Caravans of Doridia: The 2nd Chronicle of Jon Hunter (The Saga of Jon Hunter Book 2)
Page 16
I rushed towards the far side where Lehdah remained with a small detail to protect her. Her face showed relief as she saw me but shock too. “Are you hurt?” she inquired touching my arm and wiping blood from me. I hesitated before answering her for in fact I did not know so involved had I been in the heat of battle. Upon reflection I determined that I was uninjured and so informed her. “Come, there is a matter for us to attend to,” and without looking behind me to determine if in fact she followed I strode to the place where lay her former master and the man who had betrayed me and led my men into ambush.
He still lived when I reached him and I seized him by his filthy tunic, dragging his body across the dead to an open spot of ground where I threw him. He was conscious and I saw that he knew me. His thin lipped mouth moved slightly as if he meant to speak but no sound emitted from his throat. Once a composed and cunning man, the sudden and bloody attack had stripped him of his decorum and without dignity he stared death in its face.
“I see that you remember me. That is good. I have a score to settle and it will be done now.” I removed my sword and held it to his breast. He braced himself for the thrust, a rank smell informing me that his bowels had involuntarily evacuated themselves, “Unless, of course, this lady wished to do the deed herself.”
Lehdah had now reached my side, and beheld her former rapist and despoiler upon the ground, laying at my feet prepared to meet a speedy death. His eyes opened and I saw first a look of recognition and then of terror such as I have never witnessed before.
“Not you, Hunter. I will take care of this... this insect.”
Facing the Sekers around Evaldor Lehdah said, “Hold him fast.” She reached to her belt and removed a dagger. She looked upon him for several long moments as his mouth worked itself and no sound came from him. Finally, she leaned towards him and he uncontrollably urinated. She took his limp organ in her hand and in deathly silence sliced it from his body, brandishing it above her in glee. She was no longer a lady but was now a creature of the forest, a primeval animal seeking its revenge.
Evaldor screamed and continued to scream. It was the sound of some wounded creature, inhuman and bodiless. It lasted a time and then his vocal cords, unable to bear the strain, were sprung and thereafter the air rushed from his lungs in rasping sounds, more like sobs than anything else.
The woman held the bloody flesh above her and shouted, “Witness my revenge!” and then leaning to the man’s head she shoved the bloody thing into his open mouth and with her sharply pointed dagger thrust it down into his throat, slashing it to ribbons as she did so along with his tongue and the sides of his mouth.
The creature, no longer a man, thrashed about on the ground and chocked in his own flesh and blood as the harpy drove her blade repeatedly into his mouth. A gurgling sound emitted from the throat of the dying thing and a short coughing spasm followed but soon the body convulsed as it vainly sought the air of life and as his complexion, such as could be seen from the blood, darkened he at last grew silent and still and passed into painless death.
All the while Lehdah continued to slash at his face and then began to stab his body and plunged her dagger into him repeatedly screaming as she did.
All those who witnessed the mutilation remained apart from it. She was allowed to do what she wished and in a short while the now cold meat no longer bore any resemblance to its living form. Lehdah rose from the body, only a few of us were still remaining, and dropped the dagger from her crimson arms. She looked as though she had been dipped in blood or had spent the day in a slaughter house. She walked to me and with a faraway look whispered, “It wasn’t enough.”
I took her by arm and led her to a stream where I bathed her and washed the blood of Evaldor from her.
We camped a distance from the scene of the slaughter which I ordered left as it was. None of the outlaws were burned as tradition required. They would serve this night as food for creatures of the night.
I permitted small fires in careful locations and shared mine with Lehdah and her brother Ladak. She had seemed in a trance following the death of Evaldor and with the fall of night, now lay curled in her thick robe touching my body with hers and slept in a slumber of such intensity that it seemed nothing would ever stir her. Once though when I moved a short distance from her she moaned and reached out to hold me desperately against her.
Ladak and I spoke in hushed somber voices. The sounds of great animals feasting at the site of the battle could be heard and in the blackness of the midnight we at last were silent. Sleep came slowly to me and in my nightmares I was pursued with the bloody face of Evaldor whose mouth had been slashed into an eternal grin and who could not be evaded or escaped.
~
We marched. Our route took us along the foothills of the mountain. I saw the full coming of spring but there was no glory in it for me. Lehdah slowly emerged from her darkness, more relaxed than at any time since l had known her. Ladak beamed at the change and commented to me on more than one occasion that this was the Lehdah of old. He welcomed his sister back from the depths of her mind and with each night their bound grew.
The Sekers remained in good spirits and the scouts grew particularly adept at their task. We slew a few small hunting parties and a prisoner or two provided us with information concerning Kanchoh. We continued to press our march and I was confident that within the next few days we would at last have him within our grasp.
~
“You cannot succeed,” he said to me. I stood alone, apart from the rest in body was well as in spirit. I stood in the darkness of the trees, under a star filled moonless night, within the blackness of the shadows. “You cannot succeed,” he repeated.
I turned towards Ladak to acknowledge him and spoke. “You are wrong, my friend. I cannot fail.”
“When we reach Kanchoh we must attack to free the Lady Sofeeah and when the attack succeeds he will slay her rather than allow her to go free and return to her family. It will be his final revenge. As he stands looking defeat and death in the face, he will not permit her to escape him. You cannot succeed,” Ladak repeated, a final time.
“If we free her, we succeed. If she is slain, then she is freed of her life as Kanchoh’s slave and we succeed. Better she were dead than to continue as she does.”
My friend remained with me a time but I said nothing further to him and so at last he left me. Yes, we could and would save Sofeeah from the life Kanchoh compelled her to live but if I failed to free her and bring her out from the forest alive, then I would lose.
It was a loss I did not believe I could endure.
~
We traveled not as one party but divided into three groups of 100, spread along the same line of march. Each group set its own camp though at the time and place I selected, posted its own guards and sent forth its own scouts though all reported any sightings to me first before returning to the Commander of One Hundred for whom they were responsible.
I did not want us to be a single target for anyone who spotted us yet as we remained near each other, we could be of ready assistance in the event of attack. The dense, difficult forest simply does not lend itself to large masses of men.
It was on the third day following the death of Evaldor that a scout returned with word that an outlaw wished to speak with me. He and his two fellow scouts had been hailed from atop a great pile of rocks by a bulky savage who said he would speak with me at dusk. The scouts were unable to press an attack so they had returned with the news.
The outlaw said his name was Danak.
Over the protestations of both Ladak and Lehdah I went to the rocks as requested and sat beneath a tree, awaiting the coming of darkness. Shortly after the setting of the sun, Danak approached me. He seemed to be alone. “Greetings, Hunter,” he growled.
“Greetings, Danak.” I said nothing further for he had called this meeting and would tell me his reasons soon enough.
“We have already slain some 32 outlaws and have the scalps to prove it,” he boasted.
“I know. It seems to me that if you are willing to pay so much for the hair of an outlaw that you might be willing to pay even more to recover the blond haired woman held by Kanchoh.” Danak stared at me, obviously pleased with his conclusions.
“What do you know of a woman held by Kanchoh?”
“I know that you escaped with her from his camp and that it was she who was with you when you led my men. I know that after you joined the caravan Kanchoh organized a mighty band of men and set an ambush almost at the walls of Lathanah itself. I know that he promised captives, gold and food to those who followed him yet his real purpose was the return of the woman you had taken from him. Now you lead men in the forest and you follow in Kanchoh’s direction.”
He seemed to have figured things out by himself. “What good can you be to me in recovering the woman of which you speak?”
“I am an outlaw and many in my band are known to Kanchoh. We can pretend to join him and he would suspect nothing. We can arrange to get near the woman, perhaps even smuggle her from the camp to you, but if not we can protect her when you attack and hold her in safety until your men reach us.”
“It appears that you could be of use to me. What do you wish for this service?”
The dirty ruffian grinned and said, “More than you think. Gold of course. One hundred pieces of gold for me.”
“So much? For a mere woman?”
“Yes, so much. To me she is but another soft body – but to you? Who knows? I think you will pay me 100 gold coins for her.”
He knew he had all of the cards and I knew that there was no point in quibbling if I wished his help. He offered some hope, in fact even the possibility that my Sofeeah could he rescued alive.
“Yes,” I replied. “And what else?”
“One gold piece for each of my men, only those who survive, that will keep the cost down for you.”
“Agreed. What else?”
“The head of Kanchoh.”
“Agreed. What else?”
“You will not kill any more of his band then is necessary to free the woman.”
“To what end? Why do you care if we slay them or not?”
“One cannot lead the dead.”
So, this was his purpose, He wished to assume the command of the band. He wanted me to eliminate the principle competition and to spare most of the outlaws so he could take over. With the gold I paid him there was little doubt but that he would take command. He was a man of ambition.
“Agreed.”
Business decided, we spoke until the moonrise. We planned the attack, the signals, all that was needed to insure success. If only I could trust this ambitious monster who I had created.
22. Again We Battle in the Forest
I estimated that we were now within twenty short miles of Runah. Kanchoh, true to form, had indeed sought out the land with which he was most familiar. He preferred to operate near the city which had seen fit to banish him. The information we had received thus far indicated to me that he still led a sizable hand. I was certain that he maintained the band with promises of successful attacks on caravans. It would be possible with such numbers to overwhelm any of the smaller caravans and the men could live for some time on the food taken from even a small caravan. Then to, they would have the pleasures of the slaves and other riches with which to barter for items of value to them.
Despicable as it was, some unscrupulous merchants traded on a routine bases with outlaws. These men did so in secret but the profits to be made were immense as the outlaws seized gold and slaves and had few merchants with whom they could trade. The outlaws dealing merchants, called Black Merchants, charged exorbitant prices for their goods.
However, I did not think it likely that Kanchoh could successfully hold together more than 150 men or so for any length of time. Even a band of that size had difficulty surviving the harsh winters. It seemed most probable that Kanchoh’s group could stay together long enough to raid perhaps one or two more caravans and with good fortune it might last the summer but with the coming of winter it would surely break into smaller groups. I doubted if Kanchoh could successfully maintain the band for even that long, as outlaws notoriously do not adhere to discipline and are an independent lot.
Scouts were scattered in all directions about our men, all seeking to establish contact with Kanchoh’s band. We were concealed in a small ravine in the foothills and as we were so close to our goal I had decided that we would not venture forth as a body except to move into position for the attack.
Food was becoming a problem for us. I had ordered that the scouts also seek game for us. If we were unable to attack soon we would be compelled to force march to the road and then return to Runah for food. We would give ourselves away by such an act and effectively destroy any chance of taking Kanchoh by surprise.
~
“But I thought that one of the major reasons for coming into the forest like this was to kill outlaws? Now you propose to let them go free? It makes little sense to me.” Ladak was unhappy with my new instructions and in all candor I did not like them myself. I abhorred the thought of permitting so many to go free, free to rape, plunder and kill, yet too I could see no other way by which I might possibly get Sofeeah out alive.
“Ladak, I too do not wish to let these men go free and particularly I do not like the idea of permitting another leader to take over such a large band of cutthroats, but I can see no other hope for freeing Sofeeah and it is to free her that I first returned to the forest. The killing is secondary and can wait until she is out of here. Remember Ladak, we free one like your sister. It is a worthy cause, is it not?”
“Yes, it is worthy, and I lost sight of that purpose for a time. You are right. We can always kill outlaws. Now tell me your plan again.” He leaned intently forward as I explained the plan still again, searching for any fault or any possible improvement.
Earlier that day a scout had returned with word that a large camp of outlaws had been spotted not far from our location. The brave Sekers had managed to top a hill in secret, he thought, and counted the group which he said numbered over 150. I must surely be Kanchoh’s band I thought. He had observed the camp for some time and then for an instant had caught a glimpse of a woman with golden hair kept at the center of the camp. At once he returned with the news.
My plan was simple as most successful battle plans are. In the dead of night, we would approach the camp. My most skilled scouts would go at once before dark to determine the location of the guards for in the dark they could never all be located. Well before dawn after the last relief had assumed its place these men would be slain. This would clear the way for my Sekers to approach close to the outlaw camp and at first light before the men stirred we would attack with the sound of the trumpet,
Lacking sufficient men to encircle, I elected instead to press the attack from the south. This left a mountain of some magnitude to the north of the outlaws and a large stream to their east. Escape was to the west, into the foothills we now occupied. It was my hope that the early morning attack if launched in absolute surprise would startle the enemy and allow many of them to be slain before the battle was fully engaged. For this purpose I selected the 30 best archers from my men and proposed to situate them on a small rise where they could kill many in their slumber before the trumpet sounded the charge. My men would attack as a thickly massed wedge that would drive straight for the center of the camp and hopefully seize Sofeeah before Kanchoh had time to understand what was occurring.
Danak and his men, should have joined the band by now and he intended to sleep his men near Kanchoh. Danak expected an attack and upon seeing it would also rush for Sofeeah and if possible slay Kanchoh. To mark his men for his they all would wear a patch of red on their left sleeve.
I hoped that those who escaped the arrows and death from the first charge as we cut our way through to their leader would lose s
tomach for the fight and opt to fly to the west, an avenue intentionally left open for them. If many did but then regrouped to counterattack I was confident that we could resist them. It was important that Danak see I was complying with our agreement for if it appeared that I was not, he might simply vent his anger on Sofeeah.
Lehdah started to say something as we broke the meeting but did not. I remained silent and apart from the others until we moved out at midnight.
~
The scream pierced the air sharp as pure tempered Khashan bronze. It could only have been one of the guards who a scout had failed to dispatch in silence, or a scout slain instead by a guard.
It was black and we were not yet in position. Attack was impossible under the circumstances and there remained nothing to do but to continue to move into position and hope against hope that the cry had gone unheeded within the enemy camp, but I knew that it had not and that dawn would greet us with disaster.
Ladak groaned softly at the piercing cry as he and all others knew what it meant.