Fool's Gold (34 page)

Quirk made a contemptuous sound. “Agile?” she said. “Our followers number in the thousands, and not a single one of them is a well-trained, well-paid, professional soldier. They're going to slaughter us.”

“Keep your mouth shut,” Lette hissed. “Morale at the camp is going to be bad enough when this news hits without your words of encouragement.”

“Can't Will be coming up with a plan?” Balur suggested.

“No!” Will said before anyone else could jump in and argue in his favor. “My past two plans have got us in this mess by killing two dragons.”

“Exactly,” said Balur, nodding. “That is what I am thinking. You come up with five more plans and we have nothing to worry about.”

Will shook his head. “No,” he said. “No more plans. We stick to what we're doing. We just keep running away. Eventually they'll give up.”

“The average dragon,” Quirk told him, “lives for about two thousand years. I'm not sure you'll wait them out.”

Will shrugged. “I don't care. No more plans. Not one more. I'm done.”

Seven more days passed. News of the Dragon Consortium's army continued to percolate into their camp. Estimates of its size came in. Fifteen thousand men and horses. Thirty thousand. Forty. Fifty. There was talk of siege engines, war wizards, griffin riders, a contingent of troll mercenaries.

Their own numbers grew, Lette's prediction playing out as the ragtag group hit and surpassed ten thousand souls. But their growth rate never outpaced the rumors of the Consortium's army. No matter how many empty fields they passed, how many abandoned villages, there never seemed to be enough of them to make a stand.

Will lay inside his tent, Lette's arm curled around him, her head resting on his chest. He could feel the soft gusting of her breath steady and slow across his skin. His fingers tangled with her red hair. She smelled of the road, of sweat, and dust, and sex. There was the dull throbbing of exertion in his crotch.

It was funny, he thought—they didn't even talk about the gold anymore. None of them. Not even Quirk, who had insisted it was so critical for keeping their followers housed and fed. They seemed to have hit a critical mass of bodies and goodwill. People came to them loaded with corn, bread, milk, livestock. Several makeshift canteens had evolved, which doled out food to the masses. Usually he found some left outside the tent. Somewhere along the way they had picked up some pretty good cooks.

Outside the sun was rising, beginning to lighten the walls of the tent. The camp would be breaking soon. Every day they pushed on fifteen or twenty more miles. An aimless wandering flight, not quite sure of the location of the army they were fleeing from, not quite sure what safe harbor they were heading to.

Maybe this will last forever,
Will thought.
Eternally fleeing. Never resting, but never having to stop and face things either. Maybe we can just drag this out without end.
Lying there with Lette's sleepy weight pinning him to the cot, he thought there were worse ways life could play out.

A noise at his tent flap drew his attention away from theoretical futures to the very practical present. Quirk was sticking her head into his tent.

“Will,” she said in a soft tone, “you need to come and see this.”

He wanted to ignore her. While the edge on Quirk's anger at all of them had blunted somewhat of late, being with her was still like carrying a hive of bees around with you—constantly concerned you were going to drop it on the floor and unleash rage.

Still, he carefully extricated himself from beneath Lette. She moaned slightly, rolled in her sleep. Will loved these unguarded moments. The softness in her, normally so well hidden, momentarily exposed. He kissed his fingers, brushed them through her hair, then pulled on his shirt and went to face the day.

“What is it?” he asked. Quirk was pacing back and forth in front of his tent.

“Come with me,” she said and turned away from him, forcing a path into the stumbling crowds camped around them.

The journey was not a brief one. The camp was vast now, stretching off for half a mile in almost every direction. Livestock milled down the narrow aisles between tents and carts, stomping past the campfires where bowls of porridge and corn steamed and bubbled, and slices of toast were being burned. The cooking smells mixed with the stink of privy holes, the musky funk of unwashed bodies, the scent of churned-up earth.

They had camped between the edge of a forest and the rise of a small hill, one of the gentle folds in the land near the floor of the Kondorra valley. Quirk led him up the slope of the hill to where a small knot of men was waiting.

“Cattak,” she said as they drew closer, and one of the men tugged at a forelock and bobbed his head.

“Quirk, ma'am,” he said back to her. He was a man of about forty, thick-limbed and hard-featured. A scar carved its way across one eye, down into a thick thatch of stubble. His jet-black hair was swept back from his tan face. His hands, Will noticed, were heavy and callused. A workingman, but what work, Will wasn't sure he wanted to know.

“Cattak,” said Quirk, finally turning to face Will, “was one of our camp's most prodigious looters. He and his men here could strip a church of all its valuables in two hours flat.”

“Healthy work ethic,” said Cattak, tugging at his forelock again. The men at his back, all of whom seemed to have been cast in the same mold, nodded their heads and mumbled agreement.

“I approached him,” Quirk went on, “because I thought I could put that work ethic to less sacrilegious use.”

“Only too happy to find another way to oblige,” said Cattak. “Anything we can do to help the prophet.”

Will gave an embarrassed smile. “Thanks,” he said.

Cattak looked up at that, a darker spark shining through his humble demeanor. “You one of them that know him then?” he said.

“Erm…” said Will, not sure how to respond.

“Cattak,” said Quirk, “this is Will.”

“Oh,” said Cattak with absolutely no spark of recognition. “Nice to meet you then, Will.” He stuck out a hand. Will took it, shook. He had the distinct impression that if Cattak wanted to break every bone in his palm then he could.

“Cattak,” said Quirk once more, “show Will what you showed me.”

“All right then.” Cattak nodded, turned to Will. “Keep your head down,” he said. “Don't want them spotting us.” He promptly dropped to his belly in the long grass that covered the hilltop. A second later, Will was the only one on his feet.

Feeling slightly self-conscious, he got down onto his belly, and found himself staring at Cattak's retreating feet, as the man wormed his way toward the crest of the hill. Hurriedly he worked his way after him.

Quirk dropped back to be level with him. She was wearing a dull brown dress today, he noticed. Had she chosen it as being better to hide the grass stains?

“What's going on?” he asked, without a tremendous amount of hope that she'd actually let him know.

“I've had Cattak and his men acting as outriders,” she said. “I've been trying to redirect the energies of the looters, and the gods knew we needed scouts of some sort. We were running blind from an army, Will. It was absurd.”

Were? Was?
Will wasn't sure he liked the use of the past tense there. But then they were at the crest of the hill, and he was looking down into the valley beyond.

The land flowed down in a straight run to the river Kon. It was a sweep of patchwork fields, green and yellow dotted with the red of poppy and the blue of lavender, the whole thing punctuated by copses of trees scattered like emeralds. The river lay beyond, reflecting the sun like a line of liquid silver strung through the world.

It was a beautiful sight, and Will didn't pay it the slightest heed, because sprawled all over it was the Dragon Consortium's army.

He felt the air go out of him, tried to get it back, couldn't. His mouth fell open, stayed that way. He tried to take it all in, couldn't.

All the rumors had been true.
All
of them.

Fifty thousand men. A contingent of griffin riders, their beasts massive and majestic, tugging at leashes, stretching vast wings in the rising morning heat. War wizards, their tents crackling with lines of violet puissance. A contingent of troll mercenaries lolling against the siege weaponry. One massive brute scratched his back against a trebuchet; another picked at his teeth with a ballista bolt.

Finally Will managed to put everything into words. “Fuck,” he breathed.

“Pretty much,” said Cattak by his side. He sounded sanguine about it.

Will turned to Quirk, seeking someone less stoic about staring death in the eye. “We're fucked,” he said to her, expanding on his theme.

“Yes,” she said, still a little too matter-of-factly for Will's tastes, though he could hear the buried panic beneath her words. “We
need
a plan, Will,” she said. The panic was clearer there.

“We run,” he said. “We run like fuck.”

“We're already running,” she pointed out.

“Okay then.” He nodded. “New plan. We run faster.”

So they ran.

News of the Consortium's army spread through the camp like wildfire. Panicked cries were rapidly hushed, the smarter, steadier heads knocking sense and quiet into those more prone to alerting vast armies to the presence of their enemies. As quickly and as quietly as possible goods were thrown into carts, animals were herded, dirt was kicked into privy holes, ashes scattered onto fires, and tents were bundled into squares of stained fabric. There was no time to truly disguise that the camp had been there, but Will was glad that at least a token effort was being made. It showed that people had the right attitude at least.

All the while, runners came back and forth from Cattak giving updates on the Consortium army's maneuvers. Will stood beside Quirk listening in.

Lette mostly involved herself in stopping Balur from leading a charge on their enemies. For once the lizard man and Firkin were united on an issue.

“We should smite them!” Firkin had squealed upon hearing the news. “With our”—he had stared at the ends of his arms—“smitey bits.”

“Fists?” Will had suggested.

“Good enough!”

“Look,” Lette had interjected, “I know deranged cults are all about the suicide thing, especially when it's on a grand scale, but I for one am going to use your intestines as a skipping rope should you attempt to rabble-rouse on this one.”

That had given Firkin pause. Unfortunately Balur was more than willing to crack Firkin in order to make an omelet. Especially a bloody omelet of war.

“Do not be listening to her,” he had said. “It is being your divine duty to unleash the wrath of the heavens upon this army. You are being the pointer finger of the prophet or some such bullshit. You are knowing you want to.”

“He is not knowing shit, Balur.” Lette's voice brooked no argument. “He's a violent drunk.”

“He is being a right-minded holy warrior. You are being pussy.” Balur was apparently in a brooking-argument kind of mood.

Lette had opted for a long-suffering look. “Not wanting to commit violent suicide is not the same as cowardice.”

Balur shook his head. “I am not understanding humans.”

Lette didn't seem to care about that. Even now, though, a good hour and a bucket of Will's fear-sweat later, Balur was still pacing around the camp demanding they go “cut the head off the beast.”

“No, Balur,” Lette said yet again.

“How about just the genitals.”

“Sit down and shut up, Balur.”

Another of Cattak's runners approached. Will tuned out the bickering. “They seem to be organizing their scouts.”

“Shit,” said Will. “How close are we to departure?”

So far, it seemed, the Consortium forces were ignorant of how close their prey was. Will wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible.

“We can leave anytime you want,” said Cattak's runner. He was another hard-faced man, eyes lost in a network of sun-stained wrinkles. “Just a case of how much you want to leave behind.”

“What if we ran now?”

The man squinted as he descended into thought, hiding his eyes even deeper than Will had imagined possible. “Depends,” he said eventually.

“On what?” Will snapped, because apparently he was the only one with a sense of urgency around here.

“Well,” said the man, “if we run now it will be hard going. Have to leave a lot of the wagons and the livestock behind.”

“And if we stay.”

“Probably harder going,” said the man, “considering how their outriders will be finding us and we'll be busy fighting a battle we can't hope to win.” He cracked a grin at Will. Most of his teeth were missing. Will suppressed the urge to knock out a few more.

“Give the signal and let's get the hell out of here.”

“What signal?” asked the man.

“Don't we have a signal?” Will looked to Quirk. She seemed like she was vaguely in charge of these sorts of things.

Quirk shrugged. It was at least a very official-seeming shrug.

In the end they settled on the signal being somebody telling people to leave, and telling them to tell everyone else. It was surprisingly effective. A few minutes later they were all heading for the forest that they'd kept at their back. The going would be slow, but Will prayed it would be slower for the people who had to drag a bunch of trebuchets after them.

It was almost midnight when they all staggered to a stop. There was no sermon from Firkin. There were no campfire songs. There were no campfires. Women, men, children—they simply collapsed to the ground, pulled up blankets if they had the energy, and fell asleep.

It had not taken the Consortium outriders long to find the remains of their camp. It had taken them even less to figure out what it meant and where their enemies were going.

Fortunately mobilizing fifty thousand troops took a considerable while, even if some of them did ride griffins. And the woods had worked as Will had hoped. Still, in the end Will's troops were a bunch of farmers, merchants, and craftsmen, who had spent their lives being worked to the bone, beaten down by fear and exhaustion. Their pursuers were trained soldiers, well paid and well equipped. Will's followers had maintained their lead over the course of the day, but not by much.

Somewhat to Will's embarrassment, he found that someone had taken the time to erect the prophet's tent. It felt like an undeserved privilege. All he had done was lead these people into this trap. All he could do now was drag them around the countryside until finally they were too exhausted to do even that, dropped to the ground, and were put to the sword.

Lette, though, was of another mind. “Get your arse in there,” she told him.

“What?” he said. “No. Please. I'm too tired.”

Lette rolled her eyes. “Not that, you pervert. I'm knackered and I want to sleep.”