Octobers Baby (6 page)

The girl who had brought him the milk returned with a helmet. Ragnarson groaned. It was gold-and silver-chased with high, spread silver wings at the sides, a noble’s dress helmet that he had plundered years ago. But she was right. It was the only thing around that would fit his head. If he weren’t so cheap, he’d have a spare. He disappeared into the thing, glared around, daring someone to laugh.

No one did. The situation was too grim.

“Dahl, what’s happening?”

“Same as before.”

Everyone was mounted, armed, ready. “Let’s go.”

He wasted no time. He rode straight for the barrow, over sprouting wheat.

V) Sometimes you bite the bear, and sometimes the bear bites you

Even while still a long way away, Ragnarson saw that the situation was grim. There were four or five men on the barrow, afoot, surrounded. As many more were below, on horseback, hard-pressed. Men from both sides, unhorsed, were fighting on the ground. There were more attackers than defenders, and those professionals by their look. He couldn’t see Elana. Fear snapped at his heart like the sudden bite of a bear trap.

He was not afraid of the fighting-much; a truly fearless man was a fool and certain to die young-but of losing Elana. They had an odd, open marriage. Outsiders sometimes thought there was no love between them, but their interdependence went beyond love. Without one another, neither would have been a complete person.

He slowed the pace briefly, signaled his lancers into line abreast. Those who couldn’t handle a lance stayed back with their bows.

Some cavalry charge, Ragnarson thought. Six lances. In Libiannin Greyfells had commanded fourteen thou-sand horses and ten thousand bows, plus spearmen and mercenaries.

But every battle was the big one to the men involved. Scope and scale had no meaning when your life was on the line. It came down to you and the man you had to kill before he could kill you.

The foreigners weren’t expecting more company. Indeed, a freehold this size should have had fewer men about, but Ragnarson’s land wasn’t a freehold (in the sense that he had been enfiefed and owed the Crown a military obligation), and many of his hangers-on weren’t married.

The attackers noticed his approach only after he was less than a quarter-mile distant. They had hardly begun to sort themselves out when he struck.

Ragnarson presented his lance, swung his shield across his body, gripped his reins in his lance hand. His shield was a round one, in the Trolledyngjan style, and not fit for a horseman. He paid the price almost immediately.

As his lancehead entered the breast of his first opponent, a glancing saber stroke slashed his unshielded left thigh. The sudden pain distracted him. He lost his. lance as the man he had slain went over his horse’s tail.

Then his mount smashed into two others, momentarily trapping him. He couldn’t drag out his sword. He clawed at the Trolledyngjan ax slung across his back whilewarding off swordstrokes with his shield, began chopping kindling from the nearest unfamiliar target.

A progression of dark faces appeared before him, men his own age with deep-set, dark eyes and heavy aquiline noses, like a parade of bin Yousif s. Desert men. But not Haroun’s Royalists. What were they doing this far from Hammad al Nakir?

Three opponents he demolished with his berserk, overpowering attack, then, with a sinking in his stomach, felt his mount going down. Someone had slashed her hamstrings. He had to hurl ax and shield away as he leapt to avoid being pinned beneath. The jump threw him face-first into someone’s boot and stirrup. A swordstroke proved the small battle-worth of his fancy helmet. A wing came off. A dent so deep that the metal bruised his scalp left him half-unconscious. On hands and knees, with hooves stamping all around, he lifted his visor to heave the milk he had drunk.

With bile in his mouth, thinking the pukes and a dented helmet were cheaper than a shaved ear, he rose in the melee like a bear beset by hounds, sprang barehanded at the nearest enemy not looking his way. With his forearm across the man’s throat, using him as a shield, he struggled out of the thickest press.

While strangling his victim, he looked around. The remaining horsemen were drifting toward the forest. Only a handful from either side were still in their saddles. His own people, on the ground, were having the best of a more numerous foe. They were in their element, being infantrymen by trade. Here and there they were linking up in twos and threes. In a bit they would have a shield wall.

Things weren’t going that well atop the mound. He saw Elana now. She, Uthe Haas, and another man were trying to hold off three times their number and managing well enough that their attackers had not noticed their comrades withdrawing.

There was no one to send to the mound. Except himself. And he would be no use charging into that mess. Just fodder for the Reaper. But a bowman could help.

There must be a bow somewhere. His people all used them. He trotted over the litter of dead and wounded, andbroken, abandoned, and lost weapons. He found a crossbow of the type El Murid’s men preferred, but it was useless without a string. He had never gotten the hang of the things anyway. Then he found a short bow of the desert variety, a weak thing easily used from a horse’s back, but that had suffered the ungentle caress of a horse’s hoof. Finally, as he was about to snatch up a sword and go screaming up the barrow anyway, he found his hamstrung mare with his bow and arrows still slung behind her saddle.

He went to work.

This was the kind of fighting he preferred. Stand off and let them have it. He was good with a bow. Target plinking, he thought.

His fourth victim went down. Yes, much better than getting up toe to toe and smelling your opponent’s rotten breath and sweat and fear. And you didn’t have to look them in the eyes when they realized they were going to die.

For Ragnarson that was the worst part. Killing was damned discomfiting when he was nose to nose with the fact that he was ending a human life.

His sixth score broke the siege. The survivors followed their comrades toward the forest. Trotting, Ragnarson lofted a few desultory shafts to keep them moving, at the same time shouted, “Let them go!” to Elana and Uthe. “They’ve had enough. Let’s not get anybody killed after we’ve won.”

Elana sent a look toward the forest, then threw herself at her husband. “Am I glad to see you!”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, woman? Out here without even a helmet. Why the hell aren’t you at the house? I’ve a mind to... Damn! I will.” He dropped to one knee, bent her across the other, reared back to smack her bottom. Then he noticed his men gathering. Grinning, those who had the strength left.

“Well,” he growled, “you know what to do. Pick up the mess.” He rose, set a subdued Elana back on her feet. “Woman, you pull something like this again, I’ll break your butt and not care who’s watching.”

Then he hugged her so hard she squealed.

As often happened in a wild mixup, there were fewerdead than seemed likely in the heat of action. But virtually all his people were wounded. The enemy had taken some of their injured with them. The worst hurt had been left behind. Bevold Lif, still dazed, stumbled up to report four of their people killed. The count on the enemy wasn’t final. His men were still making corpses out of casualties.

“Damn!” Elana said suddenly. “How’s Rolf?”

“Rolf who?”

“Rolf Preshka. Didn’t you see him? They were chasing him. He was bad hurt.”

“No. Preshka? What the hell? Where’d he come from? Bevold! Take over here. I’ll be back in a little while.” To Elana, “Let’s catch a couple horses.”

Of those there was no shortage. The raiders had left most of theirs behind. The animals, once safe from the fighting, had begun cropping wheat sprouts. They would have to be rounded up or the damage they would do would cut into the plunder-profit from their capture. Good desert horses sold high.

“Which way was he headed?”

“Toward the house.”

“He didn’t make it.”

“You think they caught him?”

“Didn’t see any of them on the way down. No telling what happened.”

They had ridden a mile when Elana said, “Over there.” A riderless horse grazed beside the millstream.

They found Preshka not far away. He was alive, but barely. The arrow had penetrated a lung. It would take a miracle to save him. Or perhaps Nepanthe, if they could get her down from Mocker’s. She had studied medicine during her lonely youth, with the wizard Varthlokkur as tutor, and she had the magic of her family.

“Here,” Ragnarson said, “we’d better make a litter,” He drew his sword and set to work on some sapplings left to shade the creak. “Might be good fishing this summer,” he observed, spotting a lazy carp. “Maybe we can put some up for winter.”

Elana, slitting Preshka’s jerkin so she could look at his wound, frowned. “Why not just catch them when you get the taste? The rest will be there when you want them.”

“Uhn. You’re right.” He had two long poles cut, was lopping branches. “Thing like today put me in mind of times when there wasn’t no coming back. Talking about fish, what do you think of us putting a dam across the creek up where those high banks are?”

“Why?” She was too worried about Rolf to care.

“Well, like I told Bevold the other day, so we’d have water in a dry spell.”

“There was water last summer. The springs kept running.”

“Yeah, well.” He dragged the poles over. “What I was thinking about was stocking some fish. How the hell are we going to finish this thing?”

“Go catch his horse, stupid!” His poking about was frustrating. “He must’ve had blankets. And hurry.”

He ran off. And she was immediately sorry she had snapped at him. It was obvious his leg was giving him a lot of pain. He had claimed the wound was just a scratch. He didn’t like to cause concern.

“I’ve decided,” he said when he returned.

“What? Decided what?”

“I’m going to raise some hell about this. I mean, when we took the grant we said we’d do some fighting. In defense of law and order.” He sneered his opinion of the phrase. “But not to fight wars on our own. We kept up our end. I didn’t even cry about not getting any help the last time raiders came over from Prost Kamenets, even if the army should’ve been here. But by damn, having to fight El Murid’s regulars in my wheat field, a hundred miles north of Itaskia, is too much. I got to go down about the timber contract anyway, and pick up some things, so I’ll just go early and burn some ears. If them asses at the War Ministry can’t keep this from happening, they’re going to tell me why. In fact, I’m going to the Minister himself. He owes me. Maybe he can shake some people awake.”

“Now, dear, don’t do something you’ll be sorry for.” His friendship with the War Minister was pretty insubstantial, based as it was on a few secret, illegal favors done the man years ago. Men in such positions were notoriously short of memory.

“I don’t care. If a citizen can’t be safe at home, then why the hell pay taxes?”

“If you don’t, you’ll get troops up here quick, all right,” she replied. They rigged the litter between their horses, hoisted Preshka in.

“Well, I’m going down. Tomorrow.”

FOUR: The Narrowing Way

I) Return of the Disciple

Ragnarson did not leave for Itaskia next morning.

He woke to find the household in an uproar.

All his people had spent the night at the greathouse, vainly awaiting Mocker. He assumed Nepanthe, unwill-ing to let her husband out of sight, would come along and could be put to doctoring.

He went to see what was the matter.

Luck rode with him in a small, left-handed way. Bevold Lif, despite his bashed head, had risen early to go to the mill. He had started out afoot and had quickly returned. El Murid’s men were back, waiting for dawn.

Ragnarson quietly tried to get the animals back into the cellars, the building doused down, and weapons readied. If they had the confidence to return, the raiders had picked up reinforcements.

As false dawn lightened the land, he counted their horses. There were nearly thirty surrounding the house, at a distance demonstrating their respect for the Itaskian bow.

“You think they’ll attack?” Bevold asked.

“I wouldn’t,” Ragnarson replied. “But there’s nofiguring those people. They’re crazy. That’s why they did so well in the wars. That and being able to field every grown man. Iwa Skolovda and Prost Kamenets have the same problem on their Shara borders. Nomads don’t have to stay home to get the crops in. And they don’t use much equipment a man can’t make himself, so their cavalry doesn’t need a broad peasant base...”

“That’ll reassure everybody,” Elana said sarcastically. Bragi, as he aged, had developed a tendency to lecture. “Uthe and Dahl are in the tower. U the said to tell you they have a ‘shaghun.’”

“Uhn,” he grunted. “That’s not good.”

“Why not?”

“A shaghun’s a sort of priest-knight. They’re a fighting order like the Guild’s Knights Protectors. One with a group this small is unusual.”

“So?”

“They’re sorcerers too. Not big-time, but they’ve got some magic.”

“But I thought El Murid killed all the magicians...”

“Sure!” Ragnarson interrupted, sneering. “All that didn’t get religion. You ever hear of a priest who wouldn’t make a deal with his devil to get what he wanted? El Murid’s no different. He’s a politician first, same as all of them. He just started out with ideals. After reality kicked his ass a few times, he started compromising. The shaghun system worked for the Royalists-Haroun is supposed to be one, but he didn’t get much training before he had to run-so why not for him?”

Bragi was a cynic who disapproved of any organization structured for purposes other than warfare. His opinions of governments were as severe as those regarding priesthoods.

“What can we do?” Elana asked.

“About what?”

“About this hedge-wizard, you lummox!” Mornings they both could be bears.

“Oh. I’ll have to kill him. Or give up and see what he wants. How’s Rolf?”