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Kel grinned. ‘Of course he wouldn’t tell you,’ she informed him. ‘You’re the worst liar I know, even if you’re just not saying anything. You ought to feel virtuous, that he knows you can’t lie.’
‘I feel like a failure,’ Owen confessed. ‘A true friend would have found out and warned you.’
‘How?’ Kel asked reasonably, leading the way into the storehouse. ‘Search his papers? That’s hardly proper. And what could I have done if you’d told me? Run off? Stop fussing.’ She opened the shutters, admitting the morning light so they could see the rows of goods. Her sparrows flew in. Some perched on Owen; others zipped around the stacked supplies, as if taking their own inventory.
‘But, Kel, making you a, a nursemaid!’ protested Owen, stroking a male sparrow’s black collar with a gentle finger. ‘When you’re a better warrior than anybody but my lord! And Lord Raoul, and the Lioness,’ he added, belatedly remembering that there might be others Kel would think were better. ‘It’s just not right!’
‘My lord says I’ll see plenty of fighting,’ Kel told him.
Owen studied her for a long moment. Whatever he sought in her face, he seemed to find it. ‘Anything you want me to do, Kel, you let me know,’ he told her seriously. He gripped her arm for a moment, then let go. ‘Anything I can do to help.’
For a moment they looked at one another, Owen’s gaze firm, Kel’s thoughtful. He’s growing up, she thought, surprised. And he’s growing up well.
She patted his shoulder, then surveyed the storehouse. ‘For now I need a quartermaster,’ she said. They might never talk about what had just passed, but neither would they forget it. ‘Someone who can say what’s reasonable to draw for my people.’
‘Be right back,’ Owen promised, and trotted out the door.
Tobe and Jump came in as he left, Tobe directing a scowl at Owen’s back. ‘I can do anything he might do,’ Tobe informed Kel.
She clasped his shoulder, amused and yet flattered. ‘I need you for other things, Tobe,’ she informed him. ‘We’ve a lot of work ahead.’
CHAPTER 4 (#ulink_a0eac2cf-df4a-5fc1-8d59-3daa467e0b4b)
KEL TAKES COMMAND (#ulink_a0eac2cf-df4a-5fc1-8d59-3daa467e0b4b)
With the men who had built the camp – soldiers, convict soldiers, and refugees – already in residence, Kel saw no reason to linger at Fort Giantkiller. She needed a thorough view of her new home and its surroundings before the bulk of her charges arrived. Once they did, she would be short on time.
Two days after her arrival at Giantkiller, she left at the head of a train that included Duke Baird, Lord Wyldon, Neal, Merric, and Owen, as well as the supplies she had taken with the quartermaster’s approval. She had been disconcerted to find that Neal, the camp’s healer, and Merric, their patrol captain, would technically be under her command. Neal didn’t seem to mind, but Neal never reacted like most people. On the other hand, she would have to be extra careful with Merric. She wasn’t sure that she would like being under the command of one of her year-mates.
Once the train was assembled, Giantkiller’s defenders opened the gates of the inner and outer walls. Lord Wyldon gave the signal, and they rode out in a rumble of hooves, the jingle of harnesses, and the creak of wagon wheels.
A pure, beautiful voice rose in the crisp air, singing an old northern song about the waking of the sun. Startled, Kel looked for the singer. It was Tobe, his face alight as he sang. A deeper voice joined his, then others: the song was a common one, though the words might vary from region to region. Above the baritone, bass, and tenor voices of the men and older boys soared Tobe’s perfect soprano. Even Kel, Wyldon, and Baird sang, their voices soft. Only Neal scowled at his saddle horn, still not awake.
Giantkiller’s refugees clustered around the gates to watch them go. Fanche had been quite vocal when she had learned who was to command their new home. The kindest phrase she’d used was ‘wet-behind-the-ears southerner’. If the gods were good, perhaps Fanche would change her mind. If they weren’t, Kel would have a long time to get the formidable woman on her side.
‘When people tell me a knight’s job is all glory, I laugh, and laugh, and laugh,’ Lord Raoul had once told Kel. ‘Sometimes I can stop laughing before they edge away and talk about soothing drinks.’
She knew what he meant.
Still, when Tobe started the next song, about the stag who met the Goddess as Maiden, Kel sang along.
April was a chancy month in the north. Normally few Tortallans would try to build or march here until May, but the news of King Maggur’s arrival on the throne had forced their hand. Kel had plenty of time to observe the once-familiar countryside while the men wrestled the wagons out of one muddy dip after another. It took her a little while to place the landmarks: she had been here last in the summer, when the woods and hills were alive with birds, animals, and insects. Now it was cold and grim. Patches of snow lay under the groves of pine trees, but here and there she could see a courageous green bud or sprout. Some of the hardier songbirds were returning from the south. Those birds who had stayed through the winter perched on tree limbs and in hollows, waiting for things to warm up.
Between Fort Giantkiller and Kel’s future home was a series of rocky hills, one or two of which might actually be called a mountain. The road was tucked deep between them, enough so that once they reached it, they were on solid frozen ground once again. They lost no more time pulling their wagons from the mud.
On the far side of the hills, they found the next valley also dotted with patches of melting snow and heavy stretches of pines and newly budding trees. They kept to the road until Wyldon pointed something out to Kel. She raised her spyglass, a gift from Lady Alanna, to her eye and looked. There, on a rise of perhaps twenty feet, stood a log palisade. That was it: her first command. Men and sledges moved along the road that climbed diagonally across the face of the rise, bringing in logs. Every ten feet along the top of the wall stood guards in regular army maroon, each wearing a conical helm, each carrying a bow. The travellers heard a distant horn call: they’d been spotted.
Wyldon’s trumpeter replied with the call that signalled they were friends.
Kel continued to eye her new home. Above the fort she saw the Tortallan flag, a silver blade and crown on a royal-blue field. Suddenly another flag climbed the mast from inside the fort until it flew just below the national banner. It was a square of dusty blue with a double border of cream and blue. The device at its centre was familiar: grey owl and cream glaives bordered in gold. It was Kel’s own insignia, the flag of the commander of the fort.
She lowered her spyglass and took her time as she collapsed it and set it just so into its pouch until her leaping emotions were under control. Who at the camp would have known she was coming and gone to the trouble to create a flag for her?
As the supply train drew closer, they saw the Greenwoods River at the base of the high ground. The ice was breaking up, the water cold and swift as it tore chunks away. The river was a little over twenty feet wide; Kel judged it to be normally fifteen feet deep at most. The spring meltwater would keep it high and swift for now.
They crossed the Greenwoods on a sturdy wooden bridge. It was the only one Kel saw in either direction. She looked at it before they crossed. Flat black discs called mage blasts were fixed on the piles and underside of the bracing planks. Even a non-mage could make the things explode by snapping the thin, flat piece of wood that was the key to the spell. The blasts would then drop the bridge, and anyone on it, into the river.
As a moat, this was fairly good. No enemy would be able to cross the Greenwoods within miles of the camp as long as the spring floods continued. Kel had spent the previous night studying the maps of her new command. In summer the river could be forded, but only ten miles upstream and thirty miles downstream. She devoutly hoped the army could stop the enemy by then.
Their company rode up the sloping road around to the north face of the camp: the river-moat protected the gateless eastern and southern sides of the enclosure. Rocky, inhospitable hills gave some protection to the west. North towards the forest was a squad of ten soldiers guarding a sledge piled with logs. The sounds of hammers and saws grew louder as the riders reached the top and the large gates swung open. Remembering her last encounter with a hammer, Kel winced and entered the camp.
The great expanse of open ground inside the walls was a mess of churned mud, crates, plank walkways, and equipment in between raw wooden platforms that looked to be floors for future barracks. Kel noted a well on her left and another on her right, both covered with wooden lids. Near the right-hand well stood a barracks with the army’s flag hung over the door and a large stable behind it. Beyond those stood two complete long, wooden two-storey buildings and a third that was nearly done. These would house the refugees.
On her left, beside the gate, was the guard shack. Beyond it, in front of the other well, stood a two-storey headquarters that would serve as office and residence for her, Neal, Merric, Tobe, and, for now, Duke Baird. She checked the half-finished building behind it on her camp map. It would be the infirmary, big enough to serve their sick or wounded. Behind that was a second low building, a woodshed for the infirmary and the mess hall and cookhouse near the centre of the camp. Against the rear wall, Kel noted storage sheds and what was unmistakably a latrine. According to her map, this one could seat ten at a time.
Ground space for future buildings was marked by pegs and ribbon or, in some places, complete wooden floors. The flagpole rose at the very centre of the camp, with four sets of double stocks at its base. Kel looked up at the flags and shook her head. Her flag looked very brave. She wished she felt the same way. She sensed the men’s eyes on her as they worked and couldn’t help but wonder what they made of her.
A man in army maroon who wore his grey hair cropped short trotted down one of the wooden staircases that led to the walkway that lined the upper wall. He strode briskly along planks laid on the mud to halt before Lord Wyldon. Kel noted the newcomer wore a yellow band on each arm, embroidered with crossed black swords, a regular army captain’s insignia.
He came to attention before Wyldon and saluted. ‘My lord.’
Wyldon returned the salute and began the introductions. ‘Captain Hobard Elbridge, I present his grace Duke Baird of Queenscove, chief of the royal healers.’ Elbridge bowed. Wyldon continued, ‘Here is Lady Knight Keladry of Mindelan, who will relieve you here as commander, Sir Nealan of Queenscove, who will be camp healer, and Sir Merric of Hollyrose, in charge of camp security.’
The captain bowed to each of them. Looking around, he found a man who wore a sergeant’s black circle and dot on his armbands and beckoned him over. ‘Your grace, my lord Wyldon, sir knights, Sergeant Landwin here will take charge of your things and show you where you’re to sleep.’
Kel watched the men follow the sergeant, wishing she didn’t feel so bereft as they disappeared into headquarters. ‘Lady knight, what would you have us do here?’ Elbridge enquired. ‘Will you address the men? Tour what we have? Review the country? I have keys to give you, of course, and I must familiarize you with the state of affairs here. The camp is unnamed. We thought to leave that to you.’
Kel dismounted from Hoshi to hide her confusion. Wyldon had given her no advice about how to actually take command, and this man seemed determined to dump everything into her lap at once. ‘How long are you with us, Captain Elbridge?’
‘It’s my hope to ride on to the new fort in the morning, milady,’ he said, his face unreadable, ‘but of course I’ll stay as long as you have need of me.’
Kel looked around. The soldiers had come to take charge of the horses and supply wagons, leading the free mounts towards the stable and directing the drivers of the wagons to the storehouses. Only Tobe remained with Peachblossom and the packhorse assigned to Kel by the crown. The sparrows and Jump rode on the packhorse, watching Kel and the captain with almost human intensity.
‘Is there any time during the day when the men are all assembled?’ Kel asked. ‘Suppertime, perhaps?’
‘Aye, milady. Lunch most of them take where they work.’
Kel passed Hoshi’s reins to Tobe. ‘You may as well tend the horses, Tobe, and bring my things to my quarters.’
‘Very good, my lady,’ he said, bowing in the saddle before he accepted Hoshi’s rein.
Somebody gave him lessons in manners, Kel thought, amused, before she looked at Elbridge again. ‘Why don’t we tour the camp and you tell me how things are,’ she suggested. ‘Let the men work unhindered – there’s time enough to talk at supper.’
Elbridge fumbled at his belt until what looked like a small bundle of sticks came free in his hand. Bowing, he offered them to Kel. ‘Lady knight, I surrender this camp to you. Here are the keys to the mage blasts.’
She blinked for a moment, then accepted the keys. Each was strung on a leather thong, secured to a ring, and labelled with the location of its mage blast. Now she alone could set off the blasts that would explode and drop the bridge into the river.
‘And here are the keys to this place.’ Elbridge gave Kel an iron ring. More conventional keys dangled from it. ‘Allow me to show you where they are used.’
She had not expected the place to be so big, or that so much work would already be done. She said as much to her escort.
‘They did it inside, most of it,’ the captain explained as they walked through the soldiers’ barracks. ‘Cobbled the floors together in sections in a barn at a homestead nearby – the house was burned, but we could use the barn. They worked all winter, planing boards, whittling pegs, cutting shingles, making nails. These northmen are the fastest woodworkers I’ve laid eyes on. They say they’re used to it, just not so much at one time.’
Outside, he led her towards the flagpole. ‘That long key’s for the stocks,’ he said, pointing them out. They framed the pole, with room for two men on each. Two yards beyond them was a flogging post. ‘Here’s another symbol of your office,’ he explained, handing over a cowhide whip. Kel nearly dropped it in her distaste but hid her feelings behind her very best Yamani mask. She didn’t want to feel the leather in her hand, so she hung it from her dagger hilt.
‘These convict guards, they need a touch of the lash,’ the captain informed her. ‘It’s the only thing they understand.’
‘Will they fight?’ Kel asked as they walked on.
‘If they don’t want to end up collared and on the march back to Scanra they will,’ he replied. ‘They know it. I trained them and the builders on weapons this winter, same as my own men. The convicts’ weapons are locked up in headquarters unless there’s need. I don’t know about Sir Nealan as a healer, but tell him he can’t let them come whining to him whenever they’ve a scratch. These prisoners take any excuse to get off work, and they love it when the healer’s a soft touch.’
With every word Kel disliked the man more and more. Obviously he was good at his job. The proof was everywhere she looked. His manner itched her, though. He didn’t talk about others as if they were human, only animals to be driven.
‘There’s so much room,’ she commented as he pointed out the pens where livestock was kept and the ground that would serve the cookhouse as a small garden. ‘I didn’t understand from the map just how much space we have.’
‘It’ll fill up soon, with civilians bringing their clutter and animals,’ the captain replied. ‘But it’s true we’ve more to work with than we thought last autumn. That’s Master Salmalín’s doing. My lord was showing him this place, saying how it was the best location for a camp. Master Salmalín opens his mouth and says – something, I don’t know what.’ The captain shuddered. ‘It – it made my bones ache. The ground close to the hills, it dropped about fifty feet. And the ground here starts rising up like an inchworm crawls. Suddenly we’ve twice the high ground to build on as we had before. Mages.’ Elbridge shook his head. ‘Very well, you can see we’ve storage sheds enough, and the latrines beyond.’ He led her through the rest of the camp. Stopping at its rear, he asked, ‘Have you questions?’
‘Not really,’ Kel told him. ‘I would like to go over the walls, if you don’t mind.’
Elbridge looked at her, his face impossible to read. ‘These northern woodsmen know what they’re doing, lady knight.’
‘I’m sure they do,’ she replied politely. ‘I just want a full view.’
She circled the camp once inside the wall on the ground, testing the trees that formed it, finding them hard and sound. The gate was also very well built and would take plenty of battering, if it came to that. She went to the first set of stairs and climbed to the top, not looking at the open air outside the rail. At the end of her page term, she had conquered her fear of heights, at least as far as being able to climb without either freezing or vomiting. Still, she would never like them.
On the walkway, she inspected its boards. They were as sound as the wall itself and placed low enough that the top of the wall would give her soldiers protection from enemy archers.
Since the guards were there, the captain introduced them. Kel shook hands with each man, looking him in the eye. Whispers ran the circuit of the wall but Kel refused to try to hear what was being said. She had been through this before, too. These men would respect her, or not, over time. There was nothing she could do now to win them over. She didn’t even try, beyond a smile and a firm handshake. She was responsible for their lives, not their affections. Did it scare them to know a green girl was in charge here? Or did they feel safe this far from the border?
She did not feel safe, for all that this was a well-built refuge. She knew the heavy forests that ranged on either side of the Greenwoods River north of the camp. Last summer had taught her just how many of the enemy could sneak by in such forests. This strong camp might not be enough.
It all depended on the Scanrans, their numbers, their allies, and their strange magic that turned chain, iron-coated bone, and iron sheets into killing devices. Kel wouldn’t be able to guard hundreds of civilians with the forty soldiers Wyldon had promised her. The refugees had to be trained to fight, not just the men, but the women, even the older children. Her next shipment of supplies had to include weapons if the refugees had none of their own.
In a day or two she’d start riding the country until she knew it like her palm. She’d make sure the refugees and soldiers knew it, too. Standing over the gate, she stared blankly into the distance as she made plans. They’d have to know the roads and trails to Forts Mastiff, Steadfast, and Giantkiller, and their escape routes to the south. She was lucky to have local people inside her walls. They’d know the hidden and not-so-hidden trails, bogs, pitfalls, and canyons around here, as well as the best hunting and fishing areas.
She realized the captain was speaking. ‘What? I’m sorry, Captain Elbridge. I was thinking.’
A corner of his mouth twitched – in amusement or scorn? wondered Kel. ‘I was asking if the lady knight had chosen a name,’ Elbridge repeated.
‘A name for what?’ Kel asked, looking at him blankly.
‘This place. We call it “this miserable mudpit”, but my lady will be living here. It’s your privilege to name it as you like,’ explained the captain.
Kel turned, her hands jammed into her breeches pockets, and surveyed her command. Men crawled over beams, hammered, sawed, unloaded wagons, called out to each other, visited the latrines. Wyldon, Baird, Neal, and Merric were emerging from headquarters. She glanced at the road below: here came the sledge with its military guard and its load of cut trees.
‘I suppose “Mudpit” is a little depressing,’ she admitted. ‘I’ll have to think about it.’
The captain bowed. ‘Very good, milady.’
They descended the stairs near the guard shack as the gates swung open. The sledge made its slow way inside the walls.
‘I see you’ve conducted your first inspection,’ Wyldon said to Kel. ‘What do you think?’
‘Captain Elbridge has done far more than I could imagine,’ Kel said honestly. For a hard, cold fish, she thought. ‘I’ll be hard put to keep up his good work.’ As soon as I’ve thrown his whip into the compost heap, where it’ll be of use, she added silently.
‘We’ve plenty of work to do in the infirmary,’ Duke Baird said. ‘But I’ve seen the plans. It looks good.’
Elbridge shrugged. ‘It’s these northern woodsmen. If they could find a way to eat trees as well as work them, they’d be rich men. Still, I confess, I’ll be pleased to be working only with soldiers again. These civilians are too contrary for my taste.’
He, Baird, and Wyldon turned away to discuss matters relating to the new Fort Mastiff while Neal and Merric automatically looked at Kel. ‘I feel as ready for all this as a babe who picks up a sword,’ Merric said with a twisted smile. ‘Of course, Neal is ready—’
‘Mithros save us, they’ll allow just any freak of nature up here, won’t they?’ a familiar male voice proclaimed. Kel, Merric, and Neal turned to see the speaker. One of the sledge guards, a tall, broad-shouldered young man, dismounted from his horse. Bright blue eyes blazed and a broad grin flashed in a face splattered with mud. Under other mud Kel could see the familiar tunic, chain mail, and armband of a sergeant in the King’s Own. ‘Meathead!’ he called, handing his reins to a guard. ‘They sent you out with no keeper?’
Neal laughed and strode forward to hug the slightly taller man despite the mud. Kel almost ran to the newcomer as well, remembering just in time that a commander couldn’t throw herself at an old friend. She knew Domitan of Masbolle, Neal’s cousin and a sergeant of the King’s Own, very well indeed. They’d become friends during her four years with the King’s Own. She’d had a terrible, unreturned, crush on him – he was handsome, mud or no.
Neal pushed Dom away. ‘Insubordinate!’ he scoffed. ‘That’s Sir Meathead, to you. What have you been doing, chasing mudhoppers?’
‘It’s a skin treatment. I’ve got so chapped here in the north,’ retorted Dom. He turned to Kel and bowed. ‘Lady knight,’ he said, and straightened with a wide grin. ‘You did it. We knew you would.’
Kel reached out her hand; they clasped forearms, Dom squeezing hers tightly before he let go.
Another voice sounded out. ‘Squire Kel – I mean, lady knight!’ The other men who’d been guarding the sledge came over. Kel cheerfully shook hands with each of them, Dom’s squad in the King’s Own. One hot day the previous summer, at a place called Forgotten Well, she had commanded these men after an arrow shot had put Dom out of action. Both Wolset and Fulcher now wore mud-splashed armbands with the circle mark for a corporal. Dom had lost one corporal before he’d been wounded; the second was killed after Kel took command. She’d given Wolset a field promotion to corporal for keeping his head, and Dom had confirmed it. Two of the other six men before her she did not know. They simply bowed to her and stayed back, watching with interest.
‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ she asked Dom when the greetings were over.
‘Lord Wyldon asked for one of our squads to work here till the place is finished, since we’ve been in the area almost a year. It’s just coincidence that my boys got tapped,’ Dom told her. ‘Have you seen Giantkiller? Just when we got the place all fixed up, the regular army kicked us out. I bet they ruined all of our chair cushions.’
‘I noticed a sad lack of taste,’ Neal said in his usual drawl, ‘but I supposed it was left over from when the King’s Own lived there.’
Dom grinned, then looked at Kel. ‘Do you like your flag?’ he asked.
She smiled at him with all the gratitude in her heart. ‘I love it,’ she told him.
‘He don’t get all the credit,’ Corporal Wolset said. ‘It was me that thought of it.’
‘And you what nearly ruined the embroidering,’ retorted Corporal Fulcher.
Dom cleared his throat. ‘Here comes command. We’ll talk later, Lady Kel, Sir Meathead.’ He waved his squad back to the sledge. They helped the civilians unload the logs.
‘That was friendly,’ Merric remarked, folding his arms.
‘They’re from Third Company,’ Kel said. ‘We rode together for four years.’
‘Dom’s squad fought one of the metal killing devices under Kel’s command.’ Neal’s voice sounded clearly over the racket of nearby hammers and saws. His wry tone told Kel what he thought of her not mentioning such important specifics. ‘Dom got shot; they lost two men.’
‘And it took all of us to beat the cursed thing,’ Kel retorted, wishing Neal hadn’t spoken. It seemed like bragging, even if it was Neal’s comment, not hers.
‘You fought one of those things?’ Elbridge demanded, hard eyes fixed on Kel.
