“Right,” the sergeant agreed, eyeing him very strangely. “Nothing personal.”
“Pincers?” Dirk called.
“If you can find her,” Gar called back absently. “So, sergeant, you attacked our whole platoon, just to get me?”
“You wouldn’t go away from them long enough,” the sergeant explained. “The lieutenant who took the infantry platoon out found your trail a mile away, and was going to jump you at nightfall—but he realized you were about to join up with this Blue Company platoon, so he jumped you all.”
“Yes, why wait until you can attack one man alone, when you could assault a dozen?” Gar’s nod was tight with irony. “I hope he isn’t your shrewdest man.”
“He’s an officer,” the sergeant said simply, and left the rest unspoken—that wars would be a lot simpler, less bloody, and shorter, if they just left things up to the noncoms.
“I suppose it’s become a matter of honor now,” Gar sighed. “Your captain feels he has to kill me, no matter what it takes—even if he has to kill the rest of my companions, or even the whole Blue Company.”
“I expect so,” the sergeant agreed. “Captains don’t tell us noncoms, though:”
“No, of course not. By the way, did you see the steward?”
“Yes. He was a lean man, about as tall as your master sergeant, black hair…”
“Torgi.” Gar nodded, then rose and turned to Cort. “Lieutenant, I hereby volunteer to give myself up.”
“We don’t desert comrades,” Cort said stiffly. “Don’t be silly,” Dirk added.
“You stood by us; we’ll stand by you.” But Sergeant Otto was looking grim at the news that Gar had brought the attack down on them all.
“Then let me offer an alternative,” Gar said slowly. “Dirk and I will travel by ourselves. Now that we know they’re after us, we’ll make sure they never find us, and you and your men will be safe from attack.”
Otto shook his head. “The Hawks are looking for our platoon now.”
“Then send this sergeant back with news that we’re going on by ourselves. The Hawks will know there’s no need to attack Blue Company soldiers then.”
“You’re sergeants of the Blue Company now,” Otto snapped. “We don’t desert our own.”
“No, we don’t,” Cort said slowly, “but we can use your plan, with one slight change.” He turned to Otto. “Sergeant, take the platoon back to headquarters. I’ll go on with Dirk and Gar.”
“No, lieutenant!” Otto cried, and Gar said, “Really, lieutenant, it’s not necessary.”
“But it is.” Cort turned to look up at him, fists on hips. “It satisfies the Blue Company’s honor, and it keeps the rest of the platoon safe. Besides, even if you’re as good at stealth as you say, it’s much easier to hide only three of us than the whole platoon.”
Gar stood, frowning down at him, thinking.
“If, by some fluke, they do find us,” Dirk said, “a third sword could be handy.”
“And a man who knows the territory could be even handier.” Gar nodded slowly. “All right, lieutenant. We’ll take you up on your offer.”
Sergeant Otto groaned.
“Honor,” in the chaos of a society dominated by warlords, turned out to have a very solid meaning. If a mercenary didn’t fulfill a commission, no one else would hire him. If a captain didn’t stand by his men, or the men stand by one another, the company would break up and dissolve.
Gar and Dirk learned that much from Cort as they searched for a hiding place. They rode away from Quilichen, and if now and again Dirk turned and looked back when there was nothing to see but trees and leaves or, later, meadowland stretching away from hills, who could blame him? After all, he didn’t do it so often that it might become irritating.
They rode down a shallow stream until it ended in a pond fed by a dozen springs, then found a deer trail and followed it. Dirk brought out handfuls of grain and scattered it behind them, so that birds would flutter down and disturb their tracks while pecking for the seeds. Then, in the evening, the deer would cover even those traces as they came down to the water.
They came to a shelf of shale and rode along it for a hundred feet, till it buried itself in the earth again. A little farther on, they found a stand of pines and rode through it; the slippery needles underfoot didn’t hold tracks very well.
So they went, taking advantage of every chance to hide their trail, riding at a canter when they could, a trot when the way was open, a walk when it wasn’t, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the Hawk cavalry.
In the middle of the afternoon, though, Gar suddenly reined in and sat, listening, for a minute. “What is it?” Cort asked.
“Horses,” Gar said. “That sergeant made quick time going back to camp. The rest of the platoon is out after us.”°
“They’ll have a jolly time trying to follow, with all the ways we broke our trail,” Dirk said, grinning.
“They surely will,” Cort agreed. “By the way, Gar, what did you do to anger the Boss of Loutre so?”
“I didn’t,” Gar answered. “I doubt he even knows about it. But I tripped up his steward badly, when he was translating for the boss with a merchant I was guarding—mistranslating, I should say. He was trying to get the boss to pay more than the merchant was asking.”
“He would have pocketed the difference!” Cort exclaimed. “No wonder he wants to kill you—if you tell his boss about it, the boss will kill him!”
“That does lend him some reason,” Gar admitted. “Myself, I think he’s just piqued at having someone catch him at his game.”
“But to hire a whole company to murder you! Where did the steward get that much money?”
“That is an interesting question, isn’t it?” Gar asked, with a hard little smile. “I think I’ll ask his boss about that.” He halted suddenly, losing his smile, cocking his head. “We’d better find shelter, quickly! The Hawks will find our trail after all!”
“How do you know?” Cort asked, frowning. “Because I hear hounds! They’ve bought themselves dogs someplace! Ride!”
Gar whipped his mount into a canter. Dirk followed with Cort right behind him, marveling at the big man’s hearing.
By nightfall, though, Cort could hear the hounds himself. Worse, they had come out of the woods into a flat plain, too dry for any life but grass and the multitude of living things that grazed. Cattle roamed here and there, sheep grazed by the roadside, but there were few people, and virtually nowhere to hide.
“We have to find somewhere!” Cort said. “The horses can’t keep going much longer.”
“I know,” Gar said, thin-lipped, “and I keep looking for a haystack to hide in, but all I see is the hay without the stack!”
The moon’s first sliver bulged over the horizon, showing the silhouette of the hill before it.
Gar stiffened, staring ahead. “What’s that?”
He knew darned well, Dirk thought. “Looks like one of those half-dome hills.”
“Stay away!” Cort reined in his horse, dread of the supernatural striking ten times stronger in the night. “The Fair Folk will kill us if they find us near their hill—or take us captive for twenty years, if they’re feeling merciful!”
“Old stories,” Dirk said with scorn.
“They’re much more than stories!” Cort reddened with anger. “I talked with a gaffer myself who’d been in one of their hills! Gone in a young man, he had, and come out an old one, and couldn’t remember more than one night among them!”
“What was his name?” Dirk asked. “Rip Van Winkle?”
“Wh…? No! His name was Katz!”
Dirk frowned, unsure suddenly, but Gar said, “If those Hawks catch us, I’ll be losing a great deal more than twenty years. I hope you two will have the sense to surrender, but I’m very much afraid that you’ll fight, and the Hawks will kill us a great deal more surely than your Fair Folk.”