Duel at Araluen

by John Flanagan

  Cassandra estimated that there were about forty in the party, although she noted with grim satisfaction that their numbers were fewer than they had been when they first arrived. Their attempted attacks on the stairs and with the trebuchet had thinned their ranks somewhat.

  As the riders trotted toward the gatehouse in a double file, they were joined by another mounted man, cantering his horse to take the lead. Even from this distance, Cassandra could see that he had resumed the fox mask that he had worn days before, concealing his identity.

  “Dimon,” she said quietly, as the lead rider clattered under the massive archway, the rest of his force following behind him in two files.

  Ingrid grunted in reply. “Looks like he meant what he said,” she observed, a note of surprise in her voice.

  Cassandra made no reply.

  The two files of horsemen were hidden from sight for several minutes. Then they reappeared on the grassy field outside the walls, and wheeled right to head downhill to the forest, with Dimon in the lead. Cassandra and Ingrid moved around the terrace to keep them in sight. As the men rode out of the shadow of the walls, the morning sun struck their helmets, setting them gleaming.

  “My lady,” said Ingrid slowly, after a minute or so. “Do you notice something odd about those riders?”

  Cassandra peered more carefully, trying to see what the girl might be referring to. After several seconds, she shook her head. “Not that I can see. What is it?” She realized that Ingrid’s eyes were younger than hers and her vision was sharper. She sighed inwardly. One of the penalties of growing older, she thought.

  “Their helmets are gleaming in the sunlight . . . ,” Ingrid began.

  Cassandra turned to look at her, frowning, not seeing the significance of the remark. “Helmets tend to do that. They’re metal, after all.”

  Ingrid nodded, but then pointed at the mounted men. “But their spearpoints aren’t,” she said.

  Cassandra jerked her eyes back to the troopers. Ingrid was right. The sunlight danced and gleamed off the bobbing helmets. But there was no matching reflection from the heads of the lances they all carried.

  Which could only mean that the spearpoints weren’t metal.

  “And look at the way they’re all sitting,” Ingrid continued. “They’re slumped, with their left hands on the pommels of their saddles, not on the reins. All of them. And some of them don’t look as if they’re completely at home on horseback. They’re bouncing around like sacks of potatoes.”

  “What are you saying?” Cassandra asked, although she had already half guessed the answer.

  “They’re tied on.” Ingrid sounded much surer of herself, as if her initial doubts had been dispelled. “Their left hands are tied to their saddle pommels. Their right hands have been left free to hold their spears—except they’re not spears. They’re just long sticks. Those men are prisoners,” she said, with growing conviction in her voice. “They’re not Dimon’s troops.”

  Cassandra nodded slowly, looking at the girl admiringly. “Which means Dimon’s troops are still inside the castle,” she said.

  “Yes. And I’ll wager that man leading them out isn’t Dimon. I’ll bet he’s still inside as well.”

  “So he wants us to think he’s gone . . .”

  “Which means we’ll come down from the tower . . .”

  “And find him and his troops somewhere down there, lying in wait for us. Well spotted, Ingrid.” Cassandra laid her hand on the younger woman’s shoulder. At that moment, a soldier came onto the terrace, holding a message bag in his hand.

  “My lady, we just found this on the stairs. Must have been thrown up past the barrier earlier this morning.”

  He handed the bag to Cassandra. It was a small weighted canvas sack, designed to hold a written message and be thrown over battlements or other defensive positions. She took out the single sheet of vellum inside, glanced at the seal and broke it, unrolling the message.

  “From Dimon,” she said unnecessarily. Then she handed the sheet to Ingrid, after reading it herself.

  Farewell, Cassandra. Do not try to follow me. I have taken several of your people with me as hostages and they’ll suffer if you do. The others are in the dungeons below the keep. They’re probably running low on food and water as I saw no reason to feed them.

  Remember to keep looking over your shoulder. I’ll be back one day, when you least expect it.

  D.

  Ingrid read the message aloud, the folded the sheet again.

  “Clever, isn’t it?” Cassandra said. “He warns me not to follow, tells me he has hostages, and threatens me for the future. And buried in there is the message that our people are imprisoned, with no food or water—more or less as an aside.”

  “Designed to have you hurrying down the stairs to the dungeons to set them free,” Ingrid said, nodding slowly.

  “Exactly. And somewhere down there, I’ll find Dimon and his men, armed and ready to attack us.” She shook her head. “He’s a treacherous snake, isn’t he?”

  “He’s using your own good nature against you,” Ingrid said. “He knows that you wouldn’t leave your people short of food or water.” She paused, then added, “On the other hand . . .”

  “On the other hand what?” Cassandra asked.

  Ingrid seemed reluctant to answer, but eventually she spoke. “On the other hand, I could be wrong about the spearpoints and the riders. Maybe he has left and maybe there are prisoners in the dungeon who need food and water.”

  Cassandra studied her worried face for a few moments, then replied. “Well, there’s one way to find out.”

  Ingrid looked at her in alarm. “You’re not planning on going down the stairs?”

  Cassandra smiled and shook her head. “No. I’m definitely not planning that.”

  * * *

  • • •

  On the ninth floor, Cassandra moved to the secret door where Maddie had entered from the hidden stairs that ran down to ground level. She stopped to take a lantern from a hook, lighting it with a taper from a box over the fireplace. She slipped the latch and opened the door, peering in.

  For a moment, her head swam as she looked down into the black depths. The lantern illuminated only the first five or six meters and she had a dislike of cramped, dark places. Steeling herself, and with a quick, nervous grin to Ingrid, who was standing by, watching anxiously, she stepped in and began to descend the ladders that led to the dungeons.

  She moved slowly, testing each step before she placed her full weight on it. Maddie had mentioned that one of the rungs had given way beneath her weight when she had initially climbed up and Cassandra had no wish to go plummeting down through the darkness.

  As she passed the main stairway between the seventh and eighth levels, she could see a dim light where her men had removed the section of stairs. Then the darkness closed in again.

  There were observation holes on the platforms at each floor and, as she reached each one, she would move toward it, keeping the lantern shielded, and listen. Then she’d put her eye to the spyhole and look. For the first four floors, she heard and saw nothing. Then, at the level of the fourth floor, she heard a low murmur of voices. Putting her eye to the spyhole, she studied the room inside the tower. This was the level where the arched stone bridge connected the south tower to the keep. It was the most likely point of egress if she and her men were to vacate their sanctuary.

  At least, that appeared to be what Dimon thought. A large group of his men, fully armed and armored, were lounging on the floor inside the big, open room, talking in low tones among themselves as they awaited developments. As she watched, a knowing smile forming on her lips, the door from the bridge opened and Dimon himself strode in. He looked around angrily.

  “Keep your voices down!” he hissed, and the mumble of conversation died away.

  That won’t last, she thought. As
soon as Dimon left, the conversations would start up again. You couldn’t keep soldiers from talking—usually grumbling about their lot.

  Dimon prowled restlessly round the room. He stopped by one of the troops, a sergeant by his insignia. “Any sign of them yet?” he asked.

  The sergeant shook his head. “No, my lord.”

  Dimon swore softly. “Well, stay alert. They’ll be coming down soon. Send someone for me when you hear them coming. Get your men out of sight and let them come into the main hall here. Then surround them. But wait until you see Cassandra. I want her taken.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “And raise that drawbridge again. I don’t want to risk having it down if Horace suddenly turns up.”

  The sergeant frowned. “Won’t they realize we’re still here if the drawbridge is up?”

  Dimon shot an exasperated look at him. “They can’t see the bridge itself from the tower,” he said. “Raise it slowly, so they can’t hear you doing it.” He whirled angrily on the men lounging behind him, talking quietly among themselves. “Keep the damned noise down, for pity’s sake! We’re supposed to be long gone.”

  The men fell silent and Dimon stalked away, heading for the bridge that led to the keep.

  “My lord indeed,” Cassandra said in a low, sardonic voice. Then she began slowly climbing back to the ninth floor.

  21

  Dawn was nearly breaking by the time they finished discussing their plans for the coming battle. Maddie joined Gilan and Horace as they made their usual pre-dawn patrol around the palisade, paying particular attention to the goings-on in the Red Fox camp below the south wall. Everything seemed normal, with the camp awakening and fires being stirred into life. Gilan glanced at the red ball of the sun rising over the forest in the east, then jerked a thumb down at the enemy camp.

  “Maybe you’d better stay here until dark,” he said. “You might be spotted going back down the hill in daylight.”

  Maddie snorted. “You don’t have a lot of faith in my unseen movement skills, do you?”

  He smiled at her. “It’s just that people will be moving around down there and there’s always the chance someone might tread on your hand,” he said.

  She rolled her eyes at him. “I’m never going to live that down, am I?”

  He grinned. “I shouldn’t think so.”

  “Well, I’ll have you know, when I was escaping from the Red Foxes after I heard them plotting in the old abbey, somebody did step on my hand, and I still wasn’t discovered.”

  Horace looked between the two of them, a slightly puzzled look on his face. “Why would anyone step on your hand?” he asked.

  Gilan waved the question aside. “It’s just a Ranger thing,” he said.

  Horace sighed. After years of adventuring with Will and Halt, he was used to being palmed off with that answer, or something like it, when they wanted to leave him out of a joke. He regarded his daughter now, seeing her hiding a grin.

  “That sort of thing isn’t very respectful,” he said. “I can’t do anything about Gilan, but I am your father, after all.”

  She tried, unsuccessfully, to stop grinning. “And highly respected, too,” she said in her most dutiful daughter voice.

  “Hah!” said Horace skeptically. Then a thought struck him and he brightened. “It just occurred to me,” he said, “if we’re breaking out of here in the next few days, we don’t have to ration the food any more. I can finally have a decent breakfast.”

  With that cheerful thought, he hurried through the rest of their morning patrol and then climbed down the stairs and headed across to the cookhouse to give the duty cooks the news.

  For the first time in a week, Horace enjoyed a proper breakfast, sighing with contentment as he mopped up the last scraps of food with a piece of toasted flat bread, then leaning back to savor his coffee. Maddie, who had joined them for breakfast, pushed her chair back, stretched her arms above her head and yawned.

  “I might get some sleep,” she said. “I was up all last night and it looks as if I’ll be up again tonight as well.”

  “Use my tent,” Horace told her. “It’s got a good soft bed.”

  “Of course, as a Ranger, she could sleep quite comfortably on the hard ground, wrapped in her cloak,” Gilan said.

  Maddie looked at him sidelong. “I could do that, as you say. But it’s not obligatory,” she replied.

  Gilan raised his eyebrows. “I could make it an order.”

  She smiled sweetly at him. “And I would ignore it if you did.”

  Gilan sighed. “My authority seems to be slipping. Young people just don’t have the respect they used to. When I was young, I never would have spoken to my Commandant with such disrespect.”

  “But things were so different in the olden days. I’ve often wondered, how did you manage before they discovered fire?” Maddie said.

  Gilan decided to quit while he was behind. “Get some sleep,” he said.

  Maddie rose, grinning, then yawned and headed for Horace’s tent.

  Gilan glanced at the big warrior, who was smothering a yawn of his own. “What about you? You were up half the night as well.”

  “I’ll take your tent,” Horace said. “You can sleep on the hard ground, rolled in your cloak. You’re a Ranger, after all.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Maddie slept till mid-afternoon and awoke refreshed and hungry. She and her father had an early supper, then, once it was fully dark, she slipped over the east wall and slid down a rope to the grassy path below. She looked up and saw two heads craning over the palisade. She waved a hand in farewell.

  “Bye, Dad. Bye, Gilan,” she called softly. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Bye, Maddie. Take care,” her father called in reply. In the darkness, he could still see the quick gleam of her teeth as she smiled up at him.

  “I always do,” she said, then she slipped over the edge of the terrace and began to make her way down the hill. Gilan and Horace stayed, watching her. Before too long, Horace had lost sight of her completely. Gilan kept her in sight a little longer, but only because he could anticipate which way she would go in the moving shadows.

  “She’s very good,” he said to Horace. “Will has taught her well.”

  “You’re all very good,” Horace said. “I can never see any of you once you start sneaking around.”

  “Sneaking around?” said Gilan in a hurt voice. “We prefer to call it ‘unseen movement.’”

  “Call it what you like,” Horace said. “To me it’s sneaking around.”

  They moved to the south wall to keep an eye on the enemy’s camp, watching to see if there was any sign that Maddie had been spotted. But there was no sound of alarm or outcry and, after an hour, Gilan touched Horace’s sleeve.

  “She’ll be through their lines by now,” he reassured his friend. “Let’s get something to eat.”

  It was the best way he could think of to stop Horace worrying about his daughter.

  * * *

  • • •

  Maddie skirted the Red Fox camp on the eastern side, moving in a wide semicircle to reach the slope running up behind it to the southern ridge. Staying in a crouch, she moved uphill, using the long, gently swaying grass for cover. Once she reached the spine of the ridge, she rolled over to the far side, avoiding silhouetting herself against the night sky. She lay still for a few moments, listening and watching to see if there were any patrols moving in the valley below, on the south side of the ridge.

  There was nothing.

  Lying on her belly, she looked back to the hill fort, straining to see if she could make out her father and Gilan on the ramparts. But the darkness defeated her. She could see the glow of the campfires inside the compound, but that didn’t give enough light to identify individuals on the wall. A little sadly, she turned away.

&nbs
p; “Bye, Dad,” she muttered.

  Continuing to move carefully, she went down the slope, then up the far side until she reached the cover of the tree line. Then she stood upright and jogged through the forest, her bow strung and ready in her hand, toward the Skandians’ campsite.

  As she approached the camp’s central fire, she was pleased to see that Hal had set a proper watch, with a ring of sentries set well outside the reach of the firelight. Each man stood in the shadow of a tree, where he was not immediately visible. Anyone without her skill at remaining unseen would have been spotted and challenged before he could get close to the campsite.

  Nor had Hal concentrated his sentries on the side nearest the enemy camp, as a lot of commanders would have done. His sentries covered the relatively safer western perimeter as well, even though it might have been reasonable to assume that there was no danger likely to come from that direction. She nodded approvingly. Danger, she knew, could come from any direction.

  She worked her way carefully through the trees until she was five meters from one of the sentries. He was carrying a spear and one of the Skandians’ big round shields, and she had no wish to come up on him unexpectedly and risk being speared. She stayed behind a tree and called softly.

  “Hello? It’s me, the Ranger.”

  The sentry, who had been leaning on his spear in an at-ease position, immediately stiffened into a ready posture and dropped into a crouch, shield up, spear pointing outward, eyes searching the darkness ahead of him.

  “Who’s there? Where are you?” he called, keeping his voice low.

  “I’m behind a tree, close by you. Now lower your spear and I’ll step out into the light. Just don’t do anything I might regret. I told you. I’m Maddie, the Ranger.”

  He continued to probe the darkness, but still saw nothing. After a few seconds, he lowered the point of his spear and stood up from his crouch.

  “All right,” he said. “Step out and let me see you. But no tricks.”

  Pushing her cloak and cowl back, she stepped quietly out into the open, her bow slung over her shoulder and both hands extended to the sides to show that she carried no weapons. She saw the man relax as he recognized her.