Oakleaf bearers ra-4 Read online

  Evanlyn had sensed the antagonism between the two warriors the night before. But in the morning, it reached crisis point.

  She wasn't to know it, but this was just the latest in a series of arguments between the two men. The small scouting party was one of many that had crossed the border into Skandia. Some weeks previously, Evanlyn had actually seen a member of an earlier party, near the hut where she and Will had spent the winter.

  The man who had captured her, Ch'ren, was the son of a high-ranking Temujai family. It was the Temujai custom to have their young nobles serve a year as common soldiers before they were promoted to the officer class. At'lan, the commander of the scouting party, was a long-term soldier, a sergeant with years of experience. But, as a commoner, he knew he would never rise above his present rank. It galled him that the arrogant, headstrong Ch'ren would soon outrank him, just as it galled Ch'ren to take orders from a man he considered to be his social inferior. The day before, he had ridden off into the mountains on his own to spite the sergeant.

  He had taken Evanlyn prisoner on a whim, without any real thought of the consequences. It would have been better had he remained unseen and allowed her to go on her way. The scouting party was under strict orders to avoid discovery and they had no orders to take prisoners. Nor was there any provision for holding or guarding them.

  The simplest solution, At'lan had decided, was that the girl must be killed. As long as she was alive, there was the chance that she would escape and spread the word of their presence. If that happened, At'lan knew he would pay with his own life. He felt no sympathy for the girl. Nor did he feel any antagonism. His feelings about her were neutral. She was not of the People and so barely qualified as a human being.

  Now, he ordered Ch'ren to kill her. Ch'ren refused-not out of any regard for Evanlyn, but simply to infuriate the sergeant.

  Evanlyn watched anxiously as they argued. Like the previous night, it was obvious to her that she was the reason for their disagreement. It was equally obvious, as their argument became more and more heated, that her position was becoming increasingly precarious. Finally, the older of the two drew back his hand and slapped the younger man across the face, sending him staggering a few paces. Then he turned and strode toward Evanlyn, drawing his curved saber as he came.

  She looked from the sword in his hand to the totally matter-of-fact expression on his face. There was no malice, no anger, no expression of hatred there. Just the determined gaze of someone who, without the slightest qualm or hesitation, was about to end her life.

  Evanlyn opened her mouth to scream. But the horror of the moment froze the sound in her throat and she crouched, openmouthed, as death approached her. It was odd, she thought, that they had dragged her here, left her overnight and then decided to kill her.

  It seemed such a pointless way to die.

  8

  H ALT CAST AROUND, EXAMINING THE CONFUSED MASS OF TRACKS in the soft snow, frowning to himself as he tried to make sense of the clues there. Horace waited, bursting with curiosity.

  Finally, Halt stood up from where he had been kneeling, examining a particularly torn-up patch of ground.

  "Thirty of them at least," he muttered. "Maybe more."

  "Halt?" Horace asked experimentally. He didn't know if there were more details that Halt was about to reveal, but he couldn't wait any longer. The Ranger was moving away from the small stockade now, though, following another set of tracks that led into the mountains beyond the pass.

  "A small party, maybe five or six, went on into Skandia. The rest of them went back the way they'd come."

  He traced the directions with the tip of his longbow. He was speaking more to himself than to Horace, confirming in his own mind what the signs on the ground had told him.

  "Who are they, Halt?" Horace asked quickly, hoping to break through the Ranger's single-minded concentration. Halt moved a few paces further in the direction taken by the smaller party.

  "Temujai," he said briefly, over his shoulder.

  Horace rolled his eyes in exasperation. "You already said that," he pointed out. "But who exactly are the Temujai?"

  Halt stopped and turned to look back at him. For a moment, Horace was sure he was about to hear another comment on the sad state of his education. Then a thoughtful look crossed the Ranger's face and he said, in a milder tone than usual, "Yes, I suppose there's no reason why you should have ever heard of them, is there?"

  Horace, loath to interrupt, merely shook his head.

  "They're the Riders from the Eastern Steppes," the Ranger said. Horace frowned, not understanding.

  "Steps?" he repeated, and Halt allowed a slight smile to show through.

  "Not steps that you walk up and down," he told him. "Steppes-the plains and grasslands to the east. Nobody knows exactly where the Temujai originated. At one stage, they were simply a disorganized rabble of smaller tribes until Tem'gal welded them into one band and became the first Sha'shan."

  "Sha'shan?" Horace interrupted hesitantly, totally unaware of what the word might mean. Halt nodded and went on to explain.

  "The leader of each band was known as the Shan. When Tem'gal became the overlord, he created the title Sha'shan-the Shan of Shans, or the leader of leaders."

  Horace nodded slowly. "But who was Tem'gal?" he asked, adding hastily, "I mean, where did he spring from?"

  This time Halt shrugged. "Nobody really knows. Legend is that he was a simple herd boy. But somehow he became leader of one tribe, then united them with another, and another. The upshot was, he turned the Temujai into a nation of warriors-probably the best light cavalry in the world. They're fearless, highly organized and absolutely pitiless when it comes to battle. They've never been defeated, to my knowledge."

  "So what are they doing here?" Horace asked, and Halt regarded him gravely, gnawing at his lower lip as he considered a possible answer.

  "That's the question, isn't it?" he asked. "Perhaps we should follow this smaller group and see what we can find out. At least as long as they're heading in the direction we want to go."

  And slinging his bow over his left shoulder, he walked to where Abelard stood patiently, reins trailing loosely on the ground. Horace hurried after him, swinging up astride the black battlehorse he had been riding to impress the border guards. All at once, the finery that he had donned to play the role of a Gallican courier seemed a little incongruous. He nudged the black with his heel and set out after Halt.

  The other two horses followed, the battlehorse on its lead rein, and Tug trotting quietly along without any need for urging or direction.

  Halt leaned down from the saddle, studying the ground.

  "Look who's back," he said, indicating a trail in the snow. Horace nudged his horse closer and peered at the ground. To him there was nothing evident, other than a confusion of hoofprints, rapidly losing definition in the soft, wet snow.

  "What is it?" he asked finally.

  Halt replied without looking up from the track. "The single rider who went off on his own has come back."

  Some way back, the trail had split, with one rider leaving the group and heading deeper into Skandia, while the main party had circled to the north, maintaining the same distance from the border. Now, apparently, that single rider had rejoined the group.

  "Well, that makes it easier. Now we don't have to worry about his coming up behind us while we're trailing the others," Halt said. He started Abelard forward, then stopped, his eyes slitted in concentration.

  "That's odd," he said, and slid down from the saddle to crouch on one knee in the snow. He studied the ground closely, then peered back in the direction from which the single rider had rejoined the group. He grunted, then straightened up, dusting wet snow from his knees.

  "What is it?" Horace asked. Halt screwed his face into a grimace. He wasn't totally sure of what he was seeing, and that bothered him. He didn't like uncertainties in situations like this.

  "The single rider didn't rejoin the group here. They went this way at least a da
y before he did," he eventually said. Horace shrugged. There was a logical reason for that, he thought.

  "So he was heading after them to a rendezvous," he suggested. Halt nodded agreement.

  "More than likely. They're obviously a reconnaissance group and he may have gone scouting by himself. The question is, who followed him when he came back?"

  That raised Horace's eyebrows. "Someone followed him?" he asked. Halt let go a deep breath in frustration.

  "Can't be sure," he said briefly. "But it looks that way. The snow's melting quickly and the tracks aren't totally clear. It's easy enough to read the horse's tracks, but this new player is on foot:if he's really there," he added uncertainly.

  "So:," Horace began. "What should we do?"

  Halt came to a decision. "We'll follow them," he said, mounting once more. "I won't sleep comfortably until I find out what's going on here. I don't like puzzles."

  The puzzle deepened an hour later when Tug, following quietly behind the two riders, suddenly threw back his head and let go a loud whinny. It was so unexpected that both Halt and Horace spun in their saddles and stared at the little horse in amazement. Tug whinnied again, a long, rising tone that had a note of anxiety in it. Horace's spare battlehorse jerked at its lead rope and whinnied in alarm as well. Horace was able to quell an incipient response from the black that he was riding, while Abelard, naturally, remained still.

  Angrily, Halt made the Ranger hand signal for silence and Tug's whinny cut off in midnote. The others gradually quieted as well.

  But Tug continued to stand in the trail, forelegs braced wide apart, head up and nostrils flaring as he sniffed the frigid air around them. His body trembled. He was on the brink of giving vent to another of those anguished cries and only the discipline and superb training of all Ranger horses was preventing him from doing so.

  "What the devil:," Halt began, then, sliding down from the saddle, he moved quietly back to the distressed horse, patting Tug's neck gently.

  "Hush now, boy," he murmured. "Settle now. What's the trouble with you then?"

  The quiet voice and the gentle hands seemed to soothe the little horse. He put his head down and rubbed his forehead against Halt's chest. The Ranger gently fondled the little horse's ears, still speaking to him in a soft croon.

  "There you are:if only you could talk, eh? You know something. You sense something, isn't that right?"

  Horace watched curiously as the trembling gradually eased. But he noticed the little horse's ears were still pricked and alert. He might have been quieted, but he wasn't at ease, the apprentice realized.

  "I've never seen a Ranger horse behave like that before," he said softly, and Halt looked up at him, his eyes troubled.

  "Neither have I," he admitted. "That's what has me worried."

  Horace studied Tug carefully. "He seems to have calmed down a little now," he ventured, and Halt laid a hand across the horse's flank.

  "He's still taut as a bowstring, but I think we can keep going. There's only an hour or so till dark and I want to see where our friends are camped for the night."

  9

  D EEP IN THE SHELTER OF THE PINE TREE, WRAPPED IN THE inadequate warmth of the two blankets, Will spent a fitful night, dozing for short periods, then being woken by the cold and his racing thoughts.

  Foremost in his mind was his sense of utter inadequacy. Faced with the need to rescue Evanlyn from her captors, he had absolutely no idea how he might accomplish the task. They were six men, well armed and capable-looking. He was a boy, armed only with a small hunting bow and a short dagger. His arrows were good only for small game-with points made by hardening the end of the wood in a fire and then sharpening them. They were nothing like the razor-sharp broadheads that he had carried in his quiver as an apprentice Ranger. "A Ranger wears the lives of two dozen men on his belt," went the old Araluen saying.

  He racked his brain again and again throughout the long periods of sleeplessness. He thought bitterly that he was supposed to have a reputation as a thinker and a planner. He felt that he was letting Evanlyn down with his inability to come up with an idea. And letting down others too. In his mind's eye, half asleep and dozing, he saw Halt's bearded face, smiling at him and urging him to come up with a plan. Then the smile would fade, first to a look of anger, then, finally, of disappointment. He thought of Horace, his companion on the journey through Celtica to Morgarath's bridge. The heavily built warrior apprentice had always been content to let Will do the thinking for the two of them. Will sighed unhappily as he thought how misplaced that trust had become. Perhaps it was an aftereffect of the warmweed to which he had been addicted. Perhaps the drug rotted a user's brain, making him incapable of original thought.

  Time and again through that unhappy night, he asked himself the question, "What would Halt do?" But the device, so useful in the past for providing an answer to his problems, was ineffectual. He heard no answering voice deep within his subconscious, bringing him counsel and advice.

  The truth was, of course, that given the situation and the circumstance, there was no practical action that Will could take. Virtually unarmed, outnumbered, on unfamiliar ground and sadly out of condition, all he could do would be to keep watching the strangers' encampment and hope for some change in the circumstances, some eventuality that might provide him with an opportunity to reach Evanlyn and get her away into the trees.

  Finally abandoning the attempt to rest, he crawled out from under the pine tree and gathered his meager equipment together. The position of the stars in the heavens told him that it was a little over an hour before he could expect to see the first light of dawn filtering through the treetops.

  "At least that's one skill I've remembered," he said miserably, speaking the words aloud, as had become his custom during the night.

  He hesitated, then came to a decision and moved off through the trees toward the campsite. There was always a chance that something might have changed. The sentry might have fallen asleep or gone off into the forest to investigate a suspicious noise, leaving the way clear to rescue Evanlyn.

  It wasn't likely but it was possible. And if such an opportunity arose, it was essential that Will be present to take advantage of it. At least it was a definite course of action for him to follow, so he moved as quietly as possible, keeping one of the blankets draped around his shoulders as a cloak.

  It took him ten minutes to find his way back to the small camp. When he did, his hopes were dashed. There was still a sentry patrolling and, as Will observed, the watch had changed, with a fresh man taking over the post, wide-awake and rested. He moved around the perimeter of the camp on a regular patrol, coming within twenty meters of the spot where the boy crouched hidden behind a tree. There was no sign of slackness or inattention. The man kept his point of vision moving, continually searching the surrounding forest for any sign of unusual movement.

  Will looked enviously at the recurve bow slung, ready strung, over the man's right shoulder. It was very similar to the one Halt had given him when he had first taken up his apprenticeship with the grim-faced Ranger. Vaguely, he recalled Halt had said something about learning how to make such a bow from the warriors of the Eastern Steppes. He wondered now if these men were some of those warriors.

  The sentry's bow was a real weapon, he thought, unlike the virtual toy that he carried. Now, if he had a bow like that in his hands, and a few of the arrows that showed their feathered tips in the sentry's back quiver, he might be able to accomplish something. For a while, he played with the idea of overpowering the sentry and taking his bow, but he was forced to reject the idea.

  There was no way he would get within reach of the man without being seen or heard. And, even if he could accomplish that, there was little chance of his being able to overpower an armed warrior. Pitting the small dagger he carried against the man's saber would be suicide. He could chance a throw of the knife, of course, but it was a poorly balanced weapon and ill suited for throwing, without sufficient weight in the hilt to drive the bl
ade home into the target.

  And so he huddled in the snow at the base of the tree, watching and waiting for an opportunity that never came. He could see Evanlyn's crumpled shape to one side of the camp. The tree she was tied to was surrounded by clear space. There was no way he could approach her without the sentry seeing him. It all seemed hopeless.

  He must have dozed off, lulled by the cold and by the restless night he had spent, for he was awoken by the sound of voices.

  It was just after dawn and the early morning light struck obliquely through the gaps in the trees, throwing long shadows across the clearing. Two of the group of warriors were standing, a little apart from the others, arguing. The words were indecipherable to Will, but the subject of their debate was obvious, as one of them kept gesturing toward Evanlyn, still tied to the tree, huddled in the blanket she had been given, and now wide-awake and watchful.

  As the discussion progressed, the men became increasingly angrier, their voices louder. Finally, the older man seemed goaded beyond restraint. He slapped the other man, sending him staggering. He nodded once, as if satisfied, then turned toward Evanlyn, his hand dropping to the hilt of his sword.

  For a moment, Will remained frozen. The warrior's manner was so casual as he drew the sword and approached the girl that it seemed impossible to believe that he meant her any harm. There was a callousness about the entire scenario that seemed to belie any hostile intent. Yet it was that same callousness and casualness that created a growing sense of horror in Will. The man raised the sword above the girl. Evanlyn's mouth opened but no sound came and Will realized that killing her meant nothing, absolutely nothing at all, to the small, bowlegged warrior.

  Acting under their own volition, Will's hands had drawn and nocked an arrow as the warrior dropped his hand to the sword hilt. The curved blade went up and Evanlyn crouched in the snow, one hand raised in a futile attempt to ward off the killing stroke. Will stepped out clear of the tree, bringing the bow to full draw as his mind rapidly weighed the situation.