Jack Vance - Suldrun's Garden

Yane grunted. "If you try to escape everyone in your squad is flogged and drops in grade, including Taussig. So everyone watches everyone else."

"No one escapes?"

"Seldom."

"What of yourself? Have you never attempted escape?"

"Escape is more difficult than you might think. It is a subject no one discusses."

"And no one is freed?"

"After your stint you are pensioned. They don't care what you do then."

"How long is a 'stint'?"

"Thirty years."

Aillas groaned. "Who here is chief among the Ska?"

"He is Duke Mertaz; there he stands yonder... Where are you going?"

"I must speak to him." Aillas rose painfully to his feet and crossed to where a tall Ska stood brooding down upon Tintzin Fyral. Aillas halted in front of him. "Sir, you are Duke Mertaz?"

"I am he." The Ska surveyed Aillas with gray-green eyes.

Aillas spoke in a reasonable voice. "Sir, this morning your soldiers captured me and clamped this collar around my neck."

"Indeed."

"In my own country I am a nobleman. I see no reason why I should be treated this way. Our countries are not at war."

"The Ska are at war with all the world. We expect no mercy from our enemies; we give none."

"Then I ask that you abide by the rules of warfare and allow me to ransom my freedom."

"We are not a numerous people; our need is labor, not gold. Today you were branded with a date-mark. Thirty years you must serve, then you will be freed with a generous pension. If you attempt to escape, you will be maimed or killed. We expect such attempts and are alert. Our laws are simple and admit of no ambiguity. Obey them. Go back to your work."

Aillas returned to where Yane sat watching. "Well?"

"He told me I must work thirty years."

Yane chuckled and rose to his feet. "Taussig summons us." Across the downs convoys of bullock-carts brought timbers from the mountains. Skaling squads dragged the timbers up the ridge; foot by foot the timber tunnel thrust across the saddle toward Tintzin Fyral.

The construction approached the castle walls. Carfilhiot's warriors on the parapets dropped bladders of oil upon the timbers and sent down fire-arrows. Orange flames roared high; at the same time drops of blazing oil seeped through cracks. Those who worked below were forced to retreat.

Special contrivances fabricated of sheet copper were brought forward by a trained squad, and fitted over the timbers, to form a protective roof; flaming oil thereupon flowed off to burn harmlessly on the ground.

Foot by foot the tunnel approached the castle walls. The defenders displayed a rather sinister lassitude.

The tunnel reached the castle walls. A heavy battering ram, shod with iron, was carried forward; Ska warriors crowded the tunnel, ready to surge through the ruptured portal. From somewhere high on the tower, a massive ball of iron swung down and around at the end of a chain, to strike the timber construction fairly, at a spot thirty feet from the tower wall, to sweep timbers, ram and warriors over the edge of the saddle and down into the gully, another tangle of timbers and crushed bodies on top of the tangle already there.

From the ridge the Ska commanders stood in the light of sunset, contemplating the destruction of their works. There was a pause in the business of the siege. The Skalings gathered in a hollow to evade the steady wind from the west. Aillas like the others crouched in the wan light, back to the wind, watching sidelong the Ska silhouettes along the skyline.

There would be no further action against Tintzin Fyral on this night. The Skalings trooped down-hill to the camp, where they were fed porridge boiled with dried cod. The corporals marched their platoons to a latrine trench, where they crouched and voided in unison. Then they filed past a cart where each took a coarse woolen blanket and bedded himself on the ground.

Aillas slept the sleep of exhaustion. Two hours after midnight he awoke. His surroundings confused him; he sat up with a jerk, only to feel a sharp tug on the chain at his collar. "Stop short!" growled Taussig. "It's on the first night that the new ones try to run free, and I know all the tricks."

Aillas fell back into the blanket. He lay listening: to the cold wind blowing across the rocks, to a mutter of voices from Ska sentries and fire-tenders, to snores and dream-sounds from the Skalings. He thought of his son Dhrun, possibly alone and unprotected, possibly at this very instant in pain or danger. He thought of Never-fail under a laurel bush on the slope of Tac Tor.

The horse would break its tether and wander off to find fodder. He thought of Trewan and stone-hearted Casmir. Requital! Revenge! His palms sweated in a passion of hatred... Half an hour passed, and again he fell asleep.

Somewhat before dawn, at that most dismal hour of the night, a far rumble and crashing sound, as of a large tree falling, awoke Aillas for the second time. He lay motionless, listening to staccato calls among the Ska.

At dawn the Skalings were aroused from their rest by the clangor of a bell. Sullen and torpid they took their blankets to the cart, visited the latrine, and those who elected to do so washed at a rivulet of chilly water. Their breakfast was like their supper: porridge and dried cod, with bread and a cup of hot peppermint tea mixed with pepper and wine to stimulate their energies.

Taussig took his platoon up to the ridge, and there the source of the predawn sounds was revealed. During the night defenders from the castle had fixed hooks into that portion which still remained of the timber tunnel. A windlass high above had tightened the line; the passage had been overturned and toppled three hundred feet into the gulch. All the Ska effort had gone for naught; worse, their materials had been wasted and their engines destroyed. Tintzin Fyral had suffered nothing.

The Ska now were intent not on the destroyed passageway, but on an army camped three miles west along the vale. Scouts returning from reconnaissance reported four battalions of well-disciplined troops, the Factoral Militia of Ys and Evander, consisting of pikemen, archers, mounted pikemen and knights, to the number of two thousand men. Two miles behind, the morning light twinkled on the metal and motion of other troops on the march.

Aillas considered the Ska: a contingent not quite so numerous as he had first estimated, probably no more than a thousand warriors.

Taussig noticed his interest and gave a harsh chuckle. "Don't count on battle, lad; waste no false hopes! They'll not fight for glory, unless there's something to be won; no risk of foolishness, I assure you!"

"Still, they'll have to break the siege."

"That's already been decided. They hoped to take Carfilhiot unawares. Bad luck! He tricked them with his knaveries. Next time affairs will go differently; you'll see!"

"I don't plan to be here."

"Ha, so you would say! I have been Skaling nineteen years; I have a position of responsibility and in eleven years I have my pension. My hopes are on the side of my own good interests!"

Aillas looked him over with contempt. "I don't believe you want to win free."

Taussig became instantly curt. "Now then! That's flogging talk.

There goes the signal. Break camp."

The Ska with their Skalings departed the ridge and set off across the moors of South Ulfland. This was a land like none Aillas had known before: low hills grown over with gorse and heather and dales trickling with small streams. Outcrops of rock scarred the heights; thickets and copses shaded the swales. Peasants fled in all directions at the sight of the black troops. Much of the land had been abandoned, the huts deserted, the stone fences broken, and furze growing rank. Castles kept the high places, testifying to the perils of clan warfare and the prevalence of raids by night. Many such places lay in ruins, the stones mottled with lichen; others, which had survived, jerked drawbridge high and manned the parapets to see the Ska troops pass by.