He looked at her in surprise. "That's no mean feat for a boy barely nine years old."
Her great eyes sought his. "Ross, Conroc's a child, a child who's not permitted to be young. I don't mind so much for us or for most of our comrades, either, but I hate the thought of those babies having to become men and women before they ever have a chance to know what it's like to be children at all… I sound like a total idiot, I suppose?"
"No. I didn't have such a hot time as a kid myself and know…" Ross frowned and fell silent a moment before going on. "They deserve a better break. At least, we can start hoping they might get it fairly soon."
The man waited until his companion had finished eating before broaching the subject of their war in earnest. When she set her plate down, however, he straightened in the manner she recognized to mean that he would speak to her as commander to his chief officer. "Did you give any further thought last night to what we'd been discussing?"
"No," she admitted contritely. "A bed's like an opiate after several nights on the ground, and I jumped into mine almost immediately. I did mull it over a little this morning, though."
"That's more than I can claim," he confessed. "With what result?"
"Nothing significant. There are no real problems that I can see, just the detail of scheduling. We might as well put it all to the others and let them help with that."
He laughed softly. "An excellent suggestion, Lieutenant. I've no great desire to take it entirely on myself, either."
The council was quickly convened and included both the higher officers and their lesser aides, all those who commanded raids, even the smallest forays.
The latter people were most important now. It was their commander's intention to keep a number of teams within the lowlands at all times, small groups that would be able to conceal their presence even under greatly increased patrol activity and yet be large enough both to maintain contact with potential targets and to release couriers at regular intervals to keep their officers apprised of their position and other pertinent developments.
In order to meet the challenge of these reports, at least one of the five units into which the partisans had long been divided would have to be ready to ride at an instant's notice, and each of the others was to be prepared to move with little more warning, leaving a sufficient force behind to serve as a home guard and to form a large strike force with any of the others should a situation warrant massed effort.
Many of those present groaned aloud when they heard those orders. The volume of work evolving on each of the Sapphireholders and particularly on these, their leaders, would be greatly increased even if there were little or no comparable growth in enemy activity in the lowlands. That was not likely. All of them shared Murdock's belief that Zanthor would have to act more aggressively if his hopes were to survive the coming winter by very many weeks.
Their hearts were light despite that and despite the additional danger they knew they would have to face. Ross had succeeded in communicating his certainty that victory in the foreseeable future was just about inevitable. Hope in the return to the long-neglected working of their domain fired their hearts like good wine. They were prepared to face whatever must be endured to secure that infinitely desired goal.
12
THE WEEKS THAT followed proved even more demanding on the partisans than they had imagined when they had embarked on their commander's intensified campaign, but they were also many times more rewarding.
Murdock had not misread the course his enemy would take, had to take. The Ton of Condor Hall strove desperately to strengthen his hard-pressed army against the ever-more-virulent assaults of the Confederates and against the steadily approaching winter. He used every tactic available to him. Large convoys; small, rapidly moving units; crushingly heavy guards; independent, frequent patrols; decoys; and, above all, frequency of shipment—all played their part in his massive effort.
Some, much, did get through. An astonishing amount did not. The invaders assuredly would not be weaponless before their foes or reduced to fighting as infantry, nor would they freeze or starve in the snows, but both men and springdeer should be well chilled and very lean by the time spring came to relieve them, enough so to reduce their energy and capacity for battle and to leave them with but scant love for the man who had hired their swords and had then failed to provide adequately for their needs.
So the Time Agent was thinking to his satisfaction when a courier tore into the camp.
He and his officers were beside her even before she slid from her steaming wardeer. "What news?" he demanded.
"Columns, Captain, two of them. The first is a deer herd, maybe two hundred head, and is probably meant to draw us. It is moving carefully and swiftly but lowers its caution every now and then, as if it wants to be seen. Also, it is rather lightly guarded. There are no more than thirty riders with it in all, including the herdsmen."
"The second?"
"A convoy. Twenty-five wagons. Two hundred guards plus drivers. This one travels very secretly indeed for all its size, and it is only by chance that we discovered it."
"Their locations?"
The woman bent to study the map of Sapphirehold's lowlands which Ashe had brought out upon her arrival and which he now spread on the ground before them. "In the same general quarter, but they are well apart."
She pointed to an area of softly rolling hills, the gentlest part of the embattled domain and once Luroc's prize pasture land. "The herd is coming through here. It is making very good time, and if we want to strike it, we shall have to do so quickly."
"Naturally it is making good time," Allran growled, a scowl marring his features. "That was always perfect country for spring-deer."
"A trap?" Murdock asked. "You say they appear to be trying to lure us."
"Away from the convoy, I believe. The terrain is too open for a second party to be riding secretly near enough to it to provide aid in the event of one of our sudden assaults. We have scouted all the area around it and have found nothing."
"They could be depending on speed to get them through should they escape trouble in their role as decoys," Eveleen interjected. "A herd like that, unencumbered by baggage or wagons, can move very rapidly."
"That's probably precisely their intent and hope," Murdock agreed.
He turned once more to the scout. "The convoy?"
"Here." She indicated a location within, as she had said, the same sector of the domain but which might have been on a different continent for all the similarity the two regions bore. The route it followed was through a broad range of heavily wooded hills so steeply pitched and rugged as to be almost miniature mountains.
Ross's brows came together. "That's not easy ground for wagons to negotiate."
"No, but neither would they logically be expected to attempt it, and the trees do help muffle the sounds of their passing. Then, too, their escort is a large one and appears to be giving a good part of its effort to aiding the train's progress."
"Outriders?"
"We have not seen any, but I can give no assurance that there are none. The countryside offers too good concealment, and I was sent to you very soon after our discovery of it. The others may have found something since my leaving them."
The partisan commander studied the map intently for several minutes.
He raised his head. "Eveleeni, Allran, summon your divisions. Gordon, order mine to saddle up. We ride in force."
"After which one?" the Dominionite officer asked curiously.
"Both."
Ross smiled at their expressions. "If we start now and travel fast, breaking our journey only long enough to keep ourselves and our mounts fit to fight, we should meet with the herd here by dawn tomorrow."
He touched the map with the point of his sword. "That will put it about parallel to the convoy's route and as close to it as we can expect them to come if they both hold to their projected courses.
"We'll sweep down on the deer from these two points, completely encircling the h
erd and its guardians before we actually force battle.
"Our greatest danger is that they may be able to break through with a stampede charge, but by closing the net quickly and moving into range at once, we should be able to depend on surprise and on our own numbers to give us possession of the animals without too much difficulty."
"The guarding and delivery of so many springdeer will drain us rather heavily," Eveleen noted. "Will we have sufficient warriors left to go after the convoy?"
He glanced at her. "Good point. You got me on that one. We'll bring enough riders from Korvin's division to fill that need."
Murdock turned back to the map. "After they're safely off, we move east. Four hours' hard riding should bring us to this place. It's right on our second target's present line of march but well in front of them. Once there, we should have time enough to catch our breaths before we confront them."
He looked up. "I can't be certain of all of this, and we'll have to see the lay of the place and the train itself before we finalize our plans against that. Maybe we'll only be able to take part of the convoy or maybe we'll miss it entirely, but only time and closer contact will tell us that. For now, Comrades, let's ride!"
13
THE SUN HAD just lifted over the peaks of the ever-present mountains when the Sapphirehold force reached the site where their commander had chosen to await their enemies' appearance.
They were weary after their long ride, but warriors and mounts alike were well used to the demands of the life they led; their ability in the coming battle, the coming battles, would not be lessened by so little.
Ross had so positioned his troops that neither those with him nor with Eveleen on the slope opposite them had to contend directly with the sun's bright glare as they watched the northeast for sign of their target.
Minutes passed. Perhaps the herd had gone by already or had altered its course and would avoid this place altogether.
The partisans stiffened. There it was, cresting the tall rise capping the valley to the north and spilling down its gentler southern slope.
Gordon looked once upon his partner. Even after some of the other coups they had pulled off since taking to this life, he still felt something akin to awe in this moment. Murdock's calculations had not varied from the reality of their foes' arrival by more than three minutes. "Sometimes, I think you're more Hawaikan Foanna than Terran Time Agent," he said softly.
The other's eyes danced. That was high praise coming from Ashe, who had not viewed the strange trio's extrasensory abilities with the same suspicion and discomfort as had his younger partner. "I'll thank you not to call those ladies down on us, my Friend. The thought of them spooks me worse than Zanthor I Yoroc and all his mercenaries."
His words, light in tone as they were, had been spoken in a voice pitched scarcely above a whisper, and he said no more after that.
All speech faded, and the partisan ranks fell into total silence. The invaders were still too distant for even normal conversation to betray the ambush had they been traveling quite soundlessly themselves, which they patently were not. The noise generated by their own movements would be sufficient to deaden the invaders' senses to considerable carelessness on the part of the concealed fighters, but wariness was by then part of the Sapphireholders. They would not voluntarily do anything that might betray them.
The familiar battle tension surged and ebbed and surged again along Murdock's nerves, but despite that and with all his intense concentration on the Condor Hall riders, his heart leaped up within his breast. The sight of so many slender deer moving together, unbound, with all the grace and glory of their kind was enough to stir the blood of any man.
The Condor Hall riders kept their charges traveling at a good pace, and they were not long in advancing up the valley.
Every partisan seemed to freeze in his saddle, watching, ever watching. There would be no horn signal this time, nothing that might give a moment's additional warning to those below.
When the lead riders reached the point the war captain had fixed in his orders, they would move.
Soon. Very soon.
Murdock's fingers touched Lady's neck. She leaped forward, effortlessly lengthening into her flawless gallop.
His command moved with him. A double column of riders flowed down into the valley from the slopes on either side. They did not engage their enemies at once but rather continued their wild race until their target was completely encircled. Only when this was accomplished did they close with the invaders.
Now the reason for the dual column became evident. The inner line alone sought contact with the Condor Hall warriors. The others maintained their position, ready to hold the deer should they begin to run.
It was a tense enough job and an important one. If those animals succeeded in breaking free to scatter in the valley and the hills nearby, most of them would be lost to the partisans and their allies, or else all thought of taking the convoy would have to be abandoned. The task of collecting them again would require too much time.
They were not called upon to act. The loose springdeer were frightened, but they were fairly tightly massed, and the uneven action of the fighting pressed them, first in one place, then another, keeping them milling and uncertain of course rather than encouraging a stampede in any one direction.
The battle itself was extraordinarily short lived, scarcely longer than the attackers' charge. The invaders were at too great a disadvantage to maintain their opposition for long. Their surprise had been complete, and the number of warriors so suddenly come against them considerably exceeded their own.
Above all, they had little desire to continue this fight. They were angry with Zanthor I Yoroc for his use of them. Even had their officers not informed them in high dudgeon that they were riding as lures to draw and keep Sapphirehold attention away from the wagon convoy, they were not stupid men and would have soon come to realize that fact themselves. The studied carelessness that had marked their conduct during the whole of this mission would have declared it quite clearly enough. Mercenaries like themselves rather than the men of Condor Hall had borne the brunt of the war after its opening blows had been struck. Their own unit, though not long come to it, had already given good service, and they resented being cast away in this manner, delivered up, as it were, to their enemies' swords.
So be it, then. They had been all but given into this trap, and they were not inclined to make a useless sacrifice of their lives now, not when it was so well known that the Confederates did not treat their prisoners as did the Ton who had hired them. They cast down their arms and sued for peace.
The Sapphirehold leaders examined the captured herd critically.
"He's been buying deer," Eveleen remarked, "and has been going far afield for them. A full quarter of these were never bred in this region."
"They come from the forests far to the northeast on the Mainland," Allran informed her. "We often see them at the fairs when we bring our excess stock over for sale."
She studied the strange steeds. They were large and heavy of body with proportionally big heads. "Are they wardeer at all?" she wondered aloud. "They're not quite the size of drays, but I can't imagine riding such clumsy-looking creatures."
"They are far from clumsy, Lieutenant, and yes, they do battle service, although I grant that they lack the speed and agility we require in our mounts."
"I don't think I'd find it very comfortable sitting one of them for any length of time," she observed. "What kind of people use them?"
He smiled, trying to imagine her diminutive form astride one of the big deer. "The foresters who normally ride them are huge men, very tall and mightily muscled. The biggest in our company would scarcely be of middling size among them. They want substantial mounts under them. Speed is not really possible in their endless treelands, and so they value it little, whereas they do want strength and the ability to work their small fields and bear heavy burdens long distances. Theirs is not deer country, and they did not enjoy the luxury of having ev
en two breeds near to hand, so they concentrated on developing this one to serve both their saddle and dray needs."
"What'll we do with them?"
"They look like good animals whether they suit our purposes or not," Ross interjected. "Gurnion should find their strength very helpful, particularly for servicing his foremost lines where they might occasionally be pressed into actual battle duty as well."
"What about the rest?" the archeologist asked him.
"We'll keep no more than a third of them, fewer unless the quality's exceptionally high. The winter could be a bad one. No use in risking putting strain on our feed stores by bringing in too much new stock at this point."
"Ton I Carlroc will profit well by our day's work in that event."
Murdock seemed to lose himself in thought for a moment. He recalled himself quickly and smiled. "Not Gurnion. Let all but the foreign animals be delivered to the mercenary camp. Give greetings to Commandant A Murdoc and say that these captures come to him with Firehand's compliments."
He laughed softly, guessing their thoughts. "It's a bit of bravado, maybe, but I want to establish Sapphirehold's place beside the Confederate domains in A Murdoc's regard. We might otherwise suffer when the time comes to divide the spoil that'll result from this war."
"He would cheat us…" Allran began in anger.
"Hardly. Officers with a reputation for doing that don't get many new commissions, but neither do mercenaries lightly surrender hard-won gains to those not fully earning them. That's why the Commandant must be made to understand completely our heavy and long role in all this."
No one questioned that Jeran A Murdoc had the power to disrupt the distribution process if he chose to do so. A column such as he led would not have hired itself without the promise of a strong spoil share as well as the gold it contracted to receive.