Instead, they sorted through everything they'd taken from the Pargunese. Everyone now had warm clothes and cloak as well as a pack to carry supplies. They repacked the cloaks borrowed from the rangers and stacked the extra Pargunese clothes beside them. The Pargunese food seemed wholesome enough, except for the stinking goo in the stone jars. She made sure the ornaments were shared out fairly—they'd all earned the loot—and for herself took an arm-ring and a neck-ring. Though it was against Halveric rules to wear anything but the oath-ring on duty, Vardan decided this was a special case.
Around midday, the sentry on the sunsetting side brought in a hand of Halverics from farther upstream. Vardan recognized them as part of those who had been stationed at Riverwash.
"It's gone, Sergeant," their leader said. "Some kind of magical fire. The captain had sent two tensquads of us out to back up the Royal Archers downstream, where the first landings were. We was coming back, when we saw it glaring in the sky, and then it went hurtling past—we saw Riverwash burn."
"Two tensquads of you—where are the others?"
"Not far behind us—three are wounded. We were trailing some Pargunese. Found some nekkid bodies—"
"We killed them yesterday." Two tensquads plus her own made nearly four—enough to do something with. "One of you go back—tell them to hurry up here—there's a big force of Pargunese sunrising of us, headed for Chaya. Rangers are harrying them—we can help."
In the afternoon the snow stopped, though wind continued to moan in the trees. A line of hard blue showed to the north. With the other Halverics there, the little shelter was far too small, but Vardan felt much happier. After two meals and a rest, with starshine lighting the snow, Vardan decided it was time to go. The wounded swore they could keep up; she sensed their need to be with their comrades. Her sixteen used the Pargunese packs; all of them took as much food as they could stuff into them, and long before the turn of night they were on their way, scouts out ahead, behind, to either side. More than three tensquads felt like much more than a little less than two.
* * * *
By dawn they had reached the fire's track, now dusted white with snow over the ash and showing no sign of travelers. The snow-capped body of a dead horse, and other lumps that might be corpses lay here and there. But even as Vardan wondered how far ahead the Pargunese were, a ranger stood up from a tangle of half-burnt branches and roots.
"You've come back," he said to Vardan. "We thought perhaps you'd gone straight to Chaya."
"I didn't know the way," Vardan said.
"They're moving slowly," the ranger said, heading south along the fire track as if he knew they would follow. "We're able to do that much, and we've killed a fair number, though we can't stop them...I thought you had only three hands of troops."
"Found more," Vardan said. "So—we can catch them?"
"Oh, yes. And it's safe to walk out here—smoother—until we're closer to them. All we have to worry about is their horses, and that not much. How many bows have you?"
"Five hands of longbows," Vardan said. "Trained to volley fire, battlefield style." She looked aside at the forest walls. "Any chance they'll set an ambush?"
"We keep them too busy," the ranger said. He gestured to the mounds under the snow. "We haven't counted, but they're not as big as they were."
"We took two tensquads, back there," Vardan said. "Half pikes, half crossbows. We left the pikes at your camp, but you see that some of our troops have crossbows now."
"Slow," the ranger said. "But a good range, I'll grant."
To the side, in the woods, someone moved; Vardan caught the movement from the corner of her eye; the ranger stopped and lifted a hand.
"They're not far ahead," he said. "Will you join us on the flank or try to attack their rear? Half the horses are there."
Vardan looked around. On the open track, horses could move faster on the ash and snow than her troops...and yet an unexpected volley... "Do they have a rear guard? Alert, I mean?"
"Yes, but they're tired. And hungry, I think. We haven't let them sleep easy."
"Two days ago they returned volley for volley—do they still?"
"We don't shoot by volley...we pick them off one at a time. But they seem to be conserving their bolts now."
Vardan sent the wounded off to the woods, and directed the rest to advance in file up either side of the track. Ahead, the track lifted gently over a rise; the enemy, the ranger reported, was just the other side.
At the rear of the Pargunese formation, half the horsemen faced backward. The formation was definitely smaller than what she had seen before, but too close to bring her troops into view without risking a deadly charge. She blinked, trying to calculate the distances. Captain Talgan had had some arrangement of sticks and string he used for that. She crawled backward down the slope and described what she'd seen to her troops and the three rangers.
"You want a dropping volley from back here, out of sight? How far is it, Sergeant?"
"A hundred full paces, about," she said. She sketched it in the snow. "You can clear the rise; they won't know it's coming and it should fall among them. Shoot from here, two volleys, then run straight for the woods, well out of sight—beyond volley-range from this scar—because any horseman you don't dismount or kill will be coming this way fast. They'll see the tracks we made, but—" She turned. Behind them, the rangers were already brushing away the tracks into what looked like windblown streaks.
Thirty arrows flew up together, hanging visibly in the air, and then dropped out of sight. Another thirty followed. Vardan made sure all her people were back into cover...and sure enough, ten horsemen came galloping over the rise; they reined in when they saw nothing but the empty stretch of snow ahead of them.
From the far side, Vardan saw an arrow streak toward a horse from the brush—close range, a flat trajectory. The horse screamed, tried to leap away, and fell; the rider just managed to roll clear. Vardan looked at the Halverics to either side of her. Could they take on the Pargunese now? Would the rangers fight with them? And how many rangers were here? Surely the few they'd seen so far weren't all. With enough bows—but the ranger touched her arm.
"Let them go unhindered a little. Your volley did well—fifteen dead at least, and three horses down. We have a surprise for them a little farther on."
When the Pargunese horsemen were once more out of sight, and the column in motion, Vardan called the Halverics together and they moved along a woods trail west of the fire-scar, catching up with and passing the Pargunese column without seeing it. Two rangers accompanied them, one leading and one following, insisting that Vardan didn't need flanking scouts. She insisted she did, but agreed to use them only on their western flank.
"There's a steading ahead...the people have been warned, and are well away with most of their livestock. There's little to loot, but enough to hold them, we think. Especially the ale." He mimed lifting a jug.
Vardan chuckled. "Much of that and they'll want a nap in the barn."
"Indeed. They didn't sleep well last night; we kept them moving."
"How's their discipline?"
"Good. But they may be hungry and they quit shooting volleys in return for our sniping."
Were they short of bolts, or conserving them?
"They don't have a supply train," Vardan said. "The ones we killed had food in their packs."
The ranger grinned. "That's because most of their supplies never made it to shore. Their soldiers rowed across in those big long boats they have, towing smaller ones loaded with supplies, two men in each, one steering, one also rowing. While they were unloading the troops in the boats, and the horses, some of us were taking shots at the soldiers. Eight of us rangers and two fisher lads drifted down from upstream, under reed clumps."
"In the water? In winter?"
"It's cold, but we'd greased up well with sooty lard, before. That helps. Anyway, our people drifted down to the supply boats while their soldiers fought their way onshore against resistance. Then they cu
t the ropes that held the little boats to the big ones and if someone aboard stood up to yell for help, they tipped the boat over, man and all."
Vardan imagined floating down that river in the dark, knowing enemy boats were ahead...getting in among them...cutting ropes...
"Only three of ours got to shore where we could help 'em," the ranger said. "I pulled one out, with a gash all down one shoulder, bleeding hard."
Vardan shivered, though she wasn't cold now, at the speed they were moving. At least she wasn't going to die in the Honnorgat like a speared fish.
The farmstead, when they reached it, looked like what it was—a stout house with stone foundation and ground floor, logs above. Clearly people had left in a hurry—a panic, it looked like, with a furl of cloth half unrolled dropped in the fore-yard, a broken dish on one of the steps, a hen-run with the gate open and one hen pecking at spilled grain. The smokehouse trailed a thin coil of blue smoke against the sky and smelled of a winter's worth of hams and sides of bacon, but the hog-pen gate was also open and the tracks showed where a sounder had been driven out.
The fire had passed near enough that an obvious lane led to it from the fire's track, and the forest along the track had been thinned, the underbrush cleared. "We think they'll take the bait," the ranger said. "They'll suspect an ambush, but with food and the possibility of making a safe camp for the night—"
Vardan nodded. "They'll be harder to hit if they're under cover."
"True—but it slows them down. The king must be bringing troops down; if we slow them enough, cut down the size..."
They discussed the best disposition of troops, the best time to strike. Vardan and the Halverics skirted the yard, the barn, the other outbuildings, garden, and fields, at a distance, to avoid leaving obvious tracks in the snow. They settled into the thicker forest; they dared not make a fire, but shared out strips of smoked meat. Vardan set two sentries, and then, with the others, kicked aside snow-covered leaves to make a dry hollow and dozed under her cloak.
The Pargunese arrived before dark—slowly, cautiously, sending a patrol to check out the farmstead. Vardan, wakened by one of the rangers, crept forward to see what they looked like. Hungry, tired soldiers worried about an ambush, she thought, just like those she'd seen often enough on campaign in Aarenis. Not stupid, either—their approach was just what Halveric would have advised.
When the patrol reported back to the main body—their formation clogging the farm lane; Vardan could see only the front ranks—they set sentries where she would have set them, and quickly occupied the house and barn. A working party broke up the henyard and pigpen fences, began building a barricade from house to barn. Someone was set to work with a shovel, hacking at the hard ground—for jacks, Vardan assumed. So they planned to stay awhile? She wished she'd brought the shovel they'd found in the rangers' shelter; the Halverics had nothing to dig with but their boot-heels and it went against all training to leave their filth on the open ground. Smoke blew from the chimney, thickening as Vardan watched. She glanced at the ranger beside her; the ranger grinned.
Pargunese voices—loud, harsh, some sounding angry and some laughing—and squawks of the remaining hen came to them on the cold breeze. Thunks of an ax on wood, crack-crack of breaking branches, whinnies from the Pargunese horses; Vardan guessed that someone had found grain for them. But what would happen when they found the ale?
Not, she was sorry to see, the drunken revel they'd hoped for. She watched as one of the Pargunese commanders had soldiers tip two barrels of it into the snow. From another, each man got one mug. No one got drunk on one mug of ale. Well...full fed and with a chance to rest, they should sleep anyway.
Daylight seeped away as the Pargunese finished piling up their barricade—waist high, chest high. Vardan could no longer see past it, but she could imagine, from her own experience, the troops lining up for rations. They would have hot ham and sausage, and by now hot bread to go with them. Maybe sib, or whatever brew the Pargunese had instead. Her stomach growled. The farmstead quieted though an officer or sergeant made the rounds with a basket and sentries sounded off, stepping out to receive their dinner. Easy to tell where they all were. Darker still. The wind dropped, and a few flakes of snow fell, then more.
Vardan drifted into numb immobility, not thinking about the past days, not thinking at all, and yet not dozing—the ranger's first light touch on her shoulder brought her to full alertness. "Get your people." The falling snow now filled his earlier tracks.
Vardan left the five injured behind, making sure they were awake and knew which way to move if necessary; the others followed silently, bows in hand. For herself, she had chosen one of the crossbows they'd taken from the Pargunese; it hung from her belt and she had dagger in hand, ready to use on the sentry she expected to find under a particular tree.
Instead, she stumbled over the man—apparently he'd hunkered down in the falling snow and dozed off—and her first blind stab rang on the man's breastplate. The crossbow bruised her leg as she fell; the man was awake, taking in breath to yell. Vardan had a knee on one of his arms, feeling with the knife blade for the opening above the gorget, when someone else planted a boot on the man's face and slit his throat. A gout of hot blood soaked Vardan's arm; the man's last breath gurgled and his legs jerked, but those small sounds were muffled by the falling snow.
They moved on, leaving the trees behind. A dim light showed ahead. Vardan stopped. Was that a shape with it? She reached back with one hand, tapped the man behind her, then ran her finger across the palm opened ready for her and tapped again. That way. Six paces. She heard a faint noise as her men fanned out to either side.
The light brightened slowly through the veils of falling snow. Someone coming. One? More? She could hear nothing but her own pulse pounding in his ears and the whisper of snow on her helmet. At a guess, someone coming to check on the sentries. Before, the man had come by himself. Too late now to crouch down and be a stump. Too late to reach for the crossbow. She shifted her dagger to her heart hand and drew her sword slowly, barely a whisper as it came free, then held it and the dagger under her cloak to hide any telltale gleam.
Closer—closer—she could see the snowflakes now, twirling as they fell, making a glow around the dark figure. Figures...six of them. Someone leading out the next shift of sentries, it must be. With that realization came the knowledge that someone was bound to make a noise, that surprise would be lost, and they might as well do this the most efficient way. As she moved, the light jerked suddenly nearer and one of the Pargunese yelled.
"Six!" Vardan said to her troop as she thrust at the man with the lantern. Encumbered by the lantern in his sword hand and a basket in his heart hand, the man dropped the basket and tried to grab his dagger, but Vardan had already thrust her short-sword into the man's neck until it bumped the backbone. As the man slumped, the lantern fell to the snow and went out; Vardan freed her sword with a practiced twist. Ahead, from the direction of the farmhouse, she heard shouts and saw the dim loom of other lights. Nearer, she'd heard bowstrings twang and arrows hit; at that range, she had no doubt arrows penetrated the Pargunese armor.
They moved closer, bending low; Vardan wondered whether she should withdraw her troops since they could not see clearly—would not, until they were in close range of the farmhouse. The lights brightened—more of them. Vardan sucked her teeth and tried to think what the captain would have done, what Aliam would have done. The plan had been to sneak close, make a fast attack, firing the barricade if they could and shooting anyone they saw, but the rangers had the firepot, not her people. She couldn't judge distance in the snow; looking back she saw only flakes against the dark, not the trees they had left.
She asked the best archer. "Berol, can you guess how far?"
"I think we're too close for a dropping volley, close enough to shoot a fingerbreadth above the target," Berol said. "If we could see the targets." With the calm of a veteran he said "They'll be shooting at us, soon."
"They can't se
e us any better," Vardan said. "Your target's the light. Line up close, volley fire, then scatter. Ten paces in, repeat. On my command." She scrubbed her sword in the snow, sheathed it, unhooked the crossbow from her belt, spanned it, fumbled a bolt into place. Someone should be close to the lights—to either side maybe, but close. "Ready...now!" She touched the trigger of her crossbow and the bolt shot into the night along with the others.
She ran forward, counting in her head...one, two, three...ten as she heard footsteps in the snow to either side, moving away. A few yells from the Pargunese; one of the lights went out, but more flared, closer now. Halt, re-span the bow, the bolt this time coming easily to her fingers and into position. She heard the others coming forward, then halting as well.
"Ready...now!" Again they shot. "Back twenty!" When they regrouped, she shifted them thirty paces to summerwards, and repeated the pattern—a volley at the lights, then forward and another volley, then back. The Pargunese were making a lot of noise—if only she'd known Pargunese. Orders being shouted, questions, responses. Suddenly, above them, she heard the thin, deadly whistle of falling bolts. "Overhead! Shields!" They had only a few shields left—she didn't have one—a helmet was no protection—she heard them hit—some on the snow, some with the distinctive wet crunch of armor and bone and human flesh. The survivors dragged the fallen back to the trees, silently, as Vardan directed. Vardan herself fumbled in the snow for the bolts she'd heard land near her, finding only two she could pull out by the fletched ends.
They lost six to the blind volley...five in the head, one in the shoulder that went down through lung and heart. Berol, Little Tam, Mol, Segre, Celin, Lir. Vardan thumbed their eyes closed, and they all recited two prayers to Falk and one to Alyanya, as they laid the bodies out decently. Several rangers brought boughs to lay on them. Vardan hoped their own four volleys had done at least that much damage to the Pargunese.