The center of the line came atop a rise just in time to see a knot of riders—a score or more of them, mounted on full-sized horses, some ponies and a few mules and with a handful of led animals, as well—burst from the edge of the forest on the right-hand side of the road and, crossing near to where the dead hunter lay, urge their mounts up the sharply rising, wooded slope on the other side.
Justis halted his line just where they were. Leading a probing patrol was one thing, but attacking an armed force of at least twice his own numbers was another thing entirely. He would stay and observe the progress of the enemy as long as they remained visible, of course, but nothing was to be gained by moving closer and risking loss of more men. Let the armored horsemen take up the pursuit when and if they arrived.
They did, only an hour or so later, under the command of Major Sir Hugh Parkinson. He returned the ensign’s stiff, formal, by-the-book salute with the casual gesture which passed for such amongst veteran cavalrymen.
“All right, youngster, what happened here worth the saddle-pounding of our poor backsides all the way out from the glen, not to mention taking us from a smashing good breakfast?”
“Sir,” began Ensign Justis, sitting stiff as a pikestaff in the saddle of his horse, his head erect and his eyes set levelly ahead, for all that the major was a bit to his left, “last night, Captain MacNeill issued orders that—”
“Never mind your life history, young man!” the cavalry leader snapped brusquely. “Just tell me what occurred out here to cause you to send that galloper back into the glen, and please try to be brief about it. And for God’s sake, look at me when you speak to me!”
When he had at length gotten the junior officer’s report, the nobleman nodded. “Kuhmbuhluhners, no doubt, bound for the glen to wreak on us what damage they can before we march out for the season’s campaign. Foolish ones, at that. They should never have let you see where they were headed, but God be thanked they did. Now we can see to it that they receive as warm a welcome as they deserve.
“As for the report your pikeman rendered, that a crack of thunder and lightning slew yon man”—he waved an armored arm up the road, toward where the body still lay—“I should hope that he’s no dimwit who believes in fairies and wizards and witches. But sounds can be tricky amongst these hills and vales, ensign. Mayhap a clap of thunder or the echo of one did coincide with the dart or slingstone or prod pellet that downed that man, I’ll not say that such couldn’t happen.”
He turned to one of his followers—a lieutenant, but a noble officer like himself, to judge by the equipage—and said, “Percy, ride you back and tell the colonel all of what you have here heard. Assure him that I shall maintain some slight pressure on this group of Kuhmbuhluhners. Perhaps I can speed them on their way into the glen, wherein I should hope that the ‘colonel and the earl will have a suitable reception awaiting them. Understood?
“Oh, and as you pass by that sorry agglomeration back there, tell that corporal to turn them all about and head them back into the glen. There’ll be no timber cutting today.”
Then, back to Ensign Justis. “Young man, you and your force will ride with me and mine; that will help to even out the numbers. We’re going up into the hills after those scum.”
“Sir, I’ll certainly accompany you, if you wish,” said Justis, then protested, “But my men are just common pikemen, not dragoons. Their ponies are small and will never be able to keep up with the horses. Besides, none of them are armored and they’re armed only with shortswords and hunting spears.”
The major threw back his helmeted head and laughed gustily. “Never you mind about those ponies’ size, ensign. Up in those hills, these little buggers can easily outstrip any horse. Your men will most likely have to hold them back, see if I’m not right. As for the armament, or rather lack of it, don’t worry. I have no intention of running this lot to ground, only of driving them out of the hills and into the glen where they can be more easily dealt with.
“Now let’s be at it, eh? You and that crossbowman will ride with me. The rest of yours can fall in at the rear of my force.”
Ensign James Justis had no available option. With many misgivings, he issued orders to his men, then joined the major. As matters developed, his misgivings were well founded.
They had been at it for hours, up and down the steep wooded or brushy slopes of the increasingly high and precipitous ridges and hills that walled in the glen, and the supercilious major had proved right about the ponies, at least. Despite their size and the solid bulk of their riders, they had easily kept up with the bigger, longer-legged horses and, being far more nimble-footed, could be safely ridden in places where horses had to be led by dismounted riders.
The brace of hunter-pikemen had had scant difficulty in following the track of the band of marauders, who apparently were exerting little if any effort to conceal signs of their passage. At one point, Sir Hugh crowed exultantly that they were gaining on the quarry. He shortly was proved to be far more correct in his assumption that he would have preferred to be… had he lived to prefer anything, one way or the other.
They had just successfully descended a steep, shaly hillside and were proceeding at a fast walk along a more or less flat, more or less level stretch of slightly marshy ground so narrow that no more than two horsemen abreast could easily negotiate it. Suddenly, from within the concealment afforded by the dense brush covering the flanking hillsides, a sleet of deadly missiles inundated the leading elements of the column—darts, a few prod pellets and twenty rounds of rifle bullets!
Never having been in real combat with them, Ensign James Justis had been completely unaware of just what fine, stolid, dependable men he commanded, not until then and there in that narrow defile suddenly filled with chaos and death.
While cavalrymen fought to control wounded or panic-stricken horses, the beasts driven into temporary madness by the succession of earsplitting explosions, the shrieks of man and animal and the reek of fresh-spilled blood, Ensign Justis=— providentially neither he nor his horse had been so much as scratched—forced his mount through the press back toward his own command.
At last he made it, to find that the veteran infantrymen had dismounted, leaving the nervous mountain ponies to their own devices, and were formed into two neat ranks. Handling the boar spears like pikes, they stood staunch against the unseen menace, presenting a double row of broad, knife-edged spearheads.
The pikeman who had obviously taken command in his absence—to his sudden shame, James realized that he did not know the name of that man or any of the others—saluted briskly and said, “Sir, beg to report the unit formed for attack or defense. Do we go up there after them, sir?”
Ensign Justis was no fire-eater. There had been no missiles for the length of time it had taken him to get back here from the head of the shattered column, and he was strongly in favor of letting well enough alone, guessing more accurately than he realized that the primary purpose of the ambush had been to slow or to halt the pursuit, not to exterminate them all.