Blood in the Water (10 page)

“Watch the Carluse militia,” Evord said quietly.

The companies in black and white livery drawn up between the mercenary regiment on the duke’s right flank and the hired companies in the centre were edging forwards. A flurry of irate horn calls slowed them. Their standards wavered, irresolute. Some began to return to their places, only to halt in confusion. The mounted forces drawn up at the duke’s right hand had already moved to hold the ground left unguarded by the Red Hounds’ intemperate advance.

The Red Hounds had very nearly closed with the Longshanks. Only Evord’s mounted mercenaries weren’t waiting in reserve on that side of the battlefield. They were charging right into the Red Hounds’ flank. Even above the din, Tathrin heard screams of agony cut short by merciless swords.

As the Red Hounds stumbled backwards, the riders wheeled away. Tathrin recalled Captain-General Evord insisting that this time the mounted mercenaries stay horsed as long as they possibly could.

Now the Longshanks charged forwards, more banners following. Evord’s left-hand regiment cut through the scattered Red Hounds to lay into the other Carluse mercenary companies opposite across the grassy ride. Carluse’s archers gave up their volleys. The risk of killing their own men was just too great.

The rebellion’s archers had no such problems, still raining lethal shafts down on Duke Garnot’s waiting regiments. In the centre Juxon’s Raiders now led a steady advance, all the following banners still in disciplined ranks.

Tathrin wondered who Juxon had been. Now the company was led by a disconcertingly handsome woman called Jifelle.

“Here they come.” Evord’s satisfaction was tinged with something Tathrin couldn’t identify. Sorrow? Regret?

Duke Garnot’s army was advancing, unwilling to endure any more of the rebellion’s arrows. Counting their standards, Tathrin tried to guess at their numbers. More than three thousand? Then Carluse had as many foot soldiers as Evord and the militia were armed with halberds. Could the polearms’ greater reach give the Carluse men a decisive advantage over more experienced swordsmen?

Battle was now well and truly joined between the rebellion’s mercenaries and the Carluse militia in the centre. Carluse’s men were learning that their halberds only served them as long as they kept the enemy beyond the point of the vicious blade. As the mercenaries dodged and stepped inside the flailing poles, their swords ripped into leather and flesh.

Meaningless insults taunted foes who couldn’t hear, intent on their own killing and survival. Banners swayed and shifted, warriors gathering around them before charging shoulder to shoulder. As the slaughter ebbed and flowed, voids came and went, briefly revealing trampled grass stained with blood, corpses motionless among fallen weapons and severed limbs, the wounded writhing.

A gust of wind swept up the stink of slaughter. Tathrin gagged on the acrid mix of blood and sweat, piss and shit, crushed greenery and churned-up mud. Then the breeze shifted and all he smelled was spicy gorse. Where did that come from?

“Those bastard Spearmen need a kick up their arses.” The Tallyman glowered at the right flank of the rebellion’s army. “Shall I ride to warn the captain of Nyer’s?”

Tathrin saw a green standard with a broken spear retreating. Captain Vendist had formed his new company only that spring, Gren had said, and the other captains were trading wagers on how long his standard would fly.

“Hold your ground,” Evord told the Tallyman.

It was too late to warn Nyer’s Watchmen. Tathrin saw their blazon, a grey tower on a black flag, forced back, lest they get cut off. He caught his breath. The Wyvern Hunters’ creamy flag with its black-winged beast came up behind the Spearmen.

“Captain-General!” A galloper hurried up, his horse tossing its head. “Your orders for the reserve on the right?”

The anxious man pointed at Duke Garnot’s horsemen. They were moving slowly down from the ridge. Tathrin looked at the wavering line below, then glanced back over his shoulder and his apprehension turned to sick certainty. Evord’s reserve was too far away.

If Duke Garnot’s riders charged into battle, they would hit the Spearmen before the rebellion’s reserve could reach them. If Evord’s mounted force moved first, trying to reach the mêlée to reinforce the Spearmen, their path would be blocked by Duke Garnot’s riders. Whoever moved first, Carluse had the advantage.

Tathrin counted the mounted companies’ banners drawn up around Duke Garnot’s standard. Ten of them, just the same as the captain-general. He swallowed, his throat dry as ashes.

Evord smiled. “The captains of horse have their orders. I see no reason to change them.”

The only horsemen that Tathrin could see fighting were on the far side of the battlefield. Evord’s second mounted regiment, re-formed after breaking the Red Hounds’ advance, were now laying into the duke’s horsemen there as they tried to hold their army’s flank behind the Moonrakers.

Once again, Tathrin smelled freshly cut gorse and could see no reason for it.

Then, as the duke’s horsemen were forced back, Mountain Men erupted from the trees on the ridge. They thrust rough-hewn poles and lacerating gorse boughs between the horses’ legs, under their tender bellies. Dodging around their hindquarters, they slashed mercilessly at their hocks.

“That’s a good use for the shortarses,” the Tallyman murmured with approval.

Tathrin swallowed bile burning his throat. Horses were collapsing, hamstrung, gutted, screaming with agony. Tears stung his eyes. Men had chosen to be in this battle. Those poor beasts hadn’t.

Carluse’s riders twisted and hacked at their blond assailants. Some leaned perilously out of their saddles. Others jumped down to fight hand-to-hand, ready to take on the Mountain Men with their greater height and longer swords.

Now horses were stumbling on grass suddenly slick beneath their hooves. Some riders fell with their mounts. Those trapped by a pinned leg were swiftly killed by Mountain swords. Others died crushed by their hapless steeds’ death throes.

Tathrin’s chest tightened. There’d been no rain for days and he could see no sign of a spring on the slope.

Yellow-haired men lay dead on the ground, some cleanly decapitated by a rider’s deft sword. Others were felled by some horse’s brutal kick, faces crushed, ribs shattered.

Evord was issuing brisk orders, writing on scraps of paper, sending gallopers hither and yon. His whole army was advancing across the grassy sward now, driving the entire Carluse line back.

Tathrin saw that the Spearmen had rallied, marching shoulder to shoulder with the Wyvern Hunters. Behind the advance, the rebellion’s archers were already busy among the fallen. Wounded comrades were swiftly carried somewhere to the rear of Evord’s retinue. Any enemy still breathing had his throat cut, his body looted.

“Militia,” the Tallyman said with contempt. “Soft as shit and twice as useless.”

Carluse’s black-and-white-liveried ranks were breaking in utter confusion. Men were fleeing the battle, casting halberds and standards aside. Evord’s mercenaries, led by Juxon’s Raiders, let them run. Guiltily relieved, Tathrin hoped some of those husbands and fathers might get safely back to their families.

Then he realised Evord’s army wasn’t particularly interested in showing mercy. With the militia fled, they could concentrate their wrath on the Carluse mercenaries still holding the centre of the line. As he watched, he saw several of Duke Garnot’s paid companies break and run after the routing militia.

Hooves thundered. Captain-General Evord’s mounted reserve who’d been waiting so patiently were charging the mercenaries now exposed on the far left of the duke’s line. Tathrin caught his breath. The duke’s horsemen were still poised below the ridge. Surely they would charge to save their comrades?

Perhaps they might have, if the second regiment of Mountain Men hadn’t appeared to attack them with all the ferocity their countrymen were famous for. As Evord’s horsemen rode unopposed to cut down the Carluse mercenaries Tathrin winced, expecting slaughter worse than any he’d yet seen.

“They don’t call them the Slippery Eels for nothing.” The Tallyman chuckled. “Old Dorish will be ruing the day he took Carluse’s coin though.”

The main battle standard amid Duke Garnot’s mercenaries was leading a measured retreat. Tathrin had thought the writhing black shape on the pale green ground was a snake. The Tallyman clearly knew better.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” he asked abruptly. “Fighting men you know?”

The Tallyman shrugged. “Safer to surrender to someone you can trust if the battle goes against you.”

He pointed to the centre of the battlefield and Tathrin saw mercenary standards dipping. Men held up empty hands to show they’d sheathed their swords.

The Tallyman tensed. “The bastard’s running!”

Duke Garnot’s personal standard was disappearing into the trees on the ridge. His retinue had drawn up close around him, reinforced by his remaining mounted mercenaries.

“New orders for the Tallymen!” A galloper trotted towards them, slapping a scrap of paper into Tathrin’s companion’s hand. “Escort prisoners to the rear.”

As the man cantered away Tathrin felt singularly useless. All he could do was wait till Aremil’s Artifice touched him, to relay the battle’s outcome.

Was it a victory? Duke Garnot had got away. However many men had died on both sides, that meant more fighting. If they defeated Duke Garnot next time, they must still overcome Draximal, Marlier, Triolle and Parnilesse. He looked at the carrion birds already wheeling above the carnage, their cries mingling with injured men’s curses and weeping.

Were there fewer dead on their side than on Carluse’s? Tathrin hoped so. But how could they sustain any losses and still wage battle after battle against freshly drafted militia and new-mustered mercenaries eager for ducal gold?

“Tathrin!”

A galloper was returning with a yellow-headed man clinging to his waist.

Gren leaped down from the horse’s rump, exultant. “We said Evord was the man for this campaign!”

Tathrin’s horse snorted with disquiet. Gren’s chain-mail hauberk was spattered with blood, while a gruesome smear clotted his hair into spikes.

“Are you wounded?”

“Not hardly,” Gren said scornfully. “I told you. The soothsayer said I was born to be hanged.”

Tathrin’s horse tossed its head and tried to back away. As he got the animal in hand, a second messenger arrived with a passenger.

“Sorgrad!”

Gren embraced his older brother. Sorgrad was a little taller and somewhat broader, his blue eyes more gentian than cornflower. Like most Mountain Men, he wore his years lightly. It had taken Tathrin some while to realise both were ten years or more his senior.

Gren pulled the leather thong out of his hair to retie it more securely. “Where’ve you been?”

Even knowing Sorgrad’s talent for staying well groomed in the least promising circumstances, Tathrin didn’t think he’d been in battle. He was wearing a plain grey doublet and a short riding cloak rather than armour. His fine yellow hair, cropped shorter than Gren’s, was combed and his boots were polished.

“Draximal.” Sorgrad shot him an amused glance. “Among other places.”

Gren chuckled. “You should have seen the Longshanks twisting the Red Hounds’ tails.”

“I did,” Sorgrad assured him.

“And Alrene and his boys from the Teyvasoke?” Gren demanded.

Alrene was one of the two Mountain captains that all the rest deferred to, though Tathrin wasn’t sure why. A
soke
was a valley in the upland tongue, he’d learned that much.

Sorgrad nodded. “The captain-general knows we’re fastest over rough ground.”

Something in his satisfied smile hardened Tathrin’s suspicions. “You were helping them?”

Sorgrad raised blond brows in innocent query. “How, exactly?”

Tathrin scowled at him. “If anyone learns what you did—”

“What I’ve been doing is escorting Lady Charoleia and Mistress Branca along the Great West Road towards Tormalin. Why would anyone think different?” Sorgrad looked at him, a sapphire glint in his eye. “What would anyone suspect? Everyone knows there are no mageborn in the Mountains.”

Which was merely one of the mysteries around Sorgrad. Tathrin subsided. He could only hope no one else had wondered at the sudden breezes waving Wynald’s captured flag in the Red Hounds’ faces, carrying the Longshanks’ taunts so clearly to them. Hopefully no one would wonder at the churned-up ground beneath the dead Carluse horses. Men and beasts could slip on blood and horseshit just as readily as water seeping unbidden from a dry slope. At least no one would have seen Sorgrad anywhere close. Tathrin would wager good coin on that.

Gren slapped his brother on the shoulder. “Let’s get down to the field, before all the dead are picked clean.”

“Go ahead.” Sorgrad nodded. “I’ll find you after I’ve reported to Evord.”

“Don’t be too long.” Gren sauntered down the slope, whistling a taproom tune.

Tathrin was torn between his misgivings and relief that Sorgrad was back. It was the older Mountain Man who’d seen him safe through that first terrifying battle, when they had used the night and deceit to set Parnilesse and Draximal fighting over Emirle Bridge, along with so much more than ordinary trickery.