The Herons chuckled as Tursgud cursed angrily in reply.
The Herons formed a defensive semicircle, some twenty meters out from the hut. Hal settled into concealment behind a log that had fallen across two large boulders. As he peered out into the growing darkness, a hand touched his shoulder. He jumped in alarm, and turned to see that Jesper had appeared beside him.
“How do you do that?” he asked, his nerves still racing.
Jesper grinned. “I’m a thief. It’s my job. Have you got the plaque?”
Hal reached into his jacket and handed him the small plaque. Jesper put it in his own pocket, then turned away.
“Give me twenty seconds,” he said, “then start the diversion.” He began crawling rapidly away on his belly toward the hut. After he’d gone five meters, Hal found it almost impossible to keep track of him. He shook his head, then turned back to face the front. Deciding that twenty seconds had elapsed, he let out a low whistle.
Stig, five meters away behind a bush, rose to his knees and called out loudly. “Herons! Everyone in position?”
From far out to the right of the line, Wulf’s answering cry was heard. “I’m here, Hal!”
“Me too!” That was Ulf.
“Ready, Hal!” Ingvar waved a hand from his position behind a bush. Hal had originally planned to place him in the doorway of the hut, as a last line of defense, but the rules prevented it.
“Jesper’s here!” called Jesper’s voice. Curiously, it came from a position well away from where Hal had last seen him. A second or so later, Stefan’s voice came from the same direction.
“Stefan! I’m in position.”
Hal grinned. The mimic was living up to his reputation. He looked toward the hut and saw a shadow slip through the doorway. Jesper was in place, he thought.
“Edvin! I’m here.” That was close by. Stig had already called so he didn’t call again.
“And me,” muttered Hal. The roll call had probably given away all their positions. But he hoped it had served its true purpose—distracting the attention of the attacking Sharks from the direction of the hut while Jesper slipped inside. He shrugged. It really didn’t matter if the Sharks knew where they all were. They were bound to overwhelm the defenders anyway.
Although that wouldn’t prevent the Herons from doing their best to stop them.
The horn sounded the signal for the attack to begin. Hal knelt up behind the log, peering into the blackness for some sign of their attackers.
After some minutes, he saw shadows moving out on his left and called Stig’s attention to them. By the time Stig looked, they had gone to ground.
Something rustled the bushes directly in front. Hal peered in that direction, calling softly to Stig, “Can you see anyone?”
Stig shook his head. “It’s a diversion,” he said. Then a similar rustling sound was heard from a position farther to their left—between the first movement and the figures he’d originally seen.
“On the right!” Wulf shouted, and as Hal swung round to look, he saw dark figures on that side going to ground behind a patch of low undergrowth. His heart pounded. Tursgud’s team were doing their job well, keeping the defenders’ attention switching back and forth from one side of the line to another as they advanced ever closer. Once they got close enough, Hal knew, they’d break from cover and rush the defenders, knowing they had them outnumbered.
He had a sudden flash of inspiration.
“Look for Tursgud,” he called to Stig. “He’ll have the plaque.”
It would be just like the Sharks’ leader to want the glory for himself. He’d taken the lead role for his team in all the contests so far. It didn’t matter how many of the other Sharks broke through the Herons’ line. If they could stop Tursgud, they’d win.
More rustling in front. Then from the left again. They were edging closer now. Any minute and they’d …
A loud whistle sounded across the dark field and suddenly, there were figures up and running at them from three different directions.
Three were running at the right-hand side of the line and he saw Ulf and Wulf rise from cover and sprint out to meet them. The twins grappled two of the attackers to the ground but the third broke through. Stefan came up from behind a bush but the attacker caught him off balance, shoving him backward. Stefan rolled and came to his feet, setting out in pursuit.
But now two more shadows were sprinting toward them in the middle of the line, choosing their moment as Edvin broke from cover to help Stefan. They came forward, then went to ground again. Two more rose on the left, running like deer through the shadows. One of them lost his footing on the rough ground and went over. But he rolled to his feet and kept coming.
Stig rose to his feet.
“Wait!” Hal yelled. “Wait till you see Tursgud!”
The two runners on the left had dropped into cover once more. Hal glanced around. His defenders were fully engaged now, except for himself and Stig. And Ingvar, of course, standing now and groping at shadows like a shortsighted bear. This was how he’d thought it would go. But with Jesper in the hut, he was even more shorthanded than the enemy expected.
Seven attackers had shown themselves. Three remained hidden. One of them had to be Tursgud.
Hal rose and ran to where Stig was searching the shadows in front of them. Stig was their best chance to stop Tursgud, Hal knew.
“I’m going after those two on the left,” he said. “Wait till you see Tursgud. He’s got to be in the middle somewhere. He’s got diversions on the left and right. Ignore everyone else and stop him. Understood?”
Stig’s teeth flashed in a grin. “It’ll be my pleasure,” he said. Hal felt a moment of hope then. So far, he’d been hoping for a draw in this event. But if Tursgud ran true to form, they could even manage a win.
He rose from his crouched position and sprinted to his left, angling toward the spot where the two runners had gone into cover again. By deserting his post in this way, he hoped to lure Tursgud from cover. Then Stig could deal with him.
He hoped.
The two concealed runners saw him coming. They rose and started to skirt wide to their right—his left. He changed direction to cut them off, then heard Stig’s triumphant shout behind him.
“Tursgud!”
Finally, Tursgud and two other runners had risen from concealment, only a few meters from where Stig was waiting. Hal saw his friend break cover and move toward the Sharks’ leader, then saw Tursgud angling back toward Stig and realized he’d miscalculated. Tursgud had out-thought him. He crashed into Stig and the two of them rolled on the ground, grappling with each other. And as they did so, Tursgud’s two companions raced for the hut and Hal heard his triumphant laugh.
Hal turned and raced toward them to cut them off. He might have made it, but the front runner suddenly switched direction and charged at Hal, putting his shoulder into his ribs and sending him crashing to the ground, winded and retching for breath.
Lying, groaning in the dust, Hal watched as the second runner, brandishing a white plaque over his head, plunged through the doorway of the hut.
The braying sound of Sigurd’s horn signaled the end of the attack.
chapter
thirty-six
S
igurd carried the box out of the hut and placed it on the ground in front of the two assembled brotherbands.
Most of the boys were nursing bruises and scrapes and Sigurd shrugged fatalistically. Technically, they were not supposed to wrestle and punch each other. A simple tag should be enough. But he had never known one of these events where the boys didn’t start throwing punches.
He unlocked the box and threw the lid open, revealing the single white plaque bearing the Shark insignia. Tursgud and his team cheered. The Herons shuffled their feet and looked surly.
“Bad luck, Stig,” Tursgud said cheerfully. He had a bruised cheek from his struggle with Stig, but the triumph of their win meant he felt no pain. Stig glowered at him. Hal put a restraining hand on his arm.
“Let it be,” he said quietly.
Sigurd handed the plaque back to Tursgud and relocked the box, passing it to Viggo to replace it in the hut.
“That’s a win for the Sharks,” he said. “Now change places. Herons are attacking. Sharks defending. Thirty minutes to get into position.”
Hal led his team away into the shadows. About twenty-five meters from the hut, he stopped for a few moments by a pair of low bushes growing close together. He had noticed them earlier and marked them down.
“Bunch up,” he told his team quietly and they grouped closely around him, as if listening to tactics. Instead, he looked at Stefan and pointed to the bushes.
“In you go, Stefan. Wait till you hear me call, ‘Run, Ingvar, run!’ Then start your performance. Don’t make a sound until then. You’ll be right in the middle of them.”
Concealed by his teammates, Stefan dropped to his hands and knees and crawled under the bushes.
Once he was in position, the rest of the team moved away, dispersing as they went into a long skirmish line. Ingvar, walking close beside Hal, touched his sleeve.
“Hal, I just want to make sure of something. You don’t want me to run, do you?”
Hal smiled at him. “No, Ingvar. I wanted a signal that I normally would never call out.”
Ingvar nodded ponderously. “That’s good thinking.”
“Just stay by me,” Hal said. “I have other plans for you.”
The Herons dispersed, finding places to conceal themselves. Hal didn’t go far. He settled behind a clump of small bushes with Ingvar, only five meters from the point where Stefan was concealed. Stig and the twins fanned out to their left. Edvin went right. Hal grimaced. It was a pretty thin line of attackers, he thought. Then he shrugged. Their real attacker was already inside the hut. All he and the others had to do was create as much confusion and disturbance as they could.
“Start moving in, then pull back,” he’d told his team earlier in the night. “Don’t let them get close. Change positions as much as you can. We want them confused when it’s all over so they won’t know who was where.”
Now he took off his jacket and draped it over Ingvar’s head and shoulders, so that his silhouette would be shapeless and unrecognizable. Then he pulled the other boy’s sleeves down to conceal his hands.
“Ready, Ingvar?” he said.
The other boy smiled at him. “This is going to be fun, Hal.”
Hal nodded. “Let’s hope so. Remember, once you’ve done your act, I’m going to leave you here. Just sit down and stay quiet. If anyone stumbles over you, belt ’em.”
“What if it’s you?” Ingvar sounded concerned.
Hal laughed quietly. “I’ll make sure it’s not.”
Then Sigurd’s horn blared out, signaling the beginning of the attack, and Hal held his hand up for silence. They were close to the line of defenders and he could hear whispering voices and rustling movement through the bushes as Tursgud’s team moved into position.
They sat, hardly daring to breathe, for several minutes. The other Herons did the same, remaining motionless and silent in their various hiding places. More minutes passed. Then, as Hal had known they would, the waiting defenders grew impatient.
“Anyone see anything?” a voice hissed. It was surprisingly close. Another voice, a little to the left, answered.
“Shut up! They’ll hear you!”
He smiled to himself. He looked at the big form beside him, shapeless and indistinct with the jacket pulled up over his head. Any moment now, he thought. He counted to fifty, then reached out, putting his hand under Ingvar’s arm and helping him to rise.
Ingvar stood and began to shake the bushes around him violently.
Almost immediately, Hal heard one of the Sharks’ team call out as he saw the massive form rise out of the bushes.
“There’s one of them! Come on!”
He heard running feet crunching in the undergrowth and he yelled at the top of his voice:
“Run, Ingvar! Run!”
But Ingvar kept shaking the branches and swiping angrily at them. As he did, Stefan, concealed close by, let out a shattering roar—a perfect imitation of an angry black bear about to charge. The running feet stopped and there was a cry of alarm as two of the Sharks collided with each other in their haste to stop.
Stefan roared again—sounding even angrier this time.
“Orlog and Gorlog! It’s a bear!”
“Let’s get out of here!”
The running feet could be heard again, going away this time, as the pair blundered back from the line of defense, shouting in fear. Hal, choking with laughter, pulled Ingvar back down to a sitting position. The big boy beamed at him.
“If I hadn’t known that was Stefan, I would have soiled myself,” he said. Then he frowned. “It
was
Stefan, wasn’t it?”
Now Stefan warmed to his task. He shouted out, in a perfect imitation of Tursgud’s voice, “Watch out, everybody! There’s a bear on the loose! Pull back! Pull back!”