Just now, to sell some horses. Thought your father might be interested; heard he was a few short. Cavalry mounts. Trained. Even have the right brand."

"How many horses—trained cavalry mounts with the Imperial brand—are you prepared to sell us? Assuming we can agree on a price."

Niall looked at him, considered.

"Sure you want to know?"

Kiron nodded.

"Four thousand. Don't expect you'll want all of them. Give you a good price, though. Market, this end of the plains, not what it used to be."

It occurred to Kiron that raising and supplying an army off the resources of a mountain farm presented difficulties to which Harald, being Harald, found his own unique answers. This one had a certain wild logic to it.

The Emperor reached the top of the ridge, looked north. It was true. The bridge was there, unharmed. Beyond it the fort, gold flag flying. This time of year the army could ford if it had to, but getting the supply wagons across might have been a problem.

By late afternoon the legions were dug in on three sides of a square, the river the fourth, the wagons rumbling across the bridge into the safety of the fort. In the meadow south of the bridge the archers were forming up. Last would be the legions, the wall of men and dirt and spears that protected the rest. They had seen nothing but scouts as they came north, mostly cats; without cavalry they were marching blind. Somewhere south of him was an army.

News from the Empire, most especially the western end of it, was what he wanted now, but until the last wagon got off the bridge nothing was coming the other way. The officer he had sent ahead of the wagons had brought back only a report of enemy scouts on the south bank two days earlier. Should be a boat—odd that there wasn't—but he could wait. Getting the supplies to safety came first. He was good at waiting.

"Majesty!"

He looked up. The wagons were off the bridge, the last almost through the gate. The archers had started across. Something was wrong. The columns were shredding, men running away from the bridgehead, most of them south up the ridge. On the bridge itself, where there should have been a column six men wide crossing at a fast walk, a tangled mob.

He looked again. The north end of the bridge was gone, in its place a twenty foot gap. He thought he could see heads in the water.

Something caught his eye. The gold flag was coming down. As he watched, another rose, broke out in the wind. Darker gold, almost brown, a green circle. The banner of the Order. The gate swung shut.

An hour later, as he watched the fourth wall of the square go up south of the river, men with shovels working behind a wall of shields, the Emperor noticed a cluster of figures on the other side of the river, carrying something. A boat. One man turned to face the river, held up empty hands, palms out.

"Let them come. We can always kill them later."

Two men in the boat. One limped, the other, gray beard, one arm tightly bandaged to his side, stepped forward, saluted.

"Commander." He looked again, went clumsily to his knees. "Majesty."

"Get up—this is an army, not a court. Who are you, what the hell happened?"

"Under-captain Katelo, Majesty. Commander's dead. Almost two weeks back—dawn. We had a garrison of a hundred and fifty. Don't know how many the Karls had, but a lot more than that. Cavalry. Archers. Must have crossed at the next ford upstream."

"What do they have holding the fort now?"

"A couple of thousand archers, Majesty, mostly Order Ladies. Some crossbows came in two, three days ago. They have some heavy cavalry too. Our engines—four big bolt throwers, four little. I saw some stone throwers. Must have brought them—little ones."

"What else should I know?"

"The ford, Majesty. They spent most of a week digging it out, planting stakes. Two days ago a pack train came up from the south, over the bridge. Loaded with caltrops. Lady Commander was with them. She brought me along to watch her scatter them."