John Flanagan - Oakleaf bearers

"Nobody should stay here. There's no point."

That brought howls of anger and derision from the Skandians. Erak silenced them and stepped forward, staring down at the slight figure in the gray cloak.

"Yes, there's a point," he said, in an ominously quiet tone. "We'll hold them here until Ragnak can muster the main force to relieve us. There are twenty of us. That should be more than enough to hold the little beggars off for a while. It won't be like when they slaughtered the garrison here. There were only a dozen men here then. We'll hold them off, or we'll die in the attempt. It's of no consequence to us as long as we delay them for three or four days."

"You won't last three or four hours," Halt said flatly, and an ugly silence fell over the small group. The Skandians were too shocked by the enormity of his insult to reply. Erak was the first to recover.

"If you believe that," he said grimly, "then you have never seen Skandians fight, my friend." The last two words carried an enormous weight of sarcasm and dismissal. Now the other Skandians found their voices and an angry chorus grew up. The Ranger waited for the shouting to die down. He was uncowed by the Skandians' anger at his words. Finally they fell silent.

"You know that I have," he said, not taking his eyes from Erak's.

The Skandian leader frowned. He knew Halt's reputation, as a fighting man and a tactician. The man was a Ranger, after all, and Erak knew enough about the mysterious Ranger Corps to know that they weren't prone to issuing pointless insults or making ill-considered remarks.

"The question is," Halt continued, "have you seen the Temujai fight?"

He allowed the question to hang in the cold air between them. There was a moment of silence from the Skandians. None of them had, of course. Seeing that he had their attention, Halt continued.

"Because I have. And I'll tell you what I'd do if I were the Temujai general."

He swept his arm up to encompass the steep sides of the pass where they towered above the little fort. Pines grew there, clinging to the almost vertical sides of the pass, managing to find some foothold in the rocks and the snow.

"I'd send a party of men up onto the walls of the pass there above us. Say, two hundred or so. And from there, I'd have them direct a killing fire on anyone foolhardy enough to show his face in the open inside the fort."

The eyes of the group followed the direction of his pointing arm. One of the Skandians snorted scornfully.

"They'd never get up there. Those walls are impassable!"

Halt turned to face him, looking him straight in the eye, willing the man to understand and believe what he was saying by the sheer force of his conviction.

"Not impassable. Very difficult. But they will do it. Believe me, I've seen these men and what they can achieve. It may cost them fifty or so lives in the attempt, but they'll count the cost cheap."

Erak studied the cliffs above the fort, squinting to see more clearly in the rapidly fading light of the late afternoon. Maybe, he thought, the Ranger was right. He figured he might be able to scramble around up there, with ropes and tackle and a small group of hand-picked sailors-the ones who tended the big square sails on the wolfships, who could slip up and down the mast as easy as walking. But the Temujai were cavalry, he thought. He voiced the objection.

"They'll never get their horses up there."

"They won't need their horses up there," Halt countered. "They'll simply sit up there and direct a plunging fire on you. The fort may command the pass, but the heights there command the fort."

Erak was silent for a long moment. He looked again up at the walls of the pass. If the trees could find footholds there, he reasoned, so could men-determined men. And he was ready to believe that these Temujai were determined.

"Face it," Halt continued, "this fort was never meant as a real defensive position. It's a checkpoint for people crossing the border, that's all. It's simply not designed or placed to hold an invading army at bay."

Erak studied the Ranger. The more he thought about it, the more sense Halt was making. He could picture the dangers of being caught inside the fort with a hundred or so archers perched on the cliffs above him-and no way to reply to their attack.

"I think you may be right," he said slowly. He was honest enough to admit that Halt's experience of these eastern riders was far greater than his own. Reluctantly, he made the final decision-to pass control over to Halt.

"What do you suggest we do?" he asked. His men looked at him in surprise and he glared them to silence. Halt nodded once, acknowledging the difficulty of the decision the jarl had just reached.

"You were right about one thing," he said. "Ragnak has to be warned. There's no point in our wasting any more time here. It'll take the Temujai at least half a day to get the whole army on the move. Longer for them to come through this narrow pass. Let's use the time we have. We'll ride-and run-like hell back to Hallasholm."

F ULL NIGHT FELL SHORTLY AFTER THEY HAD SET OUT ON THEIR way back to Hallasholm. But they continued to move, their way lit by a brilliant three-quarter moon that sailed above them in the clear sky.

Halt, Evanlyn and the two apprentices rode, while the Skandians maintained a steady jog, led by the jarl. Halt had suggested that Erak ride the captured Temujai horse again, but he had declined the offer, with a certain amount of alacrity. It seemed now that he had his feet firmly back on the ground, he was determined to keep them that way. His thighs and calves ached from the hours he had spent in the saddle that day, and his backside seemed to be one massive bruise. He was glad of the chance to walk the cramps out of his muscles.

Even allowing for the fact that the Skandians were traveling afoot, Halt was content with the pace they were maintaining. The sea wolves were in superb condition. They could keep up their steady jog all night, with only brief rest periods every hour.

Horace urged Kicker up beside Halt.

"Shouldn't we walk as well?" he suggested. Halt raised an eyebrow at him.

"Why?" he asked. The big youth shrugged, not quite sure how to articulate his thought.

"As a gesture of comradeship," he said finally. "It will give them a feeling of camaraderie."

Camaraderie, Halt knew, was something that was stressed in the early years of Battleschool training. It was part of that inconvenient knightly code. Sometimes he wished that Sir Rodney, the head of Castle Redmont's Battleschool, would give his charges a short course in practicality as well.

"Well, it will give me a feeling of sore legs," he replied at last. "There's no point to it, Horace. The Skandians don't care whether we walk or ride. And when there's no point to something, the best idea is not to do it."

Horace nodded several times. Truth be told, he was relieved that Halt had rejected his suggestion. He was far more at home in the saddle than tramping through the snow. And, now that he thought about it, the Skandians didn't seem to resent the fact that the four Araluens were riding while they walked.

During one of the brief rest stops, Halt caught Will's eye and made an almost imperceptible gesture for the boy to follow him. They walked a short distance from the rest of the party, who were sprawled at ease in the snow. A few of the Skandians watched them with mild interest, but most ignored them.

When he judged that there was no one within earshot, Halt drew Will closer to him, his hand on the boy's shoulder.

"This fellow Erak," he said. "What do you make of him?"

Will frowned. He thought back over how Erak had treated them since he had captured them at the bridge in Celtica. In the first place, he had shielded them from Morgarath, refusing to hand them over to the rebel warlord. Then, on the trip across the Stormwhite Sea, and during their stay on Skorghijl, he had shown a certain rough kindness, and even a regard, toward him and Evanlyn. Finally, of course, he had been instrumental in their escape from Hallasholm, providing clothes, food and a pony, and giving them directions to the hunting cabin in the mountains.