That had not been Paks’s first thought. Terrifying, quick-tempered, hasty, impossible—but not amazing. But Canna went on, not noticing her reaction.
“Wait until you see her in battle. She’s so fast you can hardly see her blade. You ought to drill with her sometime.”
“She seems kind of—kind of—angry a lot,” said Paks lamely.
“Oh, that. She’s quick to bite, true, but she doesn’t brood on things. Don’t worry about it. I don’t think she knows, sometimes, when she’s scared someone half to death.”
In another week, Paks had begun to agree. Dzerdya was strict, and had a tongue like a handful of razors, but she was fair. She obviously cared a great deal for her troops.
This year’s contract was very different. “It’s a siege,” explained Donag, who had used his own mysterious contacts to find out. “The Guild League cities are joining to siege and assault another city, halfway across Aarenis. They’re hiring several companies as well as their own militia. I think our contract’s with Sorellin, but the others are supporting it.”
“What city?” asked Canna.
“Rotengre. Have you heard of it?”
“I think so. Wasn’t there a caravan raid near there, last year?”
“Yes. The Guild League thinks that Rotengre harbors brigands—in fact, they suspect the city lives by preying on the northern caravan route between Merinath and Sorellin. Three or four years ago—before your time, Canna—five caravans were totally destroyed. That was the worst, so far as I know, but for the past ten or twelve years the loss has been enormous. Almost as bad as what Alured’s done to the Immer River shipping.”
“But why do they think it’s Rotengre?” asked Paks. “Do the caravans go through there?”
“Look.” Donag began to scratch a rough map on the table with the burnt end of a stick. “Here’s Valdaire, in the northwest. Now here’s the river. It’s like a tree, sprouting from the Immerhoft Sea in the south, with branches northwest, north, and northeast. Downstream from Valdaire you come to Foss, Fossnir, Cortes Vonja, Cortes Cilwan, and Immervale, where the branches meet. On the north branch, up from Immervale, you’ve got Koury, Ambela, and Sorellin. The other branch, to the east, has Rotengre. Then off in the far northeast, Merinath and Semnath. And the Copper Hills—”
“Have you been to all those places?” asked Paks, awed.
“Most of ’em. The Copper Hills, now, that’s where caravans come north from the coast—”
“Why don’t they come up the Immer?” asked Vik. “That other’s a long way out of their way, isn’t it?”
“You haven’t heard yet of Alured the Black?” asked Donag, brows rising. They shook their heads. “Well—that’s a tale in itself. Used to be a searover he did—a pirate—and somehow decided to come ashore. He controls a belt of forest near the coast, and he’s pirated so much of the river trade that there isn’t any. It’s cheaper to go the long way around than pay his tolls.” Donag rubbed his face with one meaty hand, then went on. “Like I was saying, the caravan route is north along the Copper Hills, then west: Semnath, Merinath, Sorellin, Ambela, Pler Vonja, then Fossnir and Foss and upriver to Valdaire. The road they’ve built is something to see.
“The stretch between Merinath and Sorellin is long—comes fairly close to Rotengre—and that’s just where the caravans have been attacked. A lot of that’s forest, so it’s easy enough for brigands to throw off pursuit, and for Rotengre to claim they live in the forest. But they trade somewhere, and Rotengre is the obvious place. Besides, what else can the city live on? It never was part of the river trade—that branch is too shallow. No good farmland, no mines.”
They nodded, staring at the blurred smears of black on the table. Paks wondered what the country looked like.
“What is a siege like?” asked Vik.
“Boring,” said Donag. “Unless the first assault works, and we take the city at once, we camp outside and keep anyone from going in or out. It takes months, and it’s nothing but standing watch and camp work and drill. A long wait until they get hungry, that’s all.”
“That sounds easy enough,” muttered Saben.
Donag shot him a hard glance. “It’s not. They’ll have archers on the walls, and stone-throwers. You can get killed walking too close, but if you’re too far away they have time to climb down the walls and get out. And it’s hard to keep the camp like the Duke wants it for that long. If you don’t, you have camp fever taking out half your troops. It’s better than a fight every day, but it’s not easy.”
Canna had been looking thoughtful, tracing the smeared lines with one brown finger. “Does Rotengre have any allies?”
“Ah. That’s a question.” Donag frowned and rubbed his nose. “Probably yes; somebody must be buying the stolen goods. My guess is they ship it downriver. Koury, for example: it isn’t a Guild League city, but it’s gotten rich in the past few years—how else? Or cities passed by on the old river route: Immervale, Cortes Cilwan. Or if you want to reach far enough, there’s always the Honeycat. Siniava. He wants to rule all Aarenis, they say; it takes money to hire the troops for that. If all this flows back to him—”
“Well, what if they attack us while we’re sieging?” Vik looked almost eager.
“Then we’ll have a fight. That’s why the siege force is so large—just in case. But their allies may not want to come out of cover.”
It all seemed very complicated to Paks. The only thing clear was the route they would travel. She thought of lands and cities she had never seen.
Chapter Thirteen
It was a long three days’ march to Fossnir, down the river from Valdaire, with a baggage train much larger than the year before. Peach and apricot orchards were still pink, though the plum blossom had passed. Paks missed the more delicate pink and white of apples, and the white plumes of pear. When she mentioned this to a veteran, he said that apples were grown only in the foothills of the Dwarfmounts, or far to the west. Pears did not grow in Aarenis at all.
The road they marched on was wide and hard: great stone slabs laid with a careful camber for drainage into ditches on either side. To one side was a soft road, for use in good weather when the road was crowded. Northbound caravans passed them, one made up of pack animals instead of wagons. They had a nod and smile from the caravaners. The last guard on one of them looked back and yelled, “I hope you get those bastards!”
“How did he know?” asked Donag, startled, then answered himself. “It’ll be those militia talking, I suppose. Can’t keep any quieter than a landlord.”
The next day after Fossnir, they made Foss, oldest city in Foss Council. Here they left the river, following the Guild League caravan road to Pler Vonja. Villages were spaced a few hours apart along the way, and great walled courtyards for caravans to use were never more than a day’s easy journey apart. Wheelwrights, harnessmakers, and blacksmiths had their places at each caravan halt; the villages offered fresh food and local crafts.
As they crossed the Foss Council border, they found a large unit of militia ready to go with them, Paks was happy to find that the militia would march behind; she liked her forward view.
Pler Vonja, next in line, was stone-walled, but most of its buildings were wood above the first story: a great forest bordered the city on the north. It had fortified bridges across its little river. The city militia wore orange and black, and carried pikes. Paks noticed a nasal twang in the local accent that made some words hard to understand. The march from Pler Vonja to Ambela took six days; rain and a crowded road slowed them down.
Ambela was built, like Pler Vonja, across a small branch of the Immer, but it had a different look. Its gray stone walls were livened by the red and white banners that stirred above every tower and gate. Some low flower made a bright gold carpet along the water meadows. Farm cottages were whitewashed, brilliant in the green fields. The two hundred foot and fifty horse of Ambela militia that joined the column all wore bright red and white.