by Peter Kenson
They all fell silent at that. A night attack always carried increased risk of casualties in the confusion; of friend striking friend instead of the enemy. They had discussed the options for a couple of hours the previous evening until David had dismissed them to get some rest. There was nothing more to be done until he could see the land and choose where to fight.
At the urging of his officers, he had appointed another lieutenant, Jorgen, to take charge of the spearmen and those others who did not fit easily into one of the more specialist categories. The move had been welcomed by the men as Jorgen was a popular figure in the camp, full of good humour and as strong as an ox.
“I’m going to exercise,” he announced. “And then we’d better start rousing the camp. Cold breakfast today but make sure they all pack some travel rations. It’s going to be a long day.”
***
In the same pale pre-dawn light, two heads peered out from behind a bush at a sentry standing not twenty paces away.
“Why doesn’t he move?” Baltur whispered. “He’s been moving round all night, patrolling the camp and now he suddenly stops dead, right in front of us.”
“Keep your voice down,” Jeren replied. “Some of these old soldiers develop a sixth sense for danger. They don’t know what it is but they know it’s there. Old Marvin told me that once and he fought in Duke Charles’ army for twenty years. There’s no help for it. We’ll have to go round him.”
From a position about fifty paces further back, Jerome watched the interchange with interest. He had declined to leave when the other scouts relieved him in the middle of the night, preferring to rest up and ride out in the morning. That is, until one of the others woke him to say that the boys were on the move. He left the scouts on watch over the camp and silently followed the boys approach.
The boys backed away from the bush and quietly moved around to their right. “They’re making for the horse lines,” Jerome suddenly realised. “Huh, smart kids.” He moved further round to the right himself which brought him dangerously close to the trail but gave a clear view of the horse lines and the camp beyond.
The boys were now out of sight of the sentry and close to the horses. One or two of them whickered quietly but none showed any alarm.
“I’ll gather up as many of the tether ropes as I can, while you cut the main hitching rope,” Jeren whispered.
Baltur nodded and drew his hunting knife. He moved to the side and started sawing through the thick rope.
“Hey you. What’s going on here? What are you doing there?” The sentry had finally moved but instead of continuing his patrol, he had turned back towards the horse lines. Baltur continued sawing furiously at the hitching rope as the guard rushed over and grabbed him by the shoulder, spinning him round. As he did so, the blade in Baltur’s hand slid, almost of its own volition, under the man’s leather jerkin and into his lower abdomen before breaking off at the hilt.
“Why you little brat. I’m going to do you for that,” he growled as he wrapped two meaty hands round Baltur’s neck. Baltur felt everything going black as the life was being choked out of him until a spray of warm liquid hit him in the face and the pressure on his neck suddenly eased.
He sat down on his arse with a bump as the guard crashed to the ground beside him, blood gushing from a gaping wound in his neck. “Cummon,” Jeren hissed. “This is no time to be taking a rest. Finish cutting that rope.”
Baltur looked at the sentry with a dazed expression. “My knife’s broken. In him. Is he dead?”
“I sincerely hope so,” Jeren replied. “Here, take my knife. Now get up and finish cutting that rope.”
The horses were whickering anxiously now. “One of the other sentries will hear the noise and be here any minute. We’ll take what horses we can and scatter the rest.”
The hitching rope was down to its last strand and parted easily under Jeren’s blade. Baltur quickly sheathed the knife and ran over to where Jeren was standing with the tether ropes of three horses in each hand. He took three of the ropes and started to look round for a saddle.
“No time,” Jeren said as a shout came from the camp behind them. “We’ll have to ride bareback. All the other horses are loose. They’ve heard us in the camp now, so make as much noise as you can and we’ll drive the loose horses out in front of us.”
The boys jumped on the backs of two of the horses and started shouting and yelling at the tops of their voices. The loose horses, anxious anyway, began panicking and charged down the trail with the boys galloping after them, still holding their other two horses by the tethers.
Jerome had strung his bow as he watched in amazement the boys despatch the sentry and loose the horses. The camp burst into life with men chasing down the trail after the two boys. He ignored them; men on foot would never catch a galloping horse. But one man stood his ground and was busy stringing a powerful looking longbow. That was the threat, Jerome decided. The boys were well within range of an expert archer.
“Damn,” he thought. “I don’t know what Lord Held will think of this but I can’t let him take those boys down.”
Jeren and Baltur were just approaching his position when he stood out and fired. The target was clear, outlined by the glow of the campfire behind and Jerome’s aim was true. His arrow took the other archer in the throat just as he was nocking his own arrow. The boys looked at him in surprise as they galloped past and then they were gone. Jerome waited a few more seconds until he was sure there was no more immediate threat from the camp and then disappeared into the brush on the side of the trail. He had a long climb back to the other scouts before he could retrieve his horse and try to locate the boys again.
The two boys ran at full stretch for about a league before the horses started to wind and they pulled up to give them a breather. Jeren slid down from the back of his mount and staggered as his knees nearly gave way beneath him. He handed his set of tethers to Baltur before doubling up and vomiting the remains of the rabbit they had eaten for their evening meal. Baltur dismounted himself and tied the horses to a sturdy bush before joining his friend in vomiting up his supper.
“I’ve never killed a man before,” Jeren gasped. “I never knew what it would be like.”
“I’ve never stabbed anyone before,” Baltur replied. “The knife just sort of slid in on its own.”
Jeren looked at his friend. “You look a sight.”
Baltur looked down. His hunting jerkin, new that year, was absolutely sodden with blood. He wiped a hand across his face and that came away smeared with blood. “My mother’s going to kill me when she sees this.”
“Not as much as that soldier was trying to kill you,” Jeren said with a chuckle. The chuckle turned into a laugh and Baltur looked at him for a second before starting to laugh himself. Their laughter fed off each other until both boys had to sit down at the side of the trail and laughed until they cried.
“We did it,” Jeren sobbed. “We bloody well did it.”
“Yes we did,” his friend replied. “And I never even thanked you for saving my life.”
“Well, perhaps you can save mine next time.”
“It’s a deal. But who do you think that archer was?”
“I have no idea,” Jeren admitted. “I have a feeling that I’ve seen him somewhere before but I can’t place him. He certainly wasn’t firing at us, so he must have been firing at the soldiers.”
“So he’s on our side then. Maybe your father sent him.”
“Maybe,” Jeren said doubtfully. “But why only one man. Unless there’s more of them around somewhere that we haven’t seen.”
“Dunno. Anyway what do we do now? What are we going to do with these horses?”
“We keep them,” Jeren said. “They’re not getting these back. They can scour the countryside looking for loose horses but they’re not going to get these back. We have to get them well off the trail somewhere. They’ll have to send searchers out on foot to start with but once they’ve recovered some of the ho
rses they’ll send riders out to find the rest.”
“Up into the hills then. That gully where we ate last night was well hidden but we’ll have to circle around to get back there.”
“Agreed. And we’ll have to cover our tracks as best we can. The horses are spoils of war and I don’t want to lose them now.”
***
David held up his hand to stop the column as one of the scouts on point came trotting round a bend in the trail with a spare horse in tow.
“What happened? Where’s Ash?” he asked anxiously.
“Ash is still on point, milord. But he sent me back with this little beauty. Thought you ought to know like. We heard a noise in the trees off to one side of the trail. When we checked it out we found him standing there. Breathing a little bit hard and a little bit nervy but other than that, he’s fine. Ash said he’s one of Duke Henry’s horses. Recognised the brand.”
“Curious. I wonder what’s happened. It’s very careless of them to lose a horse. Any sign of anyone looking for it?”
“No, nothing, milord. But there’s wagon with what looks like a family of village folk coming down the trail about five minutes behind me.”
“OK, well done. Give the horse to Jaks to look after and get back to join Ash. Feynor, get the men off the trail and out of sight. There’s a family wagon coming down the trail and we don’t want to panic them.”
When the wagon came into view, David could see that it was the same as many of the wagons in the village. Most of them were built to the same design but each family decorated their wagon in their own unique style. A man was sat on the driver’s seat holding the reins to a pair of horses. A woman, probably his wife, sat alongside him and David could see at least a couple of small faces peering out from inside the wagon.
To his surprise, the man reined in the horses as they came up and smiled at him. “You must be Lord Held.”
“I am yes,” David smiled back. “And you are?”
“My name’s Aron and this is my wife Miriam. We met your man a few minutes ago. He told us to expect you. Said you had a company of men with you.”
“They’re over there,” David indicated with his head. “Taking a break. Tell me, have you seen anything of a caravan with Duke Henry’s soldiers on the trail?”
“No my lord. We were taking a shortcut across country and only joined the trail a while back. Ran straight into Lord Gaelan and his man. He told us what happened in the village. Bad business.”
“Very bad,” David agreed. “So Lord Gaelan is ahead of us on the trail?”
“About half an hour, my lord.”
“And you didn’t see anything of Duke Henry’s men?”
“Well we saw one man in the distance. Could have been a soldier. He was on foot and appeared to be trying to catch a horse. Didn’t seem to be having much luck though.”
David smiled. “It looks as though they’re having a spot of bother this morning. We found another one of their horses on the loose only a few minutes ago. Still, my camp is about three leagues up the trail and your village is another league beyond. Good journey to you.”
“Good day to you, my lord. And good luck.”
David reformed the column and continued the march. Less than thirty minutes later, Ash came galloping towards them with two of his scouts behind.
“We have to turn off the trail here, milord. The caravan’s only about fifteen minutes ahead. It was attacked during the night and the horses were scattered. There’s men out all over the place searching for them.”
“The camp was attacked. By whom?”
“I’ll tell you as we go, milord. But we need to get off the trail now. You two take point and lead the way,” he ordered the two men who had followed him in.
“According to the report my man’s just given me, it was those two lads, Lord Jeren and his friend. Killed one of the sentries, stole six horses, including the captain’s stallion and scattered the rest. The camp is in uproar, the caravan hasn’t moved this morning ‘cos I don’t think they’ve recovered all the wagon horses yet and the captain’s spitting nails. He’s got every man he can spare out searching for the missing horses.”
“This has got to be an opportunity,” David said. “Get me somewhere where I can see what’s going on. Bern, put archers out flanking both sides of the column. If they come across one or two of the Duke’s men out on their own, take them down. Quietly if possible, but take them down anyhow.
“Where is Lord Jeren now?” he asked Ash.
“Hiding up in the hills, milord. They’re okay and they’re in a little gully that’s quite well hidden. Jerome’s looking over them. Oh, and apparently Jerome had to take out one of the Duke’s men last night, to protect the boys’ escape. He hopes that was all right.”
“Of course it was all right. It’s one less for us to deal with and the protection of Lord Jeren is of paramount importance at the moment. Pass on my congratulations when you see him.”
“I will, milord. Now this is where we’ve been set up to watch the camp. We’ve got a good view of the trail and everything around.”
Ash called the scout on duty over to report. “Okay, so what’s going on down below?”
“They’ve still got men out looking for the horses, milord. I don’t think they know that the two boys have got six of them hidden away. They think they’re loose somewhere and they’re trying to find them.”
“Any of them come this way?”
“Not this far up, milord. I guess they figure that horses wouldn’t run this far uphill. Given a choice, a free horse will choose the easiest path. They’ve got most of the wagon horses back now; they didn’t run so far but only four of the riding horses. Mind you there’s two riders came into camp about half an hour ago. Not soldiers, they was dressed more like villagers. Been talking or arguing with the captain ever since. I seen what looked like a bag of money changing hands and the other one, who seemed to be the servant, handed over a large sack of something but I couldn’t tell what it was.”
“And they’re still down there arguing? Show me.”
The argument was indeed still going on with Lord Gaelan doing most of the talking and the captain, standing there with his arms crossed, shaking his head. There was a small, weedy looking man clad from head to toe in nondescript grey, standing alongside the captain and shaking his head equally vigorously.
“I assume that’s the tax collector down there with the captain,” he commented. “It doesn’t look as though the negotiations for the release are going well.”
As they watched Gaelan seemed to give up in despair and turned away. His manservant approached and whispered something in Gaelan’s ear which he paused to think about for a moment. Then he turned back towards the captain and pointed back down the trail. He held up three fingers and, this time, the captain appeared to be considering the offer as he uncrossed his arms. He spoke to the weedy little man who shrugged. Finally he nodded and gave an order to one of his men who moved off towards the prisoners. Gaelan went with him and pointed to one of the boys who the guard cut loose and escorted back to the captain.
“At a guess, I’d say that would be Raslo,” David said. “But I wish I knew what was going on down there.”
The captain gave another order and two of his men went to take the reins of the horses from the manservant. The man obviously protested because one of the soldiers backhanded him across the mouth and he fell to the ground. This provoked another furious outburst from Gaelan but the captain just shrugged and pushed the boy towards his father. Gaelan put his arm round the boy’s shoulder but continued shouting until, at a sign from the captain, the soldiers surrounding them all drew their swords.
David could see from his posture that Gaelan was still furious but he turned and started walking out of the camp with his arm round the boy and the servant walking behind, still nursing his jaw.
“It would appear that Gaelan has just lost his horses as part of the deal. I wonder what else
he traded to get his boy back.”
The captain gave a series of orders and two men mounted Gaelan’s horses. Another two men came trotting up on horses that they had recaptured and the captain spoke to them. Then all four turned and started back down the trail at a canter, passing Gaelan as they left the camp.
“I wonder where they’re going in such a hurry,” David said.
“Maybe Gaelan reported that horse we picked up earlier,” Ash replied.
“No, I don’t think so. He held up three fingers and… Oh, my god,” he gasped as realisation struck. “Aron. There must have been boys in the back of that wagon. The bastard’s sold out Aron.
“Feynor, take six men and get after them. Catch them before they get to that wagon and stop them. I don’t want anything happening to that family.
“Bern, Jorgen, you stay here and let me know if there are any more developments down below. Ash, I think it’s time I had a word with Lord Jeren.”
***
They found Jerome about ten minutes later, watching the entrance to a narrow little gully.
“They’re still in there, milord. There’s no exit at the far end. This is the only way in or out.”
“Okay, good job, Jerome.”
“Um, I had to kill one of the Duke’s men last night, milord. He was an archer and the boys were well within his range as they tried to get away with the horses.”
“I know. Ash told me. You did the right thing. He doesn’t know it yet but young Jeren is now the leader of his people. Protecting him is vital.”
“There’s one other thing, milord. The boys saw me last night as I was covering their escape.”
“Ah, did they now. That changes things slightly. In that case you’d better come in with me and Ash, you stand guard out here.”
The two boys scrambled to their feet as they rode in single file into the gully. Jeren reached for his belt knife only to find an empty sheath. He turned to reach for his bow as David dismounted and held up two empty hands. “Relax, Jeren. No cause for alarm.”
Baltur stood in a fighting crouch with Jeren’s blade in his hand as his friend asked, “Who are you? What are you doing here? And how do you know my name?”