Four days later, they came to Sorellin. Much larger than Ambela, it had double walls, the inner one defining the old city. They marched through the west gate, under a white banner with great yellow shears centered on it. The guards wore yellow surcoats. Paks thought it looked as clean and prosperous as the best parts of Vérella and Valdaire; she wondered if it had a poor quarter. Below the bridge she saw two flatboats, loaded with plump sacks, being hauled upstream by mules. Outside the city again, on the southeast, they found a large contingent of Sorellin militia waiting for them.
After two days in a camp outside the city, they marched again on a very different road. It had never been part of the Guild League system; narrow, rough, and partly overgrown, it had to be practically rebuilt to allow the wagons to pass. Six days later they came out on the gentler slopes that lay around Rotengre and its branch of the Immer.
Even from a distance, Rotengre looked more formidable than the other cities, more like an overgrown fort: high, steep walls, massive towers, all out of proportion to the breadth. It was shaped somewhat like a rectangle with the corners bitten off; its long axis ran north and south, with the only two gates on the short ends. Paks decided that the tales must be true—it was a city built for trouble, not for honest trade.
As the head of their column cleared the forest and started across a wide belt of pasture toward the walls, trumpets blared from the city. A troop of men-at-arms in dark uniforms, their helmets winking in the sun, came out the north gate. The Duke’s Company marched on, angling left toward the gate. The Rotengrens halted, and began to withdraw, as more and more of the attacking column snaked from the forest. Ahead, to the northeast, another column came into sight. These wore black, and carried spears in a bristling mass. Paks caught her breath and started to reach for her sword.
“That’s Vladi’s Company—don’t worry about them,” called Dzerdya. “We’re on the same side.”
“I hope so,” muttered Donag, just loud enough for Paks to hear.
The compact mass of spearmen kept pouring from the forest, cohort by cohort—five in all, with a smaller body of horse. They turned south, to march along the east side of the city. After them came a troop of cavalry whose rose and white colors were bright even at that distance. Most of the horses were gray; a few were white. Paks thought they looked more like figures from a song than real fighters, but she had heard of Clart Company.
The Rotengren troops had withdrawn completely, and they heard the portcullis crash down long before they could have reached the gate. A small party of riders galloped away downstream, pursued by a squad of Foss Council cavalry, but they were clearly drawing away.
Setting up and maintaining a siege camp was every bit as hard and boring as Donag had said it would be. The Duke’s Company had a position west of Sorellin’s militia, just west of the north gate, and around the angle of wall to the west. On their right flank the Ambela militia covered the west wall. Vonja militia had the south wall and gate, and Vladi’s Company and the Foss Council troops divided the west wall. Clart Company patrolled between the siege lines and the forest.
The Duke and his surgeons had definite and inconvenient ideas about siting the camp’s necessities, from the bank and palisade between Rotengre’s wall and their camp, to the placement of jacks trenches. All that work—dull and unnecessary as it seemed to Paks and the others—was better than the boring routine of the siege itself, when nothing happened day after day. Spring warmed into summer, and the summer grew steamy. Rotengre troops threw filth off the walls; its stench pervaded the camp. When it rained, a warm unrefreshing rain, dirty brown water overflowed the ditch under the walls and spread the stinking filth closer. No one complained about hauling wood or water, or cutting hay in distant meadows: any break in routine was welcome. Tempers frayed. Barra and Natzlin got in a fight with two militiamen from Vonja, and even Paks agreed it was Barra’s fault. Rumor swept the camps that two cohorts of Vonja militia were down with fever from swimming in the river. Paks’s captain, Arcolin, rode off to Valdaire on some errand for the Duke, leaving Ferrault in command. The cohort found that Ferrault was as strict as Arcolin had been, where camp discipline was concerned. The Duke’s surgeons frowned constantly, and swept through the camp inspecting everything.
Muggy midsummer faded to the blinding heat and cloudless days that ripened grain for harvest. Paks thought longingly of the cool north. Food began to taste odd; she thought it was the terrible smell from the ditch under the wall. Dzerdya’s orders to get ready for a long march were more than welcome.
“Where?” asked Paks.
Dzerdya glared at her, then answered. “North. Sorellin Council wants us to garrison a frontier fort, and let the militia up there come home for harvest. They’ve had a big crop this year. It’s up in the foothills.” She smiled, then, at Paks. “Hurry; we march tomorrow.”
“Is everyone going?”
“No; it doesn’t take the whole company to garrison one little fort. We could probably do it with half of you—it’s only a matter of taking tolls if anyone crosses Dwarfwatch—but no one will, this late.”
They started before dawn the next day, taking a road that led directly north, rather than northwest to Sorellin. After a day’s march through the forest near Rotengre, they entered a rolling land of farms and woodlots, checkered with hedges. They crossed a small river on a stone bridge, and then the main caravan route, the same broad stone way they had been on before. Ferrault, reverting to his usual cheerful demeanor, pointed out the carved stone sign for Sorellin, shears in a circle on top of a pillar. The road they followed swung a little right. With every day, the ground rose in gentle waves. They saw more forest and less farmland. They crossed another road, not so well-made: the north route to Merinath, Ferrault said. The hills ahead were higher, blocking their view of the mountains they’d hoped to see. From that last crossroad to the fort was just under a day’s march, a day pleasantly cool after lowland heat, through thick forest and over low ridges.
Just south of the fort they cleared the forest and saw mountains looming north, much higher than near Valdaire. Snow streaked their peaks. Dwarfwatch itself was a well-built stone keep with comfortable quarters around the inner court, and roomy stable in the outer. Its only fault was its lack of water; a rapid mountain stream rushed nearby, but inside the walls was neither spring nor well. Beyond the fort, a high and difficult track crossed the mountains, but as they had been told, no one used it. All the traffic they saw was grain wagons rolling up the road from Sorellin to collect harvest from the foothill farms, and rolling south again. Paks found it a delightful interlude: cool air, clean water, fresh food from nearby farmers happy to get hard cash for their produce. South of the river, backed up on the forest, Paks discovered an enormous tangle of brambles, loaded with berries just turning color. She kept a close watch on them.
One hazy afternoon, she and Saben were taking in the washing they’d spread on rocks near the river. She heard a yell from the wall behind them, then the staccato horn signal of alarm. They snatched their clothes and scrambled up the rocky bank, racing for the gate around the corner. Paks saw others running too. She slowed for a moment to look back to the road. The front rank of a column marched out of the forest.