“Have you heard what’s going on?”
“Yes,” said Hunter. “More patrols rode out at sundown. They knew they would have to ride slowly in the moonlight and they expected to camp alone for the night at a forward position, then report back in the morning. Instead, before stopping to make camp, one of them stumbled across the campfires of the entire Saxon army. The riders just got back a few minutes ago.”
“That’s right,” said Bedwyr, holding out more bread and cold mutton for them. “The Saxons have already crossed the River Dubglas and marched out to meet us on our own territory this year.”
Steve accepted his breakfast and slipped both pieces into his tunic. He glanced up and down the dark camp. “No one else is up yet?”
“No need to disturb them,” said Bedwyr. “On foot, the Saxons will need a full day’s march or more to reach us. At dawn, Artorius will lead the column forward with a good night’s sleep. Over four thousand of our veterans met us on this site yesterday. In daylight, the column will cover the distance in less than four hours. By midday, he will draw close enough to the Saxons to view the terrain and choose his tactics.”
“What is our assignment?” Hunter asked.
“We will reach them by dawn or shortly after, riding slowly in the moonlight,” said Bedwyr. “When we have seen which way they march in the morning, we will report back to Artorius so he knows where to find them.”
Hunter nodded.
Steve swung up into his saddle. Hunter gave him his spear and shield. Within minutes, the rest of the patrol had also mounted. Bedwyr led them out of camp at a walk, riding single file among the other squads and the trees.
At first, Steve was excited by the danger of their new task. However, they all knew that the real danger lay several hours away at the earliest. Steve’s enthusiasm waned quickly. Throughout the remaining hours of darkness, the patrol continued at a walk, remaining in single file so that only Bedwyr, in the lead, had to find a path.
When enough light appeared in the east to see into the distance, Bedwyr halted for a moment, looking around in all directions. Steve did the same, but they were still in a forest; he saw nothing but trees. Then, without a word, Bedwyr led them forward again.
Hunter rode with his aural sensitivity at maximum. At midmorning, he heard ten pairs of human footsteps in the forest ahead before any of the humans in the patrol reacted. However, a moment later, several small birds fluttered out of the trees ahead. Bedwyr stopped immediately, raising one hand, palm open, to halt the entire patrol.
Hunter felt his own tension rising under the First Law. On the surface, the First Law required him to stop the violence entirely. He knew he could not, of course, without altering history.
However, Hunter would protect Steve. As a last resort, Hunter would even return them to their own time, though he hoped to avoid that. He reached inside his tunic to make sure that its folds did not interfere with his access to the belt unit hidden inside his abdomen and to set the time at which they would return if necessary. Satisfied, he listened carefully to the movement of the unseen men ahead.
Bedwyr hefted his spear and rode forward slowly. Now the other riders fanned out, moving to surround the area where the birds had been disturbed. Hunter allowed the riders in front of him to open some distance before he followed them. Steve remained behind him.
19
The movement of horses sent another flight of birds out of the branches overhead. Hunter heard shouts from the forest in front of them; in response, Bedwyr leaned low and kicked his mount into a trot. The other riders in the patrol did the same, whooping and yelling.
Hunter heard bowstrings plucked as he moved forward slowly. Steve came up alongside him, looking around uneasily. The rest of the patrol soon rode out of sight among the trees. Hunter turned to Steve.
“Remain behind me. We will pretend that the trees have blocked our charge.” He rode forward at a trot, too, on Bedwyr’s path.
More shouts and the sound of metal clanging reached Hunter before he could see the skirmish. He rode between two large trees and saw two strange men lying dead on the ground under the trees. Next to them, one of Bedwyr’s men lay on his back with two arrows in his torso.
Hunter heard the sounds of men running away on foot and hoofbeats following them. No one else was in sight yet. The patrol was dispersing as the riders’ pursuit took them in different directions.
“You okay?” Steve asked. “With people getting killed around you?”
“Yes,” said Hunter. “From all our missions, I have learned to focus on my larger task in these situations. I feel great stress, however.”
“You want to take off?” Steve asked. “We could claim to get lost.”
“Not yet, but soon. For now, we should stay close to Bedwyr and find out what he will do next.”
“Lead on.”
In a few minutes, Hunter and Steve caught up to Bedwyr, who had stopped at the edge of a clearing.
Bedwyr glanced back and grinned at them over his shoulder. “Come up and see.”
Hunter drew up next to him and looked down a long, open, grassy slope. At its base, over a kilometer away, an army of men carrying long lances and shields, wearing short swords, marched at an angle. Apparently they hoped to circle around the slope rather than climb it. They did not march in formation, but in a long, formless line, its far end hidden by another forest on the far side of the downward slope.
“What are you smiling about?” Steve asked. “They’ve massed their numbers, as you said. They’ll be harder to defeat this way, won’t they?”
“Too late to worry about that,” said Bedwyr. “But we found them before they found us. That’s our task. Now, then. Artorius will have marched at dawn. I estimate that leaves him four hours’ ride behind us. Can you find the column again, as you did yesterday?”
“Yes, I believe so,” said Hunter.
“Good. I will send both of you; I want you both to gain more experience. If you ride directly toward Artorius as he continues to advance, you should meet him in only two hours. Even if you have a little trouble locating him, you will not need much more time.”
“What is our message?”
“Tell Artorius where we have found the Saxons and which way they are marching. In another hour, I will send more couriers back to report whether their line of march has changed or remained the same. In the meantime, I will rally the patrol. From a safe distance, we will watch the Saxons march and fall back to remain clear of them.”
“Very well,” said Hunter.
“Go now. Good luck.”
Hunter wheeled his mount and started back through the trees, with Steve riding beside him. When they had ridden out of Bedwyr’s hearing, Hunter spoke quietly again. “This is excellent for our purposes. After we report to the Dux, we can ride forward again, ostensibly to rejoin Bedwyr. Instead, we can pursue our own agenda.”
“You mean track MC 6,” said Steve. “It sounds perfect to me.”
Hunter had no trouble locating Artorius, as the column followed the winding road through the forest. The ride was as uneventful as the return ride the previous day had been. Hunter and Steve fell into step with Artorius on the march and Hunter reported quickly.
“Well done,” said Artorius. He wore the same plain steel cap and leather armor as his men. “I expect the Saxons are marching overland to reach this very road. When they reach it, they hope it will lead straight to the heart of our land-which it would, if we were not here to meet them.”
Hunter said nothing, waiting.
Artorius smiled grimly, looking up the road. “Well, then. We will march forward for another hour, until the next couriers from Bedwyr arrive to tell us if I am right. In the meantime, we will watch for open country, where we can use our mobility to the greatest advantage. When we know for certain where to find the Saxons, we will prepare a welcome for them.”
“May we have leave to rejoin our patrol?” Hunter asked politely.
“I have a message for you to t
ake,” said Artorius. “You will precede us only by a short distance now. By the time you find them again, they will have fallen back almost to the point where we are likely to meet. Since you can take the road for the first part of this route, you will move faster than you did riding overland through the forest. Tell Bedwyr to select a good battle site if he can. He will know what to look for-open country with high ground for us.”
“Very well,” said Hunter.
“Go now.”
Hunter kicked his mount, leading Steve up the road at a canter.
When they had left the column behind, Steve called out to Hunter. “Does this mean we can’t look for Jane or MC 6 now, after all?”
“First we must give the message to Bedwyr,” said Hunter. “He must receive this instruction.”
“It doesn’t sound that important. Won’t Bedwyr know to look for a good battleground? He knows what he’s doing.”
“I expect so, but I cannot take the chance,” said Hunter. “If we had not come back to this time, he would have sent other messengers to report to Artorius. We must assume that they would have obeyed Artorius’s order to give this message to Bedwyr. I cannot risk failing the instruction.”
“This is ridiculous,” said Steve. “We aren’t getting anywhere.”
Together, they cantered on up the road.
Ishihara led Wayne and Jane on MC 6’s trail all morning. From what Ishihara could tell by the freshness of the tracks, they were not catching up; the small component robot could move faster through the dense forest than the mule and its riders. However, Ishihara did see that MC 6 continued to stay near the road, zigzagging through the trees near it. Finally Ishihara quit pursuing MC 6 through the trees and simply moved up along the side of the road. They moved parallel to the head of the column.
“MC 6 has some purpose regarding the army,” said Ishihara. “We do not need to follow his tracks. Sooner or later, he will return to the road somewhere in front of us.”
“He wants to stop the coming battle,” said Wayne. “As hopeless as any attempt by him will be. At some point, probably soon, I think he will approach Artorius and ask him to negotiate peace with his enemy.”
“I do not see how,” said Ishihara. “A man at the wagons told me he does not seem to have learned to speak the local language. MC 6 has only communicated with gestures.”
“Maybe he’s listening carefully and learning on the sly,” said Wayne.
Jane, again riding behind Wayne, said nothing. She had remained silent all morning.
“How do you feel?” Ishihara asked.
“I’m fine,” said Wayne.
“I’m starved,” said Jane. “Since we ate the last of our food last night, you know we can’t go on indefinitely. If I go much longer without food, you know I’ll be harmed.”
“Don’t pay any attention,” said Wayne. “She can go without a meal or two, just like I can. Let’s get MC 6 today and then worry about it.”
“Agreed,” said Ishihara. He knew Jane had a point, but they were close to MC 6 and Hunter did not seem to be nearby. Ishihara expected to find MC 6 soon. For now, he led them forward, keeping track of the head of the column.
Early in the afternoon, a clear sound of jogging footsteps reached Ishihara from the road in front of the column. Ishihara signaled for Wayne to halt and slipped quietly through the trees so that he could see the road.
MC 6 stood in the center of the muddy road, holding out his arms. Several of the men riding with Artorius shouted for him to stand aside. The small robot did not move, however, and finally Artorius himself raised his hand for the column to halt, and reined in.
“Who are you, fellow? Do you have news of the Saxons?” Artorius looked at MC 6 sternly but not angrily.
MC 6 responded in the same language; Ishihara guessed that he must have learned it the same way Ishihara had. “Many people will die and many more will be injured in the coming war. Please avoid the violence. Speak with your enemies and search for agreements. You need not fight with them.”
“The man is crazed,” a man next to Artorius said quietly. “At night, he may howl at the moon.”
“Perhaps he has been touched by the gods,” Artorius answered softly. Then he raised his voice. “Have you any news, friend? Any word that the Saxons seek peace?”
“No,” said MC 6. “But if you make the first offer, they might listen.”
“I fear not, my friend,” said Artorius. He sounded resigned rather than hostile. “If they did not wish to fight, they would not keep coming across the Channel to take what we have. And if we do not stop them here, they will kill us and our families.” Artorius signaled for the column to advance. “Stand aside, friend.”
MC 6 obeyed, but he called out to Artorius again to parley with the enemy. Artorius ignored him as he rode past. MC 6 jogged alongside, still speaking to him, but no one listened to him now. Finally, MC 6 turned and slipped into the forest again, far up the road.
Ishihara understood that MC 6’s effort was naive and simplistic. As a robot himself, however, he also knew that the First Law did not offer any advice on how to prevent a war. It only dictated that a robot must not allow harm to humans, leaving the means up to the individual robot.
If Hunter’s team and Wayne and Ishihara did not interfere with MC 6, he would eventually try again to prevent violence. If no one stopped him, he might eventually gain the trust of Artorius or a Saxon leader, and actually succeed in lessening the destruction. He just had not had time yet to work out a way to accomplish this. Ishihara saw more clearly than ever that to preserve their own time, they could not allow him to remain here.
A shift in the hoofbeats of the column got his attention. When he looked, he realized that orders had been given for different troops of riders to leave the road and fan out to each side. Ishihara suspected that the Saxon army had been located nearby.
He waved for Wayne to ride up behind him. As the riders changed formation, MC 6 would be unnoticed in the confusion. It would be a good time to catch him unaware and distracted. However, they would have to avoid the riders themselves while they tried to catch the robot.
Steve and Hunter rode back to Bedwyr with their message. They found Bedwyr’s patrol waiting for both the Saxons and Artorius at the far edge of a large, wide clearing. It did not have much of a slope in any direction, but no trees would block the charge of Artorius’s riders. The road ran right through the middle of the clearing.
Soon after Steve and Hunter arrived, they caught the first glimpses of Artorius’s riders at the edge of the clearing behind them. However, they no longer rode up the road in a column. Instead, they had already taken positions in the trees and now waited for the Saxons to advance into the clearing.
“I was right,” Steve muttered. “Bedwyr picked a battle site on his own. He didn’t need the message we brought from Artorius.”
“The fact remains that we fulfilled our historical role,” Hunter whispered back.
Another rider in the patrol trotted out of the trees ahead of them and stopped next to Bedwyr. They spoke too quietly for Steve to hear. Then Bedwyr turned and waved for his patrol to pull back. To their rear, a man next to Artorius waved for them to come.
Steve and Hunter followed him at a trot across the clearing. The patrol halted at the trees where Artorius’s riders stood waiting. From here, Steve saw that the trees were filled with riders.
“Good work, Bedwyr,” said Artorius. “As always. I want you and your men to ride from here as we charge.”
“We are honored,” said Bedwyr.
The other riders around Artorius made room for the patrol. Bedwyr and his men turned their horses and waited, also. Ahead of them, the clearing remained empty. However, birds fluttered out of the trees beyond it,
“This clearing isn’t very big,” said Steve quietly. “Only the front of the enemy line can be trapped here.”
“It’s the biggest open area in the vicinity,” said Bedwyr, with a shrug. “It will do.”
“C
an’t they hear the horses? Or don’t they have patrols that have seen us?” Steve asked. “They must know we’re here.”
“They have seen our patrol, and others, from time to time today,” said Bedwyr. “But they can’t know exactly where Artorius will meet them. With our advantage in mobility, we don’t have to find an ideal battleground. If we panic the front of their line, the others will be thrown into confusion. Then we can ride them down.”
Steve said nothing else. After all, according to Harriet’s history, Artorius had succeeded. These guys knew what they were doing.
“The task never seems to end,” said Artorius.
Bedwyr looked at him.
“We have often said, Bedwyr, that the Saxons come on like waves of the sea. Every year we defeat them, yet the next year we face more of them than ever.”
“You have never lost a battle to them,” said Bedwyr. “You’re the kind of leader bards sing about.”
Artorius gazed grimly into the distance. “I wonder. Bards sing about great victories, not those who fight forever with no success. I wonder if anyone will ever remember our names.”
Steve smiled but did not dare answer.
20
Hunter heard the advancing march of thousands of Saxon feet while the Britons around him still spoke quietly among themselves, unaware of their enemy. The coming battle caused Hunter’s tension under the First Law to rise, but he focused his attention on Steve. When the charge began, they would have to ride forward with the riders or risk colliding with those behind them. However, as soon as they could lose themselves in the confusion of battle, Hunter would take Steve off to one side. Their search for MC 6 and Jane could begin in earnest.
The men around Hunter stiffened suddenly. Ahead of them, the Saxons came tramping down the road, out of the forest. They, too, looked around warily, aware that their enemy lay near.
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