Echoes of Betrayal (5 page)

“Sir king—the taig needs—”

“Needs all of us. You have given your life and blood to the taig; accept a gift in return.”

Kieri stepped back, motioning the Squire who had given his cloak to stay close to the ranger. “Here is what we will do,” he said. “I believe that the main force of the Pargunese is this group—and perhaps one on the other scathefire scar. Arian said the dragon killed Pargunese soldiers there, but I don’t know if it killed all of them. More could have come across later. The smaller landings, that we heard of before the scathefire came, may have been diversions only, and may have joined with the larger groups—or not. But we must get the Royal Archers out of their camps and into action.”

He looked at his Squires. “Which of you knows this area well?” Three hands went up. “Excellent. Each of you will partner with someone who does not—”

“But that will leave you with only four—”

“I’m not going to stand in front of the Pargunese army yelling insults,” Kieri said. He turned to Banner and dug into his saddlebags
for his writing materials. “Four will be plenty for the plan I have. Now: two pair will go east of the scathefire track. One will head for the Royal Archer camps we expect between here and the border. You will give them my order to proceed to the scathefire track, with rangers you will find as guides, and parallel the Pargunese, harassing them in the flanks and rear but not joining open battle until further orders. The other will parallel the scathefire track until even with the Pargunese and stay even with them as they move. The pair to the west of the track will go directly to that Royal Archer camp this ranger mentioned, bringing any rangers or Archers found to join the harassing teams on this side.” He squatted down, bracing the writing board on his knees, and wrote the orders. “When you reach your assigned locations, one of each pair will act as courier; the other will stay with whatever forces you have found, to receive and transmit my orders. Be alert for Pargunese flank scouts and any stragglers—they’ll be desperate, trying to reach their main party, I’ve no doubt. Evade if possible; kill them all if not. We’re in no state to care for prisoners.”

“What about steadings?” Kaelith asked.

“Warn them,” Kieri said. “Any within a few hours’ march of the scathefire should leave—they might be discovered. If we had just a few more troops, we might set up an ambush. The Pargunese may be low on supplies, and faced with an easy source, like a steading with animals and stored grain, they might start looting—might even get drunk and fall asleep. But we don’t have enough troops—yet.”

As the Squires rode away, Kieri considered what to do next. Fifty Royal Archers and a few Squires couldn’t meet the remaining Pargunese head-on any more than the rangers and Halveric remnants could—unless he could get them all collected, and that would take days.

For a moment anger flared. This was the situation he’d hoped to avoid: little groups of defenders, disorganized, demoralized, uncoordinated, fumbling about in the forest while a well-trained force invaded. But anger now would do no good. What he needed now was a plan … a specific plan for this specific band of Pargunese. Break them into separate groups, each vulnerable to attack … yes, the obvious but perhaps not the only course of action.

Short of supplies, the ranger had said. How short? What would
they do for a royal supply train? Would they be fool enough to attack the obvious?

“I need to look at the maps again,” Kieri said. “We won’t try to move at night—” Difficult enough with experienced troops used to night maneuvers; these were at the limit of their ability in daylight. “—and it’s darkening. We’ll camp off the scathefire track and build a barricade.”

It should not have taken as long as it did, but the camp was finally reasonably secure, though as the snow ended, the marks of their passage on the scathefire track were clear enough.

Kieri was still awake, poring over the maps and his guesses about the location of the Pargunese, when he heard sentries outside his tent.

“Come on,” he said to the Squires on duty. “Let’s go see what we have.”

“Sir king, you must be careful—”

“I am always careful,” Kieri said, wrapping his sword belt around his waist. He set his helmet on his head. “Don’t call me by name.”

At the north side of the camp, he found the sentries—Royal Archers—bows drawn, arrows pointing at a group of soldiers in a curious mix of uniforms.

“They say they’re Halverics,” one of the sentries said without looking away from his target. “But they could’ve stolen what Halveric gear they wear.”

Kieri looked at the faces, indistinct as they were in the flickering torchlight. Glints of ornaments—Halverics wore none on duty—but he felt no menace through his taig-sense. He had seen all the Halveric cohort once, before they had left for the north—but these troops were clearly exhausted and cold and had come through hard fighting. “Who commands?” he asked.

“I do, m’lord,” said the one in front. “Vardan, second sergeant.”

The name was right, and her accent was pure Lyonyan, but her face was so streaked with ash and blood that Kieri didn’t recognize her, and she wore a wide neck ring over the leather gorget with the Halveric stamp. “What happened to your uniforms?” he asked.

“Burned off, m’lord,” the woman said. “There was that fire—purple-white, it burned—”

“Scathefire,” Kieri said. “And you
survived
?” He could scarcely believe it.

“A few of us, sir. In a ditch of water, near our camp—coming back from patrol.”

“That’s a Pargunese crossbow you carry,” Kieri said. “How did you come by that?”

A flash of white teeth in the grimy face. “Surprised a patrol of Pargunese—killed ’em all. But m’lord, there’s a crowd of Pargunese on the fire’s track. We’ve been sniping at them—”

“I’ll want your report,” Kieri said. “But first I’ll see you fed and warm. Good work, sentries, but these troops are what they claim.”

Vardan went with her troops, as he expected, to see them fed and settled—however much they might get that night—and then came to Kieri’s tent. She had scrubbed the grime off her face and hands but still wore the neck ring. In the brighter light in his tent, he could see that the design looked foreign. Kieri recognized the woman now that her face was clean—she’d been a corporal in one of Aliam’s cohorts that last year in Aarenis.

“I knew you, sir king,” she said, bending her knee. “But I didn’t like to say, out there in the woods, if one of them Pargunese was about.”

“Good thinking,” Kieri said. He pointed to a chair on the other side of the table where he’d spread the map. “Have a seat. Do your troops need anything more?”

“No, sir king.”

“Tell me what you know, then.”

Vardan began to talk, pointing out on the map where her unit’s encampment had been, where they had patrolled, and the location of the ditch. “Days go dark so early. We were past sunfall coming back, but once we had our feet on that dike, we had naught to worry about, I thought. Out of the swamp, firm ground. Then … then this light came. Not any natural light—”

“I saw it, too,” Kieri said.

“Well, we went on, to make it to camp, we hoped, but it was faster—it rose up, the trees burning before it—and I felt the heat and ordered ’em into the water. We were in it up to our necks, staring as it came down on us, then we dived—most of us—but it burned off
the top handspan of the water and whatever was that close—my cloak, for one thing. Four of us didn’t go deep enough.”

“Good thing you had the water to jump into,” Kieri said.

“Aye, that it was. I owe Falk an offering for that, when we get to a Field. And thanks to our captain, Falk hold his soul, for making us dig that ditch.” Vardan paused; Kieri poured her a mug of water. Vardan took a gulp, then went on. “When we got out, there was just the scar, nothing but ash, and fires burning along each side of it. Nothing left of the camp or the ten who were in it. And all of us wet, cold, with no supplies. If not for the rangers, we wouldn’t be here.”

Kieri let her tell the rest of it without interruption. She had done what he would have expected from a Halveric sergeant or one of his former troops. Between the terse sentences, he easily imagined the struggle it had been—and the years of experience that had given her the skills and character to save so many and use them so effectively.

“So this morning,” Vardan said. “The ranger with us said he knew by the taig the king was coming, and I said we ought to go to meet you—you’d find a way to use us better than skulking behind trees and giving a volley now and then.”

“And how far away are the Pargunese, do you know?”

“The rangers harass them, and they have a few Royal Archers, too. They are on both sides, and it slows the Pargunese down. We made them afraid of the woods—lured them to a steading a day—a day and night ago—” Vardan shook her head; Kieri realized the sergeant was near total exhaustion. “We passed them early this morning; they did not notice, because the rangers were shooting at them. I think we must be a half-day ahead.”

“Will they march at night?”

“No. They try to barricade themselves at night. I don’t know if they found another farm, but it did not go well for them last time.”

“You have bought us time, Sergeant,” Kieri said. “If you had done nothing more than delay them, that would have been valuable. But bringing trained archers, already armed—” Twenty-eight Halverics plus the fifty Royal Archers with him … nearly a cohort, all trained to shoot in volleys. “I sent messengers to that Royal Archer camp you mentioned, ordering them to make haste to meet us, but that will take them a day at least, even mounted.”

“What about Captain Talgan?” Vardan asked. “The Halverics we found saw another fire to the west—but he was at Riverwash—”

“Riverwash burned,” Kieri said. “Scathefire.” The woman’s face paled under its southern tan. “As far as I know, no one in the fort there survived. I have heard nothing from there … Assassins preceded the attack, disrupting the courier system for several days.”

“So all we—you—have—”

“Is here or scattered through the forest, so far as I know. And though the dragon—”

“Dragon!”

“Yes, dragon. A witness, one of my Squires, saw the dragon destroy a troop of Pargunese near Riverwash, but I have no assurance that the dragon killed all the Pargunese who landed there … or that none have landed since.” Kieri nodded his thanks to a servant who brought a jug of steaming sib to the table. He gestured to Vardan’s mug. As the man poured, he said, “Aliam’s on his way with the rest of Halveric Company, but he won’t have reached Chaya yet. We need to hold the Pargunese away from Chaya and the King’s Grove until he can reinforce us. With your contingent, I now have eighty archers—”

“We’re almost out of bolts and arrows, sir,” Vardan said.

“Plenty with us,” Kieri said, grinning. “That’s one thing I managed, to boost the production of arrows this past half-year. I can supply your troops with good blackwood bows and plenty of arrows.” He asked a few more questions, learned that no more Pargunese had landed after this force, and then sent Vardan to rest.

K
ieri woke in the predawn darkness, aware of a stir in the camp. Two small groups of Royal Archers—seven in one group, nine in the other—and some twenty rangers had arrived, having marched through the night. That brought the number of archers up to a full cohort, but they had not ever maneuvered together. And these last were all tired, having had no sleep. Kieri ordered the newcomers fed first, then the other troops, as he considered the best way to use this combination.

As the light grew, he began to get reports from his forward
scouts—the Pargunese were still moving warily south along the scathefire track and at their present rate would reach him shortly before or after dark. They did not have scouts out at a distance—having lost many to the rangers’ superior woods skills—but were still a compact and dangerous fighting unit. They had taken another farmstead—from which the owners, warned, had fled—and obtained some food there.

“We’ll go to meet them,” Kieri said. “I want daylight for that. Are there tracks both east and west on which we can move fast?”

“On the west, yes,” one of the rangers said. “But on the east, the only track bears away—it’s not that useful. What we did was let ’em get past and then cross behind them, work up close enough, and then snipe from there.”

“Here’s what I plan to do,” Kieri said, and motioned to the maps still spread on the table. “If they move at yesterday’s speed, we can be in place here”—he tapped the map—“well before they reach it. That will let me place archers on the east side as well. Our harassing archery will slow them enough to give the supply train time to set up the second ambush here.” He pointed again. “We want it to look as though we started to build a barricade across the scathefire track, didn’t have time for a good one, and fled. They’re more likely to go over it than over the burnt-brush tangles at the sides.” He looked up to be sure they understood. “They’ll see a climbable barricade with plunder on the other side; they’ll be exposed as they try to get over it. Then we attack through the gaps beyond the barrier, where this burnt stuff was used for the barrier itself.”