Arcanum Part 81

"Nothing. Just an idle thought."

His head came up, and with it, the bottle he held in his hand. "To Carinthia," he said. "And victory."

84.

It was always coldest just before dawn, and Felix had shivered himself awake under a pile of blankets. As he lay there, staring up at the white canvas rippling lazily above his head, he listened to the sounds around him: the creak and stretch of ropes, the distant coughing of men and barking of dogs, and, closer, someone snoring as if they were sawing logs in their sleep.

He absorbed the sounds; the last time he'd lain like that, not quite warm enough to go back to sleep, pale light leaking in through a pale ceiling, had been the night before Obernberg.

There were voices, low and muttered, indistinct, whispered almost. There were guards outside his tent Reinhardt had insisted on that, stating baldly that being gutted from neck to navel by the Lady Sophia wasn't his preferred method of passing to the afterlife.

What Felix was hearing wasn't the exchange of conversation between two men passing the time. He stretched and stirred, poked his head out of the flap, then emerged, his bare feet chill on the dew-drenched grass. He reached back in and grabbed a blanket to wrap around himself.

The guards had gone. In their place was Peter Buber, hooded in his cloak, talking to a sweaty-faced man in a mail shirt.

"Master Buber?"

Buber stiffened, and looked askance at Felix. Then he nodded at the other man, who turned and ran back through the still-quiet camp.

"My lord. You're up." The toes of Buber's boots were already dark with water.

"There's something wrong?"

"Wrong? No. Entirely expected. The dwarvish wall, it appears, has gates. Those gates are now open."

"Are we under attack?" Felix felt his heart beat hard under his shirt.

"It's twenty miles to the Ziller. We have at least the rest of today. I'd rather everyone was rested before we see what defences we can strengthen in the time we have left, than rouse the camp and have them work without breakfast." Buber adjusted the strap on his swordbelt. "We have pickets who'll tell us where the dwarves are."

"You're riding out to see, though."

"Yes, my lord."

"I'll come with you." Before the huntmaster could say yes or no, Felix darted back into his tent. He threw the blanket aside and started to dress in his damp, cold, day clothes. There was only enough room in his simple ridge tent to sit and kneel, not to stand, but he still managed to tie and tuck himself in quickly enough. "Master Buber?"

"My lord?" came the voice.

"Are we expecting to fight?"

"My lord, if you're asking me whether you should plate up, then the answer is ten thousand times yes."

Gods, that made his heart beat all the faster. At Obernberg, he hadn't known what to expect. It had been thrilling, the fear of the unknown, the fear of soiling his breeks at the first sight of the enemy. Now he knew, and his courage was as small as his stature.

I am the Prince of Carinthia. I am thirteen. I have a hundred good people who could lead the palatinate after me.

He picked up the Sword of Carinthia and ducked back out of the tent.

His armour was hanging from a mannequin under an oilskin. He pulled off the cover under Buber's watchful gaze, then lifted the harness off the wooden shoulders and onto his own. There were straps and buckles, which his tremulous fingers made hard work of fastening. The sword went into his belt and the shield onto his arm.

Buber lifted the pot helmet off the mannequin's head and dropped it on Felix's. It went snug over his ears, the padding gripping him in an unfamiliar embrace.

"Most lords couldn't dress themselves in breeks and shirt, let alone their own plate."

"Is that approval, Master Buber?" It wasn't something he felt he needed to seek any more, but it was good to know, all the same.

"At least Carinthia has a prince who can piss in a pot and not get it down his leg. Would that the rest of Europe were so lucky." Buber rapped his knuckles on Felix's breastplate. It sounded reassuringly solid.

"No mail for you, Master Buber?"

"Can't say I've ever held with it. Better to avoid being hit in the first place." He looked out towards the blank black shape of Kufstein's crag. "Our horses are being saddled. We may as well see to our stirrups ourselves."

Buber set off across the camp, and Felix caught him up. "You knew I'd want to come."

"Knew, no. Presumed, yes. You've that much of your father in you." The grass hissed against their feet. "Let's just hope you've the better sense."

"This is my father you're talking about," said Felix. He realised that Gerhard had been too slow to change, and that it had cost him his life and those of the men he'd led into battle. It was still his father.

"And if you were to give me the choice between the man and the boy, I'd still choose the boy, even if the man did come with his earls. Mind, armoured cavalry is something we're missing."

"If we had earls, we'd have nothing but levies." Felix embraced the whole camp with a gesture. "These men are now fighting for their homes and their land. What do you want from me, Master Buber? A few more horsemen or a host of militia? It's one or the other. We have what we have, and we are where we are. You may as well wish for hexmasters and be done with it."

Best not to have said that, he thought afterwards. He was sure Buber didn't wish for any hexmasters, save for one in particular. He glanced at the big man.

"We're fighting infantry. A few more horsemen could turn the battle for us, used at the right time."

Either Buber hadn't noticed, or he'd ignored the comment. Felix kept on the subject of horses. "How many do we have?"

"Too few. People don't keep horses except for pleasure, and then only the rich. The Jews have a few horses, but they use mostly bullocks to drag their ploughs and their carts. I can't see riding a cow into battle catching on." Buber pointed to the far bank, up by the col. "I'll put what we have up there, most of them. They can ride down the side of the valley, strike hard, then away again. It'll keep the flank occupied during our retreats, and perhaps they'll sting a little. I'm told that Byzantium has horses covered head to foot in scale, their riders too, and that when they strike, they ride over their enemies as if they were nothing but a field of rye."

"The kataphraktoi," said Felix. "I don't know if it's true."

Their horses arrived, ready for riding, held by two of Buber's scouts.

Felix swung into the saddle, and waited for the others to mount up. The jingling of tack and stamp of hooves did nothing to calm him. It felt like his heart was only still behind his ribs because of the breastplate strapped across them.

"Across the bridge to the road," said Buber. "We've already sent a messenger to Rosenheim, and someone else will ride to Juvavum."

Horses, carrying messages. This was how both war and peace were conducted now.

They rode off at a steady trot, past the sagging canvas and drooping ropes, the still-smouldering fires and the blinking eyes of the morning watch. When they returned, the camp would have been struck. Every man would be armed and armoured. They were Carinthia just as much as the land was: every man they lost diminished the palatinate. It brought a sour taste up into Felix's mouth.

The bridge seemed less significant the closer they got to it. It was narrow, enough room for a single cart and no more, stone parapet up to waist-height across its three spans and two piers. The river below didn't seem to be flowing that fast, or appear that deep. The banks were straight down for the most part, but it was hardly the insurmountable obstacle around which to base all their defences.

There might be some overarching reason, thought Felix: perhaps dwarves didn't like getting wet. He hoped so.

They passed the limits of their earthworks, a mostly finished ditch from the Zellerberg hill on the left to the valley-side to the right, then they were into the area beyond, of quiet woods and little abandoned farms, and the road wound up the north side of the river all the way to Ennsbruck and beyond.

The pickets were ahead of them, groups of two or three horsemen who were under strict orders to keep a watch on the dwarves but not to fight, even if it seemed likely they could score an easy win. What might look like a gift one moment could so quickly change to an irrecoverably dire situation the next and they needed the horses more than they needed the men to ride them.

Twenty miles. In any other circumstances, it'd be a decent morning's hack, with the prospect of a good lunch at the end of it, and a pleasant feeling of fatigue afterwards that might last until bedtime. The scenery was stunning, with blue mountain peaks in the distance, the forest a deep, almost black green, and the constant companion of the river washing by.

This valley, these trees, were not really his either by custom or right, but it fell to him to defend them, to keep the dwarves at bay from the pastures and cornfields of the plain.

It struck Felix that peace was far better than war, and that he'd rather be remembered for his land reforms than for his prowess on the battlefield. He'd not asked to be prince, but gods, if prince he was, he'd see his people well fed and content. There was just the small matter of the entire population of Farduzes to contend with first. Curse them, and curse King Ironmaker. He would have welcomed them all as friends, and Carinthia had room for them, no matter how many there might be. Perhaps, when all this was done and Ironmaker had yielded his axe and his crown, there could be some sort of treaty between them.

A picket from further up the line took over from the two who'd escorted them thus far, and Felix and Buber went on with the new man, further and deeper into the mountains, which now rose around rather than only ahead of them.

The closer they got to the dwarvish wall, the more nervous he grew, but Obernberg had taught him that he was braver than he'd thought. After spending the first half of the battle running away from the Teuton outriders, it had been Felix and not Allegretti who'd stood his ground, and his refusal to run any further had forced the swordmaster to fight. He would carry on, no matter that his throat was dry and his stomach churning like a butter-tub; he'd not disgrace himself.

They left their horses by a narrow forest path and climbed the rest of the way up to past the tree line. Buber went first, then Felix in his armour, and the picket third. It was hard, and Felix was out of breath soon enough. But then they came to an outcrop of rock that seemed to hang over the broad valley. They could sit in its shade and see everything.

Buber had his distance-pipe, and so did Felix. Once he'd accepted some water, warm from the flask, his hands were steady enough to hold the tube and sight at the line of wooden stakes below.

There were gaps in the wall, that much was obvious, places where pre-cut sections of palisade had been dropped to the ground. Through these gaps rolled a stream of the dwarvish wagons, arranged in long lines behind and forming up into two columns either side of the river.

"What are they doing?" asked Felix.

"Gods only know," said Buber. He lowered the tube from his eye and blinked hard. "The only road suitable for those beasts is on this side. If they try and take them along the south side, they'll find it not just heavy going, but all but impossible."

"And there are dwarves inside each one?" said Felix, twisting his distance-pipe to give him the best view."

"There aren't any outside, pushing. So unless they've magic and we don't, yes: ten or more to a wagon." Buber rubbed at his eye. "If they've magic, we may as well go home."

The covered wagons were moving ahead relatively easily on the road, where the surface was hard and dry. On the other side, where there was barely a footpath, their progress seemed painfully slow.

Felix kept watching. Yes, he could see dwarves now, cutting axes in hand, flanking the wagons as they disappeared into the forest. They looked somehow odd. Not the dwarves of legend, short-legged and barrel-chested, vast beards and dark-coal eyed: more half-made, pale worms wriggling out into the light.

"Can we try and stop them?" he asked. "Or slow them down at least?"

"We could. But we haven't the men to make it count. If we cut trees across their path, they'll have to get out and move them. We could kill a few before they drive us off. We've committed to Kufstein, though." Buber put the tube to his eye again. "No sign of any flanking forces. They're doing what we expected, at least. We'll need to pull back ourselves soon, or we'll get cut off."

"There are a lot of them, Master Buber," said Felix.

It was true. A stream of wagons continued to rumble and roll through the gaps in the wall, and behind them was an inchoate mass of figures, so large that it lost meaning.

"And they're all coming our way," he continued.

Buber took one last look, and slid his distance-pipe away. "If they use those wagons to attack us, our bows our advantage is lost until they climb out of them. The ditches will force them out, at least while they take the embankment behind. But then it'll be spear against axe. We need a way of stopping them well ahead of our lines."

"Then we'll have to do just that."

"Easier said than done, my lord." Buber looked troubled as he touched Felix on the arm. "Unless we intend to be trapped here, we need to leave now."

Felix folded his own pipe away and took a last look at the horde. The next time he'd see them would be in battle.

85.

The whole town was hurrying, as if it was an ants' nest and had been kicked hard. The dwarves were on the march, and thus, by necessity, so were they. There was no time for drilling, or reflection. The Lady Sophia had rung the Bell Tower's bell and those able to pick up a spear and wear a helmet, and who were willing to do so, were collecting by the West Gate.

Messengers had gone further into Carinthia, and up to Simbach. The message Ullmann had been sent had spoken baldly of the odds: they were outnumbered seemingly ten to one. He stared out of the window and over the roofs. Everything he'd worked for: his parents owning their own farm, his brothers and sisters equal before the law with some lordling's issue, their his ideas spreading out like ripples, subverting the former order from within and without: it was all in danger of being swept away by a bunch of bastard dwarves too stupid, too hidebound to the past, to negotiate with reasonable people.

Nothing yet from Munchen, either. A thousand, two thousand spears could make all the difference. Another message had been sent, but Ullmann still secretly hoped that his own, earlier message would be acted on. With one Bavarian pretender dead, the Earl of Augsburg would be much more likely to throw his lot in with Felix, if only to protect his recent gains.

His sword was on his desk. He reached out and picked it up, weighing it in his hands, surprising himself as to how light it really was. He drew it from its scabbard, looked at the way the light shone down its edges, then resheathed it.

He turned at a knock on the door, and a man was there. "The Black Company are assembled outside."

Ullmann nodded. "I'll be down in a moment."

The man left again, leaving the door slightly open. Voices drifted up to him, indistinct and echoing. Ullmann scanned his desk for anything that really ought not be left out in the open. He'd locked his code books away, along with his lists of agents and their reports. No, everything was as it should be: he'd been thorough.

Would he see this place again, this tower room in the fortress wall? He hadn't made it homely, because that hadn't been the effect he'd wanted, but it had become his space all the same.

He strapped on his sword. It didn't feel so light now. Then, taking one last look, he closed the door behind him. Down the stairs, across the drawbridge to the courtyard beyond. Forty men in the Black Company, dressed like him, with no insignia of rank or identification. They looked like ushers, but instead of carrying canes, they had steel, and under their robes, they wore chain.

As Ullmann approached, they formed up, and, without ceremony that was how lords and ladies acted they marched off through the Chastity Gate, and into town.

The people they passed stood aside for them, even as they were organising coats and capes and boots, and food and drink for themselves. Down Stable Street, where the last of the horses anything that could be ridden were being turned out and tack hoisted onto them; then into Coin Alley, where the smithies had fallen silent but the hammers were still in the hands of those who wielded them.

The Black Company collected on the muster field. Sophia was already there, with two centuries of Jews, and companies of builders, carters, boatmen and farmers keeping nervously to their guild banners. None of them were ready for a twenty-mile hike to Rosenheim, let alone what faced them there.

Where were the gods? Had they left Carinthia at the same time the magic faded? In which case, it was Ullmann's own hand that had finally brought them down. Max Ullmann, Max Godslayer, Max Hexkiller. What name would he have when all this was done?

Then he spotted Aelinn in the crowd. He slipped between the boat hooks and cudgels of the bargees, and into the midst of stable boys, messengers and maids. He tried to find her: surely she wasn't thinking of marching on Rosenheim? The thought made him queasy, but, try as he might calling her name, asking after her he was unable to spot her again.

Had he imagined it? A fleeting glimpse of a bob of blonde hair in the mob, and perhaps he'd jumped to conclusions. Aelinn was brave for sure, but she must have more sense than this. Let others take the risk and either win the glory or suffer the defeat: Aelinn had to be kept safe.

If she was here, he vowed to send her home, back to the Odenwalds' house on the main square. He returned to the Black Company angry and troubled.

It was obvious that Sophia, now mounted on her comfortable old nag, wanted to be off as soon as possible. She rode back and forth impatiently, counting heads, and didn't for once look like she was going to fall off.

It was close to midday by the time she decided that their ranks were large enough to make it worthwhile setting off. Ullmann would have gone sooner, but with Felix absent, it was clear that she was deemed to be in charge: not Thaler, not Wess, and not him. Someone brought her out a banner, a fine yellow cloth with a black leopard. She lifted it up and received a ragged cheer, her name being shouted along with Felix's.

Chapter end