“Stay alert,” he said in a gruff whisper. Those near him passed the message down the line. Above the eastern horizon, the sky was slowly turning pink as the sun came close to rising.
If they do hit us, he thought, it’ll be just as the sun comes up and the glare is in our eyes.
On the other hand, he knew, the rising sun would backlight the attackers. They’d be silhouetted, but they’d be clearly visible. He moved his club-hand in an unconscious gesture, testing that it was firmly set on the stump of his arm. Waiting was the worst part, he thought. It always had been and it always would be.
“Come on,” he muttered. “Let’s have you.”
He didn’t realize that he’d spoken aloud until Stefan, crouched beside him, turned his head.
“What was that, Thorn?” he asked softly. He was concerned that he might have missed some instruction or information. But the shaggy-haired sea wolf shook his head and made a negating gesture with the massive club.
“Nothing,” he said. “Stay focused.”
* * *
• • • • •
As the sun rose, Hal and Lydia could see the Temujai encampment more clearly. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of the hump-shaped felt tents covered the grass plain, looking for all the world like giant mushrooms growing wild. The long grass had been stamped down or cut to make a clear space for the encampment—and, presumably, to provide fodder for the Temujai’s horses.
The tents—or yurts, as they were called—were roughly organized in groups, with nine or ten tents gathered around a cooking fire. Thin lines of smoke rose from these fires, where the coals of the previous night still smoldered. As they watched, women emerged from the tents and began to stoke the fires into new life. The acrid smell intensified.
Hal wrinkled his nose in distaste. “What are they burning?”
When Lydia told him, he shrugged. “Well, they certainly have an almost endless supply of that,” he said, indicating one of several temporary horse-holding paddocks that were set on the perimeter of the camp. Rope fences surrounded the horse lines, enclosing large rectangular spaces, each one with hundreds of horses moving restlessly inside the confining ropes.
“I guess they have so many horses, they had to build three or four containment areas,” Hal said softly.
Lydia nodded. She pointed down the slight slope toward the massive camp. “Sentries,” she said.
Hal could see them, now that the light was stronger. There was a ring of armed men around the camp, separated by forty meters between each man. They were on foot and armed with bows and swords. Each carried a light shield on his left arm. They all faced outward, but there was a lackluster air about them. They were bored. They didn’t expect trouble, Hal thought.
Staying just below the crest and crouching so that only their heads showed briefly above the long grass, Hal and Lydia began to move to their left, skirting the camp. None of the sentries showed any sign that they had seen them. They had gone about fifty meters when Lydia touched Hal’s arm and gestured for him to sink to his knees. Hal obeyed, then she led him forward, crawling on their bellies so they could remain unobserved while they studied the camp.
They lay close beside each other, their heads together so they could converse in whispers. Below them, the sounds of the camp awakening were becoming evident. Horses stamped and whinnied. Men and women called out to one another as they greeted their neighbors and the dawn. There was an occasional rattle of cooking implements.
In the center of the camp, they could hear orders being shouted as several parties of men saddled horses and mounted up, riding toward the periphery of the camp. All of them, Hal noticed, were heading south and west.
Closer to the edge of the camp, however, and surrounded by half a dozen guards, was the object that had drawn Lydia’s attention.
It was a large wagon, a timber platform mounted on four solid-wood wheels. The body of the wagon was another yurt—but a massive one, perhaps five times the size of those that made up the encampment.
The felt walls rose nearly two meters above the wagon bed before they curved over into the rounded roof. That added another two meters to the height of the structure. As Lydia had noted on her reconnaissance at Serpent Pass, the roof and walls were held in place by rope bindings—seemingly haphazard and untidy but, on further study, forming a tight, secure structure that would survive the severe winter winds of the upper grasslands.
At the rear of the huge wagon, a section had been left open, forming a terrace or porch outside the entrance to the yurt. There was no other structure that they could see that rivaled this in size or grandeur.
Hal looked sidelong at Lydia, a question obvious in his gaze. She breathed a reply.
“The Sha’shan.”
He nodded in understanding. “Why not place it in the middle of the camp?”
She shrugged. “This way, it’s clear of the cook fires’ smoke and the dust from the horse lines.”
As she spoke, the tent flap in the rear of the huge yurt was thrown aside and a figure emerged onto the wooden platform. He was short and heavily built, Hal thought. Then he corrected that impression. The man was seriously overweight for his lack of height. He was dressed in a brocaded robe and a pointed felt hat dyed green. His beard and long hair were both plaited and apparently smeared with grease or fat, as the hair stood out from his head in two large pigtails and his beard was also divided in two, with each half curving upward. His mustache was thick and luxuriant.
He walked to the edge of the platform, hawked and spat over the railing onto the trampled grass below. The half dozen guards on duty around the wagon came quickly to attention as they sighted him.
“These guards are a bit more alert than the camp sentries,” he observed in a whisper.
Lydia nodded agreement. “I guess if the Sha’shan can pop out any minute of the day and check up on you, it pays to be alert.”
“Alert at the yurt,” he observed.
Lydia didn’t reply, she simply looked at him—and the look spoke volumes. He decided not to share any more lighthearted comments with her. She was too tough an audience, he thought.
“It was a joke,” he said finally.
But she shook her head. “A joke is funny,” she told him. “Looks like he’s going back to bed,” she added.
The tubby figure on the rear deck of the wagon-yurt stretched his arms above his head and yawned hugely. Then, with one last glance around, he turned and disappeared back inside.
“Wonder who’s in there with him?” Hal said.
Apparently, Lydia had been thinking the same thing. “Maybe we should stay around for a while and see who else comes out.”
It seemed like a reasonable idea. After all, Hal thought, they might have to wait here for several hours anyway, as the patrols made their way out of the camp. They might as well keep tabs on the Sha’shan while they were at it. You never knew when that sort of information might come in handy.
Already, a vague idea was forming in his mind. He wasn’t ready to give voice to it yet. He thought he’d let it simmer while he considered it—and all the elements that might affect it. He unhitched his canteen from his belt and took a long swig. Then he settled down into the long grass, his chin resting on his hand. His eyes roamed the vast Temujai camp, taking in the clusters of yurts, the riders moving out from the horse corrals and the groups of warriors and women sitting round the campfires, eating the food provided by the women. His stomach rumbled as the breeze wafted the smell of cooking meat toward their hiding place. Then another gust assailed his nostrils with the smell of the dried-dung fires.
His stomach stopped rumbling.
chapter twenty-one
Here they come!”
It was Edvin who saw the first movement and called a warning, as the line of Temujai warriors rose out of the tall grass some thirty meters in front of the Skandian defenses.
“Shields!”
As one, the massive Skandian shields came up, linking together and forming a solid wall. A second later, there was a savage rattle as the volley of arrows slammed into the hide-and-wooden shields. Thorn was watching the enemy through a tiny gap between his shield and Stefan’s. He saw them preparing to shoot again.
“Keep them up!” he roared, and the second volley rattled harmlessly against the shield wall.
Thorn glanced sidelong at Stefan. “They can keep this up all day but they won’t hurt us. They’re going to have to come to close quarters.”
* * *
• • • • •
En’tak loosed another arrow and saw it slam impotently into one of the big round shields. He grimaced in frustration. If they were forced to attack on foot, the Temujai would be giving up their main advantages in a fight—the speed and mobility of their slashing horseback attacks, and their ability to maintain a constant, accurate arrow storm on their opponents’ defenses, whittling down their numbers before finally closing with them. They couldn’t maintain that speed and accuracy if they were on foot, running over broken, uneven ground, with the long grass threatening to trip them at every stride. In addition, they would be too close to launch any plunging volleys of arrows into the enemy lines, overcoming the solid shield wall that faced them.
But that had been a deliberate decision. He’d wanted to get close to the enemy before launching his attack. Now, as he counted the shields facing his men, he realized he’d underestimated the enemy. He’d expected half a dozen Skandians, no more. But he saw there were eight shields in the wall. So, eight men facing his twelve. They were slightly more even odds than he had counted on.
There was another consideration—one he wasn’t aware of. The Temujai were excellent warriors—courageous and determined. But their forte was long-distance warfare, using their bows and shooting from horseback before finally closing to end the battle. They were capable warriors when it came to close quarters, but they were facing Skandians, who were probably the best hand-to-hand fighters in the world.
En’tak didn’t know that. But he was about to find out. He tossed his bow aside and drew his curved saber.
“Charge!” he yelled. “Close with them and finish them!”
Shorthanded as he was, he couldn’t afford to leave several men back to maintain a steady barrage of arrows as he and the others moved in. That was another standard Temujai tactic—but one he’d have to forgo.
* * *
• • • • •
Peering from behind his shield, Thorn felt the deadly rain of arrows cease and saw a warrior in the center of the Temujai line cast his bow aside and draw a long, curved sword. Realizing the shield wall had served its purpose, Thorn rose to his feet and yelled a command.
“Spears!”
* * *
• • • • •
Eight spears sailed out from the line of Skandians, arcing up and then down and slamming into the charging Temujai. Two of them went down, hurled backward by the force of the heavy projectiles. The others faltered, seeing the line of shields, axes and swords ready to receive them. But while En’tak was a poor leader and tactician, he was a brave man. He screamed at his troops now to close with the enemy.
He picked out a huge Skandian on the left of the line. The warrior had strange dark circles over his eyes and was armed with a long weapon that looked like a cross between a pike, a spear and an ax. He stepped up onto the rampart to receive the charging Temujai, dropping his huge circular shield to the ground as he did so, in order to hold his weapon in both hands.
En’tak stumbled slightly as he crossed the ditch, which was filled with loose material—brushwood, branches, loose rocks and bundles of grass. He recovered and bounded nimbly up onto the earth rampart beside the giant Skandian, swinging his saber in a deadly overhead arc as he did so.
The Skandian calmly blocked the blow, trapping the blade in the gap between the ax head and the spear point on his weapon. Then, quickly, he twisted the trapped sword out of En’tak’s hand, withdrew and then lunged forward—all in the space of a heartbeat.
En’tak reared back, lost his footing and tumbled off the rampart into the ditch. As he struggled to regain his footing in the loose, shifting material that filled the ditch, he heard his friend’s voice close by him.
“We’re losing!” Ka’zhak shouted. “You need to get back to the camp and tell the Sha’shan that the Skandians are on the lake. Go now! We’ll keep them busy while you get away!”
The patrol commander looked around desperately. He saw two of his men facedown on the earth wall. As he watched, another was hurled backward. A shaggy-haired, bearded Skandian, with a huge club in place of his right hand, had slammed his weapon onto the Temujai’s midsection in a savage thrust, smashing ribs and sending the slightly built horseman sailing backward. En’tak shook his head in confusion. How had it all gone so wrong?
Ka’zhak was tugging at his arm, spinning him round so that he faced away from the battle and shoving him back toward their camp.
“Go! Go now!”
Numbly, En’tak realized his deputy was right. The Sha’shan had to be warned about this Skandian incursion onto the great lake. If there was one ship, there might well be others, and Pa’tong, the leader of the Temujai nation, must be made aware of the fact.
He began to run. Then he heard a cry of pain behind him and turned to see his friend falling under an ax blow from the massive, black-eyed Skandian. Ka’zhak rolled down the earth wall into the ditch and lay still. Sobbing with frustration and sorrow, En’tak began to run again, trying to shut out the sound of the fighting behind him.
He made it to their camp, where the horses were tethered in a temporary rope corral. He untied his own horse, looking at the saddle on the ground nearby. The horse’s rope bridle was already in place. He decided there was no time to saddle the horse and leapt astride, riding bareback. He was barely astride, hauling at the bridle, when the horse pirouetted on its back feet, turning toward the east. By the time he crested the nearest low ridge, the horse was already at a full gallop. Behind him, there was an ominous silence. The clash of weapons and shouts of the wounded had ceased.
* * *
• • • • •
Lydia and Hal lay concealed in the long grass above the Sha’shan’s massive wagon-yurt. In the time they had been keeping watch, they had seen the Temujai leader emerge once more to confer with the commander of his guards. Then, half an hour later, a woman came out onto the rear platform of the wagon, a bowl of water in her hands. She tossed the water over the railing, looked idly around and returned to the interior.
“Two of them,” Hal said. “Do you think there are more?”
Lydia shrugged. “Could be. It’s hard to tell.”
Shortly after, the question was answered as three of the women who had been preparing food at one of the cook fires approached the wagon, carrying bowls of food.
They paused at the bottom of the steps that led up to the rear platform and called a greeting. A male voice answered them, and they climbed the stairs and stood waiting. The tent flap opened, and the Sha’shan and the woman they had seen emerged. The woman carried two low stools. She set them down on the platform and motioned for the Sha’shan to sit on one. The rotund leader did as she suggested and the other women proceeded to serve him, placing several bowls of food in front of him on the timber decking.
“Breakfast in the fresh air,” Hal observed. Lydia said nothing. When the Sha’shan was served, his companion received a bowl of food as well. She sat on the second low stool and began to eat.
Hal smiled. “One bowl for her. Three for him.”
“That’s obviously how he k
eeps his trim figure,” Lydia said dryly.
Time passed and they continued to observe. While they had been watching, several patrols had left the camp and headed south and west. There seemed to be no further activity of this kind as the camp went about its workaday tasks—airing bedding, beating the dust out of rugs and blankets, and tending to washtubs set over some of the larger fires. Lydia noted that the majority of these tasks seemed to be carried out by the women of the camp. The men sat idly in the sunshine outside their tents, fletching arrows or sharpening their curved sabers. Several of them were busy making new bows—the short, laminated recurve bows that they shot from horseback. Hal strained his eyes but could see little in the way of detail.
“I’d like to see how they do that,” he said quietly. He was always fascinated by weapon-making techniques.
Lydia grinned at him. “Maybe you could stroll down and ask them to show you.”
Hal regarded her bleakly. “I don’t think so,” he said. He glanced around, noting the position of the sun. It was well up now and the dew on the grass would have evaporated. That meant they would leave no telltale path when they left.
“Might be time for us to go,” he said. “I’m not sure what else we’ll find out here.”
Lydia nodded agreement. “Thorn will be getting worried about us,” she said. “He’s such a mother hen.”
They began to inch their way backward, away from the crest they had been on to observe the camp. Once they were out of sight of the sentries, Hal started to rise to his knees. But Lydia shot out a hand to stop him.
“Listen!” she said urgently. He froze in a half crouch. Faintly, he heard the sound of galloping hoofs behind them, coming from the west. He sank back down into the grass and turned toward the direction of the hoofbeats.
Return of the Temujai Page 14