He felt something brush past his face, plucking at the collar of his cloak and his heart froze. A hand's width lower and the arrow shot by one of Dennis's men would have killed him. His mind raced for a moment, wondering on the irony of it all, that after so long, he might die by the hand of an ally.
Gregory blew his horn again – the four-note recognition signal -and Tinuva heard Dennis's angry curses, shouting for his men to hold their arrows.
The two slid their mounts down the slope, charging past the empty encampment and up the trail. As they rounded a bend Tinuva was startled by the sight of half a dozen Tsurani blocking the way with blades drawn and he reined in hard, wondering if Dennis's warning and Gregory's horn blast was understood by them.
Asayaga was in the middle of the group. He barked an order and the swords were lowered.
Tinuva, heart still thumping, nodded his thanks.
'Tragic to kill a friend in battle by mistake when there are so many enemies to go around,' Asayaga announced in Tsurani.
The words were no sooner out of him than a startled expression clouded his face. Several of his men looked over at him in surprise. Tinuva, equally surprised, took several seconds to respond. 'Old enemies must be friends when a greater evil looms.'
Asayaga grunted, not replying.
'Move quickly: their mounted warriors are closing. They aren't quite sure where we are but will figure it out soon enough,' Tinuva said quickly. He snapped the reins and rode forward up the trail, reaching the next turn on top of the rocky outcropping.
'Damn it. You could have been killed riding a horse like that!' Dennis cried, and then there was yet another surprise for Tinuva as Hartraft reached up and, as if to reassure himself, grabbed the elf by the forearm, squeezed tightly, then let his hand drop.
Dennis started to turn. 'I'm personally going to flay the idiot who shot that arrow.'
'No time,' Tinuva announced, trying to sound nonchalant about the whole affair. 'An honest mistake. I left on foot, you expected me to return that way. We'd better move. Gregory and I will ride ahead to make sure they don't have an advance unit up on the trail. I doubt it though. Bovai was out front with the mounted riders looking for you. The rest of his forces he ordered to follow. My little game worked: it gave us the warning we needed.'
Dennis nodded in agreement.
'You men dry, your stomachs full and your backsides warm?' Gregory asked.
There was a ripple of laughter.
He looked to the east. The large moon was two hand-spans above the horizon, a crescent, still blood red. Beneath it there was the first faint glow of approaching dawn.
'We've got a long run and a tough fight,' Dennis interjected, again assuming his usual role. 'They'll be on us soon enough. Now move!'
Tinuva urged his mount forward, up the long, sloping, ice-covered trail. 'And I think a storm is coming, so we need to be over the crest before it is full on, else we will die in the pass.'
Dennis and Asayaga gave commands and the men hurried ahead, following the trailbreakers' marks. The two scouts should already be into the pass itself, heading up into the high mountains. By late afternoon, they should be at the crest, then once over, let the storm fill the pass with snow. Then all thoughts of Bovai could be put aside for another time.
As the men moved out, Tinuva considered: within the space of half a dozen minutes death had whispered close three times, twice at the hands of friends, once from a foe that was closer to him than any who were mortal could ever guess.
He knew it was a portent and he breathed deeply, savouring the taste of this world.
'Come on, move your lazy asses, move it!'
Dennis Hartraft, gasping for breath, staggered to the top of the trail. Leaning over, he struggled against the urge to vomit, gulping down deep breaths of freezing air.
He stood up, and pushed back his helmet and wiped the sweat from his brow. Looking down the trail, he saw his men staggering forward, feet churning through the powdery snow.
'Archers to the flanks! Mark your targets carefully: don't waste your arrows on the goblins and men! Kill the trolls first, then the dark elves!'
More than one man had an empty quiver; they were running short.
He looked up at the sky. The noonday sun was riding low on the southern horizon. If it wasn't for the terror of the moment, he could have almost paused to take in the spectacular view. They had climbed several thousand feet throughout the cold morning and now the vast plain of the Broad River was spread out below them and he could easily trace out the distant road crossing up over the Yabonese Hills which they had traversed the day before. The air up here was pure and crystalline but unfortunately far too thin and it was affecting his men. Fortunately it was affecting their pursuers as well.
It had been a bitter running fight. Within a half hour of their fleeing the camp the first attack had swept up behind them and repeated assaults had hit throughout the day. There would be a break in the fighting, his men pulling back a few hundred more yards, weaving their way up the switchbacking trail, then another attack would come, there would be a pause, followed by a another pull back. Bovai's forces had paid a terrible price to press the fleeing humans. All of their human mercenaries were either dead or wounded, and the moredhel were now without any cavalry support.
Now that the switchbacks were behind them, all that was saving them was the fact that the path they were on was little more than a goat-track climbing straight up, reaching up past the tree-line. It was impossible for the enemy to flank or get ahead in such terrain as long as he slowly kept retreating: the trick was to disengage from the battle at the right moment and he could see that it was almost time to do it again.
He looked around. The mountain continued to soar upwards behind him for another half a thousand feet or more; the problem now was what he had feared for the last hour. The trail was giving out. It was all bare rock above – the thick tangle of stunted trees and bushes which had helped to secure their flanks had all but disappeared. With their backs to the top of the mountain the only tactic left was to deploy up into the boulders and make a final stand.
Looking around, he saw no sight of Tinuva or Gregory: it was as if they had simply vanished. He knew that Gregory had deliberately been keeping the elf away from the fight, pushing him forward to scout. It was strange, though, for them to have simply vanished at a time like this and it made him uneasy. He looked back down the trail and could see that the battle was again getting desperate: a column of goblins was forming up, shields forward and overhead, advancing from behind to charge past the beleaguered trolls and moredhel.
He slipped back down the trail, losing the hundred yards he had just so painfully climbed, dodging behind a boulder when several arrows came winging up from below, arcing up high and then plunging down.
The Tsurani were skilfully holding the path, deployed into squads of five-man units. Each unit would battle for several minutes, then they'd fall back, retiring to the rear and the next squad would engage. To either side of the trail, wherever it was possible to gain a foothold and a little concealment, Kingdom archers covered the approaches and acted as skirmishers to secure the flanks. Though he would never say it out loud, the two sides were working together seamlessly in this fight, both playing to their strengths, supporting each other, and several times he had seen a Kingdom or Tsurani soldier help pull someone from the other side out of a close scrape.
The one-eyed Tsurani had even carried in a Kingdom soldier knocked senseless by a troll's club.
Within the first hour the moredhel had learned their bitter lesson and were now holding back after losing at least a dozen to the human archers who had every advantage of higher ground and a wind at their backs. Throughout most of the morning they had taken to driving their human and goblin allies forward for the bloody frontal assaults on the Tsurani infantry.
Not that the fight had been all one-sided: seven Kingdom and twelve Tsurani were dead, and a dozen more were wounded. As Dennis continued his slide dow
n the path he passed Corwin who was marshalling the effort to keep the wounded moving, and given the nature of the fight on such a narrow front Dennis had finally agreed to detail off fifteen men to lend him assistance.
Slipping up behind Asayaga, who was in the second rank, Dennis grabbed him by the shoulder. 'You can't see it from here but around the corner of the trail a goblin column's getting set to charge,' he gasped. 'Get ready to pull everyone back.'
Asayaga grunted an acknowledgment.
His forward line was waiting with shields lowered. No one had approached through the switchback below them for several minutes.
Asayaga barked a command.
No one moved.
Dennis, turned and started back up the path. The Tsurani knew what they were doing and Dennis realized it was best to get out of the way.
He heard a grunting moan, one of the guttural battle-chants of the goblins. The head of their column came around the bend in the trail, shields up.
Asayaga called out another command. Some of the men around him started to back up. Asayaga said a single word and more, began to back up. The goblins nervously edged forward.
Suddenly the front rank of Tsurani broke completely, turned and bolted, a few of the men casting aside goblin shields they had picked up earlier in the fight. Soon the entire Tsurani unit was churning up the pathway, men shouting in alarm and panic.
The forward line of goblins cautiously lowered their shields, a few barked out taunts and began to come forward, and within seconds the entire goblin column was in hot pursuit, all semblance of order broken.
Dennis, legs trembling so that he felt he might collapse, pressed on up the path, the fleetest of the Tsurani already sprinting past him. He felt a hand grab him by the elbow as if to help pull him along and he shrugged it off. He caught glimpses of his own men falling back along either side of the narrow trail, more than one of them looking nervously at Dennis.
Straight ahead the trail all but gave out and Dennis reached the spot where he had stood only minutes before. This time he was down on his knees, gasping for air. His men had made this climb only once, but he had been up and down every step of the way, moving back and forth as the running battle ebbed and flowed. In spite of Asayaga's offer for him to sleep first, he had not laid his head down the entire night, but instead had stood watch, agreeing with Tinuva to the elf's plan to go forward as a scout and as a first warning, and then he had waited tensely for hours for the horn call that would be the alarm for them to move.
The world seemed to be out of focus. It was difficult to see, for fleeing Tsurani troops were all around him. Through a gap in their ranks he saw the swarm of goblins coming up the trail less than twenty yards away.
Asayaga shouted out a command and miraculously every Tsurani soldier fell into place, assuming his proper place in line and file. In an instant the Tsurani were charging and in spite of Dennis's orders several of his men slammed arrows into the disorganized goblin ranks, while his light skirmishers swarmed to either side of the trail.
The Tsurani hit the goblins like a battering ram, bowling over the forward ranks, sending their dying bodies crashing backwards, while Kingdom troops swarmed in on the flanks.
The slaughter was horrifying: within seconds a score of goblins were dead, or gasping out their last breaths and the rest were running in panic back down the hill.
Asayaga emerged from the ranks, a grin lighting his features as he staggered up the last few steps of the trail to stand before Dennis.
'Stupid creatures, you would think the same trick would not work twice.'
Dennis nodded in agreement.
Asayaga looked past him and his features dropped. 'The trail. What now?'
'We go up into the rocks.'
'I thought there was a pass?'
Dennis did not reply.
From further down the mountain it did indeed look as if there was a pass, but that had only led them though the first layer of the mountain range; this higher second barrier had been concealed beyond. It was territory he had never ventured into and even Gregory had seemed a bit off-balance at first when they had glimpsed the higher range beyond. Only Tinuva had pushed onward without comment.
'Where are the elf and the Natalese?'
'I don't know.'
'You don't know? So what are we to do?'
'I told you, we go up into the rocks.'
'And I thought the goblins were stupid. You lead us up here? Better we had never crossed the river.'
'I didn't ask you to come along on this,' Dennis snapped. 'You could have stayed on the other side of the damned river for all I care. We're here, this is it, so get used to it!'
'That is your answer, Hartraft? If we survive this day, tonight, at sunset, we settle things. I will not march another day with you if this is what your leadership brings us to.'
'Fine then, at sunset, damn you.'
'Might I interrupt?'
It was Gregory.
Dennis looked up at him, not sure if he should be glad or start swearing about the fix they were in.
'We have the trail.'
'Where does it go?' Dennis asked.
'That's just it,' Gregory replied. 'I'm not quite sure.'
'I thought you knew these mountains?'
'I never said that. You'll recall I said I might know a way, but I've never been up this far before. The one pass I was certain about was the road leading up from the bridge held by the Dark Brothers.'
Dennis stood up wearily. 'If this involves any more climbing…' he grumbled.
Gregory had already turned his horse, pausing to look back down the side of the mountain. 'We'd better move sharply. They're deploying out.'
Dennis looked over the edge of the steep slope and saw dark figures moving outward, all of them dismounted. There were hundreds of them, and this time the moredhel were joining in. It is simple enough, Dennis realized, now that we are pinned down they simply spread out, don't attack frontally, and go to sweep around the flanks, then close in.
Several of his men were throwing rocks and shouting angry taunts, but most were too far gone with exhaustion to react, simply falling in behind Gregory and Dennis because that was what they had always done. Gregory led the way, the trail running flat and parallel to the mountain for fifty yards then turning sharply around the flank of a massive boulder.
As they turned the side of the boulder Dennis felt a gust of cold wind and looking straight ahead he saw a narrow cleft. There were mountains several hundred yards beyond, but it appeared as if the slope ahead dropped straight down.
Once past the boulder Gregory stopped and dismounted, motioning for Dennis to follow. After another dozen yards the trail turned again and Dennis felt his stomach knot up. A few more paces and it was a vertical drop of five hundred feet or more. He had always hated heights and instinctively he backed up.
'Well that's just great,' he gasped. 'Now what, we jump?'
'Look,' Gregory said, pointing forward and to their left.
The trail, clinging to the north side of the canyon continued onward for a hundred yards, and then ended at a rope bridge that spanned the chasm.
'What in the name of the gods?' Dennis asked, for once caught completely off guard and willing to admit it.
'Tinuva remembered there had been a trail here, and long ago a bridge, but it was destroyed a hundred years or more ago. Someone's rebuilt it.'
'Where is Tinuva?'
'On the other side. He already signalled back that the trail continues on. This is the way out,' Gregory announced with a grin. Dennis nodded, swallowing hard as he eyed the spindly-looking bridge which was nothing more than two ropes for hand-holds and two more beneath with uneven boards as a narrow walkway.
Asayaga was suddenly at his side, grinning. 'What are we waiting for?' he announced. 'Let's move.'
Dennis nodded, and without comment followed Gregory who continued to lead his horse.
'You're not going to try and get that beast across are you?'
'Tinuva got his across.' Even as he spoke, Gregory removed his cape and folded it over the horse's head, covering his eyes. Dennis said nothing more as the Natalese scout reached the bridge and without hesitation stepped forward, the bridge sagging and groaning as the horse followed.
'Space the men about ten feet apart, I'm not quite sure how much this thing will hold.'
'You with a horse, we'll figure it out,' Dennis replied, watching as Gregory crossed the bridge, ambling along as if he didn't have a care in the world.
A cold wind whistled through the canyon, causing the bridge to rock. Backing up against the wall of the narrow trail, Dennis ordered the lead men to get across and one by one they started.
Gradually the two commands crossed, until finally there were only half a dozen men left by the boulder, one of them Asayaga's one-eyed Strike Leader who started shouting.
'They're closing in,' Asayaga announced. 'It will be tight.'
Asayaga shouted for his sergeant to move and the last of the men raced along the narrow, icy trail, Dennis watching nervously, expecting to see more than one slip and plummet to his doom.
Asayaga pushed the last of his men on to the bridge then turned to Dennis.
'After you, Hartraft.'
'You first,' Dennis growled.
'Afraid?' Asayaga asked with a grin and then his features changed in an instant, shield going up.
An arrow slammed into it and Dennis crouched down behind the barrier as two more arrows winged in.
'Now!' Asayaga cried and he jumped on to the bridge and started to run, urging the men ahead of him to move.
Dennis followed, making the first thirty feet without slowing.
Looking back over his shoulder he saw five black clad archers coming through the cleft by the boulder, and spreading out along the trail. Behind them were heavy infantry, shields raised.
The archers were already drawing their next flight of arrows and Dennis continued to run, oblivious to the swaying of the bridge.
Honoured Enemy Page 17