We journeyed for several days without event, to my slight surprise. The forest around us thickened, the skeletal deciduous trees giving way to denser clusters of pine, fir, and other evergreens I didn’t recognise. Even by day the light didn’t freely penetrate to the level of the road the way it did elsewhere, and combined with the dimming effect of the clouds time smeared into shapelessness. The world lightened by day and darkened by night, but I could never tell quite how much time had passed except by the hunger in my belly.
Kaczmarek seemed to have some sixth sense for it, as she invariably commented when noon drew near or nightfall approached. She also seemed to know a limitless number of hideaways just off the road. The fourth time she stopped us to part a screen of dry brambles and open up a path to a place to stop for the night, my curiosity prompted me to ask about it.
“How many of these places do you even know, jäger?”
She shrugged. “Lots. Lived here all my life, you know.” She used a hatchet to hack away some of the stems, tossing the brambles aside and sucking at her thumb where a thorn had pricked her.
“But this far out?” I wondered. “Surely it can’t be common to ride this far?” We hadn’t been moving quickly, but we had ridden steadily for days by now. It seemed unlikely that she would have been coming out this way frequently.
“The roads don’t clear themselves,” she said. “Usually been out here walking with the work gangs, but the road’s the road. Hold this a moment?” She thrust a thick stem at me and I carefully gripped it between the spikes, passing Munter’s rein to the prince, while she hacked at its root. The path seemed clear enough past this one opportunistic weed that had grown to block it off.
“How long have you been travelling out here, jäger?” His Highness put in from the road. Kaczmarek affected an outraged gasp.
“Your Highness! Don’t you know it’s impolite to ask a lady her age?”
I snorted at that. “May we visit your estate, then, milady?” I asked, and she straightened to gesture grandly about.
“I am the lady of all I survey,” she said pompously. “I have graciously acommodified you within my lands for days, now.”
The prince and I burst out laughing. “But how long has it been, jäger?” He asked undeterred, when the laughter had passed. “You know so many places so familiarly. It is quite marvellous.”
She looked away. “Maybe ten years since I enlisted? But it’s not like I didn’t travel the woods before that, so…” She shrugged. “A long time. Here, this has somehow stayed dry. We can use it for the fire.” She passed a bundle of snapped vines to me and set off down the path, kicking away the brush. Water droplets sprayed off her boots, glittering in the green-grey light filtering through the trees.
The next day offered some variation from the endless theme of dripping monochromacy -- the single colour had been grey, back east of Kurnich, but it was now green -- in the form of a bit of golden sunlight breaking through the canopy in streamers. The breeze still dislodged little showers from the branches, but for once we rode with our hoods thrown back, enjoying the pleasantly bright morning. The forest around us seemed to liven up a little as well, songbirds resplendent in spring plumage making appearances here and there, showing no fear of us.
“People aren’t common out here, not in spring at least. They never had to learn to be afraid,” Kaczmarek said when I commented on it after a robin alighted on a branch above us, almost close enough to touch.
The prince had been quite taken with the forest, constantly asking the jäger questions about this bird or that bush. Her knowledge made me feel quite inadequate when I thought of my own efforts to answer his questions before; she had no trouble pointing out wood ears or dancer’s dresses or even drab, featureless herbs like the oddly named wisebat or crowshoof. Sometimes His Highness would ask about it by a different name, though, and she’d just shrug and say, “Dunno, your Highness. I’ve never known it by that name.”
I was actually beginning to be quite relaxed. Kaczmarek’s easy confidence with the forest was infectious, and after the tribulations of the first night we’d had easy travels in it. The spring rains meant little brooks coursed through the brush every few hundred metres, leaving us no want for water, and she had even snared a coney overnight once, giving us a rare hearty meat stew for our next supper.
And so it was with a sinking heart and rising anxiety that I saw the band lounging about a wagon in the road, still far ahead of us. I fixed my hat on my head and sighed, before I reined Munter in and dismounted, untying my arquebus from where it hung.
“Best arm yourself, jäger,” I said, “Unless your eyes are better than mine so far that those don’t look like trouble to you.” I belatedly remembered our lessons to the prince, and added, “You too, your Highness, if you could perhaps load one of the dragonets.”
Kaczmarek squinted, worrying at her lip. “There’s usually nothing out here,” she said. “Pickings are too thin. But I don’t really like it either.” She dismounted too, freeing her own gun -- from a much more elaborate soft leather case, laced closed against the damp.
“What kind of trouble?” His Highness asked, concerned, although he had brought one of the dragonets out of its harness and was fiddling with the powder horn.
“Highwaymen, sir,” I said. “And we had best not look like easy marks, not if we want to avoid a fight. I don’t doubt we’d win if it came to blows, but it’s a rare battle that leaves either side unscathed.”
“Bandits?” The prince’s tone was more surprised than afraid. “Here? I thought banditry was all but stamped out.”
I shook my head. “Might have been in the past, your Highness, but not recently. The war was only a few years ago. A lot of soldiers were left over, sir, many of them with no trade except the war since it dragged out so long. After, well,” I shrugged, “They earn money with the same skills by banditry. Especially after a hard winter.”
The prince’s young face was a mask of consternation. “I suppose the war with Torrea will be good news for them, then. Until it finishes, and then they’ll be worse off than before.”
I had a mouthful of paper from the cartridge, so I couldn’t answer immediately. Kaczmarek filled the silence.
“Eh.” She shrugged. “It was their choice to take up banditry, your Highness. No-one made them do it. They pay the price.” She slung her long gun over her shoulder, etchings glinting in the dappled sun.
Not quite what I would have said, I thought, but I couldn’t wholly disagree. Though the Empire was a shadow of what it had been, I still felt there was a living to be made off the land. Times were certainly not hard enough to justify preying on others. And I should know.
Shaking off the past, I picked up Munter’s reins again and walked onwards. Kaczmarek and I had opted to remain on foot, the arquebuses too clumsy to use from the saddle. His Highness stayed on horseback.
“Throw back your cloak to show your sword, sir, and the firearms,” I advised as we approached the wagon. I followed my own advice, pushing my cloak fully back over my shoulders to show my grey-and-black coat and bare the shining steel of my scimitar.
From closer up, it was obvious the wagon was placed to block the road. I hadn’t been sure at the distance -- my eyes not being the sharpest -- but it was swung about at right angles, quite clearly going nowhere. I counted five or six in the gang that loafed about it; it was difficult to be sure if there was one behind the cart or if it was a trick of the dancing sunlight and the wind in a cloth.
The highwaymen gathered in front of the wagon as we came to a halt some metres away from it, confirming my count at five. They should more properly be called highwaymen and women, I noted, two of their number being of the “gentler sex”. The appellation seemed a bit of a misnomer when applied to a woman holding a rusted arquebus, I mused wryly.
“This here is a toll road, gen’lmen,” the apparent leader of the bandits declared, stepping forwards. “You got to pay for passage.” He looked us up and down greedily, eyes lingering on Kaczmarek’s gun, His Highness’s clothes, and the horses. “The toll is twenty gulden, if you please.”
I fixed him with a flat stare. “I wasn’t aware of any tolls on this road, let alone such an exorbitant one.”
“I don’t make the laws,” he said with an insincere apologetic tone.
“No, you don’t,” I agreed amicably, adjusting my left hand on my arquebus strap. A long moment of awkward silence passed.
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“You got to pay, gen’lmen,” he repeated, anger in his voice. “It’s the law.” Behind him the bandits shifted restlessly, hands on weapons. I saw only the one arquebus, but there were pikes and swords and hatchets to go round.
“What if I say it’s not the law, and we’re not paying?” I kept my voice light and conversational. Munter stamped a hoof and on the other side of her mount, Kaczmarek fidgeted.
“Then we make you. You got to follow the law.” His face and voice turned ugly, and the woman behind him leveled her arquebus. Time seemed to slow down, or perhaps to speed up. I wasn’t quite sure, but a great many things happened very quickly. Before I had my arquebus in my hands, a sharp report shattered the quiet of the forest and the woman with the gun dropped like a puppet with her strings cut. Before the smoke filled the air I caught a glimpse of movement out the left corner of my eye and turned, just in time to see a big highwayman with a longsword raised overhead barrel down on me.
I brought my arquebus up to block, and the sword struck the ramrod in its pipes, setting it to shivering with a metallic twang before it struck against the stock properly. A kilogram and a half of longsword struck more than three times that of steel and wood, and lost. The blade bounced back like a blunted axe off the branch of an ancient ash, and I lashed out into the opening. The butt of my gun whipped in a quick arc. Five kilograms of arquebus cracked against the man’s jaw and he fell.
Kaczmarek shouted and I ducked on instinct, the boss’s sword whistling through the air just above my head. I sprang out to tackle him, shoving out with the arquebus and setting him a stumble back. Harrowing seconds passed as he hacked at me and I frantically pulled the gun this way and that, trying to shield my face against the blows without letting him cut at my fingers. I gave ground quickly, and suddenly the onslaught ceased. Kaczmarek yanked back her bloody sabre and turned to the rest of the bandits, making an obscene gesture at them with her left hand.
“Anyone else want to try?” She screamed. I realised the last three bandits had stalled where they stood, only the leader’s reckless charge carrying on after the first two had fallen. I brought the butt of my arquebus up to my shoulder, looking down the barrel.
“Just put down the weapons and push the cart aside,” I said, trying to sound a reasonable counterpoint to the jäger’s ferocity. “No-one else has to die.”
To my relief, they did as I asked, Kaczmarek staring daggers at them all the while.
“Get the weapons, jäger,” I murmured to her. Aloud, I addressed the highwaymen. “Stand facing the wagon. Hands behind your backs. Stay there until I say so. I still have the gun trained on you.” I slowly walked towards them, while Kaczmarek gathered up the weapons in a bundle under her arm.
“Ride on, sir,” I called to His Highness, not wanting to give him the proper address in front of the bandits. There was a long pause, but then the sound of hooves resumed. I did not dare to look away from the captives, but I saw the shapes of the horses move past out the corner of my eye, the other two following after the prince’s mount as was horses’ nature. I was glad they had not spooked. Even battle trained horses might sometimes take exception, and the sharp report of the jäger’s gun -- much faster and harsher than the bark of an ordinary arquebus, or the cough of a dragonet -- had taken even me by surprise.
Kaczmarek followed the prince with the weapons and I brought up the rear, walking sideways to keep facing the bandits. I did not trust them not to turn and try to take us by surprise; not in the slightest. One turned her head, and I immediately shouted. “Stay!”
It was only when I was ten metres down the road that I lowered my gun, and I kept walking while looking over my shoulder for another ten. Finally, I mounted up, still feeling an itch in my shoulderblades. I did not bother telling them they could turn around. They would figure it out soon enough, and any time longer they were not potentially following us was to the good in my book. And if they were fool enough to stay there staring until night fell; well, they had been willing to murder us. My conscience was not overly troubled.
“Now what am I supposed to do with these?” Kaczmarek interrupted my thoughts, indicating the armful of weapons she’d propped on the saddle in front of her. “It’s hardly easy to carry them along.”
I ignored her, for the moment, focusing on His Highness. “Are you alright, your Highness?” He was pale and shaking, and for a moment I feared he had taken an injury of some kind.
With a visible effort, he composed himself. “I- I am not hurt.” He struggled with his words, and I cursed myself. Of course, he had never been in a battle before. He was just a boy.
“I wish you had not had to see that, your Highness,” I said quietly, shaking my head. “It’s a grim business, sir, one you shouldn’t need to worry about at your age.” I was lost for anything more comforting or insightful to say.
“You know, I couldn’t pull the trigger,” the prince said, only a hint of a tremor in his voice this time. “The leader was racing towards you with murder on his mind, and I just couldn’t do it.”
I cast about for something to say. Once again, Kaczmarek chipped in while I was silent. “I think that’s good, sir. It’s normal not to like fighting.” She was staring down the road while she spoke, words carrying backwards through the still forest air. The sound of gunfire had silenced the birds.
“Most people wouldn’t shoot either,” she carried on after a moment. “And nothing bad happened, so don’t worry about it. Schreiner can take care of himself.”
I took off my hat and ran a hand through my hair. “As she says, your Highness,” I somewhat limply agreed. “It’s no failing on your part, sir, and I’m sorry you had to be in a position for that to happen. But we’re all quite alright, and the past is past, sir.”
“Thank you,” he said quietly, but his face was still unsettled. I wished I were able to offer some profound help, but I still had nothing.
Kaczmarek nudged her horse closer to mine. “But again, what am I supposed to do with all these weapons?” She asked more quietly, so as not to bother the prince.
I shrugged. “We could throw them in the forest, one at a time,” I suggested. “I don’t particularly care to keep them. But we couldn’t leave them in their hands, or they’d be after us again in no time.”
The jäger sighed. In a lower voice still, she said “We should have just killed them all there. Finished the problem on the spot, for good.”
I shook my head. “It… doesn’t sit right, killing in cold blood,” I answered. “They should face justice, not summary execution.”
Kaczmarek frowned at me. “What’s the difference? They tried to kill us. Banditry’s a capital crime besides. All that changes is now maybe they prey on someone else,” she argued.
I sighed in frustration and ran a hand over my hair again. “I don’t know, jäger,” I said. “I’m a soldier, not a philosopher. I’m supposed to shoot the enemy, not my own people. Besides,” I jerked my head towards His Highness, “He’s still so young. Without the weapons, we may have scared some sense into them,” I added.
She gave me a dubious look, but let the matter drop, guiding her horse away a short distance. After a few steps she pulled one of the swords free and hurled it into the forest. The blade spun end over end, flashing in the sunlight until it buried itself somewhere in a patch of scrub.
We rode for the rest of the day mainly in silence, the cheerful mood of the morning sun spoiled by the violence. His Highness was clearly still badly upset, though I had no idea what to do, and Kaczmarek was apparently annoyed at the chore of dealing with the weapons, occasionally hurling one into the woods with venom. We couldn’t just dump them all in one place -- not without the awkward chance that some other band would find them and have the same idea. Was it likely? Perhaps not terribly so, but enough so that I wasn’t happy with the idea.
My own thoughts ran in circles about the problem of leaving the highwaymen alive, and I kept looking back over my shoulder. The rational part of my mind told me there was no way that, weaponless and defeated, they would pursue us, but the instinct-driven part kept whispering to look behind myself. It was exhausting. Added to that the other moments my mind kept circling back to -- the solid crack of a jaw breaking, the sudden surprise at Kaczmarek’s sabre -- and I was immensely relieved when the jäger in question reined in at a small path. It needed only a little clearing before we could lead the horses down it, but ran for longer than I expected from the previous paths.
I heard the rushing and burbling of a stream before long as we picked our way between roots and the rocks they broke up, and when we emerged into a clearing I blinked, taking in the scenery. His Highness gasped. A ferny verge ran for a few metres down to the edge of a pool where the stream tumbled down from the top of a small cliff, only a couple of metres high. The sun was too low to pierce the trees, but enough light still filtered down for the spray to glitter and shine. The undergrowth had the lustrous greens of spring, reflected jewel-like in the pool, and the birds had long forgotten the sound of the gun -- if indeed the ones here had heard it at all -- and the dusk chorus was in full swing, myriads of chirpings and twitterings greeting the encroaching twilight all around.
It was like a scene from Fairyland, or some other place. Not this world, with its quick and senseless violence. Kaczmarek lead the way along the bank for some distance before coming to a halt, clearing away the ferns from around an old firepit. Faded rope burns on the nearby tree trunks indicated where past travellers had set up tents before, tucked up against the cliff face and sheltered from the wind -- such as it was, this deep in the forest. That at least had been something I was not sad to leave behind along with the last vestiges of the foothills of the Freibergen.
Dreamlike site or not, camp had to be made, and for a while we were just busy with that. The prince had shown a knack for coaxing flame out of flint and tinder, one I sorely lacked, and so he was entrusted with that duty while Kaczmarek and I raised the tent, saw to the horses, and laid out bedrolls. Finally, though, all was made ready and for a rarity I had a chance to sit on a fallen log and sip at a hot tin cup of tea, staring at the water falling into the pool. The noise was soothing, and the prince and the jäger joined me for a while.
Soon enough though full dark set in and we retired to the tent. We had settled into a routine of Kaczmarek taking the first watch and waking me for the second; I still wasn’t sure how she read the time so well, but I never felt my watch was too long or too short.
Tonight, the usual sounds of the forest at night -- frogs, crickets, the occasional owl -- were interrupted. His Highness was crying quietly, near silently, in the corner of the tent. My heart broke for him, but I still had no idea what to say or do. I reached an arm around his shoulders and squeezed gently, and to my surprise he leaned into it. He lay there, sobbing into my shoulder for long minutes before falling asleep while I patted his back.
It reminded me of a homesick apprentice, crying for his parents, but for this there was no home to return to and no parent with an easy answer. I could only hope it would be brighter in the morning.