Umar dismissed the problem with a brief shake of his head. 'They can ride double with my men,' he said. 'There's only thirty of them. We can rotate them among the force so no horse has to carry double for too long.'
Aloom had followed the discussion between them eagerly, his eyes swinging from one to another as they spoke. Now he raised a hand and spoke tentatively.
'One thing,' he said. 'Four of my men are wounded. We've been carrying them. They're not fit for travel or a battle.'
Umar weighed the problem briefly. He liked the idea of having more fighting men under his command and he knew the Arridi troopers would give a good account of themselves. To him the answer was obvious.
'We'll leave two of my men to look after them,' he said, thinking aloud. 'We can leave some water with them but we'll need most of what we have. There's a small soak half a day's ride to the east. It will provide enough water for half a dozen men. One of my men can fetch water while the other stays here with them. If we're successful, we'll pick them up on the return trip.'
He considered his own statement for a second or two, then nodded. They'd lose the evening travel period – five hours. And he'd weaken his force by two men. But in return, he'd gain twenty-six trained soldiers. Better yet, they were soldiers who had a score to settle with the Tualaghi. It was a good trade-off, he thought.
'We'll camp here through the rest of today and tonight,' he said. 'Your men will have food and all the water they need. Tell them to be ready to travel four hours before dawn.'
Aloom smiled grimly. 'They'll be ready,' he said.
Chapter 38
The northern massif loomed over them, row after row of cliffs and hills climbing eventually to a plain high above. The open desert had given way to a narrow road, running between rocky outcrops and cliffs and angling upwards through the first foothills. At an elevation a hundred and fifty metres above the desert floor, there was a level section cut by nature into the sheer walls of the cliffs, cutting back to run in a rough north – south alignment. The town of Maashava stood there.
The town was a market centre for the Arridi farmers who lived and worked in the foothills and the plains below the massif. Its normal population was around five hundred, but it grew to eight or nine hundred in market weeks, when herdsmen and farmers came in from outlying areas and neighbouring hill villages to trade their goods.
It was a perfect temporary base for the Tualaghi warriors – large enough to provide accommodation for them and forage for their animals, and well stocked with foodstuffs brought into the market and stored in the town's warehouses.
The buildings were the usual white-painted mud-brick houses, mostly single-storey structures with flat roofs where the occupants could enjoy the cool air at the end of the day and, on occasion, sleep during the hottest nights. But there were also many dwellings cut into the face of the cliffs themselves – their entrances weathered and worn by the years, indicating that they were ancient. For the most part, these were used as storehouses for the food and other goods traded in the town. But some were dwellings and, as the prisoners filed into the town behind their guards, Halt saw several where the signs of human occupation were obvious: women, burdened with jars containing the family's water supply, climbed access ladders to the higher entrances, and the smoke of cookfires issued from carefully cut smoke holes in the face of the rock. On some, washed garments had been hung on long, slender poles and pushed out into the hot air to dry, the clothes fluttering like pennants in the slight breeze that moved through the canyons.
The three-day march to Maashava hadn't been a pleasant one. They had been led on long ropes tied to the saddles of their guards, forced to jog awkwardly in order to keep up. If anyone fell – and inevitably they did, since they were kept off balance by having their hands tied together in front of them – he was immediately surrounded by riders jabbing with lance points or striking down at them with the butts of their spears.
After a few kilometres, Halt noticed that the riders of the horses they were tied to were expert at sudden, unexpected changes of pace or direction, calculated to throw the prisoners off balance so that they would fall.
Evanlyn was the exception. As Selethen had predicted, the Tualaghi saw her as an investment to be protected and she suffered none of this brutality. She was even given a small horse to ride, although her hands remained bound and the horse was led by a Tualaghi warrior, constantly on the alert for any sign that she might try to escape.
The two Rangers fared the worst. They were foreigners and so regarded with contempt by the Tualaghi. Worse, their uncanny accuracy during the brief attack had made them hated men. Most of the Tualaghi had at least one friend who had suffered at the wrong end of a Ranger arrow and the two longbows carried by Halt and Gilan marked them out as the culprits.
Both men were bruised and battered by the time they reached Maashava. Halt's left cheek was a massive bruise and the eye was nearly closed, courtesy of a Tualaghi fist. Gilan had bled profusely from a head wound inflicted by a small club. The crusted blood matted his hair and face.
It seemed that the presence of the two Rangers diverted the Tualaghi's attention from their original victim – Erak. He and Svengal were generally left alone, aside from the almost casual beating with spear butts when they slipped and fell. Selethen also fared better than the others. Yusal knew his value as a hostage, whereas the Araluans were an unknown quantity in that area..
Horace, fit, athletic and light on his feet, gave their guards the fewest opportunities to beat him, although on one occasion an angry Tualaghi, furious that Horace misunderstood an order to kneel, slashed his dagger across the young man's face, opening a thin, shallow cut on his right cheek. The wound was superficial but as Evanlyn treated it that evening, Horace shamelessly pretended that it was more painful than it really was. He enjoyed the touch of her ministering hands. Halt and Gilan, bruised and weary, watched as she washed the wound and gently patted it dry. Horace did a wonderful job of pretending to bear great pain with stoic bravery. Halt shook his head in disgust.
'What a faker,' he said to Gilan. The younger Ranger nodded.
'Yes. He's really making a meal of it, isn't he?' He paused, then added a little ruefully, 'Wish I'd thought of it first.'
Halt's one good eye glared round at him. Muttering under his breath, the grey-haired Ranger shuffled away a few paces, disgusted now with his former pupil.
'Young men!' he snorted to Erak. 'They think a pretty face can cure every ill.'
'Some of us can remember back that far, Halt,' Erak told him with a grin. 'I suppose that's all far behind an old hack like you. Svengal told me you were settling down. Some plump, motherly widow seizing her last chance with a broken-down old greybeard, is she?'
Erak, of course, had been told by Svengal that Halt had recently married a great beauty. But he enjoyed getting a reaction from the smaller man. Halt's one-eyed stare locked onto the Oberjarl.
'When we get back, I'd advise you not to refer to Pauline as a "plump, motherly widow" in her hearing. She's very good with the dagger she carries and you need your ears to keep that ridiculous helmet of yours in place.'
Now the joking was stilled as they stumbled into Maashava at the end of an exhausting day's march. The Arridi townspeople looked at the new arrivals with dull, uninterested eyes. They had no sympathy for the prisoners. The Tualaghi's invasion of their town would leave them penniless and hungry. It would take several seasons to replace the food and other provisions that the invaders were helping themselves to.