This wasn’t a lodge. Or like any lodge I’d ever seen, anyway, and I’d visited my share while serving minor puffed-up nobles who treasured hunting almost as much as their wives and mistresses. No, this was a fortified keep.
And it was under siege. Just out of arrow shot, along a glade edged by thick trees, Baron Brune’s soldiers had made camp, with several pavilions and smaller wedge tents near the picketed horses. There were a lot of Brunesmen there.
High Priest Henlester had attracted quite a gathering.
Vendurro whistled, though it was more of a half whistle, more for effect than anything. “Plague me. Baron wants that buggering priest something awful, don’t he?”
Hewspear and Mulldoos seemed to still be assessing everything before them-likely counting the men they could make out in the lodge, or the number of cook fires, or something else that would help them sort out the best course of proceeding.
Braylar was still surveying as well, though the sweep of his eyes always seemed to hint that his calculations would continue long after anyone else’s stopped, as he considered every angle and played out a multitude of scenarios.
Mulldoos shaded his eyes against the setting sun. “I’ll say this. High Priest might be a cheating, murdering bastard with a queer taste for damaged whores, but he knows how to pick a good spot to take a stand. Dug in good there.”
Hewspear agreed. “Stout walls, a fair number of guards to patrol them or man them if they have to fight off an assault.”
“How many men, you reckon?”
“With the priest?”
“No, how many men does it take to milk a cow.” Mulldoos said. “Of course with the priest, you old whoreson. How many men in his outfit?”
Hewspear ignored the jab and studied the hunting lodge. “Hard to say, but judging by the size of the quarters and stables, could be thirty. Perhaps more.”
Mulldoos shifted and looked at Vendurro. “And you, with your beady little eyes, how many men there flying Brune’s colors, do you figure?”
Vendurro ran a finger back and forth under his nose, mouth parting and closing as he did a quick count.
“Hard to say for a certainty.”
“Not asking for certainty. Asking for your assessment, you skinny prick. Give me a figure.”
Vendurro kept counting. “Five pavilions, a bunch of horse picketed there near the woods, two wagons. Fourteen-”, he stopped himself, finger tapping the air in front of him as if he was flicking the canvas itself. “No, fifteen small tent. I’d say forty Brunesmen. Fifty maybe.”
Mulldoos looked over at Braylar. “So that’s one real fortified lodge, and rough on seventy or eighty men down there with sharp pointy things milling about, none going to be real glad to see us. Can’t say that you look real fazed by the numbers. Guessing a scout confirmed that for you already, huh?”
Braylar replied, “That is why we employ them. I do so hate surprises.”
Mulldoos looked at Hewspear again. “Got a well, don’t he, the priest? Right there, real close to center of the compound. Not hurting for fresh water, is he?”
Hewspear shifted uneasily, the hard ground doing his injured ribs no favors. “No. No, he is not hurting for fresh water. And unless I miss my guess, that lodge has a well-stocked larder as well.”
Mulldoos nodded, the pale head bobbing on that monstrous neck. “We’re agreeing entirely too much here, but seems like the priest boys can hold out here for a good long while. Especially with that fish pond on the far side there. Maybe not provisions like a castle proper, but I’m thinking at least a few weeks. Maybe more. You reckon?”
Hewspear inched away from the ridge and sat up, breathing easier. A little. “Not having been inside, or knowing if the seneschal is competent or a horrible drunk, it is difficult to gauge. But unless they were foolish in preparations, you are probably right. At least two weeks, possibly more.”
Mulldoos moved back from the edge of the ridge as well, having seen enough. “Uh huh. Agreeing entirely too much. But there’s one thing I’m still awful confused about.”
He stopped, looking at the captain, waiting for him to prompt him with the question. When Braylar didn’t, Mulldoos said, “Just wondering why we aren’t back in our saddles riding to Sunwrack right about now.”
Braylar didn’t look at him as he replied. “The answer is simple. Our quarry is down there.”
Mulldoos leaned on his elbows, looking back and forth between his captain and the edge of the ravine. “Ayyup, Sure enough. Surrounded by a whole lot of stone and a whole lot of men who got no love for us at all.”
“You’re more right than you know.”
Mulldoos worked on that for a moment, then said, “Right, am I? So I’m more confused. If it were me hearing me say we should head on out, and I agreed with what I had to say top to bottom, then the pair of us would hold hands and march down this hill and ride hard to put some miles between before night came on strong. But not you. You hear me out, tell me I got the right of it-which, I got to say, Cap, I get so seldom, just not sure how to take it-but then you seem more dug in than ever. Real, real confused.”
Braylar pulled Bloodsounder off the hook on his belt, the chains rattling against each other like an animal giving a warning signal just before the attack, and then he picked up one of the Deserter heads, staring at the agonized face. “Gurdinn is down there.”
Mulldoos said, “OK, you seen him. And? Still not sure how that ties one thing to the next. Might even be more reason to leave. Seemed a competent commander on the whole. If even more bullheaded than you.”
Braylar brought the flail head closer to his own. “I haven’t seen him.”
“Then, why-” Mulldoos stopped himself and nodded slowly, the pale stubble on his face like flecks of gossamer. “Ahhhh, should have guessed. Bloodsounder whispering secrets in your ear again.”
We all waited for Braylar to say more, and when he didn’t, Mulldoos asked what we were all thinking. “So, you want us to beg for scraps? What did you see, Cap, that’s got you so willing to dismiss real sound advice to do the opposite of what we’re actually doing?”
Braylar moved away from the ridge and slowly stood, joints popping in his knees, and slipped the flail back on his belt. “I can’t say for a certainty. Bloodsounder was not especially forthcoming, and the images were far from clear. But this much I can say-if the flashes foretold anything, an opportunity to steal the High Priest might present itself without me ordering us in a futile charge to our doom.”
Hewspear spoke up, “Captain, while I’ve learned to put great stock in your warnings and premonitions, as they’ve turned the tide of a battle on more than one occasion, I have to say, even if what you saw is accurate, we don’t have the luxury of time. And the Brunesmen and the priest are locked in a stalemate-neither will engage the other anytime soon. Henlester isn’t sallying out to meet his foe, not with the strategic benefit of a solid defensive position. And Gurdinn has little choice but to try to starve out the garrison, as he brought no siege engines, and likely no engineers to build them. Either way-”
“Nobody’s moving,” Mulldoos finished. “They’re going to stare at each other just out of bow range and dream up real nasty ways of killing the other, but no one’s making a move just now. And if we sit here too long, that bitch of a sister of yours will be sure to make our lives hell when we get back to Sunwrack. So we aren’t getting any kind of opportunity anytime-”
It was Braylar’s turn to interrupt, and his tone suggested the discussion was no longer a discussion of any kind, but a prelude to a mandate. “I expected more imagination. Both of you have been involved in enough sieges and studied countless more to know better. While the majority are prolonged, and eventually end with one side starving or diseased enough to surrender or quit the field, with only a few requiring an all-out assault, there are also numerous occasions when something quick or unexpected decides men’s fates. A poisoned well. Treachery within the stronghold, a sally port unbarred. A daring raid by an elite squad. The arrival of rescuing forces that drive off the besiegers. The arrival of more besiegers that tip the balance. And while I can’t say which of these things is going to occur, I do know that there is a strong likelihood we will have our opportunity, and have it soon. Bloodsounder is sometimes wrong, or my interpretation faulty, but I feel strongly this is not one of those times.”