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He had his bow with him in the bag, to keep it that little bit more supple; he stuck the tip of it out and wiggled it a little. Mary gave a grim sound of assent. ?And when he?s King, what will you do?? Asgerd asked.
Edain frowned.?Fight for him when he needs me to ward his back,? he said.?Help Da on the farm between times. Take over the holding when he?s gone to the Summerlands, and sure, I hope that?s many years yet.?
Asgerd laughed, with an edge of iron to it.?From the sagas, that?s not what happens to the right-hand men of new-made Kings.?
Mary chuckled too, the sound just as grim.?She?s got you there, Edain. We don?t know everything of what being High King will mean, exactly. But I give you any odds you?re not going to see much plow-and-pitchfork work. Boyo,? she added with malice aforethought. ?Teeth of Anwyn?s hounds!? Edain said, dismayed; he liked tending the land.?Da did, and he was First Armsman!? ?Of the Mackenzies. Rudi?s going to be High King of Montival, though. Rudi said he wouldn?t spare himself, or us, to see the work of the King done right. Did you think he was joking?? ?No. It?s not the sort of thing he?d jest on,? Edain said unhappily.?I just thought he meant he?d put us in harm?s way in battle if it was needful… how different could High King be from being Chief?? ?Times have changed,? Mary said.?The world?s not as simple as it was.?
He could see Asgerd nodding.?Here too,? she said.?There?s been talk of choosing a king of Erik?s line. There?s more people now, for one thing. The realm needs more steering.?
Not just a pretty girl who?s middling good with a sword, Edain thought. Then: I was looking forward to going home. Maybe I can?t, even when we?re home again!
Then Mary?s head went up; he felt a prickling himself an instant later… as if he was listening to an absence of sound rather than a noise in itself. Asgerd?s head went back and forth between them, puzzled.
Smart, but she hasn?t spent as much time as we on the trail with lunatics and boogeymen after her, that she has not, Edain thought grimly, and pulled the toggle that opened his bag.
Ritva made a twittering sound before she came into sight, to avoid hasty arrows. She was wearing a winter version of the war-cloak, white, mostly, with less vegetation and more broad strips of pale cloth that made you look like a lump of snow when you stopped. ?We?re a bit closer than we thought. I spent half an hour right under one of their sentries,? she said.?Come look.?
TheSwordoftheLady
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Rudi could see the throwing arm of the trebuchet move despite the bright morning sun rising behind it. The great wooden baulk was tiny as a matchstick in the distance even through the binoculars he held in his left hand; his right was around the tree trunk, hugging the rough resin-smelling wood. The picture swayed as the big pine did. The two of them were high enough up that their weight made that sway worse, like a rock at the end of a stick, but the snow-clad branches all around should still hide them as long as he was careful not to let light flash off the lenses.
The war engine was of the simplest, a thick upright beam on either side braced with shorter logs fore and aft like a double inverted V. The throwing arm was another tree trunk swinging between them, roughly smoothed and pivoting on a metal axle a third of the way along. The stone in its sling lay loosely on the trampled snow for an instant, as the arm stood pointing downward. Then the ropes were released. For an instant the great box of rocks on the shorter end stayed poised aloft; then it began to fall, slowly for an instant, gathering speed until the air whirred. The long arm moved even faster, dragging the sling along the packed snow in a shower of shavings and lumps, then soaring aloft. The cradle of woven rope whipped upward at its end, and at the height of the curve the eye that held it closed slid off the carefully shaped hook at the end of the beam.
A dull whunk and heavy creaking sounded as the weighted end of the throwing arm rocked back and forth at the bottom of its trajectory, the longer tapering part upright like a mast swaying in a storm, with the loosened sling for a pe
Captured oxen were brought up to hitch to the winch that would haul the machine back to its ready position, and men began to roll another rock forward.
Edain showed teeth in what was not quite a smile.?I thought the Cutters were against machinery?? he said quietly.
He wasn?t using glasses, but his unaided vision was the keenest the Mackenzie heir had ever met. ?They are; complex ones. Not levers,? Rudi said grimly.?And to be sure, that?s as simple an application of leverage as you can get, short of a club like the Dagda?s for the bashing of heads. They?ve bashed well at the blockhouses on either side of the stretch they?re knocking down, you notice??
He?d brought Edain up for a reason. The young man was more than bright enough to learn more of war than what you needed to lead a few archers.
And I?m going to need him. For all that I?ve got so many capable commanders-in-the-making in this band.?Engines there?? Edain said. ?There were. And enough well-protected archers shooting through slits to make an assault like sticking your rod into a meat-grinder with a madman turning the crank. Whoever?s in charge there knows his business. It?s how I?d take the place myself, if I was in too much of a hurry to starve them out. Now quiet for a second.?
He turned his attention to the rest of his enemies? efforts. There were the two ships anchored offshore, keeping the water approach covered with their deck engines. He estimated them as a bit more than two hundred tons? burden each, substantial but not large. Probably with large crews, but there was no way to tell for sure how much of their space held men and how much food and water-they were far from home and from secure supplies.
And a camp ashore at twice bowshot from Kalksthorpe?s defenses, of tents and brushwood huts surrounded by an abatis of tree trunks with their branches sharpened to act as obstacles. He rough-counted the men there, and the ones behind a row of mantlets before the breech. There were archers, stepping aside from the cover of the wheeled shields to shoot now and then, dueling with those on the wall. Two light throwing machines as well. One bucked and spat as he watched; what the western world called scorpions, more or less. The roundshot smashed chips off the pointed edges of the logs along the fighting platform, and he thought he saw a man fall, though he couldn?t be certain. There was a haze of smoke over the town, but no great black plumes. The attackers weren?t using incendiaries.
Still, overshot rounds will smack through roofs and into kitchens or forges. Fire?s always a threat in a wood-built town. ?Twenty-five or thirty of our old comrade Graber?s Sword of the Prophet,? he said. ?Sure, and they?re as hardy as cockroaches!? Edain said. ?They?re good fighting men, and no mistake,? Rudi said.?Nor is there any giving up in them, at all. They?re worthy of a better cause. Three times that number of those Bekwa savages; maybe four.?