‘It’s good therapy, for us,’ he replied. ‘And besides, an enemy with a worm of doubt working away at his mind is less likely to make bold and unexpected moves. The more we can dissuade them from doing the unexpected, the better it will be for us.’
Erak thought about the point. It seemed logical. ‘So what do you want to do?’ he asked.
Halt looked around at the twenty warriors who had accompanied them.
‘This Olgak,’ he said, indicating the young leader of the troop. ‘Is he capable of following orders, or is he a typical Skandian berserker?’
Erak pursed his lips. ‘All Skandians are berserkers, given the right conditions,’ he replied. ‘But Olgak will follow orders if I give them.’
Halt nodded his understanding. ‘Let’s talk to him then,’ he said.
Erak beckoned the broad-shouldered younger man to join them. Olgak, seeing the signal, moved forward, his axe swinging easily in his right hand, his large circular shield on his left arm. He looked expectantly at Erak but the Jarl gestured towards Halt.
‘Listen to what the Ranger has to say,’ he ordered, and the young man’s eyes turned to Halt. The Ranger studied him for a few moments. The clear blue eyes were guileless and straightforward. But he saw a light of intelligence there. He nodded to himself, then gestured to the Temujai army below them.
‘See that rabble down there?’ he asked, and when the younger man nodded, he continued, ‘They’re riding with no formation, with no covering scouts, and with their supply wagons and support personnel mixed up with their warriors. They don’t usually travel that way. Do you know why they’re doing it now?’
Olgak hesitated, then shook his head, frowning slightly. Not only didn’t he know, he didn’t know why it should be important for anyone to know such a thing.
‘They’re doing it because they feel safe,’ Halt continued. ‘Because they believe you Skandians are simply going to wait for them and meet them head-on.’
Olgak nodded now. They had reached a point that he understood. ‘We are, aren’t we?’
Halt exchanged a glance with Erak. The Jarl shrugged. Skandians took a simple view of things.
‘Well, yes, you are,’ Halt admitted. ‘Eventually. But for now, it might be nice to make them a little less comfortable, mightn’t it?’ He paused, then added, with a slight edge in his voice, ‘Or do you enjoy seeing them swan through your country as if they’re on holiday?’
Olgak pursed his lips, looking down at the invaders. Now that the Ranger had mentioned it, they did appear to be having an altogether too easy time of things, he thought.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘I can’t say I enjoy seeing that. So what are we going to do about it?’
‘Erak and I are going back to Hallasholm,’ Halt told him, feeling the Skandian leader stiffen beside him as he said it. Obviously, the Jarl had been looking forward to a little skirmish and he wasn’t thrilled to hear he was going to miss it. ‘But you and your men are going to raid their lines tonight and burn those wagons.’
He pointed with the end of his longbow to half a dozen supply wagons, trundling carelessly along at the edge of the army. Olgak grinned and nodded his approval of the idea.
‘Sounds good to me,’ he said. Halt reached out and laid a firm grip on his muscular forearm, compelling the younger man to meet his steady gaze.
‘But listen to me, Olgak,’ he said intensely. ‘You are going to hit and run. Don’t get tangled up in an extended fight, understand?’
The young Skandian was less pleased with that command. Halt shook his arm fiercely for emphasis.
‘Understand?’ he repeated. ‘We do not want you and these twenty men to go down in a blaze of glory when you burn those wagons. And do you know why?’
Olgak shook his head – a small, reluctant movement. Halt continued.
‘Because tomorrow night, I want you to move along the column and burn more wagons – and kill a few more Temujai while you’re at it.’
The idea was beginning to appeal to the younger man now as he started to see the sense of it.
‘And if you’re all killed on the first attempt, no matter how glorious it may seem at the time, by tomorrow the Temujai will simply continue on as they are, won’t they?’ the Ranger asked him. Olgak nodded his understanding.
‘Then each night, I want you to hit a different part of the column. Burn their supplies. Set their horses loose. Kill their sentries. Get in and out fast and don’t let them trap you into a standing battle. Stay alive and keep harassing them. Got the picture?’
Olgak nodded again, now more convinced of the good sense behind the plan. ‘They’ll never know where we’re going to hit them next,’ he said enthusiastically.
‘Exactly,’ Halt said. ‘Which means they’ll have to set guards along the entire column. They’ll have to post extra sentries at night. And all of that will slow them down.’
‘It’s like coastal raiding isn’t it?’ the young Skandian said, thinking how the wolfships would appear from over the horizon without warning on an enemy coast and attack unprepared settlements. ‘Do you only want us to do it at night?’ he added.
Halt thought for a minute.
‘For the first couple of days, yes. Then pick a spot where you can withdraw quickly into the trees and uphill – somewhere their horses won’t follow easily – and hit them in daylight. Maybe towards the end of the day – or the beginning.’
‘Keep them guessing?’ Olgak said and Halt patted his arm approvingly.
‘You’ve got the idea,’ he said, smiling at the younger man. ‘And remember the golden rule: hit them where they aren’t.’
Olgak pondered that. ‘Hit them where they aren’t?’ he asked finally, sounding uncertain.
‘Attack in those places where their troops are spread thinnest. Make them come to you. Make them chase you. Then fade away before they really make contact. Remember that part. It’s the most important of all. Survive.’
He could see the younger man understood the idea. Olgak repeated the word to himself. ‘Survive,’ he said. ‘I understand.’
Halt turned and looked at Erak, raising an eyebrow. ‘Is there any reason why you should make it an order to Olgak that he’s not to get tied down in a fight, Jarl?’ he asked. Erak turned the question to the younger man.
‘Well, Olgak, is there?’ he said and the troop leader shook his head.
‘I understand what you have in mind, Ranger,’ he said. ‘Trust me. It’s a good idea.’
‘Good man,’ Halt said quietly, then he turned to face the question he knew was coming from Erak.
‘And what will we be doing while Olgak and his men are having all the fun?’ the Jarl asked.
‘We’re going back to Hallasholm to start preparing a reception for our friends down there,’ Halt told him. ‘And while we’re at it, we might send another half dozen parties out to harass the column the way Olgak will be doing. Everything we can do to slow them down will help us.’
Erak shuffled his feet in the snow. He looked, Halt thought, remarkably like a child who has been told he must hand over his favourite toy.
‘You could do that,’ he said finally. ‘Maybe I should stay and give Olgak and his men a hand?’ But Halt shook his head, the ghost of a smile touching the corners of his mouth.
‘I need you back with me,’ he said simply. ‘I need your authority behind me if I’m going to be able to get things organised.’
Erak opened his mouth to reply, but Olgak interrupted.
‘The Ranger’s right, Jarl,’ he said. ‘You’ll be more valuable at Hallasholm. And besides, you’re getting a little long in the tooth for this sort of work, aren’t you?’
Erak’s eyes widened with anger and he started to say something. Then he noticed that Olgak was grinning broadly and realised that the younger man was joking. He shook his head warningly, glancing at his own broadaxe.
‘One of these days, I might just show you how long in the tooth I am,’ he said meaningfully. Olgak’s grin widened.
Halt regarded the two of them for a moment, then, slinging his longbow over his right shoulder, he turned and led the way back to where Abelard was tethered, along with the pony that Erak had reluctantly ridden when they came on this scouting expedition. He gathered Abelard’s reins in one hand and turned back to the troop leader.
‘I’m sure you’ll do a good job, Olgak,’ he said. Then, glancing sidelong at the still indignant Jarl, he added quietly: ‘You’re obviously a very brave young man.’
General Haz’kam, commander of the Temujai invasion force, looked up from his meal as his deputy entered the tent. Even though Nit’zak was by no means a tall man, he had to stoop as he came through the low opening. The general gestured to the cushions that were scatted on the felt rug floor and Nit’zak lowered himself to sit on one of them, uttering a sigh of relief. He had been in the saddle the past five hours, checking up and down the length of the Temujai column.
Haz’kam shoved the fragrant bowl of meat stew that he had been eating from across to the other man and indicated for him to help himself. Nit’zak nodded his thanks, took a smaller bowl from the rug between them and scooped several handfuls into it, wincing slightly as his hand made contact with the hot food. He selected a large chunk and scooped it into his mouth, chewing heartily and nodding his appreciation.
‘Good,’ he said finally. Haz’kam’s concubine – the general never brought any of his three wives on campaign with him – was an excellent cook. The general considered that ability of far greater importance during a campaign than any physical beauty. He nodded now, belched softly and pushed his own eating bowl away. The woman moved quickly forward to remove it, then returned to her position against the curved felt wall of the tent.
‘So,’ the general asked. ‘What did you find?’
Nit’zak screwed his face into an expression of distaste – not at the next morsel of food, but at the subject matter he was about to report.
‘They hit us again this evening,’ he replied. ‘This time in two places. Once at the tail of the column. They stampeded a small herd of horses there. It’ll take half the day tomorrow to recover them. Then another group came in from the coastal side and burnt half a dozen supply wagons.’
Haz’kam looked up in surprise. ‘From the coast?’ he asked and his deputy nodded confirmation. Up until now, the nuisance raids mounted by the Skandians had been launched from the thickly wooded hills inland from the narrow coastal flatlands. The raiders would dash out, strike an undefended part of the column, then retreat into the cover of the forests and the hills where pursuit would be too risky. This new eventuality complicated things.
‘They seem to have several of their ships at sea,’ the deputy told him. ‘They stay out of sight during the day, then steal in after dark and land troops to hit us. Then they retreat to sea once more.’
Haz’kam probed with his tongue at a piece of meat wedged between two back teeth.
‘Where, of course, we can’t follow them,’ he said.
Nit’zak nodded. ‘It means now that we’ll have to cover both sides of the column,’ he said.
Haz’kam muttered a low curse. ‘It’s slowing us down,’ he said.
Each morning, hours were wasted as the massive column formed up in disciplined ranks for the day’s march. And, of course, once the march began, the pace was limited by the slowest sections of the column – which were the supply carts and the baggage train. It had been much faster simply moving as one vast mass. But the nuisance raids mounted by the Skandians had forced a more disciplined, organised formation upon them. And that ate time.
Nit’zak agreed. ‘So is the problem of having to screen the camp each night.’
Haz’kam took a deep swig of the fermented barley drink that the Temujai favoured, then handed the leather drinking skin to Nit’zak.
‘It’s not what I expected,’ he said. ‘They’re far more organised than our intelligence had led us to believe.’
Nit’zak drank deeply and gratefully and shrugged. In his experience, intelligence was usually inaccurate at best and dead wrong at worst.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘Everything we’d heard about these people led me to believe that they would simply attack us in a frontal assault, without any overall strategy. I’d half expected that we’d be finished with them by now.’
Haz’kam pondered. ‘Perhaps they’re still gathering their main force. I suppose we have no option but to continue as we are. I imagine they’ll finally make a stand when we reach their capital. Although now we’ll take longer to do that.’
Nit’zak hesitated for a moment with the next suggestion. Then he said: ‘Of course, General, we could simply continue as we were, and accept the losses their raids are causing. They’re quite sustainable, you know.’
It was a typically callous Temujai suggestion. If the loss of lives or supplies could be balanced out by greater speed, it might well be worthwhile opting for that course. Haz’kam shook his head. But not through any sense of care for the people under his command.
‘If we don’t respond, we have no way of knowing that they won’t hit us with a major raid,’ he pointed out. ‘They could have hundreds of men in those mountains and if they chose to change from pinprick attacks to a major assault, we’d be in big trouble. We’re a long way from home, you know.’
Nit’zak nodded his acquiescence. That idea hadn’t occurred to him. Still, he demurred slightly.
‘That isn’t the sort of thing we’ve been led to believe they’re capable of,’ he pointed out, and Haz’kam’s eyes met his and locked onto them.
‘Neither is this,’ he said softly and, when the younger man’s eyes dropped from his, he added, ‘Have the men keep forming into their sixties for each day’s march. And I suppose now we’d better put sentries out on the seaward side at night too.’
Nit’zak muttered his assent. He hesitated a few seconds, wondering if this were one of those times when his commander wanted to continue to talk and pass the drinking skin back and forth for a few hours. But Haz’kam waved him away with a small hand gesture. Nit’zak thought that the general looked tired. For a moment, he thought about the years they had spent on campaign together and realised that Haz’kam was no longer a young man. Neither was he, he thought, as the ache in his knees testified. He bowed his head in a perfunctory salute, rose to his feet with another, barely suppressed, groan and went, crouching, out through the felt hanging that covered the tent doorway.
In the distance, he heard men shouting. Looking in the direction from which the noise came, he saw a bright flare of flame against the night sky. He cursed softly. The damned Skandians were raiding again, he thought.
A troop of horsemen clattered by him, heading for the site of the attack. He watched them go, tempted for a moment to join them, but resisting the temptation as he realised that by the time they reached the point of the attack the enemy would be long gone.
The Skandian War Council was meeting in the Great Hall. Will sat to one side, listening as Halt addressed the Skandian leader and his principal advisers. Borsa, Erak and two other senior jarls, Lorak and Ulfak, flanked the Oberjarl as they clustered around the table where Halt had spread an immense map of Skandia. The Ranger tapped a spot on the map with the point of his saxe knife.
‘As of last night,’ he said, ‘the Temujai were here. Maybe sixty kilometres away from Hallasholm. The delaying raids are having exactly the sort of effect we wanted. The advance has gone from thirty kilometres a day to less than twelve.’
‘Shouldn’t cavalry move faster than that?’ asked Ulfak. Halt perched one leg on the bench beside the table and shook his head.
‘They’ll move fast enough when they’re fighting,’ he told them. ‘But right now, they’re conserving their horses’ strength, letting them feed and move easily. Besides, now that we’ve reinforced Olgak’s men with another half dozen raiding groups, it’s taking them half the day to simply form up, then set up camp again in the evening.’
He glanced up at Erak as he added:
‘That idea of yours of sending a few wolfships to raid their western flank was a good one.’
The Jarl nodded. ‘It seemed logical,’ he replied. ‘It’s what we’re good at, after all.’
Ragnak thumped one massive fist on the pine planks that formed the table.
‘Raids and skirmishes, nuisance attacks! They achieve nothing! It’s time we hit them with our main force and settled this once and for all,’ he declared, and three of his Council growled agreement.
‘There’ll be plenty of time for that,’ Halt cautioned. ‘The most important thing is to engage them in a place that suits us – one that we choose ourselves.’
Again, the Oberjarl snarled. He knew he’d agreed to listen to Halt’s advice. But these damned invaders had been flaunting themselves in his country now for several weeks. It was an affront to him and to every Skandian and he wanted to wipe the affront out, or die in the attempt. ‘What’s the difference where we fight them?’ he said. ‘A fight is a fight. We win or we lose. But if we do lose, we’ll take plenty of them with us!’
Halt removed his foot from the bench and stood straight, ramming the saxe knife back into its scabbard.
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ he said icily. ‘There’s every chance that we’ll lose. But let’s make sure we take as many of them with us as possible, shall we?’ The Skandians, used to bluster and boasting, were taken aback by his cold assessment of their chances for survival – as he had intended them to be.
‘They’re cavalry,’ he continued. ‘They outnumber us at least four to one. They can outmanoeuvre us, outrun us. And they’ll look for the widest possible front to engage us on. That way, all the advantages are with them. They’ll flank us, surround us and draw us out if they can.’ He saw that he had their attention. They weren’t happy about the situation, but at least they were prepared to listen.
‘How will they do that?’ Erak asked. He and Halt had discussed this briefing the day before. Halt wanted certain questions to be asked, and Erak was to ask them if none of the others seemed prepared to do so. The Ranger glanced quickly at Erak, but directed his answer to all of the group.