“Alyssandra,” she replied, tossing back her hair. “Alle for short.”
Alle gave Sahila a peck on the cheek in greeting and Sahila elbowed Soterius.
“Now you see what I meant about being our best spy. A few beers, and most men will tell Alle anything as long as she keeps on smiling!”
Alle sobered and looked to Sahila. “You’ve got your fighters in the barn?”
“Just as we planned.”
Alle nodded. “Let’s go then.” She reached for a cloak from a peg near the doorway.
Soterius looked from Alle to Sahila. “She’s going to lead us to the target?”
In one smooth movement, Alle wheeled, and Soterius found the business edge of a large knife close to his throat. “My home’s been burned. My friends are dead. I slit the throats of two of the king’s guardsmen the night I brought the bards from Palace City. And every night, I keep the drunks at the bar from getting what they think they’re entitled to. I can handle myself.”
Soterius raised both hands. “Calm down. I get the point. Let’s go.”
It seemed to Soterius that both Sahila and Alle were still chuckling as Alle led them back to the barn where the others waited. Covered by the heavy cloak and hood, Alle was less of a distraction for the fighters, who stood aside when she told them to move away from a corner of the barn and directed two of the men to lift away a heavy stone slab that covered a dark entrance leading down into the ground.
Sahila lit a lantern and gave it to Alle, who par-tially shuttered it to dim the light. “Follow me,” she said, descending the wooden stairs.
The men followed her in their marching order. Mikhail brought up the rear, pausing only to move the heavy stone back into place.
“Where are we?” Soterius whispered.
“Caves beneath the barn,” Alle replied without glancing backward. “The barn’s pretty old. We fig-ure that the settlers found the caves to hide from raiders.
Since then, they’ve been used by smugglers, bootleggers, you name it.” She flashed a conspira-torial grin. “Useful thing to have.”
The caves were bitterly cold, and icicles glistened along the cave walls in the dim light of the lantern. The trail through the cave was well-worn, broad enough in most places for two men to walk abreast, and in some places, opening into larger rooms of inky darkness. In the distance, water dripped.
From time to time, something skittered past their boots, and Soterius had the distinct impression that some-thing—or someone—was watching them.
“Careful,” Mikhail warned, his vayash moru senses serving him well in the dark.
“There are sheer drops not far on either side—I wouldn’t like to bet on how far down they go.”
Soterius’s fighters stayed close together, following the path. After about half a candlemark, Alle stopped.
“It’s safer to cross the caves than to go through the forest at night,” Alle said.
“We have an arrange-ment with the local vayash moru. They keep the caves free from squatters and wild things, and they can take refuge here any time they want.”
“A reasonable bargain,” Mikhail replied. “That explains why the vayash moru we passed didn’t try to stop us.”
“When we come up to the surface you’ll be in the foothills, behind some trees.
Just beyond the tree line is a camp. I scouted it earlier today. There are twenty-five Margolan soldiers, plus captives. We think they’re the ones who looted a village about a day’s ride from here. Burned most of the houses, ran off the livestock, and killed the villagers who wouldn’t run. From the sound of it, they’ve taken a couple of the village girls with them.”
“Ashtenerath?” Soterius asked.
Alle paused. “We found half a dozen of those things dead in the village. Haven’t seen any in the camp since.”
“Fair enough,” Soterius said. “What about get-ting back?”
“I’ll wait here,” Alle said. “Can’t be any more miserable than scouting them earlier.” She looked sideways at Soterius as if she anticipated an objec-tion.
“Don’t worry—I won’t try to be a hero. You can do all the fighting. I stashed some bandages and supplies when I came earlier. Just get your wound-ed back here.”
Soterius was impressed by Alle’s matter-of-fact manner. “We’ll do our best not to need them.”
He turned, and Alle grabbed his arm. “Bring the village girls with you,” she said.
“We’ve got a cou-ple of healers standing by back at the inn. If they’re still alive, they’ve got nowhere else to go.”
Soterius exchanged glances with Sahila. “That’s a big ‘if,’” he said. “But if they’re alive, you have my word we’ll get them out of there.”
“Then the Lady go with you,” Alle murmured. She gestured for silence and led them around a bend, shuttering the lantern completely as moon-light lit the mouth of the cave. Alle stood aside, motioning for Soterius and Sahila to pass, melting into the shadows.
Mikhail made a quick scouting foray, moving silently down through the trees along one side of the camp. The soldiers had found a small clearing, far enough from the road not to be bothered. It was bitterly cold, and Soterius’s breath steamed in the night air. He was glad for his heavy woolen uniform and an equally heavy cloak, and wished for the milder weather of the Margolan plains.
He glanced at his fighters. The professionals—Pell, Tabb, Andras, and Sahila—had an expression of anticipa-tion, but did not look fearful. The refugee-fighters were doing their best to hide their fear. They looked grimly resolute, firmly gripping their weapons. Within a quarter candlemark, Mikhail had returned. Soterius knew that the vayasb moru not only moved more silently than a human scout, but could complete his mission without leaving foot-prints in the snow.
“It’s as Alle said,” Mikhail reported in a whisper. “Two dozen soldiers, plus some horses. I didn’t see any ashtenerath, and I couldn’t smell any, either.
Wouldn’t be surprised if they can only deploy those once—how do you get them back in the box wagon?” He paused. “I found the bodies of three of their captives in the latrine trench. We may be too late for a rescue.”
“All the more reason to kill the bastards,” Sahila murmured.
“If there are any captives left, they’re in the far tent, over there,” Mikhail added.
“Get them out and bring them here, then come join the party,” Soterius instructed. Mikhail nod-ded, and disappeared into the night.
Soterius gestured, and the fighters spread out to find their assigned positions.
Whether or not there were ashtenerath, Soterius had decided that striking first and hard from a distance was the best way to reduce his casualties, and so swords and axes were sheathed in favor of the bows and thrown weapons.
Soterius heard the owl call that was Mikhail’s sig-nal. The soldier on night watch was dead.
“Let’s go!” Soterius whispered, giving his own signal, a creditable imitation of a wolf’s cry.
Before the echo of the howl faded, arrows rained down on the camp. The long bows and slingshots picked off panicked soldiers, while flaming arrows set tents ablaze and forced their residents to run, half-clad and unarmored into the snowy night.
Soldiers who veered too close to the forest fell to the crossbows, or heard the
‘snick’ of flying bolos around their neck. Soterius watched his fighters with pride. Swords were unfamiliar to farmers and herdsmen, but these men had used bows and sling-shots all their lives to hunt vermin, and bolos to round up errant herds. Striking from the cover of the forest, Soterius’s fighters exacted a hefty price before ever showing their faces. Instead, they echoed Soterius’s wolf cry, until the moonlit clear-ing rang with the eerie call of the predator.
“Ghost fighters!” one of the hapless soldiers cried, trying to pull his pants up as he ran, fleeing his burning tent.
The captain of the fighters had been drinking with his men around the fire when the attack began. He called for order as his panicked troops fell, with arrows piercing their chests or bolos straps stran-gling their throats. Half of his men rallied to him, falling into a defensive formation, swords ready.
“Now! Soterius cried. His best hand-to-hand fighters slung their bows and hefted their swords or axes, running from the darkness of the forest as they shrieked a battle cry.
“Demons! Ashtenerath!” Soterius’s fighters waded into the fray. Spurred on by their anger over the lost village and the dead girls, the refugee-fighters fought like the blood rage was upon them, giving no quarter and needing none. Any soldier who ran for the forest was met with a deadly hail of arrows, or was sure to encounter Mikhail once he reached the darker shadows beneath the trees.
The Margolan captain and a handful of his sol-diers held their positions, launching themselves at their attackers with desperation born of mortal fear.
They set about with their swords, still sober enough to stay toward the center of the camp, furthest from the archers.
Close enough now to see the Margolan captain’s face, Soterius startled with recognition. “Aeron,” he hissed. The captain’s head jerked up. For an instant, their eyes met; Aeron recognized him as well.
“The captain is mine!” Soterius headed at a dead run, sword raised, for the Margolan leader.
Aeron’s face twisted into a sneer as he met the attack, and their swords clanged loudly as they par-ried. All of Soterius’s anger and frustration found an outlet in his sword. He no longer felt the cold of the bitter night.
“Soterius!” Aeron made the name a curse. “Traitor! What kind of brigand are you?”
“Prince Martris’s brigand!” Soterius wheeled to parry one of Aeron’s wild strikes. Aeron had been drinking. The ale made his strikes less predictable, but the random blows delivered at full strength were as dangerous as any planned attack.
“Your girlfriend’s dead.” Aeron dealt a sideways blow that almost got inside Soterius’s guard. “Took her to King Jared myself.”
Soterius set his jaw, focusing all his skill on best-ing Aeron. He scored a deep gash on Aeron’s thigh, and the tip of Aeron’s sword opened up a cut on Soterius’s forearm. Aeron dropped and rolled, slic-ing low, a street move Soterius knew wasn’t taught in the army salle. Vahanian’s training served Soterius well. He evaded the blade, anticipating
Aeron’s momentum and delivering another deep cut, this time to Aeron’s thigh.
Limping, Aeron made it back to his feet. Blood coursed down his leg. Soterius closed for the kill, his sword ready. He brought his sword down two-handed, and the blow shattered Aeron’s blade, knocking him off balance. With one forward thrust, Soterius sank his blade deep into Aeron’s chest, feeling it scrape against bone and then slide free out the other side of the soldier’s body.
“That’s for Lila,” Soterius said with a brutal twist of the blade. Aeron’s mouth opened as if to reply, but nothing sounded except a bloody gurgle. The Margolan captain was dead.
Soterius wiped his blade clean on the snow and looked around. In the light of the burning tents, he could see bodies in the snow. The camp was quiet. The snow was trampled and blood stained. Sahila and Pell moved through the camp, counting the dead. Tabb and Tadrie set the surviving fighters to stripping the soldiers of anything useful. Andras sprinted toward him.
“Report.”
“Got them all, sir. Mikhail took out two that ran for the forest, and the archers got about half. We finished the rest.”
Soterius nodded. “Captives?”
“One girl. She’s in pretty bad shape. Mikhail took her to the cave entrance.”
“Casualties?”
“Better than last time, sir.” It was Pell who answered, with Sahila a few steps behind him. “Two with serious wounds, a few more with minor injuries, none dead.”
“I found this in the captain’s tent,” Tabb report-ed, as he and Tadrie lugged two burlap sacks behind them. Soterius knew at a glance where the Margolan captain had acquired such a collection of odd coins, jewelry and small trinkets.
“Spoils from the village they looted.” Soterius felt his anger rise once more.
“Bring it. We’ll use it for provisions for the refugee camp. Since we can’t return’
it, it’s as close to recompense as we can make.” Tabb and Tadrie nodded soberly, tying off the bags and slinging them across their shoulders.
The refugee-fighters scoured the camp, bundling up the dead soldiers’ cloaks and weapons. Distasteful as looting the dead would be under nor-mal circumstances, Soterius had seen the conditions in the refugee camps. Even the gold that Tris and Staden had sent would not fully tend to the needs of so large a crowd. This time, there were horses to gather as well.
“At this rate, we’re going to need storehouses and stables,” Soterius said under his breath to Sahila, who clapped him on the back.
“A good problem to have!” Sahila said with a sharp laugh. “You’ll need both horses and weapons if you mean to ride to Shekerishet.”
“True enough.”
Alle was waiting for them at the entrance to the cave, tending to a battered girl who looked just a few years younger than Soterius. The girl’s bruises and torn clothing left no question as to the soldiers’ actions, and when her dark eyes met Soterius’s he saw pain verging on madness. Any guilt he felt about the raid on his own colors died at the look in the girl’s eyes.
“Can she walk?” Alle shook her head. “I’ll carry her.” Tadrie stepped up. He was old enough to be the girl’s father, and he squatted down to look her in the eyes.
“You’ve nothing to fear from me; I’ve a daughter of my own. Will you let me help you?” He held out one of the pilfered cloaks, and Alle helped the girl wrap it around her-self.
The girl paused for a moment, but her injuries won out over her fear, and she nodded. Gently, Tadrie lifted the girl into his arms. Behind him, Alle murmured a string of curses, angry at the abuse the girl had taken at the hands of the Margolan sol-diers.
Soterius, Alle, and Sahila field-dressed the worst of the injured fighters’ wounds.
One man had taken a bad cut to the bone on his forearm and a deep shoul-der gash. Another was limping badly from a sword stroke that had sliced his hip and thigh. The other injuries required only splints or minor bandaging.
“There’re healers at the inn. We figured someone would need them,” Alle said, finishing up the band-aging.