Torches were lit, as much for reassurance as for the need - the twilight this time of year was lengthy - and those designated as hopitalers, local boys, old men and women, and court squires and pages - all started carrying water and food to the living, then carrying away the wounded and dead.
Erik turned and sat where he had been fighting, ignoring the dead soldier from Novindus who lay in the dirt next to him. When a boy with water came by, Erik took a single drink, passing along the rest of the water to the men nearby.
Soon a runner arrived with a note. He opened and read it, then, feeling so fatigued he didn’t know if he could will himself to move, he shouted, ‘Fall back!’
As if by magic. Sergeant Harper appeared. ‘We’re pulling out, sir?’
‘That’s it.’
‘Then we’re making for the next defensive position?’
‘We are.’
The wily old sergeant said, ‘Then we’ll not be seeing much sleep tonight, will we?’
Erik said, ‘I expect not. What is your point, Sergeant?’
‘Oh, none. Captain. I just wanted to make sure I understood everything.’
Erik fixed the sergeant with a baleful eye. ‘I think you understand just fine. Sergeant.’
‘Well, then, just so as it’s clear I’m not the one making lads who’ve spent a half-day fighting pick up and move without a drop to drink or a bite to eat.’
Erik realized the men were ready to drop. ‘I think we can hold off, then, until we’ve eaten.’
‘That’s lovely, sir. It’ll give us a bit of time to haul away the dead and get the wounded out in the wagons. A wise choice, sir.’
Erik sat down again. As Harper moved along, Erik said to himself, ‘And I had the presumption to call myself a sergeant.’
The withdrawal was more difficult than Erik would have liked. Despite the food and rest for two hours, the men were still bone-tired when they were turned to march to the east.
Erik inventoried his assets and realized he was beginning to see elements of those men he had trained over the last two years, two companies of men who knew how to handle themselves, who had arrived from a position to the north.
Word came down that the enemy had broken through up north, but the gap had been closed. The bad news was that a contingent, numbering at least three hundred, possibly more, was loose on the wrong side of this current line of march. Erik sent his best scouts to the north, and hoped that if the invaders were coming this way, they would blunder into one of the heavier elements. Three hundred raiders could do quite a bit of damage to one of the smaller companies on the march before reinforcements could be summoned.
Just before sunrise, Erik found a solitary figure marching next to him, the magician Robert d’Lyes. ‘Hello, magician.’
‘Hello, Captain. I found a small rock under which to hide,’ he said with dry humor, ‘but instead of a wagon I find an army marching my way.’
‘I told you we were leaving,’ Erik said dryly. ‘I just didn’t think we’d be leaving so quickly.’
‘So I see. How goes the war?’
Erik said, ‘I wish I knew. So far we’ve done well, but that last attack showed me we’re still seriously outmanned.’
‘Can you hold them?’
‘We will,’ said Erik. ‘We have no choice.’
Ahead they saw lights as the village of Wilhelmsburg came into view. Entering the town they saw that it was completely taken over as a military site. The townspeople had been evacuated days earlier, and Erik knew that once his men had rested for a day, eaten and tended wounds, they would abandon this town, after putting every building in it to the torch.
A small figure ran toward Erik, shouting, ‘Captain von Darkmoor!’
Erik recognized him, despite the filth that clung to the tabard of a page of the royal court in Krondor. ‘Yes . . . what is your name?’
‘Samuel, sir. A lady asked me to give this to you.’
Erik took the note and sent the boy on his way. Erik opened the note. Inside, in a simple handwriting, it said: ‘Gone to Ravensburg to find your mother. I love you. Kitty.’
Erik felt relief that Kitty had reached here safely and was probably now staying at the Inn of the Pintail, where Erik had grown up. He turned to where the exhausted magician stood and said, ‘Let’s get something to eat.’
‘An excellent idea,’ said the fatigued conjurer.
They reached the Sign of the Plowshare, the inn where he had first met Corporal Alfred and Roo’s cousin Duncan. That caused Erik to wonder where his boyhood friend might be.
Inside the inn, they found the common room crowded. Half the floor was littered with blankets, where a makeshift infirmary had been set up, while the other half was jammed with starving soldiers, eating whatever was being passed across the counter.
A corporal whose name escaped Erik said, ‘We’ve got some rooms upstairs for the officers. Captain. We’ll send up food.’
‘Thank you,’ said Erik.