THERIFTWAR
RAYMOND E. FEIST
THE RIFTWAR SAGA:
MAGICIAN(1982, revised edition 1992)
SILVERTHORN(1985)
A DARKNESS INSETHANON(1986)
THE EMPIRE TRILOGY (with Janny Wurts):
DAUGHTER OF THEEMPIRE(1989)
SERVANT OF THEEMPIRE(1990)
MISTRESS OF THEEMPIRE(1992)
STAND-ALONE RIFTWAR-RELATED BOOKS:
PRINCE OF THEBLOOD(1989)
THEKING’SBUCCANEER(1992)
THE SERPENTWAR SAGA:
SHADOW OF ADARKQUEEN(1994)
RISE OF AMERCHANTPRINCE(1995)
RAGE OF ADEMONKING(1997)
SHARDS OF ABROKENCROWN(1998)
THE RIFTWAR LEGACY:
KRONDOR: THEBETRAYAL(1998)
KRONDOR: THEASSASSINS(1999)
KRONDOR: TEAR OF THEGODS(2000)
CONCLAVE OF SHADOWS:
TALES OF THESILVERHAWK(2003)
KING OFFOXES(2004)
MAGICIAN’SSON(2005)
Raymond E. Feist’sRiftwar fantasy series begins with the adventures of two boys, Pug and Tomas, each wishing to rise above his lowly station in life. Pug desires to become a magician, Tomas a great warrior. Each achieves his dream through outside agencies and his own natural abilities. Pug is kidnapped during the Riftwar, discovered to have magic abilities, and is trained to greatness. Tomas stumbles upon a dying dragon who gives him a suit of armor imbued with an ancient magic, turning him into a warrior of legendary might.
As Pug and Tomas undergo their transformations and become more adept at controlling the powers that have been granted them, the scope of the novel expands to reveal more about the two worlds upon which the conflict known as the Riftwar takes place: Midkemia and Kelewan. Midkemia is a young world, vibrant and conflict-ridden, while Kelewan is ancient and tradition-bound, but no freer of conflict. The militaristic Tsurani, from Kelewan, have invaded the Kingdom of the Isles on Midkemia to expand their domain and seize metals common on Midkemia but rare at home. The only way open between these worlds is a magic Rift, and through that portal in space-time the invaders have established a foothold in the Kingdom. Gradually Tomas learns that he has become invested with the power of a Valheru, one of the mystical creatures who are legends in Midkemia. The Dragon Lords were near-godlike beings who once warred with the gods themselves. The action in the first trilogy comes to a climax inA Darkness at Sethanon , with the resolution of the war between the Kingdom and the invading Tsurani, Tomas gaining control over the ancient magic that sought to conquer him, and Pug returning to the homeland of his youth.
The Empire Trilogyconcerns itself with conflict back on the Tsurani homeworld, where for much of the first and second book we see “the other side of the Riftwar.” Lady Mara of the Acoma, a girl of seventeen in the first book, is thrust into a murderous game of politics and ritual, and only through her own genius and ability to improvise does she weather unrelenting attacks on all sides. Aided by a loyal group of followers, including a Kingdom slave named Kevin, whom she comes to love more than any other, Mara rises to dominate the Empire of Tsuranuanni, even facing down the mighty Great Ones, the magicians who are outside the law.
The Serpentwar Sagais the story of Erik, the bastard son of a noble, and Roo, a street boy who is his best friend. The Kingdom again faces invaders, but this time from across the sea. The story of the two young men is set against the Kingdom’s hurried preparation for and resistance against a huge army under the banner of the Emerald Queen, a woman who is another agent of dark forces seeking dominion over the world of Midkemia. More of the cosmic nature of the battle between good and evil is revealed, and Pug and Tomas again have to take a hand in the struggle.
TheRiftwar Legacy series contains three novels regarding events taking place a few years following the Riftwar, featuring more adventures of Jimmy Locklear, Prince Arutha, and other characters from the original series.
Legends of the Riftwarare novels set in the period of the original Riftwar series, but featuring new characters in different locations, revealing more intimate stories that took place during that epic conflict.
Feist sees Midkemia as an objective, virtual world, even though a fictional one. He regards all the tales set in Midkemia as historical novels and stories of this fantastic realm.The Messenger is a tale from the middle years of the Riftwar, when the war had turned into a struggle along a stable front.
THE MESSENGER
RAYMOND E. FEIST
The wind whipped the trees.
Their branches swayed and creaked in protest as the last brown leaves of the fall were sent flying. The shushing sound of the pines and firs as their needle-laden branches seemed to wave in protest was a forlorn harbinger of long winter nights and frigid days rapidly approaching.
Outside the command tents, soldiers huddled close to their campfires. Snow should be weeks away, but many of the local men could sense an early winter was coming. The cold cut through padded overjackets like a blade of ice. Soldiers who had put all their undergarments on as well as two or even three pairs of stockings—forcing their feet into their boots—were complaining of numb toes if their feet got wet. Locals knew it was going to be a bad winter. Many turned their eyes skyward, anticipating the first flakes that would surely fall soon. This winter would come early, would come hard and linger too long.
The foothills of the Grey Tower Mountains were rarely forgiving to men caught exposed when the weather turned suddenly, and the soldiers of the Kingdom of the Isles were equipped to deal with all but this harshest of seasons. They expected to be back in the cities of Yabon province when winter’s full fury was unleashed, billeted in barracks and houses, warm before fireplaces and protected from the snow piling up outside their windows. But the experienced veterans knew that unless the weather turned a more gentle aspect their way soon, the columns of soldiers soon leaving the front would be marching through thigh-high drifts of snow as they reached LaMut City, Ylith, and Yabon. Some wounded who might make it back home in a more normal season would surely not survive such a march.
All around the camp a sense of anticipation was building, for surely the Dukes conducting this war would realize an early and hard winter was soon upon them and the fighting would stop. The Commissary chief and his cooks and helpers, the Quartermaster and the boys in the luggage who were inspecting the scant remaining weapons and clothing available to the soldiers, all paused from time to time to look at the sky, to sense the coming weather and to ask, Is it time to go home? The armorer held up a dented cavalryman’s breastplate to inspect what could be done to mend it, while his apprentice fed coal into the hearth; both wondered if the armor would be needed, for it must be time to go home, wasn’t it? Soldiers nursing wounds in the infirmary tents, the cavalry in their tents, and the mercenaries in their bedrolls and bundles who slept in whatever shelter they could find, all wondered, Is it time to go home?
Inside the command tent, Vandros der LaMut looked at the orders that had just arrived and nodded in agreement.
He looked to his senior captain, Petir Leyman, and said, “We’re going home for the winter. Orders from Dukes Brucal and Borric.”
“About time,” said the rangy captain. He blew on his hands for emphasis, even though his heavily padded gauntlets kept his fingers warm enough. Then he grinned. “I’ll ensure we have ample firewood put by back at the castle, m’lord.” He lost his smile. “This is feeling like a bad winter coming.”
The Earl of LaMut looked out the open tent flap, past the brazier that kept him relatively warm, and said, “We’ll have plenty of snow to push through by the time I’m called to the Commander’s Muster up in Yabon.” He sighed, barely audible, but a sigh nevertheless. “Assuming I can get there. This feels like a bad winter, indeed.”
Leyman nodded.
Vandros stood up and said, “I need a messenger to ride to the forward positions.”
He crossed to the field map on his command table and pointed. “These three positions, Gruder here, Moncrief here, and Summerville there.” His finger stabbed each location. “I need them to withdraw in order. It’s cold enough the Tsurani should be pulling back to their own winter billets.”
“Should is a dangerous word, m’lord.”
“Agreed, but they’ve never moved against us once the snows start. They’re just as cold out there as we are, and they’ve been around long enough to know that snow is only days away. They’ll retreat to their own winter camps.”
“They should do us all a favor and stay there come spring, m’lord.”
Vandros nodded. “Send word to Swordmaster Argent we’re starting the withdrawal. I’ll follow in a day or two with the rear guard.
“And tell whoever you send to be careful,” Vandros added. “I’ve got a report of a Minwanabi patrol-in-force that’s somehow wandered off course and gotten itself lost east of the King’s Highway, north of LaMut. No one’s sure where they’ve gone, but they’re certain to turn up at the most inconvenient time.”
Leyman said, “Yes, m’lord.”
“And send a messenger to me,” he added as the captain left the tent.
Vandros reflected while waiting for the messenger. He had been a young officer in his father’s court, a Captain of Cavalry, the Light Horse, the most dashing unit of soldiers in Yabon. Vandros remembered with a sense of age beyond his years the harsh education the Tsurani had provided. After years of bloody warfare, all illusions of war’s glory were dispelled.
The Tsurani, aliens from another world—though it had taken a long time for more than one Kingdom noble to finally accept the reality of that fact—had reached the world of Midkemia via a rift, a magic doorway through space, that brought them to the Kingdom of the Isles. As fortune had it, they had landed in a high valley, up in the Grey Tower Mountains. The good news was that that made it difficult for the Tsurani to strike quickly outside the valley. The bad news had been that it made it nearly impossible for the Kingdom to dig them out of their foothold high among the peaks.
Tough, unrelenting fighters, the Tsurani wore brightly colored armor made of some alien material, bone or hide or something unknown on Midkemia, fashioned by unknown crafts to a hardness near that of metal. They had attacked without warning the first spring of the war, seven years earlier, and had swept down from the mountains to claim a large area of both the Kingdom of the Isles and the Free Cities of Natal.
The war had been a veritable stalemate for all its seven years, since the first campaign. Vandros shook his head slightly as he considered the seemingly endless fight. He had been Earl for five of those years, and things had gone from bad to worse. Three years earlier the Tsurani had launched an offensive against Crydee, to the west, attempting to wrest the entire Far Coast from the Kingdom, by moving down from the northernmost stronghold, but the siege had failed. Since then, a stalemate.
While they were holding their own militarily, the cost was staggering, with taxes rising every year and fewer soldiers to be recruited. It was so bad this last year Vandros had been forced to hire mercenaries to supplement his levies to the Duke of Yabon. A few had proven worthwhile, but most of them were little more than bodies to throw in front of Tsurani swords.
And the weather. He had lived here all his life and he knew this was going to be a punishing winter. Blizzards were not uncommon during the coldest months of winter in the region, but today the air felt as if a blow could come at any moment. The duke’s order to withdraw to winter billets was coming none too early, in Vandros’s opinion.
The messenger appeared at the tent door. “M’lord?” he said as a means to announce himself.
“Come in, Terrance.”
The young man came to stand before the Earl and snapped to attention. He wore the traditional LaMutian uniform of the Messenger Corps. A round fur cap, flat on top, sporting a shining golden badge of the corps on one side, perched on his head at just the correct, jaunty angle. The forest-green jacket was cut at the waist, and bedecked with gold braid at the shoulders and sleeves, with six pairs of golden buttons down the front. The messengers wore tight-fitting gray riding trousers with a full leather seat, tucked into low riding boots of black leather. Each man carried a cavalry saber, and a belt knife, but little else. Vandros knew the rider would have a heavy coat he’d wear over the rig, once he was on the trail, but otherwise he carried only one ration of oats for his horse, and a water skin. Speed was the hallmark of the Messenger Corps.
Vandros looked at this particular messenger with a slight twinge of irritation. He was a distant cousin, his grandfather’s great-nephew, and had used his relationship to the Earl to worm his way into the army at what Vandros considered too young an age, despite the objections of his mother. The boy was just too young and inexperienced. Still, he was here, and there was nothing the Earl could do about it that wouldn’t dishonor the family. Terrance was barely sixteen years of age, one of those children born just weeks before the Midsummer’s Day when his first birthday was celebrated. He still didn’t need to shave.
But there were boys younger serving, Vandros reminded himself, and the Messenger Corps was not the same as serving with the Light Horse or the Heavy Lancers. The boy was a fair swordsman on or off horseback, so he could have been easily assigned to a unit at the front. Only his exceptional skill as a rider elevated him out of the cavalry, for only the finest riders in Yabon served in the Duke’s Messenger Corps.
“Your turn?”
“Yes, m’lord,” said Terrance. “Captain Leyman sent for two of us, and Williamson Denik was next, so he’s riding to LaMut, and I was after, so here I am.”
Messengers served in rotation, and no captain or noble could change that without earning the messengers’ ire. Every group within the army had its traditions. And this one made sense, for without it, certain senior messengers would take only the easy runs, along safe roads, leaving the more hazardous duty to newer riders.
Vandros said nothing for a moment. He wished he had known that his young, if distant, cousin had been near the top of the rotation, for he could have instructed Petir to order Williamson to the command tent, then sent Terrance on to LaMut and relative safety.
Vandros pushed aside these thoughts and pointed to the map. Terrance knew the map as well as the Earl did: it was a section map, showing the entire campaign area and some of the surrounding countryside.
No one knew why, exactly, the Tsurani had invaded. Attempts at parley had been repulsed, and the best reasons for the invasion were still only speculation. The one finding the most favor among the nobles of the Kingdom was a Tsurani desire for metal. From the scant intelligence gathered from captured Tsurani slaves—the soldiers died fighting or killed their wounded before retreating—metal was very rare in most forms on their homeworld. Still, Vandros found that explanation lacking. Too many men had died without strategic gain for it to be over something as simple as metal. There had to be another reason; they just didn’t know what it was.
Terrance looked at the map, each mark and line memorized already. The region shown was bordered on the west by the Grey Tower Mountains. To the west lay the Duchy of Crydee, and the shores of the Endless Sea. But those areas were under the command of Prince Arutha and the Barons of Carse and Tulan, and of no concern to Earl Vandros. His area of operation was limited to the border between the Duchy of Yabon, along the former border of the Free Cities, and into the foothills of the Grey Towers.
Vandros’s index finger stabbed at three locations on the map, one to the southwest of their present location, another due south of that, and one slightly southeast of the second. Those three bases, along with Vandros’s headquarters camp, were the foundation of the Kingdom’s defensive line throughout the region. Forces from any of the four camps could quickly respond to any Tsurani offensive.
But they were impossible to supply during the harsh winters of the region, forcing the Kingdom to withdraw each season as the snows came.
“Messages to Barons Gruder, Moncrief, and Summerville: inform them it’s time to withdraw.” He gave specific instructions on who was to pull out first, how he wanted the order of march, and when he expected them to reach their designated city for billeting during the winter.
Terrance studied the map, committing his route to memory, and said, “Yes, m’lord. I have it memorized.”
Vandros knew better than to ask him to repeat the orders, for he knew he would hear them back exactly as he had given them. Besides being a good rider, having an accurate memory was a requirement for the corps. While some reports and documents were sent by messenger, all military orders were given orally, so documents might not fall into the enemy’s hands should a rider be killed.
“Staged, orderly withdraw. Defensive combat only,” said the Earl. That meant an order to the field commanders to avoid conflict with any Tsurani units if possible while they retreated eastward. The assumption being the Tsurani would not be looking to gain territory this late in the season; rather, they would be seeking out warm winter shelter for themselves.
“Staged, orderly withdraw. Defensive combat only,” repeated the messenger.
Vandros said, “You sound a bit stuffy, there? Are you fit to ride?”
“Just a bit of a cold, m’lord. Nothing to speak of.”
“Then go,” said Vandros. “And, Terry?”
“Yes, m’lord,” said the youngster at the tent flap.
“Stay alive. I have no wish to have to explain to your mother how I got you killed.”
With a boyish grin, he replied, “I’ll do my best, sir.”
Then he was gone.
Vandros pondered sending someone so young into harm’s way, then resigned himself to the fact that this was the essence of command, and he had sent many young men and boys into harm’s way in the five years he had been Earl. And while he would rather Terrance was riding to LaMut, there was probably little danger of his being exposed to enemy action this late in the year. The Tsurani were probably trying to stay warm as much as his own men were. He stopped worrying about Terrance, and started thinking about the order of march for the bulk of his army, billeted right outside this tent.
He could hear them talking and laughing as he sat down at his table.
As was usual, Terrance endured the taunting jokes and laughter of the regulars in the camp as he walked toward his tent. “Isn’t that one pretty!” exclaimed a grizzled veteran. “I think I’ll keep it as me pet!”
The men around the campfire laughed, and Terrance resisted the impulse to say anything. He had been cautioned by the older messengers when he had first joined the corps the previous spring that such taunting was common. The messengers were seen to have what the others thought was a “cushy” billet, for often they could be seen sitting around their tents for days, waiting for orders to ride. Of course in a battle they could be riding constantly, with little or no sleep and scant food, having to negotiate their way through the heart of combat to take messages to field commanders. But then the other soldiers were too busy keeping alive to notice the comings and goings of the messengers.
Terrance was tall for his age, a little more than six feet in height, and just starting to develop a man’s broad shoulders and back. But he was blond and blue-eyed, and his beard refused to do more than dust his lips and chin with a faint blond fuzz, much to his irritation, for it was tradition among the Messenger Corps to grow a mustache and chin beard, what they called a “goatee.” Terrance had attempted to grow one, but had started shaving again after a month, as his looked ridiculous. The other messengers had not spared him from their teasing, but several had said privately that the beard would come and not to worry. Shaving would even encourage it to grow faster, several had suggested.
Terrance found keeping silent and his expression blank served him well, for he hated the thought that anyone might see how uncertain he felt at times. He knew after his first month in service that he had overreached himself, but throughout the seven months he had been with the corps, he had faced little true danger. Still, he couldn’t shake the constant worry that he might break under pressure or somehow fail, both justifying his family’s condemnation of his enlisting in the service so young and bringing disgrace to them all, including the Earl. He just hadn’t thought of that responsibility at the time, and now he regretted having acted rashly.
Perhaps with a successful year under his belt, spending the winter with his family on their estate outside LaMut, he might gain the confidence he feigned. At least with a safe return home, his mother might stop her constant message writing and demands that he return at once.
Terrance reached the tent he shared with Charles McEvoy, from Tyr-Sog, and found Charles lying on his bedroll, on the cold ground, reading a message.
“From Clarise?” asked Terrance as he entered.
“Yes,” said the other young man, four years Terrance’s senior. “You’ve got the run?”
“It’s my turn,” said Terrance.
“Where to, Terry?”
With a grin, the younger boy leaned over and said, “The three staging points. Orders to the Barons for home. You’ll be back with Clarise in a couple of weeks. Winter withdraw.”
The older rider sat up. “About time. It’s cold enough to freeze my manhood off! Then what use would I be to her?”
Terrance laughed. Charles had wed the winter before and had been away from his wife since the last spring thaw. “The question is, what use are you to her now?”
“Get out of here!” said the older rider with a playful swipe of his hand.
Terrance said, “Just need to get my coat and ride.”
“Ride safe, Terry,” said Charles in the traditional farewell of the messengers.
“Ride safe, Charlie,” Terrance returned as he departed his tent.
He hurried to where his horse was staked at the picket. She was a nine-year-old bay, with a sure foot and quick response. She wasn’t the fastest animal in the corps, but Terrance loved her even temper and stamina. She would run all day if he asked her, and collapse without complaint. He called her Bella.
She picked up her head as he neared, and while a couple of the other mounts nickered in question, she knew it was her rider approaching and that it would be her turn to run today. He patted her neck and said, “Let’s be off, girl.”
He moved to the saddle rack, under a shed roof on four poles a few yards behind the picket, and got his saddle. He quickly tacked up the horse and made sure he had a full water skin and a bag of oats. The trip should only take two days, one out to the first staging point, where he would sleep the night and get whatever food the camp had to offer, then one day back, circling to the southwest, then southeast, stopping at the other two staging points on the way back. He glanced at the sky. It was only two hours after sunrise, so the trip should be an easy one if he didn’t encounter any troubles. He should be back by sundown tomorrow.
He untied his horse, mounted up, and started riding west. Once outside the camp, after Bella had warmed up, he settled into a rocking canter and let her do the work.
The wind was cutting through his greatcoat, and his face was numb. His nose was running freely, and he had given up wiping it with the back of his sleeve. Now it was completely stuffed and he was forced to breathe through his mouth, which was starting to irritate his lungs. His chest felt tighter than it had early in the day. He knew he could have begged off riding for a serious illness, but to have stepped aside for something as simple as a cold was unthinkable. Yet there was a nagging doubt that this was what he should have done, simply told the Captain of Messengers he was too ill to ride and stayed in his tent.
Terrance had stopped twice since midday to take shelter while he rested Bella. He stood shivering behind a stand of birch trees, which cut the wind a little, while the horse rested. It wasn’t good to linger too long in those conditions, as Bella would stiffen up and that increased the chance of her pulling up lame.
Still, she was a fine horse, reliable and levelheaded, the perfect mount for a messenger. She would obey his commands and react quickly. And she was calm; earlier in the summer he had paused on trail and looked down to see a viper slithering toward the horse. Many animals would have responded with panic, yet Bella had calmly lifted one hoof and crushed the snake before it could react.
He mounted up after she was rested and headed toward his first destination. Glancing skyward, he realized he had fallen behind schedule and resisted the urge to gallop. He would reach the camp a few hours later than anticipated, but the message would still arrive in a timely fashion and he would have a hot meal and a relatively warm billet. He knew that if the wind didn’t relent, tomorrow’s ride would be more punishing, for he had two camps, higher in the foothills and closer to the enemy lines, to visit.
He kept his mind on the task at hand, getting through the woodlands, avoiding the few Tsurani patrols sweeping the frontier before the winter snows fell, and not letting his horse come to harm. On foot he would risk freezing to death during the night, for it would take him until midday tomorrow to reach the first camp.
After two hours of steady riding, he again rested Bella, though she snorted in protest at having to endure walking with him in the lead, when she knew oats, hay, and the relative warmth behind a windbreak with other horses were waiting at the end of this ride.
A half hour’s walk and he mounted up again. He urged Bella to a steady canter and kept his eyes moving around the landscape. It was easy to be lulled into daydreaming or drawn into looking at one feature of the landscape. A messenger was nearly the most vulnerable member of the Duke’s army, second only to the boys who rode in the luggage and served with the Commissary. Two or three armed men in ambush, and the Earl’s orders would never reach his barons.
Three hours before sunset he saw movement to the north. A hint of color in the tree line and nothing more, but it was enough. A Tsurani patrol, without a doubt, for the bright orange trim used by those invaders called Minwanabi on their black armor was found in no natural plant in these forests, as was the scarlet and yellow of those called Anasati. He urged Bella to a faster pace and sought more signs of the invaders, but the forest revealed nothing.
He kept alert the remainder of the day, and didn’t relax until he was within minutes of his first objective.
As he approached the first camp, he could smell the smoke from the campfires, as the wind blew right into his face. He welcomed the acrid sting of it, and knew he was only a few minutes from rest.
He heard a sentry shout, “Rider coming in!”
Had he been on foot, Terrance most probably would have been challenged a half dozen times since leaving the contested woodlands and entering Kingdom-held territory, but the Tsurani had no horses, so a rider was never challenged. Terrance wondered why over the years the Tsurani had never trained riders to use captive horses, but as no one he knew had spoken to a living Tsurani, he was left to wonder.
Terrance knew the location of the commander’s tent, and rode there. The frontier was being held by soldiers from Yabon province, bolstered by levies from as far south as the Southern Marches. This commander was Baron Gruder, one of Duke Sutherland’s men put under the Earl’s command. Terrance had spoken with him three times since becoming a messenger and found him a no-nonsense type, very straight to the point, and utterly lacking in any social skills.
A guard ushered him into the command tent, while another took Bella to the windbreak where the remounts were kept. LaMutian lancers were billeted here, as well as a company of light cavalry from Zun. Two companies of heavy foot from Ylith and Tyr-Sog rounded out this army, and they had spent a long hard year fighting the Tsurani and their Cho-ja allies, or “Bugs” as the men from the south had come to call them.
Terrance came to stand before the Baron and said, “Orders from the Earl, m’lord.”
“Well, are we to withdraw?” said the stout Gruder, his face showing that he already anticipated the order.
“Yes, m’lord. You’re to withdraw in orderly stages, to the winter billets assigned to you by the Duke.” The politics of the Kingdom’s Western Realm made minor nobles jealous of their prerogatives, and this Gruder had been voluble about being seconded to a “foreign” Earl, so the messengers had learned to refer to orders coming from Lords Brucal and Borric as often as they could, to keep the Baron from another rant. Terrance was nearly frozen, and starving, and was eager to avoid another long diatribe regarding Vandros’s leaving Gruder here without enough men, food, weapons, gold, and anything else he judged necessary to the conduct of his portion of the war. “Defensive combat only.”
“Anything else?”
“About three hours ago I glimpsed movement in the trees north of the trail from the east. The colors were Tsurani.”
“Could you tell who?”
“Minwanabi and Anasati, my lord.”
Gruder considered this silently for a moment. “From what our intelligence tells us, those two Houses don’t like each other very much. They must be up to something to be marching under a unified command. I’ll have to keep an eye out.”
“Sir,” said Terrance, as neutrally as possible. He wondered how the Kingdom had come to learn anything about the Tsurani, given they preferred death to capture, but kept his curiosity in check; he was there to carry messages, not to interpret or understand them.
The Baron looked at the messenger as if realizing he was still there and said, “Very well. Get some food and rest, then carry on. We’ll begin the withdrawal at first light.”
As Terrance left the command tent, he heard the Baron shout for an orderly. The page would be carrying word to the officers along the line in minutes. Terrance glanced skyward as the light faded. Clouds were coming in fast from the west and while sunset was just commencing, it was rapidly getting dark.
That meant the clouds were heavy with moisture and, judging from the cold, it wouldn’t be rain that came down that night, but snow. Terrance wanted a hot meal and to rest, but first he would check the remounts to see how Bella was being cared for, and then he would take care of himself.
As he headed toward the remounts, moisture touched his cheek and again he glanced skyward. A scattering of flakes was beginning to fall. He paused a moment, while soldiers hurried past him and the activity in the camp increased as word to prepare to withdraw for the winter was passed.
As the mood of the men around him brightened, for many would be home for the winter within a few days, Terrance felt a dark concern rise up inside; if the snows fell heavily tonight, his second day would be difficult, and he might have to remain at the third camp before returning to the Earl’s command position. Silently he wished Killian—the goddess of nature—would hold off the snows for another day at least. Glancing at the faces of the men eager to be home, he amended that thought; a week would be better.
He brought himself out of his reflection and moved off to find his horse.
The groom had taken good care of Bella, and she snorted a greeting as she looked up from a pile of hay. Terrance still went through the process of inspecting her feet, ensuring she was properly dried, and was pleased she had been afforded a relatively warm spot behind the windbreak rather than being tied to the picket line at the ends, outside the shelter.
Then Terrance realized there were fewer horses than should have been tied down. He turned to the groom. “Big patrol out?”
“No,” said the old soldier. “We’ve just lost a lot of lads this year.” He motioned with his chin at the far end of the line. “Lot of horses, too.”
Terrance nodded, and patted Bella’s neck. “Thank you for taking care of her.”
“That’s the job,” he said, moving off.
Terrance smiled, and turned away. He hurried to the mess tent and got into line behind a young officer of horses. He was handed a wooden plate and a metal cup by a kitchen boy, as it was obvious from Terrance’s uniform who he was; most of the soldiers in the line had their own plate and cup, which they kept with their gear in their tents.
The food was hot and filling, if unremarkable, and the tea was bitter, but also hot. He ate alone, sitting on the ground under the lee side of the tent. As was usual, most of the soldiers ignored him. When he was finished, he returned the plate and cup to the boy in the tent, then set out to find a place to sleep.
As a messenger, he was expected to find a billet where he could, and often that meant sleeping on the ground with only a saddle for a pillow and his greatcoat for a blanket. Most of the year that was acceptable, but the cold tonight would make it impossible.
As he was approaching the row of tents used by the cavalry, Terrance coughed and suddenly found himself unable to control a racking attack. He reached out and gripped the bole of a tree, half bent over, and forced himself to breathe deeply, then brought up a large amount of nasty green phlegm. He spat and grimaced at the bitter sulfur taste at the back of his throat and the itching that had turned into a hot soreness. “Damn,” he said softly. He was getting far sicker than he had thought and he still had a day’s ride ahead, perhaps more if the weather turned worse, before he could return to the Earl’s camp and get a cure from the apothecary who served in the infirmary. Still, there was nothing for it but to soldier on.
He moved to the first line of tents, and began asking, “Have you room?” The first half dozen queries netted him negative replies, but at the seventh tent he found a single cavalryman who looked at him for a moment, then nodded.
Terrance moved into the tent and looked down at the empty bedding, separated from the reclining cavalryman by the tent’s support pole. “Go ahead,” said the man, his words accompanied by a slight shrug. “He won’t need it.”
Terrance didn’t ask who “he” was, as it was obviously a fallen comrade. He sat down and exchanged glances with the cavalryman. The man was at least ten years Terrance’s senior, but looked twice that. His eyes were sunken and rimmed with red, as if he hadn’t slept in days, and dark circles accentuated the appearance of a deep-in-the-bones fatigue.
Terrance said, “Just get in?”
“Yesterday,” said the man. “Caught a Tsurani patrol-in-force out in the open . . .” His voice trailed off and he fell back on his own sleeping mat. “Our captain didn’t realize we’d charged just the vanguard until the rest of them came rolling out of the trees. It was a close thing.”
“Combined force? More than one House?”
The man nodded. “Our thirty against their hundred or more. It wasn’t pretty.” He sighed. “Don’t think me rude, but I need sleep. We ride out again tomorrow.”
Terrance resisted the impulse to tell the man he would get new orders in the morning, for it wasn’t his place to do so. He just said, “Sleep well,” but the man was already breathing deeply and evenly.
Terrance untied the cord that kept the tent flap open, letting the flap fall into place; he then pulled the thick blanket around him as he settled down on the thin sleeping mat. The blanket was sour with another man’s sweat and dirt, and the ground underneath was cold and uneven, but Terrance had slept on worse and, moreover, was young and tired. He had two attacks of coughing, and both times looked to see if he had disturbed his tent companion. He hadn’t. Like most soldiers, the cavalryman had learned to sleep soundly no matter what noise was made nearby.
Terrance closed his own eyes and tried to relax. He felt perspiration running down his neck and back despite the cold, and pulled the blanket tightly around him. His mind seemed to race with images of home and family, but nothing was coherent. After a few fitful moments, sleep came quickly.
Morning saw a flurry of snow. While Terrance made his way to the mess the pace in the camp quickened, as word spread that the order was to leave the front for winter camp. Men who were grim with anticipation that this day might bring another battle breathed deeply, hardly able to contain smiles or tears of relief as they realized they were almost certain to live until next spring.
Terrance’s body ached and he felt as if he’d gotten no rest. Still, he had a mission to finish, so he grabbed a quick meal of hot bread, fresh from the oven, honey, butter, some dried fruit, and a long cut of beef that had been cooked the night before. The cook was being generous, for the more the men ate this morning, the less he had to pack up and transport back to LaMut.
As he finished his morning meal, Terrance was approached by a sergeant, a scarred veteran with a patch over his left eye. “Baron wants you,” he said. Without another word he turned, expecting Terrance to fall in behind, which the messenger did.
Terrance announced himself at the tent flap and was ordered into the pavilion. Baron Gruder held out a packet of messages. “Add this to your pack, boy,” he said. “It’s for the Earl. Barons Moncrief and Summerville will no doubt also have reports for you to carry back.”
Terrance nodded. “Yes, m’lord.”
Gruder muttered to himself, “Defensive combat, indeed. What is Vandros thinking?” As if needing someone to voice his opinion to, he added, “I’ve got word of another outpost being overrun just four days ago! The Tsurani aren’t just sending out patrols, they’re moving large numbers of men; they’re up to something.
“If we’re to ever win this war, we need to carry the fight to them.” He looked down at a map on a table to his right, and his eyes darted from mark to mark, as if trying to read the future in it.
He looked up and said, “Some of the lads ran into a Tsurani patrol-in-force day before yesterday, and it wasn’t the one you saw, so keep your eyes open. I think our playmates on the other side of the line might be thinking of trying to move in behind us as we withdraw. They’ll dig in and establish fortifications, so they’ll have expanded their territory come spring when we return. Pass that along to the other Barons, if you will, and advise them I’m withdrawing in stages, ready to turn and fight if I need. Defensive combat, indeed.” He waved at the packet in Terrance’s hand. “And make sure Earl Vandros gets my messages, boy.”
Terrance nodded, committing all the Baron’s remarks to memory. He waited to see if there was anything else. Finally, Gruder realized Terrance was waiting to be dismissed and waved him away.
Terrance saluted, turned, and left the tent, heading straight for the picket line. In less than fifteen minutes, Bella was tacked and he mounted, moving through the roil of men breaking camp around him. He moved with purpose, but slowly, letting the cold horse get her feet under her and getting her warmed up before he would pick up speed.
The ground was not frozen, and the night’s snow was being quickly churned to mud by the army breaking camp. Terrance knew he would have to stop several times and pick out his mare’s hooves, but at least it wouldn’t be the thick, forelock-deep goop that could suck the shoes off a horse or the boot off a rider come the spring thaw.
He was thankful for small blessings as he turned his horse southwestward and urged her to a light trot. He felt her twitch when he broke into a fit of coughing, but he patted her on the neck when he was finished and she relaxed. Then he set her to a canter, and watched as the miles fell behind.
Terrance reined in Bella. The air was still, as if the weather held its breath in anticipation of the next assault. The snow flurries had halted an hour after he had left camp, but Terrance knew there would be more, soon. The hazy sun hung in the sky, its slight touch on his face taunting him with the promise of warmth that would be withheld. The frigid air was starting to freeze the ground, and Bella’s hooves were crushing ice crystals more often with every passing minute. The cold bit through Terrance’s coat and Bella’s breath formed clouds of steam. And in the west more clouds were approaching.
Since leaving Gruder’s camp Terrance had encountered nothing out of the ordinary, but he had to be constantly alert. The fever that was gripping him made it difficult to keep his attention focused as much as he would have liked, but for the most part he could ignore the misery that was now seeping into every bone in his body.
He let Bella rest a moment while he regarded the landscape. He rode along a trail that hugged a line of trees spreading southward. To the north the land fell away into a large meadow. In the distance Terrance took stock of landmarks, for he carried no maps against the possibility of enemy capture. Like all messengers he had committed local maps to memory and could recognize where he was given any sort of significant feature to use as a reference point.
Something caught his eye at the far end of the meadow. A group of figures emerged, moving slowly toward his position. At first he thought it might be a Tsurani patrol, but then he quickly discarded that notion. There were approximately two dozen people, moving in ragged fashion, no order or apparent purpose other than to move south as quickly as possible, all of them lacking the colorful armor that marked the Tsurani.
Terrance waited. The time spent investigating this group would be well spent if they had any reasonable intelligence regarding Tsurani movements to the north or west. As they approached, the figures resolved themselves into a group of villagers, looking to be farmers or woodcutters by their dress. Men, women, and a few children, all carrying bundles, approached.
One man saw Terrance and pointed and the others started waving and shouting. He turned his horse and urged her down the slope in their direction. By the time he reached them, they were in the middle of the meadow, obviously fatigued. The children clung to adults and everyone was short of breath.
“Hello!” shouted one man as Terrance came within hearing range. “Are you a soldier?” The man spoke the language of the Free Cities, Natalese. As a native of Yabon, Terrance could understand most of it; his Yabonese dialect was closely related, though the King’s Tongue was the predominant language in his household.
“Yes,” said Terrance. “Who are you?”
“We are from the village of Ralinda, seven miles to the north.”
Terrance nodded. He knew where it was. “I thought it was in Tsurani hands.”
“They pulled out yesterday,” answered a woman standing next to the man. “Every one of them. Last year they left a handful of soldiers to keep us working, but not this year. So we ran.”
Terrance nodded. He turned and pointed upslope. “Once you reach that high ground, turn northeast and follow the ridge. That will take you to a trail in the woods leading to where Baron Gruder’s camp is breaking to head back to LaMut. You can go with them and find shelter for the winter.” He turned to the man. “Where did the Tsurani go?”
“Southwest.”
Terrance did a momentary calculation in his head, then said, “Thank you. Good luck.” He turned Bella and spurred her up the slope to the ridge, feeling sudden urgency. If the entire garrison billeted in that village wasn’t returning to their staging area, northwest in the Grey Towers Mountains, that meant they were joining other units for a last assault and, from the direction they were heading, that could only mean Baron Moncrief’s position. For a brief instant, he considered turning to tell the villagers to carry word to Baron Gruder, but even if they reached Gruder’s camp before nightfall, any battle at Moncrief’s camp would be decided long before Gruder could reinforce.
Besides, he thought, he was only speculating and it could be he was wrong.
But in his gut he knew he wasn’t.
He got Bella to a fast canter and hoped he could get to Moncrief before the Tsurani.
Bella labored to keep galloping. Terrance had tried to keep her pace as fast as possible without ruining her. He had alternated long gallops with canters and trots, but had not let her rest since receiving word of the Tsurani pullout from the village of Ralinda. As much as he treasured the horse he knew he would be duty-bound to sacrifice her to bring warning to Baron Moncrief.
He could hear Bella’s breathing, the raspy, deep huffing that warned him she was close to her end. She had heart and would run until she collapsed under him, he knew. He faced a terrible test, balancing the necessity for speed with the need to keep Bella alive. His chances of reaching Moncrief before the Tsurani were close to nonexistent if he was forced to cover even the last two miles on foot.
He reined her in and let her slow until she was walking, her labored breathing recovering slowly after five minutes at that pace. He wiped his forehead with the back of his gloved right hand and could feel the chilled perspiration run off his neck and down inside his tunic. He felt a strange detachment as he realized he was drenched under his coat, despite the freezing air. His throat was dry no matter how much water he choked down, and his lungs felt constricted, making it difficult to take in a deep breath. Fits of coughing had forced him to rein in three times, leaning over the saddle to spit fluid. His ribs ached.
He ignored his own discomfort and glanced around, seeking landmarks, and realized he was entering a narrowing valley, three or four miles long, that came to a V in the southwest, entering the pass he would encounter before reaching Moncrief’s position.
Movement along a tree line to the north caught his eye and he halted Bella for a moment. Raising himself up in the stirrup irons, he studied the trees. Just beyond the first line of trees he could see movement, faint hints of colors among the shadows of the deeper woods, blue, green, red.
He knew it was the Tsurani, and, from the variety of colors he glimpsed, a combined command. Gruder was right. The Tsurani were poising themselves to sweep in behind the retreating Kingdom forces and establish larger areas of control.
The Tsurani had ceased trying to expand their holdings since the first year of the invasion, letting a stable front develop over the last six years, the attack on Crydee and the attempt to reach Port Natal and the Bitter Sea being the only two exceptions.
But it didn’t mean they weren’t trying now.
Terrance urged the tired horse forward.
He knew as well as most that the Tsurani were among the finest infantry ever seen in Midkemia, able to march fifty miles through a day and night and still fight when they reached their destination. And twenty miles a day was a stroll for them.
He judged the distance from the trees to where he knew the entrance of the pass was and realized he would have to hurry to get there before the Tsurani vanguard. He kicked hard at the sides of his fatigued mount, and the valiant Bella responded.
At first she ran nearly as fast as she would when rested, but Terrance felt her energy wane by the minute. When he had halved the distance to the gap, she could barely maintain a weak canter, and when he was nearing the trees, she fell into a stumbling walk.
He leapt from her and quickly stripped off his greatcoat. It was too bulky to run in. With the cold slicing through his light jacket, the chill doubled by the perspiration running down his skin, he secured the pouch around his shoulder carrying Baron Gruder’s report to the Earl, and bid a silent good-bye to Bella. He turned her head back toward the route they had traveled, said a silent prayer to Ruthia, goddess of luck, and slapped her hard on the flanks. She moved away and then stopped, her sides heaving as she struggled for breath. She looked back at him and he said, “Home, Bella!” She almost seemed to nod as she turned and started walking slowly back the way they had come.
Setting his sight on the gap less than two miles ahead, Terrance started a steady trot. The ground was icy enough that any attempt to run could be disastrous. He could not chance an injury that would keep him from finishing his assigned mission. And should he fall now, he would almost certainly be captured or killed by the Tsurani.
A few times he felt his boots slip an inch, but for the most part, the trot kept him moving quickly toward his goal while giving him firm footing. As he reached a smaller clearing before the woodlands leading to the pass, shouts in the distance told him the Tsurani had spied him making his way. Disregarding the icy ground, Terrance started to run.
He glanced to his right and saw a half dozen Tsurani soldiers, dressed in the black and orange of House Minwanabi, set out to cut him off. He judged the angle and decided he could make it to the trees before they could reach him. He hoped those chasing him hadn’t gotten to know the area as well as he, for there were a couple of places he could gain some time if they didn’t know their way around.
If they did, he was most likely to be killed.
He lowered his head and sprinted.
A hundred yards short of the first line of trees, Terrance could hear the sound of the Tsurani sandals crunching the icy ground as they ran to intercept him. At fifty yards, he could hear their ragged breath as they drew near. At twenty-five yards, a single arrow sped past his head, missing him by less than a yard, and he ducked, reaching the trees as another struck the bole he had passed behind.
He dodged to his left, and down a narrow path between a half dozen larger boles. His lungs burned and he could feel his legs grow shaky, but he kept his mind focused on getting free of the Tsurani. His heart pounded and he felt fear so near to overwhelming him that he had to blink away tears. He kept his eyes focused on the path. It was a game trail that led to a small pond two hundred yards farther along. At fifty yards, he started to move back to his right, up a slight rise. He knew that if the Tsurani lost track of him, they would be likely to continue down the trail toward the pond and he would gain valuable minutes.
But even if he lost the half dozen chasing him, there was the bulk of the Tsurani force heading for the same destination he was, and if he didn’t get there at least five minutes before they did, the chances were high one of their bowmen would bring him down, for there was a clearing before the pass that afforded a running man no cover whatsoever.
For the first time since taking service, Terrance cursed the need for high riding heels. He felt his ankles wobble and almost give out several times as he dashed through the woods. Absently he wondered if he could have a bootmaker cut the fronts at the ankles and add grommets and laces so he could tighten them. Then he realized the far wiser choice was to avoid having to run in the first place.
He hit the small clearing in full stride, electing to run as fast as possible rather than dodging from side to side, hoping to be into the rocks a short distance away before a Tsurani bowman might stop, draw, take a bead on him, and let fly.
Something, the hint of a bowstring being released, the sound of pursuing footfalls diminished by one, or just intuition caused him to dart to the left at the last instant. A black arrow sped past him, missing his back by less than six inches. He darted right, then cut into the gap in the rocks, hugging the left side.
The gap was narrow enough only two men on horse could ride abreast, and Terrance knew it was a logical choke point for the defenders to the southwest. There would be at least a small squad of Kingdom soldiers at the other end and he would be safe if he could negotiate the mile of rocky trail before the Tsurani overtook him.
He prayed they would become cautious and slow down as they entered the gap, perhaps fearing he had turned to stage an ambush. But moments later the sounds of running men echoed from behind and he realized the Tsurani were anything but cautious. They had seen one man, armed only with a sword, running for his life.
Terrance felt his legs burn with fatigue and his lungs didn’t seem to take in enough air. He forced himself to breathe as deeply as he could, blowing out all the air, then breathed normally. He felt an attack of coughing begin and he exhaled sharply, overcoming the urge. He felt as if he was losing strength by the moment and felt a desperate dread he might collapse before reaching safety. He battled panic and knew it would kill him faster than anything else. He was tired and sick, but he kept focused and moved as quickly as he could, knowing death was only fifty yards behind.
The gap curved and turned, preventing the Tsurani from unleashing another shot at him. Terrance also knew that the trail straightened for a hundred and fifty yards as it also broadened at the southwest mouth of the pass. He prayed Kingdom archers would be alert enough to recognize his uniform, and then recognize who was chasing him.
Then he was there, rounding a curve and looking at a hundred-and-fifty-yard-long trail leading down to what could only be a Kingdom barricade. A chest-high redoubt had been built across the gap since the last time he had ridden through. Shouts from the redoubt told Terrance he had been seen, and he waved his right hand in a signal as he ran.
He knew he looked nothing like a Tsurani, but hoped it was that obvious to the bowmen facing him. Then as he neared the redoubt he saw them draw their bows and let arrows fly.
The shafts sped over Terrance’s head and he heard a cry of pain from behind and realized the Tsurani were now in sight. Terrance didn’t chance a look back, in case the Tsurani were ignoring the covering fire and still chasing him.
As he reached the redoubt he leapt into the air, landing atop the four-foot barricade, letting his body go limp as Kingdom soldiers grabbed his jacket and pulled him over.
The man who yanked him to his feet was a grizzled sergeant nursing a nasty scar on his face, less than a week old and badly sewn from the look of it. “Cutting it close, aren’t you, boy?” he said.
“No . . . choice,” said Terrance between gasps and a sudden racking cough . . . “My horse . . . was all out . . . and I had to get . . . my messages to Baron Moncrief.”
“Yes,” said a soldier nearby who was crouching low behind the breastwork, “but did you have to bring them with you?” He pointed to where the Tsurani bowmen were trading shots with the Kingdom archers.
“It wasn’t my idea,” said Terrance, getting to his feet but keeping his head low. Suddenly he exploded into a fit of coughing, his body racked and his ribs hurting from the effort. He hacked up fluid from his lungs, turned his head, and spat.
“You going to live?” asked the sergeant.
“I’ll live,” said Terrance. “Just a nasty chest cold. Nothing to speak of.” He rested a moment, hands on knees, then stood upright. “Sergeant, I need a horse.”
“Go get one from the picket,” said the sergeant. “We’ve lost a few lads in the last week. What do we have coming?”
“A lot of Tsurani from the look of things,” said Terrance. “I’ll tell the Baron. Looks like a last-minute push to take this whole region.”
“Wonderful,” said the sergeant, pulling out his sword. “Get ready, boys!” he shouted as Terrance hurried away from the defensive position.
A dozen small tents were pitched a hundred yards south of the barricade, and the soldiers who had been resting there were now running toward the defensive point; the sergeant must have sent word when he saw Terrance running out of the gap. Terrance did a quick calculation and judged there were about a hundred men at the barricade. With archers they should be able to hold the Tsurani for an hour, perhaps two. That should be enough time for Terrance to reach the Baron’s camp and for reinforcements to come to the sergeant’s relief.
Terrance quickly evaluated the horses at the picket and selected a gray gelding, barrel-chested and sound in all four legs. It had the look of an animal with endurance and strength, and he needed that more than he needed the speed some of the other horses might possess.
Just to be sure, he quickly inspected the animal’s hooves and found the feet well cared for and without thrush or any other problems. He examined the saddles resting on the row of racks and picked one that was almost as light as the one he used on Bella. Twice he had to pause while he experienced coughing fits, but after spitting up more fluid, he felt better and could breathe a little easier. Maybe the cold was burning itself out, he thought. He inspected the saddle he had picked. It was probably a scout’s saddle, as the rest were heavy-duty rigs designed for those who fought from horseback. The company here was mounted infantry, but the men also were used as support cavalry at times and their saddles reflected that.
Terrance tacked up the animal and mounted, keeping his mind on his work. He kept from thinking how frightened he had been when running and turned his mind away from the fear, for to embrace it, he knew, would cripple him. If he didn’t ignore the fear, it would keep him from continuing with his mission, and he couldn’t abide the thought of the disgrace that would bring.
With a snort, the animal headed along the trail, away from the pending battle, and Terrance let him settle into a quick trot for a few minutes, to warm up, then set his heels to the animal’s barrel and got him into a gallop.
The Baron’s camp was less than four miles away, so it took only a few minutes for him to cover the distance. Without a word, Terrance dismounted and threw the reins of the mount to a guard outside the Baron’s tent. To the guard on the opposite side of the tent entrance, he said, “Orders from the Earl!”
The guard nodded and stuck his head inside, said something, and a moment later stood aside, holding open the entrance for Terrance. Terrance stepped in and said, “Messages from the Earl and Baron Gruder, m’lord.”
Moncrief was an older man, perhaps nearing seventy years, and the war had made him look older. His gray hair hung to his shoulders and his eyes were deep set and underlined with dark circles. “Go on,” he said in a soft voice.
“From the Earl: you’re to withdraw to winter quarters. Orderly withdrawal. Defensive combat only.
“From Baron Gruder: he expects a large Tsurani push to occupy these territories as you withdraw, so the Tsurani can expand their holdings in the spring.
“And, sir, as I arrived, your barricade at the northern pass was being attacked by what I judge to be company strength or better, at least two major Houses, Anasati and Minwanabi.”
The Baron blinked. “What?”
“Your northern barricade at the pass is under assault right now and your sergeant in command respectfully requests reinforcements.”
“Why didn’t you say so first thing?” demanded the Baron, but he didn’t wait for an answer, rather began shouting orders for the camp to get ready to move north in response to the Tsurani attack.
Terrance waited, as he hadn’t been dismissed. When the Baron had finished issuing orders he turned to Terrance. “Anything else?”
“Sir, I lost my horse on the way here and took one from the remounts at the barricade. May I keep him so I may continue my mission?”
“Yes,” said the Baron, waving away the question.
“Do you have any messages you wish me to carry, m’lord?”
“Normally I would pen a report to the Earl, but under the circumstances, I will be too busy.” His orderly entered the room, followed by two other servants, holding the Baron’s armor. The old man obviously intended to lead the relief column to the barricade himself. “I’ll give my report to the Earl in person when I return to LaMut. Just tell Baron Summerville what’s going on up here and ask him to use best judgment in how to withdraw while protecting his flank.”
“Sir,” said Terrance.
“You’re dismissed,” said the Baron.
Terrance left the tent and took the reins of the horse. He was sick, famished, and tired, and more than anything thirsty. He worked his way through a camp in uproar as hundreds of soldiers raced to form companies and get ready to march to the north. Even the reserves who would remain to protect the camp or rush to reinforce other positions along the line were marshaling.
He reached the Commissary tent and found the cooks and their boys frantically preparing to feed men at the front. He grabbed a boy hurrying to load a basket with still-hot bread onto a wagon and said, “Water skin?”
The boy shook off his hand and said, “Don’t have any. Ask the Commissary chief.”
Terrance grabbed a loaf of bread off the top of the basket over the boy’s protest. He shouldered his way past another pair of boys carrying a half-filled barrel of apples and snatched up one from it before they noticed. The fruit was already showing age, but he ignored the brown spots and bit into it.
He found the Commissary chief overseeing the loading of supplies and said, “I’m the Earl’s messenger. I have need of a water skin, and a coat if there’s one to be had.”
The Commissary chief glanced at Terrance and saw the tunic and braid. “Lose yours?”
“With my horse.”
“A little thoughtless, don’t you think?”
Terrance ignored the remark. “Do you have them?”
The man motioned toward a pile of clothing at the edge of the Commissary area, toward which two boys were driving an empty wagon. “You might find a cloak or coat in there, if you don’t mind the blood.” He turned and rummaged though a stack of canvas bags. “And here’s a water skin for you.”
Before Terrance could ask, the Commissary chief said, “And you’ll find the water barrels over there.” He pointed to the center of the camp where men were filling their skins in preparation for the march. “I’d hurry if I were you.”
Terrance took the man’s meaning; with the conflict at the barricade erupting, the luggage and Commissary would be moved up in support of the reinforcements. The luggage boys were hurrying to load wagons, hitch up the horses, and get supplies up to the site of the battle as quickly as possible.
Terrance gulped down bites of the apple and bread as he led the horse to the mount of clothing waiting to be disposed of. At some point before the chaos erupted, the boys in the luggage would have gone through the clothing, taken from the dead, and determined what was salvageable, cleaned it, and returned it to the Quartermaster. The coats, cloaks, jackets, and trousers too damaged to be repaired would be burned.
But now the two boys who had driven up were frantically loading everything into the back of the wagon. Terrance shouted, “Wait a minute!”
They paused in their labor and one said, “What?”
“I need a coat. Mine was lost to the Tsurani.”
“Be quick about it,” said the other boy, a short, broad-shouldered lad who would probably be in the army next year. “We’ve got word that we’re taking all this back to LaMut and we’ll sort it out there.”
Terrance ignored the stench of dried blood, sweat, urine, and fecal matter that was the hallmark of clothes stripped from the battlefield dead. He quickly tossed aside a half dozen coats and cloaks until he caught sight of a familiar gray design.
He pulled a messenger’s coat out from under a bundle of blood-soaked trousers and inspected it. Except for an arrow hole that signaled a shaft had found a rider between the shoulder blades, it was undamaged. He threw it over his arm and said, “I’ll take this one.”
The boys said nothing, returning to their labors.
Terrance walked away from the tattered remnants of men lost in war, leading the horse slowly to the southern edge of the camp. He filled his skin from a water barrel and, as he mounted, a half dozen porters came and picked up the barrel and turned it over. Streams were plentiful in this area so there was no need to lug water back to LaMut.
He took two steps and suddenly found himself doubled over, racking coughs forcing him to breathe deep, hack up ropy phlegm, and spit. He repeated it until his ribs ached, but finally he could breathe a bit better. He stood upright and his head swam for a moment. Then he regained his bearings.
He took a slow, deep breath and felt a tickle, but no urge to cough. He took a second breath, then let out a slow sigh. Terrance finished his bread and apple and donned the coat. He tried to ignore the smell, and knew he would soon stop noticing it, but he couldn’t help but think of who the former owner might be. Three messengers had been lost in the last six months, so it could have been worn by any of them. For a moment he pondered which was most likely. Jack Macklin had been riding this way when he was killed, so it might have been his.
Terrance wondered if he would ever know. He climbed up into the saddle and urged the gelding forward, heading for Baron Summerville’s camp. He glanced skyward and knew he’d lost half a day and would have to sleep one more night on the ground before returning to the Earl’s camp.
Without thought he patted the pouch hanging at his hip to ensure Baron Gruder’s messages were still with him. He took a deep breath and had his mount pick up speed; he didn’t want to be on the trail after dark.
The horse was no Bella, but he was obedient and trail-wise. He responded nicely and Terrance felt that he might actually see the end of this seemingly interminable day. He knew it was only eight hours since he had left Gruder’s camp, but it felt like days. Terrance was tired to his bones and aching from too little rest after a murderous ride and running from the Tsurani.
The afternoon passed slowly, and twice he felt a heat rush up his body that caused perspiration to break out over his skin, run down his face, and turn to a freezing mask in the cold wind. He fought to keep his mind on his task and off his overall misery. At sundown, he rode within sight of Baron Summerville’s camp. The soldiers on picket waved him through without comment and he reached the Baron’s command tent as darkness fell.
One of the Baron’s guards announced Terrance’s arrival and then took the reins of his mount while the young messenger went inside to make his report.
Baron Summerville was the only commander of the three who Terrance knew well; he was the son of another distant cousin and served as a court Baron in Krondor. “Terry!” he said, pleased to see his distant kinsman. “What news?”
“Sir, the Duke sends orders we’re home for the winter.”
“Wonderful,” said Summerville, indicating Terrance should take a seat. Taking in Terrance’s appearance fully for the first time, the Baron said, “You look like hell. Are you ill?”
“A chest cold, m’lord. Nothing to speak of.”
“Wine?”
“A little, m’lord.” Terrance’s throat was sore, and he thought the wine might soothe it a little.
The baron signaled and his personal servant poured a mug for each of them. Terrance welcomed the full, warming drink and then said, “Orders from the Earl. Orderly withdrawal; defensive fighting only.
“From Baron Gruder, he thinks the Tsurani will push in behind the withdraw and seize lands to hold until spring.
“From Baron Moncrief, the Tsurani are attacking his position from the north.”
Baron Summerville stood and went to a map. He studied it for a moment, then said, “I think Gruder is right. The bastards are trying to push Moncrief out, forcing him to the southeast. That would cut us off from Gruder, whose only option would be to fall back straight to LaMut.” He rubbed his chin, resplendent with a blond beard he took great pains to keep neatly trimmed, even in the field. “We’re untroubled here, and our scouts have seen no signs of the Tsurani. I think I can follow the Earl’s instructions and still move in support of Moncrief. If we ‘withdraw’ together, in an orderly fashion of course, we can push the Tsurani back behind their own positions, then swing east while Gruder holds his ground, then all leave.” He nodded. “Yes, that would do it. It would be too bloody cold and nasty for them to try another push in a few weeks, and it would take them that long to regroup and return in force, which they would be forced to do, just in case we left a garrison behind. Yes, that is what I’ll do.”
He turned to face Terrance. “I’m afraid I’ve got to ask you to take the long way back, Terry.”
“Sir?”
“At first light I want you to head back to Moncrief and tell him I’m ‘withdrawing’ in his direction. I’ll move the bulk of my forces up in support of his position by noon tomorrow. The rest will serve as a harassing rear guard in case there are more Tsurani circling around to flow in behind us.”
“Yes, sir.”
With a smile, Baron Summerville said, “How’s your family, Terry?”
“Well enough, m’lord. I had a letter from Mother a month ago. All’s calm back home, thank the gods. Father’s still serving up with Duke Brucal’s army in northern Yabon, but she had word from him he was all right just before she wrote me. My brother Gerald is still commanding a company of cavalry from Tyr-Sog under Father.”
“Best to assume things are well until you hear otherwise,” said Baron Summerville. “Else you have trouble keeping down the meals, if you know what I mean?”
“Yes, sir,” said Terrance.
“Speaking of meals, I’d invite you to stay and dine, kinsman, but as we’re going to be on march at daybreak, I have much to do. Find the Commissary and get what you need. No need to see me again before leaving. Be on the trail at dawn, then, will you?”
“Yes, m’lord,” said Terrance. Understanding he was dismissed, he bowed then left.
As he reached the tent flap, the Baron said, “And Terry . . .”
“Yes, m’lord?
“Don’t get yourself killed: that’s a good lad.”
“Sir,” said Terrance with a smile, and he left.
Terrance took his horse and walked him through the camp, toward the Commissary tent. Before he reached it, the tone of the camp changed and again he felt the quickening pace of activity as word was passed they’d be pulling out the next morning, early, to support Moncrief and then home!
He found the cook tent, got his meal, and sat behind the tent as close to the cooking fire on the other side as he could get; the warmth from the fire seeped through the canvas and was welcome comfort to his back, as was the food he wolfed down. There was even a fair drink of wine in the bottom of a bottle left over from the Baron’s supper the night before that the cook was kind enough to give the obviously exhausted boy. He was halfway through his meal when another attack of coughing struck him and he spat until his body ached. His ribs felt as if he had wrestled the Duke’s champion and had been subjected to a massive bear hug. He could barely breathe without feeling pain. He sat back and took slow, shallow breaths. He felt fatigue in every joint, and closed his eyes to rest them a moment.
Terrance suddenly felt the toe of a boot gently nudging his leg. “Here, now, lad. You’ll freeze to death if you don’t move along.”
The messenger looked up and saw the cook had come around to throw out scraps and found Terrance sleeping, the plate of food still in his lap and a wooden spoon still clutched in his right hand.
“Got a place to sleep?” asked the cook.
“Haven’t found one, yet,” said Terrance.
“You most likely won’t. Not much fighting here since the last batch of reinforcements showed, so there’s no empty tents to speak of.” The old cook rubbed his chin. “The Commissary chief won’t mind if you sleep near the fires, long as you don’t mind getting up before dawn—that’s when we’ll cook the last meal before we pull out.”
“I don’t mind,” said Terrance. “I have to be on the road before dawn, anyway.”
“Good, then come along.”
Terrance followed the cook to the far side of the Commissary tent, where boys were banking the fires for use in the morning. Two boys were lifting large shovels of ash with which they covered the flaming wood and coal. Terrance realized he had never bothered to notice that they used both. He then realized there were many things about the Commissary he didn’t pay close attention to.
There were earthen jars and pots in all sizes and shapes heaped beside one tent. Near another stood stacks of bowls and platters, some nearly as tall as a man.
A dozen brick ovens stood nearby, and boys were using large wooden paddles to pull out steaming loaves of hot bread. Despite having eaten a short time before, Terrance found the smell of fresh bread nearly overwhelming and his mouth was watering. He asked, “Do you take the ovens back to LaMut?”
“We could,” said the cook. “We’d need a wagon and team for each, but they can be lifted up by a rope and block, and dragged into the bed of a stout wagon. But why bother? We leave them here and they’ll be waiting come spring. The snow doesn’t hurt them. We just shoo away any animal or bird that’s decided to nest in one and with a little cleaning they’re ready to go. If this camp is ever relocated, we can transport one or two a day to the new camp.
“Here you go,” he said, pointing to two dozen wagons that formed the luggage of the army. “Work your way in there and grab a blanket. The boys will be crawling under there when the bread is done for the morning. They’re a lice-ridden lot of little bastards but they won’t bother you. And you’ll find having a bunch of them around you will keep you warm enough. You’ll be roused an hour before dawn.”
Terrance said his thanks and crawled down under the first wagon. He had to negotiate a veritable maze of wagon wheels, crockery holding personal belongings, bundles of dirty clothing, and a few sleeping boys who appeared to be ill. He found a spot on a dirty blanket next to a bundle of other dirty blankets and pulled one over himself.
Terrance considered the lot of the boys in the luggage and the Commissary. It was already after dark and most of the soldiers were sleeping, yet these boys were busy packing up the camp’s extras, arms, clothing, bandages, and the rest, or working in the kitchen tents making bread, cooking meat, and preparing whatever was left to feed the men before the early march to the northeast. The boys might manage five hours of sleep before starting their next workday. Terrance realized that they grabbed naps during the morning and early afternoon, but still it was a bone-grinding schedule.
He felt perspiration running off his body and, despite the blanket and the proximity of the fire, was racked with chills. He fought off a coughing fit, then succumbed to another, and finally relaxed enough to try to sleep.
Terrance remembered one soldier, during his first week in the Earl’s camp, who had told him, “Learn to sleep any chance you get, boy. You never know how long it’ll be before you have another chance.”
Terrance understood the wisdom of that advice and was quickly asleep.
For a moment he didn’t realize where he was. The sound of boys protesting the need to get up after too little sleep and his own profound fatigue confused his senses. He sat up and banged his head hard against the underside of a wagon.
It was still dark.
“Here, now,” said a boy next to him. “Go easy, else you’ll brain yourself.”
Rubbing his sore pate, Terrance said, “Thanks. I’ll be more cautious.”
The boys crab-walked out from under the wagons and hurried to their various tasks. Terrance paused to let the exodus of boys finish, then made his way out from under the wagons. He was more than usually stiff from sleeping on the ground, and he felt tired and miserable, despite the night’s sleep. He was visited by another coughing fit and spat and spat until his ribs protested and he found tears forming in his eyes from the pain.
For a long moment he felt the urge to just sit on the ground and cry. He had never felt this tired or hopeless before in his life. His body seemed to fight him as much as the elements, and the thought of the ride before him was almost more than he could bear.
There was an apothecary in the Earl’s camp who had a potion he brewed, herbs and roots, which would hasten recovery from coughs and chest congestion, even things far nastier. By his original plan, he should be back there this afternoon and he could chase down the apothecary and take care of this, but as fate would have it, he had to return the way he came, and there was certainly an army of Tsurani between Moncrief’s and Gruder’s camps, which would mean another day and night on the trail.
Terrance conceded, he’d be flirting with pneumonia by the time he reached the Earl’s camp if his luck didn’t hold. He almost gave in to despair, but realized he had no choice. He just set his mind to doing each thing needed as it came, and not to dwell on how much more effort lay beyond the task at hand.
He wandered through the turmoil of boys readying the final meal in this camp and those already intent upon packing up the last of the stores so the Commissary and luggage could follow quickly behind the advancing army. Terrance saw order emerge from the apparent confusion and admired the way in which each boy appeared to know what was expected of him. There was a fair amount of jostling and bumping involved, but they were boys and they didn’t let it distract them from the tasks at hand.
Camp boys had a hard lot, Terrance judged, but no worse than the homeless urchins in the cities. At least here they had a meal or two a day and a place to sleep where they would be untroubled. Boys might be abused by drunken soldiers in other armies, but since before Terrance was born, battery or rape were hanging offenses in the King’s army.
Some grew up to be soldiers, while others found positions as cooks’ helpers, teamsters, or luggage supervisors. Terrance saw a pair of luggage supervisors, boys almost to manhood, perhaps only two or three years younger than himself, who quickly moved through the crowds imparting instructions and helping along some boys with a smack to the back of the head or a cuff to the ear.
At the cooking tent he saw that the kitchen was already being disassembled. While the brick hearths would be left to await the army’s return in the spring, the metal cooking stoves were being taken apart and readied for transport.
Food was resting on wooden tables across the compound, and Terrance hurried over to grab something to eat before the trumpets blew the soldiers to assembly. He saw a few soldiers, those coming off guard duty, already lined up to eat. He fell in behind a rangy infantryman wearing the tabard of Questor’s View and moved along. As he reached the end of the first table, the trumpets sounded, and he could hear fatigued men cursing as the soldiers in nearby tents responded to the call.
Terrance grabbed up some fresh bread, a pear that didn’t look too damaged, and a slice of hard cheese. He stuffed the pear in his pocket to eat on the road. He looked in vain for a water skin, and hoped the one that had rested on his saddle horn was still there when he retrieved his horse from the remounts.
He didn’t bother to sit with the soldiers and eat. He chewed his food while he went to the horses. He found cavalrymen inspecting their mounts before going to eat, for they knew their lives depended on the horses being sound. The grooms were too busy to help him, so he stuffed what was left of his food inside his unbuttoned tunic and found his horse. The animal had been poorly cared for. He took a few minutes to pick out the hooves and find his saddle. As he feared, the water skin was nowhere in sight.
He went to the stores and found a nose bag and a near-empty bag of oats, but enough for his mount. He filled the nose bag and returned to his horse and fitted it over the animal’s nose. He would let the horse eat while he went in search of a water skin.
It took him almost a quarter hour to find a skin and fill it, and when Terrance returned to the remounts, he found a stocky groomsman removing the nose bag from the horse’s snout.
“Here! What are you doing?” Terrance asked.
The groom, a large-shouldered young man with a nose flattened in many brawls, turned and said, “I’m takin’ this here bag off. No one told me to feed this horse, an’ this part o’ the line is mine, see?”
“That’s my horse and I need him fed.”
“So does them what’s going to fight, fancy pants, so you can wait until they’s done, got it?”
Terrance knew a bully when he saw one and realized this idiot was spoiling for a fight. He didn’t hesitate. He took one step forward and kicked the groom as hard as he could in the groin. With a grunt of pain, the man fell to his knees, clutching himself as his eyes widened and he fought to catch his breath.
Terrance was forced to admit he was a tough one, for he shook off the blow in a fraction of the time most men would have been rendered unable to move. But as the groom regained his wits he realized Terrance had his saber out and had the point leveled at his throat.
“Now, you buffoon. You’ll leave that nose bag alone until my horse is done. You’ll go over there and retrieve that scout saddle and bridle from the rack and tack up the horse. If you think you’ve got a problem now, see what kind of trouble you’ll see if the Baron finds out you’re interfering with his orders. I’m supposed to be riding outnow ! So, what are you going to do?”
“Tack up the horse . . . sir.”
Terrance put away his sword. The groom struggled to his feet, still obviously tender, and hobbled over to get the saddle.
Terrance turned to find a cavalryman watching him. The tall soldier said, “So what would you have done without a saber?”
Terrance said, “Wasted a lot of time finding an officer to bully him into obeying me. I certainly am not going to scare him.”
The man studied Terrance a moment then smiled. “A man who knows his limits. I like that.”
Terrance started to cough, and the cavalryman said, “Are you ill?”
“Nothing to speak of,” said Terrance, gasping for a moment, then regaining his composure.
The soldier shrugged. “Ride well,” he offered. He didn’t wait for a response, but finished inspecting his own horse, then left to get his morning meal.
The groom tacked up the horse under Terrance’s watchful eye. There would be no loosely fastened girths or uncomfortable bits on this horse. Terrance finished eating and hung his water skin on the horse’s saddle, then mounted and rode off.
His chest was getting tighter by the moment. He felt achy all over, and he had to ride a good pace to carry word to Baron Moncrief from Baron Summerville. Even the little bit of exertion needed to cower the groom had caused him to break out in drenching perspiration.
Then it started to snow.
“Gods,” said Terrance under his breath, “this is turning into a lousy morning.” For a brief moment he considered returning to the Baron’s tent. He would report to the infirmary and rest for a day or two, then travel by wagon behind the army. He was obviously ill and Summerville was a kinsman, even if a distant one. He would let the family know that Terrance had given it his very best. Then he wondered, But would it be my best?
For a long minute he sat motionless, considering his choices. Then he admitted he had none and kicked the horse into motion.
It was near noon when Terrance came into view of the Baron’s camp. The guards were on alert, for there was only a small squad left behind to guard the tents, equipment, and animals. They waved him through, and he rode to the command tent. The guard shouted as he rode near, “The Baron’s up at the barricade, leading the defense himself.”
“How goes it?”
“Close,” is all the man said.
Terrance rode on, wishing he could spare the time to rest the horse. He had become fond of the tough little gelding. He wasn’t as sturdy an animal as Bella, but he was willing and obedient.
Terrance himself was miserable. Every step the horse took caused his aching body to protest, and he knew he was in the grips of a high fever, for despite the freezing air, he was perspiring under his heavy cloak and alternately felt flushed with heat, then chills, which caused him to shudder. He paused to refill his water skin, then moved on and relieved himself. He knew that his only choice was to drink as much water as possible, until he returned to the Earl’s camp and found the apothecary.
The four miles to the battlefront were marked by a few signs of battle, a dead horse and rider off to one side of the road, a pair of wounded men walking arms around one another, slowly making their way to the infirmary back at the main camp. Within a mile of the barricade, he could hear the sounds of battle.
When he came into view of the barricade, he saw hundreds of men apparently milling about behind the wall, until he got close enough to see the ordering of the men. Companies stood ready to rush forward and man the barricade, while engineers were frantically loading up trebuchets and letting fly their deadly cargo of rocks on the attackers. The sounds of battle echoed off the rock face. It was a deafening cacophony that made hearing anyone more than a few yards away impossible.
Other men were spreading out, obviously protecting the flanks of the army from any elements of the Tsurani forces that might have wended their way through the rocks above, in an attempt to flank the Kingdom defenders. And everywhere he looked, he saw men too wounded to move, and the dead.
On one side of the road, the men had been laid out in a row, three dozen or more, while on the other side, the boys from the luggage and the infirmary were carrying bodies away from the battlefront.
Terrance reached the rear of the barricade and shouted to a sergeant upon the wall, “Where is the Baron?” The effort brought on a coughing fit.
The sergeant looked down and said, “With the dead. What news?”
Terrance swallowed hard and forced himself to breathe as deeply as he could. “Baron Summerville comes in haste.” His voice came out thin and strangled, but he was heard.
“How long?”
“No more than an hour, two at the most.”
“We can hold,” shouted the sergeant, “if but barely.”
“Do you need me to carry word back?”
“Only if there’s need to tell the Baron to hasten faster.”
“There is no need. He comes as swiftly as conditions allow.”
“Then I have nothing for you, messenger, save carry news to the Earl that Baron Moncrief died bravely, repulsing the invaders at a breach. He gave his life for King and country.”
“I will do that, Sergeant. May the gods save you.”
“May the gods save us all,” said the sergeant, returning his attention to commanding the defense of the barricade.
Terrance turned his horse around and moved back down the road. He called up from memory the map of the area, and realized he would have to ride miles to the east to find a small trail through the mountains, one that rose up more than a thousand feet higher than the summit of this road, before he could loop around the invaders and return to the Earl’s camp.
The snow continued to fall, and Terrance hoped the pass wasn’t snowed in completely by the time he reached there. He patted his horse on the neck and said, “No rest for either of us until we get safely back to the Earl, I’m afraid.” The thought of the next few hours of riding almost caused him to break down, and tears formed in his eyes, but he blinked them back.
Shivering now from the cold and his fever, Terrance tried to huddle down deeper in his coat as he turned his animal and rode east. His head pounded and his throat was sore beyond anything he had experienced as a boy. He couldn’t breathe through his nose and the cold air savaged his throat each time he inhaled. He realized he had no choice; behind him a battle raged and there was no place for him to rest. If he must strive, then let him do so attempting to finish his mission. He rode on.
The horse labored up the pass, slipping on the icy rocks from time to time. Terrance fought to keep his mind focused, which was becoming more and more difficult as he felt his fever turn worse. He knew that any mishap here would mean his death, for he could not possibly walk out from these icy heights. Yet while such thoughts caused him great fear only hours before, now he felt a fey detachment, as if whatever the outcome might be, it really didn’t matter. He had no other option but to press on.
The pass where Moncrief’s and Summerville’s forces were locked in combat with the Tsurani was a bit more than three thousand feet in elevation but this pass was nearly five, and the snow had been falling steadily up here for days. It hadn’t begun to drift yet, so he felt confident he would breast the summit soon, yet there was always the chance of accident.
If the wind below had been knives cutting into his face, razors were now being administered to every inch that was exposed. Not for the first time did he wish for more gear, a heavy pair of trousers, a heavy wool muffler, heavier gloves, but now he wished more fervently than before. He understood the need to keep as much weight off the horse as possible, but right now he would have given up two hours’ travel time for a pair of fur-lined gloves.
Cresting the summit brought a sudden sense of relief, even though the wind now raked him like the claws of a predator. He urged the horse on as it half walked, half staggered down the icy trail, thinking that every second moving was a second closer to safety.
An hour later he found a cut through the rocks that was relatively sheltered from the wind and there paused to let the horse rest. He dismounted and moved between the horse’s neck and the rocks, letting the animal’s body heat give him a slight respite from the brutal cold. He patted his pockets and found the pear, which he gave to the horse. It wasn’t much, but the little bit of food seemed to revive the animal slightly and Terrance felt better for it.
After a half hour in the lee of the rocks, Terrance judged the animal was now taking more punishment from the cold than from moving, so he mounted up and they again descended the mountain.
It was almost night when he reached the foothills and the lightly forested path that would take him back around to the main road to the Earl’s camp. He would have to either keep moving throughout the night, or make a camp and light a fire.
It was a difficult choice, for to keep moving meant dangerous footing and the chance for the horse to be injured. A fire was equally dangerous, for the Tsurani might have flanking units out looking for passes like the one he had just used.
He decided to press on and stop only if he found a clearly safe campsite. He was moving through a lightly wooded area when he noticed a small trail leaving the one on which he rode. It might be a game trail, but it also might be a forester’s track, leading him to a shelter. He decided he was at no more risk for investigating and moved the horse slowly along the new trail.
A half mile along he saw a low shape in the gloom, for almost no light was coming from the cloud-shrouded moons. Only the presence in the sky of both large moon and middle moon gave him any illumination.
He identified the mound as being a low hut, built into the side of a hillock. Either a charcoal burner’s or a forester’s hut, he judged.
He dismounted and investigated. The hut was abandoned, but it had a stone hearth and he quickly set about to build a fire. If the Tsurani blundered this far off the main trail it meant only the gods had fated his death and he had best resign himself to that.
He took flint and steel from his belt pouch and found some very dry wood near the hearth that sprang easily to flame. He then went outside and found some damp logs that he carefully fed to the fire, watching clouds of steam and smoke rise as the damp wood resisted the flames.
When he was satisfied the fire would not go out, he went back outside and tended the horse. He tried to rub it down with a handful of stale straw he had pulled off the floor of the hut, and then poured water into his hand and let the animal drink. He would look around in the morning to see if there was any fodder, but suspected he and the animal would both arrive in the Earl’s camp starving.
Once he had finished caring for the horse, he went back inside and fell on the hard stones before the fire. The warmth felt wonderful on his face, and he found a ragged blanket tossed into the corner, which he rolled up for a pillow, letting his coat serve as his blanket.
His breath came raggedly, he could not breathe deeply without coughing, and his body ached from hair to toes. But he was tired to the point of numbness and quickly fell into a troubled fever sleep.
Terrance could hardly move when he awoke. The fire had died down to glowing embers, and what little warmth it generated was offset by the painful cold he felt on the side of his body turned away from the fire. He rolled over with effort and felt his freezing side drink in the heat.
His head swam as he tried to stand. His legs shook and he felt his head pounding. His stomach tied in knots and he felt himself start to heave; he swallowed hard and fought down the feeling he was about to be sick. He reached out and held the doorjamb, his head down a moment, eyes closed, and let his aching body reach a point of balance. He took a long slow breath, and opened his eyes.
Looking out through the partially open door, he judged the morning half over. He knew he was dangerously sick, and his only hope was in getting to the Earl’s camp before he lost all ability to ride.
He staggered outside and found his horse standing patiently where Terrance had tied him, in the lee of the hut. Terrance had to concentrate to the point of perspiration breaking out on his forehead to tack up the animal.
He judged that enough water was left in the skin so he didn’t have to go looking for any. He also knew he’d cross a stream halfway between here and the Earl’s camp, so he’d refill the skin there if needed.
Terrance almost lost consciousness when he mounted, his head swimming for nearly a minute from the exertion. He didn’t need a healing-priest or chirurgeon to tell him he was burning up from a raging fever, and his lungs gurgled when he breathed deeply. He had pneumonia and wouldn’t last another day without attention.
He directed the horse back to the trail and started toward the Earl’s camp.
The morning ride was a haze of images and, Terrance knew, hallucinations. He felt fine for moments only to come awake with a lurch as he almost pitched from the saddle, and realized he had been dreaming of being well. He found it odd that he was now without fear. He simply knew he would either die on the road or reach safety. It didn’t bother him any more to consider the risk.
The horse walked as slowly as he permitted, so he constantly had to urge it to a faster pace, only to discover he had lost focus and the horse had slowed to a walk.
More than once he had regained his wits to find the horse had wandered off the trail to nibble at what scant foliage it could find. By midday he was barely able to keep in the saddle.
Terrance knew that to stop would mean his death. If he fell from his horse, he would lose consciousness and freeze to death. He undid the strap of the message pouch and retied it around his waist, running it through two metal rings on the saddle, effectively tying himself to the saddle. The pouch flapped behind him with every step the horse took.
His head pounded and his throat was swollen and hot. His lungs protested every breath he took and he couldn’t feel his hands and feet.
Twice more during the day he gained enough lucidity to see he had wandered off course. He barely had enough wits to get back to the small trail.
Sometime in the seemingly endless hours he spent hanging on to the saddle, he noticed he had left the small trail from the mountains and was back on the main trail to the Earl’s camp. That recognition perked him up a little and for the better part of the next hour he felt more focused and aware of his surroundings.
Through endless minutes of jerking awake and dozing he wandered over the countryside, until a jolt of alarm shot though him. The horse had stiffened and snorted and the sudden sense of danger brought him to full awareness.
He was a hundred yards or more south of the road, once again wandering, but despite the fever and his aching body, he rose up in the stirrups. The leather pouch he had tied around his waist pulled against him, but he scanned the horizon in all directions, looking for the cause of the horse’s alarm.
Then he saw them, a line of figures less than a hundred yards to the south, crouching and advancing quickly. A flash of green color told him all he needed to know: Tsurani.
He didn’t know if this was a detachment sent far to the left on a flanking move in support of those attacking Moncrief’s position, or if this was simply a unit deep behind lines trying to get back to their own camps before the first blizzard hit.
He didn’t debate which was more likely, but turned the horse and kicked hard against the animal’s barrel. The horse needed little urging, sensing danger in the approaching men. He leapt forward, heading back to the trail. In less than ten seconds he was on the trail and racing.
Terrance bent low over the horse’s neck, his buttocks out of the saddle, in a racing stance, his toes barely in the irons of the stirrups. He fought against fever and fear and kept his horse guided up the road, praying another band of Tsurani wasn’t waiting for him ahead.
Those who had been approaching him shouted and others appeared along his line of march, but none was close enough to intercept him. He sped past the closest enemy soldier, who let fly with an arrow more out of frustration than any real hope of striking the speeding rider.
With the last of his strength, the horse stretched out, tearing along the road for three miles, then fatigue caught up with horse and rider and Terrance let the animal slow.
Struggling to hold a rocking canter, Terrance realized suddenly where he was, and knew that once he crested a small rise less than a half mile ahead, he would be within sight of the first sentry post on the road.
Suddenly Terrance felt like he had once when running a race at home, during the Midsummer’s Day festival. He had been among the very youngest boys in the race and had been pressed to finish, let alone be among the winners. At the end of the long run, nearly five miles, he had seen the finish line in the distance. Another boy was a few yards ahead, and Terrance had vowed not to be the last across the line. By sheer focus and will he had pressed on and on, until he had crossed the line a step ahead of the older boy. Then he had collapsed and had to be carried away to his father’s house.
He reached deep inside and pulled up that same resolve. He focused and by will kept his horse moving along the road at a canter. In the distance he saw the first sentry, and as he approached they waved him through.
He rode along another quarter mile until the first tents appeared, white shapes seen between the boles of the trees that lined each side of the road. Then suddenly he was in the clearing that housed the Earl’s camp.
He started to rein in his horse, and the animal slowed as he reached a line of picketed horses. A groom came up and, taking one look at Terrance, shouted, “Help me!”
Two soldiers close by hurried over to see what was the matter, as Terrance lost all grip on consciousness and started to slide from the saddle. Only the strap he had tied kept him from falling and then he felt hands upon him, as someone held him up while other hands undid the strap.
Then he felt himself carried, and he wondered why he was no longer cold.
Then darkness.
Suddenly pain.
It felt as if his skin were being peeled off, from the crown of his head, an inch at a time, down his entire body until it reached his toes.
Terrance sat up and screamed.
Strong hands restrained him as he tried to flip himself out of the cot upon which he had rested. Then he went weak and felt those hands push him back onto the cot.
“He’ll be fine.”
Terrance felt his head swim, and perspiration drenched his skin with a wetness that stank of poisons leaching out of his body. He could feel his skin burn, as if the sweat were acid, and he expected blisters to form, but suddenly he felt his senses return and the pain vanished. He was weak, but well. He blinked and the room came into focus. He ran his hand across his forehead and it came away dry. He looked at a circle of concerned faces above him and said, “I’ll be fine.”
Terrance sat up slowly, turning to put his feet on the dirt floor. He glanced around. He was in the infirmary tent. Next to him stood a pair of orderlies, and behind them the apothecary and a healing-priest. The apothecary said, “That was a close thing, boy. Another hour or two and we’d be putting you on the funeral pyre.”
Terrance took a deep breath. He still felt weak, but far better than he had in days. “What happened?”
“You rode into camp at sunset, then fell off your horse, and they hauled you in here. We worked on you all night. I gave you some of this”—he held up a flask—“and Father William said a prayer, and it worked. Your fever broke and you’re back to health.”
“I could use a meal,” said Terrance as he stood up. He expected to feel light-headed, but he didn’t. He sniffed at himself and said, “And a bath.”
“That’s the poisons from your body, son,” said the priest. “My spell held your spirit in your flesh while the apothecary’s draft purged your body of the sickness.”
“You need nourishment. The magic in my drug doesn’t replenish the body, just heals it.”
“Thank you,” said Terrance.
The apothecary said, “I had little choice. It seems the Earl would look upon me with little favor if I let a cousin die.”
“A distant cousin,” said Terrance.
“Still, a relative. In any event, I do what I can for whoever I can.” He looked around the tent at the dying men who would not see home and said, “Often it is not enough.”
Terrance nodded. He motioned for an infirmary boy to bring over a basin and cloth. The air was frigid, so he raised gooseflesh as he sponged off his skin, and then he dressed. Looking at the apothecary, he said, “I need to report in.”
“Then get some food and sleep,” cautioned the apothecary. “I don’t want to try to save you twice in two days.”
“I will,” said Terrance. He saw that his message pouch was on the ground next to the cot, so he bent over and retrieved it.
He left the tent and looked around. His horse was nowhere in sight. Some groom must have taken it to the remounts. He wondered if Bella had found her way back.
He moved slowly, still weak and not wanting to appear clumsy before the other soldiers. He marveled he was alive. He had been so fearful just the day before. Now he realized that every time he went on a mission he might face death. Heunderstood that fact, rather than just thought he knew. He had faced his own weaknesses and he had overcome them. He felt positively buoyant when he reached the Earl’s tent. He said to the guard, “I have messages for Earl Vandros.”
He had to wait only a few moments before he was admitted. The Earl looked up from a conversation he was having with one of his captains and said, “Ah, Terry. I expected you back two days ago.”
“A slight delay, m’lord.”
“Messages?”
Terrance handed the pouch to an orderly, who took it. “A report from Baron Gruder, m’lord.”
“What else?”
“The Tsurani moved in force against Baron Moncrief. He repulsed them for a day and was relieved by Baron Summerville.” He filled in the Earl with the rest of the report then added, “Baron Moncrief fell during the battle.”
“Shame,” said Vandros. “He was a good man. It’ll put the Duke of Bas-Tyra in a foul mood. Moncrief was one of his barons. Anything else?”
“Yesterday, I saw a unit of Tsurani to the south making their way westward.”
“I’ll send out a patrol to see what they’re up to.”
“That’s all I have to report, sir.”
Vandros looked at Terrance. His uniform was filthy, and his gray coat had blood on it. “Any difficulties along the way?”
“Nothing to speak of, m’lord.”
“Then go get some food and rest. And send another messenger in. Dismissed.”
Terrance left the tent and Vandros turned to the captain. “Glad I kept that boy with the messengers. Much safer for him there.”
Terrance voraciously wolfed down a hunk of hot bread and clutched a small half wheel of cheese and a bottle of wine he had purloined from the Commissary on his way from the Earl’s tent. He felt fit, but he was starving. He reached the messengers’ tent, where an older messenger lay on a dry mat, his arm across his eyes. “William,” said Terrance as he stuck his head in the tent.
“Terry?”
“Your turn.”
The man nodded and put on his boots. Terrance sat down to finish his food and William said, “Much trouble?”
With a smile and a nod, he answered, “Nothing to speak of.”
William returned the smile. “I understand. See you soon.”
“Ride safe, William.”
“Ride safe, Terry,” was the reply, and William departed.
The young messenger sat down to eat, hoping he could manage a full night’s sleep before he was sent out again. But rested or not, if it was his turn, he’d go.