All eight scouts nodded. Although Alucius was one of them, he wondered if they truly understood. Even on his own stead, Alucius had been very aware that if he vanished into a sandhole or a wash, even his own grandsire might not have been able to find him. Here, the land was wilder, the situation more dangerous, and no one would be looking.
'The cooks have a ration pack for each of you. You can pick those up on the way to the stable." The captain stood and pointed to the map. "You can see the sections here. Welkar, you have the northernmost area. Syurn, you have the area just south of Welkar's…"
After completing the assignments, Heald went on, "I have maps here for each of you. They're old, and they show some steads that are no longer there, but they're the best we can do."
Alucius had the southernmost section of those the captain had marked out.
'Do you have any questions?" After a moment, the captain nodded. "Dismissed."
The eight filed out, Alucius taking care neither to be first nor last.
After getting both gear and rations, and adding his hoarded biscuits to the rations, which seemed to be mainly hard cheese, travel bread, and dried beef of some sort, Alucius made his way to the stable, where he took special care in readying the gray and in checking his rifle. He'd planned to write Wendra, but, like many good intentions, that plan had been sidetracked. Perhaps when he returned.
Within half a glass, all eight scouts had formed up in a loose column outside the stable. The air was colder, and the clouds had lifted into a high silvery haze. The sun was without warmth, but the wind remained little more than a light breeze, but chill.
As the most senior, Geran led the way, with Alucius riding next to him. Geran didn't seem eager to talk, and Alucius wasn't about to break into the other's reticent silence.
Roughly three vingts west of the outpost, Alucius, Geran, and Henaar—the scout from squad five—turned off the gray eternastones of the ancient midroad, and south onto a narrow trail, leaving the five others to continue on their various ways. A good three vingts farther south, the three reached a stead of sorts—an oblong stone dwelling no more than ten yards long and five in depth, with two stone outbuildings, neither much larger than the dwelling. The stones were cut and dressed, but of all sizes and shapes, fitted together in jigsawlike walls. A line of gray smoke rose from the main chimney of the stead.
Geran took care to lead them well clear of the dwelling, and they were almost two hundred yards beyond the southernmost stone shed when they heard a voice.
'Troopers! Troopers!"
Geran turned his mount and brought out his rifle. Alucius did the same, as the three cavalrymen rode back toward the dwelling and the older man in a faded gray woolen jacket. They reined up a good twenty yards short of the holder. All had their rifles ready.
'Sirs…" The squat man bowed. "It's good to see you. I wish there were more of you, and you might be wishing that as well."
Alucius could sense the worry in the man, but inclined his head to Geran, as the most senior trooper. After a moment, so did Henaar.
'Why might that be?" asked Geran. "Have you seen brigands?"
The stead-holder laughed, gesturing toward the stone dwelling with the small windows. "Take more Reillies than live near here to sack my place." The laugh vanished. "Late the day before yesterday, that be Decdi, and it was near-on midafternoon, I was riding out west with my cart, gathering dead wood for my stove. At the top of one of the hills… there I saw riders, and there were more than a score, all in dark green, trimmed with red. Luck of a soarer, they didn't see me, and I hid behind a low pine till they had passed."
'Twenty of them?" asked Geran.
'Leastwise, sir."
'Have you seen any since then?"
'No, sir. But I'd be foolish to head that way, now, wouldn't I?"
Geran laughed. "That you would, good man. We will take your words with great care, and we thank you for letting us know."
'Those wouldn't be the sander-souled troops of the Matrite bitches, would they?"
'Their colors are dark forest and crimson," Geran said evenly.
'The ancients save us," murmured the holder, although his tone conveyed resignation, rather than desperation. "That be them."
'Do you know if anyone else has seen them?"
The holder gestured around him, his arms taking in the low rolling hills. "There'd not be anyone I'd see to talk to, save Mereta, and she's been here with the fowl and the hogs."
'Thank you, holder," Geran said politely.
The man nodded, then backed away, and watched from his doorway as the three rode south.
'That's not good," Henaar said.
'We didn't expect anything else, did we?" replied Geran dryly.
Farther south of the holding, Henaar turned westward, leaving Geran and Alucius riding southward along the trail that was now scarcely more than a livestock path—if that.
After another half glass, Geran raised a hand. "Here's where I head west."
'Good luck," offered the younger scout.
'I don't rely on luck. You be careful, Alucius," Geran cautioned. "Dead scouts don't bring back useful information. They also don't return to their girls."
'I will." Absently, Alucius wondered how Geran knew, or was it that most young troopers had women they intended to wed? "You too. Dead scouts don't become squad leaders."
Geran laughed, then waved Alucius on his way.
Alucius rode southward alone, checking the small map against the terrain. A stead was shown on the map beyond a higher ridge that was supposed to have a creek on the far side. When Alucius reached the ridge, all he found remaining of the stead were piles of stone rubble, and the creek was dry and looked to have been for years. Not even quarasote grew out of the rubble.
Another vingt or so south, Alucius came to the remnants of what might once have been a narrow road. There were no tracks on the wind-and time-smoothed surface. He turned the gray westward. The morning had lightened, and he could feel a hint of warmth on his back, a sign that the sun was breaking through the hazy high clouds. The wind had earlier strengthened into a constant breeze, out of the north-northwest.
For the first few vingts, Alucius saw nothing large, although he sensed the deep and distant presence of sanders, and he could feel the gray-violet of sandwolves to the south, well to the south. There were the scrats that burrowed around the quarasote bushes, and the grayjays that scavenged almost anything, but nothing to command his attention. The hills became steeper with each vingt westward, and he passed two more long-abandoned steads. By late morning, he was seeing pines and junipers in scattered spots on the hills, as well as sections of ancient black lava beds. The road shown on the map did not exist, not in reality, save that where it had once run was a way that offered fewer bushes to avoid and no large gullies to work through or around.
He stopped in a sunny spot on the crest of one of the larger rid-gelines sometime slightly after midday, a good glass after leaving the remnants of the road behind, and had some of the biscuits along with water from one of his two bottles. He'd already found a small pool where, after breaking the ice, he watered the gray.
The wind had picked up, and shifted even more to the north, and while he ate, Alucius studied the horizon to the northwest, where scattered clouds had appeared. By night, a storm might well be coming in.
With a deep breath he urged the gray on, westward, toward a thicker stand of trees that did not look natural. The stand of pines had indeed been planted, probably generations before, but there were only stone foundations left of what had once been an expansive dwelling, and several outbuildings. After riding around the ruins, he also found tracks of a number of riders, and the shining brass of several recently discarded empty cartridge casings. The casings bothered him, because he could sense no large life nearby, and see no signs that anyone had lived there at any time recently. So at what had the Matrites been firing?
He circled the site, finally discovering the traces of an old road, heading west-southwest. Althou
gh the ground was hard enough that his own mount's tracks only occasionally showed, the traces of the Matrite riders were clear, if several days old.
Not without some trepidation he began to follow the old road, down along the hillside, and through a depression between hills, and then back along the ridgelines, heading more to the west, veering slowly northward.
It could not have been much past early midafternoon when Alucius sensed something… someone, at the edge of his Talent perceptions, a feeling of grayness, a sense-color he had not run across before. Most people came up as black, shot through with the brighter colors of emotion.
He eased the gray off the road and through the junipers on the eastern side of the ridge, and toward a farther crest, marked with an field of rugged black rocks. On the ridgetop, the wind was stronger—and far more chill, and the clouds on the western horizon had definitely thickened.
Less than three vingts away, in the flat between hills, on another road that apparently intersected the one he had been following, he could see, if intermittently, riders coming from the north. Despite the "grayness" of their Talent-feel, they wore riding jackets or coats that seemed black, although Alucius suspected, from what Geran had said, that the jackets were more likely a dark forest green. He watched for a time, until he had been able to count eight riders.
Carefully, he eased the gray along the back side of a rockier section of ridge, so that, if he were spotted, they would either have to climb over ancient broken rock or take a much longer circular route. He watched for nearly half a glass as the riders continued southward, and then turned west, presumably on the road he had been following. None of them so much as looked in his direction, and he could sense no other riders during the time he watched.
As they disappeared over another hill to the west, Alucius checked the sky. The clouds to the west were darker—and closer. The storm would be violent, and he needed to get back to the outpost, or as far as he could, before it struck.
Why would the Matrites send eight riders out? The number was too small to hold off a squad of militia cavalry and too large to scout effectively. Eight men sent separately could cover far more ground and report more. But… he'd report that as well.
The storm had come and gone in the night, leaving a handspan of snow dusted across the rolling plains and Westerhills. Quarasote, junipers, pines, and the occasional cedar, but slightly snow-dusted, stood out against the bright silver-green winter sky. Even without wind, the air was cold enough to freeze uncovered skin, as Alucius rode westward along the track he had taken earlier in the week.
In addition to Alucius, Geran and Henaar had reported seeing the Matrite patrol. Two other scouts had found burned-out cots. In one case, the inhabitants had either escaped or been captured. In the other, six had been slaughtered.
After hearing from all the scouts, Captain Heald had changed his orders. "Take rations for a week and head as far west as you need to—no more than three days. See what you can find…"
Now Alucius was already a good fifteen vingts west-southwest of Soulend, trusting to an out-of-date map and his own Talent-senses. This time, once he was well away from Geran, he had taken off his winter cap and eased on the black skull-mask, which had been quite an effort in itself, then replaced his cap. The skull-mask had two advantages, he discovered. His face was warmer, and the darkness around his eyes cut the glare of the light reflected from the snow.
In turn, the thin layer of snow also had advantages, in that Alucius could see the movements of small animals—and large ones—and would show more clearly recent travel, should he run across more Matrite patrols. It also left his movements far more open to be tracked, both by the Matrites and by sandwolves who liked to hunt, even in the Westerhills, after snowfalls.
By the time it was close to midday he was into the lower and easternmost sections of the Westerhills. He could sense, in the distance, the gray-violet of sandwolves, slightly to the south, but mostly west.
He'd have to watch for them, for they were more likely to go after a single rider in the cold, especially if they were in a large pack.
Slightly after midday, Alucius found a thin trickle of clean water for his mount, and took the time to dismount, and stretch his own legs. He slowly chewed jerky that had been dried too long, then trail bread that made him sneeze because it was so hard and the crumbs from chewing were so fine that they ended up in the back of his nose. The cheese was cold and greasy, and he could only force down two small wedges before he packed up the rations.
After riding another glass or so, he studied the clear western sky and frowned, seeing the thinnest trail of smoke rising nearly straight up, so faint as to be almost undetectable. Even as he watched the smoke, it faded. He noted the direction on both the map and against the horizon.
He nodded as he sensed that the sandwolves seemed also to be located in that direction. Was the smoke the remnant of another holding burned out by the Matrites and where the sandwolves had found themselves a meal? Having nothing else to go on, and since the vanished line of smoke had been almost due west, Alucius continued riding in that direction, if with renewed caution. It didn't hurt that he was riding into the wind, although it was light, because that meant the sandwolves who lurked or roamed somewhere ahead wouldn't smell him.
He rode another glass, then two, up ridges and hills that all looked almost the same, with rocks poking up through thin white snow, then down into depressions where the snow had drifted boot deep. As he passed, scattered junipers and pines occasionally shed sprays of fine snow.
He stopped once more to water and rest his mount, and to have something to eat. All the while, he saw no traces of other riders. The few sounds were those of grayjays arguing over pine nuts and the scattered whisper of a winter hare slipping across the thin snow cover.
There was no further hint of smoke. Alucius wondered if he had imagined it, until he rode up the back side of a long slope and began to sense people—two sets of them, one the color-shot black that he expected from the hill-dwellers and the other the grayed feeling of the Matrite troopers. He immediately eased the gelding in behind a thicker clump of bushy pines until he could get a better feel for where each group might be.
The Matrites felt farther away, for they were almost at the edge of his Talent-perceptions, but their presence was growing stronger. The Reillies were nearby, very close, but obviously hidden, and silent. Alucius didn't care for that, and he urged the gelding forward, slowly, through the pines and farther upslope—only to discover that he was almost on the edge of an ancient wash. He reined up while still concealed by the pines and studied the miniature valley below.
After a time, tracks in the snow, mostly covered by the afternoon shadow, caught his attention, and he followed them northward with his eyes until he could see a hut, concealed with rock and brush, hidden on the western side of a small defile off the little valley. There was no movement around the hut, nor any sound. Recalling his grandsire's advice, he waited.
He waited half a glass, but still saw nothing except grayjays, two ravens, and a tree rat. While there was no movement from the hut, Alucius could sense the nearing presence of the Matrites, and the sand-wolves that shadowed them. Absently, he wondered why he could feel the sandwolves from farther than he could the troopers. Did that have to do with the grayness that clouded them? And if whoever was in the hut knew about the Matrites, then why had he left such open tracks in the snow?
He stopped wondering as he heard the murmur of voices coming from the southern end of the small valleylike depression. He watched and waited. Before long, through his screen of pines, he could see the Matrite patrol below—eight strong, which Alucius was beginning to believe was the usual number for the Matrite scouting patrols.
The Matrites had their rifles out, as if they had been tracking something. Perhaps they had wounded the Reillie? Alucius didn't know. He was even more puzzled when the patrol halted, almost directly below him. Then he realized that the troopers must have worried about the narrowi
ng of the wash. He looked down at the patrol less than a hundred yards from him—much more like fifty—then toward the cot. He didn't like the idea of watching while they slaughtered another family, but he liked even less the idea of taking on eight men.
He cocked his head. He could project ideas and senses to the night-sheep. Could he do the same to the sandwolf pack? Offer an image of fresh killed horses? He certainly wouldn't be attacking the patrol. The sandwolves weren't that far behind the Matrites.
He concentrated on sending the image, focusing on the image of the trailing rider's mount, suggesting it was lame, vulnerable, weak—and good prey. As he tried to send forth the image, he watched as the riders, rifles held at the ready, discussed something. Then two riders eased away from the other six, and circled back toward a gentler slope on the far side of the wash, where they began to climb up.
Abruptly, four wolves flashed from the pines beside the last rider of the six below, their glittering crystal fangs ripping at the mount. Within moments, two sanders had appeared out of the side of the wash—where there was sandier soil—almost upon the lead rider. The trooper's horse reared, and the Matrite trooper struggled to stay in the saddle.
The second and third riders had their rifles out and began to fire at the sanders. Chips of the sanders' hard skin splintered away, and crystalline liquid oozed from their wounds, but they turned toward their two attackers, closing the ground between them and the troopers with a speed every bit as swift as a galloping horse. Two more troopers began to fire at the sanders.
As the lead trooper managed to regain control of his mount, a single shot rang through the momentary quiet, a shot from above the cot farther up the narrow wash valley. The shooter caught the squad leader full in the chest, and Alucius could feel the cold black shock—and then the red emptiness—of sudden death.
With that, he had his own rifle out and cocked. His first shot missed, but no one heard in the commotion below. His second and third didn't. His fourth did, but no one was watching, because the second sander had grasped and killed one of the mounts—and its rider. Another trooper went down under the fire of the Reillie in the cot.
Legacies Page 20
