A Daemon-Horn Blade Ch. 14

"Surely the Duke of Drakland can be made to understand that this Eorfleode invasion is far more important than his current disagreements with you. I do not pretend to understand the long history of ill-will between your two lands, but in the past all of the Southern Duchies have cooperated together when faced with an external threat. Surely this current situation is no different."

"In ordinary times, I would say that we could indeed all band together, in cooperation, but at this time such a hope would only be a prayer. I would offer you the use of the force I've hastily gathered in my frantic ride here, but now even those troops must be sent further east, to Kenniford in the Lloan Valley, where I have heard that another Boar-Man army gathers. Like the remains of my southern town of Brydara, across the river here, I do not have but a handful of loyal guardsmen there, nor does your Duke have many soldiers there either. The Barons of those lands have always been proudly independent and wealthy, and pay little of the taxes due to either Duchy. They only pay what little they do now out of bribery to keep either of us from bringing in a large enough army to truly enforce our will over them, and collect the greater amount of taxes due to us. Now their short sightedness is going to cost them dearly, but still they are my liegemen, so I must do all that I can for them, even if they do not bear me the full loyalty that is my due."

"My Lord, our path takes us next to Kenniford as well, to the defense of that great city as well. If you would but instead swear to take these soldiers with you, northeast to the defense of Tellismere instead, I would in turn swear to preserve your holdings there on the south side of the river, to the best that I can."

"Much as I would prefer to accept your kindly and noble offer, and perhaps even prefer that another tend to this remote duty so that I could instead better handle these other crisis's that befall my lands, I could not allow you to do such, for it would be folly. You have currently but two companies of minimally trained soldiers, barely blooded, and a full half of them all bearing either walking sticks or bandaged arms, and quite unready for battle soon."

"Unready or not, they shall fight! For we must fight... there is no other choice. Perhaps we shall gain fresh recruits along our path; otherwise I'm certain that I can find some means of encouraging those stubborn Lloan Valley barons to lend me their full and complete aid. With my protection of The Lady Ayleth, my words already speak for her father, but if I could also speak on your behalf as well, I could then create a unified force that could clear the east of Boar-Men. I greatly fear that there is yet another army further to the north, having crossed the Emerald River that may menace us as well, or perhaps it intends to invade Everdun, casting each of our Duchies into the flames of war."

"Perhaps, that would be a sad report indeed!" The Duke pondered further and cast an appraising eye upon Rowan, as if making up his mind between several unhappy alternatives. At last he came to a decision, but it did not seem to appeal to him. "Sadly, my brave young lad, the dangers I face to the west and to the south desperately call for my attention, so I shall accept your pledge of assistance, although I greatly fear I have indeed given a job that would overwhelm most men to an overly young and green boy. Still needs must, when the war-drums sound! I shall give you a written charter that you may command on my behalf and in my name, and if you can bestir my proud barons into unified action and command their loyalty, then you are perhaps a greater leader of men than I am!"

"I shall do my best, Your Grace." Rowan replied with a slight bow. "But what about aid for Tellismere?"

"Lad, I too shall do my very best. Of that I promise. For the moment, before my small army heads back east, I can spare you a company of my trained guardsmen, perhaps two, if another company of untrained, ill-armed and equipped peasant recruits and conscripts will serve your needs. Upon this I can swear at once. Should I receive word that you have done the impossible and succeeded in clearing the east of Boar-Men, protecting my barons, their lands and holdings, and making them bend their proud knees to our service, I will owe you a great honor-debt that I can ill-repay. Even though it costs me my Duchy, I shall strip my lands and coastal cities and towns of their guardsmen, and I shall gather every young man, lad or lass in the Duchy to come with me north, to Duke Emdyn's defense, or to help avenge his death until the last invader is dead or has fled back into the Brittle Mountains."

"If you can hold to that oath, my Lord, then I shall most happily accept it!" Rowan exclaimed, clasping the Duke's hand in gratitude and friendship.

I shall hold and swear!" He affirmed, and Rowan accepted his oath, witnessed by the Foole.

"I shall also pledge to do my best to seek terms or even a year's armistice with the Duke of Drakland, and even request his assistance so that our troops may be taken north by his fleet, instead of a bitter march north, following in the wake of the carnage and destruction of the Boar-Men. Otherwise, I do greatly fear that there will not be much of the Duchy left to protect or preserve. My father was happy as an Earl and never really wanted to rule the Duchy, except to keep it out of the hands of a King. I have had tried to do the same, but these are very difficult times to rule with any wisdom or justice, and not bear the steel of a despot. In fact, it would be good as well to have a written charter bearing the signature and seal of the Lady Ayleth, as well... just so that there are no potential misunderstandings about a Broadmore army traveling upon Tellismere lands."

"An excellent thought!" Oddtus exclaimed. "As she is indisposed this evening, I shall speak with her on the morrow and attend to this detail myself. I would assume that His Grace will not be leaving until later in the day?"

"Quite. I have a charter of my own to scribe, and I shall be speaking with my commanding general in the morning as well, to obtain your volunteers. He won't be happy about losing any of his men, or even any of his new conscripts, but I'm sure many of the young recruits or veteran guardsmen have family of their own in the Lloan Valley, and will be eager to join your regiment to see to their protection. All of your volunteers will indeed be willing ones."

This hope was quite fulfilled, at the early morning muster, a mix of nearly three hundred veterans and untrained recruits all stepped forward to willing, and even eager to volunteer. Two new companies, each of a hundred men and lads were selected and they made their oaths of loyalty and obedience to Rowan, Boyle, Gwenda and Lady Ayleth's Own Regiment. Many of the Duke's returning men offered up their weapons and pieces of armor so that most of the volunteers could be as well equipped as was possible. In addition, another thirty-six of the Duke's cavalry also volunteered to give Boyle a full company of one hundred and twenty men as well, nearly all being veterans in the saddle and most well skilled at the art of horse archery.

These new additions greatly added to the confidence Rowan was just barely beginning to feel about his chances for possibly surviving battle with the numerous and mostly larger Eorfleode forces they would undoubtedly soon find in the east, upriver. As the Duke had said, it was an impossibly overwhelming job... but none of the rest of the Regimental Counsel had even considered overruling him, or questioning the wisdom of his judgment.

He was certain that he was leading everyone once again to their certain death and doom. Boyle and Gwenda would follow him into the gates of hell itself, he was fairly certain, but he had expected the Foole to offer him some sort of contrary advice. Instead, the gléaman was quite high spirited, even giving the lad a good many pats upon the back in congratulation for his bargaining with the Duke. He even expected to hear some sort of complaint, or word or two of reason from the Lady Ayleth when he spoke with her the next morning to formally announce his plans to march northeast up the Hythe River, upon the following morning, but she just nodded her head and muttered "Ok".

Like it or not, everyone was now counting on him to lead them onwards into certain peril, and it was with more than a little misgiving that Rowan lined up the regiment to salute the Duke farewell that noon. Already, at the very crack of dawn that morning, Gwenda had gathered the soldiers and sorted the newcomers carefully into the regiment, trying to give each company an equal amount of trained veterans and young volunteers. Once again they now had three full companies, each of a hundred men, plus a new 4th Company, which held all of the walking wounded now assigned to be a reserve unit. Already they had conducted their first combat training drill, with the help of several veteran sergeants that had been among the new volunteers, now newly assigned as the commanding officers of each of the companies. They would drill with hardly a break for rest for the remainder of the day, and again, even before breakfast the following morning, as they would begin their road marching and training routine.

Boyle, along with his Lieutenant Loren, had their slightly augmented cavalry resorted out as well, giving several particularly veteran horsemen the commands of the four squadrons, each of thirty mounted troopers with a good mix of veterans and relative novices, so that each squadron was judged to be about equal in effectiveness. Boyle had them off scouting to the north and to the east, so that they would know what dangers surrounded them at the moment. There was a very good and wide but unpaved dirt road that followed the river northeast, until it arrived at Kenniford. They hoped to be able to use this route for most if not all of their journey and the cavalry would need to ensure that no unpleasant surprises awaited them nearby.

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With most of the refugees now safely emplaced in either Ruromel, or joining the new settlers that were already rebuilding Brydara across the river, their collection of camp followers was significantly reduced. Nearly all of the injured, elderly and orphaned children had found new homes, and the remaining non-combatants, such as women with children, all had family within the regiment or support duties to perform. With time to properly repair or replace their baggage and wagon train of supplies, which were now also much restored, the wagons were less heavily loaded and could now move faster, and hopefully with fewer breakdowns. Indeed, it was now hoped that everyone would now be able to keep up with pace of the regiment at a normal march pace of a league an hour, which would nearly double the miserably slow speed that they had made earlier travelling south from Elmcrygh.

The Duke's slightly reduced army was bid farewell, and it in turn saluted the regiment and shouted three cheers for Rowan as they marched west to board the ferries taking them across the river, and soon they were out of sight. The regiment prepared to make its own march northeast the following morning, and the three ready companies of soldiers were drilled non-stop that afternoon until dinner time, while the members of the wounded reserve company packed and loaded their heavy gear onto the repaired or replaced wagons. Sacks of extra grain were loaded by the new quartermaster and his assistants among the camp followers, along with as many bundles of arrows as they had been able to make or scrounge during their stay in town. They had found several trained fletchers and put them to work making arrows full time during their stay, but even their first battle might exhaust nearly all of their limited supplies. Available or not, no archer wished to use any of the blood red fletched Boar-Men arrows that had been recovered from the battlefield, and all were tossed onto the bonfires that burned their corpses.

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All in all, the counsel agreed at the Count's feasting table that night, that they were about as ready for their next challenge as they were likely to be, or at least anytime soon. It took months to turn green conscripts or raw volunteers into properly trained fighting men or women, and it was hopeless to think that they would ever have the time to complete the job properly. Still, Gwenda and her company commanders would do their best... and it would just have to do!

Boyle's scouts had found only old tracks on or near the road to the northeast, searching from the river out and around it for several leagues the previous day. Disturbingly, they were still finding fresh goblin tracks to their north, near a large thick woods that could give the night-goers plenty of cover. What this meant, no one was quite certain. The púcel were certainly no threat at all to the regiment and a very unlikely threat to the town. Loren thought that this was still the very same group that had followed them south from Elmcrygh, but the motive for this migration was quite unknown. Goblins, even as raiding bands, didn't tend to travel far from their secure mountain, forest or hillside homes. He couldn't even be sure of their numbers, whether this was just a few dozen or a few hundred, as they were skilled at hiding their tracks. Everyone agreed that they would bear watching.

The Lady Ayleth had indeed signed the charter granting welcome to Duke Kelvin's armies in defense of Tellismere, and with considerably less bother than was anticipated. In fact Oddtus just wrote out the document himself and placed it in front of her to sign, which she did after quickly reading it and then nodding her approval. She then produced her seal with a minimum of fuss and applied it to the hot wax. No deep sighs of anguish, no complaints, and no recriminations. The lads had no doubt at all that Oddtus could have quite adequately forged both her signature and seal, but it was pleasant to find that at least one potential crisis had passed without the Lady sticking her nose into the matter and selecting the absolutely worst possible decision to make, and then sticking to it in obstinacy long after she had been told the drawbacks of that course of action, and had been vastly out-voted by her counsel. The very idea that a Ducal Lady could be 'out-voted' at all, still confused and greatly annoyed her, but at least for today they were all in agreement.

Rowan, in turn, had the Duke's charter of authority in a waterproof leather tube that he now wore on his war-belt. Even with the Lady Ayleth's knowledge and willing concurrence, the possession of this document was probably treasonous. The two Dukes had never been friendly, but they had never been at war with each other either, even over their unenforced rights and privileges in the contested Lloan Valley. Most of the Tellismere's Duchy holdings were north of the Hythe River, and Broadmore's to the south, but not quite all of the lands were so clearly distinguished apart. In fact, there were a good many areas of very confused loyalty where no one was really sure which Duchy they belonged to -- if the local barons even particularly cared. Duke Emdyn might easily and creatively misinterpret this mission to preserve the Lloan Valley from invasion, even to maintain the status quo. Somehow, he was pretty sure that the weak-minded Duke back home was sure to put the worst possible interpretation on his actions... no doubt with the ready help of his daughter.

From the demonstration that she had put on before the Duke of Broadmore, to offer virtually anything and everything she had to bend him to her will, Lady Ayleth had displayed clearly that she was still not to be even remotely trusted. She had probably conducted a fair bit of treason herself, offering up herself and her inheritance, the Duchy, to willingly form a new Southern Kingdom. Such an audacious act would definitely infuriate Drakland, and might even plunge Everdun and maybe even the Duchy of Oswein, or perhaps also the Aldarian Blessed Sapphire Empire into a major regional war to prevent this. The status quo was stable, and reasonable profitable for everyone. Such a major change would threaten everyone, economically if not exactly militarily. The Counsel met mostly nowadays without the Lady present, and privately they all agreed that the treacherous young woman needed at least one firm eye kept on her at all times. The Foole, having no other significant military duties, was usually already covertly performing this task, but he agreed to keep an even firmer watch on her, at least for the present.

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At the first light of dawn, the regiment was up and ready for their march. The wagons were hitched up to the horses and in a ready line by the front gate. The Count and his arms-men then gave Rowan and his regiment a formal farewell, with much cheering by all. The three ready companies moved into their marching positions at the front with the 4th reserve company guarding the rear with the camp followers and the wagons.

Gradually, as the marchers fell into their rhythm, the regiment picked up the pace to the fastest level that everyone could keep up with, making just over a league each hour. Indeed, now they were traveling much faster than they had done recently on the road south, and they began to have the hope that soon they could start catching up with some of the smaller Boar-Man war-bands. They resumed the old schedule of stopping briefly at noon for a field defense exercise and a cold meal, and then again having a full hour long defense and weapons practice in the gloom before dinner. The old routine soon felt familiar once more and Rowan began to slowly relax his near constant dread and worry. Trouble would indeed come in due time, but morale was high and his men proved themselves to be ready and willing to fight!