“A patrol coming back?” he suggested.
But Lydia shook her head. “It’s just one horse,” she said. Then she pointed to a ridgeline south of them as a single horse and rider came into view. The rider was urging the horse on, in spite of the fact that it was running as fast as it could. Its sides were white and lathered. They passed out of sight, heading for the camp.
Hal and Lydia exchanged a look. Quickly, they scurried back to their former vantage point.
“Something’s happened,” Lydia said.
“He came from the west,” Hal said, a worried tone in his voice. Lydia looked at him, a question on her face, and he explained further. “He didn’t come from the south. He came from due west. That’s where the Heron lies.”
She thought about what he’d said, then replied, “That’s not to say that he had anything to do with the ship.”
“Maybe not. But what else could it be?”
They fell silent as they watched the new arrival stop outside a large yurt set in an open space past the first few rows of accommodation tents. They’d seen riders coming and going from this tent during the morning. It was clearly a command tent.
Several minutes later, the man reemerged, being dragged by the arms by two Temujai, while a third—an older man and presumably a senior officer—strode purposefully ahead of them, leading the way to the Sha’shan’s wagon. The prisoner, for that was obviously what he now was, struggled in vain against the two men frog-marching him. The older man turned and spat a few curt words at him. His struggles ceased, and he stood erect and walked more willingly.
“I’d say he doesn’t have good news to report,” Lydia observed. “That augurs well for the crew.”
“Let’s hope so,” Hal replied.
The small party had reached the wagon-yurt now. The two guards and the prisoner halted at ground level, while the leader mounted the steps and stood outside the yurt, calling out. After a minute or so, the Sha’shan emerged. The senior officer bowed—a short, cursory head movement—and spoke rapidly. Even from a distance, the Sha’shan’s growing rage was all too evident. He made a few interjections, asking for more details. Then he pointed at the prisoner and made a peremptory motion for him to be brought up to the wagon deck.
An angry discussion followed, with the Sha’shan firing questions at the forlorn man, often cutting off his answers with yet another query. The prisoner stood, head down, answering in a low voice. Lydia and Hal could hear the Sha’shan all too clearly. The mumbled replies were inaudible to them.
Finally, the Temujai leader made a dismissive gesture and the prisoner’s escort shoved him back down the stairs, where his arms were pinned by the other two troops. The Sha’shan shouted a furious order at them, at which the prisoner cried out in fear, seeming to beg for mercy. The Sha’shan waved him away and the two guards dragged him back through the camp to the command tent.
“I don’t think I want to know what’s about to happen to him,” Hal said. Lydia remained silent, although she echoed the thought.
The Sha’shan and his officer continued to talk for several more minutes. Their words were accompanied by much arm waving and pointing—sometimes to due west, and sometimes to the south. Then the officer bowed once more and turned to the stairs, while the Sha’shan reentered his yurt.
As the officer strode quickly back through the camp, Hal turned to Lydia.
“I think it’s time we weren’t here,” he said.
chapter twenty-two
They had gone barely fifty meters when they heard voices shouting and bugles sounding within the camp. Lydia put a hand on Hal’s arm, signaling for him to stop, and they looked back up the slight rise.
A few minutes later, a party of sixty riders, riding in two files, appeared over the rise on their right, heading southwest. The two Herons dropped into the cover of the long grass and watched as the riders went over another crest and passed out of sight.
“That’s not a patrol,” Hal said. “That was a full Ulan.”
Lydia had no time to reply before they heard more pounding hooves and another two Ulans appeared in the distance, riding hard from the camp. Like the first sixty, they headed southwest as well.
“They’re on the move,” Lydia said.
Hal shook his head. “Not the whole camp. It’ll take at least a day, maybe two, for them to get underway. But that’s a sizable war party: one hundred and eighty riders.”
“I would have thought they’d head due west, toward where the ship was moored,” said Lydia.
But Hal shook his head. “They’re playing it smart,” he said. “They know a ship wouldn’t wait around there once she’d been discovered. She’d head off across the lake, where the Temujai can’t follow. And it’s a huge lake—so there’s plenty of room to get lost. That’s certainly what I’d have done if I were on board. What they need is a chokepoint—somewhere they can stop the ship if she tries to get back to the low country.”
Lydia’s eyes narrowed as she followed his reasoning. “Like the point where the river flows out of the lake?”
“That’s what I’d do in their place. If they can block that off, they’ll have us trapped up here.”
“Which means we’d better get a move on.”
“Exactly.”
They resumed their trek with a new sense of urgency, moving the pace up to a slow jog, which was the best speed they could maintain through the clinging long grass that dogged their every step. They sighted no more Ulans heading southwest. The grasslands seemed deserted as they forced their way through the long growth. The only sound was the whisper of the wind through the tops of the grass.
It was well after midday when they finally crested the small rise above the spot where the Heron had been moored. As he stopped to study the small promontory, Hal’s heart sank.
The ship was gone.
They exchanged a despairing look. Hal scanned the shore of the lake to the north and south, searching for some sign of the ship. He stared closely at the island, trying to see if the Heron was there.
Nothing.
Then Lydia grasped his forearm, pointing with her free hand to the bank by the little promontory.
“Down there,” she said. When Hal followed the direction she was indicating, he saw a familiar figure rise from the long grass and wave to them.
“It’s Thorn!” he said, the relief evident in his voice. He began to run down the slight incline to the waiting figure. Lydia followed, a few paces behind him. They blundered through the grass, and as they went, Hal saw two brilliant flashes of light, as Thorn struck a flint with the blunt edge of his saxe. It was their standard method of signaling on board the ship.
They were halfway down the slope and only thirty meters away from Thorn when Lydia cried out again. Hal, who was intent on keeping his footing and had his eyes on the uneven ground ahead of him, looked up to see a lean, low shape emerging from behind the island. The Heron, under oars, swung its bow toward the shore and sped toward them, a ripple of white water under her forefoot as she came. A bone in her teeth, Hal thought, as sailors liked to describe a ship moving at speed.
He reached Thorn and threw his arms around the grinning sea wolf, causing him to stagger a pace or two under the impact of Hal’s arrival.
“So, you’re back!” Thorn said, returning Hal’s hug. He received Lydia, who was a little less demonstrative. “Good to see you, girl!”
Lydia disengaged herself from him, her nose wrinkling. “Don’t you ever bathe?” she asked. She knew that when they were at sea, freshwater was strictly rationed. But here, Thorn had a whole lake full of freshwater at his disposal. He grinned at her, by no means insulted.
“Bathing is for them who’s dirty or smelly,” he said cheerfully.
“And you qualify on both counts,” she told him. But before the discussion could continue, Hal intervened.
“What happen
ed here?” he asked. He could see evidence of burial mounds on the shore of the promontory. “Is everyone all right?” he asked, suddenly fearful.
Thorn patted his arm reassuringly. “We’re all fine. Ingvar took a small cut on the arm—an arrow that nearly missed him. Otherwise, no injuries. Those”—he nodded toward the fresh graves—“are Temujai. We ran afoul of one of their patrols.”
Hal nodded. “We thought something like that might have happened.”
“Thankfully, it was a small one and their commander wasn’t too good at his job. He chose to attack us on foot, which wasn’t a great idea. Temujai may be many things, but they’re not infantry.”
“Is he one of those?” Hal asked, indicating the graves.
Thorn shook his head. “He got away. He was the only one who did. Last we saw, he was heading back to the Temujai camp as if all the fiends of hell were after him.”
Hal and Lydia exchanged a quick look. “That’ll be the one we saw,” Hal said. He turned back to Thorn to explain. “We saw a rider come in this morning. He was obviously reporting bad news to the Sha’shan—”
“You saw the Sha’shan?” Thorn interrupted, but Hal held up a hand to silence him.
“I’ll get to that. But a few minutes after he reported, the whole camp went wild. There were warriors riding out and heading south—lots of them.”
“South,” Thorn mused. “Not west, where we were.”
“Hal thinks they’re hoping to seal off the exit from the lake,” Lydia said. “And keep us bottled up here.”
Thorn nodded thoughtfully. “That could be right,” he said. “They’d probably assume that we’d have moved on from here. How big is their camp? If the Sha’shan is with them, it must be pretty massive.”
“It’s huge,” Hal told him. “There are thousands of them. It’s more than a camp. I think it’s the entire Temujai nation.”
An eager voice hailed them as the Heron ran her prow up onto the bank. Stig vaulted over the rail at the bow, splashing down in the shallow water, and ran toward them.
“Are you all right?” he said as he came closer.
Hal reassured him. “We’re fine. But we don’t have time to stand here nattering. Let’s get aboard and I’ll fill you in on what’s been happening.”
They ran down to the ship, where Jesper and Stefan were leaning over the bow railing to help them aboard. Stig waited until the other three were aboard, then put his shoulder to the bow of the little ship, pushing her back through the soft mud until she floated free. Then he grasped the railing and sprang up, rolling over the railing onto the deck. Jesper grabbed the back of his belt and helped him aboard.
“Thanks,” Stig told him, running aft and calling out orders to the rowers. Ulf, Wulf, Stefan and Ingvar backed water for three strokes, then the starboard two went ahead while the port side continued to back water. The ship spun in its own length in a turn to port.
Hal had reached the tiller and was glancing at the telltale when Stig began to bark more orders at the rowers.
“Belay that,” Hal told him. “Hoist the port sail.”
The breeze was fresh and was on their starboard beam—an excellent point of sailing. Oars came in with the usual clatter—there was no need for stealth now—and Stefan and Jesper made their way to the halyards while Ulf and Wulf took up their positions at the sheets.
The yardarm shot up the mast and clunked home into the retaining socket. The sail billowed out momentarily, then hardened into a tight curve as the twins hauled on the sheets and brought it under control. Heron accelerated eagerly, the tonk-tonk, tonk-tonk of wavelets beating a rapid tattoo on her planks as she surged through the water.
As she flew down the lake, parallel to the eastern shore, Hal filled the crew in on events at the Temujai encampment. At the same time, Thorn described the battle on the lakeshore.
“We were lucky,” he said. “The patrol leader wasn’t the sharpest tool in the kit. I doubt we’ll be that lucky again.”
“You could be right. But if we do have any luck, it’ll be to get to the river before the Temujai can seal it off and trap us.”
Edvin moved aft to the steering platform, a worried expression on his face. Hal noticed him standing awkwardly by and gestured for him to come closer.
“What is it, Edvin?” he asked.
Edvin shrugged apologetically. “We’ve left all our camping equipment on the island,” he said. “The big tent, your smaller tent and my cooking equipment. Plus we left the provisions there as well. I’ve got nothing on board. Sorry, Hal. I had no idea we’d be taking off directly you came back aboard. None of us did.”
Hal waved the apology aside. “Don’t worry, Edvin. If we don’t beat the Temujai to the foot of the lake, that’ll be the least of our problems. If we beat them to it, we can always pick up the food we left at the bottom of the first portage. If they do get to the river before us, we can sail back to the island and pick up the stuff we’ve left.”
Edvin looked relieved for a few moments, then he frowned. “If they get there first, what are we going to do?”
Hal shook his head. “I have a vague idea,” he said. “But let’s face that when we see if they’ve beaten us to it.”
Mindful that they could sight the Temujai at any moment, he steered the ship out away from the east bank and more in the center of the lake, keeping her two hundred and fifty meters away from the shore—well out of bowshot.
The shore began to curve back to the west, indicating that they were approaching the bottom of the lake, where the river ran out and, eventually, down Ice River Valley. Silence fell over the little ship as the crew moved to the bow, peering ahead, trying to see the first sign of Temujai troops on the shore.
“We might have made it,” Hal said, earning himself a grim look from Thorn. The old sea wolf was superstitious enough to believe you should never tempt fate with good news until you were certain. Hal saw the look and shrugged. If the Temujai were there, talking about it wouldn’t make matters worse. If they weren’t, saying so wouldn’t suddenly make them appear.
They could see the river mouth now, and the small line of breakers on the western side. Still there was no sign of anyone waiting on the bank.
Then a silent line of riders appeared out of the grass on the eastern bank, riding toward the point where the river flowed out of the lake. Hal’s heart sank. Maybe Thorn was right, he thought. Maybe you shouldn’t voice your wishes.
The river mouth was eighty meters wide. On the western side, the shallows over the sand bar and the line of breakers restricted the width they could use to sixty meters. So, they would be well within range of the Temujai bows if they tried to sail downstream. With about two hundred Temujai lining the banks, the Heron would be vulnerable to a continual barrage of arrows as she sailed past. And the Temujai could keep pace with them as they sailed downriver, maintaining constant volleys of arrows as they went. Effective as the Skandian shields might be, they couldn’t hope to weather such a nonstop onslaught without taking casualties. And the Temujai would be ready and waiting for the moment when they had to land at the first portage point. He reluctantly faced reality.
They were trapped on the lake.
chapter twenty-three
Gorlog rot you.” Hal directed the curse at the horsemen sitting motionless on the bank. Lydia looked at him in surprise. It was rare for Hal to let his emotions get the better of him like this. As they watched, more horsemen rode over the crest and joined their comrades. There were now over one hundred of them, and more to come. Kloof, standing with her forepaws on the railing, barked defiantly at them.
“That’s fine for you,” Hal told her bitterly. “You have no real grasp of the situation. And barking won’t make them go away.” Kloof, sensing the anger in his tone, dropped her forepaws to the deck and lay down, curling up and keeping a watchful eye on her master.
“What now?”
Stig asked. A grim silence had fallen over the ship.
“We go back to the island,” Hal told him.
He put the ship about and they headed north. The southern shore of the lake, with its row of silent, watchful horsemen, gradually sank into the distance. Stig was about to ask Hal what his plans were. But seeing his skirl’s angry, fixed expression and receiving a warning shake of the head from Thorn, he remained silent.
They moored at their original landing place on the island, and Stig shoved the gangplank over the side. He moved toward Hal, who had remained silent, apart from passing necessary orders, since they had left the southern shore of the lake.
“Will we rig the nets?” he asked.
Hal shook his head. “No point. They can’t see us from the eastern shore.”
Stig paused uncertainly. He wasn’t sure if he should order the crew to strike their camp on the island, or whether Hal was planning to spend the night here. Hal noticed his hesitation and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Sorry, Stig. Didn’t mean to take it out on you. We’ll stay here tonight. May as well be comfortable. Tomorrow, we’ll see what we’re going to do.”
In fact, it was later that evening when he came to a decision. Edvin had prepared a meal for them, and the crew were sitting around their campfire drinking an after-dinner cup of coffee. Hal was continually surprised how Edvin could keep conjuring up interesting, appetizing meals with the scant resources he had at his disposal. The young man had a definite gift, he thought—that alone was worth three additional fighting men. His cooking kept the crew’s morale high and their enthusiasm undiminished.
Hal looked around the circle of faces now as they conversed quietly, leaning into the warmth of the fire. It was a chilly night and they had built the fire up. As he had observed earlier, there was no point in maintaining secrecy. The Temujai knew they were here on the lake. And it wouldn’t take much for them to figure they had a base on this island.
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