by Mark McCabe
“What sort of push? What’s happened?”
Erl seemed to have recovered slightly from his earlier panic. Having got his primary message out seemed to have calmed him a bit. “We got word last night, from Harald, that they was comin. Then this mornin we seen the smoke from Brand’s Ford. Right after breakfast, Pep rode in and told us the sligs had burnt it to the ground last night. He said that word was there was nearly a hundred sweepin across from the river and still more comin.”
“Brand’s Ford attacked and burnt? But there’s upwards of a score of folk in Brand’s Ford. What happened to them?”
“I dunno, Uncle Dain. But da said we’re gittin out, and quick. Said you should do the same. Said don’t wait for him, just git Aunt Kared and Thom and git. We’re gunna make for Kurandir. There’s Rangers there.”
Dain tried to calm his racing thoughts. The sligs must be up to something big to attack a village. He couldn’t remember the last time that had happened. Usually, they harried the outlying farms and such but they rarely had the numbers, or the daring, for a direct assault like that. Although Dain doubted the suggestion there were hundreds of them on the way, Jorl was right. If something big was coming, he would be much better off getting his family to some safe place until he could find out what was really going on.
Kurandir was the logical choice. Although its walls hadn’t been needed for many a year and had fallen into disrepair, there was a squad of Rangers stationed there. That was the place to head for, no doubt about it. If the sligs were attacking and burning villages then they meant business. His heart went out to the folk of Brand’s Ford. He had friends there. Or he used to.
“Alright. Thanks, Erl. You get yourself back home quick then. Pass my thanks on to your da and tell him I’ll see you all in Kurandir. May Mishra guide your path.” As his nephew made to turn his horse around, back in the direction he had come from, Dain called out to him again. “Erl!”
“Yes uncle?”
“Go safely boy, go safely. And keep your wits about you on your way back.”
“I will, uncle.” With that, the boy spurred his horse forward. Dain watched him for a few moments and then quickly turned and started towards the farmhouse. After a few paces, he started to run, throwing his hoe to the ground as he did so.
When he arrived back at the farm, he went straight around to the back. His son Thom was there, mending the fence around the pigpen. Once Dain had repeated Erl’s news, he told Thom to stop what he was doing and to saddle up.
“Get the wagon ready, Thom,” he said, as they strode back towards the barn together. “As fast as you can. I’ll get it out of the barn, but I want you to hitch up old Harna for me while your ma and I pack. Once you done that, get Bess saddled up and get yourself over to Luc’s place and tell him what’s goin on. Don’t worry ‘bout your stuff. We’ll pack that. After you told Luc, go on down to Prard and tell him. Then make straight for Kurandir. Don’t come back here ’cause we’ll be gone. And don’t stop for nothin boy.”
“What about Jinny?” the boy pleaded. “I gotta let her and her dad know.”
Dain allowed himself a smile. He’d suspected for some time that Thom was sweet on young Jinny, but the boy had been unwilling to acknowledge it. “Okay. But that’s all. Go to Jinny and Rem first, they’re furthest east. Then Luc. Then Prard. And be careful. Your ma will fret until she sees you safe and sound in Kurandir, you know that.”
“I will da.”
“And Thom!”
“Yes da.”
“Take your bow.”
“Yes da.”
Having sent Thom on his way, Dain broke the news to his wife Kared. Once he’d convinced her that there was nothing they could do about the spring crop now and that it wouldn’t even be worth having if the sligs came while they were still there, they set about packing what they could take as quickly as they could. They knew they couldn’t take much. Food and fresh clothes came first, followed by blankets and bedding. Dain took down his old sword from the wall, and his bow and a few tools from the barn, things that might come in handy in Kurandir.
Once that was done, Dain let all of the animals out of the paddocks and pens. It would be a nuisance rounding them up again when they came back, but at least the animals would have a chance at finding something to eat that way. There was no sense in leaving them penned up with no one to feed them when they had no idea how long it would be before the trouble had passed and they could come back again. Hopefully, a show of force from the Rangers would put things to rights pretty quickly, but it wouldn’t pay to count on that.
In some ways, the talk of a hundred or more sligs wasn’t really surprising. Dain knew that people always overestimated trouble when it first hit them. But sligs had never been seen in those numbers. That would suggest a degree of cooperation that was entirely uncharacteristic for them. There had been a couple of big raids back when Dain was a boy, though. That had involved a few dozen sligs and his dad had said that had only been put to rights when one of the Guardians had intervened. The Rangers had been overwhelmed on that occasion and, although the squadron in Kurandir was bigger now than it was then, it still only numbered two dozen.
Within no time, Dain and Kared had loaded up the wagon and were on their way. As they turned down the track that led away from the farmhouse, they both spied the streams of smoke curling up into the darkening sky in the east. Something was definitely burning out there, no doubt about it. It was a long way away from them, but there were at least four separate fires that could be seen from where they were.
“I hope Thom is careful,” exclaimed Kared anxiously, with her eyes nervously scanning the eastern horizon.
“Don’t worry about him,” replied Dain, placing his left hand on his wife’s wrist as he urged the horses forward with a flick of the reins from his other hand. “It’s the folks out east of us I’m worried about. I hope Jorl has time to get out with Erl and Nika. Thank Mishra he thought to send word to us, but I hope it doesn’t delay him getting away.”
For a while, they were alone on the road, but soon they began to see signs of others either preparing to leave or already, like them, fleeing westwards. By mid-afternoon the number of refugees on the road was increasing noticeably and their progress had begun to slow. It was at that point that Dain really began to worry, though he said nothing as yet to Kared. From what they heard from others they met, theirs wasn’t the only part of the province that was reeling from the sudden appearance of slig raiders. Dain began to wonder about the number of sligs that might be involved.
When they topped a gentle rise around dusk and looked down at the walled town of Kurandir, they were no longer surprised at the scene before them. A steady trickle of refugees was making its way into the town through each of the three gates that could be seen from their vantage point. Many drove wagons like themselves, while some were on horseback and many more were on foot, carrying what few of their precious belongings they could on their backs. Everywhere were worried looks. It didn’t take much foresight to realise that the trickle was bound to increase in the days to come. In the fields between them and the town, Algarian Rangers were at work driving pointed stakes into the ground. Although they couldn’t be sure of the exact nature of the work from this far away, it was clear that attempts were also being made to repair the walls. Lanterns had been lit to enable the work to continue on into the night. Already thoughts had turned to the defence of the town.
Dain’s concern was whether Kurandir could offer them the protection they sought. If the slig raids were as widespread as they now seemed, would even Kurandir be able to withstand them.? Unless the Rangers had sought reinforcements from the west, they could be hard pressed with only two dozen trained men at their disposal. Their best hope would be if the sligs contented themselves with looting the abandoned farms. No one in living memory had seen a slig assault on a walled town. Dain hoped that they wouldn’t be the first to do so, though it was clear from the work that was going on someone considered it a real pos
sibility.
Of greater concern to him was Thom. He hoped the boy would follow his instructions to the letter. He could end up in grave danger if he tarried anywhere along the way. Thom was a sensible boy, but even the most sensible of men could make the wrong choices when put under pressure. Dain suspected they would all be put to that test before this threat was over.
As they edged forward towards the eastern gate of Kurandir, Dain and Kared felt the first sprinkles of rain. The smell of it had filled the air for some time and now it was upon them. Dain cursed as he pulled a tarpaulin from behind the seat up over their heads. He had hoped to be within the walls before the foul weather caught them. As the rain began to splatter against the tarpaulin, his prayers went out to his boy. With a deep sense of foreboding, Dain prayed that the gods would guide his footsteps. He sensed that it wouldn’t be his last call on the gods in the trying days that lay ahead of them.
Chapter 10
Taking a hold of Rayne’s free arm as a support, Sara put all of her effort into lifting herself up from the forest floor. Getting up was one thing, however. Moving from that spot once she had achieved that goal was another altogether. With one hand firmly clasped around Rayne’s wrist and the other braced against the rough bark of the tree, she concentrated on keeping her legs from collapsing beneath her.
“What happened?” she asked, looking around suspiciously at the forest once she’d steadied herself. “Are there any more of them?” As she spoke she let go of the tree and managed to take a few tentative steps, all the while keeping a firm grip on Rayne’s wrist with her other hand. Now that she’d regained some limited physical control, she was beginning to gather her thoughts as well. They couldn’t stay where they were for long.
“I don’t think so,” answered Rayne. “You got one of them in the throat with an arrow and I finished him off. The other one’s got my knife in his back. It was those two men from the settlement.” Leading Sara around the corpse that lay beside them, he began to steer her slowly back towards the camp. “And anyway,” he continued as they picked their way carefully through the trees and the bracken, “if there are any more of them out there, I’m afraid neither of us is in much of a state to do anything about it.”
Once back at the camp, Sara slumped down on her bedding. The short walk back to the camp had taken more effort than she had thought it would. Rayne squatted down beside her and started to unbutton his shirt. “Can you get a knife, Sara,” he said, wincing with pain as he gingerly eased his shirtsleeve away from his shoulder. “I need you to cut this sleeve for me.”
Sara’s head was still throbbing from the knock that she’d taken but she knew she had to help Rayne; his injury was much more serious than hers. Rather than try to stand by herself, she allowed herself to drop to the ground. With some effort, she slowly crawled over and grabbed the knife she’d left beside her bedding.
Looking at the blade as she pulled it free of its sheath, she wondered what use it would have been had she had it with her earlier. The image of Ruz with Tug’s blade in his belly flashed through her mind, followed quickly by that of the stranger lunging at her with a knife in his hand and bowling her over onto her back. Her head spun as the images flashed through her mind and for a brief moment she had to fight down her nausea.
Pushing those thoughts from her mind, she tried to clear her head so she could concentrate on what needed to be done. Once she was steady again, she crawled back to Rayne and knelt beside him. As soon as he’d finished unbuttoning his shirt, she took the knife and carefully cut the sleeve away from the rest of the garment. Once the sleeve was discarded, the extent of the wound to his arm became more apparent.
The arrow had pierced the flesh on the underside of his upper arm and had gone right through and out the other side. The blood-smeared head and a short length of shaft showed on one side of his arm, while the bulk of the shaft and the feathers protruded from the other. He was lucky it had missed the bone. As it was, Sara almost fainted when she saw the nasty wounds it had made and the blood that was seeping out, particularly from where the arrowhead emerged from his skin.
Rayne examined the wound carefully, flinching as he touched his hand to the shaft of the arrow. “Grab those extra clothes we found,” he gasped between winces. “We’re going to need something to bind the wound once we get the arrow out.”
Sara scrambled back to the saddlebags, moving more quickly now that she had seen the extent of Rayne’s injury. Her stomach churned at the thought of removing the arrow from his arm. Once again, she pushed the unwelcome thoughts from her mind. Focusing on the task at hand, she quickly found the clothes where they had put them, down at the bottom of the stranger’s gear. Taking the knife, she cut the trouser legs into long strips of cloth and then returned to Rayne.
Sara could see that his face had already lost some of its colour and he was starting to sweat profusely. He was also clearly in a lot of pain. “Now,” he said to her. “I need you to slice the feathers from the end of the shaft with the knife. You’ll have to hold it steady with one hand so it doesn’t move around in me too much while you’re doing it. You’ve got to slice them right down level with the shaft so we can pull the whole thing through the wound.”
“I’ve got to do something about that bleeding first,” said Sara, taking a closer look at the underside of his arm. Taking a strip of cloth she wrapped it around his upper arm and tied both of the ends in a knot. She then took a small length of branch from the ground and inserted it under the cloth. Twisting it around and around, she drew the cloth tighter and tighter, asking Rayne to hold it in place once she felt it was tight enough. “That should help to reduce the flow of blood for the moment,” she said when she was done.
“Where did you learn how to do that?”
Sara sat back on her haunches. “I’m not totally useless,” she replied, giving him a forlorn look.
Rayne managed a weak smile. “I know that, Sara. If you hadn’t shot one of those men we wouldn’t both be alive right now. What were you doing out there, anyway?”
“Going to the toilet,” she mumbled, turning her head away as she spoke.
Rayne laughed at her response, grimacing with pain once again as he did so. “Thank Mishra you did.”
Ignoring his jibe, Sara turned her attention to the arrow. As carefully as she could, she began trimming the feathers from one end. She soon found it was impossible to do so without jiggling the shaft, every movement of which drew fresh expressions of pain from Rayne. Sara herself was on the verge of bursting into tears and she could feel the moisture beginning to pool in her eyes, threatening to hamper her efforts to complete the task at hand. Somehow, she managed to finish the job. Then it was over to Rayne to carry out the more painful task of removing the shaft.
Trimming the feathers had been bad enough, but this was much worse. Sara looked on helplessly as he began to slowly draw the shaft through his arm. As much as she wanted to help him, she knew that she couldn’t. It was all she could do just to support him as he slowly drew the arrow through his arm and out the other side.
Once that grim task was done, she was ready to take over again, washing the ghastly wounds on either side of his arm clean with water from their flask. Releasing the makeshift tourniquet seemed to have little effect on the flow of blood, which continued to ooze from the holes left by the arrow. Sara guessed that this meant no significant veins had been severed. She proceeded to apply pads of cloth to the raw wounds and then bound his arm tightly with the long strips of cloth she’d prepared.
Once she was finished, Rayne eased himself back down on to the ground. Sara moved around so he could lay with his head in her lap while she leant back against the trunk of a tree. Her head felt clearer now, though it still ached a little if she tried to move too quickly. She knew her troubles, however, were nothing compared to how Rayne must be feeling. Looking down at him as he smiled wanly back at her, the hold she’d put on her emotions finally gave way. She wiped her face as the tears began to flow freely.
The image that kept coming back to her was the one of that man charging at her through the trees with his knife in his hand.
She felt Rayne reach up and take a hold of her hand. “It’s over now Sara,” he whispered.
“If only it was,” she sobbed.
The sounds of the forest awakened Sara with a start. To her surprise, she realised they’d both fallen asleep and slept through the night. Rayne still lay asleep in her lap and, as she stirred, he awoke as well, grimacing as he turned his head to look around. Sara had no idea how long they had slept. The sun had risen, but by how far was difficult to tell. In contrast to the day before, thick clouds covered the sky.
With a little help from each other, they managed to rise from the spot where they’d spent the night. Neither of them was in very good shape. Sara ached all over, as did Rayne, and as soon as she moved she realised she still had a dull headache from the knock she’d taken the night before. Rayne complained that his arm was throbbing.
Despite their ailments, they knew they had to get moving. After a quick breakfast, they divided up the tasks that had to be done between them. Sara got the lion’s share. While she packed their gear and saddled the horses, Rayne went to examine the bodies of their assailants.
Within a very short while, Sara had completed all of her work and had both the horses saddled and ready to go. A few moments later, Rayne reappeared. To her surprise, he was leading two more horses. He’d found them tethered to a tree some distance away. They both knew without a word being spoken what had happened to their owners. As they were still saddled as well, they mounted them and led their own horses, giving Ned and Nell a rest after the constant work they’d been put to over the last several days. Rayne hoped that this might gain them some much-needed time. By his reckoning, Tug and his companions couldn’t be far behind by now.
That day was a long and depressing one. They spoke little, each engrossed in their own thoughts. As the day progressed, the pain in Rayne’s arm seemed to worsen. When they stopped by a stream in the middle of the day, Sara bathed and re-bandaged his wound. It was still bleeding a little, but it wasn’t that which worried her. From the look of the skin around where the arrowhead had emerged, she feared the wound had become infected, despite her attempts at cleaning it. The pain, which had at first been localised, seemed to be spreading out from the wound and Rayne now found that the whole of his upper arm, from his shoulder to his elbow, was tender to touch. He was also beginning to show some signs of running a fever. Even with her limited experience, Sara could see he needed rest and better medical attention than she could give him.
