Fox and Empire

**

They didn't fight the next morning, nor the next afternoon, either. Gerin began to wonder if the imperials were going to fall back not just to Cassat but through it. If that was so, they might have given up on their efforts to reunite the northlands to the Elabonian Empire.

But then, the morning after that, Rihwin's riders came back to report that the imperial army was drawn up in battle array, awaiting attack. "We'll give it to them," Aragis declared. "One more win and they're gone for good." He shouted orders for the advance.

"Do you think he's right, Father?" Dagref asked as he steered the chariot out in front of the warriors who acknowledged Gerin as their overlord.

"As a matter of fact, I do," the Fox answered. "Beating an army once and seeing it keep its spirit-that can happen, no doubt about it. Beating an army twice and seeing it keep its spirit-when the imperials managed it, that surprised me. If we beat them three times running, I don't see how they can keep from running themselves."

Van nodded. "I think you have the right of it, Captain. I don't suppose I've ever seen soldiers with so much discipline in all my days, but discipline only takes a soldier so far. If it keeps taking him into fights where he can't hope to win, it'll break like a dropped pot."

"That does make good logical sense." Dagref looked back over his shoulder at Gerin. "Haven't you tried to thump it into my head that battles don't always make good logical sense?"

"I think I ought to thump your head on the principle of the thing," Gerin said. "Keep your attention on where we've going, if you please, not on where we've been."

Out ahead of the chariots, and out wide of them as well, rode Rihwin's horsemen. Among them was Maeva, who found sitting a horse easier than walking around. Gerin almost mentioned her to Dagref, because that would have made sure his son looked ahead at all times. He refrained, though, not wanting to remind Van that Maeva was in the fight and had already been hurt once.

Above and ahead of the army of the northlands flew Ferdulf. The demigod had been subdued since meeting his father. He seemed exuberant enough now, though, stabbing out his hand to show the position of the imperial army and then making several lewd gestures in the direction of the men from south of the High Kirs. Gerin's troopers whooped.

The Fox saw the army of the Elabonian Empire a couple of minutes later. He nodded in reluctant admiration. The imperials looked as steady now as they had at the first clash. They'd lost more men than Gerin and Aragis had; having started with an army about the same size as that of the northlands, they were now at a disadvantage. They didn' t seem worried, though. As soon as they spied their foes' chariotry, they began their war cry: "Elabon! Elabon! Elabon!"

"Gerin!" the men from the northlands shouted, and "Aragis!" and anything else they could think of. The Trokmoi who rode with the Fox let out a chorus of yips and yowls that might have burst from the throats of wolves.

Maybe those howls were what made Dagref say, "We sound like an army of barbarians."

"And the imperials sound like civilized men?" Gerin asked. His son nodded. The Fox said, "Well, maybe they are. But I'll tell you this: a civilized man doesn't smell any better four days dead than a Trokm? with mustachios that droop down to his collarbones."

"That's a fact," Van agreed. "And another fact is, you'll die just as dead from a civilized man's sword as from a barbarian's-if the silly bugger knows what to do with it, of course."

"Also true," Gerin said. He raised his voice to ask Dagref, "What do you think of these new horses?"

They were still using the team from the imperial chariot onto which they'd forced themselves during the most recent fight. Dagref answered, "They haven't the endurance of the beasts we brought down from Fox Keep-that's certain. But I do think they may run faster for a short burst. That could prove useful. They're easier-tempered beasts than the ponies we had, which is pleasant."

The Fox grunted. If anything, his son had told him more than he'd wanted to know. That was typical of Dagref. He loved detail, and assumed everyone else did, too. With Gerin, that assumption was usually good. Now, though, he had too much on his mind to want a whole lot more rattling around in there.

"Elabon! Elabon! Elabon!" The drivers of the imperial chariots cracked their whips above the backs of their mounts and sent them bounding toward the men of the northlands. Gerin admired their spirit, in the same sort of way in which he admired the courage of the Trokmoi: which is to say, he admired it without seeing that it made much sense. They'd been beaten twice. What on earth made them think the result would be any different this time, especially since they were now outnumbered?

Whatever it was, here they came. Arrows flew toward Gerin and his followers. Some of his men began shooting back, even if they were out of range. He'd told them not to do that, but not everybody thought when he fought.

Nocking an arrow, Gerin waited for a good target to present itself. The imperial officers still persisted in wearing fancy gear to let their men see at a glance who they were. That that also let their foes see at a glance who they were never seemed to enter their heads. Gerin sent two of them tumbling out of their chariots, one right after the other.

Men and horses on both sides went down. One imperial chariot came to grief in front of another, which collided with it and came to grief, too. Along with looking for officers, Gerin sent shafts at drivers and at horses. That last wasn't sporting, and he knew it. He didn't care. If the horses went down, the chariots couldn't roll.

Order and discipline didn't hold long. Once the chariots were in among one another, the tactics of the captains on either side didn't matter much. It was a melee, everyone smashing away at whoever was close by and happened to be shouting the wrong battle cry.

Gerin tried to do something about that, yelling for some of his troopers to overlap the end of the imperial line. The imperials stretched, too, and didn't stretch so thin as to let him shatter them. His mouth twisted. This didn't look like a day on which anything would come easy.

Then Ferdulf dived down to horrify the horses of an imperial chariot. They ran so wild, Dagref had to steer smartly to escape a collision. Van speared the driver out of the enemy car, which meant it would keep right on going wild.

Dagref was no demigod, but he could also make himself unloved by the imperials' horses. His lash made them scream and turn aside from the chariot he drove. One of the drivers who fought for the Elabonian Empire drew back his arm to do likewise to the team Dagref drove. Before he could snap the whip, Gerin shot him in the shoulder. He howled and cursed and dropped the whip, but somehow managed to hang on to the reins. That made Gerin curse in turn.

"How are we doing?" Van shouted. He looked as if he was doing pretty well for himself. His face wore a fierce grin. Blood trails dripped down the shaft from his long, leaf-shaped bronze spearhead. No blood dripped from him.

"Doing well, I think," Gerin answered. He looked around. "The imperials are having to bend back to keep us from getting around behind them, so their line is a bow now-it isn't a line any more. And you can bend a bow only so far. After that, it snaps."

"Aye." Van peered toward the other wing. "Aragis' men seem to be giving the southerners a hard time, too. Say what you will about that fellow, the men he leads can fight."

"I've never doubted that," Gerin said. "He wouldn't be dangerous to me if he weren't dangerous to everyone else who got in his way, too." He hesitated, then admitted, "I suppose I have to say I didn't expect him to be as dangerous as he is."

Dagref said, "If he happened to suffer an unfortunate accident just at the moment when the imperials were routed and running for the High Kirs, I don't think my heart would break."

"Neither would mine," Gerin said. Then, a bit slower than he should have, he realized what else his son had been saying. "If Aragis has an unfortunate accident, it won't be on account of me."

"All right," Dagref said equably. Gerin stared at his son's back. The youth could indeed be formidable to everyone around him when he grew up. As a matter of fact, he was already formidable to everyone around him.

"You keep your eyes open, Fox," Van said, "because I don't think Aragis' heart would break if you had an unfortunate accident along about the time the imperials were hightailing it for the mountains, either. And Aragis doesn't believe in live and let live, not even a little bit."

Gerin could hardly argue with that. Aragis had about as much forbearance in him as a pike swimming in the Niffet. Any other fish he saw was either his size, bigger… or breakfast. But the Fox replied, "I didn't get to be as old as I am by closing my eyes, you know."

"Oh, yes, I do know that," Van said. "But if you want to keep on getting older, don't shut 'em now."

Instead of shutting his eyes, Gerin used them to gape at Ferdulf whizzing around the battlefield, stirring up chaos in the ranks of the imperials. He flew untroubled. Whatever magics the wizards from the Sorcerers' Collegium were using to try to bring him down, they weren't working, not today. And, because they weren't working, the little demigod was making life miserable for the men from south of the High Kirs.

Life, or at least the battle, was pretty miserable for them anyhow. Gerin and Aragis' men did not beat them easily, but beat them they did. Both ends of the imperial line bent back and back now. Gerin began thinking Aragis' dream would come to pass. If his own men met the Archer's behind the imperials, precious few soldiers would have the chance to get back over the mountains and let Crebbig I know what had happened to them. The officers of the Empire realized as much; their shouts grew ever more urgent and desperate.

Gerin shouted, too: "Press them hard! Don't let them have a moment's breather. If we smash them here, they're ruined for good. Press them."

Press them the men of the northlands did. The imperials fought hard, but, though they managed to press forward here and there, overall kept going back and back. Three arrows, one of them Gerin's, hit an officer who was rallying them. They all struck within heartbeats of one another; the Fox was by no means sure his smote first.

Van whooped as he watched the imperial topple from his car. "He's hit so many times, he doesn't even know which way to fall, the poor sod. You've got your troopers thinking the same way you do, Captain."

"Anyone who can't see that an able officer needs killing is probably too stupid to go on breathing, let alone be worth anything in a fight," Gerin answered with a shrug.

Dagref said, "It would be a wonder, Father, if your followers haven't learned something from you, as long as you've been leading them."

Van whooped again. "Have you ever been called old more politely, Fox?"

"That's not what I-" Dagref began.

"Never mind. I know what you meant," his father said. "I also know Van was trying to rattle you, not me, because he knows you're the easier mark."

"I deny everything," Van said.

"There!" Dagref was triumphant. "Even Van sounds a bit like you, Father, and I'll bet he didn't before he came to Fox Keep."

That was true. Van and Gerin had remarked on it, too. Neither of them remarked on it now, perhaps for fear of making Dagref even more insufferable about his own cleverness than he was already.

Then shouts came from the far rear of the bending imperial line. Gerin leaned forward, trying to make out what they were. A moment later, he let out a shout of his own: "Our men and Aragis' have joined hands. We've got 'em in the barrel-now we pound 'em flat."

His men shouted, too, as they realized they'd surrounded the army of the Elabonian Empire. Most of the shouts were threats aimed at the imperials. But the men from south of the High Kirs stolidly fought on, doing their foes as much harm as they could.

"I think they're too stupid to know how badly beaten they are," Van said.

"You could be right," Gerin allowed. "If you are, though, it's not the worst way for a soldier to be."

Ferdulf kept on flying above the imperials and diving down to dismay them. As before, arrows refused to strike him. He rose on high and dove, rose on high and dove. Then he rose and, instead of diving on the imperials, flew straight to Gerin. "Watch out!" the little demigod shouted, pointing to the southwest. "Watch out!"

"What is it?" Gerin demanded, wishing Ferdulf had been more specific.

And then, when Ferdulf was specific, the Fox wished he hadn't been: "There's another imperial army, as big as this one or maybe bigger, heading straight for us. We're going to get smashed like a bug between two rocks."

In remarkably self-possessed tones, Dagref said, "Well, now we know why the imperials who are already here didn't panic when we surrounded them."

"Don't we?" Gerin agreed sourly. Unlike Aragis, the general in command of the Elabonian Empire's newly reinforced forces was capable of real strategy. He'd set out this tempting army here, certain the men of the northlands would leap on it like a starving longtooth. And the men of the northlands had leaped-and now they were going to pay for it.

Ferdulf hovered in front of Gerin's face like the gadfly he was. " What are you going to do?" he screeched. "What are we going to do?"

"We're going to get licked, that's what we're going to do," Van said.

Ferdulf screeched again, this time wordlessly. "He's right, of course," Gerin said, which made Ferdulf screech at him. Ignoring the racket, the Fox went on, "Only question left now is how badly we get licked. Ferdulf, go tell Aragis what you just told me. He's on the right; he'll get hammered harder than my troopers will."

"I don't want to talk to Aragis." Ferdulf stuck out his lower lip. "He's nasty."

"Go talk to Aragis!" Gerin shouted. Ferdulf flew off. Gerin hoped he flew off in obedience rather than in a fit of the sulks, but wouldn't have bet anything he minded losing on it.

"We ought to pull back now," Dagref said.

"I know. But we can't." Gerin grimaced. "If we save ourselves like that, we leave Aragis in the lurch."

"Why shouldn't we?" Dagref asked. "He'd do it to us."

"Mm, I think not, not here," Gerin answered. "If he goes under altogether, or if I do, that leaves the other one to face the whole weight of the Empire by himself. That doesn't strike me as something I want to do."

"Well, maybe," Dagref said grudgingly.

Gerin didn't find out whether Ferdulf told the Archer the second imperial army was on the way. It mattered little. Aragis could not have remained in doubt very much longer. The new cry of "Elabon! Elabon! Elabon!" pierced the rest of the battlefield noise like a knifeblade piercing flesh.

"Elabon! Elabon! Elabon!" The surrounded imperials answered the war cry with one of their own.

As soon as he realized he was trapped rather than trapper, Aragis pulled away from the battle without the slightest concern for what that might do to Gerin. The Fox was less infuriated at finding his prediction wrong than he would have been otherwise, for Aragis was the one stuck between the two imperial forces. Most of the pressure fell on him. Gerin was able to break off his part of the fight without too much trouble.

And then, having broken off, he ordered his troopers forward in one last charge against the imperial force he and Aragis had lately surrounded. That made those imperials turn aside from their assault on the Archer to repel him. Van sighed. "Helping Aragis get loose, are you?"

"See any better ideas?" Gerin asked.

The outlander sighed again. "No, but I wish I did. You're hurting yourself while you're helping him."

"Don't remind me." Gerin stared across the field. Aragis did seem to be pulling back, not being surrounded-the fate he and Gerin and inflicted, though not for long enough, on the first army from south of the High Kirs. Seeing that Aragis' men would not be immediately cut off and destroyed satisfied the Fox that he'd done his duty by his ally. "Now back!" he shouted. "Now we get away."

He didn't know how hard the imperials would press his retreating force. They had the numbers now to press him and Aragis at the same time, if they so chose. The lunge they made after his men turned out to be halfhearted. For one thing, they remained intent on trying to break Aragis, against whom they could bring more warriors to bear than against Gerin. For another, most of Rihwin's horsemen-as many as were able-fell back on Gerin's force rather than on Aragis'. The imperial chariotry had great-perhaps even exaggerated-respect for the riders, whose feints and countercharges looked to intimidate them and keep them from pressing harder than they did.

Rihwin himself rode back to Gerin with an anxious expression on his face. "I pray the wine is safe, lord king," he said.

"It's not the biggest thing on my mind right now," Gerin said, in lieu of getting down from the chariot to find a rock with which to hit Rihwin in the head. "I'm more worried about everything else the supply wagons carried. Most of them were on Aragis' side of the field. Without journeybread and sausage and cheese and whatnot, we're going to have to start foraging all over the countryside if we want to stay alive."

"Wine is also important," Rihwin insisted, "it being our best conduit, as you yourself said, to hope and beg for divine aid from Mavrix."

"Not a good hope," Gerin said, but the comment held enough sense to keep him from again wishing to clout his fellow Fox. He sighed. " All right, Rihwin, have it your way. I hope the wine is safe, too. Now let me get back to running this retreat, if you please."

Rihwin sketched a salute. "Lord king, I obey." His eyes twinkled. "When I feel like it, I obey." He rode off before Gerin could find an answer.

The one thing of which the Fox was glad was that his men still showed fight. That let him conduct the sort of retreat the imperials had made before: a retreat with teeth in it. His lines weren't so neat as the ones the men from the Elabonian Empire had maintained, but they weren't pushing him so hard as he'd pushed them. That evened things out. As the imperials had broken free of his pursuit, so his army broke free of theirs.

"Where now?" Van asked. "What now?"

Those were indeed the relevant questions. Gerin took the second one first, not because he had an answer but because he didn't: "I haven't the faintest notion of what now, except to get away in the best way we can, so the imperials still have to do some fighting after the battle we just lost. Have to see what sort of shape we're in, have to see what sort of shape Aragis' men are in, have to see if the Empire lets us rejoin them. Maybe I stop being a king and go back to being a baron."

"Would you do that, Father?" Dagref asked, some concern in his voice: if Gerin was not a king, Dagref never would be.

"I might, if I didn't think the Empire would nail me to a cross for taking a title they say I have no right to," the Fox replied. " Being a king-by the gods, even being a baron-never meant all that much to me of itself. The best part of it always has been that it's given me the power I need to make people leave me and mine alone. But I don' t think his usurping majesty, Crebbig I, will want anyone around who's dared defy his glory, and so I'm better off to keep on fighting."

"That's the way of it," Van agreed. "You keep standing till they knock you down and you can't get up any more." He looked around. "We' ll be on our feet again before too long. Now-the other question I put to you. Where now?"

"Northeast, the way we're going," Gerin replied without hesitation. "With all these big villages that are almost little towns around, the farmers down here are plainly growing more than they can eat by themselves. If we have to forage off the countryside, let's forage off countryside that'll give us enough to be worth taking."

"Makes sense to me," the outlander said.

"Besides," Gerin said, "even if I don't know what's happened to most of our supply wagons, I saw taverns in some of those towns. Tonight, I'm going to drink something better than water."

"Not enough better, if you listen to Rihwin," Van said.

"If you listen to Rihwin, you'll hear any number of things that aren't so," Gerin said. "You'll hear any number of things that may be so but probably aren't. You'll hear any number of things that are so but don't matter at the moment. And, I don't deny, you'll hear some things that do matter. But winnowing the grain from the chaff is often more trouble than it's worth."

"You have the right of that." Van rumbled laughter. Then his heavy-featured face grew bleak. "I've not seen Maeva since the fighting started. Have you set eyes on her, Captain?"

"No," Gerin answered. He did not like the way Van looked at him-it was as if the outlander were measuring him for a grave.

But then Dagref said, "She's in the retreat with the rest of us. I saw her off on what would have been our left when we were facing the imperial army; I suppose it's our right now that we've turned our backs on them. She must have been one of the riders who got farthest around the flank of the first imperial force, before the other one made us break off."

"Ah, that's good to hear," Van said, and his features cleared.

"Sounds like your child, too, to be at the fore of the fighting," Gerin said, also more than a little relieved.

"It does, doesn't it?" Now Van looked proud and puzzled at the same time. "Who would have thought a girl child would take after me so, though? I never did, not for a moment."

Dagref looked back over his shoulder. "If you don't mind my saying so, you should have. She's been practicing with bow and sword and spear since she's been big enough to hold them in her hands. She's kept working with them, too, to get to be as good as she is. Why would she do all that if she didn't intend to use them in war one day?"

"When you ask it that way, lad, I have no good answer for you," the outlander said with a sigh. "I thought it was a childish thing in her, I suppose, and that she would put it aside when she turned into a woman, and take up the things of a woman instead."

"That didn't happen," Dagref said. "If you'd been paying attention, you'd have noticed she's been a woman for a year, and she hasn't come close to putting aside her practice. She's worked harder than ever, as a matter of fact."

"Has she?" Van's tone was surprised, not so much at the news, perhaps, as at how emphatically Dagref gave it to him. "You've been paying close attention, haven't you?"

"Well, of course I have," Dagref answered. "I've been practicing a good deal myself, you know. If I didn't notice what people did around me, I wouldn't be much use to anyone, would I?"

Van grunted and subsided. Perhaps he was even convinced. Dagref had spoken most convincingly. He might even have believed what he was saying himself. Over the years, Gerin had seen a great many people talk themselves into believing what wasn't so.

Thoughtfully, the Fox shook his head. He was of the opinion that Dagref was concealing from Van rather than deluding himself. He was also of the opinion that Dagref had made special note of Maeva practicing because she was Maeva, not because she was practicing. He'd also caught Maeva noticing Dagref, which made life… less than dull.

The sun sank toward the western horizon. The imperials stopped harassing Gerin's rear guard and drew back. He hadn't thought they would do anything else, but he hadn't thought they would bring a second army over the High Kirs, either. If Aragis had been generous instead of greedy and given the Fox the right instead of the left, the Archer would have had the easier retreat and Gerin would have had to contend with two forces at once. He wondered if Aragis was thinking the same thing at the moment.

Up ahead sat one of those not-quite-towns common here close to the High Kirs. Gerin ordered his men to encamp a couple of bowshots from it. He wasn't worried about feeding them, not tonight. Most of them would have bread or sausage or something on their persons, and those who didn't would be able to get something.

He did need some sort of sacrifice against the night ghosts, though. He walked up toward the village, Dagref at his side. Van stayed behind to talk with Maeva, who'd come through unhurt. Dagref had wanted to do that, too, but Van's presence persuaded him to take himself elsewhere.

When Gerin got to the village, he wondered if anyone would be there at all. His army had passed nearby on the way south, and so had the imperials before them. To his relief, he found that, if the inhabitants had fled as warriors briefly approached the place, they were back now. They were also willing, he discovered, to sell him a couple of sheep.

"How did you keep somebody from stealing them?" he asked.

"Oh, we managed," answered the man who had them. Three words summed up generations of dealing with nobles and warriors, always being the weaker but somehow getting through.

Admiring that resilience, Gerin said, "Well, come to the tavern and have a jack of ale with my son and me."

"I'll take you up on that," the villager said. He led the Fox and Dagref into the tavern, which wasn't too clean but likewise wasn't too dirty. "Three ales," he told the woman who looked to be in charge of the place. He pointed to Gerin. "This fellow here is doing the buying."

She nodded and filled three jacks. She was somewhere in early middle age, brown hair-beginning to go gray-pulled back from her pale face and tied behind her. In the growing gloom inside the tavern, Gerin couldn't make out what color her eyes were.

She carried the jacks over to the table where he, his son, and the villager sat. She didn't set them down till the Fox put money on the table. Then she nodded and said, "Here you are."

Gerin's head came up, so suddenly that Dagref and the villager stared. He knew her voice. Her eyes were green. He still could not see them, but he knew. Hoarsely, he spoke her name: "Elise."

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