Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (86 page)

But why did Mendell then head the entire southeastern
command?  That worried Jide most, and he gnashed his teeth at his inability to
approach Adrian without a prior summons.

His information fishing had uncovered the fact that
Adrian met with both men immediately before the sudden march.  Whatever had
transpired, Adrian must have tied a noose tight around Colonel Mendell’s neck,
and kept Harbon nearby as a check against his behavior.

It still made no sense!  Why send either of those
vipers anywhere but the nearest jail cell, let alone reinstating their
commands?

He rubbed at his eye patch, hopping from a wagon bed. 
Gray dawn brightened the light imperceptibly as the sun crept nearer the
morning horizon.  Men were leading horses to be hitched while the guards
saddled their mounts or checked their gear.  Waterskins were packed with the
snow that had coated blankets in the night.  They would be tucked between packs
and saddle blankets so the animal’s heat would melt the snow as they rode into
the afternoon.  Safer by far to drink melted snow than this land’s water, which
seemed to strike an Arronathian partaker with the flux as often as not.

Jide stormed through the camp, terrorizing soldiers
into working faster, his shady reputation lending ominous weight to his threats
of mysterious disappearances for any man who lagged behind.  When true sunlight
poured over the horizon they were ready to set out.  Though running a supply
caravan was a fall from his normal position, he took pride that he could still
manage it as well as he ever had.  No, better! 
His
wagons stayed ahead
of the Citadel since the mages finally had it moving, which could not be said
of other supply officers.  If he fell behind that lumbering behemoth while it
continued to limp like a hamstrung deer, his pride would be forever wounded.

“Move that miserable piece of shit!” he barked at a
wagon team waiting for orders to roll.  They cracked their whip in the air over
the horses, the sound signaling the beasts forward.  Jide mounted his horse and
waited beside the line while they followed the lead wagon.

The wagon with the broken axle apparently had been
fixed on time after all, as the last rolling bed passed Jide with no castaways
left in the empty field.  He spurred his horse after the caravan, riding faster
to take his place near the head.

Another long, cold day.  If they were lucky and pushed
hard, they might make fifteen miles if the snow did not bury the roadway.  Jide
rode, rubbing his eye patch in thought, stroking what information he knew in
hopes of unearthing an overlooked fact, and reflecting on how uneasy the
current situation made him.

*        *        *        *        *

After Baron Lysendra’s messenger ran into the manor
searching for Baron Atcheron, Captain Riley emerged within moments, ordering
the men to move out as soon as they could shoulder their packs.  He wasted no
time in explanations nor words other than quick orders.  This came from no
desire for secrecy, as the men soon learned.  Once moving, Riley elaborated on
the details to the men walking beside his mount.  The news spread as every
third man turned to recount the tale to those behind.

Galemar’s army was content with running patrols
between its various outposts established along the Tullainian border, only
sending scouts across as far as the first few towns.  Whatever the opposition’s
nature, they were determined to meet it at the kingdom’s dividing line and
force it back, be they fleeing refugees or organized military forces.  Only the
border barons decided it was worthwhile to send scouts as far in-kingdom as
possible, to the very conflict could they manage it.

Lysendra’s man had been two days across the border
when he encountered a swarm of panicked Tullainians large enough to populate
several sizable towns.  Most devoted their entire efforts to their goal of
reaching the border.  The few willing to talk to the foreigner told only of
their home’s destruction.

“They said he raced the refugees back to the border,”
recounted one of Riley’s men to Marik and Dietrik.  “Must have scared him white
to run back so hard.”

“I don’t like this,” Marik replied.  “That sounds like
too many fleeing people to be this close to the border.  Why didn’t they settle
into one of the other towns they ran through?”

The man lifted his shoulders.  “Folks been jumping
across into Galemar all winter.”

“Not like this,” Dietrik objected.  “Families and
survivors, true, but never an entire township before.  Or am I mistaken?”

“No, not so far as I know.”  He caressed his sword
hilt dangling from his belt.  “Though I reckon whatever’s going to happen will
happen soon.  I hope we’re ready.”

Marik gazed into the distance as the guard sank deeper
into his thoughts.  These were the first men Marik had served beside under
contract who genuinely welcomed the mercenary fighters.  Life on the border,
even a neutral one, was a crucible that hardened the men tasked with keeping
the peace.  Their proximity and personal concern regarding events in nearby
Tullainia made them wary…perhaps too wary.

Still, Marik would rather have an ally who
overestimated his opponent than the soldiers manning the Eighteenth Outpost. 
Located in Lysendra’s barony and due west of where the Southern Road
petered-out, they had yet to impress Marik with their appraisal of the
situation.  They patrolled in far larger groups than the Ninth Squad and
Riley’s forces combined, were effective at rounding up stray Tullainians and
proved capable at managing their section of the border.  But his few times in
their encampment left Marik with the firm impressions that the soldiers were
unprepared for a new war.

Conversations always centered on Nolier, and when they
would be returning to fend off blue-uniformed soldiers again.  No one believed
their neighbors would lick their wounds and accept that defeat was their
justified reward for land theft.  Every army soldier Marik overheard apparently
thought the knight-marshal had leapt without looking, assigning far too great a
portion of the armed forces to deal with a relatively minor immigration control
problem.

Whether or not the troubles ever crossed the border,
Marik wished the so-called ‘professional’ fighters would devote their attention
to what transpired around them, rather than on possible problems several hundred
miles distant.

“Why are we marching north, then?  Shouldn’t we stay
in our own barony to look after the villages under Atcheron’s
responsibilities?”  Marik had directed the question at the guard who still
looked lost in his own contemplation.  The response came from behind.

“I should think that would be obvious!  If a tide of
people are headed for our border, then they will hardly storm over the
Stoneseams!  They will flow around the northern range.  Lysendra obviously
asked his brother baron for aid in meeting the onslaught, now that it appears
clear where the disturbance will strike.”

Marik twisted his head back to see if Arvallar were
mocking or serious.  As usual, simply studying the man’s features leant no
insights.  Arvallar’s scornful view of the world made his serious observations
as abrasive as his sarcasm.  “What onslaught?  We didn’t come to mow down
Tullainians!”

“I don’t believe the Tullainians are the primary
concern,” Dietrik mused, “so much as what may be driving them from behind.”

Arvallar cocked his usual half-smirk.  It combined
dripping amusement with a hard edge.  Of all the men in the Fourth Unit, he
appreciated Dietrik most.  Marik thought that was mostly because Dietrik shared
the same weapon type, a mark which Arvallar judged fighters by.  “And whatever
might be driving so large a number as the scout claims to have encountered
would be of great concern, seeing as it looks to be coming on hard.”

“Then Lysendra should have sent his runner to the
outpost!” Marik declared.  “We only add two-hundred-fifty swords, roughly!”

“How do you know he didn’t?” Arvallar countered.  “I
hardly think he would be so foolish as to not call on every ally he could,
don’t you?”  His tone clearly expressed his opinion that Marik would be that
foolish, as revealed by his thoughtless remark.

“Well…we’ll be passing the outpost this afternoon, and
then we’ll see, won’t we?”  Arvallar’s smirk persisted as he drifted to the
side where Floroes walked in his usual silent bubble.  Colbey stalked along
nearby like a hunting panther.  Marik felt his cheeks redden.  In truth, he
thought Arvallar correct, but the man’s superior attitude naturally evoked in
Marik a stubborn refusal to ever admit an error.

Dietrik glanced sidelong at him, probably aware of
what he thought.  Most of his encounters with Arvallar ended like this.

They walked along a hard dirt road unnamed on any
map.  The locals referred to it as Seambase Road, though the mountains it
paralleled were a good eight or nine miles west.  Riley rode to the rear once
every half-mark to ensure everyone kept apace.  Glynn, the only man mounted
besides Atcheron and Riley, a fact that had drawn several muttered comments,
automatically rode to the head beside the baron.

The baron’s guards mingled with the mercenaries, neither
keeping separate nor forcing the Crimson Kings to view their backs.  Riley
treated them as any of his own, including Marik and Dietrik.  They had both
wondered if they would be treated with greater respect than the others, owing
to their previous experience with the captain, yet Riley apparently saw them as
merely two men among many.  Their battle on the rain-soaked Southern Road had
earned them no special draw with the captain.

All it had earned them, they were both positive, was
the assignment itself.  No doubt Riley had told Torrance who he’d traveled with
as well as what had happened.  The commander must have kept that in mind when
deciding where to post each squad.  Marik thought he was beginning to
understand how Torrance made particular decisions.

Sunlight reflected off the snow with brighter
incandescence after midmorning.  The cloud cover thinned, the last edge blowing
away eastward.  All through the short column men withdrew their sheer veils. 
Older veterans had packed such before leaving Kingshome.  Marik, along with
dozens of others he had noted with relief, were forced to purchase theirs
shortly after crossing the Spine.

He kept the material tight to prevent it from bunching
together, then tied it around his head in a blindfold.  Thin enough to see
through, it blocked most of the blinding light.  An expert after so many days,
he no longer needed to readjust it after setting his half-helm back into place.

Cork could be heard rambling a short distance away,
expounding on some new foolishness.  The few words Marik caught suggested he
spoke of his fishing village hometown.  Nonsense about mixing fish oil with
soot, then painting a thick line with it under your eyes.  He held his tongue,
as he had long since decided to do whenever Cork went on like this, though this
time the outrageousness of it was far too obvious!  How could a black line
under
your eyes reduce the sun’s glare?  Probably Cork just made it up.  If he wanted
to paint his face like a woman, Marik would leave him to it in peace.

Three marks after noon proper, the march came to the
Eighteenth Outpost.  Marik thought he might be able to laugh in Arvallar’s face
until Dietrik hastily pointed out the man in Lysendra’s livery before he
could.  At times Dietrik knew far more than he should.

They had no plans to stop so the men merely studied
the outpost while they passed.  Composed of tent rows that comprised the
soldiers’ sleeping quarters, larger supply tents and field command posts as
well as a dozen awning-roofed pavilions, the activity within hardly suggested a
detail readying for march.  The patrolling units would be out at their duties. 
Off-duty men went about the outpost in their usual manner.

Outside the largest tent where the officers held their
strategy and daily meetings, Lysendra’s messenger waited in a field chair. 
Most of the small wooden frame vanished beneath the woolen blanket draped
across his shoulders.  His baron’s device could barely be made out between the
blanket edges when he hunched over, a tribute to Dietrik’s eyes that he had
been able to distinguish the crest at all.

“Why in the hells are they sitting on their arses if
Lysendra’s messenger has already told them what’s in the wind?”  A quick glance
around assured Marik that Arvallar had wandered to a different place in the
column.

“I am sure the officers share many of the same
opinions as their men.  Given what we heard, I assume they could not care less
what happens in Tullainia as long as it stays in Tullainia.”  Dietrik
shrugged.  “A shortsighted view, in my humble opinion, but they have enough on
their plates without hungering for seconds.”

“Do you think they actually believe it’s that simple? 
Don’t they give any credence to the stories coming out of Tullainia at all?”

“Half the men in our own squad choose to believe them
fairy tales spun by opportunists hoping to con sympathetic coins from the
gullible.  Why should the army officers think any differently?”

Marik could hardly believe it, in dull amazement that
men trusted with the lives of entire squadrons could be so obstinate in their
views.  “I’ve been enjoying the leisure so far on this contract but I never
fooled myself into thinking is would always be walking from one patrol point to
the next.  Surely the army has managed to gather
some
intelligence on
whoever is stirring the trouble-pot over there!”