Firehand Part 8

"He would cheat us..." Allran began in anger.

"Hardly. Officers with a reputation for doing that don't get many new commissions, but neither do mercenaries lightly surrender hard-won gains to those not fully earning them. That's why the Commandant must be made to understand completely our heavy and long role in all this."

No one questioned that Jeran A Murdoc had the power to disrupt the distribution process if he chose to do so. A column such as he led would not have hired itself without the promise of a strong spoil share as well as the gold it contracted to receive.

The weapons expert shook her head. "I think Sapphirehold will be as fortunate to have Firehand on its side in those councils as it now is to have you managing its battles," she said in admiration.

"If our employers lose, we lose, Lieutenant," he replied, somewhat embarra.s.sed.

Allran gave him a strange, sharp look. "Right now, any dividing of spoil seems very far away."

"With a lot of hard fighting ahead before we get there," Ross agreed.

He straightened. "Mount up. There's a convoy lonely for our attention. Let's not disappoint it any longer."

14.

SOON, THE CAPTURED springdeer and the carefully interrogated prisoners were ready to depart.

The main body of the partisans waited until they had pa.s.sed out of sight before moving themselves. Murdock tried never to permit any prisoner, no matter how seemingly secure, to observe anything that might give a clue as to his intentions or probable direction of travel.

He scowled now as Eveleen swung into her saddle and brought his doe close to her so that they might ride together. "Why are you using Comet instead of Spark?" he demanded bluntly; he had noted her choice of mount at the outset of their mission, but there had been no appropriate opportunity to challenge her then, and he had forgotten the matter until now.

The woman bridled under his tone but controlled her response. "Because Spark picked up a stone on the last raid. It bruised his hoof."

"Sorry, Eveleen," Ross apologized after a moment. "I should know better than to question your judgment, and the choosing of his steed is each warrior's business."

"Don't worry about it," she replied, "but I am curious about your dislike of Comet. He's a fine animal."

"I know, but he's no match for Spark." He glanced at the way before them. "We depend so heavily on our deer. I don't like the thought of your coming into possible danger through some imperfection..."

He shrugged. "As you say, Comet's as sound as any of the other springdeer we have."

Little was said during the next several hours. The raiders were tired. They had ridden far and had fought one battle already this day, and they knew another faced them at their new destination, or faced them if their leader had read his enemies rightly and had plotted and timed their movements accurately.

The change in the nature of the land announcing that they at last were nearing the proposed attack site came rather suddenly. The hills became higher and steeper, rougher and more difficult to negotiate. First brush and then stands of trees dotted the slopes. These increased in density and frequency until they formed a full, thick cover over all the land.

The convoy had been sighted in a long rift bisecting the range and tracing its full length as if Life's Queen had drawn a mighty knife along its backbone before the stone had frozen into its present solid form.

Ross had reasoned that this would remain the invaders' route. It was direct, and they would be able to travel it without having to contend with any excessively rough places. Besides, once upon it, he did not see how the party could quit it. The deermen could readily have scaled the slopes bordering the natural path to go their own way, but the clumsy, presumably well-laden wagons were another matter. They were fairly bound to keep to the rift after they had started upon it.

True, it was conducive to ambush, but the same could be said of every part of the Sapphirehold lowlands, and they would be counting on secrecy to shield them, that and the size of their party. They would not disqualify the rift for security's sake.

The Time Agent was not very pleased with that road himself and was even less pleased once he reached it and had to come to a decision as to their course of action. It was too narrow and the surrounding terrain too rough to permit the ambush he had hoped to set, one allowing a quick sweep by his entire force, striking every part of the long line simultaneously and breaking it swiftly. There was no stretch along the whole course of the great fissure sufficiently free of almost perpendicular cliffs and deep drops to permit such an attack. He would have to modify his tactics and hope no heavy price would be exacted for that compromise.

Murdock chose what he believed would prove to be the best place possible to meet the convoy, and settled down to wait. His force was nearly a third greater than his intended victims'. Even if he failed to take all the deermen and, therefore, could not chance delaying to bring the supplies away with him, he could be fairly certain of at least stopping the wagons long enough to fire them, provided they came this way at all.

His order of battle was simple enough. Allran's division waited at the far side of a sharp, cliff-walled bend. When the first part of the Condor Hall column reached him, he was to leap out on it. Ross's unit would be waiting, well concealed, farther back along the trail. When the sounds of the charge reached them, they would strike at the rear or at whatever portion of it was before them should the train be uncommonly extended, trapping the bulk of it between them. The remaining partisans, those under Eveleen Riordan, had been divided, part going to the front, part to the rear positions. They were to act as flying squads, giving aid to the other officers as needed and trying to prevent riders from the convoy's center from either breaking and fleeing or from racing to the aid of their embattled comrades.

Ross sighed. It was as good a plan as conditions and his own ingenuity permitted him to devise. If fortune were with them, total victory should be theirs. If not, the battle could be a costly one.

His expression hardened.

It might never come to battle if their enemies went by some other road.

They had been waiting here three hours now, better than that, a good two hours longer than he had antic.i.p.ated. There should not be such variation from his calculations. The herd might have shown this fluctuation, but not wagons. They were capable of only so much speed either in spurts or during sustained effort, and he was too well practiced in considering both factors to err very greatly now.

The undisturbed ground testified that they had not already pa.s.sed, but perhaps they had chosen another path after all.

Perhaps one of them had merely broken down. Disabled vehicles could not be left behind here, for those coming after would not be able to go around them and would have to be abandoned as well.

Maybe they were just traveling a little more slowly than they might, realizing they would lose more time to broken wheels and axles in such country than they would by showing the care needed to prevent accidents in the first place.

He drew and released a long breath. The convoy was coming at last.

Silent progress through this terrain was impossible for that number of wagons despite the thick growth of trees, and the partisans could hear the sounds of their approach long before the first of the advance guards rode into view.

The invading warriors looked tired and sweaty despite the cool autumn breeze whipping through even this low place, and both faces and clothes were much grimed. Their journey thus far had not been an easy one.

Ross's heart seemed to slam against his ribs. If they were detected now, or at any time in the next few minutes before Allran was ready to make his move, they would have a hard fight ahead of them, numerical superiority or not.

The Terran's eyes were silver ice. The wagons were rolling by, each drawn by four good drays, each separated from the next by mounted warriors. These last looked as trail-worn as the deermen leading the convoy had been, but like them, they were alert and rode with their hands on their swords. All wore the Condor Hall insignia.

Bad news. These men would not break or cast down their arms as had the mercenaries riding with the herd. Zanthor intended that this shipment should get through.

Ross's head raised in the old, defiant manner. He would see to it that it did not.

The minutes crept by like weeks. Would the lead riders never reach Allran's position?

It came then, the familiar, every-terrible clamor of battle-the shouts, the curses, the screaming of frightened dray deer, the clash of good steel against steel.

The first sounds of it had scarcely reached his ears before he sent Lady Gay forward. The partisans spread out along the narrow front of the rift riding rapidly to encircle the rear guard.

Because of the nature of the place, each party found itself more or less equally matched in numbers in the first moments of combat before all the attackers were able to reach and engage their targets. The invaders had apparently realized this would be the case if they were attacked and had prepared themselves to take advantage of that fact, for they responded with amazing swiftness not only to fell as many of their foes as possible in the time thus given them but to block the narrow road against them so that only a limited number could come at them, however many had begun the a.s.sault.

The tall cliffs lining most of the way helped their cause. There was only a slender shoulder where the rift met the advancing rock, wide enough to give pa.s.sage to a few deermen and yet be easily defended by equally few.

The Condor Hall warriors had both courage and skill under arms. They neither sued for quarter nor gave it, and it was a long, b.l.o.o.d.y time before the partisans at last began to batter down their defense, longer still before they could work their way along the line of wagons, most of which had been turned to block the road.

Every foot of ground was bitterly contested, but at last, the two Sapphirehold forces met, trapping the few remaining defenders between them.

There was no call to surrender, no suit for peace. The surviving invaders fought grimly on, determined to sell their already lost lives as dearly as possible.

The flow of battle brought the three Sapphirehold leaders near one another as they struggled to bring down the handful of invaders still under arms, Eveleen and Allran so close that they might have served as shieldbearers for one another in a different kind of warfare, the commander a few yards from the other two.

The weapons expert fought like a spirit of retribution, a cold, precise fury ever hunting the hot blood of those who sought to rip land and life from the people she had come to love. It was always thus with her, and the partisans had not long begun their war before Condor Hall's warriors had learned to hate and fear her terrible skill and the intelligent courage driving its use even as they hated and feared her more famed leader.

The one she now faced recognized her. He would have preferred to engage some other, lesser foe, but, since fate had given this task to him, he was determined to come away from it with her life on his sword even though he must perish soon himself. He believed his skill to be the equal of that, however good she might be.

He lunged, intending the thrust to be a feint to draw her guard and open her to a second, more deadly stroke.

His springdeer slipped as his arm drove forward. The blade, instead of streaking toward the woman, pierced the neck of her mount.

Comet reared in pain and terror, then fell heavily, throwing his rider and pinning her beneath him.

Allran felled his opponent as the agent's wardeer gave his death-scream. He turned in time to see Comet go down.

With a cry of rage, he swung at the invader who had done this thing, striking him full in the breast. So fierce was his thrust that the sword pierced him through the breadth of his body, and the mortally stricken warrior was flung from the saddle as if he had been hit by a catapult-fired stone, taking his bane-weapon with him.

The Lieutenant leaped to the ground. There was no danger now in this area, except for the terrible, crushing weight upon Eveleen's fragile body.

Several of the other partisans, also freed from combat by the fall of their final opponents, raced to his aid. Together, they raised the slain wardeer and drew the Terran free.

Murdock's opponent crumpled before a thrust that had seemed no more than a flickering quiver of his blade. One more invader remained, but Gordon and another of the Sapphireholders moved in to take him before their commander could offer challenge, and he found himself free at last of death's grim shadow.

He turned to scan the suddenly quiet battlefield.

Ross paled as though fatally stricken himself. Allran was nearby on his right, bending over the still form of a woman. Her chestnut hair pinned in its golden net and the starkly white, wrenchingly fair features were all too clearly visible to him. Several of the others were with them, but his eyes were so fixed on the two Lieutenants that he could not have named them.

Shock seemed to freeze the heart in his breast. Not this, he thought, desperate with fear and anguish. Anything to him, but not this. Not Eveleen.

Lady Gay reached the pair in a moment.

Murdock was out of the saddle before the doe had ceased to move.

The kneeling man looked up. His face was grim. Grief and anger at his own helplessness were etched on it. "Comet fell on her. She has just ceased to breathe..."

"Get out of there!" The Time Agent flung himself on Eveleen, all but hurtling the other aside.

He covered her mouth with his, pinching her nose with his left hand so that none of the air he forced into her should escape that way.

He felt her chest expand, paused, drove the air from it, filled her lungs again. Ten minutes went by. Twenty. He was growing exhausted himself when he thought he heard a soft moan.

Imagination?

Ross sat back on his heels. No, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s rose of their own accord.

Before he could move to aid her further, Eveleen's eyes opened to look into his. They were puzzled and unfocused for a moment but then widened in horror as memory returned to her.

"Gently!" he said quickly. "It's all over now."

"Comet?" she asked faintly after a brief silence.

"Gone. He died almost instantly. I'm sorry for that."

"You wronged him," she whispered. "This wasn't his fault..."

"I know," the man responded, "but be quiet now. Please. Gordon's here. Let him look you over."

She nodded her a.s.sent, and the commander arose, giving place to his partner.

Ross found everything in good order, as he had known would be the case.

The frenzied activity that always followed a capture was still much evident, for the convoy was a large one, and each wagon had to be carefully searched and all possible stores loaded on the captured deer. The remainder would have to be burned, although he hated to let it go; the wagons were too slow, too c.u.mbersome, to risk traveling with them himself.

The wounded claimed a great deal of attention. There were many both among Sapphirehold's warriors and the invaders, a number of whom had been stricken three and four times before giving over.

Some of the injured hung between life and death, and Ashe had been forced to devote his first attention to these rather than to Eveleen. Murdock had fought off her initial peril, and the withdrawal of Gordon's aid in the immediate aftermath of the battle would have cost the lives of a number of the others. Only when he had finished with them had he been able to relieve Ross and concentrate on the injured Terran.

Once the commander had a.s.sured himself that there appeared to be no unantic.i.p.ated difficulties in the aftermath of their victory, he sought out Allran and drew him aside. "I'm sorry for the way I used you back there."

The Lieutenant shook his head. "Forget it. What you did, I should already have been doing."

"And so would you have done had I given you another moment. Shock freezes us all. It was only some kind of instinct that moved me so quickly."

The other smiled faintly. "Eveleeni has reason to praise that instinct."

"If she's not hurt inside," he responded bleakly. "She won't have gained much if she's only to die slowly now instead of painlessly, as would have been the case if I hadn't intervened."

That thought had been in the Sapphireholder's mind as well, and he nodded glumly. "Perhaps Gordon will be able to give us his verdict shortly."

Ashe came to them a little while later. He could tell them nothing definite. It was his belief that the Lieutenant had not suffered any permanent or grave injury, nothing, in fact, beyond an incredible bruising, that shock and weight had been responsible for the failure of her lungs, not any damage sustained by them. He was almost certain there had been no breaking or crushing of bone, but more, he simply did not know. Only a much closer examination than he was able to give her and several days of careful observation would tell him what he needed to learn. Until then, until her body had proven itself sound, she must be regarded as one of the more gravely wounded despite her protests that she was fit to ride or to fight as need demanded.

15.

AT LAST, THE partisans were ready to depart. They divided as was their custom, some going south with the bulk of their spoil and the captives, most returning to the highlands, bringing with them what they desired of the captured stores and, of course, their own wounded.

The shock of the accident was not quick to release Eveleen, and she was more than content to ride the litter despite her words to the contrary, a fact not lost upon her commander to his ever-increasing concern.

It was the worst journey Ross Murdock had known in a long time, that return to base, as bad in its way as the terrible flight downriver in Terra's past with the Baldies close on his heels. He had known fear then and despair and physical pain and exhaustion. Now, his lash was uncertainty and a dread so sharp that he could have become sick with it had the strength of his will been less.

The Sapphirehold force pressed on hour after hour, long after darkness had fallen. With so many of their party incapacitated, a number of them totally, Murdock had no desire to meet with a company of the enemy following after them to avenge either the herd or the convoy. Only when the weariness of his warriors and mounts threatened to become a danger in itself did he finally permit a halt.

Dawn brought no easing to his heart. One of the wounded had died during the night, and another remained stable but very close to death.

Gordon's report on Eveleen's condition was essentially the same, but he was more guarded in giving it. She was having pain, a considerable amount of it, and he could not as yet say whether it was born of the tremendous battering she had taken or from more grievous cause, although he hastened to a.s.sure his comrades that he had found no other symptoms of internal injury, which by rights should be revealing themselves if anything existed to spark them.