by Damien Lake
After a minute he saw what Fraser must have spotted. The lead group all carried bows wrapped around their torsos. The crests on their tunics were indistinguishable from this distance, but they had to be one of Fielo’s rover bands. Which meant their pursuers were most likely a Ninth Squad unit.
The rovers were being chased from the north and had changed direction, angling south once they spotted the Fourth unit. Fraser’s placement of the bows to the fore seemed to have fooled them. Fielo’s men believed them to be another rover party so were heading toward what they thought were reinforcements.
But the rover leader was no green fighter new to combat. He sent a runner ahead to check on their allies. Fraser ordered the Fourth to greater speed, hoping to draw close before being discovered. When the runner neared, the absence of Fielo’s device and the eclectic armor array told him what he needed to know. The runner sped as fast as he could to report to his commanding officer. A quarter-mile still separated the Fourth from the rovers when they abruptly turned west in a race for the promontory.
Sergeant Fraser cut northwest in an attempt to intercept, except the bad angle and the rovers’ hard drive defeated them. The rovers swarmed up the stone face before the mercenaries caught them. Fraser called a halt to rest the men, then sent Duain as runner to the other unit who still had a half-mile of ground to cover.
“Well, this’ll be some kind of fun,” Edwin muttered under his breath.
“Do you think the good sergeant will try and take the hill?” asked Dietrik, who rejoined Marik once their run had stopped.
“I hope not. That’s a nice position they have there.”
“With the other unit, we could form a ring around the perch,” Marik thought aloud. He amended the notion before either could point out the error. “Except it would be thin. They could break through it with hardly any effort.”
“Indeed, mate. There’s no cover around here, so I think one unit is going to take a position to the east and the other to the west. With the ridge running north to south, the only good routes away would be through us.” Dietrik held his chin as he always did when lost in thought.
“They’re going to fend us off for the rest of the day and make a break tonight after dark,” Edwin stated.
“Why do you think that?” Marik inquired.
“It’s their only chance. No way to escape in the daytime with all this open space.”
“Then Fraser’s probably going to order an assault.”
“He better not, unless it’s a damn brilliant one. Twenty or so men up there with bows at an elevated position? They’ve got fifty yards longer range on us, and if they’re all loaded heavy there might be five hundred shafts aimed at our heads!”
“If that’s First Unit over yonder, Lieutenant Earnell will be with them. I’m sure he wouldn’t let Fraser do anything foolish.”
“Doesn’t matter if he orders it or not. If he says to charge up there, I’m not wasting my skin that way.”
“This is one benefit of not being in the army,” Dietrik mused with a wry smile. “If you refuse to follow the orders of a simpleton, the worst they can do is kick you out of the band.”
“Right! There’s other bands around.” Edwin paused a moment before adding, “Though I like this one better than the others I’ve been with.”
“You know,” Marik thought aloud again. “If we built piles of wood, we could light bonfires around the rock to keep it lit after dark. That would make it harder to escape then.”
“The nearest tree’s about six miles back that-a-way. Feel free to make the round trip with a heavy load of tinder.”
“Maybe not,” Marik allowed.
“The other unit is arriving,” Dietrik informed them. He looked for the commanding officer and identified Sergeant Bindrift. “Looks like the Second has been keeping busy.”
“Good thing it’s not Dove,” Edwin commented. “He and Fraser mix like oil and water, even when Earnell’s around.”
The two sergeants met briefly and, true to Dietrik’s prediction, Fraser soon ordered the Fourth to move around to the west side. They had to walk north around the tip but were soon in position.
Fraser broke the unit into halves, positioning them a few hundred yards apart to the north and south so as to better cover the promontory’s length. He left orders with his men to only engage in the event of an escape attempt, then quickly retreated to the eastern side to discuss strategies with Bindrift.
The rovers spread across their perch. They seemed to have settled in to watch their adversaries. Marik took his pack off, settling down in the brown grasses with his water skin and a handful of dried meat to wait for whatever would happen next.
* * * * *
Fraser spent the day with Bindrift on the outcrop’s east side, finally returning when the sky turned the bright orange preceding sunset. Despite the extended time he had spent in discussion with his peer sergeant, they had not crafted an impressive plan.
The southern groups on both sides were to pull back north, rejoining the other half of their units. Leaving the south open gave the rovers an easier escape route they should take advantage of. Once the darkness had grown thick enough to move without being seen, the rovers should begin their decent. At the same time the two units would creep south to wait for the rovers. Once their targets touched the flat land, both units would fire into them. They would take down as many rovers as they could. No pursuit would follow any that managed to escape.
“Which will be most of them, I’m betting,” Landon muttered to Marik. “Have you ever shot in the dark?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Don’t worry about arrows,” Fraser continued. “We can re-supply from the rovers we take down and recover most that go wild. At dawn, we’ll break camp and continue to the rendezvous point. Anyone heavily loaded needs to share their arrows with the others.”
Marik looked to the sky, saying, “I think we have a little over a candlemark before it’s dark enough.”
“Too bad we can’t cook a hot meal.”
“Why not?”
Kerwin studied him as if only then realizing he traveled with a simpleton. “Because the idea is for them not to see us in the dark, remember?”
“Actually, the idea is for them to think we’re up here on the northern front. If we have a cook fire burning, they’ll see it and think they’re safe escaping through the south end.”
“Except they won’t see anybody around it and know it’s a feint.”
Marik considered for a moment before responding. “Only the archers are going to be fighting, right? If you were the rovers and you suddenly found yourself in a hail of arrows in the dark, would you turn and fight or run?”
“I’d get the hells out of there,” Kerwin admitted.
“So we won’t need anybody unarmed for archery since we’re not pursuing. We can leave the other men around the fire to help the illusion look real.”
“Maybe that would work. I notice that would leave you nice and comfortable and sucking down stew.”
“My skill with the bow is below average at best, you know that. I like the idea. In fact, where’s Fraser? I’m going to go ask him about that.”
Marik tracked down his sergeant to present the idea. Fraser’s initial objections were the same as Kerwin’s but Marik explained his reasoning. Soon the sergeant came to like the idea as much as Marik. He reissued orders to the non-archers, then sent Duain around the hill to explain the change in plan to Bindrift.
As reward for staying behind, Fraser assigned Marik the duty of finding firewood with the other men who would act as decoys. In the end they could only gather dead shrubbery with thick branches at their base and dried roots. When they had collected what they could scavenge, a pile barely adequate for the job rested near the unit’s largest cook pot.
It had been a cloudy day and the night looked to be no clearer. Since the clouds concealed the moon, they were both a boon and a hindrance. The archers in the Ninth Squad could sneak south without bein
g seen, but it also made it difficult to see the rocky point they wanted in the blackness.
Their anemic fire burned low while the light faded. The bowmen were careful about getting too close. Only six or seven men gathered around the flames at any given time. As seen in the last of the daylight, the camp sprawled with men sitting wherever they felt like. Hopefully the rover commander would know they were the mercenaries hired by Dornory and might then assume that mercs, unhindered by loyalty, felt uninterested in extending this situation. They might be making their camp in a way obvious enough to allow the rovers to flee, thus carrying out their purchased duties without risking their skins beyond what was necessary.
Fraser issued orders once the darkness completely swallowed the ambient light. The archers crept away. They had spent the wait binding straps and buckles to keep them silent lest they give away the operation with a misplaced jingle.
The decoys within the camp kept moving, leaving the fire only to return after a few minutes. They wanted to suggest a full company of restless men were shifting positions. Away from the fire, cloaks were removed or donned, packs were worn or left behind, weapons were carried differently so they appeared as other men when they reentered the light.
A candlemark after full dark, the men lined up at the pot with their bowls, the line stretching back into the gloom. The Kings carefully avoided pressing together in the normal way food lines tended to. Dietrik pretended to ladle meager portions of stew from the pot and kept each man involved in conversation so they stayed longer than usual. This allowed the man who had received his portion of imaginary stew to run around the line in the dark, throw on a cloak or an equally simple disguise, then take a place at the line’s end.
Once the first man returned to head, Dietrik served out stew for real. He maintained the slower pace so as not to tip off any watchers that mischief was afoot. Half the men returned to the shadows to eat their fare while four men, including Marik and Dietrik, remained by the fire. Dietrik lidded the pot, then banked the struggling fire to keep the meal warm for the men who would return later.
With the fire lower, the need to run around the camp as two different men no longer mattered. The mercenaries lounged, taking their ease, waiting in the dark for the battle sounds that would tell them the night’s activities had fooled the rovers up on their rock.
* * * * *
Hayden hated the cold; his muscles were cramping and he felt irritated on top of everything else. It might be springtime with warmer days and pleasant breezes, but the nights were still as frozen as Vernilock’s parlor room. Not that Hayden ever prayed to that particular god, despite swearing by him frequently. All the same, sitting in the dark and the cold and the wet from the dew and the smell of mole shit thick in his nose seemed far more in the nature of that particular deity than his own patron God of Conflict, Ercsilon.
He could see the fire across the open fields. He imagined he could also smell the food cooking over it. The stew might be comprised solely of dried meat and a handful of shredded vegetables, but right now it sounded like a king’s high feast. Besides, the long simmering might make the meat less leathery.
It was a fine idea of Marik’s, leaving himself back there in ease with a full belly. Hayden knew the fresh recruit had never meant it that way…except it still irritated him. The conditions were nurturing his foul mood.
Additionally, he could not pass the time talking with Edwin or Landon or Kerwin, all of whom had been through many campaigns together with the Kings, since Fraser had ordered absolute silence. The sergeant wanted everyone listening for movement on the rocks.
If they ever came down near this point at all. While this might be the most likely escape route, the rovers could come down anywhere they pleased if they outguessed Fraser. Or any time for that matter. Half the night had passed, with dawn only a few candlemarks away. The rovers had shown neither hide nor hair.
Perhaps they had outsmarted Fraser and Bindrift both, had in fact already sneaked away, leaving the archers guarding an empty rock in the freezing night. Wouldn’t that be typical?
He complained to himself about everything and everybody, forced to sit another candlemark before he finally heard a faint scrape from the rise.
“Nah, is this finally it?” he whispered and squinted, straining to see through the darkness. The moon remained behind the clouds. Still, he thought he saw slow movement, a figure stepping onto the fields from the stone outcrop.
Hayden tapped Kerwin beside him and whispered the signal Fraser had given them. Kerwin, better skilled at imitating night sounds, emitted a soft owl hoot that should not alarm the rovers if they happened to overhear it. He repeated the hoot twice, then nocked an arrow to his bowstring.
The rovers were descending farther north than the sergeants had hoped, yet looked to be heading south still. Fraser crept to their position and took in the situation.
“Stay here,” he whispered to both men. “I think they’re going to pass between us and the Second anyway. Don’t fire until I give the signal.”
The two acknowledged and he crept back. He passed the same message to the other men, then sent Duain scuttling to inform Bindrift. Duain would stay with the other unit, they having two fewer archers than the Fourth so the numbers would even out.
All the men crouched low to the ground while the solitary man crept south to investigate. He acted as scout, probably the same man who had bird-dogged Fraser’s subterfuge earlier. Staying concealed in the tall grass only required that they keep motionless.
Every archer had his bow ready. One quick pull would send the arrows streaking toward their target. Fraser held back the signal to shoot. Patience usually reaped a larger reward in such situations. It proved the wise decision.
The scout reported back to the rovers, then resumed his walk forward, this time passing the concealed mercenaries, unaware of the grave mistake he had made. Once their scout had taken point, the remaining rovers started to move. They inched slowly so as to not attract the attention of the men around the two cook fires.
In the dark, they passed between the two units, closer to Fraser’s party than Bindrift’s. Nevertheless, Bindrift gave the first signal to fire before Fraser had a chance.
There was no hesitation by the rovers. Already on edge, they paused only a fraction of an eye blink upon hearing the strange voice. They reacted, taking off at a run, proving to be more resourceful than the sergeants had hoped.
The rovers carried their bows at the ready. When they leapt forward, they fired their own volley in the direction of Bindrift’s and Fraser’s voices before running as fast as they could. They wasted no time on a second release.
Rovers fell when arrows cut into their group at an angle, the units taking care not to fire when the rovers were directly between them. Such shooting would result in the two units assaulting each other instead of the rovers.
The archers launched a second flight before the rovers disappeared into the dark. Fraser lit a torch from his tinder box and called to his men, “Everyone ready a volley and come with me!”
They inspected their kills, holding their bows ready to fire. Five men were down, three dead from multiple arrow hits. Two still breathed. Fraser ended their days quickly with his dagger.
Men from the Second joined them to report that two of their men had taken wounds from the counterattack. Neither was serious. One had taken an arrow through the leg. He would be off the battle roster for awhile.
“That’s what you get for jumping too soon,” Kerwin mentioned to the others. “If Bindrift had waited a moment, they would have been further past him.”
“And at a worse angle for return fire,” Landon agreed.
“Let’s get back to the food,” Hayden suggested. “We can’t find the arrows that missed in the dark.”
“I’ll go along with that. We’ll come back tomorrow morning and gather the rest.”
Fraser held similar thoughts and soon the archers were heading back to their fire for food as well as what rest they
could steal from the remaining night.
* * * * *
At first light the archers returned to the ambush site. Fraser sent swordsmen up to check the promontory on the off chance that not every rover had come down. He’d been fooled before and had learned to never assume a position was abandoned until verified with your own eyes.
Marik and Dietrik wandered the top of the miniature escarpment, not expecting to find much and seeing, for once, exactly what they anticipated. The odd scuff mark showed where stones had been moved to clear a spot for a perch or build a makeshift merlon to shoot from behind. A snapped length of rawhide lacing left behind, broken feathers and a cracked shaft from where a rover used the wait to repair damaged arrows. No rovers remained.
They looked down on the two camps. Marik thought he would not mind having to make a defensive stand from this position if the need arose. Only a few places could be scaled and the elevated position made it an attractive place to fend off enemies if your supplies included enough food, water and arrows.
“Fraser’s saying we’re to shove off soon,” Dietrik broke into his musings.
“Yeah, I suppose we ought to head back down. He say anything else?”
“We’re to go northeast when we leave. Bindrift and the Second will head northwest. Around noon, we’ll change course and both head north until tomorrow.”
“We’ll end up closer to Dornory’s forces then.” Marik frowned. “That means they’ll have farther to walk. I thought Landon said one of their men was hit in the leg.”
“I asked the same thing. Apparently it only penetrated a short distance. They wrapped it up tight and he seems to be able to walk, though with a limp.”
“Can he walk all day like that?”
“Who knows? It’s Bindrift’s problem.”
“We’ve already been on the road an eightday since we left Dornshold. We could have crawled to the dam by now!”
