“It depends how much fighting you see. Is it possible that we could arrange to pay in installments once we see how much of a bonus you’ve earned?”
“That’s no’ the way ’tis done,” he replied, shaking his head. “Usually our employer’s t’set aside a provisional sum with some countinghouse or another. After all, if we fight an’ lose, an employer might no’ be able to pay the agreed upon bonus. An’ if we fight an’ win, employers sometimes forget that there’s a bonus t’be paid.”
“We don’t have thousands of crowns to leave in a countinghouse right now, Master Ironthane.”
The dwarf shrugged. “Then I don’t see how t’help you, Lady Kara. I like you, I truly do. We’ve killed a lot o’ orcs together, we have. But as I see it you’ve got long odds against you, and it’s all too likely I’ll no’ see my pay.”
Kara’s stomach sank. She needed the Icehammers! She crossed her arms and paced away, trying to come up with some argument, some enticement, that might sway Ironthane. Beyond the troops drilling in the field before her, the false battlements of Lasparhall glistened under their dusting of new fallen snow. She gazed at the old manor, thinking furiously … and something came to her. She looked back to Kendurkkel and said, “How about Lasparhall? The manor and the land must be worth ten thousand crowns or more. It’ll be our security for your fee.”
The dwarf raised an eyebrow, but he turned to look at the house. “I’m no’ certain what I might do with a manor,” he muttered.
“Sell it, use it as quarters for your company, or keep it for your own. I imagine that someday you might want to retire comfortably,” said Kara. Of course, if their attempt to retake Hulburg failed, that would leave the Hulmasters landless as well as penniless; there was literally nothing else to fall back on. Even Geran might have hesitated to make such an offer. Well, he wasn’t here to offer some better answer to the challenge of securing the Icehammers for the spring campaign. This was the only thing she could think of that might hook Ironthane in the absence of hard coin waiting for him in some trusted countinghouse. “If we fail, the place is yours. If-when-we defeat Marstel, then I’d like the opportunity to buy the deed back from you. But if we can’t, you’ll have Lasparhall to show for your troubles.”
Kendurkkel replaced his pipe between his teeth, studying the lay of the land around the field. “It’s a fair piece o’ land,” he finally admitted. “I’ll be needin’ some assurance that th’ lord o’ Thentia would let the property change hands if it comes to it. But, if that’s all well, then yes, I agree. We’ll take your contract.”
“Excellent!” Kara repressed a sigh of relief; she didn’t need the mercenary captain to see anything but complete confidence on her part. “Your quarters will be ready in two or three days. I mean to drill hard for the next few tendays, so your soldiers’ll be hard at it for a while.”
“That’s as it should be,” Kendurkkel said. “A bored soldier’s a trouble waitin’ to happen. I’ll have me boys begin the packin’ up directly.” He stuck out his hand, and Kara took it forearm-to-forearm in the dwarven manner. The mercenary nodded in approval and grinned around his pipe. “It’ll be good t’ work with you again, Lady Kara. I go.”
“We’ll speak again soon.” Kara watched the dwarven mercenary climb back into his mule’s saddle and ride off, then returned her attention to the companies wheeling and turning in the field before her. The sergeant’s sharp voices carried over the snowy ground, and from time to time one company or another gave a sudden shout in response. They’re good troops, far better than the foreign blades who make up Marstel’s army, she told herself. The question was whether she had enough of them … and with the Icehammers, she thought she had an answer.
She motioned for her standard-bearer, a young Hulburgan soldier named Vossen, to join her. The sergeant trotted over, the Hulmaster banner fluttering from his stirrup. “Aye, Lady-Captain?” he said.
“My compliments to the captains of the shields, and Sergeant-Major Kolton. Carry on with the day’s drills, and join me with the House War Council in the upper library at four bells this afternoon.”
“Yes, my lady,” Sergeant Vossen replied. The soldier saluted, striking his right fist to his breastplate, and rode down into the drillfield in search of the captains as Kara turned Dancer and cantered back up to the manor. She’d been thinking of the campaign to come since the day the Hulmasters and their Shieldsworn had been driven out of Hulburg. It was time to set events in motion.
A little before four bells, Kara waited for the House War Council to gather in Lasparhall’s fine old library. It was a broad, sunlit room on the upper floor of the manor’s west wing, and for the next few tendays, she intended to use it as her headquarters. A large map showing the lands lying between Thentia and Hulburg hung in the middle of one wall; a great table of gleaming dark mahogany was set up in the center of the room. The banquet hall in the middle of the manor was a larger room, but Kara preferred one that she could lock up and keep guarded without rendering half the house inaccessible.
She busied herself with reading through a small handful of correspondence that Master Quillon had given her earlier in the morning as the chief commanders of the Shieldsworn and the family’s key advisors filed in. First came the shield-captain Merrith Darosti, a sturdy woman of thirty who wore mail much like Kara’s and carried her bold red hair in a long braid. Sergeant Kolton, who looked distinctly uncomfortable at the idea of participating in the officers’ council, followed a step behind her; since he was one of the most experienced sergeants remaining in the ranks of the Shieldsworn, Kara had promoted him to head of the House Guard. Brother Larken, a tall young friar in a brown robe adorned with the yellow sunburst of Amaunator, filed into the room next. Behind Larken two former members of the Harmach’s Council made their way into the room and took their places: Deren Ilkur-formerly the keeper of duties-and Theron Nimstar, who’d been Hulburg’s high magistrate. Neither man was a fighter, but they had good minds and broad experience in running civic affairs. Bringing up the rear of the procession came the stockman Nils Wester, who’d brought more than a hundred Hulmaster loyalists from his Spearmeet company into exile rather than submit to Marstel’s rule. The assorted clerks and seconds for the council members took their own places in the row of chairs along the wall.
“It seems we’re all here,” she observed to Quillon. She handed the letters back to the old halfling, and adjusted the saber hanging in its scabbard by her hip. Since the assassins’ attack on Lasparhall, Kara had made a habit of wearing her arms almost every waking hour. Today she wore her light kit-a shirt of fine mail over a knee-length skirt of reinforced leather and half-greaves, all beneath a surcoat of quartered blue and white much like that worn by any Shieldsworn. She didn’t intend to be caught off guard by Hulburg’s enemies again. Unlike the soldiers’ coats, Kara’s featured a griffon of blue and gold embroidered on the upper left quadrant-the insignia of House Hulmaster, which was only worn by a member of the family under arms.
She approached her place at the head of the table. “Good day, gentlemen,” she said. With a scraping of wooden chair legs on the flagstone floor, the men and women in the room rose to their feet as she took her seat. “Please, be seated.” Her officers and advisors sat down again and turned their attention to her, waiting for her to speak.
Kara regarded them evenly as she organized her thoughts. This was more properly Geran’s task, not hers; it was frankly reckless and irresponsible of him to hare off to Hulburg and play at being a spy or assassin when there was serious work for the head of the household to look after in Thentia. It wasn’t entirely outside her experience-after all, Harmach Grigor had trusted her to lead Hulburg’s small army with hardly any guidance at all-but as the only Hulmaster in Lasparhall, she was more than the commander of the Shieldsworn. All of House Hulmaster’s interests and concerns were now in her hands, whether they were political, diplomatic, or simply administrative. She’d tried to convince Geran that she needed his help on those fronts, but her cousin had simply said, “I have complete confidence in you, Kara; you’ll manage better than I would,” as if that was sufficient answer to her worries. Part of her understood that Geran’s work in Hulburg could very well be just as important as her work in Thentia, especially if it brought hundreds of oppressed Hulburgans into the loyalists’ ranks. But it was even more clear to her that Geran was hazarding the fortunes of the whole Hulmaster family along with his own life by carrying on as if he were nothing more than the rootless adventurer he’d been for so long. If he managed to get himself killed, she’d be the only Hulmaster who could carry on the fight … and the burden of leadership would fall completely on her shoulders, with no hope of reprieve for decades.