Stonehand, p.9
Stonehand, page 9
The reality, sadly, was proving to be more sobering. Travelling in close quarters with a marching army was better enjoyed when young, wide-eyed and, preferably, without a sense of smell.
“No, sir, you did not misunderstand. The psychic network enjoyed by . . . I shall call them by their professional title, ‘the Cackle,’ but I hope it is understood the distaste I have for such explicit showboating?”
Souit glared back at the old woman.
He had complained bitterly about the imposition of the Spymistress within his forces. He did not have anything against her personally — anyone who survived as long as she had in a role where occupancy was measured in weeks rather than years deserved respect — but he saw her presence as an unnecessary complication. He liked straight lines, clear plans and open communication. The world of creatures such as Spymistress Stein was one he wished never to lower himself into.
“I do not care what you call them, Mistress. We both know about whom we are talking, so call them ‘kittens,’ for all I care. I likewise acknowledge your distaste for their overt and showy marketing but note that, as you employed them — at great expense, I should add — we should accept it worked.”
Stein smiled thinly back. “Indeed. As I was saying, the psychic network of the, ahem, the Cackle is an entirely closed loop between its members, saving the access the Hyena granted my agents before their ingress a few hours ago.”
“How many of your agents?”
Stein frowned. “I hardly see the relevance, my Lord?”
“You are briefing me about a foolproof, closed communication system which has gone dark. In your explanation, you note that your ‘agents’ were given access to said ‘foolproof, closed communication system’ after which, in short order, it stopped working. If you truly fail to see the relevance of my question, Spymistress, I have a number of follow-ups to make about your professional capabilities.”
To cover her momentary wrong-footedness, Stein sipped her cup of hot water. All of her reports had stressed that Souit was a solid military leader, poorly suited to life at Court. As a Great General, he had an almost prescient grasp of strategy and tactics on a battlefield but was viewed as lacking tact and diplomacy in formal settings. She had, unfortunately, extrapolated from that data to make assumptions about him that were coming back to bite.
“I have complete confidence in my agents, my Lord.”
“I am happy for you. All I know about them is that they are my prime suspects in an act of malicious sabotage. How many?”
“Five.”
“Thank you. You will pass their names to my Adjutant, and they will be put to the question.”
“My Lord!”
“That is my last word until I am satisfied as to their innocence or otherwise in the matter. Now, what are the military consequences for us of losing touch with the Hyena and her Cackle?”
Stein seethed. Souit’s actions would cause her a tremendous loss of face with her people. But it was more comprehensive than that! He was publically demonstrating a lack of trust in her leadership, which would make her work all the more challenging. However, and this is what caused her the most irritation, he was entirely right to do so. In years gone by, she would have executed, never mind put to the question, those five the moment they lost touch with the Hyena’s group. In her world, loose threads existed to be cut, not coddled.
She was getting old. Old and soft. She idly wondered if that was why the King had insisted on her going out into the world. Was her replacement already in place back home?
“Mistress, I am unused to asking questions for a second time.”
“Apologies, my Lord. The military consequences are limited. We are confident that nearly all the primary targets were eliminated. Should there be any remaining lines of communication in the Swinford military, they will be haphazard at best. Their orders, once these targets were removed, were to lie low and subsequently join up with our conventional forces once the walls were breached.”
“I sense you are selling me a used horse, Mistress. So far, I have heard all the positives with not a hint of a downside. All targets were met, and a team of highly capable irregulars are embedded behind enemy lines, awaiting mobilisation to cause further chaos. If I were in your shoes, I would not have thought to burst in here in such a state of dysregulation over a temporary loss of communication. When are you planning on showing me this nag’s teeth, Mistress?”
Stein considered all the ways she could kill this man.
She could hear his irregular heartbeat and had in her possession the precise, untraceable herb that would turn that into something instantly catastrophic. Likewise, the stiletto up her sleeve was thin enough to go in and out the pupil of his eye in a moment, leaving him a paralysed, drooling fool for the rest of his days. She could even conjure documents of unquestionable veracity into the man’s wife’s possession that, experience told her, would ensure the imminence of his death was quite assured.
But . . . no. Such thoughts were beneath her. The Great General was within his right to draw attention to her obfuscations. If nothing else, this humiliation had taught her a great deal about the man. She intended to learn the lesson.
“It appears, sir, that just before the network closed, it was . . . overwhelmed by the presence of another.”
“I wonder it has taken us this long to get to what sounds like a fairly critical point, Mistress. But let us not bemoan the journey; let us embrace that we have now arrived. By ‘presence,’ I assume you are alluding to whatever magic user has been making a nuisance of themselves throughout the early exchanges of this conflict.”
Stein could see that blunt honesty was to be the way forward. “I do not know, my Lord. My agents explained it as feeling as if they were being dismissed.”
“Dismissed?”
“As if they were ‘naughty boys caught peering through windows they should not,’ was how one described it. The dismissal was . . . summary and comprehensive.”
Souit raised a hand to smooth his eyebrows. “Mistress, far be it from me to tell you your business, but can I suggest that you make it a high priority to determine the Class of whoever is secretly involving themselves in the defence of Swinford? Much of our planning has been made on the assurances that, apart from the Lady Darkhelm, we will encounter nothing exotic in this assault. I have already lost good men to a curious set of coincidences, and now we seem to have misplaced a rather expensive mercenary company.”
He abruptly stood and made his way outside the command tent. Stein scurried to follow in a wholly undignified manner, making her reconsider her previous decision not to poison the man’s drink.
“My Lord, is anything wrong?”
Souit had halted and was silent momentarily, staring at the City he had been commanded to recapture. This was the first step to pacifying the West, and it seemed like he was already stumbling.
“I had hoped to achieve my goal quickly and painlessly, Mistress. But at each turn, this desire has been thwarted. First, ingress through the sewers was denied me. The Lady Darkhelm was in the right place at the right time to collapse the tunnels. A quick assault to take the north gate was foiled in an explosive, yet interestingly fortunate, fashion. The archer that fired the key quarrel was none other than the Lady Darkhelm. And now I find that the forces sent to decapitate the command of the City have, surprisingly, fallen silent. I am not a betting man, Mistress, but I feel my coin would be safe should I hazard on her involvement.”
Stein was unused to being outside for quite so long and shivered in the cold morning air. “Apologies, sir. Is there a point to all these musings?”
Souit smiled thinly. “The Lady Darkhelm is a warrior unmatched in our world. She is a doughty opponent and, clearly, a fine enemy. But she is not a military genius. She has now been placed in our way three times. You are to uncover who is making free use of this most effective of resources.”
“And when I do, my Lord?”
“I am sure you will think of something. Perhaps secret herbs, sharp stilettos and devastating compromising material, Mistress?”
They held each other’s eyes for a few moments, each now understanding the other far better.
Chapter Sixteen
“Swords to Ploughshares”
The early morning mist was just starting to burn off as the King’s Army formed up outside Swinford.
Mindful of the impact of the Knight of the Road on the abortive assault on the north wall, Souit had divided his forces to completely surround the City in a wide circle.
This was, undoubtedly, not his preferred manner of attack; he felt there were simply too many moving parts in such a formation. The level of coordination required across the army to make such a push coherent was considerable, and the logistics for an attack on this scale were, on paper, wholly daunting. However, as a Great General, he more than had the capacity to overcome such minor challenges.
No, it was the irksome necessity of committing so many of his forces against such a fragile enemy that was ruining his morning.
“This Knight of the Road may be able to hold one wall on her own. Let her. We will bring the others down around her ears,” was how he put it to his command staff.
However, privately, he worried about such a comprehensive attack being counterproductive. Souit did not intend to occupy Swinford. Rather, he had organised this campaign to, at great speed, sweep across the lands of the West, pausing just long enough to pacify the local population as he went. As it was, he was already falling behind schedule and was beginning to doubt his boast to pacify the West in one season. If he were forced to reduce Swinford to rubble . . .
Weeks and months spent rebuilding a functioning city were very much not on his agenda.
It was thus a finely balanced thing: the City must fall and fall quickly, but he needed to achieve it with the minimum amount of damage to its infrastructure whilst also overwhelming a Knight of the Road.
Fortunately, he reflected, he had the numbers to manage it. After Swinford, he anticipated no further roadblocks, and — other than some unusual reports the Spymistress had brought him about the nondescript village in which the so-called Great Council of the West was held — he could afford to commit all his resources to one all-out attack.
He was troubled, though, that the ring of steel that surrounded the City bristled with restless intent. There were strict standing orders about how Souit required his army to conduct itself once they entered Swinford, but there were soldiers who had lost friends in the fire that thwarted the first assault, and there would be consequences for that.
As he prepared to give the signal for attack, Souit considered his best-case scenario. If the Lady Darkhelm would make herself known defending one area of the walls, he could thus concentrate his forces elsewhere, achieve a speedy breach and immediately petition for Mayor Elm’s surrender. What he knew of that man, he liked. He was not a fanatic who would risk the slaughter of his people on a point of principle. He was sure when the inevitability of defeat became manifest, they could come to an agreement to avoid the sacking of the City.
Nodding his head at the soundness of his reasoning, Souit ordered the ring of men surrounding Swinford to contract.
*
It was Man-at-Arms Fidoral who first noticed something odd was happening. He was on the front line opposite the eastern wall — call that a wall! I’ve seen more secure structures on a pig farm — and was keeping a close eye out for the much-feared appearance of the Darkhelm.
All the talk of the previous evening was that there was, really, a one-in-four chance of coming up against her this morning. The expert military strategists amongst the regulars had debated back and forth on which wall she would most likely defend, with most thinking she would be found where the original assault had foundered, at the gatehouse to the north. Those involved in the assaults on the other walls had slept a little better that evening, whilst those who were now gloomily approaching the main entrance to the City had spent the night organising their affairs.
However, no one took anything for granted, and all eyes were peeled — at all points of the compass — as the army tightened its ring formation around Swinford.
It was during this vigil that Fidoral noticed the heavy chunks of crudely shaped wood, joined to metal points, being tumbled down over the wall to land in front of him. He shouted in alarm and then realised his call was being repeated across the front line.
At least a hundred of these oddly constructed things were being hurled by unseen hands over the wall to land a long way short of the advancing soldiers. If the intent had been to strike those below with the objects, it was a lamentably timed effort.
Fidoral, keeping his shield raised for any further shenanigans, peered over its rim at the wooden object lying nestled against Swinford’s eastern wall. It looked very familiar. Just very out of place.
“Is that a plough?”
*
Souit dismissed the messenger with a curt nod. He turned to the rest of the command staff. “Is there not some proverb or other about turning swords into ploughshares? It means the arrival of a time of peace, does it not?”
“Damned odd way to surrender, if you ask me,” Major Fadarn noted gruffly.
“Quite.” Souit tapped his lips thoughtfully. “The Mages sense nothing from them?”
“No, my Lord,” one of his seemingly endless interchangeable aides confirmed.
“They are not going to, I don’t know, explode once we get closer?”
“They are entirely as they appear, my Lord. They have no runes on them nor any magical signature. They are ploughs. And hastily constructed ones at that. Those with more experience than me in such matters were quite . . . critical of the workmanship.”
Souit nodded, and the functionary vanished back into the sea of their fellows.
“I do not suppose our informants from within the City have shared any thoughts about the purpose of these objects?” All eyes turned to the Spymistress, who smiled thinly.
“No, my Lord.”
“Pity. I imagine this sort of event is precisely why the King suggested you accompany us.”
“Indeed, my Lord.”
“Could we try to make this the final time there is a colossal failure of intelligence, Mistress?”
If looks could kill — and considering the various talents and Skills of the Spymistress, they very much could — all present were surprised Souit remained hale and hearty.
“The day is wasting, ladies and gentlemen. In lieu of absolutely any information to the contrary, I can see no reason to postpone our assault. Any dissenting thoughts?”
All eyes subtly turned to Degralk. Nope, he thought. If the General’s mood was sour enough to publically shame the Spymistress, I’m not being the naysayer again.
After an awkward silence, Souit nodded. “Very well. Sound the advance.”
Barely had the final note of the trumpet faded away before a general hubbub arose from the ranks.
“What now!” Souit’s frustration at the continuing delays was starting to bubble out of control. “Have the defenders found some hoes to throw at us? Are we intimidated by garden shears now? Tell me, what is the latest agricultural calamity to befall us now!”
*
“What on earth?” Fidoral heard the man at his shoulder exclaim, and he hurriedly dropped his gaze downwards from the battlements, stopping his search for the tell-tale helmet of the Knight of the Road. His eyes alighted on the plough, which had, of its own accord, arisen, and was making its slow way towards him, digging a deep trench behind it.
He looked left and right to confirm all of the ploughs were doing the same thing. They were. He braced his shield for an impending impact, then laughed and somewhat relaxed. It would be some time before it reached him at the speed it was moving.
He assumed there would be some orders from those above before it did.
*
“I’m trying very hard not to meet the eyes of whoever told me there were no magic signatures on those ploughshares.”
A somewhat nervous young woman stepped forward. “The Mages are clear, my Lord. Those ploughs are not being operated by magic.”
They watched, in silence, as hundreds of ploughs, apparently entirely of their own volition, moved at a snail’s pace towards the first line of the encircling forces.
“So, what is happening? Anyone? Speak freely, damn you. Is there a danger here?”
“It occurs to me that there are numerous Skills, my Lord, to assist Farmers in their work,” Degralk offered.
“Skills?”
“Yes. I am no great authority, but my wife is of Farming stock. I have heard of Farmers who possess an ability such as, I don’t know,
“Fascinating.” His tone made Degralk wince, but Souit quickly added, “Genuinely. I have never heard of such a thing. Farmers with Skills? Whatever next?”
Souit turned to regard the slow-moving charge. “So, it is possible Swinford’s Farmers are, what, seeking to provide some form of martial support? To what purpose? How deep are those furrows?”
One of the aides was quick to answer. “Our estimation is a hand’s breadth, my Lord.”
It made no sense to Souit. He could see no tactical use for such implements nor the benefit of so shallow a trench. “Have one of our Mages destroy one. Just one, mind you. If there’s something untoward being planned here, let’s not fall into their trap.”
In seconds, a small ball of fire was released from the lines facing the northern wall. It streaked towards one of the ploughs, destroying it in a puff of smoke.
The impact on the other ploughs was immediate. They stopped their ponderous move forward and leapt into motion, streaking towards the front line.
