by Nelson, J P
“The real question at hand is; are they here now and in league with these cognobins? Or, if not they, then who? For someone must understand how these things work. The cognobins do not seem to have the industry to figure these things out. And there is a wizard at work, yes, someone who was in concert with the Witch Queen. Lahrcus did not figure him to be a leader of any kind.”
Studying the runes, he asked, “Can you read these, Wolf? I cannot quite make them out.”
“Yes, I said. But they don’t make sense, not as a group. They are just common words and none of them would make a sentence. Did the well in Biunang have runes in it?”
“I have been wondering about that. All traces of a building were gone, and a wall was built up close around the well to keep livestock and children from falling in. There was no sun reflecting downward and I had to drop a stone to verify a splash. I would need to study it again.”
“But the water in the bottom … these are rooms, not wells.”
‘Unless, Wolf, unless a water source eroded itself into that old room decades, even centuries after it was last used.”
We looked around and I memorized the runes, I would not forget them or their patterns.
As we rode back to the farm keep we talked with anyone who had an idea, but none of us had any answers.
The command had secured the area and confiscated everything of use, but there was little to be found. There were definite signs, however, that someone had been there since I had been there with Leman. The destroyed farm keep had been thoroughly plundered. A cognobin would have smashed things around. But drawers and cabinets had been opened, and both root cellars had been raided. That was interesting. I thought of the wizard, but there were other humans out there. There was no telling who it might have been, and recent storms had wiped the tracks clean.
I went inside the keep with Hoscoe and Izner. Ander and Eppard were in there discussing the results of their investigation. The place had been picked clean. All that was left was pretty much the shells of buildings. Well, almost. Puffer came to join us only moments after we walked inside. He had something he wanted me to see.
“Out back, beside the stable, actually in the stable wall on the outside, was a series of wide puncture marks,” Puffer reported, “Captain, there were no footprints anywhere, and I do mean anywhere around the entire premises. But I figure someone was standing off by themselves, like, and was throwing some knives; some really nice knives with a healthy heft. If you take a good look, you can see it made a deep bite and they aren’t typical throwing daggers.”
Sure enough, the cuts were deep, and from the smell and color of the wood they couldn’t be more than three, maybe four days old. From the angle and height of entry, I figured the thrower to be a mite shorter than me. Stepping back, I walked around and had the strangest feeling I could tell about right where he was throwing from, a point about forty-five feet away. And his pattern was good, craiken good.
So what did that mean to me, to us? Other than his throwing … well, someone had erased all footprints. I remembered Wahyene and his making our trail disappear, so it would have to be a wizard, wouldn’t it?
Izner walked over to me as I was thinking and suggested, “Wolf, why don’t you find an animal and try to talk with it, mind think it, or whatever it is you do?”
With a grin I said, “Izner, you’re a genius.” Closing my eyes to near slits I concentrated, I attempted to *Summon* an animal, any animal at all. There were lots of small creatures around, if you knew where to look. From a burrow under the barn came something that looked like a cross between a squirrel, a ground hog and a cat. All eight pounds of it, with a long bushy tail, came waddling over to me as Hoscoe, Izner, Eppard and a few others watched quietly.
I reached down and picked it up, rubbing it behind its tiny ears I fed it a piece of dried carrot, and then held its head up to mine and relaxed as I focused on *Mind Speaking* with it. The little guy had hidden under its home when some creatures on two legs roamed around the place three daylights before. As best as I could figure there must have been a dozen or more. But there was this one who kept throwing something against the wall. As I tried to determine the thrower, I finally saw its face as it looked down at my little friend.
The thrower’s face was an elf. The elf had long, dark hair, and at one point two or three really tall purple creatures walked over, and the elf said something to them and then they walked away. After a long time, my little friend saw the elf wave his hands around and the dirt swirled all around. As I explained what I saw to the others, the vision was clear. A warrior-elf was giving orders to cognobins and humans alike, and this elf could also use magic. What I couldn’t tell, was whether the elf was Drow or not.
This was getting better all the time.
Chapter 46
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AS FAR AS I’m concerned, it should have been Deak in charge of the Scouts Division. Yeah, I had some cool awareness abilities, and I was learning to develop them much further, but he was the one who really knew his art of tracking and scouting. Deak was in the league of legendary trackers such as Trap of the Ahnagohr Mountains, Sandalfoot Bushwin of the Wilderlands north of Alburin, and Momma Shea of the Nahjiua Highlands.
In fact, all of the boys in my unit had more skill in scouting and tracking than I did. My commission was purely political. I had done what some considered heroic deeds which spawned action around me, and yes, with my senses I was able to ward off what would have been a massacre, but that didn’t make me a leader
I said as much to Deak and Hoscoe both, and Deak said, “Son, you just jumped the first and most important thing a leader has got to know. You admitted what you do and don’t know. What you got to do is learn from the ones who do know, and make your decisions accordingly. The next thing you got to do is accept responsibility for bad decisions as well as good ones, and you’re goin’ to make some bad ones. It’s part of leadin’. And you got to know when to be a leader and when to be a friend, ‘cause sometimes the two positions don’t make like they go together.”
Deak was waving a piece of meat at me and added, “When you make a decision, stick with it.”
“Unless,” Hoscoe slid his thought in, “sufficient evidence is presented to you to warrant changing your approach; and never, do not ever hesitate to listen to your subordinates. If they are afraid to submit important information due to a raging ego, you will not be likely to receive the whole picture. You want respect by courtesy and shrewdness, not fear by tyranny.”
Deak was chewing and nodding his head in approval.
Every chance I got, I learned from Deak and Kispahrti, as well. Every time they told or showed me something, I would use my Bardic training to imprint it in my memory, then I would immediately find a way to put it to use.
I also kept up my education with Hoscoe, only our classroom was now the realm of application under observation. We would discuss my choices and approach, and he would give me pointers, but he didn’t try to change my mind about anything and encouraged me all the way. He often questioned me, just to see what my answers would be, but he never did it in front of anyone.
“The men look up to you,” Hoscoe told me one evening at chow, “even the officers are talking how you are a natural leader.”
“How?” I asked, “sometimes I’m not sure what I’m doing, and it worries me I’m going to get someone hurt.”
“You know more than any of us knew at one time, young sir. Besides, it is not your knowledge which impresses them, it is your attitude. Regardless of your age, you are an officer, yet you are accessible. You demonstrate a genuine concern for those in your charge, and they know you will endure whatever they will endure. You have been set apart as a valiant and brave warrior, and even though many of these men are more physically mature than you are, they want and need you to respect them as well.”
When I could, I talked with our surgeon, Wesney. My experience with Hoscoe left me wanting knowledge of the human body, and he in turn w
anted details of my excursion with Major Leman. And there was the art of hawking I wanted to learn about, as well. Sometimes at night, when everything was secure, I would play my flute for the men and I learned the names and favorite tunes of them all.
I spent as much time with Patriohr as I could, always wondering if he knew I was supposed to look after him. He had been educated in a school for soldierly gentlemen from the time he was six, until Lahrcus went to get him at age nineteen. He was brilliant, academically, and wonderful with horses. He had difficulty with some of his swordsmanship, and then I noticed he wrote with his left hand; something exceedingly rare for the time. On a whim, we started working with a full reversal of techniques, and he flourished when fighting left-handed. With his rapid improvement his confidence grew in everything he did.
When we trained, I practiced left-handed, too, so we both expanded skills. When we went out as a team, we would sometimes talk about just stuff. He was very conscientious about whether he was doing well, loved philosophy, and had a natural way with words. He was also a natural as a scout with an acute eye for detail.
We were to seek and find, that meant scouring many areas and investigating the five other known ruins similar to the one we had left. The process was time consuming and often exhausting. Several times we would find a location, make a headquarters, and travel round about the territory. I got the feeling we were being watched more than once, and I was thinking of that elf in charge of cognobins.
Twice the weather did that strange paranormal shift, and once, as we came upon one of those ruins I felt that tingling sensation. I thought I saw movement, but as we got up to the ruin and found the pit, Hoscoe, Puffer, Vensi, Deak and I all saw the blurring effect fade away. I didn’t go down this time, but the runes were there. All the pits I had seen had the same runes, in the same order, with the thirteenth one on the floor facing south. Three of the five pits we had investigated thus far were round.
Patriohr and I were on scouting detail through some really rough country when I started getting that *Awareness* sensation. I was limited in range, depending on how many and how big the creatures were and what kind of ground we were on, as to just how far out my senses would go. For now, at least, my senses were based on ground vibration that I felt through my feet, although I was trying to develop my sense of smell like some animals. Sometimes I thought I could almost feel where someone had been, but that could have just been my imagination.
More than once I had felt something, and it turned out to be a herd of the huge cow-like creatures they called buffalo. The meat was extraordinary and I got my first hunting experiences with them. Kisparti had hunted these things several times in the past.
Like I said, I felt a presence and was trying to sort it out, but it was Patriohr who was climbing up a ridge who first saw the body of men. Using the hand signs that Izner and I had taught all the scouts, he signaled me to come up quickly. They were to far out for me to hear anything, but I figured them to be maybe six hundred and twenty to thirty rods away. Focusing my vision, I was able to tell from their garb they were clansmen.
There was an easy dozen, if not more, securing their area. What would these men be doing here? Hunting? No, they weren’t outfitted for such, and what would they be hunting for that they couldn’t catch in their own …? Four of their number were taking wood to the top of the ridge they had just past. Deak said they used smoke signals a lot and taught me most of them.
I told Patriohr, “Go back and grab Deak and tell him where we are, to get Izner’s squad together stat, and have Kisparti bring his 400. Then tell Eppard and Hoscoe what we’ve got and stand ready to lead them here. I think there’s a war band on the way. Stay out of the dust, stay in the grass. Move!”
My conclusion could have been all wrong. But Deak told me a lot of clansmen were still resilient to Chitivias being a king of any kind. The main resistance leader from the war had not been killed, and he still made threats to the kingdom at times. I wondered if those who attacked Leman’s command in the night were possibly clansmen; and what better place for a rogue wizard to reside, than with the enemy of he who kicked him out of the city?
Should I have waited for the smoke before sending Patriohr? Within the half hour I knew; there was indeed someone back there, a force which was moving north. This was a scout team, and I was betting they had no clue we were here. The signal was a simple one, relaying something to the effect of, Safe-safe-safe.
Over the course of an hour, four more men appeared in the camp. A couple stood watches, but they seemed rather confident they were alone out here. Rather presumptuous, I thought, considering the cognobin occupation, unless they had reason not to worry about them.
Deak showed up with my unit and instructions from Eppard to take the camp, and if possible a prisoner or two. We needed information. Eppard had put the command on stand-by alert and was mobilizing an advance strike unit. He was probably two hours behind Deak. I told Deak the signal and he swore, “Those damned buggers are marching in force. Safe-safe-safe means there’s an army camp back yonder and these boys are just peeking the way to make sure there’s nothin’ in front.”
I asked, “Is it possible they are coming up to help fight the cogs?”
“Not on your life. Their war chief, Threstor, sent a message once saying he hoped the cognobins wiped out the whole city.”
“And he couldn’t have been deposed and someone else is trying to make good?”
“You’re tryin’ good, Captain, but it ain’t goin’ to come clean. If these boys are here, they’re plannin’ war on Kiubejhan.”
It was getting to be dusk. I quickly made my decision and asked, “Kisparti, see that ridge over there?” I pointed, “how quick can you get up there without them seeing you? Mind, I have no idea what’s back of it.”
“Give me a half hour, Captain.”
“Pick your place, then pick your man, preferably the one who looks most likely to be in charge. Make him dead, reload, and if anyone gets away from us …”
Kisparti was off and running. I looked to Deak, “Here’s what I want you to do …”
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The attack went without a hitch. Kisparti drilled the party leader while he was taking a drink from a liquor skin. The shaft went through skin, mouth and all. Izner and me had snuck up around the side, and Deak had the rest low crawling up the front. When Ize and me launched our attack, Deak’s men were off of the ground like leopards on the spring. It was over almost as fast as it began.
Deak had one man pinioned and I had another on his face and hog-tied. One man had broken through, but Kisparti made sure he didn’t get very far.
Eppard came up with one platoon each of cavalry and ground troops, and two platoons of XL’s. Deak affirmed the toughness of our two prisoners, and they weren’t talking. They were as committed to their mission as we were to ours. Eppard was considered a good man, but we were in a state of war. He didn’t torture these men for one reason, we didn’t have time. Since we were going to be on the immediate move and these men would be a liability, they were quickly executed.
Eppard now was faced with a dilemma of exactly what to do. That we needed to attack was not an issue, it was tactics and initial proximity of our two forces. We weren’t exactly sure where they were, and they apparently did not know of us. Deak went up with me to where the smokes were sent. Based on the lay of the land and how far out the smokes could have been seen, it took him a half minute to come up with two possible directions for their camp.
Kisparti had been down this way hunting, and while he hadn’t recognized the land from where we initially were, once he got on the back of that ridge he had recognized a landmark off in the distance. It was a big land, after all, and for one person to walk every bit of it and know every angle by site would be nearly impossible.
Suddenly I had an idea, “Commander, would you be open to attacking in the dead of night?”
That brought heads up, nobody down here fought at night. Thes
e people were highly superstitious and many clansmen believed if they died in evening battle, their spirits would roam forever in darkness.
“Look, they are camped out, and from what Deak tells me they may be drinking. We are up and ready. Let’s do this thing!” I dropped to the ground and started drawing a diagram, “Here are the two directions we are sure they may be. Me and Kisparti …” Kisparti just looked over at me with a deadpan expression, “… can ride hard this way. Someone with Chymthina can go this way. Give us a maximum amount of time, and then send Chymthina to you saying either yes or no whether the camp is in their direction. We won’t have the bird, but if we find the army we’ll start doing reconnaissance right away. If we don’t find it, we’ll ride in the other direction.”
I gave what I said a moment to sink in, and I noticed Wesney over there listening carefully. To the men holding onto old superstition, what I was suggesting would be absurd. Continuing my idea I said, “Send us each in with enough troops to find and set some points of attack, so when the full command gets there you can decide exactly what to do without having to delay.”
What Eppard did at that moment, I believe, completely took most of our fellows by surprise. He thought about what I said, then looked to the ridge where the smoke had been sent, back toward the north as if to Kiubejhan, and you could see something flow through his mind. Was it his family, goals he had set and hadn’t yet achieved, or his commitment to his task at hand? He suddenly looked up and said, “Lieutenant Ander, pick three cavalry troopers and get back to Marshal Hoscoe. I want the camp on combat alert, struck at fast speed, and assembled here double-time. We’re going into battle tonight.”