Unarmed men, who carried travelling kits across their shoulders. Cold, hungry men, who hugged themselves and stamped their feet to keep warm.
Byren whistled.
The dogs broke off barking and sat, waiting for him. He'd always been good with animals. Had he been better with them since the ulfr pack adopted him?
He put this unnerving thought aside to study the men. They had stiffened when he came into view. He was armed and a head taller than the average man, thanks to his father's blood.
Byren jumped from the upper terrace to the one where they waited.
'We don't want any trouble,' the eldest said. He looked about thirty and had the kind of too-ready smile that Byren distrusted. With him were two much younger men. They looked to be about Fyn's age, maybe sixteen. One was short and skinny, the other a little taller and solid with a thick neck. They were both weary, grey-faced and angry. They hugged themselves as though cold to the bone and did not meet Byren's eyes. No… it was not anger, but fear.
'We're just passing through,' the first said.
'To where? Nothing lies above this farm but steep foothills and, above that, even steeper mountains.' Byren pointed to the west. 'Foenix Pass lies that way.'
As the man glanced over his right shoulder he swayed slightly. They were all exhausted and they had no business here unless they were looking for the loyalist camp. But what was there to stop the Merofynians sending one of their own disguised as a loyalist? He'd only have to speak Rolencian to blend in.
Byren waited.
The first man summoned a weary smile. 'We've come a long way and run out of food. You wouldn't have a bite to eat you could spare us?'
Byren thought of his half-eaten breakfast. This would give him a chance to judge the men's veracity for himself. 'Come this way.'
At his whistle the dogs followed. He put his hands on the thigh-high stonework and swung his weight up to the next terrace, then turned to offer his hand to the closest man.
It was the skinny, short one. As he went to take Byren's hand with his left arm, Byren spotted the bloody stump of his right arm held against his chest.
With a curse, he hauled the youth up. In fact, he pulled so hard, the youth stumbled and Byren had to set him on his feet again.
'What happened to you?' Byren asked, afraid he knew the answer.
'The same thing that happened to all of us,' the smiler said. He wasn't smiling now. He'd managed the climb and had paused to help the solid one, who was struggling. For him the terrace was waist-high.
'Here.' Byren stepped in and hauled the other youth up. Three men, all missing their right hands. 'It was the Merofynians, wasn't it?'
'They're searching the valley for Byren Kingsheir. Every house they come to, they drag out the man of the house and ask for directions. If he can't help them, they chop off his right hand. They figure a man without his right hand is one less swordsman to worry about.' The smiler gestured with his stump. 'I was a player. No more juggling for me.'
'And you?' Byren asked the solid youth.
'A butcher. Just finished my apprenticeship. M'master died so I married his daughter and took over. Now who'll look after the shop?'
Byren looked to the skinny one, the youngest who, on closer inspection, couldn't be more than fifteen.
'I'm a scribe.' He gulped. 'At least I was. What good is a scribe who can't write?'
Anger made Byren's breakfast an indigestible lump in his belly. Unless the Merofynians had crippled one of their own men so he could blend in, Byren could trust these three. 'Come on. You can share my breakfast.'
They followed him up over the rise. From here they could see the farmhouse in the hollow.
'I told you we shoulda kept walking last night,' the butcher complained.
'Eh, just as well you didn't,' Byren told them. 'Last night six mounted Merofynians arrived here. Chopped off the right hand of the man of the house. He was all of thirteen. Then they tied a chain around his neck and told him to lead them to Byren Kingsheir, or they'd do worse to his mam and little brother.'
The butcher swore softly.
'What is Rolencia coming to?' the scribe muttered. 'Where's King Byren when we need him?'
'But, how did you escape? I don't — ' The player broke off, staring at Byren with suspicion. 'You're no farmer. You're too well spoken. Where are these Merofynians? Where were you when the boy was taken?'
'He's safe. The Merofynians are all dead. Couldn't have them running off and leading others back to — '
'You're Byren Kingsheir. I mean King Byren!' the player said, then remembered his manners and made a passable bow, proving he must have performed for nobles.
The other two would have followed suit but Byren stopped them. 'Here, none of that. Come down and eat. Then we have to leave.'
Before long they had rearranged the family's belongings and were mounted up on the spare horses, with the scribe and butcher both looking as uncomfortable as Seela had the night before. The dogs barked, eager to get going. Tomorrow, Byren would send men down to the farm to wring the chickens' necks and walk the cows up to the camp. No sense in leaving anything for Merofynians to loot.
For now, Byren saw his old nurse off with a stern warning to watch her back. She travelled on foot, disguised as a wise-woman selling simple remedies. Wise-women were welcomed in every village. They helped with anything from treating bad teeth to delivering babies. It was the perfect way to spread word of the loyalist camp, the Leogryf's Lair.
Seela nodded to the three maimed men, who waited further up the path with Esfira and Tikhon. 'If those three are anything to go by, I'll have no trouble convincing others to join you.'
'And all of them maimed. I'll lead an army of cripples!'
'Take that attitude and you deserve to lose,' Seela told him, tapping his chest with her finger, as if he was ten, not twenty. 'After a bit of training, a man can do wonders with his left hand.'
He laughed and kissed her forehead. 'I'll miss you, Seela. Take care.'
'Don't worry about me. All they'll see is a weak old woman.'
Byren had to be satisfied with that. He let her go and returned to the others, leading Tikhon's horse.
'Will I see Vadik soon?' Tikhon asked.
'Soon,' Byren said, hoping the big brother had not been brought low by his fever. And he plunged up the path, leading the horse with the others following.
Fyn blinked gritty, tired eyes. He'd hardly slept, kept awake by the juddering of the ship's timbers as the Wyvern's Whelp tried to outrun the Utland raiders. At the crest of each wave she paused almost as if she'd keep rising. Then she slid down the other side, cutting deep into the upward slope of the next — spray leaping left and right — before clawing her way up the wave's rise.
It was just as well he had his sea legs, for the ship ran before the wind with every concertina-sail fully extended. He looked up, seeing the mid-morning sun gleam through the canvas, the sail's thin wooden ribs illuminated from behind.
They'd been prepared to do battle since last night. A brazier stood nearby, the coals hot, ready for the stack of tar-dipped arrows.
Fire on a ship at sea? The thought horrified him. If the ship burned to the waterline, they'd drown out here, far from land.
The quarter-master prodded him in the ribs as he passed by. 'Go help Jaku.'
Jakulos sat at the spinning whetstone, sharpening the crews' weapons.
Fyn went over to the big man, who greeted him with a grin. 'Thought so, Bantam can't abide seeing a man idle.'
He spoke the Ostronite trading dialect with the accent of Merofynia, but Fyn knew he had no love for his homeland. He'd been press-ganged to serve the Merofynian navy. With the big man's shirt off, Fyn could see the many criss-crossing scars stretched across the meaty muscles of his back. The blemishes glistened in the sun, silver and slick with sweat. Here, in the lea of the fore-deck, it was surprisingly warm.