Gregoric nodded and the others did the same. It pleased Rudolfo that none of them worried about him entering the field. It meant they understood him and respected him as a soldier and a general.
“Very well,” Rudolfo said. He turned toward his aide. “And afterward,” he said, “I will dine with the men.”
Two hours later, Rudolfo hid in the copse of trees surrounded by magicked scouts. He sat on his horse
but the scouts around him were on foot. Their magicks would move them at nearly the speed of a horse and hide them from the eye. But at those speeds they would not be quiet. They would sound like wind rushing across the ground.
Gregoric looked at Rudolfo. “General, would you give the whistle?”
Rudolfo smiled and nodded. “For Windwir, my Gypsy Scouts,” he said quietly, and then whistled, low and long.
He kicked his horse alive and bolted toward the Entrolusian infantry encamped in the forest across the meadow, smiling at what they would see.
A horse, a single rider galloping forward with a narrow sword lifted high in the air. Around him, a wind low to the ground and roaring towards them.
He lowered himself on the back of his horse, holding his sword low and across the stallion’s dark side. He heard his Gypsy Scouts around him, catching slight glimpses of the ones nearest-though very slight.
They raced the meadow, entering the woods at breakneck pace. A few magicked Delta Scouts shouted because there wasn’t time to send up birds. Rudolfo assumed one must’ve decided to brave the rushing, invisible river because he heard the briefest clash of steel and a magick-muffled scream. The first of the Entrolusian soldiers rallied to that shouting, and Rudolfo rode straight into the center of them, Gypsy Scouts mowing over them like a wind of blades. Rudolfo turned then and rode back, laughing and waving his sword. He chose a man and rode him down, then took the ear off his sergeant.
“Where’s your captain?” Rudolfo shouted.
The sergeant sneered and lunged forward with his sword, drawing a line of blood along the horse’s side. Rudolfo kicked him back and brought the sword down on his neck. The sergeant fell, and Rudolfo whipped the sword over and took the ear off another sold cf abroier. “Where’s your captain?”
The soldier pointed, and Rudolfo put the sword through his upper arm. He’d not fight in this war again, but he’d have his life for his respect.
Rudolfo spun the horse and rode in the direction the man had pointed.
It did not surprise Rudolfo that Sethbert’s worst and weakest were out for this particular battle. It was wired into the Academy to use the worst resources first as a gauge of your opponent. It also told the farmers at home they, too, could die heroic deaths.
He found the captain standing with three soldiers and an aide. The ground moved around him strangely, giving the Delta scouts away, but Rudolfo let his own contingent take care of them.
He slid from the saddle and killed one of the soldiers. One of his scouts-he thought it might be
Gregoric-slipped in and killed the other two.
The Entrolusian captain drew his sword and Rudolfo slapped it down and aside. “They send me children,” he said, gritting his teeth.
The captain growled and brought the sword up again. Rudolfo parried, then stepped to the side and went in with his knife to slice at the sword hand.
The captain’s sword clattered to the ground, and Rudolfo pointed his own sword at the aide. “Ready your general’s bird.” He nodded to the captain. By now, at least six Gypsy Scout blades pressed in
against the shaking captain. “You will write Lysias a message in B’rundic script.”
The aide drew a bird and passed a scrap of paper and a small inking needle to the captain. The captain swallowed, his face pale. “What shall I write?”
Rudolfo stroked his beard. “Write this: Rudolfo has slain me.” The man looked up, confused. Rudolfo whistled, and a knife tip pricked the young man’s neck. “Write it.”
He wrote the message and passed it to Rudolfo, who inspected it. He handed it to the aide and watched him tie it to the sea crow’s foot. After the bird launched, he pushed his sword into the captain and climbed back into his saddle.
“For Windwir,” he said again, and turned back to join his men.
Then, for the next nine hours, Rudolfo helped his Wandering Army send that first message in blood to the man who had snuffed out the light of the world.
Petronus
Petronus skirted the ruined city and followed the river south. Three or four leagues downriver from the shattered and blackened stubs that had once anchored Windwir’s piers, Petronus remembered a small town. Once he reached it, he’d recruit what men-or even women-that he could and return to begin his work.
It would be months, he realized, and the rains would be upon them sooner than that. Not far on its heels, the wind and the snow of a northern winter. With the Androfrancines gone, there’d be no one to magick the river. Some years it froze. Some years it didn’t. But with the Androfrancines gone, there’d be no need to go upriver with any frequency.
Petronus rode his horse along the bank, careful to keep from the forest. The first battle of the war had gone late into the night-he’d heard bits of it as he’d ridden south-and from time to time, during the
day, he saw the birds lifting and speeding off carrying whatever word they carried. He’d also listened to it as he lay in his fireless camp and tried to sleep, before rising early to silence and morning fog.
As he rode in the quiet of the day, Petronus wondered about this new war and what had started it.
The Entrolusians would easily outnumber the Wandering Army, but if Rudolfo was his father’s son, he’d be fierce and swift and ruthless.
He was less clear why they were fighting, but wasn’t willing to stop and ask, either. It had to do with Windwir, but just what eluded him. Neither of those two armies had anything to do with the city’s destruction-that was something the Androfrancines had done to themselves, meddling with what they had no business meddling with.
Still, Rudolfo and Sethbert would have their piss together and see who could go the farthest.
His horse started, jerking its head and frisking. Petronus felt a hand on his thigh, and realized that invisible hands held his horse by the bit. “Where are you going, old man?”
A face stretched up and the light hit it in a way that Petronus could barely see its outline. Magicked scouts. But which?
“South to Kendrick Town,” he said, nodding in that direction. “I’ve business there.”
“Where do you come from?”
Petronus wasn’t sure how to answer. Caldus Bay was too far for any citizen to have reasonable business so far away. He glanced back over his shoulder, taking in the black expanse of Windwir. “I was bound for Windwir on Androfrancine business,” he said. “But when I arrived, there wasn’t anything left of it. I just thought any survivors would have headed south.”