The Erl King's Children by Jordan Leah Hunter

Author:Jordan Leah Hunter [Hunter, Jordan Leah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pleiades Web Press
Published: 2013-09-23T22:00:00+00:00

Faeltigern made time as he was bid. That night he sent riders with Riv Orrsa’s summons—a brass seal of a hound with a hand in its jaws—to all the lords of the land that owed him fealty. To some: Caol of Malemor, Raghnall of Dunluthuin, Lorrcan the Silent, Labraid Roe-Hand of Malduin and Vulgryn of Manusligan; he sent with the summons a message written on vellum and marked by Riv Orrsa’s own hand. These men were the most powerful of Riv Orrsa’s lords; their weight would count most heavily in any battle.

Labraid arrived first, nine days after the summons with over three hundred horses and perhaps twice as many footmen; mostly tall rangy axe wielders who fought in no more armor than their saffron-dyed shirts. Lorrcan came in three days later, with two hundred horseman, almost five hundred footman armed with bills and pikes and the wicked little throwing axes they favored, and two hundred Dal Cais slingers besides. Many of these wore armor, be it only a quilted jacket or cuirass of ox hide boiled in lard, and almost every man had a helmet.

Hard on their heels came a company of Glengarth cavalry under a man named Rhodri Falchain; they carried no lances but favored short stiff bows that they used from the saddle to deadly effect. Caol and Raghnall came next: Caol, who was richer than any other three lords, brought with him five hundred horsemen in ring-mail, all gaudy in purple and scarlet under banners of green and gold, while Raghnall arrived with a small company of dust-colored, bandy-legged cavalry on short mountain ponies, and almost four hundred tall archers with longbows.

The last of these to arrive was Vulgryn, Lord of Manusligan, bringing with him slightly more than one thousand men; the largest single group in Riv Orrsa’s army. Like the man he was sworn to, Vulgryn was of humble origins—a tanner’s son—who had raised himself high in Riv Orrsa’s service through a mixture guile and relentless ferocity. Of those who stood closest to Riv Orrsa, he was counted behind only Faeltigern, whom he considered his rival and whom he did not particularly like.

These then were the cream and backbone of Riv Orrsa’s army: all assembled, they were almost three thousand strong. Other, lesser lords came later, arriving all that week and all the next: foot companies from Yarrow and Cearlaegus, cavalry under the Lord of Morrai, a company of well-mounted dandies led by a kinsman of Caol, more footmen from the fyrdd of Balvernion-on-Tyne who appeared to have been dragged from their fields with planting tools still in hand.

Some, however, sent little in response to the summons; some sent no one at all. The lords of Darineth sent a levy of straggling peasants, half without weapons and entirely without enthusiasm. Conmor did not send that much; just a curt reply that it was planting season and no men could be spared. Tyrrenith sent only silence.

Still, by the month’s end almost nine thousand men had answered Riv Orrsa’s call.

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