His wife was younger and not unattractive, despite the worry lines around her eyes. Her hair was long and reddish, her eyes a soft, foggy green, and her skin was pale as new ivory. She wore a high-collared dress of blue cambric in a slightly outmoded fashion. Her slim white hand rested on her husband’s clenched knuckles throughout the meeting.
“Gentlemen,” said the count, turning specifically to his fellow leaders, “this is Mithos, the group leader.”
Mithos nodded to each of them and we followed suit as he gave our names. Duke Raymon of Greycoast was a robust, heavyset fellow with a ruddy complexion, a thick russet beard, and blue eyes that sparkled amiably. He looked like a port drinker. He wore voluminous robes of orange satin trimmed with fur and embroidered with gold thread, and heavy rings. He was the only person present who actually looked like a noble, and I rather took to him for not letting the situation get him down.
The other was an altogether different creature. He was introduced as Edwyn Treylen, governor of Verneytha. He was a small, wiry man with the sharp nose and tight, glassy eyes of a rodent, or-better still-some stoatlike predator. He clasped his thin hands and drummed his fingernails on the table very slowly, looking at us. He had a way of fixing you with his beady gaze for a minute or more as if you were an insect in a collection.
“Are they aware of the situation to date?” boomed the duke of Greycoast, his voice rolling like an empty beer barrel.
“I thought we could begin with a list of the attacks thus far,” said the count softly. The somber chancellor passed him a page of spidery writing.
“Here is a chart showing the territories of our three lands,” said the count. “Shale, Greycoast, and Verneytha, the last lying directly north of the other two.”
He paused as if he was unsure how to proceed, and then added, “It began eighteen months ago, during the winter months, though we did not deem the matter important at that time. We received sporadic accounts of attacks on merchant caravans between Ironwall, the capital of Greycoast, and the seaports twenty miles south. At this stage, of course, it was a purely regional affair, so I was not informed of the situation.”
Here the duke of Greycoast spoke up. “It was a few inadequately reported attacks. Nothing more,” he said, laying his palms on the table and leaning back with an expressive shrug. “These things happen on wealthy trade routes. There was little traffic on the road, so I just increased patrols slightly and thought no more of it.”
He hesitated, and the count took the opportunity to proceed. “Duke Raymon did all he thought necessary at the time and cannot be blamed for not raising the alarm earlier,” he said. Greycoast settled down, but from the quick glance he shot his neighbor from Verneytha, I got the feeling that this had been discussed less amicably before.
“Would you pass the mustard, please?” I inserted, trying to dress up the leather on my plate, having already tried some very disappointing chutney. Renthrette, who was sitting next to me, turned and gave me an incredulous look.
“What?” I whispered, slightly defensively, adding to the table at large, “Oh, sorry. I just wanted. you know. this meat. Sorry. Please go on.”
Arlest did so, hurriedly. “The attacks continued but spread west into southern Shale, concentrating particularly around the Iruni Wood, which marks the Greycoast border. Again traders were attacked, murdered, and robbed, as were the inhabitants of some of the smaller hamlets and villages in the area. No survivors were left. The apparently random nature of the attacks prevented us from making a connection to those in Greycoast until similarities came to light almost by chance during trade discussions with the duke. In every case, the attackers were mounted and shot arrows with crimson flights.”
I paused in my chewing and looked at him. I didn’t like that detail about the arrows. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it just made them sound organized, but there was something else: like they wanted people to know what they were doing. Bandits didn’t do that.
Arlest continued. “It was well into the spring before a survivor could confirm our fears, but by this time the assaults were widespread and had been reported as far apart as Hopetown in central Greycoast and just west of our capital, Adsine. The survivor had been taking the main trade route from Ironwall to Hopetown with a convoy of wagons and an escort of ten men. In former days such a guard would have been more than adequate. The road cuts straight through the Proxintar Downs, from whose hills the raiders came riding, heavily and uniformly armed, wearing scarlet cloaks and helms that left only their eyes uncovered.”
I looked around the room. The party was attentive. Renthrette looked eager, almost excited. Duke Raymon was staring at the table, though it was hard to tell if he was upset by the account of what had happened, or embarrassed to have their dirty laundry aired for our benefit. Edwyn Treylen sat quite still, his lips slightly parted, his eyes roving around the room as if sizing us all up. When his eyes met mine and held them, I turned back to Arlest.
“I am telling you this because later accounts illustrate that this is their habitual mode of assault. Sometimes they attack with only six or seven men. On other occasions there must have been eighty of them or more. In each case they have just enough to ensure a comfortable victory, losing few, if any, of their own troops. As they charge towards the caravan they shoot their bows, cutting down the mounted resistance to nothing. They circle the wagons, shooting all the while, often with burning arrows. Then they charge into close quarters with their lances. If they dismount, they use a long, two-handed axlike weapon. ”
He paused thoughtfully, and I saw the countess’s grip on his hand tighten encouragingly. We had seen the ax already.
“In the summer of last year the raiders reached southern Verneytha and led a series of forays into the Great Wheat Field region, firing crops and causing immense damage to villages. Cavalry from Verneytha went after them, but were unable to track them down. A week later, on the trade route from Hopetown to Harvest, Verneytha’s capital, a major cargo of metal goods was attacked, leaving eight arrow-ridden wagons and a pile of corpses. Verneytha sent three units of fifty cavalry to search the area. Two of them found nothing; the other was destroyed utterly.”
I stared first at the count and then at Treylen, the governor of Verneytha, who was sitting as still as ever, his face blank. I’d say the beef had turned to ashes in my mouth, but that wouldn’t mean much. What I had been thinking of as a sort of jaunt in the countryside, something a little more exciting than a picnic but of the same basic ilk, had suddenly turned into a bona fide death trap. We were out of our depth here. Something was very wrong, and it was the kind of something that Will Hawthorne did not wish to be part of.
As if to make me surer in my resolve, the count went on. “In October two villages close to Ugokan in northern Shale were robbed, fired, and their inhabitants brutally and methodically slain. In November some dignitaries of Greycoast and their forty-man armed escort were ambushed and executed as they crossed the Downs into Shale. Throughout the winter the attacks continued, targeting isolated, wealthy villages and trading groups in Verneytha.
“The three of us met and elected to use this castle as the base for our attempts to track and destroy the raiders. With financial support from Verneytha and Greycoast I was able to deploy my cavalry and certain units of infantry, but to no avail. I lost forty infantry in one fell swoop when their camp by the Elsbett Wood was assaulted. The cavalry spent two months pursuing red herrings and hoofprints that led nowhere.
“At that point we decided to bring in outside help. You are the third party to assist us. The first was wiped out as they escorted a vital fruit-and-vegetable convoy from Harvest. The second repaid their expenses and left. They were part of a group of fighters who hired themselves out to defend wagons leaving the Hopetown market. A huge force of what have become known as ‘the crimson raiders’ attacked the convoy. There were no survivors.
“Over the last month, the frequency of the raids has escalated to such a degree that we’ve felt obliged to close most of the major trade routes, including the vital Hopetown roads, to all traffic. The death toll of our soldiers and citizens is close to a thousand. We have lost a fortune in trade and our lands face bankruptcy and starvation. We
By now there was a desperation in his voice that had not been there earlier. His eyes passed over us and they shone for a moment as if he was close to tears.
If he was, he blinked them away as Duke Raymon rocked forward and growled, “I put my men at your disposal. My seal will admit you to any building in Greycoast. We will cover all your expenses. What do you say?”
“We will help you if we can,” said Mithos.
For a second I thought he was joking, but I should have remembered who I was dealing with. I was too
