Shadow of a Dark Queen (62 page)

“Trusting bunch,” offered de Loungville. “Now, look. You and a couple of men you trust, say Biggo and Jadow, keep close to those men, don't let too many of them off duty at any one time, and keep an eye on where they wander. If any of them head into that fortress, I want one of you along.” He reached inside his tunic and pulled out a heavy purse. “We lost some gold on the baggage train, but I kept most of it.” He opened the pouch and handed a dozen small coins to Erik. “Pass some of this around so that if any one of those twenty lads wants to step into the fort for a drink, you'll be the fellow to buy it for them. Understand?”

Erik nodded. “I'll make sure no more than four of them are free to cause trouble at a time.” He turned his horse, put heels to its flanks, and rode back down toward the end of the line.

Calis said, “He's rounding out nicely.”

De Loungville said, “Aw, he's still not nearly half mean enough, but I'll fix that.”

Calis smiled slightly and turned back to oversee the making of the camp.

Erik walked the perimeter of the camp, keeping an eye out for anything out of the ordinary. With the fortress at their back, Calis had ordered no rampart and trench dug. The men set up their tents quickly and saw to their stores, and began to settle in for the night.

As he moved along, Erik noticed that the eight men from Nahoot's company that he had put to guarding the remounts were at their posts, talking in pairs, but otherwise where they should be. Four others were bedded down, or at least had been ten minutes before when he had passed their tent. Jadow was watching that group. Four others were working commissary duty. That left four unaccounted for, and if Biggo was doing as ordered, he was close to them.

Erik found Roo in his tent, trying to get some sleep. “I thought you had duty?” said Erik, sitting down to pull off his boots.

“I traded with Luis. He wanted to go into the fortress and see if there were any whores.”

The thought of women suddenly had Erik interested, so he stopped pulling off his boots. “Maybe I should check up.”

Rolling over, Roo said sleepily, “You do that.”

Erik quickly made his way to Calis's command tent, where be found Calis and de Loungville talking with Greylock, who bad somehow found a pipe and tabac. Erik found the habit noxious, but had put up with it all his life; smoking was common enough in the taproom at the Inn of the Pintail, though it was discouraged when serious wine tasting was under way. For a moment, Erik wondered what had become of the fancy flint and steel lighter he had possessed back home.

“What?” asked de Loungville.

“I'm going into the fort,” said Erik, “if that's all right. Luis is in there, and I think Biggo is there, too.”

De Loungville nodded. “Keep alert,” he said with a dismissive wave.

Erik walked up the damp hillock upon which the fortress bad been erected, and made his way along the perimeter until be reached the gate. It was still open and the guards on duty were almost asleep. A pair of Saaur, one wearing what Erik took to be an officer's mark on his breastplate, were talking inside a hut at the gate, but they ignored him as he walked in.

De Loungville had called the fort a “classic” motte-and-bailey, and Erik was fascinated by its construction. An earthen bill had been raised up and a tower built high upon it. Around this hill and tower, a large open area, the bailey, had been left, with the buildings nestled against the wall, sheltered by it. Suddenly it struck Erik that this is the sort of construction Calis had undertaken at Weanat, but on a much more modest scale. This tower could house a half-dozen bowmen with little discomfort, on a platform thirty feet above the ground. A fifteen-foot-
high log wall had been erected around a small village, complete with wooden rampart and earthen reinforcement. An army would have little trouble with such a fortress, but most single companies would have had more than enough trouble to take such a fortification.

Inside there were a half-dozen buildings, all made of wood and covered with daub made from dried mud and straw. Smaller wattle-and-daub huts had sprung up around the larger buildings, and a fair-sized town had evolved. Erik could see why the Saaur at the gate had ordered them to remain outside; it was quite close inside this fortress.

He heard laughing and moved toward what he assumed would be an inn, and once inside he knew he had been correct. The room was dingy with smoke and poor light, but the stench of ale, spilled wine, and human perspiration struck Erik like a blow. Suddenly he was terribly homesick and wished to be nowhere so much as back at the Inn of the Pintail. He pushed down the sudden surge of feeling and made his way to the bar.

The barkeep, a stout man with a florid complexion, said, “What'll be?”

“Got any good wine?” asked Erik.

The man raised an eyebrow—everyone else seemed to be drinking ale or fortified spirits—but he nodded and produced a dark bottle from beneath the counter. The cork was intact, so Erik hoped the bottle was fresh and not resealed. Old wine tasted like vinegar mixed with raisins, but you couldn't convince the average tavern keeper he couldn't just stick the cork back in at the end of a day and unseal it again the next and not have his customers complain.

The barman produced a cup and poured. Erik sipped. The wine was sweeter than he would have liked, but not as cloying as the dessert wines made to the north of Yabon. Still, it was acceptable and he paid and indicated the barkeep should leave the bottle.

He glanced around the room and saw Biggo on the far side, trying to look inconspicuous and failing mightily. He leaned against the wall, behind a table where five men gamed with two Saaur. The lizard men were too large for their chairs, but they hunkered down as best they could and seemed intent upon the game. Erik recognized the sound of knucklebones, as they called dice here, rattling across the table and the accompanying shouts of the winners and groans of the losers.

After a few minutes, Dawar stood up and left the game. He came over to Erik and said, “Got a minute?”

Erik motioned to the barkeep for another cup and filled it. Dawar sipped and made a face. “Nothing like the wine from the grand vineyards of home, is it?” he said.

“Where's home?” asked Erik.

Dawar said, “Far from here. Let's go outside for a minute.”

Erik picked up the bottle and let Dawar lead him outside into the fresh, cold night air. The man looked one way, then the other, and signaled for Erik to follow him around the corner, into a dark place next to the wall, sheltered above by the palisades.

“Look, Corporal,” began Dawar. “Let's have an end to the mummery. You're the company Nahoot was sent to keep from coming this way.”

“What makes you think that?” said Erik. “You're the ones that jumped us.”

“I wasn't born this morning,” said the man with a grin. “I know your Captain's not your Captain, but the slender blond fellow is.”

“What do you want?”

“A way to get rich,” said Dawar, a greedy glint in his eye.

“How do you propose to do that?” said Erik, moving his hand slowly down to his sword.

“Look, I could maybe get myself a gold coin or two for telling Murtag you're not who you say you are, but that's a gold coin or two, and then I'm back looking for a company to join.” He glanced around. “But I don't like what I'm seeing lately, with this grand conquest. Too many men dying for too little gold. There's not going to be much left of use to anyone if it keeps on, don't you see? So I'm thinking I might be a help to you and your captain, but I'll want more than wages and found.”

“You'll get ample chance for loot when we take Maharta,” Erik said noncommittally.

Dawar took a step forward, lowering his voice. “How long do you think you can keep this up? You lot are not like any company I've seen, and I've been around more than most. You talk funny and you have the look of . . . I don't know . . . some sort of soldiers, without the parade ground nonsense, but tough, like mercenaries. But whatever you are, you're not what you want people to think you are, and it ought to be worth something for me to stay quiet.”

“So that's why you covered for us at the gate?”

“Sure. Most of us look alike to the Saaur and Murtag's pretty stupid—don't make that mistake
about most Saaur—which is why he's stuck out here running this garrison and not with the main host. I figure I can turn you in any time, but I thought I'd first give you a chance to make me a better offer.”

“I don't know,” Erik said, holding his wine cup to his lips with his left hand, while his right moved to the hilt of his sword.

“Look, von Darkmoor, I'll stick with you until the end, if the pay's right. Now, why don't you talk this over with Captain Calis—”

Suddenly a figure loomed up behind Dawar in the darkness, and large hands reached around and gripped him by the shoulders. They jerked him around, and as he spun, they grabbed the back of his head and his chin and forced it in the opposite direction, and with a loud crack, his neck was broken.

Erik had his sword out as Biggo stepped forward. “We found a spy,” he whispered.

“How could you be sure?” hissed Erik, his heart pounding as he returned his sword to the scabbard.

“I'm pretty sure no one's called you von Darkmoor since we met up with this lot, but I damn well know no man's called the Captain by name since then.” Erik nodded. Strict orders had been passed not to mention Calis by name. “How would he know who you were?”

Erik's heart sank. “I didn't even notice.”

Biggo grinned in the faint light. “I won't tell.” He picked up Dawar's body and hoisted it across his shoulder.

“What are we going to do with him?” asked Erik.

“Why, we're going to take him back to the camp. It wouldn't be the first drunk carried out of here by his friends, I'm certain.”

Erik nodded, picked up the fallen wine cups and bottles, and motioned for Biggo to leave. Erik set the cups and empty bottle down next to the door and hurried after the large man.

For a tense moment Erik expected a challenge at the gate, but as Biggo had predicted, the guards thought nothing of one drunk cheerfully carrying another back to the camp.

They rode out at first light. Erik had told de Loungville and Calis of the encounter with Dawar. They had disposed of the body down in a wash, not too far from their campsite, making sure it was fully hidden by rocks. There had been a brief discussion after that and Calis had said whatever they chose to do, they'd do it far from the Saaur and the other mercenaries.

The only attention they received as they got ready to depart was one Saaur warrior who came down to ask what they were doing. De Loungville merely repeated they had been ordered to rejoin the host and the warrior grunted and returned to the fortress.

As Calis had suggested, this fortress was as much for keeping deserters from heading south as it was to keep the main army's flanks free from attack.

At noon, while the men rested and ate trail rations, Calis told Erik to get five of the men from Nahoot's company and bring them over to where he waited with de Loungville. When they appeared, Calis said, “One of your companions, Dawar, got into a fight last night over a whore. Got his neck broken. I don't want to see any repeat of that stupidity.”

All five men looked baffled, but nodded and left. Another group of five was brought up to Calis, then
another. At last the final four men were fetched to Calis and he repeated the admonishment. Three of the men looked blank, but one of them tensed at news of Dawar's death and instantly Calis had his dagger out at the man's throat.

De Loungville said, “Take them away,” to Erik as he and Calis, with Greylock, led the man away to be questioned.

As Erik escorted the two men back down the line, several of the men asked what was going on. Erik said, “We caught another spy.”

A moment later a scream cut through the air, from behind a small rise some distance away. Erik looked over while the scream lingered, and when it ceased, he let out his breath.

Then it started up again, and Erik found every man looking off at the ridge. A few minutes later, de Loungville, Calis, and Greylock returned, all with grim expressions. De Loungville looked around and quietly said, “Get them mounted, Erik. We have a lot of ground to cover and little time to do it.”

Erik turned. “You heard the sergeant! Mount up!”

Men scrambled and Erik found the sudden motion a release. The sound of the spy dying under torture had set his nerves on edge and made him angry. The sudden movement seemed to lift that anger from him, or at least give him a place to focus it.

Soon the column was moving, heading toward the main array of the Saaur and the assault on Maharta.

E
rik blinked
.

Acrid smoke filled the air for miles, making it difficult to see any distance. Stinging wind carried the smell of charred wood and other less aromatic victims of the widespread fires.

Nakor rode back to where Erik brought up the rear. “Bad. Very bad,” he commented.

Erik said, “I haven't seen a lot that wasn't bad in the last week.”

They had been traveling for more than four weeks, heading across the plain toward the host surrounding Maharta. As they approached the site of battle, the area began to teem with all manner of passersby: patrols from the invading host, small companies of mercenaries who had decided to quit the city rather than fight—they tended to give Calis's company a wide berth, though two had chanced a parley. When it was clear that Calis wasn't interested in a fight, both companies had agreed to share a camp, and news.

The news was sobering. Lanada had fallen by treachery. No one was certain how, but someone had managed to convince the Priest-King to send his host
north, leaving the city under the care of only a small company. The leader of that company had proved to be an agent for the Emerald Queen, and he had opened the gates of the city to a host of Saaur riding in from the southwest. The population had gone to sleep one night after a grand parade. The Priest-King's war elephants, with their razor-capped tusks and iron spices ringing their legs, had lumbered out the gate, the howdahs on their backs filled with archers ready to rain death down on the invaders. At their side had marched the Royal Immortals, the Raj of Maharta's private army of drug-induced maniacs, each man capable of feats of strength and bravery no sane man could achieve. The Immortals had been promised great glory and a better life when reborn if they died in the service of the Raj.