Oakleaf Bearers

8

H ALT CAST AROUND, EXAMINING THE CONFUSED MASS OF TRACKS in the soft snow, frowning to himself as he tried to make sense of the clues there. Horace waited, bursting with curiosity.

Finally, Halt stood up from where he had been kneeling, examining a particularly torn-up patch of ground.

"Thirty of them at least," he muttered. "Maybe more."

"Halt?" Horace asked experimentally. He didn't know if there were more details that Halt was about to reveal, but he couldn't wait any longer. The Ranger was moving away from the small stockade now, though, following another set of tracks that led into the mountains beyond the pass.

"A small party, maybe five or six, went on into Skandia. The rest of them went back the way they'd come."

He traced the directions with the tip of his longbow. He was speaking more to himself than to Horace, confirming in his own mind what the signs on the ground had told him.

"Who are they, Halt?" Horace asked quickly, hoping to break through the Ranger's single-minded concentration. Halt moved a few paces further in the direction taken by the smaller party.

"Temujai," he said briefly, over his shoulder.

Horace rolled his eyes in exasperation. "You already said that," he pointed out. "But who exactly are the Temujai?"

Halt stopped and turned to look back at him. For a moment, Horace was sure he was about to hear another comment on the sad state of his education. Then a thoughtful look crossed the Ranger's face and he said, in a milder tone than usual, "Yes, I suppose there's no reason why you should have ever heard of them, is there?"

Horace, loath to interrupt, merely shook his head.

"They're the Riders from the Eastern Steppes," the Ranger said. Horace frowned, not understanding.

"Steps?" he repeated, and Halt allowed a slight smile to show through.

"Not steps that you walk up and down," he told him. "Steppes-the plains and grasslands to the east. Nobody knows exactly where the Temujai originated. At one stage, they were simply a disorganized rabble of smaller tribes until Tem'gal welded them into one band and became the first Sha'shan."

"Sha'shan?" Horace interrupted hesitantly, totally unaware of what the word might mean. Halt nodded and went on to explain.

"The leader of each band was known as the Shan. When Tem'gal became the overlord, he created the title Sha'shan-the Shan of Shans, or the leader of leaders."

Horace nodded slowly. "But who was Tem'gal?" he asked, adding hastily, "I mean, where did he spring from?"

This time Halt shrugged. "Nobody really knows. Legend is that he was a simple herd boy. But somehow he became leader of one tribe, then united them with another, and another. The upshot was, he turned the Temujai into a nation of warriors-probably the best light cavalry in the world. They're fearless, highly organized and absolutely pitiless when it comes to battle. They've never been defeated, to my knowledge."

"So what are they doing here?" Horace asked, and Halt regarded him gravely, gnawing at his lower lip as he considered a possible answer.

"That's the question, isn't it?" he asked. "Perhaps we should follow this smaller group and see what we can find out. At least as long as they're heading in the direction we want to go."

And slinging his bow over his left shoulder, he walked to where Abelard stood patiently, reins trailing loosely on the ground. Horace hurried after him, swinging up astride the black battlehorse he had been riding to impress the border guards. All at once, the finery that he had donned to play the role of a Gallican courier seemed a little incongruous. He nudged the black with his heel and set out after Halt.

The other two horses followed, the battlehorse on its lead rein, and Tug trotting quietly along without any need for urging or direction.

Halt leaned down from the saddle, studying the ground.

"Look who's back," he said, indicating a trail in the snow. Horace nudged his horse closer and peered at the ground. To him there was nothing evident, other than a confusion of hoofprints, rapidly losing definition in the soft, wet snow.

"What is it?" he asked finally.

Halt replied without looking up from the track. "The single rider who went off on his own has come back."

Some way back, the trail had split, with one rider leaving the group and heading deeper into Skandia, while the main party had circled to the north, maintaining the same distance from the border. Now, apparently, that single rider had rejoined the group.

"Well, that makes it easier. Now we don't have to worry about his coming up behind us while we're trailing the others," Halt said. He started Abelard forward, then stopped, his eyes slitted in concentration.

"That's odd," he said, and slid down from the saddle to crouch on one knee in the snow. He studied the ground closely, then peered back in the direction from which the single rider had rejoined the group. He grunted, then straightened up, dusting wet snow from his knees.

"What is it?" Horace asked. Halt screwed his face into a grimace. He wasn't totally sure of what he was seeing, and that bothered him. He didn't like uncertainties in situations like this.

"The single rider didn't rejoin the group here. They went this way at least a day before he did," he eventually said. Horace shrugged. There was a logical reason for that, he thought.

"So he was heading after them to a rendezvous," he suggested. Halt nodded agreement.

"More than likely. They're obviously a reconnaissance group and he may have gone scouting by himself. The question is, who followed him when he came back?"

That raised Horace's eyebrows. "Someone followed him?" he asked. Halt let go a deep breath in frustration.

"Can't be sure," he said briefly. "But it looks that way. The snow's melting quickly and the tracks aren't totally clear. It's easy enough to read the horse's tracks, but this new player is on foot:if he's really there," he added uncertainly.

"So:," Horace began. "What should we do?"

Halt came to a decision. "We'll follow them," he said, mounting once more. "I won't sleep comfortably until I find out what's going on here. I don't like puzzles."

The puzzle deepened an hour later when Tug, following quietly behind the two riders, suddenly threw back his head and let go a loud whinny. It was so unexpected that both Halt and Horace spun in their saddles and stared at the little horse in amazement. Tug whinnied again, a long, rising tone that had a note of anxiety in it. Horace's spare battlehorse jerked at its lead rope and whinnied in alarm as well. Horace was able to quell an incipient response from the black that he was riding, while Abelard, naturally, remained still.

Angrily, Halt made the Ranger hand signal for silence and Tug's whinny cut off in midnote. The others gradually quieted as well.

But Tug continued to stand in the trail, forelegs braced wide apart, head up and nostrils flaring as he sniffed the frigid air around them. His body trembled. He was on the brink of giving vent to another of those anguished cries and only the discipline and superb training of all Ranger horses was preventing him from doing so.

"What the devil:," Halt began, then, sliding down from the saddle, he moved quietly back to the distressed horse, patting Tug's neck gently.

"Hush now, boy," he murmured. "Settle now. What's the trouble with you then?"

The quiet voice and the gentle hands seemed to soothe the little horse. He put his head down and rubbed his forehead against Halt's chest. The Ranger gently fondled the little horse's ears, still speaking to him in a soft croon.

"There you are:if only you could talk, eh? You know something. You sense something, isn't that right?"

Horace watched curiously as the trembling gradually eased. But he noticed the little horse's ears were still pricked and alert. He might have been quieted, but he wasn't at ease, the apprentice realized.

"I've never seen a Ranger horse behave like that before," he said softly, and Halt looked up at him, his eyes troubled.

"Neither have I," he admitted. "That's what has me worried."

Horace studied Tug carefully. "He seems to have calmed down a little now," he ventured, and Halt laid a hand across the horse's flank.

"He's still taut as a bowstring, but I think we can keep going. There's only an hour or so till dark and I want to see where our friends are camped for the night."