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“Not good, Sir,” the messenger said with a grimace. “Like I say, it looks as if it was filled to the brim with runoff last week, and it’s twisty. It’s marshy and soft, too, and there’s places where the runoff’s dumped gravel beds, or even a boulder or two. A man who wasn’t careful could break a horse’s leg in spots.”
“But the going is firm and clear over the hills?” Trianal asked. “And they’re not too steep?”
“Aye, Milord.” The messenger nodded. “They’re just hills, Sir—fairly rolling, dirt and grass, not even any trees. Well, there’s some bushes here and there, especially up along the crest line. Such as it is, and what there is of it.”
“I see.” Trianal looked back at Sir Yarran. “War shoes might not mean very much,” he said, “but when a party that size chooses to thread its way through that kind of terrain instead of going over the hills …”
“Aye.” Yarran nodded, and cocked his head at Sta
“Fresh, Sir.” The messenger scratched his chin consideringly. “The sun’s not been on them long, not down in the ravine like they are. But even saying that, the wet dirt hasn’t dried where it was kicked up.” He scratched again and squinted. “I’d say they’re not more than an hour or so old—two at most.”
Trianal’s eyes brightened, but he made himself nod thoughtfully. Then he opened the hard leather case attached to his saddle and extracted a map. It was already folded to the proper section, and he beckoned for Yarran to move his horse closer so that they could both see it.
It wasn’t as detailed a map as the King Emperor’s surveyors could have provided one of the Empire of the Axe’s commanders, but it was far better than most maps of the Wind Plain. Baron Tellian had made it a priority to import surveyors from the Empire, and they’d been working their way through the West Riding for several summers now, one section at a time (as he could budget for their fees and weather permitted). Fortunately for Trianal, he’d begun with Glanharrow because of its proximity to the Horse Stealers.
“What do you think?” Trianal ran a fingertip along the course of what had to be Sta
“From this,” he continued, tapping the map, “it looks as if the ravine comes out well into Lord Erathian’s lands.”
“Aye,” Sir Yarran agreed. Then he shrugged. “Come to that, though, Milord, we’ve been on Erathian’s lands at least since sunup.”
“I know. But this,” Trianal tapped the map again, on top of the ravine, “leads much further in. In fact, his keep is less than three leagues away from where it hits the Bogs.”
“Three leagues might be thirty across ground—or mud—like that,” Yarran pointed out.
“Unless a man happened to know a way through the Bogs.”
“Aye, there is that,” the older knight agreed.
“But if following the ravine means they don’t have to worry about skylining themselves or leaving tracks out in the open, it also comes near to doubling how far they have to go. And it probably triples their riding time. Whereas if we were to push our pace a bit and cut directly across the hills here …”
“It’s a good thought,” Yarran said. “All the same, Milord, it’s not likely we’ll be there before them,” he warned. “Not if those tracks are nearer two hours old than one.”
“I know. But it’s worth a try. And even if we don’t get there before them, we may get there close enough on their heels to be able to follow them through the Bogs before the mud sucks their tracks under.”
“That’s true enough,” Yarran agreed, and Trianal waved for their troop commanders to join them.
The sun was much higher—past noon, in fact—and the day was hotter as the reinforced company topped the final hill and started down the slope towards the deep-green barrier of the Bogs. The insects which had irritated Trianal earlier had been nothing compared to the swarm of gnats, midges, and mosquitoes which rose from the swamps and whined towards them, and he swatted morosely as a particularly large mosquito lighted briefly on his breastplate. His palm caught the insect before it could move, and he grimaced when the red splotch it left behind on the blackened cuirass indicated that it had already dined.
He grimaced again as he considered the terrain and recalled his own observation that his map wasn’t as detailed as the sort a Royal and Imperial Army commander might have had. The ravine and hills were where it had said they would be; it simply hadn’t indicated the density of the scrub trees and underbrush which fringed the Bogs and extended inward from its edges. The ravine cut a way through the green barrier, but he was a Sothoii. A horseman at heart, by both training and inclination, and accustomed to the long, clean sight lines of the Wind Plain. He didn’t like the way that band of vegetation blocked his view deeper into the swampy land beyond.
He pressed his horse with his right knee, turning it to the left, and the steady pressure of his heels pushed it to a trot as he moved down the slope towards the ravine. It had grown broader and shallower as it approached the Bogs, and as he approached it, he could see the churned earth of the horses they’d been tracking. Sir Sta
Trianal drew up beside Sta
“They look fresher, Captain,” he observed.
“That they do, Milord,” Sta
“I wonder if they had friends waiting for them?” Trianal mused aloud, gazing farther to the east, where the ravine disappeared into the green shadows of the Bog’s thickets. The wind had strengthened and hissed softly in the grass about them, then danced on the gently tossing branches of the undergrowth.
“They might have,” Sir Yarran said. “Or it may be that there was more than one detachment of them out there, Milord. It’s possible they were doing what we’re doing—out scouting for targets. We’ve been moving herds out of the area steadily, so it’s been getting emptier. They may be heading home after spending the night ranging out further, looking for something to pounce on.”
“Or keeping watch for us,” Trianal responded. “I know this would be a lot of men if all they were doing was scouting, but they know we’re looking for them. It would only make sense for them to want to keep an eye peeled for us to avoid surprises. And they could be sending out bigger scouting parties to give them more strength in case they run into one of our patrols,”
“Aye, there’s that,” Yarran agreed. “Any road, it’s reasonable enough that they’d arrange to be meeting up before they went traipsing into the Bogs. Especially if they’ve only so many men who know their way about in there.”
“How many, do you think, Captain?” Trianal asked Sir Sta
“Hard to say, with so many hoofs churning it up on top of each other, Sir,” the mustachioed officer replied. “I’d be surprised if it’s less than threescore now. And I’d not be surprised if it was as much as four, or even five.”
Trianal pursed his lips, controlling his expression with care. It was hard. Eighty or ninety men—very nearly an entire company of cavalry—moving about in a formed body had to be up to something. It was also, by a considerable margin, the largest single force they or any of Lord Festian’s scouts had yet tracked, and they were closer behind their quarry than anyone else had so far come. With the portion of his own command attached to the Glanharrow company Sir Yarran had brought along, he had eight troops—a hundred and sixty men, or almost twice the numbers Sir Sta