Andawyr caught the scrutiny and returned it. Hawk-lan’s smile widened and Andawyr’s scowl deepened in proportion.
‘I’m sorry,’ Hawklan said. ‘I was just remembering you kicking that Mandroc. I’d no idea you were so… physical.’ Andawyr’s frown turned into the teacher’s look of exasperated despair such as Hawklan had seen so often on Gulda’s face. He quailed a little in anticipa-tion of the coming rebuke.
Andawyr snorted and lifted his hand to his broken nose. ‘Some sight you have, healer,’ he said. ‘How did you think I got this?’
Aelang looked down at the fidgeting Mandroc and counselled himself to be patient. It was difficult. Of all the Mandrocs he loathed, these slobbering dimwitted trackers and their keepers were the worst.
The sight of them made him look up. The moun-tains lowered above the patrol, dark and grim, and the funeral pyre of the mines still belched forth a dense black smoke. At night it became a mass of leaping flames. It had been like a beacon for the latter part of the journey and now it streamed overhead like a great finger pointing to the north.
Arriving at the mines, Aelang had found them com-pletely destroyed. Judging from what information he could obtain from the few surviving members of the garrison, the attacking force had been very large, but his own conclusion was that it had merely been well organized and ruthless. Judging too from the smoke and the flames pouring unabated from every known shaft and adit, and no small number of hitherto unknown ones, he presumed that that obscenity of a creature and its birds down in the depths had also been destroyed.
No great loss there, he thought again as he turned from the mountains to look again at the Mandroc tracker. What that creature did to people was only entertaining to a point, even for him, and there was always the lingering doubt that he too could go the same way if Dan-Tor judged it worthwhile. He suppressed a shudder and returned to the matter of the moment.
Having discovered that the attackers had fled south towards Fyorlund, Aelang had abandoned any thought of pursuing them. What was the point? Their whole army was moving into Narsindal anyway. Why go looking for trouble, pursuing what were presumably elite troops through dangerous mountain terrain?
He had intended to return to Dan-Tor with the news and then go to join the army waiting for the Fyordyn and their allies, but now this snivelling tracker had caught wind of something and was creating a stir. He had a powerful urge to kick the half-witted creature, but he restrained it, knowing that such a deed against one of their ‘sighted ones’ could well override the Mandrocs’ otherwise dominant fear of Amrahl’s black-clad servants.
‘What does it want?’ he snapped at the tracker’s keeper. ‘We haven’t time to waste chasing slaves.’
‘He says some went this way,’ the keeper replied. ‘Very little spoor. Not slaves. Soft movers.’
Aelang frowned. Soft movers. It was an unusual expression; one the Mandrocs used about either particularly elusive game or their most skilled hunters.
‘How many?’ Aelang asked.
The keeper spoke to the tracker who grunted some unintelligible reply.
‘One cum two tens,’ the keeper said scissoring his hands together. ‘All soft movers.’
About fifteen ‘skilled hunters’! Aelang’s attention sprang to life. That was no small force. The departure of a force over the mountains must have been a feint. Perhaps the whole raid had been a feint. It was such a silent, behind-the-lines, attack that had cost them Vakloss, and with it all of Fyorlund.
He smiled, his pronounced canines predatory. Dan-Tor had told him to destroy any of the attacking force that had escaped to the north, but that had been in anticipation of their being random stragglers. Whoever these people were, they were certainly not that. But they would not have the speed of this patrol, nor be able to offer any effective resistance against such numbers. It occurred to him that the Ffyrst would appreciate having such a group captured alive for his later amusement, and that with the war about to be won and a distribution of the wealth of Fyorlund, Orthlund and Riddin imminent, the favour of Dan-Tor was well worth maintaining.
‘Bring the other trackers up,’ he ordered his Sirshi-ant. ‘Tell them we’re going after these "soft movers". They’re to be captured for the Groundshaker.’
Chapter 30
Loman started at the sound of the alarm. The Mandroc night raids had continued steadily, becoming, if anything, worse, and certainly not abating despite the fearful casualties the Mandrocs were suffering. It was as if Sumeral were saying, ‘I have such resources here that you may slay until you fall with fatigue and it will avail you nothing.’ But surely they would not attack so early in the evening, when there was still sufficient light left for the Muster to pursue them with ease and make their casualties total?
He went to the entrance of his tent and looked out, but even as he did so the tone of the alarm changed. ‘Friends approaching,’ it said.
One of the sentries nearby signalled to him.
‘Muster riders.’
Loman’s concerned expression changed to a smile. Thanks to Sylvriss’s endeavours many more squadrons had ridden to join Urthryn than he had started with after the retreat of the Morlider, but part of him was still concerned about the turmoil amongst his own people that he had left behind unresolved. He made no great stir about it, but if more of his countrymen were now arriving then it would undoubtedly hearten him. Loman set off enthusiastically towards the south gate to receive the new arrivals.
As he walked through the busy camp the noise ahead of him changed; people were cheering.
Puzzled, he ran the last part of the way and arrived just as the gate was being opened to admit the riders.
The cause of the cheering became immediately ap-parent. At the head of the riders was Sylvriss, her baby son hung about her neck in its simple sling and supported by one hand while with the other Sylvriss acknowledged the cheers of Fyordyn and Riddinvolk alike.
Loman strode forward as she dismounted, his face betraying a mixture of several emotions. Wherever Sylvriss was, affection dominated, but still…
‘Lady… what… what are you doing here?’ he burst out. ‘And with your baby?’
‘It’s a pleasure to see you too, Commander,’ Sylvriss replied, raising her eyebrows as if surprised by this unexpected greeting.
Loman stuttered as he searched for a new begin-ning, but Sylvriss released him. ‘Just a spot harness check, Commander,’ she said, smiling. ‘Nothing sinister.’
‘We didn’t even know you were coming,’ Loman said, recovering somewhat.
Sylvriss nodded, more serious now. ‘I told Lord Oremson to send no word,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want any messenger jeopardized on an unessential errand, and also I didn’t want to risk the enemy finding out about my journey.’
Loman nodded appreciatively but reverted immedi-ately to his original question. ‘Lady, why have you come. It’s… ’
The question faded on his lips as his gaze drifted casually over her mount.
His eyes widened and his voice fell to an almost terrified whisper. ‘That’s Serian,’ he said, stepping close and taking her arm urgently. ‘Hawklan’s horse. What… ’
‘Later, Loman,’ Sylvriss said firmly. ‘All things in their time. Let me tend him’-she wrinkled her nose and looked down at her offspring-‘and his most royal and pungent majesty, then we’ll talk.’
The tending of both horse and heir did not take long, but when Sylvriss entered the Command Tent, it was to face the grim, concerned expression of her Commander and her four senior Lords.
She smiled disarmingly. ‘Gentlemen,’ she said. ‘Why so fretful? I’ve only been changing the baby, not giving birth to it.’
The sally, however, produced more exasperation than mirth but it disorganized her opponents’ united protest long enough for her to sit down.