The Deed of Paksenarrion (46 page)

With the roaring rivers close below, it was hard to hear the captains’ commands, but their gestures were clear enough. Paks yawned, clearing her ears, and shifted her shield a bit as she marched forward with the others. Spray from the rivers drifted up, cold on her legs. As they dropped to the level of the bridge approaches, arrows skipped along the stones in front of them to shatter on the wall to their right. Archers from the bridge towers: Paks knew how bad that could be as they came closer. But a flight of arrows passed over them from the wall of Cortes Andres. Paks saw several enemy bowmen throw up their arms and fall from the nearer tower. Fewer and fewer archers cared to expose themselves to Andressat’s accurate aim; the arrows stopped. Then as the road made an abrupt left turn to the bridge, Paks caught a glimpse of fleeing men on the road south. She hoped that meant the bridge was not defended. A battle was one thing, but she didn’t like the thought of fighting over water, or being swept away in the Chaloquay’s fierce currents.

The bridge gates, a lattice of heavy timbers rather like a folding portcullis, were closed; their own bowmen sent a volley of shafts through the lattice onto the bridge itself. The enemy retreated to the far tower. Doubling shields, the front rank of archers made it to the gates and unhooked the bar that held them closed. Another rank stepped forward to pull the gates open; soon they gaped wide. Their own archers ran for the tower stairs. Paks’s cohort went forward onto the bridge. Nothing barred their way at the far tower; against the light that came through from the open air beyond she could see a dark mass: the enemy.

As they charged, Paks heard the whirr of a few arrows, but saw no one fall. The enemy fell back before them; the rear ranks were already turning to run. By the time the first two ranks were engaged, Siniava’s men had retreated from the bridge approach, giving them room to spread out. Paks found herself an opponent. She pressed forward, fending off his blade easily until he left an opening, then she plunged her sword into his body. Another, and another, and the enemy was fleeing, breaking away from the fight in ones and twos and clumps to run gasping up the road away from the bridge. Paks and her cohort pursued, trying to keep their formation while pressing the attack. As they moved farther from the river, Paks could hear Arcolin shouting, urging them on.

Suddenly a thunder of hooves rose from behind them, and a company of cavalry in Andressat blue and gold rolled by, lances poised. Paks had a stitch in her side, and slowed her stride. With cavalry after them, they wouldn’t get far. She looked around for her recruits. Keri and Volya were both grinning—she grinned back and took a deep breath as the stitch eased. Not as hard as she’d expected, not at all. Arcolin called them to a halt, and Stammel and Kefer checked the lines. No one seemed to be hurt badly. Paks could hear other troops coming up behind them. The Duke rode past, and the Count, and Aliam Halveric and his captains. They were all talking and laughing. A cohort of Clarts trotted by, yipping and tossing their lances. Paks looked up the slope. Sunlight gilded the top of it, and she watched as it crept toward them, lighting on the way the lance-tips of the horsemen.

After awhile the Clarts rode back at a walk; their leader laid his hand edgewise on his throat. Arcolin grinned. The commanders returned. The Duke reined in beside Arcolin, glancing over the Company with a broad smile before speaking a few words to his captain and riding on. Arcolin turned in his saddle, looking back down the slope.

“We march south today,” he said. “My cohort will stay here. The others will go back to pick up all the gear. You did the fighting; no reason for you to climb all those stairs again.” Paks grinned to herself, thinking of Barra and Natzlin having to go back. “Stammel,” said Arcolin, breaking into her thoughts. “Take ‘em to the head of that slope, and keep a guard posted in case the cavalry missed a few of those southerners.” He turned his horse and rode back toward the bridge.

The road from the bridge angled toward the main stream of the Chaloquay before turning south in the river’s gorge. Instead of this, Stammel led them upslope, until they were well above both road and river. Here an ambush would be impossible. From this vantage point, Paks could see how Cortes Andres had been built on and into a natural cliff. From the rough gray native stone at the river to the pale golden towers of the inner citadel, the city’s southern face offered no weakness to an attacker. Paks could not see how anyone could hope to break such a wall: too high to scale, no cover for sappers, the foundation stones three or four times the length of a man, and man-high. If this was how cities were built in the far south, they would have trouble.

Andressat troops—five hundred foot and a hundred horse—marched on the lower road, while the mercenary companies traveled across the rough pasture of the upper slopes. It was pleasant weather, Paks thought, and the spring turf was a welcome change from a muddy road. The next day the valley along the river widened; Paks looked down gentler slopes to see plowland and the pink and white of fruit trees in bloom. It was almost too warm for cloaks. About midday, they moved down to join the Andressat troops on the road. That afternoon they passed through several little villages. Peasants fled, scrambling over the low field walls, and dragging away sheep, goats, and even a pig from its sty. Paks noticed that the Count permitted no straggling or looting. When she looked back, she saw the villagers sneaking back toward their homes. By nightfall, she could see that the slope west of them curved around to the south, blocking their way. She wondered if the river entered another gorge.

The next morning a rumor ran through the camp that a courier had come in with news of Golden Company.

“I don’t know anything about it,” Stammel kept saying. “A rider came from Andressat. It could just as likely have been word from the Viscount. More likely.” But when they were ready to march, the Duke rode up, smiling.

“Just to make sure you get it straight,” he said, “Pliuni rebelled against Siniava’s regents and yielded to the Golden Company—” He paused while a delighted roar went up. “Aesil M’dierra is on her way south, with Pliuni and Westland troops as well as her own. If the Honeycat is in his own cities, we’ll have him in a few days. If not—well, he won’t have a warm hearth to come home to.”

Ahead of them, the Chaloquay swung sharply away to their left. The Duke led them away from the road, up across the rising ground ahead. As they climbed, they could see banks of cloud coming up from the south. Soon a thin steady rain began. Paks was glad to be walking on turf. She could not see far, through the curtains of rain, but by late afternoon they were moving downslope again, along a sheep track. Ahead she could see a river.

“It’s the same,” Stammel said. “We cut across a loop of it. Now we follow it west to Cha.” That night they camped within sight of the river, and the next day they marched beside it again. Here were low terraced hills planted to grapevines and a scrubby tree Paks had never seen before. Near the river all was cultivated, in little stone-walled plots: early grain, now a hand tall, fruit trees, neat rows of vegetables. The villages were built of stone, with tile roofs on most houses and walled yards beside the larger ones. They passed a small inn, its windows crowded with staring faces. At the edge of that village, the Clarts were holding a prisoner, a man who had tried to escape west on horseback.

“And too good a horse, my lord,” one of the riders was explaining to the Duke as Paks marched by. “He’ll be an agent of Siniava’s.” Paks caught a glimpse of the man’s white, frightened face, and his stout brown horse. She never saw him again.

The rain stopped in late afternoon. The next day was cloudy but rainless, and they marched through a widening belt of rich farmland. Beyond one village, the road was paved with great stone slabs, amply wide for the column. In the ditches on either side Paks saw the purple and yellow stars of early flowers. They looked like nothing she had ever seen. She saw more orchards of the scrubby trees. At one of the rest halts, she found an older veteran who knew what they were.

“Oilberry,” he said. “That’s what makes the best lampfuel, unless you believe the seafolk—they say some kind of sea monster’s gizzard, but I never saw any. Down here they eat the berries, or press them for oil—cook with it, and all. They ship some of it north, but it’s for rich folks there.”

“But why don’t we grow it in the north, if it’s so good?”

He shrugged. “Why don’t they grow apples down here? I don’t know—maybe they just won’t grow.”

The river curved south again. Paks wondered how far away Cha could be seen. All she knew of it was that it lay north of the river; no one in the Company had been there. About midafternoon, she heard an alarm from the Clart forward scouts. Several riders galloped back to confer with the commanders. The column armed. Paks hoped the Andressat troops would fight as well as they looked. They marched on. Suddenly Paks spotted the enemy: a small force forming a line behind an improvised palisade at the edge of a village.

Paks’s cohort had been marching left of the road. Now they wheeled and shifted farther left, allowing Andressat troops to take the middle, between the Phelani and the Halverics. Arrows flew from behind the palisade, answered by archers on both flanks. Paks heard cries from behind the piled brush and stakes. Cracolnya’s cohort sent a flight of fire arrows; most flickered out. Two seemed to catch, and wisps of smoke rose, thickening.

They closed in. Paks could see bobbing helmets behind the barricade. No more arrows. She wondered why not. Arrows from their own men whirred overhead and came down behind the brush. More yells from the enemy. Only a few yards more. She could see the helmets in retreat. The front ranks broke into a run, eager to fight. Stammel bellowed at them to halt, but several had already hit the brush and tumbled forward.

The barricade rolled into the pit behind it, and Paks could see the sharpened stakes set into the bottom just as three people fell in. Stammel cursed explosively. The rest of the front rank managed to balance on the brink. Riders leaped the pit to harry the retreating army while they lifted out the wounded. Paks was furious. Jori, the only casualty in their cohort, was lucky; he’d live, though he wouldn’t be fighting for some days. But the thought of the trap made her stomach roil. She wished the enemy had not run. She ached to hit someone.

None of them slept well that night. The camp simmered, a low rolling murmur of anger and anticipation. The next day they marched warily, eager for a confrontation, but the villages they passed seemed deserted, and they arrived before the walls of Cha without any more contact with the enemy. Paks eyed the walls with professional interest. They were nothing like Cortes Andres, for this city stood on a wide plain beside the river, just above its confluence with the Chaloqueel. Sapping would work here, she thought.

Their first test of the city gates proved them to be well-defended; the army pulled back to encircle the city and organize a siege. By the next afternoon, they had constructed portable shelters to protect the sapping teams, and had them in place. Several sapping crews began work, spaced around the wall. Paks spent her time helping to set up the Duke’s camp. Like the other experienced veterans, she had been assigned a night guard slot.

Just before sunset, a rider galloped toward them from the west. Clart Cavalry intercepted, then escorted the rider to the Duke’s tent. Paks recognized a Golden Company courier. With several friends she edged close to the Duke’s tent to pick up what news she could. The rider’s horse was lathered; one of the Clarts walked it out. Suddenly the Duke looked out of his tent and glanced around at the loiterers.

“Ah—Paks.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Find Arcolin and Cracolnya, and send them here. Then take this—” he handed her a scroll, “—to Aliam Halveric.”

“Yes, my lord.” Paks was glad to run his errands, but wished the Duke had not found her idling; she had heard his opinion of nosy soldiers before. She knew where Arcolin was, looking over wood for a catapult with one of the Halveric’s sons, but she had to ask Arcolin where to find Cracolnya.

“He’s around the city, with that other sapping crew. You’d best take a horse.” He looked around, and waved to someone leading two horses. “Take my spare; he’s not been ridden today.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Paks. “And where would I find the—the Halveric?” She was not sure this was the correct form to use to his son.

“My father?” asked the young Halveric.

“Yes, sir. The Duke gave me a message for him.” She thought the younger man might offer to take it himself, but he simply nodded.

“He’s to the south, about a quarter of the way around; the sentries will guide you to the tent.”

“Thank you, sir.” The boy leading the horses had come near, and Arcolin took the reins of the black and handed them over. Paks mounted, finding the captain’s saddle very different from the ones she’d ridden before. But the horse answered heel and rein easily, and she made good time to the opposite side of the city. By the time she had given her message there and ridden on to the Halverics’s camp, it was full dark; she was careful to call her name and unit clearly when challenged. Aliam Halveric was eating supper in his tent, along with his eldest son. Paks recalled them clearly from the previous season. The Halveric smiled as she handed over the scroll.

“Ah—I remember you. I was afraid you weren’t going to give your parole, and then you made that remarkable journey—yes. Sit down; I may want to send a reply.”

Paks sat where she was bidden, on a low stool, while the Halveric read the scroll and handed it to his son. While his son read, he finished the dish of stew before him. He cocked his head at the younger man when he finished.

“Well, Cal? I think I’d best go myself, don’t you?”

“Certainly, sir. Have you any orders in the meantime?”

“No—I expect to be back in a few hours, or I’ll send word. Get me a horse, please.” The younger man nodded and withdrew. The Halveric looked at Paks. “Well—what was your name again? My memory has failed me—”