by Gren. He still felt a weakling next to Reher. But their common Carluse blood gave them a bond he valued.
They weren’t so very far from Tathrin’s own home. Could he end up fighting boys he’d challenged to skip stones across a duck pond? Would he find men who’d clipped him around the ear for teasing a chained hound at the end of his sword?
“Reher!” Once he had the smith’s attention, he lowered his voice. “There’s movement ahead. Arest wants us with him in case it’s Woodsmen.”
Reher’s dark eyes glinted. Like Tathrin and most of the rest, he was dark-haired and deeply tanned after the long summer. “Let’s see.” He handed the rein leading the mule carrying his tools and supplies to another of the retinue’s non-combatants. Surprised, the man accepted it nevertheless. People didn’t argue with Reher.
They soon reached the head of the column. Captain-General Evord wasn’t a commander to hide away at the tail of his troops. The fields gave way to rough grass dotted with thickets, too far from any village to be safely farmed. Tathrin loosened his blade in its scabbard, tension twisting his gut. This wasn’t a high road with the ground cleared for a bowshot on each side to foil bandits. Evord was marching his army along a little-used route to reach their intended foe, all the better to go undetected.
How were locals to know this mercenary army wasn’t the usual villainous rabble? It was bad enough when militiamen collected the ducal dues but they were Carluse men at least, even if they’d taken the duke’s coin to wear his boar’s head badge. Tathrin’s father had once slapped him for spitting at a militiaman, and not just to save him from the sergeant’s vengeance. Most enlisted to feed their families or because they’d lost all home and livelihood, he’d explained later. Taking what they must to meet the levy, they usually tried to leave a household with enough to survive the hungry winter seasons.
Mercenaries had no kith or kin in Lescar. If they were sent to collect the levy, they descended like ravening curs. All the duke’s reeve demanded of a company’s captain was the money each household must pay. Whatever else the mercenaries took was theirs to keep. So farmers and craftsmen saw their houses ransacked for hoarded Caladhrian marks or Tormalin crowns.
The mercenaries readily handed over lead-debased Lescari silver for the ducal coffers. They were content to leave the copper pennies that the desperate cut into halves and quarters to make them do twice and four times their duty. The solid coin sent from beyond Lescar’s borders would slake the dogs’ lust for gambling, whores and drunkenness.
He remembered mercenaries coming to the Ring of Birches just once. Tathrin’s father had bought them off with strong liquors saved for just such a crisis. His mother and sisters hid away upstairs. In his farrier’s apron, Tathrin’s eldest brother by marriage had barred the way, a hammer in one hand, an iron bar in the other. None of the mercenaries had challenged him.
Such men were cowards at heart, that’s what his father had said. After these long seasons spent in their company, Tathrin would argue that point. If he ever got safe home and had the chance. He resolutely thrust such thoughts aside as they reached the front ranks of the column.
Men, and not a few women, were marching beneath a grey banner bearing a white gull. Their shields bore white wings with black tips, the paint old and chipped. A new design shone beneath them: a bright yellow quill. Tathrin was still trying to get the measure of such women, all warriors in their own right. Captain-General Evord had decreed no trail of whores and cooks would slow this army.
“There’s Gren.” Reher whistled a snatch of a flax-finch’s song.
It took Tathrin a moment to spot the short mercenary sliding through the tangled undergrowth. Hearing Reher’s whistle the second time, Gren glanced over his shoulder and beckoned them onwards.
Tathrin stooped, uncomfortably aware of his height. Reher showed no such concerns as they halted in the lee of a birch tree.
“What’s the game?”
“A double handful lurking a hundred paces beyond that twisted thorn.” Gren pointed. “Listen and you’ll hear their stones rattling in their breeches, they’re so scared.”
“Where’s Arest?” Tathrin couldn’t believe the mercenary captain could hide behind anything less than a full-grown oak. If he wasn’t as tall as Reher, he was even more massively built.
“He’s playing the swordwing.” Gren nodded to his offside. “Zeil