Janny Wurts - The Curse of the Mistwraith

Deep under the eaves of the forest, in a valley riddled with traps, clansmen under Steiven s’Valerient sharpen their swords and their knives, and for the last time wax their bowstrings; while on a lyranthe the last of its kind, Halliron Masterbard plays ballads and bright songs from better days, to inspire their hearts to a valour he grieves will be futile…

Returned to his post at Althain Tower, Sethvir bends his regard toward Rockfell Peak to check the wards which bind the Mistwraith. He finds no flaws, and a small ease of mind, for though Arithon could build on his training and possibly unravel those securities, having suffered to subdue such an evil, Rathain’s prince was least likely to meddle in foolishness…

XVII. MARCH UPON STRAKEWOOD FOREST

Dressed out in clean tunics edged in city colours of scarlet and gold, gleaming under polished helms and smart trappings; and bearing on their backs and in their scabbards the newly wrought arms and chain-mail purchased by the merchants’ treasury at cost of eight hundred thousand coin-weight, fine gold, the men of Etarra’s garrison formed up and marched just past dawn. Set like a sapphire in their midst, Lysaer sat his bridleless chestnut. Lord Commander Diegan and Captain Gnudsog were positioned at either flank, while the bannerbearers of the greater trade houses, and message riders on their lean-flanked mounts clustered in formation just behind. Four companies of standing army and reserves paraded after, in disciplined units twenty-four hundred strong.

Lysaer made no conversation. Groomed as befitted his past stature, every inch the princely image of restrained pride, he was disinclined to trivialize his first foray against the s’Ffalenn who had demolished a fleet on Dascen Elur. Fighting was ugly business. No pennons, no style and no fanfares could mask that these men in their brilliance and finery marched, some to die in blood and suffering. Still, a heart not made of stone must thrill to the muffled thunder of war destriers. Each tight square of troops boasted ninety mounted lancers, four hundred crossbowmen and archers, and a perimeter of pikemen numbering nearly two thousand. Deep within their protection rolled the supply wagons and support troops and rearwards the additional thousand light cavalry under the black kite standard of the northern league of headhunters.

Weather was also in their favour. The last spring rains had finally lifted; the rivers ran placid and shallow.

Sunlight pricked the horizon, edged to the east by the black trees that rimmed Strakewood Forest. For a time as the air warmed, the companies marched knee-deep through mists that swathed the meadows in blue-grey. These dispersed last from the hollows, to bare rolling hills and the dew-spangled grass of early summer, bespattered and dappled with patches of red brushbloom and weathered rock. A craggier landscape than Daon Ramon, the plain of Araithe wore the season like a cloak of rippling new silk, lush and sweet with flowers, overwhelming the senses in living green.

Lysaer gazed across the vista, untrampled yet by the advancing mass of his army. In his birthland of Amroth, such rich forage would have been grazed short by sheep. He promised himself that if barbarian predation were to blame for the lack of shepherds, his campaign against Arithon would amend this. Then, in belated reassessment, he realized that had these hills been used once as pastures they should be crisscrossed by the remains of stone fences and sheepfolds.

There were none, nor any foundations of ruined cottages.

These acres had possibly stayed untouched by man’s industry through the ages since Ath’s first creation. Why such obviously prime pastureland should go wasted puzzled Lysaer, until his thought was broken off by the hoofbeats of an outrider returning at a gallop.

The scout wheeled his mud-splashed mount and reined into step beside Gnudsog. ‘Lord,’ he saluted to Diegan, and then his commanding field officer, ‘Captain.’ But he looked at Lysaer as he delivered his report, which was startling enough to call a halt to the advance.

Six barbarian children had been spotted, practising javelin casts in a glen just upriver of the ford across the Tal Quorin.

‘A stroke of luck, your Grace,’ Diegan said. To avoid embarrassment, he allowed Lysaer the titular courtesy due his birthright. Since no honorific at all implied a labourer’s stature and thus demeaned both parties in conversation only socially acceptable between equals, other Etarran officials had followed suit. ‘To find barbarians so easily, and they, overtaken unaware.’

Stolid on his horse as a figurehead, Gnudsog scowled his annoyance. ‘Clan scouts are never so careless!’

‘Elders, surely,’ Lysaer agreed. His clear gaze swung toward the scout. ‘But children? What would you guess were their ages?’

The answer held no hesitation: the largest had looked no more than twelve.

‘Rat’s get all, and bad cess to them.’ Gnudsog slapped a fly that landed, but had no chance to bite his horse. ‘They’ll know every inch of this country, Deshir’s scouts. Likely as not, they’re part of a camp that’s laid in an ambush farther on.’

‘Against an army?’ Diegan grinned, the gilt scrollwork on his helmet and the plumes on his bridle and harness the fashion of the daredevil gallant. ‘The odds would hardly be sporting.’

‘Barbarians don’t play at odds,’ came a querulous interruption from the sidelines. ‘In these parts, they prefer pits lined with sharpened stakes and spring-traps that rip out a man’s guts, or tear the axles off wagons.’

Smart in a black and white surcoat over chain-mail dulled with grease and years of polishing, Pesquil rode up to determine the cause of the delay. At the head of the column, he jerked short his brush-scarred gelding that he liked best for its toughness. ‘So you chase those children thinking to find an encampment of scouts you can surprise, eh? Well, try that. Then find yourselves bloody.’

Lysaer regarded the dip of the hills that unfolded in curves toward the ford. Chilly in courtesy he said, ‘Would you send your ten-year-old son out as gambit before the weapons of a war host?’

‘Perhaps. If the stakes were arranged in my favour.’ Sallow, pockscarred and quick with nervous energy, Pesquil shrugged. ‘For sure, I’ve known clanborn chits who’d dangle out their newborns if they thought any gain could be wrung from it. The slow plan we follow is safest.’

But Diegan was ill-pleased to spend a summer swatting insects and enduring rough camp in the open when a bolder victory might be possible. ‘Send in a small troop of light riders,’ he ordered Gnudsog. ‘See where the children flee and let the army follow if it’s safe.’

Pesquil reined around so hard his mount grunted in pain from the bit. ‘Fools,’ he muttered. ‘Idiots.’ And he spurred to a canter back through the lines to his headhunters.

Gnudsog watched him go, his huge hands crossed at his saddle pommel. Then his eyes, black as rivets, swung to Lysaer. ‘What do you think, prince?’ From his lips, the title implied insult.

Lysaer raised his head in genteel challenge. ‘Send in your riders,’ he suggested. ‘If a trap exists, then spring it with fewest losses.’

‘You don’t think it’s a trap.’ Deigan soothed his restive destrier. Then, his regard in speculation upon Lysaer, he raised a gauntlet chased in glittering gold to signal the columns to rest at ease. ‘Why?’

‘Because I saw Arithon in a back alley with a band of knacker’s conscripts once when he didn’t think he was being watched.’ Fair-skinned as an ice figure in the early sunlight, the prince stroked the black-handled sword newly forged for his use in the field. Rumour held that the blade had been engraved with Arithon’s name in reverse runes, which may have been at the armourer’s insistence, for shaping a blade to kill a sorcerer. Lysaer did not look superstitious or afraid, but only pragmatic as he said, ‘The Shadow Master has few scruples. But I know him well enough to hedge that he’d sanction no ambush that involved any use of small children.’