Nit'zak muttered his assent. He hesitated a few seconds, wondering if this were one of those times when his commander wanted to continue to talk and pass the drinking skin back and forth for a few hours. But Haz'kam waved him away with a small hand gesture. Nit'zak thought that the general looked tired. For a moment, he thought about the years they had spent on campaign together and realized that Haz'kam was no longer a young man. Neither was he, he thought, as the ache in his knees testified. He bowed his head in a perfunctory salute, rose to his feet with another barely suppressed groan and went, crouching, out through the felt hanging that covered the tent doorway.
In the distance, he heard men shouting. Looking in the direction from which the noise came, he saw a bright flare of flame against the night sky. He cursed softly. The damned Skandians were raiding again, he thought.
A troop of horsemen clattered by him, heading for the site of the attack. He watched them go, tempted for a moment to join them, but resisting the temptation as he realized that by the time they reached the point of the attack, the enemy would be long gone.
22
T HE S KANDIAN W AR C OUNCIL WAS MEETING IN THE G REAT Hall. Will sat to one side, listening as Halt addressed the Skandian leader and his principal advisers. Borsa, Erak and two other senior jarls, Lorak and Ulfak, flanked the Oberjarl as they clustered around the table where Halt had spread an immense map of Skandia. The Ranger tapped a spot on the map with the point of his saxe knife.
"As of last night," he said, "the Temujai were here. Maybe sixty kilometers away from Hallasholm. The delaying raids are having exactly the sort of effect we wanted. The advance has gone from thirty kilometers a day to less than twelve."
"Shouldn't cavalry move faster than that?" asked Ulfak. Halt perched one leg on the bench beside the table and shook his head.
"They'll move fast enough when they're fighting," he told them. "But right now, they're conserving their horses' strength, letting them feed and move easily. Besides, now that we've reinforced Olgak's men with another half dozen raiding groups, it's taking them half the day to simply form up, then set up camp again in the evening."
He glanced up at Erak as he added: "Your idea of sending a few wolfships to raid their seaward flank was a good one."
The jarl nodded. "It seemed logical," he replied. "It's what we're good at, after all."
Ragnak thumped one massive fist on the pine planks that formed the table.
"Raids and skirmishes, nuisance attacks! They achieve nothing! It's time we hit them with our main force and settle this once and for all," he declared, and three of his council growled agreement.
"There'll be plenty of time for that," Halt cautioned. "The most important thing is to engage them in a place that suits us-one that we choose ourselves."
Again, the Oberjarl snarled. He knew he'd agreed to listen to Halt's advice. But these damned invaders had been flaunting themselves in his country now for several weeks. It was an affront to him and to every Skandian and he wanted to wipe the affront out, or die in the attempt. "What's the difference where we fight them?" he said. "A fight is a fight. We win or we lose. But if we do lose, we'll take plenty of them with us!"
Halt removed his foot from the bench and stood straight, ramming the saxe knife back into its scabbard.
"Oh, don't worry," he said icily. "There's every chance that we'll lose. But let's make sure we take as many of them with us as possible, shall we?" The Skandians, used to bluster and boasting, were taken aback by his cold assessment of their chances for survival-as he had intended them to be.
"They're cavalry," he continued. "They outnumber us at least four to one. They can outmaneuver us, outrun us. And they'll look for the widest possible front to engage us on. That way, all the advantages are with them. They'll flank us, surround us and draw us out if they can." He saw that he had their attention. They weren't happy about the situation, but at least they were prepared to listen.
"How will they do that?" Erak asked. He and Halt had discussed this briefing the day before. Halt wanted certain questions to be asked, and Erak was to ask them if none of the others seemed prepared to do so. The Ranger glanced quickly at Erak, but directed his answer to all of the group.
"It's a standard tactic of theirs," he said. "They'll attack on a wide front, probing, hitting and retiring. Then they'll appear to become fully engaged at one or two given points. They'll stop their hit-and-run tactics and fight a pitched battle-just the sort of thing that will suit your men," he added, glancing at Ragnak. The Oberjarl nodded.
"Then," Halt continued, "they will begin to lose. Their attack will lose its cohesion and they will try to withdraw."
"Good!" said Borsa, and the two other jarls grunted agreement. Ragnak, however, sensed that there was more to come. He didn't comment for the moment, but gestured for Halt to continue. The Ranger obliged.
"They'll give ground. Slowly at first, then faster and faster as panic seems to set in. Somehow they'll never move so fast that your men lose contact with them. Gradually, more and more of your warriors will be drawn out of our line, away from the shield wall, away from our defenses. As they pursue the enemy, the Temujai will become more and more desperate. At least, they'll seem to. Then, at the right moment, they'll turn."
"Turn?" said the Oberjarl. "How do you mean?"
"They'll stop retreating when your men are strung out and in the open-the strongest and fastest well ahead of their comrades. Suddenly, they'll find themselves cut off, surrounded by the Temujai cavalry. And remember, every one of their cavalrymen is an expert archer. They won't bother coming to close quarters. They can pick your men off at their leisure. And the more they kill the leaders, the more enraged those behind will become. They'll stream out to save their friends-or avenge them. They'll be surrounded in turn. And wiped out."
He paused. The five Skandians all looked at him, struck silent. They could imagine the scenario he described. They knew the temper of their men and could see how easily such a stratagem could succeed against them.
"This is how they fight?" Ragnak asked finally.
"I've seen it, Oberjarl. Time and time again, I've seen it. They aren't concerned with glory in battle. Only efficient killing. They'll challenge our warriors to single combat, then ambush them with ten or twenty warriors at a time. If they can't shoot to kill immediately, they'll shoot to disable. Even your strongest warriors can't continue with ten to fifteen arrow wounds in the legs. Then, when they're helpless, the Temujai will kill them."
He swept his gaze around the table. Satisfied that they could all see the danger that faced them, he sat down, straddling the bench. Finally, it was Borsa, the hilfmann, who broke the long silence that had fallen in the room.
"So:where do you want to engage them?" he asked. Halt spread his hands wide in a questioning gesture.
"Why engage them at all?" he asked. "We have time to withdraw before they arrive. We could move into the hills and the forest and keep hitting them as they come farther and farther along the coastal plain here."
"Run away, you mean?" Ragnak asked, his tone angry.
Halt nodded several times. "Yes. Run away. But continue to hit them at twenty or thirty or fifty points along their column. Kill them. Burn their supplies. Harass them. Make their life one long, insufferable misery until they realize that this invasion was a bad idea. Then harass them back to the border until they're gone."
He paused. He knew there was little chance of winning this one. But he had to try. It was the best course open to them. His heart sank as Ragnak shook his head. Even Erak's lips were compressed into a thin, disapproving line.
"Abandon Hallasholm to them?" asked Ragnak.
Halt shrugged. "If necessary. You can always rebuild."
But now all the Skandians were shaking their heads and he knew what was behind it.
"Abandon everything in Hallasholm to them?" Ragnak persisted. This time Halt made no answer. He waited for the inevitable.
"Our booty-the results of hundreds of ye
ars of raiding-leave that to them?" Ragnak asked.
And that, Halt knew, was the crux of the matter. No Skandian would ever abandon the loot he had stored up over the years-the gold, the armor, the tapestries, the chandeliers, the thousand and one items that they hoarded and kept and gloated over in their storehouses. He caught Will's eye and shrugged slightly. He'd tried. Halt moved to the map once more and indicated the flatlands outside Hallasholm with his knife point.
"Alternatively," he said, "we stop them here, where the coastal plain contracts to its narrowest point."
The Skandians craned to look again. They nodded cautious approval, now that Halt had withdrawn the suggestion that they should abandon Hallasholm and its contents to the invaders.
"This way, they can't attack on a wide front. They'll be cramped. And we can conceal men in the trees here-and even in the outbuildings along the shore."
Lorak, older of the two jarls, frowned at the suggestion. "Won't that weaken our shield wall?"
Halt shook his head. "Not noticeably. We'll have more than enough men to form a solid defensive position here where the land is narrowest. Then, when the Temujai try their trick of falling back and bringing our men along with them, we'll appear to go along with it."
Erak moved forward to inspect the narrow neck of land that Halt was indicating.
"You mean we'll do as they want?" he asked. Halt pushed out his bottom lip and cocked his head to one side.
"We'll appear to," he admitted. "But once they stop withdrawing to counterattack, we'll bring our ambush forces out of hiding and hit them from behind. If we time it correctly, we could make life very unpleasant for them."
The Skandians stood, staring down at the map. Borsa, Lorak and Ulfak had blank looks as they tried to visualize the movement. Erak and Ragnak, Halt was glad to see, were slowly nodding as they understood the idea.
"Our best chance," he continued, "is to force them into the sort of engagement that suits your men best-close quarters, hand to hand, every man for himself. If we can catch them that way, your axmen will take a heavy toll on them. The Temujai rely on speed and movement for protection. They're only lightly armed and armored. If we had even a small force of archers, it could make an enormous difference," he added. "But I suppose we can't have everything." Halt knew that the bow wasn't a Skandian weapon. It was no use wishing for things that couldn't be. But in his mind's eye, he could see the devastation that an organized party of bowmen could cause. He shrugged, pushing the thought aside.
Erak looked up at the gray-cloaked Ranger. He's small, he thought, but by the gods, he's a warrior to reckon with.
"We have to depend on our men keeping their heads," he said. "Then we have to time it just right when we spring our trap-otherwise the men coming from the forest and the outbuildings will be exposed themselves. It's a risk."
Halt shrugged. "It's war," he replied. "The trick is to know which risks to take."
"And how do you know that?" Borsa asked him, sensing that the small, bearded foreigner had gained the trust and the acceptance of the Oberjarl and his War Council. Halt smiled wolfishly at him.
"You wait till it's over and see who's won," he said. "Then you know those were the right risks to take."
23
"H ALT," W ILL SAID THOUGHTFULLY AS HE WALKED AWAY FROM the council with Halt and Erak. "What did you mean when you said that about archers?"
Halt looked sideways at his apprentice and sighed. "It could make a big difference to the outcome," he said. "The Temujai are archers themselves. But they rarely have to face an enemy with any particular skill with the bow."
Will nodded. The longbow was traditionally an Araluen weapon. Perhaps because of the island kingdom's isolation from the countries on the eastern landmass, it had remained peculiar to Araluen. Other nationalities might use bows for hunting or even sport. But only in the armies of the Araluens would you find the massed groups of archers that could provide a devastating rain of arrows on an attacking force.
"They understand the value of the bow as a strategic weapon," he said. "But they've never had to cope with facing it themselves. I got some inkling of that when Erak and I were running from them near the border. Once I'd put a few arrows close to them, they were decidedly reluctant to come dashing around any blind corners."
The jarl laughed quietly at the memory. "That's true enough," he agreed. "Once you'd emptied a few saddles, they slowed down remarkably."
"You know, I've been thinking:," said the boy, and hesitated. Halt grinned quietly to himself.
"Always a dangerous pastime," he said gently.
But Will continued: "Maybe we should try to put together a force of archers. Even a hundred or so could make a difference, couldn't they?"
Halt shook his head. "We haven't the time, Will," he replied. "They'll be on us within two weeks. You can't train archers in that short a time. After all, the Skandians have no skill with the bow to begin with. You'd have to teach them the very basics-nocking, drawing, releasing. That takes weeks, as you know."
"There are plenty of slaves here," Will persisted. "Some of them would know the basics. Then all we'd have to do is control their range."
Halt looked at his apprentice again. The boy was deadly serious, he could see. A small frown creased Will's forehead as he thought through the problem.
"And how would you do that?" the Ranger asked. The frown deepened for a few seconds as Will gathered his thoughts.
"It was something Evanlyn asked me that suggested it," he said. "She was watching me shoot and she was asking how I knew how much elevation to give to a particular shot and I told her it was just experience. Then I thought maybe I could show her and I was thinking, if you created-say-four basic positions:"
He stopped walking and raised his left arm as if it were holding a bow, then moved it through four positions-beginning horizontally and ultimately raising it to a maximum forty-five degree angle. "One, two, three, four, like that," he continued. "You could drill a group of archers to assume those positions while someone else judged the range and told them which one to go to. They wouldn't need to be very good shots as long as the person controlling them could judge range," he finished.
"And deflection," Halt said thoughtfully. "If you knew that at the second position your shafts would travel, say, two hundred meters, you could time your release so that the approaching enemy would reach that spot just as the arrow storm did."
"Well, yes," Will admitted. "I hadn't taken it that far. I was just thinking of setting the range and having everyone release at the same time. They needn't aim for individual targets. They could just fire away into the mass."
"You'd need to anticipate," Halt said.
"Yes. But essentially, it would be the same as if I were firing one arrow myself. It's just that, as I released, I could call a hundred others to do the same."
Halt rubbed his beard. He glanced at the Skandian. "What do you think, Erak?"
The jarl merely shrugged his massive shoulders. "I haven't understood a word you've been saying," he admitted cheerfully. "Range, defraction:"
"Deflection," Will corrected him, and Erak shrugged.
"Whatever. It's all a puzzle to me. But if the boy thinks it might be possible, well, I'd tend to think he might be right."
Will grinned at the big war leader. Erak liked to keep things simple. If he didn't understand a subject, he didn't waste energy wondering about it.
"I tend to think the same way," Halt said quietly, and Will looked at him in surprise. He'd been waiting for his mentor to point out the fundamental flaw in his logic. Now he saw that Halt was considering his proposal seriously. Then he noticed the look of exasperation that grew on Halt's face as he found the flaw.
"Bows," the Ranger said, disappointment in his voice. "Where would we find a hundred bows in time to let people train with them? There probably aren't twenty in all of Skandia."
Will's heart sank. Of course. There was the problem. It took weeks to shape and craft a single longbow, trimmin
g the bowstave just so, providing just the right amount of graduated flex along both arms. It was a craftsman's job and there was no way they would have time to make the hundred bows they would need. Disconsolately, he kicked at a rock in his path, then wished he hadn't. He'd forgotten that he was wearing soft-toed boots.
"I could let you have a hundred," Erak said in the depressed silence that followed Halt's statement. Both the others turned to look at him.
"Where would you find a hundred longbows?" Halt asked him. Erak shrugged.
"I captured a two-masted cob off the Araluen coast three seasons ago," he told them. He didn't have to explain that when a Skandian said season he meant the raiding season. "She had a hold full of bows. I kept them in my storeroom until I could find a use for them. I was going to use them as fence palings," he continued. "But they seemed a little too flexible for the job."
"Bows tend to be that way," Halt said slowly, and when Erak looked at him, uncomprehending, he added: "More flexible than fence palings. It's one of the qualities we look for in a bow."
"Well, I suppose you'd know," Erak said casually. "Anyway, I've still got them. There must be thousands of arrow shafts as well. I thought they'd come in handy one day."
Halt reached up and laid a hand on the massive shoulder. "And how right you were," he said. "Thank the gods for the Skandian habit of hoarding everything."
"Well, of course we hoard," Erak explained. "We risk our lives to take the stuff in the first place. There's no sense in throwing it away. Anyway, do you want to see if you could use them?"
"Lead on, Jarl Erak," Halt said, shaking his head in wonder and lifting an eyebrow at Will.
Erak set out toward the large, barnlike storehouse by the docks where he kept the bulk of his plunder.
"Excellent," he said happily, rubbing his hands together. "If you decide to use them, I'll be able to charge Ragnak."
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