‘Then don’t,’ he replied shortly. There was silence between them for a few minutes as they studied the enemy camp.
‘Are you saying there are ten to twelve thousand warriors down there?’ Erak asked finally. The number was a daunting one. At best, Skandia could put a force of fifteen hundred warriors in the field to face them. Perhaps two thousand, at the outside. That meant odds of six or seven to one. But Halt was shaking his head.
‘More like five to six thousand,’ he estimated. ‘Each warrior will have at least two horses. There are probably another four to five thousand personnel in the baggage train and supply columns, but they wouldn’t be combatants.’
That was a little better, thought Erak. The odds had reduced to around three or four to one. A little better, he thought. Not a lot.
Not a lot by a long way.
‘Wait here,’ Halt said briefly. ‘I’m going down for a closer look.’
‘To hell with waiting here,’ Erak told him. ‘I’m coming with you.’
Halt looked at the big Skandian, knowing that argument would be useless. Still, he made the attempt.
‘I suppose it will make no difference if I point out I’m going to have to be as inconspicuous as possible?’
Erak shook his head. ‘Not in the slightest. My reasoning hasn’t changed. I’m not taking back a second-hand report to my Oberjarl. I want to get a closer look at these people, get some idea of what we’re up against.’
‘I can tell you what you’re up against,’ Halt said grimly.
‘I’ll see for myself,’ the Jarl said stubbornly and Halt shrugged, finally giving in.
‘All right. But move carefully, and try not to make too much noise. The Temujai aren’t idiots, you know. They’ll have pickets out in the trees around the camp, as well as sentries on the perimeter.’
‘Well, you just tell me where they are and I’ll avoid them,’ Erak replied, with a little heat. ‘I can be inconspicuous when I need to.’
‘Just like you can ride, I suppose,’ Halt muttered to himself. The Skandian ignored the comment, continuing to glare stubbornly at him. At length, Halt shrugged. ‘Well, let’s get on with it.’
They tethered their horses on the reverse side of the crest, then began to work their way down through the trees to the valley below them. They had gone a few hundred metres when Halt turned to the Skandian.
‘Are there bears in these mountains?’ he asked.
His companion nodded. ‘Of course. But it’s a bit early in the year for them to be moving around. Why?’
Halt let go a long breath. ‘Just a vague hope, really. There’s a chance that when the Temujai hear you crashing around in the trees, they might think you’re a bear.’
Erak smiled, with his mouth only. His eyes were as cold as the snow.
‘You’re a very amusing fellow,’ he told Halt. ‘I’d like to brain you with my axe one of these days.’
‘If you could manage to do it quietly, I’d almost welcome it,’ Halt said. Then he turned away and continued to lead the way down the hill, ghosting between the trees, sliding from one patch of shadow to the next, barely disturbing a branch or a twig as he passed.
Erak tried, unsuccessfully, to match the Ranger’s silent movement. With each slither of his feet in the snow, each whip of a branch as he passed, Halt’s teeth went more and more on edge. He had just determined that he would have to leave the Skandian behind once they got within striking distance of the Temujai camp when he glimpsed something off to their left in the trees. Quickly, he held up his hand for Erak to stop. The big Skandian, not understanding the imperative nature of the gesture, kept moving till he was alongside Halt.
‘What is it?’ he asked. He kept his voice low, but to Halt it seemed like a bellow that echoed among the trees.
He placed his own mouth next to the Skandian’s ear and breathed, in a barely audible voice, ‘Listening post. In the trees.’
It was a familiar Temujai technique: whenever a force camped for the night, they threw out a screen of concealed, two-man listening posts to give early warning of any attempt at a surprise attack. He and Erak had just passed such a post, so that it now lay to their left and slightly behind them. For a moment, Halt toyed with the idea of continuing down the hill, then he discarded it. The screen was usually deployed in depth. Just because they had passed one post didn’t mean there weren’t others ahead of them. He decided it might be best to cut their losses and extract themselves as quietly as possible, trusting to the gathering darkness to conceal them. It would mean abandoning the idea of getting a closer look at the Temujai force, but it couldn’t be helped. Besides, with Erak along, it was unlikely they would get much closer without being seen – or, more likely, heard. He leaned close to the other man and spoke softly once more.
‘Follow me. Go slowly. And watch where you put your feet.’
The snow under the trees was strewn with dead branches and pine cones. Several times as they’d made their way downhill, he had winced as Erak had trod, heavy-footed, on fallen branches, breaking them with seemingly ear-splitting cracks.
Silently, Halt flitted between the trees, moving like a wraith, sliding into cover after he’d gone some fifty paces. He looked back and waved the Skandian on, watched for a moment with mounting apprehension as the big man moved, swaying awkwardly as he placed his feet with exaggerated care. Finally, unable to watch him any longer, Halt looked anxiously to the left, to see if there were any sign that the men in the listening post had seen or heard them.
And heard a ringingly loud crack, followed by a muffled curse, from the hill below him. Erak was poised in midstride, a rotten branch snapped in half on the snow in front of him.
‘Freeze,’ muttered Halt to himself, in the desperate hope that the big man would have the sense to stay motionless. Instead, Erak made the vital blunder that untrained stalkers nearly always made. He dashed for cover, hoping to substitute speed for stealth, and the sudden movement gave him away to the Temujai in the listening post.
There was a shout from above them and a flight of arrows slammed into the tree behind which the Skandian had taken cover. Halt peered round his tree. He could see two shapes in the gloom. One was moving away, sounding a horn as he went. The other was poised, an arrow on the string of his bow, eyes riveted on Erak’s hiding place. Waiting for the Skandian to move. Waiting to let the deadly shaft fly at him.
Somehow, Halt had to give Erak a chance to get clear. He called softly.
‘I’ll step out and distract him. As soon as I do, you make for the next tree.’
The Skandian nodded. He crouched a little, preparing to make a run for it. Halt called again.
‘Just to the next tree. No further,’ he said. ‘That’s all you’ll have time for before he’s back on you. Believe me.’
Again, the Skandian nodded. He’d seen the speed and accuracy with which the Temujai sentry got the first shot away. He wondered how he would get any further than the next tree. Halt’s ploy of distracting the sentry would only work once. He hoped that the Ranger had something else in mind. Fading away now, he could hear the braying notes of the horn sounding the alarm as the other sentry raced downhill, calling for reinforcements. Whatever Halt did, he thought, he’d better do it soon.
Erak saw the dim form of the Ranger as he stepped into the clear from behind the tree. He waited a heartbeat then ran, his legs pumping in the snow, finally diving full length and sliding behind the thick pine trunk as an arrow hissed by, just over his head. His heart was racing, even though he had covered no more than ten metres in his wild, scrambling rush up the hill. He glanced across at Halt and saw the Ranger, back in cover and some five metres further away. He had his own longbow ready now, an arrow nocked to the string. His face was knotted in a frown of concentration. He felt the Skandian’s eyes on him and called across the intervening space.
‘Take a look. Carefully – don’t give him enough of a target to shoot at. See if he’s in the same position.’
Erak nodd
ed and edged one eye around the bole of the tree. The Temujai warrior was still where he had been standing, his bow ready and half drawn. As matters stood, he held the upper hand, standing ready to shoot if either of them moved. Halt, on the other hand, would have to step into the clear, sight the man, aim and then shoot. By the time he had accomplished the first two actions, he would be dead.
‘He hasn’t moved,’ Erak called to the Ranger.
‘Tell me if he does,’ Halt called softly in return. Lying belly down in the snow, with just a fraction of his face protruding round the tree, Erak nodded.
Behind his tree, Halt leaned back against the rough bark and closed his eyes, breathing deeply. This was going to have to be an instinctive shot. He pictured again the dark figure of the Tem’uj, silhouetted against the lighter background of the snow. He remembered the position, setting it in his brain, letting his mind take over the control of his hands, willing the aiming and release to become an instinctive sequence. He forced his breathing to settle into a calm, slow, unhurried rhythm. The secret of speed was not to hurry, he told himself. In his mind’s eye, he watched the flight of the arrow as he would fire it. He pictured it over and over again until it seemed to be a part of him – a natural extension of his own being.
Then, in an almost trancelike state, he moved.
Smoothly. Rhythmically. Stepping out into the clear, turning in a fluid motion so that his left shoulder was towards the target, the right hand pulling back on the string, left hand pushing the bow away until it was at full draw. Aiming and shooting at a memory. Not even seeing the dark figure in the trees until the arrow was already loosed, already splitting the air on its way to the target.
And, when he finally did see the bowman in his conscious vision, knowing that the shot was good.
The heavy shaft went home. The Tem’uj fell backwards in the snow, his own shot half a second too late, sailing high and harmless into the tops of the pines.
Erak scrambled to his feet, regarding the small, grey cloaked figure with something close to awe.
He realised that there was already a second arrow nocked to the longbow’s string. He hadn’t even seen the Ranger do that.
‘By the gods,’ he muttered, dropping a heavy hand on the smaller man’s shoulder. ‘I’m glad you’re on my side.’
Halt shook his head briefly, re-focusing his attention. He glared angrily at the big Skandian.
‘I thought I told you to watch where you put your feet,’ he said accusingly. Erak shrugged.
‘I did,’ he replied ruefully. ‘But while I was busy watching the ground, I hit that branch with my head. Broke it clean in two.’
Halt raised his eyebrows. ‘I assume you’re not talking about your head,’ he muttered. Erak frowned at the suggestion.
‘Of course not,’ he replied.
‘More’s the pity,’ Halt told him, then gestured up the hill. ‘Now let’s get out of here.’
They reached the crest of the hill and Halt paused to look back. Erak stopped beside him but he grabbed the bigger man’s arm and shoved him roughly towards the two tethered horses.
‘Keep going!’ he yelled.
In the valley below them, he could hear alarm horns sounding and, faintly, the sound of shouting. Closer to hand, on the slope of the hill below, he could see movement among the trees as those Temujai who had been concealed in listening posts around the hillside now broke cover and headed uphill in pursuit of the two intruders.
‘Damned hornets’ nest,’ he muttered to himself. He estimated that there must be at least half a dozen riders on the hill below him, heading upwards. A larger party was obviously forming in the camp itself, with a view to heading round the base of the hill and catching him and Erak between two pursuing forces.
Alone, and mounted on Abelard, he was confident that he could outrun them easily. But, burdened by the Skandian, he wasn’t so sure. He’d seen the man’s skill as a rider – which was virtually non-existent. Erak seemed to stay in the saddle by virtue of an enormous amount of willpower, and precious little else. Halt knew that he would have to come up with some kind of delaying tactic, to slow the pursuit down and give him and Erak time to make it back to the larger Skandian force.
Strangely, although they had been nominal enemies up until now, the thought of abandoning the Skandian to the pursuing Temujai riders never occurred to him.
He looked back to where they had tethered Erak’s horse – Abelard, of course, needed no tethering. He saw with some slight satisfaction that the wolfship skipper had managed to clamber into the saddle and was sitting clumsily astride his small, shaggy mount. Halt waved a hand now in an unmistakable gesture to him.
‘Get going!’ he yelled. ‘Go! Go! Go!’
Erak needed no second bidding. He wheeled the horse to face downhill, swaying dangerously out to one side as he did so and managing to retain his seat only by grabbing at the mane and gripping with his powerful legs round the horse’s barrel of a body. Then, half in and half out of the saddle, he drove the former Temujai mount down the slope, skidding and sliding in the soft wet snow, swerving dangerously among the trees. At one stage, Erak neglected to duck as the horse drove under the snow-laden lower branches of a huge pine. There was an explosion of snow and both horse and rider emerged coated in thick white powder.
Halt swung smoothly into Abelard’s saddle and the little horse spun neatly, moving at a dead gallop almost before he could draw breath. Halt sat easily as Abelard slid, checked, skidded and regained his footing, gaining on the other horse and rider with every stride.
He’ll be lucky to survive another fifty metres, Halt thought, as Erak’s mount, half out of control, swerved and skidded and slipped among the trees. It seemed only a matter of time before both horse and rider collided full tilt with one of the large pine trunks.
He urged Abelard to a greater effort and the horse responded instantly. They drew level with the plunging horse and rider and Halt, leaning down to one side, was able to grab the trailing reins. Erak had long since abandoned them and was clinging for dear life to the saddle bow.
Now, at least, Halt could exercise some small control over the headlong plunging of the other horse. Abelard, sure-footed and agile, led them through the trees and Halt left the choice to him entirely. The lead rein jerked and tugged at his arm but he clung to it desperately, forcing the other horse to follow in Abelard’s tracks. Abelard, as he had been trained to do, chose the most direct and, at the same time, the clearest path down the mountain. They were two-thirds of the way down now and Halt was beginning to feel more positive about their chances of escape when he heard shouting and the sound of those damned horns from the hill crest behind them. He glanced quickly back but the thickly growing trees obscured his view. Nonetheless, he knew that the sudden burst of sound heralded the appearance of the pursuing Temujai at the top of the mountain.
And he knew that it was only a matter of time before they would overhaul him, just as he had overhauled the bulky Skandian on the small horse.
A thin branch whipped across his face, bringing tears to his eyes and punishing him for taking his eyes from the direction he was heading. He shook his head to get rid of the accompanying shower of snow that the branch had brought with it, then, seeing the way ahead was clear, he turned briefly again to call encouragement to Erak.
‘Keep hanging on!’ he yelled and the Skandian promptly did exactly the opposite, releasing his grip with one hand so that he could wave an acknowledgement.
‘Don’t worry about me!’ he yelled. ‘I’m doing fine!’
Halt shook his head. Frankly, he’d seen sacks of potatoes that could sit a horse better than Erak. He wondered how the Skandian ever managed to keep his feet on the heaving deck of a wolfship. The trees were thinning around them now, he noticed. Then he heard the braying note of one of the Temujai horns out to their left and realised that the first of the parties coming round the base of the mountain from the encampment must be close to heading them off. It would be a near-run th
ing, he thought grimly. His slight increase in knee pressure sent Abelard bounding even faster. From behind he heard a startled yell from Erak as he nearly lost his seat again. Another quick glance told him that the Skandian was still mounted, and they broke out onto the level ground between the hills.
He had been right. It was a close-run race. The leading riders of the Temujai party swept into sight on the flat ground between the hills. They were barely two hundred metres away. Halt dragged Erak’s horse around brutally, touched Abelard with his heels and set the two horses galloping back along the track they had followed earlier in the day. On clearer ground now, he could look behind him more easily. He made out at least a dozen riders in the party that was chasing them. For a moment, the grizzled Ranger had a distinct sense of déjà vu, his mind racing back across the years to the time when he had been driving a herd of stolen horses with another party of Temujai howling for his blood close behind him. He grinned mirthlessly. Of course the horses had been stolen. He simply couldn’t bear to disappoint Horace any further when he had told him of his previous encounter with the eastern horsemen. He’d felt at the time that the boy had been disillusioned enough for one day.
Now he eased Abelard fractionally, allowing the other horse to come level with them, and tossed the reins to the Skandian Jarl, who bumped and lurched in the saddle beside him. Surprisingly, Erak caught them. There was nothing wrong with his reflexes, at any rate, Halt thought.
‘Keep going!’ he yelled at the Skandian.
‘What … you … got … in … mind?’ Erak replied jerkily, the words lurching out of him as he was tossed and bumped in the saddle.
‘Going to slow them down,’ Halt replied briefly. ‘Don’t stop to watch. Just keep going as hard as you can!’
Erak gritted his teeth as he came down heavily on the saddle. ‘This is as hard … as … I can!’ he replied. But Halt was already shaking his head. The Ranger had unslung his longbow from across his shoulders and was brandishing it in his right hand. Erak saw what was coming, a moment too late to do anything about it.