“Good point,” Eddis said and went over the list one more time. “Since you want a session or two of weapon practice before we go, I’m thinking we’d better have those men join the rest of us, before we go.”
The castellan, true to his word, sent out one of his aides that afternoon, and the man accompanied Eddis and Jerdren to the traders and then the provisioner’s, making arrangements for the party to have funds for the journey. Eddis bought new daggers, a clutch of arrows and several new bowstrings, a spare pack for food and enough plain provisions, travel bread, dried fruit and plain dried meat to fill it. She finished the day utterly exhausted and slept the entire night without dreaming.
Two more busy days followed. Jerdren watched as each of the Keep men demonstrated his sword, bow, or spear skills, and he ran them through some basic maneuvers often enough that Eddis felt comfortable she’d be part of an organized company if someone or something attacked them.
By midmorning the next day, she, Jerdren and M’Baddah had completed a tour of the walls of the inner bailey, looking for the best place to get their people down to level ground. M’Baddah had been right, though. The only practical places for a company to descend by rope were along the east wall, where the ledge was narrow and the rocky heights steep but not undercut. Still, Jerdren insisted on a full tour of the walls, so he could check all possible spots. Maybe he simply liked being on the walls, and she had to admit the view in all directions was spectacular.
That evening, the party met in the stables, where their goods had been temporarily piled up in two stalls.
“All right,” Jerdren said. “We’ve maps, and we’ve been over what plans we can make up here, but a lot may change once we’re down, as most of you know. My suggestion is that you make certain of your goods now, see that everything’s done up the way you want it, and that you know where things are stowed. Then each of you get an early night, if you can. We’ll want one more check of the local stores tomorrow. No sense in losing your life out there because you lacked a single dagger.”
“Good point,” Eddis said as he glanced her way. “Tomorrow, we’ll meet for a midday meal, and after that I suggest we all rest until sunset. We won’t be moving all night tomorrow night, but we’ll need all the reserves we’ve got to get down the ropes and into the trees before moonrise. Questions?”
There were none. After an extensive opening and retying of parcels, checking of weapons and belts, leather bags of goods, and quivers of arrows, the party dispersed by twos and threes. Finally, only Jerdren and Eddis were left.
“All right?” Eddis asked finally.
Jerdren shrugged. “So far,” he allowed. “Ask me again, once we’re out there.”
The next night, at full dark, a party of twenty-four stood on the high east wall of the inner bailey. Thirteen of these wore dark, thick, hooded cloaks and carried packs of various sizes, as well as filled water skins, swords, and other weaponry. All but one wore armor of some kind, and Mead carried a sturdy leather shoulder bag that held his book of spells. Ten men in the dark blue of the Keep, Captain Mebros directing them, worked to secure five lengths of thick rope. The knots were checked twice, then five of the men descended to hold the lengths taut. Mardiak, the castellan’s sorcerer, stood back from the edge, watching the men’s efforts as he cast a spell to detect danger around the base of the cliff. A charm dangling from his right fist had already been used on the ropes and the knots.
Lets us save Mead’s spells for later, Jerdren thought. Chances were, they’d need all the spells the elf had, once they were out there.
The party had been blessed just before sundown by the Keep’s curate—a man as influential and important in his own sphere as the castellan in his. Jerdren, squatting on his heels atop the walls, didn’t feel any different for Xyneg’s blessing but had long since decided it couldn’t hurt anything. Most of the Keep armsmen going with them seemed more relaxed for having been blessed, anyway. His right hand jittered against his leg—not so much nerves, he thought, as eagerness to be on their way. The first of their men were already down, the second group—including Eddis and the elves—was on its way. The last of the Keep guards next, with more rope for the rest of the way down, and then he and the last of their party would finally be on the move.
He reached the narrow ledge without incident a short time later. To either side, he could just make out the shapes of men working to secure rope while others dropped carefully down the ledge. The meadow below was kept clear all the way to the forest, and it had been watched from the walls until well after sundown. According to Mebros, that didn’t leave time for anyone but a horseman at a flat-out run to cover open ground between woods and cliff. If anyone were to be down there, Jerdren told himself, we’d all welcome the fight. That would settle my stomach properly.
He could make out the nearest people in the gloom. Blor had already gone down, but there was Eddis and behind her one of the elves. Willow, he reminded himself. He and Eddis had worked out order of descent and order of travel back in the tavern. Blor and three of the Keep men were their most keen-eyed or sharp-eared men, and Mead went with them, a charm swinging from his neck. Eddis and her two men were among those who’d follow, while he, Willow, and the rest would bring up the rear.
He and Eddis had decided that earlier as well, comparing skills and reflexes as impassively as if neither were actively involved in this, and he grinned, recalling the bemused look on his brother’s face at the time. In blunt fact, Eddis’ eyes were somewhat better than his in the dark, her reactions perhaps a hair faster, and she was younger than he by nearly ten years, which would count both on the ropes and down there in the dark.
Truth is, he told himself gloomily as the first five moved quietly out of sight, you don’t like heights, Jers. Too bad M’Baddah’s idea for leaving the Keep in secret had been such a good one. At least it was too dark for him to see the drop beneath his feet. Yah. You got enough of an eyeful of the drop from up on the walls. He was still willing to wager that Eddis thought he’d been admiring the supposedly extraordinary view from the walls, rather than trying first to work past the fear—and then looking for the quickest and least distressing way down.
Willow tugged at his sleeve, indicated the ledge with a jerk of his head. Jerdren drew on his new, thick gloves, took hold of the rope held out for him, wrapped a heavy length around his forearm in case his gloved hands couldn’t hold his body up, and edged his way over the edge of the cliff, where he could clamp the rough hank between his legs.
Somehow, his hands and legs remembered how to get him down a rope—and it didn’t take nearly as long as he’d thought it might. Everything moved smoothly, even when his feet lost contact with the stone, and he swung loose over a drop for a heart-stopping moment. All at once, he could see dark shapes below him and felt Blor’s familiar grip on his leg. Thumb and forefinger first, to let him know it was his kinsman, before the entire hand grabbed hold to guide him to safety. His boots touched ground a moment later, last of the five in his final group. He freed the rope from numbed calves, stepped back, tugged twice, and felt a responding tug before the knotted length began to slide smoothly upward.
It was very quiet where they stood. They were sheltered from the wind here, or it had died away. Jerdren could hear the slither of rope against stone, and someone high above quietly urged his men to haul the hanks in. Somewhere to the north an owl wailed, the sound rapidly fading as the predator flew away from them. The air brushing the left side of his face felt chill and damp: water that way, and something began a monotonous, soft creaking. Frog or insects, Jerdren thought. Likely where the water was.
The sky directly overhead was a blaze of stars, cut off to the west by the bulk of the Keep and to north and east by tall trees and rising ground. No sign of the moon down here. It wouldn’t rise for at least an hour, and it was still short of half-full. They’d have plenty of darkness to get themselves out of the open and well into the woods for what was left of the night.
It wasn’t
actually completely dark where they stood, Jerdren realized. His eyes were finally adjusting. He could make out the difference between pale expanses of grass, darker bushes, and stubby trees. Then he noticed individual faces, with the company so close around him. He stripped off the heavy leather gloves and stowed them as Eddis edged over.
“Mead’s checked already,” she said, “there’s no one and nothing close by.”
“Good. We’ll move out, then, in order,” Jerdren said, as quietly, and stepped aside to let the others go ahead. He’d take up the rear with two of the older Keep soldiers who’d hunted these lands with Lord Macsen himself. Both had excellent ears. Willow took the lead, M’Baddah on his right hand. The rest moved out behind those two.
The company reached the nearest trees without incident. It wasn’t any darker in the woods than it had been on the meadow, and Jerdren’s eyes had adjusted well enough to the gloom that he easily made out Eddis holding up a hand to signal a brief halt while Willow and M’Baddah went ahead a few paces. Mead bent over his charm, caught his breath sharply as the thing glowed a dull red against his hand. That can’t be a good sign, Jerdren thought, and reached for his sword as the mage hissed a warning. With a yell, half a dozen men leaped from the trees into their midst, and more came running from their right flank.
Jerdren drew his sword and parried an overhead blow. Somewhere ahead of him, someone cried out in pain, and he could hear Eddis cursing in a flat voice. A moment later, he went down hard, breath driven from him as a man landed squarely on his shoulders, but the fellow was thrown as he fell. He drew one of his daggers and dragged himself partway up, feeling the ground before him. A boot there—a ragged pant leg that didn’t belong to any of his people. The cloth tore from his grip, but he had the man now: the pale face just there, which meant the body was… He swung the dagger in a slashing arc and buried it in flabby flesh. The man shocked, shuddered, and went limp. Jerdren retrieved the blade, wiped it on the dead man’s shirt, and got warily to his feet.
Just to his right, one of the Keep men was driving back another of the invaders with a spear, and he could hear Blorys’ voice not far away. Someone else yelled, and all at once the ambush dissolved, men running wildly toward the meadow, some going north over open ground and the rest south.
“I’m making a light,” M’Baddah said, and a moment later a partly shuttered lantern cast a ruddy, dim glow over them.
“What damage?” Eddis asked as she came back toward the edge of the woods. Her sword was bloody, and there was a cut on the back of her hand.
“Winded,” Jerdren replied shortly. “Blor?”
“Fine, Brother. We have one man down here, badly wounded—no,” he said quietly. “One dead.”
“Three of them dead and another stunned,” Willow reported. He bent over the half-conscious man. M’Baddah was helping one of the Keep men bandage a nasty cut on another’s forearm.
“Make it four of them dead,” Jerdren replied grimly and retrieved his sword. He gazed down at the man he’d killed. Skinny, ragged… the fellow looked as badly off as any of those men they’d fought on the road, days before, but Jerdren didn’t recognize him as one of them. He walked from man to man, checking that all his company was still here. One down already, he thought. But they were fortunate no more of them had been killed. A sudden attack like that, in the dark, men could easily have killed their fellows and not the enemy.
He was pleased to see that three of the men were keeping watch, that M’Whan stood at the edge of the woods to make sure the fleeing men kept running. He followed Mead over to where Willow had the stunned man sitting up.
Jerdren smiled down at him—it wasn’t a nice smile. “So,” he mused aloud. “Were you waiting for us? Just happened to be here, saw us coming, and decided we looked like a good source of supplies and weapons? Or expecting us?”
The man bit his lip, but when Willow drew a long, slender blade, he shuddered, and the words tumbled from him.
“We been here a while, out of sight of those walls. There’s rabbits and such here, but it’s getting colder at night. Hard to find game. We heard there were men, hereabouts, they’d take good fighters. But—” he forced his eyes from the blade and the set face behind it—“but we couldn’t find ’em. Just now, we were arguing which way to go, some of us wanted to just… get out. And our watchman saw you coming. Seemed worth a try, maybe get a warm cloak, bread….”
“He’s telling the truth,” Mead said evenly.
“What do we do with him, then?” one of the Keep men asked.
“I have an idea,” another snarled, and the man huddled in on himself.
Jerdren shook his head. “You—if you’re smart, you’ll try to catch up with your friends before something gets you. Go fast enough, and go now, and I won’t make you pay for our wounded and dead.”
Willow hauled him to his feet. The man gazed fearfully from elf to elf, met Jerdren’s eyes briefly, then turned and bolted.
“All right, people, we’d better get moving. M’Baddah, I guess there’s no sense in dowsing your light. Move out ahead with it, and someone get another one going back here at the rear.”
They pulled the dead enemy out to the edge of the woods, while two of the Keep men heaped leaves and pine needles over their fallen comrade. Moments later, they set out once again, with just enough light to let them walk through open forest at a decent pace. A short ways in, one of the Keep men located a deer path he knew, and they turned roughly southeast, walking at a stead pace until moonrise.
Jerdren called a halt for the night just as the moon cast pale light through the highest branches of tall oaks. They’d reached the first of the marked clearings on his map. He’d have preferred to reach the second, but two of the men had lost blood and needed the rest. There was a narrow stream here, nearly dry this late in the season, but it had enough running water to allow them to refill their bottles.
Watches had already been chosen before they left the Keep, and this deep in the trees, the air was warm and still, so they built no fire. Jerdren lay back in his cloak as the first watch settled into place. At the elves’ suggestion, they had been left from the regular watches for the present, but one or the other was to be roused at once if anyone thought they saw or sensed anything suspicious, since both could see much farther in the dark than the humans.
Not that it’s so dark now, Jerdren thought sleepily. It was the last thing he remembered until Blorys woke him. It was cooler than it had been, especially near the stream, and moonlight now came from the west. Jerdren checked that his sword wasn’t shoved too tightly in its sheath, that his two daggers were ready to throw, and hung his strung bow from the hook on the quiver before moving several long steps out into the woods. He slowly paced around the dark camp and the sleepers, occasionally coming upon the two Keep men who shared his watch.
The moon was nearly down and the woods shadowy once more when he woke M’Whan, unstrung his bow, and lay back down. He was asleep in moments and didn’t wake until sun warmed the small clearing.
He woke sluggishly and a little stiff, the way he always did, first day on the road. Didn’t used to, did you? he asked himself sourly. Getting old, Jers, aren’t you? It didn’t help that they were traveling afoot; he’d merely traded a sore backside for aching legs. He cleared his throat and spat, staggering to his feet.
To his relief, Eddis was already up and about, and showed no signs of the bleary-eyed, irritable woman who’d broken fast at the inn two days before. At the moment, she was sitting cross-legged on her blankets, plaiting her hair. Beyond her, Willow was bent over, nearly folded in half as his long-fingered hands massaged his calves.
Guess I’m not the only stiff one this first morning, Jerden thought. If a young elf had sore legs—and Willow was a year or so short of thirty, according to Eddis—then he, Jerdren, was doing all right.
Mead leaned against a tree a short ways off, his heavy leather-bound spell book open, his lips moving silently now and again. Memorizing the spells he
thinks he might need for the day, Jerdren told himself. Let’s hope that if we do have need, he’s made the right choices.
Blor and one of the Keep men were keeping watch, the others eating or checking their weapons. M’Baddah was rubbing salve into the arm of their most seriously wounded man, and Jerdren was glad to see the man’s color was good this morning. We can’t afford to start losing men before we ever find that camp, he thought. First day out, and one already gone.
Their cook came over and handed him a cold meat pie—the taverner’s wife’s gift to the company, but they wouldn’t stay fresh for long. Jerdren took his with a smile of thanks and ate it quickly.
Eddis pulled one from her own pack and bit into it. No onions, Jerdren knew. Though how anyone could live without onions, let alone those crispy, toasted brown bits…
None of his business, he reminded himself as he sucked gravy from his fingers, washed that down with flat ale and a swallow of water, then pulled a tart, crisp apple from his own bag of provisions. He finished that as Eddis, M’Baddah and Blorys came over to join him for a look at the map, and a quick conference.
Jerdren unfolded the heavily detailed parchment. “Now, we’re about—here, right?” He indicated a point well into thick woods. The East Road had taken a bend south and was at the farthest point from them.
Eddis shook her head. “There are four streams shown between the Keep and that point. We crossed one dry bed and stopped the night at this one. Makes two, Jers.”
“Dry being the proper word,” Jerdren replied evenly. He wasn’t used to having his skill with maps questioned. “We could’ve crossed dry, flat beds without knowing it, in the dark.”
“M’Baddah would have known,” Eddis countered. “I would have.” She indicated a point halfway between the Keep and his finger. “I’d say we’re nearer here.”
“It is easy to settle,” M’Baddah put in smoothly as the two co-captains eyed each other narrowly. “Ask one of your hunters. If he isn’t certain, we can always send someone up a tall tree. If you are correct, Eddis, the road will be visible. If not…”
Keep on the Borderlands Page 7
