Midlanders were strange folk.
The thought came to Cara as she sat alone at the edge of camp. She had always known it. Everyone back in the Hills knew it. But in her score of years she’d only met a handful of them up close to see it for herself.
Father always tried to keep me sheltered. The thought had always rankled, but now it nearly gutted her. He had sheltered her… until he did not. Until he did nothing.
The memories still festered in her like a wound. When she lay down at night she could feel the hands of the northern dogs pawing at her. When she closed her eyes she could hear their laughter and grunting, she could smell her clan’s mead on their breath.
“Lass?”
Cara blinked as the voice finally reached her. She looked up and realized that Cam was standing nearby, offering her a bowl. She took it. “Thanks,” she said quickly.
“Ye alright?” the big Highlander’s brow furrowed. He had bushy eyebrows that matched his hair—a rich auburn that most Middish would call “red” if they had never seen a fire-kissed Wncari like Cara. “Didnae seem to be listening.”
“Sorry,” Cara said, not feeling sorry. She prodded at the contents of the bowl with a spoon. It looked like soup, but it had a different aroma than she was used to. “Guess not.”
“Something troubling you, lass?” Cam asked.
My father stared at me like a stranger when I told him his guests had violated me, she thought. His eyes stared at me, seeing nothing. Aye, something’s fucking troubling me.
She brought the spoon to her mouth. The broth scalded its way across her tongue and settled, burning hot, in her belly. She thought it tasted like some sort of herbs and spring onions, but it was so hot that the taste ended up being secondary. “The new fellow, he made this?” she asked Cam.
“Michel, aye,” he said. “Damn sight better’n Robin’s stew.” He frowned. “Lass…”
“So soft, these Midlanders,” Cara said. “How many farms we pass already? How many of them you think will still be there, come winter?”
“Not many,” Cam admitted. “That’s what you were thinking about? The farmers gettin’ reaved?”
He sounded skeptical. Of course he’s skeptical. My folk raid farms close to the Hills. Why the fuck would I care about some farms getting pillaged?
“Aye,” she said. “Suppose I was.”
Cam scratched his beard. “Reckon a lot of ‘em will get burnt out,” he said. It took her half a moment to realize he was answering the question she’d asked. “But the lords have been calling their banners up and down the kingdom for a while now. Soon or late most of the farmers will either be levied or holed up in keeps waiting for the raiders to pass. Expect most of the folk’ll live. Hovels can be rebuilt. Fields sown again.”
“And on their sad little way they go,” Cara said scornfully. “Rebuild, move on, like it never even happened.”
She looked up and realized that Cam was staring at her. His brown eyes were flecked with gold, and they pierced her deeper than she liked. “I didnae say that.”
“Nah? Sounded like it.”
“What happens, happens,” he said. “They cannae change it, can they? But if they still live, that’s somethin’. They can rebuild, and that’s somethin’ too. Might be they can even learn from it. It’ll be a hard lesson no one ought to have to learn, but that’s just what life is, I ken. Might be they’ll grow harder. They shouldn’t have to, but… might be they do anyway. Learn to fight. To defend their farm next time.”
Cara felt her shoulders hunch, unwilled. She forced down another scalding spoonful of soup. You’re not subtle, she thought to Cam. When her tongue wasn’t burning too bad, she spoke. “Farmers can’t stand against the outlanders.”
Cam shrugged. He jerked his jaw towards one of the campfires. Cara tracked the movement and saw the Middishman, Miles, sitting at the fire. He was eating in silence, and beside him Robin and one of the new recruits were laughing together.
“He did,” was all the Highlander said.
Cara stared at Miles. He looked uncomfortable, clutching his bowl of soup tight in his lap. His shoulders were hunched up and his neck shrunken down, as if he was trying to take up less space than his oversized frame otherwise would. He spoke to no one.
Cara straightened her back. “Aye,” she said. “Suppose he did.”
Cam gave her one last look. “Ye sure you’re alright, lass?”
Cara met his eyes steadily. “Course I am,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Cam opened his mouth, then closed it. She saw his throat bob as he swallowed. “No reason,” he finally said. “Yorrin said to tell ye to take first watch, since you’re already out here.”
She nodded. Cam hesitated for another moment, so Cara turned her back to him and stared out into the gloom of dusk. After a short while she heard Cam’s footsteps as he walked back towards one of the fires.
She could see a curl of brown smoke rise in the distance, where they’d passed a farmstead earlier. It was the steady plume of a hearthfire, not a sign of reaving. A family was gathering near that fire, eating their supper. Hoping that the northmen would not come for them.
You can’t just hope for it, Cara told the fools in her head. She set aside her steaming bowl and drew a long knife from her belt. She pulled a smooth whetstone from a pouch and began honing the blade.
Hope gets you nowhere. Defend yourselves. Fight, or you deserve what you get.
The soup was cold by the time she returned to it.
“There it is. Salton Cross Ferry!” Perrin’s voice was excited as he pointed at the town.
He always seems excited to point out the obvious. Cara could see the town sprawling ahead of them as plain as anyone could. They had just crested a small hill, and they had a good view for miles ahead.
She still had little experience with Midlander settlements, but it seemed as though Salton Ferry was on the small side of average. Arcadia would swallow it and dozens of towns like it, but that was a city and the capital of the kingdom. Salton Cross Ferry was much larger than many of the farms and small hamlets they had passed as they grew further and further from Arcadia.
Dozens of small buildings were scattered all along the Imperial road, and along the shore of the huge river ahead of them—the Ironblood, as the Middish called it. Common folk wandered to and fro, this way and that. Cara saw several small boats in the river, but many more of them docked along the shore. The only concession she could see to the possibility of a raid by the northmen was how few of the boats were in the water.
Aren’t they afraid of attack? She wondered. Why haven’t they been attacked already? Gunnar said the Svards were raiding further upriver.
As she studied the terrain ahead of them, something further out caught her eye. To their left—west, she realized—the sea stretched out into the endless horizon. But between the shore and Salton Cross Ferry was what looked like a mile or more of muddy flatland. And sitting in the middle of the marsh was a squat stone building.
“What’s that?” she asked aloud, not sure who she was even asking.
“That’d be Saltwick,” the longbowman, Longshanks, drawled behind her.
She turned to look at him. He was sitting stiffly in the saddle, but he smiled at her. She considered smiling back, but she took too long deciding and the moment passed. “Saltwick?” she prompted him.
“Aye,” he said. “Seat of Lord Anders Saltwick, the most aptly named noble in all of Caedia.”
“That’s a castle?” Cara asked. She turned back and squinted out at the strange structure.
It was no more impressive on the second look. It was castle-ish, in the broadest sense of the word. It was a big blocky structure made from rough, uneven stone. At a distance it looked small, but Cara was almost certain that it really was small. Tiny compared to the massive structures of Arcadia, of course, but not just that. They’d passed many keeps at some distance on the road, wooden and stone both. This looked smaller than nearly all of them.
“Saltwick isn’t old Imperial stonework,” Perrin said, joining the conversation.
“No,” Longshanks agreed. “It’s not proper Caedian stonework either. Built by the folk of the Loheim, back afore this place was even part of Caedia. Old and ugly, but it works.”
“Saltwick is an interesting case, actually,” Perrin spoke up again. He looked excited, and he met Cara’s eyes with a smile. “See the delta all around it?”
“The mud?” she asked.
“Yeah. Runoff from the Ironblood before the main river runs into the sea. That whole flat area is salt flats. Fresh water mixes with the tide. At best it’s mud and shallow water, and at worst it’s hidden sinkholes that will swallow a man whole. The locals know how to traverse the flats fairly well, but nobody else does.”
Cara cocked her head, examining the ugly little keep in a new light. “Ah,” she said. “Hard to attack, is it?”
“Aye,” said Ben this time. “Not just hard. Impossible, or nearly. Hard enough it might as well be. Nobody’s ever really tried. Too much trouble for a small keep.”
“Is that why the outlanders haven’t come here?” She asked. She nodded towards the bustling little town. “They seem carefree enough.”
“Maybe,” Perrin said. “They still could’ve burned out the town, though.”
“Saltwick’s a hard-nosed old codger,” Ben said. “And his men are of the same mettle. Marsh knights, the other lords call ‘em. Nasty fighters, they always acquit well in tourney melees. Some say they’ve got no honor.”
Cara spat. “No Midlander honor,” she said. “High praise.”
Longshanks rolled his eyes at her.
“Cara…” Perrin hesitated. “We’re both of us Middish, Ben and I. Not just Middish, but Caedian. We’ve treated you alright, haven’t we?”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
Perrin said nothing, he just smiled at her and arched his eyebrows. She frowned, and shifted uncomfortably in the saddle. I’ll ride with you to kill the northmen, she thought. That doesn’t make us friends.
She nudged her horse forward, putting a bit of distance between her and them. She could hear their voices behind her, murmured words she couldn’t quite make out. She didn’t really want to. She knew they were talking about her.
Ungrateful. Unfriendly. Savage. She’d heard all the words. She would not let herself care.
When they drew close to Salton Cross Ferry, she noticed something that hadn’t been apparent at a distance. Interspersed amongst the serfs, she saw a number of armed men. She instantly recognized them as the marsh knights Longshanks had spoken of.
They wore mail and leather. A few wore mottled brown and yellow tabards, but even these didn’t look much like the knights and men-at-arms Cara had grown used to seeing in Caedia. Their overall appearance looked more like Cara’s kinsmen, or maybe rough bandits. They held bows and spears, with short blades hanging from their belts.
Cara had to admit, she found the Saltwick men endearing. They look like they could hold their own in an ambush or a messy scuffle, rather than expecting battle to be done according to the rules.
They seemed to keep wary eyes on Steelshod as they rode in. One of them called a greeting, and Aleksandr replied. She couldn’t hear the details from where she rode, but she didn’t need to. The Saltwick men didn’t slow Steelshod down. Aleksandr knew how to talk to Middish, that much had been clear for quite a while.
Up close, Salton Cross was even less impressive than it had been from a distance. Most of the hovels were simple timber and thatch, no more impressive than the houses of the clan back home.
Not home, Cara reminded herself.
The only part of the town that turned out to be noteworthy came into view when they followed the stone road across town, to the shore of the Ironblood. The Ferry for which the town was named.
It had been a bridge, once. Some calamity must have collapsed it, or swept it out to sea. Probably a hundred years ago or more. Now the road ended abruptly at the shore of the river. All that stood in testament to whatever bridge the Imperials had built was a series of stone pillars jutting up from the banks and the shallow water. They were weathered, irregular, and covered in thick green vegetation.
In the bridge’s place, there was a thick rope that spanned the entirety of the Ironblood. Hundreds of feet across, it used a few of the pillars as anchors to keep it straight and steady. A huge raft was beached on the shore, and Cara saw the raft had anchors and ropes of its own that lashed it to the massive guiding rope.
Impressive, in a way. Good use of what’s been left behind. That was the charitable way of looking at it. Or, they’re squatting in the decayed skeleton of a creature long-dead. Gnawing at the bones of the old Empire. The Midlanders’ ancestors fought to shuck off the Empire’s rule so many generations ago, and when they finally succeeded they spent the next few centuries weeping for their lost masters and wondering how to move on.
Cara felt that both were true. In either case, the bridge was gone. The Ferry was their only way across. A sour old man seemed to run it. He had half a dozen broad-shouldered young men with arms like tree trunks standing on hand, to help pole and pull the raft across.
Aleksandr spoke with the old man, and Cara saw a flash of silver as coins changed hands. The old man said that it would take two trips to bring over all of them and their horses. Yorrin called out a few names then, and Cara heard hers in the mix. She made her way closer.
It only took a few moments to notice who all it was Yorrin had called. Cara, Levin, Conrad, Nathan, and the three southerners. Spits, they call them, Cara recalled. The seven of them had only one notable trait in common: they were many of Steelshod’s best scouts. Most were capable archers, and all of them were comfortable and swift in the saddle. The Spits hadn’t been tested as much as the rest of them, but they’d ridden circuits during the last few days of riding since they left Arcadia. Cara could barely understand their accents, but they seemed competent enough.
All that added up to only one explanation.
“Trouble?” she asked.
“Yeah, what’s going on?” said Conrad. He gave Yorrin a skeptical look, then glanced out at the river. “Something we should know?”
Yorrin nodded, for once seemingly unconcerned by the challenge. “Maybe,” he said. “These Salter folk said they’ve seen a bit of movement on the far shore the past few days. Nothing definite, but they’ve all been keeping well clear. We’ll be the first folk crossing the Ferry in almost a week.”
Cara looked past Yorrin at the river, and the far banks. There was the moss-covered skeletal remains of the bridge, of course, and the Imperial road continued north. What caught her attention, though, was where the bridge—and consequently the Ferry—deposited them.
There was a grassy clearing around the road, and a few tumbledown pieces of stone that told of some long-collapsed fortification. Then the road sloped upward a little, and it was flanked on both sides by gentle hills. The bluffs were covered in greenery, both trees and dense thickets that obscured vision.
“If I wanted to ambush some foolish Midlanders, that’s where I’d do it,” she said, nodding towards the bluffs that flanked the road on both sides.
“Yes, and somehow we managed to have that thought as well,” Yorrin said, his tone dry and biting. “That’s why you’re coming with me. We’ll mount up the moment we come off the raft, and scout those little hills straight away. We want the landing site clear for Aleksandr and the others. Understood?”
He was met with nods and murmured assent, and then they got to it. Cara led her horse down towards the water and let it take a few swallows before she joined the others at the Ferry.
The crossing was uncomfortable. Cara had gone swimming in ponds and streams since she was a lass, but never in the Ironblood. It was vast, hundreds of feet from shore to shore. The currents were treacherous, seemingly slow but with hidden ferocity below the surface. Her horse snorted and stamped nervously as the raft slowly inched its way across.
When they arrived, the rivermen leapt off into the shallows. They hauled the raft along the last few feet until it scraped onto the shore. Yorrin was the first of Steelshod off the raft, and they all followed him as quickly as they could. Then the ferry began its return journey as they mounted up.
“Alejandra, you and your men watch the right ridge. Levin, Conrad, Nathan, you watch the left. Cara, stay close to me,” Yorrin commanded. He lifted his bow, watching the road.
Cara kept an eye on the nearest ridgeline at first, trying to spot movement in the foliage. It was the one Yorrin had assigned to the Spatalians, and the three of them urged their horses a little closer with javelins ready.
It’s closer, and the ridge isn’t quite as high. Their javelins won’t have the range of a bow, Cara realized. Yorrin must’ve considered that. For all that he seems like an arrogant little prick, he’s every bit Aleksandr’s second, isn’t he? He notices things, uses the men how they’re best suited. He’s a leader, in his own way, even if none of them think they’d follow him anywhere.
Cara suddenly squinted when her vision passed over a glint of sunlight. It sparkled between the leaves and branches of the thicket, bright enough that something within her knew without a doubt that it was metal.
“Trouble,” she said.
She tried to keep her voice low, but loud enough that her companions would hear. When she spoke, the hilltops exploded with activity.
Men burst out from behind the greenery. They were clad in mail and roughspun, with long hair spilling out of their iron helms. They carried shields and javelins, axes and swords. There was no mistaking their look, and even less mistaking the guttural tongue they shouted in.
Northmen. Cara frowned. Her hand snapped to her quiver almost without thought, drawing and shooting an arrow in a few fluid movements. She’d watched Longshanks shoot, and she was nowhere near his equal, but she’d been hunting with her clan since before her first woman’s blood. Shooting came easy to her. Natural. She watched as her arrow thudded into a Svard’s chest, only to realize it was tangled in his mail hauberk and he did not seem badly wounded by it.
There were at least eight northmen on the nearer east hilltop, and perhaps another five or six on the far one. Cara spared a momentary glance behind her and saw the ferry was further along than she expected but still far from helpful: it was ponderously ambling its way across the river, laden with the remaining members of Steelshod and their mounts.
They outnumber us, and they have better ground. Our only hope is—
“Alejandra, attack!” Yorrin called out. He was busy putting his own arrows up the nearby hill, but still seemed to be sparing half of his attention to assess the field. “Levin, push up and hold the road! We need to keep the shore clear for the ferry. Keep that second group at bay!”
Javelins began raining down on them, and Alejandra shouted out in her native tongue. Her and her two men spurred their horses forward. They dropped low in the saddle—the one named Martín actually dropped off his horse, clinging to the animal’s side and presenting very little for the Svards to target.
The next few moments passed in a flurry of missiles. Only the Spatalians were really entering optimal javelin range, and they were presenting themselves as small, difficult targets. Most of the Svardic throws went wide. But likewise, their elevation and cover proved difficult for Cara or the others to overcome. She kept putting arrows into the foliage, and only once did she hear a cry that likely meant her arrow had bitten into something soft.
The Svards on the western hill emerged from the bushes and howled as they moved further down the slope. There were six of them, and they advanced on Levin, Conrad, and Nathan at a sprint. The three mercenaries stared up the hill with outward calm, and all three of them drew arrows and loosed in unison. One of the Svards staggered as the arrows slammed into him. He fell and bounced down the hill, eventually rolling to a stop in a motionless heap.
On the eastern side, the Spatalians rode up the hill at an angle, so that the slope was shallow enough not to throw their horses. They threw javelins into the thicket, and javelins came back out at them. It looked to Cara that the Spatalians were actually gaining the advantage—they were moving targets, and the Svards were sticking their heads out of cover to throw their spears. Cara prepared to ride to support Levin and his squad.
But as the Spatalians rode closer, a third group of Svards suddenly burst from the foliage. Both them and the other group now switched to melee weapons, catching the Spatalians in a pincer as they charged.
“Shit!” She heard Yorrin mutter the curse. He loosed an arrow at the crowd rushing downhill, and his arrow sunk deep into the throat of the lead Svard seconds before he would have crashed into Nathan. “Levin! Hold! Cara, focus on them!” Yorrin gestured at the Svards moving to enclose Alejandra, Carlito, and Martín.
Cara urged her horse forward for a better angle, took aim, and loosed. She hit a Svard in the back—once again not getting past armor, but she staggered him, and Cara smiled in satisfaction when Carlito thrust a spear into the distracted northman’s face.
“Dammit! No! Levin, hold the road!” Yorrin’s voice resounded across the field.
Cara glanced back, and saw what had angered Yorrin. Levin had dropped another of the outlanders, dropping their number down to three. But now he had whirled his horse around and he was riding at full gallop away from the Svards.
Is he fleeing? Cara was incredulous. Of all the Steelshod mercs she’d met, Levin seemed the most casually fearless. Nothing seemed to even rile him, and now he fled from a handful of reavers?
No, he’s riding for the eastern hill, she realized. He was riding to support Alejandra and her two men, the three of them now outnumbered four-to-one and getting hemmed in on all sides. He left Conrad and Nathan to deal with the three Svards still charging their position.
Yorrin and Cara kept shooting up the hill, but Levin galloped in at a better angle to pick up speed. He loosed two arrows as he charged, then drew his sword as he reached the back line of one group of outlanders.
“Fuck!” Yorrin snarled, irate.
Cara could understand his frustration. They were fighting on many fronts now, and she and Yorrin were both in the awkward position of being able to watch all of the fights at once, but contribute to each of them only a little. Nevertheless, they kept shooting into the Svards that mostly had their backs downhill, trying to relieve some of the pressure on Alejandra’s flank.
Suddenly, an arrow slammed into a Svard’s back. It hit with so much force that it sank between the man’s shoulderblades all the way to the fletching.
That’s not my arrow, or Yorrin’s, Cara noted. Before she had really registered what she was seeing, another arrow dropped another Svard.
She looked over her shoulder. The ferry was still a good way out, but one man stood at the very front of the raft. He had a row of arrows sticking up from the wooden floor of the boat in front of him, and his body rocked back and forth in what Cara could only consider a longbowman’s shooting rhythm.
Longshanks dropped four Svards in as many arrows, thinning out the numbers on that flank. Just then Levin crashed into the Svards on Alejandra’s other flank, and she and Martín turned to catch them in a counter-pincer.
Just like that, the tide had turned for the Spatalians. Cara glanced up the road at Conrad and Nathan.
They had switched to melee weapons. Conrad and his horse circled around one northman, slashing and keeping the man on the defensive. But Nathan was beset on two sides, and Cara watched as one of the Svards pulled him from the saddle.
“Yorrin!” she called out as she nocked and arrow and released. She caught a Svard in the leg, and he staggered.
Yorrin saw what she did, and he joined her. They put arrows in Nathan’s attackers. They failed to kill either of them, but they distracted them from what would otherwise surely have been Nathan’s execution. To Cara’s relief she saw the stocky mercenary regain his footing and plant his axe in one Svard’s skull. Nathan jerked the weapon free, and then hacked down the second before he could recover from the onslaught of arrows.
Cara scanned the battlefield for another target, and then blinked. There were none. She realized her breath was coming in frantic gasps. She forced herself to slow, and drew a long gulp of air.
As suddenly as it began, the battle was over. And, against the odds, it looked like they had won.