And, of course, after that rabble of thieves is dealt with, I have other plans. Then perhaps you shall find, Felipe Shah, just what happens to a prince who forgets what it means to have noble blood.
‘When were you going to tell us that this was the plan?’ Mordrec demanded, chasing after Dal Arche, as the bandit leader tried to walk away. Receiving no immediate response, the Wasp-kinden simply dogged Dal’s steps all the way out of the encampment, still demanding, ‘When, Dala? Or did you think we wouldn’t notice?’
Dal’s other two lieutenants, tall and close-mouthed Soul Je and the stocky Scorpion Barad Ygor, followed a few paces behind, content to let Mordrec draw their leader’s ire.
At last Dal rounded on them. ‘What do you want me to say?’ he asked.
‘I want you to tell me the truth about what this cursed plan is!’ Mordrec insisted. ‘Let’s go raid the Salmae, you said. They’ve got plenty of what we need, you said.’
‘And have I led you astray, in that?’
‘Dala, what you failed to mention is that you thought we needed people. You had us running about picking up thieves and malcontents to bring to you, when all the while you had this business ready to spring on us.’
‘Mord, this was never the plan,’ Dal protested.
The Wasp blinked. ‘Then what in the pits is it?’
Dal looked back at the encampment, seeing a messy aggregation of tents, lean-tos, fire pits and sleeping rolls. Spring’s turning out mild, which is just as well. Most of these people never thought about where they’d be sleeping, fools that they are.
‘Four villages,’ Ygor the Scorpion reminded him. He spoke in an absurdly cultured drawl that originated somewhere half the world away, in a place ruled by Spiders.
‘Victims of our own success,’ Dal murmured.
‘Success?’ Mord hissed, back on the offensive again. ‘I know what success looks like, to a bandit. It looks like a little loot, and nobody about to catch you yet. It doesn’t look like piss-near all the people of four villagers deciding to sign up with you. What are you planning to be at the end of this, Dal? A general?’
Dal tried to recall where generals featured in the Imperial scheme of things. Ah yes, at the top. ‘You want me to turn them away?’
‘Yes, I want you to turn them away! Maybe one in five is some use, good to hold a spear or pull a bow. We’ve got children out there, and old people, too. What’s the point of them? Why are they even here?’
‘Victims of our own success,’ Dal repeated.
‘Stop saying that,’ Mord snapped.
Soul Je held up a long-fingered hand. ‘He’s right,’ the Grasshopper intoned.
‘How is he right?’
‘Mord,’ Dal addressed him, ‘you know that pile of loot we’re sitting on, all the food, the drink, the cloth bales, the honey, the kadith, the gold? You do understand that was taxes intended for the Salmae, yes?’
Mordrec nodded, with an expression stubborn enough that Dal knew he already understood. Still, he pressed on.
‘And you can see the actual villagers from here, yes? Do they look as though they got much of that stuff? You’d describe them as prosperous? Well-fed?’
‘And who’s going to feed them now? Do they reckon they’re better off with us?’
Dal shrugged. ‘Because at least we’re fighting, is how they see it.’
‘We’re not fighting, we’re robbing,’ the Wasp pointed out mulishly.
‘I don’t mean fighting the Salmae specifically, although we will. I mean fighting what is,’ Dal told him.
‘Since when were we idealists?’ asked Barad Ygor slowly.
‘We’re not. We never were.’ Dal threw his hands up suddenly. ‘I’d go back south, right now, if there was anything there for us, but the reasons that brought us here still hold.’
‘Dala, we came to raid. That lot behind us isn’t a raiding party,’ Ygor stressed. ‘We can’t move fast. We can’t get ourselves out of the way, if a hundred Mercers suddenly turn up. Or at least they can’t.’
Dal looked past his lieutenants, at the camp beyond. ‘You’re right. We need to do something about that.’
They exchanged uncertain glances.
‘You’re going to turn them away?’ Mordrec asked. Although it was what he had been arguing for, he sounded uncertain now.
‘Separate out those who can fight,’ Dal instructed. ‘The three of you, take half of them, and all the non- combatants. Lead them to Siriell’s Town, with your pick of the supplies.’
This was greeted with silence.
‘There’s nothing at Siriell’s Town any more,’ Ygor started slowly.
‘There will be once you’ve repopulated it with this lot,’ Dal told him. ‘And before you ask me what’s to stop the Mercers attacking the town again, we’ve shifted the battle lines. While we’re here gnawing at their vitals, they won’t be sending any punitive expedition further south.’
‘I was wrong. You’re not a general. Inside your head you’re a prince,’ Mordrec accused him.
‘I’m a brigand, Mord, like all of us, but think of this. Four villages raided, now, and most of the locals just came right over to join us. We’ve got half again as many fighting men, even after you take the non-combatants away. If we keep rolling in that kind of support, we can raid as far as the gates of Leose itself. And where will they be able to raise a levy from, if all their peasants are under our flag, hmm?’
‘We’re not exactly equipped for a siege,’ the Wasp pointed out, although he sounded less adversarial now, the spirit of the idea working on him.
‘Let them keep their walls. I doubt that they can eat them, once they get hungry,’ Dal Arche declared. ‘I want the three of you gone by tomorrow for Siriell’s Town, or whatever’s left of it. Get your charges lodged there as soon as possible, and bring me back anyone you find who’s able to fight. Bring me weapons too, as many as you can: spears, arrows, axes even – whatever you can get. We’ve got plenty of hands all of a sudden, and nothing to put in them.’
He looked from face to face, seeing Ygor and Mordrec still unhappy, Soul Je merely impassive. ‘Or what?’ he asked them. ‘No, we didn’t ask for this. We came here to raid some villages, put a little thorn in the side of the nobility, get a little plunder. We knew that the Salmae taxed hard and all we thought was that the locals wouldn’t risk their necks to defend the tax collector’s haul. Well, fate’s dealt us more cards than we know what to do with. What would you do with what we’ve been given?’
‘Where does it end?’ Ygor asked quietly. ‘We break the Salmae, and then what? Felipe Shah? The Monarch?’
Dal shrugged. ‘Where does a bandit’s life normally end? What were you expecting?’
‘Dying rich in a Spiderlands whorehouse, for preference,’ the Scorpion considered. ‘But, seeing as I’m a few hundred miles out of my way for that, why not raise an army? Next-best thing, isn’t it?’
‘Damned right it is,’ Dal confirmed. ‘And you, Soul?’
The Grasshopper had remained silent a long time, but now he nodded, just the once. ‘Let’s do it.’
With that said, Mordrec gave in with poor grace. ‘We’re dead men from now on. They’ll stamp down hard when they think it’s bandits. If they find out we’re stealing their peasants, they’ll keep on stamping till we’re just a stain on the grass.’
Dal’s smile was resolute. ‘There comes a time in a man’s life when he gets the chance to be free, even if it’s just for a day or so. That chance doesn’t often come twice.’ In his mind he saw the marching armies of the Twelve-year War, as viewed from the midst of a block of terrified peasant levy being thrown headlong at the black and gold, without a choice, without understanding, just bodies for the grinding Wasp war machine to chew up and spit out. Who should a man blame for that kind of memory? Blame the Wasps? Oh, too easy. The Dal Arche of back then had no grievance with the Wasps, had barely heard of their Empire. When they come to throw you into the fire, he considered, don’t blame the fire for burning you, blame the hands that threw you.
‘I want to be free,’ he told them fiercely. ‘I want to be free of the nobles and their wars, just this once, and if they won’t let us retire free in Siriell’s Town, then the only way any of us can be free is to take the fight to them and give them a hard enough slap that they won’t come back. Now, round up your charges and be ready to head out with the dawn. The Salmae and their cronies will be on us soon enough, and I’ve got to make plans.’
She could now ride a horse, without help. The facility had come to her along with so much else, in that moment at the end of the hunt. Some level of calm and concentration in the saddle had been gifted to her,
