Free Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy and Other Stories by Vox Day Page B

of work I’d thought to leave behind at the farm. But I was a big lad, and on the third day after I’d left the ancestral village I met a man in a pub who was recruiting for a company of wardogs.
    “He said the Red Prince was planning a campaign to teach the cursed elves a lesson. It was something to do with the
Collegium Occludum
, if I recall correctly, but I wasn’t listening closely since my only interest was in the notion of a monthly wage. Plus, I’d wanted to see the world, and marching through it with a sword in my hand accompanied by a band of armed men seemed to be a reasonable way to do it.
    “So, I made my
X
on what the recruiter told me was a contract that ran only through the harvest, and thought myself rather clever for it when he generously agreed to pay for the next two rounds.” He grinned at Marcus. “Not the wisest move I’ve ever made.”
    Marcus feigned surprise. “An illiterate young farmer signing a contract he can’t read? Or rather, marking it. In all the tales I’ve read, such things usually turn out splendidly!”
    “Precisely. As it happens, the contract was actually an indenture in which I had sold my body to become the deeded property of one Captain Hilderus, who owned the Bloody Crows. It was a small consortium, only forty-five men, more than half of whom barely knew which end of the sword to hold. Or rather, spear. Although what I was given was little more than a long, pointed stick.
    “The Savonders make war in the strangest fashion. Their king doesn’t want the expense of a standing army, but he doesn’t want to become too dependent upon the great lords, either. So while he provides the engineers, the mages, and perhaps a third of the heavy cavalry, the nobles provide the other two thirds.
    “The infantry is a haphazard collection of royal levies taken from wherever the king chooses, land levies taken from the estates of the great and lesser lords, and the ‘auxiliaries,’ which are simply whatever mercenary companies happen to hear that the king wants men. So,there’s a fair number of captains who make a living turning foolish young farm boys into corpses every summer.
    “Only two weeks later I found myself marching with the rest of the Crows under the banner of a baron from the other side of Savondum. The baron—his name was Gourgaud, if I recall correctly—was charged with capturing a group of elven raiders that had been burning farms near Voyence.
    “We were one hundred horse and six hundred foot, and there were only supposed to be sixty or seventy raiders. Therefore the baron and Captain Hilderous were far more worried about being able to find the enemy and run them down once we did find them than they were about what those sixty elves might be able to do to us. But, you recall what I told you about them before we stopped today?”
    “They prefer to keep their distance?” Marcus said.
    “Just so. After five days of sighting them and chasing them all over the hills, our outriders ran into their scouts on the edge of an old forest near the western border. In retrospect, I realize they had been leading us around by our noses just to keep us occupied while their commander prepared the ambush. When we finally encountered it, it proved to be as well prepared as any ambush I’ve seen since.
    “The baron thought we’d have the advantage in the hills since they wouldn’t find it as easy to use their archers at long range. I’m not sure what he was thinking when we finally brought them to bear with their backs to the forest. My best guess is that he thought they were afraid to run since they were all afoot and outnumbered by our horse. They formed their line with their backs to the trees. It was a double line, but it didn’t look very impressive since they were so badly outnumbered and they didn’t have much in the way of armor.”
    Serannus chuckled without amusement and patted the armor packed behind his saddle. “Not that I did, either. I was standing in the