He felt a stab of unexpected pain at a fleeting memory of his mother and Rosalyn, then let the thought go as the riders came clearly into view.
It was a company of at least thirty men, all seasoned warriors by their look. At the head of the company rode a heavyset man of middle years, his grey beard hanging down to his stomach. He signaled for a pair of his men to circle out and around the fortress, and slowed as he approached. As soon as he came within hailing distance, he shouted, ‘Hello, the fort!’
From the wall, Calis shouted back, ‘Who rides?’
‘Bilbari’s Regulars, fresh from the fall of Khaipur,’ and, glancing around, he added, ‘or what’s left of us.’
The outriders returned and Erik assumed they were informing their leader that it was a closed fortress, not a simple barricade. Calis called back, ‘Who commands? I know Bilbari, and you’re not he.’
The leader again looked around. ‘I guess I do. Bilbari died at the wall’ – he spit and made a sign – ‘and we took the day’s grace after the fall. My name is Zila.’
Praji came to stand next to Calis, and Erik could hear him say,‘I know them. A good enough band for butchery, though I’d not want any of them sharing my bunk. They’ll honor the peace of the camp, more or less.’
‘I can give you the peace of the camp,’ said Calis.
‘How long?’
‘Two days,’ answered Calis.
‘Fair enough.’ Then Zila laughed. ‘More than fair. Who commands here?’
‘I do. Calis.’
‘Calis’s Crimson Eagles?’ asked Zila as he dismounted.
‘The same.’
‘I heard you died at Hamsa,’ he said as Calis motioned for the gates to be opened.
As Erik and the others waited, Foster came by and said, ‘Stand down, but be alert. These wouldn’t be the first to promise the peace of the camp but change their minds once inside.’
All thought of such betrayal vanished when the company entered the village. They were beaten men. Erik noticed that several horses were injured and all were footsore. Even two days of rest would not be enough to bring some of those mounts to soundness.
Erik heard Zila snort, clear his throat, and spit. ‘Damn dust,’ he said. ‘The smoke was worse. Fires from one horizon to the other.’ He glanced at the men of Calis’s company. ‘You did well to avoid that one.’ Motioning to his horse, he asked, ‘Got a smith in your company?’
Calis motioned for Erik, who handed his sword and shield to Roo. ‘Put these away for me, would you?’
Roo’s answer was rude, but he took the armor and headed off toward their tent. Erik came up to Zila, who said, ‘Threw a shoe somewhere along the way. She’s not lame, but she’s going to be.’
Erik only needed a glance to tell Zila was right. He picked up the horse’s leg and saw that the frog of the hoof was bloody. ‘I’ll clean this and dress it. With a new shoe, packed and padded, she should be all right if you don’t push her too hard.’
‘Ha!’ said Zila. To Calis he said, ‘There’s an army of thirty thousand or more coming this way. They just kicked hell out of us. Unless someone organizes a rendezvous north of here soon, we’re but the first of maybe a hundred or more companies that are going to come riding this way, and most of those lads are damn out-of-sorts over having been butchered by the lizards –’
Calis said, ‘Lizards?’
Zila nodded. ‘For a drink, I’ll tell you about it.’
Calis instructed Erik to care for the newcomers’ horses, and Erik signaled the nearest men to take charge of the others as he took Zila’s mount in tow. The animal was limping, and by the time they reached the pen for remounts, Erik was certain she would have been useless in another day, two at the most.
The newcomers were split equally between those who were content to let Calis’s men treat their animals and those who insisted on following along to ensure their animals were well cared for; Erik was completely unsurprised to see that those who came along had the best mounts. Despite the hardships, those horses were the fittest and should recover after resting up. The others were a poor lot at best, and Erik suspected that others besides Zila’s would soon be unable to carry their riders.
Erik had each horse inspected and made a mental list of which animals would be worth caring for and which would be best killed today. After conferring with a couple of the more experienced horsemen in Calis’s forces, he found no argument.
As he moved away, one of the newcomers approached. ‘You. What’s your name?’
‘Erik.’ He paused and waited to see what the newcomer had to say.
Lowering his voice, the man said, ‘Mine is Rian. You know your way around horses.’ He was a large man with a flat face, reddish from the sun and covered in road dust. His eyes were dark, but his hair was reddish brown, his beard grey-shot. He carried himself easily, one hand absently resting on a long-sword.
Erik nodded, but said nothing.
‘I could use another horse. Mine will come sound if I don’t ride her for another week. Do you think your Captain would sell me one?’
‘I’ll ask him,’ Erik said, and started to move off.
Rian restrained him with a gentle touch to the arm. ‘Zila’s a good enough fighter in a brawl,’ he whispered, ‘but he’s no proper Captain. We were heading down to Maharta to seek service with the Raj. It should take the better part of the next year for that lot up north to get past Lanada.’
He glanced around to see if anyone else was listening. ‘Your Captain seems to know his way around a fortification, and you seem more like garrison soldiers than hired swords.’
Every man in Calis’s company had been warned against spies, so Erik responded without having to think. ‘I just follow orders. Captain Calis has kept every man here alive at least once, so I don’t question him.’
‘You think he’s got room for another sword?’
‘I’ll ask. But I thought you were heading for Maharta?’
‘After the beating we took at Khaipur, you’d think a year or two of resting up and waiting might be nice, but truth to tell, there’s no booty and I get bored easily.’
‘I’ll tell him that, too,’ Erik said, leaving the man with the horses.
He moved through the village, and several of the villagers nodded greeting. Calis’s men weren’t treated with open fear anymore, but the villagers were equally split between those happy to have their swords around for protection as well as their gold and those who feared that the fortification would attract unwanted attention. The village was routinely raided over the years, and the villagers had a time-tested method of fleeing into the nearby hills. Few died if there was any advance warning. But this fortress on the road: that was both a protection and a trap.
Someone called Erik’s name, and he glanced over to see Embrisa, a girl of fourteen who had taken a liking to him. She was pretty in a large-boned way, with pale blue eyes her most striking feature, but Erik knew that she would be old before she was thirty, probably with three or four children and a husband who worked her from dawn to dusk. A town-bred boy, Erik had little sense of what real poverty and hard work were until he had come to this village.
He spoke a quick greeting, then excused himself as he went to the pavilion that served as an inn. Rough wooden benches and tables had been fashioned by an enterprising farmer named Shabo who had used the profits from serving Calis’s men poor wine and ale to build a wooden trellis alongside his rude hut. Erik considered that if they stayed long enough, Shabo would be a proper innkeeper, as he kept using his profits to improve his little enterprise. His latest innovation had been to knock out a second door to the hut so he could serve across a newly built bar that ran the length of the building. Erik considered the hut might get very cold during winter, though he had no idea how cold it got in these parts.
Calis and Zila and some others sat at one table, while other men in Zila’s company drank heavily and did indeed look like beaten men. Praji had joined Calis and was nodding as Zila said, ‘I’ve seen thirty years of fighting, man and boy, but nothing like this.’ He drained his tankard and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Calis raised an eyebrow at Erik, who said, ‘Half the mounts either need a month of grazing and no work or need to be put down. The rest could be ready to be ridden if they lay up a week.’
Calis nodded. Zila said, ‘We don’t have much – being on the losing side pays little – but we’ll buy some mounts from you if you’ll sell them.’
‘What are you planning to do?’ asked Calis.
‘We’re heading for Maharta. The Raj is sending his Royal Immortals to help the Priest-King of Lanada defend against the greenskins and their army. That means his war elephants and those drug-crazed maniacs of the Priest-King are on the same side for a change.’
Praji said, ‘Things must be grim to make those two old enemies take the same cause.’
Zila waved for another tankard, and Shabo hurried over to replace the empty one. ‘Yes, but it also means the Raj will need more fighters to keep peace around his city, so there will be work for us. I could use a couple of years of keeping farmers in line after what we just went through.’ He looked at Praji and Calis. ‘You say you were at Hamsa?’
