No sooner had Grus begun to worry than the other Avornan force appeared, as suddenly as though a fog in front of them had blown away. His own men burst into cheers. The Menteshe, suddenly caught between hammer and anvil, cried out in dismay. They all tried to flee now, shooting over their shoulders as they desperately galloped off.
A lot of the nomads did escape. Grus never had to use his sword. Somehow, none of that mattered much. Many Menteshe lay dead. Looking around, the king could see that his own force hadn’t suffered badly.
Hirundo saw the same thing. “We hurt ’em this time, your Majesty,” the general said, riding up to Grus.
“That’s what we set out to do,” Grus replied, though he knew the Avornans didn’t always do what they set out to do against the Menteshe. “Where’s Pterocles? He kept you hidden, all right.”
“He sure did,” Hirundo said enthusiastically. “Even I didn’t know where we were until just before we got here.” He looked around, then scratched his head. “I don’t know where he’s gotten to now, though.” His shrug might have been apology.
Grus also eyed the field. His men, swords drawn, were moving over it. They plundered the dead Menteshe and cut the throats of the wounded nomads they found. Had the fight gone against them, the invaders would have done the same, though they would have reserved some Avornans for torment before death’s mercy came. Here a trooper held up a fine sword with a glittering edge, there another displayed a purse nicely heavy with coins, in another place a man threw on a fur-edged cape not badly bloodstained.
Several Avornans picked up recurved Menteshe bows. One fitted an arrow to the string, then tried to draw the shaft back to his ear. At the first pull, he didn’t use enough strength. His friends jeered. Gritting his teeth, he tried again. This time, the bow bent. He turned it away from his fellows and let fly. They all exclaimed in surprise at how far the arrow flew.
“There’s the wizard!” Hirundo pointed as Pterocles emerged from a clump of bushes. “I thought the rascal had gone and disappeared himself this time.”
When Grus waved, Pterocles nodded back and made his way toward the king. Grus clasped his hand and slapped him on the back. Pterocles, none too steady on his feet, almost fell over. Holding him up, Grus said, “Well done!”
“Er—thank you, Your Majesty.” Pterocles did not sound like a man who’d just helped win a good-sized victory. He sounded more like one who’d had too much to drink and was about to sick up much of what he’d poured down. His greenish color suggested the same.
“Are you all right?” Grus asked.
Pterocles shrugged. “If you love me, Your Majesty—or even if you hate me, but not too much—do me the courtesy of never asking me to use that masking spell against the Menteshe again.” He gulped, and then ran back into the bushes from which he’d just emerged. When he came out again, his face was deathly pale, but he looked better. He might have gotten rid of some of what ailed him.
“Your spell here helped us win,” Grus said, surprised and puzzled. “Why not use it again?”
“Why not?” The wizard took a deep breath—almost a sob. “I’ll tell you why not, Your Majesty. I was holding the spell against the Menteshe horsemen. Thus far, well and good. Then I was holding it against Ulash’s wizards, which was not such an easy thing, but I managed well enough. But soon I was also holding it against the Banished One—and gods spare me from ever having to do that again.” He sat down on the ground; his legs didn’t seem to want to hold him up anymore.
“But you did it.” The king squatted beside him.
“Oh, yes. I did it.” Pterocles’ voice was hollow, not proud. “He didn’t take the spell seriously, you might say, until too late. By the time he grew fully aware of it and realized it might hurt his followers, it already had. He doesn’t make mistakes twice. He doesn’t make many mistakes once.”
And what would you expect from a foe who was a god? Grus wondered. But Pterocles already knew about that—not all about it, but enough.
“It will be as you say,” Grus promised, and the wizard’s shoulders sagged with relief.
The forest smelled clean and green. When Bang Lanius was in the city of Avornis, he didn’t notice the mingled stinks of dung and smoke and unwashed people crowded too close together. When he left, which wasn’t often enough, the air seemed perfumed in his nostrils. He relished each inhalation and regretted every breath he had to let out. He also regretted having to go back to the capital when this day ended. He knew he would smell the stench he usually ignored.
And part of him regretted letting Arch-Hallow Anser talk him into coming along on another hunt. After the first one the year before, he’d vowed never to go hunting again. But this excursion had promised to be too interesting for him to refuse. For Prince Ortalis also rode with Anser—and the prince and the arch-hallow had quarreled years before Lanius disappointed Anser by being immune to the thrills of the chase.
King Grus, of course, was down in the southern provinces fighting the Menteshe. And yet, though he’d gone hundreds of miles, his influence still lingered over the city of Avornis—and, indeed, over the hunting party. Here were his legitimate son, his bastard, and his son-in-law. Had he not taken the crown, would any of the three younger men even have met the other two? Lanius doubted it. He would have been just as well pleased never to have made Ortalis’ acquaintance, but it was years too late to worry about that.
Some of their beaters were men Anser regularly used in his sport— lean, silent fellows in leather jerkins and caps who slipped through the trees with the silent skill of practiced poachers. The rest were Lanius’ royal bodyguards. The men who served Anser sneered at their jingling mailshirts. The bodyguards pretended not to hear. They were along to protect King Lanius first. If they happened to flush out a stag or a wildcat, so much the better.
Lanius suspected that Anser’s beaters might end up beaten after the hunting party went back to the city of Avornis. The bodyguards, sensitive to the royal mood, didn’t want to spoil the day. But they weren’t used to being mocked, and they had long memories for slights. The men who put Lanius in mind of poachers seemed strong and tough enough, but the royal guardsmen were the best Avornis had.
A sharp, staccato drumming high up in an oak made Lanius’ head whip around. Laughing, Anser said, “It’s nothing—only a woodpecker.”
“What kind?” the king asked. “One of the big black ones with the red crest, or the small ones that are all black and white stripes, or a flicker with a black mustache?”
Anser blinked. Ortalis laughed. “Trust Lanius to know about woodpeckers,” he said. Lanius listened for the malice that usually informed Ortalis’ words. He didn’t hear it. Maybe not hearing it was wishful thinking on his part. Or maybe being married to Limosa agreed with Grus’ son—at least so far. And Lanius didn’t know as much about woodpeckers, or birds in general, as he would have liked to, but he was learning.
The drumming rang through the woods again. One of the soft-moving men in a jerkin said, “Your Majesty, that’s the noise those small, stripy woodpeckers make. The others, the bigger birds, drum more slowly.”
“Thank you,” Lanius said.
“Yes, thank you,” Anser agreed. “I’ve found something out, too. Who would have wondered about woodpeckers?”
“Let’s push on,” Ortalis said. “We’ve still got a lot of hunting ahead of us, woodpeckers or no woodpeckers.”
Anser’s beater vanished among the trees, to drive game back toward the men with rank enough to kill it. Some of Lanius’ guardsmen went with them. More, though, stayed behind with the king. “They take no chances, do they?” Anser said.