Blood in the Water (9 page)

Not soon enough. The duke and duchess would be the last to go hungry and only after all their household and the innocent folk of Carluse Town had suffered horribly.

“Why hasn’t he attacked us sooner?” Tathrin was still curious.

“At the moment, we have more men than he does.” Evord glanced sideways at Tathrin. “Not many more but enough to give him pause for thought. If Duke Garnot can avoid a decisive battle until Duke Secaris of Draximal sends reinforcements, the balance unquestionably tips in Their Graces’ favour. Duke Garnot sent Draximal an offer of alliance on the first day of festival.” He chuckled. “It’s a shame he didn’t know Duke Secaris was on the road to Triolle, only thinking of eating and drinking at Duke Iruvain’s expense.”

“Halcarion favoured us there.” Tathrin only hoped the goddess of luck and light continued to look on them so kindly. “But a Draximal courier will surely have caught up with him by now.” He swallowed a qualm. Of course he’d known their rebellion would challenge Aremil’s unknown father sooner or later. “What do you suppose Duke Secaris will do?”

“Hard times make for strange bedfellows. Draximal and Carluse will make an alliance once Duke Secaris learns of Sharlac Castle’s fall and Duke Moncan’s death.” Evord had no doubts. “He and the Jackal were long-standing allies, and you told me yourself that Draximal’s heir ordered a general muster of militia on the very eve of festival. Lord Cassat knows his father’s mind.”

“You don’t think that’s to defend their own borders?” That was what Aremil had believed, when he had told Tathrin the news that Branca had learned. “What about Draximal’s quarrels with Parnilesse?”

“Duke Secaris will make peace with Duke Orlin for the sake of avenging Sharlac, ostensibly at least,” Evord assured him. “More importantly, Duke Secaris won’t want Duke Garnot defeating us unaided. Then Garnot would be free to claim whatever he might like of Sharlac’s unguarded territory.” He shrugged. “Duke Secaris will want to share in any victory so they can carve up the dead Jackal’s dukedom between them. That’s a price Duke Garnot will be willing to pay. In the meantime, he’ll weaken us as much as he can. All the while, he knows Triolle, Parnilesse and Marlier will be raising their own forces to weight the scales against us.”

“How soon can Draximal’s muster reach us?” Tathrin asked apprehensively.

“Not soon enough to help Duke Garnot,” Evord said calmly. “I’ve sent our upland friends around to menace his rearguard. Duke Garnot cannot risk being surrounded or cut off from the road back to Carluse. Now he has to stand and fight. If he picks the right ground, he’ll think his chances are better than even.”

Tathrin nodded, his throat dry. “What do I tell Aremil?”

“He must be ready to tell Master Jettin to convey my new orders to Rega Taszar. Just as soon as I know what those orders might be.” Evord raised a hand to forestall any more questions. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Tathrin saw banners shimmering as the marching ranks yielded to gallopers from several directions, all heading straight for Evord’s banner. He let his dun mount fall back as the captain-general’s personal guard drew up around the cream and gold standard, ready to attack any rider who might be a foe. Such deceits were hardly unknown.

“Eagle’s claws! Eagle’s claws!” The first man shouted out the word of the day and brandished the cream and yellow kerchief at his wrist. One of Evord’s Soluran lieutenants rode forwards, raising a reassuring hand.

Tathrin watched the great mass of the army slow as word spread that their commander had news. Banners nodded towards each other, as if they conferred like the company captains beneath them. The murmur of conversation among the foot regiments rose to an expectant hum.

“Now would be a good time to wash the dust out of your throat.” It was the mercenary who’d warned him against drinking his water earlier. Gren had introduced them but for the life of him, Tathrin couldn’t remember the man’s name. Only that he rode with a company called the Tallymen and had been wounded at Sharlac. He was serving his time as a messenger until his gashed thigh healed.

A second galloper arrived with a blond Mountain Man riding on his horse’s rump. Tathrin’s momentary hope was disappointed. Not Gren, this man’s words were far more heavily accented.

“Over that rise, east of the main track.” He turned to point. “Open ground and then a ridge with trees. The duke’s men on the high ground.”

Evord nodded. “What are the foremost banners?”

The horseman answered. “Mercenary regiments hold the right and left flanks and are gathered in the centre. Militia regiments fill the gaps between them, two on our left hand, just the one on our right.”

Evord’s hand stilled a murmur of contempt for militiamen among his guardsmen. “And their mounted mercenaries?”

“To the rear of the militia, flanking the duke’s standard,” the Mountain Man said carefully.

“They’ll stop the militia routing.” The horseman scowled.

“No matter.” Evord’s pale eyes glinted. “What banners are on the flanks?”

The Mountain Man’s gaze lengthened with recollection. “On their left hand, I saw four damask roses on a green banner, and pails on a yoke, black against brown.”

“The Moonrakers are on the far right, with the Red Hounds between them and the militia.” The horseman was more familiar with the mercenary companies who swept to and fro across Lescar, riding the profitable tides of ducal ambition.

That didn’t stop one of Evord’s lieutenants making certain. “A black banner with moons and stars between them? A mastiff’s head inside an oak wreath?”

“Both moons at the half and Halcarion’s Crown.” The horseman shot him a sardonic look. “I couldn’t say exactly what leaves made up the dog’s wreath.”

Evord’s look silenced them both. “Then we move Longshanks to our left flank and bring Juxon’s Raiders forward to our centre. Tell the Hanged Man.” He nodded at a galloper who promptly spurred his mount away.

“Tell the rest of the regimental captains that my orders from this morning still stand. Now let’s get this done before we lose the light.” Evord urged his horse onwards as riders scattered to relay his instructions.

The army marched on with fresh purpose. The companies taking the lead were already skirting the hillock the Mountain Man had pointed out. Above the pounding of marching feet, Tathrin heard faint shouts and horn calls from the far side. The Tallyman rode close to Tathrin at the rear of Evord’s retinue. Bracken brushed his stirrups as they left the track and began climbing the slope of the hillock themselves.

Apprehension gathered in the pit of Tathrin’s stomach. They didn’t have the solid ranks of mounted mercenaries behind them any more. Those men were riding a still more distant arc around this rise in the land.

His horse seemed to pick up his nervousness. It jostled the Tallyman’s mount, which snapped back with long yellow teeth. Shying away, Tathrin’s horse fought him all the way up the hillock. By the time he had it in hand, he was sweating under his heavy armoured jerkin. Flushed with embarrassment as well as exertion, he forced the horse to the edge of the guardsmen gathering around Evord.

He found he had an excellent view over the open ground the Mountain Man had described. Banners jaunty, Evord’s men were drawing up in three solid regiments where the slope below met a wide grassy chase. Movement snagged the corner of his eye and he saw their mounted mercenaries were mustering far away to their right. Somewhere away to their left, beyond where he could see, the rest of their horse companies would be doing the same.

He remembered how the horsemen had waited in the darkness outside Sharlac. When Duke Moncan’s men had got the upper hand over the Tallymen, disaster might have followed. Then Evord’s signal brought the mounted reserve into the fight, cutting Duke Moncan’s guard to pieces.

On the far side of the sward, the ground rose to a ridge thick with trees. Duke Garnot’s army was ready and waiting. Six distinct regiments held the lower ground. Mercenaries held the centre and each flank, their massed banners colourful. The militia companies in their midst looked like clusters of pied crows in Carluse’s black and white livery, the blades of their halberds bright.

As the ridge curved around, so did the entire Carluse line, threatening Evord’s men with a murderous embrace. Up on the highest ground, just below the trees, mounted mercenaries were massed behind the militia. In their centre, Tathrin could see Duke Garnot’s black and white flag. One of those men beneath the boar’s head standard must be the duke himself.

Desultory arrows were already coming from the Carluse archers. Why weren’t Evord’s men retaliating? Then Tathrin saw the Carluse missiles falling short. So their bowmen had no chance of striking Evord’s retinue, he realised with guilty relief.

But the rebellion’s mercenaries would be stuck full of arrows as they crossed that open ground. After that, they’d be toiling uphill, the enemy coming at them from all sides. How could they possibly prevail?

Chapter Seven

Tathrin

The Battle of Carluse Woods,

Autumn Equinox Festival, Fifth and Final Day, Afternoon

“Don’t fret.” The Tallyman grinned. “The captain-general knows what he’s doing.” He pointed to the left end of their own battle line.

Tathrin craned his neck to see a mercenary standard of a black topboot on a light blue ground. A second standard hung beneath it, soiled white. A gust of wind smoothed it out to show a red horse’s head, nailed to the pole upside down.

“That’s Wynald’s Warband’s standard!”

“In the hands of the Longshanks.” The Tallyman chuckled. “See how the Red Hounds like that.”

Tathrin could hear anger curdling the shouts from men under the mastiff banner in Duke Garnot’s line opposite. The Longshanks repaid them with their own coin.

“Mangy curs deserve a kicking!”

“Feel our boots up your arses!”

“That’s how they like it!”

“Got arseholes slacker than a drunkard’s purse, they do for each other so often!”

As the taunts became still more obscene, Tathrin slipped off a glove and licked a finger to test the wind. How could he possibly hear individual voices all the way up here? There was barely any breeze. So how could gusts keep flaunting that captured flag in the Red Hounds’ faces?

“You think that’s bloodstains?”

“Nah, we used it to wipe our arses!”

Suspicion hollowed Tathrin’s stomach. Where was Reher? He’d thought the smith was still safely far to the rear, with the rest of those supporting the army and waiting to tend the wounded.

“Here we go.” The Tallyman’s fists clenched on his loose reins.

The Longshanks moved forward, clashing their swords on their shields. The rest of the regiment followed. Arrows arced through the air, lethal volleys loosed by the Carluse archers safely drawn up behind their black-and-white-liveried militiamen.

Tathrin winced. How could the mercenaries keep walking onwards, when an arrow might skewer them at any moment? How could they ignore friends on either hand, yelping and clutching at a piercing shaft, or worse, falling silent and still, remorseless boots stepping over them?

He saw the advancing men and women raising their shields. No, not shields, but the panels of crudely woven laths that Tathrin had seen them making a few nights ago. He’d thought they were in case of rain. Now they were sheltering the foot soldiers from a very different storm, soon bristling with arrows they’d foiled.

Evord’s army had archers too and they had marched forward with the mercenaries. Protected by those panels, they sent their own murderous arrows into Carluse’s ranks. Tathrin saw men falling, dragged backwards by urgent hands. As gaps opened up, he could see the Carluse archers exposed.

Keen-eyed crossbowmen from Evord’s line advanced, each with a companion sheltering him. Men were knocked clean off their feet across the Carluse ranks. Tathrin caught his breath as the duke’s own crossbowmen pushed forward amid the militia and levelled their weapons. But their bolts didn’t fly nearly as far or as fast as Evord’s did.

“Please make sure Aremil conveys my thanks to Master Gruit. Those steel crossbows are worth every gold crown.”

Captain-General Evord’s words startled Tathrin. He hadn’t noticed the Soluran approaching to get a clearer view of the battle.

Before he could say anything, the Tallyman stood in his stirrups with a muted cheer. “See? Longshanks are drawing the Red Hounds out!”

“Captain Siskin has always struggled with his temper.” Evord smiled with discreet satisfaction. “The Red Hounds have faced the Longshanks twice in recent years,” he explained to Tathrin. “Both times they’ve been soundly beaten. The last time, Longshanks captured the Hounds’ captain and ransomed him back.”

“They sent Dandy Siskin back stripped naked and shaved bare as a baby boy.” The Tallyman chuckled. “He’d better not trip over his feet today. His sergeants won’t buy him back a second time.”

The Red Hounds were racing forwards, screaming with fury. The Moonrakers had no choice but to follow. Left exposed, they’d be at the mercy of the rebellion’s mounted forces on that flank. Mercenary companies all along the line of Duke Garnot’s army began to move, their banners flying.

Below Tathrin, Evord’s second and third regiments began moving forward; more slowly than the one led by the Longshanks but no less belligerent, yelling their scorn and defiance.