Paksworld

Episode 4 of Sergeant Vardan and her patrol during the Pargunese invasion.

“Other rangers will be here soon,” Veril said.  “I am our forward scout, but I will stay until someone else comes.”

“Who commands?” Vardan said.

“No one, really.  We rangers act independently.  I would suggest moving with the others.  How many days’ supplies have you?”

“None,” Vardan said.  “We were coming in to resupply when the fire hit.”

“Then you must ask the other rangers.  We have caches here and there, but I have no time to show you.”

A soft owl call wavered through the trees.  “I’ll tell them you’re here,” Veril said, and gave a similar call, but with more modulation.  Then he said, “I must go–I must stay ahead of them and give warning.  Gods be with you.”

In a short time, two more rangers moved up to contact Vardan’s group.  They had no more information about the general situation than Veril.  Down the firepath torches appeared, their flames streaming in the wind, and a dark moving mass under them.  She forgot hunger, exhaustion, cold, at the sight of the enemy.  They had set that fire–killed friends–destroyed everything she owned in the world but the Halveric oath-ring on her thumb–and she wanted to rush out and kill–but knew better.  She must think…must stay back, with her people, and only harass them.

Vardan herself was not one of the best archers in the group; she gave her own bow to Malden, who was.  In the dark, by the light of distant torches, it was difficult to judge range or windage, but she heard the squeal of a horse before the Pargunese were fully abreast–a ranger back down the line of march had hit one.  Then her four archers stood and fired as a volley into the flank of the Pargunese, and dashed back into the deeper woods just in time; the Pargunese crossbowmen must have had their bows spanned, for a clattering of bolts high in the branches suggested they’d fired high: the lethal dropping fire Vardan had seen in Aarenis as well.

A Pargunese yelled angrily; the formation marched on, and the rangers moved with it.  One asked “Do you need food?”

“Yes–we lost supplies and all.”

“Noldin, take them to the Twostone cache,” the ranger said, and another tapped Vardan on the arm.

“Follow me,” he said.  “Single file.”

By dawn, they were deep in the forest, at a small three-sided shelter with a firepit in front and sleeping platforms to either side. In the back wall, between piles of dry firewood, a door led into a storeroom.  In that early light, Noldin appeared as a dark-haired woman of medium height, dressed in the usual russet and green.  Vardan looked at the little campsite.

“Jacks there, sunsetting,” Noldin said, pointing.  “Between the rocks.  Good water summerwards–spring doesn’t freeze; bucket’s in the shelter.”

Vardan nodded at Tarvol, who fetched a bucket and started off.  As the dawnlight strengthened, she looked at her troops…streaked with mud and ash from head to foot, the older veterans with almost no expression, and the younger ones, some of whom had never fought in Aarenis, showing white around the eyes.

“May we build a fire?” she asked.  A fire’s smoke might betray them to Pargunese, but they needed hot food and cleaning up would be good as well.

“Yes,” Noldin said.  “They’re well past by now.”  She looked around at them all.  “What–how did you live through the fire?”

“Ditch,” Vardan said.  She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again.  Here, among the healthy forest, the air smelled of cold wet forest only.  “When we made the camp, the captain worried about rising water so close to the marshes here to the east.  So he said dig out a little drainage channel summerwards of the camp, to keep us from being cut off on that side.  We spent part of the summer and fall on it, dug it out and piled the dirt up for a causeway, and then built a bridge over it.  Sure enough, it drained more water, and after the fall rains, had water near chest-deep in it.  When we saw the fire coming, we jumped in.”

“The water saved you?”

“Yes.  Most of us.”  Vardan hoped she would ask no more questions.