Duel at Araluen Page 9

  She opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off. “I’m not coming up the hill with you. I’ll stop here.” He indicated the ridgeline behind the Red Fox camp. “I need to take a look at the ground we’ll be fighting on.”

  It was a reasonable idea, she realized, and she nodded.

  Hal touched the crossbow lying on the grass beside him. “Plus I can give you cover when you’re coming back out, just in case things don’t go exactly to plan.”

  “When do things ever not go according to plan?” Thorn asked innocently. They all grinned. As the old saying went, once a fight started, all plans went out the window.

  “I’ll want to start up the hill after midnight,” she said. “The moon will be up by then.”

  Hal looked at her curiously. “I would have thought you’d want no moon while you were sneaking through their lines?”

  But she shook her head briskly and indicated the sky above them. “There’s a good bit of scattered cloud about today. Once the breeze gets up tonight, that’ll mean a lot of shadows moving across the hill, and that’ll make it easier for me to stay hidden. I won’t be the only thing moving.”

  Stig grinned at his oldest friend. “You were right,” he said. “She does know what she’s doing.”

  Maddie let her gaze wander over the three cheerful Skandians. It was all very well to joke and make light of things, she thought, but there was something she wanted understood.

  “One final point,” she said, locking eyes with Hal. “I’m in charge. When we’re on your ship, I defer to you. But this is my kind of operation. This is what I’m trained for. So if I tell you to do something, do it straightaway, without arguing. Clear?”

  “Perfectly,” Hal said. She was right. On board a ship, he expected instant obedience to his orders. But tonight, they’d be in her field of expertise.

  Maddie smiled at him. “Good. Now we may as well try to get some rest. It’ll be a long night.” She paused, then added: “Can your man Edvin have a meal ready for us an hour after dark?” She knew Edvin was the cook on board Heron.

  Hal nodded. “You’re as bad as Stig,” he said. “He’s always thinking of his stomach.”

  “That’s precisely what I’m doing,” she told him. “An empty stomach has a tendency to rumble and growl. Not a good thing to happen when you’re only a few meters from a sentry.”

  Hal was impressed. “I wouldn’t have thought of that.”

  She smiled at him. “I was caught that way during my first-year assessment tests,” she said. “It’s an embarrassing way to be discovered and you can’t stop your stomach from doing it.”

  “I certainly can’t,” Stig admitted. “Mine roars like an angry bear when I’m hungry.”

  “Which is most of the time,” Thorn observed. But, like Hal, he was impressed by Maddie’s attention to detail. The moving cloud shadows and the need for a full stomach were things he never would have thought of either. He remembered his first suspicions about this girl when they had gone hunting in the forest below Castle Araluen. There’s more to her than meets the eye. He realized how right he had been.

  She folded up her map and put it in an inside pocket in her jerkin, then rose to her feet, dusting stray blades of grass from her knees. The Skandians followed suit, Thorn groaning softly as he rose.

  “Feeling your age?” Hal teased the old sea wolf, who glared at him.

  “Feeling my knees is more like it,” he said. “Just as well I’m not coming with you tonight. The Foxes would hear them creaking from half a kilometer away.”

  * * *

  • • •

  They set out around the ninth hour, making their way along the farm track Maddie had scouted earlier in the day. They walked one behind the other, with the Ranger some three meters in the lead. Hal paid strict attention to her hand signals, freezing in his tracks when she indicated he should do so, then continuing when she gave the all clear. Her senses for this sort of action were more highly developed than his. She heard tiny sounds that he would never have picked up, stopping and waiting until she had identified each one and determined there was no danger lurking ahead of them. Once, she held up a hand to stop him, then, a few seconds later, pointed down and to the left. Peering in the direction she indicated, he saw a large gray-and-white badger shoving its way through the undergrowth, regarding them with a distinctly bad-tempered expression. Used to the sounds and sights of the open ocean and the movement and surge of the waves, Hal felt out of place in the dim forest, surrounded on all sides by the sound of small creatures scurrying out of their way. But he could tell that Maddie was in her element, and he trusted his safety to her guidance.

  They emerged from the trees at a wide, well-grassed meadow that sloped gently upward. From the sketch she had drawn, he knew the enemy camp would be over the crest. She paused and pointed to her nostrils. He sniffed and could smell woodsmoke. He nodded, indicating that he understood her signal. Then she pressed her hand, palm down, toward the ground and sank to her knees. Reasoning that she wanted him to do the same, he copied her movement. She began to work her way through the long grass, moving at surprising speed and making virtually no sound whatsoever. He followed her, moving more clumsily and slowly.

  She glanced back and saw he was falling behind, so she reduced her pace, allowing him to catch up.

  He realized that she was staying low in case the enemy had posted sentries on the ridgeline. There had been none there earlier in the day, she had told them, but the enemy might have grown more cautious once night fell. In any event, it made sense to assume that they might have. Hal continued slowly up the hill, glancing left to right along the crest. Then he remembered her instructions, issued before they left camp: Don’t look up. Your face will reflect the moonlight and they’ll see you more easily. Hurriedly, he dropped his gaze and lowered his face, crawling upward, intent on the ground directly in front of him. If there was a sentry there, Maddie would see him, and her face was obscured by the deep cowl on her cloak.

  But there was no guard positioned on the crest. He frowned. The enemy were obviously overconfident—and none too efficient. That was all to the good, he thought. It would make them all the more susceptible to panic when they were attacked unexpectedly from behind.

  He heard a low hiss and looked up cautiously. The crest was only a few meters away and Maddie had sunk to the ground, crawling on her belly for the remaining distance. He copied her, dragging himself forward through the grass on his elbows, until he was lying prone beside her, peering down at the enemy camp.

  Her sketch had been surprisingly accurate, he saw. The tents were pitched haphazardly at the bottom of the slope, forming an untidy huddle, dotted here and there with the red glow of campfires. To one side, closer to the small creek that ran through the bottom of the shallow valley, there was a group of four larger pavilions. Presumably these belonged to the commanders of the army. Several of them were lit from within by lanterns, even at this late hour. The light glowed through their canvas sides. A sentry stood outside one of them, slouching under the front awning, a spear in one hand.

  Hal touched Maddie’s elbow and pointed, then mouthed the word Commander in her direction. She nodded her understanding. Then she held up her hand to him, palm outward, in an obvious signal: Stay here.

  He nodded in turn, and after waiting several more seconds, she slid on her belly over the crest and began to snake her way down through the knee-high grass, angling off to the east, and away from the command tents. That made sense, he thought. The Foxes would tend to keep a closer watch around their officers’ tents. He tried to watch her progress, but after she had gone twenty meters or so, he lost sight of her as a moving bank of cloud shadow drifted across the hill. Several minutes later, he thought he saw a slight movement farther down the hill, but couldn’t be sure if it was her or not. He shook his head in admiration. She was good at this.

  * * *

  •
• •

  Moving silently, Maddie snaked her way down the hill, aiming to the right-hand side of the cluster of tents. She paused every twenty meters or so to survey the ground ahead of her and gradually picked out the sentries on patrol. There were half a dozen in all, moving slowly back and forth on beats along the base of the hill, where the ground flattened out before beginning to rise once more to the fort.

  None of them seemed too alert, and all of them were looking up the other hill, toward the fort. Naturally, that was the direction from which they expected danger to come. She slipped across the shallow stream at the base of the valley. It was only three meters wide and twenty centimeters deep. But, on her belly, she was thoroughly soaked. She sensed movement to her left and slid her eyes sideways. One of the sentries had deviated from the path he had been following so far and moved across the creek, angling upward toward the first terrace of the path that wound up to the fort. He would pass close by her current position, she saw. Slowly, she lowered her head and lay still, her body and legs concealed in the long grass, covered by the cloak.

  She could hear his boots swishing in the long grass now. He was only a few meters away.

  All I need is for him to tread on my hand, she thought bitterly, pressing her face into the soft, wet grass, willing him to move on. The swishing footsteps stopped, almost beside her, and for a dreadful moment she thought he had spotted her. Then she heard him yawn and she relaxed. A yawning man was not an alert one. All of a sudden, she had a terrible urge to yawn as well. She fought it down, clenching her teeth until her jaws ached. Then, finally, the sentry moved away and she felt the tension drain out of her. When she sensed he was at least ten meters away, she allowed herself to succumb to the yawning reflex, but managed to stifle any sound as she did so.

  Yawning, she thought. That was something she had never considered. Maybe all sentries should be taught to yawn from time to time. The man continued to move away from her, and she resumed her uphill progress, moving faster as he disappeared around the curvature of the hill. She slid on her belly onto the first terrace, formed by the spiraling track. There was less cover here. The track had been constructed from rammed earth and small stones, and the long grass on the face of the hill didn’t grow as thickly here. Waiting for a cloud shadow to pass over her, she scurried across the bare track and onto the next slope, huddling down among the sheltering grass once more.

  The track formed five levels, or steps, as it spiraled around the hill, and she planned to go up to just beyond the third level. Measuring distances that afternoon, she had judged it to be about eighty meters from the fort itself—an easy distance for her bow. But the shot would be uphill, and it would be difficult to judge accurately in this uncertain light. She continued up the slope, waiting for cloud cover before she crossed the track and worked her way upward. She began to angle across to the left, to bring her more in line with the gateway above her. She had started on the extreme right-hand side of the hill.

  She reached the third level, crossed the track and slipped back into the cover of the long grass. She paused for a second or two, then rolled on her back, surveying the hill below her, and the enemy camp, ensuring that none of the sentries were looking in her direction. When she rose to her feet to shoot, she would have the dark green mass of the hillside behind her, so she wouldn’t be obvious to those below. But the movement might draw attention, and she wanted to be sure she wasn’t being observed.

  Still on her back, she slowly loosened the fastening of her cloak and shrugged out of it. Her bow was slung across her left shoulder below it and she unslung it now, then re-donned the cloak. Waiting for another cloud shadow to cross the hill, she rose slowly to her feet and crouched at the uphill edge of the track, waiting to see if there was any outcry or any sign that she had been spotted.

  Silence.

  She reached into her quiver and selected the arrow she had prepared specially that afternoon. It had a ten-centimeter length of white ribbon attached just ahead of the nock. She set the arrow on the string and, making sure the ribbon could run freely, stood up, drew, aimed and released. The arrow hissed away from the bow, the white ribbon streaming out behind it. As she had remarked earlier, shooting uphill in poor light made ranging uncertain. The ribbon arrow was a way of checking the distance and the elevation she’d need. The ribbon was too light to cause any real resistance, so it wouldn’t affect the flight of the arrow. But when it struck the timbers of the hill fort, the strip of white would be visible, hanging down from the shaft and showing her where her shot had fallen.

  Just to make sure, she had prepared two ranging arrows, but now she saw she wouldn’t need the second. Her first shot had hit the palisade, almost two meters below the rim. She could see the white strip of ribbon against the dark bulk of the fort. It fluttered sideways in the light breeze, the movement making it easier to see. The range had been fractionally longer than she’d estimated. Now she took her message arrow from the quiver and nocked it. Drawing back, she adjusted her aiming point to send this arrow a little higher than the first, then released.

  This time, the arrow struck the palisade just below the rim. She nodded, satisfied. It should be visible there the following morning, she thought. She dropped into a crouch once more.

  “Time to get going,” she muttered to herself.

  13

  Horace and Gilan were on their routine dawn walk around the palisade. They patrolled each morning, making sure that nothing had changed in the enemy camp below them and that there was no threat forming up in the valley.

  As had been the case for the past few days, there was no sign of any unusual movement in the Red Fox camp. The normal cook fires had been stirred into life, and smoke spiraled up from them at various points around the camp. Horace looked hungrily at them. His stomach wasn’t used to the reduced rations they’d been eating. As commander, of course, he could have told his orderly to provide him with a full meal, but he refused to do that. He ate what his men ate. No more.

  He looked now to the east, where the sun was just tipping over the horizon. The clouds above it formed a fabulous rose-colored display.

  “Beautiful,” he murmured.

  “What’s that?” Gilan said beside him.

  He gestured to the eastern sky. “The sunrise. It’s beautiful.”

  But Gilan shook his head and leaned over the parapet. “No. I mean, what’s that?” he said, pointing over the edge. Horace moved to join him. There was an arrow embedded in the timber of the wall just below the top of the palisade. And another, a meter below it, with a strip of white ribbon attached to the nock.

  Gilan reached over and carefully worked loose the nearer of the two, holding it up for Horace’s inspection.

  “It’s a message arrow,” he said in a quiet voice. “A Ranger’s message arrow. There’s a Ranger down there somewhere.” He looked up from the arrow, peering into the valley below, searching for any sign of the person who had shot this arrow up the hill. Then, realizing if it had been a Ranger he wouldn’t be anywhere in sight, Gilan turned his attention back to the arrow, sliding open the hollowed-out message chamber and removing the tightly rolled paper inside. “Or there was,” he corrected himself, “sometime during the night.”

  Horace was pointing to the other arrow, with the strip of fluttering white ribbon. “What about that one?”

  Gilan was intent on safely extricating the wafer-thin message slip that had been in the arrow. Without looking up from his work, he replied. “It’s a range finder,” he said. “That’s a Ranger arrow as well.”

  Horace moved to look over Gilan’s shoulder as he started to unroll the message. “Who shot it there?” he asked.

  But Gilan continued to work the message slip. It was a delicate job. If he tried to do it too quickly, he risked tearing the flimsy paper.

  “Don’t know yet,” he said, frowning. “Can’t see the signature.”

  “Don’t you Ran
gers all have your own special fletching?” Horace asked. “Can’t you tell from that?”

  “Do you expect me to know the fletching colors for fifty Rangers?” Gilan asked. “Do you think I can keep them all in my head?”

  But he realized that there had been something familiar about the fletching on the two arrows. He stopped work on the message slip and studied the arrow again.

  “Red and white, with a black cock feather,” he said to himself. The cock feather was the feather that stood out at right angles to the bow when the arrow was correctly nocked. The other two vanes were red, with a strip of white. “Red and black are Will’s colors,” he said slowly. “The white strip indicates his apprentice.”

  He looked up at Horace, realizing the significance of what he had just said. The tall warrior’s eyes were wide-open.

  “Maddie?” Horace said.

  “Maddie,” Gilan confirmed.

  Horace stepped quickly to the wall, peering down into the valley below for a sight of his daughter.

  Gilan put a hand on his arm. “She won’t be there now,” he said gently. “She would have shot this last night.”

  “Well, what does it say, for pity’s sake?” Horace demanded, and Gilan went back to unrolling the message slip. His friend waited in a frenzy of impatience, wanting to rip the flimsy paper from his hand and tear it open, but knowing that he might destroy the message that way.

  Finally, agonizingly slowly, Gilan had the message slip unrolled. He read the opening line.

  “It’s for you,” he said and proffered the message slip to Horace, who refrained from snatching it just in time. “Don’t tear it,” Gilan said in a warning tone. Horace ignored him, but calmed himself and handled the message carefully, spreading the curled paper out to read it. The writing was tiny but very neat and legible.

  “‘Dad,’” he read aloud, “‘I’m in the forest with thirty Skandians. Be aware that the Foxes are planning a surprise raid on your north wall tonight with forty men. We need to talk. I’ll come to the east wall tomorrow night, at two hours past midnight. Put a yellow lamp above the main gate if you get this message. Maddie.’”