II. April 768
It took five days for the Countess and her sixteen hundred friends to pass the barrier of hills east of the Lavan River and come down onto the empty high plains of Bazir. The weather warmed; blue skies extended far before them over the plains. This development worried the old hands in the army, who were used to starting campaigns in flood and blizzard and basting heat.
Each night the Countess barely managed to get into her cot before falling asleep. By the third day they saw no people, no hills and no trees, and only the occasional bird or antelope. The fourth day they rode across unchanging grassland, high and arid, and ahead there was no sign but hazy blue sky. The road left the hills as a fringe on the western horizon, and set off almost straight toward the town of Bazir.
The land grew more fertile. They passed herds of sheep and a few wheat fields around a town called Midder where everyone seemed to be hiding. Yet the scouts brought back news of nothing ahead but more fields. The town itself, built time of Countess Tereza, looked like someone might be by any minute to pack it up and take it away. "Everyone's gone to fight," an old man explained to Sir Rogier, "or high tailed it to Vonnis with the kids. Is that that new Countess they talked about?" He had no news, not even a decent recent rumor.
On the night of 3 April 778, just as the sun began to droop toward the horizon, a pair of scouts reported to Thane Horst, who made them repeat everything to the Countess and her minister of state. "We scouted all the way up to the town," said one. "There's a large force of Avars on the road about five miles before the town."
"We could still make it around them and into town by nightfall," said Thane Horst, "but I don't know what we'd do if we got there, weary and worn, and they were in the town."
"Well, what are their numbers?" asked Vivian.
"Uh, the camp on the road," said the senior scout, "Fred counted what, two thousands?"
"And a few odd hundred," Fred agreed.
"So, they outnumber us too," said Vivian. "And all right, suppose we get inside the town? Is it much for defense?"
"Not really," said Sir Rogier. "Its walls, my lady, are of wood."
"Of wood? Is there not enough dirt out here for brick?"
"My lady, I know not. I think perhaps it's a bit late to start bricklaying now, however."
"I'd have to say so too. Well, I guess there's nothing to do but to camp right here." She looked at her advisors. "Is this all right?"
They smiled. Sir Rogier gestured around at the flat world. "It's exactly like everywhere else, my lady."
They camped and had a nice dinner of abandoned Midder beef, and bread and cheese courtesy of Thane Burley of the neighboring, and threatened, province of Skavin. The light was finally almost gone from the sky when Vivian took a walk around the camp, accompanied by Sir Rogier. She waved at the soldiers and took a good look at what they were doing and was feeling quite the tomboy again. "Let's go for a ride," she said after some thought.
"My lady?"
"How far is it to the town? We stopped five miles short of the Avars, and they're five miles from the town, so it's ten miles straight. Of course we'd go around, so that's, let's see, radius five, so it's about fifteen around their camp in a half circle--!"
"My lady," said Sir Rogier, "if I may ask, are you mad?"
"No, I don't think so. Oh, I get it. It's dangerous. Well, my dad did lots of things that were dangerous." An image came to her straight off the top of her minister's mind of her father, impatient with an Avar chief who refused to be baited into charging the longbows, taking twenty men and charging in to attack the chief's own guards and then hurrying back toward the trap with the whole Avar force after him.
"But there was one major difference," said Sir Rogier. "Not to put too fine a point on it, my lady, but your father had an heir."
"And my father wasn't a girl," she replied. "Look, I just want to go have a look at things. All the way here--hey, ever since my dad died--I've felt like I was always surrounded by all these men taking care of everything and keeping me safe. Well, barbarians have invaded and are apparently attacking one of my towns. I could lose provinces full of people. I just want to go see for myself. Hey, aren't I supposed to be the Countess of these people? How many live in Bazir?"
"Normally, five or six thousand. It's not your most populous province. In fact, only Maklos has fewer. My lady, this is insane."
"But still, that's five or six thousand that I'm supposed to be Countess of."
Sir Rogier sighed. He couldn't make her stay in her tent (any more than he could have made her father) and he wasn't going to help anything by going with her. "My lady, I cannot tell you what to do and what not to do. You, as you remind me relentlessly, are the Countess. But I would be remiss in my duties if I were not to tell you that scouting is a risky job and we have people who do that job very well. You--!" He stopped. "It's really no use, is it?"
"None whatsoever."
"Well, I still don't want you to do this, but you're young and crazy, so at least go with a regular scouting patrol. No one goes out alone."
She smiled at him and turned away to look for her chief ranger. Sir Rogier spent the next few hours, eating and then lying in his bedroll waiting for sleep to come, trying to work out who would be next in line for the Count's Medallion.
The moon, just past full, dragged on the eastern horizon above Inzil and Maklos. A million stars glowed in the black sky. Over the winter-flattened grasses rode four horses light and swift, and four riders clad in night-black. No swords did they bear, but longbows hung on their shoulders beside quivers full of arrows.
The grassland was not completely flat--like the sea, it undulated. Its great motionless crests and troughs provided hiding places but few landmarks. The wind picked up--the wind from the west on constant patrol. There was little protection in all that panorama from the breeze and the eye. Only the wind stirred, behind the four riders, in all the scenery. The moon pulled itself free of the horizon, white and clean and not quite perfectly round. The horses' legs seemed to run on a treadmill, staying in place as the grassland ran under them.
They rode north, then northeast, circumnavigating the position of the enemy, and the stars crept west above them. Suddenly the foremost rider pulled up, his hand in the air. The others drew around him. "What is it?" asked one, who concealed a heavy gold chain and pendant under her black cloak.
"Let us dismount, my lady," the leader replied, a county errand-rider from Selac named William Willd. "I discern a number of riders far off ahead."
The other two riders dismounted, but the Countess remained in the saddle, staring at the horizon. There, under the north star, touched by the light of the moon, a small shadow moved slightly, a shadow which imagination differentiated into riders and horses. With a nod and a sigh, she too dismounted, followed by Willd.
"What do we do now? Might they have seen us when we saw them?"
"Ah, but we were looking for them, my lady," Willd replied in a whisper, stroking his clean-shaven jaw, then his thinning blond hair under his hood. "They're on patrol, but they're not looking to meet anything. The smaller force is always the more nervous."
"And the swifter," said one of the others. "In a pinch we could probably outride them."
"Let's not let it come to that," said Vivian.
"If it does, my lady," said Willd, his grey eyes, touched by the moon, meeting hers straight on, "you will ride like the wind ahead of us toward camp, and we'll delay them if we have to. Let's get down into the dell."
The four walked their horses to the lowest spot in the nearby landscape, and then Willd ran back up the rise and stood watching the passing patrol. Ten minutes went by, Vivian guessed. She spent it going over the Seventeen Words of Mattas the Old, while the other two scouts shared a pipe. Presently Willd came striding back down the hill. "My lady, they spent a little time examining something off to our southeast, but eventually they headed on toward the Avar camp. Let's get going."
"What do you suppose they were examining?"
"My lady, we could go look, if you really want to know. My eyesight isn't quite that good."
"That's all right," replied Vivian. "They probably just paused to roast a farmer or two."
"No doubt, my lady." He sniffed. "All right, which of you two was smoking?"
Vivian looked at the other two scouts, who looked back at her. "We both were," said one.
"Shame on both of you. The Avar scouts can smell a wisp of smoke at a hundred yards."
"I think you're half Avar then," one of them grumbled.
"The Countess is with us," was all Willd said. The two junior scouts apologized in sincere whispers.
"I'd like to say," added Vivian, "that you should be just as careful without having me around to watch you. Or do I have to go on all your scout trips just to make you have a care for your own safety? Well, let's go."
"We will have a look at the road, my lady, if you like," said Willd.
"By all means."
The night was wearing toward midnight as they moved on across rippling flatland. Their pace was more cautious now as the moon rose toward the top of the crystalline sky and short, dense shadows followed the four riders across the swaying grasses. Soon far to the south, its gravel gleaming under the moon, appeared the narrow road that ran to Bazir from the southwest, all the way from Vonnis, where Vivian's cat Simone slept in a window of the citadel. Vivian, feeling very far from home, scanned the visible extent of the road nervously, but the scouts made for it as though heading for cover.
"The Avar camp is south of here, off the road," said Willd, when they sat on their horses in the middle of the highway. "They seem to trust the fields better."
"There are no roads where they live," said the Countess.
"My lady, they live here now, unless we get them to leave."
They turned to the northeast and followed the road. They soon began to see signs of upcoming settlement. Bazir, sleepy seat of Clane's great plains province, was heralded by farms extending several miles outside of the city proper. Ordinarily there would have been some activity in these precincts, at least animal activity, even at night. Now all was quiet but the wind.
Of livestock there was no sign, but they were plunder. The fences lay flattened or hung useless in the breeze. Vivian, followed by the others, rode up an embankment by one house to have a closer look. The house itself, a pile of cinders and scorched beams, had little to reveal. Around back there were signs of a campfire. As they rode around the other side of the house, something white lay across their path. The scouts and the horses knew more or less what it was before they came to it. But Countess Vivian was here to see the sights, and she rode up to see this one.
An old woman's body lay across their path, turned by death into a thing.
No words were said. They moved on towards Bazir, with Willd riding beside the Countess. More burnt houses slipped by and they passed side streets. Still the buildings were all spots of ash and piles of charred brick.
They pushed on for the town square and the old fort. They knew, all four of them, what they would find, but they could not stop from looking. And then there it was, the great open space before them, filled with crowds as though it had been market day when the Avars arrived.
The ride into town had seemed to go on for days; the ride back to camp, over the miles of prairie, seemed to take only a few minutes, and then they were among their own watch fires. Vivian stayed up into the early hours talking with whatever knights and soldiers and scouts and cooks were unable to sleep, until she was sure, again, that there were more of her people alive than dead.
Six men sat around a guard-fire roasting hunks of meat on sticks. They were of the Selac contingent, infantry, from Radun on the Rocky River. They all thought they would die, bravely and soon, so they were in a good mood.
"I figure they'll be at least five thousand," said the skinny one, a tanner in civilian life.
"They say three and a half," said their grizzled chief.
"Double everything the Thane tells you about the enemy," said a soldier hefty and grim, a butcher. "He knows better than to tell us right out."
They were silent for a minute, some eating, others just staring into the fire. The youngest soldier spoke up. "Well, I just want to kill three of them before they cut me down."
"You, kill one and take off," said the chief. "That's an order. Your pretty Elaine's got better things to do than cry over your grave."
"That's right," said the carpenter. "You're the youngest. You've got to get back home and write a song about us."
"Yeah, that's it," said the butcher. "How we made a hill of Avar corpses before they picked us off. But they was too much for us, though we fought right valiant."
"If I do get out," said the young fellow, "me and my pretty Elaine got better things to do than write songs."
They had a laugh, and then the carpenter said, "Yes, and what if we win?"
They were all taken aback. The chief said, "No need to worry. We can't possibly win."
"Well, if Inzil had come," said the tanner.
"They'll get theirs," said the chief. "You wait and see. They're next, bunch of cowards. Like to see them talk their way out, after the way they let our Countess down. You know their Count promised, swore an oath mind you, on the Emperor's Throne, five thousand foot and a thousand knights. Down there at that Avigon. Now he can't be bothered. Oh, yeah, they'll get theirs."
They all agreed on that. They tore into the chunks of meat and started roasting more.
"Kid," said the chief between mouthfuls, "I have a feeling this is my last battle. No, don't argue. Take care of yourself. You got your whole life in front of you. Why, I remember when I was a green lad like you, handsome devil too, and my wife, she was quite a looker then back those years ago, though you wouldn't know it to look at either of us now. I think back on all that's been in between, three daughters and two sons, and grandkids coming, and I'm damn glad I was a coward back then."
"Our chief," said the carpenter. "Last time we were called out, to fight some Rugian raiders, he said he wasn't going to make it through that one either."
The chief took no notice, chewing thoughtfully. "Another thing," he said, still chewing. "Have a care tonight. Those Avars might even now be creeping up to put arrows in us. You know they like to raid at night."
The young soldier looked about warily, moved away from the fire. There was nothing to see, just flat grasslands rolling away under the moonlight. He had never seen so much flat land. He stood for a full minute, then returned to the fire. "There's nothing out there but moon and wind."
"Don't be so sure," said the butcher.
They all tore into their meat again. The single horseman was on them almost before they knew it. The six leapt up, but the horseman, standing just outside the firelight, bore no sword. He tossed a small bundle down into the pale of the light. All they could see of him was a dark face framed by dark hair, a grimace upon bearded lips.
"Take this to your Count," he said with a strong accent. "He will know what it is." The rider turned and vanished into the moonlight.
One of the soldiers, the quiet one, picked the package up and untied it. It was a pouch of stained cloth. He looked inside--then tied it back up and handed it gingerly to the chief.
"What is it?" asked the young soldier, but the quiet one remained quiet.
The chief untied the bundle and looked inside, squinting as though some noxious liquid were likely to squirt out in his face. After a long look, he retied it and handed it to the butcher. "Mike," he said, "take this to her ladyship."
"Well, how was Bazir?" asked Sir Rogier upon arising two hours before dawn, finding the Countess sitting in the mess tent with a cup of tea. "Still the same exciting night life?"
"Not funny," said the Countess.
He knelt beside her. "Anything left?"
"No, not really."
"People escaped?"
"Yes," she answered, "the way we all do, eventually."
"I'm sorry," he said. "I should have known. We all should have known, but we wanted it to be otherwise. What about--?"
"We didn't see any sign whatever, no sign of a fight at all." She laughed, like wind in dry grasses. "No fight there at all. Well, one thing's certain."
"What's that?"
"It was a memorable ride." She stood up, stretched her brief, bony frame. "I think we'd better call a council."
"I quite agree. Basil!" A guard appeared at the tent's entrance. "Basil, go fetch the captains to a council of war, here in the Countess's tent, in half an hour."
"Yes, sir" was the reply, and then the tent flaps were closing behind the departing soldier. The cloth was still quivering when the Thane of Westdubbik entered.
"My lady," he said, giving a brief bow, "I have heard about your adventure."
"I expect everyone has."
"If it were a secret, it would be safe with me. In any case, I've been sending out my own scouts, two at a time, and my news is possibly as disturbing as yours."
"You didn't go out personally?"
"Fortunately not, my lady," he said, smiling for a moment. "Two of my men who went out yesterday at dawn have not returned. It was two who went out at dusk who turned up another group of nomads north of Bazir, about forty miles from here."
"When was this?" asked Sir Rogier.
"They were at the far end of their trip--it would have been before midnight. Avars, need I say? Several thousand. Perhaps another three thousand fighters, and more women and children and their herds."
"That changes things," said Sir Rogier.
"It changes everything!" said the Countess. "How can sixteen hundred of our own men defend against six thousand? Or is it eight? I can't keep track! And without Bazir, what are we defending? A hundred miles of grass?"
"Well," said the Thane of Westdubbik, "at least we didn't go through with the battle, not knowing about the relief column."
"Yes," said Sir Rogier, "it's what I feared. They're coming in force, slaughtering as they come, and their own families and herds are coming with them. They're moving in to stay."
"We can retreat to those hills," said Thane Horst. "By the Lavan River. We'll have to concede Bazir and Maklos. That's, uh, my counsel. If you find it wise, my lady."
The other two were squinting into the fire on the brazier in the middle of the tent, as though the answers were written there. The thane joined them and had a look for himself. "By the Sun's gracious light," said Vivian, "let us make sure that the villagers and farmers still behind us know what's coming."
"We can have messengers across the fields in half an hour," said Sir Rogier. "My thane, would you commit a half dozen of your riders to the task?"
"May it please the Countess," said the Thane, "I offer them before you ask. We'll have to alert Thane Archibard of Maklos. He may prefer to die in his own province, or not. I'll see to it he's warned."
"Thank you, Thane Horst," said the Countess. "Yes, your counsel is wise. I wish I could argue with it." He turned toward the tent flaps, but before he could go, they opened to admit a soldier carrying a small package. He looked at the Thane of Westdubbik, then at Sir Rogier, and then his eyes fell on the Countess Vivian. He knelt.
"A bow would suffice, soldier."
"My lady," he said, standing, a head taller than her, "a rider, an Avar, approached our guard post and threw this to us. He bade us bring it to the Count, those were his words." He handed it to Sir Rogier, who wasn't eager to bring it closer to his face. Vivian took it from him.
"Hmph," she said. "What is it?"
"I don't know, my lady. My chief looked inside, and did not like what he saw."
"Thank you, soldier." He bowed and left. She stared down at the bundle in her hand. It was a smallish cloth pouch, stained with a dark hardened substance, tied with twine. After a moment's contemplation she loosened the tie and pulled the pouch open. Inside was a heavy dark object. She dumped it out on the table by her cot, reached to pick it up, pulled back with a soft cry of disgust. It was a hand, discolored, stiff, wrinkled perhaps with age. On one finger was the signet ring of Lord Smeagle, Horse Marshal of the County of Clane.
An hour before dawn on the morning of the fourth of April, the thanes and captains attempted to raise a minor rebellion, not so much against the Countess or Sir Rogier as against reality itself.
"How can we turn back now?" asked Thane Raymond of Selac, "after we have come so far?"
"You might ask," said Sir Rogier, "how can we stay and fight out here in the open, against an enemy that is used to this sort of terrain, and will soon outnumber us two or three to one."
"But they don't," said old Thane Hugo of Tarnver. "Not yet. We could strike now, bloody their nose a bit, then clear out."
"For that matter," said Thane Raymond, "we don't know what's become of Thane Richard. He's unaccounted for, along with his militia, and along with the entire cavalry except for poor Lord Smeagle."
"How do we even know that Lord Smeagle's dead?" asked Captain Edwy Sallier. "All we have is his hand. The rest of him, and the rest of his cavalry, might be out there fighting the relief force right now."
Some of the other captains thought this made a certain sense, and said so. "It don't add up," said one. Another wondered, "Why give us his hand, and not his head, which would prove it for sure?"
"How do we know," said Thane Karlan of Intror, "that there even is a relief column? How reliable are these so-called scouts, anyway?"
"I'll ignore that," said Thane Horst of Westdubbik, "but if I weren't ignoring it, I'd point out that those were my men, and at least as trustworthy as any of your Intror river rats!"
"River rats, is it?"
"Now, children!" Sir Rogier cried into the din.
"I say we attack!" shouted Thane Raymond de Selac.
"I agree!" shouted all the captains but Francis Weaver, who kept his mouth shut.
"We hit them in two hours, with the sun behind us," said the dashing Captain Margus de Passaya, waving his hand at the map on the table. "Knights first, to break their formation, then infantry. Then the cataphracts encircle and destroy those who break out, and the bows punish those who stay in front of us. Then the knights circle back for the kill."
A loud noise near at hand interrupted the discussion. They looked up and saw a short, skinny young woman in a long, wrinkly grey dress beating the table with a pan. All went quiet. The Countess inhaled a long breath and spoke.
"Okay. Let me explain something. We are not going to attack. We are going to retreat."
"Retreat?" murmured many, though no one in Vivian's view.
"Oh, what have I got myself into?" she asked. "Are all my captains idiots? Charge them with the knights? Is that what Dad would've done?"
"No, my lady," supplied Sir Rogier with a smile.
"But my lady--!" said several. "But listen, my lady," Captain Margus tried, "we've come all the way out here--!"
"Oh. It would be such a waste if we didn't take this excellent opportunity to be slaughtered. That's military thinking all right." She switched her gaze to Thane Karlan of Intror. "And as for you! Do you know the kind of risks those scouts take?"
"Uh, no, my lady, I'm--"
"No, of course not. And when they risk their lives, and some of them actually die, to bring back news, then you have all sorts of questions and objections. Just so you could justify--"
"A bold attack, my lady," said Thane Karlan, still ready to voice his opinion.
"Bold. You could say so much more. How about wasteful, stupid, undisciplined, thoughtless, witless, meaningless, pointless? To call it risky would be to indicate that there was some chance involved somewhere. It doesn't seem to me like there is! Our army--my army--would be annihilated! If not by the first host of barbarians that outnumbers us, then surely by the second one!"
"But, well, he still shouldn't have called my people river rats."
Vivian turned to the others. "It's a good thing there's a woman here, that's all I can say. And here's what the woman says to do: we will pull up stakes and retreat forthwith, but quietly, and in an orderly manner. The Cataphracts will cover our pullout. When we get to the hills we will think again about turning and fighting."
"You heard her," said Sir Rogier de Clatu. "The Countess and Thanes Horst and Burley will send the marching orders within the hour."
"If I may suggest," said Thane Horst, "let us move the knights up onto the rise that lies on the northeast side of our encampment, arrayed as for a long charge. That is where we would gather if we were indeed going to attack. The Avars no doubt expect folly from us--and they will plan to meet it with their best steel traps. For this particular folly is just what they would do, were they in our boots."
"I concur," said Thane Burley of Skavin.
"Let it be so ordered," said the Countess. "Anything else?" There was not a sound. "Then, gentlemen, I thank you for your efforts." The soldiers and lords filed out quietly, several of them catching her eye and bowing their heads. As they left, she turned to Sir Rogier.
"My lady," he said, "you're not your father, but you're definitely the Countess."
An hour later, they were assembled again on the plains of Bazir. Vivian could not help but think of the gathering on the hill east of Vonnis just five days ago. They mounted up, the thanes and captains sought out their own troops, and Thanes Horst and Raymond, along with Sir Evan Rain, took their leave of the Countess to lead the knights. Thane Burley of Skavin rode up just afterward.
"My lady," he said, "I and my escort must part from you here. Skavin is now in the path of the enemy, if they should think to avenge their defeat by your father at Grassyfields."
"You have your home to defend," replied the Countess.
"Yes, I do, my lady. May I take my leave?"
"You certainly may," she said. "We will come visit you, if the Avars turn your way. At least you have the stone walls of Orlad to defend you."
"Yes, and Tyef, and the Lord Consul has even started to build up the walls at Wervin, thanks to you. Fare you well, my lady." He saluted, turned and rode off with six Skavin knights.
All was soon ready. The host began, slowly at first, to move out. Behind them, Vivian thought, the camp itself looked enough like a battlefield even without any dead. It seemed to her as if they had been there a week. Beyond the camp, five hundred horsemen stood on the far rise. At a signal, their buglers began to bugle like mad. Their pennants flew in the wind, the Avar scouts got an eyeful, then they dutifully reported back to their Khan. Well after the main army, the knights moved out. It was Sir Evan Rain's idea that they should move across the road northwest and north as if rounding the flank of the Avar camp--before turning and chasing the Clanish infantry.
Some hours after, the knights were reported to have caught up to the rearguard, and presently Thane Horst de Fugad arrived at the Countess's side. "My lady," he said, "the bluff has been bluffed."
"How'd it go?"
"We could see the watchers turn and run back to their leaders to report, as soon as we blew our trumpets. It wasn't a battle, but it did go off without a hitch."
"It was as much of a victory as we'll get for now," said Vivian. "How much time do you think you bought us?"
"I have no way of knowing, of course, not being an intimate of the Khan, but I would guess no more than half a day. Of course, to catch up with us, if that's their desire, may take several days. They move faster than we do, but not much faster--they too are encumbered with men on foot."
"And women and children."
"Those are, I suppose, pitching yurts and planting gardens."
"Your scouts are still keeping an eye to our rear?"
The Thane smiled. "They have that honor, my lady, along with some of your own errand-riders. Would you like to join them?"
"No, but thanks for offering. I just want to know if the Avars are following us, or if it's the Thane of Skavin I should be concerned about, or if they've decided to go back and overrun Maklos, or if they're going to leave that to the relief force, or if the two forces are going to unite and then come crush us, or what."
"As soon as we have a sign as to what doom awaits us," he replied, "I will let you know."
There was no sign of pursuit that night, so Vivian got a good night's sleep for once. The next day was cool, with a solid sheet of high grey cloud and a bitter wind off the plains to the north. The army was moving by the hour after dawn, but made slow time. Spirits were low.
A certain degree of motivation, at least, was restored around noon, when word came to the Countess, and meanwhile filtered out into the army, that units of Avar horsemen had been sighted following. At Sir Rogier's suggestion, Vivian moved her knights up toward the vanguard, ostensibly to offer her better protection, but with the added benefit of placing the faster and less hotheaded Cataphracts in sight of the enemy. "You never know," he said, "a young knight, carrying the seal of his family, maybe his girlfriend's handkerchief, thinking about how we denied him the chance to show what he was made of, breaks off from the formation and challenges some squad of nomad horsemen, and the other knights cannot let him go alone to his death but decide to join him. These knights, they're great riders and they're heavily armored, but they do tend to be a bit eager."
"I guess you would know," said Vivian.
"Oh, I do, my lady, from the inside of the armor I do."
In the early afternoon, the army passed the loose assemblage of farms around Midder. The place looked even more deserted than before. A day ago, the Countess's messengers, chosen from among the dozen or so Baziri riders traveling with the Countess's army, had brought the news and seen to it that everyone left moved out immediately. The refugees were already in the hills.
By the evening of the second day of their retreat from the plains, the army was ascending into rugged country, drier and more tumbled than the meadows of Bazir. They camped on and around several small stony hills near the east end of a streamless valley. The army ate, set up double watches and slept fitfully under the broken clouds. Meanwhile the captains talked and Vivian listened.
"They will shadow us," opined Thane Raymond of Selac, "all the way back to Vonnis."
"Not necessarily," said Captain Renard Renulfson, a cavalry officer from Skavin. "They may well fear to spread themselves too far. They crossed the Fire Pass in the north of the land of Bazir, a low pass, and their homeland is said to be a broad prairie not unlike the one in which they now roam at will. Following us will lead them into a country of mountains and rivers and stone walls. They may indeed hold back from entering such a land."
"I think they'll attack before we cross the hills," said Margus de Passaya.
Sir Rogier looked at the Thane of Westdubbik. "What is your latest news, my good thane?"
"Of course," replied Thane Horst, "we don't have anyone out with an abacus, but it's evident that this is no mere shadow force. There are skirmishers as well as their cavalry, and some axemen mounted now who will fight on foot."
They all looked at the Countess. She smiled the smile she'd been practicing in mirrors, showing a few teeth: she had seen it on the late Sir Adalbert, the Minister of State before Sir Rogier. He had been known for intimidating his juniors, and he had intimidated the young Vivie. "So," she said, "who's right?"
They looked at one another. "Well, of course no one knows," said Thane Horst.
"Well, my lady," Margus started in bravely, "it's true that the Avars prefer to fight in the plains. Yet they must feel slighted by our escape. Even if they have already destroyed the Horse Marshal's force and the militia of Thane Richard, they must feel that the big prize is getting away. If we escape to the shelter of the Lavan Valley, it will be a lot longer before their Khan can sit at ease in Bazir."
"I think--" the Thane of Intror broke in.
"He's not done," said the Countess. "Are you?"
"I was going to add, my lady, that even if the Avars have no interest in invading Clane proper, they still have to be worried as long as we have a sizeable army ready to threaten them in a time of weakness. So if they can do us significant damage, then they will buy themselves time to deal with other foes, such as Inzil or Skavin. It would probably fall if we couldn't protect it." There was a hesitant silence. "That's all, my lady."
"Thank you. That was very cogent. Now--um, Captain Renard?"
Renard Renulfson shifted from foot to foot. "I, ah, only thought, ah, that they would not follow us further than this. That they might want to fight us now, I guess I agree with that."
"But if we broke camp early and slipped over the hills?" asked Sir Rogier.
"Well, I think then we would not be followed," said Renard Renulfson, looking at the Countess's feet, "but I could certainly be wrong."
"Yes," said Thane Karlan of Intror, who had been a thane for more than twenty years, since his teens, and was quite accustomed to it. "I think they'll follow us, all right, right into the Lavan Valley. The further they go without having to fight, the more of our sheep they get to eat. And the hungrier they get. They may think themselves invincible, especially as they now can see us fleeing. We shall eventually have to show them otherwise. It is our choice where to fight--here, where we defend the Lavan Valley from pillage, or further on, where maybe we know our terrain better." Vivian looked him in the eye and said nothing. "Being as my province is over in the Valley," he added, "I quite selfishly choose to fight here."
"Then, if I may say so," said Sir Rogier, "we seem to be of one mind." Vivian gave him an unbelieving look. He went on. "Whatever fight there is yet to be in this campaign, it will be here on the ridge."
"I'd say," said Thane Horst, "that whatever the Avars do, we will be in danger as long as such a host is so close behind us. My scouts say that the whole force that follows us is within an hour's ride now. Either we move out early and leave them again in our dust, or we fight them somewhere tomorrow. And they won't be waiting for us to make the first move like they were yesterday."
"So we have to do something," said Vivian.
"Yes, but I don't know what," said Thane Horst. "I doubt we can outrun them for long tomorrow, and I still wouldn't bet on our army in a fair fight."
"One thing I learned as a young man in the world of chivalric honor," said Sir Rogier, "don't come within a lance's length of a fair fight."
Vivian went out, leaving the captains to a desultory debate. By now she was sure they wouldn't decide anything important in her absence. She called for her mare Finesse and rode around the camp as the stars became denser and the old moon rose. She sat on her horse and stared eastward toward the enemy camp, which she could not make out. Then she turned and rode around to the westernmost of the stony hills on which the Clanish were encamped. She looked down the road to Vonnis: it ran southwest from the stony mounds up a long shallow trough overseen by cracked buttresses of rock under a thin cover of pines.
Two more horses approached. She turned, half expecting assassins or Avar ruffians. It was Sir Rogier de Clatu and Sir Evan Rain.
"My lady," said the Minister of State, "any inspiration?"
"Not yet, Sir Rogier. I'll let you know."
"And I'll do the same for you. We were just doing what I suppose you're doing: having a look round, trying to get a clearer picture."
"That's what I'm doing, all right."
"And Sir Evan is worried about something, my lady. He has been bothering me about it ever since we adjourned."
"Do you think I would be any help?"
"Well, my lady," said the old gentleman, whose reticence had not been passed on to his daughters Angeline and Ellean, "it's the militia. They're the weak link. They are slower, less well-trained and, well, more prone to panic than the rest."
"Well, it's not as if the knights are any paragons of restraint."
"Oh, they concern me too, my lady. If we have to fight, out here on the edge of no place, here is what I fear: the knights will charge the enemy and get themselves cut to pieces, and then the militia will turn tail and run, and we'll be left with less than half our army. The Avars would have that big victory that everyone thinks they're after."
Neither Vivian nor Sir Rogier could find much fault with this analysis, much as they wanted to, so they just sat on their horses looking up at the stars. Vivian gazed up the valley to the southwest, where the road back to Vonnis ran. She finally said, "The militia run, and the Avars charge after them."
"That's just what would happen, my lady," said Sir Evan.
"Especially," she went on, "if the whole army tried to retreat, and the militia, the slowest ones, were left in back."
"My lady," said Sir Evan, "if I may say so, that is not even a worthwhile jest. You can't leave the militia as your rearguard. They would run, but not fast enough--it'd be a slaughter."
"It'll be a slaughter, all right. Guess what? I've had an inspiration."
The next morning before dawn, the word went out. The force was pulling up stakes immediately, no waiting. "Let not the swift tarry for the slow," were the Countess's orders. First up were the cataphracts, and first out of camp, definitely the swiftest. The longbows were gone before the spearmen of the militias were even fully awake. When they got their tents stowed and set off, packs on their backs, most of the ordinary soldiers thought that they were at last getting the chance to die, heroically or otherwise. "At least our sweet Countess will get to drink her wine in peace tomorrow night in Vonnis," said some. Others weren't sure that their sacrifice would even accomplish that.
Only a couple of hundred of the oldest knights, led by Sir Evan Rain and Sir Rogier de Clatu, stayed with them, moving about nervously in the flats between the hills of camp, obviously anxious to be off before disaster struck.
An hour after dawn, disaster showed up in all its regalia. The sky glowed red with the new sun on the plains of Bazir, and the Avar horns, unheard all those days, brayed insolently in the rising wind. Dust rose a mile away, along a wide front. The Avar cavalry, armed with bow and spear and sword, came on at a furious pace, followed by their axemen running full-out. The horns were joined by the most enthusiastic cries of bloodlust. The Avars hoped soon to be knee-deep in gore.
The militia, still not formed up despite their leaders' desperate efforts, took one look and broke rank. They dropped their packs and fled, leaving the knights to fall back cautiously behind them, not quite ready to turn and fight such a horde, but unwilling to ride down their own men to escape. Into the valley the fleeing Clanishmen pressed, and the Avars soon filled its east end. They plunged in with blood-curdling cries.
For five or ten minutes, the Avars tried to grab the Clanish cowards by their trailing garments, the militia staying just ahead of them. Sir Evan led a company of knights that managed to keep their discipline long enough to punish any over-eager nomads, riding in and slashing the enemy before they had a chance to stop and aim arrows, then hurrying back out of range. Each time, another dozen Avar riders fell, but a few more knights also lost their lives to the chances of war. Sir Evan wore the face of a sea captain trying to steer while his ship breaks up in the storm.
At last it was too much. The Avars pressed the knights against the fleeing militia, who were wearing out completely. Noble rider, peasant infantryman turned alike to meet their doom. It was strange how many of the militia had lost their packs but kept their spears and pikes and short swords, but the Avars did not take much notice. By now, two thousand nomad axemen had followed the cavalry into the defile.
Their outriders, trying to round the ridge on the north side and close the west end of the valley, did not materialize. Rather, the riders that appeared along the stony ridges were Clanish cataphracts, and as these charged downslope, the longbows took their places. Before the cataphracts reached the bottom, the bows had sent several volleys over their heads. The Avar horsemen were in the ecstasy of battle, their horses trampling their enemies' bodies, but behind them the axemen were being decimated. The cataphracts burst on them just as their ranks broke.
The shout of "John Zimmish!" went up from the Clanish horsemen as they mowed through their confused and disgruntled foes. If they were confused by the name of Clane's first Count, it was followed by "Vivian! Vivian!" Ten minutes of sheer bloodbath ensued, followed by true panic, not the feigned panic of the Clanish militias, who now lustily drove their home-made spears up to the hafts in the Avar riders. The axemen turned and ran, and the skirmishers, coming up behind, fled without a fight. Captain Margus de Passaya led a company of cataphracts that chased down one wave of axemen, and then sent several volleys of arrows after the next wave fleeing. Meanwhile, Thane Horst and the Westdubbik pikemen came down the side of the south ridge and joined in encircling and cutting up the remaining Avar cavalry. The combination of arrows, horses and pikes made it impossible for them to do much more than die with honor. Many nomad mothers would never see again their brave strong sons, whose blood left stains on the cloaks of Clanish soldiers, who in turn would never let those stains be washed out by their own mothers.
By the third hour of the morning it was over. The Countess Vivian rode up to where Sir Rogier and Thane Horst stood by their horses. Two thousand Avars lay dead, joined on their voyage to the afterlife by three hundred Clanishmen. The only captives were forty Avar horses.
Among the dead, the first Vivian saw was Sir Evan Rain. He bore a single wound, a spear-stab in the heart. She jumped down and knelt beside him. But there was nothing to do. Captain Renard Renulfson was also numbered among the dead, as was Thane Raymond of Selac--both were with Sir Evan's band of knights, of whom half had fallen. "Their sacrifice won the battle for us," said Sir Rogier, who had no wound but a bloody sword.
"Let's not forget," said Thane Horst, "these soldiers of the militia. Their running--and their acting too--made our plan work, and many of them paid with their lives, and our villages and farms will sorely miss them."
"I made them do it," said Vivian.
"You're right, they did it for you," said Thane Horst, "but that means they did it for Clane, and for their home towns and their houses and their wives and mothers and kids. Don't you ever forget that, uh, my lady."
"Well, please do keep reminding me."
That night they camped on the western slope of the ridge. The next day it was warm and sunny, and they came down to the River Lavan in its hazy spring dream. At dusk they crossed the old stone bridge and entered the city of Vonnis. There was cheering, but not too much: they had only won their startling victory in the course of a historic retreat.
There was much for the Countess to do, and her work did not really start until after she had dined, well past dark. She set a council for the next morning, she sent a messenger to Skavin to apprize Thane Burley of the situation, and she held an informal council with Sir Rogier, Thane Horst and Sir Everard of Angren. She then sought out the daughters of Sir Evan Rain and tried to console them. Angeline and Ellean were still mostly numb, as were the family of Lord Smeagle and the secretary to the Thane of Selac.
This man, Samuel Apsich, got to talk to the Countess at about midnight. Thane Raymond had left no children: Apsich was his family. There was a niece named Thelane, who wanted to be a priestess, and his next closest relative was an elderly second cousin.
"He didn't ever really groom an heir, my lady," said Apsich. "I suppose he had no idea he was going to die."
"You get to choose, then, my lady," said Sir Rogier, "but let it be someone who will be a good master for this poor hardworking old fellow."
"I don't know," said Vivian, "maybe Master Apsich wants to be Thane."
"My lady, you wouldn't!" cried Apsich.
"Uh, no, I guess not," she replied. "Well, I'll think about it."
Very late that night, she sat in the high room, on the floor before the two candles, with the cup in between, but it was long before her interior city became quiet. The faces of the dead, the sweep of the plains and Bazir's unique sky, the tears and cries of joy and the war-cries of the Avars and the doubts, the million doubts.
At last the darkness closed upon her, not the blackness of despair but the clear dark silence of a starry night. The ground was black and reached up toward the sky in black teeth of mountains. Black against black: and she walked the walls of Vonnis, a lady dressed in black. Suddenly Vivian recognized herself in the mirror--not Vivian, but her great great grandmother, the Countess Tereza of the painting that dominated the council chamber. She glared out the windows but a tiny figure escaped her notice, walking away into the vastness of Bazir.
Now it was Vivian in her grey dress peering from the windows, searching the night for the bodies of Bazir. Instead she saw its life, as it was long before Clane, dark-skinned folk in colorful clothes herding thin sheep from swift little horses. Nothing strange. But then for a moment she caught sight of the low pass behind, where a tiny figure stood, clad in grey or brown--or was it cleanest white, colored by shadow? Was he looking this way, searching the empty air for her?
Then she stood upon a bridge overlooking a chasm. Near her was--well, Ellean Rain, and another, almost lost in the fog. But it was clear night again, the night of the high mountains. She and Ellean and Angeline looked out from a parapet over a chasm, trying to pierce the shadows in the east. With a flash the light awoke, red like the dawn. But it was not the sun. It was a city in flame.
She woke with a start, her heart drumming in her chest. She jumped up and went to the open window of the high room, expecting to see fires blazing up from the roofs below. But all was dark, save for a few watch fires. She sighed. The City of Vonnis was intact.
Clane had more or less survived Vivian's first three months as Countess.