Protector of the Small Quartet
Page 93
Besides, the big man had to keep some captives. He was going to lead Kel to Blayce the Gallan.
After dawn, the game would be up. Stenmun would know he’d been followed: he’d be watchful. Kel and her people would be reduced to picking off his scouts, the tail-end riders in his column, and the men he sent for water—at least until he realized their weakness and started to send children for it. Sooner or later he would think to protect his men by allowing them to ride with children on their saddles.
How to get rid of the soldiers without endangering the children? she wondered as she watered her horses. Tobe. Tobe could call the horses to him. Her people could then drag the riders down, sparing the children. Mithros, god of warriors, must have sent Tobe to Kel. The boy was worth his weight in gold.
She gnawed a cold sausage, got down some mouthfuls of cheese, and made herself eat a wedge of bread. She wasn’t hungry, but fainting later because she hadn’t eaten would be foolish. More than at any time in her life, she could afford no mistakes.
Once the moon was high enough to see by, they resaddled their mounts and put the spare horses on lead reins. Kel and Dom checked each mount for the slightest jingle in its tack and muffled each piece with cloth. Only when they could move quietly did they head toward the enemy camp.
The moon was overhead when they took places in the woods around Stenmun’s camp. The man had chosen carelessly, halting in a pocket formed by the land at the foot of a set of bluffs. From those bluffs Kel and her people could look down into his camp. The children slept, some restlessly. Those who tossed soon woke up. It was a little while before Kel saw why. Each of them was picketed next to a soldier by a stake and a chain. If they moved too hard, the soldier instantly awoke. He would give a yank on the chain until the child tethered there huddled unmoving once more.
It was time. Kel snapped a branch. Humans might think an animal made the sound, but Jump would know his signal.
Furious yowling split the air, the sound of a cat in combat with a hated enemy. The cat’s yowls and the crash of battle in the underbrush were loud even on the bluff. Dom turned to Kel and grinned. All over Stenmun’s camp everyone woke, the men flailing for their weapons. The gray-and-orange cat, all fur and claws, raced through the camp and back, screaming her rage. Jump and another dog, a brown, black, and white fellow, with lungs of leather, charged here and there among men and children, baying as they “chased” the angry cat.
One of the soldiers got to his feet, a big, double-headed axe in hand. He swung and just missed hacking the cat in two. She raced up his legs and chest before he knew what she was doing, gouging his flesh. She sank all four sets of claws into his scalp before she launched herself from his head into the dark. The dogs had vanished the moment that axe came down.
Kel surveyed Stenmun in the scant moonlight: here at last was one of the enemy. Not only was he big, he handled that axe as if it were made of straw. She would have her work cut out for her if she fought him.
“Animals!” she heard him roar. “It’s just animals— all of you shut up and go back to sleep!” His was a battlefield voice that could be heard over the clash of weapons and men’s yells. Kel admired the order, though she thought Stenmun didn’t know babies. His roar on top of the dog and cat fight just made the five infants in the camp shriek all the louder. The men who cared for them had a dreadful time calming them until they could sleep. Some of Kel’s men stuffed their forearms into their mouths to stifle laughter.
Kel watched the camp, marking who had the babies, where the horses were picketed, and where the sentries were posted. Obviously Stenmun felt safe here. He took no care to conceal his people. One of her human scouts reported the two men now detailed to watch the road and the river had sat down to drink and dice against one another. A woods sentry between the road and the bluffs sat on a stretch of rock lit by moonlight, biting his nails and scratching his scalp. He’d taken his helmet off, something his relief scolded him for. At the far end of the bluffs, the silhouette of the man on watch there was clear against the sky. His relief was no smarter, because he took the same place out in the open.
Kel poked Dom after the new watch was posted and the old had gone to bed. Dom poked the man next to him, and so on down the line to Neal, who tossed a pebble down below. Shepherd, hidden in the brush, began to howl. The dogs of Kel’s command lifted their heads and joined him. In the distance wolves heard and began their own song. The babies came to immediate, shrieking wakefulness; the soldiers scrambled to their feet.
They had barely settled down to sleep again when Kel signaled Tobe. She couldn’t see or hear what he did, but suddenly the picketed horses went mad, neighing and trying to free themselves. They yanked and plunged, forcing the men to rise once more to calm them and make sure their tethers were secure. Some men couldn’t lie back down. They had the next watch.
Everything was going as planned. Kel rolled onto her back and took a nap.
A hand nudged her. She sat up, blinking sleep from her eyes as she reached for her bow. From the sounds of the birds and the ghostly light that filled the air, it was almost dawn.
The others had fanned out to assigned positions. Kel rose to her knees, squinting in the iffy light, set an arrow to her bow, and sighted on her target, a man in the woods. He crouched by a stream that fed the river, splashing water on his face. Kel loosed. Her first arrow skimmed over his head. He scrambled to his feet, looking around in panic. Her second arrow killed him.
Around her rose the soft twang of bows. Saefas and Fanche shot, as did Gil, Dom, Uinse, and Fulcher, the best of Kel’s archers. Six more sentries died as quietly as Kel’s had. A signal came up the chain of watchers: Owen had killed the road sentry. Lofren of Dom’s squad had killed the man on the riverbank.
Once the easy shots were over, everyone but Kel retreated to the spot two hundred yards back where Tobe and the dogs waited with the horses. Kel found a hiding place in a massive tree, one that still gave her a good view of the camp. She’d had to argue with Neal and Dom, but at last they’d seen that she had a point. She could weigh their future tactics by observing how Stenmun reacted when he found all of his sentries for the pre-dawn watch dead. They had killed nine, almost a tenth of Stenmun’s force. Not bad for a night’s work, Kel thought grimly as she shifted so a knot in the tree wouldn’t dig through her mail into her kidneys.
The raiders’ camp slept through dawn. The sentries were to rouse the camp as they came off duty, except that none lived to do so. Predictably, it was the babies who woke first. They began to cry from hunger or wet diapers. The toddlers and slightly older children woke to strange, uncomfortable settings and the faces of strangers and joined in the infants’ wails.
Stenmun lunged to his feet with a roar of fury: “Can’t a man sleep—”
Kel, watching through her spyglass, saw the big man notice that the sun was well over the horizon. He scowled and barked orders. A handful of men scurried out to check their sentries.
They returned at a run to tell Stenmun that the last guard shift of the night was dead. This was the moment Kel had waited for. In Stenmun’s place she would have searched the woods, taking hours if necessary to track down who had killed her men and ensure the safety of those left. If her notions about Stenmun were right, though, Blayce and the killing devices would be of greater concern than his soldiers. If that was the case, Stenmun would rush on to his master with his prizes. She hoped that wouldn’t sit well with his men: angry men were slip-shod. It would mean she could pick off more soldiers as the Scanrans fled.
After the last searchers returned to tell the big man what they had found, Kel watched as Stenmun thought. He pulled on his lower lip and scowled, then glared at the men who’d brought the news and gave them an order.
The men argued fiercely. By their gestures and their expressions, Kel guessed that they wanted to properly bury the dead and say prayers. Stenmun cut them off. The argument got worse; one man slapped his chest as if asking, “Will you do this if I am killed?”
Her lads had to be careful, thought Kel as she waited for the Scanrans to ride out. Those children were the soldiers’ best protection. Stenmun would know that as soon as he found time to wonder why only his sentries had been killed. She’d be reluctant to tamper with any man who rode with a child, and she couldn’t let Tobe call a horse that might throw a child and kill him or her by accident.
Once the Scanrans were gone, Kel climbed down the tree and ran back to her men to describe what she’d seen. As they mounted up, Neal handed Kel a slice of bread covered with melted cheese, followed by another. Kel wolfed the food. She looked at him reproachfully as she ate.
“We used dry wood,” he said. He knew she was thinking that a fire was risky. “No smoke at all.”
“Smell,” she mumbled around a mouthful.
“The enemy was upwind,” Saefas replied. “They’d have to be gods to smell it.”
“Mother gets so upset when she thinks we lads have been careless,” Dom teased Kel as she gulped some water.
“If I’d been your mother, I’d’ve beaten you,” she informed him, swinging onto Hoshi’s back. “Bows, everyone. We’ll use the road till our forward scout spots the enemy. After that, we take to the woods. It’s risky, but we have to chance it. They’ve got little ones with all the men. No shooting unless a man dismounts and leaves the children on the horse. Remember the plans we made last night. We can do this if we go at it carefully.” She’d had to work to persuade her companions not to kill Stenmun or all his men. Stenmun had to lead them to Blayce.
They rode at a trot, doing their best to go easy on the warhorses, gaining on Stenmun. They had not gone far when Dom tapped Kel’s shoulder and pointed up through a gap in the trees. Kel looked and growled under her breath. Four Stormwings flew lazily along the road, closer to Stenmun than they were to Kel and her fighters. If Stenmun didn’t know that someone followed him, he does now, she thought grimly. Within moments the trees closed in again, which stopped her from having to choose between pursuit and a brief halt to shoot Stormwings.
At last the convict soldier who rode as forward scout returned with the sparrows to say the enemy was in sight. Kel and her people fanned out in the northern woods. That slowed them, forcing them to watch the ground for rabbit holes and other hazards that might cause a mount to break a leg or a rider to bang his head. They’d been in the woods long enough for Kel to realize she needed to find a bush where she could relieve herself in private when the forward scout returned a second time. Their quarry had stopped to water their horses.
Kel hand-signaled for Gil, Fanche, and Owen to dismount, go forward, and pick off any soldiers they could. When they were gone from view, Kel signaled four more of her people to go forward with their bows. She and the others drew back to a stream they’d just crossed.
There they waited. Kel relieved herself, then returned to gnaw a handful of the dried dates favored by the Bazhir among her companions. She made a face as she nibbled. They were sticky sweet. To the man who’d given them to her she whispered, “Your people like these things?”
“If you don’t want them,” he began, reaching for the handful.
Kel yanked them back. “I need the food,” she confessed, trying not to yawn. She was tired despite two naps the night before. Catnapping in hostile country was not restful.
They heard crashing in the woods. The sparrows came winging back to signal the approach of friends. It was Fanche, Gil, and Owen, sweating and bright-eyed with success. Gil raised a bony fist, extended his thumb, and dipped it four times. They had shot four men.
They heard more crashes and battle sounds. Kel and the others grabbed their weapons and waited. Five horses, riderless and wild-eyed with terror, galloped through the trees to halt beside Tobe. The four archers who had gone to cover Gil, Fanche, and Owen returned, wiping sweaty faces on their sleeves. One of them, Lofren, grinned as he raised his hand, made a fist, extended a thumb, and dipped it five times.
“Old Stenmun must be wetting his breeches,” Dom murmured to Kel. “He’s down eighteen men.”
When a scout reported that Stenmun was on the move again, Kel and her people returned to the road. They could speed up now, Kel decided. Stenmun knew the enemy was still with him. If he wasn’t going to send anyone after them—and his departure after they’d killed nine of his men told her that he wouldn’t—he’d ride for Blayce as fast as he could. His captives would slow him down even more as they now outnumbered his warriors. It was time to see if they could recover some of the children.
The problem with catching up to Stenmun was that with fewer men to burden the horses, his train could ride faster. Wolset, Kel’s latest forward scout, sent word back that horses without soldiers to ride them had been put on lead reins, children tied to their saddles. Kel ordered him to keep Stenmun always within sight. She thought as she rode. There had to be a way to separate some of those horses from their lead reins.
“What about the sparrows?” Neal asked softly as he drew even with Kel. “If they came at the faces of the men holding those lead reins, the men might drop them. Tobe could summon the horses back to us.”
Kel smiled at her friend. “I always knew you were the clever one,” she said. To Nari on her shoulder Kel explained what she wanted. Nari listened, then rounded up those of her flock not on scout duty. Tobe, Gil, and Saefas followed the birds down the road.
“You know, when I was growing up, talking to animals was considered more than a bit cracked,” Kel remarked to Fanche, who had come to ride on her other side. “But the more I do it, the more reasonable it seems.”
“It helps that you know they understand,” replied the woman. “I wouldn’t want to visit that palace of yours.”
“Why not?” chorused Neal and Kel, startled. In their travels they were always asked to describe the palace and the people who lived there. When they did so, the usual responses from their audience were sighs and the wish to actually see it, just once.
“Just your animals here are unnatural. What if you return to find the horses have decided not to work for men and the dogs are running the courts of law?” Fanche asked.
Kel grimaced. Sometimes she wondered the same thing.
When she heard Stenmun’s roar of frustration, she knew he must be in an area hemmed in by rock, which bounced the noise back along the river. I hope you told Blayce how many children you would bring, she thought with grim satisfaction. I hope he holds you to account for the missing ones.
Tobe came back on Peachblossom, three horses trailing him. They trotted along the road neatly, taking care not to spill their precious burdens, two girls in their early teens, three boys of seven to nine years, a toddler, and one infant. Kel welcomed each with a smile, a clasp of the hand, or a ruffle of the hair, but her insides twisted. Stenmun still had more children, including Loesia, Gydo, and Meech.
She sent a convict soldier up to take over as scout. Wolset, when he returned, was sweating hard. Kel gave him her second-to-last handkerchief.
“Thanks, milady,” he said gratefully, wiping his face. “They won’t make that mistake a second time, I fear. Stenmun ordered them that’s leading horses to wrap the lead reins around their waists or their saddle horns. Where we are now? In about five hundred yards the land starts rising. It looks like there’s a castle on a mountainside ahead, with the river in front. Ten miles, perhaps? I think they’re riding for the castle.”
Kel gnawed on her lip. She couldn’t push the horses any harder, not the warhorses, anyway. “Gil?” she asked, waving the grizzled convict soldier to her. “Take your lads and Saefas. Try to get into the road in front of them. Start shooting, but don’t hit anyone. I want them stopped or slowed down, not killed. Tobe, take Hoshi.” She d
ismounted and collected her weapons as Tobe climbed from Peachblossom’s back to Hoshi’s. Kel took Peachblossom’s reins. “Ask Stenmun’s horses to slow down if you can.”
Tobe rubbed his forehead. “If I can. It’s easier with just two or three.”
Within moments the convicts, Gil, Saefas, and Tobe were gone, dust rising from the road in their wake. Kel swung herself into Peachblossom’s saddle with a grateful sigh. She didn’t want to exhaust the gelding by riding him too long and too fast with the burden of her weight, armor, and weapons, but it was very comforting to be on him again. She looked at Neal. “Shall we?” she asked.
They had not gone far when her advance party returned at the gallop. Kel drew up. They wouldn’t have returned unless something was direly wrong.
“There’s an army ahead, beyond a rise in the ground,” Gil reported, his weathered face ashen. “Or at least a company, ready to do battle. If their scouts find us, we’re dead.”
Kel frowned. Surely the sparrows would have reported an army. She and her people spread out in the woods and rode up the hill ahead, ears straining for the faintest sound. A hundred feet from the crest, Kel and the others dismounted, leaving Tobe with the horses. As they crept through the undergrowth toward the peak in the land, the road barely visible on their right, she realized that the dogs were also relaxed and comfortable. They trotted gleefully through the brush, pouncing on hidden mice, acting not at all like her fierce scouts and defenders.
Slowly and carefully the humans crawled the last yards to the break in the ground and peered over. Neal and Owen went pale and made the sign against evil on their chests. Dom made the sign as they did, but his frown indicated puzzlement, not fear. Kel was the last to find a spot from which she could see into the small valley below. When she did, she noted forest, open fields, a small, ill-kept village on a creek, and the road. At the far end of the valley she saw Stenmun’s group, riding on for all they were worth.