The next morning, after a hearty breakfast, they headed up the mountain.
The trail was as bad as the one on the way in, if not worse. It clearly followed an old roadbed, but the work of millennia had broken down many of the road cuts and embankments. The trail switched back and forth and most of the ends of the switchbacks were washed away. But the triari was familiar with such conditions from their continuous marching over the region and they fell to work on each obstacle, clearing the rock slides and shoring up the places where the road had washed away. Despite this, it took all day to ascend the summit of the mountain and Baron Edmund was clearly unhappy with the progress. They ate trail rations for lunch and supper and continued marching well into the night. The baron did not permit them torches and with the sky overcast the path along the summit of the mountain was a tree-choked nightmare. Herzer wasn’t sure how late it was when Talbot finally called a halt, but when he did Herzer mustered the sentries and then crawled into his furs, without taking off his armor, and was asleep almost before he lay down.
They were up before dawn the next morning and continued on their way, catching brief glimpses through the trees of the valleys on either side. There was little to be seen — that part of the Shenan was almost entirely unpeopled — until late in the day as they neared the far end of the mountain. The ridge they had followed had sloped upwards and as they approached the summit they could see, far down in the valley and on the west side of the mountain, a large force moving slowly to the north.
They had passed the occasional ancient roadbed and it was on one of these, which was marked by the faint trace of a trail, that Edmund stopped and conferred with Gunny.
“Fall out,” Gunny called. “Make full camp.”
They stacked their weapons and started on the preparations for a fortified camp. First decuri and the archers started on the ditches and palisade while the other squads began cutting trees for a field of fire. The camp was at the top of the trail with the gate on the far side and a narrow passage available for movement up onto the summit.
Throughout the work Baron Edmund had been on a small hilltop to the south and as the afternoon wore on he suddenly nodded in satisfaction and raised a small mirror in his hand, catching the dying light of the sun. Then he trotted down to the nearly finished camp and looked around.
“Gunny, leave one decuri in the camp. The other three squads and the archers will follow me.”
“Yes, my lord,” the Gunny replied. “First, Third, Fourth, prepare to move out.”
“Now what the fisk?” Cruz muttered as the tired and dirty soldiers began gathering their weapons. They had been able to see the enemy below moving northward for some time albeit only when they were down the slope.
“Just follow the orders, Cruz,” Herzer said, picking up his spear and ruck.
“Take off your helmets and put on your cloaks,” Edmund said as they prepared to move off. He had already done so. “I don’t want the glitter of armor showing.”
Herzer thought about that as they moved down the defile, and smiled. The mountain was very high and the line-of-sight distance to the enemy force was at least four miles. He had already noticed that the force in the valley was only viewable when there was a flash of metal, a view of an ox cart or from their afternoon fires. The group of bowmen and infantry filing down the mountain in their cloaks, which were a nondescript gray, would be nearly invisible to the enemy below.
They slithered and slipped down the mountain as the sun fell and the dusk faded to black. The clouds had cleared off after only dropping a smidgen of rain, and the gibbous moon gave just enough light to make their way. They followed the track almost to the base of the mountain where there was a small plateau about sixty meters wide, and paused. The baron called Herzer and McGibbon over to the edge of the plateau.
“Herzer, McGibbon, is there enough light for you to set up light defense works?” Edmund asked.
“Yes, sir,” Herzer whispered. “But only a ditch; we can’t see well enough to cut trees.”
“You don’t have to whisper, Herzer,” Edmund chuckled. “McGibbon?”
“We can set up our shields and stakes,” the archer said. “More than that I’m not sure.”
“Set up a ditch across the defile with one opening,” Edmund said after a moment. “We’ll want some way to close it. Try to camouflage it as best you can. Don’t set up the shields. Not yet. But have them ready to throw up in an instant.”
“There’s a big chestnut just there,” Herzer said, pointing to the edge of the trail downslope. “If we fell it and tie lines to it, we can probably pull it up into the opening and block the trail. That’s what you want, right?”
“Perfect,” Edmund said, looking around. “Get to work.”
Herzer set one maniple of third decuri to work on the tree while the rest dug a shallow trench along the edge of the plateau. When it was done he set them to cutting brush to mask the low wall and scouted for suitable saplings to make a better palisade. They had left their own stakes on the top of the ridge so they had to use local materials. He found that there was enough light and that there was a small grove of poplars, the result of a recent rock slide, that could provide the materials. When the trench was dug he sent the weary soldiers to work downing those and dragging the trunks over to improve the defenses until he was halted by Edmund.
“Well enough for now,” Talbot said, nodding at the improving defenses. “Post sentries and get some sleep. We’ve got a murthering great battle in the morning.”
Herzer called a halt to the preparations and then gave some thought to who should take watch. For most of them this would be their first battle and he knew that, despite their weariness, they would find it hard to sleep. He wasn’t sure he could. He had already fought once, and survived, but this was his first experience of prebattle jitters. He called the three squads together and then tried to pick out those he figured weren’t going to sleep anyway, giving them the duty of sentries, and sending the rest to their beds in the defenses.
When everything was settled, and the majority of the camp was either lying in wait, silently, or sleeping or standing watch, he moved around the defenses checking on the conditions. Halfway down the line, he found Baron Edmund doing the same.
“You need to get some sleep,” the baron said with a nod.
“I could say the same for you, sir,” Herzer replied. “It’s to be an ambush, then?”
“We’ll see,” Edmund replied enigmatically. “Go get some rest, Herzer. First call before dawn. No fires. No one in armor is to show themselves above the parapet after dawn.”
“I’ll pass that on and then go to bed, sir,” the triari replied. “Permission to carry on?” he asked, saluting.
“Right you are,” Edmund said, returning the salute. As the boy passed into the darkness, Edmund shook his head and smiled, then went to bed.
Morning found them tired and sore and eating another cold breakfast of monkey and parched corn. But there was a bit of water cut with wine to wash it down at least. As dawn broke to the east with a limited dawn chorus in the cold of the morning, Edmund sent one of the cavalrymen down the defile with quietly whispered orders, then had the troops stand to in the defenses. The archers were arrayed at either end and the three squads of Blood Lords held the middle. There was a cut in the wall where the trail rose onto the plateau but ropes had been snugged around the butt of the large chestnut and they had determined that it could be moved with ease if everyone fell to the ropes.