Keep on the Borderlands

1

Autumn came late to the southern borderlands of the realm. Dry, rank patches of grass on either side of the road bore signs of frost, and meadows that a month earlier were hock-deep in fragrant clover and wildflowers had been turned into a grayish waste. North of the road, scrubby brush edged a burned-out forest. South, a distant copse of trees marked a source of water—most likely a stream. A few bright red or yellow leaves fluttered in the light breeze, but most were gone, leaving pale branches to stand out sharply against the clear morning sky or the thick fir-woods beyond them.

The sun, barely risen, cast long shadows and shone straight in the eyes of the small company of armed men who rode guard on three covered carts. The six horsemen wore mail and swords, and strung bows lay across several saddlebows. Early light glinted red on a sheaf of iron-tipped boar spears clutched by a gray-bearded man seated next to the driver of the lead cart. He, like the riders, gazed all around, his eyes never still, keeping tense watch. Keen-eyed guards rode behind the last wagon and the four saddled and bridled horses tied to it.

Aside from the clop of hooves on the dusty road, the occasional creak of leather or wheels, it was very quiet.

The lead horseman swore under his breath as sun struck him full in the eyes. He adjusted the brim of his leather cap and edged his mount nearer his companion—a man much younger but like enough to be his brother.

“Hand me that bow, Blorys, and fix your hat,” he ordered tersely. “Rotten watch you’ll keep, with your eyes full of sun-fire.”

Blorys nodded and complied with the order, shoving loose bits of red-gold hair off his brow and under the chain-mail coif. He reached for the bow, then froze.

The leader held his breath, listened intently, but heard nothing except horses and wagons.

“Gone quiet out there, Jerdren,” the youth murmured. “Too quiet. And there was a hawk took flight from that dead tree yonder, near the bend. I don’t think we’re what startled it.”

Jerdren nodded and glanced around. Nothing and no one visible.

“Ambush, you think?” He kept his voice low.

The horses slowed to a walk and the wagon drivers eased back to stay in place behind them. The four mercenaries Jerdren had hired days earlier were right where they belonged—two flanking the wagons, two at the rear.

“Not much of any place to hide along the road this near the Keep,” Blorys replied.

He glanced at the blackened trunks and fallen trees to his left. The Keep’s men kept trees and brush cleared back from the road. South, there was no cover this side of the distant stream.

“There—” he indicated ahead with his chin—“I’m thinking, just around the bend ahead.”

“True. Big rocks up there, as I remember. I smell a trap, Blor. You back down and pass the word. Casual and quiet like. No sense tipping our hand, is there?”

His brother gave him a sardonic grin. “I know how it’s done, Jers. But I’m staying right with you unless you swear not to charge out on your own.”

“Hah.” Jerdren grinned. “You think I’m damned fool enough to ride into a horde of thieves by myself?” The younger man rolled his eyes. “Anyway, this near the Keep, it’s more like your hawk’s found something to—”

A resonant hum interrupted him. He threw himself sideways, flat against the horse’s neck, as a long, black-fletched arrow whined through the air and buried itself in the first wagon. The driver shouted in surprise and dragged back hard on the reins, pulling the horses and the cart off balance briefly. His companion readied one of his thick-hafted spears for throwing and came partway upright.

“Stay down!” Blorys ordered sharply. He fitted an arrow to his string and shook the quiver resting by his knee, making certain the other shafts would slip out easily. “Nice of ’em to warn us!” he said.

“Nice? Stupid, I’d say!” Jerdren said tersely and slid his sword under his leg, leaving both hands free for his bow. “Let’s hope our hide merchants remember what I told ’em to do if we’re jumped.”

He urged his bay gelding forward at a trot, and Blorys on the dapple mare came with him.

It was quiet once more. One lone maverick up there, or an over-excited fool in a company waiting to take the caravan as it passed? Jerdren wondered. He wagered the latter. A quick glance showed him the wagons were close together, their hired men taking up positions along the left flank and behind the last cart.

He and his brother came around the bend, holding the right side of the road—as far from the rubble of boulders and hillock as they could get. The silence held, and even with the early sun hard on the boulders, he couldn’t see anything but stone, dirt, and a few scrubby bushes. Jerdren slowed to a walk.

“No one there,” he murmured and sent his eyes ahead to the next possible danger—a low, bald ridge marking the path of a dry creek. He caught his breath sharply. Something metal flashed in the sun, then dropped out of sight on the far side of the ridge, maybe four strides back from the road.

“Saw it,” Blorys said quietly.

“Nice and easy,” Jerdren replied. His face was grim.

A clatter of hooves broke the silence. Six men on dark hill ponies broke cover some distance ahead, fanned out across the road, and at a sharp command spurred forward, howling and bellowing. Each carried a heavy-bladed short sword high, ready to hack. Behind them, another six rough men on foot piled out of the brush, bows and javelins in hand, and behind the ridge, others were shouting threats and curses.

Jerdren had to shout at his brother to be heard. “Think they’re trying to distract us?”

Blorys shook his head grimly, tucked the reins in his belt and drew back on his bowstring. “Trying to scare us into surrendering, more like!”

Jerdren laughed at that. “Picked the wrong caravan then, didn’t they?”

His first arrow barely missed one of the horsemen, falling just short of the men on foot, who, for the moment, were staying put. One of the riders—a bull of a man with a wild black beard and long hair spilling from under a metal cap—shouted another order. The horsemen split, three to each side of the road as their footmen launched a volley of arrows, then closed ranks again. One knocked Blorys back as it slammed into his shoulder, but it fell to the road, foiled by his hardened leather vest.

The riders stopped at a sign from black-beard—close enough to be clearly heard but out of reach except for a very good, or very lucky, arrow shot.

The mercenary leader stood in his stirrups and shouted, “Give up your wagons, you men, and we’ll spare your lives!”

Jerdren bared his teeth in a humorless grin as the footmen came up behind the riders, stopping several horse-lengths back. “Come and take ’em, why don’t you?”

“Don’t be fools. There ain’t enough of you to even slow us!”

“Twelve men? Twenty, even?” Jerdren laughed. “Bad odds for you, I’d say!”

He turned partway in the saddle and drew down on the nearest rider. The arrow went low and right, hitting the man’s upper arm with a metallic clank. The fellow snatched at the wobbling shaft and threw it aside.

“Armor!” Jerdren hissed at Blorys as the riders started forward again.

The younger man nodded once, then loosed his own arrow. It hit metal and flew wide, but he had another already to the string. Jerdren drew a steadying breath and took quick aim. He might have time for a second shot before shifting to his sword. The first arrow creased the leader’s horse, sending it rearing and plunging as the man swore and tried to get it under control. The second shot slammed deep into a bandit’s unprotected throat. Blood spurted, and the sturdy hill pony panicked, half-turned, and threw his dying rider. The man next to him veered around the fallen man and aimed a kick at the riderless animal. A mistake on his part; the frightened beast spun into him, and the dangling reins tangled around his boot. He went flying, lay momentarily dazed, then pawed his sword from the dirt and clambered to his feet.

Jerdren was ready for him. Teeth bared in a savage grin, he ripped the short sword from its sheath and brought it down in a slashing blow. The raider staggered back, folded in half over his torn belly, and fell across his already dead companion, gasping and wheezing.

Other men came from the north now, on foot, swords and javelins ready. Jerdren gritted his teeth. Time those armsmen he’d hired back up north earned their pay. He could only hope he’d chosen well, as the remaining riders swept up and joined battle with the two brothers.

Two men converged on him, grinning as they brought their swords down. Jerdren drew his horse to one side and kneed it forward, bringing his blade down hard against the nearest fellow’s unprotected neck. With a grunt of pain, the man fell forward and slid limply to the ground. Jerdren came back around sharply and slashed backhand at the second man—a sinewy fellow with a beard nearly as red as his own. Blades clashed before red-beard drew back, trying to find a way under his opponent’s guard.

Jerdren’s eyes flicked briefly left and right. The hired guards were keeping the bandits away from the wagons still, and up along the road, the footmen were moving nearer. They wouldn’t risk getting trampled, he thought, and he kneed his mount forward as he thrust. His enemy parried the blow, but the effort left him off-balance, and before he could recover, Jerdren slashed across the man’s face, opening a long, nasty cut just below the eye. Blood ran down his cheek. The fellow cursed raggedly, drew his horse aside, and came around, his sword ready to thrust. Jerdren slashed downward across it with the flat of his own, slamming it into the man’s unfortunate mount. The horse neighed frantically and staggered back, a thin line of blood darkening its pale gray coat.

Jerdren kneed his horse again, bringing the blade around hard as he rode past red-beard then checked and turned back. The hill pony reared. A bright-red arc of blood shimmered in the early sun as his rider slid down the beasts withers and fell to the road, where he lay still, sword still clutched in his fingers. The pony bolted back past the carts.

A quick glance assured Jerdren that the footmen hadn’t come any nearer. There were men down beyond the carts and north of the road. He didn’t dare take count just yet. One man lay limp across the neck of his pony and just beyond them, Blorys was fighting the last of the riders. Someone back along the wagons was howling in pain.

One of his hired men shouted, “All but two of ’em down, back here!”

“Stay alert!” Jerdren bellowed back.

A wail of agony was cut short as Blorys brought his hand down hard, two-handed, and cut deep into the man’s neck. The pony spun halfway around and bolted back toward the rough line of bandits still waiting up-road, dragging his rider. The foot fighters drew back, and several of them turned to run.

Jerdren’s exultant laugh stopped them. “Going somewhere? Cowards!”

Two of the men turned back, their faces dark with anger, but the third—a thin, beardless creature clad in greasy leathers—caught his breath on a sob, threw down his spear and fled down the middle of the road. The mercenary laughed again and urged his mount into a gallop, left hand wrapped around the reins, sword in his right. Blorys’ angry shout came after him, but he ignored that and clove a path through the scattering footmen, riding down the unfortunate fellow and dispatching him with one hard, slashing backhand. He fought his excited horse to a halt, brought him back around, and grinned at the remaining spearmen and archers, most of whom simply stared back. A warning shout from a hatchet-faced older man brought two of them around to face the charging Blorys. The younger man was cursing steadily, and he cast his brother a furious look before engaging the two ragged but determined spearmen. Hatchet-face drew back a pace, apparently watching for an opening.

I can’t get at him without going through Blor, Jerdren thought. He ducked as an arrow soared just over his head, slapped aside a spear with the flat of his blade, and turned toward the other two hulking brutes who clutched their spears and watched him grimly.

“Man on a horse has all the odds against footmen, hasn’t he?” he asked cheerfully. With a flash of teeth, he dropped from the saddle and sketched them a bow. “Like your chances better this way?”

Behind him, Blorys cursed, and one of the footmen cried out in pain.

The two men facing Jerdren glanced at each other, then shouted, and both charged him. Jerdren slapped one spear aside with a backhanded, flat-bladed sweep, sending its holder staggering, briefly off balance. Before the man could regain his feet properly, Jerdren ducked, coming up under the shaft of the second spear and grabbing it, hard. He yanked, thrusting with his blade at the same time. The man wore no armor, not even hardened leather. The sword went through his belly, stuck briefly in bone, then ripped free as Jerdren let go the spear and dropped back, yanking hard on the hilt. The mortally wounded man fell, clutching his belly. Jerdren was already pivoting on one heel, bringing the dripping blade around in a hard, flat, two-handed swing. Droplets of blood flew from the blade, glittering like rubies, before the weapon slashed through an upraised spear haft and through the robber’s neck. Jerdren didn’t even bother to see if he still lived; he was already across the road, ready to aid his brother.

But Blorys was off his horse, reins in one hand and bloody sword in the other, as he nudged each of the three men with a booted foot. The hatchet-faced man groaned faintly. The others were silent and rolled limply away from the pressure.

A sudden stillness reigned once more, except for the wheezing of the wounded man at Blorys’ feet, the faint sobbing of someone back among the carts, and a woman’s frightened weeping coming from the lead wagon. Jerdren bit back exasperation. I warned that hide merchant not to bring his lady, didn’t I?

He walked back to the lead wagon, his bay gelding now quiet and trailing after him.

A keen look around assured him that the road, at least, was clear. There had been fairly heavy fighting along the north side of the caravan, and he could see two fallen men beyond the third wagon. Two of the hired men were injured, but neither of them too badly. One sat pale and quiet as one of his fellows bandaged an oozing cut on his brow. The second tended to his own forearm, a bloody bandit’s arrow at his side. A third man lay still and pale beside the middle cart.

“Fell from his horse,” one of his comrades told Jerdren. “That one there—” he pointed to a dead bandit some paces away—“busted his head with a stone. Last thing he ever did.” Brief silence, which the man broke. “We took two of ’em prisoner, but one’s not likely to live. Bad cut in the leg.”

“I’ll deal with them shortly. You did well, you men,” Jerdren said. He raised his voice a little as he turned toward the lead wagon. “Lhodis! Hide merchant! How’re your people there?”

Blorys came up, leading his mare, a dripping sword in his free hand. A trickle of blood ran down his cheek. His eyes were dark with anger. Jerdren held up a hand as a tremulous voice came from the lead wagon.

“We’re… fine, swordsman! All right, I th-think.”

“Good! Everything’s taken care of! We’ll move on as soon as we can. You and your folk just stay inside there! Nothing out here you need to worry about.” Nothing you need to see, either, hide merchant, he added to himself. You or your lady.

Blorys dabbed at the cut on his cheek and cleared his throat ominously. Jerdren held up a hand for silence. “Later, brother,” he said. “We need to clear the road, and get moving.”

“Clear the—damn it all, Jers,” the younger man said flatly. “And if there’s more of ’em?”

“After what we did to the ones who showed themselves?”

Blorys sighed faintly. “It’s a point,” he conceded.

“We’ll post three men for watch,” Jerdren said mildly and glanced at the nearest of his hired men. “Pick two fellows with good eyes and make sure no one’s sneaking up on us. Can’t leave all these dead men on the road for the next party to find. Rest of you, help me and Blor get ’em a ways off the road.”

“Search them?” the armsman asked.

“Search? Look at them,” Jerdren replied sourly. “Poor ragged brutes—well, get ’em moved and search ’em if you please. We’ll split anything that’s found Make a pile of their weapons, though. We’ll take what we can of those. Keep men can always use the metal to melt into new blades, if not the weapons themselves, and they’ll pay well for that kind of thing.” He raised his voice slightly as the men began to move off. “Remember, main thing here is we clear away the bodies and get moving again! I want to make the Keep well before midday!”

Men scattered. Blorys went with three of their hired men to get rid of the footmen, while three of the others dealt with the dead and dying riders, and fastened the two remaining hill ponies to the back of the last wagon. Jerdren squatted down next to the two prisoners. Behind him, mercifully, the woman’s weeping died away, and it was quiet in the carts.

Two rough-looking men stared back at him. One whimpered, clutching his upper leg. Someone had wrapped a length of cloth around it, but blood still seeped around his fingers, and both the fabric and his breeches were soaked. The other sat cross-legged in the road, his face blank, fingers clinging to a broken bow.

“Well,” Jerdren said finally. “I wonder what we do with you two. Suppose we could gut you, same as we did for your friends, here. Or maybe you’d prefer to run for it? Of course, you’d have to go now, before I change my mind.”

The second man laughed harshly and indicated his wounded fellow with a jerk of his head. “How far do you think he’d get? How far’d I get, for all that, until you ran me down?”

Jerdren shook his head. “He’s no threat to me or those who hired me. Take him if you like, leave him if you’d rather. But go, and take a message with you for any of your kind still alive out there and thinking caravans like this one are easy pickings. Tell them how many dead men you left behind.”

“Hah.” But the bandit got stiffly to his knees and leaned over to speak quietly against his fellow’s ear. The second man simply clutched his leg and watched blood seep between his fingers. His eyes were half-closed, and his face deadly pale. After a moment, the first man got himself upright, with the help of his shattered bow, and glanced at Jerdren.

“I’ll tell ’em. They won’t listen, but I’ll tell ’em.”

“Do that,” Jerdren said evenly and stood to watch as the bandit limped up the road and into the dry creek bed. He vanished into the shadows of the burned forest some distance north.

Jerdren walked to the head of the wagons, turned to look back along them, then bent his gaze to the blood-smirched road to find any arrows that were still whole and true. He pocketed three arrowheads that could be remounted on new shafts and shoved a nasty-looking, well-balanced, broad-bladed dagger into his belt. Something like that would do a lot of damage, no matter where you stuck it in a man.

Most of the dead and dying robbers were well away from the road. One wounded hill pony lay thrashing feebly in the ditch south of the road. “Save poor Blor the pain of this,” Jerdren muttered as he found the big neck vein and drove his dagger in deep. The animal fell back and lay still. His brother hated seeing a horse suffer but hated having to dispatch one even more.

“And how we’re to get you moved,” the older man told the dead beast, “I don’t know.” A dead horse wasn’t as nasty a mess as ten or more dead men, but he’d rather not leave any bodies behind.

He climbed back onto the road. The hired men were making a pile of swords, daggers, spears, and the like behind the last wagons, and one of the hide merchant’s apprentices was helping stow the cache. Jerdren wiped his short sword and sheathed it, then checked his bay gelding over carefully before mounting. Blorys rode up to join him.

“Ready, Blor?” he asked.

Blorys shrugged. “Almost. Lhodis and his woman will probably have bad dreams for a while, but they didn’t actually see anything, and they weren’t hurt.”

“They’ll be fine,” Jerdren said shortly and gave the sign for the wagons to start. “I warned that man about bringing his woman.”

“He’s no worse than most of the merchants, Jers,” Blorys reminded him. His gaze stayed on the north side of the road, searching as they rode. “One reason they hire men like us for journeys into the wilderness. Like this one, remember?”

“Yeah. I know.” Brief silence. “There’s blood on the road, but there’s not a thing we can do about that.”

Blorys grinned briefly. “Pray for rain.”

“Hah. By tomorrow, it’ll be buried under dust anyway.”

“That pony—”

“Be realistic, Blor. The dead men and horses will all be gone before we reach the branch in the road at the foot of the Keep. Captain of a band that ill-manned won’t last long as captain if he doesn’t bury his dead, and they’ll want the horses for the meat.”

His brother merely nodded.

Perhaps another hour of steady riding, with no sign of pursuit or another ambush, and the lead men relaxed a little, slowing the pace to give the horses some rest.

“You owe me a pair of silver pence, Brother,” Jerdren finally said. “Remember? You bet me we’d never see a fight the whole way to the Keep, with all the men we hired.”

“Hah,” the younger man replied sourly. “You owe me a silver. For throwing yourself into the thick of things back there and trying to get yourself killed.”

Jerdren eyed him sidelong.

“I keep telling you, Jers, I like being a younger brother. I’ve gotten used to it, nearly thirty years’ worth, and I don’t mind if you leave me behind when we’re tottering, white-bearded old men, but—”

“What? You think I was in any danger from those footsore… those hacks?”

“They had the advantage of numbers and a sneak attack, Jers. Some of them were pretty good—how do you think I got cut?” The cut on his face still seeped a little blood, but it wasn’t deep or very long.

Jerdren grinned. “All right, a few of ’em. For the most part, they were underfed, scrawny brutes, probably not much good at hitting a standing target and lousy at moving ones.”

“So what? Men like that hunt in packs, Jers! To make up for the lack of skill! If there had been another twenty waiting out there—”

“Well, there weren’t,” Jerdren broke in. He glanced sidelong at his brother and grinned. “Besides, you were close enough, guarding my back, right?”

It was an old joke, but Blorys wasn’t smiling.

“You know not to count on that, Jers. I had my hands full—we all did.” He touched the drying cut, winced.

“I’ll clean that when we get in,” Jerdren said.

“I can manage.” A tight little silence.

Jerdren turned away from him to look out across the southlands, beyond the frost-killed meadow to the thick forest, the steep hills and the purplish hint of mountains beyond. Same unchanging thing day in, day out. Year in and year out. He sighed faintly.

“I’ll be glad to see the last of this one,” he murmured to himself.

Blorys heard him of course. The man’s hearing was extremely keen. “Glad? Why, brother? It’s a long ride, but we have decent horses, and this time at least the clients are friendly folk—unlike some we’ve guarded. It’s good pay, and Lhodis didn’t even argue the additional coin for the extra wagon and for the hired men. And he suggested the hazard fee, which we just earned, I think….” His voice trailed away. “You’re bored again, aren’t you, Jers? Like back home in Sedge when we were growing up, and later in the army.” He waited. His brother shifted his gaze from the south hills to the road and said nothing. “Jers, I thought we’d worked it out. There’s enough variety in hiring out, we take different routes—I thought this time you’d last at something.”

Jerdren opened his mouth and closed it again. Finally he shrugged. “Maybe I’m not done with it yet, Blor. After all, you still enjoy this.”

“Yes, but we also promised each other that one wouldn’t tie the other down. Doesn’t matter if I enjoy hiring out if you’re bored with it.”

Jerdren sighed faintly and shook his head. “We’ll talk about it once we reach the Keep.”

“We’ll do that,” Blor replied mildly. He glanced around. “We should take a proper break here. Eat a little, finish off the water bottles. The land’s a lot more open than at the branch-off to the Keep.”

Jerdren chuckled.

“What?” Blorys asked.

“You don’t really think someone would be fool enough to attack us at the base of that road? After the damage we just did back there? Besides, the castellan may not send armed parties out into the wilds any more, but his men can see most of that branch road from the walls. Not likely he’d let anyone get away with jumping their trade right at the front door!”

“Maybe,” Blorys said evenly, “but it’s gone from bad to worse out here, just in the three years we’ve guided caravans, and he keeps pulling back closer and closer to the walls every year. He hasn’t much choice.” He grinned crookedly, patted his brother awkwardly on the shoulder. “Sorry. You know all that, same as I do.”

“Never mind,” Jerdren replied easily.

They took a proper meal break in the open, then halted again briefly where the Keep road branched. Here the woods pressed closer and jumbled piles of boulders and slabbed rock were everywhere. The hired men kept watch up and down the road so Lhodis, his cutter, and two of his apprentices could mount the horses that had been tied to the rear wagon. The remaining merchant folk redistributed themselves in the three wagons, to make the hard climb as easy as possible for the teams. Blorys dismounted to help adjust stirrups and girths. Jerdren sat his bay gelding and kept a careful eye on the east woods and the road threading its narrow, rutted way through the trees. Eventually it vanished into tree shadow where the woods came down to meet it.

Jerdren glanced up as the sun went behind a cloud, and a light, chill wind blew between his coif and the back of his neck. The air felt damp, all at once. Rain or perhaps even snow by nightfall, he thought. Snow was something he’d only appreciate from inside the Keep’s tavern, with a good mug of ale in his hands and a belly full of the taverner’s best stew warming him.

Blorys had finished with the horses and stopped to talk briefly with the gray-beard who was running the a careful check on the last of the wagon-brakes. He called the hired men in and went over to join his brother, who was still gazing down the east track.

“Wonder what’s out there, these days.” Jerdren said.

“Nothing a clever man would want,” Blorys replied.

The older brother roused himself. “What?” he challenged. “You don’t believe in the fabled riches of the east? All the tales we heard back in barracks?”

Blorys grinned. “Parnisun’s Castle made of gold and gems? No. And you don’t either. Any road as rutted and narrow as that doesn’t lead to a palace, unless it’s one like the Ogre King’s house of bones.”

“Be something to see, anyway,” Jerdren said thoughtfully. “No ogres,” Blorys said firmly. “No east road. Let’s go. It feels like it’s about to snow out here.”