John Flanagan - Oakleaf bearers

There was no way that the Temujai could send a squad with sabers in toward the archers. Halt had placed Will and his men to one side and behind the Skandian main line of defense. To reach them, the Temujai would have to fight their way through the Skandian axmen.

The troop that Will had engaged had taken three carefully aimed volleys-nearly three hundred arrows-in quick succession. Barely ten men of the original Ulan remained alive. The bodies of the others littered the ground. Their riderless horses were galloping away, neighing in panic.

Now, as the other riders wheeled away toward their own lines, Will saw a further opportunity. Another two Ulans were riding in close proximity and still well within range.

"Shields down," he said to Horace, and the warrior passed the message along.

"Target: right front. And a half:Position three:draw:" Again, he made himself wait, to be sure. "Shoot!"

The arrows, dark against the clean blue of the sky, arced after the withdrawing cavalry.

"Shields!" Horace called as the arrows struck home and another dozen or so Temujai tumbled from their saddles. Behind the shelter of the big, rectangular shield, he and Will exchanged grins.

"I think that went rather well," said the apprentice Ranger.

"I think it went rather well indeed!" the apprentice warrior agreed with him.

"Ready!" called Evanlyn once more, her gaze fixed on the archers as they fitted arrows to their bowstrings. The call reminded Will, a little belatedly, that she had no way of knowing how successful their first action had been.

"Stand down!" Will called. There was no point keeping the men tensed up while the Temujai were re-forming. He gestured to Evanlyn.

"Come on up and see the results," he told her.

I T TOOK SEVERAL MINUTES FOR THE T EMUJAI COMMANDER TO realize that something had gone badly wrong-for the second time. There was a gap in his line as the riders returned, he realized. Then, as he cast his glance over the battlefield, he saw the tangled bodies of men and horses and frowned. He had been watching the overall action and had missed the four rapid volleys that had destroyed the Ulan.

He pointed with his lance at them. "What's happened there?" he demanded of his aides. But none of them had seen the destruction as it took place. His question was greeted with blank stares.

A single horseman was pounding toward them, calling his name.

"General Haz'kam! General!"

The man was swaying in the saddle and the front of his leather vest was slick with blood from several wounds. Blood stained the flanks of his horse as well, and the Temujai command staff were startled to see that the horse had been hit by at least three arrows.

Horse and rider skidded to a stop in front of the command position. For the horse, it was the final effort. Weakened by loss of blood, it sank slowly to its knees, then rolled over on its side, its injured rider only managing to escape being pinned at the last moment. Haz'kam frowned as he peered at the wounded man, then recognized Bin'zak, his former chief of intelligence. True to his word, the colonel had taken his place in the front line of one of the Ulans. It had been his incredible misfortune that he'd chosen the one destroyed by Will's archers.

"General," croaked the dying man. "They have archers:"

He staggered a few paces toward them and now they could see the broken-off stubs of arrows in two of his wounds. On the ground beside him, the horse heaved a gigantic, shuddering sigh and died.

"Archers:" he repeated, his voice barely audible, and he sank to his knees.

Haz'kam tore his gaze away from the stricken colonel and scanned the enemy ranks. There was no sign of archers there. The Skandians stretched in three ranks across the narrowest part of the valley, behind their earthworks. On the seaward side, and a little behind the main force, another group stood-also behind earthworks and holding large rectangular shields. But he could see no sign of archers.

There was one sure way to find them, he thought. He gestured toward his next ten Ulans.

"Attack," he said briefly, and the bugler sounded the call. Once more, the valley filled with the jingle of harness and the thunder of hooves as they drove forward.

In front of him, the colonel slumped forward, facedown in the sodden grass. Haz'kam made the Temujai gesture of salute, raising his left hand to his lips, then extending it out to the side in an elaborate, flowing movement. His staff did likewise. Bin'zak had redeemed himself, he thought. In the end, he had brought his general a vital piece of intelligence, even if it had cost him his own life.

Will watched the approaching cavalry as, once again, they began their wheeling, circling dance. Horace stirred beside him, but some sense warned the young Ranger not to expose his men yet.

"Wait," he said quietly. He had half expected that a concerted attack would be launched toward their position, in an attempt to wipe them out. But this attack was like the previous one, launched along the entire front. That could mean only one thing: the Temujai leaders hadn't pinpointed the archers' position.

Arrows began falling on the Skandian lines and once more, the three ranks covered up with their shields. As before, a troop of Temujai broke off their maneuvering and drew sabers to launch a lightning attack on the unsighted Skandians. This time, however, Will was looking beyond them, to identify the support group who would open fire on the Skandians as their comrades withdrew. He saw them: a Ulan that had drawn to a halt some fifty meters from the Skandian front rank.

"Load!" Will yelled down his line. Then, in an aside to Horace: "Keep the shields up." He had felt the larger youth draw breath to call his next order. But Will wanted to keep his men hidden as long as possible.

"Ready!" Evanlyn called as the last arrow nocked onto the string.

"Face left half left again!" he called, and the archers, luckily, understood his meaning. As one, they all turned to face the direction he had picked. He had varied their drill by calling direction first but they seemed to understand what he wanted.

"Position three!" he yelled. The arms came up to maximum elevation, the hundred of them moving as one.

"Shields down," he muttered to Horace and heard him repeat the order.

"Draw!"

Beneath his breath, he told himself, "Count to three as each arm brings back its arrow to the full draw."

Then, aloud: "Shoot!" and instantly, he screamed: "Shields! Up shields!" As Horace took up the cry, the shields swung back into position to conceal the archers from return fire-and, hopefully, from observation.

Again the wait, then the volley of arrows slammed down into the Temujai Ulan, just as they were on the point of firing into the gap their comrades had forced in the shield wall. Once more, men and horses went down in screaming, tangled heaps. Grouped together as they were, and not moving, the Ulan made a perfect target for the massed arrows.

At least twenty of them were down, including their commander. Now their sergeants were yelling at the survivors to get moving. To get out of this killing ground.

Haz'kam never saw the volley that struck his men. But he did see, in his peripheral vision, the concerted movement of the hundred shields as they swung back and forth like so many gates opening and closing. A few seconds later, he saw one of his foremost Ulans collapse and disintegrate.

And then the shields moved again and he saw the archers. At least a hundred of them, he estimated, working smoothly and in unison as they launched another volley at the retreating Ulan that had attacked the Skandian line. The shields swung closed to cover the archers as more Temujai riders went down.

Again, the shields swung aside in unison, and this time he saw the solid flight of arrows, black against the sky, as they arced up and struck into another of his galloping Ulans. He turned and caught the eye of his third son, a captain on his staff. He pointed with his lance to the line of shields on the slight rise behind the Skandian ranks.