all these little fights. I want to hit Adiatunnus as hard and sudden a blow as I can, but every skirmish we fight makes me slower to get to him and gives him more time to ready himself.'
'Well, we can't very well say to the woodsrunners we run into-or still less to these monsters-'Sorry there, friend, we have more important things to do than slaughtering you right now. Can you hang about till we're on our way back?' '
Gerin snorted; when you put it that way, it was absurd. All the same, unease gnawed at him. Before he'd set out on this punitive raid, he'd seen it clearly in his mind: go into Adiatunnus' territory, strike the Trokmoi-and with luck kill their chieftain-and then fare home again. Reality was less clear-cut, as reality has a way of being.
Before long, his army rolled past the ruins of what had been a palisaded keep before the Trokmoi came south over the Niffet. The woodsrunners hadn't bothered repairing the timbers of the outwall; instead, they'd built a dwelling of their own in the courtyard between the wall and the stone keep, turning the place into a sort of fortified village.
A couple of Trokmoi were up on what was left of the wall, but they raised no alarm when Gerin's chariot came into sight. 'Are they all asleep?' he demanded indignantly. He didn't like his enemies to act stupidly; it made him wonder what sort of ruse they were plotting.
But Van smacked one fist into the palm of his other hand. 'Me, I know what it is, Captain: they think we're woodsrunners, too.'
'By the gods, you're right.' Gerin waved toward the distant stronghold. One of the Trokmoi waved back. The Fox frowned. 'I don't fancy going in after them. They could have enough men to make that expensive-and it would cost us the speed and free movement the chariots give.'
'More fire arrows?' Raffo said over his shoulder.
'Aye, and maybe a muzzle for a mouthy driver, too,' Gerin answered, but he swatted the young man on the back to leave no doubt that was a joke. 'We want to make sure none of them gets away, too, so what we'll do is-'
His chariot, and Drago's with it, pulled off the road a little past the keep the Trokmoi had altered. That might have perplexed the men on the battered wall, but not enough to make them cry out. Even when the first chariots of the Fox's main force came into view, they kept silent long enough to let the cars get well begun on forming a ring around the holding.
'Southrons!' The cry in the Trokme language floated across weedy fields to Gerin's ears. 'We've been cozened by southrons!'
So they had, and by the time they realized it, they were too late to do anything about it. The Elabonian warriors shot arrows at any woodsrunner who appeared on the palisade. Some of them also shot fire arrows at the wooden palisade itself and over it at the roofs of the houses it sheltered. The timbers of the palisade caught only slowly; the same was not true for the dry straw thatching of those roofs.
'Well, what'll they do now?' Van said as several thick plumes of gray-white smoke rose from the courtyard.
'Curse me if I know,' Gerin answered. 'I don't know what I'd do in that spot-try not to get into it in the first place, I suppose. But they don't have that choice, not anymore.'
Some of the Trokmoi took refuge in the stone keep in the center of the courtyard-Gerin saw bits of motion through its slit windows. He wondered if that would save them; the door and all the furnishings within were wood, and liable to catch fire… and even if they didn't, so much smoke filled the air that anyone inside was liable to feel like a slab of bacon being cured.
The Trokmoi had let the ditch around the palisade alone; shrubs and bushes grew in great profusion in it. That would have made matters easier for anyone who tried to lay siege to the castle, but it helped those inside now. Some leaped off the wall-not just men but also women with their skirts flying up around them as they jumped-to land in those bushes and shelter there from fire and foe alike.
And the drawbridge thumped down. A double handful of woodsrunners in bronze armor stormed forth to put up the best fight they could. Gerin admired their gallantry even as his men thundered toward them. Fighting afoot against chariotry was like trying to spoon up sand with a sieve. The Elabonians rattled by, pouring arrows into their foes, and the woodsrunners could do little but stand and suffer.
They had one moment of triumph: an archer of theirs hit an oncoming horse in the neck. The beast crashed to the ground, dragging down its harnessmate and overturning the car the two horses pulled. Men tumbled over the ground like broken dolls. The three or four Trokmoi still standing raised a defiant cheer. Soon they were dead.
Of the Elabonians in the wrecked chariot, one also lay dead, his head twisted at an unnatural angle. Another writhed and groaned with a broken leg and other injuries besides. The third, Parol Chickpea, was on his feet and hardly limping. 'By all the gods, I'm the luckiest man alive!' he cried.
Gerin was not inclined to argue with him, but said, 'Whether it's so or not, don't boast of it. If you tempt the divine powers to take away what they've given, they're too apt to yield to that temptation.'
He did what he could for the warrior with the broken leg, splinting it between two trimmed saplings. The fellow had to be tied aboard a chariot after that, though, which ruined the car's efficiency and made him cry out at every bump and pothole in the road-and the road seemed nothing but bumps and potholes.
'I should have brought a wagon to carry the wounded,' the Fox said as they made camp that evening in the heart of the land Adiatunnus had seized. 'I didn't want anything to slow us down, but here we are slowed down anyhow by all the fighting we've done-and we haven't really come to grips with Adiatunnus yet.'
'Expecting a plan to run just as you make it asks a lot of the gods,' Van said.
'That's so.' Gerin fretted despite the admission. He always expected his plans to work perfectly; if they failed, that reflected unfavorably on him, since he had formed them. Life being as it was, few of them came to pass exactly as designed, which left him plenty for which to reproach himself.
Pale Nothos, nearly full, was the only moon in the sky: Math was just past new, and too close to the sun to be seen, while Tiwaz was a waning crescent and ruddy Elleb halfway between full and third quarter. It had been about there in its wanderings through the heavens when the Fox and his men slew the first monster down in Bevon's holdings, though rain clouds kept him from seeing it then.
Thinking of that monster made him think of the monsters that had joined Adiatunnus. He did not expect the Trokmoi themselves to sally forth against his men at night. He still hoped, though he didn't really believe, Adiatunnus hadn't yet learned of his attack. Even if the woodsrunners did know of it, sending men out by night was not something to be undertaken lightly.
But the monsters were something else again. He'd already seen that the night ghosts held no terror for them. They might well try to fall on his warriors when they had them at a disadvantage.
That made him double the watchstanders he'd placed out away from the main campfires. The men he'd hauled from their blankets grumbled. 'Go back to sleep, then,' he snapped. 'If you'd rather be well rested and dead than sleepy and alive, how could I possibly presume to argue with you?' Stung by sarcasm, the newly drafted sentries went out to take their places.
Sure enough, monsters did prowl the woods and fields; their yowls and screams woke the Fox several times before midnight came. He'd grab for sword, shield, and helmet, realize the creatures were not close by, wriggle around till he was comfortable once more, and go back to sleep.
Then he heard screams that came not only from the monsters' throats but also from those of his own men. He snatched up his weapons and sprang to his feet. The night was well along; Elleb had climbed halfway from the eastern horizon to the meridian. But Gerin's eyes were not on the reddish moon.
Its light, that of Nothos, and the crimson glow of the embers showed two of his sentry parties locked in battle with the monsters, and more of the creatures running toward the warriors slowly rousing themselves round the fire.
Gerin shouted to distract a monster from an Elabonian who still lay on the ground snoring. The Fox envied the man's ability to sleep through anything, but wished he hadn't put it on display at that exact moment.
The monster swerved from the sleeping warrior and rushed at Gerin. Moonlight glinted from its teeth. Its clawed hands were outstretched to rend and tear. He was acutely aware of having only helm and shield; cool night air blew through his linen shirt and wool trousers, reminding him of what the monster's teeth and claws would do to flesh so nearly naked.
Instead of slashing, he thrust at the creature, to keep the full length of arm and sword between it and him. It
