The Inquisitives [1] Bound by Iron (10 page)

“Looks like a quill and a plow.”

“The one on top, that’s not a quill. That’s a dragonhawk feather.”

“Which means?”

“Which means this was made in Aundair,” said Minrah. “Our trail leads across Scions Sound, oathbound, and there’s a ship weighing anchor at noon.”

The trumpeter atop Crownhome sounded the time, one hour before midday, his klaxon barely audible above the hubbub of the city. Cimozjen walked resolutely to the docks. Minrah, holding onto his arm, trotted to keep up with his stride.

“Hoy, big man, no need to rush,” she panted. She tried to adjust her pack, but doing so made her bag slide off her shoulder. She did her best to wrestle that back into place, while not letting go of the paladin’s arm. “We’ll be there in plenty of time. Hoy, slow down!”

“There will be plenty of time to rest and recover our wind once we board ship,” Cimozjen said, “I’ll squander none of it now.”

“Listen, I’ve been looking to travel to Aundair for some time—there’s some special research the
Korranberg Chronicle
wants done—but you don’t see me galloping along, do you?”

He didn’t answer, but kept a brisk military cadence, with
strides neither too long nor too short. His leather longcoat billowed about his legs. His kit bounced at his hip, the coins chinking with every pace, and his chain mail hauberk shushed beneath his new tunic. He’d also recovered his backpack from the inn’s safekeeping room, and he wore it on his back with his broadsword lashed across the top. In his left hand he held his metal-shod walking staff, thick and stout, and it ticked against the cobbles in time with Cimozjen’s boots.

The bay water was smooth. Only the tiniest ripples against the shore or near the hull of a ship reflected the sun’s rays. Minrah pointed past the cogs, longships, and scows to one of the few seaworthy vessels in the harbor, an elegant wide-beamed two-masted brigantine. The Aundairian civilian naval jack hung limpidly from the pole at the stern.

“Hoy, look at her!” exclaimed Minrah as they drew close. “Shallow draft for a river run, and the beam of a fat mare. That’ll be a smooth ride across the Sound. I hope they have hammocks!”

“May it not be so,” said Cimozjen. “Hammocks give me backaches. Hurry up, you’re flagging.”

Minrah upped her pace. “I love the feel of rocking back and forth in them, especially when the ship puts them to swaying. Reminds me of my childhood, riding with my folks. I can lie there and rock, and my mind just empties away to nothing.”

The twosome walked down the pier, passing a few others who, like Cimozjen, also had a military bearing. One younger elf honed his rapier and watched the river, while an aging man dropped his oilcloth bundle and sat on it to catch his breath. Cimozjen nodded to each of them as they passed, and received curt nods in return.

The pair climbed up the steep gangway to the ship. The long planked walkway flexed with each step that Cimozjen took, and Minrah, giggling, used the motion to put an extra bounce in her step.

They reached the ship’s deck, abustle with activity as longshoremen loaded cargo and sailors prepared the vessel for the
journey. They were immediately greeted by a trio of crewmen. Two ship’s officers—a dwarf female with long, thick braids, and a human male with wide-set eyes, a shaved head and a severe black goatee—backed by a large, sunbeaten deck hand with a scarf wrapped around his head and his hand wrapped around a naked cutlass.

The human, a quillboard tucked under his arm, held up a hand, his quill pen still clutched in his ink-stained fingers. “Ahoy, and welcome aboard the
Silver Cygnet
,” he said wearily. “My name is Pomindras. What’s your business here today?”

“We are told you sail this day for Aundair, and wish to procure passage,” said Cimozjen.

“With hammocks!” added Minrah, panting.

Pomindras looked from one to the other and back again, studying their faces and their stances. “We should be able to accommodate you,” he said at last. “Is it just the two of you?”

“Just us,” said Minrah, hugging Cimozjen’s arm tightly.

“We have no baggage beyond what we carry,” added Cimozjen.

“Fare is fifty galifars for the both of you.”

Cimozjen opened his haversack, fished around, then offered up five small platinum pieces. Pomindras gestured with his quillboard to the other ship’s officer. Cimozjen gave his coins to the dwarf, pouring them into her outstretched palm.

“I’ll need your names,” said Pomindras listlessly.

“Cimozjen Hellekanus, at your service,” he said, reaching into his kit. He pulled out his brass case, casually let the sailor see the national seal embossed on its surface, and then pulled out his provisional papers.

“The Army Clerk’s Office still hasn’t squared you away yet, eh?” said Pomindras. “Very well.”

“Minrah of Eastgate. Korth, that is.” She pulled stained identification papers from her bag. They had no case to protect them, and bore creases both intentional and accidental.

Pomindras opened her papers with a slight look of distaste. “These are barely legible,” he grumbled. “Well, it does at least say
your name is Minrah. But if the Aundairian authorities don’t like this, that’s your problem, not mine, and if you’ve not the coin for the return, your port of call will be the starboard rail.” He gave the paper back and waved with his quillboard. “Aboard.”

The dwarf, having pocketed Cimozjen’s coins through a slot in the locked iron strongbox she carried on her belt, gestured the two onboard. “I am called Erami d’Kundarak. I’m the purser and the steward of the
Silver Cygnet
. Berths are belowdecks, just aft of yon companionway. There’s four to a cuddy, so lay claim to yours now. If you’re lucky, the other two berths might not fill. The mess is amidships, but you can eat topside if the weather is fair and you don’t interfere with the ship’s business. If there’s anything else you need whilst aboard, let me know. We may not be able to do anything about it,” she said with a wink, “but at least I’ll know.”

“Thank you very much, Erami d’Kundarak,” said Cimozjen, placing his hand over his heart. “May the Host bless this ship with the Sovereigns’ speed.”

Erami smiled. “The Host bless you, Master Hellekanus, and you, Minrah.”

“That would be remarkable, wouldn’t it?” murmured Minrah.

Cimozjen started to lead the way toward the ladder, skirting around a large coil of rope on the deck, but just as they stepped away from the ship’s officers, a well-dressed man rose from leaning against the gunwale and intercepted them.

“Brightness be,” he said, with a rich Aundairian accent. “Chain mail, a sword, and a metal-shod staff?” He crossed his arms and ran an appraising eye down Cimozjen’s body and up again. “And those look to be military hobnailed boots, if my eyes don’t deceive.”

He looked Cimozjen in the eye. “So, Karrn, you’re here to fight?”

“Tell me, Cimozjen, are you here to fight?”

Behind them, the chaos of battle resounded—horns, war cries, the terrified whinnies of horses, the howl of the wounded and dying. Overhead, the whistling of the arrows vied against the rippling pops of flaming catapult missiles for the right to quail the hardest heart.

“We’re here to conquer, general,” said Cimozjen confidently.

“Excellent!” said General Kraal. Karrnathi war banners formed a veritable curtain behind the general, backlit by the early morning sun. The sight alone instilled martial ardor in Cimozjen, as did the respect “Horseshoe” Kraal had for Cimozjen’s unit.

The general leaned forward on his horse. “The barrage from those catapults is killing us,” he said. “We’ve drawn their lines thin. Your job is to charge the pikes. The cavalry will be right behind you to trample the cowardly archers flat!”

“Sir!” said Cimozjen.

Cimozjen secured his helmet and ran back the long two hundred yards to his unit. It was awkward going. The dewy ground had been churned to a bloody, sticky muck by armored feet.

The opposing army stood deployed across acres of wrecked farmland in Aundair. It was good defensive ground. Stone walls divided each parcel of land, giving the Aundairian army a decent redoubt every hundred yards or so. Nevertheless, the Karrnathi army, trying to force the Daskara Pass toward Fairhaven, had made solid headway throughout the misty early morning hours, grinding their way through the Aundairian defenses. On the river flank, the Iron Band had broken through, and rather than pursue the nigh-defenseless archers that had stood before them, they’d turned and flanked the next Aundairian unit in the line, cracking the entire left side of the line open. The Aundairian army had broken and fled, retreating rapidly into the mists, and the Karrns had reorganized rather than risk becoming separated in the fog and defeated piecemeal.

But then the Aundairian mages had at last persuaded the fog to lift, and with that, General Kraal’s decision to reorganize turned from prudent action to a grave mistake.

The Aundairian general had rallied his remaining forces around a full regiment of longbowmen, a formation of deadly missile mages, and a half dozen catapults all located on a hill a half mile away. To close the gap with the enemy, the Karrns had had to climb over wall after wall while the skies punished the troops with arrows, flaming missiles, and deadly blasts of magic.

The Aundairian foot soldiers held their position at the base of the hill, reinforced by two hundred Deneith pikemen, stretched thin but determined and dug in. Karrnathi infantry kept the line preoccupied with skirmish tactics. General Kraal had sent the Rekkenmark-trained cavalry to harass one flank of the Aundairian line and Talenta mercenaries with their clawfoot mounts to harry the other. Confident in the tenacity of the Deneith pikemen, the Aundairians had stripped away their supporting units to bolster the flanks and extend the line to a full circle around their missile troops, leaving the Deneith mercenaries to hold their section of the arc by themselves.

The general was happy. He planned to launch a full infantry assault to lock up the Aundairian flanks, then to send the Iron Band to smite the Deneith pike and thrust his cavalry through the breach to crush the archers and catapult crew beneath their hooves and claws.

The Iron Band was formed up in a “soldier’s tent,” a defensive arrangement. The whole unit kneeled. The front rank held their shields to the fore, while the other ranks held them up at an angle to deflect the arrows. Cimozjen reached his unit just as another squall of arrows fell, and he dived under the protective cover of his comrades. The iron-tipped arrows sounded like hail as they struck the shields, and somewhere in the group a soldier cried in pain as an arrow slipped a gap and struck him.

“We’re taking it to them, boys!” yelled Cimozjen. “We’re charging the pikes. Front two ranks, shield yourselves up as soon
as the next volley hits, then charge on my command!”

“Here it comes!” yelled Kraavel from the front of the formation.

Another clatter of iron hail fell upon the roof of the soldier’s tent, and as it relented Cimozjen yelled, “Up!”

The unit rose as one, and the soldiers in the front two ranks dropped their weapons and grabbed shields from the soldiers of the next two ranks.

“Horseshoe says the cavalry will be right behind us!” yelled Cimozjen as he moved to the front. Torval handed over his shield, and took Cimozjen’s flail. “I say they’ll be too late!
Charge!”

The Iron Band surged forward as a pack. As they drew close to the Aundairian line, the Band let loose a thunder of war cries. Cimozjen ran near the van of the charge, along with a few others. He pulled the shields into a wedge, angled with one slightly overlapping the other, then he hit the pikes.

The impact jammed his arms into his chest, but he felt the massed pikes sliding to one side or the other. One tore a hole in his shield and forced its way painfully between his left arm and the shield strap. Another pike, cleverly held low, ripped into his leg just below the knee. He felt another of the Iron Band slam into his back, shoving him forward. The extra inertia pushed the head of the pike completely through his shield strap, breaking it.

Cimozjen hoisted the shield in his right hand and flopped himself hard to the left. The weight of his body and the shields pressed the pikes to the left and down, forcing a breach in what had been a thicket of iron spearheads. He felt the soldier behind him shove him further to widen the breach, then step on the small of his back. The sudden pressure wrenched his spine, trapped as he was between the pikes—including one still through his shield—and the soldier’s foot. He grunted in discomfort, though he was proud to be serving his purpose.

The soldier jumped to the fray, yelling a mighty war cry. Cimozjen managed to raise his head and saw that it was Torval, each of his flails already trailing droplets of bright red blood. Another soldier charged over Cimozjen, striking him in the
back of the head and stunning him momentarily.

He shook his head to clear it, uncertain how much time had passed. He lay on a mattress of abandoned and broken pikes, the sounds of battle still around him. He shucked the damaged shield on his left arm, then found a broken pike nearby to use as a spear.