The grand hall of Caron ande Lette contained leading men from the surrounding country, the Raults, Brother Candle, a courier from Antieux, and Seuir Lanne Tuldse, who had brought up a handful of fighters after hearing that there were Grolsacher raiders north of him. These men were eating whatever they could grab. Free food was not common.
The grand hall was not large. Caron ande Lette was not large. The grandest thing about it was its wall.
"I need a little quiet," Brock bellowed. "The Perfect Master spent the morning with the boy we caught yesterday. You need to hear what he has to say."
Wearied by life, tempted by despair, Brother Candle abandoned his cluttered platter and rose. He was not in the mood for roast hare.
"The Seuir is correct. A lot of them are coming. But not in any organized fashion. Most are bringing their families." Which meant having women and children underfoot when the bloodshed started. "They"ve been promised land and plunder by Anne of Menand. Arnhanders, in general, have decided that, religion aside, the Connec is properly part of Arnhand. Sublime has encouraged this belief. Arnhand is letting the Grolsachers pa.s.s through. They"re providing supplies to any Grolsachers who swear allegiance to Anne and to the Brothen Church.
"The boy isn"t sophisticated enough to understand any of that, except on a personal level. But there are broad implications for everyone in the west." Brother Candle did not tell them he thought Anne of Menand was positioning herself to be the mother behind what she hoped to make the most powerful monarch in the Episcopal world.
"The invaders will come down the Sadew Valley. There"s game and water. They think we won"t expect them to come that way."
Haiden Backe and Bishop Farfog had arrived using the easier route farther east.
Brock Rault said, "I"d a.s.sume that, after the recent skirmishes, they"ll pile up somewhere till numbers force them to come on. We can deal with that. Our real problem is what comes along behind. Brother?"
"The boy doesn"t actually know anything more than your children do about your plans. But he does believe that an Arnhander army is going to come in behind them, to protect them. And to restore order." That excuse had been used to justify previous Arnhander incursions.
Brock said, "Ralph, take the boy to Antieux with you. I"ll have a letter for the Count, too. The rest of you, bring your men to the Catna Calci spring before sunrise tomorrow."
Brother Candle was not pleased. He feared Brock wanted to repeat the Black Mountain Ma.s.sacre.
He would argue but knew that was a waste of breath.
Grolsachers entering the Rault demesne arrived under sentence of death.
Socia Rault, in ill-fitting boiled leather armor, turned up once it was too late to make a scene about the impropriety. Brother Candle strained to hide his amus.e.m.e.nt. Brock Rault was too young to have forehead veins stand out like that.
Had he truly expected that confiscating the mail she had worn before would hinder her?
It was chilly for the time of year. Teeth chattered. Mist lay in patchlets in the hollows along the creek in the Sadew Valley. As had been the case three mornings running, a trickle of invaders pa.s.sed without hindrance. They would be dealt with a few miles farther on. Some would be allowed to go back to report that the folk of the Connec were making no organized effort to defend themselves.
Three days of waiting left Brock"s followers impatient. Everyone kept quiet while three men pa.s.sed, arguing bitterly. Once they were out of earshot, Brock asked, "What language was that, Brother?"
Brother Candle had to admit, "I don"t know. That"s the second group that talked like that." And that made the incursion more disturbing. Fugitives from the advancing ice would grace the Connec"s enemies with more power to destroy.
After quelling a belated response to Socia"s arrival, Seuir Brock told his family, "I can"t keep these men restrained much longer."
The force numbered thirty-five. Thirty-three armed men, a woman, and one Maysalean Perfect Master. Some were from neighboring holdings and felt little need to defer to Seuir Brock"s leadership.
There was an invader camp up the valley, in a marshy meadow. And someone was in control. There were pickets. They were not well posted or alert, but they were there. They made scouting the camp difficult. Scores of women and children were among the several hundred people there.
For differing reasons Seuir Brock and Brother Candle each wanted a closer look at that camp.
Thurm said, "That ground is too boggy for a decent camp. There"s springs all over. You can sink in up to your hips some places. There"s a million mosquitoes. If they stay there very long they"ll all come down with dysentery or malaria or something."
Brock replied, "I only pray there"s that much stupid among them."
Brother Candle muttered, "So do I."
"G.o.d should take the stain from our souls before we smear it on ourselves?" Brock chuckled. "Yes. I"m starting to see how your mind works."
There was no opportunity to debate the rights and wrongs and costs, of defending today"s Connec. How many times round the Wheel of Life would it take to expiate the evil that would happen here?
One of the scouts came scooting down the hillside. The needle-strewn slope was steep. "Seuir, some people showed up at the Grolsacher camp. Better clothes, horses, twenty to twenty-five of them. At least eight are knights. Their pennons weren"t recognizable."
"Arnhanders," Thurm said. Socia spat to her left like a man sealing a curse.
Brock said, "I didn"t expect them to turn up yet. What was that?"
A roar had come rolling down the valley.
"Just guessing," Brother Candle said. "The raiders have been turned loose."
"All in a mob, you think?"
Socia said, "The healthiest will be the first ones here. And the most dangerous."
Brock was not pleased. "The Arnhanders won"t be part of the first rush." Meaning the ambush could not be as successful as he wanted. He made a decision. "Put the barricades up." He had kept his men gathering brush and deadwood to create a barrier across the valley. It would not stop the invaders but would create a chokepoint where archers would be more effective.
The Grolsachers came in a racing flood. There were other foreigners among them. Cruel poverty was the commonality of the horde.
A dozen archers went to work. Ten men with shields and spears protected them. The archers seldom missed.
Those invaders who escaped climbed the steep far slope, then fled downstream. Very few broke through the barrier.
The other Connectens struck farther up the valley, hitting the tail-enders of the mob. They pushed downstream. Brother Candle and Socia Rault were tasked with guarding their backs.
There was but one incident involving the two. Brother Candle avoided getting blood on his hands or soul.
"Booga-booga?" Socia demanded in a mocking tone. "What the h.e.l.l was that?"
"He ran away, didn"t he?"
"Right back to the meadow. Where he"ll complain that he ran into a ferocious sorcerer."
"Foo."
"You think he"ll admit he ran away from a Maysalean Perfect?"
"The thing is done. Don"t!"
Too late. Socia had stabbed the moaning, wounded old woman. The lives of these desperate intruders meant no more to her than did those of roaches or rats.
"What?"
"Never mind."
"We need to get back to Caron ande Lette. Fast." Only women, children, and a few old men were there to defend the fortress.
Brock Rault had a different idea.
The butchery was over. The Sadew Valley was now a vale of the dead. Brother Candle knew the mind exaggerated horrors but still thought there were at least a hundred dead. Moans and whimpers came from hiding places in the undergrowth. Brock ignored them. After excusing six men who had been injured, he murmured, "I"m going after the men behind this."
"Oh. No," Brother Candle muttered. "That"ll only make it worse."
"Brother, nothing will make it worse. They mean to kill us, take everything we own, and make the Connec part of Arnhand. With no leftover heretics. Self-defense is not a sin. Your own Synod of St. Jeules so ruled."
The Perfect bowed his head. That was true.
And he no longer deserved the t.i.tle Perfect. His thinking had become dominated by emotion.
Rault continued. "We aren"t asking you to cut throats. Just get out of the way." Irked.
"That I can do." But he did not stay behind when the healthy and willing headed for the meadow camp.
The camp was a sprawl of pathetic shelters built of deadwood, brush, reeds, and ragged blankets. A nest for misery unimaginable.
The new arrivals were not alone. Scores of sick, elderly, women, children, and even healthy men had not joined the rush down the Sadew Valley. The camp was in an uproar.
Socia glared at Brother Candle. "Booga booga."
"What?" Brock asked.
"Private joke."
Brock looked at her askance but addressed Thurm. "You know this ground. Can mounted, armored men operate on it?"
"Not most places. Not well."
After consultation, Brock chose a direction from which to attack the camp. He approached boldly. His archers launched fire arrows, starting several blazes. Some Grolsachers came out, angry. They accomplished nothing. Several got killed for their trouble.
Brock let fly a few more fire arrows, then began a slow withdrawal.
"Ah. Here they come."
A parade of hors.e.m.e.n left the camp, spread out abreast. Knights, squires, and mounted sergeants, they numbered eighteen. Thurm said, "They don"t look much more prosperous than the Grolsachers."
"Paid fighters," Brock said.
"Most likely." Meaning they would be clever and cruel.
Changes were going on in Arnhand and the Empire. Younger brothers with nothing to inherit traditionally went to the Holy Lands or joined the Grail Knights in their wars to convert the pagans of the east. But those journeys into a brief, brutal, lethal exile had lost their emotional appeal. Still, one had to make a living. Having been raised up to follow only one trade.
Thurm said, "They plan to carve out chunks of the Connec for themselves."
"Let"s see if we can"t disappoint them."
The Connectens kept backing away. The day was near its end. The sun"s lower limb settled into the pines behind them.
Brock had his archers launch a flight at the Arnhanders. Most of the shafts fell short. The few that did not miss or, in one instance, strike a shield, shifted to intercept it.
Socia complained, "These d.a.m.ned mosquitoes are driving me crazy!"
Swallows ripped the air overhead. Soon bats would come , to the feast. But not ravens, Brother Candle hoped. Ravens lived on both sides of the boundary with the Night. Human faith had endowed the birds with vast symbolic and oracular power.
The hors.e.m.e.n began their advance. In no hurry. Measured. Which was not what Brock wanted. "Loose another flight, then run for the trees. But watch where you put your feet down."
The hors.e.m.e.n were closer. Most of the arrows reached. Only one found a living target, however, and that a horse when a shaft ricocheted off a shield.
Several Arnhanders spurred their mounts, knowing the odds were too dense for a successful pursuit there.
Others followed.
Within a minute two-thirds of the animals had bogged down in the narrow, sluggish streams meandering under masking surface vegetation.
Those hazards were obvious enough in a good light, when one was unhurried and watching.
Brock ordered, "Archers, turn and loose. Concentrate on the horses."
There was grumbling. The animals were more valuable than the men riding them. But there would be no prizes taken here.
Rault"s order was sound tactically but difficult practically. The archers had scarcely a dozen arrows left amongst them.
Brock swore. "d.a.m.n! I was hoping more would go down. And that some would drown. That we could finish them off while they were tangled in their harness, in the peat and the mud."
The Arnhanders did not let that happen.
One man and four horses did suffer. Those Arnhanders who remained mounted declined further pursuit.
"At least their d.a.m.ned camp will burn down," Socia grumbled.