Act of Will

SCENE XXVII The Convoy

We moved off at first light, a column of dark wagons bristling with spears and escorted by sixty horsemen in royal blue cloaks and silver helms. We looked ready for anything and, suspecting that we weren’t, I hoped that appearances would do the trick. I didn’t know what Mithos had told the duke about how close his precious cargo had been to the bottom of the ocean thanks to a mere handful of the raiders. I had always known they could outnumber us, but I had presumed we could outthink them, like in the stories. I was pretty pleased with myself for figuring out the lighthouse ruse, but I also knew that if we hadn’t caught them off-guard in a space too small for them to swing those bloody ax things, the evening would have gone rather differently.

We sent some of the infantry to recover the corpses of the raiders so we could inspect them, but they couldn’t find them, or they lost them, or something.

“How is that possible?” I yelled at the young officer in charge of the detail. “They were at the lighthouse. Did you find the lighthouse?”

“They weren’t there,” he said. “Not when we got there. Somebody must have taken them.”

Great. I doubt we would have discovered anything from them, but it was disheartening to have missed the opportunity of learning something from our brush with death.

“I hear you did your part at the lighthouse,” said Orgos.

“I guess,” I said, uncertain whether I was proud of the fact or not. The whole thing had unnerved me rather.

“You guess what?” said Renthrette, appearing at my elbow.

“Nothing,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t pursue it.

“Sounds like Will was quite the warrior,” said Orgos.

Her slim mouth frowned.

“I didn’t see,” she said flatly. “I think he helped.”

Orgos shrugged uncertainly and carried on what he was doing. That was it: Will the conquering hero risking his life for his comrades, for her miserable brother, no less, wading courageously into the fray, saving the day with his finely honed skills, and all she could come up with was an “I think he helped.” Great.

Lisha and Garnet supervised the loading of the wagons and I wandered the streets, ready to relay messages from our stationed guards. That was the official story, anyway. In fact, I was sick of hanging around the harbor and being asked for advice by adolescent infantrymen who couldn’t figure out a way to get a barrowload of coal into the back of a wagon without tipping it all over the dockside. So I excused myself, grabbed a few bottles of beer, and tried to impress some local women with tales of my heroic exploits. Another failure.

I slept for the first ten miles or so, slouched over the tailgate of the third wagon with my crossbow beside me. When I woke there was a thin sea mist rolling about us, so that the horses and wagons a few yards away were pale and indistinct. Lisha ordered that we close up, and soon the horses behind us had their noses to our wheels. I patted them awkwardly and offered them apples on the end of my short-sword.

Duke Raymon had gone on ahead, casting politic smiles of confidence and, more significantly, pouches of silver in his wake: ten silver pieces for each of the party “for expenses.” All things considered, I supposed, I wasn’t doing too badly: unless, of course, the raiders tried smashing our convoy and its poxy escort of schoolboy soldiers. Then I would be doing very badly indeed.

Garnet was riding alongside a handsome young cavalry officer with blond hair trailing from beneath his helmet. I couldn’t catch what they were saying, but they seemed to have connected somehow. Once, the officer threw back his head and laughed loudly, flourishing his lance in a strong right hand. Garnet nodded enthusiastically and showed off his ax. They wanted something to happen: could hardly wait. Even their horses seemed to be tapping out dance steps on the road, as if eager to gallop away from the wagons and into the fray.

Close by, a pair of the officer’s men (they couldn’t have been more than my age) swapped nervous smiles and lies about past experience, glancing around the countryside with studied carelessness. I was still watching them when the cry went up from the back of the column, “Raiders! Raiders to the rear!”

Instant confusion. All around me the faces of the escort soldiers were torn with panic. Their horses snorted and kicked their front hooves. At least one soldier was unseated and thrown to the road, his mount bolting off into the mist. Mithos passed me, spurring his horse to the rear of the column and shouting, “How many of them are there? Where’s the infantry commander?”

The wagons collided as some increased their speed and some stopped outright. The horses caught between them neighed and stamped furiously. I scrambled out and up to the roof where two young infantrymen were shouting at each other.

“Douse the coal,” I said, starting to tip one of the huge water barrels. “Soak it.”

They did so in stunned silence and then stood there, waiting for me to tell them all was well, or what to do to make it so. I primed my crossbow and looked out over the backwards snake of the misty wagons. They were all still now, and clogging the roadway so that the cavalry were spilling out at random and gathering in aimless huddles around the tail of the convoy. The fog was still too thick to see properly, but I could hear the officers shouting for word of the attackers. God willing, it was a false alarm.

Mithos and Lisha had dismounted and were urging the infantry into a protective line against the wagons, the heads of their long spears extended to keep the invisible horsemen at bay. But the cavalry had no idea what they were doing, and as their commanders yelled, the force split, some inside the defensive spear wall and some out. I saw Garnet charging amongst them, trying to draw them together, his ax and shield raised. At his elbow rode the blond officer, cloak flying out behind him as he spurred his horse towards the rear. He had drawn his saber and held it aloft in a clean, white-gauntleted hand, so that it flashed in the soft morning light. He looked at me, or rather at something in my direction, and I saw his earnest, commanding features. Garnet joined him, his face lost in the shadow of his horned helm, and they cantered out of sight.

There was a moment of stillness. Then it started.