The Chronicles: Notomol Ch. 06

Notomol had ways of dealing with this. First, he had Nelime and some of her men question every new arrival, asking where they came from, who their neighbours had been, and what had happened to their family.

Sometimes, the answers they gave couldn't be verified. Those men were regarded with suspicion, or at least caution. Notomol arranged to have them assigned to a pair of trusted fighters. The new man had to be accountable to his partners, until they'd seen enough to vouch for him.

- "I'm sorry." Nelime would explain. "But we have to be careful until we can be sure that you are who say you are."

There were two men whose stories couldn't be verified by anyone - except each other. I wondered if old Yadha could have figured it out. But in the end it was Adrastas who put them to the test.

- "I remember playing once at the home of Hirvo - or Hirvo the Stout, as I knew him." said the guslar. "This would have been during the winter ... what? Three years ago? Or was it four? This was before you joined me, Obran." he said to his apprentice-companion.

Then he turned back to the new recruits. "But you must have been there, if you were friends of old Hirvo."

- "We were." said one of the men. "It was a wonderful performance."

- "Of course it was." said Adrastas - as if he was miffed at the mere suggestion that it might not have been a memorable occasion. "But my memory fails me - and that is frightening for a guslar. Was it three years ago, or four?"

The new man hesitated. "Umm ... I think it was three. No - four."

Adrastas frowned. "That's troubling. You can't seem to remember, either. But that's no great surprise: you see, I never played for Hirvo the Stout at all."

Dubek and Cinna volunteered to 'question' the two men. I didn't have the stomach to remain nearby while they did it.

- "Hvadi." said Dubek, when they were done. "From Pitve. One had a cousin in Stonje, so they thought they could pull it off. They worked for Arnger, originally."

- "What did they hope to achieve?" asked Nelime.

- "Locate our base camp - whatever that's supposed to mean."

- "And kill Notomol, if possible." said Cinna. "There's a price on his head."

The two traitors were hanged, deep in the woods, where they might not be found for years - if ever.

***

The turncoats had talked of many things, as Dubek and Cinna tortured them. They knew of disputes among the Izumyrian leaders, in Hvad town.

Duke Beghel was contending with the King's favourite, Conbrit. For the moment, the Duke was in the ascendant: his son, Meldoi, now commanded the mercenaries, while the King's own son, Prince Torm, had been recalled to Izumyr. Notomol wanted to know everything that Dubek and Cinna had learned.

- "Who cares?" said Dubek. "I can barely keep all of the names straight."

- "It may matter." said Nelime. "This Duke hired the mercenaries. His son commands them now - in name, at least. Should they fail, it will reflect poorly on him."

- "There's also the matter of the Duchess' escape." said Notomol. "They captured the castle, but the real prize eluded them. The longer she stays free, the more their reputation suffers."

I had never considered these things. Notomol and Nelime did more than merely keep each other warm, it seemed.

- "I wonder, too," said Nelime, "which faction my brothers have attached themselves to."

- "Does it really make a difference?" asked Senderra.

Nelime nodded. "It may be possible to win them back. And ... if not them, then perhaps the fighters who went with them."

- "This isn't just about Stonje, either." said Notomol. His eyes were bright. "People in Hvad town have heard of our doings."

- "That's true." admitted Dubek.

- "So how would you feel, Kolasovets," said Notomol, "if you were in Yeseriya, and you heard that the mercenaries in Stonje had suffered a defeat?"

I didn't have to think about it.

- "Encouraged." I said.

***

The news of our victories against Captain Lamorad had spread. Dienik's steading remained unoccupied, and it became a potent symbol - in Stonje, at least.

People who had heard about the elimination of Vidrik's band now learned that they had been avenged two or three times over.

Recruits began to trickle in. They brought new information.

- "You should listen to this man." said Adrastas. "Go ahead, good fellow."

- "It's the Ban's steading." said the newcomer, plainly intimidated to be speaking to a guslar, a famous warrior (Orsho), a famous lady (Nelime), and the near-legendary leader of the fight against the invaders (Notomol). I was probably beneath his notice.

- "Go on." said Notomol. "What about the Ban's steading?"

- "They've got the flux."

- "The bloody flux?" said the guslar.

- "No. No, the malignant flux."

I had no idea what that was.

- "Dysentery." said Senderra. "The galloping shits."

- "No. Your pardon, lady." said the new man. "It's diff'rent. The mercenaries are callin' it the cholera."

It sounded horrible. We'd fouled the stream that fed the steading's wells, and discouraged the mercenaries from using latrines outside the walls, by ambushing them when they came out for a late-night bowel movement. Now we learned that the Izumyrians had been drinking that fouled water.

They'd cleared the stream, but someone had emulated our earlier work, and fouled it all over again.

To make matters worse, the mercenaries tried to supplement their diet by planting vegetable patches inside the walls of the steading. They had used human excrement to fertilize their gardens.

- "They're sick." said Adrastas. "At least 50 are down with this illness. Ten have died of it."

- "Good." said Dubek.

- "What should we do?" I asked.

- "Stay away." said Notomol.

We moved back towards Dienik's steading. There were no more mercenaries there to harass, but we needed the respite. Once again, gathering food became one of our prime concerns.

I was back to being a full-time hunter again. Unfortunately, I was no longer paired with Inita. Instead, Notomol had me work with some of the newcomers. I rarely went out with the same fellow twice.

Inita sought me out one evening.

- "I miss hunting with you." she said. "I wanted to thank you, though. For helping me to shoot better. And for bringing me to Senderra and the others. I feel safe ... at home, with them."

- "I'm glad."

- "Senderra said that I was to invite you to join us for a meal, too."

- "That's very nice, Inita, but you don't have to -"

- "She also said that I was to drag you by the heels if persuasion didn't work." Inita delivered this threat with a shy smile.

- "In that case, I accept."

***

It might have been the absence of a mercenary garrison, or perhaps it was the fact that we weren't hiding in the deep woods for a while. It made us easier to find.

Non-combatants approached us, of course. Notomol turned them away, or asked them to wait for Yadha Snakehand's return, whereupon they could be led to places of greater safety.

But fighters came, too, including four men from Hvad town. They'd come looking for Doreg, and were saddened to hear of his death. Two of them knew Dubek, though, just as he knew them.

- "How are things back home?" Dubek asked.

- "Tense." said one fellow. "The Izumyrians have sent guards into the countryside, supposedly to 'protect' the farms. The truth is, they're making sure that farmers don't leave the fields, and that their produce is transported into town."

- "Do they get paid for their food?"

- "Sometimes. As you can imagine, the food goes to the soldiers. Some Hvadi families have left town altogether, if they have kin outside. The situation can't last - not the way things are going now."

These were interesting tidings - not that we could do anything about the situation outside of Stonje. But apparently other Hvadi knew what was going on with us.

One small group came from Pitve to join us. Their leader wore leather half-armour, bracers, and thick leggings. He carried two swords - one long, and one short - plus a number of long and short knives strapped to his armour or to his bracers. Some of these, I assumed, were for throwing.

- "My name is Eiven Cloudy-Eye." he said.

Cinna was so excited, he nearly wet himself. "Cloudy-Eye!"

Orsho slowly approached him, and extended his hand.

- "Orsho." he said. "Once the Hand of Hospodar Dienik."

- "I've heard of you." said Eiven, taking Orsho's hand. "Once the Hand of Dienik? Is he dead, then?"

- "Not as far as I know." said Orsho. "I am with his daughter, Nelime, now."

- "This is a tale I must hear." said Cloudy-Eye.

I was close enough to see how he'd earned his nickname. His right eye was brown, but his left eye was half green, half brown - and partially clouded by a strange little patch of almost milky white.

- "Can he see with it?" I asked Cinna.

- "Better than you or I. He's deadly with those swords. Two Hospodars and two Bans - the Bans of Pitve and Yelsa - wanted him to be their Hand. He turned them all down. Can you imagine?" Cinna was very excited. He'd used up a week's worth of words in a matter of moments.

Orsho introduced Notomol and Nelime. I hoped that Eiven and Notomol could get along. They did seem to have a fair bit in common. Unfortunately, the most obvious trait they shared was an intense dislike for being ordered about by others.

To Notomol's credit, he found a way to deal with Cloudy-Eye: he made suggestions, or proposals. Sometimes he asked for Eiven's cooperation. The fighter from Pitve seemed to understand the position he'd put our leader in. On several occasions, he just laughed.

- "Just ask, Notomol. The worst I can do is say no."

We recruited twenty-five new men, plus a handful of archers, whom I was extremely glad to see. With these arrivals, we now had 85 fighters in our band.

Notomol had been considering moving back closer to our original stomping-grounds. There were too many mercenaries at the Ban's steading - plus the sickness. But a Captain named Dabrel held Ansil's steading, not too far from Notomol and Senderra's home.

In the end, Captain Dabrel saved us the bother. With just about 100 men, he marched on Dienik's steading. He had archers, and horsemen ... but no real idea of our location, or our numbers.

- "What is he up to?" asked Notomol.

- "Perhaps he wants to be known as the man who defeated Notomol." suggested Adrastas, our guslar. "He could be avid for glory."

- "He wants to get you before one of the other mercenaries does." said Orsho.

- "Maybe he's after the price on your head." said Senderra.

- "He's a fool." snapped Dubek. "And we'll show him that he is." The big man was positively champing at the bit. He'd arm-wrestled Notomol to a stand-still, and then outran Orsho (though I suspect that Nelime's champion held back, a little). Nothing was going to keep him out of our next fight.

- "We can make them pay." agreed Notomol.

As it turned out, they were all right.

***

For those of us who'd been with Notomol for a while, the fight followed a very familiar pattern. Small groups of archers harried the mercenaries as they approached Dienik's steading. We would fire arrows at the soldiers, and then pull back into the woods.

They chased us, the first time. Twenty mercenaries left the path, to pursue us into the trees. And while the main body waited on the trail, motionless, another group of archers would strike, from a different direction.

Captain Dabrel didn't have much control over his command. Another party of thirty mercenaries ran into the woods, chasing after the handful of archers who'd attacked them.

Notomol was too careful to risk everything at that point. It was tempting, though - he had Orsho, Dubek and Eiven waiting nearby. But if the mercenaries chasing us through the trees broke off their pursuit and returned too soon, it could prove dangerous to us.

By the end of the day, though, the mercenaries were tired, frustrated, and angry. They'd lost seven or eight men, and that without even seeing more than a few of us.

Dabrel chose to make camp, less than two leagues from Dienik's steading. He must have assumed that we intended to defend it against him.

'Know your enemy', they say. Captain Dabrel didn't.

We attacked them by night.

Notomol, Marmos, Cinna and I took out the mercenary sentries on one side of their camp. They insisted on standing by open fires, which ruined their night sight and made them wonderful targets.

Dubek and the ten men from Hvad town (they were almost a separate contingent now) joined us, and began cutting the leads which tethered their horses.

We drove those huge beasts straight through the centre of the mercenary camp. They trampled over tents and sleeping men. It was total chaos. Dubek and his men followed, dealing out swift death to the stunned, confused invaders.

Orsho came in from the north, and Eiven from the south. The mercenaries were slow to realize that their only way out was to the west. Even then, they would have to run the gauntlet of our other archers.

It was a complete victory from the moment those horses stampeded.

The mercenary archers couldn't see, to shoot. The cavalrymen were trampled by their own horses. The foot soldiers were unarmoured, confused, and separated into tiny groups. There was no line of battle, no contest of shield against shield.

Complete chaos became a massacre.

Many of the mercenaries escaped, simply because we couldn't find them in the dark. But quite a few died that night. The next morning, we were able to count 47 dead mercenaries. Two more were hiding ridiculously close by, and became prisoners.

We lost three killed. Less than ten of our folk were wounded. Cinna had taken a serious cut to the arm, and I nearly panicked when I saw Inita with a bloody bandage around her wrist. The cut was only superficial, but my heart didn't seem to understand, and refused to settle down for quite some time. I could hardly breathe.

- "I'm fine, 'Vets. I'm fine." she kept saying.

Notomol pursued the fleeing mercenaries. We killed or captured another dozen. The remainder ... well, I remembered what had happened to the last fugitives from Lamorad's column. The people of Stonje had gone feral. Many of those mercenaries would be very lucky if they reached the Ban's steading.

The prisoners talked, before they died.

- "It's not good." said Dubek, who had questioned them, along with Marmos and Cinna.

- "How so?" asked Notomol.

- "There are 400 more mercenaries on their way to Stonje."

*****