Stormed Fortress (13 page)

* * *

The next morning
'
s dawn, Talvish took charge of the sweep down the trade-road to Pellain. Under his handling were eighty crack horsemen with standing orders to raze the fields through the back country. When the reiving was done, they were to fall back to the Tiriac foothills, in position to send warning should the town salve its wounds by trying an east-bound invasion. Since Fionn Areth was too much underfoot, and offensive with inflamed opinions, Vhandon attached the young man to the foray with hopes he might learn through no-nonsense experience.

The tight-knit troop of veterans rode out. All speed and grim purpose, they skirted the southern fringes of Atwood, doused by the squalls that raked off the Tiriacs. Scorching heat did not faze them, or fireless nights. They slept on rough ground and ate hard-tack and cheese, and met a greenhorn
'
s complaints with clipped laughter. Fionn Areth
'
s brash ideals and drawled, grass-lands vowels were made the butt of crude jokes.

Jaw set, the young man shouldered detail with the shovel, night after blistering night. His riding improved, and his sword-play became less classically neat and more dangerous. While his face tanned in squint lines, the hazy horizon revealed only flocking blackbirds and galloping post-couriers. The empty road was the precursor to war. The caravans spurned the land route through East Halla, the merchants staying well clear to avoid the outbreak of hostilities.

Talvish bolstered his scouts. Into the rolling hills south of Pellain, his picked company took to the brush. Half mounted, half on foot, they fanned out, all business as they slipped like grey wolves past the verges of Atwood. Kharadmon
'
s warning forbade them to enter the forest. The old centaur markers were realigned for protection, and to broach their tuned ward without Fellowship leave might well cost a strayed man his life.

'
Damned well makes things dicey,
'
the watch scouts complained.
'
Flush an enemy, we could easily become cut off, or get ourselves hazed against the defences and shot down like cornered rabbits.
'

Yet day followed day, with no movement sighted. Each evening, Fionn Areth dug the latrines, cursing his blisters in the ripe dialect once used to malign stubborn goats.

'
You haven
'
t figured, boy?
'
cracked the scarred veteran wringing his shirt by the river.
'
A soldier
'
s life is all grinding routine. Who sold you the rosy notion of honour, trumped up in bright flags and glory? We
'
re here to burn barley. Tossing a torch takes a damned sight less practice than trenching hard ground with a spade.
'

'
Don
'
t listen,
'
admonished the rear-guard lieutenant sent to string up the evening picket line.
'
Keep your sword sharp, and both eyes open. Pellain
'
s patrols won
'
t be sleeping. We
'
re six times outnumbered, and if we
'
re attacked, a slacker
'
s mistake
'
ll drop you stone-dead in a second.
'

Yet the sultry night passed without disturbance. Men tossed and turned to the shrilling of insects and the cries of rodents razed down by an owl.

Pre-dawn, under a dank scud of fog, the advance line spied a head-hunters
'
party on foot with three couples of dogs. The man with the report came in breathless, his professional summary bleak.
'
Onto somebody
'
s trail, tracking south-east from Silvermarsh. That points to a clan runner with news, moving hell-bent to reach Atwood.
'

A ghost presence in his dull brigandine and blacked helm, Talvish weighed the development. That
'
s a damned problem.
'
The Sorcerer
'
s sealed warding might not let a messenger through; this, alongside the confounding snag, that the bounty hunt posed a hindrance to his skulking task force.
'
Listen up, men! I want ten, armed for skirmish. By daylight, we
'
ll have that league squad cut down. No noise, without fuss! Sink their dead in the river. Can
'
t have a batch of circling vultures to warn off the couriers from Spire.
'

Those chosen strung bows and slipped off to snipe headsmen. The unsavoury chore of weighting the corpses would be handled without complaint. They were too small a company, camped amid open land, far too deep into unfriendly territory.

Talvish moved next for chance-met opportunity.
'
I
'
ll have a cordon. We
'
ll net the live quarry as well.
'
He would hear what grave need sent a fugitive clansman at risk near the towns of West Halla.
'
I
'
d know what
'
s afoot at first hand, and not wait on the pickings of rumour.
'

The company
'
s reserves assembled at speed, with Fionn Areth on fire to go with them. Three weeks tasked with menial chores had pitched his quick temper to snapping.
'
Leave me in charge of the horses again, I
'
ll go out of my skull slapping flies.
'

Talvish scarcely paused.
'
You want the assignment? Then streak your face, bantling.
'
The suspect, cat gleam to his glance should have roused second thoughts, under daylight.

In darkness, the veterans smiled, unfooled: the testy Araethurian was going to be dealt an arduous lesson in patience. Bagging forest-bred talent amid covert thickets called for hours of motionless vigil. The insect bites, nettle rash, and tedium could drive even a seasoned man fidgeting crazy.

Even so, Talvish was not complacent. Entrusting a greenhorn with critical action, he finished his raking review.
'
Keep your wits, goatherd. Stay self-reliant. Don
'
t think for one second you
'
d be here bearing arms if Vhan hadn
'
t left his word with the duke to vouchsafe your weathercock character.
'

'
I won
'
t fall short,
'
Fionn Areth insisted, absorbed with the fit of his baldric.

'
Fall to napping, more likely,
'
Talvish tossed back.

The effect was predictable: Fionn Areth huffed in retort,
'
A month
'
s beer to my promise I
'
ll stoop to fleece goats, first!
'

Talvish clapped the young man
'
s rigid shoulder.
'
Should I pity the goats? It
'
s not my place, but I have to presume that a sword makes a hack job of shearing.
'

The duke
'
s captain strode on his self-assured way, aware his brisk handling had whetted the edge he required of hot-blooded new recruits. If league trackers had flushed a clan runner crossing Melhalla on desperate business, the creature would sense Alestron
'
s fixed line. The mistake must not happen, that forestborn instinct should snatch the least chance to slip through.
'
Bring this scout in safely! Such news as he carries might become critical to holding Alestron
'
s defence.
'

* * *

Sunrise over East Halla dispersed the ripped tatters of mist. The rolling land emerged, its crabbed briar and crowned oak as a layered etching stamped on dull foil. Heat followed. The late-summer sun beat relentlessly through, bleaching the hazy sky powder blue and silting the parched vales in shadow. Jeynsa s
'
Valerient stirred as the first breeze riffled the leaves of the oak where she hid. She ached. Her tucked posture amid the crooked boughs had stiffened the muscles stressed hard by the zeal of league trackers. Her moment to catnap had lasted all night, a fool
'
s lapse and a perilous set-back.

Thirsty, still tired, in need of the meal she dared not pause to forage, she took wary stock. In hindsight, she should never have shortened her route by choosing the east way past Backwater. Either the boatman she paid for her crossing had talked, or a child sent out to pick brambles had seen her; or else an inquisitive crofter
'
s dog had dug up the warm ash of her campsite. Whatever the cause, the league pressed the chase. Her capture by townsmen would see Eriegal branded by Feithan
'
s undying, cold fury. Sidir, as well, would decry the bold course that had led her into Melhalla. Her predicament should have borne deadly stakes, except that her mother and Halwythwood
'
s council had been duped by Rathain
'
s corrupt crown prince. His vile practice left Jeynsa no choice but to win through regardless of danger. In a country-side busy with pennoned outriders, armed skirmish parties, and couriers mustering troops.

she had been chased, every step, since leaving the sinkpools of Silvermarsh. Though she was well trained to elude close pursuit, seventy-five leagues across open terrain had sapped her youthful resilience.

Now beaten lean, with the refuge of Atwood a day
'
s run past the Pellain road, Jeynsa confronted the desperate fact she had lost her cover. The mist had burned off. Worse, a snapped twig from below revealed someone
'
s unwelcome company.

Jeynsa silently unslung her bow. Prepared for a bountyman, she swiped back her hacked hair and peered downwards.

Another stick cracked. A snagged briar rustled. A slinking form wearing town cloth paused in step, while gingerly fingers unhooked the thorny grip of the underbrush. Her stalker was armed, and masked with streaked walnut, though clearly he was not woodwise. He never inspected the boughs overhead. The bumbler parked himself under her tree, oblivious as a straw target.

Jeynsa chose not to shoot him. Aside from the fact she had killed only deer, a dead body would attract scavengers and flag the dog-pack. This man was no scalper. Her indistinct view through the foliage unveiled a jerkin sewn with a troop badge. Which device did not matter. The town-born rooster would have armed companions. She dared not risk a redoubled pursuit, dizzy with hunger and wracked by exhaustion.

Past help, her niche in the oak was a trap till the fool on the ground chose to move.

Jeynsa curbed her impatience. He
would
fall asleep. Flushed by the scald of the sun on her back, she must bank on the rankling certainty. Amid sultry air, fecund with summer greenery, a man by himself on a boring patrol would nod in the shade and succumb.

But an hour passed; two. The young man remained standing. Back braced to the oak, he raked his dark hair from his streaming forehead. Jeynsa chewed her lip. Inwardly swearing, she wrestled her need to climb down, find a bush, and relieve herself. The man-at-arms, whoever he was, had not picked his vantage at random. She had detected the rest of his company staked across the next vale. Their placement deepened her growing anxiety, that their cast net had marked her as prey.

Noon came and went. Burgeoning cumulus fluffed into columns, then flattened to towering anvilheads. Unlike a town-born anyplace else, this soldier maintained his vigilance. He wasted more time than her straits could afford. Jeynsa smothered her insults maligning his ancestry. She had to move, or her bladder would burst. The squall line that darkened the sky would deliver its cloud-burst too late to shield her.

Helpless, she languished, draped on her branch, while the torpid air pressed down like a lid. Her nemesis continued to sweat and slap flies. He did not sit, did not sleep, failed to shirk his post despite itching discomfort. Ready to kill out of broiling frustration, Jeynsa endured. Before her survival, the warning she carried must reach the clans in Melhalla.
Her crown prince was involved with dark sorcery.
Sighted vision had unveiled his vile rites at Etarra. Against the grim charge of collusion with necromancy, Jeynsa required a witnessed accusation, then the formal backing of a Fellowship Sorcerer.

She suffered her impasse, until the young man below her tipped back his head.

Jeynsa went cold. Past question, beneath the smeared dye, the sharp cast of those features was royal.
As if thought had conjured him, she confronted the very same prince that her duty must challenge for criminal conduct.

'
You!
'
she exclaimed, furious.
'
What conniving dishonesty brings you here!
'
She discarded her bow, shoved out of her eyrie and pounced.

The man she accosted startled and yelled. He snatched for the sword in his scabbard.

Jeynsa bore in, caught his wrist, then grappled as Sidir had taught her. A wrestler
'
s move a clan child would know hooked his ankle and tripped him. Thrashed into the brush, her bared knife at his throat, he slammed at bay against the tree trunk.

'
Dharkaron avenge!
'
she railed through her teeth.
'
You won
'
t escape justice. I
'
ve seen your foul works. As I live, I won
'
t rest till I see you deposed for those sacrificed girls in that crypt!
'

'
I
'
m not who you think!
'
gasped the dishevelled victim. When the jab of her steel said she was not convinced, he ran on in a twanging Araethurian accent.
'
Cutting my throat won
'
t resolve a thing. The murdering bastard you want will be laughing, since I
'
m not the Prince of Rathain!
'

'
Liar!
'
Jeynsa snarled a vicious phrase in Paravian.

'
And may I couple goats on your grandparents
'
grave,
'
Fionn Areth retorted.
'
Whoever they are. If you had any.
'

'
Say again!
'
Jeynsa snapped.
'
You laid out their burned bones in Strakewood. Built their stone grave cairn yourself!
'

'
I
did no such thing,
'
her prisoner insisted.
'
Though thinking I did will end my complaint and send you past Fate
'
s Wheel straight after me.
'

'
Ath above!
'
Jeynsa swore.
'
I should fall for a shameless mouthful of mimicry? Do you think I
'
m flat witless?
'

'
Aye, so,
'
said her captive, agreeably limp.
'
Probably worse, since armed men on both sides of this thicket have you sighted under drawn bows.
'
As she stared at him, vexed, he risked bleeding and qualified.
'
We
'
re sent to pluck one of your woods-grubbing countrymen out of the teeth of a dog-pack.
'

Set aback, moved to check the device on his jerkin, Jeynsa shoved upright and crouched.
'
You
'
re Alestron
'
s sworn man?
'
She blinked, overset.
'
Daelion forfend! The made double?
'
Shaken, incredulous, she pulled her bared steel.
'
Then you
'
re the poor wretch that almost got roasted for my liege
'
s misdeeds in Jaelot!
'

'
His other associates are equally rude,
'
Fionn Areth declared as he brushed himself off.

Jeynsa watched him rake the caught leaves from his hair and dig a trapped beetle from under his collar. The face underneath the brown dye was alike as a rendered masterpiece. Yet as he stood up, his movement lacked the Teir
'
s
'
Ffalenn
'
s hair-trigger grace. These green eyes were not deep. Only prosaic as he sized up her cropped hair and torn leathers, then her gaunt state of privation.

'
You
'
d better sit down,
'
he determined at last.
'
At least sheathe the knife. You look faint enough to fall over.
'

'
Not just!
'
Jeynsa huffed.
'
Warn your bowmen away. All night in a tree, I
'
ve got needs that won
'
t wait.
'
Pink with embarrassment, she unclipped her quiver and flung it beside her dropped bow.
'
If you see any hounds, shoot them down. They
'
re league trackers. Stand guard for our lives, that
'
s the least you can do, since I
'
ve lost my lead to the slipshod fact that you failed to look up, or declare yourself.
'

Dagger poised, she shoved off with indecorous haste and burrowed into the privacy of the brambles.