Dream Finder cohs-1

by Roger Taylor

  And this was what was happening.

  Arwain did not hesitate.

  'Sound retreat, quickly!’ he shouted urgently to his signaller.

  Even as the horn call rang out, it was echoed by an identical call from Ryllans’ signaller at the other end of the attack line. It did not surprise Arwain. The tactic was one of many that had been agreed in advance of the attack, in the knowledge that communications between the two principal officers would be impossible once the enemy was engaged.

  Arwain peered anxiously into the darkness.

  'Sound again, and keep sounding!’ he said.

  'Lord!’ A hand seized his arm and turned him round. His companion was pointing back to the blazing tower. Against its light, Arwain saw a large group of Bethlarii forming around it, spears and swords silhouetted clearly. They were in some disorder, but even as he looked he saw the group's attention drawn towards the darkness from which came the invader's horn call.

  Arwain's immediate response was to retreat, but now his group were effectively the rearguard to a large part of the battalion and these Bethlarii were the unwitting vanguard of the encircling movement that must inevitably cut off the Serens’ force if they did not retreat quickly.

  'Form up around the signaller,’ he ordered. ‘Lock shields and hold.’ Then, to the signaller, he hissed, ‘Blow as you've never blown.'

  The signaller needed no such instruction but acknowledged it with a glance of his whitened eye and a nod which made his horn call waver slightly.

  Arwain's attention returned to the now cautiously advancing Bethlarii. They were visible against the light of the tower and, occasionally, a point or an edge reflected the firelight ominously. If they closed, then his small group would not be able to hold for more than a few minutes. He glanced over his shoulder. Other fires were springing up through the camp, but still there was no sign of the neighbouring groups returning.

  Briefly a surge of self-reproach washed over him. Would this venture prove to be no more than the reckless loss of Ibris's famous bodyguard? The finest of Serenstad's troops massacred under the command of his bastard son?

  He had a vision of the endless disastrous consequences of such an outcome and once more his wife's face appeared to him.

  But the relentless sounding of the horn kept him anchored firmly to the present and the vision of his wife merely served as a centre around which he formed a stern resolve.

  'Shout,’ he cried to his men. ‘They can't see us as well as we can see them. Shout! Swords and shields!'

  The men obeyed, banging their swords on their shields and roaring fiercely. The advancing Bethlarii hesitated slightly, their leaders crouching slightly and peering into the gloom.

  The horn blew.

  'The charge chant!’ Arwain shouted to his men.

  The shouting faded suddenly and was replaced by a rhythmic chanting punctuated by equally rhythmic tattoos of foot stamping and swords against shields. At this change, the Bethlarii halted and some of them began to edge back a little, though others, Arwain noted, began to close ranks.

  As the chanting increased in intensity, Arwain desperately looked again into the darkness behind him. For the most part, the Bethlarii were still only a loose-knit crowd; they might scatter at the climax of the chant in anticipation of a solid line of shields and spears emerging out of the darkness towards them, but …?

  Should he risk a short charge? Line abreast, he and his few men would look more numerous than they were.

  The decision, however, was made for him. The Bethlarii might only have been a loose-knit group, but they were an angry one and their anger was growing in proportion to their hesitation. They needed only the slightest touch to release their building energy.

  It came in the form of a tall figure who broke through to the front of the crowd and began haranguing them. Arwain noticed that he was dressed differently from the rest.

  One of their damned priests, he thought.

  But scarcely had the thought formed than the priest let out a great shriek, full of hatred and fury, and began to charge. Without even the slightest hesitation, the Bethlarii followed him.

  'Lock shields! Hold the circle!’ Arwain shouted.

  Cries of ‘Hyrdyn! Hyrdyn! Hyrdyn!’ reached him as his own men fell silent.

  His legs began to shake.

  'Hold,’ he said, commandingly. ‘The others will be retreating back towards us. We mustn't fail them.'

  He braced himself for the impact.

  Then, to his horror, he was aware of the circle breaking; space at his back. Before he could turn to confirm this, however, a spear flitted across his vision and struck the Bethlarii priest full in the mouth. His shrieking battle cry stopped in a stomach-churning squeal and the impact of the spear coupled with his forward movement sent him crashing backwards, his legs flailing in the air.

  Two more spears followed, one striking another Bethlarii, the next narrowly missing a third. Just as the priest's arrival had ignited the crowd, so his abrupt demise doused it, and the Bethlarii began to retreat.

  'They're back,’ one of Arwain's companions said, looking over his shoulder.

  The remark was unnecessary.

  'Retreat,’ Arwain ordered. That too was unnecessary.

  But in the darkness the retreat proved more dangerous than the advance even though there was no immediate pursuit. Then, they had approached quietly and carefully in close formations, placing each foot with care. Now, they were carrying their dead and wounded. And with hatred and anger howling behind them, and retribution waiting in the near future, they were all fighting an almost overwhelming urge to flee. Despite the best efforts of the officers, they did not maintain a pace slow enough to be safe in the difficult terrain and several were injured in falls.

  Eventually, as the dull grey dawn began to etch out figures and landscapes, they gathered on a level area some way from the road that meandered down the centre of the valley.

  They were greeted by the battalion's companies of archers. The assault on the camp had been too scattered for them to be used effectively, and they had been left to try to establish ambush positions to deal with the inevitable Bethlarii response.

  While the returning infantrymen tended their injured, Ryllans sent scouts forward to report on the movement of the Bethlarii and conferred with the archers about their dispositions.

  Arwain joined him. ‘How many dead?’ he asked.

  'I don't know yet,’ Ryllans replied. ‘But not many I think. We were lucky. I never expected that we'd come so close to breaking through the line like that. A little later with the retreat and it would've been a very different tale.'

  But there was little time for either reminiscence or analysis. The attack had nearly foundered by virtue of its success. Many Bethlarii had been slain and no small amount of damage done. Whatever their intention had been for this day, it would now be radically different. Arwain still could not fault the original surmise; it would be a small force quite soon, or a large one much later. But, that was surmise, and until it became reality, Ibris's bodyguard must be prepared for any outcome.

  Arwain sent another galloper back towards his father's approaching army with details of the outcome of the attack, then returned to his men.

  There was a strange quietness about the cold field. Some of the men were talking softly. Some were resting, as well as they could on the rocks littering the dew-sodden turf. Others were comforting or being comforted. Many were at the edge of a nearby stream washing blood from their weapons and themselves with its icy water. Arwain moved through them all, encouraging, sustaining, quietening; an unwitting copy of his father when himself a young commander.

  Finally he came to the lee of a large rock where the battalion's physician was doing what he could for the seriously wounded.

  As he drew near, his eye was caught by several lines of hummocks in the grass by the rock. It was not until he was almost upon them that he identified them as bodies.

  Even as he watched, two men h
elping the physician brought another and laid it gently by the others. One of them wrote something on a piece of paper.

  Against the rock-face, several lamps and a small fire etched out a bright, colourful tableau in the morning greyness. At its edges were the wounded, lying and sitting, some alone, some with companions to sustain them, while at its centre was a huddle of kneeling men. Arwain wanted to turn away, but forced himself forward.

  The physician, his face strained and gaunt in the cold, unnatural light of the lamps and the burgeoning daylight, was routing into an open wound in a man's leg from which protruded part of an arrow shaft. The man was struggling desperately.

  Catching sight of Arwain silhouetted in the half light, the physician snapped, ‘Don't just stand there, man, help hold him down.'

  For a moment, and, to his immediate regret, Arwain found he was looking for an angry rebuke for the physician for this insolence. Then, in atonement, he did as he was told and seized the man's legs which were coming free from the ropes that had been used to secure them to two posts driven into the ground.

  The man's eyes were wide with terror and agony, though he did not make any attempt to relinquish the heavy leather belt that his teeth were biting into.

  There was a sudden grunt of effort and then a sigh of relief from the physician and the arrow's barbed head was drawn reluctantly from the wound. Then, briskly, the physician snapped his fingers at one of his assistants by the fire. Almost before Arwain realized what was happening, the assistant, his hand protected by a thick cloth, had drawn a metal rod from the fire and given it to the physician who plunged its red-hot end resolutely into the wound.

  The sound and the smell turned Arwain's stomach, but clenching his teeth, he clung to the still struggling legs, focusing his gaze on the round hammer marks in the splayed and split top of one of the posts to which the man's legs had been bound. He seemed to feel every blow that had been struck to drive the post into the hard ground. Then, at last, the injured man gave a convulsive heave and then went limp. After a moment, Arwain released his legs. His head was spinning and he was shaking.

  'Sew him up quickly before he recovers,’ the physician was saying to someone. ‘Then get him up to the road with the others. There's nothing else I can do for him here. His war's over for some time.'

  With an almost incongruous gentleness, the two men picked the man up and carried him a little way off to attend to this injunction.

  The physician bent down and washed his hands in a bowl nearby. Arwain caught the sweet, pungent smell typical of Drayner's surgery. Then the physician was shaking his hands vigorously and beckoning his helpers to bring the next victim forward.

  He glanced at Arwain while he waited. His gaze was one that Arwain had seen before in the faces of field physicians; practical and detached but underlain by a deep anger. It contained a cruel vision.

  But who knows what my own gaze tells, Arwain thought, and, as if in confirmation, a brief look of self-reproach passed over the physician's face.

  'I'm sorry I spoke harshly, Lord,’ he said. ‘I didn't recognize you.'

  'It's of no consequence,’ Arwain said, laying a hand on the man's arm. ‘Tend your charges.'

  The physician turned to the man being laid in front of him.

  The men carrying him were being impeded by an anxious-looking trooper who was holding the wounded man's hand, but neither offered him any reproach.

  Gently, the physician unwound the bloodstained rag that had been used as a makeshift bandage about the man's head. One of the helpers brought a lamp closer. It revealed a livid and gaping wound that had obviously been done by a battle axe. The physician's brow furrowed slightly. Arwain tensed his stomach and forced his own face into immobility. Then the physician looked at the man's waiting friend, and shook his head.

  'If he wakes, he'll not live. And there'll be nothing but pain for him until he dies,’ he said softly. ‘What do you want me to do?'

  To Arwain's horror, the man turned towards him, his eyes pleading. ‘He saved my life,’ he said. ‘That was meant for me.'

  There was a similarity in the features of the two men that indicated they were related-brothers, perhaps. Man and commander fought within Arwain. The man sought for soft words, compassion, understanding, for time in which this tragedy could be accepted. But the commander knew their situation was too dangerous for the celebration of grief. That must come later.

  The two needs merged. ‘He's your kin,’ Arwain said quietly. ‘Do for him what you'd like him to do for you if you were in his place.'

  The man looked down at the mangled head, his eyes filling with tears. Tenderly he ran his hand over the blood-clotted hair.

  Then, his mouth taut, he nodded towards the physician. ‘Do it,’ he said hoarsely.

  The physician glanced at Arwain and flicked his eyes towards the distraught brother. Arwain stood up and took the man's arm. ‘Come on,’ he said, gently, helping him to stand. ‘He'll be tended with respect and there are others needing the physician.'

  The man nodded slowly, then suddenly yanked himself free from Arwain's grasp and dropped to his knees by his brother. The physician signalled his helpers, but Arwain held out his hand to stop them.

  The trooper bent forward and put his head by his brother's. Arwain heard him whispering something to the dying man, then he was standing again, wiping his hands down his crumpled tunic. Without a word he strode off into the grey anonymity of the field of waiting soldiers.

  Even though the man was gone, the physician kept his long-bladed knife from view as he drew it. It was a well-practiced gesture.

  Arwain turned away and left the lamp-lit scene.

  Coming towards him was Ryllans.

  'Any news?’ he asked, for want of something to say that would distance him further from this one death.

  'Only from the company on the ridges,’ Ryllans answered. ‘They met no opposition and they're well placed to defend their positions.'

  'And us?’ Arwain asked, looking round at the broad field that sloped gradually up from the road until it petered out in dense vegetation and scree. Adequate as a rallying point, it was not remotely defensible against a large force.

  'The archers have found a narrower, rockier section further back,’ Ryllans said, pointing down the valley. ‘It's not perfect, but it's as good as we're likely to find.'

  A little later, the surgeon's work finished, one of the two wagons that had accompanied the battalion began its journey back to the main army, bearing those wounded too seriously to continue.

  The straggling column of retreating men opened to let it pass, and then closed behind it like a dark, silent river.

  As they trudged steadily forward, a dull sun rose to greet them, throwing long, faint shadows up the valley. Grim black columns of smoke scarred the western sky.

  Antyr moved to the front of the enclosed wagon that he was sharing with Pandra. He was still not wholly used to its relentless, rocking motion and frequently stepped outside to join the driver and enjoy the cold morning air.

  Tarrian and Grayle were already there, lying in the foot-well, their paws draped over the kicking board, and their inquisitive heads held high as they peered around at the rumbling train and the quiet countryside preparing for winter.

  'Another storm brewing, sailor?’ Tarrian scoffed, as Antyr's head emerged from the wagon.

  'Shut up, or I'll ride my horse and you two can run beside me like dutiful hounds,’ Antyr replied brutally.

  'You forget I've seen you ride,’ Tarrian retorted, unabashed by the threat.

  Antyr contented himself with a grunt and sat down by the driver. He was joined almost immediately by Pandra, who carefully placed a large cushion on the hard wooden seat before sitting down.

  'A hard bed, I like,’ he said. ‘But not seats.'

  'Are you all right?’ Antyr asked. The wagon was, in many ways, remarkably lavishly appointed, but Pandra was an old man to be undertaking such a journey.

  'Yes, I'm fine,’ Pan
dra replied, shuffling himself comfortable and rubbing his hands together. ‘I'm enjoying this. It makes me feel quite young again.'

  Antyr caught a whiff of some caustic comment by Kany, but Pandra merely smiled smugly and patted his pocket gently.

  Well wrapped against the morning cold, they sat in companionable silence for some time.

  'Dream Finders are you?’ The question came from the driver. Both Antyr and Pandra turned to him. He was a man whose grey hair and weather-beaten face made all attempts at guessing his age futile, but even if his face had not confirmed him as a countryman, his patient, placid manner would have. Antyr and Pandra's surprise, however, was due to the fact that throughout the journey so far he had spoken very little to his two passengers, confining himself mainly to puffing on a carved wooden tobacco pipe and clicking affectionately to his horses from time to time.

  'Yes,’ Antyr replied.

  The driver nodded sagely, and removed his pipe from his mouth as if to speak.

  Then he put it back again. Antyr and Pandra exchanged glances, and the driver clicked at his horses and puffed contentedly on his pipe.

  'Bannor,’ he said after a while.

  He held out his hand to Pandra, who, after a brief hesitation, shook it and introduced himself in turn. The hand moved to Antyr who did the same. It was large and muscular, but its grip, though positive, was gentle and careful, and, despite the cold morning, its touch was warm.

  'You're a farmer, Bannor?’ Antyr asked

  Bannor shook his head slowly and took his pipe from his mouth again. ‘Labourer,’ he said. ‘Traveller. Farm to farm as season needs.’ He pointed the pipe stem over his shoulder. ‘My wagon,’ he added.

  The revelation left the two Dream Finders at somewhat of a loss as to what to say next.