Oakleaf Bearers

32

I T WAS A MUTED SOUND-SURF ON A BEACH A LONG WAY AWAY, or maybe the rolling of distant thunder, Will thought. Except no thunder had ever sounded like this. This sound never seemed to start and never seemed to end. It just continued, over and over, repeating itself constantly.

And, gradually, growing louder. It was the sound of thousands of horses cantering slowly toward them.

Will flexed the string on his bow a couple of times, testing the feel and the tension. His eyes were fixed on the point where they all knew the Temujai army would appear-a kilometer away, where the narrow coastal strip between the hills and the sea jutted out in a promontory, temporarily blocking their view of the approaching army. His mouth was dry, he realized, as he tried, unsuccessfully, to swallow.

He reached down for the water skin that was hanging by his quiver and missed the first sight of the Temujai horsemen as they swept around the bend.

The men around him let out an involuntary cry. The horsemen rode stirrup to stirrup, in one long extended line, each horse cantering easily, matching the pace of the horse beside it.

"There must be thousands of them!" one of the archers said, and Will could hear the fear in his voice. It was echoed in another dozen places along the line. From the ranks of Skandian warriors beyond them, there was not a sound.

Now, above the dull rumble of the hooves, they could hear the jingle of harness as well, a lighter counterpoint to the rumbling hoofbeats. The horsemen came on, moving closer to the waiting ranks of silent Skandians. Then, at the single blaring note of a bugle, they reined in and came to a halt.

The silence, after the rumbling beat of their approach, was almost palpable.

Then a massive roar rose from the throats of the Skandian warriors who stood by their defenses. A roar of defiance and challenge, accompanied by the ear-shattering clash of axes and broadswords on shields. Gradually, the sound died away. The Temujai sat their horses silently, staring at their enemies.

"Keep still!" Will called to his archers. Now that he saw the Temujai front rank, his force seemed ridiculously small. There must have been six or seven hundred warriors riding side by side in that first rank. And behind them were another five or six times that number. At the center of the army, where the commander sat his horse, a sequence of colored signal flags waved. Others answered from positions in the line of horsemen. There was another horn blast-a different note this time-and the front rank began to walk their horses forward. The jingling of harness was apparent once more-then a massive metallic slithering sound filled the air and the weak sun gleamed on hundreds of saber blades as they were drawn.

"They're going to fight close in," Horace said softly beside him.

Will nodded. "Remember what Halt told us? Their first move will be a feint-an attack and then a false withdrawal to draw the Skandians out from behind their breastworks. They won't commit to their real attack until they have the Skandians strung out in pursuit."

The eighteen hundred Skandians were drawn up in three ranks on a narrow strip of flatland between the sea and the heavily timbered hills. They waited behind carefully constructed earthen breastworks. The sloping ramparts facing the Temujai were thick with sharpened stakes of various lengths, designed to impale the enemy's horses.

Halt had located their main defensive position at the spot where the strip was narrowest, with their flanks protected by the steep, wooded mountains on the left and the sea on the right. Hallasholm itself was barely two hundred meters behind their line. Will's force of archers were on an earthwork berm on the right, some meters behind the main defensive line. At the moment, earth-covered wicker ramparts kept the archers hidden as they crouched behind them.

Halt, Erak and Ragnak were in the command position, more or less in the center of the Skandian line, on a small knoll.

Now, more signal flags were seen and the advancing cavalry broke into a trot, beginning to wheel slightly toward the Skandian left flank.

There was a stir among the archers crouched behind the breastworks. Several of them reached for the arrow bins in front of them, instinctively feeling the need to arm themselves.

"Stay down!" Will called, wishing, as ever, that his voice wouldn't crack. Halt didn't want him revealing the presence of the archers until the Skandians had made several of their usual probing attacks.

"Wait till they're committed to a full attack, then we'll surprise them," he had told his apprentice.

The line of archers turned now to look at their young commander. Will forced himself to smile at them, then, feigning a casualness he certainly didn't feel, leaned his bow against the breastworks in front of him, signifying that there would be no action required of the archers for some time yet.

Some of the other men copied the action.

"Nice work," Horace said quietly beside him. "How can you stay so calm?"

"It helps if you're terrified," Will replied, speaking out of the corner of his mouth. He was surprised at the warrior apprentice's question. Horace himself seemed to be the epitome of calm, totally unworried and seemingly unconcerned. His next statement dispelled that idea.

"I know what you mean," he said. "I nearly dropped my sword when they rode around the bend there."

The Temujai charge was gathering pace now, breaking into a fast canter, then a gallop. As they neared the Skandian line, a major part of the force swung away, seemingly deterred by the fortifications and the sharpened stakes. They wheeled their horses to run parallel to the Skandian line for a few seconds, then began to curve back toward their own army. The Skandians yelled abuse and scorn at them. A shower of spears, rocks and other missiles erupted from the Skandian line. Most of them fell short of the galloping horsemen.

A smaller group, maybe less than a hundred, continued to close on the left wing of the Skandian line. Leaning forward in their stirrups, shouting their war cries, they forced their shaggy mounts up the earth breastworks, ignoring the screams of those horses who were struck by the stakes. About two-thirds of their numbers made it to the Skandian line and they leaned down from their saddles, striking left and right with their long, curved sabers.

The Skandian defenders joined the battle eagerly. Huge axes rose and fell and more horses came down, with tortured screams. Will tried to shut his ears to the sound of horses in agony. The small, shaggy Temujai mounts were nearly identical to Tug and Abelard and it was all too easy to imagine his own horse bleeding and terrified, just as the Temujai horses were. Obviously, the Temujai thought of their horses as a means to an end, and had little affection for them.

The seething battle occupied one corner of the Skandian line. For some minutes, there seemed to be no clear picture of what was happening. Then, gradually, with cries of panic, the Temujai began to give ground, backing down the sloped earthworks, wheeling their horses and moving away, and letting the Skandians come after them with increasing eagerness.

Yet, to the more distant observers, it was obvious that the retreating enemy wasn't moving as fast as they might. Even those still mounted made no real effort to gallop clear. Rather, they withdrew gradually, maintaining contact with the foremost of their pursuers, drawing them farther and farther from the defensive positions they occupied and into the open ground.

"Look!" said Horace suddenly, pointing with his sword. In response to more flag signals, and unseen by the defenders on the left flank, several hundred riders from the original Temujai charge had now completed a full circle and were wheeling back to the aid of their embattled companions.

"Just as Halt said they would," Horace muttered, and Will nodded wordlessly.

In the command post near the center of the Skandian line, Erak was saying much the same thing.

"Here they come, Halt, just as you said," he muttered. Ragnak, standing beside him, peered anxiously over the breastworks at his exposed men. Nearly a hundred Skandians had streamed out of the defenses now and were engaged with the Temujai.

"You called it correctly, Ranger," he agreed. From this remote position, he could see the trap about to be sprung. Had he taken his normal place, at the thick of the fighting, he would have been totally unaware of the tactic.

"Can Kormak be trusted to keep his head out there, and not let his men get out of control?" Halt asked the Oberjarl. Ragnak scowled at the question.

"I'll kill him if he doesn't," he said simply. The Ranger raised one eyebrow.

"You won't have to," he said. Then, turning, he gestured to one of Ragnak's signalers, who stood nearby with a huge ram's horn in his hand. "Get ready," he said, and the man raised the horn to his lips, pursing his mouth to form the right shape to create the mournful but penetrating note.

It was a game of cat and mouse. The smaller group of Temujai were pretending to retreat, all the while managing to stay engaged with the leading elements of the pursuing Skandians. For their part, they were simulating a wild and undisciplined pursuit, and getting farther and farther from their own lines. And all the while, the first Temujai force were circling back to fall on the exposed Skandians.

There was only one more element in the game, which was unknown to the Temujai leaders. Before dawn, Halt had directed a hundred Skandian axmen to take up positions in the fringe of the wooded slope bordering the valley. Concealed in hastily dug shallow trenches and behind fallen logs, they waited now for the signal that would tell them to make a surprise attack on the Temujai who were planning to surprise their comrades.

"Signal one," Halt said quietly, and the ram's horn sounded a single, extended note that echoed across the valley.

Instantly, the pursuing Skandians, strung out in a long line behind the retreating Temujai riders, broke contact with the enemy and ran to form a defensive circle, their round shields forming an impenetrable wall. They were none too soon, as the second wave of Temujai horsemen was nearly upon them. As the eastern riders swept in, they were surprised to find an enemy already in a defensive formation and obviously awaiting them. The charge broke against the shield wall and another seething, struggling skirmish formed, with the hundred Skandians defending desperately against at least five times their number of horsemen.

Haz'kam, commanding general of the Temujai invasion force, frowned from his command position as he watched the well-rehearsed, coordinated movement of the Skandians as they formed their shield wall.

"I don't like the look of this," he muttered to his second in command. "This is not how these savages are supposed to react." And then the ram's horn rang out again, this time sounding three short, staccato notes that seemed to punch the air. A signal of some kind, he realized. But for what? And to whom?

The answer wasn't long in coming. There was a roar from the main Skandian ranks as a group of foot soldiers broke from the cover of the trees and ran to fall upon the encircling riders from the rear. The Skandian battle-axes took a terrible toll of the surprised Temujai, who found themselves suddenly and unexpectedly caught between the hammer of the new attacking force and the anvil of the shield wall. Surprised and confused, and with the momentum of their charge long since spent, the horsemen were easy marks for the savage northerners. In a matter of a few seconds, Haz'kam estimated that he had lost at least a quarter of his engaged force. It was time to cut his losses, he knew. He turned to his bugler.

"Retreat," he said quickly. "Disengage and retreat."

The silver notes of the bugle spilled over the battlefield, cutting through the consciousness of the highly disciplined Temujai cavalry. This time, as they withdrew, they made no pretense of staying in contact with the Skandians. Their rapid disengagement showed how false their previous feigned retreat had been. In a matter of a few minutes, the riders were streaming back toward their own lines.

For a moment, it looked as if discipline and reason had forsaken the Skandians. Ragnak realized that, in the heat of the moment, they were on the verge of pursuing the retreating Temujai back to their own lines-and to certain death for the Skandians. He quickly jumped up on the breastworks and bellowed, in his loudest storm-quelling voice: "Kormak! Back here! Now!"

There was no need for the ram's horn to reinforce the order. The Oberjarl's voice carried clearly to the Skandians and, as one, they ran for the shelter of the fortifications. Realizing what was happening, some of the Temujai sheathed their sabers and turned back to send a volley of arrows sailing after the Skandians.

But it was too little and too late. Apart from a few minor flesh wounds, there were no injuries.

Will and Horace exchanged glances. So far, things had gone pretty well as Halt had predicted. But they didn't think the Temujai would be trying that particular trick again.

"Next time," said Will, "it'll be our turn."