Oakleaf Bearers

14

'W AIT HERE," H ALT SAID BRIEFLY. "I' M GOING DOWN FOR A closer look."

"To hell with waiting here," Erak told him. "I'm coming with you."

Halt looked at the big Skandian, knowing it would be useless to argue. Still, he made the attempt. "I suppose it will make no difference if I point out I'm going to have to be as inconspicuous as possible?"

Erak shook his head. "Not in the slightest. I'm not taking back a secondhand report to my Oberjarl. I want to get a closer look at these people, get some idea of what we're up against."

"I can tell you what you're up against," Halt said grimly.

"I'll see for myself," the jarl said stubbornly, and Halt shrugged, finally giving in.

"All right. But move carefully, and try not to make too much noise. The Temujai aren't idiots, you know. They'll have pickets out in the trees around the camp, as well as sentries on the perimeter."

"Well, you just tell me where they are and I'll avoid them," Erak replied, with a little heat. "I can be inconspicuous when I need to."

"Just like you can ride, I suppose," Halt muttered to himself. The Skandian ignored the comment, continuing to glare stubbornly at him. Halt shrugged. "Well, let's get on with it."

They tethered their horses on the reverse side of the crest, then began to work their way down through the trees to the valley below them. They had gone a few hundred meters when Halt turned to the Skandian.

"Are there bears in these mountains?" he asked.

His companion nodded. "Of course. But it's a bit early in the year for them to be moving around. Why?"

Halt let go a long breath. "Just a vague hope, really. There's a chance that when the Temujai hear you crashing around in the trees, they might think you're a bear."

Erak smiled, with his mouth only. His eyes were as cold as the snow.

"You're a very amusing fellow," he told Halt. "I'd like to brain you with my ax one of these days."

"If you could manage to do it quietly, I'd almost welcome it," Halt said. Then he turned away and continued to lead the way down the hill, ghosting between the trees, sliding from one patch of shadow to the next, barely disturbing a branch or a twig as he passed.

Erak tried, unsuccessfully, to match the Ranger's silent movement. With each slither of his feet in the snow, each whip of a branch as he passed, Halt's teeth went more and more on edge. He had just determined that he would have to leave the Skandian behind once they got within striking distance of the Temujai camp when he glimpsed something off to their left in the trees. Quickly, he held up his hand for Erak to stop. The big Skandian, not understanding the imperative nature of the gesture, kept moving till he was alongside Halt.

"What is it?" he asked. He kept his voice low, but to Halt it seemed like a bellow that echoed among the trees.

He placed his own mouth next to the Skandian's ear and breathed, in a barely audible voice, "Listening post. In the trees."

It was a familiar Temujai technique: whenever a force camped for the night, they threw out a screen of concealed, two-man listening posts to give early warning of any attempt at a surprise attack. He and Erak had just passed such a post, so that it now lay to their left and slightly behind them. For a moment, Halt toyed with the idea of continuing down the hill, then he discarded it. The screen was usually deployed in depth. Just because they had passed one post didn't mean there weren't others ahead of them. He decided it might be best to cut their losses and extract themselves as quietly as possible, trusting the gathering darkness to conceal them. It would mean abandoning the idea of getting a closer look at the Temujai force, but it couldn't be helped. Besides, with Erak along, it was unlikely they would get much closer without being seen-or, more likely, heard. He leaned close to the other man and spoke softly once more.

"Follow me. Go slowly. And watch where you put your feet."

The snow under the trees was strewn with dead branches and pinecones. Several times as they'd made their way downhill, he had winced as Erak had trod, heavy-footed, on fallen branches, breaking them with seemingly earsplitting cracks.

Silently, Halt flitted between the trees, moving like a wraith, sliding into cover after he'd gone some fifty paces. He looked back and waved the Skandian on, watched for a moment with mounting apprehension as the big man moved, swaying awkwardly as he placed his feet with exaggerated care. Finally, unable to watch him any longer, Halt looked anxiously to the left, to see if there was any sign that the men in the listening post had seen or heard them.

And heard a ringingly loud crack, followed by a muffled curse, from the hill below him. Erak was poised in midstride, a rotten branch snapped in half on the snow in front of him.

"Freeze," muttered Halt to himself, in the desperate hope that the big man would have the sense to stay motionless. Instead, Erak made the vital blunder that untrained stalkers nearly always made. He dashed for cover, hoping to substitute speed for stealth, and the sudden movement gave him away to the Temujai in the listening post.

There was a shout from above them and a flight of arrows slammed into the tree behind which the Skandian had taken cover. Halt peered around his tree. He could see two shapes in the gloom. One was moving away, sounding a horn as he went. The other was poised, an arrow on the string of his bow, eyes riveted on Erak's hiding place.

Waiting for the Skandian to move. Waiting to let the deadly shaft fly at him.

Somehow, Halt had to give Erak a chance to get clear. He called softly, "I'll step out and distract him. As soon as I do, you make for the next tree."

The Skandian nodded. He crouched a little, preparing to make a run for it. Halt called again.

"Just to the next tree. No farther," he said. "That's all you'll have time for before he's back on you. Believe me."

Again, the Skandian nodded. He'd seen the speed and accuracy with which the Temujai sentry got the first shot away. He wondered how he would get any farther than the next tree. Halt's ploy of distracting the sentry would only work once. He hoped that the Ranger had something else in mind. Fading away now, he could hear the braying notes of the horn sounding the alarm as the other sentry raced downhill, calling for reinforcements. Whatever Halt did, he thought, he'd better do it soon.

Erak saw the dim form of the Ranger as he stepped into the clear from behind the tree. Erak waited a heartbeat, then ran, his legs pumping in the snow, finally diving full length and sliding behind the thick pine trunk as an arrow hissed by, just over his head. His heart was racing, even though he had covered no more than ten meters in his wild, scrambling rush up the hill. He glanced across at Halt and saw the Ranger, back in cover and some five meters farther away. He had his own longbow ready now, an arrow nocked to the string. His face was knotted in a frown of concentration. He felt the Skandian's eyes on him and called across the intervening space.

"Take a look. Carefully-don't give him enough of a target to shoot at. See if he's in the same position."

Erak nodded and edged one eye around the bole of the tree. The Temujai warrior was still where he had been standing, his bow ready and half drawn. As matters stood, he held the upper hand, standing ready to shoot if either of them moved. Halt, on the other hand, would have to step into the clear, sight the man, aim and then shoot. By the time he had accomplished the first two actions, he would be dead.

"He hasn't moved," Erak called to the Ranger.

"Tell me if he does," Halt called softly in return. Lying belly-down in the snow, with just a fraction of his face protruding around the tree, Erak nodded.

Behind his tree, Halt leaned back against the rough bark and closed his eyes, breathing deeply. This was going to have to be an instinctive shot. He pictured again the dark figure of the Tem'uj, silhouetted against the lighter background of the snow. He remembered the position, setting it in his brain, letting his mind take over the control of his hands, willing the aiming and release to become an instinctive sequence. He forced his breathing to settle into a calm, slow, unhurried rhythm. The secret of speed was not to hurry, he told himself. In his mind's eye, he watched the flight of the arrow as he would fire it. He pictured it over and over again until it seemed to be a part of him-a natural extension of his own being.

Then, in an almost trancelike state, he moved.

Smoothly. Rhythmically. Stepping out into the clear, turning in a fluid motion so that his left shoulder was toward the target, the right hand pulling back on the string, left hand pushing the bow away until it was at full draw. Aiming and shooting at a memory. Not even seeing the dark figure in the trees until the arrow was already loosed, already splitting the air on its way to the target.

And, when he finally did see the bowman in his conscious vision, knowing that the shot was good.

The heavy shaft went home. The Tem'uj fell backward in the snow, his own shot half a second too late, sailing high and harmless into the tops of the pines.

Erak scrambled to his feet, regarding the small, gray-cloaked figure with something close to awe.

He realized that there was already a second arrow nocked to the longbow's string. He hadn't even seen the Ranger do that.

"By the gods," he muttered, dropping a heavy hand on the smaller man's shoulder. "I'm glad you're on my side."

Halt shook his head briefly, refocusing his attention. He glared angrily at the big Skandian.

"I thought I told you to watch where you put your feet," he said accusingly. Erak shrugged.

"I did," he replied ruefully. "But while I was busy watching the ground, I hit that branch with my head. Broke it clean in two."

Halt raised his eyebrows. "I assume you're not talking about your head," he muttered. Erak frowned at the suggestion.

"Of course not," he replied.

"More's the pity," Halt told him, then gestured up the hill. "Now let's get out of here."