Jack Whyte - The Lance Thrower

He removed his hand from my ankle and raised his voice even louder, wiping at his eyes with a forefinger. “The mansio’s old and it’s been sitting empty for years, long before I was born. It’s got no doors or windows but it’s still standing, thanks to thick stone walls, and it has a roof, or most of a roof, and fireplaces. They’ll be better off there than any other place between Lugdunum and Genava. They might not be completely dry, or completely warm, but they’ll be out of the wind and the worst of the rain and they’ll have firelight and a bit of heat. They could be far worse off.”

“And what about—?” The rain slackened as quickly as it had increased, and I heard myself bellowing. I lowered my voice instantly, glancing about as though to see if anyone else had heard me. “What about us?”

“What about us?” He was standing sideways to me now, his hands on his hips so that his cloak hung tentlike from his extended elbows. “We’ll cut away from the road here, ride around, and get ahead of them. From then on, every mile we gain on them is worth at least six to us, because they’ll be walking to catch up to us and we’ll be flying on horseback. Once past them, we’ll ride for ten more miles, then stop for the night at a place I know, where we’ll be warmer and drier than any of those poor fools.”

“Ten miles, once we’re past them? It will be dark by then, and probably still raining, which means there’ll be no moon to light our way. How will you find this place you speak of? Is it on the road? What kind of place is it, anyway?”

“Nitter natter, Master, so many questions.” Ursus grinned and swung himself up onto his mount, making nothing of the sodden weight of his cloak. “It’s a shepherd’s hut, built of stone, solid as bedrock and strongly thatched, and it is never without a supply of fine, dry firewood. And as for your other question, no, it’s not on the road. It is four hundred paces off the road, as I remember, and I could find it blindfolded if I had to. But I won’t have to. Come, let’s go.” He looked up at the sky, then kicked his horse into motion, angling it away from the road and toward the forest, shouting back over his shoulder as he went. “I would say we have two hours of daylight left to us, perhaps two and a half. That should be more time than we need to reach our spot without riding through darkness. Once past Beddoc’s crew we can really travel quickly, since we won’t have to worry about running into them.” He kicked his horse again, pushing it to a canter, and I followed close behind him, shouting back at him.

“How do you know this place we’re going to, and how do you know it’s still there? When were you there last?”

He didn’t look back but his voice drifted to me over his shoulder. “I saw it last three years ago. I know where it is because I was born near there. I know it is still there because it was built to endure forever. And I know that’s true because the shepherd who built it was my grandfather. I helped him chink the walls while I was still a babe in my mother’s arms. And I know it’s warm and dry and stocked with fuel because my cousin Doran still uses it today, when his flocks are on that side of his lands.” Now he turned back and looked at me, laughing. “Have you any further questions, Master Clothar?”

I closed my mouth, which had gaped open in surprise at what he was telling me, and then laughed back at him, kicking my mount’s flanks to bring it level with his, and we rode on through the downpour, out into the forest’s edge where we could ride parallel to the road and pass our quarry by without fear of being seen.

It was dark within the confines of the forest, and although I knew the expectation was illogical, I felt it ought to have been drier, but this forest was all deciduous growth, so there was nothing but a thin screen of leaves preventing the driving, incessant rain from falling straight through the canopy to the ground. And so as we rode through the trees we found it worse in places than being out in the open air, facing the rain. Out there, at least, we would be able to tell where the attack was coming from and hunch ourselves against it. Here, in the shadows beneath the trees, depending on what we or our mounts brushed up against or disturbed in passing, we were constantly being caught unprepared by small deluges, and sometimes enormous ones, that crashed down on us from all directions, landing indiscriminately on our heads or on any other part of our bodies that happened to be in the way. I tried hard to empty my mind of anything other than picking my way forward through the undergrowth and remaining alert to the possibility, however unlikely it might be, that Beddoc might have sent out scouts in such weather to check the forest’s edge for enemies.

Sooner than I had expected, Ursus held up his arm in a signal to halt, and I reined in close to where he sat staring off to his right, listening intently. I tilted my head to listen, too, only to wonder for possibly the hundredth time at the acuity of my companion’s hearing. I could hear nothing but the hammering of rain on my helmet. The noise of it filled my entire world.

“What can you hear,” I asked him.

“Nothing, and that suits me well. We’re close to the old mansio, but not too close. I’m going to take a look. You stay here.”

He swung down from his saddle and went toward the road, and I could not believe how quickly he faded from my sight, obscured by the mist among the trees and the falling rain, the blackish green color of his heavy woolen cloak seeming to absorb the very air about it and rendering him invisible. I forced myself to sit patiently, waiting for him to return, and in a short time he did, looming up suddenly within paces of me, though I had been watching diligently for the first signs of his coming.

“They’re there, settling in for the night about a quarter of a mile up ahead, and a miserable-looking crew they are. They won’t all be able to fit beneath the roofed portion of the place, not by a long shot, so there will be a deal of squabbling over who gets to stay where and I imagine the people in charge of them will have a job keeping the peace. I managed to get close enough to hear a few things, but the only important thing was someone giving orders for a squad to come into the forest looking for firewood … dry firewood. They won’t find any, not in this downpour, but that means they’re going to search deep into the woods, trying to find a dry cache, so we had better make a wide loop just to be sure we avoid them. Let’s go.”

We struck off deep into the woods and rode in a long semicircle for the better part of half an hour, until we were sure we had left the enemy night camp far behind us, and we came out onto the road again. From that point on, free of the need to worry about being seen, we traveled as quickly as our mounts could carry us. The daylight lasted long after we had expected it to fade, so that it was still not completely dark by the time Ursus reined in and led us off the road, along a narrow but clearly marked pathway that took us, as he had promised, to a dry and sturdy, draft-proof haven that was stocked with an ample supply of cut and split firewood, carefully piled beneath sheltering eaves that had been extended for that purpose. We had a fire going within minutes of arriving and we ate in comfort and then bedded down in the luxury of two narrow, hand-built cots, with our wet clothes hung and stretched out around the inner walls, steaming toward dryness in the heat from the fire.

I was almost asleep when Ursus spoke for the first time in nigh on half an hour, and his words snapped me back to wakefulness.

“Be prepared for anything tomorrow, Clothar, and expect it to be worse than anything you can imagine. You hear me?”