Heth had said, “Only holy Weru, my lord. But it keeps the men on their toes and exercises the stock. And if we ever do have concern that some enemy may try to sever our communications with your noble brother, then we shall not have to seem weak by introducing such precautions at that time.”
The satrap had walked away and never mentioned the subject again, which was his way of giving approval. Every night since then, except in truly lethal weather, a team of twelve men and three mammoths had patrolled the environs of Nardalborg.
The door pivots squealed as Heth opened it, and louder as he closed it. Frath handed him a fur cloak.
“When did this wind get up?”
“Very suddenly, my lord. Less than a pot-boiling ago.”
No sane enemy would launch an assault in such a gale, but there might have been no way to recall it once it had started. The two men strode the gloomy corridor with Frath’s lantern dragging their shadows along the stonework.
“You did say a sled?”
“Yes, my lord. Four pulling it, he said, and the others escorting.”
Heth had known his sins would come home to roost eventually. He had just not expected them this soon. It was only two days since he had bundled Flankleader Orlad’s former classmates into a makeshift flank and sent them off to Tryfors to back up the boy if the satrap tried to carry out his mad threats. That had not been the official purpose of the expedition, of course, but the brighter ones had guessed what was required of them. Strictly speaking, Heth had not been disobeying orders, but he had certainly exceeded his authority and sought to frustrate his commanding officer’s intentions. The timing was tight but possible. Counting Orlad, twelve warriors had departed. Only seven returning? The sled might hold wounded, but a Werist either died or healed himself. If he needed to be carried, he had been maimed for life. Heth would have to justify five men lost, not counting casualties on the other side. Therek would have his liver for breakfast. He might find himself leading Caravan Six over the Edge, leaving Femund and the children forever.
His shadow led him up the stairs. Frath followed with his lantern.
Whatever was making them traverse the snowbound moors at night and in battleform? Such a suicidal overexertion could only be justified by a foe breathing on one’s collar. Therek’s men in hot pursuit? The future looked seriously uninviting.
“What flank?”
“Rear, my lord.” Frath’s voice raised hollow echoes in the staircase.
That was good. Flankleader Verinkar was an excellent youngster, first choice to be promoted the next time Nardalborg Hunt needed a packleader. He would keep his head no matter who or what he had met out there.
Because another possibility was that Heth’s old pessimism might be justified at last. For the last two years, he had been picking up rumors of desertions among forces being posted to Florengia and this summer the losses had become blatant. Men had arrived grumbling about whole packs disappearing. One flank coming overland from the south claimed to be the only remnant of an entire hunt that had failed to reach Tryfors. Heth had listened, questioned, and had his tallyman tally for him. Whenever he had tried to discuss the matter with his father, Therek had refused to listen. Heth had even considered sending a letter directly to Saltaja, in Skjar. He might do so yet, as soon as the downstream winds began to blow. That would be a second act of insubordination, but this was his problem more than anyone’s. Desertion on such a scale required an overall conspiracy, a revolution brewing, and in the past rebels had often chosen to start by trying to cut Stralg’s supply line through Nardalborg.
So had a new revolution started? If it had, the rebels’ timing was bad. Not only was Nardalborg Hunt up to strength, but there were another four sixty packed into the fort, waiting to move out in Caravan Six. Heth could put up a good fight.
The night air was waiting for him outside the door like an ocean of ice water. Shuddering, he stepped out on the wall. Eastward the solar corona was rising in a black and star-salted sky, blazing silver, breathtakingly beautiful. Red and green auroras danced silent minuets overhead, while to the west a pinkish wall of cloud with brighter towers and battlements told of doldrum weather seaward. Behind him stretched the frosted roofs of the fortress. The open ground between it and the town was washed by billows of blowing snow. Almost anything could creep in under that blanket, except it would freeze to death on the way.
A well-muffled picket saluted.
“See anything?” Heth growled. Another warbeast should be on its way from Verinkar by now.
The boy pointed. “My lord is kind. A mammoth approaching, my lord. Flankleader Hrankag ran down to report.”
What? Heth’s neck prickled. Had Verinkar gone crazy? The drill was that the patrol leader would send back a warbeast to report a sighting. If the intruders seemed peaceable, then he had authority to make contact and establish their identity before sending a second warbeast to Nardalborg. Breaking up the formation by detaching a mammoth was a flagrant breach of standing orders. Breath smoking, Heth turned to Packleader Frath. “Sound general quarters.”
Frath gaped. Then his training asserted itself and he vanished down the stairs, leaving the door wide.
“You’ll have company in a moment,” Heth told the sentry. “Meanwhile, keep your eyes skinned. We may be under attack.” He headed for the door.
“My lord is kind. Two more mammoths following, my lord. Just coming into view.”
Heth’s eyes were watering too much for him to see such detail at that distance in that light. Baffled, he stared into the night. “You sure?”
“Not certain, my lord. Think so.”
“Well done! You understand that either those are not our mammoths, or the wrong people are riding them?”
“My lord is kind. Rear flank is all dead, my lord, you mean?”
“We must assume so.” If Flankleader Verinkar was not, Heth would have to kill him.
When the sun’s edge blazed up over the horizon and the sky abruptly turned indigo, every Hero in the Nardalborg Hunt was at battle stations, meaning that most of them were lining the walls. The men of Caravan Six, under Acting Huntleader Zarpan, were on standby. Heth had ordered two more mammoths sent out, but they had not yet left the pens. Lacking time to evacuate the town, he had sent right flank of gold pack over there to misinform the civilians that the alert was merely a drill.
In fact, it was obviously a false alarm. If a horde of warbeasts were to come racing in over the snow it would have done so before now, but Heth was not about to order the recall sounded until he understood what was going on. No problem that required him to put a man to death could be dismissed as trivial.
Perversely, the wind had dropped as suddenly as it had arisen. Heth stood on the wall and watched the three mammoths approaching, one in front, two a long way behind. He could recognize Rosebud, the bull in the lead, and the Nastrarian mahout astride its neck, but mammoths’ backs sloped so steeply that the howdahs were not visible. However, the scouts he had sent out had identified Rosebud’s passengers as Rear Flankleader Verinkar and two of his men, plus an unknown man heavily wrapped in furs. Heth spoke a prayer to Weru that it be Satrap Therek, the only man with authority to override his standing orders.
And now another scout was returning, streaking across the snow with sunlight flashing on his brass collar. He skirted the bull at a safe distance and stopped directly below the great gate. He shimmered and stood up as a naked young man with his face screwed up in the agony of retroforming.
Frath, his packleader, glanced at Heth for permission and then shouted, “Come on up, Tukrin.”
Extruded talons on his hands and feet, the lad scrambled up the timber gate, sending splinters flying. He worked his way over the overhang of the lintel, and then up the stonework above it. A moment later he was on the battlements, fully human again, puffing and sweating. He would have had an easier climb if he had bypassed the gate and climbed straight up the vertical wall, but it had been a good chance to show off.