“Okay,” Lizeth said slowly, turning to look at the barn, “I suppose you’re probably right.” She looked around, “We can at least set the house on fire.”
Tarc shook his head, “They, um, probably have some of the women in there too don’t you think? Whoever their new leader is, he probably has…” Tarc petered out, not wanting to say that his ghost told him that the biggest room in the farmhouse held a large man and a young woman. He had an arm carelessly draped over her. She lay rigidly at the very edge of the bed.
Lizeth sighed, “I guess you’re probably right about that too. You gonna make any suggestions of your own, or you just gonna shoot mine down?”
Tarc looked around the camp. After a moment, he reluctantly said, “We could do the same as they did to us.”
Lizeth frowned, “Like what?”
“You know, shoot arrows into their camp.”
“Oh!” She turned to look at the tents. “You mean just shoot randomly into their little tent city?” Musingly she said, “Their tents aren’t all packed together like the caravan was.”
“I can hit their tents.”
Lizeth turned to look at him, considering. “Well, if you can shoot anything like your dad, I guess you can.”
Like everyone else, Lizeth had assumed all the archery yesterday had actually been done by Tarc’s father. He was the one that’d hit the bullseye repeatedly back at the tavern after all. The kid had hit close to the bullseye though. She looked at the tents again. They were bigger than the entire archery target, he probably could hit them, even from where they stood.
Lizeth had been thinking, now she pointed, “Do you think you could hit the tents reliably from over behind the bushes? Then when they come out they won’t immediately see us. And, when things start to get too hot we’ll have a shorter run to the woods.”
Tarc nodded and started walking that way. The bushes actually provided a pretty good screen. He reached over his shoulder and started drawing an arrow out of his quiver, but Lizeth stopped him. “Wait, hand me your quiver and I’ll hold it in front of you so the butts will be ready for you to draw. We want you to be able to shoot as many as possible before we have to run.”
Tarc shrugged out of the quiver and handed it to her. She stepped in front of him and angled it back, “Is this good?”
“Uh-huh,” Tarc said drawing and nocking an arrow.
Before Tarc drew, Lizeth stopped him again, “Wait. Let’s see, you have…” she counted, “twelve arrows.” She looked out at the tents, “There are… fifteen tents.” Musingly she said, “Do you think it would be better to shoot several arrows at each of a few tents to try to be sure you hit some of the bastards? Or, one arrow into each of twelve tents to spread the panic wider?”
“One in each,” Tarc said, drawing. He shot them one at a time, irritating her by pausing long enough after each one for it to hit before shooting the next.
“Shoot a little faster!” she hissed at him, not knowing that he was tracking each one into one of the warm bodies in a tent before shooting the next. He didn’t respond by speeding up at all which really frustrated her.
Though Lizeth couldn’t tell it, six of the tents had only had one raider in them. Their tent mates had been the ones on guard. Tarc shot those six tents first, presuming that they would be least likely to raise the alarm. Then he moved on to the tents with two bodies in them, dropping arrows into one of the two bodies in each tent. He shot for the chest rather than the skull, afraid that the tent fabric would deflect his arrows enough to miss a head shot.
Even back where Tarc and Lizeth were standing, they could hear the “whump” the arrows made when they went through the walls of the tents. Shortly they started to hear the grunts and moans of the men who’d been struck, but not killed immediately. Next there began to be shouts from the second man in the tents where someone had been hit. By the time Tarc got to his last two arrows the tents were rapidly emptying with the men scattering in all directions.
Lizeth expected him to stop shooting and save the last two arrows, but he shot them anyway. Two men who had by chance started running toward Tarc and Lizeth fell down, Did he actually hit those guys even though they were running? she wondered.
Tarc took the quiver from Lizeth and turned to begin sprinting for the woods. As he went, he managed to throw the empty quiver over his shoulder, carrying only the bow in his hand.
Lizeth ran just behind him, casting frequent glances back over her shoulder. The raiders’ camp seemed much more disorganized than she would have expected from a military group in which a few people had been hit by arrows. In any case, no one had gotten organized enough yet to begin a pursuit.
Before they’d started running, Lizeth thought she should lead in the woods, but Tarc headed into the most obvious visible passage, so she stayed right behind him. He ran at a reasonable ground-eating lope. When the opening narrowed, he cut over to an animal trail going the right direction without searching for a passage like she had expected. When the animal trail started to tail off to the east, he broke off of it into a small meadow she hadn’t noticed either. He led Lizeth across the open area and immediately found another animal trail, this one heading more directly towards the caravan.
As they neared the other side of the woods, Tarc slowed to a walk desperately short of breath. Lizeth said, “We should keep on at a slow run if you can. We don’t want them gaining ground on us.”
Tiredly, Tarc gazed at her, wanting to tell her no one was back there. Instead, with a sigh he started jogging again. Lizeth ran lightly along beside him. Irritatingly, she seemed as if she’d be able to keep going for miles.
As if to cheer him up she said, “I wish I’d happened onto these animal trails when I was on my way here. I got caught in a couple of blind alleys and had to double back!”
Tarc only grunted in response. He couldn’t very well tell her he’d found the trails with his ghost.
Unaware of how embarrassed he felt that she could still talk while running beside him, she said, “I’m pretty sure at least your last two arrows hit a couple of those guys! For sure two of them fell down right after you shot. I wonder if any of the arrows you dropped into their tents actually hit some of the bastards?”
Tarc shrugged, though she didn’t see it in the dim light while they were running. He’d been worrying that she’d seen that his last two arrows were head shots. He felt conflicted about her knowing how well he shot, on the one hand wanting her to respect him for his ability with the bow, on the other hand not wanting everyone in the caravan to find out how easily he could take a human life. Tired as he was, his imagination still let him worry about everyone being horrified and thinking he was a monster.
When they were still a couple hundred yards from Prichard’s, Tarc slowed to a walk, puffing hard. “Let’s rest a little. We don’t want to arrive back at the caravan looking like a pair of blown horses.”
Panting, but not breathless like Tarc, Lizeth gave a little laugh, “Well, maybe one blown horse and one tired horse.”
Tarc snorted but couldn’t really laugh while still gasping for air. When he’d walked long enough for his breathing to slow, he said, “You’ll keep my secret?”
“Secret?”
“Yeah, about the knives?”
Lizeth snorted, “Sure, though if I could throw a knife like that, I’d damn well want everyone to know about it. Nobody’d be giving me ‘girl guard’ crap then!”
“Yeah, I can see that. But, you make your living as a fighter. I make my living as a healer.” He shrugged, “Don’t want people being afraid of you when you’re trying to get them to come to you for treatment.” To himself, Tarc thought, Hmmm, I didn’t think I wanted to be a healer. He felt startled to realize that he actually did. At least he’d rather be a healer than a killer.
***
“You’ve got to be shittin’ me!” Johnson said, a chill of desperation running down his spine. When the caravaners had shot Wayne, he’d actually been pretty excited to take ove
r as captain of their little band. He’d only been a corporal in Krait’s company, but he was big and the remaining lieutenant and two sergeants were afraid of him. He’d thought that being bigger, stronger, and meaner than anyone else qualified him to be captain, but now, dealing with this crisis made him wonder. “How many killed and how many wounded?” he asked again, not able to really comprehend the numbers.
Lt. Toler—Johnson had left him as his lieutenant because Toler was the smartest guy in the company, even if he was kind of a wimp—said, a panicked look in his eyes, “All six of the guards we had out. Ten guys, shot in their tents with arrows. Two guys, shot outside their tents. Arrows again. Those two sons of bitches were running! And Smitty. Smitty took an arrow in the shoulder while he was dropping arrows into their caravan! He just got back.”
“But how many of those are just wounded?”
“Smitty.” Toler glanced over towards the tents, “Well, unless you want to count the three of them in the tents with arrows through their chests who ain’t dead yet?”
“Jesus! How many total?!” Johnson asked, too flustered to try to add them up himself even if he’d been good at math.
“Eighteen dead or dying, one wounded and might make it, but he ain’t gonna be fightin’ anytime soon.”
“Christ!” Johnson said, running his fingers through his hair and trying to make sense of this mess. “So how many effectives do we have left?” He could have figured it out on his own if he wasn’t in such a dither, but that’s what a lieutenant was for, wasn’t it?
“We had fifty-two,” Toler said patiently. Even Krait, who was a lot smarter than Johnson, had relied on Toler to do math. “We lost eleven when they shot Wayne and them out at the roadblock, so we were down to forty-one then. Nineteen more tonight, leaves us with twenty-two.”
“You’ve got to be shittin’ me!” Johnson said again, scrubbing at his eyes with the palms of his hands. He peered at Toler, “What do you think we should do?” he asked. Johnson didn’t want to admit just how panicked he felt, but he really had no idea how to handle this disaster.
“Bury the dead. Let that unholy caravan go! Twenty-two men will be plenty to control this area once those sons of bitches are gone.”
Feeling haunted, Johnson’s eyes flickered back and forth, “Are you sure it’s the caravan? What if it’s somebody from around here?”
“Somebody from around here would’ve attacked us before now.” Toler shrugged, “Besides, they’ve got those professional-looking guards, and you saw how the caravan shot Wayne up. This wasn’t just some stray farmers what learned to shoot arrows last night, you know?”
“Jesus,” Johnson said again. After a moment he practically whispered, “How many archers did they bring down here tonight?”
Toler didn’t say anything for a bit, then, sounding haunted himself, he said, “I don’t know, but they only shot twelve arrows, so it might have been just one.”
Johnson understood what Toler meant because a quiver that held a dozen arrows was pretty common. But he didn’t completely understand because after a second he said, “Wait a minute, they killed twelve of our guys!”
Toler nodded.
“You’re saying they didn’t miss with a single arrow?!”
Toler shook his head.
“Come on! You said they shot ten of our guys in their tents!”
Toler nodded again, “Yeah.”
“And killed all ten!”
Toler nodded again.
“How the hell can anyone be that lucky?!”
Toler shrugged, and glanced around as if he thought someone might be listening. “Not sure it was luck. All ten of them were shot in the chest. It’s like some kind of demon did it.” He made a warding sign. “Remember, the guys that made it back from the road said Wayne and all his guys got shot in the skull?” A shiver ran over him. “The two guys what got shot outside their tents tonight? They got hit in the head too.” He lowered his voice to an ominous whisper. “Some of the guards were stuck in the eye, like back in that town.”
Johnson felt his pulse pounding in his chest like he was about to start a battle. He stood up and looked around for an imaginary foe, desperate to do something, anything. Finally he said, “We’ve got to get the hell out of here before that son of a bitch comes back!”
***
Waxman, who’d been Krait’s best scout when Krait was alive, sat in the little spot he’d burrowed out in the woods. He’d watched the caravan the past nights as instructed, but hadn’t seen anything all that remarkable. He’d been surprised when he’d checked back in this past afternoon and heard that the caravan had a couple of archers who’d taken out Wayne and ten more of the guys.
When Smitty had shown up with Johnson’s plan to drop arrows into the caravan and terrorize the bastards, Waxman had thought it was a stroke of genius. The caravan was keeping fires and lamps going, so the sorry bastards wouldn’t be able to see shit out away from their wagons. Smitty should have been able to sit out there dropping arrows into the wagon train until hell froze over.
Well, at least until he ran out of arrows.
Waxman had been stunned when someone in the caravan had managed to hit Smitty before he’d shot his fifth arrow. Waxman had been sitting there the rest of the night wondering how to get better intel on this caravan. Sure as hell, we need to know who it is that’s shooting those arrows.
Shortly before dawn, Waxman decided they needed someone from the caravan to interrogate. He moved off through a cornfield toward the stream where the caravaners washed and got their water.
***
When Daussie woke Tarc in the morning he looked exhausted. “What’s the matter with you? Couldn’t you sleep?”
“No.” Tarc said, grumpily.
“Well, maybe you can get a nap later, but right now Mom needs a fire.”
Soon they were full tilt into making breakfast for the caravan. When people came by to eat, there was a great deal of gossip and some heated arguments about what had happened during the night.
Although Jesse Carter was quite upset about the loss of her finger and Mr. Tate complained loudly about the loss of his mule, most seemed to feel that they had gotten off very lightly. In fact, the main topic of conversation was the possibility that it would happen again, night after night. The secondary topic revolved around why the shooter had only shot four arrows.
Mr. Norton came through the breakfast line with the others. He said, “They just wanted to instill a little terror. They wanted to show us what could happen so we’d be more willing to negotiate the next time.”
Before anyone responded to Norton, Arco approached. He crooked a finger at Norton, calling him to one side. Arco spoke to him in a low voice, however Daussie was close enough to hear.
Arco said, “The shooter only shot four arrows because someone here in camp shot back at him.”
Norton frowned, “How do you know that?”
“I sent a couple of the guys out to scout around. They found one of our arrows stuck into the base of a fencepost out at the corner where we graze our animals. They also found some blood spotting the ground just beyond the fencepost. It led away so the shooter probably took off once he’d been hit.”
Norton stared at him while he digested these facts. “So—one of your guys shot at them. Why didn’t you know that already?”
“My guys swear they didn’t shoot any arrows. Besides, it was dark out there. None of us here in camp could see anyone out there, that’s why it was such a horrifying thing for them to have done. Nobody could have shot back at the son of a bitch. It would have just been a waste of arrows. I would’ve yelled at any of my guys who tried.”
Norton frowned, “What do you mean, ‘nobody could have?’ You just told me someone did!”
“Exactly! No one could possibly have done it, but someone did!” Arco paused, “I mean someone could have shot, but they couldn’t have hit anything… yet they did.”
Norton turned to look out toward the fencepost in question.
“You think someone saw a reflection off of something and just started shooting randomly out that way, eventually hitting him?”
Arco had turned to look the same direction, a distant look in his eyes. “He shot two arrows. One that missed, and one that hit. He knew he’d hit the bastard ‘cause he didn’t shoot any more arrows!”
“You think we have someone who can see in the dark?”
Arco shrugged, “I sure as hell don’t, but however they…” he stared off toward the post, “I don’t know, but it’s got me spooked!”
Daussie knew that Tarc had been on guard at the time of the arrow attack. She wondered why Arco and Norton weren’t trying to figure out who’d actually been awake at the time and might therefore have been the shooter. After a moment she began to wonder if perhaps they had already figured out who was awake then, but simply discounted Tarc as a possible shooter because of his youth. Although, she thought pensively, they had watched Tarc shoot back at the tavern so they must know he could shoot fairly well, didn’t they? But he’s just a kid and that’s probably blocking their thought patterns.
Tarc and Daussie were closing up the breakfast line when she found a moment to speak to him. “Lt. Arco says that the arrow attack last night stopped because someone in our camp shot back at the archer. I assume that was you?”
Tarc had suddenly stopped in the middle of picking up a basket of cooking utensils for washing. A regretful grimace flashed over his face but then smoothed away. He jerked a nod, “Do they know?” he asked quietly.
“They don’t seem to, though I don’t know how they haven’t figured it out. They know you can shoot, and they know you were on watch. Well, I guess I don’t know that they’ve figured out you were on watch, but it shouldn’t be too hard for them to check on that.”
“Everyone seems to think that since I’m just a kid I couldn’t possibly do something like that.” Tarc said in a disgusted tone.
“I thought you didn’t want them to know?”
Teleporter (a Hyllis family story #2) Page 18
