And then, when Ferdulf was specific, the Fox wished he hadn't been: 'There's another imperial army, as big as this one or maybe bigger, heading straight for us. We're going to get smashed like a bug between two rocks.'
In remarkably self-possessed tones, Dagref said, 'Well, now we know why the imperials who are already here didn't panic when we surrounded them.'
'Don't we?' Gerin agreed sourly. Unlike Aragis, the general in command of the Elabonian Empire's newly reinforced forces was capable of real strategy. He'd set out this tempting army here, certain the men of the northlands would leap on it like a starving longtooth. And the men of the northlands had leaped-and now they were going to pay for it.
Ferdulf hovered in front of Gerin's face like the gadfly he was. ' What are you going to do?' he screeched. 'What are we going to do?'
'We're going to get licked, that's what we're going to do,' Van said.
Ferdulf screeched again, this time wordlessly. 'He's right, of course,' Gerin said, which made Ferdulf screech at him. Ignoring the racket, the Fox went on, 'Only question left now is how badly we get licked. Ferdulf, go tell Aragis what you just told me. He's on the right; he'll get hammered harder than my troopers will.'
'I don't want to talk to Aragis.' Ferdulf stuck out his lower lip. 'He's nasty.'
'Go talk to Aragis!' Gerin shouted. Ferdulf flew off. Gerin hoped he flew off in obedience rather than in a fit of the sulks, but wouldn't have bet anything he minded losing on it.
'We ought to pull back now,' Dagref said.
'I know. But we can't.' Gerin grimaced. 'If we save ourselves like that, we leave Aragis in the lurch.'
'Why shouldn't we?' Dagref asked. 'He'd do it to us.'
'Mm, I think not, not here,' Gerin answered. 'If he goes under altogether, or if I do, that leaves the other one to face the whole weight of the Empire by himself. That doesn't strike me as something I want to do.'
'Well, maybe,' Dagref said grudgingly.
Gerin didn't find out whether Ferdulf told the Archer the second imperial army was on the way. It mattered little. Aragis could not have remained in doubt very much longer. The new cry of 'Elabon! Elabon! Elabon!' pierced the rest of the battlefield noise like a knifeblade piercing flesh.
'Elabon! Elabon! Elabon!' The surrounded imperials answered the war cry with one of their own.
As soon as he realized he was trapped rather than trapper, Aragis pulled away from the battle without the slightest concern for what that might do to Gerin. The Fox was less infuriated at finding his prediction wrong than he would have been otherwise, for Aragis was the one stuck between the two imperial forces. Most of the pressure fell on him. Gerin was able to break off his part of the fight without too much trouble.
And then, having broken off, he ordered his troopers forward in one last charge against the imperial force he and Aragis had lately surrounded. That made those imperials turn aside from their assault on the Archer to repel him. Van sighed. 'Helping Aragis get loose, are you?'
'See any better ideas?' Gerin asked.
The outlander sighed again. 'No, but I wish I did. You're hurting yourself while you're helping him.'
'Don't remind me.' Gerin stared across the field. Aragis did seem to be pulling back, not being surrounded-the fate he and Gerin and inflicted, though not for long enough, on the first army from south of the High Kirs. Seeing that Aragis' men would not be immediately cut off and destroyed satisfied the Fox that he'd done his duty by his ally. 'Now back!' he shouted. 'Now we get away.'
He didn't know how hard the imperials would press his retreating force. They had the numbers now to press him and Aragis at the same time, if they so chose. The lunge they made after his men turned out to be halfhearted. For one thing, they remained intent on trying to break Aragis, against whom they could bring more warriors to bear than against Gerin. For another, most of Rihwin's horsemen-as many as were able-fell back on Gerin's force rather than on Aragis'. The imperial chariotry had great-perhaps even exaggerated-respect for the riders, whose feints and countercharges looked to intimidate them and keep them from pressing harder than they did.
Rihwin himself rode back to Gerin with an anxious expression on his face. 'I pray the wine is safe, lord king,' he said.
'It's not the biggest thing on my mind right now,' Gerin said, in lieu of getting down from the chariot to find a rock with which to hit Rihwin in the head. 'I'm more worried about everything else the supply wagons carried. Most of them were on Aragis' side of the field. Without journeybread and sausage and cheese and whatnot, we're going to have to start foraging all over the countryside if we want to stay alive.'
'Wine is also important,' Rihwin insisted, 'it being our best conduit, as you yourself said, to hope and beg for divine aid from Mavrix.'
'Not a good hope,' Gerin said, but the comment held enough sense to keep him from again wishing to clout his fellow Fox. He sighed. ' All right, Rihwin, have it your way. I hope the wine is safe, too. Now let me get back to running this retreat, if you please.'
Rihwin sketched a salute. 'Lord king, I obey.' His eyes twinkled. 'When I feel like it, I obey.' He rode off before Gerin could find an answer.
The one thing of which the Fox was glad was that his men still showed fight. That let him conduct the sort of retreat the imperials had made before: a retreat with teeth in it. His lines weren't so neat as the ones the men from the Elabonian Empire had maintained, but they weren't pushing him so hard as he'd pushed them. That evened things out. As the imperials had broken free of his pursuit, so his army broke free of theirs.
'Where now?' Van asked. 'What now?'
Those were indeed the relevant questions. Gerin took the second one first, not because he had an answer but because he didn't: 'I haven't the faintest notion of what now, except to get away in the best way we can, so the imperials still have to do some fighting after the battle we just lost. Have to see what sort of shape we're in, have to see what sort of shape Aragis' men are in, have to see if the Empire lets us rejoin them. Maybe I stop being a king and go back to being a baron.'
'Would you do that, Father?' Dagref asked, some concern in his voice: if Gerin was not a king, Dagref never would be.
'I might, if I didn't think the Empire would nail me to a cross for taking a title they say I have no right to,' the Fox replied. ' Being a king-by the gods, even being a baron-never meant all that much to me of itself. The best part of it always has been that it's given me the power I need to make people leave me and mine alone. But I don' t think his usurping majesty, Crebbig I, will want anyone around who's dared defy his glory, and so I'm better off to keep on fighting.'
'That's the way of it,' Van agreed. 'You keep standing till they knock you down and you can't get up any more.' He looked around. 'We' ll be on our feet again before too long. Now-the other question I put to you. Where now?'
'Northeast, the way we're going,' Gerin replied without hesitation. 'With all these big villages that are almost little towns around, the farmers down here are plainly growing more than they can eat by themselves. If we have to forage off the countryside, let's forage off countryside that'll give us enough to be worth taking.'
'Makes sense to me,' the outlander said.
'Besides,' Gerin said, 'even if I don't know what's happened to most of our supply wagons, I saw taverns in some of those towns. Tonight, I'm going to drink something better than water.'
'Not enough better, if you listen to Rihwin,' Van said.
'If you listen to Rihwin, you'll hear any number of things that aren't so,' Gerin said. 'You'll hear any number of things that may be so but probably aren't. You'll hear any number of things that are so but don't matter at the moment. And, I don't deny, you'll hear some things that do matter. But winnowing the grain from the chaff is often more trouble than it's worth.'
'You have the right of that.' Van rumbled laughter. Then his heavy-featured face grew bleak. 'I've not seen Maeva since the fighting started. Have you set eyes on her, Captain?'
'No,' Gerin answered. He did not like the way Van looked at him-it was as if the outlander were measuring him for a grave.
But then Dagref said, 'She's in the retreat with the rest of us. I saw her off on what would have been our left when we were facing the imperial army; I suppose it's our right now that we've turned our backs on them. She must have been one of the riders who got farthest around the flank of the first imperial force, before the other one
