“Do you always listen in on her private audiences, Roark?”
“Not always. Sometimes it’s Lark or Braddin with their ear to the flaps.” He grinned at him. Coarse grey stubble covered his cheeks and chin. “Best go get armoured, though. You’re not going to be killing any dragons like old Oswald wearing nought but leather and fur.”
Emeric took the old soldier’s advice, returning to his own small tent in the northwestern corner of the ward. The noise of the encampment was so loud that he couldn’t even hear the river rushing outside. He pushed through the churn of men heading for the walls to find the sailors in conference outside their communal tent. They had a fire going, covered with a tarp to keep off the rain. Grim Pete was cooking a pot of something over the flame and Soft Sid was adding some logs when Emeric arrived. The others were talking in heady tones.
Jack spun to him at once when he saw him appear. “My lord…they say the Agarathi are coming? Is it true?”
“Yes, Jack.”
“How far?” asked Braxton, standing.
“They’ll be here by nightfall. We don’t yet know if they will divert their course. They may be bluffing, or trying to unsettle us.”
Grim Pete shuddered. “We’ll be expected to fight, then? If it comes to that.”
“Every man capable of bearing steel ought to take up arms,” he said. “You’ll be in the reserves, Pete. There’s no safer place on the battlefield.”
“There’s no safe place on the battlefield,” Captain Turner said to that. “Not when there’re dragons about.” He sat on a camp stool in his tan coat, rain dripping from his flaxen beard. “You lot go ahead and fight. I’ll be taking the bridge over into the city when the fighting starts.” He had a bite of bread. “Call me coward all you like. I’m an old sailor and no fighter and I’ll only get in the way. Said that a thousand times.”
Emeric nodded. “No one will object to you sitting this one out, Gill.”
Pete’s eyes widened in hope. “And me?”
“That is not for me to say. I am not your commander.”
Soft Sid stood from the fire, towering above them all. He towered above everyone, even Mooton. “I’m fighting,” he said, in his enormous voice. He had a childlike slowness to him. “Me too. I fight.” He slapped his chest and frowned.
Emeric smiled at him. “You’ll kill many men, Sid. Make sure you’re well armoured and there will be few men who can match you.”
The giant grinned.
“But I hope it will not come to that. We have high walls and a shield above our heads. If sense prevails, we’ll be here a little while longer at least.” Emeric sniffed the air. “What’s on the pot, Pete?”
“Onion broth. Bit of turnip in there too, m’lord. Not much to it, really, but it warms the belly.”
“I’ll have a bowl when it’s ready. Just let me dress in my armour, and I’ll be back out.”
By the time he’d done all of that, the Silent Suncoat had joined them, sitting by the fire with that thousand-yard stare in his eyes. He still sent a chill down the spine of most who looked upon him, but the men had grown well used to him by now. “Borrus wants you in the van,” Emeric told him. “If and when the time comes.”
The man nodded. He wore fine godsteel armour beneath his tattered yellow cloak, both plate and mail, polished and gleaming. From the armoury of Lord Humphrey Merrymarsh the knight had taken a helm crested with a crab, its claws outstretched and open, ready to pinch. Emeric had wondered if that was some clue to his true identity. House Swiftwater’s sigil was a crab with godsteel claws, so perhaps he was a relation? Or maybe he just liked the helm? To this day, the big knight had not spoken a word about his past, or a word at all, mute as he was. He speaks with steel, and that’s all that matters. The man was a fearsome swordsman.
“Here, m’lord, a bowl of broth as requested.”
“Thank you, Pete.” Emeric took the bowl and sat at the fire. The Blackshaws had joined as well, the big burly men all sitting around, eating and sharpening their blades and boasting to one another, as they liked to, occasionally breaking into laughter as one of them made a bawdy jest. Sir Bulmar had the charge of them. He was the only one without a beard and easily the most genteel. He sat with Jack, sharing what advice he could impart.
“You’ll fight with us, when it all begins,” Emeric heard the knight say. “All of us together…we’ll be stronger like that.”
“You’re honorary Blackshaws now,” declared Regnar.
Sir Bulmar nodded. “Any battle goes easier when you trust the men about you. Those bonds are important, Jack. You have the back of the man next to you, and he’ll have yours. A fist is stronger than an open hand, remember that.” He made a fist to show him.
Jack gave a nod and fixed his jaw, trying to look brave. But his eyes showed the truth. He’s nervous, Emeric thought, and so he should be. He was nervous as well, in truth. Emeric Manfrey had crossed swords plenty enough over the years, but he’d never fought in a battle like this. He missed out on the last war on account of his age, and though he might have been there as a squire, his father had insisted he remain at Osworth should it go ill for him. “Our house needs an heir,” Lord Emerson had said, the day he rode to war. “If I should not return, do us proud, Emeric. May you bear many sons. And bring honour to our name.”
They were the last words his father had spoken to him before he smiled down from his horse and called his men to ride, and off they went in a column, cantering off to die. Last words, and a last request, and I failed him in all of it.
He sat alone and ate his soup, brooding on what was to come.
A quiet had fallen over the great ward following the early furore. Across the battlements, the bowmen took their places, and by now every man had put on his armour and readied his weapons to fight. In that state the hours ticked by. A sense of anticipation prevailed, until at last they heard the horns once more. Everyone stopped what they were doing and their eyes went east. A darkness was creeping out upon the world, the unseen sun moving away west beyond the hills. It’s as though it wants to hide, Emeric thought.
“They’re here,” Sir Bulmar said.
Emeric rejoined the others in council, and everyone came in their best, bedecked head to heel in steel with the fine rich cloaks of their kingdoms and houses and orders falling resplendent at their backs. Even Lady Marian had come this time.
“They’ve stopped at the treeline,” Sir Karter Pentar reported. His armour was silver and red, like his cloak, enamelled on the breastplate and pauldons. “They cannot come much closer, else we’ll bloody their nose with our trebuchets. Would you like me to fire a warning shot, my lord?”
“No,” Borrus said. “Save the ammunition, Sir Karter. We’ll need every rock and barrel.”
“Do we have a notion of their strength?” asked Prince Raynald. “Are they all here? All of them?”
“We’re unable to tell from the towers,” Sir Karter answered. “I have sent outriders around their flanks to try to ascertain the truth of that, young prince. If they have left anyone behind, we will know of it soon.”
“Then there’s not much to do but wait,” said Sir Rikkard. “I want to have a look at them.”
“As do I,” said Borrus, and quick as that the council was done.
Emeric joined them on the ramparts, scaling the stairs behind the east gate to peer across the plains. The dying light made it difficult to see much of anything, and the misty rains did not help, but all the same he could see the distant glow of firelight out in the distance, hundreds of tiny orbs floating among the trees half a mile away. His eyes ran slowly left to right, and even as he did so, more fires were blinking to life. It looked like all of them to his eyes.
“Do you see your friend Ballantris out there, Manfrey?” Borrus asked him. “That bear of his should be easy enough to spot.”
