Rhapsody took the hand that rested on her face and kissed it, then bent and kissed the general’s cheek.
“Thank you, Anborn. Are you staying in Haguefort for a while?”
“A short while, long enough to undo the miserable lessons my useless nephew has been giving the young duke. That boy doesn’t even know how to spit properly; it’s a crime.”
Rhapsody laughed. “Oh good. Well, I’m sure he will be a whole new man when we return.”
“Count on it. I may not be here to welcome you home, alas. You know how much I dislike staying in one place for too long.”
She nodded. “Yes. I will miss you, as always.”
The general waved a hand at her. “Go. The caravan was almost ready when I came out here an hour or more ago. They are doubtless waiting for you. Travel well.”
He waited until she had disappeared over the rim of the hill before he spoke.
“And, as always, I will miss you, too.”
Achmed marveled at how quietly the Bolg had assembled.
The caravan to Yarim had been stocked and made ready during the night, so as not to disrupt the morning muster or early maneuvers; the work had been accomplished in virtual silence, impressive because the wagons with the drill bits and gears were seven yards long, with four axles each, weighty, cumbersome equipment that clanked and groaned under the best of circumstances. It was a tribute to Grunthor’s training and the natural grace of the Firbolg body, made flexible and stealthy by necessity.
Despite the efficiency of their actions, the king could see that the Bolg who had been selected to travel to Yarim were nervous.
The scars from the centuries-old tradition of Spring Cleaning still remained, four years after he had taken the throne, a hideous annual ritual in which the Orlandan army, drunk on power and better armed and trained, came to the foothills of the Teeth and laid waste to a Bolg village, thinking that their bloodthirsty actions were keeping the demi-human population in check and preventing the cannibalistic hordes from attacking the border provinces of Bethe Corbair and Yarim.
In their haste to destroy and hurry home, the soldiers of Roland had seemed to miss the fact that the site of their devastation was the same every year. The Bolg manipulated the situation masterfully; a ramshackle village was hastily constructed and populated with the castoffs of the semi-nomadic society—the old, the infirm, the sickly. The solution, to his mind, was pragmatic and clever; it kept the herd stronger, while appeasing the bloodlust of Roland, and prevented them from coming deeper into the Teeth where the Bolg really lived. The deception had been the convincing factor to Achmed that this populace, the race of his unknown father’s people, was worth his effort to protect.
From horseback he could see them now in the light of dawn, gathering their foodstuffs and weapons, hitching the dray horses to the wagons—oxen might have been better, but would never have survived in the Teeth. Bolg didn’t care for the taste of horseflesh, and could be threatened into treating the animals as transportation, not food, unlike the four unfortunate teams of experimental oxen he had purchased from Bethe Corbair a few years back. He still occasionally saw Bolg pass him in the tunnels, their crude headpieces sporting the bovine’s horns, usually just one from the center of the forehead or sprouting from their heads atop a helmet. He had once even seen one adorning a lesser commander’s codpiece, and muttered a silent apology to the late ox.
So for all that the human inhabitants of Yarim would no doubt tremble at the sight of a cohort of the Firbolg army approaching from the east, they could hardly be as unsettled by it as the Bolg were at the thought of entering into the heart of the former enemy’s territory in a small, sparsely guarded group. They had more justifiable reason to worry, in his opinion.
The ground rumbled to his right, and Grunthor appeared atop Rockslide.
“Oi think we are ready to depart, sir,” the giant said.
Achmed nodded and turned to Rhur, who wore an apprehensive expression, noticeable in the gray light. Since the aspect usually seen on Bolgish faces was taciturn, it was especially unsettling.
“As ordered, look to Omet for guidance in matters of Gurgus, and to Ha-graith in administrative ones,” he said. “If there is something about which you are uncertain, await my return.” The Bolg artisan nodded.
Achmed took up the reins, signaled to the quartermaster, then urged the horse forward until he was at the head of the supply column. He cleared his throat.
“Ready?”
The dark faces and hirsute heads nodded silently.
“Very well, then. We’ll be in and out quickly, so as not to have to endure these people any longer than absolutely necessary. Fall out.”
With a grinding scream of wood, the noise of the animals, and a flash of the summer sun on the blue-black steel of the drill bit, covered a moment later in canvas, the Bolg engineers set forth for the red clay of Yarim.
The seneschal could hear the sailors calling to each other from the riggings of the Basquela, even over the bellow of the sea wind.
“Point o’ No Return, Cap’n!”
“Point o’ No Return! All hands hoay!”
The shout was picked up by a dozen voices, then a score, then two score, passed all around the decks like the warning of wildfire or flood.
Fergus, the seneschal’s reeve, stood up from the sea chest on which he sat and motioned to the armsmen the seneschal had brought from Argaut to gather abaft the mainmast. A man of few words, Fergus communicated largely in a lexicon of terrifying growls, grunts, and snorts, but in the building gale he resorted to sweeping arm gestures and a black glower.
The seneschal grabbed for a nearby stay and clutched the mouse, the metal ball on the stay’s collar. The Prime Meridian, the invisible line that sundered the sea and was said to have been the exact place where Time began, was the fabled Point of No Return, where a ship might pass silently and without incident, or be caught and scuttled by an errant crosscurrent; worse, the wind had been known to suddenly die down, becalming the ship on the open sea. It was the place that sailors dreaded, but were forced to brave on any circumnavigation. The metal under his hands was slippery and cold in the salt spray and stiff wind.
“Ease the ship,” the pilot shouted to the helmsman. “We’re gonna close-haul ’er.”
Clomyn and Caius, the seneschal’s trusted crossbowmen, staggered to their feet, looking for a place to grab hold and ride out the crossing of the meridian. Twins whose hearts beat in unison, and whose skill with their weapons was unmatched in all of Argaut, the brothers had been green since leaving port, and now lumbered, pale, as their stomachs rushed into their mouths.
“Bear a-hand, mates!” the captain called, steadying himself. ” Tis a heavy sea today; look alive. Warp her, or we’re gonna be all in the wind.”
The ship’s crew, long accustomed to braving the Point, scrambled aloft or manned their posts, preparing for a violent ride. The heave of the sea was strong, slapping high waves over the sides, drenching the armsmen in the seneschal’s regiment.