supposed to be marching with him here at the tail end of Captain-General Evord’s retinue. But Gren preferred to range up and down the column, picking up gossip and grumbles, flirting with the women among the mercenaries and cadging whatever he could for the sackcloth provisions bag slung on his hip.
“You look as glum as a man with a three-day cake baking up his arse. Cheer up. Life will look sunnier once you’ve dropped some prunes in a ditch.” Gren held out a rich orange lump flecked with green herbs. “Want some cheese?”
“Thanks.” Tathrin had learned to eat whenever the chance arose.
“The scouts reckon they’ve seen something.” Gren’s words were muffled by his mouthful, his blue eyes bright with anticipation.
Tathrin considered the thickly leaved hedges flanking the track. They wouldn’t be thinned till Aft-Winter. With no work in the fields and their valuable herds penned, farmers could repair the damage done by malice, misfortune or merely the past year’s weather. At the moment, half a company of swordsmen could be lurking in the next field and he’d be hard put to see them, even though he was half a head taller than most. Gren barely topped his shoulder.
He frowned at the shorter man. “The captain-general doesn’t expect to encounter Carluse forces today.”
From the outset, Tathrin had been present for Evord’s meetings with his lieutenants and the gallopers who carried his instructions to every one of the eighty-some companies that made up this army’s full strength. After all, as far as anyone knew, Tathrin was Evord’s personal clerk, his scholar’s ring proof that his writing was legible and his reckoning reliable.
Gren ran a hand through his tousled hair, pale as newly sawn wood in the strengthening light. “Could be brave lads from that last village, slipping their leashes to take us on.” His grin broadened. “To save their pretty kittens from a nosing by us dirty dogs.”
Tathrin had noted every door and window was shuttered as they’d marched through the village with the sky still darker than a wood pigeon’s wing. But it wouldn’t be hard for someone who knew the local byways to slip out of a back door and overtake the marching column. Were men and boys hiding out here, clutching mattocks and hoes, believing they must fight to the death to defend their homes and families?
What would Carluse’s commonalty know of this army and its true purpose? What would they fear when they saw the companies of blond uplanders like Gren? Mountain Men were rumoured to be brutal savages and marching mercenaries of any stripe only ever brought death and destruction. Until now.
“Arest and his Wyvern Hunters are in the vanguard.” Gren had lived a mercenary life long enough to lose every trace of his Mountain accent. He washed down his cheese with a swallow of ale. “Me, I’d kill them all and they can argue the roll of the runes with Saedrin when they reach the door to the Otherworld, but Arest wants you and Reher to come forward, in case we’re tripping over farmers. If it’s Duke Garnot’s militiamen, you two can fall back while we cut them down. All right?” Without waiting for Tathrin’s answer, Gren headed for the front of the column.
Tathrin looked quickly around for Reher. Gren wasn’t joking when he advocated clearing the road by killing everyone regardless. Arest wasn’t so ready with his swords but the Wyvern Hunters would still repulse any attack, determined to be safe instead of sorry. Hapless peasants would be slaughtered.
There. Reher was marching at the rear of Evord’s personal guard, the mounted swordsmen who made up the bulk of the captain-general’s retinue. That made sense. As a blacksmith, he kept all their horses shod. Would his other talents be called for today? Tathrin fervently hoped not.
Hurrying towards Reher, he felt his armour already weighing him down. Tathrin’s leather jerkin wasn’t as heavy as Gren’s chain mail, even with the steel plates sewn into its linen lining, but its insidious weight still sapped his strength.
Wearing a sheepskin jerkin over his chain-mail hauberk, Reher showed no sign of weariness. He never did and Tathrin didn’t think that was just because the man’s black beard hid so much of his face. Reher was enormous, taller than Tathrin, who seldom had to look up to anyone, and the smith’s arms were as well muscled as most men’s thighs. Tathrin’s own shoulders had broadened considerably after spending both halves of summer and the first half of autumn being drilled in swordplay