Paksworld

Episode 9 of Sergeant Vardan and her patrol during the Pargunese invasion.

When the Pargunese horsemen were once more out of sight, and the column in motion, Vardan called the Halverics together and they moved along a woods trail west of the fire-scar, catching up with and passing the Pargunese column without seeing it.  Two rangers accompanied them, one leading and one following, insisting that Vardan didn’t need flanking scouts.  She insisted she did, but agreed to use them only on their western flank.

“There’s a steading ahead…the people have been warned, and are well away with most of their livestock.  There’s little to loot, but enough to hold them, we think.  Especially the ale.”  He mimed lifting a jug.

Vardan chuckled.  “Much of that and they’ll want a nap in the barn.”

“Indeed.  They didn’t sleep well last night; we kept them moving.”

“How’s their discipline?”

“Good.  But they may be hungry and they quit shooting volleys in return for our sniping.”

Were they short of bolts, or conserving them?

“They don’t have a supply train,” Vardan said. “The ones we killed had food in their packs.”

The ranger grinned.  “That’s because most of their supplies never made it to shore.  Their soldiers rowed across in those big long boats they have, towing smaller ones loaded with supplies, two men in each, one steering, one also rowing.  While they were unloading the troops in the boats, and the horses, some of us were taking shots at the soldiers.  Eight of us rangers and two fisher lads drifted down from upstream, under reed clumps.”

“In the water?  In winter?”

“It’s cold, but we’d greased up well with sooty lard, before.  That helps.  Anyway, our people drifted down to the supply boats while their soldiers fought their way onshore against resistance.  Then they cut the ropes that held the little boats to the big ones and if someone aboard stood up to yell for help, they tipped the boat over, man and all.”

Vardan imagined floating down that river in the dark, knowing enemy boats were ahead…getting in among them…cutting ropes…

“Only three of ours got to shore where we could help ’em,” the ranger said.  “I pulled one out, with a gash all down one shoulder, bleeding hard.”

Vardan shivered, though she wasn’t cold now, at the speed they were moving.  At least she wasn’t going to die in the Honnorgat like a speared fish.

The farmstead, when they reached it, looked like what it was–a stout house with stone foundation and ground floor, logs above.  Clearly people had left in a hurry–a panic, it looked like, with a furl of cloth half unrolled dropped in the fore-yard, a broken dish on one of the steps, a hen-run with the gate open and one hen pecking at spilled grain.  The smokehouse trailed a thin coil of blue smoke against the sky and smelled of a winter’s worth of hams and sides of bacon, but the hog-pen gate was also open and the tracks showed where a sounder had been driven out.

The fire had passed near enough that an obvious lane led to it from the fire’s track, and the forest along the track had been thinned, the underbrush cleared.  “We think they’ll take the bait,” the ranger said.  “They’ll suspect an ambush, but with food and the possibility of making a safe camp for the night–”

Vardan nodded.  “They’ll be harder to hit if they’re under cover.”

“True–but it slows them down.  The king must be bringing troops down; if we slow them enough, cut down the size…”