The stretch of river valley ahead of her—the maps called it Goose Valley—ran from southeast to northwest, with an old graveled road down its center. It had been cultivated once; you could still see the outline of the square fields, and new marshes where the irriga tion canal had burst its banks, and a few small clumps of burnt out houses. She didn’t know why whoever had lived here had left, but even this far into the interior things could have been very bad right after the Change. The thought was dispassionate; she’d grown up in a world where ruins were simply part of the backdrop of life. The death of the world that had built them was only a little more real to her than the Fall of Gondolin.
Insects buzzed and occasionally burrowed in and bit; conquering ants bore a beetle off in triumph across the ground in front of her face from right to left. Dry sage gave off its spice and-sneeze scent, to mingle with sweat she could feel trickling down her neck and flanks, and the smell of the dusty earth and pebbles beneath her. With the sun overhead there wasn’t much danger of her binoculars giving them away either . . . though since there apparently wasn’t anyone to see them, that was a bit moot. Still, they kept motionless as the sun crept up the sky behind them and then down westward ahead.
Think rock. Think root. Let the wind flow through you.
A maddening itch on the instep of her right foot came and went. A long eared desert hare hopped by, stopped for a moment to stand upright and wrinkle its nose at the dry air, then went on its way. A few minutes later a coy ote came trotting along its trail, then caught their scent when the wind changed. It shied violently sideways with a little spurt of dust before turning and loping away.
Ritva smiled to herself, a bit from the expression of bug eyed alarm on the beast’s face and a bit smugly as well. When you could fool a song dog into coming within arm’s reach, you were hiding, by Manwë and Varda!
That was how Aunt Astrid and the others insisted on training Rangers, and they were quite right, though some outsiders thought the Dúnedain were too sneaky and patient to be real warriors.
Very faintly, she snorted and thought: Canuidhol lin. Rangers just didn’t go in for the two masses of farmboys in-steel shirts-with-pikes style of head butting. She was sure the Fair Folk had never been quite that stupid; they’d had to contend with a much higher grade of Dark Lord than you found nowadays.
Though this Prophet guy seems to show some promise.
Antelope ran across the deserted fields; birds rose from the marshes and the dead trees. Then . . .
“Mmm-hmmm!” Mary said.
“Lots,” Ritva replied; speaking quietly rather than whispering—whispers carried farther because of the sibilants.
There was dust coming from the north; individual trails, and behind it a plume—several dozen wagons or fifty or sixty horsemen, she estimated. And eagles and hawks, hanging in the air above them; they always did that out here when humans were on the move, hop ing for birds and small animals spooked into the open. One plunged as she watched, coming up with something wriggling in its claws.
And let that be a lesson to you, she thought. That’s what comes of breaking cover ’cause you’re nervous.
The trails of dust turned into horsemen. Ritva turned the binoculars with extreme care; the sun was getting lower and nothing gave you away at a distance like a glint. They looked like anyone’s light horse—except that everything they wore was exactly the same; same short chain-mail shirt, same stirrup hilted saber, same model of saddle, same five pointed star tooled into the leather of the bow cases in front of their right knees.
About a dozen of them, Ritva thought. No, twenty.
They were obviously scouting the line of march; they poked into every clump of trees, over to the riverbed to the westward, and every ravine in these hills within range of the road.
Of course, to be really sure they should push foot pa trols up into these mountains. The ones behind her were a tangled dome two thousand feet higher than the valley floor. But if they did that, it would take weeks.
After a while more khaki-colored dust showed to the north, and a little after that an iron tramp-tramp-tramp of booted feet and the trrrripp-trrripp-trrripp of a marching drum and the squeal of a fife.
Ah, not fifty or sixty horsemen after all. Five times that number of men, but on foot, and some wagons. Lots of tools on the wagons, picks and shovels and wheelbarrows . . . bet those are sacks of cement, too.
At the head went the banner, a golden spread-winged eagle on a tall pole clutching arrows in one claw and an olive-wreath in the other, with the old American flag beneath, carried by a standard-bearer with a wolfskin cloak whose head topped his helmet; he was flanked by drum and fife. The men behind were in armor of steel hoops and bands, and they carried big oval shields and six foot javelins; the points of the throwing spears moved like the ripple of wind on reeds to the earthquake tramp of their marching.
Yeah, Boise, Ritva thought.
She’d never been to the city, but she’d been on their territory, and there was a lot in the Mithrilwood files. A good well-stocked filing system was one of the marks of those reckoned mighty among the wise.
As the soldiers halted and began digging in their marching camp—six-foot earthwork, ditch and pali sade—the sisters began to work their way backward. They were too far away to be seen easily, but even so they moved with exquisite care. Now that the Boise troops weren’t moving, they might take the time to check the hills, or at least all the points that conveniently overlooked their camp. You never knew. . . .
A pebble turned beneath a hoof, and Mary hissed. Both young women froze. Icewater ran from Ritva’s lungs to her bladder, and her body tried to twitch in reflex fear before she stilled it. Slowly, slowly Ritva turned her head within the loose hood of the war cloak.
Two men had ridden up the dry creekbed behind them and a little south. They were in thick clothes of the type you usually wore under armor; the cloth was mottled with gray and olive green as well as dark rus set, so it took a moment to realize that it was a uniform. They wore hoods over their heads as well, baglike ones with only a slit for the eyes. In fact . . .
Pretty much like the ones in Sutterdown last year. Uh-oh. Cutters. The Prophet’s men.
The men swung down from their mounts and dropped the reins to the ground—which meant very well trained horses. They were lightly equipped: daggers, point-heavy slashing swords worn over their backs so they wouldn’t rattle, quivers, horseman’s bows—about what the twins were carrying. And presumably they were on the same mission as she and Mary, which was a bit of a giggle when you thought about it.
Ritva made her breathing long and steady and slow, and felt the flutters in her stomach go away. Fear worked both ways—if you suppressed the physical symptoms, it calmed your mind. Dealing with people who wanted to kill you was never really a giggling matter, particularly if they had any chance of actually doing it. Rudi and Odard had boasted about the fight in Brannigan’s inn, in a classy modest way. But then they were males, and therefore idiots about some things.
She glanced over at Mary, and caught the almost imperceptible single shake of the head. No. Her own nod was as quiet. Not worth the risk.
The two Cutters came up the slope towards the crest line, the last dozen yards on their bellies, moving slow and steady. When their heads rose above the peak of the ridge it was with glacial slowness; one brought a mon ocular to his eye, shading it with a hand to make sure it didn’t flash in the setting sun. He spoke softly; his com rade dropped back until he was out of the line of sight, brought out a pad and began writing and sketching. They kept it up for a little while, and then the one with the monocular dropped down too, looked at the paper, and nodded.
Then they just waited. Perforce the twins did too; Ritva felt something crawling up her pant leg, and moved her hand down very slowly under the war cloak to kill it. Mary didn’t move, but Ritva could feel her disapproval.
Well, it wasn’t your sensitive bits it was going to sting, she thought. It had too many legs
. They have centipedes around here! And scorpions, I think!
The sun faded westward and the wind blew colder, colder than the warm rock beneath her. The white and gray of the sagebrush desert turned colorful for an in stant, red and umber and sienna, and the mountains to the north and east blushed a pink that faded and changed tone instant by instant.
Then the light went that clear gray color you got in dry country just as the sun was dropping below the horizon—the hour between the dog and the wolf—and then it was dark. Stars frosted the sky as the last purple died from the sky westward, fading into being one by one.
Farewell, Father Sun. Mother-of All, I greet the stars that are the dust of Your feet, and . . . ah . . . Help!
Something howled far away; hard to tell, but she thought it was a lobo rather than a coyote. The two Cor winite scouts were simply darker spots. It took all her concentration to see when they finally started to move. Only a clink or two and one very slight rattle of stone on stone marked their passage—if she hadn’t known they were there, she would have missed it in the general night noise.
When they got to their horses one of the beasts snorted. The enemy scout made a shushing noise and spent a moment gentling it; she hoped it hadn’t scented her horse or her sister’s, and that the two wouldn’t an swer in kind. They were well trained, but horses had their own purposes and tended to forget things. Then the beat of hooves on sand sounded as the enemy walked their mounts away down the arroyo.
Which didn’t mean they were safe. The two Cutters could be fully aware of them and just off to set up an ambush. In fact . . .
There was enough light to speak Sign. Ritva pushed her hands through the slits in her war cloak.
Should we get ahead of them and . . . ?
The gesture that followed was one the Dúnedain had come up with, and involved shooting, slitting and bashing motions in one quick writhing of hand, fingers and wrist.
I don’t think so. Let’s trail them instead.
Carefully!
The Cutter scouts looked like they were keeping to the high ground east of the valley. And they apparently knew it; all the twins had was a map copied from a pre-Change National Geographic and what they’d seen on their way up northward—and they’d taken the road most of the way. Navigating through rough ground you knew well was difficult in the dark. Trying it when it was strange country was a guarantee of getting hopelessly lost—or blundering into the enemy’s main force.
The only way we’re going to trail these yrch is to get ahead of them, Mary said.
Ritva hesitated; that was risky. But it was important to know where the enemy had come from. She raised her head and whistled softly; a few moments later her Duélroch and Mary’s Rochael came trotting up. They slid into the saddles and turned west, down into the river valley, over the road and into the abandoned fields. Those were tall with brush and weeds, and rows of trees beside long unused irrigation ditches, but the mounts were Arabs and agile as cats . . . thousand-pound cats with hooves, of course.
They signaled their mounts up to a slow canter, keep ing their eyes wide for threats to their legs—once they had to crow-hop over a big disk-harrow that had been sitting and rusting and growing a coating of vine and stalk since before they were born. A barn owl went by overhead, a flash of white in the darkness and a screech as it dove through the night to carry off something small and furry spooked into motion by the riders.
“That’s enough,” Ritva said softly, peering to see the black outline of the heights against the star-shot blackness of the sky.
Mary nodded; one of the advantages of being iden ticals was that they agreed on most things. This was far enough ahead that they could cut back into the hills eastward, given that they’d moved faster. At the edge of the broken ground they left their horses standing in a hollow with the reins looped up; that took really good training.
Hold, Ritva Signed.
It was the two Cutter scouts they’d seen. The twins stopped in the shadow of a stand of scrub pinyon pine, their war cloaks turning them into shadows within shad ows. The enemy were feeling more confident now, walk ing along leading their horses. The twins turned their heads slowly, slowly, keeping their eyes moving. Ritva still felt herself blink when four more stepped out from behind a steep fold of striped rock.
Uh oh, Ritva thought, clenching her teeth. We must be inside their screen.
Mary Signed: Might as well go forward as back. We need to get some hard information on this crew.
Which was true, but still unpleasant. They waited again, while the men they’d followed disappeared behind that tall fold. Their eyes found a course—from one boulder or patch of scrub to another, points that would screen them as much as possible from the lookouts they couldn’t see but knew were there. Walk slowly, pause . . . then down on your belly and crawl like a snake . . .
And catch the damned war cloak on thorns. Careful, careful. Nothing caught the eye like a flutter.
As they moved they watched for the betraying movements and noises. Setting out a string of guards around your camp was all very well, but you had to check on them regularly—otherwise someone could sneak in, practice Sentry Removal and then get away again with out being detected. You had to make sure the sentries were just being quiet, not lying there cooling to the ambient temperature.
The officer who did the rounds was quiet enough, but they caught his motion—his helmet was glossy, not dull matte, and it showed in the moonlight. Ritva felt her own pulse and counted, drawing her breath in steadily and evenly as the sentries were checked.
He makes his rounds every fifteen minutes, she Signed. And the lookouts are there . . . there . . . there . . . and there.
Mary nodded agreement. Another ten minutes, and we’ll go through below that boulder. Maybe we can get out past them that way later. In the meantime, let’s go look at what all these sentries are guarding.
It was snake-crawling all the way now, imitating a clump of brush. From pool of darkness to darkness, halting five minutes for every one they moved. The wind was in their faces, what there was of it, so dogs wouldn’t be able to scent them, if the Corwinites had any. At last they were in the darker blackness beneath the great rock. Ritva raised her head, fractional inch by fractional inch.
There.
A long narrow cleft in the rock, east-west mainly but with serpentine wriggles, stretching out of sight on her right, and probably opening up to the river on the west. Black cottonwood trees along the sandy bed of the ar royo, and an occasional thicker clump that was probably a spring; the moonlight turned everything to shades of gray and silver, but the thickness of leaves was still ap parent. And the low red dots of banked campfires scat tered down it, bright to their dark-adapted eyes. A slight smell of woodsmoke, too, and cooking, and the stamp and whicker of horses.
Let’s see, Ritva thought. Eight men to a fire ... that means somewhere around two hundred all up.
She got the binoculars out. The horse lines were well hidden, in along the sides of the canyon, but she could see men hauling buckets of water to them, and bags of cracked grain fodder.
Enough horses for every man and a fair number of remounts . . . that’s a wagon, light two-wheeler. They’re traveling without much baggage.
For most of an hour they lay on the lip of the gorge, carefully noting the details. The Cutter soldiers did the things soldiers usually did—sharpening blades, tend ing armor, sewing things and patching things and oiling things and putting new laces in things, eating stew or beans out of communal pots and flat wheat cakes cooked on griddles. They also seemed to do a lot of praying, in a manner which involved kneeling in ranks and making gestures in unison; presumably they were leaving out any chanting or singing.
Then . . .
A face sprang out at her in the binoculars for an in stant: a middle aged man, forty or more, not big, not small . . . but with a patch over his left eye, and a long white scar diagonally across it. Mary hissed very slightly beside her. Ritva memorized the face; part
of her noted that the man certainly had luck, to have survived that. Someone had cut him across the face with a sword, and hard enough to nick the bone. He turned away and walked into the darkness; two other men followed him, with the indefinable air of someone listening to a superior.
One by one the fires were covered by earth and the men lay down, wrapped in blankets and pillowed on their saddles. They also set up their walking sentries, close in and by the picket lines where their horses were tethered, and relieved the outflung ones on the heights around.
Good, Mary Signed. There’s one we missed, see?
Ritva nodded. And right on our way out.
That was the problem with making yourself invisible. If someone missed you, you could miss them. Particularly, you could miss them until they didn’t miss you.
This was going to be awkward. Her hands moved again.
Can we get past them on the sneak?
I don’t think so. Not going this way.
Ritva bared her teeth behind the gauze of her war cloak’s mask. They weren’t here to fight, and she didn’t like to fight unless she had to anyway, and if they couldn’t do it quick and quiet they were unpleasantly dead. Her eyes went along the path they’d have to take, past the big boulder, then over the ridge. . . .
Yup, she Signed mournfully. Sentry Removal. No choice.
Dúnedain training involved a lot of Sentry Removal, and they’d taken the Bearkiller version before they left Larsdalen for Mithrilwood.
It wasn’t precisely like combat. Killing people was relatively easy—which went both ways, unfortunately—but doing it very suddenly with complete silence and nothing visible beyond a few feet was another matter. Human beings were surprisingly tough that way; just stabbing or hitting them rarely did the job fast enough and often involved a lot of shouting and screeching and clanging. It was even more difficult when they were wearing armor.
They turned and crawled, waited while the Cutter officer did his rounds of the sentries, then moved forward right afterwards to take advantage of the maximum time before he came back.
The Sunrise Lands Page 41
