Paksworld

Episode 11 of Sergeant Vardan and her patrol during the Pargunese invasion.

Vardan drifted into numb immobility, not thinking about the past days, not thinking at all, and yet not dozing–the ranger’s first light touch on her shoulder brought her to full alertness.  “Get your people.”  The snow had continued to fall and now filled his earlier tracks; it still fell.

Vardan left the five injured behind, making sure they were awake and knew which way to move if necessary; the others followed silently, bows in hand.  For herself, she had chosen one of the crossbows they’d taken from the Pargunese; it hung from her belt and she had dagger in hand, ready to use on the sentry she expected to find under a particular tree.

Instead, she stumbled over the man–apparently he’d hunkered down in the falling snow and dozed off–and her first blind stab rang on the man’s breastplate.  The crossbow bruised her leg as she fell; the man was awake, taking in breath to yell.  Vardan had a knee on one of the man’s arms, feeling with the knife blade for the opening above the gorget, when someone else planted a boot on the man’s face and slit his throat.  A gout of hot blood soaked Vardan’s arm; the man’s last breath gurgled and his legs jerked, but those small sounds were muffled by the falling snow.

They moved on, leaving the trees behind.  A dim light showed ahead.  Vardan stopped.  Was that a shape with it?  She reached back with one hand, tapped the man behind her, then ran her finger across the palm opened ready for her and tapped again.  That way. Six paces.  She heard a faint noise as his men fanned out to either side.

The light brightened slowly through the veils of falling snow.  Someone coming.  One?  More?  She could hear nothing but her own pulse pounding in his ears and the whisper of snow on her helmet.  At a guess, someone coming to check on the sentries.  Before, the man had come by himself.  Too late now to crouch down and be a stump.  Too late to reach for the crossbow.  She shifted her dagger to her heart hand and drew her sword slowly, barely a whisper as it came free, then held it and the dagger under her cloak to hide any telltale gleam.

Closer–closer–she could see the snowflakes now, twirling as they fell, making a glow around the dark figure.  Figures…six of them.  Someone leading out the next shift of sentries, it must be.  With that realization came the knowledge that someone was bound to make a noise, that surprise would be lost, and they might as well do this the most efficient way.  As she moved, the light jerked suddenly nearer and one of the Pargunese yelled.

“Six!” Vardan said to her troop as she thrust at the man with the lantern.  Encumbered by the lantern in his sword hand and a basket in his heart hand, the man dropped the basket and tried to grab his dagger, but Vardan had already thrust her short-sword into the man’s neck until it bumped the backbone.  As the man slumped, the lantern fell to the snow and went out; Vardan freed her sword with a practiced twist.  Ahead, from the direction of the farmhouse, she heard shouts and saw the dim loom of other lights.  Nearer, she’d heard bowstrings twang and arrows hit; at that range, she had no doubt arrows penetrated the Pargunese armor.

They moved closer, bending low; Vardan wondered whether she should withdraw her troops since they could not see clearly–would not, until they were in close range of the farmhouse.  The lights brightened–more of them.  Vardan sucked her teeth and tried to think what the captain would have done, what Aliam would have done.  The plan had been to sneak close, make a fast attack, firing the barricade if they could and shooting anyone they saw, but the rangers had the firepot, not her people.  She couldn’t judge distance in the snow; looking back she saw only flakes against the dark, not the trees they had left.

She asked the best archer.  “Berol, can you guess how far?”

“I think we’re too close for a dropping volley, close enough to shoot a fingerbreadth above the target,” Berol said.  “If we could see the targets.”  With the calm of a veteran he said “They’ll be shooting at us, soon.”

“They can’t see us any better,” Vardan said.  “Your target’s the light.  Line up close, volley fire, then scatter.  Ten paces in, repeat.  On my command.”  She scrubbed her sword in the snow, sheathed it, unhooked the crossbow from her belt, spanned it, fumbled a bolt into place.  Someone should be close to the lights–to either side maybe, but close.  “Ready…now!”  She touched the trigger of her crossbow and the bolt shot into the night along with the others.