John Flanagan - Oakleaf bearers

And heard a ringingly loud crack, followed by a muffled curse, from the hill below him. Erak was poised in midstride, a rotten branch snapped in half on the snow in front of him.

"Freeze," muttered Halt to himself, in the desperate hope that the big man would have the sense to stay motionless. Instead, Erak made the vital blunder that untrained stalkers nearly always made. He dashed for cover, hoping to substitute speed for stealth, and the sudden movement gave him away to the Temujai in the listening post.

There was a shout from above them and a flight of arrows slammed into the tree behind which the Skandian had taken cover. Halt peered around his tree. He could see two shapes in the gloom. One was moving away, sounding a horn as he went. The other was poised, an arrow on the string of his bow, eyes riveted on Erak's hiding place.

Waiting for the Skandian to move. Waiting to let the deadly shaft fly at him.

Somehow, Halt had to give Erak a chance to get clear. He called softly, "I'll step out and distract him. As soon as I do, you make for the next tree."

The Skandian nodded. He crouched a little, preparing to make a run for it. Halt called again.

"Just to the next tree. No farther," he said. "That's all you'll have time for before he's back on you. Believe me."

Again, the Skandian nodded. He'd seen the speed and accuracy with which the Temujai sentry got the first shot away. He wondered how he would get any farther than the next tree. Halt's ploy of distracting the sentry would only work once. He hoped that the Ranger had something else in mind. Fading away now, he could hear the braying notes of the horn sounding the alarm as the other sentry raced downhill, calling for reinforcements. Whatever Halt did, he thought, he'd better do it soon.

Erak saw the dim form of the Ranger as he stepped into the clear from behind the tree. Erak waited a heartbeat, then ran, his legs pumping in the snow, finally diving full length and sliding behind the thick pine trunk as an arrow hissed by, just over his head. His heart was racing, even though he had covered no more than ten meters in his wild, scrambling rush up the hill. He glanced across at Halt and saw the Ranger, back in cover and some five meters farther away. He had his own longbow ready now, an arrow nocked to the string. His face was knotted in a frown of concentration. He felt the Skandian's eyes on him and called across the intervening space.

"Take a look. Carefully-don't give him enough of a target to shoot at. See if he's in the same position."

Erak nodded and edged one eye around the bole of the tree. The Temujai warrior was still where he had been standing, his bow ready and half drawn. As matters stood, he held the upper hand, standing ready to shoot if either of them moved. Halt, on the other hand, would have to step into the clear, sight the man, aim and then shoot. By the time he had accomplished the first two actions, he would be dead.

"He hasn't moved," Erak called to the Ranger.

"Tell me if he does," Halt called softly in return. Lying belly-down in the snow, with just a fraction of his face protruding around the tree, Erak nodded.

Behind his tree, Halt leaned back against the rough bark and closed his eyes, breathing deeply. This was going to have to be an instinctive shot. He pictured again the dark figure of the Tem'uj, silhouetted against the lighter background of the snow. He remembered the position, setting it in his brain, letting his mind take over the control of his hands, willing the aiming and release to become an instinctive sequence. He forced his breathing to settle into a calm, slow, unhurried rhythm. The secret of speed was not to hurry, he told himself. In his mind's eye, he watched the flight of the arrow as he would fire it. He pictured it over and over again until it seemed to be a part of him-a natural extension of his own being.

Then, in an almost trancelike state, he moved.

Smoothly. Rhythmically. Stepping out into the clear, turning in a fluid motion so that his left shoulder was toward the target, the right hand pulling back on the string, left hand pushing the bow away until it was at full draw. Aiming and shooting at a memory. Not even seeing the dark figure in the trees until the arrow was already loosed, already splitting the air on its way to the target.

And, when he finally did see the bowman in his conscious vision, knowing that the shot was good.

The heavy shaft went home. The Tem'uj fell backward in the snow, his own shot half a second too late, sailing high and harmless into the tops of the pines.

Erak scrambled to his feet, regarding the small, gray-cloaked figure with something close to awe.

He realized that there was already a second arrow nocked to the longbow's string. He hadn't even seen the Ranger do that.

"By the gods," he muttered, dropping a heavy hand on the smaller man's shoulder. "I'm glad you're on my side."

Halt shook his head briefly, refocusing his attention. He glared angrily at the big Skandian.

"I thought I told you to watch where you put your feet," he said accusingly. Erak shrugged.

"I did," he replied ruefully. "But while I was busy watching the ground, I hit that branch with my head. Broke it clean in two."

Halt raised his eyebrows. "I assume you're not talking about your head," he muttered. Erak frowned at the suggestion.

"Of course not," he replied.

"More's the pity," Halt told him, then gestured up the hill. "Now let's get out of here."

W HEN THEY REACHED THE CREST OF THE HILL, H ALT PAUSED TO look back. Erak stopped beside him, but he grabbed the bigger man's arm and shoved him roughly toward the two tethered horses.

"Keep going!" he yelled.

In the valley below them, he could hear alarm horns sounding and, faintly, the sound of shouting. Closer to hand, on the slope of the hill below, he could see movement among the trees as those Temujai who had been concealed in listening posts around the hillside now broke cover and headed uphill in pursuit of the two intruders.

"Damned hornets' nest," he muttered to himself. He estimated that there must be at least half a dozen riders on the hill below him, heading upward. A larger party was obviously forming in the camp itself, with a view to heading around the base of the hill and catching him and Erak between two pursuing forces.

Alone, and mounted on Abelard, he was confident that he could outrun them easily. But burdened by the Skandian, he wasn't so sure. He'd seen the man's skill as a rider-which was virtually nonexistent. Erak seemed to stay in the saddle by virtue of an enormous amount of willpower and precious little else. Halt knew that he would have to come up with some kind of delaying tactic, to slow the pursuit down and give him and Erak time to make it back to the larger Skandian force.

Strangely, although they had been nominal enemies up until now, the thought of abandoning the Skandian to the pursuing Temujai riders never occurred to him.

He looked back to where they had tethered Erak's horse-Abelard, of course, needed no tethering. He saw with some slight satisfaction that the wolfship skipper had managed to clamber into the saddle and was sitting clumsily astride his small, shaggy mount. Halt waved a hand now in an unmistakable gesture to him.

"Get going!" he yelled. "Go! Go! Go!"

Erak needed no second bidding. He wheeled the horse to face downhill, swaying dangerously out to one side as he did so and managing to retain his seat only by grabbing at the mane and gripping with his powerful legs around the horse's barrel of a body. Then, half in and half out of the saddle, he drove the former Temujai mount down the slope, skidding and sliding in the soft wet snow, swerving dangerously among the trees. At one stage, Erak neglected to duck as the horse drove under the snow-laden lower branches of a huge pine. There was an explosion of snow and both horse and rider emerged coated in thick white powder.