The scene tipped from confusion into bloody anarchy.
Jup came close to being pulled from his horse by a small mob of Unis with spears. His wild slashing held them off, but he would have been dragged down if a knot of other Wolverines hadn’t joined in beating off the attackers. He and they resumed the dash.
Alfray kept pace with the others, but because of his passenger inevitably fell back. They too were targeted for an attack, this time by Manis who had by now abandoned any idea that the orcs were there to aid them. He gave as good an account of himself as he could. But carrying a wounded comrade hampered him, as did bearing the Wolverines’ banner, which proved less effective a weapon than a broadsword would have done in the circumstances. And no other Wolverines were near enough to help.
Alfray and Darig were almost out of the mob’s grasp when Darig caught the full force of a spear thrust.
He cried out.
Alfray slashed down at the spear carrier, gouging a chunk out of his shoulder. But as far as Darig was concerned, the damage was done.
He swayed in the saddle, head lolling.
Alfray was too busy fending off other attackers to pay Darig much heed. Then another mounted warrior confronted him and Alfray’s horse reared. Darig toppled. As soon as he hit the ground, a mass of humans rushed in. Their swords, axes, spears and knives rose and fell.
Alfray cried out in rage and despair. With a single blow he struck down the cavalryman blocking his way. A quick glance at the mob around Darig confirmed that there was nothing he could do. Spurring on his horse, he escaped another onslaught by the skin of his teeth. He joined the tail end of the Wolverines, fighting their way through the bottleneck at the edge of the battlefield. By now he was convinced they wouldn’t make it.
Behind them, the armies met and melded in savage conflict.
The start of the battle full-blown proved a boon. The two sides’ preoccupation with killing each other, and preserving their own lives, meant the Wolverines were a lesser priority.
Two more minutes of furious slaughter, stretched to infinity, saw the band off the battlefield. They galloped at high speed across the sward and up the opposite bank.
As they climbed, Coilla looked back. A group of humans, twenty or thirty strong, was riding after them. From their appearance, she took them for Unis.
“We’ve got company!”
she yelled.
Stryke already knew as much.
“Keep going!”
he shouted.
When they got to the top of the valley side they found beyond a sweeping slope leading to grassy flatlands dotted with woods. They kept moving. Their pursuers bobbed over the hill behind them, riding just as swiftly.
The going was softer on this side of the valley. Clods of earth were kicked up by the hooves of hunters and hunted.
A grunt yelled. Everybody looked skyward.
Three dragons were gliding in from the direction of the battlefield.
Stryke had to assume they were after his band. He led the Wolverines in the direction of trees, gambling on cover.
“Heads down!”
Jup cried.
A dragon swooped. They felt a blast of heat at their backs. The dragon soared low over their heads and climbed to rejoin its fellows.
The band looked to their rear and saw the pursuing humans had been decimated. Charred corpses of men and horses littered the ground. Some still burned. Several humans, blazing head to foot, tottered and fell. A few hadn’t been hit, but they’d had the heart knocked out of them as far as the chase was concerned. Their horses halted, they simply stared at the fallen, or watched dumbly as the orcs slipped from their grasp.
Stryke wondered if the carnage was intentional or not. You never knew with dragons. They were an imprecise weapon at the best of times.
As if in answer, they came in for another attack. The band strained their mounts to reach the fringes of the wood.
A great jagged shadow covered them. The dragon’s scalding breath flamed a vast swath of grass a couple of yards to their right. They goaded their shying horses harder still.
Another dragon dived, its mighty wings flapping. A downrush of air battering them, they raced to the wood.
They reached it, with stragglers, including Alfray, barely making the shelter in time. The dragon unleashed its scalding breath, igniting the trees overhead with a roar. Burning branches fell, smouldering leaves and sparks showered down.
Maintaining their pace, the Wolverines drove deep into the wood. Through gaps in the curtain above their heads they caught glimpses of their flying antagonists keeping pace.
At length the sightings grew rarer. Eventually the dragons were apparently eluded. The band slowed but kept moving. They stopped when they reached the wood’s far limit.
Concealed within the treeline, they spotted the dragons again, passing overhead in a circling reconnaissance. Not daring to break cover, the band dismounted and guards were posted to watch for any humans that might be following. As far as they could tell, none were. They settled, weapons to hand, waiting for a chance to break cover.
Gulping a long draught from his water sack, Haskeer hammered back the stopper and commenced complaining. “That was one hell of a risk we took back there.”
“What else could we have done?” Coilla said. “Anyway, it worked, didn’t it?”
Haskeer couldn’t argue with that and contented himself with some moody scowling.
His temper wasn’t shared by most of the others. The grunts in particular were jubilant about getting away with it, and Stryke had to bark at them to keep the racket down.
Alfray was less joyful. His thoughts lay with Darig. “If I’d just hung on to him, perhaps he’d still be here now.”
“There was nothing you could do,” Stryke told him. “Don’t scourge yourself with what might have been.”
“Stryke’s right,” Coilla agreed. “The wonder is there weren’t more lost.”
“Even so,” Stryke murmured, half to himself, “if anyone’s to be blamed for the waste of lives, perhaps it’s me.”
“Don’t start getting sappy,” Coilla warned him. “We need you clear-headed, not wallowing in guilt.”
Stryke took the point and dropped the subject. He reached into his pocket and brought out the star.
“That odd-looking thing’s caused us so much trouble,” Alfray said. “It’s turned our lives upside down. I hope it’s worth it, Stryke.”
“It could be our furlough from serfdom.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. I think you’ve been looking for any excuse to break away for some time.”
“In truth, haven’t we all?”
“That could be so. But I’m more wary of change at my age.”
“This is a time of change. Everything’s changing. Why not us?”
“Huh, change,” Haskeer sneered. “There’s too much . . . talk of . . .” He appeared breathless and swayed unsteadily. Then he went down like a felled ox.
“What the
hell?
” Coilla exclaimed.
They gathered around him.
“What’s the matter?” Stryke asked. “Has he taken a wound?”
After a quick examination, Alfray replied, “No, he hasn’t.” He laid a hand on Haskeer’s forehead, then checked his pulse.
“So what’s wrong with him?”
“He’s got a fever. Know what I think, Stryke? I reckon he’s got the same thing Meklun had.”
Several of the grunts backed away.
“He’s been hiding this, the fool,” Alfray added.
“He’s not been himself for the last couple of days, has he?” Coilla remarked.
“No. All the signs were there. And here’s another thought, and it’s not a pleasant one.”
“Go on,” Stryke urged.
“I was suspicious of what it was that killed Meklun,” Alfray admitted. “Because although his wounds were bad, he could have recovered. I think he picked up something at that encampment we torched.”
“He didn’t go near the place,” Jup reminded him. “He
couldn’t
.”
“No. But Haskeer did.”
“Gods,” Stryke whispered. “He said he didn’t touch any of the bodies. He must have lied.”
Coilla said, “If Haskeer got the disease there, and passed it on to Meklun, couldn’t he have given it to the rest of us too?”
There was a murmur of unease from the band.
“Not necessarily,” Alfray told her. “Meklun was already weakened by his wounds, and open to the infection. As for the rest of us, if we were infected, you’d expect to see the signs by now. Does anybody feel unwell?”
The band chorused no or shook their heads.
“From what little we know about these human diseases,” Alfray went on, “the greatest risk of infection seems to be in the first forty-eight hours or so.”
“Let’s hope you’re right,” Stryke said. He looked down at Haskeer. “Think he’ll pull through?”
“He’s young and strong. That helps.”
“What can we do for him?”
“Not much beyond trying to keep his fever down and waiting for it to break.”
“Another problem,” Coilla sighed.
“Yes,” Stryke agreed, “and we don’t need it.”
“It’s a good thing for him we don’t follow his own suggestion about what to do with the wounded. Remember his idea about Meklun?”
“Yeah. Ironic, isn’t it?”
“What now, chief?” Jup wondered.
“We stick to the plan.” He indicated the dragons circling above. “As soon as they’ve gone, assuming they
do
go, we push on to Trinity.”
It was several hours before the coast was clear.
The dragons, having flown over the wood numerous times, finally headed north and disappeared. Stryke ordered Haskeer to be put over a horse and tied in place. A grunt was assigned to lead it. Cautiously, the band set out in the direction of Trinity. Stryke estimated the journey would take about a day and a half, assuming no obstacles.
With Weaver’s Lea behind them, they were free to take a more or less direct route. But now that they were in the south, that part of Maras-Dantia where humans had established themselves in greatest numbers, they had to be even more cautious. Wherever possible they sought the shelter of timberland, blind valleys and other naturally protective areas. Though the further south they travelled, the more evidence they saw of human habitation, and of despoliation.
On the morning of the second day, they came to what had been a small forest, now almost completely felled. Much of the wood had been removed, but large amounts had simply been left to rot. The severed stumps were overgrown with mosses or brown with fungi. Which meant the felling was at least several months old.
They marvelled at the destruction, and the amount of effort needed to achieve it. And they grew more wary, knowing that such devastation required many hands to accomplish.
Several hours later they discovered the use the wood had been put to.
They reached a river, its course running south-west toward the Carascrag mountain range. As rivers were the most reliable navigational aids, they followed it. Soon they noticed that the water flowed deep and was turning sluggish.
Rounding a bend, they found out why.
The river became an enormous, shimmering lake, covering many acres of previously open country. It had been created by a massive wooden dam, constructed they felt sure with trunks taken from the denuded forest. The dam both appalled and impressed them. Standing higher than the tallest pine, it consisted of a barrier six trunks in depth, running a distance a good archer would be sore put to match with an arrow’s flight. The timbers had been fitted with a high standard of precision, then lashed with what must have been miles of cable-thick twine. Mortar sealed the joins. On either bank, and emerging from several places in the river itself, were vast angled props, adding to the dam’s stability.
Despite the great structure, scouting parties found no sign that humans were present. There having been no let-up in their journey since the previous day, Stryke ordered a halt and posted lookouts.
Once Alfray attended Haskeer’s fever, which had grown worse, he joined the other officers to discuss their next move.
“This capturing of the water means we must be near Trinity,” Stryke reasoned. “They’d need that much to serve a large population.”
“It represents power, too,” Alfray suggested. “The power that controlling the water supply brings.”
“Not to mention the power it represents in terms of the number of hands needed to build such a thing,” Stryke said. “The humans of Trinity must be highly organised as well as numerous.”
“Yet they ignore the
magical
power they damaged by perverting the river’s course,” Jup told them. “Even I can sense the negative energy here.”
“And
I
sense a major problem,” Coilla said, bringing the conversation to more immediate matters. “Trinity’s a fanatical Uni stronghold. Word is they aren’t exactly crazy about elder races there. How the hell are we going to get in to try for the star? Or are you planning a suicide mission, Stryke?”
“I don’t know what we’re going to do. But we’ll follow basic military strategy: get as near as we can, try to find ourselves a hiding place and assess the situation. There has to be a way, we just don’t know what it is yet.”
“What if there isn’t?” Alfray asked. “What if we can’t get near the place?”
“Then we’ll have to rethink everything. Maybe we’ll negotiate with Jennesta for the one star we have, in exchange for some kind of amnesty.”
“Oh yes, of course,” Coilla remarked cynically.
“Or it could be that this is the beginning of a new life for us, as outlaws. Which, let’s face it, is what we are anyway.”
Jup looked troubled. “That doesn’t sound an appetising prospect, chief.”
“Then we’ll have to do our best to avoid it, won’t we? Now get some rest, all of you. I want us back on the road to Trinity in no more than an hour.”
They spotted Trinity in late afternoon.
Hidden by the cover of vegetation, eyes peeled for patrols, the Wolverines took in the distant settlement. The town was an enclave, completely surrounded by a high timber wall, with lookout towers.
The Carascrag Mountains loomed above and beyond it, steely blue with saw-jagged peaks. Shimmering air played over the mountains, heated by thermals rising from the Kirgizil Desert on the far side of the range.