The Arnhanders and Adolf Black's Grolsacher mercenaries took up positions around Antieux. Their Brotherhood predecessors had not been numerous enough for a complete encirclement so they had not wasted any effort trying.
This time there would be no accidental invasion caused by the stupidity of adolescents. The stupid kids were all dead. And, this time, every possible cistern, barrel, and container had been filled with water beforehand. This time Antieux was prepared. This time Antieux truly understood the stakes. And this time those caught inside the wall remained calm under pressure.
Archbishop Berл himself demanded that Antieux open its gates, swear allegiance to the Brothen Patriarch, and turn out the heretics dwelling there. He presented a list of people the Church wanted arrested and bound over for trial.
Count Raymone Garete responded by evicting that handful of Episcopal priests who refused to denounce Sublime V. They took with them the relics of St. Erude the Wayfarer.
Count Raymone was a hard, bright youngster who feared nothing and believed that he had nothing to lose anymore. He was determined to remain Brothe's most terrible enemy while he lived.
The siege of Antieux proceeded for thirty-one days. The weather turned colder. The Arnhander soldiers became increasingly disgruntled. Where was the easy plunder they had been promised? Their enemies were getting fat, staying warm inside the ruins of burned houses while out here the soldiers starved, amidst fields and hills stripped of edibles and combustibles. And now there were reports of incursions from Argony and Tramaine, as Santerin captured castles and villages long in dispute between Santerin and Arnhand.
News that reached the besiegers' camp also found its way into Antieux. The siege lines did not extend across the River Job. The folk of Antieux came and went as they pleased, in that direction, under cover of darkness.
Count Raymone Garete took advantage of the besiegers' failure to finish surrounding Antieux on the other side of the river. He slipped away and joined a group of hotheaded young nobles eager to take more aggressive action against the invaders.
Baron Algres and Archbishop Bere enjoyed an angry confrontation in the Baron's quarters in the ruin of Bishop Serifs's manor house. The Archbishop refused to understand why the troops would abandon the siege when God's work remained incomplete.
The Baron had a reputation for being undiplomatic. 'Go out there and find me one private soldier who gives a shit about God's work. You go look, you'll find a whole lot of men who figure God is big enough to take care of himself. And I can't say I don't agree with them.'
'But…'
'You knew the situation when you bullied my cousin into sending me down here to help the Church rob these people. Sixty days is all we can demand of the soldiers. That's been the goddamned law since our ancestors were savages in hide tents. If Sublime wants to war on these Connecten fools all year round, let him put together his own army and leave us to protect ourselves from Santerin. Oh. Wait. Sublime already sent his own army. It got wiped out'
As always, in all times and in all places, despite the scale of the stakes, personalities gave definition to history. These two had loathed one another for half a century. The Archbishop was the less articulate of the two. But he was determined to execute the will of the Patriarch and his God.
Snowflakes were in the air. On the walls of Antieux the city's defenders jeered and taunted. The Arnhanders were on the move, headed home. This time they would use the westward route because the one they had taken coming south had been foraged already. Baron Algres and his captains were uncomfortable with the situation. They were not accustomed to being in the field this late in the season, this far from home. Even Archbishop Berл now wondered aloud about the wisdom of those who had decreed this folly.
Adolf Black and his Grolsacher veterans stuck with the Arnhander army. Their commission was about to expire but they had been offered employment on the frontiers of Tramaine. More telling than that offer, though, was news that angry Connectens were gathering to intercept them if they withdrew directly toward Grolsach.
A thousand rumors plagued the army. Lately, there was a cycle of stories about the Grail Emperor asserting his rights in the Episcopal States of northern Firaldia and in Ormienden. And he had begun to revisit Imperial claims to several towns in Arnhand's eastern marches.
Atop everything else, the Arnhander-founded crusader states in the east kept shrieking for help. The Lucidians were pressing them hard.
Worse still, the King of Arnhand was extremely ill. His only surviving son was eleven, a will-less extension of his ambitious mother, a woman detested by everyone. She, like her failing husband, seemed incapable of understanding that just wishing would not make something happen. An example: soldiers had a regrettable tendency to demand regular pay, on time, for the risks they took. The money needed to pay and maintain them refused to be conjured out of thin air.
A lot of time and treasure had gone down a rat hole so Baron Algres and Archbishop Berл could visit Antieux, be embarrassed, and leave two hundred Arnhander subjects in graves beneath Bishop Serifs's vineyards. To a man, they had perished from disease rather than enemy action.
Starvation made it difficult to resist diseases.
Dysentery remained widespread as the army made its stumbling retreat
To the right of the ancient military road, two hundred feet back, stood a dense growth of gray-barked trees of a species common along the verges of high altitude wetlands. The ground was soft but not soggy. To the left of the road lay two hundred yards of increasingly boggy ground, then a narrow, slow, shallow stream. Beyond the stream stood a thin curtain of trees, then rocks that had fallen off sheer cliffs that rose for hundreds of feet. The morning sunlight crept down the dull face of the cliff. The stone was a dark gray but had a pinkish tinge wherever it was freshly bruised or broken.
This was near the summit of the pass through the Black Mountains, still on the eastern side. Soon the road would swoop downhill and the worst would be over.
A small breeze stirred the mist. The brightness of the light waned as the sun elevated itself above the trailing edge of those clouds that continued to shed the occasional desultory handful of snowflakes.
The Arnhanders and their Grolsacher hirelings, traipsing along the ancient road, were cold, bitterly hungry, and thoroughly demoralized. They had invested three months of misery for no return. And their prospects were completely bleak.
Worse than bleak.
Connecten trumpets sounded. Far worse than bleak.
Count Raymone Garete's avenging army was outnumbered. Despite the rage sweeping the Connec, not that many men were willing to defy Duke Tormond. Raymone's initial plan had been to launch a surprise attack on the invaders' column, in a place and at a time when they would be least alert. He wanted to punish the Arnhanders, then fade away, going more for an emotional and moral victory than a physical one. But the stunned Arnhanders made little effort to defend themselves. Instead of fighting they fled toward the marshy ground at the base of the cliffs.
Adolf Black's Grolsachers gave a better accounting of themselves but with the same ultimate result.
The slaughter continued until the Connectens had sated their bloodlust. That paid litde attention to rank or station. The Arnhander leadership perished because the armored Connecten knights could not ride out onto the wet ground. The men on foot, possessed of no class commonality with the nobility they slaughtered, took no prisoners.
15. Ormienden, the Ownvidian Knot, and Plemenza
