Damn them, he thought. Those cowled archers and their muscular friend had been nothing but trouble for him. Now, the more he thought about it, the more he wanted to know they were dead.
Marisi had been considering his order. He nodded thoughtfully. 'There's a good spot where we can ambush them. We'll have to go back and lay a trail for them to follow. But of course…' He paused meaningfully.
For a few seconds Tennyson didn't register the fact, then he snarled, 'Of course what?'
'They're dangerous enemies, and our contract said nothing about "getting rid of " people like them.'
The implication was obvious. Tennyson breathed heavily, controlling his rising anger. He needed these two men, no matter how much they infuriated him.
'I'll pay you extra,' he said, his teeth gritted.
Marisi smiled and held out a hand. 'Now? You'll pay now?'
But Tennyson shook his head violently. He wasn't going to capitulate quite so far as that.
'When you've done the job,' he said. 'I'll pay you then. Not before.'
Marisi shrugged again. He hadn't really expected that the heavy-set preacher would agree to paying in advance, but it had been worth a try.
'You'll pay later,' he said. 'We'll arrange a fee. But… if you pay later, you pay more.'
Tennyson swept that fact aside carelessly with one hand. 'That's fine. Tell Bacari to come and see me and we'll agree on a payment.' He paused, then added, for emphasis, 'Later.'
After all, he thought, with any luck, they might all kill each other and save him the extra payment. Seventeen 'We'll have to assume he saw us,' Halt said as they rode on. They had been riding in single file but now Horace and Will pushed their horses up beside Halt so they could confer more easily.
'But did he recognise us?' Will said. 'After all, we're a long way away and we could be just three riders.'
Halt turned slightly in the saddle to look at his former pupil. What Will said was correct. Yet Halt hadn't lived as long as he had by taking chances and assuming that his enemies might make mistakes.
'If he saw us, we also have to assume that he recognised us.'
'After all,' Horace chipped in, 'when you two aren't skulking in the bushes, you're pretty recognisable. There aren't a lot of people riding around the countryside carrying great big longbows and wearing cowled cloaks.'
'Thank you for pointing that out,' Halt said dryly. 'But in fact, you're right. And the Genovesans are no fools. Now Tennyson will know we're behind him.'
He paused, scratching his beard thoughtfully as he pondered the situation.
'The question is,' he said, more to himself than to the others, 'what to do next?'
'Should we drop back a little?' Will suggested. 'If we drop out of sight, Tennyson might assume that the Genovesan was mistaken and we just happened to be three riders with no interest in him?'
'No. I don't think so. That's hoping for too much. And if we drop back, we give him more time to give us the slip. I think we should do the opposite. Push up on him.'
'He'll know we're here,' Horace said.
Halt nodded at him. 'He knows we're here anyway. So let's push him. Let's make him feel crowded. That way he'll have to keep moving, and a moving target is easier to see than a concealed one.' He came to a decision and added, in a positive tone: 'We'll put pressure on him. People under pressure make mistakes and that could work for us.'
'Of course…' Horace began, then hesitated. Halt gestured for him to go ahead. 'Well, I was thinking, we'll be under pressure too, won't we? What if we make the mistake?'
Halt regarded him for several seconds without speaking. Then he turned to Will. 'He's a regular ray of sunshine, isn't he?'
They continued in silence for a few minutes. They were working their way up a long uphill slope to the point where they had seen the Genovesan on the skyline. They still had about a hundred metres to go to reach the crest when Halt held up his hand to signal the others to stop.
'On the other hand,' he said, in a quiet voice, 'Horace has a good point. The Genovesans are assassins and one of their favourite techniques is ambush. It occurs to me that it might not be a good idea to go romping over that next crest assuming that there's nothing to be concerned about.'
'You think he's waiting for us?' Will said, his eyes scanning the crest.
'I think he could be. So from now on, we don't go over any crests without scouting the land ahead of us.'
He made a move to swing down from the saddle but Will forestalled him, dropping lightly to the trail.
'I'll do it,' he said.
Halt made as if to argue, then closed his mouth. His natural preference was always to keep Will out of harm's way, but he realised that he had to let the young man take his share of the danger.
'Don't take any chances,' he said. Tug echoed the thought with a low rumble from his barrel of a chest. Will grinned at them both.
'Don't be such a pair of old grannies,' he said. Then he slipped off into the shoulder-high gorse that lined the track. Bent double, he suddenly disappeared from sight. Horace made a slight sound of surprise.
Halt looked at him. 'What is it?'
Horace gestured at the rolling clumps of coarse bush that covered the hillside. There was no sign of Will, no sign of anything moving in the bushes, other than the wind.
'It doesn't matter how often I see him do that, it still spooks me every time. It's uncanny.'
'Yes,' said Halt, his eyes scanning the hillside above them. 'I suppose it would. He's very good at it. Of course,' he added modestly, 'I taught him all he knows. I'm regarded as the expert on unseen movement in the Ranger Corps.'
Horace frowned. 'I thought Gilan was the real expert?' he said. 'Will once told me he learned all the finer points from Gilan.'
'Oh really?' Halt said, with a hint of frost in his voice. 'And just who do you think taught Gilan?'
That hadn't occurred to Horace. Not for the first time, he found himself wishing that his tongue wouldn't run so many metres in advance of his brain.
'Oh… yes. You did, I suppose,' he said and Halt bowed slightly in the saddle.
'Exactly,' Halt said, with great dignity.
'So can you see where he is at the moment?' Horace asked curiously. He wondered if it worked that way. If you taught someone how to move without being seen and you knew all their tricks, could you see them? Or were they invisible even to the person who taught them?
'Naturally,' Halt replied. 'He's up there.'
Horace followed the direction of his pointing finger and saw Will standing erect at the crest of the hill. A few seconds later, they heard his signal whistle and he waved for them to come forward.
'Well, now you can see him,' said Horace. 'I can see him now! But could you see him before he stood up?'
'Of course I could, Horace. How could you doubt me?' Halt said. Then he urged Abelard forward, gesturing for Tug to follow. His face was hidden from Horace as he went ahead, so the young warrior never saw the smile that creased it.
'He seems to have kept on moving,' Will said as they drew level with him. 'Although he could be anywhere out there.'
Below them, the land gradually sloped away, covered by the same thick gorse and bracken. Will was right. A crossbowman could be concealed anywhere in that tangle. Halt scanned the area thoughtfully.
'Damn it,' he said. 'This is going to slow us down.'
'Which is the whole idea,' Will said.
'Precisely.' Halt let go a sigh of exasperation.
'I suppose this puts an end to the idea of putting pressure on him,' Horace said. Halt regarded him coldly for a few seconds. The Ranger's good humour seemed to desert him when his plans were thwarted, Horace thought. He also thought it might be a good idea to say nothing further for a while. Halt, satisfied that his unspoken message had registered, turned back to Will as he came to a decision.