Some legions added something new every campaign; the Fourteenth was content with its red flame on a gold field. Marko remembered, two years back, one of his men asking with a straight face if it was true that after the Sixth brought in cats to protect their grain stores they had added a mouse to their banner to commemorate the victory. The riot that followed nearly wrecked the Boar.
Nobody but the First in the capital now, nobody else but him and his boys this end of the Empire. Not counting the legions on the other side of the low pass. The Emperor hadn't quite said so, but he figured they were why he was sitting on this side. Dangerous times.
A rider on the lower slopes, heading this way. Farther down, twenty or thirty more. South and east, smoke still rising. Maybe he would find out why. The legion commander stood up, brushed himself off, climbed down from the low observation platform, set off for the gateway of the camp to wait for the first rider and whatever news he brought.
"They drive off horses, cattle, burn what they can't steal. Thousands of them. Pania, garrison ran for their lives. Burned it."
"What about . . . Oh."
"Just you and the legion in the capital. Nothing else but city guards, a few locals. Everyone else down south fighting the barbarians."
"Commander. More visitors."
Marko turned, looked out the gate. They were sitting their horses a little out of range of the camp wall. Armor, leather by the look of it, brightly decorated. Bows, quivers. One rode a little forward, hands up, empty, palms out.
"Anyone here speak plains jabber?"
One of the men by the gate raised his head.
"I know a little, sir. Not much."
"Leave your weapons here."
The commander unbuckled his own sword belt, leaned the weapon against the wall, stepped out of the gate.
The leader of the nomads, brighter armor than the rest, stylized fox head tattooed on his forehead, greeted the commander in fluent Tengu.
"Me and my friends have a problem. So do you."
The commander looked curiously at him, said nothing.
"Our problem is getting home. You and yours are in the pass, more of you the other side."
"That's your problem, what's ours?"
"Us. Have to eat. The longer we stay this side of the pass, the less left behind when we go home." He gestured at the smoke still rising from the general direction of Pania. "Don't know if we can force the pass, damn sure you can't catch us on the level."
The commander thought a moment, looking out, down, where the plain funneled up to the pass.
"We both have a problem. What's your solution?"
"You get out of the way, we come through. Talk to your people on the other side of the pass first."
Two days later, Marko was wondering if his choices were right. The officer Artos had sent had agreed to the proposal—both forces to draw back, each watched from the top of the pass by a few of the other's men. The nomads free to come through the pass, out onto the western plains. Marko wondered if Artos planned to keep his side of the bargain with the nomads. Perhaps. Artos had to live with the plains as neighbors.
Marko didn't. From where he stood he could just see his men under cover, ready to come down on the nomad column where the road narrowed. Five hundred in ambush, five hundred more ready to move out of the camp, fall on the rear of the enemy. With Artos he would keep his agreement, but barbarians who burned an Imperial city were another matter.
"Commander."
The man sounded worried. From the top of the tower Marko could see why—a mass of men and beasts spread out across the valley floor. Too far to count heads, but after twenty years he had a fair idea how long, how wide, a column of a thousand cavalry should be. A thousand nomads he could manage, two thousand if the gods gave him luck. Five thousand were a problem for someone else to deal with. Maybe Artos. He started back down the stairs, yelling for a runner.
Sitting his horse a little below the top of the pass, Kiron looked west across the plains—at the limit of his vision a patch of green, again held by Eagle clan. Turning the other way, the first of the nomads coming through the pass.
One rode down to him. The leather armor was bright with elaborate designs. No tattoo—not a war chief. Bow one side, quiver the other, hand raised, empty. Time to see if they had a language in common. Not nomads—Westkin.
"Name Kiron. Speak for commander, Governor. Know you Valestalk, Tengu?"
"Getting better, but I still speak your language better than you speak mine."
A long pause.
"Niall?"
"In the flesh. Got bored with rabbits."
"This is your army?"
Niall shook his head.
"My brother Donal is war leader for Fox Clan at the moment, four hundred clan brothers. Eagle, Bear, half this end of the plains sent someone along for the ride. Some day you try to get a couple thousand Westkin, fourteen clans, all moving in the same direction. Make running the Empire feel like a vacation."
"And you came along to . . ."
"Just now, to sell some horses. Thought your father might be interested; heard he was a few short. Cavalry mounts. Trained. Even have the right brand."
"How many horses—trained cavalry mounts with the Imperial brand—are you prepared to sell us? Assuming we can agree on a price."
Niall looked at him, considered.
"Sure you want to know?"
Kiron nodded.
"Four thousand. Don't expect you'll want all of them. Give you a good price, though. Market, this end of the plains, not what it used to be."
It occurred to Kiron that raising and supplying an army off the resources of a mountain farm presented difficulties to which Harald, being Harald, found his own unique answers. This one had a certain wild logic to it.