"That's all very well," he said when they had quieted down. "But first, there's the small matter of beating the Temujai. Let's get to work."
Halt and Erak watched as Will supervised the issuing of arrows to the men. Unconsciously, both men nodded their approval of the boy. Then Erak turned to Halt.
"I nearly forgot, Ragnak had a further message for you. He said if we lose this battle and he loses his slaves as well, he's going to kill you for it," he said cheerfully.
Halt smiled grimly. "If we lose this battle, he may have to get in line to do it. There'll be a few thousand Temujai cavalrymen in front of him."
26
W ILL CALLED THE LAST GROUP OF TEN MEN FORWARD TO THE firing line. The preceding group moved to the rear of the waiting ranks and sat down to watch. He was working the men in small groups at this stage. That gave him a manageable group to work with as he tested their ability to follow his orders and shoot at a predetermined elevation.
"Ready!" he called. Each man took an arrow from the bin in front of him and nocked it to the string. They stood ready, their heads turned toward him, waiting for his next order.
"Remember," he said, "don't try to judge the shot yourself. Just go to the position I call, make a full draw and a smooth release when I call it."
The men nodded. Initially, they hadn't liked the idea of having their shooting controlled by someone as young as Will. Then, after Halt had encouraged his apprentice to give a demonstration of high-speed pinpoint shooting, they had reluctantly agreed to the system Will had devised.
Will took a deep breath, then called firmly: "Position three! Draw!"
Ten arms holding bows rose to a position approximately forty degrees from the horizontal. Will quickly glanced down the line to see that each man had remembered the correct position. He'd been drilling the four different elevations into them all day. Satisfied, and before the strain of holding the bows at full draw became too great, he called:
"Shoot!"
Almost as one, there was a rapid slither of released bowstrings and a concerted hiss of arrows arcing through the air.
Will watched the small flight of shafts as they arced upward, then nosed over and plunged down to bury themselves up to half their length in the turf. Again he called to the waiting line of men: "Position three, ready!"
As before, the ten men nocked arrows to the strings, waiting for Will's next call.
"Draw:shoot!"
Again there was the slithering slap of released bowstrings hitting the archers' arm guards, and the sound of the wooden shafts scraping past the bows as they were hurled into the air. This time, as the arrows came down, Will changed his command.
"Position two:ready!"
The line of left arms holding the bows extended and tilted up to a thirty-degree angle.
"Draw:shoot!"
And another ten-shaft volley was on its way. Will nodded to the ten men, who were watching him expectantly.
"All right," he said. "Let's see how you did."
He began to pace across the open field, followed by the ten men who had just shot. There were markers set out down the middle of the field, marking 100, 150 and 200 meter distances. Position three, with the bow arm elevated forty degrees from the horizontal, should have equated to the 150 meter marker. As they approached that marker, Will nodded with satisfaction. There were sixteen arrows slanting up from the turf within a ten-meter tolerance of the mark. Two had gone long, he noticed, and two more had dropped short. He studied the long shots. The shafts were numbered so that he could assess how each member of the shooting line had performed. He saw now that the two overshoots belonged to two different archers.
Moving back to the arrows that had undershot the target, he frowned slightly. The arrows were both marked with the same number. That meant the same archer had dropped his shot short of the mark both times. Will took note of the number, then moved back to view the results of the final volley. The frown deepened as he saw that nine arrows were well grouped, with one falling short by the same margin. He didn't really need to check, but a quick glance showed him that, once again, the same archer had undershot the distance.
He grunted thoughtfully.
"All right!" he called. "Recover your arrows." Then he led the way back to the firing point, the ten men following behind him.
"Who was at number four position?" he asked.
One of the archers stepped forward, hesitantly holding up a hand and looking like a nervous pupil in school. He was a heavyset bearded man of about forty, Will noticed, yet his demeanor showed that he was totally in awe of the young Ranger facing him.
"That was me, your honor," he said. Will beckoned him closer.
"Bring your bow and two or three arrows," he said. The man picked up his bow, and selected two arrows from the bin that stood by his firing position. He was nervous at being singled out and promptly dropped the arrows, scrabbling awkwardly to retrieve them.
"Relax," Will told him. "I just want to check your technique."
The man tried to smile in return. He'd seen they were his arrows that had fallen short and he assumed he was about to be punished. That was the way life went for a slave in Hallasholm. If you were told to do something and you didn't do it, you were punished. Now the brown-haired youth who was directing the session was grinning at him and telling him to relax. It was a novel experience.
"Take a stance," Will told him, and the man stood side-on to the firing range, left foot extended, left hand holding the bow at waist height.
"Position three," Will said quietly, and the man assumed the position that had been drilled into him all the previous day, his left arm holding the bow at forty degrees-almost maximum distance. Will studied him. There seemed to be little wrong with the man's stance.
"All right," he said. "Draw, please."
The man was using too much arm muscle and not enough of his back muscles to draw the bow, Will thought. But that was a minor fault and the result of long habit. There would be no way of changing that in the time they had left.
"And:shoot."
There it was, Will thought. A fraction of a second before the man released his shot, he relaxed the draw length slightly-letting the arrow ease down a little before actually letting his fingers slip from the string. That meant that at the moment of release, the arrow was at something less than full draw, which in turn meant it was receiving less than the full power of the bow behind its flight. Halt and Will had tested all the bows to make sure they were similar in draw weight and the arrows were all exactly the same length to ensure results were as consistent as possible. The main cause for variation would be little technical errors like this one.
He looked down the range to where the colored flights of the arrow were visible against the brown, sodden grass of the spring thaw. As he had suspected, it was short again.
Will explained the reason for the problem to the man, seeing from the surprised expression that he had no idea that he was relaxing the draw at the crucial moment.
"Work on it," he told him, giving him an encouraging slap on the shoulder. Halt had impressed on him the fact that a little encouragement in matters like these went a great deal further than scathing criticism. Will had been surprised when Halt had put him in charge of the archers' training. Even though he knew he'd be directing the archers during the battle, he'd assumed that Halt would supervise their training. But the Ranger had repeated his earlier sentiment.
"You're the one who'll be directing them once we're fighting. It's as well they get used to following your orders from the start."
Will remembered another piece of advice the Ranger had given him. "Men work better when they know what you have in mind," he told the young apprentice. "So make sure you tell them as much as possible."
He stepped up onto a raised platform that had been placed here for the purpose of addressing the entire group.
"We'll break for today," he said in a raised voice. "Tomorrow we'll shoot as one group. So if I've picked any technical faults in yo
ur shooting today, practice getting rid of them before the evening meal. Then get a good night's rest." He started to turn away, then turned back, remembering one thing more. "Good work, all of you," he said. "If you keep this up, we're going to give those Temujai a very nasty surprise."
A growl of pleasure rose from the hundred men. Then they broke off, heading back for the warmth of the halls and lodges. Will realized that it was later than he'd thought. The sun was touching the tops of the hills beyond Hallasholm and the shadows were lengthening. The evening breeze was chilly and he shivered, reaching for the cloak that he'd hung from the platform railing as he'd directed the shooting.
A half dozen boys had been assigned to help and without orders from him they gathered the arrow bins and arrows, putting them under cover in one of the store sheds that fronted the practice field. Will couldn't help noticing the admiring glances they cast his way as they went about their work. He was only a few years older than they were, yet here he was, directing a force of one hundred archers. He smiled to himself. He wouldn't have been human if he hadn't enjoyed their hero worship.
"You look pleased with yourself," said a familiar voice. He turned and realized Horace must have approached while he had been talking to the men. He shrugged, trying to act diffident.
"They're coming along quite well," he said. "It's been a good day's work."
Horace nodded. "So I noticed," he said. Then, in a worried tone, he continued, "Evanlyn hasn't been here with you, has she?"
Will looked up at him, instantly on the defensive. "What if she has been?" he asked, an argumentative tone creeping into his voice. Instantly, he saw the worried look clear from Horace's face and realized he'd misinterpreted the reason for his friend's question.
"Then she has been here?" Horace said. "That's a relief. Where is she now?"
Now it was Will's turn to frown. "Just a moment," he said, putting a hand on Horace's muscular forearm. "Why is it a relief? Is something wrong?"
"Then she hasn't been here?" Horace asked, and his face fell again as Will shook his head.
"No. I thought you were being:you know:" Will had been about to say jealous, but he couldn't quite manage it. The idea that Horace might have something to be jealous about had too much of a sense of boasting about it. He saw instantly that such thoughts were far from Horace's mind. The apprentice warrior had hardly seemed to notice Will's hesitation.
"She's missing," he said, in that same worried tone. He cast his hands out and looked around the empty practice field, as if he somehow expected to see her appear there. "Nobody's seen her since midmorning yesterday. I've looked everywhere for her, but there's no sign."
"Missing?" Will repeated, not quite understanding. "Missing where?"
Horace looked up at him with a sudden flare of asperity. "If we knew that, she wouldn't be missing, would she?"
Will put up his hands in a peacemaking gesture.
"You're right!" he said. "I didn't realize. I've been a little tied up trying to get these archers organized. Surely somebody must have seen her last night. Her room servants, for example?"
Horace shook his head miserably. "I've asked them," he said. "I was out on patrol most of yesterday myself, keeping an eye on the Temujai approach. We didn't get back in to Hallasholm till well after supper time, so I didn't realize she wasn't around. It was only this morning when I went to find her that I found out she hadn't been in her room last night and that nobody had seen her today. That's why I was hoping that maybe you'd:" The sentence tailed off and Will shook his head.
"I haven't seen hide nor hair of her," he told his friend. "But it's ridiculous!" he exclaimed after a short silence. "Hallasholm isn't a big enough place for someone to go missing. And there's nowhere else she could have gone. Let's face it, she can't have simply disappeared:can she?"
Horace shrugged. "That's what I keep telling myself," he said morosely. "But somehow, it looks as if she has."
27
U NITED NOW IN THEIR CONCERN FOR E VANLYN, THE TWO apprentices headed for Halt's quarters. All of the Araluen party had been assigned rooms in the main hall. As Halt was their leader, he had been given a small suite of three rooms. At the door, Will knocked perfunctorily and heard Halt's gruff reply: "Come."
As they entered, he took in the fact that Erak was in the room with Halt. It was hard to miss the bulky Skandian. He seemed to fill most spaces he occupied. He was sprawled in one of the comfortable, carved wood armchairs that decorated the room-doubtless liberated on some wolfship raid down the coast. Halt was standing by the window, framed against the low-angled light of the late afternoon. He looked quizzically at the doorway as the two boys entered hurriedly.
"Halt," Will began urgently, "Horace says Evanlyn's disappeared. She's-"
"Safe and sound and back in Hallasholm." A familiar voice finished the sentence for him. Both boys turned to the speaker. Standing a little back, in the shadows of the room, she hadn't been evident as they'd entered.
"Evanlyn!" Horace exclaimed. "You're all right!"
The girl smiled. Now that his eyes were accustomed to the darker part of the room, Will could make out that her face and clothes were smeared with grease and dirt. Her eyes met his and she smiled at him, a little wistfully. Then she upended the flask of juice that she had in her hand and drank greedily from it.
"Apparently," she said, setting the flask down. "Although I have a thirst on me that I doubt I'll ever quench. All I've had to drink in the last eighteen hours was a little rainwater that made its way through the canvas covers over the:" She hesitated and looked to Erak to supply the word she was after. The jarl obliged.
"Forepeak," he said, and Evanlyn repeated the word.
"Forepeak, exactly, of Slagor's ship," she said. Will and Horace exchanged puzzled glances.
"What in the devil's name were you doing there?" Will asked. Halt answered for her.
"The devil's name is right," he said. "It seems our friend Slagor has sold out to the Temujai-and he's planning to betray Hallasholm to them."
"What?" asked Will, his voice cracking with surprise. He looked at Evanlyn. "How do you know?"
The girl shrugged her slim shoulders. "Because I heard him discussing it with the Temujai leader. They were barely two meters away from me."
"It seems," Halt put in, by way of explanation, "that your old friend Slagor sailed down the coast yesterday to a rendezvous with the Temujai Shan-one Haz'kam. And since our traitor obviously didn't trust his new allies too far, he insisted on all negotiations being carried out on board his ship-just to keep Haz'kam's retainers at a distance."
"Which is how I came to hear it," Evanlyn finished. But now Horace was scratching his head in bewilderment.
"But:what were you doing on the ship?" he said.
"I told you," Evanlyn replied. "Eavesdropping on Slagor and the Temujai."
Horace made an impatient gesture. "Yes, yes, so you've said. But why were you there in the first place?"
Evanlyn went to answer, hesitated, then stopped altogether. All eyes in the room were on her now and she realized she didn't really have a logical answer to that question.
"I:don't know," she said finally. "I was bored, I guess. And feeling useless. I was looking for something to do. And besides, Slagor looked sort of:shifty."
"Slagor always looks sort of shifty," Erak put in, helping himself to fruit from a bowl on the table in front of him. Evanlyn thought about it, then conceded the point.
"Well, that's true, I suppose. But he looked even shiftier than usual," she said. "So I decided someone had better keep an eye on him and see what he was up to."
Truth be told, Evanlyn was quite enjoying herself now. She had gone from feeling useless and unnecessary to being the bearer of important, even vital news to Halt and Erak. She couldn't help preening, just a little. Horace's next reaction was exactly what she'd hoped for.
"But:you could have been spotted! What if they'd found you there? They would have killed you," he said, his concern for her evident
in the worried tone of his voice.
That thought had occurred to Evanlyn on more than one occasion as she'd crouched in the damp space in the bow of the wolfship. Once she had fully realized the situation she was in, her skin had crawled with the fear of discovery with every second. But now she affected a nonchalant air about the entire episode.
"I suppose so. But let's face it, someone had to do it."
She was delighted to notice that Horace was looking at her with something approaching awe. She glanced quickly at Will, hoping to see the same look of admiration there. His next words dashed that hope.
"All very well," he said dismissively. "But the important thing is that Slagor is planning to betray us. How is he aiming to do it?"
"That's the point, of course," Halt agreed. He indicated a chart of the Skandian coast that he and Erak had spread on the table between them. "Apparently, friend Slagor plans to put to sea quietly the day after tomorrow and make for the same rendezvous point down the coast. Only this time, there'll be one hundred and fifty Temujai warriors waiting. He'll take them aboard and ferry them back here to Hallasholm-"
"He'll never fit a hundred and fifty men into one wolfship!" Will interrupted.
Halt nodded. "Apparently, he has another two ships waiting for him out behind this island, halfway to the rendezvous."
"They left a week ago," Erak put in. "Supposedly, they were going to raid behind the Temujai lines. It seems the skirls are in league with Slagor and they're waiting at this prearranged point." He tapped the map with his dagger, with which he'd been peeling fruit. A few spots of apple juice fell onto the parchment. Halt raised an eyebrow at him and wiped them away as the Jarl continued. "With three ships, they'll carry one hundred and fifty men easily."
"Then what?" Horace asked. Evanlyn, piqued that attention had been diverted from her and that Will had ignored the danger she'd been in, leapt back into the conversation.
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