Dull Crack

They stayed with the stream until it was dark. Covering their trail was just a bonus, the fact was the stream was well covered and they could travel out of sight. As it grew dark, they left the stream and headed up the side of the valley, pausing for a while to see if there was any immediate sign of pursuit. There was none. They rode on into the night, eventually settling before the dawn on a point high up on the side of valley as it still led them north and east.

They waited for the dawn watching the valley below. They could see perhaps an hours travel back up the way they had come. They saw nothing as the sun came up so they rested a while and then rode on now making no attempt to hide their trail but watching the back trail carefully, one or other of them riding up the side of the valley to look back and see if there was any pursuit. They saw nothing until the evening. Ivo laughed, "I bet they thought we made for the south and spent half the day figuring out we'd gone north. Still they'll be on to us tomorrow." He went up to have a look and came back a puzzled look on his face. "There are only about twenty of them. They must still be unsure where we are. I bet there are more of them back up the valley."

Illumina smiled and said. "Come we must make a trail down to the river." She led them down to the river and just a little way up it and then doubled back coming back to where they had joined the river in the first place. They climbed out and made their way back up the side of the valley, keeping to hard ground and covering their trail as they went. They were in time to see the twenty men come up the valley, following their trail.

They came to where the trail went up the hill and stood a while debating whether to follow it towards the river or up the side of the hill. Illumina's gamble paid off. They decided the trail up the hill was a blind and even followed it a little way finding it soon petered out. So they plunged into the stream and disappeared.

Ivo looked at Illumina, who was looking pleased with herself, and asked, "So what now?"

Illumina smiled and said, "We leave the horses and we follow them." He looked outraged and asked in a suppressed whisper, "Are you mad? We follow mounted men on foot. If they see us they'll just ride us down; if they don't we won't catch them anyway."

"I didn't say we leave the horses here. One of us leads the horses. The others follow on foot. We don't have to go in the stream, we can run beside it. All we have to do is keep pace with them. Once it gets fully dark, they will stop, then we shall see."

It turned out just as she had predicted. The streambed was too uneven and full of rocks for the men to keep riding down it in the dark. Shortly after sunset they stopped. Illumina and the others had been keeping pace with them easily enough as they were making plenty of noise cursing and slipping and sliding in the streambed. They left Nina with the horses and the six of them settled down to watch the camp for the night. It was dark; the moon was rising late in the night. The men they were watching set two guards; one on the horses, one by the fire.

They struck first at the guard by the horses. Ivo had a small canvas bag that he filled with sand. The guard fell asleep as he sat alone in the dark and he knew nothing when he was struck on the head; not even making a sound as he slipped over sideways from where he had been leaning against a tree. The Prince caught him and eased him down to the ground.

There was dull crack as Illumina came up out of the dark, she whispered urgently, asking what had happened, Ivo put his mouth close to her ear and whispered, "I broke his leg."

Illumina was horrified and almost spoke aloud, protesting at what he had done. Ivo whispered back, "Better than killing him and a wounded man will be a burden to them, a dead man they'd just bury."

The horses moved about nervously as they dealt with the guard but settled again, still stirring, a little nervous of the strangers they could smell in the dark. There were twenty horses on two trace lines, none of them hobbled or otherwise constrained. Ivo snorted in derision as he and Illumina whispered over what to do next. "We need light to shoot by, I say we wait till the moon comes up and then drive the horses off, pick off any of the men we can."

They waited, the moon rose, its light coming over the hill, streaming into the clearing where the men slept, the horses almost invisible in the dark under the trees. While they waited, they took their own horses round the camp getting them down the valley a little, giving them a clear run if they needed it. Back in the clearing, with the traces cut, the horses were standing free, most of them asleep.

Illumina called Daisy over to her, held her and pointed to the horses and whispered, "Tsa! Tsa!" Daisy whimpered and pulled, knowing what she was expected to do. Then Illumina stood in the dark under the trees and shouted, "Chase them Daisy! Tsa! Tsa!" Daisy leapt away from her, running in among the horses barking and nipping at the terrified animals. They ran wildly off into the dark before anyone in the camp even realized what was happening. Illumina loosed off two arrows, both finding a target before she paused and whistled the recall for Daisy. Those horses would run all night; it would be days before the men recaptured them, if they ever did.

All six of them were busy shooting as fast as they could out of the dark under the trees. They were not sure, but counting between them, they thought they had accounted for at least twelve of the men. No doubt mostly wounded, which in a way was better than dead as Ivo said again. "The wounded will be a burden to them, the dead they will just bury."

Before the remaining men could recover themselves, Illumina led the way back to the horses. They traveled through much of the rest of the night. In the morning, they moved again and found a spot where they could watch the valley, giving them a good half day's warning of anyone following their trail. All of them were exhausted from four days of constant activity with hardly any sleep. Those not on watch, slept all day; there was no sign of pursuit.

Illumina and the others stood in the evening looking back up the trail. She asked no one in particular, "Do you think they will try and catch us before we get to the forest? We will still be in the North Lord's lands."

Ivo shook his head. "I doubt it. They will be on the look out for us you can be sure. If I was them I would assume we have abandoned the horses and made for Loro, climbing the mountains up to the Winter Lands."

Illumina looked at him, a question on her face. "You think we should do that?" She looked away and shook her head, "I will not go back, not that way. I say we stick with the original plan and make for the river. We can travel through the fringes of the forest. If they come after us we can break into the forest and make it dangerous enough for them to follow us that the game will not be worth the candle."

It was Ivo's turn to shake his head, "There's a reason people don't make a living in the forest. It's almost impossible to get through." He added grudgingly, "They say spring is the best time to try. By the end of the summer it is truly impossible."

Illumina laughed and said, "Good, then let's give it a try." It took them two days of hard travel to get to the fringes of the forest. Slowly they relaxed feeling that pursuit was behind them. The country flattened out as they went further north and east. The forest did not begin suddenly but came upon them slowly as the hills petered out. On the fourth morning after the last fight, they found themselves in heavily wooded countryside with no particular sense of direction to the hills, other than a general trend downwards towards the east and a little south. They followed it, finding the going tough but not impossible.

They were really on the fringes of the forest and they started coming upon charcoal burners' huts. At the third group of huts, Ivo stood looking at them, a worried expression on his face. Illumina asked him what the matter was. "I don't know. I don't understand why the charcoal burners aren't here. Normally this is the height of the burning season. They gather wood in the late winter and then make the charcoal when the sap rises and the wood becomes too wet to burn. See, these stacks of wood must have been gathered this winter. Where are they? Why aren't they here, making charcoal?"

To follow this thread in the story go to: Trail of People

The next section to read is: Cries Over Water

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