Yells from the trees, cries of "fire, fire, the woods." Scent of woodsmoke down the air. More Wolves crowding out of the forest on foot, pouring across the meadow. Someone looked left, yelled.
The front line of cats stretched across the meadow from edge to edge. Charging, lances down, they hit the mixed mass of riders, men on foot, went through it. The second line stopped just short of what was left, poured in arrows.
From the edge of the creek someone came running into the chaos. A Wolf, somehow still mounted, rode at him. Arrows from the willows; the horse ran on, saddle empty. From down meadow came the gray mare. Hen looked up from his father. Harald gave the boy one startled look, dismounted, bent over Yosef.
"He's still breathing. I think it's all right. What are you doing here?"
Hen said nothing. Out of the woods came Elaina, Kara behind her. Harald looked at her, looked at the boy, bent over his wounded friend.
The battle done, chaos gradually settled into order. A few Wolves were prisoners, the rest dead. Yosef and two horses from the pack train, two of the Ladies and one of the cats that had waited in ambush along the creek, had wounds, none, to Harald's eye, dangerous. Hen was his father's concern; if nearly getting him killed failed to persuade Elaina that the boy did not belong in a battle, nothing Harald could say was likely to do it. The girl needed a mother's hand.
Harald looked up from one of the wounded, saw Egil coming out of the woods. He rode over to his father, dismounted.
"Worked like a charm; Rorik was right about the winds downslope."
"All out?"
"Bonfires still going some. Left Flosi and his brother to watch them, make sure nothing caught."
"Couple decades, work back up, make sure there's no one left. Then see what's in their camp we can use." Egil went off. Harald returned to his work.
They made camp near the stream, west of the battlefield. The Wolves' camp provided dinner, supplies for a week or more. As it grew dark, Harald heard a horse's hooves. Voices. He looked up, startled. One of the younger cats, a tall figure behind him, mounted.
"Harald. A Lady. Looking for you."
Dark hair under steel cap, down to mailed shoulders. Strong face neither young nor old. She slid down into his raised arms. He squeezed, lifted her off her feet.
Her voice was a whisper. "I found her."
He froze, let go. Looked up; with both on their feet she was still taller than he was.
One glance from Harald cleared the nearest fire; he led her over, sat down, looked around. Nobody.
"Where?"
"South Keep. The rest of my 'tave keeping an eye on it; they're a family of hunters. One friend inside, servant woman. Fair garrison, fifteen decades, twenty."
Harald thought a moment, the map of the Kingdom clear in his head. Between Eston and the northern border two royal holds, nestled up into the eastern range. Birds in both, unless someone had changed things. South Keep almost in the hills at the south end of the Kingdom. Long ride. Royal garrisons, if there were any, east edge of the plains. Along the west edge provincial lords with their house guards, but not like the border provinces. He turned back to Caralla.
"Make noise up north; I can do that with these. Then south. How many tataves between here and South Keep?"
"Mine, another I can find for sure, maybe more."
They fell silent, thinking. Something else occurred to him.
"Your sister's here; nearly got a boy killed, helped him to a battle he'd no business in. Don't suppose you . . . ?"
" 'Laina? Not a hope. We need a landmark. You don't know the south?"
"Egil does; spent a month chasing that girl in Southvale. Didn't catch her, either. Caught it from Asdis when he got home, though, wouldn't speak to him for a week. Talk to him in the morning; I'm for bed. You don't know about Niall. Ask Egil."
"If you don't mind my asking, Harald, what are we doing?"
"Heading north to one of the King's castles. Going to siege it."
Knute looked skeptical. He was the youngest cat in Harald's decade, but Egil wouldn't have chosen a fool. Harald continued, his voice louder.
"Don't think twenty decades can siege a castle? I've done it with two."
Heads turned, men looked at each other, started drifting over from the other fires. Harald stayed silent until they had settled.
"The Prince, Emperor that is, smashed us at Iffin ford; you know the story. Forty miles wrong side the border, but it was Henry's first war. A thousand, fifteen hundred heavies. Most of the rest of us got away, headed home. Five hundred cats, a thousand Ladies, four thousand heavies and change—and some of them not in the best of shape.
"Didn't look too bad till a rider came in with news. Empire had Markholt, last castle north, our side the border."
He stopped, waited for the expected question.
"The Empire sieged a big castle while they were fighting a war forty miles the other side of the border? How'd they do that?"
"Not steel. Gold. We all make mistakes. Castellan marched his garrison out, some excuse or other. Empire marched in. One man got away, got to us."
The cats were silent, waiting.
"Coming home in a hurry, big garrison sitting in Markholt, line of march, supply line too, flying the wrong colors. Figured I'd best do something. Got some friends. Two decades—no, I lie. Olaf had a wounded Lady to take care of, couldn't come. Two decades scant one. Headed south, still had remounts, lot faster than the army.
"Markholt's head of a valley, against a cliff. Downhill cleared a good bowshot, then woods. They hadn't heard about the battle yet. All they knew, we could have beaten the Prince and been coming to deal with them, all eight thousand of us. Gate closed, ramparts manned, ready to hold to the last man. What our side should have done.
"Scouted it out by daylight, through the woods. Come night we were ready. Been collecting wood. Time we were finished, forty campfires in the woods, all along the edge. Who knows how many behind? They didn't. A thousand men, easy. Could be more.
"Didn't get much sleep; forty campfires eat a lot of wood. Kept them going three nights. That got the army past, wounded to the next keep south, still ours. We headed for home. Figure I woke up somewhere around Cloud's Eye."
That brought a laugh. The story ended, the men dispersed. Harald turned back to Knute.
"Heading for Markholt. Thirty years is a long time. Don't figure anyone'll remember."
Two miles down valley from the castle, two riders, staring at the column of cats, Harald's pennon at their head. A brief exchange, one of them at a gallop back up to the castle. The other sat his horse and waited.
Harald turned to Knute. "Ride off west, message to our main force. Two miles should do it. You'll find us sieging the castle when you get back."
Knute gave a brief puzzled look. His face cleared. He rode off grinning.
Harald rode up towards the rider.
"Can you take word to the castellan of Markholt?"
The man nodded.
"Tell him he is under siege. Your King has taken the Lady Commander of the Order, my friend these thirty years past, by treachery, holds her still, makes war on her sisters. When I guested with him, his people sought my life. When I departed, much against his will, they hunted me across the Kingdom. My patience is at an end."
The man gave one more long look at the massed column, turned, rode back to the castle.
Half an hour later the castellan watched as the column of cats came into sight around the final bend, flowed up the valley road to the wide clearing around the castle, turned left along the edge of the cleared area and into the woods. They rode in a narrow column of twos, but there were a lot of them. He watched until finally the flow stopped and the lights of campfires began to appear among the trees, then turned to the captain beside him.
"How many?"
"Five hundred easy, maybe a thousand. Half the damn host. It's real."
The castellan thought a moment before replying.
"If we have to fight cats, this is the place to do it. They can build stuff, but there's no siege train, nothing they can't carry on horseback."
"He won't try to storm us; Harald doesn't waste men. We aren't what he's here for."
The castellan looked curiously at the other man, waited.
"He wants the King. Not sure I . . ." He stopped, looked around. "Harald summons us to siege, we send word. The King comes to lift the siege. Not your problem or mine."
The castellan nodded agreement, took one more look at the fires—there were more now—then started down the tower staircase.
The next afternoon the cats were again on the move, out the beaten path through the woods to the road just out of sight of the castle—a route most of them had already ridden four or five times. They left behind stacks of gathered firewood and two octaves of the Order, with instructions to keep fires going until the castle ran out of patience or they ran out of wood. Harald reached the next royal castle south a day later and summoned it too to siege. The next day he left another small group behind to tend fires, with scouts south to warn them if a relief force approached, and rode west into the plain.
In camp that evening, sitting with Egil, Harald ran over the possibilities.
"If they had birds—and they should—His Majesty got word from Markholt three days ago, Grayholt yesterday. His people, Eston levies, central provinces. Messengers to Stephen, Brand. Might think he could get four thousand men up north. My guess he's on the way. Waits too long, looks weak, who knows who might come in?"
"If he thinks you have the whole host, part of the Order too?"
"Might sit. Either way, calls what he has north. South Keep, twenty decades, that's a lot. He'll pull half, easy. On the road now if he has a bird for them. Up the east edge while we're going down the west. Even that far south the plain's fifty miles across. Cara's scouts between us. A decade out on our left, just in case."
Egil thought a moment. "Province people? Have to see us coming south."
"Straight to their lord, considers his conscience, counts swords, repairs his walls. Nobody in the South is coming after a force this size—not without calling up levies first. Message to the King, but it has to catch him. Rider. Pigeons can't find an army."
The two fell silent.
With two horses for each man, the cats made good time. Nine days after they left Grayholt they pitched camp on a grassy hill at the south end of the plain. A day later Caralla joined them with two tataves and part of a third—a hundred and fifty Ladies. While horses grazed and their riders rested, Harald, Egil and Caralla made their plans. Caralla was the first to speak:
"She's still there; Mari saw her three days back."
"Garrison?"
"Six decades, maybe seven. Rest marched out nine, ten days ago."
Harald looked at Egil. "Birds. Both ways."
Egil thought a moment. "Where do you think he is?"
"Back home. Hot, tired, mad. Royal army too."
Caralla looked at him, put it in words: "Angry is stupid."
Harald nodded.
While the others rested, traded news and gossip, Harald rode south into the woods nearby to hunt mushrooms. When he found what he wanted—nightbells favored the damp underside of dead trees—he used a stick to break them off, as gently as he could, into a pan. The pan, with water, went over a small fire. While it heated Harald went off in search of game.
By the time he got back the fire was mostly out, the liquid cool. He tied the mare to a tree some distance away, took a leather water bottle from his saddlebag, propped it upright against a stump next to the fire. The liquid from the pan went, with care, into the water bottle, the remains of the mushrooms into a hole scraped in the soft dirt. He found a buried coal, used it to light a candle, dripped wax around the stopper for a better seal. Returned to camp, the sealed bottle went to Caralla. The next day the combined force moved out.
Noon meal, the great hall of the keep crowded with men. Fresh venison, bought from hunters working the woods outside the village. Bored soldiers. A new barrel of beer. Old rumors.
"And I say it's a revolt by the northerners. Why else pull a hundred men north fast as they can go? Next the levies, north against south like in the old stories."
Carl shook his head. "And the Emperor eats us for dinner. The lords aren't that stupid."
"It's the Order. His Majesty finally figured out you don't fight soldiers with trash, decided to do it right."
There was a crash. Looking up, Carl saw one of the men crumpled, another standing over him with a broken pitcher and an odd expression.
"A snake. It's crawling on him."
He knew Helgi was crazy, but not that crazy. Carl took another drink of beer. Somewhere behind him, at the other end of the hall, someone was saying something in a high voice. Things were finally getting interesting.
Outside, the gatehouse guards recognized the wagon, swung the gate wide. One of them called out to the driver: "Got much today? One deer don't go far."
On the wall above, a sentry clutched at an arrow, crumpled. The wagon lurched against the open gate, stopped; the two oxen pulling it, somehow free, set off for the castle yard on an unsuccessful search for grass. The wagon's driver raised a bow, put an arrow through one of the men at the gate. Caralla, clear of the cloth that had disguised her as a dead deer, came out of the back of the wagon at a run, hit one guard with her shoulder, spun past into the tower doorway; the little room was empty. A guard came after her, heading for the winch and the beam that would release the portcullis—at least one man in the castle who knew his job. She struck at his shield with all her strength—once inside the small room, her longer weapon was a fatal handicap. He stepped back instead of forward.
It was his last mistake. All other noise was drowned in thunder as the column of cats came in the gate, split right and left around the inside of the castle wall, shooting as they rode. The last of the guards on the rampart died. The second column of cats, Harald at their head, came through the gate, up the stone ramp, into the great hall.