come from, he tried to figure out where he'd gone wrong and was forced to the conclusion that he hadn't. He found the thought profoundly disturbing. An error on his part could probably be put right-if not by him, by someone cleverer and more capable. An impossible situation, on the other hand, was beyond fixing, therefore desperate and quite likely fatal. The infuriating thing was that on the frontier, he'd have known exactly what to do next. Fall the men in, load as much as they could carry on their backs and start walking to wherever it was they were supposed to go to. The only sensible course; but that wasn't what he'd been told to do. His orders were simple and clear; as soon as the wagons have been mended, bring them on and catch us up. It was like being thrown in the sea with weights tied to your feet, with orders to save yourself but on no account to swim.
Below in the valley, he could just make out a group of deer, coming down out of a small copse to drink in the river. Eight hundred yards? Nine? Not so easy to judge distance in this terrain. Visibility, on the other hand, wasn't a problem. He could see, and be seen, for miles. He felt an obligation to be busy with something military; he should be scanning the slopes above him, figuring out the route the attacking enemy would be most likely to take, planning the details of his hopeless, pointless final defense. Manhandle the derelict wagons into the shuttered-square formation he'd been told about in the briefing, to force the enemy to storm an iron-plated fortress under withering volleys from the archers. He could do that. If he fought the defense with determination, ingenuity and passion, he could probably hold out for two days, by which time the water would run out and make his efforts irrelevant. There was a riverful of water in the valley, but he only had a finite quantity of barrels. Then again, a skillful negotiator could wrangle favorable terms of surrender, if he wasn't facing an enemy you couldn't trust as far as you could spit. On the frontier he'd have made the effort. Here, he simply couldn't see the point.
Suddenly, he realized that four dots he'd been staring at for the last five minutes were, in fact, moving. They were coming down the slope-not following his projected optimum route, but maybe they weren't as good at tactics as he was-eleven or maybe twelve hundred yards away. Deer; no, because deer saunter. Only horses plod.
Having perceived the enemy approach, proceed immediately to place your command in a posture of defense. He stood up (his back twinged from careless sitting) and looked around. A few of the men had seen the specks already; they were motionless and staring, as though they'd heard tales about horses but never imagined they'd actually get to see one. The rest of them were drifting slowly through the motions of their appointed futile tasks, resigned, bored and deep-down convinced that the enemy wouldn't come and they'd all get out of this mess in one piece. Maybe they aren't the enemy after all, Nennius told himself. They could just be travelers (in a war zone, in the middle of nowhere), or shepherds, or messengers from Valens come to tell him that the rest of the army had just won an overwhelming victory, and the war was over.
Maybe. He called over a sergeant and told him to take a dozen men and either bring the four mystery horsemen in or drive them away. The sergeant set off looking like a man who's just been ordered to jump into a volcano, and came back remarkably soon afterward, nervously escorting three men and a woman. They were riding horses with Mezentine-issue saddles, but they were pale-skinned and dressed in dirty civilian clothes. One of them was tied up so securely he could barely move, and Nennius realized, in a moment of agonizing hope, that he recognized him.
'For crying out loud get that man untied and over here,' he shouted. One of the other prisoners was yelling something, but it couldn't be important. The sergeant hauled the trussed-up man off his horse and got busy with a knife.
'You're that engineer,' Nennius said, before the gag was out of the man's mouth. 'The Mezentine's sidekick.'
The sergeant loosened the gag, and the strange-looking man flexed his jaw a few times before saying, 'Gace Daurenja. And yes, I work for Ziani Vaatzes.'
Hope is really just a variety of fear, all the more painful because it twitches a chance of escape in front of your nose as it slides by. 'We've got a problem,' Nennius said breathlessly, 'with the carts. Can you fix it?'
Daurenja looked at him and blinked. 'I can try,' he said.
Nennius explained, the words tumbling out of his mouth. Then he said, 'Well?'
Daurenja nodded. 'Yes,' he said, 'I think I can fix that. We'll need a big, hot fire, something we can use for anvils, and five of the armor plates off the wagons. How soon…?'
'Now,' Nennius replied with feeling.
'All right.' Daurenja seemed bizarrely calm, and for the first time it occurred to Nennius to wonder why he'd been tied up, in company with two men and a woman, in the middle of the wilderness. Wondering, however, was an inappropriate luxury, like satin cushions and goose-liver pate. 'Anvils,' Daurenja prompted him.
'What? Yes, we've got anvils.' Nennius looked round for someone to shout at; a sergeant, experienced in the ways of stressed-out officers, was already walking fast in the right direction. 'And you want a fire.'
'Charcoal,' Daurenja said, stretching his fingers; cramp, presumably. 'Find two large, flat stones; they'll do for a hearth.' He wasn't talking to anyone in particular, but a couple of troopers set off to look for flat stones. I wish I could do that, Nennius thought; he can make people do things without rank or the chain of command, without even knowing he's doing it. A born foreman, which is just another word for officer. 'I don't suppose there's such a thing as a double-action bellows anywhere.'
Nennius had no idea what he was talking about, but someone else-one of the farriers, he remembered-had dropped into motion, like some mechanical component. Daurenja yawned and wriggled his back. 'The first thing I'll need to do is make up the mandrels, so I'll want three strong men with sledgehammers to strike for me.' (They materialized out of the crowd of soldiers, which had been clotting around him since he'd started to speak; he drew assistants to him like a magnet draws filings.) 'What've we got in the way of wrought-iron stock?'
There's something wonderful about handing over a burden of worry; a glorious relief, like shedding chains. The process didn't take very long and it was delightfully smooth. Half an hour later, as the bellows blew tongues of flame up through the mounded charcoal and Daurenja touched a pair of calipers to a spare cart-axle and nodded his approval, Nennius realized that this strange man, this freak who'd just ridden in bound hand and foot, was now in complete command of the column, and he was overwhelmed with the sudden dissipation of anxiety. Relieved of command; exactly that.
'What I'm doing,' Daurenja was telling the world in a calm, splendid voice, 'is making an iron bar exactly the same size as the timber we've got to fix. Then we're going to cut strips off a sheet of the armor plate, get them good and hot so they'll work easily, and fold them round three sides of the bar to form a sort of jacket, if you see what I mean. That'll hold the timber together on three sides, and the armor plate'll brace the fourth side; then, even if the timber breaks, it can't go anywhere.' He lifted his head and smiled. 'A bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but it'll get the job done. Once we've got going, assuming we keep at it nice and steady, we should be ready to move out this time tomorrow.' He turned his head and looked at Nennius. 'Will that be soon enough? What's the tactical position? I'm assuming the threat's coming from the garrison at the inn on Sharra.'
'That's right,' Nennius said.
Daurenja nodded. 'In that case it's not so bad,' he said. 'I've just come from there. I didn't have a chance to count heads or anything, but there're not enough of them to mount a serious attack in force. If they want to take us, they'll have to get help from the next post down the line. Mind you,' he added with a slight frown, 'there's a good chance they'll have scouts out; looking for me, actually, sorry about that. But, all things being equal, we should be well out of here by the time they're in any position to bother us.'
Which reminded him. 'Those people you came in with,' Nennius started to say.
'My guests,' Daurenja said firmly, and his authority was beyond question as the glowing charcoal flared to the bellows. 'Please make sure they're looked after properly; they've had a pretty rough time. I'd appreciate it if you'd see to it yourself.'
(But they had you all tied up, like a dangerous criminal.) 'Of course,' Nennius said.
'I imagine they'll be staying with us,' Daurenja went on, scrutinizing the fire, 'but if they want to move on, perhaps you could let them have fresh horses and supplies, anything they want. They're my friends,' he added with quiet emphasis, 'so I'd be grateful if you could…'
'Right away.' Nennius had to make a conscious effort not to salute. 'Is there anything else you need here?'
Pointless question, like telling a man in his own house to make himself at home. 'No thank you,' Daurenja replied gravely. 'I think I can manage for now. I'll let you know how we get on.'
In other words, dismissed. Nennius dipped his head in the approved manner, and turned his back. As he walked briskly away, the first blows of a hammer chimed behind him like a wedding bell.
