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Nevertheless, Nassef's men kept getting in the way. And when they slowed the column, their brethern overtook it from behind.
The fighting seldom reached Bragi's company. He and Haaken occupied themselves carrying a Guildsman who had fallen and nearly been left behind. They did not talk much.
An hour fled. Miles passed. Another hour trudged into the warehouse of time. Hawkwind kept moving. The enemy could not place a preponderance of strength into his path.
Hours and miles. The sky began lightening.
"I hear the breakers," Haaken gasped. Their burden had become agonizingly heavy.
Bragi snorted. "Even if we were close, you couldn't hear the surf over the noise we're making."
But Haaken was right. They tramped through an olive grove and there lay the sea. A galaxy of lanterns sparkled on the water as ships signalled their whereabouts.
"The ships," Haaken muttered to himself. "I see the ships."
The run ended ten minutes later. The secundus and tercio started digging in. Longboats began carrying Councilors to the vessels.
It was a big fleet. Some of the ships had escaped Simballawein. Some, Hellin Daimiel had sent against this contingency. The Daimiellians wanted to salvage Guildsmen who might stiffen their own defenses.
El Murid's men attacked, but without verve or organization. These were not fanatics, they were plunderers. They saw no profit in trying to obliterate a beaten foe. The Guildsmen repulsed them easily.
Bragi's company was one of the last into the boats.
He was digging an arrowhead from Reskird's shoulder when Sanguinet said, "You boys might have the stuff after all."
Bragi was startled. He had not noticed the captain getting aboard.
"Sir?"
"I saw you pick up a man and carry him to the beach."
"He was one of ours."
"You'll make it, Ragnarson. So will your brother. The man was dead the last three miles."
"What? I never noticed."
"What's wrong with your sidekick there? He don't stay this quiet when he's asleep."
"I told him to shut up. He was getting on my nerves."
"Oh? Maybe he'll make a Guildsman too."
"Maybe. You can talk now, Reskird. You made your point."
But Kildragon refused. He was sulking.
The fleet made Hellin Daimiel three days later.
Nassef's horde had raced them northward. The roads out of the city had been cut. A noose was tightening fast. In a few days the sea would be the city's only means of communication.
Hellin Daimiel was not Simballawein. Nassef's confederates were caught and hung before they did any harm.
Bragi's company spent six weeks there, remaining till Hawkwind and the ruling council were sure the city was in no immediate danger.
"Company meeting," Lieutenant Trubacik told Ragnarson one morning. "The rumors were right. We're moving out."
Sanguinet was sour. "The Citadel is sending us to the Lesser Kingdoms. Nassef isn't interested in Hellin Daimiel right now. Meanwhile, Itaskia and the other northern states are raising an army. We're supposed to keep Nassef from clearing his eastern flank, to threaten him into staying south of the Scarlotti till the northern army arrives. It'll be tough, especially if the Kaveliners don't hold in the Savernake Gap.
"We're going to Altea. I guess it's mainly a moral gesture. One company can't do much. My opinion is that we'll be wasting ourselves. The Citadel should assemble the whole brotherhood and take the initiative. But High Crag didn't ask me what I thought.
"We'll board ships in the morning. They'll ferry us to Du
"Gentlemen, we're the best warriors in the world. But this time I think somebody is a little too sure of us. Break it to your men gently."
Sanguinet entertained only a few questions. He did not have any answers.
Reskird had ended his sulk in the taverns and whorehouses of the city. He was his old self. "You look like death on a stick," he told Bragi. "What's up?"
"They're shipping us to the Lesser Kingdoms."
"Huh?"
"Altea, specifically. On our own. You'd better hope that Sanguinet is as good a captain as he was a sergeant."
Haaken had no comment. He just shook his head gloomily.
Chapter Six:
THE WANDERER
T he fat youth's arms and legs pistoned wildly. He had done it again. The boys behind him had never heard of the concept mercy.
His donkey, for once, was cooperative. She trotted beside him, eyes rolling forlornly, as if to ask if he would ever learn his lesson. He was headed for an early bout with cut-throat-itis, an often fatal disease.
He was on a downhill slide, this Mocker. The town he was leaving was called Lieneke. It was hardly more than a village. A chance aggregation of bumpkins. And even they had caught on to his cheating.
A fragment of the message had begun to penetrate his brain. He was going to have to do things differently from now on. Assuming he got away this time.
The boys of Lieneke were a determined, persistent lot, but they did not have enough at stake. Fat and lazy though he was, Mocker had stamina. He kept windmilling till they gave up the chase.
He did not go on any farther than it took to get out of sight. Then he collapsed by the roadside and did not move for two days.
He did some hard thinking during that time, and finally convinced himself that he did not have what it took to cheat his way through life.
But what else could he do? His only skills were those he had learned from Sajac and his ilk.
He ought to find a patron, he thought. Somebody stupid but buried in inherited wealth. He smiled wryly, then steeled himself for a serious effort to avoid games of chance and outright thefts.
His visible profession was socially acceptable. Sure, he obtained money under false pretenses, but his customers were fooling themselves. The popular attitude was a tolerant caveat emptor. People gullible enough to buy his crazy advice and noxious beauty aids deserved whatever they got.
He finally moved on when a combination of hunger and fear caught up with him. The passage of a party of knights caused the fear.
He had encountered a similar band near Vorgreberg several weeks earlier. The men-at-arms had beaten him simply because he was a foreigner. He had not accepted his beating graciously, and that had not helped. He was a wicked little fighter when cornered. He had hurt several of them badly. They might have killed him had a knight not interceded.
Kavelin was a state typical of the Lesser Kingdoms. Those minor principalities were a crazy hodge-podge where social chaos was the norm. They were lands of weak kings, strong barons, and byzantine politics. National boundaries seldom defined or confined loyalties, alliances, or conspiracies. Wars between nobles were everyday occurrences. Uncontrolled sub-infeudation had reached illogical extremes. The robber baron was an endemic social disease. The blank-shield highwayman-knight was a neighborhood character.
It was the sort of region for which a Mocker was made.
Western Kavelin was in confusion at the moment. The barons there were at one another's throats. Their little armies were plundering the i
Mocker decided that Damhorst, which appeared to be an islet of peace amidst all the excitement, was the perfect place to launch his abbreviated career.
Damhorst was a town of ten thousand, prosperous, quiet, and pleasant. The grim old castle perched on a crag above the town was intimidating enough to compel good behavior. Baron Breitbarth had a cruel reputation with wrongdoers.