The Serpentwar Saga

• Chapter Fifteen • Village

The lookout shouted.

‘Riders!’

Erik and the others moved away from their various tasks and put on their weapons. Since arriving the week before, Praji had warned Calis’s men that companies fleeing the fall of Khaipur would be heading south. Twice already bands of fighters had passed, avoiding the village after having seen the fortifications Calis had ordered constructed after conferring with the villagers.

Erik was uncertain if the Captain intended to truly defend this village or simply wanted to drill the men in another aspect of warcraft. Where just another village had stood, now a respectable fortification sat athwart the road. A full-scale moat had been dug around the village, with the earth from it serving as the foundation of the palisades. Two gates bound with iron had been hung, one at the north end and one at the south of the village, each securely attached to gateposts carved from the trunks of oaks from across the river. Erik had overseen the forging of the hinges, pins, and bands.

The village smithy had been abandoned years before when the last smith died, but the old forge still stood. Lacking a full set of smith’s tools, Erik had made do with those carried in the baggage train so he could shoe the horses. Given enough time, he could use those tools to make other tools, and eventually restore the smithy completely. Each time Erik looked at the gates he felt a sense of pride. It would take a serious siege engine to knock them down. Glancing around, he thought he’d rather attempt to breech the log wall, perhaps burning it, than to send a company against either gate, while being fired upon by the men on the wall.

He looked over his shoulder as he put on his armor, and saw Foster and de Loungville, following hard on the heels of Calis, as they came down from the tower that was being erected in the center of the village. This tower, built atop a huge mound of earth, when finished would give them an unobstructed view for miles, and prevent any company of significant size from approaching unnoticed.

Erik and Roo hurried to their appointed places, each silently checking to see that all weapons and supplies were where they needed to be. Roo carried a half dozen of the heavy iron spears, and Erik found himself amazed at the wiry strength his friend had developed since they had run from Ravensburg.

He felt a stab of unexpected pain at a fleeting memory of his mother and Rosalyn, then let the thought go as the riders came clearly into view.

It was a company of at least thirty men, all seasoned warriors by their look. At the head of the company rode a heavyset man of middle years, his grey beard hanging down to his stomach. He signaled for a pair of his men to circle out and around the fortress, and slowed as he approached. As soon as he came within hailing distance, he shouted, ‘Hello, the fort!’

From the wall, Calis shouted back, ‘Who rides?’

‘Bilbari’s Regulars, fresh from the fall of Khaipur,’ and, glancing around, he added, ‘or what’s left of us.’

The outriders returned and Erik assumed they were informing their leader that it was a closed fortress, not a simple barricade. Calis called back, ‘Who commands? I know Bilbari, and you’re not he.’

The leader again looked around. ‘I guess I do. Bilbari died at the wall’ – he spit and made a sign – ‘and we took the day’s grace after the fall. My name is Zila.’

Praji came to stand next to Calis, and Erik could hear him say,‘I know them. A good enough band for butchery, though I’d not want any of them sharing my bunk. They’ll honor the peace of the camp, more or less.’

‘I can give you the peace of the camp,’ said Calis.

‘How long?’

‘Two days,’ answered Calis.

‘Fair enough.’ Then Zila laughed. ‘More than fair. Who commands here?’

‘I do. Calis.’

‘Calis’s Crimson Eagles?’ asked Zila as he dismounted.

‘The same.’

‘I heard you died at Hamsa,’ he said as Calis motioned for the gates to be opened.

As Erik and the others waited, Foster came by and said, ‘Stand down, but be alert. These wouldn’t be the first to promise the peace of the camp but change their minds once inside.’

All thought of such betrayal vanished when the company entered the village. They were beaten men. Erik noticed that several horses were injured and all were footsore. Even two days of rest would not be enough to bring some of those mounts to soundness.

Erik heard Zila snort, clear his throat, and spit. ‘Damn dust,’ he said. ‘The smoke was worse. Fires from one horizon to the other.’ He glanced at the men of Calis’s company. ‘You did well to avoid that one.’ Motioning to his horse, he asked, ‘Got a smith in your company?’

Calis motioned for Erik, who handed his sword and shield to Roo. ‘Put these away for me, would you?’

Roo’s answer was rude, but he took the armor and headed off toward their tent. Erik came up to Zila, who said, ‘Threw a shoe somewhere along the way. She’s not lame, but she’s going to be.’

Erik only needed a glance to tell Zila was right. He picked up the horse’s leg and saw that the frog of the hoof was bloody. ‘I’ll clean this and dress it. With a new shoe, packed and padded, she should be all right if you don’t push her too hard.’

‘Ha!’ said Zila. To Calis he said, ‘There’s an army of thirty thousand or more coming this way. They just kicked hell out of us. Unless someone organizes a rendezvous north of here soon, we’re but the first of maybe a hundred or more companies that are going to come riding this way, and most of those lads are damn out-of-sorts over having been butchered by the lizards –’

Calis said, ‘Lizards?’

Zila nodded. ‘For a drink, I’ll tell you about it.’

Calis instructed Erik to care for the newcomers’ horses, and Erik signaled the nearest men to take charge of the others as he took Zila’s mount in tow. The animal was limping, and by the time they reached the pen for remounts, Erik was certain she would have been useless in another day, two at the most.

The newcomers were split equally between those who were content to let Calis’s men treat their animals and those who insisted on following along to ensure their animals were well cared for; Erik was completely unsurprised to see that those who came along had the best mounts. Despite the hardships, those horses were the fittest and should recover after resting up. The others were a poor lot at best, and Erik suspected that others besides Zila’s would soon be unable to carry their riders.

Erik had each horse inspected and made a mental list of which animals would be worth caring for and which would be best killed today. After conferring with a couple of the more experienced horsemen in Calis’s forces, he found no argument.

As he moved away, one of the newcomers approached. ‘You. What’s your name?’

‘Erik.’ He paused and waited to see what the newcomer had to say.

Lowering his voice, the man said, ‘Mine is Rian. You know your way around horses.’ He was a large man with a flat face, reddish from the sun and covered in road dust. His eyes were dark, but his hair was reddish brown, his beard grey-shot. He carried himself easily, one hand absently resting on a long-sword.

Erik nodded, but said nothing.

‘I could use another horse. Mine will come sound if I don’t ride her for another week. Do you think your Captain would sell me one?’

‘I’ll ask him,’ Erik said, and started to move off.

Rian restrained him with a gentle touch to the arm. ‘Zila’s a good enough fighter in a brawl,’ he whispered, ‘but he’s no proper Captain. We were heading down to Maharta to seek service with the Raj. It should take the better part of the next year for that lot up north to get past Lanada.’

He glanced around to see if anyone else was listening. ‘Your Captain seems to know his way around a fortification, and you seem more like garrison soldiers than hired swords.’

Every man in Calis’s company had been warned against spies, so Erik responded without having to think. ‘I just follow orders. Captain Calis has kept every man here alive at least once, so I don’t question him.’

‘You think he’s got room for another sword?’

‘I’ll ask. But I thought you were heading for Maharta?’

‘After the beating we took at Khaipur, you’d think a year or two of resting up and waiting might be nice, but truth to tell, there’s no booty and I get bored easily.’

‘I’ll tell him that, too,’ Erik said, leaving the man with the horses.

He moved through the village, and several of the villagers nodded greeting. Calis’s men weren’t treated with open fear anymore, but the villagers were equally split between those happy to have their swords around for protection as well as their gold and those who feared that the fortification would attract unwanted attention. The village was routinely raided over the years, and the villagers had a time-tested method of fleeing into the nearby hills. Few died if there was any advance warning. But this fortress on the road: that was both a protection and a trap.

Someone called Erik’s name, and he glanced over to see Embrisa, a girl of fourteen who had taken a liking to him. She was pretty in a large-boned way, with pale blue eyes her most striking feature, but Erik knew that she would be old before she was thirty, probably with three or four children and a husband who worked her from dawn to dusk. A town-bred boy, Erik had little sense of what real poverty and hard work were until he had come to this village.

He spoke a quick greeting, then excused himself as he went to the pavilion that served as an inn. Rough wooden benches and tables had been fashioned by an enterprising farmer named Shabo who had used the profits from serving Calis’s men poor wine and ale to build a wooden trellis alongside his rude hut. Erik considered that if they stayed long enough, Shabo would be a proper innkeeper, as he kept using his profits to improve his little enterprise. His latest innovation had been to knock out a second door to the hut so he could serve across a newly built bar that ran the length of the building. Erik considered the hut might get very cold during winter, though he had no idea how cold it got in these parts.

Calis and Zila and some others sat at one table, while other men in Zila’s company drank heavily and did indeed look like beaten men. Praji had joined Calis and was nodding as Zila said, ‘I’ve seen thirty years of fighting, man and boy, but nothing like this.’ He drained his tankard and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Calis raised an eyebrow at Erik, who said, ‘Half the mounts either need a month of grazing and no work or need to be put down. The rest could be ready to be ridden if they lay up a week.’

Calis nodded. Zila said, ‘We don’t have much – being on the losing side pays little – but we’ll buy some mounts from you if you’ll sell them.’

‘What are you planning to do?’ asked Calis.

‘We’re heading for Maharta. The Raj is sending his Royal Immortals to help the Priest-King of Lanada defend against the greenskins and their army. That means his war elephants and those drug-crazed maniacs of the Priest-King are on the same side for a change.’

Praji said, ‘Things must be grim to make those two old enemies take the same cause.’

Zila waved for another tankard, and Shabo hurried over to replace the empty one. ‘Yes, but it also means the Raj will need more fighters to keep peace around his city, so there will be work for us. I could use a couple of years of keeping farmers in line after what we just went through.’ He looked at Praji and Calis. ‘You say you were at Hamsa?’

‘Yes,’ they both answered.

‘It was ten times as bad at Khaipur. Before this war began, we were like you, a company of mercenaries who plied our trade between Khaipur and the Meeting Place’ – Erik knew he spoke of the annual meeting of the Jeshandi horsemen and other tribes who came to the boundary of the steppes to trade with the nomads of the eastern grasslands – ‘or we worked along the central Vedra. Once we even took a caravan across the Plain of Djams to Palamds on the Satpura River.’ He shook his head. ‘But this war, this was like nothing I’ve seen. We signed on after the fall of Kilbar. I’ve heard enough from those who survived to know it was bad, but nothing prepared us for what happened at Khaipur.’ He stopped as if collecting his thoughts. ‘Bilbari signed us on to ride picket and run messages. The Raj of Khaipur had one of those pretty little armies that look so nice on parade, but he knew he needed veterans to slow down the invaders while he hired some mother-killers to train his army and make real fighters out of them. My comrades and I aren’t Jeshandi, but we ride and fight well enough for the job.

‘A month after we signed on, we got our first glimpse of the invaders. A company much like yours, about sixty seasoned fighters, rode skirmish against our forward position, then retreated without doing or taking much harm. We reported the contact and settled in to wait for the next assault.

‘We woke up one day and the sky was brown with dust to the northwest. A week later, ten thousand men and horses rode into view.’

Zila laughed a bitter laugh. Old Bilbari messed his pants but good, and I’ll tell you he wasn’t the only one with brown breeches that day. There were maybe two hundred of us in a fortification not as stout as this one, and it took us all of a minute to decide to get the hell out.

‘By the time we reached the city walls, every company to the north and west of the city was also heading in. There was no fighting except at the city wall. Then from that day forward, they just came at us.’

He glanced at the faces in the pavilion, as now every eye was upon him and every man listened closely. ‘Some of the boys gave as good as they got, and by the third month of siege, those pretty home-guard soldiers of the Raj had turned into as tough a bunch as I’ve seen. And they fought for their homes, so they were more motivated than we were.’

He fell silent. Calis said nothing for a long while, until finally he asked, ‘When did they call for surrender?’

Zila looked uncomfortable. ‘That was what caused everything to fall apart.’

Erik knew from what he had heard around camp that the behavior of mercenaries was strictly governed by convention and tradition. Zila’s manner suggested something out of the ordinary had occurred.

At last Calis asked, ‘What?’

‘They didn’t call for surrender. They just came to the limit of our arrows and started digging, setting up their siege trenches and readying their engines. For a week there was no real fighting, just a few shots from the walls to keep them alert. The Raj was a brave enough man for someone who had never held more than a ceremonial sword in his life, and he stood at the head of his army …’ Zila closed his eyes. He covered them with his hand, and for a moment Erik thought he might be weeping. When he removed his hand, Erik didn’t see tears, but he did see bottled-up rage.

‘The silly bastard stood there, wearing a gods-thrice-damned golden crown, holding a peacock fan of office, while those lizards rode around below his walls. He commanded them to leave.’

Calis said, ‘What else?’

‘He couldn’t understand that this was no war out on the plain over control of trading routes or to settle some matter of honor with the Raj of Maharta or the Priest-King of Lanada. He didn’t understand even when they swarmed into his palace and started cutting up his wives and children in front of his eyes …’ Zila closed his eyes, and then whispered, ‘I don’t think he understood when they hoisted him up and impaled him before his own palace.’

‘Impaled him?’ blurted Erik.

Calis looked at him for a moment, then said, ‘What aren’t you telling?’

‘Ah, it’s a nasty business,’ said Zila. ‘And I speak ill of the dead to repeat it. And of myself, truth to tell.’

‘You’re protected by the peace of the camp,’ reminded Praji, his ugly face turned even less appealing by dark suspicion. ‘Did you turn coat?’

Zila nodded. ‘My captain, and the others …’ He seemed lost in the tale and said, ‘You know there are ways in and out of a city under siege, for a crafty man with enough money. The lizards didn’t ask for our surrender. They just came at us again and again. The men fighting with them were worse than any I’ve met, and I’ve met some black-hearted murderers in my time. But the lizards …’ He took a long drink. ‘They stand nine, ten feet tall, and they’re as broad as two men across the shoulders. One blow with their sword can numb a strong man’s arm to the shoulder or split a shield. And they have no fear. They didn’t attack until the wall was breached.’ He shook his head. ‘Until we quit the wall and gave it to them.

‘They sent an agent who found my captain and some others and told us there would be no formal offer of truce and that after the battle, those in the city would be put to the sword. They said those of us who abandoned the walls and stood aside would be free to join in the looting.’

Praji looked ready to attack the man, as he slowly rose. He stared at Zila for a long, dark moment, then spit on the ground and left. Calis seemed more interested in facts than in condemning the man. ‘What else?’

‘The captains brought the offer to us. We knew we were beaten. Every day more men and supplies would come downriver to bolster them, while we grew weaker. Someone had set fire to a grain warehouse’ – Erik winced in anticipation; he knew that grain dust in the air could explode if touched by spark or match; that was why no fire was permitted near the mill or the grain silos near Ravensburg – ‘and the explosion took out half the supplies of grain as well as a block of dwellings. Someone else poisoned a good amount of the wine being harbored near the palace, and at least a score of men died screaming as they held their bellies.’ He closed his eyes, and this time a tear did fall, one of rage and frustration as well as regret. ‘And their damn spellcasters. The Raj had hired his own, and some were good. A few priests were there, too, healing the wounded and sick. But the lizard magicians were stronger. Strange noises would come during battle, and a man would feel terror no matter how well the fight went. Rats came boiling out of the sewers in broad daylight to bite your ankles and climb up your legs. There were clouds of gnats and flies so thick you inhaled them, or swallowed them if you opened your mouth.

‘Fresh bread turned moldy moments after being taken from the oven, and milk soured in the bucket below the cow. And every day the lizards dug their trenches and turned their siege engines and kept hammering at us.’

Zila looked around at the faces. ‘I don’t know if you’d have done different in my place, but I doubt it.’ His tone was defiant. ‘My Captain came to us and told us what was going to happen, and we knew he wouldn’t lie to us. We knew he was no coward.’ He said to Calis, accusingly, ‘You said you knew him?’

Calis nodded. ‘He was no coward.’

‘It was the lizards that broke the compact. They changed the rules of war. They gave us no choice.’

‘How did you escape?’ asked a voice from behind, and Erik turned to see de Loungville, who had come up sometime during the narrative.

‘Something the lizard’s agent said bothered my Captain. I don’t know exactly what, but I do know that when they impaled the Raj in front of his own people, they told everyone still alive that they could either sit a stake next to their former ruler or serve.’

‘You weren’t given the day’s grace to quit the field?’ said Foster, from behind de Loungville, and Erik stepped aside so they could see Zila better.

‘We weren’t given enough time to pick up our own kits! But Bilbari knew they were up to something and had us gather by the smallest gate to the south. We fought our way out, and they were too busy to send anyone after us. That’s where our Captain died, leading us out of the city we had betrayed.’

Calis said, ‘It was your Captain’s choice.’

Zila said, ‘I’d be a liar if I told you. We’re regulars, and until then every man had a contract with Bilbari. We voted on it, like regulars do.’

‘How did you vote?’ demanded de Loungville.

‘Does it matter?’

‘You’re damn right it matters,’ he answered, his face set in an angry mask. ‘Turning coat is the lowest thing a man can do.’

Zila said, ‘Every man voted to leave.’

Calis said, ‘You have the peace of the camp until sunrise the day after tomorrow. See that you’re gone by then.’

He rose, and as he left the pavilion, Erik hurried after him. ‘Captain!’

Calis halted, and Erik was shocked at the anger he read in the half-elf’s face. ‘What?’

‘Some of their horses need to lie up. If they don’t, give them another couple of days and they’re useless.’

‘That’s Zila and his companions’ problem.’

‘Captain, I don’t give a nail’s head for Zila and his men. I’m thinking of the horses.’

Calis looked at Erik, then said, ‘Tend the horses as best you can, but do nothing special for them. Hay and water, that’s all we’ll give them. What they buy from the villagers is their own business.’

‘There’s a man named Rian who wants to know if we’ll take him. Says he doesn’t want to lie around Maharta.’

Calis was silent for a moment. Finally he said, ‘If one of those turncoats is in sight when the sun reaches the sky the day after tomorrow, he will be killed.’

Erik nodded and returned to the remounts. There he found Rian and said, ‘My Captain says we have no room.’

The man’s expression shifted, and for an instant Erik thought he’d appeal, but at last he said, ‘Very well. Will you sell horses?’

Erik said, ‘I don’t think it would earn me my Captain’s thanks to keep you here.’ Lowering his voice, he said, ‘Keep what little gold you have. Take that buckskin gelding over there.’ He motioned toward the horse. ‘He’s just come sound from a stocked-up leg – he got it kicking out for no damn reason at all – and he’s got rocks for brains. But he’s fit enough to get you out of here in two days.’