Honoured Enemy

TWO. DISCOVERY

Icy rain lashed down.

Carefully, silently, Dennis Hartraft slipped through the column of weary troops. In the early morning downpours, his men crouched motionless, many with arrows nocked to their bows. In their dirty-grey cloaks they were one with the forest. Even so, he could sense their tension; something was wrong. Their eyes followed him as he darted from tree to tree, staying low. During the night the snow had changed to a mix of sleet and icy rain. It had made the night march a misery, but some inner sense had compelled Dennis to push on, a decision that Gregory and Tinuva had fully endorsed. Swinging east of Mad Wayne's Fort, which had fallen to the Tsurani the previous spring, they followed a path little more than a game trail back to Brendan's Stockade, approaching from the north-east.

They were less than a quarter of a mile from Brendan's when Alwin Barry, leading the advance squad, ordered a halt. A keen anticipation of downing pints of hot buttered mead and cold ale in a cosy tavern at the fort, instantly gave way to a grim foreboding.

Raised in these woods, Hartraft knew them intuitively. More than once that intuition had kept him alive, where sound logic would have got him killed.

Jurgen had taught him long ago truly to listen to the rhythm of the ancient woods, to be completely still, so quiet that eventually you became one with the forest and could sense the beating of its heart.

That sense told him to be ready for the worst.

Jurgen… He pushed the thought away as he passed the head of the column and cautiously followed the tracks of the advance squad. Looking over his shoulder he saw Gregory stealthily moving opposite him on the trail to his right.

The two pressed forward as the rain began to let up.

Dennis heard the chatter of a squirrel, looked up and caught a glimpse of Alwin, crouched behind a fallen tree just back from the top of a low rise. He made for him, crawling the last fifty feet to stay concealed from whatever might be on the other side of the ridge.

Alwin didn't talk, he simply pointed to Dennis, then pointed with two fingers to his own eyes and gestured towards the top of the rise, the hand signal for Dennis to go forward and see for himself.

Dennis nodded, crawling under the fallen tree and followed Alwin's track on the slushy ground, trying to ignore the icy dampness seeping through his clothing.

As he moved slowly, he suddenly became aware of the scent of smoke hanging heavy in the air. It had been masked by the rain. On a clear day, he would have smelled it a half-mile farther back. There was more than wood scent to it, something else – cooking meat, perhaps?

He reached the crest, picking a spot between two boulders, crawled up between them, then cautiously raised his head.

Smoke concealed most of the clearing. The smoke was thick, clinging to the ground, and there was far too much of it to have come only from morning cooking fires. He knew what it meant even before an errant breeze blew the smoke away for a moment. The entire clearing, several hundred yards across, was revealed. In the centre, on top of a low ridge, Brendan's Stockade was nothing but a flame-scorched, still-smouldering ruin. With a cold chill he realized that the scent of cooking meat was the stench of burned bodies. What had happened?

His eyes darted back and forth, trying to soak up information, to evaluate if there was an immediate threat to his men, to see if they had just walked into a trap.

Nothing moved on the far ridge.

The wooden stockade had been breached at the gate with a battering ram mounted on rough wooden wheels. Scaling ladders leaned drunkenly against the wall to either side of the gate.

The moat had never been much, really nothing more than a ditch full of water that stank in the summer and froze over in the winter. He could see where the ice had been broken and had yet to refreeze. The fort must have been attacked late yesterday evening or during the night.

The open slopes around the fort were carpeted with Tsurani dead, perhaps a hundred or more. He stared at them for a moment.

Curiously, many were lying facing downslope, as if killed while running away – and Dennis knew the Tsurani never ran away; a knot of them were clustered in the south-west corner of the clearing, piled on top of each other. Obviously they had made a last stand there, but against whom? Had the garrison been strong enough to sally forth and attack the Tsurani downhill, the walls and gates would still be standing and Hartraft's Marauders would be inside at this very moment eating a warm meal.

If Brendan's Stockade had fallen, where were the Tsurani? Dennis had been fighting them for the entire war, and they never left their dead to rot unless killed to the last man. Either way, the winners should now be putting out the fires and repairing the gate, for either side would hold this stockade once taken.

Nothing moved. It was a stockade of the dead.

'There's nothing right in this.'

Gregory had slipped up so silently that his whispered voice gave Dennis a start. Damn him, he enjoyed doing that, sneaking up and thus showing his skill, but Dennis didn't let his flash of anger show.

'Brendan and his lads are finished,' Gregory whispered, 'but so are the Tsurani.'

Dennis said nothing. In spite of the snow vultures were already circling in. A mile or more back he had noticed an absence of crows and ravens in the forest – inactive at night, they were usually noisy and busy first thing in the morning – now he knew where they were… enjoying a feast. A vulture dropped down inside the smoking ruins of the fort and did not come back out, yet another indicator that no one was left alive inside.

Could it be that the Tsurani had retreated at his approach?

No. If there were enough of them to take Brendan, they would stay and make a fight of it. The fall of this stockade, along with the Tsurani holding Mad Wayne's to the north-west, made a hole twenty miles wide in the picket chain that covered the northern front. Why take this crucial point only to abandon it?

Ambush?

He looked back over his shoulder. Gregory was carefully looking about as well, and Dennis realized that the Natalese scout had been scanning the woods to either side, looking for any indicators that a trap was closing in.

Nothing. The crows and ravens were all down in the clearing, feasting, so there was none of their noisy cackling in the forest. The other sounds were normal: the ice-covered trees creaking in the breeze, the tinkling sound of now-light rain, the calls of other birds, and nothing else.

There was no ambush: it would already have been sprung.

Their eyes met and both had reached the same conclusion.

'Dark Brothers,' Dennis whispered.

Gregory nodded an agreement. 'Unless the last Tsurani and the last Kingdom soldier conspired to kill one another at the same moment, that's my guess.'

What he saw started to fit together. A Tsurani force had besieged the fort. Ringing the edge of the clearing he could see where the snow had been trampled down, and the torn remains of a dozen of their tents littered the ground, bits of canvas sticking out of the icy slush. Their besieging camp was at the edge of the forest less than a hundred yards away. Cooking pots still hung over cold fire-pits, and a battle pennant leaned against a half-collapsed tent covered with ice.

He could even make out the spot where they had forged together their rough-hewn battering ram, for the stump of the freshly-cut tree was coated with melting ice.

Perhaps the Tsurani had just taken the fort, or were venturing an attack when the Dark Brothers had hit them, pressing right through to finish off Brendan's defenders as well. The pattern of bodies indicated that the Tsurani had tried to break out, heading towards the south-west corner of the clearing and the trail that ran straight back to territory they held. The piled-up knot of dead were stopped a good hundred yards short of the main trail which headed into the heart of Tsurani-held territory.

He stared at the trail for a moment, feeling a knot in his stomach. He had walked it often enough as a boy; it was the trail back to his family's estates… He forced his attention away from bitter memory and back to the present.

With fifty men in Brendan's garrison the Tsurani would not have ventured an attack with less than two hundred. If the Dark Brothers had come into the fray it meant there were at least three hundred of them, maybe more. They didn't risk a fight like this unless the odds were on their side. He had to know. With only sixty-five of his men left, four of the wounded having survived the night march and still needing to be carried, it was a deadly situation if the moredhel were still in the area.

He caught the scent of Tinuva. It was strange, there was something vaguely different about the scent of elves, not a perfume, but it seemed to carry a warmth, a vitality of life with it, like the first morning of spring. He felt the elf's breath.

'They're here. Moredhel,' Tinuva whispered, his voice drifting so gently it could not have been heard more than half a dozen feet away.

Dennis nodded. 'How many?'

Tinuva weighed the question for what seemed to Dennis a long time. The elves' sense of time was far more stately than humans'.

After a long while, he said, 'At least two hundred, maybe more.'

'Are you certain?' asked Dennis.

'No,' replied the elf. 'But do you see any moredhel bodies out there?'

'No,' conceded Dennis.

'Any dead or wounded they carried off. They would have had to come in numbers so overwhelming that the garrison and the Tsurani were quickly overrun, else we would see more sign of them. Look.'

Dennis looked to where the elf pointed and not understanding, finally asked, 'What am I looking for?'

There are no broken moredhel arrows. They have cleared this area of their passing. They don't want us to know they've been here.'

Gregory nodded. Pointing to the smoking char that had been the stockade, he said, 'That's sort of difficult to ignore, my friend.'

Tinuva said, 'But if you found it in the spring, might you not think the Tsurani had overrun the fort and left behind this memento?'

Dennis didn't hesitate. 'No, the Tsurani would have claimed this position. To the north is the abandoned mine road that leads into the mountains. To the east are the marshlands and mountains. With the Tsurani controlling Mad Wayne's and most of the land west of here…'

'From here they could raid south behind our lines until we drove them out.' Suddenly Dennis felt a stab of alarm. 'The Dark Brothers are still close by!' he hissed quietly.

'They're probably tending their wounded and waiting for the snow to stop before they return to dispose of the Tsurani dead,' Gregory said in a hoarse whisper. 'I don't think they know we are here though,' He glanced skyward as the snow slackened.

'Don't risk your life on that thought, my friend,' Tinuva said, again his voice was a drifting shimmer barely heard.

'Circle,' Dennis whispered.

Dennis slid back down from boulders. Spying Alwin, he gestured for him to remain in position, indicating that the three of them would circle around the fort and that moredhel were in the area. After nine years in the field, the Marauders had a sophisticated system of hand signals to cover most situations. Alwin signed that he understood and would comply.

Having approached the fort from the west, Dennis started north, following the direction of the low ridge. The realm of the moredhel was to the north, though it didn't necessarily mean that was the direction they had attacked from. Besides, the next major trail, the one that connected Brendan's Stockade and Mad Wayne's Fort, entered at the north-west corner of the clearing. Perhaps there would be signs there that could help unravel the mystery.

As he drifted along the ridge, staying low, he kept the remains of Brendan's Stockade in view. Yet another link to the past lost within the last day, he thought.

The stockade was one of a dozen such along the Yabon frontier, garrisoned out of Tyr-Sog. Unlike the mountains to the east, which were dominated by major passes guarded by the border barons – Ironpass, Northwarden, and Highcastle – the western mountains were shot through with trails and little passes. Smuggling in the west was common, but none of the passes was sufficient for any large-scale invasion southward. So the stockades had been constructed over the years.

Each was owned by a trader or innkeeper, who kept it repaired out of profits, while the Baron of Tyr-Sog and the Earl of LaMut paid for the garrison ensconced within; they were much-utilized stops for traders and caravans heading down into the heart of the Kingdom and as such very profitable before the war.

Brendan's had been one of the more successful stops on the trade routes; from here one could turn south to the Kingdom proper, west toward Ylith or LaMut, or north for a shortcut route that would eventually lead to Yabon. Now Brendan and his family were certain to lie dead within.

Dennis kept his eyes busy as he circled, but he felt regret.

Brendan had been a good sort, open-handed to those he liked, always ready to offer a pint and a joint of meat to someone down on their luck. As a boy Dennis had stopped there often enough with his father and Jurgen when they went hunting together. Brendan was that type that never seemed to age, perpetually frozen at a stocky middle-age, gravel-voiced, with an expansive girth that cascaded over a thick leather belt, a first-class brawler; and a damned good friend to all who lived a precarious existence along the frontier.

He was, as well, a notorious cheat when it came to gambling, a fact Dennis had witnessed when Jurgen had caught him at it. The fight that resulted had become something of a legend, with Jurgen's nose permanently mashed over to one side and Brendan missing part of an ear.

The two had been good friends after that, both appreciating the mettle of the other, but never again did they venture into a game of dice or the new craze of cards with numbers and pictures painted on them. During the night march Dennis had thought about Brendan, and had pondered how he would react to the news that Jurgen was dead. No need to worry about that now and he wondered which had greeted the other at the entrance of Lims-Kragma's Hall. Perhaps now they could gamble together again, if such games were allowed over there, while they waited to be judged by the Goddess of the Dead.

After covering two hundred yards the rise of ground dropped down towards a narrow forest stream, partly frozen over. The trail to Mad Wayne's Fort, a position now in Tsurani hands, followed the stream and he paused, looking down on it from above.

There were tracks… and lying by the stream on the far side of the trail was a body, a Tsurani, his throat cut, the ground around him an icy pink.

The three waited for several minutes, carefully scanning the trail, stream, and surrounding woods. Dennis finally looked at Tinuva, who nodded. The elf pulled a bow out from under his cloak, nocked an arrow, and drew it half back.

Dennis took a deep breath and slipped down the trail, pouncing catlike, wincing slightly at the sound of the icy slush crunching beneath his feet. He looked first to the northwest in the direction of Mad Wayne's and away from the smoking ruins of Brendan's Stockade. The trail disappeared into the early morning mist.

Nothing.

Gregory landed beside him, swung out his bow and drew it, pointing it up the trail, tensed and ready.

Still nothing.

Dennis looked down at the ground and his heart stopped. It was churned into a muddy slop which was quickly icing over. He moved slowly, scanning for details. A large number had passed down the trail, heading towards the stockade; he could see frozen imprints that must have been made during the night.

The prints weren't made by the heavy sandals and footcloths of the Tsurani, but by the booted feet of moredhel, men, and the deeper hoofprints of horses and mountain trolls.

What was chilling, though, was that there were prints heading back up the trail and they were fresh, so fresh that droplets of moisture were still oozing into them as ice formed. But not as many as had come in. It was hard to tell – perhaps fifty at most, and no horses.

Battle losses? No, he had not seen any moredhel corpses around the fort. There should have at least been some wounded, drops of blood, a dragging footstep, but these moredhel had been running.

Why the haste?

He looked up. Tinuva was still above him, watchful. Dennis pointed to the trail then to the northwest and made the gesture for moredhel, then held his fingertips to his throat, indicating that it was only minutes, a matter of heart beats since their passing.

Tinuva nodded and moved out. Dennis looked at Gregory who set off as well, crossing to the other side of the trail and moving into the stream where he could travel without leaving tracks.

Dennis slipped down to the Tsurani body and touched its leg. The body was just stiffening, dead several hours at the most; had he died earlier in the night rigor would have set in. Looking at the ground, he could figure it out easily enough. The man was a sentry, guarding the trail while the attack on the fort went in, or had in fact already taken the position. It had been a clean kill, stealthy, throat cut from ear to ear and no sign of struggle other than the final spasmodic thrashing of a dying man.

Dennis looked back to the northwest and caught a glimpse of Gregory who was looking back. Dennis pointed to himself and then towards the stockade. Gregory nodded and disappeared into the mist-shrouded forest.

Choosing speed over caution Dennis got back up on to the trail and started off at a slow trot.

The task now was to find out which direction the rest of the moredhel had taken. If the band had split up, scattering after the attack to throw off any pursuit, he'd swing his own men in behind the group heading towards Mad Wayne's Fort, finish them, then reoccupy Brendan's. He'd send Gregory and Tinuva back to Lord Brucal's base camp to ask for reinforcements while Dennis and his company repaired the stockade. But, if the moredhel were indeed returning in force to clean up the Tsurani dead, as Tinuva speculated, Dennis wanted to be well clear of the area before they got back. Defending a rebuilt stockade was one thing; fighting among the ashes on an exposed hillock while being hit from all sides was quite another.

He slowed as he reached the edge of the forest, slipping in behind a towering pine. Closer now to the stockade, he could pick out more details though the smoke was still thick. There were only a couple of Tsurani dead around the northern approach, for the bulk of them were by the gate and the road that headed southwest and the safety of their territory.

As he moved slowly, he noticed something down by the stream. A dark mound rose up amid a small copse of trees. It was almost covered with snow. It took a moment for Dennis's eye to make sense of the dark shape, but then he saw it: moredhel dead, several dozen of them and the picture began to fit together in Dennis's mind.

Clever bastards. They had carried off their dead to leave a puzzle, hiding them nearby. In another two hours, Dennis would have been looking at just another snow-covered bump in the earth. If that force was as large as Tinuva speculated, most of them might be heading up to visit the Tsurani now holding Mad Wayne's, but chances were the rest were lurking nearby, watching, most likely on the other side of the clearing.

Damn clever. Then a more obvious possibility occurred to him.

If we and the Tsurani were fighting a battle here, Dennis thought, both sides would most likely be rushing up reinforcements even now. They'd reach the clearing and stop, the same way we did. Dennis wondered if at this very second there were other eyes, Tsurani eyes, gazing at the fort and wondering what to do next. Curiosity, however, would lead most finally to venture in. Once out in the open the trap would be sprung. He realized with a cold certainty that the moredhel heading up the trail to Mad Wayne's were not a force heading out on an additional raid, or fleeing. They were an anvil, waiting for the trap to be sprung and for those fleeing the trap to run straight into them. It could be that they were less than a couple of hundred yards off, and no more than a quarter of a mile. As certain as he was of anything, Dennis knew that he was being watched by moredhel scouts. If they hadn't seen Tinuva or Gregory, they might think him an advance trailbreaker who would soon return the way he had come to carry word to his commander; they would wait until the Kingdom soldiers returned in force, then spring their trap.

Now what?

Trap the trappers most likely deployed on the far side of the clearing, go after the smaller group circling behind him, or get the hell out now?

Use caution when dealing with their kind, Jurgen had always said. His old friend would have told him to get the hell out. If Brendan and the Tsurani had been wiped out by them, there were undoubtedly enough moredhel nearby to annihilate Dennis's small command. Had the moredhel scout who was surely watching him known that a short distance down the trail sixty-odd cold, tired, and hungry Kingdom soldiers waited, he would be carrying word at this moment. Dennis knew what he must do.

Get out, circle around, then warn off any Kingdom troops that might be approaching from the south. He knew he would have to stand up, glance around as if satisfied that no danger lingered and move quickly back to where his command waited. Let the moredhel think him a solitary scout. Dennis would not be returning this way, and neither would any Kingdom force if he could intercept them. Let the Dark Brothers and the Tsurani fight with each other for a while.

The moredhel would not linger to occupy a human stockade, and if the Tsurani managed to drive them away, Duke Brucal, Earl Vandros of LaMut, and Baron Moyet could decide how to drive them out of here and Mad Wayne's next spring.

Dennis and his scouts had signals to use in these situations. He would remove his heavy cloak, shaking it as if he was trying to rid it of excess water. That would let Tinuva and Gregory know he was under scrutiny and they needed to withdraw without being seen.

Dennis was on the verge of standing up to do just this when he saw the enemy. Stepping out of the forest, down on the southwest side of the clearing, a lone Tsurani appeared, easily picked out by his bright blue lacquered armour.

Dennis grinned. Damned fool, typical of them. Make a big show of bravado. A new plan instantly formed in Dennis's mind. Except for a couple of their best units the Tsurani were blundering fools in the forest compared to his Marauders. The moredhel had to know additional Tsurani were here. In fact, it lessened the likelihood the moredhel knew that Dennis's unit was nearby. The trap was set for the Tsurani. Let the two sides slaughter each other while we slip away, or luck the Tsurani will so weaken the moredhel we might even finish them both off and reclaim the fort for ourselves. This might actually get amusing, he thought with a wolfish smile, and then he heard the crack of a branch.

'It is a trap,' Force Leader Asayaga hissed, gesturing towards the smoking ruins of the stockade.

Sugama said nothing, but Asayaga could already read what his second-in-command was thinking, and what he would do.

The night march had been an exercise in stupidity and waste. Two hours of double-quick march in daylight could have brought them to this position, but instead they had endured a frigid, miserable night. His men were exhausted, shivering from the wretched cold, and the perverse gods of this world were sending down bucketful's of snow.

Now this damnable disaster. It was obvious that Force Leader Hagamaka of the Gineisa had launched the attack without waiting for the reinforcements Asayaga was bringing up. The thought of a Minwanabi ally failing so miserably, so publicly, might have brought Asayaga some pleasure, except for the sight of so many fine soldiers of the Empire dead, slaughtered in a futile battle. It was yet another tragic waste of good men. But why the urgent command for a night march through dangerous territory if Hagamaka wasn't going to wait?

He first suspected that Hagamaka had intended to embarrass him, to order reinforcements up, not wait and launch the attack, then accuse him of failing to arrive in a timely manner.

Yet, as he surveyed the carnage, he wondered: it was obvious the attack had turned into a rout, a pile of nearly two score dead were clumped on a low rise not a hundred paces into the clearing, and a trail of dead led all the way back to the fort.

No garrison of fifty Kingdom troops could have done this. Did they have more hidden inside the ruined fort, or a force waiting in the woods which had cut Hagamaka off? Then, if so, why the abandoned fort?

The Kingdom considered this a key link in their chain which guarded the shadowy northern front. From the Lake of the Sky's eastern shore down to the northernmost peak of the Grey Tower Mountains, only the chains of stockades prevented the Tsurani from sweeping eastward, then south into Tyr-Sog and the other Kingdom cities of Yabon. Earlier in the year the forces of the Empire had taken Mad Wayne's fort to the northwest. If they could also hold Brendan's, they could control enough of this area to stage an invasion down into Yabon in the spring. With a second invasion pressing out of the Free Cities to the southwest, the Kingdom would lose Yabon inside a year. The Kingdom knew this, and were desperate to garrison and supplying these small fortresses. If they had destroyed Hagamaka they would, at this very moment, be barricading the shattered gate, making repairs… and looting the dead. Messages would already have been sent south for more reinforcements.

Asayaga shook his head. No. Something was dreadfully wrong with this entire situation. He looked over at Sugarna but knew there would be no sage advice. He was, after all, of House Tondora, allegedly assigned to Asayaga's force for training in anticipation of the Tondora joining the Warlord's host in the spring. It was an unusual but not unprecedented situation to have a junior officer train with the forces of an ally, but everyone knew that this was simply a charade. The Tondora – while publicly 'politically neutral', in the Great Council – were Clan Shonshoni and a client House of the Minwanabi, so everything they did was at Minwanabi bidding.

Though supposedly second-in-command, his bloodline and rank in the courts at home would have placed him far above what Asayaga could ever hope to aspire to. So there could only be one reason he was in a subordinate role now: to keep close watch on Asayaga.

Asayaga was a son of the Kodeko, a minor house, but of Clan Kanazawai, and the Shinzawai were most likely next on the list of opponents to be crushed by the Minwanabi. The Minwanabi were far too clever to openly confront House Keda, the most powerful Kanazawai Clan family, and one of the Five Great Families of the Empire. But the Shinzawai, while an old and honourable family, with a venerated lord in Kamatsu, retired abruptly from the war with the other families in the Blue Wheel Party, dealing the Warlord a major setback. The move had actually helped the Minwanabi cause, but had also marked the Shinzawai as a political force to be reckoned with. And the Minwanabi never ignored such potential opponents.

By discrediting Clan Kanazawai, the Minwanabi would weaken the Keda and their allies. It was but another ploy in the Great Game.

Against that possibility, Asayaga of House Kodeko was ordered to remain in the war by the clan leaders. Ostensibly of the Yellow Flower Party – still allied with the Warlord – Asayaga was the logical choice to be left behind to keep an eye on the Minwanabi. Someone had to be, for their plots and schemes were unending.

Asayaga recalled the disgust he had felt when word of the loss of Lord Sezu of the Acoma had reached him; while of Clan Hadama, Lord Sezu was nevertheless an honourable man worthy of respect.

His death had been the result of a manipulation of the Minwanabi sub-commander, who had reinforcements arrive 'too late' to save Sezu and his son Lanakota from death. Now only Mara, his daughter, was left to shepherd her house, though by rumours reaching the front, she seemed adept at doing so.

Asayaga kept his disquiet to himself; this late arrival smacked of the same sort of machinations as that betrayal of Sezu in the first year of the war, and that made him uneasy. Fighting the soldiers of the Kingdom was one thing, and even facing the Forest Demons, those known as Dark Brothers to the enemy, was simple warfare.

But the treachery of the Great Game, reaching as it did through the rift from the home world to this distant and icy frontier, that was an enemy impossible to confront directly. Besides, even back home Asayaga never liked politics. He took after his father in that regard, and it was for that reason above all others why the Kodeko had remained a minor house in Clan Kanazawai.

Asayaga's gaze drifted to his senior Strike Leader, Tasemu, the true second-in-command, a veteran from the very start of the war. The one-eyed fighter nodded his understanding that they needed to talk in private, then motioned for them to pull back.

Sugama saw the interplay and cleared his throat. 'We must find out what happened, Force Commander. Perhaps both sides annihilated each other. We can take the fort now and hold it, gaining great glory. Think of what would be said if this kingdom fort was indeed abandoned and then we simply ran away. If we miss this opportunity the disgrace will be known throughout the army.'

And you would be certain to spread it, Asayaga thought. For that matter Sugama, by that mere statement, had forced his hand. The comment had been made as friendly advice, and if ignored, Sugama would be seen to have been in the right and have won his point in the Game. It was impossible now to withdraw without first sending someone up to the fort and thereby reveal his presence.

Asayaga silently cursed. He looked back at Tasemu who stared back impassively.

'What are you thinking, Strike Leader?' Asayaga asked.

The mere fact that a Force Commander asked a Strike Leader for an opinion obviously shocked Sugama; but, no matter which clan he belonged to, he had to learn to leave Tsurani rigidity behind if he was going to fight with Force Commander Asayaga. This was war on an alien world and you didn't live long if you held to forms and customs.

'A third force did this,' Tasemu announced.

'Who?'

But Asayaga already knew the answer: the idea was half-formed within minutes of him first creeping up to the edge of the clearing.

'The Forest Demons.'

'Demons? Creatures of myth! Impossible!' Sugama exclaimed.

'They are mortal,' Asayaga said, 'but those here first called them demons because they are most difficult to close with. They drift among the trees like the mist, and they can strike without warning. The Kingdom call them "the Dark Brotherhood". They are kin to those called "elves" we believe.'

Tasemu volunteered, 'And they do fight like demons when they wish, Force Leader. They are… difficult.'

The mere mention of them had sent a shiver through more than one of Asayaga's men. They were a strange, unknown factor on this world. Logic would have dictated that these creatures should have allied themselves with the Kingdom in order to repel a foreign invader, as had the elves and the short men called 'dwarves'. Yet they obviously had not. They were often not seen for as long as a year, then suddenly a patrol would vanish or an outpost would be overrun; and when it was clear that the Kingdom had not had a hand, it was possible to conclude only one thing: it had been the Dark Brothers. This third player in the drama made every commander in the north uneasy, since the Forest Demons' actions were impossible to anticipate.

Yet it was not their unpredictability that disturbed his men. They were soldiers and expected to die if needs be; that was their place in the order of things. Yes, the war against the Kingdom – especially here on the northern frontier – was deadly, the fighting brutal. Often there was no time to care for wounded, who were given the honourable death of the blade lest they be taken prisoner and shame their houses by being made slaves or, worse, being hanged as one would a criminal or slave.

But at least the Kingdom soldiers were men. They fought with an honour that Asayaga found he had initially been surprised by in barbarians. There had been an unspoken truce at the siege of Crydee, where Kamatsu of the Shinzawai, Asayaga's cousin, had commanded. Both sides had calmly and silently collected their dead several times and had burned them on pyres of honour, before returning to their respective lines without incident, to resume the fighting the next day. The siege had ended with the withdrawal of the forces of the Blue Wheel Party.

Yet that siege had taught Asayaga what to expect from the Kingdom soldiers. With the Dark Brothers, however, the killing was different. More than once he had found bodies, Tsurani and Kingdom, butchered in horrible ways, the mutilation obviously done while the victim was still alive. Even the dead they disfigured: ears lopped off as trophies, heads placed on stakes. It was as if they loved to kill humans, and did so for the simple pleasure it gave them.

And you could almost never see them coming. A superstition had come into being among the soldiers in the north, that if they died and were given funeral rites here on Midkemia, their spirits would be somehow sent back to their homeworld on Kelewan. But without speaking of it, the men had come to believe that should the Forest Demons butcher the dead and leave them for the carrion eaters, the spirits of the slaughtered Tsurani would wander this cold and alien landscape until the end of time. No priest of any order had been able to counter this belief. Asayaga, like every commander in the north, knew this superstition gave the Dark Brothers an advantage they scarcely needed.

He looked back at Sugama, hoping that Tasemu's words had registered some doubt.

'Shall I go to the fort, Force Commander, and lay claim to it?' Sugama asked evenly, as if Tasemu's words had merely been the whistling of the wind.

Asayaga was about to tell him to go to the devils of the underworld, but he held his tongue. He was trapped. A plan formed for a brief instant. He would order a retreat, hold Sugama back for a few minutes and slip a blade into his throat, thereby silencing him. He knew his men would never ask what had become of Sugama when he caught up with them, but others back at the headquarters camp were not of House Kodeko, and they would almost certainly assume treachery if Sugama were the only casualty.

Send Sugama forward? No, damn it. If indeed the battle had been a mutual slaughter, or there was even the remote chance that the Kingdom troops had retreated after the fight, the shame of letting Sugama take the fort would be unbearable to his house. It would appear as well that he was a coward, ordering someone else to take the risk rather than set the proper example by doing it himself.

What was even more enraging was the realization that Sugama was following the same process of reasoning and thus dictating the rules of the game now being played.

Asayaga looked once more at Tasemu, but there was no need to say anything. Of the eighty men in his command most were new recruits; little more than boys called to serve by their blood ties to House Kodeko. They would obey without question, but they were untested. Asayaga would rely on his old core of twenty veterans, led by Tasemu, who knew the ways of this war. The Strike Leader nodded, raised a hand and gestured, Vashemi and Tarku, the most senior Patrol Leader and the wiliest old veteran without rank, respectively, half-stood and started back down the trail, checking to the rear as he went forward.

Asayaga shot a withering gaze at Sugama. 'Stay here.'

Taking a deep breath, he stood up and stepped out of the forest and into the clearing. He strode forward, acting as if he was out for a morning walk along a road on his family's estate, rather than advancing alone, fully exposed, heading towards a deserted, smoking ruin.

He passed the pile of bodies and as he drew closer he felt his heart constrict. All were dead, most from arrows, but the shafts had been snapped off by someone who wished to obscure the identity of the attackers. But the manner of death for some made it all too obvious. More than one of the warriors had been wounded first; but if it had been by Kingdom troops, the final dispatching would have been done with a certain professional respect for a worthy foe. A warrior from either side would often give the doomed a moment for final prayer and then cut his throat cleanly and quickly. He had done it often enough himself, both to Kingdom soldiers too injured to be taken back as slaves, and more than once to one of his own men whom he was forced to leave behind.

The dying had been murdered cruelly. Several had been decapitated. He slowed for a second, looking down at a face he vaguely recognized, an officer he had seen at times in camp. The mutilation was ghastly, the one most feared by any man. The agonized expression frozen on the dead man's face was evidence enough that he had still been alive when the carving up had started.

Asayaga swallowed hard and kept going. The fort was now less than a hundred paces away: he was coming into easy arrowshot range. The gate was off its hinges, the inside of the compound visible, bodies littered the interior. Several vultures were perched on the expansive stomach of one of the dead.

Perhaps the fort was abandoned after all?

And yet…

He slowed. Something wasn't right. The vultures, they weren't eating, they had stopped and were looking not towards him but instead at something within the fort that he couldn't see.

He stopped, and his hand went to the hilt of his sword.

Two things happened at nearly the same instant. The vultures, startled by something he couldn't see inside the fort flapped their wings, croaking obscenely, struggling to lift into the air: and a shout of warning came from behind. It was Tasemu.

'It's a trap!' Asayaga roared.

For the first few seconds he thought to rush the fort, but even as the vultures lifted off he knew someone was inside and if there was someone inside the smoking ruins of the barracks it meant there was most likely many of them, ready to hold the gate and riddle a charge with arrows.

He turned and sprinted back towards his men. Tasemu was standing out in the open, arms up, pointing back up the trail they had just come down.

'Behind us!' Tasemu cried, 'The Forest Demons are coming!'

Asayaga stopped half-way between the fort and the edge of the clearing.

Damn them! We walked straight into it. It was clear what would happen. Already Sugama was ordering the men to rush the fort and take refuge.

No! That's what the enemy want! They'll block the gate: then we get caught in the open and shot full of arrows,

He had to think. He looked back at the fort. It had been but a dozen heartbeats since he had turned back from it. The vultures were barely clear of the gate, wings flapping. The shelter of it looked inviting: too inviting.

His men were streaming out of the woods, running hard, Sugama in the lead. Then one of the men, just barely out of the forest, collapsed, blood fountaining, an arrow driven through his throat.

Sugama came on quickly.

'Hundreds of them!' he shouted, his voice edged with panic.

In spite of the chaos Asayaga could not suppress a grin. They might all die in the next few minutes, but it was good to see Sugama get a taste of the reality of this world first.

Asayaga waved his sword it over his head as a rallying signal. When the men were less than ten yards off he pointed away from the fort to the northwest corner of the clearing.

'Not the fort! Trap! Follow me!'

Sugama slowed for an instant, startled, as an arrow slashed past him. Then he turned to follow Asayaga.

Asayaga set off at a run. He had barely gone a dozen paces when he heard the blast of a horn echoing from the woods to the south. It was answered by another from within the fort!

He ran. The gate was no longer in view, and the west wall of the fort was now to his right and a hundred paces off. He led his column straight up the clearing, trying to keep an equal distance between the fort in the centre and the woods. An arrow skimmed past, kicking up a slushy spray of snow. He spared a quick glance at the fort. Dark forms lined the wall, bows raised. It was the Forest Demons, their distinctive visage clearly visible. Never had he seen so many of them and as such close quarters; before it had always been a furtive glance, a half-seeing as they drifted nightmarelike through the woods.

Asayaga had scouted this place several times over the last year and knew its layout. At the northwest corner a trail entered the clearing, leading to a fort taken by his command in the spring. It was four leagues to that place.

It would most likely be covered but it had to be tried. The east was Kingdom territory and impenetrable marshy ground for several leagues, a death trap. Straight north was the route to the realm of the Forest Demons, rocky game trails through high passes, a death trap as well.

Asayaga headed for the trail that might be either a trap, or a path to safety and then he saw someone stagger out from the trail clutching his chest, blood pulsing from between his clutching fingers. Stunned, he slowed to a stop as the dying person looked at him with blank eyes and then collapsed.

He stopped, not sure for an instant what to do next. He looked to his left, directly into the woods. Perhaps it was better to go that way rather than take the trail, for obviously something was covering that trail.

He started to run again, and his men following. Within seconds they were closing on the edge of the clearing and then a shower of arrows snapped out from the treeline, dropping half a dozen of his men.

Asayaga, sword held high, charged for the woods, praying that he could take one of his tormentors with him.

Dennis Hartraft stared into the eye of the archer poised not fifty paces away. The dark elf had his bow fully drawn and aimed.

Remarkably, though, the moredhel had cracked a frozen branch when he stepped out from behind the tree to shoot – he must have been a relative youngster to make so basic a blunder.

It was, at best, a second of time since Dennis had heard that crack.

Time distorted and slowed; he saw the tips of the fingers relaxing, releasing the taut bowstring. Pushing off from the tree, he kicked backwards, eyes still fixed on his stalker. He saw the snap of mist breaking away from the bowstring, the blur of the arrow, the stinging brush of the feathers as the shaft creased his face.

He hit the ground, rolled across the trail, slammed up against a boulder. Two seconds, maybe three, had passed. He was on his feet, saw the elf flinging back his cloak, exposing a quiver.

Instinct drove him forward. In a single bound he vaulted the narrow stream, landed hard, slipping on the icy slope, then started up the rise, reaching for the dagger at his belt. The moredhel had the arrow drawn from the quiver, was reversing it, fitting the nock to the string.

Dennis sprinted forward, lost his footing on an ice-covered boulder, slipped and fell, nearly dropping his dagger, and came back up to his feet. The dark elf was drawing his bow and he knew he had lost the race.

Snakelike he lashed out with an underhand throw of the dagger. The spin was off, the dagger striking the elf in the chest, hilt first. But the impact startled him, he lost his grip on the bowstring and the arrow snapped off, missing Dennis.

Dennis leapt forward even as the dark elf dropped his bow and reached for his own dagger. Dennis dived in, catching the moredhel in the chest with his right shoulder. The pain to his old wound shocked him but he heard his foe grunt as well as the wind got knocked out of him.

The two fell together in a tangled heap, Dennis clutching at the dark elf's arm, preventing him from drawing his blade. They grappled, rolling on the ground. The moredhel attempted to cry out; Dennis clamped his hand over his mouth. The moredhel bit down and Dennis clamped his jaws together to cut off his own cry of pain.

The two rolled back and forth on the slushy ground, kicking and clawing in a primal fight for survival. He caught a glimpse of his foe's eyes – so strange, so like Tinuva's, yet different, filled with fury and murderous rage.

As if from a great distance he heard shouts, but all his world was now focused on the dark elf, who writhed like an enraged serpent as he sought to escape. They rolled again, Dennis on top, faces only inches apart. The moredhel head-butted Dennis in the face. The blow stunned Dennis, blurring his vision.

They rolled down the slope and crashed into the icy creek. Dennis lost his grip and felt the moredhel break free of his grasp and draw his dagger. The moredhel's arm snapped up. And then he moved with a spasmodic jerk. An arrow had slammed into the dark elf's chest, going clean through his body. A mist of blood exploded from the elf's back.

With a gurgling cry the moredhel staggered to his feet and started to run, blood pulsing out. Dennis gasped for breath and caught a glimpse of Tinuva standing up on the trail, already drawing a second arrow, tracking the moredhel, but then held his shot as the Dark Brother staggered into the clearing.

Tinuva relaxed his grip on his bow and looked down at Dennis. 'Move now!' Tinuva hissed.

Dennis, his heart pounding, shoulder aching, came to his feet and started up the slope to Tinuva's side.

'Trap, we're in a trap!' Tinuva announced.

As he gained the trail he caught a glimpse of the dying moredhel collapsing and confronting him, the column of Tsurani. There had been only one Tsurani, and now there was near on a hundred and he realized that his struggle with the moredhel must have dragged out for several dangerously long minutes.

Too much was happening too quickly and he leaned over, gasping for breath. The shock of his fight and near death was having its impact and he fought down an urge to vomit. Tinuva grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him back off the trail.

'The moredhel net is wide,' Tinuva said quickly. 'They are waiting on the trail, two hundred yards from here. Ambush prepared. 'They didn't know we were near and the one you killed was one of their flanking scouts. They will find us in a few minutes, crossing the trail we made in the snow. Gregory sent me back to tell you.'

At that same instant he saw that the Tsurani were turning, shying away from the trail and heading straight into the woods in the direction where his own men were concealed. The move triggered a response: a shower of arrows snapped out from the forest.

Damn! Now we are revealed.

He sprinted up the slope, Tinuva bounding forward by his side. Ground that had taken minutes to cover before he crossed in seconds. He caught a glimpse of Alwin Barry and a dozen of his men poised around the boulders firing down on the Tsurani. Several of the Tsurani had their alien short-bows out and crouching behind the stumps of trees in the clearing, were shooting back.

Horns now echoed all around them. From the east side of the clearing he saw dark-cloaked forms, a hundred or more charging, while others poured out of the fort. More were coming up from the south. It was chaos. He needed to think clearly, but the smashing blow to his head from the dark moredhel still had him stunned.

Looking down at the Tsurani he saw one of them barely a hundred feet away charging, sword held high. There was something vaguely familiar about him, an enemy he had faced before.

'Stop fighting!'

The booming cry echoed through the forest. It was Gregory, running hard, coming through the woods. He leapt onto the boulder they had hidden behind earlier and extended his arms wide so that even the Tsurani in the clearing could see him.

'Stop fighting! Dark Brothers are closing in!' Gregory shouted. 'We settle our differences later!' Then he said something else and Dennis recognized it as Tsurani. 'If we fight one another, we die! No honour in throwing our lives away!'

The Tsurani warrior leading the charge slowed, then came to a halt.

Gregory said something else and pointed back across the clearing. 'Those we call the Dark Brotherhood are upon us in strength.'

The leader turned and looked.

Gregory's words forced Dennis to focus his attention.

I am in command, he remembered, and he felt a flicker of anger towards Gregory overstepping his bounds yet again, and yet again being right. If we and the Tsurani fight now, we all die. He turned the anger on himself. I should have grasped this immediately; Gregory realized it. Jurgen would have too.

He turned about in a full circle, judging sound, distances, ignoring the Tsurani. He saw a line of horse-mounted warriors emerge from the trail that headed south, one of them holding a banner aloft -human renegades serving with their moredhel masters. Dennis felt his stomach knot; the only time the moredhel hired mercenary cavalry was when they were mounting an offensive; they had no use for humans otherwise.

A dozen or more trolls swarmed about the standard-bearer like dogs about to be unleashed for the hunt. Others on foot were pouring out of the forest from the far side of the clearing.

Main force there, he realized.

From behind, to the west and northwest he heard horns. The blocking force on the trail were spreading out and closing the net. If they delay us even for a few minutes the mounted riders and other fell creatures accompanying them will close in for the kill.

It was obvious they planned for a fleeing force to turn and go up the trail, and straight into their doom.

To the north, nothing, only a few sentries. Arrogant of them: it was the way back to moredhel territory and they had left it open. North then, it was the only way out!

He looked back to the clearing again, and the Tsurani were already gone, moving rapidly to the north. All he could see were their retreating backs.

Damn them, they were supposed to be the diversion and now he was the diversion instead!

Furious with himself he held a hand up, circled it then snapped it down and set off at a run, his men following.

He bounded back towards the trail to Mad Wayne's, praying that perhaps the Tsurani had taken that turn and stumbled into the moredhel's trap.

He hit the edge of the trail and without hesitation jumped down. Within seconds his men were sliding down around him. He looked down. No Tsurani tracks.

Damn! They had slipped out some other way.

A man next to him, Beragorn, was an old veteran. He grunted and turned, clutching at his stomach where an arrow with black feathers quivered.

Out of the mist he saw them coming, half a dozen moredhel. More filtering through the trees to either side of the trail. Instinctively he crouched, and an arrow snapped overhead. More men were sliding down onto the trail, turning, ready to fight.

No. In a minute those in the field will close in.

'Alwin! Block force. Then across creek!' he shouted. 'The rest of you, follow me north!'

He hesitated for a second, looking at Beragorn who was down on his knees. He reached for his dagger, to do the task any friend would do for a comrade when the moredhel were closing in.

Damn, his dagger was lost.

He glanced at Beragorn, whose eyes were glazing over as he fell backward against a bole. Taking a breath, Dennis seized the shaft sticking out of Beragorn's stomach, and with a single push, jammed it up into his old comrade's heart. The man stiffened and died.

Dennis sprinted off the trail, leaping the creek and running up the slope where he had fought the moredhel sentry.

This time his footing held. He looked back.

The tail end of his command were just now crossing the trail. Alwin had heard him, calling out half a dozen men who stood to either side of the trail, their first volley of arrows slowing the dark elves' charge. A couple more men went down from a return volley.

He caught a glimpse of Tinuva leaping the stream, landing, turning, bow drawn. He let fly, aiming back towards Brendan's Stockade. It was a long shot, yet it dropped a horse at the head of the trail, throwing the rider. Gregory sprinted past him, dodging through the trees.

'Follow Gregory!' Dennis shouted, pointing the way.

He waited a few more seconds, grabbing the shoulder of a man who started to slip back down the slope, pulling him up and over. It was the priest. He shoved him forward, screaming at him to run. He was about to shout for Alwin to break but the sergeant knew his business. The six men holding the trail leapt down to the stream and bounded across. Archers to either side of Dennis gave covering fire, killing two of the moredhel who tried to follow. Tinuva raced past, his retreat clear signal enough to withdraw. Riders were on the trail. Out in the clearing hundreds of the enemy were swarming in. But what of the other enemy, the Tsurani? There was no time to think of that now. It was time to run.

Behind him, the bloodlusting cries of the moredhel echoed in the clearing and the forest.

The hunt was on.