Ravenheart (42 page)

Finbarr and Jabe had quit the farm the following morning and had headed west to join Call Jace.

Shorthanded now, Kaelin, Senlic Carpenter, and Bally Koin worked the high pastures, driving cattle back down into the valley. Of the six hundred head at the beginning of winter more than sixty had died in fierce blizzards and snowdrifts or been torn apart by starving wolves. It was hard, grueling work, and Kaelin wished he had time to travel to Black Mountain to hire other herders.

He had changed in the last year. Laboring on the farm had widened his shoulders and strengthened his arms, and he had grown taller by almost two inches.

Kaelin had seen Colonel Ranaud only once since that first meeting. The soldier had ridden to the farm five months earlier at the onset of winter. He had arrived in the company of thirty soldiers. Kaelin had welcomed him with false warmth,
inviting him into the house. Ranaud had seemed tense and on edge. “Have you been back to Rigante lands?” he asked.

Kaelin had discussed with Call Jace what to say to the officer. “I have, sir.”

“Did you note their armaments?”

“They have seven cannon, and every clansman has access to a musket.” Ranaud relaxed and sat down by the fire, extending his hands toward the flames.

“Seven, you say. Good. Where are they placed?”

“They are set in the two passes leading into the valley: three in the first, four in the second.”

“Excellent, Master Ring.”

“Let me fetch you some wine, Colonel,” said Kaelin, walking through to the kitchen. Call Jace had been right. Ranaud had shown no surprise at the news. He already knew the number of cannon and their positions.

Kaelin handed the colonel a goblet of mulled wine. Ranaud sipped it. “I understand congratulations are in order. You are to be wed.”

“Yes, sir. Sadly, though, I must wait another year.”

“Really? Why is that?”

“The advice of a Rigante wise woman,” Kaelin told him. “Each day now passes like a month. I feel I will have a white beard before I walk the tree.”

Ranaud laughed. “Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder, as my mother used to say. Who is the lucky girl?”

“Chara Jace.”

“The chieftain’s daughter. My, my, but you have set your sights high, Master Ring. I understand she is quite pretty.”

“Indeed she is. May I also offer my congratulations to you, Colonel. The promotion is richly deserved.”

“Linax was a good man in his way, but he did not know how to deal with rebels. Do you still hate Call Jace?”

“My feelings for him have not changed at all,” said Kaelin.

“Good. Then let us talk about their defenses.”

The colonel stayed for just under an hour. Kaelin answered
all his questions with honesty, and Ranaud was in a better mood when he left. For some while after his departure Kaelin sat alone. Ranaud obviously had other sources of information. Call Jace had lost several scouts and believed them to have been taken to the keep and put under torture, their bodies disposed of in secret. It was a good theory. Yet there was another. What if there was a traitor among the Rigante? Call had scoffed at this. “There’s not a man—or woman—here who would betray me,” he said.

After the murder of Killon Ustal the Rigante withdrew to their heartlands. That meant that Kaelin had not seen Chara for weeks. Working fifteen-hour days, he had no time to journey west, and Call Jace allowed no highlanders to venture out into the valleys. Beetleback patrols had tripled, and Kaelin constantly saw soldiers riding the hills in groups of fifty or more.

The town of Black Mountain seethed with Beetlebacks, and many of the surrounding fields were covered by tents and picket lines.

One morning in late spring Colonel Ranaud rode up to Ironlatch farm, leading a hundred soldiers and a score of wagons. Kaelin walked out to meet him. The colonel stepped down, then waved the wagons forward.

“What is happening, sir?” asked Kaelin.

“This is the most westerly farm, Master Ring. It commands fine views of the valley. If Call Jace leads out his Rigante, they will first be seen from here. I am commandeering the farm buildings. My men will build perimeter defenses and a watchtower. We will disrupt the work of the farm as little as possible, and any beef that needs to be slaughtered to feed the soldiers will be paid for.”

“You think Call Jace will lead his men against you?”

“Indeed I do, Master Ring.”

“Why would he do something so foolish?”

Ranaud smiled and shrugged. “Why indeed?” he said.

The soldiers worked for several days, digging a long trench
across the new western wall and dragging up five cannon to face the western approaches. Two watchtowers were erected, one towering above the milking sheds and the other on a small hill to the north of the house. Kaelin watched the enterprise with growing concern. Ranaud was right. Ironlatch was a strategic location. Any attacking force would have to cross some three hundred yards of open ground with no cover.

The hundred soldiers pitched their tents fifty paces to the east of the farm. Kaelin offered the four officers rooms in the house, which they gratefully accepted, for the nights were still cold and sleet showers were still common.

Senlic Carpenter avoided the soldiers as much as possible, and Bally Koin took to sleeping in one of the hill huts above the pasture. It was from that hut early one morning that he saw a column of soldiers coming from the west and taking the road into Black Mountain. He told Senlic what he had seen, and the old man approached Kaelin.

“They had two prisoners,” he said. “Bally’s eyes are not what they were, and he didn’t recognize the men. He did, however, recognize the clan colors they wore.”

“Must be two of Call’s scouts,” said Kaelin. “I pity them.”

The following day Kaelin saw a tall man with a staff herding a small group of cattle toward the farm. He was dressed in leather leggings and a weathered brown leather jerkin. Several soldiers stood watching, and one of the officers, Lieutenant Langhorne, came out of the house and stood alongside Kaelin. “One of your men?” he asked.

“No,” said Kaelin. He strolled out to meet the man. “Good morning to you.”

“And to you, sir,” said Rayster. “I found these cattle in the thickets to the north. They were carrying your mark, and I thought it might be worth a meal if I brought them back to you.”

“Aye, it is worth a meal at least. Are you looking for work?”

“They said in Black Mountain that you were shorthanded. I’d be obliged for a month’s labor.”

Lieutenant Langhorne came alongside. He was a tall man with a finely trimmed beard and a heavy southern accent. “Where have you come from, fellow?” he asked.

“North, sir. I am a Pannone from Styrline. Great shortage of both food and work there, sir. Thought I’d try my luck in the warmer south.”

The officer stepped in. “You think this is warmer?”

“Aye, it is, sir. Up north you have to piss fast. It freezes the moment you release it, and if a man is not careful, he’ll have a three-foot icicle hanging from his rod.”

Langhorne laughed aloud and wandered away.

Rayster moved in close to Kaelin. “Soldiers captured Chara late yesterday.”

Kaelin stood rooted to the spot. “Chara? How?”

“For some reason she left the valley. I don’t know why. She was with Wullis Swainham. One of our scouts saw them entering the woods. He followed. Soldiers were hidden nearby, and both Wullis and Chara were taken. Call is beside himself. He is talking of gathering the clan and sacking Black Mountain.” Rayster paused. “Are you all right, man? You are pale as a ghost.”

Kaelin fought for control as a cold panic swept through him.

He could not stop himself from seeing Chara in a dungeon in the keep, facing the hot irons, the thumbscrews, and the other instruments of torture he had heard about as a boy. He took a deep breath and tried to think. “Call must not come out,” he said at last. “It is what they want. It is what they have planned for.”

“He’ll not let them harm Chara, Kaelin. I know the man.”

“I need time to think,” said Kaelin. “Go and see Senlic and have the meal you asked for. We will speak later.”

Rayster nodded and moved away.

Kaelin gazed out over the distant mountains.

If Call Jace was to lead out the Rigante, they would be massacred. And even if by some miracle they reached Black
Mountain, they could never take the keep. Musketeers manning the murder holes would cut them down.

The panic in his soul threatened to swamp him.

The day he had killed Bindoe and Luss Campion had been a watershed in the life of the young Rigante. It had changed him forever. The Varlish had murdered Chara Ward, and he had been unable to save her. Now another Chara was threatened by the same vileness that characterized, for Kaelin, the Varlish race.

He had
liked
Chara Ward, but he
loved
Chara Jace. She was, he knew, the partner of his soul, the one woman he would love for all of his life.

Conflicting emotions raged within him. He wanted to take his pistols and ride into Black Mountain, blasting the life from Ranaud. He wanted to join Call Jace and be part of a Rigante army that would tear down the keep stone by stone, killing every Beetleback in the territory. Neither action would save Chara.

Five thousand Beetlebacks were now camped around Black Mountain, waiting for the opportunity to wipe out the Rigante.

Kaelin walked out into the pasture, past the cattle Rayster had driven in. Anger and the need for revenge had driven him to kill Bindoe and Campion. Anger and loss of control had caused him to punch Call Jace and shoot Bael. Now was not the time for uncontrolled fury.

Chara Jace would have been taken, with Wullis Swainham, to the keep and there imprisoned. Kaelin pictured the building and its approaches. Sentries patrolled the walls, and other soldiers manned the small guardhouse set within the gate arch. Then there was the open parade ground and the keep itself. Kaelin recalled the large mess hall on the first floor. There was also a set of steps behind the clerk’s desk, leading downward. He guessed they led to the dungeons below the building. How many guards would be stationed there? Two? Ten? How could he know?

Anger flared again, but he quelled it savagely.

Despair touched him. An army would be hard pressed to take the keep. What could one Rigante clansman in his seventeenth year hope to achieve?

Kaelin thought of Grymauch, but there was little satisfaction to be gained. Grymauch would probably just take his giant broadsword and walk boldly into the compound in an attempt to fight his way to the dungeons. No, Grymauch would be no help. Aunt Maev would offer better advice. She had an almost uncanny ability to strip away nonessentials, paring down a problem until the answer shone like a jewel. What would she say now?

Kaelin considered the problem. She would say that taking the keep was not the issue here. The objective was to release Chara Jace. How, then, could one man defeat five thousand Beetlebacks? Kaelin could almost hear her answer: “There will not be five thousand Beetlebacks guarding Chara Jace. There will be sentries on the wall and sentries in the guardhouse. Once inside, there will be a guard or guards outside the dungeons.”

If the gatehouse sentries could be neutralized swiftly and silently, the guards on the walls would prove no part of the equation. They would carry on their patrolling oblivious to what went on below. Yet they would see intruders moving toward the keep.

That could be overcome.

Kaelin continued to plan, thinking through each potential problem.

Then he sought out Rayster and walked with him out onto the open land behind the milking sheds.

“Man, that’s insane,” said Rayster as Kaelin outlined his plan. “I can think of a score of things that could go wrong.”

“Then I’ll try it alone.”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t go with you,” snapped Rayster. “But we’ll need a mountain of luck.”

“We’ll make our own. Get Senlic to harness the wagon. We’ll leave within the hour.”

Kaelin walked back to the house. Two of the officers were
seated at the dining table, having consumed most of a jug of fine wine from a barrel Kaelin had supplied. “You are a fine host, Master Ring,” said Lieutenant Langhorne. The other man raised his goblet to Kaelin and smiled drunkenly.

“I am pleased to be able to honor those who serve us so bravely,” said Kaelin. “I am going into Black Mountain this afternoon. Is there anything I can bring back for you?”

“A woman with big breasts,” said the drunken officer.

Lieutenant Langhorne shook his head. “We have all we need, Master Ring.”

Kaelin moved past them and up the stairs. Once in his room, he loaded the Emburleys and tucked them into his belt. Putting a small powder horn, a dozen balls, and a pack of wadding into the deep pocket of a black overcoat, he donned the garment. From a drawer in the chest beneath the window he took a pouch of coins, adding to it a small store of ten golden coins hidden in the paneling of the wall behind his bed. Lastly he gathered up two wooden-handled knives with four-inch blades, which he slipped into the inside pocket of his greatcoat.

Kaelin glanced around the room. It was unlikely he would return here.

He smiled grimly.

It was unlikely he would return
anywhere
.

Buttoning his coat, he moved downstairs. The second officer was asleep, his head resting on the table. Lieutenant Langhorne was stoking the fire. He looked up as Kaelin reappeared.

“This week’s password is Valhael, Master Ring,” he said. “Should you be stopped, mention my name and the password. It should ease your passage.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. I was thinking of paying my respects to Colonel Ranaud. Are you sure there is nothing I can fetch for you from the barracks?”

“No, though it is kind of you to offer. I thought you already had your supplies.”

“The roof has leaked and ruined our salt,” Kaelin said swiftly.

Once outside, he saw Senlic standing with Rayster beside the wagon. Kaelin offered the old man his hand.

“Take care, boy,” said Senlic.

“You, too,” he replied, climbing to the driving seat. “Look after the farm.” Rayster stepped aboard and sat beside him. Just as Kaelin took the reins, Senlic dipped his hand in his pocket and produced a small charm, which he passed up to Kaelin. It was the head of a bear in a circle of silver. Kaelin looked into Senlic’s eyes. “What is this for?”