followers.
In turn, he eyed Nordric curiously; he'd expected the hot-tempered lordlet to leave him the moment he ducked a confrontation. Nordric spat. He said. 'That was just a pig in a red mustache, and scarce worth the slaughter. There'll be real fighting soon enough-I think you draw bloodspilling like honey draws flies.'
Just what I need, Gerin thought, but he had the uneasy feeling Nordric was right.
As he and his band moved north the next day, signs of the devastation the Trokmoi were working became more frequent: corpses by the roadside (some Elabonian warriors, some woodsrunners, and all too many serfs hacked down for the sport of it), empty peasant villages (some abandoned; others gutted, smoking ruins), livestock wantonly slaughtered and now rotting in the sun, fields of wheat and oats trampled into ruin or torched, and a good many keeps overthrown. A couple of castles now flew northern banners. Some of the Trokmoi, at least, had come to stay.
Their raiding parties were everywhere-bands of half a dozen men or so, under no real leadership, out more for the joy of fighting and the hope of booty than for Balamung or the conquest of the world. The Trokmoi seemed surprised to see a sizable party of Elabonians under arms. They gave them a wide berth.
The farther north Gerin went, the fewer refugees he came across. Most of those who had fled had already fallen to the barbarians, perished on the road, or made their way south. The few fugitives he did encounter could tell him little. They had been skulking in the woods for days now. None wanted to join him.
His homeland's agony brought torment to the Fox. How could he alleviate it even if he beat Balamung? 'Twenty years of peace will hardly repair this,' he said bitterly that night, 'and when has the border ever known twenty years of peace?'
Only the moons, almost evenly spaced across the sky, were above all strife. Nothos had been nearly due southeast at sunset, Math a day past first quarter, Elleb just at it. Rushing toward his three slower siblings, Tiwaz was now a fat waxing crescent. As twilight deepened, the fourfold shadows they cast spread fanwise from men, chariots, and trees. The ghosts began their senseless night whispers.
Although Gerin's troop was still traveling by back roads, Elise began to recognize the cast of the land the next morning. Pointing to a keep crowning a hillock ahead, she said, 'That holding belongs to Tibald Drinkwater, one of my father's vassals. We must be less than a day from home!'
The Fox had not dared hope he could come this far unscathed. An unfamiliar confidence began to grow in him. It was rudely dashed when he drew closer to Tibald's keep and discovered it had been abandoned and looted and its palisade torn down.
A little later, the path they were following merged with the Elabon Way. Without hesitation, Gerin led his band onto the highway. They sped north for the castle of Ricolf the Red. Van left Rihwin's chariot and joined the Fox. He took over the driving; Elise, despite her protests, was relegated to the rear of the wagon. If they traveled openly through country held by their foes, they had to do so in battle order; one of the new footsoldiers took Van's place with Rihwin.
As Van tested the edge of one of his chakrams with a callused forefinger, he said softly, 'Captain, if Ricolf's holding has fallen, you'll look a right fool coming up on it in the open like this.'
'If Ricolf's holding has fallen, I'll be in too much trouble to care how I look.'
The last time Gerin traveled this stretch of road, it had been too dark and he was going too fast to pay much attention to landmarks. By now, though, Elise was on land she had known since birth. 'As soon as we round this next bend, we'll be able to see the keep,' she said.
'Aye, there it is,' Van said a moment later, 'and the red banner still flying, too. But what's all that folderol around the moat-tents and things?' He drew up the wagon. Gerin waved the rest of his little force to a halt.
'It's a Dyaus-accursed siege camp, that's what it is,' the baron said. 'Who would have thought it from the Trokmoi? Freeze, blast, and damn Balamung! Still, though, I think we may be able to give them a surprise.' He climbed down from the wagon and talked briefly with his men. They nodded and readied themselves.
The Trokmoi had set up their perimeter just out of bowshot from the ramparts of Ricolf's castle, intending to starve it into submission. A scallop in the outer edge of the moat showed where they had tried to hurry matters by filling it and storming the walls. That, plainly, had failed.
No one raised an alarm as Gerin and his men drew close. As the baron had noticed, the woodsrunners did not seem to think an armed party could belong to anyone but themselves. But sooner than the Fox hoped, a sharp- eyed Trokme raised a shout: 'Esus, Taranis, and Teutates! The southrons it is!'
Quick as he was, he was too late. Gerin's men were already rushing forward, foot and chariotry alike. A flight of fire arrows sent trails of smoke across the sky. The arrows landed on the woolen fabric of the Trokme tents. A second flight followed the first; a couple of archers had time for a third release before they had to reach for spear and sword to defend themselves from the barbarians, who came rushing from the siege line to meet this new threat.
The Trokmoi hurled themselves into battle with their usual ferocity. These were no fainthearts like Dagdogma and his crew, but Gerin's attack cast them into confusion. And after the first few moments, they had no leader to direct their courage. Van took care of that. He sent a chakram spinning into the throat of a gilded-helmed noble. It cut him down in the midst of a shouted order.
'What fine things chakrams are!' Van told Gerin as he readied another knife-edged quoit. 'I can cast them and drive at the same time.' As he had in the capital, he handled the wagon as if it were a chariot. The baron, who had both hands free, felled two barbarians with well-placed arrows.
Battle madness seized Nordric harder now than it had by the river. Disdaining even his sword, he leaped from his chariot, seized a Trokme, and broke him over his knee like a dry stick. An instant later he was down himself, caught in the side of the head by the flat of a northerner's blade. Three Elabonian footsoldiers held off the Trokmoi until he was on his feet and fighting again.
Leaderless or no, the woodsrunners badly outnumbered Gerin's men. He was beginning to wonder if he'd bitten off more than he could chew when, as he'd hoped, their camp began to blaze. Many of them pulled out of the fight in dismay. They tried to fight the flames or salvage what belongings and booty they could.
Then Ricolf's drawbridge thudded down. He and his men fell on the barbarians from the rear. Ricolf and a few of his followers had harnessed their chariots. Their arrows spread destruction through the northerners.
The battle was suddenly a rout. The Trokmoi fled singly and in small groups, turning to loose an occasional arrow but not daring to stand and fight. Ricolf and his charioteers rode a short distance in pursuit, but had no real mass of fugitives to chase. They soon reined in.
Then the men from the besieged castle were all over Gerin's troopers. They squeezed their hands, pounded their backs, and yelled congratulations and thanks. But their jubilation faded as they recognized first Rihwin and then Gerin and Van. Curiosity replaced it. That grew tenfold when Elise stuck her head out of the wagon. Many shouted happily to see her, but as many seemed confused.
Ricolf returned from the hunt. His jaw dropped when he caught sight of Rihwin, who was having a hurt arm attended to. 'What are you doing here?' he growled. Rihwin flinched. He started to stammer a reply, but Ricolf paid no heed. He had just seen Gerin, Van, and his daughter.
Gerin waited in some apprehension, not sure what the older baron's reaction would be. Ricolf got down from his chariot, speechless and shaking his head. He folded Elise into his arms, then turned to the Fox. 'I might have known trouble would lure you back, kidnapper,' he said; Gerin was relieved to hear no anger in his tone. 'Your timely return has an explanation, I'm sure?'
'Would you hear it now?'
'This very instant. If any man is entitled, I am.'
Having recovered some but not quite enough of his usual aplomb, Rihwin suggested, 'Perhaps to cool his throat after his exertions, my fellow Fox could use a cup of wine-' He stopped abruptly. The glare Ricolf turned on him was frightening.
'Rihwin, you are a fine young man in many ways,' Ricolf said, 'but if ever I hear the word 'wine' in your mouth again, I vow it will have my fist there for company.'
So, unmoistened, Gerin plunged into the tale. His comrades did not let him tell it unhindered, but he controlled the flow of it, and it went well. He saw Ricolf's men, many of whom had given him hard looks when he began, coming round as he spoke. When he was done, Ricolf stayed silent a long time. He finally said, 'Do you know, I believe you. No one would make up such an unlikely story.'
'The last person who said something like that was Valdabrun,' Gerin told him.
