Glen Cook - With Mercy Towards None

They landed at a village just above the sidestream, while El Murid's men were scurrying around in search of a ford. Captain Sanguinet hoped his company could vanish into the night before its pursuers got across.

The Altean villagers greeted them as enthusiastically as had the people of Simballawein.

"Keep your hands to yourself, Kildragon," Bragi growled as he formed his squad. "We don't have time for that."

Haaken chuckled softy. In Dunno Scuttari his brother had earned the reputation of being the squad's most devoted pursuer of "split-tail."

"Professional jealousy," Reskird remarked.

"Pot calling the kettle black, for sure," Haaken agreed.

"Come on, guys," Bragi said. "We're in a tight spot." He was edgy, and becoming more so. He had a bad feeling about this Altean campaign. He smelled disaster cooking. And Trolledyngjans were wont to put a lot of stock in omens and forebodings.

"Ready here?" Sanguinet asked.

"Ready, Captain," Bragi replied.

"What's all the hollering over there?" Reskird asked as soon as Sanguinet left. He craned his neck in an effort to see.

Bragi hoisted his pack. "They probably just figured out that we're not going to hang around and protect them." He needed no familiarity with the language to interpret the outrage being vented by the village elders. "Get your packs on."

They moved out to the curses of men and wails of women. Bragi ached inside because the little ones were crying.

They did not even know why.

Sanguinet set a hard pace, heading southeastward. He did not let up often, and then only for a few minutes at a time, to confer with the guides the Altean monarchy had sent to meet them. The march to the Bergwold, the forest they were to use as a base, was almost a hundred miles, and the Captain wanted to make it without a major interruption.

Dawn came and the company marched on. Villages, farms, manors, small castles, hove up ahead, slipped by, and drifted past like slow, lonely ships. The countryside showed no evidence of the passage of raiders, though the peasants vanished from the fields whenever the weary Guildsmen trudged into view.

Here and there, Sanguinet exchanged news with the masters of the various manors and castles. It was more neighborhood gossip than concrete fact. Karim had not yet turned his attention to Altea. The only real fighting had taken place down along the border with Tamerice. Crown Prince Raithel had beaten back three modest incursions.

Bragi wondered why everything was so quiet. He had expected almost continuous fighting. What Karim was doing to the Lesser Kingdoms had been a constant source of conversation during the trip upriver. Of the little states below the Scarlotti, only Altea, and Kavelin, which Altea geographically screened, remained unsubdued. Bragi had expected to be too late for the whirlwind's passage.

Something strange was going on and the entire Altean nation felt it. Nassef's protege was not one to lightly abandon the unstoppable inertia his forces had gained.

Twenty-eight hours of grueling marching brought the company to the northern verges of the Bergwold, so-called because of its proximity to Colberg Castle, a ruined fortress which had played a critical role in Altea's early history. The Alteans considered it a national monument. The passing Guildsmen saw nothing but crumbling walls looking spectral in the moonlight.

None of them knew anything about the kingdom they were supposed to help preserve. Of all of them only Lieutenant Trubacik spoke the language.

Those facts had weighed on Bragi throughout the march. As Reskird had observed, his corporal's belt had gone to his head. He had begun to take leadership seriously.

And there was little to do but think while walking.

Even the Captain was exhausted. The company broke discipline that first night. Not one spadeful of earth got turned along the camp perimeter.

The lapse lasted only that night. Next day Sanguinet moved deeper into the wood and commenced work on a semi-permanent base camp. Scouts made contact with a band of desert Royalists using the Bergwold for the same purpose. Sanguinet concluded a loose alliance.

For weeks they did little but patrol the farmland surrounding the forest. The patrols were half-hearted. The desert horsemen covered more territory faster, and the local nobility went out of their way to keep Sanguinet posted.

Such was the Guild's reputation.

"It feels good," Bragi confided to his brother. "One lousy company and these people figure the kingdom is saved."

"What happens when we don't live up to expectation?" Haaken grumped. Then, "Maybe that's why we're here. Morale. Maybe High Crag knows what it's doing."

"Maybe." Bragi's tone carried the skepticism every line soldier feels for the intellectuals of his trade.

He and his men did a lot of fishing and poking around the Colberg. More interesting diversions were not available.

Word finally came that the enemy was moving. Prince Raithel had met them and been defeated. He was retreating northward and needed reinforcements.

"Here we go again," Haaken grumbled as he shouldered his pack. "Why don't we just wait till they come here?"

"The Master Strategist has spoken," said Reskird. "Bragi, get him an appointment with the Captain."

"I got a sock if you want it, Bragi."

Ragnarson ignored them. Haaken's and Reskird's bickering had become ritualized. There was no rancor in it. It had become a time-passing game.

They never saw Raithel's army. The company found its own enemies twelve miles south of the Colberg.

"Oh-oh," Reskird groaned in his soothsayer's voice. "Trouble."

Royalist outriders galloped past the column in a panic, coming from the crossroad the company had passed a half mile back.

"You the official doom-crier now?" Haaken demanded.

"Company conference!" Sanguinet shouted after stopping one of the horsemen. "Come on! Move it!"

The Captain put it bluntly. "We're in for it. There's a mob of El Murid's men coming down that side road back there. We can't outrun them. They've already spotted us." He flung a hand at a brushy sugarloaf hill a mile away. The road snaked around its western base. "We'll go up yon hill and dig in. If you're religious, pray your ass off. There's a thousand of the bastards." He exaggerated. There were five hundred of the enemy. But that was trouble enough.

Bragi's squad stood to their weapons while their backups dug in. "Some friends," Haaken grumbled, watching the last of the Royalists gallop away. "We might've had a chance with their help."

"We still stand a damned good chance," Bragi said. "We're Guildsmen, remember?"

Reskird glanced over his shoulder. "Look at that dirt fly."

The secundus and tercio flailed at the earth. "Nothing like an unfriendly sword to motivate a man," Bragi observed.

The enemy reached the foot of the hill and halted. His commanders conferred. They seemed reluctant to attack.

"Hey!" Bragi said. "Some of those guys are westerners. Haaken. Can you make out their colors? Aren't they the same as those guys we met in Itaskia wore? Right after we came out of the mountains?"

Haaken peered. "I think you're right. Greyfells. Maybe this is another gang of Royalists."

"How come ours ran off, then?"

Sanguinet came to stand beside Ragnarson. "Itaskians?"

"Yes sir. Those are Greyfells colors."

"Lieutenant Trubacik. Take a white flag down. Find out who they are."

The command argument below continued till Trubacik approached and said something.

It electrified his listeners.

A man with wild grey hair cut Trubacik down.

A deep-throated roar rose from the hillside.

"We did something wrong," Bragi said. "But what?"

"Don't worry about it now," Sanguinet told him. "Worry about staying alive. They've made up their minds. They're coming."