By now others were listening to this public discussion of what ought to be a private matter. There were curses and a few mutterings about “desert horse-(obscenities).”
Pirvan raised his voice. “It will have to be that way, or the Gryphons may leave. Certainly honor will demand that they fight a separate battle. We can’t have that.” It was a piece of advice for the archers of Lauthin the Loud as well, if they were within hearing.
“Very well,” Krythis called. “I will tell Tharash.”
“Do that,” Pirvan said. “Wait a moment, and I’ll come down and see to the well. I’m not as young as I was, but I should still be better underground than anybody save a dwarf.”
Haimya’s voice hissed in his ear. “You will do no such thing. First, because you now command here, and your life is not your own. Second, because you are clad like a new-born babe.”
“The best garb for digging wells, or so I have heard,” Pirvan said. Then he turned, and almost fell into Haimya’s embrace.
She was shaking, but stopped when she felt and heard him laughing. “I still have the dagger, if you do not tell me the jest.” But it was not the hand that held the dagger that touched him.
Pirvan managed to put into words the absurdity of discussing the matter of command in a besieged fortress while crouched unclad in a keep window, with a half-elven lord standing in a similar state ankle-deep in mud from an ensorcelled well.
By the time he finished, Haimya was at least smiling. “Although if the absurd is the worst that befalls Belkuthas before this is over, we shall all be very lucky,” she replied.
“Too true. Now, for the love of the True Gods, let me get dressed. I have to go down to the courtyard at least, if not down the well. I have to start my command here with a little dignity!”
Chapter 13
The road of honor was anything but clearly marked. Anything other than caution would be a folly that would make the name Sir Lewin reek down through the ages in the chronicles of the Knights of Solamnia.
Upon joining what seemed to be the main body of the march to Belkuthas, Sir Lewin immediately regretted his remarks to Sir Esthazas.
He was unnerved not only by the rumored presence of Sir Pirvan and his companions at Belkuthas, nor the equally rumored presence of elves of some exalted rank (some rumors claimed even King Maradoc himself). The first would be a problem, the second perhaps a problem or an opportunity, but Sir Lewin could live with both.
What he could not live with-perhaps literally-was the “host” in whose ranks he now found himself. He could not deny that he was endangering those he led by keeping company with Zephros’s army, now swollen to nearly a thousand. At least he was endangering them as long as he did not assume command and try to delay the assault on Belkuthas until those thousand men knew more of war.
There were in truth many valiant, skilled, and well-armed men among the thousand. But they obeyed twenty different captains, with Zephros their commander only in name. It took half a day to agree on what was needed for some companies, abundant in others, and stolen and bartered almost everywhere.
Lewin finally worked his way around the camps to Luferinus, who seemed to know the most. The knight had to be cautious in dealing with Luferinus, who was the recognized leader among those sell-swords who would do anything for the glory of the kingpriest and the injury of the lesser races. He was not universally loved; the rumors of his having a pet mage did not help. Nor had Lewin come all this way to cut his own throat by so openly aiding the kingpriest’s cause that the knights would have to bring him before a tribunal.
Still, the meeting with Luferinus was not without value. It became plain that Zephros could be a weapon in the hands of anyone who left him the glory of command. For now, Luferinus was wielding him.
But the chance of battle could alter that. Lewin was not quite sure if he should give chance a helping hand; there was that mage to think about. But he resolved to meet privately and secretly with Zephros as soon as he could arrange it.
Of course, the whole question might be settled on the morrow by a victory at Belkuthas-although the last march to the citadel did not make Lewin hopeful.
The plan was to finish the march by daylight, camp just out of sight of Belkuthas at nightfall, then march at first light and attack once the sun was up. A night attack or even a night march were assumed, quite correctly, to be well beyond the power of this motley host.
The march actually began around noon. By the time the shadows lengthened, the army was barely halfway to Belkuthas, and scouts from the citadel had long since sighted them. Attempts by mounted sell-swords to drive off the scouts had led to skirmishing, in which the only casualties were a round dozen of horses and a centaur accidentally shot by one of Zephros’s archers.
By nightfall, they were hardly farther along. They made camp wherever they could, a cold, thirsty, and hungry camp. Lewin offered the service of his men to at least keep Belkuthan scouts from slitting the throats of sleeping men, and even Esthazas agreed that honor demanded it.
The offer was accepted. Lewin and his men spent a sleepless night guarding men who were not their comrades, who would hardly be fit to fight at all on the morrow, and who would have a wearying march on what promised to be a hot morning, even to reach the battlefield.
The only consolation was a rumor (ah, those rumors!) that someone had poisoned, or filled in, or boiled away, the only well within the walls of Belkuthas.
From below came a continuous scrape, thump, and clatter. New refugees hauled loads into the huddled encampment. Dwarves piled more stones onto the walls of the crowded pen. (The kitchen gardens of the citadel would be well fertilized for the rest of the year.)
With buckets and basins, barrels and bottles, and everything else that would hold water, every able-bodied person among the citadel’s defenders not otherwise occupied was hauling water from the two wells beyond the inner citadel. That had been Pirvan’s first order when he reached the courtyard. He had hauled the first bucket himself.
Now the last scout had ridden in, reporting that the attack would come in the morning.
Lauthin and his archers had barricaded themselves in the base of one of the towers. No one cared to try to get them out. What they would do when the fighting began, no one knew.
All those who would listen to orders had received them. Pirvan had even found time to console Eskaia, who was drawn and blinking back tears at the thought of being a widow before she was a wife. The knight had the sense not to console her with the notion that Hawkbrother’s wounds would keep him out of the fighting.
At last, Pirvan climbed the walls, where he found Grimsoar One-Eye.
“Hello, old thief,” Grimsoar said. “Pull up a piece of stone and sit down.”
Pirvan did so gladly. They stared off at the dark bulk of forest beyond the moonlit open ground. Pirvan thought he saw a spark of fire, but doubted any attackers were that far advanced, or any refugees that far behind.
“A long road from the sewers of Istar, eh?” Grimsoar said.
“Not so long, considering what we’ve found along it. I would walk it again, even if I had other choices.”
“Aye. You found her early on. A pity I came so late to Serafina.”
“Old friend, when you and I were thieves in Istar, Serafina was a baby.”
“I know. It’s not that I’m complaining, but-well, I’d rather we’d started our own babe before this all began.”
“Serafina might have broken your head, thinking it was a trick to leave her behind. I know Haimya came close to breaking mine when she learned she was carrying Gerik just before we were to leave on a certain matter.”
“I don’t doubt it. Well, we could both have done worse. Still, a man does like to leave behind him something that won’t die with his last friend.”