by LeRoy Clary
I should have checked him for weapons. Tyler finally ordered Lucky to back away and saw the man would never use his arm as before. Too much muscle, too many tendons, and too much bleeding. He’d probably lose the arm if he lived. Tyler thought of the misery the man had brought to others and felt little pity. If the knife had connected, Tyler would be limping on one leg at best.
He knelt at his side and asked his first question. “How did you find us?”
The answer came too slow. “Last chance. I get what I want, or this man-eating dog gets his dinner.”
“Our patrols use bloodhounds. They caught your scent.”
“How often do they patrol?”
“Several times every day. My arm hurts.”
“All roads?” Tyler asked.
“Yes.”
“How many roads between here and whatever is south of the land you Cabots control?”
“Six, I think. Yes, six. I need a doctor. I’m hurting. Look at my arm.”
“How long before you were supposed to report back?”
“We just started our patrol. My arm. I see bone.”
“How many days to get clear if we head south?” Tyler persisted, keeping the interrogation on track.
“You won’t make it. No more talking until I get a doctor.” He turned his face defiantly away.
“Lucky,” Tyler called.
The Cabot turned back as the dog moved closer. Tyler glanced at the missing ear; the fresh blood streaked on his tan fur, the scabs on his chest as big as a fist, and a smiled almost formed. The sight of him must terrify the man. The Cabot cradled his injured arm and said, “What else? And you’re going to let me go, right?”
Tyler said, “If it was you, how would you try to sneak south?”
A pause. “Boat.”
“Don’t try to lie. We know there are river patrols.”
Bender came to stand beside Tyler. “That’s the same answer I got. They keep boats pulled onto the river bank not far from here. They don’t guard them heavily. A few are for two rowers to pull upstream, but with two men rowing we might outrun the Cabots.”
Tyler said, “Nets across the river?”
“In one place, but nets are easy to cut.”
“Better than going through this again. I don’t like dog attacks.” Tyler glanced at the two survivors. What about them?”
Bender said, “Weapons first. Get what we need from them, and this time, check for coins.”
Tyler ran to the place he and the dragon had chased the last man down. He grabbed the belt, scabbard, quiver, and bow, but found no purse. Rushing back, he took the same from the dead Cabot beside the path and found three silver pieces and two small copper coins in a purse.
Back at the clearing, Bender held up two more pouches that held coins, as well as another quiver and bow. They belted on the swords, distributed the arrows in the last quiver between the other two, and stuffed their packs full of shredded dried meat with raisins to sweeten it. Bender had already ripped their shirts into long strips. He had tied the man with his arms behind his back, his wrists on either side of a tree trunk. Bender was busy tying the feet.
“We’ll die if you leave us here,” moaned the one with the forearm bleeding so much it darkened the grass of the meadow. The man’s eyelids already drooped, and his movements were feeble. More blood seeped from the wound on his back and pooled on the grass. Tyler stood over him. He probably should feel sorry for him, but didn’t. Not only had he captured and sent others to the mines, but he would have laughed and enjoyed sending Tyler if his dogs had let them live.
“The world is better off without them,” Bender said as if sensing Tyler’s thoughts.
They gathered up their things and Bender took the lead, as always. Tyler said, “Know where we’re going?”
He said over his shoulder, “As a matter of fact I do. We’re going to the river and stealing a boat.”
“But do you know where it is?”
“Of course, I know where the river is. And before you ask, yes, I also know where the boats are, too. That Cabot became almost overly talkative near the end.”
They headed west, looking directly where the sun would be setting later in the day. The ground leveled out, but they placed more bushes in their pants, adjusting them, so they again concealed them from the mountains and the watchers up there. As the forest thinned, the trees became smaller and sparser, eventually turning into a muddy grassland with the river flowing gently beyond.
Bender knelt at the edge of the trees. “We wait here until dusk. The boats should be ahead, near that shack.”
Tyler automatically glanced at the setting sun. The wait wouldn’t be long. He sat and opened the flap on the backpack. The dragon emerged, sleepy and wanting to snuggle with him. Tyler pushed it away, “Go find something to eat.”
Bender laughed as he released the other. They joined forces and entered the trees, sniffing, watching, and searching for anything that moved or that they smelled. Lucky settled beside Bender and closed his eyes.
His wounds were healing, and overall the dog looked healthier. The areas around the scabs no longer looked infected and raw. The missing piece of ear was lined in a thin scab, and his head looked lopsided but otherwise better than before. And his ribs didn’t show as much.
Tyler felt almost content as he looked from Lucky to Bender. Then he heard the beginning of a triumphant screech from where the dragons disappeared, but it was cut off almost as quickly as it started. They found their dinner.
Tyler placed the new weapons besides the backpacks, with the intent of examining them in detail later. He said, “You worried?”
“Yes.”
“Me neither.” Tyler smiled, then continued, “Give me the basics of your plan.”
“Steal a boat with two sets of oars, so we can row faster if chased. Other than that, we drift and hope for a dark night.”
Tyler said, “Can we damage the other boats? Then by morning, we’re in the clear?”
“Three days of walking or one night drifting on the river is about the same distance.”
Bender had told the truth. He still sounded and looked worried. Bender would be considering all the possible moves of the game ahead.
Tyler said, “What are you thinking about?”
“The river. Most who try to pass will choose to travel on the far side, away from the Cabots.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“No, that’s where I’d set my traps if I was a Cabot, or bounty hunter. The middle of the river leaves a boat too exposed and easy to see, the near side is too close to their camps.”
Tyler pictured it. “You’re not thinking the best place is the near shoreline, are you?”
“Overhanging trees will hide us part of the time.”
“Only an idiot would try to pass so close to the enemy camps and their lookouts,” Tyler said.
“Which is why they won’t have people watching this side. Listen, when we get to the river, we have two things to do. Prevent any guards from sounding the alarm, and find the best boat.”
“I know, two sets of oars.”
“And fast. We want a sharp bow, narrow boat, and lightweight, so look for that,” Bender said.
Tyler quipped, “I want one that keeps air inside and the water out, unlike the last one.”
“That too.”
“While I’m at it, I wish for one painted black to help hide us.”
Bender turned to look at Tyler. “Anything else?”
“Well, now that you ask, a pretty pair of attractive serving wenches who know how to row, and a keg of stout ale would make the trip memorable and interesting.”
Bender grinned the wry smile that indicated he was going to best Tyler again. He nodded and said, “That sounds nice, but don’t you want anything for yourself since I’ll be busy with both wenches and the only keg?”
Tyler ignored him in favor of stringing the taller bow and testing the pull. I wish I could practice with it. Nothing is sillier than goin
g into combat with an untested weapon. The pull was softer than the military bow issued to him but longer. So were the arrows. All of them were made with fine workmanship, far better than the Unity Army provided. The arrows were straight, metal tipped, and appeared new.
He said, “The Cabots certainly have nice uniforms and weapons.”
“Good quality dogs, well-trained. No wonder nobody has come in and taken over.”
Tyler remembered the coins they’d found in the purses. “They pay their men more than we ever made. The one guard had silver coins.”
“Blood money. They can afford to pay them when they do the work of digging the mines for free. Free labor means huge profits.”
The bitter tone caught Tyler’s attention. He wouldn’t want to be one of the Cabot guards who tried to take Bender on. Normally Bender was the most friendly, jovial guy around, always making funny comments and cracking jokes, but when angry it was another matter. His friend had a personal thing against injustice, for him, against him, or for those around him.
Tyler had seen Bender stand another’s mid-watch, share his dinner with men who were hungry, and stand up to bullies in the barracks in the name of injustice. One time, there were four bullies against one small recruit, no more than a kid. Bender told them to leave the kid alone. They turned on Bender, and that was a mistake. Thinking it was four-to-one, they advanced. But Tyler jumped to Bender’s side, as did the recruit.
They still saw it as four against two-and-a-half, but they were wrong—twice. Tyler and Bender could have probably won on their own, and the recruit may have helped, but when Tyler saw them back off in a hurry, he heard others shuffling up behind him. Turning, he’d found six more men standing with them, all who had received help from Bender at one time or another.
But Bender was angry. He wouldn’t allow the bullies to back off and choose another victim the day after, or the next. Instead, he charged. By the time Tyler realized what happened, and leaped into the fight to join him, it was over. Bender had put three of the four into the medical tent, and because of fighting Bender and he had spent ten days behind bars.
Bender had that same look in his eye now. Tyler turned his attention back to the other bows, finding them as well made as the first. He suspected the easier, longer pulls would send the arrows as far as the stout bows he was used to.
A glint of sun off metal revealed where a lookout was located on the side of the nearest hillside. Tyler looked towards the sun and shielded his eyes, as anyone on watch in the hills would do. He squinted.
“Yup, time to go,” Bender said, gathering his things. “They can’t see us with the sun in their eyes.
“The dragons?”
Bender looked at Lucky. “Go get them.”
Lucky licked his mouth with a long pink tongue, adoring eyes on Bender. But, the dog didn’t move to find the dragons. Tyler called softly, but they didn’t appear.
Tyler hadn’t seen them since they went hunting, but started making his way slowly to the river’s edge upriver of the shack. Above all, they needed to prevent the alarm from being raised. An unexpected single guard sat in a chair on the porch, the chair tipped back, the guard napping in the last rays of the sun. Between the shack and them were thirty, or more, rowboats of every description. He motioned for Bender and the dog to wait.
After dropping all but one bow and three arrows, Tyler moved closer to the shack, circling and looking in a window to make sure no other guards were inside. When he saw none, he used the skills the Unity Army drilled into him. Position. Controlling the right terrain wins battles, and he now had a clear line of fire. Ambush. Fight and retreat. Always have an escape route planned. He did. He moved closer because of distrusting the bow he’d never used.
The first arrow caught the napping guard neck-high, a full foot above where he’d aimed. The shaft penetrated the back of his neck and nearly exited his front. The guard stood, gurgled, and fell face down. Tyler raced forward to make sure there were no more inside that he’d missed, then checked the outhouse, another reasonable precaution. He retrieved the arrow. Good arrows are hard to come by and expensive. He wiped the shaft on the dead man’s shirt.
The guard had a fat purse, and Tyler slipped the strings and carried it without looking inside, leaving the guard’s bow and sword, but grabbing the quiver filled with ten more arrows. As his eyes raised to Bender, he found him already loading their belongings into a boat.
Bender looked at the line of boats pulled onto the beach and decided it would take far too long to disable them, and while he was at it, the relief guard at the shack might appear. The risk was too great.
Lucky raced around Bender as he stood beside the boat, trying to play. He barked once, and as Tyler ran to join them, the two dragons raced from the trees as if called by the bark, blood staining their fronts, again. The smaller one, the one belonging to Bender, carried the leg of a furry animal in its mouth.
By the time Tyler reached the boat, Bender had their things thrown inside, and he was pushing it down the muddy bank and into the water. Tyler joined him, putting his weight on the stern of the boat and using his legs to push. As the boat slipped into the water, the boat floated and pushed easier. When only the bow was still aground, Tyler saw the dragons were standing nearby, uncertain of what to do. They eyed the boat uneasily.
“No time to mess around,” he snarled, stomping to the first one and grabbing it around the chest. Tyler lifted it and started to hand it to Bender when it bit him on the back of his hand. Startled, not hurt, he tossed it. Bender made a grab and caught the thing.
The other, the one that thought Tyler was its mother, raced ahead and leaped into Tyler’s hands. He grabbed it and passed it to Bender. It twisted and turned, offended and bit Bender’s arm, drawing blood and a scream of pain.
Bender looked accusingly at Tyler. “From now on, you take care of your dragon, and I’ll take care of mine.”
Tyler looked down at the blood dripping from his hand, the result of Bender’s dragon. “Deal.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The boat was perfect. They could hide behind the high sides by sitting on the bottom instead of the seats. The wood was old, painted several times, mostly shades of brown, but at least once, green. Tyler suspected the wood was cedar, a popular wood for boats because it was light and rot-resistant. It was wider than he hoped for, but thus, more stable, if not as fast to row.
There were three seats for rowing, three sets of oars in leather oarlocks that protested with each pull. Bender scooped water and soaked his. The squeaking of the oarlocks became less, and he wet them again. Tyler did the same. Their coordinated strokes became almost silent.
The sun had set, but it hadn’t turned full dark, so they rowed until they reached a thick stand of cattails and pointed the boat at them. The bow entered the cattails and held them against the current.
Bender leaned closer. “We’ll wait here and listen for a while. But if there’s a watch set a few hundred paces downriver, we don’t want to have it announce us with an alarm.”
“No problem.”
“Just keeping you informed, so don’t be upset with me.”
Tyler scowled.
Bender said softly, “Are you upset at killing him?”
“Of course. And wondering when the watch will change and his replacement finds him.”
“We should have tossed him in the river,” Bender said.
“And let him float right past the next lookout downstream who would sound the alarm?”
Bender said, “Then we should have filled his clothes with rocks and sunk him.”
“With a change of watch showing up at any time, that would have been hard for us to explain.”
“Or fed him to the dragons,” Bender whispered and smiled, never one to quit a good argument.
“They’ve sunk their teeth into too many men already today, including us. They already have enough bad habits.” Tyler looked at his bloody hand again. “I wouldn’t want them to get used to eating pe
ople, especially us.”
Bender scowled, then whispered, “Listen, I know you like to talk a lot, but could you please keep it down, so you don’t alert the enemy?”
Tyler almost sputtered in frustration, but held his reply in check. Voices drifted to them from what sounded like very close. Lucky growled softly, his nose held high and sniffing. The dragons were both curled up asleep, and he hoped they would remain that way until the men passed.
As the sound of the voices diminished, the speakers were heading in the direction of the shack where they would probably sound the alarm of intruders. Bender said, “Time for us to go.” But first, he distributed the bows, quivers, and swords, placing all in easy reach of either of them.
They used the oars to pull the boat out into the deeper water. Tyler realized it had grown to almost full dark while they’d sat there. His eyes adjusted to the dark. Still, it was hard to see the shoreline, and he hoped the opposite was true. Anyone on the shore would have a hard time seeing the boat. They turned the boat to point downriver, rowing slowly in synchronized strokes, Bender sat behind Tyler matching his almost silent strokes. The boat surged ahead with each pull of the oars.
A shout sounded from upstream. A piercing blast of a whistle followed, and then more shouts responded. Orders were issued. Tyler had no doubt they already had discovered the dead man, as well as the drag, marks the boat left in the soft riverbank, along with their footprints. Now it was a chase.
Tyler relaxed and pulled longer strokes that took less effort. He and Bender had rowed many boats when children, and he understood that those shouting orders were not following them yet, but trying inform others. They would report to their superiors, then appoint men to the boats to begin the pursuit. That would take time, and while they located the boats they wished to use, assigned the right men to row, and gathered their weapons, the river was taking him and Bender farther away.
If they were captured, it wouldn’t be by those following behind from the guard shack, it would be from men downriver. Tyler didn’t relax. The real danger was yet to come. There could be several traps, bottlenecks, blockades, and pursuit boats lying in wait.
