“Just a fish. Let’s get these brutes their fill and get back to camp. I’m bored with horse duty.”
“Fish?” the other replied gruffly. “Big for a fish, wouldn’t you say? Besides, all the noise the horses make, we’d scare off a bear—and I didn’t hear anything big running away.”
Silence, as the two men listened intently. M’Baddah, scarcely daring to breath, slowly eased one hand to where he could reach his dagger hilt, and waited.
8
It was silent next to the river for some moments. The horse waterers were apparently listening intently. M’Baddah could hear his heart beating, the sounds of horses drinking and shifting their feet on the bank, the faint gurgle of water flowing by. Finally one of the men spoke again.
“It was a fish, like I said. You know what this country’s like. There’s no one about between here and the Keep, especially after sundown.”
“Fine,” the other said. His voice was reedy and sounded sullen. “These brutes done drinking? Because we still got another string to bring down tonight.”
“You’re forgetting orders. Captain doesn’t like it when his black stallion gets restive up there in camp, on account he didn’t get to drink his fill. You don’t want the captain mad at you for neglecting his horse, not if you’re planning to stay here. And you remember what he tells all you new men if he decides you don’t get to stay.”
“I remember. He said we earn his trust before we get to go on any raids, and if any of us tries to leave on our own, we get tossed off that cliff up yonder.” He grumbled under his breath. “You’d think I was a spy from the Keep or something,” he added resentfully.
“Happens I believe you aren’t,” the first man said.
“Well, then—”
“I said I believe you. The captain may be my brother, but he makes up his own mind about things.”
It was quiet for a long moment. M’Baddah shifted his weight cautiously.
“You don’t like how things are, that’s too bad. At least with us, you don’t have to walk perimeter guard that last cold hour before sunrise.”
The sullen man replied, but too quietly for M’Baddah to make out what he said.
“Thought you understood that,” the captain’s brother said. “Fewer men we have wandering around the hillside, less chance the Keep men will see ’em. Besides, we’ve got a sentry box way up high on the mountain. You’ll see for yourself, one of these days, but I can tell you that anyone goes into or comes outta the Keep gates, someone up there sees it.”
M’Baddah could hear the stamping of restless horses, and the captain’s brother spoke again, his voice unexpectedly warm.
“Get enough there, Night? Good horse.”
The ground under the outlander’s body vibrated with the thud of hooves on hard-packed sand, and he heard the scrape of a shod hoof on stone. Sounds of men and horses gradually faded.
M’Baddah counted time with his fingers against one leg. At twenty, he cautiously got to his feet. No one and nothing—then another scrape of hooves against stone, far enough away and above him that he barely heard it above the sound of running water. He crossed back to the rock slab and cautiously waved upstream. The Keep man must have been waiting for that because he immediately came downstream. He was dripping wet.
“That splash—it was you they heard?” M’Baddah asked, one hand continuing to press out the count, a finger at a time.
The man nodded.
“You heard any of that?”
“I was too far away.”
A wary eye to the hillside, M’Baddah quickly filled him in. “Go back to the island,” he said finally. “Tell the others. Send two back to camp with word for Jerdren and Eddis, but tell the rest to remain on the island in case I need them. Tell my son and Willow to come here but to wait for my sign. Those men will come back with another string of horses, but I will be able to hear when they are coming. Tell M’Whan, the usual signal.”
The man merely nodded again and went.
Another count of forty. It was still quiet uphill. M’Baddah signaled, waited for the elf and youth to ford the river, and drew them down the bank a ways.
Willow listened for a long moment. “We’re going up there?”
M’Baddah nodded. “The three of us. We will follow the two bandits when they take the second string of horses back to camp.”
M’Whan was watching the river, though it was getting too dark to see much. “How far up there do you think it is, Father?”
“A distance. I am keeping count.”
Both nodded. Willow eased back into shelter, and M’Whan settled down in the low brush with his father.
They didn’t have long to wait, but this time down, the bandits barely spoke, and as the horses finished drinking, one of them uncovered a dark lantern—just enough to light the path. Then they started back uphill. M’Baddah rose cautiously, as the sounds assured him the party could no longer see him, and was rewarded with a brief glimpse of movement a distance overhead. It vanished into the trees almost at once. He stepped onto the bank, and M’Whan got to his feet as Willow came back to join them.
M’Baddah pointed uphill and whispered, “Stay away from the watering place. Leave no prints.”
He moved out silently, over flat rock and onto wiry grass, his son right behind him, the elf bringing up the rear, a strung bow and arrow bunched in one hand. Just beyond the grass was more stone, and then a rough path—an ankle-deep, shoulder-wide indentation in the dirt. It led away from the water and up, into forest.
It was darker here. M’Baddah stepped aside, so Willow could lead the way, since the elf could see clearly here. They moved quickly, for the path was clear and smooth. It wound between trees and up a gentle slope, then took a sharp turn and began to switchback up steeper ground, littered with fallen trees, rockslides, and boulders.
Willow stopped abruptly and touched his ear—a gesture the outlander could barely make out, it was now so dark. Silence. Then M’Baddah could hear it as welclass="underline" the clink of a harness, just ahead and a little ways on. A thin, flickering beam of light touched a tree ahead and higher up, then vanished.
“No danger,” the elf whispered, “but we are close enough to them, I think.”
Moments later, he was on the move again, but almost at once, he slid off to the side, behind a huge slab of rock and waited for the other two to join him.
“Fire, ahead there,” he whispered. “I smell it, and I can just hear men’s voices.”
“What now?” M’Whan asked, as quietly. Both he and the elf turned to M’Baddah.
“We wait,” the outlander said. “An hour or so and they will sleep. They do not post sentries, but it will still take all the care and quiet we three can manage. We’ll map the place best we can.”
Suddenly, sharply, he signaled for silence and lowered himself to the ground, dark cloak over him. On the other side of the stone, voices could be heard.
“Down already?” a deep voice asked. “Captain doesn’t want the high sentry left untended.”
A rough voice answered. “Let him keep watch himself, then. There’s nothin a man can see this time of night without a moon, and that Keep’s locked up tight until sunrise anyway, you know that. Any bread left?”
“Might be. P’raps some of Blot’s venison stew.”
The second man snorted. “Won’t be any bread, but plenty of stew. The wretched brat manages plain bread but can’t cook anything else.”
“Shhh! Captain’s brother is everywhere these days, and he don’t put up with anyone giving Blot grief, remember?”
“Huh. Why the captain had to send our only cook on that last raid…!”
“Because the man wanted to go, and that’s his right—was. Same as yours.”
“I know, I know.” Silence. The man spoke finally, his voice quieter. “Any new raids in the planning?”
“Huh. What I hear, they’ll wait as much as five days now.”