Waylander II:In The Realm Of The Wolf (22 page)

The seven Sathuli were trying to make sense of the tracks leading up the hill. Waylander knew what they were thinking. The human footprints were leading north, but the tracks of the hound went both up and down the hill. The Sathuli were confused. At the top of the slope the trail narrowed, a huge boulder by the trees making an ideal hiding-place. Not one of the warriors wanted to walk that slope, fearing a hidden crossbowman. Waylander could not hear their arguments, but he saw two of them gesticulating, pointing to the east. Waylander had taken a chance, moving carefully up the slope, then retracing his steps,

walking backwards, placing his feet in the tracks he had made during the climb. Then he had lifted Scar, hurling the yelping hound into a snow drift to the left of the trail. A long branch overhung the slope here and Waylander had leapt to grasp it, moving hand over hand until he dropped to the ground by the trunk. Then, the huge hound beside him, he had hunkered down to wait for the Sathuli.

He was cold and wet. Reversing the cloak made him almost invisible in the snow, but it also countered the heat-retaining qualities of the sheepskin and he began to shiver.

The Sathuli concluded their discussions. Three men moved up the slope, two heading to the right of the trail and two to the left.

Waylander winced as he pulled his crossbow into position, the wound in his arm seeping fresh blood. Silently he eased himself back, moving behind a snow-covered screen of bushes, then traversing the slope and climbing to where several fallen trees had created a latticed wall on the hillside. Scar padded behind him, tongue lolling from his massive jaws.

The two Sathuli came in sight. Both carried short hunting bows, arrows notched. Waylander laid his hand on Scar’s shoulder, gently pushing him down. ‘Quiet now!’

The white-robed warriors drew alongside the tree wall. Waylander rose, arm extended. The first bolt flew, punching through the leading warrior’s temple. He dropped without a sound. The second swung, dropped his bow and drew his tulwar.

‘Face me like a man, blade to blade!’ he demanded.

‘No,’ replied Waylander. The second bolt slashed through the man’s robe, cleaving into his heart. His mouth opened. The tulwar dropped from his hand. He took two tottering steps towards Waylander, then pitched to his face in the snow.

Retrieving his bolts Waylander stripped the white robes from the first corpse and the burnoose from the second. Within moments he became a Sathuli warrior. Scar padded out and stood before him, head cocked to one side, nostrils quivering. ‘It is still me,’ said the man, kneeling down and

extending his hand. Scar edged cautiously forward, sniffing at the outstretched fingers. Satisfied, the hound sat back on its haunches. Waylander patted its head.

Time to move,’ said the man. Reloading the crossbow he carefully traversed the slope.

By now the other hunters would have found where the tracks stopped, and they would be regrouping, rethinking their strategy. Then it would become apparent that two of their number were missing, and they would know Waylander was behind them. They would have two choices: wait for him to come to them, or continue the hunt.

Waylander had fought the Sathuli before, both as a soldier leading troops, and as a lone traveller. They were a patient people, yet also ruthless and courageous. But he did not think they would wait for him. Trusting in the advantage of numbers they would set out to find their missing companions and then follow his tracks. Therefore, since he could not disguise his trail, he would have to render it useless to them.

Reaching the top of the slope he moved silently into the snow-shrouded pine wood. There were few sounds here, the gentle sighing of the mountain breeze, the occasional groaning of a branch weighed down with snow. Drawing in a deep breath he let it out slowly then rose, moving back towards the east in a wide circle until he came to the high point of the slope above where he had earlier lain in wait for the two Sathuli. Kneeling behind a boulder he gazed down to where the bodies lay. The corpses were still there, but had been turned to their backs, arms folded across their chest, their tulwars in their hands.

‘Wait here, Scar,’ he told the dog and moved to the edge of the slope. The hound trotted after him. Twice more he tried to make the dog obey. At last he gave up. ‘You need training, you ugly whoreson!’

Carefully Waylander made his way down to the tree wall until he came to the tracks he had made not an hour before. They were overlaid now by the footprints of the hunters. Waylander smiled. The tracks now formed a great ring, with no beginning and no end. Calling the hound to him he

knelt and, with a groan, lifted Scar to his shoulder. ‘You are a troublesome ally, boy!’ he said. Hauling himself to the tree wall he inched his way back along it, clambering down by the base of the largest fallen tree, where the snow-covered roots clawed uselessly at the sky. Here, his tracks hidden by thick bushes, he climbed back to the crest of the slope and settled down to wait.

It was nearing dusk when the first of the trackers came into sight. Waylander hunkered down behind a boulder and waited until he heard the men slithering down the slope. At the bottom, by the bodies, they began to argue among themselves. He could not follow the debate, but at least one of the men used the Sathuli word for circle. They were angry and tired, and one sat down on the tree wall, flinging down his bow.

Waylander watched them dispassionately. Once more they had two choices: either continue to follow the circle towards the south, or retrace their steps back up the slope. If they moved south he would chance the open valleys to Gothir lands.

If north he would have to kill them.

They talked on for almost an hour. The light was beginning to fail. The warrior who had flung down his bow cleared away a section of snow and built a fire. The others hunkered down around it. Once the flames were high they added wet pine needles to the blaze, a thick, oily smoke rising to the darkening sky.

Waylander cursed and eased back from the crest. They’re calling for more help,’ he told the uncomprehending hound. ‘But from where - north or south? Or both?’ Scar cocked his head and licked at Waylander’s hand. ‘We’ll have to run for it, boy, and take our chances.’

Rising, he moved silently towards the south, the hound beside him.

‘It makes no sense,’ said Asten, his voice trembling despite his attempts to remain calm. Karnak chuckled and thumped the angry General on the

shoulder. ‘You worry too much, old lad. Look, the Gothir are ready to invade as soon as the Ventrians land. They are not going to risk attacking Delnoch - they’ve made a deal with the Sathuli Lord. Well, I can make deals too. And if we stop the Gothir then we can use all our forces against the Ventrians and crush them in a single battle.’

‘That’s all well and good, Karnak, but why does it have to be you that rides into Sathuli lands? It’s madness!’

‘Galen assures me we have safe conduct.’

‘Pah!’ sneered Asten. ‘I wouldn’t believe that walking snake if he told me the sun shines in the summer-time. Why can’t you see it?’

‘See what?’ countered Karnak. ‘See that you and he are not exactly bosom friends? It matters nothing. You are a fine leader of men, while his talent for duplicity and deceit is invaluable. I don’t need my officers to like one another, Asten, but you carry your dislike to extremes that affect your judgement.’

Asten reddened, but took a deep breath before he replied. ‘As you say, I am a good leader - no false modesty - but I am not, and never will be, a charismatic leader. I cannot raise morale to the heights you can. You are vital to us, and now you are planning to ride into Sathuli lands with a mere twenty men! They hate us, Karnak - you most of all. Before the Vagrian War you led two legions into their territory and crushed their army. Kashti’s teeth, man, you killed the present lord’s father!’

‘Ancient history!’ snapped Karnak. They are a warrior race. They understand the nature of battle.’

The risk is too great,’ said Asten wearily, knowing he had lost.

Karnak grinned. ‘Risk? Gods, man, that’s what I live for! To look into the eye of the beast, to feel its breath upon my face. What are we if we face no dangers? Frail flesh and bone to live and age and die. I’ll ride into those mountains with my twenty men, I’ll beard the Sathuli lord in his own den, and I’ll win him over. The Gothir will not reach the Sentran Plain, and the Drenai will be secure. Isn’t that a risk worth taking?’

‘Aye,’ stormed Asten. ‘It’s a risk I would willingly take. But then the Drenai can afford to lose old Asten, the farmer’s son. There are many capable officers who could take his place. But who will take yours when the Sathuli betray you and nail your head to a palace post?’

Karnak was silent for a moment. ‘If I do. . . die,’ he said softly, ‘you’ll win for us, Asten. You’re a survivor, old lad. The men know that.’

‘Then know this, Karnak. If for any reason Galen comes back without you, I intend to cut his throat.’

Karnak chuckled. ‘You do that,’ he said, the smile fading. ‘You do exactly that!’

Black and grey vultures, their bellies distended, hobbled on the plain. Some still squabbled over the carcasses that lay around the ruined tents. Crows had also gathered, and these darted in among the vultures, their sharp beaks pecking at unresisting flesh. Smoke spiralled lazily from the burning tents, creating a grey pall that hung over the scene of the massacre.

Angel guided his horse down on to the plain. The glutted vultures closest to the horsemen waddled away, the others ignoring the newcomers.

Belash and Shia rode alongside Angel. ‘These were Green Monkey tribe,’ said Belash. ‘Not Wolves.’ Vaulting from the saddle he moved among the bodies.

Angel did not dismount. To his left was a small circle of bodies, the men on the outside, women and children within. Obviously the last of the warriors had died defending their families. One woman had covered her baby’s body with her own, but the broken lance that jutted from her back had thrust through the infant she shielded.

‘Must be more than a hundred dead,’ said Senta. Angel nodded. To his right the bodies of five infants lay where they had been thrown against a wagon, their heads crushed. Blood stained the rim of the wagon-wheel, and it was all too obvious how the babes had been killed.

Belash walked back to where Angel sat his mount. ‘More than a thousand soldiers,’ he said. ‘Heading for the mountains.’

‘Wanton slaughter,’ whispered Angel.

‘Yes,’ agreed Belash. ‘So they can’t be all bad, eh?’

Angel felt a piercing stab of shame as he heard his own words repeated back to him, but he said nothing and tugged on the reins, galloping his horse back up the hillside to where Miriel waited.

Her face was the colour of wood-ash and she was gripping the pommel of her saddle, her knuckles bone-white. ‘I can feel their pain,’ she said. ‘I can feel it, Angel. I can’t close it out!’

‘Then don’t try,’ he told her.

She let out a shuddering sigh, and huge tears formed, spilling to her cheeks. Dismounting, Angel lifted her from the saddle, holding her close as wracking sobs shuddered her frame. ‘It is all in the land,’ she said. ‘AH the memories. Soaked in blood. The land knows.’

He rubbed her back and stroked her hair. ‘It’s seen blood before, Miriel. And they can’t be hurt any more.’

‘What kind of men could do this?’ she stormed, anger replacing her sorrow.

Angel had no answer. To kill a man in battle he understood, but to lift a baby by its heels and … he shuddered. It passed all understanding.

Belash, Shia and Senta rode up the hill. Miriel wiped her eyes and looked up at Belash. ‘The soldiers are between us and the mountains,’ she said. “This is your land. What do you advise?’

“There are paths they will not know,’ he told her. ‘I will lead you - if you still wish to go on.’

‘Why would I not?’ she countered.

‘There will be no time for tears, woman, where we shall ride. Only swords and true hearts.’

She smiled at him then, a cold smile, and mounted her horse. ‘You lead, Belash. We will follow.’

‘Why are you doing this?’ asked Shia. ‘We are not your people, and old Hard-to-Kill hates the Nadir. So tell me why.’

‘Because Kesa Khan asked me,’ said Miriel.

‘I will accept that,’ the girl said, after a moment. ‘But what of you?’ She turned her gaze to Angel and Senta.

Senta chuckled and drew his sword. ‘This blade,’ he said, ‘was specially made for me by a master armourer. It was a gift, lovely. He came to me one day and presented it. No man has ever bested me with a sword. I’m rather proud of that. But, you know, I didn’t ask the armourer about the

quality of the steel, or the amount of care that went into its Grafting. I just accepted the gift and thanked him for it. You understand?’

‘No,’ she answered. ‘What has that to do with my question?’

‘Like trying to teach mathematics to a fish,’ said Senta, shaking his head.

Angel edged his horse forward and leaned close to Shia. ‘Let’s put it this way, lady. He and I are the finest swordsmen you’ll ever see, but our reasons for being here are none of your damned business!’

Shia nodded solemnly. ‘That is true,’ she admitted, no trace of rancour in her voice.

Senta laughed aloud. ‘You should have been a diplomat, Angel.’ The gladiator merely grunted.

Belash led the way to the east and the distant mountains, Miriel riding behind with Shia, Angel alongside Senta bringing up the rear. Dark clouds loomed above the peaks and lightning flashed like a jagged spear from earth to sky. The sound of thunder followed almost instantly.

“The mountains are angry,’ Belash told Miriel.

‘So am I,’ she replied. A howling easterly wind blew sheets of rain across the barren, featureless land, and soon the riders travelled hunched in their saddles, drenched through.

For several hours they rode, until at last the sheer walls of the Mountains of the Moon loomed above them. The rain died down and Belash rode on ahead, angling back towards the south, scanning the forbidding peaks and the open steppes to the north. They had seen no soldiers, but now, with the clouds clearing, the smoke of many campfires could be seen in the distance, drifting up to merge with the grey sky.

This is the secret path,’ said Belash, pointing to the mountain face.

‘There’s no way through,’ said Angel, gazing up at the black, basaltic wall of rock. But Belash rode up a short scree slope - and vanished. Angel blinked. ‘Shemak’s balls!’ he whispered.

Miriel urged her mount up the slope, the others following. Virtually invisible from the outside there was a wide crack in the face, some four feet wide, leading to a shining tunnel. Miriel rode in, Angel behind her. There was scarcely a finger’s breadth of space between thigh and wall on both sides, and several times the riders had to lift their legs up on to the saddle in order for their mounts to squeeze through. The walls loomed around them and Angel felt his heartbeat quickening. Above them huge boulders were clustered, having fallen and wedged together precariously.

Senta spoke. ‘If a butterfly were to land on that mass it would all come tumbling down.’ His voice echoed up into the crack. A low groan came from above them and black dust filtered down through the rocks.

‘No speaking!’ whispered Shia.

They rode on, emerging at last on a wide ledge overlooking a bowl-shaped crater. More than a hundred tents were pitched there. Belash touched heels to his horse and galloped down the slope.

‘I think we’re home,’ said Senta.

From this high vantage point Angel could see the vastness of the steppes beyond the mountains, brown and arid, great folds across the land, rippling hills, humped-back ridges, as far as the eye could see. It was a hard, dry land and yet, as the sun dipped below the storm clouds, Angel saw in the steppes a relentless beauty that spoke to his warrior’s heart. It was the beauty of a sword-blade, strong and unyielding. There were no fields or meadows, no silver streams. Even the hills were sharp and unwelcoming. And the voice of the land whispered to him.

Be strong or die, it said.

The mountains reared around him like a jagged black crown, the tents of the Nadir seeming fragile, almost insubstantial against the eternal power of the rocks on which they stood.

Angel shivered. Senta was right.

They were home.

Altharin was angry. He had been angry since the Emperor had given him this command. Where was the glory in wiping out vermin? Where was the advancement? Within days the main body of the army would be filing through Sathuli lands to invade the Drenai, sweeping across the Sentran Plain, meeting the Drenai sword to sword, lance to lance.

But no. Not for Altharin. He gazed up at the looming black peaks and wrapped his fur-lined cloak more tightly about his long, lean frame.

What a place!

Basaltic rocks, jagged and sharp. No horses could ride here - the lava beds cut their hooves to ribbons. And men on foot had to make long, lung-bursting climbs before reaching the enemy. He glanced to his left where the hospital tents had been erected. Eighty-seven dead so far, in five miserable days.

Turning he strolled back to his own tent, where an iron brazier glowed with hot coals. Loosening his cloak he cast it over a canvas-backed chair. His manservant, Becca, bowed low.

‘Mulled wine, sir?’

‘No. Send for Powis.’ The man scurried from the tent.

Altharin had suspected this assignment would not be as easy as the Emperor believed. Surround and exterminate a few hundred Nadir, then rejoin the main army at the southern camp. Altharin shook his head. The first attack had gone well. The Green Monkeys had sat and watched as the Gothir lancers rode in, and only when the killing began did they recognise that death was upon them. But when the scouts reached the camp of the Wolves they found it deserted, the tracks leading off into these cursed mountains.

Altharin sighed. Tomorrow the Brotherhood would arrive, and his every move would be watched and reported back, his actions questioned, his strategies derided. I cannot win here, he thought.

The tent-flap opened and Powis ducked into the interior. ‘You called for me, sir?’

Altharin nodded. ‘You have gathered the reports?’

‘Not quite all of them, sir,’ answered the young man. ‘Bernas is with the surgeons. He has a nasty wound to his face and shoulder. And Gallis is still on the peak, trying to force a path through from the north.’

‘What have you learned from the others?’

‘Well, sir, we have found only three routes through to the interior. All are defended by archers and swordsmen. The first is narrow and the men can move only two abreast. This makes them easy targets, not just for arrows, but rocks hurled from above. The second is some three hundred paces north. It is fairly wide, but the Nadir have moved rocks and boulders across it, making a rough, but effective wall. We lost fourteen men there this morning. The last route is the one Gallis is trying to force. He has three hundred men with him. I don’t know yet what success he has enjoyed.’

‘Numbers?’ snapped Altharin.

‘Twenty-one killed today, slightly more than forty wounded.’

‘Enemy losses?’

‘Difficult to say, sir.’ The young man shrugged. ‘Men tend to exaggerate such matters. They claim to have killed a hundred Nadir. I would guess the figure is less than half, perhaps a quarter of that.’

The manservant, Becca, ducked inside the tent and bowed. ‘The Lord Gallis is returning, sir.’

‘Send him to me,’ ordered Altharin.

Moments later a tall, wide-shouldered man entered. He was around forty years of age, dark-eyed and black-bearded. His face was streaked with sweat and smeared with black, volcanic dust. His grey cloak was slashed and grime-covered, and there were several dents in his embossed iron breastplate.

‘Make your report, Cousin,’ said Altharin.

Gallis cleared his throat, removed his white plumed iron helm, and moved to the folding table on which sat a wine jug and several goblets of copper and silver. ‘With your permission?’ he croaked.

‘Of course.’

The officer filled a goblet and drained it at a single swallow. “The cursed dust is everywhere,’ he said. He took a deep breath. ‘We lost forty-four men. The pass is narrow at the base, flaring out above. We forced our way some two hundred paces towards their camp.’ He rubbed at his eyes, smearing black ash across his brow. ‘Resistance was strong, but I thought we would get through.’ He shook his head. Then, at the narrowest point, the renegades struck.’

‘Renegades?’ queried Altharin.

‘Aye, Cousin. Drenai or Gothir traitors. Two swordsmen, unbelievably skilful. Behind them, above and to the right, was a young woman with a bow. She was dressed in black. Every arrow found its mark. Between her and the swordsmen I lost fifteen men in that one place. And high above us, on both sides, the Nadir sent rocks and boulders down upon us. I ordered the men to pull back, to prepare for a second thrust. Then Jarvik lost his temper and ran at the swordsmen, challenging them. I tried to stop him.’ Gallis shrugged.