* * * * *
“We’re now down to twelve men,” Ko said, “not counting ourselves.”
Leisu looked up at his deputy. For once he wasn’t happy with how independent he’d become. He was right, however. They were now twelve men against ten. While one of those ten was only a small boy, the fact that Wen and Jurin were with them tilted the odds in their favor.
“Sir,” Ko said again, “they’re getting away as we stand here doing nothing. By that time another four men had come back from the city gates. They obviously had found out that the Adjurians had gone over the wall; some may have even seen them flee up the road outside of the gates.
“Ko, I want you to gather some local men who know how to fight,” Leisu said. “Ask the men who know of the city for help if you have to, but get them fast.”
Ko nodded and ran in the direction of the gates.
“You there, what’s your name?” Leisu asked the man who’d run up out of breath a moment before to report the Adjurians had gone over the wall.
“Xu, sir,” the man said.
“Xu, you know this city, right?”
“Yes sir, I was stationed here during the war and lived here for some time after before heading south.”
“Good. I want you to gather half of the men we have left and head out of the city toward the narrow canyons that lead around this city. I trust you know the spot where the Adjurians were caught in a bottleneck and slaughtered during the war?”
Xu looked at Leisu in a questioning manner for a moment. “Yes sir, the Oval we called it.”
“Yes, that’s it. Anyone who wants to reach the Isthmus without going through Waigo will have to go through this Oval, won’t they?”
“Yes sir, they will,” Xu said, seeming to suddenly understand what Leisu was proposing.
“That’s right. And these men’ll have to go through that area tonight or early in the morning. I want you to get there first and cut them off. Kill them if you can, but if not, hold them to that spot for as long as possible. I’ll come through the canyons behind them. They’ll not get out of that Oval alive!”
TWENTY-FOUR
All through the night they had crept along narrow mountain ledges, traversed gaping chasms in the rock, and at a few points used the rope to climb still higher up. Each time that they stopped to allow one man at a time to go up, down, or around a particularly tricky spot Bryn thought that he’d collapse from exhaustion and be asleep before he’d even had a chance to sit down. Somehow, though, he was able to rouse himself when it was again time to walk and they moved further and further into the night. Bryn had no idea where they were at or even where they were going. They pushed higher up for an hour then seemed to spend the next hour climbing down. Wen told them that it wouldn’t be much longer, and in the last hour before dawn his words seemed true; they’d been walking on nearly level ground for some time in an area that was wide enough for three of them to walk abreast.
“How far exactly do we need to go before we get out of the mountains?” Rodden asked.
“Not too much further now,” Wen replied. “We’ve been taking the circuitous route around Waigo, but we’ll meet up with the canyons that lead from the city to the Isthmus sometime this morning.”
“There isn’t some other way that’s more concealed?” Halam asked.
“No, I’m afraid not. Waigo was well chosen along the only path through the mountains. We were lucky to get around the city from above, but now we’ll have to follow the path that everyone else must take.”
“Do you think Zhou’s men will be waiting for us in those canyons?” Jal asked.
“I’m almost certain of it,” Wen replied.
After that the men walked in silence. So they’d all have to fight, Wen made it sound. For what seemed the hundredth time that night Bryn fingered the hilt of his dagger. Would he actually have to use it against another man this day?
With their stomachs growling something fierce and the sun rising somewhere over the mountains behind them, the men finally made it to the canyons that Wen had talked about. The mountain walls had constantly loomed higher on either side of them, but now their height became much more pronounced. As if they’d crossed some invisible line, the walls shot up an extra hundred feet around them and became closer together at the same time. Bryn thought back to some of the narrow hallways in the palace at Baden when he saw what lay ahead of them; but whereas those hallways had been well-lit and framed with tapestries and paintings, these hallways were nothing more than cold, jagged stone which the sun was barely able to penetrate.
“We’ve reached the canyons now,” Wen said, even though the men didn’t need the announcement. “They’ll wind around through the mountains, steadily falling down to sea level. If we keep up a good pace we can be through them before dark.”
They could walk two abreast through most of the canyon, but many times they had to stop and go through single-file, the walls grew so close.
“How will we fight in here?” Willem asked Wen.
“Very carefully,” Wen replied. “If Leisu’s discovered that we’ve taken the roundabout way to these canyons then he’ll send men in after us. That is if he hasn’t already sent men in before us.”
“So we won’t even know of an attack until it’s upon us, either from the front or the rear,” Iago said.
“That’s right,” Wen nodded. “The only advantage these canyons have is that they favor the defender. If an attack does come, we can hunker down and fight.”
“If they have us pinned from both sides we’ll be hunkered down for some time,” Trey pointed out.
“Aye,” Iago agreed. “Is all of the way like this, walls of rock so close you can touch ‘em? Or are there some areas that’re more open and easier to defend?”
“In a couple hours we’ll get to a crossroads of sorts,” Wen said. “It’s called the Oval due to its shape, and several canyons like this come together in one area, although most of them just lead to dead-ends further into the mountains. The area’s much more open than this and there’re several large boulders lying about. If men are waiting for us that’ll be the place.”
“Shouldn’t we develop some kind of strategy then?” Willem asked
“We have four bows,” Iago said, “those’ll be our most important weapons if an attack does come.” He turned to Wen. “Can men attack us from above in this spot of yours?”
“The walls are still too high,” Wen replied. “Most of the attacks will come from behind the walls that branch off from the main route and from behind the many boulders strewn about.”
“What exactly will this area look like when we come upon it?” Halam asked.
Wen fingered his narrow beard as he thought for a few moments before answering. “The walls’ll be about as close together as they are now before they dramatically fan outward to create a large oval of open space. I’d say that there’s a good two hundred feet before the walls come together again and the path continues on toward the Isthmus. It’s in that space that the other canyons open up along the walls.”
“The way to the Isthmus is a straight path from where we’ll enter this open area?” Willem asked.
“Aye, just walk straight like the open space is no different from the enclosed path we’ve been following.”
“Well, all we can really do then is keep moving toward this area,” Jurin said. “If an attack comes we’ll meet it as best we can.”
They walked on after that, each man anticipating and readying himself for the battle that they were certain was awaiting them. The sun was shining down into the canyons from above when Wen motioned for them to stop.
“The Oval is right up around this next turn. If my memory serves, there’ll be several large boulders at the entrance, with more spread out ahead and side canyons further on. If there are men waiting for us, they’ll be hiding behind those boulders and waiting in those canyon entrances.”
The men nodded and Wen pulled the bow from behind his back and nocked an arrow to
it. Willem, Iago, and Jurin did the same while Halam unsheathed his shortsword and Conn took the small hand-axe from his belt. Trey, Jal, and Rodden still only had daggers, but they took them out and grasped them tightly.
“You men pick up any larger weapons that you can manage,” Wen told the three with daggers. “Most likely they’ll come at us with bows and crossbows. Any man can fire a crossbow, so pick one up if you get the chance.”
Bryn took out his own dagger which had comforted him so much since Iago had given it to him aboard The Comely Maiden before all of their trouble had began.
“Bryn, you stay close to me and keep your head down,” Rodden said, and Halam gave them a reassuring nod.
Wen looked to each of them again, then moved close to the canyon wall and crept forward. Bryn saw him disappear around the curving wall, followed by Iago, Willem, and Jurin. Halam, Conn, Trey, and Jal went next. Rodden and Bryn hung back, moving only after the others were around the wall and out of sight. When Bryn at last moved around the wall he could see the open Oval where the mountain walls spread out. It stretched on ahead of him for quite some time but he wasn’t able to see all the way across it to where it ended, although he could tell that the walls did become closer together once again. As Wen said, there were several large boulders laying all about, their edges sharp and jagged from where they’d split off from the walls above. Several smaller rocks lay all about from where they broke off from the larger boulders upon the sudden impact with the canyon floor.
Wen, Iago, and Willem had put some space between them and the rest of the men, mainly because Jurin was moving a bit slower. They advanced at little more than a crawl, steadily getting closer to the first large boulder that partly blocked the entrance to the Oval. Suddenly Iago let out a yell and began to fall to the ground. Before he’d landed Bryn saw Wen loose an arrow then dive into a rolling crouch further up along the wall. He pulled another arrow from his sheaf and waited patiently for another shot. The rest of the men crouched down against the canyon wall, unsure of where the attack had come from.
Iago let out another cry of pain as Willem slowly crawled over to him and pulled him close to the wall and further back toward the other men. That is when Bryn saw the crossbow quarrel stuck in Iago’s chest, just below his left shoulder. His face contorted with pain, he let out another cry as Willem tried to pull it out before stopping suddenly, either because the bolt was embedded too deep or the attempt to remove it was causing Iago too much pain.
“How is he?” Trey asked as quietly as he could while still being heard.
“The quarrel is in deep, all the way up to the fletches,” Willem replied. “I don’t think I can pull it out.”
“Then don’t lad,” Iago said painfully. “I can still swing my sword arm. We’ll pull it out when we get through these men.”
“Did you see how many of them there are?” Jal asked.
Ahead of them Wen let loose with the arrow he had held ready, and a cry rose somewhere ahead of them. Two crossbow quarrels clattered harmlessly into the canyon wall over his head before he crawled further up and out of sight.
“I didn’t see anything,” Willem replied as he turned his attention away from where Wen was and readied his bow once again. “Trey, you can handle a bow, right? Take Iago’s, I don’t think he can fire with his wound.”
Trey crawled up along the wall and took the bow and sheaf of arrows from Iago. He knocked an arrow as best as he could while partly crawling further up toward where Wen had crouched. When he reached the spot where the crossbow bolts had struck, he turned back to look at them. “Wen’s made it up to the first boulder,” he said before advancing further out of sight.
Willem put his hand on Iago’s shoulder then crawled further up the wall and out of sight. Another crossbow bolt clattered along the canyon floor and Bryn heard another shout of pain come from somewhere up ahead. Jurin and Halam moved up to where Iago lay. Halam said a few comforting words while Jurin peered around the wall.
“Wen, Trey, and Willem are all crouching behind a large boulder,” he said back to them as he looked forward. “I can see one dead Jongurian lying in front of their boulder.” He turned to look back at them. “I’m going to get up there.”
He crept around the wall and was gone from sight. Conn came up to take his place next to Iago.
“What do we do?” Bryn heard him ask Halam.
“I don’t think there’s enough room for all of us behind that boulder up ahead,” Halam said. “We’ve got our four bowmen up there now. All we can do is lay back and let them open up some more space for us. When they give the word, we can move up.”
Conn nodded and leaned back against the mountain. From around the wall Bryn heard another shout of pain. It was followed a moment later by another, this time accompanied by the sound of a sword clattering against the ground. Rodden slapped Bryn on the back and smiled, sure that that last cry was yet another man that Wen had handled with his bow. A wave of relief swept over him as he realized that their chances weren’t that bad after all. Then the sound of a high-pitched horn sounded out from further ahead in the Oval and he became nervous once again. When another horn sounded from behind them a few moments later his knees began to shake.
The Jongurian Mission Page 15