The Forgotten (The Lost Words: Volume 3) (60 page)

Their target was a village, the southernmost tip of the enemy occupation. It sat on a finger of land jutting into the Kerabon River, dominated by an old monastery, one of the few that still peddled religion to the Eracians. Still, the common people liked their faith. When you lacked in gold and food, spiritual gruel was the only thing in abundance.

The place was called Sacred, and it probably belonged a few hundred miles farther south, in the Safe Territories.

From what he had learned, the nomads avoided spreading their forces too thinly in little villages of no strategic importance, which was why their toehold in Sacred was a mystery. There was nothing useful inside or near the place worth risking their lives for, Bart thought. There were many bridges elsewhere, better land for raising crops. No mines, no manor houses or castles, nothing really.

Regardless, the Eracian honor called for cleansing every house of the nomad scum. Sacred was the first one on their journey to Somar.

Bart lowered the looking glass and wrapped it in silk to keep the lenses from frosting. He looked at Junner. The man was playing with a pair of bone dice, deftly rolling them over and round his knuckles.

“I do not like it, Lord Count,” the mercenary insisted, but it was hard to tell how much of it was genuine concern and how much a well-calculated game.

“If you do not participate in this battle, it will harm your reputation,” Bart offered smoothly.

The Borei grimaced painfully. “Ah, yes. When you’re the best, you’re the best.”

The truth was, there was his own reputation at stake. He had to convince the Eracians that these foreigners were not just after their money and wives. He had to show them he had brought useful military help, and that the mercenaries could be relied upon, as much as any paid sword could be trusted.

Bart left Junner to discuss the fine details of the attack with Commander Faas, the newly appointed head of the Eracian Southern Army. He was truly lucky to have someone like him and Ulrich at his side. For a moment, he imagined having the Privy Council members with him. He shuddered at the thought.

He walked back to the camp, a black stain on the ground, erected a mile from Sacred. There was no point hiding. Half a dozen similar camps covered the horizon, being struck almost every dawn and erected anew at nightfall, each time creeping a few miles farther north, tightening the grip on the nomads.

The camp belonged to the Fifth Division, and now Colonel Maurice was leading it. Soldiers were doing the last
preparations before the assault, drinking, singing, checking their gear, oiling weapons, smearing their skin in soot and lard to avoid chilblains.

At a nearby fire, he saw one of the footmen stringing his lute and chanting in a rough voice: “Monarch Leopold took the Kataji bear into his bed; he fucked it not, but rather lost his realm and head.”

“Hey!” Bart snapped.

The group of men raised their merry eyes, and all mirth fled them instantly. With deep consternation, they stared at the superior standing in front of them, wondering what their punishment might be.

“Cuff him on the head,” Bart told one of the singer’s friends. Almost automatically, the man slapped his friend’s nape, making his head bob. “No more songs like that.”

“Aye, my lord,” the singer mumbled.

Bart moved on. He followed the mucky trail to the brown command tent and ducked inside, the soldiers at their posts snapping to attention. Inside, it was hot and stifling, fumes from tiny coal braziers filling the room with acrid soot. The large stove was broken, its chimney funnel rusted, and the leader of the army had to wait until it was mended. Such was the sorry state of his forces, Bart realized.

Colonel Maurice was sorting out the latest details with half a dozen junior officers. He brightened when he saw the viceroy. “Your Highness. We are ready to move against Sacred.”

Bart nodded curtly, trying to appear as official as the rest of them. “Very good. The enemy strength?”

A battalion commander cleared his throat. “Just a hundred or so. Really strange, Your Highness.”

Well, the only way to unravel the mystery was to storm the place. Bart waved his hand. “I hope your scouts report no
nasty surprises, and I expect you will be taking prisoners for interrogation. Continue, please.”

He listened, but soon he got bored. He did not really want to be in this tent. In fact, he was rather useless, maybe even interfering. The ruler of the land did not have any useful function, he kept noticing. His purpose was to be seen, to inspire by his presence.

Bart considered paying Constance a visit in their tent, just to check on her, but he refrained. He needed to stay focused. Still, he had brought her along simply because he did not trust her out of his reach. Everything had changed since she told him of her predicament. His predicament.

The attack began while the sun was halfway up the sky to its zenith. Clear winter days were usually the coldest. And the most dangerous. There were no clouds to trap the heat, and the snow was a brilliant silver plate, blinding with its sharp glare. Men would find the crust softening, their feet sinking into the wet drift, sapping their strength. They might unbutton their shirts, mistaking the lull for anything but a trap. Then, the night would come, the slush would turn to ice, and all those who had let the fierce cold lick their necks and chests would be regretting their foolishness.

Bart watched from his monarchical distance as the Eracian troops entered Sacred. The battle was almost boring. Soon, the monastery was surrounded, and the advance force waved a blue flag that indicated it was safe to approach.

Still, the army was taking no chances, and a full two thousand soldiers were deployed around the village, ready to repel any ambushes. Bart followed on a horse, crossing the bridge.

“Report,” he asked a captain guarding the village entrance.

“No casualties on our side. Once they saw those monsters, they fled and barricaded themselves inside the monastery, Your Highness.”

Too easy
. He still dreaded something awful was going to happen. No man was bound so much luck as himself. Maybe he had just gotten used to being derided, trodden upon, ignored, and sidelined, so he treated any good turn of fortune with suspicion, but this was just too much. Highly cooperative officers, bloodless battles. That did not happen in real life.

Bart felt a nagging sense of distress as he walked the dirt lane between closely pressed mud--and riverstone houses, the eyes of several women and children watching him with fear. Everyone looked grubby and weary. Soldiers guarded every doorway, every side approach, looking ill at ease near their fellow countrywomen. Normally, he would expect men to be rather eager around women.

He walked to the monastery. It was surrounded by a thick wall of Eracians, crossbows trained at the small tower jutting from the building roof. For an instant, a face popped into view at the top. A swath of bolts clattered into the mortar, chipping stone.

Junner’s animals were standing to the side, looking just as fidgety as everyone else. One of the olifaunts was stamping its legs and unfurling its trunk. Bart approached the mission commander, one of Ulrich’s majors.

“Report,” he heard himself repeat, the sum of his usefulness.

“Those bastards got themselves penned up inside. Probably fifty or sixty of them. We were thinking of firing up some straw, trying to flush them out with smoke, but there’s not enough around. My men suggested peeling the roofs off the houses, but we wanted to check with you first, Your Highness.”

“Good thinking.”

Tearing down homes as the first act of liberation would not do. Sacred’s few survivors needed help. Bart had no idea
what the women had endured since the occupation had begun, and by the way they were looking at them, things had been difficult.

“Junner!” Bart hailed. “Get a length of chain worked round the hinges, and get your olifaunts to pull and tear the door down.”

There was a wave of chatter in the tight press of soldiers. At first, they had worried about the huge beasts, but now they treated them as their favorite weapons.

“Will be done, Lord Count,” the mercenary chirped. He spoke to his men in their language.

“That man is disrespecting you, Your Highness,” some major asserted, overeager to please.

“He is just not familiar with our titles, that is all,” Bart said. “Do not mind him.”

The Eracians watched with fascination as the Borei did what they did best, while a party of crossbowmen covered the tower top so that the nomad archers could not fire down on them. Junner’s troops soon rigged the door, and the olifaunts pulled the door down in a loud shriek of wood and stone. The siege quickly ended.

A forest of spears was leveled at the monastery’s dark interior. They could feel the bodies inside; they could guess their shapes moving, fretting, getting ready for their final stand. No one wanted to be the hero who stormed first, on either side.

“I will order the men to step in,” the major in charge offered bravely.

Behind him, more troops were coming, both Faas and Maurice among them. Everyone was there. This was the perfect spot to slaughter half the top officers of the newly assembled Southern Army. Kill Bart, too. He did not like all this. He could mostly understand great battles, he could understand the
politics of the court, but he could not understand the suicide stand of the Kataji in an unimportant village.

“Maybe we can sort this peacefully.” The practical coward in Bart’s heart voiced his opinion. He still remembered how he had once believed in peace at all costs. Well, he had evolved since, but the need to avoid violence was strong in his bones.

The moment one treats death with indifference becomes the day one should step down from power
, Bart reasoned. He had to cling to that notion. He had to be prepared to sacrifice men for his own needs, and those of his nation, but the price must not come lightly.
Look what happened to Leopold
, he thought sourly, recalling the song he had heard earlier. It was rather amusing, if unpatriotic.

“What do you suggest, Your Highness?” the officer inquired.

There was a ripple of salutes as Commander Faas and Colonel Maurice stepped closer. The ring of soldiers tightened even further.

“Major Neil, we have secured the village then?” Faas asked.

“No, we still got enemy inside the monastery, sir,” the other man replied.

Faas tensed. “In there?”

Bart thought the same idea he had been brooding over crossed Faas’s mind. So many soldiers, clustered in a small village, a succulent prize for any foe wise enough to exploit the situation.

“Let’s get this done with quickly,” someone shouted, not helping with the tension.

“Junner!” Bart called again. The mahout was there, his face radiating opportunity. He seemed pleased that his olifaunts had come out unscathed in the battle. It was the kind of fight that mercenaries liked. Bloodless and in their favor.

“Talk to them,” the viceroy ordered.

Junner touched his chest modestly. “Me, Lord Count? What do I know about negotiations?”

Bart had to smile. “More than I do, surely. Parley with them. See if you can get them to surrender.”

The Borei smoothed his scaled-armor vest. “All right, Lord Count. A favor for you.” The mercenary pushed to the front ranks of the spearmen, but he stood behind a big, burly man. “In there, you nomads! Surrender, and you come out alive!”

There was silence in front of the monastery. Then, someone answered in broken Continental. “Never.”

Junner chortled. “Be wise, nomad. You come out alive; you go back to your lands.”

“We never promised to spare their lives and let them go,” Maurice growled.

“Shhh, let the man do his work,” Bart said.

“How can we trust yous Eracian scum?” the black doorway rasped in reply, an edge of uncertainty resonating there.

“Trust? Trust? It’s military honor!” Junner was shouting, looking pleased. “You come out; you go back to your home. You got a wife? You got kids? You want to see them again, nomad?”

“I pissing on your honor,” another voice added, less enamored by the Borei’s charm.

Junner inclined his head, popping the joints in his neck. “So you pissing. It is all good. But you want to live, nomad? This is your only chance.”

“No killing?” the first voice asked.

“No killing,” Junner promised, and it sounded like any of his business deals.

There was silence again, but then, the nomads began filing out of the monastery, blinking against the glaring sun, their
faces locked in a rictus of consternation as they stared down at the Eracians. There was no friendliness awaiting them, just hard, hating expressions. The men checked themselves because they had been ordered so. One by one, the enemy exited the building, tossing their weapons on a heap near the broken frame of the door.

The soldiers of the Fifth Division bound their arms and marched them away into the open, outside the village.

“I want to know why they stayed here and did not flee,” Bart told Maurice.

The colonel nodded, but he looked distracted. Junner hopped by, grinning widely.

“Nice work, Junner. Your persuasion skills never cease to amaze me.”

“Lord Count, I am flattened by your words!”

Bart sniggered. “Flattered. Not flattened.”

The Borei shrugged. “We learn new things every day. You will let them go?”

Bart’s face darkened. “I will have to keep the promise now that you made it in my name.”

The mercenary nodded knowingly. “We all must do that. Otherwise, they never trust us again. But you can do like we did in the Siege of Himbatha. You heard of that? No? Nasty place. We got the defenders to put their weapons down. But you see, Lord Count, you can’t let your foes just walk away. So we chopped their hands off, at the wrist, there.” He pointed. “Got one in fifty to lead them to their towns and feed them. Fair. They got their lives, and you make sure they don’t lift their swords against you ever again.”

Bart could see the village stirring. There was almost a commotion in its narrow, filthy alleys. The women were snarling curses at the nomad prisoners, throwing mud and stones. The
need for retribution was palpable. Bart was liking Sacred less and less by the minute. He wanted this thing done with as quickly as possible so he could leave.