Harlan and Flotron tried to follow orders, but Mocker never accepted thrashings meekly. He got the best of it, briefly, with tricks that would have embarrassed Derran One-Eye. But he got no chance to escape. Kersten carried more weight than avoirdupois. Damhorsters by the dozen piled on. Soon he found himself being hustled to the castle and its dungeon.
There he learned things he feared he would never pass on to Bragi—because the grimmest news was that Kersten had married Baron Breitbarth.
Hour after hour, day after day, he sat on the straw-covered floor and mumbled to himself about his stupidity. When self-pity grew boring, he wondered how Bragi was doing. Well, he trusted. His companions in durance assured him that their turnkeys wouldn't be so tight-lipped and sour were things going the Baron's way.
iv) First blood
"Haaken! Reskird! Close it up! Don't worry about noise. They know we're here. Move it! They're on our ass. Eanred, ask him what's ahead."
"He came from behind."
"He knows the country, doesn't he?"
Tarlson talked with the, scout.
"The lake, he says. A talus beach on the right, narrow, along the lakeside. Hills and some bluffs on the left. Very rugged, bushy country, full of ravines, but not high."
"What about this fog? Is it common? How long will it last?"
Questions and answers, questions and answers. It went so slow. "Haaken. Reskird." He gave orders.
The Trolledyngjan infantry, which had been marching at the rear, began double-timing forward. The Itaskians crowded the edge of the road till they were thoroughly mixed.
"Reskird!" Ragnarson bellowed, "get those horses back. I want contact within the hour." He galloped to the head of the column where Blackfang was replacing the vanguard with heavily armed horsemen. "Hurry it up, damn it. If the Volstokiners knew we were coming, so did Breitbarth. He'll be moving north."
Back down the line he galloped, shouting, "Move it! Move it!" at every officer he saw. Dozens of pale, tense young faces ghosted past in the mist. He saw no smiles now, heard no laughter. It had stopped being an adventure. "Tarlson! Where are you? Stick close. And keep your scout. I want to know when we get to the steepest hillsides." By the time he reached the column's rear, Kildragon and the light horse, with a platoon of bowmen, had faded back.
Soon he had done all he could, and was considering prayer. He had fifteen hundred men sandwiched between two superior, better rested, better trained forces—though as yet he had no idea where Breitbarth was. This was not the easy battle he had wanted for blooding.
Trumpets sounded in the distance. Kildragon had made contact.
On the column's right, only yards away but invisible in the mist, the lake waters lapped gently against the shore.
"Here," Tarlson said at last.
"To your left!" Ragnarson shouted. "Upslope. Move it!"
The soldiers began climbing.
The hills, barely tall enough to be called such, rose above the mist. In the dawnlight Ragnarson arranged his troops in strong clumps on their lakeward faces.
He hoped the mist would not burn off too soon.
Reskird's party soon passed below, invisible, raising a clatter, and moments later were followed by a strong force of cavalry. Ragnarson signaled his officers to hold fire.
The mist had begun to thin by the time the enemy main force moved to where Ragnarson wanted them. He could discern the vague dark shapes of mounted officers hurrying their infantry companies... He gave the signal.
Arrows sleeted into the mist. Cries of surprise and pain answered them. Ragnarson counted a minute, during which thousands of arrows fled his bows, then signaled a charge. The Trolledyngjans led, shaking the hills with their warcries.
Ragnarson leaned forward in his saddle, wearily, and awaited results.
The Volstokiners had been in good spirits, confident of victory. The sudden rain of death had stunned them. They could see no enemies. And while trying to form up over the dead and wounded, the Trolledyngjans hit them like an avalanche of wolves.
The fog cleared within the hour. Little but carnage remained. The surviving Volstokiners had run into the water. Some, trying to swim away, had drowned. Ragnarson's archers were using heads for targets. Trolledyngjans on captured horses were splashing about, chopping heads. The water was scarlet.
"Won't you take prisoners?" Tarlson asked. He spoke not a word of praise.
"Not yet. They'd just go home, re-arm, and come back. I hope this'll put Volstokin out of the picture."
A messenger from Blackfang arrived. The commander of the Volstokin vanguard, some four hundred men, stunned, had asked terms after only a brief skirmish.
"All right," said Ragnarson, "they can have their lives and shoes. The enlisted men. Strip them and send them packing."
I Below, his men, tired of slaughter, were allowing surrender. "Let's see what we've caught." He wanted to get down there before there were disputes over loot. The Volstokiners had even brought a bevy of carts and wagons full of camp followers.
He dismounted and walked slowly through the carnage. His own casualties were few. In places the Volstokiners were heaped. Luck had ridden with him again. He paused a moment beside Ragnar Bjornson—no older than he had been in his first battle—who grinned through the pain of a wound. "Some folks will do anything to get out of walking," Bragi said, resting a hand on the youth's shoulder. Someone had said the same to him long ago.
It was terribly quiet. It always seemed that way afterward, as if the only sound left in the world was the cawling of the ravens.
A dead man caught his eye. Something odd about him. He paused. Too dark for Volstokin. An aquiline nose. Haroun had been right. El Murid had advisers in Volstokin.
He shook his head sadly. This little backwater kingdom was becoming the focus of a lot of intrigue.
Haaken came in with thirty prisoners and hundreds of heavily laden horses. "Got some odd ones here, Bragi," he said, indicating several dusky men.
"I know. El Murid's. Kill them. One by one. See if the weakest will tell you anything." The remainder he had herded together with officers already captured.
Volstokin had lost nearly fifteen hundred men while Bragi had had sixty-one killed. Had his people been more experienced, he thought, even fewer would have been lost. It had been a perfect ambush.
"What now?" Tarlson asked.
"We bury our dead and divide the spoils."
"And then? There's still Lord Breitbarth."
"We disappear. Got to let the men digest what they've done. Right now they think they're invincible. They've got to realize they haven't faced a disciplined enemy. And we'll need time to let the news spread. May swing some support to the Queen."
"And to Lord Breitbarth. Hangers-back would join him to make sure of you. They've got to keep the Crown up for grabs."
"I know. But I want to avoid action for a few weeks. The men need rest and training. Haaken! See the Marena Dimura get shares." He had noticed the scouts, as ragged and bloody as any of his troops, lurking about the fringes, eyeing plunder uncertainly. One, who was supposed to be a man of importance, seemed enthralled by a brightly painted wagon filled with equally painted but terrified women. "Give the old man the whore wagon."
That proved a providential act. It brought him warning, next day, of a party of Breitbarth's horses ranging far ahead of the Baron. In a brisk skirmish he took two hundred prisoners, killed another hundred, and sent the remainder to their commander in a panic. Tarlson said Breitbarth relied heavily on his knights and was a cautious sort likely to withdraw after the setback. He did so. And more barons rallied to Damhorst. Breitbarth's force swelled to three thousand.