A bad dream.
A nightmare.
"No, I'm… I'm fine," he said. He looked down at his legs, and saw that his feet had become entangled in his cloak. He kicked the cloak away. "Is it my turn to keep watch?" he asked hopefully. Anything to keep him from returning to the nightmare of the dream.
"No, milord," said Caradoc. "It is time to go. Your turn to keep watch came and went some time ago. You were sleeping so soundly we decided it was best not to wake you." Soth said nothing to this. He could reprimand his knights for not waking him, but he knew the fault lay within himself. After all, the squire's first rule was that knights who slept too deeply did not live very long. It wasn't like him to forget something like that, but he had.
Perhaps it was best not to dwell on it. In fact, the less he reminded himself about his ghastly nightmare the better.
"Very well," he said at last. "But, don't let it happen again."
"Yes, milord."
Soth rose up off the ground, stiff and sore, his clothes cold and damp with sweat.
The knights were well on their way as the sun broke over the tops of the Dargaard Mountains. After a cold night and its legacy of stiff joints and sore bones, the sun's warmth was a more than welcome relief for the knights.
Soth took his customary position at the head of the group during the early hours, but as they neared Halton, he allowed the rider who'd come from the village to take the lead position given that he was more familiar with the surrounding terrain.
When the village at last came into sight, Soth moved the knights slightly up the mountain slopes in order to avoid detection as the ogres would no doubt have one or two guards watching the surrounding lands and especially the approach from Dargaard Keep.
As they made their way through a shallow gully, one of the knights let out a birdlike cry. Soth immediately halted the knights with an upraised fist. The procession stopped and went silent as Soth waited for the knight who'd called out the warning to offer a report.
The knight turned out to be Colm Farold, Knight of the Sword. "Voices, milord," he said. "Coming from over there." He pointed with a subtle gesture at a thick patch of fireweed growing close to the ground some yards off.
Soth nodded, and listened closely. Indeed there were faint sounds coming from somewhere to his left. He gestured to Farold with his head, then pointed to two other knights. The selected knights immediately dismounted.
"Nothing here, men," said Soth, moving forward through the gully, leaving the three knights behind. "I think it's best we be moving on."
Once they were through the gully, Soth doubled his men back around in a wide arc and minutes later they were once again traversing the gully.
Except this time, Farold and the other knights were there waiting for them, swords drawn and two prisoners in hand.
"Hender and Pike!" exclaimed the rider.
"You know these two?" asked Soth.
"Indeed, milord. One is my cousin, the other his neighbor."
Soth looked at the men flanked by the trio of knights and recognized them from their manner of dress as being simple farmers.
"We found them cowering in the bushes almost with their heads buried in the ground," Farold explained.
"We were afraid you might be more ogres," said the older of the two, the one the rider had identified as Hender. He was a man with thin gray hair, a long white beard, and the red neck and thickly calloused hands of one who tills the land.
If the man hadn't been so terrified, Soth might have considered his words an insult. And if their task wasn't so urgent, he might have taken the time to make a comment about them. Instead, he decided to concentrate on the matter at hand. "How long ago did you escape from the village?" "This morning," said the other farmer, a somewhat younger man who was obviously the one named Pike.
"Before sunup."
Soth wasn't surprised by this. It was just like ogres to take over a village, then get careless about keeping it while they indulged on food, ale and wine in celebration.
Fortunately for Soth and the people of Halton, it simply meant that the ogres' celebration would be short-lived.
"Did you get a chance to learn where the ogres are located?" asked Soth.
"Most of them, milord," said Pike.
"I saw some too," offered Hender.
"Excellent," said Soth. Then in a slightly louder voice.
"We'll break for a short rest here. When we mount again, we'll be riding into battle."
He dismounted and began studying the map the rider had drawn back at
Dargaard Keep. In comparing it to what was known about the ogres by
Hender and Pike, it became clear that, despite what the rider had said about them at Dargaard Keep, these ogres preferred to stick close together.
According to Hender, most of the ogres had gathered in the middle of the village around the open meeting place called Center Square. From there, four pathways led out in four basic directions: north, south, west and east. The pathway leading into the village from the north was the largest of the four and could easily be considered a road.
It was the village's main connection to Dargaard Keep to the north and the path most often traveled by villagers.
The path heading west was also fairly wide and well maintained. This was the path that hooked up with the trail that led to Vingaard Keep, another stronghold of the Knights of Solamnia. The path south was thin and seldom used, stopping at the edge of Halton Wood, a thick, dark forest that had, up until now, served as a buffer zone between the farmers and the ogres living in Throtyl to the south. The path leading east was also a short one, leading to a single farmhouse and a trail that led up the side of one of the Dargaard range's more majestic peaks.
It was this path that the knights decided on utilizing. It was likely that the ogres had posted guards on the main north-south road, so they would gain some measure of surprise by coming at them out of the mountains from the east. It was also a safer plan for the villagers given that most of them were being held up in the two large homes on the west side of the main road. If the knights were successful, they'd be able to overpower the ogres long before they had a chance to harm any of their prisoners.
So, armed with a rough battle plan, they set out around midday, riding halfway up the slopes of the Dargaard Mountains in the hopes of remaining unseen by any scouts or guards the ogres might have stationed around the perimeter of the village. As they got closer to Halton, however, it became more and more apparent that the ogres didn't perceive there to be much of a threat from outside forces. There were no guards, no sentries, nobody on the rooftops overlooking the countryside.
Nevertheless, Soth kept the knights hidden on the mountainside in order to assure they retained the element of surprise.
"Is this the path?" Soth said in a whisper, even though such precautions were proving to be less and less necessary.
"Yes, milord," said Pike. "It curves a little to the right before joining up with the others in the center of town.
There is a farm house on the right of it halfway between here and the center of town. On the left there's a small creek that feeds into a large pond which is where the farmers get most of their water during the dry summer seasons."
"You will take your men across the field there," said Soth, pointing to the open field below. The grain was nearing harvest and stood as tall as a man, if not taller. "Leave your mounts behind and secure the trade post and mercantile before joining me in the center of town."
Farold nodded and dismounted. The three knights under his command also dismounted, leaving their horses to the villagers. In a minute the knights were out of sight, heading toward the village.