They were to ride out at nightfall, as Laurent announced when he addressed the men. To strike with any chance of success they must work swiftly, as they had never worked. There was a great deal to prove. They had just had their nose bloodied, and now was the moment when they either crawled away snivelling or proved themselves man enough to return the blow and fight.
It was a succinct speech that was equal parts rallying and infuriating, but it certainly had the effect of provoking the men into action—of taking the sullen, nervy energy of the troop, forging it into something useable, and directing it outward.
Damen had been right. They wanted to fight. There was a determination among many of them now that was replacing weariness. Damen heard one of the men mutter that they would hit the ambushers before they knew what was coming. Another swore that he would strike a blow for his fallen comrade.
As he worked, Damen learned the full extent of the damage done by the uprising, some of it unexpected. Asking the whereabouts of Orlant, he was told, simply: ‘Orlant’s dead.’
‘Dead?’ said Damen. ‘He was killed by one of the insurgents?’
‘He was one of the insurgents,’ he was told, shortly. ‘He attacked the Prince as he was returning to camp. Aimeric was there. He was the one who took Orlant down. Got cut up doing it.’
He remembered Aimeric’s tense, white face, and thought it best, before riding out into a fight, to check on the boy. He grew concerned when he learned from one of the Prince’s men that Aimeric had left the camp. He followed the man’s finger-point.
Pushing his way through the trees, he saw Aimeric, who was standing with one hand on the twisted branch of a tree, as though for support. Damen almost hailed him. But then he saw that Jord was weaving through the scattered trees, following Aimeric. Damen stayed silent, not announcing his presence.
Jord put a hand on Aimeric’s back.
‘After the first few times, you stop throwing up,’ he heard Jord say.
‘I’m fine,’ said Aimeric. ‘I’m fine. I just, I’ve never killed anyone before. I’ll be fine.’
‘It’s not an easy thing,’ said Jord. ‘For anyone.’ And then: ‘He was a traitor. He would have killed the Prince. Or you. Or me.’
‘A traitor,’ Aimeric echoed hollowly. ‘Would you have killed him for that? He was your friend.’ And then he said it again in a different voice, ‘He was your friend.’
Jord murmured something that was too soft to hear, and Aimeric let himself be folded into Jord’s arms. They stayed that way for a long moment, under the swaying branches of the trees; and then Damen saw Aimeric’s hands slide into Jord’s hair, heard him say, ‘Kiss me. Please, I want—’ and he stepped away to give them privacy, as Jord tilted Aimeric’s chin up, as the branches of the trees moved back and forth, a gentle, shifting veil, covering them up.
*
Fighting at night was not ideal.
In the dark, friend and foe were one. In the dark, the terrain took on new importance; the hills of Nesson were rocky and fissured, as Damen now knew intimately, having scoured them with his eyes for hours on the ride that day, picking out a path for his horse. And that was during daylight.
But, in some ways, it was a standard mission for a small troop. Raids from the Vaskian mountains were troublesome to many townships, not only in Vere, but also in Patras and northern Akielos. It was not uncommon for a commander to be sent with a party to clean raiders out of the foothills. Nikandros, the Kyros of Delpha, had spent half his time doing just that, and the other half petitioning the King for monies, on the grounds that the Vaskian raiders he was dealing with were in fact supplied and funded by Vere.
The manoeuvre itself was simple.
There were several sites where the mercenaries might be camped. Rather than playing the odds, they were simply going to draw them out. Damen and the group of fifty men he led were the bait. With them were the wagons that mimicked the appearance of a full troop making an attempt at tiptoeing their way stealthily south, under cover of night.
When the enemy attacked, they would appear to fall back, and instead lead the way to the remainder of the troop led by Laurent. The two groups would trap the attackers between them, cutting off any escape. Simple.
Some of the men had experience with this kind of fighting. They were also at least somewhat familiar with night missions. They had been hoisted out of their beds more than once during the time they’d spent at Nesson, and set to work in the dark. Those were their advantages, alongside the hoped for element of surprise that would leave their attackers scrambling and disorganised.