Glaisne pushed back blonde hair not quite grown long enough for the leathers he wrapped the rest in, wishing he had a hat.
Comid army didn’t quite have a uniform cap, but the floppy-bonnetted birritta of the average Midraeic farmer had become standard, and his had been flopped right off his head by the arrow that had taken a triangular chunk of his right ear with it. His flat cap sat squashed at the bottom of his bag in a tent that might be his tent, or his contab’s tent – he wouldn’t be sure until someone told him and there was something going on that meant people weren’t eager to take on the task of telling him, or all of the telling that would follow a new addition to the contubernium. In the mess of tents and supplies and horses and livestock and men that was the Comid Command it was hard to tell who among the glitteringly decorated were safe to speak to for a soldier.
And he was blonde under all the dirt, so he was Ainjir. The only Ainjir in sight. The Rebellion was for everyone but it would be hard not to notice a certain concentration in the upper ranks. He had become used to it, among the regular soldiers, but when everyone but the servants outranked you it became a matter for attention again.
It gave him grit. Determination. He had earned his way up into a position of trust and he would prove he deserved it. It honoured him. He honoured it.
Save the speeches, because after standing like a maypole in the crossroads he was being approached – straightened up, tried not to check his jacket for stains he already knew were there and nothing could be done about – then he should–
A horse let out a screaming neigh – the big conferencing tent ahead was emptying – which was followed by a frustrated shout of eha, and three short slaps, and hoofs stomping, and then one of the fine figures emptying out of the tent broke from the rest, crossed to the horse pen in seven long steps, and laid the groom flat.
Everyone had stopped the minute the figure broke free, even the soldier approaching Glaisne had his head craned over his shoulder to watch. Glaisne had trouble remembering if he had ever seen a move so smooth, and fast – not a punch to the face, but the point of an elbow straight into his sternum – a killing blow! How could he breathe? The way the groom stayed on the ground suggested he couldn’t, but the figure – a general – a Dux – the Grand Dux – picked him up by the centre of his chest, sweeping the crop out of the dirt in the same gesture, and stood the groom on his feet long enough to whip him across the face.
The groom made no noise, so he was probably out, but he would know it happened because the amount of blood coming off his face meant he would never look the same. He collapsed the moment the Grand Dux let him go; the Grand Dux threw the crop down onto his chest as if wanting to snap it, then turned to attend to his horse.
The people began to move again, like rabbits coming to feel safe after a startle.
“You’re the new guard?”
Glaisne was still staring at the scene. The other grooms had come to drag their compatriot out of the way, not very sympathetically, in his opinion.
Fingers snapped in front of his face.
“You’ll get used to it.”
He was speaking to a Midraeic man, fully half a foot taller than him, which was unusual enough on its own, but who also spoke Ainjir with a foreign accent.
“Glaisne Féaraighghlana,” he saluted.
“Good enough,” the man said, returning the salute. “Flavus Palus, trecenarius of Grand Dux Galen’s personal guard, but don’t let it go to your head. I’m not paid that much and there aren’t that many of us. Decanus will do if you’re formal.”
He glanced back to the horses, then focused on Glaisne again. “You’re a good soldier?”
Feeling out the attitude of his superior – trecenarii were supposed to be high honourable – he said, “Maybe.”
Palus might have smiled if his face had moved. “I heard you did a good job covering a raid retreat on a night everything went wrong.”
“I did do that,” Glaisne said, but neither were listening.
Grand Dux Galen had ridden up on a big, red-brown charger that looked like it visited its mother pulling down trees and went to work with its father stomping soldiers to death. This was more or less also how Grand Dux Galen looked, except smaller. Glaisne had never seen a harder set of eyes that weren’t stone.
“We go to Porchlaine,” he said to Palus. Glanced at Glaisne, acknowledged Palus’ salute with the barest nod, turned his horse who looked like it liked nothing better than turning for him, and rode away.
“Everything goes wrong here every day,” Palus said.
Porchlaine wasn’t where they were going, but a little squat of huts more or less approximately where they aimed to be at the end of the week.
He met the rest of his contab on the way. They were nice fellows. He was the only Ainjir, but only for a short time, as he wasn’t the only newcomer, for reasons that weren’t clear but were probably bad. He wouldn’t ask, they weren’t telling, and there wasn’t much opportunity for it anyway.
Maybe it was the campaign: there wasn’t much tale-telling, there was a lot of practising. They were a small group after all, so it was hard, he imagined, to have lost so many and to welcome any new ones in. But he also felt nervous, and the other new fellows soon felt nervous, too, so everybody started practising.
If these supposed elites didn’t feel ready, how should they feel? But then, these didn’t feel like elites. There weren’t enough of them, to start – officers two steps down from the Grand Dux of It All had twice as many guards. Their recruitment was haphazard; one guy was raw – like really, really raw – and had been picket-dutying and learning to march a month ago. But he could ride a horse. They all had to ride horses.
“It’s a good post,” his mate Qualus had said, coming to sit beside him at mess. “Just wait. We get screwed.”
Glaisne wasn’t sure how to take this.
‘It’s a good post BUT we get screwed, just wait to see how screwed’?
‘Just wait to see us get screwed, it’s a good post (ironically)’?
‘We get screwed but if you make it through that it’s a good post, just wait’?
Then they left behind the last of the Command in the back camp and the whole company breathed deep. Nobody liked being near command. Yeah, it was good for comforts, if you wanted a warm blanket, hot food, a decent chance at a warm bath and clean water. But it had the effect of a stabbing cold to anyone with half an eye on politics. It didn’t feel safe, except that you weren’t likely to get killed. Sometimes that was all the safe you needed, but it did start to jump up one’s back the longer you stayed.
It didn’t feel right, or good, but maybe that was how all Command was. It was his first war; he wouldn’t know.
“Do you suppose we’re harbouring fugitives?” Pike – his name was really ‘pike’, probably because of the fish and not because that was all he knew how to use, and that only in the last six months – asked them as they ambled their horses towards the line being held by the regular infantry between them and Porchlaine.
“They don’t like him,” Qualus said, riding up to interrupt them. He tipped his chin towards the front of the line where Palus and the Grand Dux rode.
The confusion on Glaisne and Pike’s faces must have been enough of a reply.
“It’s not that they don’t like him...” Canda said, riding in from the side, but he drifted away from whatever he was going to say.
“They don’t like him,” Qualus repeated. “He’s not cooperative.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Pike asked. “He’s Grand Dux – who’s he got to cooperate with?”
“He doesn’t like it when they kill us,” Canda said, half-grin on his face.
“I don’t like getting killed,” Glaisne said.
“Me, neither,” Qualus agreed.
“I think he’s a pacifist,” Canda said suddenly, expression contemplative as the looked at the riders ahead of them.
“Fuck no,” Qualus said. “Are you dumb?”
“Lots of Geroniformis Middies were; it’s how they got kill’t. It doesn’t make sense, otherwise.”
“You’ll get a fistful of answers you say that shit too loud but besides, THAT doesn’t make sense, he went to the damn...” Qualus snapped his fingers questioningly.
“The Academy?” Glaisne offered.
Qualus snapped and pointed to him. “That damn military academy Ainjir has. Couldn’t be a pacifist there.”
“Maybe...” Pike said something, but he was the lowest-ranked, so nobody listened to him.
“I just don’t think it makes sense that they don’t like him – what’s not to like?” Canda said, taking his horse up a pace so he could he wander around the group, weaving in and out (his horse was a speedy one, had the kind of paces a farm horse shouldn’t, and they were both game for being annoying). “He doesn’t like dead soldiers and he doesn’t bow to priests and he knows The Books better than them and he likes the Ainjir and he’ll tear you to bits for being rude...”
“Officers are rude,” Pike said, which they all graced with their acknowledging nods.
“Liking the Ainjir doesn’t seem so bad,” Glaisne said, as it was safe, and they all grinned at him but Qualus.
“Of course it doesn’t make sense,” Qualus said. “He’s founding the Republic. They should be bowing to him.”
He paused, but only a moment. “They don’t like him.”
The problem with Porchlaine wasn’t where it was, or what it was, but that they needed that bow of the river and their soldiers kept not returning from trying to get it.
The strategy was well above Glaisne’s purview and interest. He hadn’t liked very much that he understood tactics the best in his previous contab and not wanting to die obligated him to put that knowledge to use. It pleased him that his whole concern in this one was not letting Grand Dux Galen get killed and nothing other than that was his business to consider.
“It’s hard,” Palus had admitted to him while they waited outside the tent where the Grand Dux was getting acquainted with the situation with the local force’s leader.
“You’ll mostly be keeping up,” he said, as if this were deeply displeasing.
“I can keep up,” Glaisne said.
Palus shook his head, not as if Glaisne were wrong, but as if he hadn’t understood.
Two of others had gone in with Grand Dux Galen; one emerged, then the Dux, then the other. The Grand Dux walked directly to Palus.
“We root them out,” he said.
Palus saluted as if this were a complete set of orders that made sense, but that was how things had gone so far. So Glaisne was putting on his helmet – the personal guards got helmets – and strapping on his sword and waiting to see if anyone else got on a horse before he decided what else he needed to do.
They convened at the weapons tent to ensure they were all similarly equipped and well appointed.
“The problem isn’t an overwhelming force, it’s a dug-in force,” Palus was explaining to them as they armed. “Nobody here has had the skill to circumvent a prepared enemy.”
“Nobody here was smart enough to figure out there wasn’t an overwhelming force,” Qualus joked. “So they didn’t try.”
“Now they want us to die instead of them,” Trente, a grim and quiet fellow guard said.
“Shut it,” Palus snapped. “This is the Grand Dux’s order.”
Glaisne watched them all fall silent, and felt the lift of everyone’s shoulders. Though eager enough to feel lifted himself before a battle, he couldn’t fathom the cause, except that maybe they all felt safer being mostly defended by each other instead of a random pack of stymied infantrymen.
Given what Glaisne had gone through to get himself this position, he could understand that, if that’s what it was.
They reconvened by the river’s edge at night, supplemented by some twenty of the regular infantry, crouched amongst thick trees and bushes; the other side of the river looked much the same, but he hoped it was much emptier.
“The current here is fast,” the Grand Dux said, “but the river is only deep in one or two places. Remain by your swimming partner and do not panic. They can’t afford fires lest they show their numbers and positions and ours were given away weeks ago. It will be to our benefit if the other team discover the enemy first, but if we should do it we shall be making as much commotion as possible to draw the fight to us. Until then we must be as silent as possible. The army will delay not more than ten minutes into any combat before they begin their crossing. If you are struck, do not be struck silently.”
So they were going to separate themselves from backup, creep into enemy-infested woods with no knowledge of enemy numbers or whereabouts, and then try to make sure as many enemies as possible knew where they were.
Glaisne had been in too many battles for battle itself to cause anxiety, but as he crouched in the woods, mud on his face and plastered over his hair, and heard more words than he had ever heard spoken by the Grand Dux of Comid Republic, he felt anxious.
Everybody took it well enough, but ‘making as much commotion as possible to draw the fight to us’ meant their little unit was purposefully trying to get the whole enemy army to come down on their heads. Sure, if there were twenty of them, too, it would probably work out, but they didn’t know if there were twenty or twenty-hundred, so it was suicide.
He wasn’t supposed to be thinking about it, but he was thinking about it. It was habit, he figured. Nothing about this really made sense, if he thought about it, which was why he had tried so hard all day not to think about it. It being suicidal is probably why it had broken through at this moment, as they waded into the river.
It didn’t make sense to have a Grand Dux that went out on sneaking night missions; it didn’t make sense to deploy him out to troubled spots of the front instead of having him sit back and plan overall strategy; it didn’t make sense that he could so calmly say ‘the army will delay ten minutes’ to come and save their asses if they stepped in shit.
‘Ten Minutes’ was forty minutes when it took half an hour to cross the river – and more people meant always that it would take longer – and then however many minutes it took to find them in the fucking dark-ass woods when they didn’t even know where they were going. IF they were ready to go on the clap, on the first sign of battle, and didn’t delay forming up or making decisions or changing their minds.
But none of that was really his concern. Maybe it could be Palus’. His job was to make sure Grand Dux Galen didn’t die and maybe that would be a challenge – he could barely see the fucker now, at the head of the line way up in the river – but it was all he had to do.
He did wonder how much the Command didn’t like Grand Dux Galen.
But he didn’t have much time to wonder, because they were almost done crossing the river (he was paired with Qualus, who could swim) and if his job was to make sure Grand Dux Galen didn’t die, his job would be easier if the other group found the opposing army first. So he listened and hoped for that while he crept towards the darkened underbrush.
They darted into cover again amongst the trees. Once everyone was assembled, they continued creeping. Every once in a while, they stopped, still as stones, to listen, then crept on.
He almost got his hopes up early one but it turned out to only the rustling of small game amplified by his vigilance. His vigilance was both too much for nothing happening and not enough for the bollocksing they were asking for.
The truth was, it could come from any side. One hoped one might run face-first into the enemy camp, but it was just as likely in their creeping they would pass it and be spotted from the side, or even the rear. If there were pickets, they would be like a poppy seed in a cow pat, and the whole Grand Dux guard could get fucked from any side.
They got fucked from the left. He was middle-left. Supposed it was good to have it start nearby.
It was a little brush-fort wall, so had they run right into it they couldn’t have done anything. Coming around the side meant they shocked the shit out of each other and charged, the guys lounging about looking for people coming at them having a slight advantage over the guys starting at every noise, because again, too much vigilance was almost as bad as none at all.
Once it happened, it was like every battle he had been in thus far. This one had no arrows – too much foliage – which he liked, but it was a hazy, messy, chafing, loud, squeezing, stinking, wet, choking business. It was battle.
The Ainjir were so spread out, though, that there was time to think between deaths, which was never good. He felt his heart drop every enemy cleared, body dropping before him, as he had a second in which to stand and look through the trees to see where should go next. Thoughts crept in. The death that touched the man in front of him lingered at his shoulders, offering to take him, too. Why, after all, was he here?
He was here to keep Grand Dux Galen alive, and Grand Dux Galen was twenty paces away, about to be stabbed from behind.
Glaisne hadn’t been thinking about anything, except that death-feeling, and had no notion how they had gotten so close, but thoughtless clarity drove him to sprint – he didn’t need to plan, didn’t need to see, just needed to get there, get between them, just fling himself in the space between sword and back before it closed, before anything could happen, and–
The Grand Dux turned his head, looking over his shoulder at Glaisne as if weren’t in the middle of three soldiers, one of whom was blinding another with a gouting spray of blood from his neck, about to be stabbed by a fourth if Glaisne’s pounding feet didn’t put his body in the way in time.
Grand Dux Galen dropped like a dancer, like a duck, like a seabird diving – simply Was standing upright then Was Not – and Glaisne’s breath left his body like foam swallowed by water. He fell sideways, his forward momentum driven off by a foot in his middle that guided him like a floating corpse in an eddy to the ground off to the right. As he spun he watched the graceful silver arc of the Grand Dux’s sword slip sideways through the torso of the man who had been trying to stab him, red spraying like woodchips out of a tree given a good, hard whack.
Then, of course, Glaisne’s face was in the ground, whole body numb to the blow for watching something far more interesting. But he scrambled to look up to see what would happen next, and saw the Grand Dux completed the turn, facing the last two, stabbing through the body of the one while blocking the other, drawing the last in with the block to rock his head back with an elbow to the jaw, pulling the sword free of the other body and slicing the back of the knee, bringing his opponent down, then shoving him to the ground, one great hack down two-handed at his spine once felled, like splitting logs.
His nose hurt – maybe his face was bleeding, Glaisne thought of himself, and bringing his hands up brought the instinctual urge not to remain on the ground surging forward. He started to scramble up, and only got to palms-under shoulders before he was seized by the front of his uniform and thrown into the heavens.
Then he was standing on the earth again, staring into deep, dark pits.
“Don’t die for me,” growled the Grand Dux, releasing Glaisne’s uniform, turning away to join the battle, burning eyes focusing elsewhere.
Glaisne would never think to die again.
Porchlaine wasn’t even where they stayed when they got across the river. They saw it passing on the right as they rode towards the point at which they would no doubt learn of the next debacle they were headed for.
Qualus had died. Pike probably would. Glaisne had never known anyone to survive such wounds; infection would take him, but he hoped he just bled to death first.
The worst injury he had gotten was a bloody nose from the Grand Dux smashing his face into the ground. It would maybe be a little crooked now.
The guard had attended – swarmed – the final debriefing, a gang of thugs extracting their toll from a reluctant taverner. Glaisne picked a pill in the tent wall, hoping it would tear, and watched from the corner of his eye as Palus stood beside the Grand Dux and the camp officer as they talked. Palus’ feet sat almost between the knees of an officer many ranks higher than him who was seated in a camp chair. Palus kept drawing his sword an inch or so forward and dropping back it back into its scabbard a mere foot away from the officer’s eyes. The Grand Dux was handed a bundle of papers, and they not very carefully exited the tent still covered in mud and blood and leaves to retrieve their horses and take their leave.
They were well clear of the camp before Glaisne asked, “What were those?”
“Letters,” Canda said, still picking some of the fine roast he had helped himself to in the camp officers’ tent out of his teeth.
They had relaxed. In another unit, Glaisne might have been concerned: bloodlust slaked, they relaxed. But now he knew something, and he had lived once; they relaxed – he was with them, might even stay a while.
“Letters from his family,” Canda explained into Glaisne’s silence.
“They don’t like him,” Trente rumbled.
“They don’t trust him,” Canda clarified. He cast a careful eye back at Glaisne, under arched brow. “You think they might have a reason?”
“Bollocks it,” Trente grunted.
“Hard to trust a man you don’t like,” Glaisne observed.
“Who’s got trusting problems?” Trente growled, pushing his horse to step a little faster. “They don’t like him, their problem.”
“Our problem they don’t trust him.”
“I do,” Glaisne said, shrugging.
They nodded, Canda smiling and teasing Trente’s horse with his own mount’s more beautiful paces, and they rode on to the next, and the next, and the next – however long was needed.