by Tim Stead
“So we’ll find it.”
“We’ll look, anyway. Tomorrow I’ll send out patrols to circle the town. We have a couple of local hunters who have volunteered to guide them.”
“And we’re sure that the hunters are really local people, and not members of the force holding the town?” Serhan asked.
“Well, as sure as we can be. They seem to know the lie of the land and the other townspeople that have come to us. I don’t detect any tension there, so either they’re genuine or this plan has been years in the making.” Darius paused for a moment. “It’s possible,” he said. “I’ll have the patrols shadowed so that the guides don’t know about it. I like the way you’re thinking, Cal.”
“I can try to check out some of the details that we’ve been told, if you like,” Serhan volunteered.
“It’ll be well guarded. They’re bound to know that we’re here by now.”
“I won’t take any risks.”
“Be sure that you don’t.”
* * * *
The next day Darius organised the patrols while Serhan saddled up a horse and rode away from the town carrying nothing but his personal weapons and a small pack. He rode through the woods for half an hour until he came upon a stream running brightly through a small clearing into which the sun poured.
He dismounted, tethered his horse, and sat by the stream. For a while he did not move. He sat and relaxed, listened to the birds singing and the wind jostling the branches around the edge of the clearing. He filled his lungs with clean air and felt the sun on his face.
When he was completely relaxed he opened his pack and took out a blackened bowl. He reached forwards with it and scooped up a bowlful of water from the stream, set it on the ground before him and watched it settle to mirror stillness. He could see the blue of the sky in it, and the clouds passing overhead.
When it was quite still he spoke the words of the scrying spell and directed the mirror to show him the town of Barisal as he had seen it from the camp.
The town appeared in the water.
He spoke and gestured and the viewpoint moved up into the air, high above the buildings so that the streets appeared as a map. There was the town square, and there, squatting on the edge of it, was the Kalla House. Again he spoke, and this time the view swooped down into the square, crossed it and settled just in front of the door.
Now let us see what they have prepared for us.
* * * *
For Captain Darius Grand the morning proved most eventful. After dispatching five foot patrols, each of five men, he made himself comfortable at the top of the slope overlooking Barisal, and watched the town. He knew that they had been sending out regular patrols long before the force from White Rock had arrived, and expected that they would still be doing the same, but in over an hour of watching he didn’t see a single person leave the town.
He was always uneasy when things happened in a way that he did not expect, and now everything was different. He didn’t have any sort of framework in his head that fitted the situation.
One of the people from the town, an old trader who had come to them on the first evening, approached him as he sat and watched.
“Captain,” the man said as he sat down next to Darius. “Can you tell me what is going on here?”
“No,” Darius replied. “It troubles me, but no.”
“They have not stolen anything,” the man said.
“So I understand. They do not behave like bandits. Have you heard anything that might indicate what they are trying to do?”
“No. They do not seem concerned with the town at all. They brought supplies with them, and have paid for most of what they have taken since. They do not treat us gently, and have a certain arrogance, but they do not seem overly cruel.”
“Did you hear any of them speak at all? Anything they said?”
“Rarely. They tend not to speak when we are nearby. They do know who you are, though.”
“What? How do you know?”
“They spoke your name. One of their officers, or leaders, said something about being ready when Grand and Serhan get here.”
“They used the names?”
“Yes.”
Could it be that this was about the two of them; this whole plot just to kill two people? No, it was ridiculous. If it was so then it would have to be the work of Borbonil and Ocean’s Gate, and that would have required an unsupported march of over a thousand miles across unfriendly territory without being detected. It was simply not possible.
It was, however, one thing that would explain the behaviour of the people holding the town.
No, it was too far fetched. The only way that this could have been done was if the Faer Karan had ignored all the rules of fair conflict, and that would risk a huge loss of status for Borbonil, even a scandal. If he was exposed he was certain to lose control of Ocean’s Gate, and his followers would be disgraced. No Faer Karani would take such a risk to kill a man, or even two men, no matter how annoying they had become.
“The two hunters that we used as guides; do you know them?”
“Of course. Krikesh was born in the town, and Lorsifan has proven most adept, although he’s only been living with us about a quarter year.”
“Three months?”
“Yes. Just so long, I think.”
“Did he settle alone, or bring a family?”
“Alone. He is quite young”
That, then, was the danger. He thought through the route he had ordered for the patrol being guided by Lorsifan. It went west of the city through a wooded area. He did not know the lie of the land – the very reason that they had employed a guide - and if there was an ambush, a trick of some sort anywhere along that route it would be somewhere he could not anticipate.
He considered such an attack a small possibility, but he was bored with sitting watching the town. He excused himself from the trader, got together a group of ten guards and rode out of the camp on a circuit of the town. He went wider than the patrols had been sent, hoping to be able to spot them as he passed above them.
It was a pleasant place to ride. The trees of the forest were widely spaced, allowing an ample dappled green light to fall all around them. The trees shielded them from all but the gentlest breezes, and the smell of the forest was fresh and reviving. His men were quiet, and the only noises were the footfalls of the horses and the sibilant chorus of ten thousand leaves stirring above them. It seemed almost a magical place. The trees themselves were old. In a few places one of them had fallen, perhaps struck down by a great wind, and smaller plants clustered in the pools of light permitted by the giant’s demise.
As they rode on they came to a place where some trees had been cut, perhaps for building. The gaps above them became greater and more frequent, and the new growth became more dense, more able to conceal.
This was better country for an ambush.
They had completed about a quarter of the circuit when the faint sounds of battle came to them through the trees. He had brought archers with him, and ordered all his men to dismount and proceed on foot down through the trees and scrub towards the noise, with the archers ready to shoot.
They moved quickly, without particular stealth, trusting to the noise of conflict to conceal their approach. There would be no guards posted to look out for them once swords were drawn. When they broke out into the clearing where the fight was taking place it was immediately clear what had happened. His original patrol of five men had been waylaid by a force of about fifteen, who had in turn been surprised from behind by the shadowing patrol. This had evened things up a bit, and a desperate hand to hand conflict was now under way.
Grand signalled to his archers to shoot at once, and the first volley of arrows ended it, with only two of the attackers left standing. They turned to flee, and on another day Darius might have let them go, but today he was jealous of any advantage, and ordered the archers to shoot again.
The last two men fell.
Three of his own men were dead
, and another three injured badly enough that they would take no further part in the conflict. Of the attacking force ten had been killed, seven by the archers, and the five left alive were injured. Darius sent men back through the trees to fetch the horses, and another group to sweep the area in case others were watching, and to look for the horses that must have carried the ambush party.
Lorsifan, the guide, was dead. He had been killed in the first moments of the fight when the truth of his treachery was known. Darius regretted this. He would have liked to have questioned the man.
“Captain, we found the horses,” one of his men told him.
“Good, bring them here. Take everything and bring it with us, including the bodies of the slain. I want no obvious trace of the battle to remain here.”
The man left.
One of the prisoners, a man injured in the arm and hip, had been looking at Grand for some time, and now he cleared his throat and spoke.
“Captain? Are you Captain Darius Grand?”
Grand looked at the man. Wounded and unarmed he did not seem a particular threat.
“I am,” he replied.
“So it is true, what they say. You do lead your men into battle. It should make you easier to kill, but it does not.”
“So far. Do you seek to kill me, then?”
The man shrugged. “I know of you,” he said.
“Who do you serve?” Darius asked.
The man turned his face away, then changed his mind and spoke. “I serve my commander, beyond that you will never know. None of us will speak of it. You might as well kill us all now.”
“I know you for what you are, man,” Darius said. “I do not kill soldiers in cold blood. It is certain that you are no bandits, and at least some of you have guard training, but we will uncover all in due course.”
The man smiled, but fell silent again. Darius noted that a few of the other wounded captives exchanged glances. Some truth there, then. Darius himself was less than confident about uncovering the secrets that these men possessed. He knew that torture would persuade them to reveal all, but it was against the rules of fair conflict which the Faer Karan enforced, and he was still unsure who he was dealing with. He also personally abhorred the use of torture, believing that prisoners taken in an honourable conflict should be treated with some degree of respect. He would not order its use.
When the men had completed their allotted tasks there was little to indicate that a battle had taken place here. The grass and other low plants were somewhat trampled, and a careful inspection showed that blood had been spilt, but the details would not be clear to anyone who came after.
He mounted his men, the wounded and the prisoners, and rode back to the camp, allowing the patrol, suitably reinforced, to continue on foot.
Again they rode through the old forest, and again he felt the sense of age, and enjoyed the magic of the place. If all magic was like this, natural and unforced, linked to the quality of the landscape, then it would be a friendly and welcome thing. Perhaps it had once been so, and perhaps what he felt was not magic at all, but the untouched nature of the place. These trees had already seen a hundred summers when he was a boy.
They were noisier on the way back. His men felt that their mission had been achieved, and talked with each other, but Darius did not listen to them. Though he did not regret his life, or any particular twist or turn of it, he had sometimes wished that it could have been different. The ancient trees seduced his mind into thoughts of what might have been, and he struggled to see the alternatives. He had never had a talent for anything else that he was aware of. He was good with a sword – very good – but his forte was strategy. Perhaps he could have been a general in the service of a human king, and perhaps not so much. It was true that he longed for a cause, but in any world he would have been a soldier, and for now his cause was Cal Serhan.
Back in the camp he was surprised to see that Serhan was returned and waiting for him.
“You were right about one of the guides,” he said as he dismounted. “We should have been more careful.”
“You have had a victory?”
“Of a kind. We have prisoners, but I do not think that they will talk.”
“I have something for you that may improve your mood,” Serhan said. “There is no doubt that they do not intend to hold the Kalla House. There are defences set up around it, but not inside. The intention is to run, and draw you after them.”
Darius sighed. “I will not ask you how you discovered this,” he said. “But if it is so, were you able to determine their intended route out of the town?”
“I was. They will head to the east. I have made a map and marked the roads by which they will leave the town.”
“Towards the hills? That is hard country. Perhaps they have concealed their second force there, though there are precious few places to do so.”
“What will you do?”
“I will be cautious. Tomorrow we will send a larger patrol to seek out danger in the hills, and if they find a force there we will engage them. If not, then we will spring their trap and see where they run. I will make them pay for their escape, though.”
True to his word, when all the patrols had returned he allowed them to rest and prepare themselves for the following day, though he posted twenty men to watch the town and the woods and report back any movement.
The following morning a patrol of thirty men was sent towards the hills by a route that was not visible from the town, skirting below the ridge line and after that keeping in the trees that covered the plain to within half a mile of the higher land.
Darius and Serhan waited with the bulk of their force, and watched the town again. Nothing was seen to enter or leave all day apart from a group of farmers heading south with a couple of wagons. Darius had them stopped and searched, but they were just what they appeared to be.
As evening approached the patrol returned. They had searched all day among the foothills, ridden up every valley, and scanned the tops for watching eyes, but had found no trace of troops. They had not even found the cold embers of a fire.
“It is no matter,” Darius said when he discussed it with Serhan that evening. “If you are correct about the defenders’ intent then we will have thinned them out so much that they will not add much to the second force, wherever it may be concealed. We must only be careful, and we will prevail.”
“I am certain enough. The route was prepared.”
“Then we will attack with first light.”
Darius roused his men about two hours before dawn, and using the map that Serhan had drawn of the escape route he dispatched a company of archers to penetrate the town and take up positions along the indicated roads. He took the rest of the men towards the town just before dawn, and led them through the quiet streets in the very first dim light, coming out away from the square facing one of the blank walls of the Kalla house. Serhan waited patiently with the others while Darius took the measure of the place.
The wall was about ten feet high, and he called forwards twenty of his strongest men, who braced themselves against the wall. On a quiet word of command two archers were lifted up until they were able to raise their bows above the parapet. One of them dropped down quickly, raising three fingers. Another archer came forward and the three were raised up again, loosing their arrows at the same moment.
The indication was success, so first ten, and then another ten men were lifted up onto the roof with great stealth.
Darius now had the vantage point of the roof secured, and the escape route covered by archers. His remaining fifty men moved quietly round the side of the Kalla House into the square, and were spotted almost at once. The invaders had placed a lookout on the far side of the square, and he raised a shout loud enough to rouse the whole town.
Barricades had been placed around the main door, and men rose up behind these, and prepared to defend, but they were not protected from above, and after five White Rock men had dropped down behind them from the roof they were turne
d and the barricades were quickly breached.
The main door had not even been barred.
They burst into the Kalla house and a fierce but brief fight ensued. The defenders were pressed from all sides, with men pouring through the door and more down the stairs from the roof. Some were cut off in the barracks, and fought on with no thought of surrender.
Serhan kept himself out of the fray for the most part. He knew that swinging Shadow Cutter in darkened, crowded rooms would do as much harm to his friends as his foes, so he stayed in the clear, dealing what blows he could at those who stepped out of the melee.
It was only minutes before the defenders broke and ran, leaving many dead and wounded behind. Darius gave another signal, and his guards began a pursuit on foot, following down the same streets that Serhan’s map had indicated. It was quickly clear that the archers had taken their toll of the fleeing force. The streets were scattered with bodies, each pierced by a single arrow. As the guard progressed through the town archers rose from their hiding places and joined them, so that by the time they reached the edge of town the entire force was reunited.
What remained of the defending force was now mounted, clear of the town, and galloping to the east.
“We will pursue them,” Darius said. He called out and in a very short time their horses were brought forward and the entire force mounted, setting off quickly across the plains in the direction of the rising sun. For a while this made it difficult to see their quarry, but as they drew close to the hills the sun was concealed behind them, and they could see their foe clearly; a force of about thirty men in the process of crossing a ford on a substantial river. The rise of the hills was no more than half a mile beyond them, and only that far because the high ground lay back behind the river, trapping a large flat space between the water and the steep slopes.
Darius hesitated. This was a killing ground, and the men before him were entering it intentionally. They were now trapped. Why was that? He called the officer who had led the previous day’s patrol to this area to his side.
“What is there?” he asked. “Is there a way out?”
“Not that we found, Captain,” the man said. “There is a box canyon that would make a good defensive position. It could be held for a few days – longer if they had archers.”