‘Brother, I didn’t know you were part of this council of war,’
Dennis retorted. ‘It’s for any man who fights and wishes a fair say.’
‘But I’ll be heard nevertheless,’ the monk snapped back without hesitation. ‘Give these men a rest.’
Dennis, hands on his hips, stepped back into the circle of men. He caught the eye of Asayaga who was softly whispering, translating the conversation to the men of his command.
‘The Tsurani here don’t have councils of war,’ Dennis replied.
‘Their commander says go, and they go. I’m willing to bet they are ready to go over that mountain tonight and be clear of pursuit once and for all. You men called for a council and I must accept that, but I am telling you that to stop for rest now is madness.’
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Asayaga, even as he translated, looked straight at Dennis without comment.
‘Will you have it said that those –’ the word ‘bastard’ almost slipped out but he held it ‘– these enemies of the Kingdom can do something we cannot do?’
Dennis’s voice started off at a low pitch. ‘I know it is our custom to ask for a council of war –’ his voice started to rise ‘– the lowest in my command can ask for one if there is a serious question of my orders, but that is not the case in a time of crisis, or in the middle of a fight!’ He ended on a shout.
‘I see neither a fight, nor a crisis,’ Corwin replied calmly. ‘We’ve outrun pursuit. It’s getting on to dusk. We have a clear view back across twenty miles and see nothing behind us.’ He pointed back across the plains and low rolling hills which the men had wearily traversed. From their elevated position in the foothills, someone with a sharp enough eye could see clear back to the river they had forded that morning. Nothing moved upon it except for a few stags, the does that followed them, and a distant band of wolves.
‘They can still flank along these mountains,’ Dennis replied, pointing eastward to the forest-clad slopes which they had been approaching all afternoon.
‘Someone would have to come behind us to where we crossed the river,’ the monk argued, ‘to make sure they picked up our trail. We haven’t seen anyone behind us all afternoon.’
‘So, you are a master of woodcraft and field tactics as well?’
Dennis asked
‘No, just a man who’s spent a lot of time outdoors, and who knows how to apply logic; and logic demands that we rest. The ground ahead looks good: plenty of fir trees for fuel and making rough shelters, and game signs all around. Just rest tonight, then tomorrow we can push on. If you try a night march now, you won’t have twenty men left come dawn.’
Dennis turned away from the priest, his gaze slowly sweeping the ranks of the men gathered round him. Then, for a brief instant an image flashed through his mind. He glanced back at the priest, and the image faded.
Corwin saw Dennis examining him and said, ‘What?’
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Dennis was silent for a moment, then, ‘Nothing,’ he said.
He looked at his men and saw precious little support amongst them. The priest was right, they were played out: fording the river had sapped the last of their strength and the forced march of the afternoon had been a final lunge of desperation. All were on the verge of collapse.
He shifted his gaze to Asayaga. It was hard to read the strange blankness the Tsurani could assume when they desired. He wondered if Asayaga was in agreement, or was filled with contempt for the weakness of his enemy.
‘Rest would be good,’ Asayaga ventured. ‘Some have marched sixty of your miles or more without sleep for two days. Half my men will die before morning from the freezing sickness.’
Dennis was startled by the admission. He looked over at Tinuva and Gregory.
‘My friend,’ Gregory said softly, ‘there are times when you forget that few can equal your endurance; it is your only fault as a leader.’
‘But you would agree they might be close?’
Tinuva stood up and stepped away from the circle to the edge of the knoll where they had stopped for the meeting. All were silent as he carefully scanned the distant horizon, then raised his head, nostrils flaring as if smelling the cold wind.
‘I’ve not walked this land in years,’ he sighed, turning to look back at the expectant group. ‘I’ve lost touch with its rhythms, its heart beat, the feel of its wind, the scent of the soil and the things that grow here.’ He paused. ‘I can tell you though that we are the first to disturb this place since the snows began to fall. But that does not mean we will be alone for long. I know who is pursuing us now, and that makes me cautious of lingering here.’
Several of Dennis’s men asked him to explain, to say who was in pursuit but he would not answer. He slowly walked among the men, his searching glance assessing each of them in turn. He paused for a moment before Corwin, gazing deep into his eyes, then turned away.
‘The brown robe is right, however. We try to march for another night and many will fall.’ He turned and looked back at the knot 136
of Tsurani gathered behind Asayaga. ‘Especially with you,’ Tinuva continued, speaking now in Tsurani. ‘The ice, the cold is alien to you. You, Asayaga, know that, even if your pride would have you march with us until the last of you collapsed into silent death.’
Asayaga, startled by the elf ’s skill in speaking Tsurani, simply nodded.
‘The temperature will drop tonight now that the worst of the storm has passed. Come dawn it will be far colder.’ As he spoke Tinuva turned back to Dennis, again speaking the King’s tongue.
‘Ice can kill as surely as an arrow or blade. Though I fear that we have yet to lose our foes, we must stop. Let us enter the forest ahead, dig in there before dark, build fires, make what shelter we can but we stay alert. That is what I suggest.’
Dennis sighed and slowly extended his hands in a gesture of submission. ‘So be it then if that is what all of you wish.’
Murmurs of agreement and relief swept through the ranks and the group broke apart, slowly streaming up the hill and into the forest.
Dennis insisted on pushing them another half a mile until he found ground to his liking, a steep overhanging cliff that blocked the north wind which was ringed with ancient firs.
His men knew their assignments: a half dozen of the best stalkers and archers set out to hunt for game, another half dozen were detailed to spread out and stand watch while the others hurriedly started to gather in wood for fires.
Asayaga approached Dennis, vainly struggling to control the shivering of his muscles and the chattering of his teeth that had troubled him ever since the river crossing.
‘My men . . .’ he hesitated, ‘. . . we will trade our labour for the food your hunters bring in.’
Dennis looked over at the Tsurani and for the briefest of moments almost felt pity, the way one would pity a wolf that had fallen out of the pack and was near death. Their agony was evident, half a dozen were being held up by their comrades, several obviously had frost-bitten cheeks, noses, and fingers.
Tinuva said I’d need these men, Dennis thought. Hell, I could kill off half of them myself at this moment . . . and he pushed aside the temptation.
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‘Go a little way back down the hill to the small pine trees, cut off the branches that are thick with needles. We’ll use that for ground cover and to build up windbreaks. Any men with axes, get them chopping wood, lots of it.’
Asayaga nodded, too weary to raise any objections, and withdrew.
A moment later, his men scattered to their tasks.
The overhang of the cliff formed a shallow V, but it was nowhere big enough to hold over a hundred and twenty men. Dennis went over to join a squad of men who were dragging up fallen logs to be wedged between the rocks edging the overhang and the trees further out, thus forming a rough stockade.
Within minutes fires had been started, the stockade walls on either side of the overhang were rising. Tsurani troops swarmed in bearing armloads of pine branches which were
layered over the logs on the inside, while on the outside those men carrying field shovels packed snow into the cracks. More branches were laid in under the rocky overhang and those men too far gone to labour were bundled in, while Brother Corwin piled snow into a camp kettle and set it into the fire, and then threw in a handful of tea leaves once the water started to boil.
The first hunter came back in with a small doe over his shoulder and several men set to butchering it, everything but the offal going into the fire. Corwin claimed the liver and heart for the sick and wounded. Another hunter came in with a couple of hares, and yet another with a heavy dark-plumed bird that weighed near to twenty pounds. The Tsurani gazed at in wonder, since it did not range down into the lands where the war was being fought.
Soon the tantalizing smell of roasting meat cooked over a sweet-scented fire filled the air, driving the men to pause in their frantic labours and move closer to the flames until either Sergeant Barry or Strike Leader Tasemu set the men back to bringing in more wood.
A near-frenzy started to seize the group as more and yet more wood was piled on to the three fires that now roared at the base of the cliff. Dennis, finished with helping to build the rough stockade which was now nearly chest-high, stopped to look at the sparks swirling up into the evening sky.
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Gregory, breathing hard, came into the encampment and joined him.
‘A damned beacon,’ Dennis sighed. ‘A blind man will see its glow from five miles out and smell it a mile away.’
‘Let it burn like this for a little while, till the men get the chill out.
By then it will be completely dark, then let it simmer down a bit.’
‘Anything up above?’
‘Just the old trail. It’s been long years since I’ve been up here, it’s hard to remember.’
‘Tinuva knows it, though.’
Gregory nodded.
‘Something’s really itching him,’ Dennis said.
‘You know who’s following us don’t you?’
‘A whole moredhel army.’
‘It’s Bovai.’
Dennis looked away for a moment. He didn’t want Gregory to sense the dread. Now he understood some of the strangeness in the way Tinuva had been acting, a feeling he had had that somehow the elven warrior was half-walking in another world.
‘If it’s Bovai and he knows who we are,’ Dennis hissed, ‘he’ll come on no matter what, even if he kills half his troops doing it.’
‘I know that, so do you.’
‘So why the hell did Tinuva sway the argument for us to stay here?
He knows how much Bovai hates my family; my grandfather almost killed him, and my father drove him away in shame the last time he came to Valinar.’
For an instant, something played across Gregory’s face, as if he was going to say one thing, but then he said another. ‘Because we are played out, Dennis. Tinuva was right, it is your one great failing as a commander: you seem to think everyone else is made as you, is as driven as you.’
‘That is how I learned to stay alive,’ Dennis snapped.
‘Damn near every Tsurani would be dead by morning if we had pushed on.’
‘Good. It would save us the work of butchering them.’
‘I’m glad you feel that way, Hartraft.’
Startled, Dennis turned to see that Asayaga was standing behind 139
him. ‘I prefer to kill a foe whom I know hates me,’ Asayaga continued, moving up to join them.
‘Remember, Asayaga, the truce is temporary.’
‘But for now we need you as much as you need us,’ Gregory interjected, staring straight at Dennis who reluctantly nodded an agreement.
‘I think your men were just as played out, Hartraft.’
‘We are,’ Gregory replied. ‘We were coming back in from patrol, the place where we met three days ago, we expected to rest there and wait out the storm. The men were already worn. They’re just as beat as yours.’
‘Do you think your men are just as exhausted?’ Asayaga asked, gaze locked on Dennis.
‘What is this? Some sort of game of pride?’
‘Yes, everything is a game,’ Asayaga replied and Dennis could sense a note of bitterness in the Tsurani’s voice. ‘You are worried about staying here aren’t you?’
‘The enemy we face bears a deep hatred for my family. It will compel him to press forward against us.’
‘Then we remain watchful and break camp before dawn.’
‘If he comes he’ll have the advantage.’
Asayaga nodded thoughtfully. ‘Then fate is fate.’
‘What?’
‘Just that. We can go no further this evening, that is now a given.
You believe the enemy will press forward and I will accept that as a given. So it is fate that decides, but for the moment it is senseless for us to stand here freezing while the warmth of the fire beckons.’
Without another word, Asayaga turned and walked around the flimsy stockade to join his men who were huddling around the fire.
Dennis looked over at Gregory who chuckled softly.
‘He’s right, you know, and the meat smells damn good.’
Dennis followed the Natalese scout reluctantly. Darkness was closing in. The last of the wood-gatherers came in with one more load and dumped it into the piles next to the roaring fires. The flames were so hot that many of the men had pulled off their heavy jackets, hats and gloves. Ropes were strung up to hang the wet clothing on to dry out.
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Many of the Tsurani were sitting, unwrapping their foot-cloths, groaning with delight as they extended bare feet to the fires. The first slabs of venison were being speared out of the flames and pieces of meat were tossed about, laughter rippling through the group as more than one man swore and let the hot meat drop in order to suck scorched fingers, then gingerly picked the steaming treats back up.
The last Kingdom hunter came in with two marmots over his shoulder, both of them plump with early winter fat. The hunter was embarrassed with such paltry fare but the Tsurani cried aloud with delight, even as the disgusted hunter dumped the carcasses on the ground and apologized to his comrades.
There was a moment’s hesitation as two Tsurani moved closer to the hunter.
‘Go on, take the damn things,’ he finally growled. ‘I’ll eat crow before I’d touch ’em. It’s all I could find.’
His gesture of disdain was clear enough signal and the two Tsurani swept the marmots up and within seconds had them dangling from a tree limb. With expert cuts they sliced the skin around the necks, and then without making another cut they gradually pulled the skin off the bodies. The two seemed to be running a race and the conversations around the fires fell silent as the Kingdom troops watched what was being done.
Chattering amongst themselves, the Tsurani skinning the marmots finally had the skins completely pulled off and dangling from the rear legs of the giant rodents. Then with a quick jerk the skins were popped off and then with a snapping gesture turned from inside out, to right side in, so that each skin was now a bag with the fur again on the outside.
They now fell to carving the flesh and fat off the bones of the marmots and tossing them into the bags of fur. Next the bones were broken at the joints and stuffed in and finally all the guts as well. While the two laboured at their tasks other Tsurani had been gathering up small rocks and tossing them into the fires. Now they fished the red-hot rocks out of the flames and, laughing, tossed them bare-handed to the two butchers who grabbed the rocks and plopped them into the stuffed bags as well.
Finally a couple of pins, made from a Tsurani wood almost as 141
hard as metal, were fished out of haversacks and used to stitch the neck holes shut. Broken sticks were used to plug the arrow-holes in the hides and the two bags were tossed into the flames.
Every Kingdom soldier had gone quiet and a bit wide-eyed, while the Tsurani seemed to be in near-celebratory mood, chattering amongst themselves, pushing in around the butchers
, and obviously exclaiming over the strange feast being prepared.
Gregory watched the show, grinning slightly. ‘I once slipped up on a Tsurani camp at night and saw this. Near as I can figure their lingo they got something like marmots on their world and they’re considered a rare delicacy fit only for the nobility.’
The air was thick with the stench of fur burning off the carcasses.
The two self-appointed cooks rolled the marmots back and forth in the flames and the marmots swelled up like balloons, reminding Dennis of nothing other than a dead body floating in the water, bloating up beneath a hot summer sun.
Finally it looked as if the marmots were ready to burst asunder when suddenly juice and steam started spraying out of holes in the bodies that nature had originally placed in the marmot and which had not been plugged shut. Loud shouts of laughter erupted from the Tsurani as the two marmots were rolled out of the flames. One of the cooks, hands now protected with gloves picked one of them up and with juice still squirting out approached Asayaga, who grinned and bowed ritualistically, then knelt down while the cook held the marmot over his head. A stream of juice shot into Asayaga’s mouth.
He licked his lips, and said something that caused a great burst of laughter.
The second cook held up his marmot and began to approach Asayaga, but the Tsurani commander said something and pointed towards Dennis. The laughter stopped and all looked over at Hartraft.
‘The first juice of the marmot,’ Asayaga announced in the common tongue, ‘is reserved for nobles and leaders. You drink now.’
‘Like hell I will,’ Dennis grumbled under his breath, his words drowned out by the crackling roar of the fire.
The second cook, approached Dennis, grinning.
‘Better do it,’ Gregory whispered. ‘It’s obviously considered a sign of respect.’
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‘Damn it, I won’t drink juice spraying out of a marmot’s backside.’
‘Do it!’ Gregory hissed, ‘or we might have a fight on our hands.
This is the first sign they’ve given that they respect you as a leader; don’t cock it up!’