Swelt smiled. “I’m pleased to hear it. What do you ask of me?”
“I need more men.”
“Why?” said Swelt, frowning until his forehead bulged out over his deep-set eyes.
“The enemy garrison is forty or fifty strong. To be sure of success I need a hundred men — ”
“You can’t take a hundred from here.”
“I wasn’t planning to. Look, Swelt, you know everyone in these parts. Give me introductions to one or two young lords, of a like mind to me. Men who chafe under the yoke of this war and want to strike a blow against the enemy.”
Swelt said nothing for a very long time.
“Is there a problem?” said Rix.
“I advise against it.”
“Why?” cried Rix.
“I can introduce you to several young hotbloods who, according to reputation, would be only too happy to join with you on such a raid. But reputation isn’t reality, and the men with the loudest mouths don’t necessarily make the best allies.”
“As long as they support me with a small number of fighting men — ”
“They might say one thing and do another. They might agree to support you, then go running to the enemy. Or their wives or mistresses might talk them out of it — ”
“Do you think I haven’t thought about that?”
“If you plan to go to war relying on men you don’t know, you haven’t thought about it enough.”
“Just do the introductions. I’ll worry about the quality of the men I’m dealing with.”
Though Rix was forcing their pace to the limit, he dared no light. They had to cover the twenty miles from Garramide to Jadgery and back in darkness, unseen, otherwise the enemy would follow them home. The Cythonians might suspect that the attack came from Garramide, but they must not know.
The track down the escarpment was by turns greasy, a knee-deep bog, and crisscrossed by sharp-edged outcrops. Rix, who had been riding since he was three and was an accomplished horseman, fell twice, and he was the best of them. By the time they reached the bottom two horses had broken their legs and one rider his neck. Rix left the man without a mount to bury the dead man, then walk back up to the mountaintop sentry post.
It was snowing gently as they gathered at the foot of the escarpment. At least one thing was going right.
“We’re down to forty-eight,” said Rix. It was barely enough for the main attack on Jadgery, and only if everything went perfectly, though he wasn’t going to say that.
“Where are the others meeting us, Deadhand?” said Riddum, a lanky, sarcastic man who had been one of Leatherhead’s strongest supporters. Rix thought he could trust him, though he wasn’t absolutely sure he could trust any of them.
“The lord of Bedderlees has sent twenty men. They’ll signal once they’re in place at the rear of the garrison, then set fire to the barracks — ”
“How?” said a voice from the darkness. Rix had no idea who it was.
“They’ll hurl blazing oil bottles onto the roof, each holding enough oil to burn through wet thatch to the dry straw underneath. Yestin’s thirty-five are attacking the right-hand wall. They’re going to send a wagon filled with black powder down the hill into the palisade, aiming to blow a hole through it into the armoury on the other side and destroy their chymical weaponry.”
“What’s our plan?” said Riddum. “I assume you do have one?”
The disrespect was palpable, but the middle of a raid was no time for a lesson. Rix made a note to take the man down once they returned.
“We creep up to the garrison gates and wait for the signals. When the other attacks begin, we storm the gates and take the officers’ quarters. It’s the stone building around to the right. We want to capture their commanding officer, and any other officers we can find.”
“Better to kill them so we can loot the place in peace,” said Riddum.
“Are you leading this raid?” Rix said in a dangerous voice.
“We’re taking our pay in plunder, Deadhand. We’ve got to make sure of it.”
They went at a steady pace through the night, seeing no one on the way. Rix rode absently, trying to imagine all the ways the raid could go wrong and working out what to do about each problem. If the alert was raised before his allies were in position, for instance. Should he attack by himself, or abort the raid? His allies were to signal that they were in place, but in the dark he had no way to modify their orders. The question should have been decided in advance.
He scratched an itch under his chest-plate. He was wearing chest and back armour. It was heavy, ill-fitting and cold as an icicle.
At three in the morning they bypassed the town of Jadgery and walked their horses across a snow-covered field towards the garrison, which lay half a mile beyond the town. From his saddlebags Rix drew the steel gauntlet he’d taken from an old suit of armour. He straightened his dead fingers to slip the gauntlet on and closed its fingers into a fist. It wasn’t as good as a sword in his right hand, but after a blow from his steel fist his opponent would not get up.
“Keep the horses calm,” said Rix. “If one of them whinnies — ”
“We know our business,” growled Riddum. “Most of us were a’raiding when your mummy was still wipin’ — ”
Someone shushed him, which was just as well. Rix was considering knocking him cold and dumping him in the snow.
“Bedderlees and Yestin will signal when they’re in place,” said Rix. “That’ll be in a quarter of an hour, if all goes to plan.”
“You know them?” said Nuddell, a middle-aged raider with no hair and few teeth, a steady fellow who Rix felt he could rely on.
“I met them three days ago. Swelt introduced them as sound men. They seemed solid enough.”
“Folk usually are in the security of their own manors.” Nuddell spat sideways into the snow. “But when the night’s cold and the wife is warm, staying a’bed can seem a better option than going a’raiding. Not that I know these young fellers, Lord.”
Suddenly the night seemed a lot colder. Rix pulled his coat around him. “They gave their word. They’ll be here.”
“I’m just saying, is all.”
The rendezvous time passed, then another quarter of an hour. Neither Bedderlees nor Yestin signalled.
“What’s keeping them?” muttered Rix. His feet were freezing.
“They’re not coming,” said Riddum. “They’ve pulled a swift one on you, Lord.”
“Shut up!” Rix ground out. “There’s still time. We can still do it.”
He swept the area with a pair of night glasses that had been his great-aunt’s. She had used them for studying the planets and they had the finest lenses Rix had seen, but on such a dark night he could see no more than shades of shadow.
“Wait,” he said, focusing on the steep slope up from the right-hand palisade wall, where Yestin’s attack was to take place. “I think I can see movement up there.”
The tiniest light flickered near the top of the slope, just below a crown of trees.
“What the hell are they doing?” said Rix. “The guards are bound to see that.”
“Lighting the fuse to the black powder wagon, I’d say,” said Nuddell.
Rix cursed fervently. Surely they knew enough to light it under cover? Evidently not.
“Tell the men to get ready,” he said to Riddum. “We attack the moment the wagon blows up.”
“What about Bedderlees? If he doesn’t attack the barracks, they’ll all swarm out to the gates.”
“I’m sure he’s in place,” said Rix. He checked through the night glasses again. No signal could be seen from the rear. “All right. They’ve set it moving.”
The clouds parted and a sliver of moonlight revealed the wagon trundling down the slope. But instead of rolling straight towards the wall it was curving around, across the decline. It teetered onto two wheels, then settled back and stopped, halfway down the slope. Dark-clad figures swarmed after it and tried to heave it back in line, though it did not budge.
“What the hell are they doing?” said Rix. “Never seen such incompetence.”