The Chronicles of Hvad Ch. 09

Borna recovered, but only slowly. Durra could not walk very well, either, with a splint tied around her leg. The other wounds and injuries, among the Uplanders, were not so serious, although Meeli DeadEyes would have a nasty scar along her hip.

- "We have to move." said Borna.

- "You're in no shape for that." said Lovro. "Neither is Durra."

- "We can't stay here." insisted Borna. "What would you do, if you were Leho of Adarion, and you found out that 40 of your men had been attacked?"

Lovro looked thoughtful, for a moment.

"Exactly." said Borna.

That settled it. We packed up our loot, and moved the whole party. We skirted to the north, and then Tsoline led us through the forest. She did an excellent job, of it, too - she was as good a forester as her brother.

- "You were right." said Payl. "I wouldn't want to fight in here."

The Shining One was changing. The difference wasn't enormous, and I doubt if any of the male Uplanders had seen it. But her companions certainly had. Irija grinned at me, from time to time. Meeli, on the other hand, frowned and scowled more often.

Payl had wanted another 'ride' the night after our first bout. I politely declined, claiming ill health.

- "You're sick?"

- "Not quite, Payl. I just don't know if I can survive another beating like last night's."

- "You didn't like it?" she asked, looking genuinely confused.

- "I liked it very much." I replied. "But I felt like I had gone through a battle - and lost. I need some time to heal."

I pulled up my shirt, and showed her the bruises.

She admired her handiwork for a moment, then walked off, muttering 'Niskadi!" and 'Soft'." I let her go.

But in the interest of Uplands-Lowlands relations, I approached her the following night. This time, I was more prepared, and defended myself much better. I was still sore afterwards, but nothing was broken or sprained.

The night after that, I suggested that Payl might like to try something different.

- "Different? What's that? Some Niskadi perversion?"

- "No." I said. "Just try this. Let me lead. Here - like this. It doesn't have to be a fight ..."

I tried gentle, and unhurried. I can't say that Payl was an immediate convert. Kissing, for example, was going to take a great deal more work. But she didn't stop me. And once Payl realized that we were going to arrive at the same destination, she became more cooperative.

I was still battered, when we finished, and bleeding from the lower lip. But it felt like we had made progress. She was less abrasive with me, after that. Her admission that I had been right was a major concession. And I caught her looking at me, with a little grin on her lips, more than once.

Borna noticed, too. "You look worse than I do." he said. But then he turned serious. "Be careful, Ljudevit. This is a good thing - I think. For both of you. But we can't afford to ..."

- "Upset her?"

- "Something like that."

He wasn't the only one who noticed.

- "Better you than me." said Lovro. Then he shivered.

Mutimir couldn't even bring himself to raise the subject with me. But most of the Uplander males looked at me with more curiosity. It was a strange mixture of respect - I think - and some kind of revulsion, or disgust.

Borna had Tsoline lead us back onto familiar ground - the clearing behind the blueberry patch. We moved a little deeper into the woods, and set up camp.

We hadn't been there very long before one of the foresters found us. To my delight, it was Kawehka. He embraced Borna warmly, and then his sister.

I got an embrace as well, which surprised me. I hadn't thought that our forester friend was an emotional man. He was on a bit of a roll, though, and ended up hugging Lovro, too. I could see from the expressions on Uplander faces that we were going to have some explaining to do. Payl, for one, was not impressed.

- "Tsoline's brother." I told her.

- "She's the more manly of the two?" asked Payl.

Borna left me with the Uplanders, with Aare to assist me. He followed Kawehka back to the campsite we had used last year.

Most of the people there came over to see us the next day. Aigars was among the first. He wanted to see me, of course, but he was honest enough to admit that he wanted to gawk at the Uplanders.

- "You spent the winter with 'em?" said Aigars. "How'd you survive?"

- "We managed."

- "Shit. Look at that one." he said, pointing at Vepar.

- "Don't point. And keep your voices down." I told them.

Ten more men of our Druzhina had made it back to the woods. And nine female warriors, too, including Nanaidh. In fact, she had taken command. Kawehka had looked to provisions, and the thankless task of feeding everyone. Nanaidh had taken over the training, and it was she who had ambushed our enemies - twice.

- "Hravar's been captured." she said. "His wife gave birth the day the enemy horsemen arrived. He wouldn't leave her. It's a girl. He sent his son to us, but Hravar stayed with her."

- "We have a prisoner, too. Maybe we can find a way to exchange them." I said.

Borna returned that evening, in high spirits. It was very encouraging to find so many of our people here. He was concerned, certainly, that was no news of Dirayr, or Siret, and many others. But he had the nucleus of a druzhina here. With the Uplanders, if he could persuade them to stay, we could have over sixty fighters.

- "We may have a problem, though." I said.

- "Tell me."

- "Uplanders and Lowlanders." I said. "When we were on their land, and there were only six of us, they looked at us as curiosities. Now they're on our land, and beginning to realize that it's they who are the odd ones."

"I had to ask Aigars to stop pointing. And he wasn't the worst. Our folk are looking at the Uplanders as if they're savages. Or wild animals."

- "You think there might be ..."

- "Trouble? Bloodshed? For certain. Borna, our people don't want to serve with savages. They don't have to say anything - it's in their faces. Payl won't stand for it. Or Vepar. Or Kinslayer. One fight - one fatality ..."

- "I hear you." said Borna. "Alright, here's what we're going to do ..."

***

At very short notice, we organized a feast. We slaughtered two sheep, and served as much of the local moonshine as we could find. The Uplanders were shocked to find that our apple brandy was just as potent as theirs - and smoother on the way down.

When everyone had eaten, and before they had drunk enough to become quarrelsome or belligerent, Borna stood up. I shouted, to get their attention.

- "Thank you, my friends. Old friends. New friends." Borna looked around as he said this, making eye contact with as many people as he could.

"It was a difficult autumn, and a hard winter, for many of us. It was especially difficult here - and I was away. It's no secret who kept you all fed, and warm. He's done it before - let's hope he doesn't have to do it again."

Borna walked gingerly over to Kawehka, and presented him with a silver ring, as a token of appreciation. The forester didn't own any jewelry, and probably wouldn't wear this gift. But that didn't mean that he couldn't give it to someone else. I saw Kanni sitting beside him.

"And someone else took over for me, when my deputy was captured. She kept up your training, and led you in combat. She's distinguished herself in every fight we've been in."

And Borna presented Nanaidh with a silver bracelet. This gift was warmly received, especially by the warrior women. Nanaidh was flinty, and difficult to get to know. But she was widely admired for her courage, and for her integrity.

"While I was away, though," continued Borna, "I found some exceptional warriors willing to help us. Already, they have shown their courage in battle. Lunach - Payl - will you stand?"

"These Upland warriors are my friends." he declared. "Anyone who finds them different, or unusual ... well - so they are!"

"They are our allies. I expect all Lowlanders to treat them with respect. Any insult to my friends will be dealt with swiftly - by me!"

Borna presented both Lunach and Payl with a gemstone set into a ring. I'd had a hand in helping to choose them. We had seen nothing like them at Sawtooth's steading. I hoped that Lunach and Payl would appreciate them - and the gesture.

"But one ally has already fought beside me twice!" said Borna. "His courage is undoubted. And he has good sense - something I prize in my friends. Stand, Mutimir!"

Borna embraced the Uplander, and gave him an armband of beaten gold. ThreeNipple was stunned, but his followers gave a cheer, and the Lowlanders applauded politely.

"Forgive me for interrupting your dinner - and your drinking!" said Borna. "I will leave you to it." That got another cheer.

- "How was I?" Borna asked me.

- "Good. The limp wasn't too noticeable. And it was wise not to use both of Lunach's names. Or Mutimir's."

- "I almost did." he laughed. "Hopefully, that'll do the trick. Get me the captains, will you?"

A short while later, the three Uplanders, Lovro, Nanaidh, Kawehka and I gathered around Borna. "I won't keep you long. But you may want to tell your men and women not to overdo it tonight. Because tomorrow night, we'll be attacking my father's steading."

- "Really?" said Lovro. "How?"

- "Same way we did last time." said Borna, with a big smile.

When the captains went off to tell their people the news, I made my way over to Kanni. She stood up, and gave me a big hug.

- ""I've missed you." she said. "You look good."

- "A few new bruises. We were lucky. And you? How do you like being a forester?"

- "I've been very happy. Kawehka is very good to me. I feel a little guilty, really, with everything that's going on outside the forest." she said.

- "Any news of Noyemi? And Imants?" I asked.

Kanni shook her head. Then her eyes went wide. I turned around to see what she was looking at.

- "Who's this? Your doxy?" said Payl.

- "This is Kanni." I said, quickly. "She's with Kawehka - Tsoline's brother. Kanni, this is -"

- "Payl. The Shining One." said Kanni, with a smile. "It's an honour to meet you. Thank you for what you've done - for Borna, and for Ljudevit."

Payl had no idea how to respond. Her insult and a sneer had been answered by kindness, and a smile. There was no way she had ever encountered anything like this before. I would have to explain it to Kanni, in the morning - though I suspect that she already understood. Kanni excused herself gracefully, and left us alone. In one of my rare moments of wisdom, I kept my mouth shut.

- "What?" said Payl, angrily. She didn't like being out of her element.

- "Were you going to kill her?" I asked. "Or challenge her?"

- "Don't be stupid. She has no weapons. But I could have given her a beating. Who is she, to you? You swear she's not your woman?"

I told Payl the whole story, from my first meeting with Kanni, when she was still a mistreated slave of Asrava's.

- "She was Borna's woman?" asked Payl. "But now he is with Tsoline." She threw up her hands in disgust. "I'll never you understand you Niskadi!"

- "Payl?" I asked, quietly. "Are you jealous?"

- "What if I was?"

- "I would be flattered." I said.

- "That's all? I've marked you as mine -" She reached up and took my lower lip between her fingers, and nearly pulled it off my face. Now I understood what all of her biting was for.

"What if it was the reverse?" she said. "What if you saw me with another man?"

- "Doing what? Riding? Or just talking?"

- "Aaargh!" Payl stormed off, and left me by myself.

I still felt flattered.

***

The last time we attacked our own steading, it had been by surprise. The women had slipped through a gap in the palisade, and opened the gate to the rest of us. But the warriors from Adarion were smarter than Vazrig had been. They had sealed up most of the gaps.

But after re-capturing Gosdan's steading, we had known that Maigon would come. Not wanting to be trapped inside, Borna had removed several logs from the back of the wall, creating an easy escape route, should we need it.

The men from Adarion blocked this gap with a cheval de frise, and stationed several guards there. The gates were closed at night, and heavily guarded. The commander of Leho's garrison, a man named Elof, took his job seriously. And the fugitives from our attack on Asrava's steading would only have increased his level of alertness.

The source of this information? Noushig, a woman from the village. She left the steading every day, ostensibly to pick flowers, or berries, or mushrooms - and then returned to rejoin her husband at night. She brought Nanaidh - and now Borna, the most reliable and up to date information we could have asked for. Noushig had even counted the garrison: 45 men. Two were sick, and one was being disciplined for drunkenness while on watch.

Noushig was thrilled to see Borna, and to be able to tell him the best news of all: the exact location of the two logs on the western side of the palisade, which our folk had sabotaged. Two strong men with a rope would be able to create a breach in the wall in a matter of moments.

Borna's plan was unusually complex. First, it required Nanaidh, with a dozen fighters, to let themselves be spotted outside the main gate. Second, Kawehka and every archer we could muster - eleven, in all, not including me - were posted in the woods opposite the gap in the wall, which was covered by the cheval de frise.

Nanaidh's demonstration drew Elof's attention to the gate. Then Kawehka's people made some uncharacteristically loud noises, which sent the guards at the cheval de frise into a panic. Elof was clever enough to suspect that Nanaidh's movement was a feint, and that the real action would occur at the gap in the wall. He shifted the greater number of his men to that side.

Aigars, with a few more men, made enough noise to suggest an attack directed at the cheval de frise. Elof responded by lighting torches, to help his archers find targets. Unfortunately for Elof, all it achieved was to make them targets. Kawehka, with his sister and the other foresters, and a few more Uplanders, including Irija, let fly a volley of arrows.

I was not there to see it, but Aare was, plying a bow alongside the others.

- "You wouldn't have believed it, Ljudevit." he told me, later. "We could hardly miss. Some of them were hit several times. Two volleys, and at least half a dozen were down, killed or seriously injured. I almost felt sorry for them."

While these events were going on, on opposite sides of the steading, Borna led more than thirty of us - Uplanders, mostly - to the spot in the wall which our friends had prepared. I got the rope into place on the second try, and then Lovro and Vepar put their backs into it. The first log tumbled out of the wall, and landed with a satisfying thud on the grass. The second was no more difficult.

Borna led the way, with me a step behind. He had told the Uplanders that they were not to attack any of the houses in the steading. There would be plenty of loot, he promised - but only afterwards.

- "The people who live here are my people." he told them - eleven or twelve times. "Anyone who molests them will answer to me. And I'll be very unhappy."

One by one, we slipped through the new breach in the wall. Borna counted us as we came through: me, Lovro, Mutimir, Payl, Lunach ... and when two-thirds of us were inside the steading, he led us towards the gate.

Elof had left 14 men to guard it. We fell on them like a pack of starving wolves. It was a sharp, short, but nasty fight.

I nearly died.

It was my job, as Hand, to watch out for Borna. But I glanced, more than once, to my left, where Payl and her friend Meeli were screaming as they hacked at the warriors from Adarion. Anyone who claims that they can watch three things at the same time is lying. My attempt to do just that nearly cost me my life. It was Lunach Kinslayer who parried the blow meant for my head.

I contributed nothing useful, in that fight. But it was over quickly. Overwhelmed, with half their number down, the gate guard threw down their weapons. That didn't stop Meeli DeadEyes from killing another man, but it did save the remainder.

We opened the gate, allowing Nanaidh and her crew to join us. Together, we streamed through the steading, towards the north side. Elof didn't stand a chance. He was concentrating on the threat from outside - when the real danger was already inside the walls.

He didn't know that, of course. The enemy put up a stiff fight against the first of us to arrive. But numbers began to tell, very swiftly. The men from Adarion started to realize that they were up outnumbered, and outmaneuvered. They were surrendering even before Elof started shouting "We yield! We yield!"

It was over before many of our fighters even knew it.

I had been confident of success going in, but even I was taken aback by the scale of our victory. We lost two killed: and Uplander male and a Lowlander female. There were a few minor wounds, but nothing serious.

By contrast, the enemy had 16 killed, and we took the remainder prisoner: 29 warriors, including their captain, Elof. He was embarrassed - ashamed, even, to have been so thoroughly defeated.

Our losses doubled the very next morning. Two of the Uplanders tried breaking into one of the houses. They were caught red-handed. Borna carried through with his promise, and hanged both offenders.

One of the men was a retainer of Mutimir's, but ThreeNipple did not object to his punishment. "He should've known better." he said. "Got told often enough."

***

We had several weeks of good weather, and good news. The response to Borna's victory was very encouraging. Twenty fighters arrived to join us, eight of them women. Some were old friends, but many were young, bearing weapons for the first time.

Then a party of filthy, ragged-looking riders appeared at the gate. It was Dirayr and Siret, and five more of our veterans. They had been cut off, surprised by the unexpected appearance of hundreds of horsemen from Adarion and Yelsa.

Dirayr tried to gather as many of Borna's adherents as he could. A few nights later, fifteen of them had slipped out, and successfully stolen their own horses.

By then, it was impossible to rejoin us at Gosdan's steading. There were hundreds of enemies in every direction. So they had taken to the woods, and suffered cruelly through a long winter. Some had died, of illness, or in combat. A few had simply dropped out.

But Dirayr led them in small-scale attacks on the occupiers, ambushing lone riders, or small parties. The seven of them had finally learned of Borna's victory, and immediately headed home.

I got the chance to catch up with my friend Dirayr. The first thing I did was glance in Siret's direction. All it took was a raised eyebrow. He blushed.

- "Yes." he said. "We'll marry - when this is over."

- "Wonderful." I was very pleased for him. Dirayr had always been quiet, and less forceful than many of the other warriors of our generation. When those included Khoren, Lovro, Hravar and Priit, it wasn't so surprising.

Now he had won the love of one of the most beautiful women in Yeseriya - and a talented warrior, too.

Three days later, Borna and I saw someone that we knew, riding into the steading with a pair of fighters. He had changed his appearance, cutting his long hair and shaving the sides of his head, but we both recognized him.

- "Modri?" It was indeed him - the former Hand of Manahir's youngest grandson. We had captured him at the battle in the sheep's pasture.

He dismounted, and went to one knee before Borna.