The Gambler's Fortune (Einarinn 3) (28 page)

“It’s the full of both moons,” said the doubtful voice again.

“Good hunting light then,” Rakvar turned to rebuke him.

Eirys and the other women looked on in some bemusement as the men rose, laced heavy boots and found capes and stout gloves.

Teiriol came over, face eager. “What’s afoot?”

“We’re going to settle the lowlanders,” said Jeirran fervently.

“We’re going to drive them off.” Keisyl looked less zealous but more determined.

“I’ll get my boots!” exclaimed Teiriol.

Keisyl looked after him with some concern; as the men began hurrying out of the door, he caught the younger man’s arm. “You can come, Teir, but watch yourself. None of the younger lads though, no one not two-thirds grown. Tell them they are to stay behind and guard the fess and the women.”

The compound was a hive of activity; workshop doors standing open as axes, picks and even shovels were passed out to impatient hands. Blades caught the light of torches raised high and shouts warned caution as small iron-bound barrels were loaded onto a bemused mule blinking at the dark sky above. The women crowded the steps of the rekin, shouting out endorsement of the plan. Two hurried out with a basket full of narrow-necked jars and another brought an armful of tattered cloth. A second mule was dusted with black from sacks of charcoal slung over its back, yellow streaks soon added from a sulfurous jar.

“Covered lights only,” yelled Jeirran and there was a flurry to kindle lamps of pierced metal, slides lowered to mute their glimmer. The heavy doors of the fess were slowly opened and the mob passed beyond the wall. They moved slowly at first until eyes adjusted to the deep twilight of the spring night and the valley formed itself from the shadows hanging all around. Moving with the practiced stealth of hunters, the Mountain Men spread out and crept down the valley, over the bridge and past the unheeding sheep. A group split off in silent agreement and lay hidden in a hollow by the shuffling flock while the rest continued in small and furtive groups. Moving slowly, with halts and cautious pauses, they finally encircled the lowlander camp. A merry fire burned between the four wagons, an awning stretched between each pair of wains, men sleeping in shapeless rolls of blankets under each one. A single figure sat idly by the fire, throwing on scraps of wood.

“There are more than we reckoned,” said Keisyl dubiously.

“It’s all the ones in from the trees,” commented Teiriol. “They’ll have half the valley stripped before Solstice if we don’t drive them out.”

Keisyl nodded grimly. “True enough.”

“Who’s got the best throwing arm?” whispered Jeirran to Alured.

The older man thought for a moment. “Rogin. He can hit a single-stone from four score and one paces!”

Word was passed back and Rogin came forward, standing half a head taller than Jeirran with a beak of a nose and a shock of coarse hair. “Can you pitch this right into that fire?”

Rogin weighed the sloshing flagon bound around with lumpy resinous cloth in one hand. “No contest,” he said readily.

Jeirran looked around to see crouching men wrapping charcoal in sulfur-coated cloth, filling jars with liquid and jamming their necks with rag.

“For Gedres!” bellowed Rogin, standing and launching the vessel in a soaring arc with one fluid motion. The watchman was halfway to his feet when his fire erupted in searing flames that set his clothes and hair alight, sending him reeling. Inside a few breaths he was a figure of horror, screaming blindly, hair flaring like tow, skin charred and cracking, face blistering into a featureless mess. As the other men leaped from their blankets, more bright missiles came sailing in. The canvas of both awnings bloomed with flame and liquid fire ate greedily into the wood of the wagons. With roars of fury, the lowlanders grabbed any tools ready to hand, spades, adzes and billhooks, heads snapping from side to side as they looked for their enemy in the darkness. Their blankets went up behind them in a stink of burning wool.

With yells of defiance on the far side, a gang of Mountain Men flung trestles, tools and wood into the sawpit, brands and a barrel of fir-spirit following to burn a smoldering scar deep into the grass. Flames exploded upward, gouts spilling over the rim of the pit, bright as sunlight. The lowlanders ran at them, weapons lifted high, but the Mountain Men vanished into the darkness. As the lowlanders hesitated, uncertain, burning jars shattered at their feet, scattering them cursing. They tried to gather themselves, shouting in dismay as the firing of the lumber pile sent all their hard work up in smoke. Timbers cracked as the fire took hold, fueled by torches and volatile liquids. Heat battered them like the blast from the maw of a furnace.

“Get them!” Jeirran raised his pickaxe and led a furious charge at the disordered encampment. The men of the Teyvasoke came roaring in from all sides, breaking heads and legs. The lowlanders fell back toward the wagons where their picketed oxen were bellowing and wrenching at their tethers.

“Roast beef when the work’s done, lads!” shouted Jeirran. He swung at a shirt-sleeved lowlander who was thrusting a shovel at him. The tools met with a clang and the shovel went sailing away. Jeirran smashed the pick forward fall into the man’s belly, sending him backward onto his rump, all breath knocked out of him. The wedge end left the lowlander’s skull dented to the depth of a hand, hair matted into the mess of brain and blood. The man fell lifeless as Jeirran left a boot print on his shirt front, spurning the twitching corpse in his eagerness to meet the next.

Keisyl swung his axe in a wide defensive arc, standing his ground as two frantic lowlanders tried to jab past his guard with their billhooks. “Too stupid to run for it?” he shouted at them, but his words were lost in the commotion shattering the night all around. One of the lowlanders, hair in a long queue, ducked to scythe at Keisyl’s legs. Keisyl brought the flat of his weapon around to smack against the man’s ear, sending him flying, blood streaming from mouth and nose, the shattered bones of his face white in the firelight as they pierced his pockmarked cheek. The second thought he saw an opportunity, but the returning blade bit deep into his armpit as he raised his hedge-tool. Weapon falling from limp fingers, the man folded over the gory gash in his chest, choking and writhing until Keisyl decapitated him with one swift stroke.

“Down is good as dead,” snarled Jeirran, scorning this delay.

“Maewelin grants mercy to the merciful,” spat Keisyl. He looked for his brother and saw he had a thick-set lowlander trapped by the burning wreck of a wagon. Teiriol was feinting with a long pry-bar, the heavy iron easy in his hands. The lowlander had a turfing spade, the keen edge gleaming in the firelight. The man raised it, two-handed, stabbing forward at Teiriol’s face. The youth stepped back with contemptuous grace, shaking his head. The lowlander’s knuckles were white on the wood of the spade, buck teeth gnawing his lower lip. He stabbed forward again; Teiriol swept the pry-bar under and around in one swift movement and smashed the man’s elbow. Even above the chaos of the fight, Keisyl heard the sickening crack of bone. Blood spilled down the man’s unlaced shirt as he bit his lip clean through in his agony. Teiriol hesitated for a moment but Jeirran came storming past him with a shout of triumph to smash the lowlander’s face into bloody pulp, ripping his jaw half off with the fury of his pick.

A Mountain voice raised in anguish snapped Keisyl’s head around. Alured came stumbling toward them, a feathered shaft sticking out of his shoulder. More arrows hissed out of the darkness, biting deep into the leather-clad attackers. Shouts of dismay came from Rogin and his companions as they found themselves suddenly assailed from the shadows beyond the blinding pyre of the lumber pile.

“Come on, you bastards, let’s have them!” Jeirran turned in fury but could only peer vainly into the featureless blackness, unable to see anything beyond the circle of firelight.

“Ware behind!” Teiriol leaped forward to club down a lowlander, howling as he ripped an adze down at Jeirran’s unprotected back.

“It’s the shepherds!” someone yelled.

Keisyl squinted into the darkness. “We’re easy meat against the fires,” he shouted to Jeirran. “They’ll just pick us off one by one!”

A scream drowned out his words and Rogin’s voice lifted above the furor. “Fall back, fall back. Get out of the light.”

Keisyl grabbed Jeirran’s arm. “Move or do you want Eirys weeping with Yevrein?”

Mountain Men scattered into the darkness, leaving lowlanders dead and crippled on the blood-soaked grass. The fires burned on, consuming all within reach. Jeirran paused to rip a tangle of pegs and line out of the grass, flinging it away. “That’ll teach them to try taking our lands,” he cried.

Keisyl ignored him, one shoulder supporting Alured, whose cape was black with blood. “Are you all right?”

“Once we get this cursed arrow out,” gasped the older man, “I’ll be fine then.”

“You won’t feel a thing when you’ve drunk a few toasts to our success,” predicted Jeirran, boastfully.

Teiriol yelped as an arrow bit deep into the ground beside him. “Where are they?” He looked around wildly.

“Keep moving and weave as you run,” shouted Keisyl, virtually lifting Alured clean off his feet.

Jeirran cursed as he tripped over a body fallen just short of the bridge, hair fair in the moonlight, a curious breeze fingering torn linen, embroidery blotted and smudged with blood. Keisyl spared the corpse a regretful glance but saved breath and energy for the long haul back up past the spoil heaps to the shelter of the fess. Pursuit fell away once the Mountain Men were past the river, but several collapsed as they struggled up the long slope, companions unable to rouse them.

“Come on, come on!” Jeirran stood at the gate, waving exuberantly. “We’ve a victory to celebrate!”

Keisyl gave the white-faced Alured into the care of two women hurrying forward, pads of linen ready in their hands. Puffing as he walked slowly into the compound, he tallied at the number whose wounds were being tended by anxious women. The youths were busy bringing steaming bowls of water, carrying pots of salve and bandages, holding down those unfortunates struggling beneath the knife as arrows were cut from clinging flesh. In the shadows beyond the lamplight spilling from the rekin door, motionless figures were being laid in a row.

Eirys flung herself into Keisyl’s arms. “Is Jeirran all right? And Teiro? Are you hurt, any of you?”

“No, kidling, no.” He hugged her close. “We’re all fine and fit.”

“It was a success?” Eirys looked around with dismay. “You did win, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Keisyl slowly, “but many more victories like that and the lowlanders will be able to just walk up the soke and knock on the gates. They can stand their losses better than we can.”

“Don’t be such a doom-sayer,” said Jeirran, pulling Eirys free of Keisyl’s arms and folding her in a rough embrace. “We’ll do better next time.”

“Next time?” scowled Keisyl, incredulous.

Jeirran nodded firmly. “When we’ve allies to back us with real power.”

The Great Forest,

18th of Aft-Spring

Sudden brightness woke me fully from the comfortable drowse I was enjoying among my warm blankets. I opened one eye to see ’Gren throwing the deerskin up onto the roof to shed some light inside the sura.

“Good morning.” I rubbed the sleep from my eyes.

“Good morning,” he yawned. “Do we have to start the day this early, or can I take a nap?”

“Haven’t you been to sleep?” I asked critically. “Been emptying your pockets for some willing maiden?”

He shook his head, another yawn cracking his jaw. “With those lads and their runes. I thought I could spot every trick of the hand in bad light or snowstorm, but Saedrin’s stones, I can’t begin to see how they are doing it.”

“You lost again?” I made no attempt to hide my incredulity.

“That’s right.” ’Gren pulled off his jerkin and dropped it to the floor. “Taken like some goatherd fresh off his mountain.” He sounded more amused than annoyed so, with luck, he wouldn’t go looking for a fight to console himself.

“Well, easy come, easy go,” I commented.

“True enough.” He shucked breeches and boots and rolled himself in a blanket. “I’d still like to know their tricks though. We could empty every strongbox between Vanam and Col.”

“Who was doing most of the winning?” I wanted to know who to avoid.

“Barben, that bull-necked type with the ears like a startled mouse.” ’Gren’s voice was muffled as he pulled a fold of wool over his head. “They all said he’s just lucky, known for it apparently. Lucky, my arse! The way the runes were running, Raeponin must have hung up his scales and taken a holiday.”

I closed my eyes, but now I’d been woken up I found I couldn’t get back to sleep. Sorgrad and Usara were still motionless heaps of frowsty blankets so I dressed, wrinkling my nose at wood smoke scenting my shirt. Outside, skeins of mists wove waist-high through the trees and the early sun hadn’t yet beaten the spring chill. The camp was barely stirring and I cursed ’Gren roundly as I realized how early it still was. Two Forest women passed me with nods of good will, heading for the stream. For want of anything better to do, I followed them. The brook was still bitter with lingering winter and washing brought me fully alert.

Lighting the fire with the incantation that the Folk were finding so entertaining, I set water to boil. Sitting and sipping hot wine and water, I watched fires being lit and breakfasts made, children emerging to get underfoot, still well shy of what anyone civilized could call a reasonable chime for waking. Ravin went past and I caught an unexpected shadow of resemblance to my father. Abrupt realization froze the cup at my lips. Since we arrived, I’d been unable to shake the absurd notion that all these Folk were far too short. Why in Drianon’s name had I been expecting these people to be taller than me when I knew full well all the ancient races were short stacks of coin? Because I had last seen my father as a child, looking up from a child’s short stature, as I did now when I was sitting down. Unwelcome doubts assailed me. The squirrel game, the deceptions of masquerades, all such things rely on the fallibility of memory. Had that little girl’s recollections, colored with wishes and longing, led me astray, convinced me the Forest must hold some wisdom unknown outside? In simpler terms, was I tying horns on a horse and hoping for milk?