'A point,' Dagref said, still not happily.
'You had better be careful,' Gerin said-useless advice to most youths, but Dagref was not-in some ways was not-cut from the usual cloth. 'If you get her with child, you'll think the five hells had come crashing down on you, no matter how much fun you're having now.'
'Another point,' Dagref admitted. 'There are-' He paused and coughed and might have blushed a little as he searched for words. ' There are… ways of doing things where we don't have to worry about that.'
'Yes, I know about those ways,' Gerin said, nodding. 'I wasn't sure whether you did.'
'Er-I do,' Dagref said, and stopped there.
Gerin was content to stop there, too. He couldn't very well keep an eye on his son, not in this matter he couldn't. He could-and didhope Dagref and Maeva would stay content to stop with substitutes when they found themselves alone together. Whatever Maeva did, she threw herself into it wholeheartedly. In that, she very much resembled both her parents. That meant Gerin would have to rely on Dagref's good sense, and on Dagref's having good sense at a time when good sense was supposed to go flying out the door.
With any other lad of Dagref's age, it would have been the most forlorn of forlorn hopes. Gerin studied his son. He still didn't think the odds were any too good, but he didn't think they were hopeless, either. He sighed. Whatever the odds were, he had no choice but to accept them.
He rubbed his chin. That wasn't strictly true. 'Maybe I ought to send Maeva home, to keep this from getting any further out of hand than it is already.'
Dagref looked stricken. 'Don't do that, Father. You didn't send her home for anything she did, so it wouldn't be fair to send her home for anything I'm doing.'
'Unless you're violating her by force, which I doubt you would do and doubt you could do, you're not doing it altogether by yourself,' the Fox pointed out, at which Dagref blushed again. In musing tones, Gerin went on, 'Maybe I should send you home instead.'
'I hope you don't send either of us,' Dagref said. 'If you have to send one of us, though, send me.'
Gerin slapped him on the back. 'That's well spoken, for I know you aren't trying to get away from the fighting. But I do think I'll leave you both here.' He found one other question to ask: 'What will you do if Van finds out?'
He didn't think Dagref would be able to come up with any answer for that. But Dagref did, and promptly, too: 'Run.'
'Well, all right,' Gerin said with a startled laugh. 'That's probably the best thing you could do, though I don't know if you'll be able to run far enough or fast enough.'
'Have to try.' Dagref risked a wry smile that reminded Gerin achingly of himself. 'Maybe he won't be able to decide whether to set out after me first or Maeva, and we'll both be able to get away.'
'Maybe.' Gerin laughed again. Van, though, was too automatically competent a warrior to dither at a time like that. He would settle on one of Dagref or Maeva-probably Dagref-first and then the other. The Fox hoped his son wouldn't have to learn that from experience.
**
After a few days, scouts brought back word that the imperials looked to be getting ready to push forward again. Gerin clicked his tongue between his teeth, far from a happy sound. 'I knew it was coming,' he said with a sigh. 'I'd have been happier if it hadn't come so soon, though.'
'What will we do, lord king?' a scout asked.
'Fight, I suppose.' Gerin sighed again. 'The only other choice we have is letting ourselves get pushed back into the valley of Ikos, and I don't want to do that. With everything else that's gone wrong in this campaign, I don't need to have Biton angry at me, too.'
'We lost the last time we tried to withstand the imperials,' Dagref pointed out. 'Why should this time be any different?'
'Last time, they picked the ground-or they didn't leave me much choice, which amounts to the same thing,' the Fox answered. 'They struck faster and harder than I thought they would. We have better warning this time. I'm going to fight where I want to fight, by the gods.'
'What sort of ground are you thinking of?' Dagref asked.
'I have a place in mind, as a matter of fact,' Gerin said. 'It's a long, thin stretch of meadow, with really heavy woods on either side. Off to the left, beyond the woods, there's a little hill I intend to screen off with a good many of Rihwin's riders. Do you see what's in my mind?'
'I think so,' Dagref answered. 'You want to put men back there and trap the imperials between your two forces, don't you?'
'That's what I'm planning, yes,' Gerin agreed. 'Now I have to hope the imperials don't see it as clearly as you've done.'
But the imperials, to his loud, vehement, and profane dismay, did see the trap, and refused to fall into it. When his riders picked off one of the scouts from south of the High Kirs, he found out why. 'We' ve got Swerilas in command of us now,' the prisoner said. 'Swerilas the Slippery, men call him. He sent Arpulo Werekas' son back west to take charge of the sieges against Gerin-'
'I'm Gerin,' Gerin said.
'Against Aragis, then. I can't keep you rebels straight,' the captured imperial said. 'Swerilas figured that was the easier part of the job, so he gave it to Arpulo. You've caused Arpulo trouble; Swerilas decided he needed to deal with you himself.'
'Were it not for the honor he shows me, it's a compliment I could do without,' Gerin murmured, and then, 'Swerilas the Slippery, eh? He' d be the fellow who was in charge of your second army, wouldn't he?'
'Aye,' the prisoner said. 'Arpulo led the first.'
Gerin scowled. His life had just got more difficult. He had Arpulo's measure, even if he'd lacked the manpower to beat him in their latest clash. But Swerilas… an ekename like the Slippery was all too close to the Fox, and Swerilas had shown that he had more than a few ideas of his own. Gerin would have been happier fighting a bruiser who didn't think very well.
After he sent the prisoner away, he decided he might have been lucky that Swerilas had stayed out of his trap rather than letting himself go in with his eyes open and then smashing out in both directions at once. Gerin's force was inferior to his in numbers. Against an average commander like Arpulo, the Fox had no qualms-well, few qualms-about dividing even an inferior force. Against someone who knew what he was doing, as Swerilas plainly did, dividing his force was asking to be destroyed in detail.
With another scowl, Gerin did his best to come up with a new plan. Against Swerilas, he had fewer options than he'd had against Arpulo. And Swerilas, no doubt, would be able to think of more unpleasant things to do to him than would have crossed Arpulo's fierce but unimaginative mind.
Gerin dispatched all his horsemen to harass Swerilas' scouts, to drive them back on the main body of imperials, and to disrupt the imperials' foraging as much as he could. 'You riders are the one force we have that the imperials don't know everything about,' he told Rihwin the Fox. 'We'll wring every particle of advantage we can out of that.'
'Aye, lord king,' Rihwin said. 'We shall fall on the men of the Elabonian Empire like a whirlwind. We shall trouble them with continuous attacks from all directions, until they weepingly regret ever having stirred north of the High Kirs.'
That was as grandiloquent as anything Gerin had heard lately, even from Rihwin. But Rihwin, fortunately, was almost as long on fighting talent as he was on bombast. Gerin thumped him on the shoulder. 'Aye, that's good. That's what I want from you. The harder he has to work against your horsemen, the less leisure he'll have to do anything against the main army here.'
'I shall think on this with gratitude as the imperials chew my force to pieces,' Rihwin replied, bowing.
'Go howl,' Gerin said. 'I don't want you to get chewed to pieces. I'm counting on you not to let yourself and your force get chewed to pieces. By the gods, I don't want to fight a pitched battle with this Swerilas. I want you to keep him running every which way, so he's too busy and hot and bothered to come and fight a pitched battle with
