Oath of Gold

11

An immediate consequence of her new assignment was separation from the rest of the cohort. Stammel was unsurprised when she came to pick up her things from the barracks that night.

“You aren’t a common soldier any more,” he said bluntly, his composure recovered. “You can’t pretend to be. If you need a friend, I’m here, but I’ll take your orders the same as I would Arcolin’s or the Duke’s.”

Paks shook her head silently. She could think of nothing to say.

“One thing you’ve got to be clear on,” he went on. “I saw you retreat from this in Aarenis. If you mean to be a paladin—or a commander at all—you must accept being alone, clear through.”

Paks found her voice. “The Kuakgan said something like that. I know it’s true—I can obey only my own gods, now. But—”

“It takes getting used to. Yes. And you’re young. But not as young as all that. Our Duke commanded a cohort at your age—that was all the Company he had then. And Marrakai gave him command—have you heard this?”

“No,” said Paks, interested suddenly. She knew very little about the Duke’s past.

“You can’t stay long, so I’ll hurry the tale, but it’s worth telling. His first independent contract with the crown of Tsaia was in support of an expedition to Pargun. The crown prince commanded in the field, and the Duke—a captain then—had wangled a direct contract so that he ranked with the other independent commanders, dukes and counts and such. They didn’t like that, so I hear. Ask Siger, some time: he was there. They were at the Pargunese border, east of here, when the prince called a conference one night. All the commanders in one tent—and their bodyguards. A force of Pargunese made it through the lines from the rear, and killed nearly all of them. Our Duke was knocked cold; the prince was killed; Marrakai—the most powerful baron, then—was badly wounded.

“Marrakai was widely believed to have ordered the attack—no love lost between him and the crown, so most men thought. The camp fell apart—the prince’s commanders quarreling over command, and the steward threatening to go back to Vérella with his body—and our Duke took command, just by shouting louder than the others, according to Arcolin. Then Marrakai called him in, and gave him command of the Marrakai troops—five fighting cohorts—to attack the Pargunese and avenge the prince. So he did, and routed them, and brought back the head of the Sagon, the Pargunese western commander. That was his first big command, and that’s when he got this grant, and the title. The next year, it was, he began recruiting in the north, and I remember seeing him come through my hometown. I was too young, then, but I didn’t wait about long.”

“I had wondered how he got this land,” said Paks.

“You talk to Arcolin, now—he was our Duke’s junior, hired away from the Tsaian Guards, when he first came to Tsaia. Siger knew him before that; he was one of Aliam Halveric’s sergeants in the old days. That’s where our Duke got his first training.”

“Do you know where he came from? Before that?”

Stammel shook his head. “No. No one does, unless the Halveric. I tried asking Siger once, and near lost an arm. I wouldn’t advise it.” He looked at her, smiling now. “You go on now, and do what you came for.”

Paks had hardly stowed her few belongings in a cupboard when she heard the Duke’s voice in the passage, asking if she was back. She went out quickly, and followed him into his study. Cracolnya and Valichi were there; the other captains were not.

“The more I think about it,” the Duke said without preamble, “the more I think Venner was involved in most of what happened here. Val mentioned that trouble you had with the corporal—what was his name? Stephi?” Paks nodded. “It seemed fairly clear he’d been drugged, and at the time that potion was the best source. But if Venner could become invisible, as I understand he did during the fight with you—” He paused, and Paks nodded. “Yes, then he could have drugged the ale as he brought it, and drugged the potion bottle as well.”

“I still don’t see why, my lord,” said Cracolnya, after shooting a hard glance at Paks. “Why would he cause such commotion, and run such a risk, to get Stephi in trouble?”

“It wasn’t Stephi, I daresay,” said the Duke. “It was Paks—if she was going to become a paladin—”

“Why not just kill her, then?” Cracolnya sounded half-angry. “I’m sorry, my lord, but it seems entirely too roundabout—”

“He had no access to recruits,” said Valichi quietly. “He never came out of the Duke’s Court, but to visit the villages, and rarely then. He couldn’t have marched into barracks without being challenged—”

“But if he could be invisible?”

Paks had said nothing, still uncertain of her status, but now she intervened. “My lord, there’s more to it, I’m sure. As with all Achrya’s plots, we must look for more than one gain, and for interlacing of design. To discredit any good soldier—Stephi and me both, perhaps—and cause dissension in the Company, between recruits and veterans, between men and women, between Dorrin’s cohort and Arcolin’s.” She paused. Both the captains were nodding slowly; the Duke watched her closely. “Then the other recruits—Korryn and Jens, whom you never knew, my lord—”

“Bad ’uns,” put in Valichi.

“Yes, sir. If they had stayed longer, they might have done more harm by influence. Even as it was, the trial and the punishment drove some recruits away—you remember that, sir. And not the worst, either.”

“True.” Valichi nodded again. “And I daresay Stephi’s friends in the Company didn’t trust you, Paks, at first.”

Paks remembered Donag’s early unfairness. “No, sir, they didn’t. Stephi did what he could—he was always fair—”

“He was a good man,” said the Duke. “If we could have known—” He sighed and quoted a version of the old saying, “If never won a battle. We must go from where we stand. I’ve sent for a Marshal.” He looked around at all of them. “Until the Marshal comes, Paksenarrion, we’ll hope your gift is enough to warn us. Since you found nothing amiss in the servants, I’m willing to let them go back to their work. We don’t need that many, actually, and I’d as soon send some of them away, but it’s too near winter for them to find work elsewhere. I know how most places are about hiring in the late fall and winter.” His voice sharpened on this last, and Paks wondered how he knew. She had certainly run into that reluctance the previous winter.

“You could board some of them out in the villages,” suggested Cracolnya. “That would free your veterans for militia service if it’s necessary.”

“I could, but I’d want to be very sure they’re harmless. We’re better equipped to deal with traitors than the villages are. Another thing—are we likely to run into more of those spider-things, Paksenarrion?”

“I don’t know.” Paks frowned as she thought. “This is only the third one I’ve seen. The others were in Kolobia. I don’t know how common they are. We ought to be ready for another—but I doubt there’d be many of them.”

“Are they all shape-changed followers of Achrya?” asked Valichi.

Paks shook her head. “I don’t think so. One—larger than the one here—almost seemed to be a pet, or mascot, to the blackwebs in Kolobia. They bowed to it, before the combats, and they said it was Achrya’s servant. It—”

“Larger than that—?” Cracolnya seemed to have trouble speaking.

Paks nodded. “Yes, much larger. Each leg as long as I am tall, and the eyes fist-size, at least.”

“Great gods! Did it—did it do anything?”

“It bound in silk and ate those I defeated.”

He looked at her with new respect. “I had not realized—your pardon, my lord, for you told me, but I had doubts I never spoke—that Paksenarrion had faced such peril. In my own land we have many legends of the spider demons, and such a death is the worst we know.”

“I don’t know how it would fight outside its web,” Paks went on. “Those that I know were shape-changed used fangs and spinnerets both, as that one did last night. They move very fast, and can leap higher than a man’s head. If they have such, to lead the way through the tunnel, for example, archers might not be able to stop it.”

“Did you ever fight against one directly?” asked Cracolnya.

“Not alone. Three of us—the paladin I trained with, a dwarf, and I—fought it together.”

“What about the spinnerets?”

“It can’t throw the silk ahead while moving; it trails a line, instead. But if balked, it can stand on its rear legs and throw the silk forward. Arrows in the fat back section ruin its aim. The legs are bad too—claws, but a single sword-stroke will sever them.”

“Arrows in the eyes should work, shouldn’t they?”

“Yes, but it moves fast, and that’s a small target. The rest of the head end is hard armored; arrows glance off, as do swords.”

“I keep thinking,” the Duke said, “that unless Achrya is a very stupid demon, we’ll see trouble very shortly. Tonight, I expect. If I were in her place, I’d be moving as soon as I knew of trouble, and she’s bound to have had some way of keeping in contact. I wish Master Vetrifuge were here—some of his wizardy fire down there might fry a spider or two.”

Paks said nothing, but was just as glad Vetrifuge was elsewhere. Wizards and paladins worked ill together, but she doubted the Duke remembered that.

“We’ve oil enough in the stores,” Cracolnya said. “I daresay one of those wouldn’t like fire, wizardy or not. And that cellar is all stone and earth—it wouldn’t menace the rest of the building.”

The Duke nodded, and turned to Valichi. “Val, has anything moved outside today?”

Valichi shook his head. “Nothing, my lord. No reports of orc sightings from either village or any farmstead.”

“That in itself tells me they know something.” The Duke looked down at his desk, and shifted the sheets of paper. “Beyond doubling the watch, and keeping a close eye on that tunnel entrance—if that’s what it is—I can’t think of more for tonight. Can any of you?” Valichi and Cracolnya shook their heads, but Paks spoke up.

“One more thing,” she said, and waited for his nod. “Suppose they don’t attack here at all, but go past us to attack holdings south of here. Duke’s East, or even beyond your lands. If Achrya’s purpose is, in part, to discredit you—”

“I had not thought of that. Such a plan could include a small attack here, enough to convince us, with the bulk of them harrying south. Cracolnya—?”

“They couldn’t have moved today, my lord, unless they swung wide of the ridge east of here. We had plenty of men out, and even some miles west on the road. But tonight or tomorrow—”

“To make it work, they’d have to show that they’d come past me,” said the Duke. “If they entered from east or west, everyone knows I can’t patrol the entire north line alone, and no one holds west of me this far north. Proof—they’d need some proof—”

“Neither of the villages could stand against a large force,” said Valichi. “With plunder from there—even prisoners—”

“That’s it.” The Duke’s voice hardened. “By the gods, I think that’s it. Paks?”

“Yes, my lord. It feels right.”

“Now what? Let me think. How many would they commit to an attack on us? In the dark, it wouldn’t take much—some fire arrows, an attempt to break into the cellar—maybe fifty against the walls. Cracolnya, how few archers can you hold this place with?”

“Me? Tir’s gut! Mmm—most of the cohort—all of it, if you mean hold it very long. There’s that tunnel, don’t forget.”

“I haven’t. Even so—I’ll leave you a squad of Arcolin’s, to back you on the walls, and take two of your archers. Paks, go find Arcolin and Dorrin; tell them to ready their cohorts to march out at once, and then meet me here. You ride to Duke’s East—that’s where they’ll hit, because that’s where the Vérella road is. Rouse the militia, and tell them we’ll be there as soon as possible. Heribert Fontaine, the mayor, has a great horn—blow it if you see any sign of orcs.”

“Yes, my lord.” Paks turned to go.

“And even if you are a paladin, don’t try to take them on by yourself.”

“No, my lord, I wouldn’t.” Paks grinned at him, and ran out of the room. She had not been able to sense clearly what was wrong before, but this plan felt right.

Dorrin and Arcolin, when she found them, understood at once, and by the time she had saddled a fast horse, the cohorts were arming for the march. Paks led the horse out the postern, and found herself alone in the dark on a cold, windy plain. She mounted, and turned the horse toward Duke’s East. The north wind behind her carried the sounds of the Company roused. She legged the horse into a gallop, trusting its night vision over hers. The sounds fell away, as she rode, replaced by the thudding of hooves beneath, and the rush of wind.

She had never ridden in a night so dark. It was like being in a cave: heavy clouds shut out the sky, and she could see nothing, not even the horse’s neck in front of her. When they came to the shallow rise a mile out, she knew it only because the horse lunged at the slope, the rhythm of its stride broken. Then down the other side, into the same blackness. She thought of trying to make light, but decided to wait until battle was joined. It would only make her obvious to any watchers to do it now.

At last the watchlights of Duke’s East flickered ahead of her. The horse snorted, and lunged ahead. The lights came closer: she could see them now as individual torches, streaming in the wind, on the low bank that had been thrown up on the north side of the village. She pulled the horse down to a long trot, and yelled for the watch.

“Stand and speak,” yelled one of the sentries behind the bank.

She hauled at the horse, and it lugged to a halt. “I’ve word from the Duke for Mayor Fontaine,” she yelled back. “I’m Paksenarrion—”

“Come on, then,” said the guard. “What is it?”

She rode slowly into the circles of light, and slid off the horse in front of them. “You’re to rouse the militia,” she said. “The Duke’s bringing the Company, as soon as he can—he thinks the orcs will attack here.”

“Here? Why?” Paks recognized Piter, the innkeeper.

She shook her head. “It’s too long to explain—but he’s got reason. Be ready. Where’s the mayor?”

“D’you know his house?” asked Piter. Paks nodded. “Go, and I’ll call out the rest. Do you know how many?”

“No, but the Duke thinks it will be a large force.” Paks started up the lane, leading her horse. Behind her she heard Piter directing the watch, then the clatter of boots as they went to rouse others.

In the mayor’s house she found the Council of Duke’s East eating a late dinner. Kolya smiled as Paks came in, then sobered quickly as she gave her news.

“When will the Duke come?” asked Fontaine, looking worried.

“The cohorts were forming as I left,” said Paks.

“We can’t hold a real force,” he said. “That bank is just to slow them down and give our watch a chance to fire one flight of arrows. We have fewer than a hundred who can fight—”

“Most of the buildings are defensible,” Kolya pointed out. “The Duke’s insisted on stone roofs as well as walls, and we can’t be burned out. My cottage won’t hold, but it’s on the south bank anyway.”

“We’ll move everyone but militia into a few of the strongest houses,” the mayor said. “Is there time to bring in any of the farm folk? No, I suppose not. Forget the mill, and the south bank buildings: we’ll try to hold around the square.”

Paks had not met all the Council before, and did not know who the heavy-set black-haired man was who spoke next. “I’ll see to gettin’ the south bank folk in, Mayor—”

“Thanks, Tarn,” said the mayor, and the man went out quickly. The mayor turned to a man whose face was marked with a broad scar. “Vik, be sure the central houses are provisioned; use the winter stores, if you have time to move them. They’ll do us no good anyway, if the orcs get them.”

“Aye, Mayor—and what about slipping the millstones? If they burn the mill, it might crack the stones.”

“Good idea. Tell the miller that. Kolya—”

“I know.” She was already near the door, with a last grin for Paks. The mayor clambered up stiffly, and called upstairs to his wife.

“Get out the horn, Arñe, and bring it down here.” He looked at Paks. “This house has too many doors; I’ll send the family over to the square.”

A glass had passed, and part of another. Paks waited at the northernmost angle of the bank around Duke’s East, listening, with the others, for any hint of the orcs’ attack. They knew it would take the Duke’s Company another half-glass at least to march the distance in battle order . . . if the Company met no enemy on the road. Behind, the village was as secure as it could be. All who could not fight crowded into the buildings that bordered the square, all of which had but one door each, and narrow windows easily defended. Those who could draw a bow were by the upstairs windows. Paks raised her head suddenly, and sniffed. She heard nothing, but with a sense of unease came a sour stench on the wind.

“They’re coming,” she said to the man next to her. He was, as most of them were, one of the Duke’s veterans, and limped badly from a wound taken the last year in Aarenis. He’d been a farmer until the orcs burned out his farm. He grunted, passed the word to the man next in line, and drew his sword; she heard it rasp on the scabbard. They had torches ready to light, but until the enemy came, only widely scattered ones were lit.

Paks felt something dire nearby; her skin crawled. Something more than orcs moved in dark. She drew Tamarrion’s sword. The blade gleamed blue. Paks squinted into the wind—was that a reflection? With a shout she called on the High Lord, and light swept up from her upraised arm, pure white radiance revealing two of the spider figures only a few lengths away, and a mass of orcs behind them. Paks leaped for the top of the bank. She heard the cries of the watch, and saw the first gouts of flame as torches caught all along the line. The orcs broke into one of their marching chants, fierce and savage, and surged forward. Far back she heard the mayor’s deep horn. The spiders had scuttered back at the first of the light, but now bounded forward.

As they came up the bank, effortlessly, Paks slashed at their heads. One sprang sideways, evading her. The one in front reared back, head out of danger, and raked at her with a foreleg. Paks dodged and drove in, striking for the vulnerable neck. Tamarrion’s sword swung easily, and parted the black carapace as if it were butter. The head flew off, and the legs jerked. Paks jumped back to the top of the bank, looking for the other spider. It had disappeared: one of the militia waved an arm and Paks saw behind their lines a glossy humped back moving swiftly toward the center of the village.

“Look out!” yelled another man, and Paks whirled to face the first orcs. Swords rang on her blade; beside her the militia had climbed the bank too, and the clash and clatter of swords filled the night air. Paks killed the orc in front of her, and wounded another, but more filled the gaps. The pressure of them forced her back over the top of the bank. Here, for a moment, it was easier—as the orcs came over the top, the defenders could strike from below, where they were more vulnerable. But again, the orc numbers overwhelmed them, and they began to fall back toward the square. They could not even take their dead along, for the orcs poured over the bank in black waves, and they were almost driven out of line as it was.

Then from the left came a harsh blast of sound, and the roar of the Duke’s Company’s charge. Both cohorts struck the flank of the orcish advance. With the first flurry in the orcs’ attack, Paks called the militia around her to fall into double lines. She and the others managed to thrust forward until one end of the line was anchored on the bank again. Beyond her, the line doubled back sharply along a lane, but the defenders had only a short stretch from the bank to the first building with no sort of parapet. While the Duke’s charge pulled the orcish interest, they threw up a weak protection of furniture and barrels from that house, and stones from a garden wall. Beyond this, the orcs were pushed aside to stream past, on through the village.

The orcs had clearly not expected this kind of resistance. Once the line was in place, the militia felt at once the lessening pressure and orcs shifted to the right and beyond. Paks held the point until it was clear that the orcs no longer meant to dispute it. Then she called for reinforcements.

“But where are you—?”

“That other spider—I must find it.” The innkeeper—for he had come at her call—grunted.

“You’d go for that? Go on, then. Gods go with you.”

Paks made her way through the remains of the militia toward the square. Even with all the torches lit, it was hard to see clearly; black shadows leaped and twisted everywhere. She looked for the gleam of a hard carapace, or the telltale eyes.

Wagons had been overturned in the gaps between buildings in the square, but this protection had not been enough. Orcs had thrust them aside, and Paks found the square itself full of bodies, orc and human both. Two wagons burned in the middle of the square, lighting it well enough, but she saw no sign of the giant spider.

“Paks!” Kolya’s voice came from a high window in one of the houses.

Paks squinted up. “What?”

“Are they gone?”

“Not all—I’m looking for that spider.”

“It came over the wagon there—and left that way—” Kolya pointed. Paks waved and started to follow her directions. “Paks! No! Don’t go by yourself!”

Paks looked back up at her, and something—a shadowy movement—caught her eye on the roof above the window. She tried to make it out, then realized what it must be. “Kolya! It’s on the roof!” As she yelled, the thing dropped suddenly, its anchoring line gleaming. Two legs caught the sill of the window where Kolya had been, and it swung to crawl in. Paks yelled “Someone drop me a bow!”

But Kolya or someone else inside rammed a torch toward the crouching form before it could get through the window, and it retreated, dropping swiftly to the ground. Paks ran to meet it, hoping to strike a blow before the legs found purchase on the cobbles, but the spider pushed off the wall to meet her.

Paks dodged the first leap, swinging at its head, but missed. It leaped again, sideways, and she followed. Quickly it scuttled sideways, turning so that the light of the burning wagon was in her eyes. Paks grinned, and ran wide herself, to snatch a burning length of wood from the fire. It retreated, still poised to leap. Paks moved in slowly, arms wide, ready to strike with torch or sword. She heard an arrow strike the stones, as someone in one of the houses tried to shoot the thing, and missed. The spider leaped at her, forelegs spanning wider than her arms, and tried to clutch. Paks dove toward the belly, thrusting higher with torch and lower with sword. She saw the spinnerets facing her, and the pulsations that would drive out the poisoned silk. Then the spider flipped away from her, the head crisping already from the torch, and the abdomen gaping open. A single gout of grayish fluid struck her hand, burning through the glove; she gasped with the pain of it, but struck again, until the head and body were separated. By then the Duke’s men were coming into the square.

“These midnight conferences,” said Arcolin, “are becoming tedious.” Paks wondered if he was making a joke of some kind. Arcolin?

“Will the Duke be here?” Heribert Fontaine, back in his mayoral robes, paused as he set out mugs for ale.

“I doubt it.” Arcolin rubbed the back of his neck. “Simmitt says he’ll be fine, but insists he must rest for a night and a day. The gods know he needs it—”

“But he’s sure—”

“He’s sure the Duke will recover, yes. Flesh wounds and exhaustion—no more than that, he says, and Simmitt wouldn’t lie.”

Valichi came in, shutting the door carefully behind him. “Surprisingly little damage across the river, Mayor Fontaine. They broke into Kolya’s place, but didn’t burn it. Near as we can tell, only two trees were badly torn up. It looks like they panicked and ran on through. We’ve set up a perimeter for the night, including the south bank cottages, but not the outlying farms.”

Paks found the rest as tedious as Arcolin had suggested, for they had to explain the events of the past days in sufficient detail to reassure the Council of Duke’s East, no easy task when they kept breaking in with questions, comments, and reminiscences of past campaigns. The revelation that Venner had been closely involved in Tamarrion’s death aroused a storm of indignation. But discovering that the Duke had sent for a Marshal silenced them at last. Paks could see relief and satisfaction in some of their faces, dismay in none.