"I'm not fighting," Gel pointed out sourly, his jaw clenched tight.
Gel picked up his helm after another scorching glare and stamped his way down the hill to the sidelines. Kyrtian hid his own grin, and gave Gel a commiserating slap on the shoulder.
"Too bad, old man," he said, with what he hoped was a good counterfeit of sympathy. "That's combat-luck for you."
'That's carelessness, you mean," Gel growled, as he ruffled his sweaty, grizzled brown hair to dry it. "Don't coddle me, Kyrtian; I got you when you stopped to gloat, then I was served the same dish. What's more, you ambushed me when I lost patience. You're going to win this one. I underestimated you."
Since at this point, those who glowed yellow-green outnumbered those who glowed red-orange by three to one, that was
fairly obvious, so Kyrtian held his tongue and tried assume a modest expression.
"I think we can count this experiment a success," he said instead. "I wasn't sure we'd be able to make the transition from arena-fighting and set-battles, but it's obvious this mode is going to work."
"I'd keep it at the skirmish-level for a while," Gel cautioned.
"I intend to," Kyrtian assured him, as more of the "dead" on the sidelines cheered the surviving fighters on or showered them with abuse. "At least until everyone's gotten a fair amount of practice at this. I don't want people stumbling around breaking ankles in rabbit-holes or running into an alicorn and getting skewered. We're out here to fight, not get hurt." He loosened his throat-guard and yanked it off.
Gel barked a laugh at that, and Kyrtian had to grin. 'That's as true as it sounds absurd," Gel chuckled. "And it's true you'd have less luck getting people to volunteer to fight for us if too many of the boys started coming back with broken bones, or worse." He stuck his thumb in his sword-belt and watched the fighters with pardonable pride. "I'll tell you what, though—I'd pit these lads against any of the professional fighters I've seen when it comes to combat rather than gladiatorial games. They'd win."
"That's rather the point, though I hope it doesn't come to that. There'll be far less blood shed if they go up against conscripts." Kyrtian watched as the last of his men surrounded the last of Gel's and demanded their surrender. "The Elvenlords can compel men to fight, but they can't compel them to fight well. Speaking of volunteers—the field-folk are going to need another holiday before too long."
"We'd better think about organizing a melee, then," Gel sighed. He hated setting up melees, as they were a great deal of work, and as in real battles, most of the people who took part in them had no idea how to actually fight. A good percentage got muddled and did the opposite of what they'd been ordered, and when they got muddled, they generally confused those who were trying to obey the orders correctly. Still, everyone on the estate enjoyed the mock-wars and were happy
to volunteer for them; there was great excitement in battle when there was no chance of dying and little chance of getting hurt. A war-day meant a general holiday with feasting and music, and dancing for those who were "killed" before they were completely exhausted.
Not that anyone got killed deliberately just so he could go dancing, since those who were too exhausted to dance were pampered and treated like heroes regardless of which side won.
Ever since the first time that Kyrtian and his right-hand man had expanded their war-games to include the general population of the estate, the exercise had proven so popular that humans and elves alike had come to expect and anticipate a war-day every two or three moons or so. Kyrtian just couldn't bring himself to disappoint them—and the one time he'd tried to hold a feast without a war, there had been such protest that he'd never dared do it again.
"I don't suppose it could be a woods-battle, could it?" he asked wistfully. "Or—oh, what about a siege?"
"With the manor as the target? No, better yet, the Dowager-House; no one's used it in decades, and it's been years since it was cleaned and aired out. It'll give your Lady-Mother an excuse to get it set to rights in case we need it for something. Ancestors know what, but we might." Gel mulled that over as his men declined to surrender, electing to fight to the last one standing. "That could be done—if you could manage mock-arrows and mock-stones; perhaps mock-boiling-oil."
Kyrtian stared at him, aghast at the picture that conjured up. "Ancestors! You're certainly bloody-minded!"
"If you want a siege, you might as well do it right," Gel argued. "That means that the besiegers will use bows, and the besieged will pelt them with whatever they can from the walls. Now, can you produce the proper material, or can't you?"
"I probably can," Kyrtian admitted. "But you do realize what this will mean, don't you?"
"Huge casualties early on, which means the battle won't run long, which means we'll get to the feasting sooner." Gel grinned. "Which means less work for me and more for your obliging Lady-Mother in arranging the entertainment."
"And probably a population increase in nine months unless I make sure to dose every particle of food on the estate against conceptions," Kyrtian sighed. "Which means more work for me, both in concocting the new magic-weapons, and in seeing to it that we don't get that flood of new births. You know what happens when the women get to be in on the combat! Why it is that mock-fighting gets them so stimulated—" He shook his head. "Sometimes I think that you humans are so different from us that I'll never understand you. Still—"
"A siege would be fun," Gel said, persuasively, as his men dropped, one by one, beneath the swords of Kyrtian's fighters. "We've never done a siege before with live fighters. Things that work on the sand-table with models don't always work with living people."
The temptation was too great to resist. "All right," he decided. "Start planning and working toward it. I'll research the magic needed. If it doesn't look as if we can pull it off in a months' time, we'll have the usual field-melee instead."
"Done!" Gel crowed, and slapped him on the shoulder, just as the last of his men fell. At that point, Kyrtian's remaining fighters rushed up, cheering, and there was no point in trying to talk until the victory celebration was over.
3
|
As was usual, the two groups of combatants trudged out of the forest together as a single fraternal mass with no sense of marching order. The forest could well have been devoid of life at this point; birds and beasts were probably frightened into immobility by the laughter and talking. At any rate, Kyrtian couldn't spot so much as a rabbit or a sparrow as they followed the faint track of an old road beneath the trees. The sun was just setting, and a thick, golden light poured
through the branches, gilding the edges of the leaves and touching the clouds. Tired, but cheerful, friends and comrades traded congratulations, boasts, and outright lies as Kyrtian and Gel brought up the rear. Kyrtian never permitted anyone to carry his armor for him; like his men, he bore his own equipment, at least as far as their transportation. There were wagons and a carriage waiting just outside the woods to carry them all back to the manor, since it would have taken them hours to return on foot; Kyrtian was very glad to be able to toss his helm to his driver and allow his body-servant to take the heavy armor off before he climbed into the cushioned comfort of the carriage. As a token of his privileged rank, Gel shared both the attentions of the servant and the carriage; the men helped each other and made do with the cushioning effect of a thick layer of hay in their wagons. "Ah, the benefits of rank," Gel sighed as he sat back in the carriage opposite Kyrtian. Kyrtian grinned.
As soon as Gel got himself seated, the driver turned the horses and sent the carriage on its way while the wagons were still being loaded with men and armor. "Ancestors!" Kyrtian exclaimed, as the servant handed him a flask of cool, sweet water. "I've been looking forward to this all afternoon!" He took a long draught, timing his drink with the jolting of the carriage so he didn't break his teeth on the neck of the flask, before handing it to Gel.
"You'd think we'd get tired of this nonsense," Gel responded, leaning back into the soft, dark brown velvet cushions after he'd corked the flask and handed it back to young Lynder, Kyrt-ian's body-servant. "Your dear mother keeps saying we're too old to play at being soldiers, and sometimes I wonder if she's right, at least about me. Every time we come back from one of these games, I ask myself if it isn't time to stop."
"You only think that as long as it takes for you to get your wind back." The young Elvenlord grinned at his companions, and Lynder chuckled. "And mother has a different set of priorities from you and me. What do you expect her to say? She's not just a female, she's a lady, and if she had her way we'd all be drifting around the estate in clouds of tranquil music, perfume, and refinement. If it were up to her, you'd be cultivating roses,
and I'd be cultivating illusions and courting some fragile little lily of a maiden." He accepted the flask back and took another drink. "Not that you need to apologize for having a knack with roses—but I don't think you'd want to spend your life among the flowers."
Gel rolled his eyes. "Gods forbid!" he exclaimed. "I'd die of boredom in half a day! Roses are all right for a hobby, but not as a life's work!"
"I'd prefer tending roses to being forced to spend my time cultivating a highborn maiden." Kyrtian laughed, the sound interrupted oddly by the jouncing of the carriage. "At least you don't have to make conversation with a flower, even if you do have to be careful of the thorns. It's easier to avoid thorns than try to keep a strange woman from seeing things she shouldn't."
He tried to keep his tone light, but his laughter sounded a bit strained in his own ears. The subject of wives and heirs had been much on his mother's mind and tongue lately; hardly a day passed without her alluding to it at least once. It was a subject he was not easy with. He enjoyed his life the way it was, and had no real wish to bring a stranger into his home. "Ancestors! I'd have to set up an entirely separate part of the estate to keep her properly secluded, and that would be as much of a bore as courting her would be! I swear, if it weren't forbidden I'd wed a stout-hearted human wench from right here."
Gel made a sour face. "At the least, we'd need the Dowager-House set to rights just to confine the girl in, and somehow keep her mewed up there indefinitely. If Tenebrinth, Selazian and Pelenal had daughters—things would be a great deal easier on all of us. You'd think one of your clients would have the good sense to take care of that little problem for us!"
Kyrtian replied with complete seriousness. "I wish they had. Nothing would have pleased me better to take one of them into my family line; they're all fine gentlemen. As it is—well, someday soon I suppose I'll have to please Mother and go looking amongst someone else's underlings for a wife. Eventually I'll find a maiden who's of sufficiently low rank to be too overawed to notice my eccentricities."
"She'll have to overlook more than that," Gel warned him,
"Or you'll have her running back to her Papa with stories of how you can't keep your slaves properly under your thumb."
Kyrtian felt compelled to give his mother's counters to those arguments, which were the same that he himself had raised. "Elven maidens in most households are kept close-confined, Mother says. And a maiden of low rank should be dazzled by her new surroundings and too much in awe of Mother ever to question things. We think that as long as her servants obeyed her, she'd never know we do things differently here." He compressed his brows in a little frown. "I'd have to make sure that she was never allowed to abuse them, though ... and that could take some management."