Another guard stepped forward and dragged Evanlyn out of the group. Horace went to intercept him but a spear butt rammed into his stomach stopped him in his tracks. He sagged to his knees, gasping for breath.
'The girl is a valuable hostage,' Halt warned the guard. 'Yusal won't thank you if she's harmed.'
The man hesitated. In fact, he had only been interested in the necklace that Evanlyn wore. He seized it now and dragged her off balance as he examined it. But the rounded stones threaded onto the string were worthless marble.
'Keep them!' he snarled. 'They're worth nothing!'
He shoved her back with the others, then gave a brisk order. The guards mounted and herded their captives on foot towards the camp, their hands tied tightly before them with leather thongs. Urged on by spear butts and curses, they stumbled on the uneven ground.
One of the guards rode close to Gilan. He had lost three friends to the Rangers' arrows during the attack that morning and he took every opportunity now to crack his spear shaft painfully across the Ranger's shoulders and back. The fourth time he did so, Gilan turned and looked up at him with a peculiar smile.
'What are you looking at, foreigner?' the guard demanded roughly. The smile was a little unsettling. A prisoner shouldn't smile at his captors like that, he thought.
'I'm just making sure I can remember you,' Gilan told him. 'Never know when that might be useful.'
The spear cracked down across his shoulders. He flinched, then nodded meaningfully at the Tualaghi rider before he began plodding up the hill once more.
Erak looked up as the hostages were thrust unceremoniously onto the ground beside him.
As Gilan had observed some nights earlier, he was seated on the ground, chained between two noisy, complaining camels. His face was bruised and his hair matted with dried blood. One eye was almost closed and there were whip scores on his arms and back.
'Well, look at what the cat dragged in,' he said cheerfully. 'What brings you here, Halt?'
'We've come to rescue you,' Halt told him and the Oberjarl looked quizzically at the leather bindings that secured his friends.
'You've chosen a strange way to do it,' he said. Then, as he recognised Selethen, his brows contracted into an unfriendly frown. 'Nice work, Wakir,' he said. There was an overtone of bitterness in his voice as he held up his own manacled hands.
Selethen shook his head. His own bitterness matched Erak's.
'This was not what I intended. I lost a lot of good men,' he told the Skandian. Erak considered the statement for a moment, then his expression softened and he nodded. He glanced at Svengal.
'Svengal, my friend,' he said, 'when I told you to go and get the Araluans, this isn't exactly what I had in mind.'
Svengal shrugged. 'Don't worry, chief. We've got these Tualaghi surrounded – from the inside.'
'Exactly,' Erak replied dryly. Then he gestured to the stony ground. 'Take a seat, why don't you?'
As the others sat, Evanlyn knelt beside the Oberjarl. Gently, she examined the wounds to his scalp and the massive bruise around his eye.
'Are you all right, Erak?' she asked.
He shrugged. 'Oh, I'm fine. They never hurt you so badly that you can't walk. And they're treating me like an honoured guest – a handful of mouldy dates, some stale bread and a mouthful of water, then a nice walk in the sunshine. Who could ask for more?'
'Any word of Toshak so far?' Halt asked.
Erak's expression darkened. 'Not by name. But that swine Yusal hinted that I'd be meeting a countryman soon – and I don't think he meant you, Svengal. I can't wait. If I get a chance to get my hands on Toshak's throat, he'll wish he'd never been born.' He looked up at Halt then. 'Unlike you to be taken by surprise, Halt. Are you losing your edge?'
Halt raised an eyebrow at him. 'From what I've heard, you didn't do so well yourself at Al Shabah,' he pointed out and Erak shrugged ruefully.
'I guess we're all getting careless,' he said.
'Any idea where this bunch is headed, chief?' Svengal asked.
'They don't exactly consult me. I just drag along behind Matilda there.' He jerked a thumb at the nearest of the two camels. 'We've become quite fond of each other,' he added, glaring balefully at the grumbling beast.
'Odds are we're headed for the northern massif,' Selethen said and Erak looked at him with interest.
'I believe I did hear those words mentioned,' he said. 'Well, you'd better get some rest while you can. It's a long day when you're walking.'
Horace scratched his ear, the movement made clumsy by the fact that his hands were tied together. 'What time do they feed us?' he asked. Erak looked at him for a second, then grinned.
'Don't ever change, Horace,' he said.
Chapter 37
Will, Umar and one hundred and twenty Bedullin warriors were on a forced march across the desert. They rose four hours before dawn, rode until four hours after first light, then rested through the heat of the day. In the late afternoon, a few hours before sunset, they would set out again, riding until well after dark before they stopped to rest again. Will estimated that it was around nine in the evening when they would camp for the night. But the two rest periods, one in the middle of the day and the other late at night, gave them plenty of time to water and feed their horses and recover their strength for the next march.
It was a hard schedule but a sensible one. They rode at a steady pace, trotting their horses rather than cantering or galloping. But Will soon realised that they were covering great distances by keeping to the steady pace, even though he was tempted to go faster. As the kilometres reeled by under Tug's hooves, he knew that this would be the better course in the long run.
Umar had decided to act on jamil's assertion that the Tualaghi were headed for one of the towns in the northern massif. As a result, they were able to plan a straight-line course to intercept the raiders, rather than return to the site of the battle and follow their tracks. This, combined with the prodigious distances they were able to cover each day, meant they were well on the way to overhauling the enemy.
Will had asked Umar and Jamil to show him the location of the massif on his chart. It was further to the north than the area covered by Selethen's chart. They studied that document with some interest, rapidly seeing its relevance, even though the Bedullin never used charts themselves. Their navigation was based on tribal lore and knowledge, handed down over hundreds of years. As they pointed to landmarks drawn by Selethen, they would refer to places by names such as 'River of bright stones' or 'Ali's Hill' or 'the snake wadi'. While some of the names were self-explanatory, the origin of others was hidden in antiquity. Nobody, for example, had the slightest memory of who Ali might have been, and the bright stones that marked the river had long since disappeared – as had the river itself.
This was a war party, so the Khoresh Bedullin women and children had remained at the oasis camp, with seventy of Umar's warriors to keep them safe. The Aseikh was reluctant to reduce his attack force by so many but the desert was an uncertain place and seventy was the minimum number of men he was willing to leave for the protection of his people.
'We'll be outnumbered,' he remarked to Will.
'They won't be expecting us,' the young Ranger replied and the Aseikh nodded, with a certain grim satisfaction. 'I'm looking forward to that.'
On the third day of travel, the problem of numbers was redressed. A forward scout rode back at a gallop to report that he had encountered a party of thirty men on foot in the desert.,
Umar, Will and Hassan rode back with him, cantering ahead of the main party. After three kilometres, they came upon the group of men, sitting in the meagre shade afforded by a wadi bank and sharing the last of a water skin the scout had left with them.