"And we would have preferred it if he hadn't been whipping arrows around our ears. The only way to take him was to kill him."
Another silence as Morgarath considered the reply. Apparently, it was not satisfactory to him. "Be warned for the future. I did not approve of your actions."
This time, it was Erak who let the silence stretch. He shrugged his shoulders slightly, as if Morgarath's displeasure was a matter of absolutely no interest to him. Eventually, the Lord of Rain and Night gathered his reins and shook them, heeling his horse savagely to turn it away from the campfire.
"I'll see you at Three Step Pass, Captain," he said. Then, almost as an afterthought, he turned his horse back. "And Captain, don't get any ideas about deserting. You'll fight with us to the end."
Erak nodded. "I told you, my lord, I'll honor any bargain I've made."
This time, Morgarath smiled, a thin movement of the red lips in the lifeless white face. "Be sure of it, Captain," he said softly.
Then he shook the reins and his horse turned away, springing to a gallop. The Wargals followed, the chant starting up again and ringing through the night. Will realized that, behind the rocks, he'd been holding a giant breath. He let it go now, and heard a corresponding sigh of relief from the Skandians.
"My god of battles," said Erak, "he doesn't half give me the creeps, that one."
"Looks like he's already died and gone to hell," put in Svengal, and the others nodded. Erak walked around the fire now and stood over where Will and Evanlyn were still crouched behind the rocks.
"You heard that?" he said, and Will nodded. Evanlyn remained crouching, facedown, behind the rock. Erak stirred her roughly with the toe of his boot.
"What about you, missy?" he said, his voice harsh. "You heard too?"
Now she looked up, tears of terror staining tracks in the dust on her face. Wordlessly, she nodded. Erak fixed her gaze with his own until he was sure the threat was fully understood.
"Then remember it if you start thinking about escape," he said coldly. "That's all that awaits you if you get away from us."
29
T HE P LAINS OF U THAL FORMED A WIDE OPEN SPACE OF rolling grasslands. The grass was rich and green. There were few trees, although occasional knolls and low hills served to break the monotony. Some distance behind the position occupied by the Araluen army, the Plains began to rise gradually, to a low ridgeline.
Closer to the fens, where the Wargals were forming up, a creek wound its way. Normally a mere trickle, it had been swollen by the recent spring rains so that the ground ahead of the Wargals was soft and boggy, precluding any possible attack by the Araluen heavy cavalry.
Baron Fergus shaded his eyes against the bright noon sun and peered across the Plains to the entrance to Three Step Pass. "There are a lot of them," he said mildly.
"And more coming," Arald of Redmont replied, easing his broadsword a little in its scabbard. The two barons were slowly walking their battlehorses across the front of Duncan's drawn-up army. It was good for morale, Arald believed, for the men to see their leaders relaxed and engaging in casual conversation as they watched their enemies emerging from the narrow mountain pass and fanning out onto the Plains. Dimly, they could hear the ominous, rhythmic chant of the Wargals as they jogged into position.
"Damned noise is quite unnerving," Fergus muttered, and Arald nodded agreement. Seemingly casual, he cast his glance over the men behind them. The army was in position, but Battlemaster David had told them to remain at rest. Consequently, the cavalry were dismounted and the infantry and archers were sitting on the grassy slope.
"No sense in wearing them out standing at attention in the sun," David had said, and the others had agreed. By the same token, he had set the various Kitchenmasters the task of keeping the men supplied with cool drinks and fruit. The white-clad servers moved among the army now, carrying baskets and water skins. Arald glanced down and smiled at the portly form of Master Chubb, his chef from Redmont Castle, supervising a group of hapless apprentices as they handed out apples and peaches to the men. As ever, his ladle rose and fell with alarming frequency on the heads of any apprentices he deemed to be moving too slowly.
"Give that Kitchenmaster of yours a mace and he could rout Morgarath's army single-handed," commented Fergus, and Arald smiled thoughtfully. The men around Chubb and his apprentices, distracted by the fat cook's antics, were taking no notice of the chanting from across the Plains. In other areas, he could see signs of restlessness-evidence that the men were becoming increasingly ill at ease.
Looking around, Arald's eye fell on an infantry captain seated with his company. Their minimal armor, plaid cloaks and two-handed broadswords marked them as belonging to one of the northern fiefs. He beckoned the man over and leaned down from the saddle as he saluted.
"Good morning, Captain," he said easily.
"Morning, my lord," replied the officer, his heavy northern accent making the words almost unrecognizable.
"Tell me, Captain, do you have pipers among your men?" the Baron asked, smiling. The officer answered immediately, in a very serious manner.
"Aye, sir. The McDuig and the McForn are with us. And always so when we go to war."
"Then perhaps you might prevail upon them to give us a reel or two?" the Baron suggested. "It might be an altogether more pleasant sound than that tuneless grunting from over yonder."
He inclined his head toward the Wargal forces and now a slow smile spread over the captain's face. He nodded readily.
"Aye, sir. I'll see to it. There's nothing like a skirl or two on the pipes to get a man's blood prancing!" Saluting hurriedly, he turned away toward his men, shouting as he ran: "McDuig! McForn! Gather your wind and set to the pipes, men! Let's hear 'The Feather Crested Bonnet' from ye!"
As the two barons rode on, they heard behind them the preliminary moaning of bagpipes coming to full volume. Fergus winced and Arald grinned at him.
"Nothing like the skirl of the pipes to get the blood prancing," he quoted.
"In my case, it gets the teeth grinding," replied his companion, surreptitiously nudging his horse with his heel to move them a little farther away from the wild sound of the pipes. But when he looked at the men behind them, he had to agree that Arald's idea had worked. The pipes were successfully drowning out the dull chanting and, as the two pipers marched and countermarched in front of the army, they held the attention of all the men in their immediate vicinity.
"Good idea," he said to Arald, then added, "I can't help wondering if that's an equally good one."
He gestured across the plain to where the Wargals were emerging from the Pass and taking up their positions. "All my instincts say we should be hitting them before they have a chance to form up."
Arald shrugged. This point had been hotly debated by the War Council for the past few days. "If we hit them as they come out, we simply contain them," he said. "If we want to destroy Morgarath's power once and for all, we have to let him commit his forces in the open."
"And hope that Halt has been successful in stopping Horth's army," Fergus said. "I'm getting a nasty crick in my neck from looking over my shoulder to make sure there's no one behind us."
"Halt has never let us down before," Arald said mildly.
Fergus nodded unhappily. "I know that. He's a remarkable man. But there are so many things that could have gone wrong. He could have missed Horth's army altogether. He may still be fighting his way through the Thorntree. Or, worse yet, Horth may have defeated his archers and cavalry."