Wind Rider's Oath wg-3

by David Weber

  “I see.” Trianal looked back at Sir Yarran. “War shoes might not mean very much,” he said, “but when a party that size chooses to thread its way through that kind of terrain instead of going over the hills …”

  “Aye.” Yarran nodded, and cocked his head at Stannan’s messenger. “How fresh would those tracks be?” he asked.

  “Fresh, Sir.” The messenger scratched his chin consideringly. “The sun’s not been on them long, not down in the ravine like they are. But even saying that, the wet dirt hasn’t dried where it was kicked up.” He scratched again and squinted. “I’d say they’re not more than an hour or so old—two at most.”

  Trianal’s eyes brightened, but he made himself nod thoughtfully. Then he opened the hard leather case attached to his saddle and extracted a map. It was already folded to the proper section, and he beckoned for Yarran to move his horse closer so that they could both see it.

  It wasn’t as detailed a map as the King Emperor’s surveyors could have provided one of the Empire of the Axe’s commanders, but it was far better than most maps of the Wind Plain. Baron Tellian had made it a priority to import surveyors from the Empire, and they’d been working their way through the West Riding for several summers now, one section at a time (as he could budget for their fees and weather permitted). Fortunately for Trianal, he’d begun with Glanharrow because of its proximity to the Horse Stealers.

  “What do you think?” Trianal ran a fingertip along the course of what had to be Stannan’s ravine. According to the map, it wound its way through the line of hills in a serpentine series of twists and turns until it finally emerged on the rather indeterminate edge of the Bogs. There were very few details, aside from one or two larger, more prominent hills, once the map crossed over into the Bogs proper, unfortunately.

  “From this,” he continued, tapping the map, “it looks as if the ravine comes out well into Lord Erathian’s lands.”

  “Aye,” Sir Yarran agreed. Then he shrugged. “Come to that, though, Milord, we’ve been on Erathian’s lands at least since sunup.”

  “I know. But this,” Trianal tapped the map again, on top of the ravine, “leads much further in. In fact, his keep is less than three leagues away from where it hits the Bogs.”

  “Three leagues might be thirty across ground—or mud—like that,” Yarran pointed out.

  “Unless a man happened to know a way through the Bogs.”

  “Aye, there is that,” the older knight agreed.

  “But if following the ravine means they don’t have to worry about skylining themselves or leaving tracks out in the open, it also comes near to doubling how far they have to go. And it probably triples their riding time. Whereas if we were to push our pace a bit and cut directly across the hills here …”

  “It’s a good thought,” Yarran said. “All the same, Milord, it’s not likely we’ll be there before them,” he warned. “Not if those tracks are nearer two hours old than one.”

  “I know. But it’s worth a try. And even if we don’t get there before them, we may get there close enough on their heels to be able to follow them through the Bogs before the mud sucks their tracks under.”

  “That’s true enough,” Yarran agreed, and Trianal waved for their troop commanders to join them.

  * * *

  The sun was much higher—past noon, in fact—and the day was hotter as the reinforced company topped the final hill and started down the slope towards the deep-green barrier of the Bogs. The insects which had irritated Trianal earlier had been nothing compared to the swarm of gnats, midges, and mosquitoes which rose from the swamps and whined towards them, and he swatted morosely as a particularly large mosquito lighted briefly on his breastplate. His palm caught the insect before it could move, and he grimaced when the red splotch it left behind on the blackened cuirass indicated that it had already dined.

  He grimaced again as he considered the terrain and recalled his own observation that his map wasn’t as detailed as the sort a Royal and Imperial Army commander might have had. The ravine and hills were where it had said they would be; it simply hadn’t indicated the density of the scrub trees and underbrush which fringed the Bogs and extended inward from its edges. The ravine cut a way through the green barrier, but he was a Sothoii. A horseman at heart, by both training and inclination, and accustomed to the long, clean sight lines of the Wind Plain. He didn’t like the way that band of vegetation blocked his view deeper into the swampy land beyond.

  He pressed his horse with his right knee, turning it to the left, and the steady pressure of his heels pushed it to a trot as he moved down the slope towards the ravine. It had grown broader and shallower as it approached the Bogs, and as he approached it, he could see the churned earth of the horses they’d been tracking. Sir Stannan, the captain who commanded his troop of scouts, was waiting with his senior sergeant.

  Trianal drew up beside Stannan, Yarran and his standard-bearer and bugler at his heels, and the captain and noncom saluted. Trianal returned the salute with a quick brush of his breastplate, then nodded his head at the tracks.

  “They look fresher, Captain,” he observed.

  “That they do, Milord,” Stannan agreed. He was a rangy, brown-haired man, perhaps eight years older than Trianal, with a droopy mustache. He jerked his head at the ravine. “We’ve made up time on them, as you’d hoped,” he continued. “But there’s more of them than there were.”

  “I wonder if they had friends waiting for them?” Trianal mused aloud, gazing farther to the east, where the ravine disappeared into the green shadows of the Bog’s thickets. The wind had strengthened and hissed softly in the grass about them, then danced on the gently tossing branches of the undergrowth.

  “They might have,” Sir Yarran said. “Or it may be that there was more than one detachment of them out there, Milord. It’s possible they were doing what we’re doing—out scouting for targets. We’ve been moving herds out of the area steadily, so it’s been getting emptier. They may be heading home after spending the night ranging out further, looking for something to pounce on.”

  “Or keeping watch for us,” Trianal responded. “I know this would be a lot of men if all they were doing was scouting, but they know we’re looking for them. It would only make sense for them to want to keep an eye peeled for us to avoid surprises. And they could be sending out bigger scouting parties to give them more strength in case they run into one of our patrols,”

  “Aye, there’s that,” Yarran agreed. “Any road, it’s reasonable enough that they’d arrange to be meeting up before they went traipsing into the Bogs. Especially if they’ve only so many men who know their way about in there.”

  “How many, do you think, Captain?” Trianal asked Sir Stannan.

  “Hard to say, with so many hoofs churning it up on top of each other, Sir,” the mustachioed officer replied. “I’d be surprised if it’s less than threescore now. And I’d not be surprised if it was as much as four, or even five.”

  Trianal pursed his lips, controlling his expression with care. It was hard. Eighty or ninety men—very nearly an entire company of cavalry—moving about in a formed body had to be up to something. It was also, by a considerable margin, the largest single force they or any of Lord Festian’s scouts had yet tracked, and they were closer behind their quarry than anyone else had so far come. With the portion of his own command attached to the Glanharrow company Sir Yarran had brought along, he had eight troops—a hundred and sixty men, or almost twice the numbers Sir Stannan was estimating. If he could lay the force they’d been pursuing by the heels …

  “It would be a fine thing to make a hole in the bastards, Milord,” Sir Yarran observed. Trianal glanced at him and nodded, and the older knight continued in a thoughtful tone. “All the same, we’ve no evidence they’ve done aught but ride about. And if it should happen they’re in Lord Erathian’s colors, they’ve every right to be moving about his lands.”

  “They do,” Trianal agreed. “But if they’re not in Erathian’s
colors, or if it should happen that they’re in … someone else’s colors, then we’d certainly have a responsibility to ask them who they are and why they were here, wouldn’t we?” He smiled with predatory humor. “After all, Lord Warden Erathian is also my uncle’s vassal. It’s clearly my responsibility to ensure that strange armsmen aren’t violating his territory or threatening the security of his holding.”

  “Aye, that it is,” Sir Yarran said with a toothy smile of admiration for the youngster’s pious tone.

  “Well, in that case,” Trianal said, “let’s see if we can’t just catch up to ask them.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  “They’re back there, all right, Sir,” Sergeant Evauhlt said.

  The Golden Vale armsman was perched in one of the sturdier trees, peering back to the east through a spyglass at a winking point of light. The long-barreled glass was much heavier and clumsier than the Axeman double-glass in the case hanging from Sir Fahlthu’s weapons harness. It was, however, almost as powerful and far cheaper, and Fahlthu had no intention of trusting his prized glasses to any clumsy-fingered cavalry trooper. Even a signaler like Evauhlt.

  “How many of them?” he asked, gazing up into the oak.

  “The scouts say six or seven score, Sir,” Evauhlt reported, still watching the flash of the heliograph from the steep hill further into the swamp. The lookouts atop it could see over the trees sheltering Fahlthu’s troopers and their waiting position to the line of hills beyond. They’d been diligently keeping watch on their crests since dawn, in anticipation of his scouting parties’ return, and passing their reports to the signal post located far enough down the hill for the swampland’s low-growing trees and brush to hide its heliograph’s flash from anyone to the west.

  Fahlthu grunted in acknowledgment of Evauhlt’s report and drummed the fingers of his right hand on the hilt of his saber. That estimate of the enemy’s numbers was higher than he’d hoped it might be when the scouts watching his back trail first reported that his tracks were being followed. On the other hand, the other side thought they were still chasing mere horse thieves. They didn’t know the rules of the game had changed… .

  “Well, Master Brownsaddle,” he observed to the man beside him. “So much for hiding our tracks.”

  He knew the criticism implicit in his tone was less than fair, but he really didn’t care very much at the moment. The more he saw of “Brownsaddle,” the less he liked. Not because the man wasn’t competent—in fact, he was almost irritatingly capable. Indeed, much of Fahlthu’s unease where “Brownsaddle” was concerned stemmed from the fact that the man was too capable for who and what he claimed to be. Fahlthu had the instincts of a successful mercenary, and they insisted that “Brownsaddle” proved there was even more going on here than Sir Chalthar had explained when he issued Lord Saratic’s orders.

  “If it were still raining, that would be one thing, Sir,” Darnas Warshoe replied—respectfully, but with enough patience in his voice to show his opinion of Fahlthu’s critical tone. “As it is—” He shrugged. “You can’t hide the tracks of that many horses in weather like this, whatever you do. All you can do is try to put them somewhere no one will look for them—like the bottom of a ravine.”

  Fahlthu grunted again. This time he sounded remarkably like an irritated boar as he considered his options. Those same instincts which distrusted “Brownsaddle” urged him to avoid any closer contact with his pursuers. It wasn’t as if that would be difficult to do, although Sir Trianal had made considerably better time to this point than Fahlthu had anticipated. The boy had reacted quickly and pressed hard, the Golden Vale armsman acknowledged. Not hard enough to tire his horses as much as Fahlthu had hoped for, unfortunately, but that might be Sir Yarran’s doing. And however quickly they’d gotten here, and however fresh their mounts might be, Sir Fahlthu still had the advantage of position. Not to mention guides who knew their way through this miserable, mucky swamp. Still, Trianal’s force was considerably larger than Halnahk had anticipated when he issued the detailed instructions which gifted Fahlthu with responsibility for this initial operation. Fahlthu would have been far happier if the youngster’s command had been closer to the small, isolated scouting forces he’d expected to encounter during the opening phases of the new campaign.

  Unfortunately, now that contact had been made at all, Halnahk’s orders—and, worse, Sir Chalthar’s—were explicit.

  * * *

  “Milord, there’s something wrong,” Sir Yarran said.

  Trianal turned in the saddle, eyebrows arching in his open-faced helm.

  “What?” he asked his adviser.

  “That’s more than I can say,” Yarran replied slowly. He frowned and swiveled his head, sweeping the steadily approaching belt of woodland with his eyes, wondering what had set his instincts so abruptly on edge. “It’s just—”

  Then he had it, and his eyes narrowed.

  “Look there, to the left!” he said urgently. “There—by that clump of oaks!”

  “Which oaks? The ones on that hill?”

  “No, Sir—further left. Another thirty yards!”

  “All right,” Trianal said. “What about them?”

  “Look at the birds,” Yarran said, waving one hand at the small flock—no more than ten or fifteen—which had just launched into the air and now gyrated sharply above the trees. Trianal looked puzzled, and the older knight shook his head.

  “Lad,” he said, forgetting formality in his need to make the youngster understand, “something made them decide to take off just now. Something that spooked them.”

  Trianal looked at him, then back at the trees from which the birds had come, and his mind raced. There might be any number of perfectly ordinary explanations for their behavior, including an abortive pounce by one of the wildcats who made the Bogs their home. But he couldn’t discount Yarran’s veteran distrust of coincidence.

  Yet the trees were a good hundred yards from where the ravine entered the woodland. If there was someone in there, then they were a long way from the only reasonably clear path through the tangled brush. But the oaks weren’t very far back from the edge of the undergrowth. Just far enough for the dense brush and saplings to screen anyone hiding behind them, but not far enough to prevent a horseman from forcing his way out of them …

  “Bugler,” he snapped, “sound ’Column, Halt’!”

  * * *

  “Damnation!“ Fahlthu muttered viciously as the sweet notes of a bugle sounded and the column trotting down the bank of the ravine slowed in instant response. He slammed his right fist down on his kneecap, hard enough to startle a twitch out of the horse under him, but it was too late to change his plans now. The underbrush which had concealed his spread out troops from his enemies’ approaching scouts also prevented the quick lateral passage of orders down the length of his formation. He’d had to give his men their instructions before he sent them to their positions, and he couldn’t change them now—not without using his own bugles, which would have given away the game just as surely as what was about to happen.

  And not in time to stop it, anyway.

  * * *

  Trianal watched his column of fours slow to a walk, then stop. His lead scouts had already been sixty or seventy yards in advance when the bugle call sounded. Now they were almost to the edge of the woods, still opening the gap, and he saw two of them turning in their saddles to look back towards the main body even as they continued trotting forwards.

  And then a deadly storm of arrows exploded out of the brush.

  * * *

  Darnas Warshoe didn’t curse. He was too disciplined for that, despite the provocation, but it was tempting. He couldn’t really blame Fahlthu’s men. They’d had their orders, and they’d obeyed, firing as soon as the lead Glanharrow scouts reached the specified range. But the bugle call which had abruptly stopped the main column had opened the interval between them and the rest of their force. Not a single scout survived the sudden, overwhelming onslaught, yet their very p
roximity had drawn a heavy concentration of fire away from their more distant comrades. Coupled with the greater range to the column, that meant the main force’s casualties had been far lower than they ought to have been.

  Even more irritating from Warshoe’s perspective, it meant the range to Sir Yarran and Sir Trianal was much greater than it should have been. Still, there was a chance, he reflected, and tucked the butt of the arbalest firmly against his shoulder.

  * * *

  Wounded men and horses screamed under the sudden, surprise onslaught, and Trianal’s heart seemed to stop as he watched the wall of arrows sweep his scouts from their saddles. At least a dozen warhorses were down, as well, half of them screaming and kicking, and his mind seemed stunned into frozen immobility.

  Which made it even stranger when he heard his own voice barking orders.

  “Sound ’Fall Back,’ then ’Skirmish Order’ and ’Guide on Me’!” that voice which sounded so much like his own said. Something whizzed viciously past him, but he paid it no heed. “Standard, follow me!”

  The bugler began to sound the commands, and as the sweet notes flared behind him, Trianal turned his horse and sent the stallion thundering back up the hillside they’d just ridden down. It wasn’t easy. Every instinct shouted for him to press forward, get in among the trees and find the archers who had just slaughtered his scouts and were still firing at the rest of his men. But from the sheer volume of fire, plus the wide frontage from which it had come, the force in front of them was obviously far larger than the one they’d been tracking … and there was no way to tell how much larger.

  He didn’t know if the trail they’d followed had been designed from the beginning as a bait to lure them into a deliberate ambush, but that was what had happened. If he tried to drive a charge home into that kind of terrain, against a possibly superior force of prepared archers spread out over such a wide frontage, all he would achieve was the massacre of his own command. And if he spurred forward, joining his men as they fought to obey the bugle’s commands, he would simply be one more armsman—one more target for the hidden archers.