John Flanagan - Erak_s ransom

For the first few hours, in the pre-dawn dimness, they rode in their usual close-knit formation. Then, as the sun performed its spectacular arrival, the screen of cavalry around the central party moved out to take up their daylight travelling positions.

On the second day, a few hours after sun-up, they came upon the tracks of the party preceding them – the party who were taking Erak as a hostage to Mararoc. Prior to that point, of course, any sign left by the riders ahead of them had been obliterated by the massive storm that had swept over the desert. Now, they realised, they were within two days of them.

'They'll be moving more slowly than we are,' Halt said. He knew that Selethen had sent Erak with one of the regular caravans that travelled between Al Shabah and Mararoc, carrying trade goods from the coast to the inland city. Such caravans already had an armed escort and it made sense to kill two birds with one stone. But of course, the heavily laden pack mules and freight camels would slow the party down.

Gilan swung down from his saddle and knelt beside the marks in the hard ground. He made out faint impressions of hoofs here and there – all but invisible to an untrained eye. From time to time there were more obvious clues of the party's passage, in the form of piles of dung. Gilan poked at one with a stick, breaking it up to study the moisture content inside. Rangers used such clues to determine how fresh the tracks might be – moisture in horse dung or sap in the broken stem of a twig snapped by a passing animal. But they were unused to the blinding heat and dryness of the Arridi desert and the effect it had on moisture content.

'Hard to say how old it is,' he said finally. Halt shrugged.

'It'd dry out a lot faster here than further north. We know it can't be more than two days old. It's been left there since the storm passed through.'

Gilan nodded. 'You're right. But if I were to see that back home, I'd say it was three to four days old. It's worth knowing for future reference, I suppose.'

He straightened, brushing dust off his knees, and swung up into Blaze's saddle once more. He glanced towards Selethen and saw that the Wakir had stopped his horse as well and was fiddling with the ties that held his bedroll in place behind the saddle. The Arridi horse was turned at forty-five degrees to the direction of travel and Gilan had no doubt that the Arridi leader's eyes beneath the shadow of his kheffiyeh were trained unwaveringly on himself and Halt.

'He's watching us,' he said quietly and Halt nodded, without looking in Selethen's direction.

'He always does. I think we make him nervous.'

'Do you think he knows we're keeping a chart of the route?'

'I'd bet my life on it,' Halt said. 'Not much gets past him. And I'll bet he's racking his brains to find a way to stop us.'

As they moved off, Selethen seemed to finish re-tying the thongs. He touched his stallion with his knee, turned back to the course his outriders had set and trotted forward.

'What do you make of him?' Gilan asked. This time Halt did look at the tall Arridi warrior before he answered. He was considering his opinion, Gilan knew, weighing up what he knew about the Wakir with what he sensed about him. Finally, Halt replied.

'I like the look of him,' he said. 'A lot of these local officials are always on the lookout for bribes. Corruption is almost a way of life in this country. But he's not like that.'

'He's a soldier, not a politician,' Gilan said. He had a fighting man's usual distrust of politicians and officials, preferring to deal with men who knew what it meant to fight for their lives. Such men often had an inherent honesty to them, he thought.

Halt nodded. 'And a good one. Look at this formation he's got us in. At first glance, it looks like we're straggling across the desert like Brown's cows. But we can't be approached from any direction without those outriders spotting something.'

'His men seem to respect him,' Gilan said. 'He doesn't have to shout and bluster to get things done.'

'Yes. I've hardly heard him raise his voice since we've been on the march. That's usually a sign that the men believe he knows what he's about.'

They fell silent for a few minutes, both studying the white-cloaked, straight-backed figure riding on his own, twenty metres ahead of them.

'Not too friendly, though,' Gilan said, grinning. He was trying to keep Halt talking, in an attempt to keep his old teacher from worrying too much about Will, gone somewhere into the unknown wastes of this desert. Halt sensed his intention and appreciated it. Talking with Gilan gave him some moments of respite from the constant nagging worry he felt about the boy who had come to mean so much to him. Without intending to, he let out a deep sigh. Gilan looked quickly at him.

'He's all right, Halt,' he said.

'I hope so. I just think… '

Whatever it was that Halt thought was lost as something drew his attention. There was a cloud of dust moving towards them from the front – one of the outriders, he realised, as he managed to see more clearly through the heat shimmer and made out the dark figure at the head of the dust cloud, and could see the individual puffs of dust kicked up with each stride of his horse's legs.

'What do we have here?' he said quietly. He touched Abelard with his knee and moved up to ride beside Selethen, Gilan following a metre or so behind him.

'Messenger?' he asked.

Selethen shook his head. 'It's one of the screen. They must have seen something up ahead,' he told them. The rider was closer now and they could make out detail. He swerved his horse slightly as he made out the tall figure of the Wakir and rode directly towards him.

'Vultures,' said Gilan suddenly. While the others had been intent on the rider approaching, his keen eyes had sought ahead of them. Halt looked up now but Gilan's eyes were younger than his. He thought that perhaps he could see black specks circling high in the sky ahead of them. Or it could just be his mind telling him he could see them now that Gilan had said they were there.

Any doubt was removed when the rider came closer, reining in his horse in a sliding cloud of dust.

'Excellence, we've seen vultures ahead,' he reported. Selethen waited. His men were well trained and he knew there would be more to the report.

'I've sent Corporal Iqbal and two men ahead to reconnoitre,' the man continued. 'In the meantime, I've halted the forward screen.'

Selethen nodded acknowledgement. 'Good. We'll continue until we come up with the screen. By then Iqbal might have something to report. Return to your post,' he added. The messenger wheeled his horse, touching mouth, brow and mouth in a hasty salute, then clattered away back the way he had come, raising, more of the fine dust. Selethen glanced at the two Rangers.

'Better safe than sorry. Those vultures mean there's something dead up ahead. There's no knowing if whatever it was that killed them is still around.'

Halt nodded agreement. It made sense. The desert was a dangerous place to travel, he realised. Selethen was too good a soldier to go blundering in unprepared to see what had attracted the vultures.

'There's a lot of them,' Gilan pointed out. 'That could mean there's been a lot of killing.'

'That's what I'm afraid of,' Selethen replied.

His fears were well founded. They came up to the scene of the battle an hour later. Not that it had been much of a battle – it was more of a massacre. Horse, mules, camels and men were scattered about the desert, lifeless shapes surrounded by darkening patches of dried blood that had soaked into the sand.

It was the trading party from Al Shabah, and they had been wiped out to a man.

As the new arrivals cantered in among them, the heavy black vultures left their feasting and flapped lazily into the air. Halt motioned for Evanlyn and Horace to wait behind. He and Gilan dismounted and walked among the bodies with Selethen.