Daurenja was the first to break the silence. 'I'm guessing they were going to come back and bury them,' he said. 'It's what they usually do. Looks like something drove them off before they could get around to it.'
Nennius had seen dead bodies before, of course: on the frontier, and when he'd ridden with Duke Valens to the relief of Civitas Eremiae. He was no expert, but he knew a bit about the subject: the waxy look of the skin, the degree to which the flesh had shrunk, the beginnings of a stench. A lot depended on how hot it had been, whether it had rained or not, how heavy the dew had been. An informed guess: no more than three days.
'No carts,' said one of the junior officers. 'But they'd have taken them along with the clothes and armor and stuff, so that's nothing to go on.'
A long silence; then someone else asked, 'So, do you think we won?'
'Took some of the bastards with them, at any rate,' the junior officer replied. 'Some of them,' he repeated.
The ratio of men to women and children among the Vadani dead: maybe four to one. So far, nobody had recognized anybody they knew among the log-piles. Their faces, Nennius noticed, looked rather like apples that had been stored in the barn a little bit too long.
'I gather it's something of an industry these days, looting the dead,' someone else said. 'Well organized, a lot of people involved. Makes you wonder where they're planning on selling the stuff, though. I wouldn't have thought there's any customers left.'
The man at Nennius' feet had a grave, wise expression on his face, spoiled rather by the damage a crow had done to his left eye. Mezentine. Cause of death a puncture wound in the chest, too big for an arrow. A horseman's lance, possibly a boar-spear with a crossbar, by the way it had caved in the ribs on its way through. 'Have any of the outriders come back yet?' he asked, well aware that the answer would be no; not in the five minutes since he'd last asked the question. For all he knew, his scouts were right there, in one of the neat stacks. 'Send out another dozen; and I want the looters found, they may know what happened.' He paused, then added: 'Bring in half a dozen. If you find any more, I don't need to know what's become of them.'
Someone dismounted close by. 'It carries on quite a way,' he reported. 'It's like this for a good half-mile up ahead, and that's as far as I went.'
'Suggesting a running battle rather than an ambush,' someone commented. 'Which is more or less how the Duke had got it planned, isn't it?' Nobody said, That could have been us; I'm so glad we weren't there. No need.
Someone else joined the discussion. 'Hoofprints and cart tracks,' he said. 'Of course they're all scraped up, and there's no way of knowing which are the looters. A lot of horses, though.'
'Do you think it was the garrison from the inn?' someone asked.
'Too many for that. We were told there was only one squadron.'
'That's what I saw,' Daurenja said. 'In which case, this must be a different unit. It'd be helpful to know which direction they came from, but I expect that's too much to ask.'
'Makes you wonder how they found us,' someone said. All very calm and reasonable; like men contemplating the root harvest, or the outcome of a race meeting. 'Mind you, if their scouts saw us, it wouldn't take a giant leap of imagination to figure out we'd been left behind for some reason and the main body was up ahead. They'd go after the Duke first, and then come back for us.'
'Assuming they've won,' someone else pointed out. 'We don't even know that for sure.'
In the pile was a Vadani man with blood caked under his fingernails, lying on top of a Mezentine with both arms missing. Both arms. An arm's a bitch to cut through at the best of times, tough as dry wood and springy as willow brash. The angle needs to be just right, and even then it takes a lot of strength and an uncluttered swing. Both arms…
'The looters won't have gone far,' the junior officer was saying. 'It'll have taken them a good while to strip all this lot, then stacking the bodies; and they won't be moving too fast with so much stuff to carry. If we had any idea of which direction they went in…'
Intelligent questions; good, helpful, intelligent observations. We are, above all, professionals. 'We can't stop to bury them,' Nennius said. 'I don't know whether to press on or go back. If they've won…'
If they've won, then it follows that we're all that's left. Suddenly, we're the sum total of the Vadani people, under the command of Captain (acting duke) Nennius Nennianus. He swung round, looking for somewhere to hide. Pointless, of course. What if the Mezentines were coming, and they really were all that was left? Would anybody survive to tell future generations that it had all been Captain Nennius' fault?
'We'd better keep going,' Daurenja said quietly beside him. 'If the Mezentines are on their way back to get us, they'll find us easily enough even if we turn round. If Valens is still out there, we need to join up with him as quickly as possible. We'd better get ready for a fight, though. No point in making it easy for them.'
They were waiting for him to say something. 'Yes,' he said, 'we'll do that. And I want those looters found. The sooner we find out what's happened, the sooner we'll know what we've got to do.'
That seemed to be enough. Suddenly, everybody seemed to know what they were supposed to be doing (apart from himself, of course). He envied them. His life so far had hardly been easy, but its lines had been straight and its signposts legible. Apparently, a few naked dead men piled up in orderly ricks beside a road had been enough to change all that. The implication was unwelcome but perfectly clear. Up to now, he'd been missing the point entirely.
Walking back to find his horse, he ran into the Eremian: Miel Ducas, the resistance leader. His instinct was to quicken his pace and turn his head, to avoid pointless conversation. Instead, he slowed down, long enough for the Eremian to catch his eye.
'Excuse me,' Ducas said. 'Can you tell me what's going on?'
'There's been a battle.' Not, when he thought about it, the best way of saying it. 'We've found bodies; ours and theirs. It's not clear who won. We're pressing on, same plan as before.'
'Oh.' Ducas nodded. 'Thank you,' he added; reflexive politeness of the nobility, meaningless. 'Is there anything I can do to help?'
'No. Thank you,' Nennius added quickly. 'All under control.'
'Thanks to Daurenja.' Ducas was looking at him as though pleading for something. 'I gather he's pretty well saved you from disaster.'
'Yes.' Damn all monosyllables. 'Yes, we'd have been sunk without him.' Nennius hesitated, then made himself go on. 'Is it true? What the other man said.'
'I don't know,' Miel replied. 'But I heard him admit it. And I don't see any reason why they'd lie about something like that.' Hesitation. 'I can see what a difficult position it puts you in.'
For some reason, Nennius found the sympathy infuriating; his own reaction surprised him. 'Not at all,' he said. 'Like I told you before, it's not my jurisdiction. I'm not even sure the Duke's got any authority in the case, since it's crimes committed by an Eremian against Eremians in Eremia.'
'He's not even Eremian,' Ducas said. 'Daurenja, I mean. He's Cure Doce by birth, apparently.' He frowned. 'So who would be the competent authority?'
'Don't ask me, I'm not a lawyer. Your own duke, I suppose. He's with the Vadani, last I heard. But it'd be complicated by the fact that Daurenja's an officer in Vadani service; you'd have to get Valens' permission to proceed against him, even if you could find the proper Eremian official to hear the case; and that's unlikely, since-'
'Since so many of the Eremians are dead now.' Ducas nodded reasonably. 'But in this case, I suppose the proper authority would be me. Theoretically, I mean. All that side of Eremia used to be my land, and strictly speaking Framain and his household were my tenants.' Suddenly he smiled, a nervous, frightened expression. 'Which makes me judge and chief prosecution witness. As though it wasn't complicated enough already. I don't suppose you're the slightest bit interested, are you?'
Nennius looked away. 'I've got rather a lot to do right now,' he said. 'And I need Daurenja, at least until we meet up with Valens' party, assuming they're still alive. I can take formal notice of what you've just told me, but that's about it, I'm afraid. And I'd be obliged if you wouldn't make an issue out of it. At least, not till things have sorted themselves out.'
'When the Mezentines have been wiped out to the last man, you mean.' Ducas nodded again. 'Of course. Thank you for your time. I'm sorry for wasting it.' He started to walk away.
'I'll make sure Daurenja doesn't leave the column until we meet up with the others,' Nennius said.
