Deeds of Honor (11 page)

When the patrol reported back to the main body—their formation clogging the farm lane; Vardan could see only the front ranks—they set sentries where she would have set them, and quickly occupied the house and barn. A working party broke up the henyard and pigpen fences, began building a barricade from house to barn. Someone was set to work with a shovel, hacking at the hard ground—for jacks, Vardan assumed. So they planned to stay awhile? She wished she'd brought the shovel they'd found in the rangers' shelter; the Halverics had nothing to dig with but their boot-heels and it went against all training to leave their filth on the open ground. Smoke blew from the chimney, thickening as Vardan watched. She glanced at the ranger beside her; the ranger grinned.

Pargunese voices—loud, harsh, some sounding angry and some laughing—and squawks of the remaining hen came to them on the cold breeze. Thunks of an ax on wood, crack-crack of breaking branches, whinnies from the Pargunese horses; Vardan guessed that someone had found grain for them. But what would happen when they found the ale?

Not, she was sorry to see, the drunken revel they'd hoped for. She watched as one of the Pargunese commanders had soldiers tip two barrels of it into the snow. From another, each man got one mug. No one got drunk on one mug of ale. Well...full fed and with a chance to rest, they should sleep anyway.

Daylight seeped away as the Pargunese finished piling up their barricade—waist high, chest high. Vardan could no longer see past it, but she could imagine, from her own experience, the troops lining up for rations. They would have hot ham and sausage, and by now hot bread to go with them. Maybe sib, or whatever brew the Pargunese had instead. Her stomach growled. The farmstead quieted though an officer or sergeant made the rounds with a basket and sentries sounded off, stepping out to receive their dinner. Easy to tell where they all were. Darker still. The wind dropped, and a few flakes of snow fell, then more.

Vardan drifted into numb immobility, not thinking about the past days, not thinking at all, and yet not dozing—the ranger's first light touch on her shoulder brought her to full alertness. "Get your people." The falling snow now filled his earlier tracks.

Vardan left the five injured behind, making sure they were awake and knew which way to move if necessary; the others followed silently, bows in hand. For herself, she had chosen one of the crossbows they'd taken from the Pargunese; it hung from her belt and she had dagger in hand, ready to use on the sentry she expected to find under a particular tree.

Instead, she stumbled over the man—apparently he'd hunkered down in the falling snow and dozed off—and her first blind stab rang on the man's breastplate. The crossbow bruised her leg as she fell; the man was awake, taking in breath to yell. Vardan had a knee on one of his arms, feeling with the knife blade for the opening above the gorget, when someone else planted a boot on the man's face and slit his throat. A gout of hot blood soaked Vardan's arm; the man's last breath gurgled and his legs jerked, but those small sounds were muffled by the falling snow.

They moved on, leaving the trees behind. A dim light showed ahead. Vardan stopped. Was that a shape with it? She reached back with one hand, tapped the man behind her, then ran her finger across the palm opened ready for her and tapped again.
That way. Six paces.
She heard a faint noise as her men fanned out to either side.

The light brightened slowly through the veils of falling snow. Someone coming. One? More? She could hear nothing but her own pulse pounding in his ears and the whisper of snow on her helmet. At a guess, someone coming to check on the sentries. Before, the man had come by himself. Too late now to crouch down and be a stump. Too late to reach for the crossbow. She shifted her dagger to her heart hand and drew her sword slowly, barely a whisper as it came free, then held it and the dagger under her cloak to hide any telltale gleam.

Closer—closer—she could see the snowflakes now, twirling as they fell, making a glow around the dark figure. Figures...six of them. Someone leading out the next shift of sentries, it must be. With that realization came the knowledge that someone was bound to make a noise, that surprise would be lost, and they might as well do this the most efficient way. As she moved, the light jerked suddenly nearer and one of the Pargunese yelled.

"Six!" Vardan said to her troop as she thrust at the man with the lantern. Encumbered by the lantern in his sword hand and a basket in his heart hand, the man dropped the basket and tried to grab his dagger, but Vardan had already thrust her short-sword into the man's neck until it bumped the backbone. As the man slumped, the lantern fell to the snow and went out; Vardan freed her sword with a practiced twist. Ahead, from the direction of the farmhouse, she heard shouts and saw the dim loom of other lights. Nearer, she'd heard bowstrings twang and arrows hit; at that range, she had no doubt arrows penetrated the Pargunese armor.

They moved closer, bending low; Vardan wondered whether she should withdraw her troops since they could not see clearly—would not, until they were in close range of the farmhouse. The lights brightened—more of them. Vardan sucked her teeth and tried to think what the captain would have done, what Aliam would have done. The plan had been to sneak close, make a fast attack, firing the barricade if they could and shooting anyone they saw, but the rangers had the firepot, not her people. She couldn't judge distance in the snow; looking back she saw only flakes against the dark, not the trees they had left.

She asked the best archer. "Berol, can you guess how far?"

"I think we're too close for a dropping volley, close enough to shoot a fingerbreadth above the target," Berol said. "If we could see the targets." With the calm of a veteran he said "They'll be shooting at us, soon."

"They can't see us any better," Vardan said. "Your target's the light. Line up close, volley fire, then scatter. Ten paces in, repeat. On my command." She scrubbed her sword in the snow, sheathed it, unhooked the crossbow from her belt, spanned it, fumbled a bolt into place. Someone should be close to the lights—to either side maybe, but close. "Ready...now!" She touched the trigger of her crossbow and the bolt shot into the night along with the others.

She ran forward, counting in her head...one, two, three...ten as she heard footsteps in the snow to either side, moving away. A few yells from the Pargunese; one of the lights went out, but more flared, closer now. Halt, re-span the bow, the bolt this time coming easily to her fingers and into position. She heard the others coming forward, then halting as well.

"Ready...now!" Again they shot. "Back twenty!" When they regrouped, she shifted them thirty paces to summerwards, and repeated the pattern—a volley at the lights, then forward and another volley, then back. The Pargunese were making a lot of noise—if only she'd known Pargunese. Orders being shouted, questions, responses. Suddenly, above them, she heard the thin, deadly whistle of falling bolts. "Overhead! Shields!" They had only a few shields left—she didn't have one—a helmet was no protection—she heard them hit—some on the snow, some with the distinctive wet crunch of armor and bone and human flesh. The survivors dragged the fallen back to the trees, silently, as Vardan directed. Vardan herself fumbled in the snow for the bolts she'd heard land near her, finding only two she could pull out by the fletched ends.

They lost six to the blind volley...five in the head, one in the shoulder that went down through lung and heart. Berol, Little Tam, Mol, Segre, Celin, Lir. Vardan thumbed their eyes closed, and they all recited two prayers to Falk and one to Alyanya, as they laid the bodies out decently. Several rangers brought boughs to lay on them. Vardan hoped their own four volleys had done at least that much damage to the Pargunese.

As the snow continued to sift down through the trees, Vardan prepared to endure another cold, uncomfortable night. The rangers reported that the nearest shelter was a half-day's walk away—in daylight. They did know where a low rise supported evergreens, and soon they were all crammed in under the low hanging boughs of a clump of cedars. The rangers had left observers nearer the farmstead; Vardan let her people sleep, if they could; if the Pargunese moved in the night, let them. She fell asleep at last.

Morning brought a cold fog between the trees; the snow had stopped. One of the rangers had a tiny fire going on the back side of the rise. He said they were far enough from the farmstead that the smoke wouldn't be seen, and he'd started a pot of sib. One by one the Halverics woke up, ate a meager breakfast of dried fish from Pargunese packs, and had each a few swallows of sib, but she could tell they felt as she did—nowhere near full.

Would the Pargunese move that day, or was there enough food to feed them for several days? If that smokehouse had been full—and the dairy and granary—winter stores for the twenty or thirty who lived there—perhaps they would stay. They had looked burdened enough and they had no wagons. She could not imagine those riders dismounting to use the horses as pack animals.

If they stayed, she should take her troops on south to Chaya, meet up with the king or Aliam or whoever was coming. But if they moved, she should help the rangers slow them on the way.

The ranger put his hand on the ground, where he'd brushed the snow away. "The king's coming," he said.

Vardan put her own hand down, but felt nothing. "How do you know?"

"The taig. It is pleased. That bad fire was stopped, and the taig has recovered enough for me to sense it as more than just anguish. The Lady is again in our land as well." The ranger smiled, a relaxed smile this time. "She will heal the land; the king will defend it."

* * * *

It took all day and into the night to reach the king's camp, despite the ranger's guidance. Hunger and cold and the snow making every step treacherous hindered them. At last Vardan could see lights twinkling ahead—cookfires or torches—and urged her battered troop onward.

Sentries called out as they approached, and soon they were surrounded by Royal Archers, bows drawn and arrows pointed at them. Standing still was hard—Vardan's legs felt shaky.

"Who are you!"

"Halveric Company...survivors. Most died."

Someone behind the ring of archers turned away, she heard "—tell the king."

All at once the king was there, striding through the snow as if it was no more difficult than a paved courtyard. Though the torches flickered and flared in the night wind, she could see him clearly. He looked first at the sentries, brows up.

"They say they're Halverics," one of the sentries said, without looking away from Vardan. "But they could've stolen what Halveric gear they wear."

The king looked at Vardan, then the others; she knew what he must be thinking. Halverics wore no ornaments on duty, and here they were, decked out with Pargunese torcs and armbands, some with Pargunese clothes and cloaks. "Who commands?" he asked.

"I do, m'lord," Vardan said. "Linnar Vardan, second sergeant."

"What happened to your uniforms?"

"Burned off, m'lord. There was that fire—purple-white, it burned—"

"Scathefire," the king said. "And you
survived
?"

"A few of us, m'lord. In a ditch of water, near our camp—coming back from patrol."

"That's a Pargunese crossbow you carry," the king said. "How did you come by that?"

Vardan grinned at him. "Surprised a patrol of Pargunese—killed 'em all. M'lord, there's a crowd of Pargunese on the fire's track—we've been with some rangers, sniping at them—"

"I'll want your report," the king said. "But first I'll see you fed and warm. Good work, sentries, but these troops are what they claim." He beckoned, and Vardan followed a King's Squire into the camp, toward warmth and food and more safety than they'd had in days. "A moment, Sergeant," the king said. "When you've settled your people, come to my tent."

With the help of the King's Squires and the household troops, it didn't take long to see her people supplied. For herself, she ate a small chunk of sausage, scrubbed her face clean, and went to the king's tent while the others ate, hoping the king would have food there. Surely kings did.

In the lamplit tent, King's Squires were already laying out a hot meal; the king sat on the other side of the table, but only one place was laid, on the near side. Vardan bent her knee. "I knew you, sir king. I didn't want to say that in the woods, in case—"

"Sit down and eat," he said. "I'm sorry I cannot send you to your rest at once, but you have information we need."

Between mouthfuls of redroots in honey, steamed grain, beef in gravy, thick slices of bread with jam, Vardan told the tale of her patrol's narrow escape, and what they had done since. The king's questions, reminded her of details she'd almost forgotten. As her hunger eased, she looked up at him again.

She knew him as Duke Phelan, a frequent ally of her own commander: all Halveric soldiers knew he had been Halveric's squire years ago, and her own memory of him from Siniava's War in Aarenis was particularly clear. That last year in Aarenis, under the blazing southern sun, she'd have sworn he had a few gray strands in his fox-red hair and beard, but she saw no gray strands now in the mellow lamplight. Maybe it had been dust and the strain of that campaign. Otherwise, he was easily recognized, and the green and gold over his mail, instead of maroon and white, did not make him look kingly. His expression did.

"You have bought us time, Sergeant," he said. "If you had done nothing more than delay them, that would have been valuable. But bringing trained archers, already armed—that is beyond my hope. I have 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."

Vardan had not noticed that—surely someone must have come in; he must have spoken to them or written something—she looked at the pile of empty dishes on the table and wondered what else she'd missed, eating like a starving wolf.

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