“It’s as well we’re not trying to fight them to a finish,” Darin said after listening to the kender’s description. “Aurhinius has a good eye for ground.”
He cleared his throat. “Or does anyone care to dispute my plan for this fight?”
A couple of men seemed reluctant to meet his eyes, but Darin held their attention until he saw them nod. What stories those men could have told was no affair of his. He and Waydol had long known that among their band were humans and perhaps other folk with a blood-debt to settle against Istar the Mighty. Someday the time might come to give them free rein. This was not it.
“Very well. The duty of the main body is to cover the retreat of those who attack the camp. This means dividing to cover both paths, though I hope to ride in by one and out by the other.”
“And if all this moving around takes until after dark, or loses us surprise?” someone put in.
“After dark, a small band has an even better chance against a large one. If we lose surprise beforehand, however, we will seek another way of being fleas under Aurhinius’s fancy armor.”
“Never mind his armor,” Whistletrot said. “Just give me that golden helmet he fancies.”
“And how much else?” Fertig Temperer asked.
“Oh, Aurhinius seems to set the style for his men.”
“More than any six kender could handle,” Fertig interrupted. “Whistletrot, comrade of many brawls and a few real battles, take my advice. Get in and get out as fast as ever a kender moved.”
“What do I win by that?” Whistletrot replied. Kender did not grumble, at least in the presence of other races, but he came close to it.
“Life,” Fertig said briefly. “My friend, if we have to snatch you from a handling foray among the Istarians, I will throttle you.”
“If I go foraying in the camp, I’m not likely to be alive to throttle,” Whistletrot snapped.
“Very well,” Fertig said. “If I must, I will gather up your pieces in a sack and take them home. I will have Sirbones enspell them back into a living kender.
“Then I will throttle you.”
“Settle this after the fight, will you?” Darin said. “Right now, we have enough time for a bite and a trifle of sleep before we move. Best we have them, too, if we’re going to be spending the night running for our lives.”
Darin saw that his words put sober looks on most faces. This battle might be a jest, but it was against Istar the Mighty, favored with stout soldiers, whatever it might lack in virtue. One could never be sure in such a fight which way the jest would turn.
* * * * *
Getting out of the camp would be easier than getting in. The entrance was a level path barely two men wide, though firm and level for riding. Darin took care to have several men hidden on each side of the path where it reached open ground, so that alert Istarians could not readily block it against the riders.
One of the hidden men was Whistletrot. Fertig thought that was giving a drunkard the keys to the wine cellar; Kindro said that Fertig thought with his belly; Darin told them both to be silent, in somewhat less polite words.
The six mounted men all carried their choice of weapons for fighting on foot, as well as leather armor and brass helmets. They also carried, slung from their saddles, good, stout clubs, the only weapons any of them could use from horseback with more danger to the enemy than to their mounts or comrades.
This is not what the gods would choose to send against seasoned Istarian cavalry, Darin thought as he lowered himself cautiously into the saddle. The girths were tight enough that this time the saddle didn’t slip, but he felt the horse sag and thought he heard it groan as well.
Or at least not unless they had been drinking late and were in the mood for rude jests, he thought further. Then Darin commended himself to the mercy of the gods, prodded his boot heels into his mount’s ribs, and after an unnervingly long pause, felt the horse lumber into movement.
Aurhinius had no firm knowledge that enemies were close at hand, but he was a seasoned soldier who knew that he was in less-than-friendly country. Alert, vigilant, and well-armed sentries were posted, one on each side of the path.
They remained so until the moment when Darin led his riders into view. At the same moment the sentries’ mouths opened to give the alarm, clay balls hurtled from the woods to smash into the backs of their necks. Both men went limp even as they fell, landing without a sound except for a faint clatter as one man’s sword bounced into a clump of bushes.
One of the slingers, Imsaffor Whistletrot, leaped onto the back of Darin’s horse and hung on behind him. Darin thought curses, but had no time to utter them.
“Why walk when one can ride?” Whistletrot whispered.
Darin’s thoughts were louder. The horse must have heard them, because the overloaded beast blew hard, then picked up the pace from a slow trot to a fast one. It was trying for a canter when it reached open ground.
Across the open ground, not more than twenty paces away, a ruddy-faced, thick-set man stood while one attendant unbuckled silvered back-and-breast armor and another had already taken a golden helmet sprouting three scarlet plumes. The man wore a curly, dark beard and clothing of embroidered silk.
Chance had served up Aurhinius to Darin on a platter. No rummaging in tents, no need to wait for the man to mount up and charge-but there was still one flaw in the service.
Aurhinius stood on one side of a line of barrels and chests. Darin and his comrades sat their saddles on the other side. Unless their horses suddenly grew wings, there was no way over those barrels.
At least not for the humans. Kender were another matter. Darin felt small hands on his shoulders as Whistletrot vaulted onto them, then the kender jumped, turning a double somersault in midair. He flew over the barrels as lightly as a bird, landing next to the attendant with the helmet.
“Excuse me, but that’s a fine piece,” Darin heard the kender say as the human urged his horse forward, around the end of the barrels.
The attendant’s reply was better not repeated, though the echoes were still repeating it as Whistletrot darted between Aurhinius and the other attendant.
Darin came around the end of the barrels and reached down. Without missing a step, Whistletrot tucked the golden helmet under his left arm and reached up his right for Darin’s hand.
The kender flew into the air, and Darin dug in his heels again, keeping his horse moving at a ponderous trot. The attendants ran after him, just as the other mounted raiders came up in their leaders’ tracks. Both men leaped aside without looking where they leaped, and while they landed unhurt, they also landed on their general.
Aurhinius’s remarks to the world made those of the first attendant seem a model of politeness.
Good manners took a further hard blow as Darin led the riders on through the camp. Most of the men were dismounted, and as there were Istarians on both sides of the riders’ path, even the archers with ready bows had to hold fast.
Darin’s eyes were on a handful of men still attending their horses with feedbags or water buckets. But it was one mounted man who broke out of the shadows and rode straight at Darin who presented the first and greatest menace.
The man was riding loose-reined, guiding his horse with his knees, with a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. Darin reached for his club and discovered that it had parted its thongs and fallen somewhere along the way.
This time the curses reached his lips.
Imsaffor Whistletrot wasted no time cursing. His slung hoopak was in any case a two-handed weapon, not at its best mounted, where kender seldom fought, anyway. His other weapons lacked reach.
So he tossed the helmet from left arm to right hand, catching it by the strap. Gripping Darin’s belt with his left hand, he swung the helmet out and around as far and as hard as he could.