Jerdren drew his sword and parried an overhead blow. Somewhere ahead of him, someone cried out in pain, and he could hear Eddis cursing in a flat voice. A moment later, he went down hard, breath driven from him as a man landed squarely on his shoulders, but the fellow was thrown as he fell. He drew one of his daggers and dragged himself partway up, feeling the ground before him. A boot there—a ragged pant leg that didn’t belong to any of his people. The cloth tore from his grip, but he had the man now: the pale face just there, which meant the body was… He swung the dagger in a slashing arc and buried it in flabby flesh. The man shocked, shuddered, and went limp. Jerdren retrieved the blade, wiped it on the dead man’s shirt, and got warily to his feet.
Just to his right, one of the Keep men was driving back another of the invaders with a spear, and he could hear Blorys’ voice not far away. Someone else yelled, and all at once the ambush dissolved, men running wildly toward the meadow, some going north over open ground and the rest south.
“I’m making a light,” M’Baddah said, and a moment later a partly shuttered lantern cast a ruddy, dim glow over them.
“What damage?” Eddis asked as she came back toward the edge of the woods. Her sword was bloody, and there was a cut on the back of her hand.
“Winded,” Jerdren replied shortly. “Blor?”
“Fine, Brother. We have one man down here, badly wounded—no,” he said quietly. “One dead.”
“Three of them dead and another stunned,” Willow reported. He bent over the half-conscious man. M’Baddah was helping one of the Keep men bandage a nasty cut on another’s forearm.
“Make it four of them dead,” Jerdren replied grimly and retrieved his sword. He gazed down at the man he’d killed. Skinny, ragged… the fellow looked as badly off as any of those men they’d fought on the road, days before, but Jerdren didn’t recognize him as one of them. He walked from man to man, checking that all his company was still here. One down already, he thought. But they were fortunate no more of them had been killed. A sudden attack like that, in the dark, men could easily have killed their fellows and not the enemy.
He was pleased to see that three of the men were keeping watch, that M’Whan stood at the edge of the woods to make sure the fleeing men kept running. He followed Mead over to where Willow had the stunned man sitting up.
Jerdren smiled down at him—it wasn’t a nice smile. “So,” he mused aloud. “Were you waiting for us? Just happened to be here, saw us coming, and decided we looked like a good source of supplies and weapons? Or expecting us?”
The man bit his lip, but when Willow drew a long, slender blade, he shuddered, and the words tumbled from him.
“We been here a while, out of sight of those walls. There’s rabbits and such here, but it’s getting colder at night. Hard to find game. We heard there were men, hereabouts, they’d take good fighters. But—” he forced his eyes from the blade and the set face behind it—“but we couldn’t find ’em. Just now, we were arguing which way to go, some of us wanted to just… get out. And our watchman saw you coming. Seemed worth a try, maybe get a warm cloak, bread….”
“He’s telling the truth,” Mead said evenly.
“What do we do with him, then?” one of the Keep men asked.
“I have an idea,” another snarled, and the man huddled in on himself.
Jerdren shook his head. “You—if you’re smart, you’ll try to catch up with your friends before something gets you. Go fast enough, and go now, and I won’t make you pay for our wounded and dead.”
Willow hauled him to his feet. The man gazed fearfully from elf to elf, met Jerdren’s eyes briefly, then turned and bolted.
“All right, people, we’d better get moving. M’Baddah, I guess there’s no sense in dowsing your light. Move out ahead with it, and someone get another one going back here at the rear.”
They pulled the dead enemy out to the edge of the woods, while two of the Keep men heaped leaves and pine needles over their fallen comrade. Moments later, they set out once again, with just enough light to let them walk through open forest at a decent pace. A short ways in, one of the Keep men located a deer path he knew, and they turned roughly southeast, walking at a stead pace until moonrise.
Jerdren called a halt for the night just as the moon cast pale light through the highest branches of tall oaks. They’d reached the first of the marked clearings on his map. He’d have preferred to reach the second, but two of the men had lost blood and needed the rest. There was a narrow stream here, nearly dry this late in the season, but it had enough running water to allow them to refill their bottles.
Watches had already been chosen before they left the Keep, and this deep in the trees, the air was warm and still, so they built no fire. Jerdren lay back in his cloak as the first watch settled into place. At the elves’ suggestion, they had been left from the regular watches for the present, but one or the other was to be roused at once if anyone thought they saw or sensed anything suspicious, since both could see much farther in the dark than the humans.
Not that it’s so dark now, Jerdren thought sleepily. It was the last thing he remembered until Blorys woke him. It was cooler than it had been, especially near the stream, and moonlight now came from the west. Jerdren checked that his sword wasn’t shoved too tightly in its sheath, that his two daggers were ready to throw, and hung his strung bow from the hook on the quiver before moving several long steps out into the woods. He slowly paced around the dark camp and the sleepers, occasionally coming upon the two Keep men who shared his watch.
The moon was nearly down and the woods shadowy once more when he woke M’Whan, unstrung his bow, and lay back down. He was asleep in moments and didn’t wake until sun warmed the small clearing.
He woke sluggishly and a little stiff, the way he always did, first day on the road. Didn’t used to, did you? he asked himself sourly. Getting old, Jers, aren’t you? It didn’t help that they were traveling afoot; he’d merely traded a sore backside for aching legs. He cleared his throat and spat, staggering to his feet.
To his relief, Eddis was already up and about, and showed no signs of the bleary-eyed, irritable woman who’d broken fast at the inn two days before. At the moment, she was sitting cross-legged on her blankets, plaiting her hair. Beyond her, Willow was bent over, nearly folded in half as his long-fingered hands massaged his calves.
Guess I’m not the only stiff one this first morning, Jerdren thought. If a young elf had sore legs—and Willow was a year or so short of thirty, according to Eddis—then he, Jerdren, was doing all right.
Mead leaned against a tree a short ways off, his heavy leather-bound spell book open, his lips moving silently now and again. Memorizing the spells he thinks he might need for the day, Jerdren told himself. Let’s hope that if we do have need, he’s made the right choices.
Blor and one of the Keep men were keeping watch, the others eating or checking their weapons. M’Baddah was rubbing salve into the arm of their most seriously wounded man, and Jerdren was glad to see the man’s color was good this morning. We can’t afford to start losing men before we ever find that camp, he thought. First day out, and one already gone.
Their cook came over and handed him a cold meat pie—the taverner’s wife’s gift to the company, but they wouldn’t stay fresh for long. Jerdren took his with a smile of thanks and ate it quickly.