The Pagan Night (31 page)

“If met in the open field, yes,” Gwen agreed. “Happily, the Fen is short on open fields.” Their view extended from the field of the battle of the Tallow to the east, all the way to where the Fen’s rolling forests crossed the river and spilled into Suhdrin lands. The Redoubt split this distance, and this section of the Tallow ran fast and deep. If Greenhall meant to cross into Adair land at any of the dozens of fords that covered this distance, Gwen’s knights would be ready.

“I count six of the great houses of Sudhra,” Merret said.

“I didn’t think to find Roard among them. They are close to the Blakleys, I’m told.”

“We are close to the Blakleys,” Merret answered, “but he had no interest in riding with us in battle. Their friendship may mean less than we thought.”

“As much as I hate to admit it, Houndhallow was right,” Gwen said. “Our place is on this side of the river. In defense.” She adjusted the buckling on her shoulder plates, squirming under the heavy metal. She wasn’t used to this much armor—it had taken her father’s direst warnings to get the huntress into plate-and-half. “We have much to protect,” she muttered, thinking of the witches’ hallow, tucked away in the forests near her ancestral castle, bounded by pagan wards.

“Still, to miss out on that first battle…” Merret said. “The Blakley victory seems only to have strengthened the Suhdrin resolve. We must hold them on that side of the river. If they make it beyond the Tallow, their numbers will bear against us. They can fill the forests with their banners, and drive to the Fen Gate in less than a month.”

“A bloody month,” Gwen said.

“Aye.”

“Once beyond the Tallow their horses will mire in the swamps,” she said, “and those shiny spears will get tangled in the Fen.”

“Houndhallow’s army holds at White Lake. His son defends the flank. All we must do is wait, and hope the armies arrayed against us strike elsewhere.”

“I’d rather not wait,” Gwen said. She pulled her banner from the ground and marched down the hill toward their campsite. “It is not in my nature.”

“Houndhallow tasked us with holding the Tallow,” Merret said.

“He did, and we shall,” she replied with a grim grin. “Just not this side of it.”

* * *

There were other ways across the river. Gwendolyn left Sir Merret in charge of the Redoubt, then took a handful of knights and forty men-at-arms—nearly half her complement—and marched west. They left their banners behind, so that any eyes that watched the Adair camps might not notice the deficit in their ranks.

Each man brought two horses and enough food to last a week. If they needed more than that, her plan had already failed, and food would be the least of their concerns. Gwen’s pack of hunting dogs followed at their flanks, sliding smoothly through the forest like gray fog.

Two days and they came to the ford at Highbeck, a dead place in the distant woods, once a village for shamans and the witching wives who used to attend some lost pagan site, abandoned after the crusade. A gnarled tree grew out of the village well, its limbs twisted and gray with moss. Still in the saddle, Gwen drew her men around her in its sparse shadow.

“We’ll camp here,” she said. “Camp and hunt. Brennan, Hogue, each of you take half the men and establish barracks here in the village. One of you will hunt while the other rests and guards the village. I want spears in the forest at all times.”

“There’s boar enough in these woods to keep us going for an age, m’lady, but why did we come all this way to hunt?”

“We’re not hunting boar, though we’ll need food soon enough. No, we’re here to hunt Acorns. The hunting party will cross the ford and find the Suhdrin flank. Harry their scouts, nip at their heels.”

“Halverdt will just turn his face to us, and we haven’t the men to resist him,” Brennan said.

“The bulk of Halverdt’s force remains at White Lake, and the rest are watching the Redoubt. He may send a lance or two in our direction, but nothing we can’t handle. Especially in this terrain.” Gwen stood in her stirrups and looked out over the gathered men. “There is nothing of value in these woods, nothing but the old, mad gods and broken villages. No army could pass along these trails. None would dare. If nothing else, fear of the gheists will keep them at bay.”

“These woods are haunted, my lady. Their fear is just,” one of her men said. He was one of the younger ones in her party. “We should not be traveling here.”

“You have your huntress with you, sir. Why should you fear?”

“What if our trouble is more mortal than godly?” another asked. “If Halverdt stirs and turns toward us? If he sends Volent to come at us with strength?”

“We fall back across the river,” Gwen said. “We run for our lives.”

There was grumbling at that, but the men knew that if they were to hunt, they must also be ready to retreat. The war had to be waged at advantage, or not at all.

“Listen to me,” she said, her voice rising. “We will not be gathering glory or ransom. We will not be capturing banners or freeing the land from the tyrant’s boot. Greenhall will not fall by our efforts, but if we are fast, and cruel, and committed to the blade, we may disturb the Acorn’s sleep. The duke of Greenhall will not rest easy while we hunt, nor Sir Volent reave without cost. Because wherever he walks, the ground will be soaked in the blood of his men. That is our prey, good sirs. That is our ransom.” She drew her blade and held it aloft, anger twisting her words. “The blood of lesser men! Their blood and their fear!”

The men stirred from their saddles, raising in their stirrups and cheering. Then Gwen divided them according to their ranks and handed command over to Brennan and Hogue. They established a camp in a ruined beer hall, building hidden guard posts to overlook the ford and the paths that approached the village. After a short rest, Sir Brennan drew his men together and led them across the ford.

Gwendolyn rode with them, her hounds eager at her flank, diving into the woods, the scent of blood in their noses.

* * *

They twisted their way through the Fen and brought their spears to the broad plains beyond. Their first prey was a hunting party of Suhdrin rangers, gathering meat for the war party to the east. Gwen’s men fell on their camp just as dusk reached the sky, coming out of the setting sun on horses as fast as the wind.

The rangers thought themselves far from the battle lines and their watches were lazy. Gwen led the charge, yelling her heart’s rage as she scythed into the camp. A few of the enemy reached their bows and sent arrows into the charge, but they were tipped with broad arrowheads meant for tearing flesh and bleeding deer. Their shafts rattled off Gwen’s men, whose armor was more than a match for the volley, and then it was down to the chase, horses overrunning soft huntsmen, hooves shattering bones and spears piercing bellies. The gore of their first kill was still steaming when Gwen’s men finished with the slaughter.

They found the only landed man among the dead, a lesser knight whose signet of a deer’s head and spear was unfamiliar to Gwen, and splayed his body on the long spit over the ranger’s fire. Then they burned the fatty corpses of the boar that the hunters had already gathered, denying the meat to Halverdt’s army.

“Let them eat their dead,” Gwen muttered as she led her men back. Brennan plundered the deer-banner from the hunting party, and they flew it whenever horses appeared on the horizon.

She took them farther east on the return trip, hoping to gather a few more dead from Halverdt’s army before she took her rest in Highbeck. In her head she kept hearing the animal screams of those peasants as Volent slaughtered them. The sound drove her on.

There was a thick orbit of scouting parties closer to the main body of Halverdt’s army, attentive men on swift horses who from a distance saluted Gwen’s party as though they were expected. That trick wouldn’t last long, she mused, once the bodies were found.

Two days out and three back, and they found themselves once again in the Fen. Gwen’s pack ran down a brace of deer to keep them fed. She ordered Brennan to burn the banner and cover their tracks. Any party they stumbled across in the near hills and tight paths would be too close to trick.

* * *

She ambled at the head of the column, their ranks tight on the narrow path, spears stowed to keep them from getting tangled in the low-hanging branches of wirewood that clogged the horizon. She and Sir Brennan discussed their next turning, and whether it was time to head back to Highbeck to give Hogue’s men a turn at murdering Suhdrin bastards.

“They’ll be after us as soon as they find Sir Deer,” Brennan said, referring to the dead ranger left turning on a spit. “Best to be clear before Volent gets a sniff of our trail.”

“And let Sir Hogue face them in all their strength? As much as I’m sure he would appreciate the glory, it hardly seems fair to sneak away without leaving a few more bloody bones in our wake.”

“I’m okay with fewer bloody bones if it means getting home with all the men. There will be no proper burials on this trail, no priest to cut them into the quiet house, no cairns to pile. These are honorable men. They deserve a good death.”

“A good death,” Gwen said with a smile. “By which you mean a death on a field, under the sun, in the charge, and not skulking around the Fen, cutting down rangers, and burning wagons full of grain.”

Brennan shrugged. He wore the Adair colors, but his shield was blazoned with his family crest. The blue axe and fist were spattered with mud, as were his face, his hair, and the bright tackle of his horse’s kit. All the men looked the same, their faces grim and tired. Their voices mingled with the birdsong to raise a low murmur among the trees. The sound of it was mesmerizing. Gwen found herself swaying in her saddle listening to jangling bridles, the thwack of spear shaft on tree, the
shing
of chain mail, and grumbling voices and laughter.

The ford came into view, and the sound of the Tallow’s waters drifted through the trees. Gwen rode to the head of the column. One of the men who had been sent forward to scout was waiting for them. Sir Brennan spurred forward to get a report. He and the scout talked briefly, then he motioned Gwen forward.

“Nae good,” he said briefly. The scout who sat behind him looked grim. “Wellem believes we should find another route.”

“Squire Wellem is out of luck,” Gwen said sharply, studying the scout. “We left Sir Hogue at Highbeck, and we’re going to relieve him, regardless of what has happened up ahead.”

“The path is cursed, my lady,” Wellem said. “There’s nothing but death there.”

“Death can be anywhere. More men have died in their beds than will ever bleed out on a battlefield, and yet you lay your head down each night without a whimper. Come, show me this place of death.”

Wellem balked, but he and Sir Brennan flanked Gwen as they rode to the ford. The smell reached them before they caught sight of the river.

Something lay burst and bloody in the center of the ford. Gwen figured it for a horse at one time, but nothing but rags of meat and the wretched smile of freshly exposed ribs remained. Other bodies lay in the river, just beneath the surface, their armor resisting the current, folding the river over them like a clear, smooth blanket. The water swirled around their bulk, dimpling the face of the ford with swirling eddies and dammed pools, gathered in place by stacked knights and their mounts.

The river ran clean, the blood long since drained.

“How many?” Gwen whispered.

“No saying.”

“Any sign from the village? Smoke or signal?”

“Nothing,” Brennan said, shaking his head. “If any of our men survived, they’re making themselves scarce.”

“Wise enough. If Halverdt’s men got this far, there’s no telling how many of them are ranging through the Fen. Hogue is simply preparing for another assault.”

“Or his force was killed to a man,” Wellem whispered, “and now it’s the blades of Greenhall that are lying in wait beyond the river.”

“Yes—or that,” Gwen conceded. “Have the men loose their spears and prepare. Gods know what we’ll find ahead.”

The remaining men of Gwen’s column gathered at the ford and picked their way carefully through the wreckage of battle. They stared down uncomfortably at the water-softened faces of the dead, stepping over blade-ruined corpses. The horses whickered nervously as they advanced. Many of the dead were familiar, though changed awfully by their time in the river.

“Sir MaeBrun and young squire Hance,” Brennan noted. “And Steffen. There are many ghosts in this river, my lady.”

“Many dead,” she agreed. “What I don’t understand is why they are here, and not beyond.”

“You ordered them to hold the ford. Perhaps they were encircled, and decided to fight their way out.”

“That would require treachery, sir, or incredible luck.” Gwen twisted in her saddle, judging the lay of the dead. “Maybe Halverdt’s men established a shield wall of some sort, and Hogue thought to break it with a charge.”

“If so, it didn’t go well,” Brennan said.

“No,” Gwen answered quietly. “It did not.”

They had yet to find evidence of enemy dead, though the identity of many in the river could not be determined. Gwen ordered her men into a wide crescent as they approached Highbeck.

T
HE RUINS OF
the village were silent.

“Go slowly, building to building,” Gwen ordered. “Expect an ambush.”

There was no ambush. The dead lay in bed or gathered around a cold campfire. A pot of stew congealed over the charred logs of the fire. Some of the bodies showed signs of rapidly donned armor, or held swords or the remains of torches in their lifeless fingers. Their wounds were horrendous, the edges blistered or crushed, as though the flesh had crumbled like ceramic.

Of the enemy there was no sign.

“Demons,” Wellem insisted.

“Gheist,” Brennan said. “Sir Hogue would never have fallen so completely to a mortal enemy.”

“What difference?” the younger knight whined. “We need to get out of here.”

“Patience, Wellem,” Gwen said. She knelt beside one of the bodies that had been next to a fire. The man’s arm had been severed, the edges so clean that even the rings of his mail were cut. Usually such a wound would drive the chain into the flesh, tearing through the skin like a saw, but the sleeve of the dead man’s armor just lay over the wound. No blade was that sharp. “Strange that a gheist would strike here, of all places.”