Friends (2013) - Adams, Robert

“In no manner have you been deprived, Lisah,” he replied after a moment, allowing his approval to be clearly seen by her. “Considering that in conjunction with your weapons skill, my company would soon be decimated were 1 to allow you to join us, and that before any commission was accepted. The number of high noblemen hereabout continue to be as few as they were?”

“They do indeed,” the girl agreed happily, a brief look of annoyance flashing when her left hand failed to find a hilt to

rest on. “For that reason alone have I not been pestered while training at war skills, with our arms masters and also with our brothers when they briefly returned home from the wars. Father will not even consider those who are about; therefore has there been no need of my personally refusing them. And I do no more than rag you, brother, for I have no true wish to join your company. If you would have the truth, I have

already begun to form a company of my own.”

Her brothers were so quick to exclaim in shock that the girl laughed in delight, pleased that the surprise she had planned to give them had not been discovered before she might spring it. Brothers were, at times, worse than fathers, and yet their approval remained important to her.

“Few capable men would be attracted to the banner of an inexperienced girl, Lisah,” her brother Dharrehn protested, overriding the comments of the others. “A company must be led by a man whose leadership qualities and tactical skills

have been well proven, not by one who has seen no more than practice battle.”

“My company will be led by exactly such a man,” the girl agreed, folding her hands before her in pleased comfort that caused even greater agitation in her brothers. “Some three months agone, I made the acquaintance of one Hwarruhn Fredrix, former captain of the Red Horse Company, those who were sent to death for so little reason. You may perhaps have heard of how badly they were done.”

Nods came from all four of her brothers, their upset quieting in the face of unpalatable memories. A year earlier the Red Horse Company had taken hire with Duke Steev of Vincetburk, a man who had had ambitions for expansion unmentioned to the company he had hired. They had been told that they were to guard his borders against rumored attack by the duke’s neighbor, Baron Rhich Djones, an upstart newcomer with few swords and less gold, but great intentions. The baron was to have been unlikely to appear with too great a force, therefore was the single company to have been sufficient to halt him; were their numbers to prove insufficient, however, a rider was to be sent back and the balance of the duke’s forces would quickly ride to their assistance.

The Red Horse Company had established their camp headquarters in the pretty little vale they had been ordered to by the duke, disliking the open position but saying little as they had been told that the duke’s border lay just beyond the gentle swell of land not far ahead of them. It had been deemed best that they not show themselves too ostentatiously, merely patrol the border as a silent, forceful warning against foolishness, and their commission had included a comfortable extra to replace the loot they were unlikely to have the opportunity of securing. All in all the commission had seemed much like a leave with wages, and consideration of the brevity of the hire had kept most of the experienced campaigners of the company from fretting over the possible loss of the company’s fighting edge.

Captain Fredrix had been too old a hand at surviving, however, to allow his men to grow even the least bit sloppy— which surely saved what small number of lives were not lost with the rest. When one of the mounted patrols came haring back with word of the force which marched against them, a force a good deal larger than any they had been told to expect, a rider was sent back for reinforcements and the company was quickly formed up, for all the good it did. The advancing host came on slowly until they had nearly reached the vale, and then they put heel to horseflesh and streamed over the rise and down upon the mere hundreds of the company, cavalry alone far outnumbering the defenders.

Captain Fredrix cursed the obscenely low and open position he was required to defend even as his men spurred forward in answering attack, hoping to down enough of the invaders close enough to the rise to entangle any following gallopers incautious enough to follow at full speed—and to render near useless the enemy’s archers. The two forces came together with the clash of plate and the ring of swords, the fury of shouted curses and the finality of dying screams, and all the while they fought, the Red Horse Company awaited the arrival of the reinforcements they knew would soon be there. The duke’s forces had their field camp no more than a few miles away while they played at maneuvers, and the rider sent would surely bring them as quickly as humanly possible.

Or so most of them died expecting. When relief finally did come and the attacking forces withdrew to regroup against the new threat, Hwarruhn Fredrix let his sword fall to the end of its knot and slumped in his kak a very long while, too exhausted even to fall to the ground. When the ringing in his ears eased and he was able to force his deadened arms to raise his visor, the sight which greeted him took the life from his spirit as well. Dead and dying lay all about, messily hacked corpses and writhing wounded alike, his once proud company mown like summer wheat. Even his banner was down and lost, the flag and the man holding it trampled to mud, and it came at last to the captain to wonder on the length of time it had taken assistance to reach them. He continued to think upon the matter even as he resheathed his sword and forced his achingly stiff body to dismount so that he might see to those of his men who still lived, but it needed the arrival at the duke’s field camp before the truth of the thing was discovered.

The captain and three of his survivors, having at last brought their wounded to the camp doctors, came upon another wounded they had not expected to encounter. It was the boy they had sent to bring the duke’s host to their aid, and they were told by a doctor that his bleeding body had been the first to be brought in, right after the host had marched. He was not expected to live, and most were surprised that he had survived even that long.

It quickly turned out that the boy lived only so that he might speak to his captain a final time, his indominable will refusing to allow his murdered body the surcease it yearned for. Captain Fredrix leaned low with his ear to the boy’s lips for quite some time, and when he straightened, the boy’s spirit at last gone to Wind, his face was a mask of fury. The duke had laughingly told the boy all, for the boy was not to have survived to repeat the tale; at the end of it he had been sworded beneath his armor, in the lower back, by one of those who stood with him in the duke’s presence.

The Red Horse Company had been given hire with the expectation that none of them would survive, and it had not been the duke’s lands they had been ordered to camp on.

Duke Steev, hungry for the lands held by Baron Rhich but unwilling to give warning to their other neighbors who would be victimized after the baron, had hatched a scheme which would make it appear that it was the baron attacking and the duke merely defending. The Red Horse Company had been placed not on the duke’s land but on the baron’s, and word of it had been sent to the baron in a roundabout manner, luring him forth in great anger with his host. The vale had been close enough to the duke’s lands so that afterward he might claim that it was on his lands that the attack had taken place, and the scheme called for the slaughtered bodies of the Red Horse Company for the duke to grow enraged over. Enraged enough to lead his own host against the murderers of a new, peaceful company that had just taken hire with him.

And, of course, for that reason could not ride out too soon to give support to those who were meant to be slaughtered. When the boy had made to return to his company and reveal the truth to them, he had been sworded and thrown to the side, where he might die and take the truth with him.

“1 have heard it said that Captain Fredrix attempted to reach the duke to give proper thanks for such a hire,” Dharrehn mused, his fingers pulling at his lower lip the while his eyes glittered. “It seems unfortunate that Baron Rhich, well aware of the duke’s intentions, had already done for him and his with companies taken on for another purpose, not to speak of his own levy and those of a number of neighbors. Hacking a corpse is not nearly so satisfying as causing one. For what reason has he not raised another company of his own?”

“At first he lacked the heart, and then he lacked the gold,” the girl replied, nodding agreement with the sentiments her brother had voiced. “Mother’s jewels have long been mine to do with as 1 saw fit, and what might be more fitting than to raise a company with them? 1 will merely be a member of that company, and not the only female among them. There will be three of us to begin with, and later there will certainly be more.”

“I believe she means to corrupt and recruit every female she comes across,” one of the four said with a sigh, sending the others a covert wink. “What, then, will we do for wives when we return at last to take up land and raise heirs?”

“Clearly, Fhill, we will each need to personally engage a company and carry one off,” Dharrehn responded with a matching sigh, the twinkle in his eyes belying his mock sadness. “Our own sister will have made such effort necessary, and she with none who bums to do the same with her.”

“Ah, but there is such a one,” the youngest of the five interrupted, a wicked grin helping him to break the silence he had held till then. “Due to this cursed thigh wound I have been home longer than you others, and recently the hidden truth has been revealed to me by one who shall remain nameless. ”

“There is no hidden truth, Jahk, and that you should know even though fighters gossip like the eldest of retired ladies,” the girl snapped, more annoyed than embarrassed that her other brothers immediately pricked up their ears like alerted herd stallions. “1 would wed a savage before I would so much as smile at the dandified oaf!”

“Baron Kalvehn Theros’ eldest son Lhestuh haunts our halls in preference to visiting what battles are about in leather and plate,” Jahk confided to his brothers, paying no mind to the wrath of a sister who would not, after all, raise weapon to a brother who continued to limp and therefore lacked his natural balance. “He yearns to take our sister to wife, and although our father has refused to allow it and his intended has sworn to alter him in such a way as to make the doing futile should he ever approach her again, he continues to sulk about glaring at all who are thoroughly male, hoping the presence of his hired bullies will frighten them away. He wishes them gone before they clap eyes to his beloved, you see, for he fears they will carry her off as he lacks the courage to do. Many wagers have been made as to whether his sword'has ever so much as scented blood.”