Irons in the Fire (41 page)

"Another hand of runes?" Gren tossed the three-sided bones from one hand to the other.

"Can't we run through some sword-work?" Tathrin would far rather be seeing if he could finally prod Gren with his sword-point. After daily practice bouts through nearly both halves of summer, he was starting to think he might manage it sooner rather than later.

Gren shook his head. "Someone wandering where they shouldn't might hear us."

"This is a ducal hunting forest." Tathrin looked around the clearing where they'd camped overnight. "I've seen no sign that anyone ever comes here."

"Only because you don't know what to look for." Gren threw a pair of rune bones, one hand against the other. Water landed upright, stronger than the Fire opposite. "I've seen snares. Fear of Duke Secaris or his rangers won't stop a man needing meat to feed his family. If some poor bastard does stumble across us, we'll just have to kill him. Then we'll have ten more beating the underbrush when he doesn't come home. Sorgrad won't be pleased to find us knee-deep in peasants."

Another thing Tathrin had learned through the summer was that Sorgrad's displeasure settled any argument as far as Gren was concerned.

The Mountain Man picked one of the nine bones out of his palm and studied the symbols on its three faces: the Salmon, the Reed and the Sea. "You don't like playing runes, do you?"

Tathrin had also learned that while Gren was as straightforward as a knife to the heart, he wasn't stupid. "I prefer the challenge of white raven."

"I like more excitement. You never know which way the runes are going to fall." Gren shook his head. "Playing raven's never going to change your life. If the runes are running your way, an evening's play could see you taking everyone else's coin home."

"Which could see someone cracking your skull on the way there so they can steal it back," Tathrin retorted. He hitched at his shirt. Thanks to the swordplay, it was uncomfortably tight across the shoulders now, whereas his breeches were markedly looser and he'd had to make a new hole in his belt with his knife.

"True enough," Gren acknowledged, idly examining the rune bearing the Eagle, the Broom and the Plains. "That's why our friend Livak used to travel with Halice. Now, she--"

"Won all the long lad's coin?" Sorgrad appeared, filthy and picking dead leaves out of his yellow hair.

Tathrin had initially wondered if he was using his unsanctioned magic to vanish as he scouted ahead on their journey. He'd finally concluded Sorgrad was merely very stealthy and perfectly willing to sacrifice his usual spruceness for the sake of going unseen.

"Not yet." Gren grinned.

"Well, put your runes away. It's time you learned how not to get killed in a knife fight," Sorgrad told Tathrin.

Gren's blue eyes brightened to rival the cloudless sky. "It's tonight?"

"I said we'd start this war before the end of Aft-Summer," Sorgrad confirmed.

"Are we here to begin recruiting a proper army?" Tathrin asked, apprehensive. "With Arest and his mercenaries?"

Twenty men sharing seven tents. A fifth of a company. That's how many men were up in the hills with Captain-General Evord: the handful of Solurans who'd come with him, and a scattering of Mountain Men who'd joined them on their long journey through the uplands. Granted, a good few weather-beaten men and a few daunting women had come and gone, promising to bring their warbands to join Evord's muster, but Tathrin would believe that when he saw it. How were they ever going to achieve anything worthwhile before the end of For-Autumn and the Equinox Festival drew the fighting season to a close?

"Arest and the lads are still holding the bridge?" Gren asked. "You got close enough to be sure?"

Sorgrad nodded. "Breaking them out of there will make for a nice distraction to set all the dukes fretting, just like Charoleia wants."

"As long as you keep your mouth shut," Gren warned Tathrin.

"Accidents happen in the best-regulated companies." Sorgrad's smile was cold enough to chill him despite the afternoon sun. "Besides, we'll be meeting more mercenaries soon enough and a long lad like you with no blazon to protect him could catch the eye of someone wanting to make their name with an easy kill."

"Especially short-arses. They're always troublemakers." Gren shook his head, oblivious to any irony.

"No one needs to know I can work wizardry," Sorgrad continued, "so keep your mouth shut about that as well."

"What--?" Tathrin blinked and tried not to swallow.

Gren was standing in front of him, one hand on his shoulder, the other holding a dagger across his throat. The slightest movement would shave off the bristles under his chin, Tathrin thought inconsequentially. Mountain Men kept their blades astonishingly sharp.

"You have to move quicker than that," the blond man reproved.

"You're not going to learn how to fight with a knife and win. All you need to know is how to keep yourself alive. Same as you're only practising with that in case you get caught up in a battle by mistake." Sorgrad nodded at Tathrin's sword.

He was a little comforted to realise he'd instinctively reached for his weapon. Not that he'd have been able to draw it before Gren had cut his throat.

"Manage not to get gutted and one of us will settle whatever quarrel's going on. Now, watch," Sorgrad instructed.

With another lightning-fast move, Gren had the blade at his brother's throat, the same grip on his shoulder.

"End up pinned like this and you deserve all you get." Sorgrad stepped back and nodded at Gren. "So don't get pinned."

This time, as Gren reached for his shirt, as the dagger came sweeping up, Sorgrad stepped sideways just as fast. He shoved the back of Gren's elbow so hard that the knife swept past him, cleaving nothing but empty air. The calculated force of the blow twisted Gren half-around, leaving his back open to Sorgrad's own blade. Tathrin hadn't even seen the older Mountain Man draw the weapon.

"Watch again," Sorgrad commanded.

Tathrin concentrated intently. He already knew Gren could kill him without breaking a sweat if he chose to. He also knew the Mountain Man wouldn't lose a wink of sleep over it. But he would never wound him deliberately in one of their practice bouts, and he was far too skilled with his sword to injure a novice by accident. Which didn't mean Tathrin wouldn't get a nasty scrape if he made an egregious error, to remind him to pay closer attention. He'd been picking scabs off his knuckles all summer.

"
Tathrin?
"

He shivered, startled. He couldn't help it.

"
Tathrin?
"

"Yes?" He tried not to sound too reluctant.

"
It's Aremil."

"Yes."

His friend's voice was no longer the almost imperceptible whisper it had been at first. It was like having Aremil standing behind him. Tathrin felt the skin between his shoulder blades crawling, as if he was being watched by someone he could never catch sight of.

"
Where are you?
"

"Some way upstream from Emirle Bridge." As he spoke, Tathrin felt recollections of these latest stages of his interminable summer's travels running through his mind.

As soon as Charoleia had ordered Sorgrad to distract the dukes, he and Evord had consulted briefly and Tathrin was told to ride south with the two brothers. As soon as they were half a day away, Sorgrad's magic had carried them to a remote corner of Carluse. Even fleeting recollection of that uncanny journey made Tathrin's head swim. They'd skulked around the byways until Sorgrad found the travelling maltster whom Charoleia trusted to get a message to Failla. Then Sorgrad had announced they were going to Draximal, back to the bridge where Tathrin had first found them. And still no one would explain exactly what was going on.

"
I see."

Aremil was envious, Tathrin realised with incredulity, of all the new places he had seen, of the people he had met, of his newfound skills as a swordsman. Did he think Tathrin was enjoying some adventure fit for a minstrel's ballad? Those tales all left out the wearisome reality of endless walking and riding, snatching indifferent meals and broken sleep in hedgerows.

"
Forgive me."

Tathrin was shocked to feel the depth of Aremil's chagrin. In the next breath, he sensed his friend's unease.

How did he know what I was thinking?
Could Aremil pick whatever he liked from Tathrin's thoughts?

"
I would never do that!
"

But Aremil saying he wouldn't do something wasn't nearly the same thing as saying he couldn't. Tathrin tried to bury his instinctive response in some dark recess of his mind. His head was abruptly filled with a silence so loud that it drowned out the snatches of birdsong amid the papery rustling leaves.

"It's the cripple?" Gren was watching with interest, his dagger sheathed.

"
Charoleia wants to know if this friend of Failla's has arrived yet."

"Not yet," Tathrin replied.

"Reher should arrive before sunset," Sorgrad said. "Then we'll move to the bridge--"

"Please." Tathrin shut his eyes, shaking his head. "I can't do this if everyone's talking at once!"

"
I'm sorry."

Tathrin swallowed. "Sorgrad says this man Reher should--"

"
I heard."

That was new, and unwelcome.

"
I wouldn't hear anything you didn't want me to."

Aremil's earnest assurance couldn't quite cover the hurt Tathrin knew his friend was feeling. But how did he know Aremil was feeling hurt?

"Well?" Sorgrad's eyes were as opaque as blue slate.

Tathrin looked at him, exasperated. "Instead of being so secretive and asking me and Aremil to pass mysterious messages to Charoleia, why don't you just explain your plan? Aremil can hear you perfectly clearly."

Sorgrad pursed his lips for a moment. "I scouted downriver last night and this morning, and Arest and his company are still holding the bridge at Emirle. The Duke of Draximal has filled the town with a couple of companies of his militia and there are more dug in on the far side. Duke Orlin of Parnilesse's militia are huddling in the woods half a day's march to the south. No one's shuffled their feet since Solstice."

"What now?" As Tathrin spoke, he heard Aremil's voice echoing the selfsame words in his head.

"Now we persuade Arest to break his men out of their cosy billet. Half of them can convince the Draximal militia that the Parnilesse forces have finally stopped sitting around polishing their weapons and attacked. The rest can send Parnilesse's militiamen running all the way to their duke swearing blind they've been attacked by Draximal."

"That should be good for a few days' skirmishing," Gren said cheerfully.

"We need more than that," Tathrin objected. "Captain-General Evord needs time to raise his army."

"As soon as Reher joins us, we can set this whole border ablaze," Sorgrad promised. "Evord will have all the time he needs."

"How?" Tathrin's irritation grew.

"Hush." Gren disappeared into the undergrowth.

Sorgrad silently raised a finger to his lips as he retreated behind a tree.

Tathrin gritted his teeth and edged backwards into the cover of a leafy birch.

"
What is it?
"

"I don't know." Tathrin could barely hear his own whisper, but he still had to speak if Aremil was to hear him. Just thinking the words was never enough. But now every time he opened his mouth, Tathrin thought uneasily, it seemed his thoughts were laid ever more open to Aremil.

He stood motionless, his sweaty shirt clinging to his body in rank folds. If he moved, he'd get a tongue-lashing from Sorgrad, same as he had done on their hunts up in the hills.

"
I cannot stay with you much longer.
"

Aremil's voice sounded further away.

"Till tomorrow," Tathrin breathed.

"
Very well."

The unseen presence faded reluctantly. Tathrin was ashamed at how relieved he felt. Aremil was his friend.

"Here we are." Gren's cheery return provoked a glossy thrush into a chatter of alarm.

Tathrin knew he'd never met this friend of Failla's. He'd have remembered him, no question. There were precious few men who could look Tathrin in the eye and fewer still he had to look up to. He'd be looking up to Reher, unless he was standing on a step. He'd be minding his manners, too, given the black-bearded man's massive shoulders and his forbidding scowl.

"I'm Tathrin." He hesitated between offering the arm-clasp that he'd seen the mercenaries using and a more usual handshake.

Reher shook his hand, oblivious to Tathrin's dithering. "Good to meet you."

It was good to hear another Carluse accent. With the sleeves of his loose linen shirt rolled up, Tathrin noticed tiny black scars pitting the man's hands and arms. His sister's husband bore the same marks. "You're a smith? Or a farrier?"

"A smith." Reher's scowl deepened. "When I get the chance to work an honest trade."