Dragons and Destiny (14 page)

“It should be
here,” Jen said. “When I asked them if they could do it they said
that the basket would be here under the water, in a deep bit some
three spear-lengths down-water of the mound. Jen was standing on
the bank, a frown of concentration on her pretty face. Hilla was
waist deep in the water fumbling around with her arms.

Clever
,
thought Robain,
wonder who thought this up? They’ve taken steps
to make sure they bring in a good crop of food.
Well, Robain
couldn’t fault them for that. The thought of days and nights with
little to eat but roots and fruit didn’t thrill him overmuch
either. What was hidden under the water?

“Got him,” said
Hilla at that point, “Come in Jen and help me lift it out, it’s
bigger than I thought it would be.”

Robain heard
the splash that was Jen then various grunts and exclamations as the
girls struggled getting the object out and on to the bank.

“How many are
there?” he heard Jen ask.

“The basket is
full,” Hilla answered, “urgh, they’re all wriggling about.”

“That’s what I
ordered silly,” was Jen’s complacent reply. “There would be no
point if they were dead. They have to be fresh or Leftenant Hallam
and the others won’t believe we’ve just caught the blighters. He’s
not stupid and fish begin to smell as soon as they’ve been
killed.”

Robain could
have stood there behind his tree and watched them try to deal with
the writhing mass of fish for the next bell or two but he couldn’t
resist the temptation.

He emerged from
his hiding place, clapping his hands together. “Thanks for the
plaudits ladies,” he called and had the satisfaction of seeing both
girls jump in guilty fright. “I hope someone has had the presence
of mind to prepare a set of fishing lines else I’m afraid you’ll
have a great deal of bother explaining just how you caught them,”
he added in a conversational manner.

A red faced Jen
brought out a tangled bundle of lines from her satchel and held
them out to Robain.

“I did,” she
stuttered while Hilla stood there, vuz-struck at being found
out.

“You got lines
too?” asked an interested Robain.

Hilla shook her
head.

“So whose idea
was it?”

“Mine,” said
the two together.

Robain
chuckled. “I suppose Mander told you?” he asked of Jen.

“He told me
about the exercise,” confessed Jen and her hand came up to her
mouth, “oh.”

“Did he tell
you who was his accomplice in crime?”

“Er, he might
have mentioned it.”

“And who was
that?”

“You sir.
Mander said you hid a half brace of rabbits and took them back to
camp.”

“Did he say
what happened next?” asked Robain.

Hilla felt like
screaming.
Why doesn’t he just start shouting at us and get the
row over with?

“Your officer
realised what you had done sir,” Jen answered, “Mander said it was
because the rabbits were so obviously very dead and couldn’t have
been caught that day.”

“Then?”

“You were
punished. The rabbits were still edible and everyone got some
except for you and Mander.”

“That’s why you
decided on fish?”

“Yes sir, it
wasn’t Hilla. Last day off I went into town looking for a fish
trapper and persuaded him to leave the fish here.”

“Persuaded?”

“Paid,” Jen
corrected.

“The first idea
to hide edibles was mine though,” confessed Hilla who was not going
to let Jen take all the blame. “I mentioned my idea to Jen though I
didn’t think of the fish. I didn’t do anything only because I
couldn’t think of what.”

Robain
nodded.

“Whilst I
cannot ignore what you have done,” said Robain, trying to put on a
severe face and failing miserably, “I must applaud your initiative.
You realise what the aim of this exercise is?”

“To teach us
how to live of the land,” answered Hilla.

“Not exactly.
We know that there isn’t a lot of game around here. The exercise is
designed to make you hungry, to bring home to you that fact that
soldiering is not a bed of roses and that you and the men and women
under your command might have to live and fight on empty
bellies.”

Both girls
looked distraught and ashamed. Jen stared at her wet boots. Hilla
however, was thinking. She looked him straight in the eye and
asked, “what are you going to do sir? I mean, do we put them
back?”

“Oh, I don’t
think so Juvenis Talansdochter. You and your partner have gone to
so much trouble it would be a shame to put all your hard work to
waste.”

“Yes sir,”
Hilla answered, hopes rising.

“So this is
what you will do,” Robain ordered, with hidden glee though the two
didn’t notice it. “I will sit here and watch as you remove the
fish, one by one from the basket, kill them and gut them.”

“I thought…”
began Jen.

“That if you
brought that basket back to camp that your year mates would be so
relieved at getting some decent food they would do the messy
bit?”

“Yes,” admitted
Jen.

“You thought
wrong. I’ll keep quiet about your little plan but only on the
condition you do the killing, gutting and cleaning. Now begin.”

Robain watched
with a grin as with a shudder of revulsion Hilla put a reluctant
hand inside the seething basket and brought out one of the smaller
specimens.

“Lay it on that
flat stone over there,” Robain instructed. “Hit it hard behind the
eyes with your knife handle.”

Hilla did that,
so hard that the head split apart from the body which splattered
its innards over her wet trousers.

“Gads.”

Robain
laughed.

Jen had been
right, Leftenant Robain Hallam was attracted to Juvenis Hilla
Talansdochter. He didn’t want to alienate her. So with a patience
born of his interest he talked the two girls through the
preparation of the basketful of fish, mostly containing tranet and
lungtail but also some thirty of the little red pilli fish which
Robain decreed after de-heading should be left as they were.

“They’re very
tasty roasted in their skins and their bones are so small they’re
almost impossible to fillet out raw,” he informed them.

After they had
finished both Jen and Hilla were dirty and smelly and so re-entered
the water to try and get the worst of the scales and smell off
their clothes (with moderate success).

Then came the
hilarious task of getting the fish back to the campsite. A
shamefaced Jen admitted that she hadn’t thought about how they were
going to accomplish this.

“We could take
them back in the basket,” suggested Jen but the look Hilla gave her
was too withering for words.

“And tell them
just how we ‘caught’ the fish? If we use the basket they’ll know.
How many fishermen’s’ baskets would you expect to find out
here?”

Hilla glanced
at Robain who was listening to this with great amusement. He
however, felt that this was their problem. He did have a solution
but decided to wait to see if they could find it on their own.

It was Hilla
who solved the conundrum.

“I’ll climb up
and get some leaves from that allst tree,” she said. “We can wrap
the fish up in them.”

“It might
work,” said a doubtful Jen.

“Course it’ll
work,” said Hilla, “what do you think sir?”

“That’s what
I’d do,” grinned Robain. “Tell you what, you get on with it and
I’ll get on with doing my tour to see how everyone else is getting
on.”

“And Sir,
Leftenant Hallam,” said Hilla, greatly emboldened by this, “em, er,
are you going to tell?”

Robain laughed.
“No I’m not, although I should. I believe your initiative should be
rewarded, at least this time. Besides, I like fish.” He settled his
kepi on his head.

“Get the fish
back,” he ordered and as he walked away, added, “and don’t forget
the greenfruit either.”

The two girls
turned amazed faces on each other.

“How did he
know about the greenfruit?” asked Jen.

“I think,”
answered Hilla with a giggle, “that he was watching us from the
time we left the campsite.”

That evening
Hilla and Jen became the heroes of the bell as they struggled back
to camp with satchels full of fruit and roots and carrying their
slippery loads of allst wrapped fish.

Paul and Dolvin
had managed to catch their rabbits but only two rather scrawny
ones, which a rueful Paul admitted later, wouldn’t have fed more
than a single mouthful to everyone. No one else had managed to
bring in any meat. The girls were welcomed with cheers and
applause.

As Hilla
munched her way through her portion of fire cooked tranet she snuck
a look at Leftenant Hallam who winked at her.

Hilla blushed
and lowered her eyes. Jen, who had seen both look and reaction,
smiled a smile of satisfied amusement.

* * * * *

Niaill

The First Ryzck
was in the middle of their three month duty in the Eighth Ward in
Argyll. After it ended they would return to Vada and the start of a
leave period lasting two months.

It might be the
middle of summer, reflected Niaill, but it was cold, cold enough to
make his teeth rattle and to force his gloved hands into pockets in
a vain attempt to keep them supple.

The first Ryzck
were some miles north of their patrol area trying to flush out a
group of bandits who had been terrorising the local area. It was a
tough life for the local people, hard enough without bandits
arriving on your doorstep and stealing everything you needed to
survive.

What a way
to make a living
, thought Niaill idly.

: Make a
living? :
Taraya’s query was instant
: I do not understand,
we serve :

: I know
that :
laughed Niaill
: I was merely making an observance
that at this precise moment I wish I was somewhere else, anywhere
else :

: Oh I see
:
answered Taraya, shifting from one paw to the other. Even
with the light leather ‘snow boots’ the Lind wore to protect their
paws in these snowy mountains, Taraya was also feeling the cold
: I would like us to find these largdits and run them away so I
can home go too :

Niaill laughed
again. Home at the moment was their patrol base, a series of sturdy
hardwood cabins with wood-burning stoves about a days travel south
of where they now were.

Niaill and
Taraya were waiting for the scouts to return. They had been spying
out the valley ahead, an ideal place, according to the locals for
any miscreants to hide out.

This bandit
group had been getting more bothersome in recent months, raiding
not only the farmsteads but also the mining camps.

The
Thirty-seventh Ryzck, which had been patrolling this sector before
the First, hadn’t been able to locate the bandit base but Niaill
felt sure that his Ryzck had done it although it had taken them two
months. Niaill and his Vadryzkas had spent bells pouring over maps
of the area, noting the times and locations of the raids and using
this had deduced the likely location of the bandit’s base. The raid
sites had appeared to radiate out from one area in the mountains
so, Niaill had detached one Vadryz to search. Three days ago they
had reported that they had found signs of the bandits; recent
tracks of men and horses.

Now Niaill and
his Ryzck were here, freezing their pants off as they waited for
the scouts to return with confirmatory news. Niaill moved
restlessly in his saddle. He was wearing his battle-armour, leather
reinforced helm, chest and back-plates, arm and leg greaves. Taraya
was wearing her chest and neck protectors. When they went into
battle her snow-boots would be removed so she could use her
chelas.

: Scouts return
:

: About time
:
grumbled Niaill.

Mal and
Valennya, Deby and Alfei close behind were making their way up the
incline towards Niaill and Taraya with due care for the slippery
surface underpaw. Mal gave Niaill a grim thumbs up as he and
Valennya began their report.

“They’re there
all right,” he said.

“How many?”

Mal screwed up
his eyes as he calculated but it was Valennya who answered.
“Sanduntan.”

“There are
caves in the valley,” Mal added.

Niaill nodded.
He had expected something like this. This part of the mountain
range was riddled with caves, few of which had been explored.

“I shouldn’t
think there’ll be many in the caves,” volunteered Deby. “The
entrances are very small.”

“That’s not to
say they’re not bigger further in,” said Niaill. “Remember that
last patrol?”

Deby did. They
had chased a family of gtran, the dangerous cat-like beasts into
what they had thought was a small cave. Their den might have had a
small entrance but over sixteen adult gtran had emerged to do
battle with the Ryzck and they had been lucky to emerge from the
encounter with only two dead.

“Show me,” he
commanded. Alfei telepathed the image to Niaill’s Taraya, an image
that Niaill was aware of the instant she received it.

“Lookouts?” he
asked and the two scout pairs shook their heads.

“Too cold,”
surmised Deby, “and they won’t be expecting anyone to have tracked
them here.”

“I see,” said
Niaill and he did see, a panoramic vista of the valley with three
cave entrances on one side and small bunches of men grouped round
several campfires cooking and eating, at least he presumed they
were men. The figures were so wrapped up in furs against the bitter
cold that it was impossible to distinguish between man and woman
but and this was important, Niaill could see no children in the
image, an indication that there were none. In Niaill’s experience
women kept their children close by, unless of course they were in
one of the caves.