They’d scouted this region cautiously over the last week or two, confirming that the villages in it remained empty. Since the rain had finally eased, though, their scouts had found tracks churned across the mud, indicating that quite a few ghouls had at least passed through it. Nor was that all they’d indicated, unfortunately. Ghouls were scarcely known for tactical or strategic sophistication, yet at least some of those tracks clearly suggested they’d been sending out scouts of their own, keeping an eye on the allied expedition. The possibility that the other side might know more about them than they knew about it for a change wasn’t exactly comforting, but the Sothoii scouting parties had at least turned up sufficient tracks to suggest conclusively where the ghouls had gone. They were gathering along the Graywillow River, a tributary of the Hangnysti about three hundred miles west of its junction with the Spear, which made entirely too much sense from their perspective.
The Graywillow was scarcely two hundred miles long, but it had a lot of small, winding tributaries which drained an extensive, often marshy floodplain, and the main stream was close to seventy yards across where it joined the Hangnysti. That made it a significant water barrier, and the terrain along its course-especially as it neared the Hangnysti-was rough, its banks lined with thick, tangled thickets of the willows from which it took its name. Farther upstream the willows gave way to dense stretches of mixed evergreens and hardwoods which could provide dangerously effective cover for troops as irregular as ghouls…and which would break up the formation of any infantry which tried to go in after them. Taken all together, it was an unfortunately good defensive position. On the other hand, with all the rain which had beset the Ghoul Moor in the last month or two, the Graywillow had to be running high and deep-probably deep enough to be a barrier even for ghouls, if they could catch them between their own advance and the stream.
Beyond the riverline, between the Graywillow and the Spear, a rolling expanse of grasslands stretched east and south almost to the border of the Kingdom of the River Brigands, offering grazing space for enough meat animals to supply an enormous horde of ghouls, assuming any imaginable power could force the ghouls in question into some sort of cooperative effort. Which was a sobering thought, given what appeared to have been happening.
With the information available to him, Trianal had seen no choice but to move down the southern bank of the Hangnysti to the Graywillow. If that was where the enemy was, then that was where they had to go to find him. At the same time, however, he’d stayed within sight of the Hangnysti the entire way, using barges to carry food and fodder. And, with Tharanal’s enthusiastic assistance, he’d turned a score of barges into heavily armored missile platforms, with stout wooden bulwarks pierced by firing slits for arbalesteers and raised firing platforms mounting the much more powerful sort of crew-served ballistae Axeman cruisers mounted. Those “arbalests” threw “quarrels” up to five feet long for as much as four hundred yards, with steel heads capable of driving through a foot and more of solid, seasoned oak. Not even a ghoul would enjoy meeting one of them. And there were even a dozen barges fitted with catapults capable of hurling banefire, the dreadful incendiary compound of the Royal and Imperial Navy. With them to cover his riverward flank-and, for that matter, to provide supporting fire if they had to close with the mouth of the Graywillow-Trianal could afford to concentrate his army’s attention on threats away from the Hangnysti as they moved through the empty, deserted spaces between them and the ghouls’ suspected position.
And it’s no complaint they’d hear out of me if the bastards were never after coming back here, Bahzell thought grimly as he settled back down in the saddle. If they’d sense enough to stay clear of the river and leave us be, then it’s happy enough I’d be to leave them be, in return. But as soon as ever we’ve sent these lads home…
Very few of the men in the expedition would have shared his willingness to let the ghouls alone, and he knew it. For that matter, he had no illusions about the creatures’ willingness to live in peace with any set of neighbors, and he knew it would be no more than a matter of time-and not much of it-before the hradani or the Sothoii would be forced to invade these same lands again to prune back the threat to their borders and their people. Yet however this year’s incursion ultimately worked out, all too many of the men marching and riding about him would be dead or crippled by its close. No number of dead ghouls could truly be an equitable trade for that, and his nerve-eating certainty that something as dark as it was powerful lurked behind the rain and the ghouls’ bizarre activities and tactics made him fear how high the final cost might be.
“Did you ever think that perhaps the smart thing for us to do would be to just go home for the rest of the summer?” Brandark asked lightly from beside him. Bahzell looked at him, and the Horse Stealer shrugged. “I know we have it to do eventually, Bahzell, but do we really have a deadline? We’re not going to be barging anything through here before next year, anyway. Maybe whatever’s been behind all this Phrobus-taken rain would get bored and go away over the winter? I know I’d go away rather than face a Ghoul Moor winter!”
“I’m thinking it’s a mite late to be suggesting such as that, my lad,” Bahzell observed mildly. “And if that’s the way your thought is setting, why, there’s naught to be keeping you here. I’m sure as how Tharanal’s bargemasters would be happy enough to be giving you space aboard, if it should happen you’re so inclined.”
“I was simply pointing out that it would be the smart thing to do,” Brandark replied. “The problem, though, is that doing the smart thing requires the person doing it to be smart.” He shook his head mournfully. “And I, unfortunately, seem to’ve been associating with Horse Stealers too long.” He heaved a vast sigh. “Who would’ve thought that I, of all people, could find myself swept away into foolishness like this by the childlike enthusiasm of a batch of hradani-oh, and let’s not forget the Sothoii! — too stupid to come in out of the rain and the mud?”
“Is that the way of it, then?” Bahzell cocked his ears at his friend, and Brandark shrugged.
“One way to explain it, anyway. And another way”-his tone darkened and his hand dropped to the hilt of his sword-“is to point out that whatever’s out there isn’t likely to go away whatever we do. I’d just as soon deal with it here before we find it moving up the Hangnysti towards Navahk and Hurgrum.” The Bloody Sword smiled grimly. “Call me silly, but I’d rather fight it somewhere none of our women and children are likely to get caught in the slaughter.”
“Aye, there’s something to be said for that,” Bahzell agreed.
He started to add something more, then broke off as a five-man section of Sothoii cavalry swept over the crest of a low ridge perhaps two miles ahead of them and headed towards their main body in a mud-spattering gallop. Hradani had excellent vision, and his ears came up and his eyes narrowed as he peered at them. Then his jaw tightened, Walsharno wheeled under him, and Brandark blinked in astonishment as the courser disappeared in a shower of mud all his own.
“What is it, Bahzell?” Trianal Bowmaster asked sharply as the huge roan half-slid to a halt beside his command group.