The Betrayed (17 page)

Tonight, he only had half that many. Teams of his soldiers had been left behind, watching the roads to make sure no Caytorean bastard crept up behind them. Still more had been left at their bivouac, with the conscripts. If everything went well this morning, they would march forward and join up gloriously. If not, they would wait for stragglers and turn home for the main camp, with another defeat under the belt of the dispirited Eracian army.

Well, you could only die once. After that, everything was simple.

A fake birdlike call was the signal they waited for. With the eastern horizon blushing pink and orange, they rose and ran in total silence, trotting toward the sleeping enemy camp. Adam gripped his sword hard. He did not know how to use it.

His troops poured into the outpost. At first, there was no sound but the ripping of canvas and soft, wet sounds of men dying in their sleep. But then, someone shouted, and someone else screamed, a pan clattered, and then, it was total chaos.

Adam pulled a long hunting knife from the sheath on his left hip. It was his kind of weapon, a whore’s weapon.

Naked and semidressed Caytoreans rushed out of their tents, running into the flood of Eracians. Blood turned the soft ground into mud.

One of the men came at him. Adam sidestepped. The man tackled a crate and fell. Adam ran him through from behind. He stood there, amazed, staring. Killing was so simple, so mechanical. He felt no emotion.

He saw Beno nod at him and rush forward. Adam came after him, pretending to swing his sword.

With the sun barely half a disc above the teeth of the hills, the battle was over.

Adam stood in the center of the camp, panting, his uniform black with blood. He had killed two men. Veteran soldiers had fallen to his tricks. It was almost too embarrassing.

“Report,” he said in a barely audible whisper.

Shendor grinned like a lunatic. “Seventeen dead on our side. Hundreds of Caytorean mongrels gutted. We got some prisoners, too.”

Adam nodded. When you lacked in skill, you compensated with ferocity. “Show me.”

They had gathered the survivors on the west edge of the small camp. The enemy had all been blindfolded and had their arms bound in the front.

Lieutenant Beno commanded the small group of men guarding the prisoners. There was a strange shimmer in his eyes. “We take ‘em home with us, sir?”

Adam shook his head. “Kill them all. Cut their heads, load them on a wagon, and send them back to Caytor. Leave one alive so he can drive.”

A low murmur of panic erupted from among the prisoners. Eracians began beating them with spears.

Adam noticed Beno had paled. “What’s wrong?”

“Sir, we thought we would…take them back for interrogation. And maybe use them as hostages.”

“Did they leave anyone alive in the First Battle?” Adam spoke softly, a small dog with a big bite.

A shadow of pain crossed the lieutenant’s face. “No, they didn’t, sir.”

“Then it’s settled. Lieutenant Gerard!”

“Sir?”

“Dispatch a pair of riders with an order for the auxiliary to move. And send another to the main camp with a message to Commander Mali that she has a foothold in the Bakler Hills if she pleases to visit it.” Adam did his best to avoid the risk of having to write the message; he would not know how.

Gerard nodded. His three officers looked slightly stunned.

They had probably never hacked off a prisoner’s head before, he thought. The concept was probably alien to them. Border skirmishes were a good way of gaining experience, but they were horribly low on brutality.

But it was well said in Paroth never to invoke the wrath of a whore. Whores had no mercy.

The wagonload of severed heads departed several hours later. The neatly piled stack reminded Adam of cabbages.

Lieutenant Beno came to inform him of their spoils. The little camp was equipped with fresh stores for the front, with three carts full of crossbows, two carts of full armor plates, another loaded with wine casks, and a small field forge. It also had a stable with seven horses.

Adam’s head swam. He was on a roll.

“Issue those crossbows to all the men. They are to fire one or two bolts to get acquainted with the weapon. Use the enemy bodies as practice targets. Then, I want you to send scout parties as far as three miles away, in groups of four, all armed with crossbows, plus at least one archer. They will wear Caytorean uniforms.”

Beno and Gerard listened in perfect silence. After a while, Gerard gathered his wits. “How will we be able to recognize our men when they return from patrol?”

Adam rubbed his nose as he thought. “A sort of a password. And they are to approach with weapons sheathed and waving their arms. Otherwise, they get shot. I want two score on the watch at any given moment, crossbows in hand. And I want those horses out there, patrolling, as well.”

Lieutenant Gerard shrugged. “Sounds good to me.”

Beno nodded. “A bold plan, sir.”

Within several hours, the little camp was alive again. The bodies had all been neatly stacked against one of the picket lines, doused in vinegar to keep disease away while soldiers fired bolts at them from fifty and a hundred paces away. Almost two thirds of the force had crossbows now, in addition to their swords and knives.

Guards surrounded the camp in two circles. At least fifty scouts were prowling the fields with an order to kill anyone and anything that came across the hills.

Adam knew the shipment of heads would infuriate someone, whoever received them. He was not sure what kind of reaction his deed would spark, but he hoped it would stall the enemy long enough for the Eracian reinforcements to arrive. Or force them into an early attack with insufficient forces.

His lieutenants set the remainder of the force to hard work. Some started digging trenches around the camp, expanding the defensive perimeter. Others were busy cutting down a small grove of trees nearby, while a third group shoveled blood, debris, and body parts away from the middle of the camp. Lieutenant Shendor had suggested erecting a small tower to allow them a better view of the region. They were going to do it later that day.

Another unexpected trophy was three camp followers they found hiding behind a stack of empty crates. The women were scrawny and dirty and looked like peasant girls snatched from some village.

“We give them over to our men?” Beno suggested.

Adam went cold. “Release them.”

“Our troops would appreciate it,” Shendor piped in. One of the sergeants, Niso, had ventured close by and was grinning lewdly.

“They got new weapons, and there’s plenty of wine. That should do.”

The icy warmth he had felt from his men seemed to evaporate instantly. “They won’t like it.”

Something snapped inside Adam. “Any man seen cohorting with a whore will have his oysters cut off. Is that understood?”

Niso overheard him and paled. His grin gone, he shrewdly retreated.

Adam approached one of the women and placed a copper coin in her palm. “Go.”

The soldiers watched him with thick confusion clouding their eyes. They were not sure what to make of Captain Leech any more.

Being a captain was almost like running a brothel, he noted maniacally. It was a precarious mix of pleasure, fear, and deceit. You just had to make sure you were deft enough to balance all three.

Men started to drink too much too quickly. He would have no scouts for the third shift, he realized. Very fast, the casks of wine were put under guard. This evoked quite a lot of protest. But Adam brought a swift end to it when he ordered five random men to be lashed.

A grim atmosphere set on the camp, one of drunken sullenness, pride, and ecstasy of victory, and morbid horror and fear that their captain radiated. He was dangerously emotional and unpredictable.

His five hundred peasants and the rest of the regulars arrived the next day after noon. The camp got really crowded and even busier than before. While half the men slept or ate off the ample reserves the Caytoreans had left them, the rest dug like grave robbers, turning the turf over almost a full hundred paces around the camp. The trenches were too wide for a horse to jump over and too deep for men to clamber in and out. The mounds of earth served as extra barrier against possible attacks.

In the fields, his scouts put the crossbows to good use. They shot three enemy riders and captured another two, who revealed no important information while they poured boiling lead onto their feet and smashed their fingers with a smith’s hammer.

There was no response from the main camp. Commander Mali had not yet deigned to acclaim his victory and march forth.

Adam spent his time patrolling the camp, too excited to sleep or rest. After flies started to swarm over the bodies, they were finally taken out and buried in a mound some distance away. The stench of death was everywhere.

The second day in the camp was uneventful. The men had gotten used to the grueling routine and worked without complaining. The crossbows sang, bringing down another six men, with one confirmed escape. He had no knowledge how many Caytoreans had actually managed to slip past his troops and spy on him.

From the moment they had arrived, the peasants started training for war. The real soldiers protested, but Adam ignored their jeers and taunts. He was not going to waste five hundred spears.

The peasants were made to march back and forth, veer to and from, dash, spread, regroup, turn about, all the little tricks and maneuvers that made the cardinal difference between a solid pike line and minced meat. The progress was extremely slow, since most men hardly knew left from right. Meanwhile, the regulars dug and shoveled. Adam could almost smile at the bitter twist of fate. Wine was rationed sparsely.

On the third day, he started to worry. After consulting with some of the border veterans, he learned that the wagon of heads must have reached an enemy position. This meant that there could be a massive attack within just a couple of days.

The digging and the training continued.

Then, on the fourth day, his troops sighted a large body of soldiers approaching from the north. Tension eased as friendly colors were recognized.

Adam stood just outside the camp, a crossbow in hand, waiting. Riding side by side, Colonels George and Marco and their female commander approached his little den warily, their faces expressionless.

“Welcome,” he said, voice dripping with haughtiness.

Mali nodded. “Busy, eh?”

“Here’s your foothold, sir.”

“What’s it called?” Mali asked, dismounting.

Adam smiled sadly. “I call it Virgin’s Blood.” As he relished in his macabre ingenuity, another scout arrived. The reinforcements had arrived just in time. An enemy five was thundering down the West Road, looking very pissed. They were less than half a day away.

Captain Leech smiled. A man could only die once.