I shifted again, trying to find a comfortable seat in the saddle as we waited for the pay line to round out its morning activity. Before the sun had broken a new tent had been erected, away from the main camp, with a large table placed in its center. Baron Vicelli’s seneschal sat behind the table in a folding camp chair fit for a king, the smug look on his face only speaking to his pleasure at holding power he hadn’t earned. A dozen of the Baron’s bonded spearmen were at attention around the tent, or more specifically the iron-banded chest that held the promised payments of every man and woman who had fought on the battlefield.
Everyone except us.
As was usually the case, the sellswords of the warparty were being forced to wait until the Free Lancers had been paid. That was fine with me - Shilling, Farthing and I had packed up our tents at the first glimmers of light, while Giddy prepared our horses for travel and Gresham loused about, groaning that the mornings were getting colder and that he certainly wasn’t getting too old. Now we sat, far off to the side, graciously upwind of the battlefield.
One of the many things that the bards don’t sing about in their tales is the sheer amount of horseflesh needed for a Free Lancer troupe on the move. They all sung of knights crossing the land on their beautiful white warhorses, steel plate armour glimmering in the sunlight and colorful pinions hanging from their lances. Single riders, even small groups or merchant guards, certainly traveled in armour but rarely in full plate. It was utterly impractical, exhausting and asking for unneeded wear that required costly maintenance.
Then there were the horses. I was sitting on my riding horse, a young stallion we’d taken to calling Pate for the white splotch that crowned his head. Castor, my warhorse, was unsaddled with just a bit and harness on him. You didn’t ride a proper warhorse around the countryside - they were too valuable to risk like that. It was the same reason Gresham and I were wearing simple leather coats instead of our brigandine; the weight of the armor was better served on the packhorses, of which our troupe had four. With lesser riding mounts for Shilling, Farthing and Giddy, and Gresham’s new Warthog, we traveled with eleven horses. And that was just our troupe.
Mounted up and waiting with us were another ten horses besides, and three more men.
“Alright, there he goes,” muttered Ethelmeir, the man who had looped me into our current venture. He was of middling years, though hadn’t been a man-at-arms for long. Prior to this life, he’d explained around the fire, he had been a bodyguard in the service of a noble house down in the City of Centuries. He claimed his employer had been murdered while he’d been off duty by something called a golem that spouted lighting from it’s mouth. Losing his steady pay, and lacking any positive reference for his years of service, he’d decided to leave the city and its magical perils behind and fight the old fashioned way in the Free Kingdoms.
“Looks like he isn’t getting any trouble,” I said. Not that anyone else has been. It seemed, for some reason, I was the only Lancer getting fucked. We watched as Sir Zeklan of Vrace accepted his payment and quickly counted it out on the table, before turning and beginning to walk the hill towards us. To be fair, it was a nice little ‘fuck you’ to the seneschal and the Baron that each Lancer was counting their pay - generally, it would be considered less-than-gentile to do so. It was the other Lancer’s way of letting the seneschal know that what he and the Baron had done to me was going to be remembered.
“Ho the warparty,” called someone behind us. Ethelmeir, Gresham and I all turned, seeing another half-dozen horses approaching, with three riders. The lead was a squat man whose gut seemed to ride over the front lip of his saddle like a sack of suet. He had a grin on his face and waved merrily as he rode ahead of his companions, his twisted mustachios bouncing with the jostles of his horse. The next was a woman built like an outhouse, with broad shoulders I would have expected on a circus strongman. Her hair was shorn short, almost to the scalp, and she had the scar of a blade creasing the left side of her head where she was missing her ear. The last rider, a slender lad of no more than fourteen years, followed with his head down.
Stolen novel; please report.
“Ah, Morio,” Ethelmeir called, waving back. “You’ve come to join us. Wonderful.”
“When I received your message,” the round man said, skirting around our small herd worth of horses to get closer, “I could not help but feel a spark of joy, yes? I spoke with Sir Constance immediately, and she agreed to come.”
“Sir Constance?” I asked.
“What?” the woman with the scar snapped, following behind the man who seemed to be her footman. “Have you never met a lady warrior before, sir? Or perhaps my face is not to your liking?”
“Actually, you quite remind me of my mother,” I said, which brought a consternated look to the lady knight’s face. Women were not so uncommon on the battlefield - usually as sellswords, and often the most vicious of them to remain in the profession - that I was overly surprised to meet a lady knight.
“His mother is a half-giant,” Shilling whispered loudly to Ethelmeir. Loud enough for Morio to hear as well, sparking an interested quirk of the man’s manicured eyebrow.
Thanks, Shill, I thought ruefully.
“Now, please,” Ethelmeir said, holding up his hands to try and bring some peace. “Sir Constance, we are happy to have you. The contract that I’ve become aware of did not mention any limitations of numbers in the party, so I suspect another lance will not be amiss.”
“Hey, you,” Gresham suddenly said, loud enough to draw everyone’s attention. He was pointing at the boy. “You’re the little prick who stuck me with a spear!”
Gresham pushed his riding horse through the maze of tended and untended mounts with the fluidity only an old hand could have, reaching the boy before Constance could get her mount around.
The boy, for his part, looked wide eyed in surprise but stood his ground, his hand reaching for the sword belted to his waist.
Gresham rode up right next to the boy and, with a grin and a slap on the shoulder, he said, “That was some mighty fine spear work, kid. I haven’t gotten taken like that by a lad your age in a decade or more.” He turned to Constance as she was slowing her pace. “This your squire, m’lady?”
“Sir,” she corrected him offhandedly. “And yes, Taldrin is my squire.”
“You’re not mad, sir?” Taldrin said, his face still full of confusion.
“Mad? Why would I be mad?” Gresham asked. “And I ain’t no ‘sir.’ That was all business yesterday, boy. You got me, but my folk got your folk. And I won in the end, didn’t I? Are you mad at me for that?”
“Well, not in particular,” the boy said, his face dropping to one of thought.
“Good. That’s the sign of a proper Lancer mind. When you need to fight, you fight whoever’s in front of you. Any other time, why make a big deal of crossing swords? Much better to grab a drink, eh?”
I shook my head, speaking softly. “I had to learn that lesson a much harder way.”
“As did I,” Sir Zeklan said, reaching the group of us. He had his pouch of gold in one hand, and a set of godsteel vambraces clasped in the other. I had to bite my tongue - I was looking for a set of vambraces for my own use. Just another reminder of the Baron’s treachery.
“Sir,” Ethelmeir nodded, holding out his Lancer’s reins.
Zeklan was in a similar outfit of leathers and rough traveling garb as Gresham and I, and he nodded and mounted swiftly after handing the pouch of coin and the vambraces he had purchased from the spoils over to his footman, Boice. “Are we all here?” he asked.
“You’re the last, sir,” Ethelmeir said. “Sir Jon of Bloodbraid you know, of course. And this is Sir Constance, who fought under Tirnollo yesterday.”
“Good,” Zeklan nodded. “And welcome, sirs. I could use a simple monster hunt after a battle like this, eh? Where’d you say this contract was coming from, Ethel?”
“Renbruer Town,” Ethelmeir said. “Out in the foothills near Weathering. Rumour has it they’ve got a very large bear problem.”