Macurdy wondered at their easy willingness to face an armed enemy. Some had seen friends die on the tax raid; a few had been wounded themselves. Jeremid commanded; he was more familiar with the situation and plan. Macurdy went along because he felt he should, and to inspire the men, who seemed to think he was invincible.
The town they rode toward was the seat of the county which included the western hills, and for that reason, the count who ruled it had been reinforced with a company each from four other counties. Jeremid had learned this from spies. And the castle had been warned of the rebel approach; Jeremid and Wollerda had seen to that. Now if the count would cooperate . . .
He did, sending out all but his fortress company to meet and destroy Macurdy’s rebels.
Meeting this much larger force, Jeremid ordered a retreat, which then seemed to lose order and turn into a rout. The count’s force pursued them, until the soldiers, more or less strung out, cantered past a river forest. There Wollerda’s 1st Cohort had concealed itself the night before, and charging out, had confused and disorganized the soldiers. At the same time, Macurdy’s rebels had turned on their pursuers.
The soldiers had fought without enthusiasm and at a severe tactical disadvantage. Rather sooner than the rebel commanders had expected, royalist trumpeters had signalled surrender. The rebels had disarmed the soldiers then (they’d drilled even that), taking byrnies and shields, swords and spears, bows and quivers. And hundreds of horses, on some of which they loaded the loot.
In Kellum, the county seat, well-led teams looted the homes of officials, taking coins, silver, jewelry, scented wax candles and other valuable goods easy to convert to cash to help pay the costs of the growing rebel army. Beyond that, looting was forbidden, a forbiddance assisted by limited opportunity. This caused grumbling, but nothing serious, for Macurdy, Wollerda, and their officers lived among their men and pretty much as their men, commonly eating with them, the same food in the same portions.
The count had refused to surrender his castle, and Wollerda and Macurdy left it unassaulted. It was much more formidable than the reeve’s had been. Wollerda’s and Macurdy’s strategy, at this stage of the rebellion, was to demonstrate without question their military effectiveness, enhance their supply situation, and bleed and demoralize the royal army. In all of which they’d succeeded.
What they hadn’t done yet was force the king to commit his personal cohort. They weren’t ready for that—not outside the hills—and they knew it. It was why they hadn’t challenged the count who ruled the eastern hills: He was much nearer Teklapori.
Meanwhile they held the initiative, and their morale was stronger than ever, despite casualties. Their training had been much briefer, and most rebels lacked byrnies, yet in open combat they’d beaten the count’s soldiers, who supposedly were superior to those the reeves could field. The advantage had been rebel spirit and vigor, and better leadership.
It was after his return to camp that Macurdy sent Liiset’s courier with a written message to her, expecting a quick response. The first half dozen days of waiting were no problem; after all, he’d made her wait. Meanwhile no further offensive actions were planned. Morale no longer needed them, and it was time to prepare for what seemed a certain royal response, either diplomatic through the Sisterhood, or military—a concerted offensive to destroy the more accessible Kullvordi villages and crush the spirit of rebellion. Macurdy and Wollerda had a strategy to meet that too, one that called for preparations, as many as they had time for. Time that negotiations could help provide.
Jeremid had already designed a shield neither Ozian nor Teklan, that could be made rapidly. Rebel losses would have been substantially less if they’d had them before and been trained to use them. Macurdy and Kithro had developed a system for their manufacture. Kithro contracted with a range of providers: woodsmen who felled large shagbark hickories and cut them into roughly three-foot-long sections. Carpenters who split planks from them, and trimmed and planed them to the proper dimensions and weight; tanners who produced leather from bull hides, cutting it to size and shape; and smiths who made iron bands to strengthen them, and iron bosses and hooks to make them dangerous.