Arcanum (89 page)

He ought to have whipped the man all the way down the valley for what he’d said, but he’d come to realise there was a certain prestige in being part of Büber’s scouts. Getting kicked out would probably mean not just temporary embarrassment, but permanent shame.

Rosenheim was out of bounds to ordinary Carinthian soldiers, although some slipped in for a crafty fuck with a willing local. Felix wanted the Bavarians left alone, but it wasn’t just Carinthians doing the sneaking: Rosenheimers would tour the camp, selling everything they possessed for whatever coin the soldiers carried. As a consequence, half the houses and shops had closed up, and their inhabitants had fled somewhere safer.

The market square at the end of the muddy main street was overlooked by a row of houses, as might be found in the oldest part of Juvavum – tall, thin and protruding over the road. One of them had a limp leopard banner draped from a first-floor window, and a lantern hung by the front door.

Büber entered without knocking, and the guard who sat on a chair by the bottom of the stairs glanced at him once before resting his chin on his chest again.

The huntsman had spent the last week permanently alert for any sign he’d been spotted. The laxity of the guard worried him. He was reasonably certain there were no dwarves within thirty miles of them, but where previously one glance would have been enough to tell the difference, even Büber now had to double-check it was dwarves he was seeing, and not short men.

He kicked the guard’s chair as he went past.

“Wake up, you lazy fucker. I could be anyone.”

The guard jerked upright and staggered to his feet. His hand was on his sword, but he found himself faced with quiet contempt and an awful lot of scars.

“Master Büber,” he said, and used his sword-hand to touch his brow instead.

Gods, the dwarves were going to roll right over them. Büber scowled and started up the stairs, taking two at a time.

Reinhardt was eating and reading at the same time, holding a slice of sausage, pinched between a greasy thumb and forefinger, in one hand, and a scrap of parchment in the other. Without looking up, he extended a leg and pushed a chair towards Büber.

“Peter, what news from Ennsbruck?”

Büber sat in the chair. It felt almost odd to him. It wasn’t a saddle and it wasn’t a rock; pretty much the only two places his arse got to rest these days. Still reading, Reinhardt used the back of his hand to slide the plate of unsliced sausage across the table.

“Help yourself.”

His men would be eating. No reason for him not to. He cut off a round and popped it into his mouth, chewing slowly.

Reinhardt put the parchment down with a sigh. “We’ve trained another two centuries of spears, and two of bows. Juvavum wants to know if we need them or not.” He pulled at his moustache before reaching behind him for a jug and two mugs.

It was expensive to keep an army in the field. Sometimes it was all but impossible. “How many have you got out at the moment?” asked Büber.

“Six hundred spears, four hundred bows, who can also use spears when they’re called to. What cavalry I have is posted up near the dwarvish wall. Three centuries are at Kufstein, and I swap them over for fresh every couple of weeks. It gives them something to do, at least.”

“My man reckons around ten to twelve thousand dwarves are now camped in and around Enn valley,” said Büber. “There are more arriving from Farduzes every day.”

Reinhardt poured both of them a mug of beer, and they drank in silence.

“That’s a lot of dwarves,” he said finally.

“They mean to attack. That’s certain. They’ve built covered wagons by the dozen, and they’re still building them. The forges of Ennsbruck are busy at any hour, and they’re using the forest up at a fearsome rate.” Büber rasped his stubble. “They have a plan and they’re getting ready. It seems stupid just to sit around and wait until it’s ripe.”

“Yet if we were to spend our soldiers on raids across the wall, it would hurt us more than it would hurt them.” Reinhardt, like Büber, was a veteran of Obernsberg and of Gerhard’s funeral, and neither of them was under any illusion as to how green the new men were.

“My lot – though I could always do with more – could harry them,” said Büber. “All their supplies are coming from Farduzes, and the road from there’s long. They’ve no idea about growing crops or things like that. If we can just keep them bottled up until the winter snows come, we’ve won. They’ll have to retreat. Look, we don’t even have to win every battle, just the last one.”

“Put it to Felix,” said Reinhardt.

Büber leant across the table. He and Reinhardt both answered to the prince, but neither knew who was in charge out here. “I’m putting it to you. Thirty men, mounted, with crossbows and swords. We’d cause havoc.”

“I’m not denying that it’s an interesting idea, but…”

“We can’t just sit here darning our socks until twenty thousand dwarves decide that they’re ready. Gods, man. Attack them before that.”

“Peter, what if you provoke them? What if they come across the wall early because of it?” Reinhardt flipped at Büber the piece of parchment he’d been reading, knowing full well that the huntmaster couldn’t read. “We’ve got two thousand trained men, none of whom have been in a battle. We can dress another two, three thousand more with spears and tell them to stand there and look impressive. We can muster only a couple of dozen horse. We’re less ready than the dwarves. All that we can hope for is that by the time they decide they’re ready, we are too.”

Büber threw himself back with a growl. “You didn’t see them, working away, walking around like they own the place. They’re cutting the trees down, Wolfgang. Clearing them completely. If they win, that’s what they’ll do to Carinthia.”

“Then we have to be smart and not stupid. There are some things we can do now, things that’ll buy us time to bring our forces up. See here.” Reinhardt lifted up several sheets of paper on his desk, and slid a map out from underneath them.

It was crudely drawn, but it was accurate enough. There was the Enn valley, heading north-east, and doing a dog-leg when it reached Kufstein. It was incredibly narrow there, the mountains coming right down to the river’s edge and permitting passage only on the eastern bank.

Beyond that, the valley broadened, splitting into two. One went downstream, due north, straight at Rosenheim. The other headed east, up various tributaries and thereafter becoming lost in a maze of spurs and cols.

“They have to get past Kufstein with their main group. Even if they try to flank it, gods, you know what it’s like up there. Some of those tracks are barely wide enough for a goat. There’s one bridge from one side of the river to the other. That’s below where the old Roman fort used to be. It’s only so many stones piled on top of one another now, but the earthworks are still there. I’ve strengthened them a bit, but what if we dug them out and built them up, put a palisade up and a parapet? We could make the river run red.” Reinhardt stabbed the point with his finger. “They do bleed red, don’t they?”

“Yes,” said Büber. “As red as yours and mine. But why would they cross at the most obvious point? They could build a bridge of their own, further up, and come at Kufstein on the south bank, take it, and that would be that.” They’re dwarves, not idiots, he almost added.

“There’s a river that comes down from the south here, just before Kufstein,” said Reinhardt. “The …” – he squinted at the map – “Weissach. It cuts through the middle of two big hills, both heavily wooded. You could hide an army on them, and no one would know. If the dwarves sent a raiding party that way, we’d fall on them like wolves and push them into the river. If we were ready.”

Büber pulled the map closer, and turned it so that he could look at it as if he was facing upstream. Reinhardt’s idea wasn’t as bad as he’d first thought.

“We could defend this,” said Reinhardt. “Not easily, but it’s better than meeting them out on the plain. A series of ditches and ramparts arranged across the valley floor. Spears and bows on each one, and we could retreat from one to the other as they pressed forward. We’d hold the high ground on both banks, and the bridge.”

“We’d still be outnumbered,” said Büber.

“If they come in the autumn, when we’ve trained everyone we can, it’ll be two to one. If they come now, three, four, five or more to one.” Reinhardt raised his eyebrows. “Pray to the gods they don’t come now. If they knew how weak we are, they’d be all over us like the pox.”

“I won’t be telling them.” Büber retrieved the note about the extra spear and bow centuries, and passed it back to Reinhardt. “Say yes to this. Tell them all to bring a shovel and a bucket. How far away is Kufstein from the Ziller?”

“Fifteen miles, and no line of sight.” Reinhardt took the parchment, and placed it in front of him. “Do you know how to build ditches and walls?”

“No. No idea. We’ve never needed to do anything like this before.”

“I’ll get the prince to send some builders. I’m not looking for a palace, just something that’ll get in the way of whatever the dwarves have planned for us.” Reinhardt poured more beer from the jug into the two mugs. It was empty when he’d finished, and he put it behind him. “I’m fucking terrified of this. This whole thing. We’ve nothing in our favour, Peter, and everything against.”

The grumbling in Büber’s stomach had no cause in either the beer or the sausage: he had his own fears. “They have to come down the valley. I suppose if we can’t choose when, we can choose where. The dwarves: they don’t fight like they used to. They’ve grown lanky like us, ungainly and unbalanced, while our men know the length of their own arms.” He scratched at his face again. “I’ll give up any idea of harrying them, at least until the defences are dug.”

“Yes, that’s good.” Reinhardt drained his beer. “Then would be the right time to poke them with a stick until they lash out. Make them angry and careless. I’d drink to that, but I seem to have finished mine already.”

Büber raised his mug. “To Carinthia, then.”

“And may we still have it come Yule.” Reinhardt clanked his empty mug against Büber’s full one. “I’ll write my response. Tell me about these covered wagons.”

“Not covered as a carter would do, to stop his load getting wet. Enclosed. A wood roof, and a prow, and a stern. Like an upside-down boat, I suppose. Wheels. Big enough for ten at least.” Büber shrugged. “They looked heavy.”

“Rams for the gates used to be covered with a roof. But they’d be left open at the sides.” Reinhardt’s hands wandered across the table, looking for his pen and ink. “I’ll put it in. Whether your friend Thaler can make anything of it, I don’t know.”

Büber was done, and he walked back out into the night. The guard made a point of looking alert, which was something, thought Büber: it might even help to keep him and Reinhardt alive. The fields beyond Rosenheim were now covered in sparks of light and the ghosts of tents.

He should have been hungry and thirsty. A couple of weeks in the high mountains, eating only cold dry food and drinking nothing but stream water, should have given him an appetite for a good roast and some decent ale, followed up by sleeping warm and safe next to the fire.

All those things were already pale, and growing fainter by the day. The only experience which captured and held him was his rage. The prospect of – sword in hand – cutting at his enemies until his arm ached, until he was bloodied and bruised and still wanting more.

Everything else? He’d eat and drink when he needed to. Sleep when he had to. Ride and stalk, observe, command and report as necessary. But what he wanted, even as he feared it, was the hot rush of sweat as the change came over him.

He tramped through the perimeter of guards into the dispersed sea of tents, looking for his men. It was his duty to try and keep them alive, and it was their duty to do what they were told so that they didn’t get themselves killed.

Also their duty not to piss off their commander by suggesting he’s fucking the princess consort.

He found them eventually, and they made room for him within their circle, passing him the flask of schnapps that was doing the rounds. The fire in his mouth and belly was only temporary, and soon faded.

There were two chickens over the fire on a spit.

“So, will there be raiding?” asked one of his men.

“Yes,” said Büber, “but later. Master Reinhardt has made the point that if we’re too successful, the dwarves may decide they’ve nothing to lose by attacking early. Tell me whether you think this lot” – he jerked his head at the rest of the sprawling camp – “are capable of holding back ten thousand dwarves. No. We’re going to dig in at Kufstein, and only then will we try to flush them out. Our hammer, Kufstein’s anvil. If it works, we’ll be heroes and our victory will be toasted for a thousand years.”

“And if it doesn’t?” The man tugged at his thick moustache. For Büber, who’d shaved, albeit sporadically and inexpertly, since his balls had dropped, this sudden fashion for facial hair in the style of their ancestors bemused him.

“I doubt there’ll be anyone left to worry about that. Least of all us. We’re the dogs who protect the sheep. We win or we die. That’s what I expect from each and every one of you. The dwarves won’t take your surrender, and gods protect you if you run.” He took another nip of schnapps and passed the flask on. “Because, if you do that, I’ll kill you myself.”

Felix felt useless, despite all the things he managed to cram into a day. Perhaps his father had had days like this, when he was busy with trivia but not actually doing anything important. Perhaps his father’s whole life had been like that, which was why he’d been so rash and thrown himself heedlessly into his first and last battle.

At the age of thirteen, Felix had seen more fighting than Gerhard ever had. Not that this was any great feat: Sophia had seen more fighting than Gerhard, too. Yet now, thought Felix, he had an army in the field – of sorts, anyway – but he wasn’t at the head of it.

That’s what princes of Carinthia were meant to do: they led their armies from the front, even if in the past that had always entailed simply standing by and letting the hexmasters blast the opposition with fire and ice, rock and wind, blinding lights and utter darkness. The prince led them out and brought them back.