Chapter 5
Veneda was, politically and socially, a complete mess; and Piitros found himself explaining why and how Justus Veneda would think he could gain anything from challenging the Sarmatians to the Vanspagii. He was riding with them, as Gwenig’s man- Gwen herself had surprised few by winning the tournament for the place of overall commander, and the other Vanspagii were accepting of his presence and words since the tournament idea.
“Back in 1025-” Piitros was trying to explain.
“When?” one of the Vanspagii demanded.
“I don’t know when it would be for you, but ages and ages ago, when the Vikings had just unified, after they took the Britannic Isles,” Piitros said. “They tried to expand into the area that’s now Estia and Livia, but the Finns counter-invaded, and pushed them out, and kept it as a Protectorate Duchy. The Vikings mostly went towards Vinland-”
“Where?”
“That way,” Piitros told them, flinging a hand to the west. “Over the ocean. They’d signed a peace treaty but some Vikings kept raiding and then after the queens who’d signed the treaty in the first place died, a lot of Vikings invaded Veneda to get their own land that wasn’t part of the Kingdom. A bunch of other nobility, Hekassir and Roman and Byzantine, showed up and they started fighting over the land and dividing it up and every so often they’d think they’d get peace but then there’d be another war, and then two of the children of one of the Judean rulers showed up, and then some Magyars, and eventually once that mess was settled it was decided that all of the little states in Veneda would elect one of the ruling Counts or Marquis or Dukes or Barons to be King of Veneda, which was to be nonhereditary.”
“It is ridiculous to fight over land,” the Vanspag of Ginaanag said. “We travel where we please, in our traditional areas.”
“Just like we’ve done?” the Vaspag of Kiiniik asked. “With the tournament?”
“Yes, but what happens when you stray too far outside your traditional areas?” Piitros asked the Vanspag of Ginaanag. “You get in fights. It’s the same idea. And-”
He turned to the Vanspag of Kiiniik.
“-yes, but without dueling over it. Usually.”
“The King of Veneda,” the Vanspag of Mekogg spoke up. “We chased him out, back when the Venidikii called us bandits and gave money for our heads; and the Magyar Lords chased up to and fro across the land. They say it was exhilarating.”
There were nods around the group. The Sarmatians approved of the Venedan Magyar Lords and their horsemanship, as much as Sarmatians could approve of foreigners.
“They have had no king since,” the Vanspag finished, sounding very satisfied about that fact. “They have spent the years fighting and raiding each other and falling apart.”
“That’s why they’re upset,” Piitros said, trying to get them to understand. “You overthrew their government. People get really worked up about that sort of thing. I know for a fact that the Duke of Lithuania holds the Sarmatians personally responsible for the occupation of the Barony of Fulinia-”
There were somewhat-blank stares from the group, and Piitros hastily explained.
“The bit of Veneda that Mekogg travels in, because the last King of Veneda was also the Baron of Fulinia, so now there’s no one in charge of it.”
“They seem to manage perfectly fine without these nobility,” the Vanspag of Mekogg said. “There are always farm-people coming to there, leaving where they were before. It is very troublesome, because the Venidikii nobility are constantly upset by it.”
“That’s because they’re serfs,” Piitros said. “When the invaders came to claim land, they made the people who were already there do all the work, like farming and smithing and- just everything, so they wouldn’t have to work. And then they just take it all.”
There were hisses from around the group. If you had slaves, they did work, yes, and you took it, yes, but you also worked yourself. You didn’t live off other people.
“You say that the Kingship of Veneda isn’t hereditary,” Gwen spoke up, having been formulating her thought the whole conversation. “So how does this Justus say he is King? Was there an election and you didn’t tell us?”
“No,” Piitros said. “He’s the son or grandson or something of the last King of Veneda.”
“But then he has no claim.”
Piitros sighed.
“He doesn’t need to be elected,” Piitros said. “If he can get enough people to follow him just because he’s playing off being descended from the last King, probably telling people things like how if they acknowledge him as King he’ll get revenge for them against all of you, he’ll just kind of… become King.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Gwen said flatly.
“Sometimes people are ridiculous,” Piitros told her tiredly.
The problem with leading a highly-nomadic lifestyle over a large area of land was that it was actually possible to move large groups of people, like an army, over the area without being seen or reported. The assembled Sarmatians met the Venedan forces in the area where the Kiiniik and Mekogg lands overlapped- some ways to the general east of Aquinicum in Hekassir, Piitros wasn’t exactly sure where- after a few days of riding.
Warfare was not exactly within Piitros’ realm of experience, even with years of training, but the distinction between the groups on the other side of field was very obvious.
First, there were the serfs- barely armed, and with things like hand axes and cudgels and long work knives, not swords. The swords belonged to the knights- gods, why knights? Piitros wanted to know. They were so… useless in this day and age. They were outmoded almost as soon as anyone had come up with them- there were too many ways a group of decently-powerful mutants could easily kill one, unless you spent a profligate amount of time and money getting the armor and the horse warded.
Unless you were mainly fighting Sarmatians and other people who used knights, he supposed. Then, plunking down a man in metal plate on a horse with a sword made perfect sense.
Third, there were the mercenaries- the only group with guns, who looked much more like what Piitros knew modern soldiers to look. They were flying standards, but the devices didn’t mean anything to him.
The serfs weren’t going to be much of a threat. The mercenaries were another matter- but, maybe, if they could take out the knights first-
He turned to Gwen.
“Where’s-”
Maraaja was just there, like she had been riding with them the entire time, instead of riding in the middle of the group with the other dedicated priestesses.
“Yes?” she asked.
Piitros took a moment to compose himself and to attempt to create the mental fiction that she, like a good servant in any noble house, could simply anticipate needs and whims. It didn’t work very well.
“How many warriors do you usually lose to knights?” he asked, saying it loudly enough that all the Vanspagii could hear.
One of them scowled fiercely.
“If they catch up to you- all, or most. They steal our horses and breed them to their own, or ones they trade for, so theirs are just as good. It is the only thing they can do properly. If you have one warrior and one knight-”
He shrugged.
“It depends on how bad the warrior is and how good the knight. But if you run across them in- in their packs, it doesn’t matter unless you are twice their number. Venidikii knights will run or fight their horses to death to kill us.”
“The Magyar Lords are different,” the Vanspag of Niinok said. “We cross their lands regularly, and they are not vicious to their horses.”
“Can you call lightning on them from here?” Piitros asked Maraaja. “And fire? Not just you, but all the other priestess?”
Maraaja eyed him speculatively.
“Most can,” she said. “Some are better at lightning, others fire. But we will not-”
“I wouldn’t ask you to hurt the children,” Piitros assured her. “Could you get enough people to conjure temporary fire on the plains around them to scare the children enough that they dump the knights; and-”
Understanding dawned on Maraaja’s face, and she smiled widely, the expression bloodthirsty.
“Oh yes,” she purred, savoring the words. “Lightning and metal plate, yes…”
She turned her horse around, sharply, and started calling for the priestess- and few accompanying priests- to come to the front, shouting at the top of her lungs. They started to filter through the massed Sarmatians.
“Piitrik?” Gwen asked.
“I’m worried about the mercenaries,” he admitted. “I know what they can do, Gwen, and the only defense any of you have is your speed. That’s something for when you’re facing arrows, but those bullets will punch through you and hit the warrior riding behind you.”
“Then we have died well!” the Vanspag of Darusiig proclaimed. “These are not the first guns we have faced, city-man!”
Piitros pressed his eyes shut for a moment and prayed to Ahti, the Sea God, for patience in the face of these-
These-
These Viking tendencies.
“Yes,” he said. “But you’ll be dead. And so will everyone else.”
He pulled a card he hoped would turn out to be a trump.
“If every Sarmatian on this field dies, who will bury you?” he asked. “Who will make sure your souls reach the Land of the Dead; if your children and elders are fleeing across your lands for their lives, the mercenaries firing on them as they go and knights riding them down under their horses’ hooves?”
He spent the silent pause as people searched for answers to review what Maraaja had managed with the priestesses. She caught sight of him looking, and made a strange hand gesture at him- both thumbs raised straight up from her hand, all the other fingers curled into a fist but for the first fingers, pointing straight at him.
Piitros was about to ask Gwen what that particular field sign meant when he noticed the mercenaries start to move. For a moment, he nearly panicked, trying to come up with a way to keep too many people from getting killed- but then he recognized the direction of the movement.
“They’re retreating?” he asked himself. “What?”
Off to the side, Maraaja raised one hand and cut it down through the air to point her hand at the Venedan knights.
“Fire!” she yelled.
-
From within a knot of the priestesses, something tiny and shimmering arrowed into the air, splitting into hundreds of pieces and landing near the knights –
Where there was immediately fire.
Piitros leaned towards Gwen. “Who?”
Gwen grimaced. “You wouldn’t have met him, he’s in intensive training to be a priest. His name is Jendiik. If I’ve understood Maraaja’s strategy, he’ll be setting the fires, while a junior priestess calls the children to us for safety.”
As soon as the last knight had been thrown to the ground, the fires went out. Eerily and all at once. Before Maraaja so much as moved a muscle, a young priestess called out “Hold!”
Piitros stared. He didn’t recognize the young woman, but the way her eyes were glowed meant the something important was going on. Presumably priestess-things.
A small bird landed on Tagspapiig’s head. There was tiny note attached to the bird’s leg.
“The bird is an ordinary bird,” the priestess said. “Not a construct, not a shapeshifter! Don’t hurt her!”
“I’m not going to hurt the bird, Jaanag,” Gwen said irritably, carefully removing the note. “Send it off the battlefield, would you?”
The bird fluttered off, presumably at Jaanag’s command, while Gwen scowled at the note. Huffing, she thrust it into Piitros’ face. “What does it say?”
Piitros squinted. The note was in Mauryan, which he didn’t know very well- but if the mercenaries were from Maurya, that explained why he didn’t recognize their banner devices. “We are not…stupid. We will not…hit? Fight? We will not fight the daughters of the Nataraja. Who’s the Nataraja?”
Gwen grinned. “It means that they’re afraid and running away. Maraaja?”
Maraaja rode forward, baring her vividly Shuriig teeth. “Brace yourselves.” She lifted her hands into the air, and let out a hawklike shriek.
Piitros had seen lightning before. But he had never been close enough that his vision sprouted white spots and his ears began to ring.
He was relatively certain the mercenaries were really glad that they had backed out, now. Staring across the field at approximately four hundred shriveled burnt husks was not comforting.
-
“Shaytan take you both!” Sergeant Rasim Rasul of Company Saptadasha snapped at two of his subordinates. “We’re leaving! Before the Sarmatians get over here!”
“I’m not letting the Sarmatians get Jyeleny!” Raani screeched, and shoved herself off her horse.
“We can’t leave Pytras!” Katarina cried. “They’ll kill him!”
“If they’ve got any sense, she’s teleported them away already,” Chanpala tried to reason, but Katarina just phased of her horse and Raani hit the ground on four paws and then the mercenaries, one intangible, one a brown wolf, were racing off towards the massed serfs, who didn’t deserve the title ‘infantry’.
“Let’s go,” Vlypasa Saulėvykasa urged, eying the Sarmatians nervously. She wasn’t an original member of Rasim’s mercenary squad, but she’d been with them through many of their- sadly numerous- migrations from company to company. “They’re serfs if they haven’t used her power to leave already they’re not going to now! Raani and Kati will catch up.”
“You left,” Kiều said.
“The Baroness was going to kill me if I didn’t!” she insisted. “You don’t know what it’s like, being a serf! Please, let’s go- we’re getting left behind!”
Rasim could see how very true this was, but he couldn’t just ride off without all of his people.
“Rasim,” Chanpala’s brother Rohit said quietly, sidling his horse up to his Sergeant’s. “I do not want to be here when the daughters of the Nataraja begin their war-dance.”
“They can’t be worse than Vikings,” Thayendanegea said. “Sir, even if you go, I’ll be staying for Raani.”
“The only people worse than the Sarmatians are the Venedan lords!” Vlypasa told him. “Put your Haudenosaunee rivalry aside, Thayen! The Sarmatians-”
“I’ve fought Mississippi bandits too,” Thayen interrupted. “They really don’t have any compunctions when it comes to brutality. And Raani told me the Sarmatians are friends with the Finns. Anyone who’s friends with enemies of the Vikings is fine by me.”
“You may want to be more careful picking your friends,” Surayya warned him, before her cousin and Sergeant could say anything. “The logic of alliances does not always apply.”
“We won’t let the Venedans take you back, Vlypasa,” Rober said earnestly. He was the newest addition to the squad. “My family traded through this area all the time- I know how they treat people and they won’t do that!”
“Yeah, thanks,” Vlypasa muttered.
“Incoming!” Chanpala called to the squad, and suddenly Raani and Kati were back, emerging from one of Jyeleny’s portals with the woman herself on one of Raani’s arms, her brother Pytras right behind them.
Rasim sighed, and prepared to put on his reprimanding voice.
“What are you doing!”
A small group of Venedan knights stormed over to them, the one in front with his faceplate up so he could yell at them.
“First you start to retreat on the cusp of battle-”
“We’re not getting paid by you,” Rasim said, urging his horse forward. He was large, as was his horse, and his dreadlocks and red officer’s cape just made him seem larger. Usually, this worked as an intimidation tactic- especially once people noticed his eyes. His mutation had the side-effect of coloring them red.
The knight didn’t seem cowed, and kept going on.
“-then you steal our serfs!” he raged, pointing at Pytras and Jyeleny.
“They’re not yours!” Raani snapped at him.
“Be quiet, Finn.”
“Vikkinrkjun!” she spat back. “Revin sjaso kirkkul teipakjun aavi!”
“And they pass them off as mercenaries!” one of the other knights sneered, tearing of Vlypasa’s hood to reveal the brand on her cheek that marked her as a mutant serf of Veneda. “Drugovian, this one!”
She shook Vlypasa violently.
“What’s your village, huh, Rydrujavan?” she demanded. “You got siblings? Parents? Their punishments last as long as your silence does!”
There was a moment when the squad and the knights and the two escaping serfs stood, completely frozen-
-and then Vlypasa looked the knight straight in the eyes and hissed:
“I stopped using that name years ago!” and lashed out with one of her shockwaves, knocking the knight holding her off her horse, along with the other knight who’d been speaking. They tumbled into a pile some yards away.
The other knights drew their swords. Rasim and some of the other mercenaries exchanged exasperated glances- some drawing their guns, others starting to reach for their powers-
Suddenly, there was a great outcry of humans and horses as fire sprung up from nowhere, shooting through the knights, horses rearing and flailing and throwing their riders.
“That’s not me!” Rohit yelled frantically, trying to control his horse as everyone but Surayya, who’d exploded into her sandstorm form and blasted the knights away at the first hint of trouble, was either thrown along with the knights or, in the case of Rasim, saved by Pytras grabbing the reins and changing to metal, anchoring the horse to the ground.
Roberd rolled away from his horse and threw up a sheet of ice along the ground that extinguished the fires closest to them, melting away quickly from the rest of the heat.
Kiều got to her feet, unsteadily.
“What…” she said, dazedly.
“It was the Sarmatians,” Thayen said, pointing from his seat in the grass to the line of priestess and priests on horses across the field, arranged in front of the warriors. There were two lone figures slightly ahead of the rest, one nearly-naked and the other with their hands raised in the direction of the Venedan forces.
“That’s not how Sarmatians fight!” Vlypasa shrieked. “Who taught the Sarmatians mutant strike tactics!”
“‘And against the sorcerer fell the fire and the lightning-’,” Raani said quietly, then spun and tackled Jyeleny to the ground.
“Down!” she yelled to the others. “Down the Sarmatians use fire and lightning-!”
The squad members who were already on the ground flattened themselves further. Surayya, half-coalesced back into human shape, promptly disassociated again and a sheet of sand fell to cover them.
Rasim hadn’t even moved to get off his horse yet when the lightning came. It ripped through him, his mutation taking it and storing it and it was going to be almost too much-
In the aftermath of the strike, he saw Pytras shift from metal back to flesh and sit down in the grass, hard, slightly stunned from being on the edge of that much electricity; and Surayya, pulling herself back together-
He had to discharge the energy or it was going to burn him up-
The nearest acceptable target were the knights the lightning strikes had missed. The Sarmatians just didn’t have enough priestess, or enough accuracy, to kill any more than about half of them. When Rasim let go of the energy the lightning had charged him with, fifty of the closest of the Venedan knights staggering to their feet in the carnage of their compatriots fell to his kinetic blasts, the same baleful red as his eyes.
There was utter silence on the battlefield as the knights stood in shock and the Venedan serfs stared at their decimated overlords. The Sarmatians watched from across the field, seeming impassive in their distance from the tableau.
Raani growled, low in her throat.
“Rasim,” Kiều said. She was one of the original members of the squad, and was allowed to address him familiarly. “You’re not supposed to attack the side you’ve been hired to fight for.”
“I wasn’t going to attack the serfs,” he protested.
Jyeleny was looking at the knights.
“They look awfully… small,” she said quietly.
“Slave owners are always smaller on the ground,” Surayya told her. “I know.”
Vlypasa was staring at Pytras’ back. The man himself was staring out over the serfs.
She turned to her sergeant.
“Rasul,” she said, a hint of pleading in the word.
“This wasn’t how this was supposed to go,” Chanpala said.
“But think about it,” Rober piped up, catching on. “We’d be able to tell people we fought with theSarmatians, not against them.”
“You can’t say you like the knights,” Kati wheedled.
Rasim sighed, heavily, and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands.
“Fine,” he muttered. “We’re already too entangled with this to back out, anyway. I’m going to find the name of whatever djinn cursed this job, and I’m going to-”
Vlypasa fired her gun in the air and let loose with a war scream the squad had heard her use before; but this time the up-and-down undulating pattern of it was joined with the massed voices of some of the serfs.
“I am Vlypasa Saulėvykasa Drujavan!” she roared to the serfs in her native language as Jyeleny and Pytras started their own war scream, taken up by a different set of serfs. “I return to the lands of my ancestors a free woman to see the arzemniiks destroyed! What say you, people of Gabija?”
There was a melody of war screams, the different tribes’ patterns, never lost over the centuries of occupation, harmonized together, just as they once had.
The squadron- who couldn’t understand a word Vlypasa was screaming- exchanged deeply nervous, anxious looks. Only Thayen, reminded of war raids at home on the Vinland and Mississippi borders, was smiling.
“What did we just get ourselves into?” Kiều muttered through her clenched teeth.
“To me- Drujavanai!” Vlypasa roared, kicking her horse forwards into a gallop towards the knights. “To me-Polokiavanai! Radimikanai! Krivikanai!”
”Supovanai!” Jyeleny yelled; her brother joining in. “Khaldaranaii! Lietuvanai!”
Some of the Venedan knights tried to run- but between their full plate armor, and the serfs in front of them, and the Sarmatians behind, they had nowhere to go. The rest fumbled for their swords.
“Well, after her, I guess,” Rasim said, throwing up his hands momentarily in defeat before grabbing the reins of his horse and leading the squad galloping after Vlypasa.
Across the field, emboldened by impatience and the blood-raising war screams of the serfs, so close to their own, the Sarmatians charged the Venedan knights, who were just beginning to fall to the people they’d enslaved to the land so long, dying under the blows of weapons and mutations.
The knights didn’t last even half an hour.
-
When the war screams from the Venedan serfs began, Piitros was coldly certain, for a moment, that the small cluster of mercenaries who remained were trying to rally their allies for an attack against the Sarmatians.
He’d been hoping the serfs would run, so the Sarmatians wouldn’t have to slaughter them all.
But then the serfs started running; and fell not on the Sarmatians, but the knights, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
Then, without any orders or input, the Sarmatians charged en masse, on nothing but battle fervor, and smashed into the knights on the far side of the serfs.
He… killed some people, he could remember that; but it seemed over just as it had begun, and Piitros pulled Reino off to the side of the carnage and just sat there, taking deep breaths, and trying not to tremble too much.
He found himself in the perfect position to witness a man- riding like a Sarmatian, but wearing not very many clothes, and without the look of a Sarmatian- pull out of the group, just as he had, and ride up next to him.
“Are you doing all right?” he asked.
Piitros nodded, before finding he was making the action too frenetic.
“Yes,” he said instead. “I don’t believe we’ve met?”
“Jendiik, Duke Pirkkje,” the man answered, eyes twinkling. “I’m an outlander, like you. I’m-”
“Training to be a priest,” Piitros cut in, suddenly remembering what Gwen had told him earlier. “You’re a fire luohi-noita. Are you Finnish?”
They’d been talking in Sarmatian, not Finnish; but if he’d called him ‘Duke Pirkkje’-
“No,” Jendiik said, looking out over the plains towards the serfs, and pointing. “Those are my people. My village chased me out, and I ran until I collapsed in the Sarmatian-”
“Jonan?” someone said, barely more than a whisper.
Piitros and Jendiik turned to see one of the mercenaries. Piitros was momentarily surprised he wasn’t Mauryan-but, if mercenary companies based in Europe had members from around the world, it made perfect sense that ones from other places did, too.
Jendiik had gone pale.
“Rober?”
The mercenary- Rober- lunged across his horse to grab Jendiik by the shoulder and pull him in for kissing. Piitros politely turned Reino so he wouldn’t be looking at them.
Gwen trotted over with Maraaja, looking both smug and somewhat concerned.
“Piitrik,” she said. “Jaanag tells me that Kiiniik and Darusiig have been taking in- in-”
She struggled with the word.
“‘Refugees’,” she finally managed in Finnish.
“Really?” Piitros asked, surprised. “From the war?”
“What war?” Gwen asked, puzzled.
“The-” Piitros started to say, then remembered the conversation he’d had with the Vanspagii earlier about Justus Veneda and stopped, uncertain.
Gwen looked at him expectantly.
“The King of Hekassir died- that’s the country that way-” Piitros told her, pointing. “And there were two people who could have replaced him; and they started a war over it but one of them was allied to someone everyone else was scared of so then everyone else went to war.”
“Even Finland?” Gwen asked. “And that is another reason why snowflake tried to kill you?”
“Not Finland,” Piitros said. “You and Veneda are between Finland and the war- and nobody cares enough about Veneda to invade it, and no one is foolish enough or brave enough to try and fight you.”
Gwenig smiled, viciously pleased, showing all her shuriig-redteeth.
“Oh great,” a new voice said, in the Semetic-Sanskrit-Wakandan creole that served the trade-tongue and common language of the people centered on the Ratnakrya’s trade routes. “Now we’re picking up Sarmatians.”
Piitros had to turn again to see the speaker. He turned out to be a large man in a red cape- Piitros would place him as Wakandan or Arabic, he wasn’t sure which. He was flanked by the rest of the mercenaries.
“Do you have a problem with Sarmatians?” he asked, hoping what he remembered of Ratnakryan creole was comprehensible.
The man flinched.
“No,” he said. “Just picking up strays. We’ve done enough of that today already.”
He paused for a moment before continuing.
“Do you know any other language?” he asked. “Besides Sarmatian. You sound terrible.”
Piitros sighed, disappointed in himself.
“He’s the Duke of Finland,” Jendriik told the mercenaries in Hekassir. “So if you have Alexandrian, or-”
One of the mercenaries’ expressions was suddenly stricken with terror, and she slid off her horse to prostrate herself on the ground.
Oh no, a Finn-
“My Royal Highness, Duke Piitros Loistavis Pirkkje,” she wailed. “I, Raani Siinkjari, do beg thee for your mercy and forgiveness for my offense against thee! I was thoughtless and imperceptive in my confident ignorance, thinking that, despite the marriage of your Royal and Good Aunt, Grand Duchess Mei Loistavic Pirkkje, to Duke Benham Sarmatainen, there could not be any of Sikkin and Loki’s line amongst my comrades on the field of battle! May I bear this shame until thy ancestors and Loki and Sikkin themselves have satisfaction of my sin.”
“I, your Royal Highness, Duke Piitros Loistavis Pirkkje, do forgive you, my citizen, Raani Siinkjari, for your misstep,” Piitros absolved her as Gwen snickered at the display she was witnessing. “And I charge you with this: to not reveal my presence in Sarmatia to any who are not Sarmatian themselves, unless the need is dire.”
Raani looked up from the dirt.
“Why, my Duke?” she asked.
“Master Nordmann Ásbjarn of Byzantium attempted to assassinate me, and in the process, killed by uncle,” Piitros told her. “I must remain dead, or at least missing, to his knowledge, until I am ready to avenge his death.”
“Nordmann Ásbjarn?” the man in the cape asked, picking up on the only words he recognized. “That’s the man who was paying the companies.”
Piitros felt his teeth clench together, hard, and looked at Gwen.
“The Ásbjarns paid for the mercenaries,” he told her.
She scowled fiercely and drew her sword.
“So these-”
“No, not them!” Piitros exclaimed. “They’ve defected! Switched sides so they don’t have to work for him!”
Rober, who had Jendiik translating for him, quietly muttered: “That’s not why, but if it keeps us from getting killed-”
Gwen resheathed her sword.
“Are they coming, then?” she asked Piitros and Jendiik. “We travel to the- refugee camp. The other Vanspagii have spoken with the Venediiki serfs, and they have agreed to come if we will continue to fight. It is hidden in the mountains, a day’s ride.”
The mercenary squad decided to travel with the Sarmatians, and, after introductions, helped loot the dead knights of all their belongings, rend the corpses apart, take all the horses that weren’t dead, and bury the few Sarmatians that had fallen in battle.
The day the Sarmatians spent traveling south, towards the mountains, were a sharp lesson in cooperation and scheduling. The Sarmatians hadn’t traveled like this, all together, in living memory, and they left a wide swath of plain pounded flat behind them.
Piitros was surprised by the size of the refugee camp, when they reached it. It was more like a small city, partially tents, partially buildings- some well put-together, of stone and wood, meant to last years. Some clearly had already. The Sarmatians spread out into the surrounding canyons and ravines and caves and valleys, when there wasn’t enough room in the network of valleys already colonized by the refugees.
The Vanspagii, Piitros, Maraaja, Sergeant Rasim, and the serf leaders- Vlypasa, Jyeleny, and Pytras- had plans to take over part of the largest, best-heated building in the camp-city; but as soon as they stepped in the door, Rasim froze and said: “We should leave.”
“What?” Gwen demanded.
Rasim pointed to the far wall of the entrance room, which was plastered bright white. A stained and polished wooden cross, inset with gold lettering in the Greek alphabet, was fused to it.
“Christians,” Rasim told them. “Fellow People of the Book. They won’t want us here.”
At the blank looks he got, he explained further.
“They worship the same god as I and my people, and the Judeans. They’re complete pacifists- this is a hospital and a hostel, a place of healing and rest. The only place holier is one of their temples. They won’t let us have a war council in here.”
As they trooped out in search of a better-suited venue, Piitros caught sight of the flag the building was flying- white, with a purple cross.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, remembering. “Christians!”
He turned to Rasim.
“They’re the ones who think the world ended, right? We’d get letters from them, sometimes.”
“They say the Kingdom of God came to Earth with the building of the Third Temple by Geula Malka,” Rasim corrected. “And that the rest of the world has been too slow to let go of their flaws and accept the gift they have been given; so they venture sometimes into the wider world to build hospitals and sanctuaries and spread the message of love and peace, in person and through letters.”
He shrugged.
“Of course, it is easy for them to believe such things, secluded away in the hills of Anatolia.”
The war council did eventually find a building, and then were subsequently snowed in for a week as the first snowstorm of the year hit. Gwen and Piitros enjoyed themselves during the down-time between the Sarmatians and Venedan peasants coming to an agreement about finally overthrowing the Venedan lords and their knights so everyone could live in peace; but were glad when the snowstorm passed and they could go outside to help clear the camp-city’s streets so people could move about again.
It took two weeks to make sure everywhere was clear, and to restock enough food and water to keep everyone reasonably far from starving, but the Sarmatians were used to winter hunting and rode as far as they had to to bring back game, or raid unattended Byzantine storehouses for grain and preserves, while the priestesses and priests and fire mutant refugees and anyone who could be spared to watch a pot over a fire melted the cleared snow for drinking water. Piitros met some of the Christians around the fires, and they seemed like quite pleasant people, despite their strange adherence to not fighting or waging war.
After those two weeks, Gwen and Piitros went out riding to celebrate. Gwen had told him she always went to see the high-speed train line where it passed over Sarmatia, and watch the trains go whizzing by, and Piitros was determined to explain every detail of the physics and engineering that he knew to his new lover.
-
For all that Gwen was clearly as Sarmatian as they came, Piitros found an eager listener in his lover as he struggled to force science into understandable phrases in Sarmatian. As the train itself shot by, hundreds of feet overhead, he was forced to raise his voice to a shout.
“I’M NOT ENTIRELY SURE HOW LONG IT TOOK TO BUILD THIS LINE,” he said, in response to one of Gwen’s torrent of questions. “LESS THAN A DECADE, BUT MORE THAN A YEAR, I THINK. I –” He stopped. Gwen’s entire posture had shifted from what one might dub ‘eager listener’ and into ‘alert warrior.’
“DID YOU SEE THAT?” Gwen shouted, pointing. Tagspapiig turned slightly so that Gwen had a better view of the train. “THAT WAS AN EXPLOSION. BLUE LIGHT. DO YOU – IS THAT A PERSON?”
Piitros squinted. Gwen had better eyes than most – falling through the air was, indeed, a person.
“THERE’S NO WAY A PERSON COULD SURVIVE A FALL LIKE THAT,” Piitros responded. “THAT TRAIN IS MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY FEET IN THE AIR.”
Gwen and Tagspapiig shifted, uneasily, and then Gwen shook her head. The train began to pull out of sight, and the sound lessened.
“Then we can give the man a proper funeral,” Gwen said. “The last thing we need is an angry ghost chasing us about in the middle of a war.”
Piitros winced. While he had never actually seen a ghost, the stories told about them were not pretty.
“Agreed,” he replied. “Can we get to where he landed?”
In response, Gwen threw him a wild smile. “Catch us if you can!” she shouted, as she and Tagspapiig galloped off.
Piitros snorted, and urged Reino to follow. “Right behind you!” he cried, the wind biting his cheeks.
Gwen’s laugh echoed off of the mountains. “You’ll never catch us if you’re behind us – oh Gods Above and Below!” She and Tagspapiig stopped abruptly.
Piitros and Reino ended their sprint a bit more sedately. “What?”
Gwen pointed, mutely. Sprawled in the snow, his breath sending little curls of mist into the air, was their falling man.
Still alive.
Piitros swore. Loudly, and in multiple languages. Living with a bunch of warriors was good for the more vulgar side of one’s vocabulary.
“Oh, stop swearing and help me,” Gwen snapped, swinging off of Vanspapiig and kicking through the snow to the prone man. “His arm looks messed up, and you know more about body parts than I do.”
Piitros stumbled off of Reino and over to Gwen’s side, squinting at the disastrous mess that had once been an arm just as it began to snow.
“I’m not sure that there’s much we can do,” he said hesitantly. “I mean, unless there are any touch-healers back at the camp?”
Gwen grimaced. “None. I’ve seen Maraaja build whole limbs from gods-power, but heal? No.”
Piitros frowned. “Then tie a tourniquet around his shoulder to stop the bleeding, sluggish though it may be, and let’s bring him back to camp. Worst case scenario, one of the healers can amputate it and replace it with a magically animated replacement.”
Gwen tore a long strip off of her cloak, and tied it firmly. “I’ll carry him, “she said, “Tagspapiig is stronger than Reino. Carry that stick-thing he was holding?”
Piitros looked over at the item that she indicated. He winced. “Gwen, that ‘stick-thing’ is a gun. Like what the mercenaries use.” He picked it up. “Alexandrian, military grade. This man is a soldier.”
Gwen settled the man over Tagspapiig’s back, and swung up into her saddle. “Gun? Those things are the most dishonorable and idiotic replacements for bows that I have ever seen. What was this man doing with one?”
“He was a soldier,” Piitros repeated. “Most armies give their soldiers guns, nowadays, not bows or swords.”
Gwen shrugged. “Soldier or not, he’ll be a dead man if we tarry. Hurry up.”
Piitros jumped up onto Reino, and smiled faintly when he was certain that Gwen couldn’t see him. For all that she played the cold-hearted warrior, Gwen was quite caring when faced with an injured or ill innocent.
They had barely hailed the first border-guards for the camp when someone rode out to meet them – it was one of the priestesses, Piitros was pretty sure her name was Jaanag.
“There’s a visitor!” she cried, as soon as they were within shouting distance. “A visitor from far away, and – what’s that?”
“An injured soldier from outside of these lands,” Piitros said quickly. “Gwen said that Maraaja might be able to help?”
Jaanag nodded. “Yes, and I’m sure that the Christians will be happy to preach at someone who isn’t of the tribes.”
Gwen swung onto the ground. “Tagspapiig, follow Jaanag to find Maraaja,” she ordered. “Jaanag, where is this visitor?”
“He is in the building that you have been using,” Jaanag said absently. “Be careful – he’s been getting some nervous looks from some of the more sensitive priestesses.”
After sending Reino to find the large building that the horses were sleeping in at the camp, Piitros followed Gwen into the rough-hewn building that they had appropriated for their war-council.
Blinking to get used to the shadows, Piitros took a moment to survey their guest as he and Gwen entered the room. A fire-lit room simply wasn’t as bright as sun-lit snow, and… that man looked really familiar.
“Who are you?” Gwen demanded sharply, a hand resting lightly on her sword. “Why have you trespassed on our lands?”
The man ignored her, and instead settled the heavy weight of two dark eyes on Piitros’ face. “Piitros Pirkkje, you are alive,” he said in flawless Finnish.
Piitros winced. “Um, yes, I am,” he replied, feeling tiny. “If you wouldn’t mind, it would be my pleasure to introduce you to Gwenig –”
“Is there a necromancer in Sarmatia?”
Gwen huffed beside Piitros. Piitros gaped. There was something very…shocking about someone being rude in Finnish. “Um, I don’t think so, the tribes are pretty severe about that type of thing. But, this is Gwen, she would know –”
“What about Heimrikh Ásbjarn? His leg was dead for longer than he was, and you were the last person seen with him.”
Piitros finally realized who this man was – Stephen Bethildrsson Peregrinus, Sorcerer Supreme, the current Governor of Vinland.
“Right,” Piitros said slowly, “That was an accident. Um, I bit him – as a spider, I bit him as a spider, and I guess that type of spider must have done something, but, if you really want to know about Sarmatia, ask Gwen –”
“You bit him as a spider,” the Sorcerer Supreme said. “Of course. Necrotized tissue.”
And just as abruptly as every word that he had said, the Sorcerer Supreme vanished.
-
EXTRA-AGENCY MEMORANDUM: BIN YOAD NIKHON
DATE: 20 December 1827
FROM: Stephen Bethildrsson Peregrinus, Sorcerer Supreme, Vinland
SUBJECT: Sarmatia (FLAGGED EXTRA-URGENT)
TO: Nicholas Ibn Yakov Fury, Alexandria Headquarters, BINYAN
- Necromancy is not a problem.
- Sarmatia is not your playground.
- The following is a prophecy, something significantly more worth my time:
The great warrior, the greatest warrior, the first and the last
Lost child of the last land
Shield of the future
Who holds the Hand of Five
Five fires burning, burning
He holds the Hand -
Comes now Destruction
He will lose his Hand to He who holds the world in his coils –
He shall swallow the Hand and spread the remaining across Eternity.
- Don’t contact me again. I do not work for BINYAN.