Free Two to Conquer by Marion Zimmer Bradley

and horses, and the fashion of their swords, that they are Dry-town mercenaries.”
    Bard pursed his lips, for the Dry-town mercenaries were the fiercest fighters known, and he wondered how many of his men had ever fought against their curious curved swords and the daggers they used in lieu of shields to their other side.
    “I will warn my men,” he said. Among the picked men were several veterans of the wars against
    Ardcarran. It had been, he thought, a good instinct prompting him to choose men who had fought
    against the Dry towns. Perhaps they could give the others some advice on how to cope with that style of attack and defense.
    And another thing. He glanced at Master Gareth and said with a faint frown, “You are an old
    campaigner, sir. I do not expect the women to know this, but I was taught it was unsoldierly to eat in the saddle except in the gravest emergencies.”
    He sensed the smile behind the old man’s copper-colored moustaches. “It is clear you know little of laran , my lord; how it drains the body of strength. Ask your quartermasters; they will tell you they have been issued triple rations for us, and with good reason. I eat in my saddle so that I will have the strength not to fall out of it, sir, which would be far more disruptive than eating as I ride.”
    Much as Bard hated to be reproved, he tucked the lesson away, as he did all military matters, for when he would have need of it. But he scowled at Master Gareth and rode away with the briefest of
    courtesies.
    Riding among the men, he dropped the word to each of them that they would be fighting, when it came time to capture the caravan, against Dry-town mercenaries; and he listened for some time to the
    reminiscences of an elderly campaign veteran who had ridden to war with his own father, Dom Rafael, years before Bard was born.
    “There’s a trick to fighting Dry-towners; you have to watch both hands, because they’re as good with those damned little daggers they wear as any of us is with an honest sword, and when you have your sword engaged, theyll come at you with the other hand, and bury the dagger in your ribs; they’re trained to fight with both hands.”
    “Be sure to warn the men against that, Larion,” he said, and rode on, deep in thought. What an honor it would be to him, if he could capture the clingfire intact and take it back to King Ardrin! Like most soldiers, he hated clingfire, thinking it a coward’s weapon, although he knew the strategic importance it could have in burning an enemy’s objective. At least he could make sure it would not be hurled against the towers of Asturias! Or used to burn their woodlands!
    They made camp that night over the borders of Asturias, in a small village which lay on the outskirts of the Plains of Valeron, a no-man’s-land which owed allegiance to no king, and the villagers gathered sullenly around Bard’s men as if they would have denied them leave to camp there. Then, looking at the three leroni in their gray robes, they scowled and withdrew.
    “These lands,” Bard said to Beltran, as they dismounted, “should be under allegiance to some lord; it is dangerous having them here, ready to shelter outlaws and bandits and perhaps open to some malcontent who could set himself up as king or baron here.”
    Beltran looked scornfully around, at the lean fields of scanty grain, the orchards of sparse trees of poor-quality nuts, some so scanty of leaves that the farmers had been reduced to growing mushrooms on them. “Who would bother? They can pay no tribute. It would be a poor lord indeed who would stoop to conquer such folk! What honor could an eagle have in battling an army of rabbithorns?”
    “That’s not the point,” Bard said. “The point is, that some enemy to Asturias could come here and put them against us, so that we would have enemies on our very borders. I shall speak to my lord the king about it, and perhaps next spring he will send me here, to make certain that if they pay no