Bertrand of Akhe stared meditatively into the crackling fire. Every now and then, the resin would throw up a flare of light as a log split open as though struck by a maul. In the flames, he could almost see the guardpost that had used to dominate the road and river crossing in the valley. Good that it is gone, at least. One of the few good things about that debacle.

Valeth slid next to him easily, stretching with a lazy yawn. Bertrand knew he had a girl somewhere in Akenhof – not that there’s been much opportunity for us to visit friends. What’d been her name…Rosaline? Evidently the lanky man had combined business with pleasure. Bertrand glared up at him balefully. The nights were getting cold, and unlike some of his band Bertrand was too recognizable to easily hide in one of the villages dotting the valley.

“Are we still safe here?”

Valeth paused at the question in the movement of pouring a cup of scalding tea. Herbs grew plentifully in the valley and stored well, and the hot drink was one of the luxuries remaining to them. He finished pouring some into a wooden tankard and took a sip, grimacing slightly at the bitter taste. “We should be…probably. That young idiot got himself taken by the Stanmarkers.”

Bertrand sat bolt upright, alarm crackling through his frame. “You didn’t shut him up first?!” His friend waved a hand dismissively.

“He doesn’t know enough to be overly dangerous, Bert. They took him off to the old Manor, and then old Sven says he saw them cart him away the next morning. He’ll probably hang to make an example, that seems about their style, but what does he really know?”

“He knows our names,” muttered Bertrand disconsolately. Valeth snorted at that, his tone dismissive and acerbic.

“Bert, it doesn’t take much intelligence to guess that Bertrand of Akhe, household knight of the old Baron who mysteriously disappeared when the select levy came home is probably lurking in the woods being angry and bitter.” A pause as he took another sip of the astringent liquid. “What news of the others?”

Bertrand sighed, the exhalation puffing a cloud of steam into the air. It lingered between them, a cloud of disappointment mingling with the woodsmoke. “Nothing good. Baron Sebastian of Rotenstein has gone over.”

At that pronouncement, Valeth choked on his next mouthful and went into a coughing fit. Bertrand pounded him on his back with malicious helpfulness until the man could gasp in enough air. “Gone over? To the enemy? Gods damn it all, they killed his son!”

Rotenstein lay to the east of the Akhe valley, in the same foothills the Waccewalders now camped in. The iron-rich stone from their quarries had been built into a number of impressive buildings, not the least of which had been a remarkably impressive castle. Bertrand could remember having visited it, awed at the height of the walls with their delicate traceries of rust-red veins. When war had come, the Baron Rotenstein had called the select levy – the better off or younger men, equipped with the best their community could pull together – assembled his retinue, and marched off to war. Rather fewer of them had come back after the ill-conceived attempt to steal a march on the Easterners and join up with other barons further North and West.

Bertrand shrugged helplessly. “They also guaranteed his land and inheritance would stay untouched and confirmed to his line; the man has three more sons to think of, and a daughter that needs a dowry besides bitter teas and red stones. Mordwin came back with the message last night; he apologizes, and says that if he can support us safely, he will. But he thinks the kingdom’s lost and won’t fight on for a doomed cause and dead liege.” The anger rose in him, calling for him to go into the valley and burn it all down, smash the new watchposts into kindling and drive the smug officious prick officer from the manor house he’d used to know so well. With practiced ease he pushed the feeling away. Not useful right now. And the balance of forces isn’t in favor of impetuous action to begin with.

“Support us safely.” Valeth turned the words over on his tongue as if they burned. “Meaning no arms, no men, maybe some food and supplies if we’re lucky and if we can porter it over to the valley ourselves.” Meditatively, “I wonder if we could prod him into something more audacious if it looked likely to succeed.”

“Maybe; but there’s not enough of us right now and the damned Easterners are making it too hard to organize. Besides,” Bertrand waved at the dusting of white power on the rime-glazed tree boughs around them, “nothing is being done until end of winter at least.”

Both men knew well enough the difficulties of trying to organize large groups. The difficulties only compounded when the weather turned foul and the countryside froze over. Men needed more food and firewood, animals needed more fodder, and there was less of either available. It was why the band had stayed in the valley to begin with; the peasants in the riverside farmland were a source of all the basic needs of an armed host, and in familiar ground the former armsmen of the local lord could mostly draw on them without resorting to threats or violence – so far, at least. When times grew lean, things would grow very tight.

“We wait until spring. Mordwin has a few more errands to run by then.” Younger and fresher to the baron’s service, his face was less likely to be recognized and safer to use in running messages. “After the thaw, we’d best have something spectacular planned before they squeeze us dry.”

“Before the thaw comes, we’d best have made plans for the future.”

Hoffman poured a glass of wine for himself and one for Kaulback – a gross breach of decorum under normal circumstances, acceptable in private and in the field. If you can call lounging around here “in the field.” Both men sipped appreciatively, and Hoffman continued.

“If the madcap scheme with suborning the locals works or not is one thing; but the reality is that no matter what, we’ll have the hardliners to deal with come spring.”

Kaulback inclined his head thoughtfully. “That may be too optimistic. We’re not dealing with an army anymore – they aren’t bound by the same restrictions.”

Both men were used to thinking in terms of moving large bodies of men. Supply in these frozen months was a complication – and “supply” meant “squeezing the local peasantry dry” in any case. The trick to keeping a force of any size intact was to keep it constantly in motion to avoid overeating any particular region or – as the Stanmarkian forces had done – to settle down in winter quarters somewhere with a line of supply that could keep the men fed, if not comfortable. It was dawning on them that while the Waccewalder forces still in the field were scattered and individually weak, their weakness gave them mobility and possibilities the Easterners lacked.

“No.” Hoffman shook his head. “It’ll be spring.” His eyes were unfocused, his mind fixated on a map of the Akhe – divided into the requisite regions and baronies. “They have the supplies to stay in the field, somehow, but they can’t move. The moment they try, they leave their established support and have to resort to foraging, same as us. That leaves a trail, and they know we’d come down on them like a hammer on an egg.”

“So, they can’t move.” Kaulback seemed to chew that thought over. “They’ll still be able to make themselves a nuisance while the frost lasts. Raids, ambushes.”

“There won’t be that many things to ambush while the men are in winter quarters.” Hoffman waved the prospect away. “But put yourself in their shoes – they need to drum up more support and do so while the iron is hot. Right now, the memory of the campaign is still hot. People lost their families, and our foraging parties didn’t make themselves loved either.” His finger came up, tracing lines of movement on an imaginary map. “We’ve been too focused on our strategic situation and problems, Mattis. To be sure, we can’t catch them, and we’re bleeding ourselves dry trying to keep the lid on them. But they’re withering away too, losing men, losing supporters.”

“We can’t depend on winning by attrition, my Lord.” Kaulback’s face made it obvious he didn’t like the words, but the truth was the truth. “Lord Falkenrath was very clear about that – we are racing against time here.”

“True,” Hoffman sighed, “they don’t have to outlast us entirely, just delay our ability to extract anything useful from the new fiefs long enough that it isn’t worth the cost.” The ghost of a smile played across his lips. “But Mattis, they don’t know that.”

“They can read a map as well as anyone else.”

“True, but they don’t necessarily have a read on our strategic situation. Besides which, whoever is leading this mob isn’t likely to have been very high rank in the first place. Most of the higher nobility is accounted for.” Hoffman glanced mournfully at the empty cup; it was entirely too early in the day to have another, and he cultivated a reputation for moderation in any case. “No, from whatever frozen camp they’re sitting in, they’ll have to assume the worst; that we have all the time in the world.”

“So, when the spring comes…”

“When the spring comes,” Hoffman echoed, the lines on the map in his head moving, “the war continues.”