Scorpion Mountain (26 page)

chapter
forty-two

T
he commander of the
Ishti,
mindful of the Shurmel's orders not to let the strangers escape, had selected fifteen of his best mounted troopers and sent them ahead as an advance party.

“Observe only,” he ordered their leader. “But if the foreigners try to leave, then do whatever you have to do to stop them.”

The fifteen troopers had plunged ahead at a gallop, with the rest of the troop following behind at a trot. Perhaps it was the exhilaration of the speed, or the excitement of the hunt, but when they reached the oasis, their leader forgot, or ignored, his orders.

He carried out a quick reconnaissance, signaling his men to wait back in the concealment of the trees and moving forward on his own.

He could see the foreign ship anchored close to the shore. A makeshift barricade had been constructed on the edge of the water, looking like brushwood piled up in a semicircle. The troop leader laughed scornfully. A few flimsy branches wouldn't stop them, he thought. He was eager to earn the Shurmel's approval and he knew the Scorpion leader wanted these interlopers killed. No point in waiting for the rest of the party to arrive, he thought. He counted the people behind the barricade and could see there was only a half dozen of them. He had more than twice their numbers, and their makeshift stockade wouldn't keep him out.

In his haste, he failed to notice the sharpened bamboo stakes set every couple of meters, pointing outward around head height. That was understandable. They were set at a low angle and they tended to fade into the dark mass of the thornbush behind them. He also failed to appreciate that the brushwood tangle was set in a ditch more than a meter deep.

Truth be told, he wasn't the brightest of leaders. He saw what appeared to be an easy objective. He rose from behind the cover of the tree that had shielded him from view and scrambled into the saddle. Drawing his curved sword, he turned back to his men in the trees behind him and yelled an order for the charge.

He clapped his spurs into his horse's side and thundered out of the trees, his blood singing. Behind him, he could hear his men echoing his call, and hear the thud of their horses' hooves on the coarse sand beneath them.

He saw people behind the barricade running to get their weapons and take up defensive positions and he laughed out loud. There were too few of them, he thought. His horse would leap their puny barrier and he would be among them, striking to left and right, cutting them down.

Then his horse saw the wicked hedge of sharpened stakes directly ahead and swung wildly to the right, plunging and rearing to break his rider's controlling grip on the reins. The commander swayed in the saddle, nearly falling, and cursed the animal as it refused to confront those stakes.

He realized he could never force his mount into that hedge of sharpened points. He turned in his saddle as the horse pranced, terrified, in a circle.

“Dismount!” he yelled to the men behind him. “Dismount and attack on foot!”

He had begun to swing down from the saddle when Lydia's first dart arrived. It went into his upper arm, slightly above the small circular shield that he wore there, and penetrated through to his body. He screamed in pain and staggered, one foot still in the stirrup, one on the ground. His horse, thoroughly terrified by now, bolted, and he lost his balance, bumping and bouncing over the rocky ground as he was dragged behind it, one foot still firmly trapped in the stirrup.

His men took no notice, and made no attempt to save him. Truth be told, he was an unpopular leader—vain and stupid—and they were glad to see him go. But they were committed to the attack now and they dismounted in a more orderly fashion and swarmed toward the barricade.

Thorn, behind the thornbush entanglement, watched as the leader of the attack was struck down and disappeared along the beach, dragging behind his panicked animal.

“Good shot, Lydia!” he said softly to himself. The girl was truly a priceless addition to their crew, he thought. Her skill with the atlatl gave them a long-range striking power that always came as a shock to attackers. Unlike a bow, the weapon was difficult to see and recognize. The first most enemies knew of it was when a dart came hissing down out of the sky and transfixed them.

But now the
Ishti
were scrambling close to the barricade and Lydia dared not throw again for fear of hitting one of her comrades. She stood on the mound that had been built for her. A two-meter-high shield of wooden planks gave her cover from any return shots—although none of their attackers seemed to be armed with bows. They carried lances and swords for the most part.

The attackers were bunched up at the center of the defensive line. Still, she kept her eyes scanning to either side, waiting to see if any of them would try to break round the end of the barrier where it reached the lapping waves. So far, none had made the attempt. Secure in their superior numbers, and in the apparent frailty of the barricade, they were mounting a frontal attack, looking to overwhelm the small group of defenders behind it.

The first of them realized his mistake too late. As he tried to force his way through the tangle of brushwood, he felt the ground give way below him and he fell into the meter-deep ditch concealed by the thornbush. Trying to regain his feet, he found his progress halted by the clinging, penetrating thorns that held him prisoner.

Then, one of the defenders, a gray-haired, disheveled warrior who appeared to have only one hand, leaned forward and brought a huge, iron-studded war club down on his skull with crushing effect. The attacker's hoarse war cry was cut short and he fell facedown, suspended on the clinging thornbush.

The man next to him had no better luck. Warned by his companion's fate, he managed to stop himself from falling into the ditch, but the outer layers of thornbush tangled in his leggings, holding him prisoner on the edge of the barrier. He struggled to free his feet, becoming more and more entangled as he did so, and he never saw the long bamboo pole wielded by Wulf as it slammed forward into his chest. He was hurled back, his feet still trapped in the thornbush. He lay groaning on his back.

The rest of the group pulled back a meter or so, now more aware of the threat offered by the thornbush. They stood, facing the defenders, yelling threats and defiance. The defenders behind the barricade remained silent and watchful. There was nothing to be gained by wasting breath in threats and curses. They had the measure of their attackers. They were confident in their defenses and in their ability to hold the line. They needed no false boost to their confidence.

Their silence, their calm confidence, was unnerving. One of the
Ishti
studied the thornbush barrier more carefully. Then he leapt forward, slashing with his sword to clear a path through the branches and shouting for his companions to do the same.

His shouts were cut off as Ingvar's voulge darted forward like a striking snake. The attacker managed to bring his small shield up in time to block the weapon, but it was a vain attempt. The spearhead of the voulge, with all of Ingvar's weight and massive strength behind it, slammed through the thin outer layer of brass on the shield, shattering the wooden frame behind it. The
Ishti
warrior felt as if a galloping horse had slammed into his shield. He was hurled back several paces.

“Darn it!” snarled Ingvar, as the man sprawled on the beach. “I didn't have time to hook him.”

“Next time don't hit him so hard,” Thorn told him. Truth be told, he was a little overwhelmed by the change in Ingvar. He had always been a pillar of strength for the Herons. But now he was a roaring, rampaging one-man battle squad. His lunge had carried so much power behind it that the attacker was already flying back through the air when Ingvar tried for the follow-up hooking motion.

“I've created a monster,” Thorn muttered. Then he grinned. “But thank the gods he's
our
monster.”

Ingvar brandished the voulge at the attackers as they hesitated, just out of range. None of them were eager to face it. They had seen their companion come flying back through the air like a bale of hay from a pitchfork.

Once more, they withdrew a few paces, making sure they were well out of the reach of that vicious ax-headed spear wielded by the huge warrior behind the barricade. None of them was willing to take command. None of them seemed to have any idea how to break through to the interior. They milled together uncertainly, each of them waiting for someone else to take the lead, someone else to have an idea, watched all the time by the grim-faced Herons.

Then Lydia's voice rose clearly above the small battlefield.

“They're trying for the end!” she shouted.

From her elevated position, she had seen two of the
Ishti
break furtively away from their companions. Staying low so that the thornbush barricade might conceal their movements, they were sprinting for the western end of the barricade, where it reached the sea.

Thorn was about to order Wulf to come with him and block their path when he had a better idea. Let them all have another unpleasant surprise, he thought. That might be enough to break the back of this disastrous attack.

“Let them get caught up,” he replied to Lydia, although he made sure he didn't call attention to her by turning toward her. “Then take care of them.”

She nodded, licking her lips, which were dry with tension. It was unnerving to watch her companions do all the work in a fight like this, she thought. She was itching to play a part in the struggle at the barricade, but the enemy were too close for her to cast safely. Now she watched through slitted eyes as the two crouching figures reached what they thought was the end of the barricade and splashed into the water. They hesitated as they realized they were waist deep within a few meters, then hesitated again as the spiky, clinging masses of thornbush beneath the surface caught and held them, leaving them struggling against the water and the thorns, which penetrated their clothes in a score of places, tearing, ripping, then holding them fast, leaving them unable to progress any farther.

One of them turned to the other, gesturing down into the water beneath them.

“Use your sword!” he shouted desperately. “Cut a way through this cursed—”

He got no further as Lydia's first dart plunged down on a shallow angle. It cut cleanly through the mail shirt he wore under his outer robe and he fell backward under the force of the missile. The water around him was already beginning to stain red. His companion, horrified and panicking, struggled frantically to extricate himself.

In his struggles, he hurled himself to one side, his long robe tearing under the strain. His eyes widened in fright as a second dart hissed down into the water, in the spot where he had been a fraction of a second before. Panic now lent him strength and he dragged his clothes free of the underwater obstruction, reaching down to grasp strands of the thornbush and rip them free, cutting his hands in a dozen places, heedless of the pain.

He lurched backward into shallower water. A third dart just missed him.

Then he was back on dry land and running as fast as he could, desperate to leave the dreadful entanglement and the wicked darts behind him.

His hoarse cries of panic carried up the beach to his companions. They had been unaware of the abortive attempt to outflank the defenders until they heard and saw him retreating at top speed, then caught sight of his companion, half submerged, lying on his back a few meters off the beach, in water that was an ominous shade of red.

It was the last straw. The remaining members of the troop broke and ran, leaving their companions and their riderless horses behind them as they sought the concealment of the oasis.

For the first time, the defenders let their feelings show. A derisive cheer, led by Ingvar's massive voice, rang out above the small enclosure.

“That should see them off!” Stefan shouted exultantly.

Thorn shook his head. “From the way they fought—or rather, the way they
didn't
fight,” he said, “they were the second team. There'll be more of them on the way—and they won't make the same mistakes next time.”

Stefan was crestfallen. “They'll be back?”

Thorn nodded. “You can bet on it. We caught them unawares this time. But these desert warriors aren't the kind to slink away in defeat. They'll be back.”

“So what do we do now?” Lydia asked. She had left her observation point to rejoin them.

“Next time, they'll be ready for the thornbush barrier under the water,” Thorn told them. “It's time we fell back to the ship.”

Jesper looked woebegone. “To the ship? You mean we're going to abandon these defenses?”

“I plan to,” Thorn said. “You can stay here if you want to.”

“But I spent all morning digging and cutting and dragging thornbush into place! It hardly seems fair!” Jesper said indignantly.

“Perhaps you could stay here and explain that to them,” Thorn remarked. “I'm sure they'll understand.”