Harry Turtledove - Tale of the Fox

Gerin sent men into those woods after them, but they got away. "I don't care for that," he said when his warriors brought back the news of their failure. "They didn't look like men running for their lives. They looked more like men who wanted to take warning to their friends."

"Why do you say that, Father?" Duren asked.

"Because they all went off in the same direction," Gerin replied. "If they'd been panicked, they'd have run every which way-woods just as near these huts to the north and south as to the west. But that's the direction they went."

Adiatunnus walked up in time to hear that last. "You're after thinking it'll be harder now, Fox?"

"I wish I could say no, but I have to say yes," Gerin told him. He tried to keep the Trokm-'s spirits up, adding, "Have you noticed how well your warriors have fought against the Gradi this time out? I certainly have."

"That I have, and I thank you for seeing it, too," Adiatunnus said. "It's as if a great burthen o' fear's fallen off our backs, for the which I suppose you're the man I should be thanking."

"I've taken the Gradi gods out of play," Gerin said. "Now it's you Trokmoi against them, not you against them and their gods, who had already put your gods in fear."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wished he had them back. He did not want to insult Adiatunnus by calling Esus, Teutates, Taranis, and the rest of the Trokm- gods cowards. But the woodsrunners' chieftain only nodded. "Truth that-I've owned it myself. We do the best we can, is all-who can do more?" He stopped and thought about what he'd just said, then clapped a hand to his forehead. "The gods forfend, Fox, I'm after starting to sound like you."

"We've lived next to each other too long," Gerin answered. "This wouldn't be happening if one of us had managed to kill the other somewhere back down the line."

"And that's truth, too," Adiatunnus said. "We're both after having worse neighbors the now, though, the which makes me think I may be glad after all I didna overfall you. You never know till the end how these things turn out sometimes, do you?"

"No, you don't," Gerin said shortly. "If you like, Adiatunnus, and if we come out the other side of these hard times, I'll teach you your letters. They'll make your world seem wider, and you'll profit for that."

"I'll think on it, indeed and I will," Adiatunnus said. Gerin scratched his head. For years, he'd tried to preserve civilization in the northlands not least by driving the Trokmoi over the Niffet. For the first time, he wondered if, having failed to do that, he might civilize them instead. The idea made him laugh. If they invade my country, that's what they get , he thought.

Before he thought about civilizing the Trokmoi (and before he had time to do more than briefly wonder whether a literate Adiatunnus might prove a more dangerous Adiatunnus), he had to worry about the Gradi. The farther west he got, the bigger a worry they became. They fought harder and more cleverly than they had. He was no longer taking them by surprise, either: they knew he and his men were coming after them.

The weather worried him, too. The breeze that smelled of the Orynian Ocean was cool and moist, which made him wonder whether Stribog was no longer busy battling the underground power who had taken him on. Only when local peasants assured him summers close by the sea were generally of that sort did the worry recede-a little.

He kept scouting parties close by the Niffet, to make sure the Gradi could not use their war galleys to land a large band of soldiers behind him by surprise. That precaution paid for itself a couple of days later, when his men spotted two galleys full of Gradi going up the river. When some of the scouts brought that news back, he reversed the course of his army: two galleys' worth of warriors was not a force large enough to do much in the way of raiding upriver, and seemed likelier to be aimed at him.

Had he guessed wrong there, he might have lost the momentum that had kept his troopers surging forward. But he guessed right: his men swept down on the Gradi close by the riverside, and apparently not long after they had left their ships. The fight that followed, on flat, open ground with the Niffet against which to pin the raiders, was more nearly slaughter than anything deserving the name of battle.

Foot soldiers armed mostly with axes, the Gradi here found themselves at the mercy of Gerin's chariot-riding archers. The Gradi could neither close with them nor escape, and had no weapons able to strike their foes from a distance. One by one, they fell, until, seeing the end rapidly approaching, they began killing one another to keep from being captured.

After the fight was over, the Fox sent a party east along the Niffet to find the galleys from which the Gradi had come. Two pillars of smoke rising into the sky said they'd not only found but fired them.

"I wish they hadn't done that," Gerin said, pointing back toward the smoke.

"And why ever not?" Adiatunnus demanded. "With the boats found and all, they should be getting rid of them, eh?"

"Most times, I'd say yes," Gerin answered. "But people will see that smoke a long way. I'm afraid the Gradi army in the west just beyond our farthest advance yet will spot it and know we've smashed their friends."

"What army are you talking about?" Adiatunnus said, and then, "It's daft y'are, I'm thinking, when all we've seen is dribs and drabs of Gradi, no proper armies to 'em at all. Not that I'm sorry for it, mind you now."

"Think it through," the Fox told him. "Why would the Gradi have landed a force of that size behind us? Those men couldn't have caught us, not on foot, and they couldn't fight all of us by themselves if they did catch us. Am I right so far?"

"Aye, belike," the Trokm- chieftain said. "What of it, and what has it got to do with a whole great whacking Gradi army up ahead?"

Gerin too seldom got the chance to play games with logic. When he did, he used it to the hilt. "Think it through," he repeated. "These Gradi couldn't have caught us or fought us, not alone. What does that leave for them to do? The only thing I can think of is that they were meant to be a blocking force, to slow us down while we're retreating and let whoever we're retreating from catch up with us. We wouldn't be retreating from dribs and drabs of Gradi. The only thing that could make us retreat is an army. And so… does that make sense to you?"

Adiatunnus' long, bony face was intent as he followed the Fox's reasoning. At last, he said, "You may be after having the right of it. What a tricksy wight y'are, to see that army or ever you set eyes on it. Have you been watching me the same way, all these years?"

"As best I could," Gerin told him.

"I hold myself lucky, then, for still being here for you to keep an eye on," Adiatunnus said, "though you'll likely tell me you'd be as pleased if I weren't."

"More pleased," the Fox said, deadpan. Adiatunnus gave him a glare as heartfelt as he could have desired. Then both men started to laugh. Gerin went on, "Now let's go see what we can do to flush that army my mind's eye sees-or find out that I'm full of eyewash."

"Indeed and I'll be surprised if it turns out y'are," Adiatunnus told him. "The way you laid out your thoughts, so neat and all, there I was, following along behind like you were lighting up a dark path with a torch."

"You do need to learn to read," Gerin told him. "I'll make a philosopher out of you yet, see if I don't."

"Och," Adiatunnus exclaimed, "maybe I should let the Gradi kill me instead." The Fox glared at him, only to realize the Trokm- had just taken his revenge.

Every so often, Gerin's instinct and his logic let him down with a splat. As he led his army westward, he began to wonder if this was going to be one of those times. He had scouts out well ahead of the main body of his force. They and then he passed a couple of spots where he would have judged the Gradi likely to stand and fight.