“I don’t think so,” said Miralissa, shaking her head. “Get back in the saddle.”
I followed her gaze. Up ahead of us, a little more than a league away, there were several columns of thick smoke rising up out of the forest.
“What is it?” asked Uncle, screwing up his eyes.
“As far as I recall, it’s Vishki, a small village, maybe forty or forty-five households,” Honeycomb replied.
“And what’s there that could burn like that?” asked Deler, reaching for his poleax again without even realizing it.
“Well, it’s definitely not the houses, the smoke’s too black, as if they’re burning coal,” said Hallas, puffing stubbornly on his pipe.
“Get ready, lads! Put your armor on, and we’ll find out what the fire’s eating down there!” Uncle instructed.
“And I’d like to know what swine lit it!” said Lamplighter.
The moment there was something to do apart from the hard riding that the soldiers had grown so sick of during the last few days, they all livened up. Any goal was better than being left in a state of total uncertainty for days on end, not knowing where the enemy was and which foul creature you could feed a yard of steel to in order to improve your own foul mood. I could understand the men perfectly; for soldiers, inactivity is the worst possible torment.
“Harold, do you need a special invitation?” asked the goblin, riding up to me on Featherlight. “Where’s your chain mail?”
“What chain mail?”
“The chain mail we chose for you,” Kli-Kli responded irritably.
“I’m not going to cover myself in metal,” I said rudely.
“You really ought to,” said Marmot, who had already taken his chain mail off the packhorse and was putting it on over his shirt. “Armor, you know, can be quite wonderful for saving your life.”
“Ordinary chain mail won’t save you from a crossbow anyway. A sklot will shoot straight through it.”
“Not everybody has sklots, and the enemy doesn’t just use crossbows. It’ll stop you getting scratched, if nothing else.”
Rip me into a hundred pieces, but I have a prejudice against wearing metal on my body. I’ve been used to managing without armor all my life, and I feel no better in chain mail than some people do in the grave. Cramped and uncomfortable.
“Just look at all the others,” Kli-Kli persisted.
The warriors of the platoon were already dressed up in the armor that had so far been left on the packhorses because of the rather hot weather. But in my view an ordinary fire, even if it was rather big, didn’t merit such precautions.
The elves were sporting dark blue chain mail and steel breastplates with the emblems of their houses engraved on them. Miralissa had the Black Moon and Ell had the Black Rose. He put on the helmet that hid his face and Miralissa threw a chain-mail hood over her head, concealing her thick braid and fringe. Hallas, dressed up in something that looked more like fish scales, was helping Deler button up his steel leg plates. The dwarf set his hat aside and put a flat helmet on his head. It had protruding sections at the front to cover his cheeks and nose.
To avoid being the odd Doralissian out, I had to take my “packaging” out, too. It weighed down uncomfortably on my shoulders and I winced in annoyance. Because I wasn’t used to it, it felt cramped and uncomfortable.
“Ah, stop going on like that. You’ll soon get used to it,” Lamplighter consoled me.
He was wearing armor that consisted of strips of steel fitted closely together. Catching my curious glance, he smiled: “A magnificent thing for anyone who likes swinging a bindenhander from side to side. It doesn’t cramp your movements and your grips.”
Instead of a helmet, Mumr tied a thin strip of cloth round his forehead to prevent his hair from getting into his eyes.
“Are we off?” asked Uncle, looking at the elfess.
“Yes,” she commanded tersely, but then she thought for a moment and added: “You take over command.”
Uncle accepted the suggestion as only natural. Unlike the platoon sergeant, Miralissa didn’t know what his men were capable of.
“Hallas, Deler—to the front! You have the strongest armor, in case . . .”
Uncle didn’t say any more. Everybody understood in case of what. If disaster struck, the soldiers in the strongest armor might survive a hit from a heavy crossbow bolt and distract the crossbowmen’s attention from their less well-protected comrades.
“Have you forgotten about me, sergeant?” I heard a muffled voice say behind me. “I’m with them.”
I turned round to see who it was. Instead of his old chain mail, Arnkh had put on heavy armor. Plus a helmet that looked like an acorn and completely covered his face, with narrow slits for the eyes. Then there were the leg pieces, shoulder pieces, chain-mail gloves, and the round shield. A real wall of steel.
In fact, almost everybody had a shield, including Lamplighter, Honeycomb, and the elves. My companions were all set for a good fight, and they would be very disappointed if it turned out that the fire in the village was just another ordinary blaze caused by the negligence of some drunken peasant.
This time we didn’t hurry, but moved along slowly, gazing attentively into the undergrowth, anticipating a possible trap. There was already a smell of smoke and soot in the air, and we still had a long way to ride to Vishki.
