To Conquer Chaos

XIII

After his first moment of shock, Conrad had dived for concealment in a small hollow between two clumps of shrubs. For what felt like a century, and might in reality have been some hours, he lay there on his belly trying to follow the progress of events from the sounds that reached him and very occasionally, when things quietened down, daring to raise his head and peer out.

Directly they emerged from the camp, the soldiers seemed to split into two main factions, and there was a great deal of shouted argument. Conrad caught snatches of phrases-something about the green plague, and going the same way as the Duke-and was transfixed by the realisation of what had presumably happened: the Duke, whose leadership had been praised by the soldiers who came to Lagwich, must be sick or dead.

Some of the soldiers, however, headed back into the camp almost at once. Shots followed, and sometimes screams as well; then from behind the now dense veil of smoke they began to re-emerge singly and by groups, laughing and staggering under loads of loot-gaudy clothing, fine swords, jars and kegs of liquor and bags so heavy they must contain precious metal or coins.

Before that, however, the larger portion of the army-consisting of those men more afraid of the green plague than eager for easy pickings-had formed up in rough order under ad-hoc leadership and set off shouting and chanting in the direction of Lagwich. Watching them, Conrad knew that it was his strict duty to sneak back to the town’s land somehow and warn the people. But when he desperately cast about for a possible route, he could see no cover-and if he showed himself, it was much too likely he would be shot down on principle.

He was almost overwhelmed by relief when he realised, some minutes later, that others beside himself had decided to keep an eye on the army camp. The familiar blast of Waygan’s horn sounded an alarm, and the disappearing tail of the rabble-army broke from its formation and ran out of sight in a way which suggested anger-anger at not falling on an unsuspecting prey, was Conrad’s guess.

Then more shooting drew his attention back to the camp, and he peered between the leaves of the sheltering shrubs and tried to figure out what-apart from looting-was happening there.

A group of three soldiers, burdened with their prizes, was heading straight for him.

His heart paused for a long second. Then he concentrated on making himself as nearly invisible as he could.

“Bunch of fools!” one of them said in a rough bass voice. “Taking cloth and clothing when everyone knows it was a blanket harboured the green plague in the Duke’s tent!”

“But only where a spot of blood had fallen,” corrected a second voice, rather wheezy as though the man was trying not to pant hard.

“That’s not why I kept my hands off such stuff,” the third said-a fruity baritone with a slight chuckle. “Too bulky! Why drag cloth around when there’s good coin?” Something jingled, and the man laughed.

“Coin weighs, though,” the bass voice grumbled. “Ah, to the barrenland with this sword! Why should I need two of ’em? Here’s enough money to buy a horse and pay my food and lodging back to Esberg!”

A thump announced the discarding of the sword.

“Are you sure that’s wise?” the wheezy voice inquired. “Where, for one thing, are you going to buy a horse? Not in Lagwich! By this time the plague-scared fools’ll have shut the town up oyster-tight-and do you fancy sitting here till they starve open the gates?”

Bass-voice snorted. “Let ’em play siege-engineer all they like. They’ll not have patience to succeed. After a few nights this close to the barrenland, when they think of their snug tents burned behind them, they’ll leak away and have to beg or fight back to Esberg. Whereas we, my friends, will be home and dry, with a little over for a celebration.” A heavy slap, as on a leather bag stretched tight by the weight of its contents. “Move along! We’re ahead of the game, but we have to stay ahead.”

Their irregular footsteps, accompanied by the jingling of their stolen coin, faded.

Mouth dry, Conrad finally ventured to lift his head again. The very first thing that met his eyes was the discarded sword, the sun glinting on its hilt.

Out-and back. Clutching the weapon as though to draw supernatural comfort from it, Conrad gazed anxiously around to make sure no one had noticed his brief emergence. But the only people in sight were the backwash of the looters coming smoke-grimed from the ruins of the camp. In knots of half a dozen they made their unsteady way towards Lagwich and their less greedy comrades.

A bitter taste rose in Conrad’s mouth. So this was the true nature of the men whose ranks he had hoped to join, thinking their life better than his own in Lagwich! Where was their pride? What had happened to their smart organisation? What in truth must Esberg be like, if its soldiers could turn in a few short hours into ignoble banditry?

For a long moment he turned his eyes downward to the bright blade of the sword, thinking: It’s keen-it would drive home cleanly to my heart. And then … blessed peace.

He choked off the thought. No: that seemed a cowardly solution. And it would leave far too many personal debts unpaid.

The last of the loot-laden soldiers passed out of sight in the direction of the town. A new idea struck him. It wasn’t a particularly honourable idea-but what did these men know of honour, if they were ready to besiege and rob Lagwich, where the townsfolk had welcomed them? The point was, they could not by any means have stripped this enormous camp in the short time they had been at work there; they must have left behind many valuable and useful things because they simply couldn’t carry them. Things which might enable Conrad, his other courses of action blocked, to make his way to some other town and there set up a little business.

It didn’t have the glamour of service with the Esberg army. But it didn’t have the continuing misery of return to Lagwich, either.

His mind was made up in an instant. The sword he had retrieved was complete with belt and frog. He rose and buckled it around him as he had seen soldiers do in the town when they got up to leave a drinking-shop. Setting his shoulders back, not caring any more whether anybody saw him, he strode down the hillside to the reeking remains of the camp.

Fires were still spreading, but sluggishly, for there was virtually no wind now. A hot puff of air made his eyes sting as he stared through the open gate and down the avenue-like axis of the camp. Why, there in plain sight was a vast bronze cauldron which made him jealous on sight; it was big enough to outdo two of his pottery vats.

By the same token, of course, it was no good to him-he might have attempted to get it away if he’d had a waggon, but what had become of the army’s vehicles he had no idea. And he was unskilled in the management of draft animals, anyway.

He took a deep breath and walked into the camp.

For the next ten or fifteen minutes, his confidence growing, he picked and chose among the abandoned miscellanea. Scattered baubles which someone might buy in another town. A first-rate steel knife. A helmet in exactly his own size. A pike which would have solved most of his problems if he’d had it handy to spit the thing he had killed. Two good hatchets and some other carpenter’s tools. A knapsack belonging apparently to a tailor, full of fine thread and needles of a quality he had never seen in Lagwich.

He was shrugging the knapsack on when he heard the noise.

Dropping everything he carried, he snatched at the sword and whirled. He was approximately in the centre of the camp now; there was a large open space, at one side of which a pile of wood-ash smouldered sluggishly, and on the other three sides of which tents had been torn down. The sound had apparently come from one of the largest tents.

Cautiously Conrad approached it, and saw, protruding from under a flap of charred canvas, the leg of a man, stirring slightly.

In that condition he wasn’t much of a menace, he reasoned. He pulled the coarse fabric aside and found himself looking at Jervis Yanderman.

There was a large livid bruise on Yanderman’s temple, and a sword-cut-not more than a scratch-ran across his right upper arm. Gasping, Conrad bent down to examine him more closely, The deep-set eyes opened briefly, screwed up again, opened a second time and stayed open.

“It’s-it’s the soap-maker,” Yanderman said faintly. “Help me up, boy.”

Conrad dropped his sword and hastened to obey.

“I think I can stand by myself,” Yanderman said when he was upright. “Thank you. Oh, by the fame of Esberg, but this is the sorriest mess-!”

Breathing hard, he gazed over the ruins of the camp.

“Where’ve they gone?” he added.

Conrad gulped. “I think to lay siege to Lagwich,” he said after a pause.

“I thought they would. I thought they’d all go, being afraid of the green plague. And then some came back, and …” Yanderman wiped his forehead. “This was the Dukes tent, you see, and that his funeral pyre. When we saw them swarming back to loot, we stood our ground here as well as we could, but there were only three of us, the others-damnable cowards! — caring more for their own possessions than the Duke’s. After this, I spit on the name of Esberg.”

There was a red and black banner crumpled on the ground near him. With sarcastic deliberation he carried out his promise literally. Then he caught himself.

“Three!” he snapped, and bent to drag aside the fallen canvas of the Duke’s tent. “Stadham! Kesford!”

Conrad made to help him, and between them they rolled the fabric back to expose his companions: ascetic-faced Kesford, a surprised look on his face and a second mouth opened in his pale throat, and grim Stadham, his chest blood-blurred from two bullet-wounds.

Yanderman knelt to them long enough to determine that they were dead. Then he shrugged and drew back, pausing only to detach from Kesford’s hand something which glittered; a small crystal ball on a silver chain, which he put around his own neck. Then, without a word to Conrad, he walked to the dying pyre and drew from it a hot brand, which he plunged into the ruins of the Duke’s tent. In a moment flames licked up. Conrad stood by in silence until Yanderman ceased his contemplation of the ensuing fire.

“And you, soap-maker?” Yanderman said at last. “What are you doing here?”

Boldly, Conrad met his gaze. “I had meant to try and join your army,” he said. “After what I’ve seen today, I think I’d have been a fool.”

Yanderman laughed. It was an ugly sound. He said, “That’s so. But what drove you from Lagwich? By all accounts, you’re its best soap-maker, and that’s a worthwhile position for you. You’re young yet!”

His eyes strayed back to the burning tent, and he absently began to swing the crystal ball on the end of its chain.

Conrad, wondering what made that worth retrieving from Kesford’s body rather than anything else, answered Yanderman’s question at some length, explaining just why he had finally decided to break with Lagwich.

“I see,” Yanderman said finally. “Well, you may thank the older man who burns here before you for your misery. He is well rewarded, isn’t he?”

“I–I don’t understand,” Conrad countered, glancing down at the smoking form of Stadham. His clothing was alight now.

“He took away the carcass of the thing you killed. We have it here in the camp, nailed up to prove that things from the barrenland die like any ordinary beast.”

A cry of anger rose to Conrad’s lips. He bit it off. What use was there railing against a dead man? That was over and done with, and he hoped never to think of it again. While he was debating what next to say, Yanderman went on, raising his head and continuing to swing the crystal ball.

“So we are two of a kind, boy! After what I’ve seen today, I care not whether I hear the name of Esberg spoken for the rest of my days. And you are finished with Lagwich. Where shall we go? To the barrenland? Why not to the barrenland? I was charged by my dead Duke to lead his army there, but the army is gone. I remain-I remain!”

He closed his hand fiercely on the crystal ball as though he would crush it. It seemed to remind him of something, and he let his eyes rove anew.

“What became of Granny Jassy, I wonder?” he said under his breath.

“Of-? I didn’t hear-”

Yanderman grimaced. “What does it matter?” he shrugged. “Should I lead-instead of an army-a stupid old woman with a headful of visions? We’d have been better off without her charms and her crazy tales of a time when this barrenland was a rich region full of people powerful as magicians …”

Conrad could hardly believe his ears. Unable to stop himself, he caught at Yanderman’s arm. “Visions?” he demanded. “What sort of visions? You mean there are other people who can-

He broke off. Yanderman was staring at him wide-eyed.

After an eternal moment in which there was no sound but the gnawing noise of flames on dry wood as tent-poles blazed up close to them, the older man spoke in a strangely gentle voice.

“Boy-Conrad, isn’t that your name? — yes, Conrad: there are other people who see these things. Didn’t you know?”

Conrad licked his lips and shook his head dumbly.

“Have you never seen one of these?” Yanderman opened his fingers to expose the crystal ball.

Again a headshake.

“Well then!” A note of triumph came into Yanderman’s tone now. “It’s about time you tried its effect, I’d say. And if all goes well, Conrad, and if you’re as desperate as you’ve told me-and as I feel right now-we’ll try this lunatic venture and turn it from a joke into an epic tale that men will chant around the hearth-fire for a thousand generations! Conrad, will you take your revenge on Lagwich for laughing at you even if it means the risk of death?”

Looking into Yanderman’s blazing eyes, Conrad-terrified, but somehow exalted-could make no other response than a simple, whispered, “Yes!”