“Are the hills that hard to cross?”
“Compared to the Westhorns? Hardly. But the Jeranyi are always looking for the easy way. Steal rather than raise their own. Take a woman rather than arrange a consorting. Be a boon to all Candar if they were just wiped out.”
Saryn didn’t like what she was hearing. If the Jeranyi were so opportunistic, why were there no attacks on other holders at all? Was that because the Jeranyi knew Nuelda was the weakest…or for other reasons, such as a message from the other lords?
After another half glass, the same young woman escorted Saryn to her guest chamber. There, Saryn discovered that someone had brought her gear and laid it out-still packed-on the long table under the high windows.
“The wash chamber is through the door there, Commander.”
Saryn almost felt guilty getting cleaned up and changing. Almost. When she left the room, her escort was waiting, and brought her to a set of open double doors, then slipped away.
“I hope you do not mind that it will be just the three of us,” offered Jharyk, standing at the door to the dining chamber.
“No, not at all. You’re very kind.”
Jharyk laughed. “I’m seldom called such. You must already know that. But for all my vanities and foibles, I try not to be stupid. I’m certain you know much that I do not, and I hope to learn from you. But…first, may I present my consort, Ioncosa?”
Ioncosa was petite, dark-haired, and probably not much older than the youngest of the Westwind guard recruits. She was also pregnant and smiled shyly. “Commander…it is such an honor to have you here at Nuelda. I have always heard of the Westwind guards, but they seemed so…unreal. Yet…you are so solid, even though you’re…”
“No…I’m not a giant,” said Saryn with a slight laugh. “The Marshal is imposing in stature as well, but most of us are not.”
Jharyk gestured toward the far end of a table that could have held twenty but was set for three. “We should be seated.”
As soon as the three had taken their places, Jharyk filled the three goblets almost precisely two-thirds of the way. “Enjoy.” He raised his goblet, then took a sip. “Some of the other lords in the west here make their own vintages.” He shook his head. “Waste of golds and time. The soils aren’t right. They’re best for sheep and wool, and for dairying and cheese. So I buy good wine when times are hard and store it in the cellar. We also store the cheeses if we can’t get the proper prices.” He smiled at Saryn. “I’ve never figured out how you could support so many folk-or any folk-on the Roof of the World. Would you mind telling us what life is like up there?”
Saryn took a sip of the deep red wine. Jharyk was right about one thing. The wine was good, and she wondered where he had gotten it. “It was very hard for the first years. We do have mountain sheep…”
Jharyk nodded as she spoke, but Saryn could sense he would remember every word she said through the entire meal.
LXIX
In the deep darkness before the sun would rise over the hills west of Suedara on sevenday, Saryn had a far better idea why no one really wanted to deal with the Jeranyi. Four days of following tracks, sleeping in dusty barns and sheds, and sensing the riders who could only be Jeranyi scattering away through the bush-covered hills had left her feeling more than a little frustrated and very much more understanding of why Lord Sillek had just had his mages drop fire-bolts on what ever Jeranyi he’d been able to find.
Saensyr had just said, “One wastes shafts trying to use bows, and horses chasing them.”
Was that another reason why the Lornians didn’t use archers in battle? It couldn’t be the only reason, could it?
At the same time, she’d also come to realize that her ability to use the flow of order and chaos in the areas around her had extended. She could now reliably sense riders and large animals at close to two kays. Part of that had to have been because of the more open terrain, but some also had come from having to use her senses so much-because there didn’t seen to be any other way to discover the raiders.
She’d also discovered that the Jeranyi liked to move into position well before dawn, then strike when there was just enough light to see. That was how two more small hamlets had suffered. It was also why she was leading the three squads through the darkness along a trail well away from and west of the main narrow road. If they’d used the main road, the Jeranyi certainly would have noticed all the hoofprints. Suedara wasn’t a hamlet, but a small town, with not only cots and crofters, but even a few houses of more than one room-and it was the only town with easy access from the trails leading from the West Pass that had not suffered from the raiders, and that was doubtless also why many had fled there from devastated hamlets.
While it looked to Saryn as though the Jeranyi were trying to scare everyone into Suedara for more concentrated pickings, she certainly couldn’t prove that, nor could she explain why she thought the Jeranyi would make their raid into Suedara on sevenday. She’d just told the squad leaders that attempts to find the Jeranyi later in the day had failed and that Suedara offered the raiders better pickings.
“How much farther, ser?” asked Shalya through the darkness.
“About a kay before Caeris takes position. About a half kay after that, you’ll take first squad up onto the rise on the right and set up with the archers out of sight from the main road…the way we talked about last night. Once you’re in position, I’ll move back with the Lornians.”
Based on their early ride through the town on the way to Westara, Saryn had picked a spot more than a kay southwest of the town itself…for several reasons. First, she didn’t want a pitched fight in the town. Second, she wanted to surprise the Jeranyi away from the town, and third, there wasn’t any terrain she liked better anywhere else along the route that she thought the Jeranyi would take.
A low rise topped out some hundred and fifty yards west of the road leading out of Suedara to Westara, a road that eventually swung due west until it reached the West Pass. On the east side, opposite the ridge, lay soft and marshy ground, but that did not begin until close to a hundred yards off the road. The marshy sections bordered a small swamp that fed, if intermittently, the stream that supplied Suedara. The area Saryn had picked did not appear as confined as it was in fact.
“Do you think the Jeranyi know we’re after them?” asked Shalya.
“They must know someone is after them, but I’d be very surprised if they knew there were Westwind guards among their pursuers.”
They rode in silence for more than a quarter glass before Saryn eased the gelding back along the shoulder of the narrow trail until she reached the Lornian squad. “Squad leader?”
“Yes, Commander?” replied Caeris through the darkness that might have been lightening ever so slightly. Saensyr rode beside him.
“Just ahead is where I want you to take your position, in the low area behind the last slope down to the main road. You’re not to move to where you can be seen…unless, of course, you come under attack, but I doubt that will happen. Remember…you’re not to close off the road until the Jeranyi are under attack from first squad.”
“Yes, ser.”
“You understand your task?”
“Yes, ser.”
Saryn rode with Caeris for another hundred yards and made certain that the Lornians were in position before riding back up the slope to the trail and joining Yulia and second squad.
“Commander,” offered the squad leader.
“Squad leader. Your task is simple, but it won’t be easy. You’re just to block the road so that the Jeranyi can’t reach the town and hold as long as you can. First squad will be attacking from the Jeranyi rear. Keep the squad together as much as possible. The Jeranyi like to pick off riders who get separated.”
“Yes, ser.”
Saryn did not accompany second squad all the way to their position, concealed behind the north end of the same ridge behind which Shalya and first squad were readying themselves, if almost half a kay farther from the town. But Saryn did not rejoin first squad until she could sense that Yulia had her recruits in place.