After the disappeared from view, I listened to their honking grow fainter as well, wondering if they were a good omen or bad.
When I looked back down, Mulldoos was staring at me. I forced myself not to look away, and did the only manly thing I could think of, giving the small quick nod I’d seen so many soldiers share that somehow conveyed respect and acknowledgement and absolutely nothing at all.
Mulldoos continued staring for a minute, shook his head, and returned his attention to his gear.
Vendurro made me jump as he somehow moved alongside without me hearing or noticing. “Always been curious about something, Mulldoos.”
Mulldoos didn’t look up again as he ran his fingers over the straps of his shield, feeling for something. Excessive wear? A tear? Something else. “Oh yeah? This ought to be good. What you curious about, Ven?”
“Well, when you call someone a horsecunt, are you calling them the lady bits of a whore, or a filly’s pink business? Could go either way, couldn’t it?”
Mulldoos stopped and did look up, fixing his pale eyes on the younger man. “You’re some kind of something, you are. This is what you think about right before shooting yourself some Brunesmen?”
Vendurro shrugged, the lamellar plates clacking a bit as he did. “Like to keep my mind moving. Instead of fixating on the bloodletting. Plenty of time to think about that after. Before, I like to keep it moving. So which is it?”
“I ain’t called anybody a horsecunt in, shit, not sure how long.”
“Matter of minutes, most like. So, is it a whore or a horse you’re talking about?”
“Does it plaguing matter?”
“Neither’s much of a compliment, that’s for certain. But the meaning of something always matters.”
Mulldoos looked up at the foliage, miming as if he was seriously mulling the question over. “Well then, I suppose it all depends, don’t it?”
“On?”
“On what I happened to be thinking of right before the dumb horsecunt asked me a fool question right before a battle instead of inspecting his gear like he ought to. See now, right this second, I’m wishing we had more room to maneuver. Never liked fighting in a forest, if it could be helped. So I got horse on the brain. So when I say to that dumb bastard that bothered me when I was doing what I ought to be doing, “Hey, you whopping dumb horsecunt, maybe you ought to be picking out the straightest quarrel to loose first, or making sure you ain’t busted a lace on your armor there, instead of letting your mind wander all over the world and bringing back the stupidest question you could think to utter, I suppose I’d have a horse in mind. You are the slit of a horse. Clear it up any?”
Vendurro didn’t look insulted in the slightest. “See now. That’s all I needed to know.”
“You’ve been kicked in the head by your horse. More than once. I swear it’s true. Not-”
Braylar returned, his lamellar and mail clattering and slithering, so there was no mistaking his approach. “Vendurro has the right of this. The meaning of a thing always matters. Always.”
“Oh yeah? How do you figure?” Mulldoos asked.
“There would probably be far fewer conflicts in the world if we all made more efforts for clarity of communication.”
“Nahh. We’d just understand why the other bastard hated us a little bit better, is all.” Mulldoos plucked a mushroom off the log and threw it out of the shadows of the woods, watching it spin fat end over thin as it flew through the sun.
Braylar said, “Disregard etymology at your peril, Lieutenant.”
Mulldoos stood, armor clinking. “Sometimes I swear I’m the only one in the outfit that ain’t been kicked in the head by his horse.”
Vendurro watched Mulldoos go and laughed, shaking his head. “Bristliest bastard ever been born, that one.”
Braylar was watching the trail. “And yet, perfectly suited to his station.”
“No argument there.”
“The Brunesmen should be along shortly. Stand ready.” The captain led his horse through the trees.
Vendurro shook his head and then punched my shoulder. “Come on. Cap’s right on that count, got to stand ready. Span that crossbow, Arki. Unless you plan on throwing quills at the baron’s boys.”
I wanted to protest I didn’t intend on shooting bolts at anyone if I could help it. But it would be better to have a loaded crossbow in my hands and not loose it than to have a Brunesmen attacking us and be stuck with quills and ink bottles. I nodded and followed Vendurro to the other group of ambushers.
I sat in our pocket of woods with Vendurro and the other Syldoon in our group and waited. In my brief experience, that seemed to happen a lot more in soldiering than the songs and tales would have you believe. Rather than brave assaults, stirring duels, colossal clashes of armies, and heroic last stands that everyone so often heard about, it was largely proving to be cramped muscles, stiff backs, long stretches of boredom and inactivity or unremarkable travel, punctuated by brief episodes of horrific bloodshed.
A short Syldoon next to me with a weak chin and watery eyes swore and swatted at an insect at his neck, his hand leaving behind a small red smear.
Vendurro hissed at him. “Hey, I got an idea, Morrud. So long as you’re flailing around and making your cuirass jingle jangle, maybe you could sing a little ditty or two, knock out a nice beat on the log there, something the other troopers can dance to. What do you say?”
Morrud replied, “Bloody tar fly bit me. Right there on the neck, it did.
What-”
“Worst bunch of ambushers I ever laid eyes on. You shut your yap now, keep it shut. This gets spoiled on account of your plaguing mouth, you can be sure Cap ain’t going to be any kind of pleased.”
He didn’t have the natural bluster of threat of doling out damage that Mulldoos did, or the stately carriage of Hewspear, and was only a sergeant rather than a lieutenant, but Morrud shut his yap just the same. While he might not have feared Vendurro directly, he clearly wasn’t inclined to incur the captain’s wrath if he could help it. Smart move.
Vendurro looked relieved. More responsibility fell to him now with Glesswik gone, and while he was bearing the weight of it well enough, he clearly wore it like a poor-fitting cuirass.
We waited as the sun slowly slid behind the treeline, sending stark dappled shadows across everything that seemed to undulate as the breeze caught the branches high above us and gently shifted the boughs to and fro. It was strangely idyllic, the sound of the trees swaying, the woods peaceful, serene. It was hard to believe it might all erupt into chaos at any moment. I wished Gurdinn had chosen to lead his convoy along a different route through the forest, knowing that he hadn’t.
And then I heard it. The jingle of harness, the soft clomp of hooves on the packed earth. I watched the bend in the path a hundred yards away, hoping my ears played tricks on me, sure they didn’t, and then the first horseman rounded the bend, looking ahead wearily, helm and hauberk and spear head flashing as shafts of the last day’s sun filtered through the trees and danced across the steel. And then more horsemen appeared in a column behind him.
Captain Killcoin had been right to hold off the ambush until now. The remainder of the sun was directed right into the Brunesmen’s eyes, and whatever hostile energy they had after the attack on the hunting lodge had fallen aside by now, replaced only by weariness and a desire to get out of the woods and return to the road back home. The Syldoon around me had their crossbows loaded and ready and I held mine, very careful to keep my hands, branches, and anything else away from the long metal trigger, terrified I would accidentally loose it and give away our position and the attack.
The Syldoon around me were crouched behind trees, and I mirrored them as much as I could. The rest of Gurdinn’s convoy came into view, what view I allowed myself around a trunk, as the lead soldiers continued riding, spears at rest, shields slung on the saddles or their backs, shoulders a bit slumped. After ten horsemen, I saw the first wagon, pulled by four oxen, moving slow. It had a flat wooden roof, iron bars all around behind the driver’s seat, and a locked gate to the rear. The prisoners were sitting inside, backs against the bars, the wagon rocking as it rolled over the uneven ground, axle creaking, with the driver goading the oxen on to keep them moving. Other horseman followed, another caged wagon full of prisoners pulled by horses this time, more horseman, and a final supply wagon with no bars, with the remaining prisoners tethered behind, arms bound, walking. There were four or five more horsemen in the rear.