Irons in the Fire (60 page)

Tathrin

Outside the Gates of Losand, in the Lescari Dukedom of Carluse,

45
^th
of For-Autumn

Tathrin looked anxiously at the eastern sky where the predawn grey was lightening to gold. "Aren't we leaving it a little late?"

"No." Beside him in the hazel thicket, Sorgrad studied the tumbledown houses outside the walls of the town. More than half were still roofless, their broken walls stained with burning. Common grazing between the hovels and the coppiced woodland lay empty.

In the couple of years since he'd been here last, Tathrin saw that some houses had been rebuilt amid the indiscriminate destruction wrought between Wynald's Warband in Duke Garnot's service and whatever mercenaries had attacked for the sake of Sharlac's coin. More still stood half-ruined. Nevertheless, tendrils of woodsmoke rose from broken chimneys and, here and there, through shattered rafters.

"Why haven't those people fled into the town?" he wondered aloud, his breath misty in the cold air.

Sorgrad didn't answer. The Mountain Man had barely favoured Tathrin with five words together since they'd left Sharlac.

Had the iron-bound gates been barred against the paupers living in the derelict houses? On whose order? Tathrin looked at the pennants hanging limp above the battlemented tower guarding the high road's entry into Losand. Until a breeze strengthened along with the light, he had no hope of seeing the blazons on them.

"Bread? Cold sausage?" Gren appeared at his elbow with a muted chink of chain mail. "Did you sleep well?"

"Well enough." Shaken awake for this last march, Tathrin had been surprised to find he'd slept at all, even after the punishing pace they had set right from Sharlac's devastated gates. Even knowing Evord's tent was the safest place he could be, with hundreds of swords between the captain-general and harm.

Dreams of the sack of Sharlac had haunted his sleep, mingled with memories of the horrors he'd seen the last time destruction had been visited on Losand and the villages all around. Every time he had closed his eyes on the journey he had seen the slaughter Evord's army had wrought among Duke Moncan's men before spreading out to wreak calculated havoc through Sharlac's proudest town.

Every step of the three days' forced march along the Great West Road brought him closer to seeing the same atrocities repeated. How much worse was it going to be here, when he knew Losand, when he knew people living there? He wondered, with sick apprehension, if any of his family could possibly have been caught inside the walls.

He turned to Gren. "Isn't it too late to attack now?"

Gren shook his head as he tore a lump of coarse bread into thirds. "This was never going to be a night assault."

"Why not?" Absently taking a bite, Tathrin found he was hungrier than he realised.

"Because they'd be expecting it, after Sharlac." Sorgrad reached for his share of the bread, still not taking his eyes off the broken houses. "And we needed every advantage of surprise we could get there. Here? They know we're coming."

"They've spent a wakeful night seeing Poldrion's demons in every shadow while we've been tucked up snug in our blankets." Beneath the dull steel of his round helm, Gren smiled. "I'll wager my silver salver against anything you pick up here that their sentries are too dog-tired to see us sneaking up."

Tathrin wondered how much plunder the two Mountain Men had gathered amid the smouldering ruins of Sharlac Castle. And he'd lost track of them for more than half a day on the road. Gren had said they'd needed to make certain some informant of Charoleia's had got safely out of the city. Tathrin was certain he had been lying.

He looked to either side as he ate the rest of his bread. He could barely make out the silent forces mustered all along the edge of the undergrowth, and unlike Losand's hapless defenders, he knew they were there. Was that just the mercenaries' skills at work or something more? "Where's Reher?"

"Back with the baggage wagons." Gren shrugged. "Mending gear and shoeing horses like an honest smith."

"All we need today are swords." Sorgrad was still intent on the distant walls of Losand. "Gren, did you say something about sausage?"

"What are we waiting for?" Gren took a muslin-swathed lump as thick as his forearm out of the sackcloth bag he'd had hanging at his hip since they'd advanced on Sharlac. "There's already enough daylight to tell friend from foe." He offered a generous slice of the marbled sausage to Tathrin.

As Tathrin took it, he looked around to be sure no one was close enough to overhear them. "Sorgrad, couldn't your talents, and Reher's, be used to take the town more easily than Sharlac?"

When the day following that horrific endless night had finally dawned, Tathrin had seen the outer courts of Sharlac Castle literally running with blood. The stench of burning flesh as the dead were thrown on fires fed with broken furnishings had been still more nauseating. Recollection killed his appetite and he dropped the lump of sausage discreetly into a bush.

"This won't be a slaughter like Sharlac." Sorgrad turned momentarily to take a meaty lump from his brother. "Evord was intent on killing as many of the duke's good troops as we could, as quickly as possible."

"Which will get everyone's attention," Gren pointed out, chewing. "Charoleia always says you never get a second chance to make a first impression."

"Sharlac's fate will have every duke shitting his breeches." Sorgrad smiled for the first time since they'd left Sharlac. "Today, we show the common folk we have no quarrel with them, just the mercenaries who take the coin their liege-lords screw out of them. So we want enough light to know we're slitting the right throats."

"Has Evord announced the field sign and word?" Gren enquired.

"Not yet." Sorgrad looked at Tathrin, pale brows raised. "Heard from our Vanam friend yet?"

"No," Tathrin said unhappily. He'd been waiting to hear Aremil's voice since he'd woken. It wasn't like him to be late.

Gren cocked his head. "Wasn't he supposed to be sending you cross-eyed at first light?"

Tathrin swallowed his last mouthful of bread. "What do you mean?"

Gren chuckled. "You should see your face whenever Artifice touches you." He turned as boots crunched through fallen leaves crisp with the first frost. "Arest!"

"Field word's 'Talagrin's bow'." The heavily armoured mercenary held a bunch of bright orange rags in one scarred fist. "Here's your field sign."

Gren wiped greasy fingers on his leather breeches and took one. "Where did you find this?"

"The Duke of Sharlac's private apartments." Arest grinned. "His late Grace's curtains."

"I never did reckon much to Jackal Moncan's taste." Sorgrad abandoned his study of the town to thread the scrap of cloth through the buckle of the belt drawing his hauberk tight to his hips.

"Tie it tight so it won't fall off," Arest advised Tathrin, "and kill any swordsman not wearing a yellow or orange cloth token before he kills you."

"Wynald's men will soon start picking rags off the dead," Gren warned. "Make sure you hear the field word before you trust anyone you don't recognise."

Tathrin was about to point out that he'd had the whole business of field signs explained to him before the assault on Sharlac when Sorgrad interrupted.

"The lad's staying well away from the mayhem. He'll be with Evord and his banner company just like last time."

Thank Talagrin for such mercies. Tathrin knotted the orange rag into the leather thong laced tight underneath his chin. Regardless of where he'd be seeing out the battle, as at Sharlac, Captain-General Evord had insisted he wear a boiled-leather jerkin heavy with steel plates sewn between the outer skin and the padded linen lining.

"Who's out there for the rest of us to fight?" Gren demanded impatiently.

"Outside the walls, the duke's militia are pissing themselves for fear of savage Mountain Men and murderous Dalasorians," Arest said with a low chuckle.

"You sent men in among them during the night?" Gren was affronted. "Why didn't you call me?"

Arest snorted. "After hearing how you people strip the flesh from your dead and eat it raw for a funeral feast, one glimpse of your yellow head would have sent every man running to hide behind his mother's apron."

"Wouldn't that have been best?" Tathrin protested.

"If the militia had fled in the night, whoever's defending the walls would just drive the townsfolk out to blunt our swords when we attack," Sorgrad said sardonically. "At least militiamen have weapons and some notion of how to defend themselves. Arest, who's up on the walls?"

"What tall tales did you spread about the Dalasorians?" Gren demanded.

Arest grinned viciously. "How they tie a captive's feet to one horse and his hands to another before whipping both beasts into galloping in opposite directions."

Gren nodded with satisfaction. "The best tales are always the true ones."

"They do that in Dalasor?" Tathrin was horrified.

"To execute criminals." Sorgrad was studying the walls again. "It's quick enough and there are precious few trees fit for a hanging out on the grasslands."

Tathrin could only hope the revolting tale of Mountain funerals had no such basis in truth.

"Did you get anyone inside the walls while the militia were busy jumping at shadows?" Sorgrad asked.

"We did, and Wynald's Warband are garrisoning the town," Arest said darkly.

"You owe me a gold mark, long lad." Gren's face brightened.

"I didn't take that wager," Tathrin pointed out.

Evord and his captains had long expected to face this particular mercenary company. Even Tathrin knew they'd been in the Duke of Carluse's service for several years. Sure enough, Evord's advance scouts had confirmed that Duke Garnot had had them patrolling his northern border all summer, as he nursed his suspicions of Sharlac.

"This should make for a good fight," Gren said enthusiastically before remembering an earlier grievance. "I wasn't much impressed with Duke Moncan's personal guard."

"You should have been fighting for the outer bastions instead of disappearing to go hunting for strongboxes." Arest scowled. "Jackal Moncan's chosen men might have got fat and lazy polishing their armour while he locked himself away, but the rot hadn't spread far from the centre. I hope we see an easier fight today."

"We know the tactics that Wynald's men favour and our horses are fresher than theirs. Does that soothe your sore feet?" Sorgrad surprised Tathrin with a grin before addressing Arest once again. "Did you get a man inside to talk to the pewterer?"

Arest's scowled deepened. "I got a man into the town but he couldn't find the pewterer."

"He wasn't at home?" Now Sorgrad was frowning. "Or did your man lose his way?"

"The pewterer's being held by Wynald's men, on Duke Garnot's orders." Arest shook his head. "Him and several other guildsmen and half the town's priests."

"Duke Garnot won't be popular if he lets his hired hounds loose on people the common folk respect." As Sorgrad ran a hand over his chin, sparse golden stubble caught the first true sunlight. "But we need to do something about the gates."

"
Tathrin, are you with the captain-general?
"

Aremil's voice echoed urgently in his ears.

"Sorgrad, it's--"

"You're not feeling well?" Gren's solicitous arm around Tathrin's waist hid the way he jabbed his other hand into his ribs. Even through the metal-plated red jerkin, the blow made Tathrin hunch over as if some cramp had seized him. "But that sausage is perfectly good."

"You've been carrying it around for two days," Sorgrad argued. "This weather's not as cold as you think it is." The Mountain Man shot Tathrin a ferocious look to silence him. "Arest, we'd better ask what Evord wants done about the gates."

"I'll see you at his tent, quick as you like." The massive mercenary strode away.

"
Tathrin?
" Aremil was puzzled by his lack of response. "
It's about the gates."

"Arest says the pewterer's been taken by Duke Garnot's mercenaries," Tathrin muttered, hugging himself as if his stomach pained him.

"
I know--I heard.
"

Aremil could hear conversations Tathrin was having before he even realised the Artifice was touching him?

Tathrin straightened up. "Then there's no one to secure the gates for us."

"
Yes there is. Failla's inside the town, with Nath and Kerith. They've seen to it.
"

"Failla?" Tathrin was startled.

"What about her?" Sorgrad demanded.

Tathrin waved him away. "What is she doing here?"

"
They had to come. Duke Garnot has learned of all the Guilds' conspiracies."

Tathrin didn't understand Aremil's burning anger. As soon as he wondered about it, he felt Aremil's emotions abruptly dampened.

Sorgrad snapped impatient fingers in front of Tathrin's face. "What is he saying?"