The Burning Bridge

by John Flanagan

  Finally, the Wargal turned away. Then, in an instant, it whipped back again to stare once more. Fortunately, Will’s training had covered that particular trick as well. He made no movement. This time, the Wargal grunted, then called an order to the group.

  Chanting once more, they moved out, leaving the dead miner on the roadside.

  As the sound receded and they disappeared around the next bend in the road, Will felt Horace moving behind him.

  “Stay still!” he whispered fiercely. It was possible that the Wargals had a sweeper following—a silent-moving rear scout who might catch unwary fugitives who thought the danger was past.

  He forced himself to count to one hundred before he allowed the others to move, crawling clear of the bushes and stretching their stiff and aching limbs.

  Signaling to Horace to take Evanlyn back to the campsite, Will stepped cautiously into the road to check the Celt. As he had suspected, the man was dead. He had obviously been beaten many times over the past few days. His face was bruised and cut by the whips and fists of the Wargals.

  There was nothing he could do for the man, so he left him where he lay and went to rejoin the others.

  Evanlyn was sitting crying. As he approached, she looked up at him, her face streaked with tears and her shoulders heaving with the great sobs that shook her. Horace stood by, a helpless expression on his face, making useless little movements with his hands.

  “I’m sorry,” Evanlyn finally managed to gasp. “It’s just that…chanting…those voices…I could remember everything when they…”

  “It’s all right,” Will told her quietly. “My God, they’re horrible creatures!” he added, shaking his head at Horace. The warrior apprentice swallowed once or twice. He hadn’t seen the Wargals. He’d lain there throughout the entire encounter with his face pressed hard into the sandy ground. In a way, thought Will, that must have been just as terrifying.

  “What are they like?” Horace asked in a small voice. Will shook his head again. It was almost impossible to describe.

  “Like beasts,” he said. “Like bears…or a cross between a bear and a dog. But they walk upright like men.”

  Evanlyn gave another shuddering cry. “They’re vile!” she said bitterly. “Vile, horrible creatures. Oh, God, I hope I never see them again!”

  Will moved to her and patted her shoulder awkwardly.

  “They’re gone now,” he said quietly, as if soothing a small child. “They’re gone and they can’t hurt you.”

  She made an enormous effort and gathered her courage. She looked up at him, a frightened smile on her face. She reached up and took his hand in her own, taking comfort from the mere contact.

  He let her hold his hand for a while. He wondered how he was going to tell them what he had decided to do.

  17

  “FOLLOW THEM? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?” HORACE stared at the small, determined figure, unable to believe what he was hearing. Will didn’t say anything, so Horace tried again.

  “Will, we’ve just spent half an hour hiding behind a bush hoping those things wouldn’t see us. Now you want to follow them and give them another chance?”

  Will glanced around to make sure that Evanlyn was still out of earshot. He didn’t want to alarm the girl unnecessarily.

  “Keep your voice down,” he warned Horace, and his friend spoke more softly, but nonetheless vehemently.

  “Why?” he asked. “What can we possibly gain by following them?”

  Will shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. Frankly, the idea of following the Wargals was already frightening him. He could feel his pulse rate was running higher than normal. They were terrifying creatures, and obviously totally devoid of any feelings of mercy or pity, as the fate of the prisoner had shown. Still, he could see that this was an opportunity that shouldn’t be wasted.

  “Look,” he said quietly. “Halt always told me that knowing why your enemy is doing something is just as important as knowing what he’s doing. Sometimes more important, in fact.”

  Horace shook his head stubbornly. “I don’t get it,” he said. To him this idea of Will’s was a crazy, irresponsible and terrifyingly dangerous impulse. To be truthful, Will wasn’t absolutely sure that he was right either. But Gilan’s parting words about not showing uncertainty rang in his ears, and his instincts, honed by Halt’s training, told him this was an opportunity he shouldn’t miss.

  “We know that the Wargals are capturing Celtic miners and carrying them off,” he said. “And we know Morgarath doesn’t do anything without a reason. This might be a chance to find out what he’s up to.”

  Horace shrugged. “He wants slaves,” he said, and Will shook his head quickly.

  “But why? And why only miners? Evanlyn said they were only interested in the miners. Why? Can’t you see?” he appealed to the bigger boy. “This could be important. Halt says that wars often turn on the smallest piece of information.”

  Horace pursed his lips, thinking over what Will had said. Finally, he nodded slowly.

  “Okay,” he agreed. “I guess you may be right.” Horace wasn’t a fast thinker, or an original one. But he was methodical and, in his own way, logical. Will had instinctively seen the necessity for following the Wargals. Horace had to work his way through it. Now that he had, he could see Will wasn’t acting on some wild, adventurous impulse. He trusted the Ranger apprentice’s line of reasoning. “Well, if we’re going to follow them, we’d better get moving,” he added, and Will looked at him in surprise, shaking his head.

  “We?” he said. “Who said anything about ‘we’? I plan to follow them alone. Your job is to get Evanlyn back safely.”

  “Says who?” asked the bigger boy, with some belligerence. “My job, as it was explained to me by Gilan, was to stay with you and keep you out of trouble.”

  “Well, I’m changing your orders,” Will told him. But this time Horace laughed.

  “So who died and left you the boss?” he scoffed. “You can’t change my orders. Gilan gave me those orders and he outranks you.”

  “And what about the girl?” Will challenged him. For a moment, Horace was stuck for an answer.

  “We’ll give her food and supplies and the pack horse,” he said. “She can make her own way back.”

  “That’s very gallant of you,” Will said sarcastically. Horace merely shook his head again, refusing to be baited into an argument on that score.

  “You’re the one who said this is so darned important,” he replied. “Well, I’m afraid I think you’re right. So Evanlyn will simply have to take her chances, just like us. We’re close to the border now anyway and one more night’s riding will see her out of Celtica.”

  In truth, Horace didn’t like the thought of leaving Evanlyn to her own devices. He’d grown genuinely fond of the girl. She was bright and amusing and good company. But his time in Battleschool had given him a strong sense of duty, and personal feelings came second.

  Will tried one more time. “I can move a lot faster without you,” he pointed out, but Horace cut him off immediately.

  “So what? We won’t need speed if we’re following the Wargals. We’ve got horses. We’ll have no trouble keeping up with them, particularly as they have to drag those prisoners along.” He found he was rather enjoying the experience of arguing with Will and coming up with winning points. Maybe, he decided, spending time with Rangers had done him more good than he’d realized.

  “Besides, what if we find out something really important? And what if you want to keep following them and we still have to get a message back to the Baron? If there are two of us, we can split up. I can take a message back while you keep following the Wargals.”

  Will considered the idea. Horace had a point, he had to concede. It would make sense to have someone else along with him, now that he thought about it.

  “All right,” he said finally. “But we’re going to have to tell Evanlyn.”

  “Tell me what?” the girl asked. Unnoticed by either of them, she’d a
pproached to within a few meters of where they had been standing, arguing in lowered voices. The two boys now looked guiltily at each other.

  “Uh…Will had this idea, you see…” Horace began, then stopped, looking at Will to see if his friend was going to continue. But, as it turned out, there was no need.

  “You’re planning to follow the Wargals,” the girl said flatly, and the two apprentices exchanged looks before Will answered.

  “You were listening?” he accused her. She shook her head.

  “No. It’s the obvious thing to do, isn’t it? This is our chance to find out what they’re up to and why they’re kidnapping the miners.”

  For the second time in a few minutes, Will found himself picking up on the use of the plural. “Our chance?” he asked her. “What exactly do you mean by ‘our’ chance?”

  Evanlyn shrugged. “Obviously, if you two are following them, I’m coming along with you. You’re not leaving me out here on my own in the middle of nowhere.”

  “But…” Horace began, and she turned to look calmly at him. “These are Wargals,” he said.

  “I had gathered that.”

  Horace cast a hopeless glance at Will. The apprentice Ranger shrugged, so Horace tried again. “It’ll be dangerous. And you…”

  He hesitated. He didn’t want to remind her of her fear of the Wargals, and the reasons for it. Evanlyn realized his predicament and she smiled wanly at him.

  “Look, I’m scared of those things,” she said. “But I assume you’re planning to follow them, not join up with them.”

  “That was the general idea,” Will said, and she turned her level gaze on him.

  “Well, with the noise they make, we shouldn’t have to get too close to them,” she told him. “And besides, this might be a chance to spoil whatever plans they have. I think I’d enjoy that.”

  Will regarded her with a new respect. She had every reason to fear the Wargals, more than he or Horace. Yet she was willing to put that fear aside in order to strike a blow against Morgarath.

  “You’re sure?” he said finally, and she shook her head.

  “No. I’m not sure at all. I feel decidedly queasy at the prospect of getting within earshot of those things again. But equally, I don’t like the idea of being abandoned here on my own.”

  “We weren’t abandoning you…” Horace began, and she turned back to him.

  “Then what would you call it?” she asked him, smiling faintly to take the sting out of her words. He hesitated.

  “Abandoning you, I guess,” he admitted.

  “Exactly,” she said. “So, given the choice of running into another group of Wargals, or more bandits, or following some Wargals with you two, I’ll choose the latter.”

  “We’re only a day from the border,” Will pointed out to her. “Once you’re across that, you’ll be relatively safe.”

  But she shook her head decisively.

  “I feel more secure with you two,” she said. “Besides, it might be handy for you to have someone else along. It’ll be one more person to keep watch at night. That means you’ll get more sleep.”

  “That’s the first sensible reason I’ve heard for her coming along so far,” said Horace. Like Will, he realized that she’d made her mind up. And both boys somehow knew that when Evanlyn did that, there was no way on earth they were going to make her change it. She grinned at him.

  “Well,” she said, “are we going to stand here all day nattering? Those Wargals aren’t getting any closer while we’re doing it.”

  And, turning on her heel, she led the way to where the horses were tethered.

  18

  FOLLOWING THE WARGALS WAS EASIER THAN THEY EXPECTED. The creatures were single-minded, concentrating only on the task in hand, which was to take the Celt miners to their end destination. They feared no attack in these parts, having already driven the occupants out, so they posted no forward scouts or sweepers. Their constant chanting, ominous as it might sound at first, also served to mask any sounds that might have been made by their pursuers.

  At night, they simply camped wherever they might find themselves to be. The miners remained chained together and sentries were posted to keep watch over them while the rest of the group slept.

  By the beginning of the second day, Will began to have an idea of the direction the Wargals were heading. He had been riding some thirty meters in the lead, relying on Tug to sense any danger ahead. Now he dropped back a little, waiting for Horace and Evanlyn to come level with him.

  “We seem to be heading for the Fissure,” he said, more than a little puzzled.

  Already, in the distance, they could make out the high, brooding cliffs that towered over the other side of the massive split in the earth. Celtica itself was a mountainous country, but Morgarath’s domain reared hundreds of meters above it.

  “I wouldn’t care to come down those cliffs on ropes and scaling ladders,” Horace said, nodding toward them.

  “Even if you did, you’d have to find a level space on the other side to cross from,” Will agreed. “And apparently, there are precious few of them. For the most part, the cliffs go right down to the bottom.”

  Evanlyn looked from one to the other. “Yet Morgarath has done it once,” she said. “Maybe he’s planning to attack Araluen the same way.”

  Horace brought his horse to a halt, considering what she’d said. Will and Evanlyn stopped beside him. He chewed his lip for a few seconds as he thought back over the lessons that Sir Rodney’s instructors had dinned into him. Then he shook his head.

  “It’s a different situation,” he said finally. “The attack on Celtica was more of a raid than an invasion. He wouldn’t have needed more than five hundred men for that and they could travel light. To attack Araluen, he’ll need an army—and he wouldn’t get an army down those cliffs and across with a few ladders and rope bridges.”

  Will regarded him with interest. This was a side of Horace that was new to him. Apparently, Horace’s learning curve in the past seven or eight months had gone beyond his mere skill with the sword.

  “But surely, if he had enough time…?” he began, but Horace shook his head again, more decisively this time.

  “Men, yes, or Wargals in this case. Given enough time, you could get them down and across. It would take months, but you could manage it. Although the longer it took, the more chance word would get out about what you were doing.

  “But an army needs equipment—heavy weapons, supply wagons, provisions, tents, spare weapons and blacksmith’s equipment to repair them. Horses and oxen to pull the wagons. You’d never get all that down cliffs like those. And even if you did, how would you get it across? It’s just not feasible. Sir Karel used to say that…”

  He realized the others were regarding him curiously and he flushed. “Didn’t mean to go on and on,” he mumbled, and urged his horse forward again.

  But as Will followed, he was shaking his head, impressed by his friend’s grasp of the subject. “Not at all,” he said. “You’re making good sense.”

  “Which still leaves us the question, what is he up to?” Evanlyn said.

  Will shrugged. “I suppose we’ll find out soon enough,” he said, and urged Tug forward to take up the point position once more.

  They found out the following evening.

  As before, they heard the first hint as to what was taking place: the ring or thud of hammers striking stone or wood. Then there was another noise as they drew closer—a constant but irregular cracking sound. Will signaled for the others to stop and, dismounting, he proceeded carefully along the last stretch of the road to the final bend.

  Shrouded in his cloak, and moving carefully from one patch of cover to the next, he moved off the road and cut across country to find a vantage point from which to view the next stretch of road. Almost immediately, he saw the top of the massive wooden structure that was being constructed: four wooden towers, linked by heavy rope cables and a timber framework, reared above the surrounding countryside. His heart s
inking, he already knew what he was looking at. But he moved closer to make sure.

  It was as he feared. An immense wooden bridge was in the final stages of construction. On the far side of the Fissure, Morgarath had discovered one of the few places where a narrow ledge ran, almost level with the Celtic side. The natural ledge had been dug out and widened until there was a sizable piece of level ground there. The four towers stood, two either side of the Fissure, linked by massive rope cables. Supported by them, a wooden roadway was half completed—capable of taking six men abreast across the dizzying depths of the Fissure.

  Figures recognizable as Celt prisoners swarmed over the structure, hammering and sawing. The cracking sound was made by the whips used by the Wargal overseers.

  Beyond them, the sound of hammers on stone came from the mouth of a tunnel that opened onto the ledge some fifty meters south of the bridge. It was little more than a crack in the cliff face—only a little wider than a man’s shoulders—but as he watched, the Celt prisoners were hard at work at its entrance, gouging at the hard rock, widening and enlarging the small opening.

  Will glanced up at the dark cliffs towering on the other side. There was no sign of ropes or ladders leading down to the ledge. The Wargals and their prisoners must access it via the narrow crack in the rock, he reasoned.

  The party they had been following was crossing the Fissure now. The final fifteen meters of roadway was yet to be constructed, and only a temporary timber footway was in place. It was barely wide enough for the Celts to cross, tethered in pairs as they were, but the miners of Celtica were used to awkward footing and dizzy drops, and they crossed without incident.

  He’d seen enough for the time being, he thought. It was time to get back. He wriggled his way backward into the cover of the broken rocks. Then, bending almost double, he ran back to where the others were waiting.

  When he reached them, he slumped down, leaning back against the rocks. The tension of the last two days was beginning to tell on him, along with the strain of being in command. He was a little surprised to realize that he was physically exhausted. He had no idea that mental tension could sap a person’s strength so thoroughly.