Oakleaf Bearers

16

H ALT STOPPED TWICE MORE TO SLOW DOWN THE RIDERS BEHIND them. Both times, he dismounted, allowing Abelard to trot around the next bend in the trail so that he was out of sight. Then Halt waited, standing in the deep shadows thrown by the pine trees, almost invisible in the gray and green mottled cloak.

When the Temujai riders appeared around a bend in the trail behind him, Halt launched two arrows at maximum range, on a high parabolic flight. Each time, the horsemen weren't even aware that they were being fired on until two of their number threw up their hands and tumbled from their saddles into the snow.

Halt chose his ambush positions carefully. He selected places where there was a clear sight of the trail behind him, but he didn't choose every such section. After the third attack, every time the Temujai approached a bend in the trail, they slowed their pursuit, fearing they would be riding into another volley of black-shafted arrows arcing down out of the sky at them.

On the last two occasions they didn't even see Halt before he moved to remount Abelard. They soon began to rationalize, arguing that there was no real need to capture the two men who had been spying on their camp. There was, after all, little that two men could do to harm them and if they alerted the Skandian forces, well, the Temujai had come here prepared to fight anyway.

This was the result Halt had been hoping for. After stopping twice, he urged Abelard into a steady gallop, soon overtaking Erak as he lurched and swayed on the saddle of his now cantering horse. Erak heard the muffled pounding of hooves behind him and swung awkwardly in the saddle, half expecting to see a group of Temujai coming up behind. He relaxed as he recognized the gray-cloaked figure of the Ranger. His horse, without anyone to continue urging it on, slackened its pace as Abelard pounded up alongside. Halt checked him for a few strides, matching the Temujai mount's pace.

"Where have:you been?" Erak asked, in that same jerky manner.

Halt gestured to the trail behind him. "Buying us some time," he replied. "Can't you keep that nag of yours running faster than that?"

Erak looked insulted. He'd thought he was doing rather well.

"I'll have you know I'm an excellent rider," he said stiffly. Halt glanced over his shoulder. There was no sign of any pursuit, but there was no knowing how long the Temujai would take to realize that he wasn't waiting for them at every corner. If they continued at this gentle, ambling pace, the riders behind them would make up the lost distance in no time.

"You may believe you're an excellent rider," he called, "but there are a score or so of Temujai back there who actually are. Now get moving!"

Erak saw the longbow rise, and begin to fall on his horse's rump once more. This time, he didn't waste breath or time yelling at Halt not to do it. He grabbed a handful of mane and hung on for dear life as the horse bolted away underneath him. Bouncing and jouncing in exquisite pain, he consoled himself with the thought that, when this was over, he would separate the Ranger from his head.

They swept on, Halt urging the Temujai horse on to greater efforts whenever he began to flag. The landmarks around them began to take on a familiar appearance, then they had galloped into the head of Serpent Pass, coming up to the deserted border post. There, camped outside the log walls of the small fort, Erak's twenty Skandian warriors and Evanlyn and the two apprentices were waiting for them. The Skandians came to their feet quickly, reaching for their weapons, as the two horses entered the pass at a dead run.

Halt brought Abelard skidding to a stop beside his three companions. Erak tried to emulate the action, but his horse pounded on for another twenty meters or so and he had to swing it awkwardly around, swaying and slipping in the saddle as it turned, and inevitably falling in a heap in the snow as the horse finally decided to stop.

Two or three of the Skandians, unwisely, let go short bellows of laughter as Erak picked himself up. The jarl's eyes swept over them, cold as glacier ice, marking them down for later reference. The laughter died as quickly as it had sprung up.

Halt threw his leg over the pommel and slid to the ground. He stroked Abelard's neck in gratitude. The little horse was barely breathing hard. He was bred to run all day if necessary. The Ranger saw the inquisitive looks of those around him.

"Did you find the main party?" Will finally asked.

Halt nodded grimly. "We found them all right."

"Thousands of them," Erak added, and the Skandians reacted with surprise at the news. Erak silenced them with a gesture.

"There are maybe five or six thousand of them out there, probably heading this way right now." Once again, there were murmurs of surprise and consternation as he mentioned the numbers. One of the Skandians stepped forward.

"What do they want, Erak?" he asked. "What are they doing here?"

But it was the Ranger who answered the question: "They want what they always want," he said grimly. "They want your land. And they're here to take it from you."

His audience looked from one to the other. Then Erak decided it was time he took command of the situation.

"Well, they'll find we're a tough nut to crack," he declared. He swept his battle-ax in a small arc to indicate the fort behind them. "We'll hold the fort here and delay them while one of us takes word back to Hallasholm," he said. "There may be five thousand of them, but they can only come at us in small numbers through the pass. We should be able to hold them for four or five days at least."

There was a growl of assent from the Skandians, and several of them swept their axes through the air in experimental patterns. The jarl was growing in confidence now that he had a definite plan of action. And it was the sort of plan that appealed to the Skandian mind: simple, uncomplicated, easy to put into effect and with a degree of mayhem involved. He looked at Halt, who was watching him in silence, leaning on the man-high longbow.

"We'll trouble you for the use of the horse again," he said. "I'll send one of my men back to Hallasholm on it to raise the alarm. The rest of us will stay here and fight." Again, there was a savage growl from the Skandians in response. The jarl continued: "As for you, you can stay and fight with us or go on your way. It's of no consequence to me."

Halt shook his head, a look of bitter disappointment on his face.

"It's too late for us to go now," he said simply. He turned to his three young companions and shrugged apologetically. "The Temujai main force lies right across our path back to Teutlandt. We've no choice but to stay here."

Will exchanged glances with Evanlyn and Horace. He felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach. They had been so close to escaping, so close to going home.

"It's my fault," Halt continued, addressing his words to the two former captives. "I should have got you out straightaway instead of going to see what the Temujai were up to. I thought, at worst, it would be a reconnaissance in force. I had no idea it was an invasion."

"It's all right, Halt," Will told him. He hated to see his mentor apologizing or blaming himself. In Will's eyes, Halt could do no wrong. Horace hurried to agree with him.

"We'll stay here and hold them back with the Skandians," he said, and one of the sea wolf warriors close by him slapped him heartily on the back.

"That's the spirit, boy!" he said, and several others chorused their approval of Horace's intentions. But Halt shook his head.

"Nobody should stay here. There's no point."

That brought howls of anger and derision from the Skandians. Erak silenced them and stepped forward, staring down at the slight figure in the gray cloak.

"Yes, there's a point," he said, in an ominously quiet tone. "We'll hold them here until Ragnak can muster the main force to relieve us. There are twenty of us. That should be more than enough to hold the little beggars off for a while. It won't be like when they slaughtered the garrison here. There were only a dozen men here then. We'll hold them off, or we'll die in the attempt. It's of no consequence to us as long as we delay them for three or four days."

"You won't last three or four hours," Halt said flatly, and an ugly silence fell over the small group. The Skandians were too shocked by the enormity of his insult to reply. Erak was the first to recover.

"If you believe that," he said grimly, "then you have never seen Skandians fight, my friend." The last two words carried an enormous weight of sarcasm and dismissal. Now the other Skandians found their voices and an angry chorus grew up. The Ranger waited for the shouting to die down. He was uncowed by the Skandians' anger at his words. Finally they fell silent.

"You know that I have," he said, not taking his eyes from Erak's.

The Skandian leader frowned. He knew Halt's reputation, as a fighting man and a tactician. The man was a Ranger, after all, and Erak knew enough about the mysterious Ranger Corps to know that they weren't prone to issuing pointless insults or making ill-considered remarks.

"The question is," Halt continued, "have you seen the Temujai fight?"

He allowed the question to hang in the cold air between them. There was a moment of silence from the Skandians. None of them had, of course. Seeing that he had their attention, Halt continued.

"Because I have. And I'll tell you what I'd do if I were the Temujai general."

He swept his arm up to encompass the steep sides of the pass where they towered above the little fort. Pines grew there, clinging to the almost vertical sides of the pass, managing to find some foothold in the rocks and the snow.

"I'd send a party of men up onto the walls of the pass there above us. Say, two hundred or so. And from there, I'd have them direct a killing fire on anyone foolhardy enough to show his face in the open inside the fort."

The eyes of the group followed the direction of his pointing arm. One of the Skandians snorted scornfully.

"They'd never get up there. Those walls are impassable!"

Halt turned to face him, looking him straight in the eye, willing the man to understand and believe what he was saying by the sheer force of his conviction.

"Not impassable. Very difficult. But they will do it. Believe me, I've seen these men and what they can achieve. It may cost them fifty or so lives in the attempt, but they'll count the cost cheap."

Erak studied the cliffs above the fort, squinting to see more clearly in the rapidly fading light of the late afternoon. Maybe, he thought, the Ranger was right. He figured he might be able to scramble around up there, with ropes and tackle and a small group of hand-picked sailors-the ones who tended the big square sails on the wolfships, who could slip up and down the mast as easy as walking. But the Temujai were cavalry, he thought. He voiced the objection.

"They'll never get their horses up there."

"They won't need their horses up there," Halt countered. "They'll simply sit up there and direct a plunging fire on you. The fort may command the pass, but the heights there command the fort."

Erak was silent for a long moment. He looked again up at the walls of the pass. If the trees could find footholds there, he reasoned, so could men-determined men. And he was ready to believe that these Temujai were determined.

"Face it," Halt continued, "this fort was never meant as a real defensive position. It's a checkpoint for people crossing the border, that's all. It's simply not designed or placed to hold an invading army at bay."

Erak studied the Ranger. The more he thought about it, the more sense Halt was making. He could picture the dangers of being caught inside the fort with a hundred or so archers perched on the cliffs above him-and no way to reply to their attack.

"I think you may be right," he said slowly. He was honest enough to admit that Halt's experience of these eastern riders was far greater than his own. Reluctantly, he made the final decision-to pass control over to Halt.

"What do you suggest we do?" he asked. His men looked at him in surprise and he glared them to silence. Halt nodded once, acknowledging the difficulty of the decision the jarl had just reached.

"You were right about one thing," he said. "Ragnak has to be warned. There's no point in our wasting any more time here. It'll take the Temujai at least half a day to get the whole army on the move. Longer for them to come through this narrow pass. Let's use the time we have. We'll ride-and run-like hell back to Hallasholm."