{"id":1400,"date":"2011-12-27T00:35:28","date_gmt":"2011-12-27T06:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1400"},"modified":"2011-12-27T00:35:28","modified_gmt":"2011-12-27T06:35:28","slug":"christmas-present-snippet-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1400","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Present Snippet #3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continuing the story of Sergeant Vardan and her patrol.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

The edge fires were also burning southward, pushed by the wind; when Vardan realized this, she knew they had only to wait a little to get into unburned forest.\u00a0 In the more normal firelight, she and the others cleaned their wet and muddy swords and daggers and warmed up as their clothes dried.\u00a0 Only five blackwood bows remained to them, the others having been dropped as people jumped into the ditch.\u00a0 Most of the arrows had survived and needed only to be wiped dry.\u00a0 Any clothing touching the water’s surface had burned; Vardan’s own winter cloak, like many others, looked like a ragged collar.\u00a0 Two of the corpses, found face-up, had whole cloaks, sodden with mud.<\/p>\n

“We’ll have to use those,” Vardan said.\u00a0 “Don’t know when we can resupply.”<\/p>\n

“But–”<\/p>\n

“And their weapons,” she said, in a tone that brooked no argument.\u00a0 “They will have all honor later, but for now we have a war to fight.”<\/p>\n

The muddy cloaks, rinsed as well as possible in the ditch, and wrung out, steamed by the fires.\u00a0 Vardan had their dead companions laid out as decently as they could, with prayers to Alyanya, Falk, and the taig.\u00a0 To Vardan’s amazement, the earth opened and gently took them in, closing over the bodies as tenderly as a mother folds a sick child in a blanket.\u00a0 Nearby stones tipped slowly over and sealed the grave.<\/p>\n

“The Pargunese will come,” Vardan said.\u00a0 “Either on that fire-path or through the woods.\u00a0 We’ll wait for them here.”<\/p>\n

Now–hungry, tired, and cold, but eased by the taig’s care for their dead, they crouched behind the bulwark of smoking debris, warmed by remaining coals, and waited for the Pargunese to come.<\/p>\n

Almost simultaneously, Vardan heard a distant rhythmic sound blown on the wind and someone nearer, in the woods.\u00a0 Vardan didn’t know who the nearer sound was.\u00a0 Pargunese scouts?\u00a0 The Pargunese were certainly war-wise enough to have forward and flanking scouts, Vardan knew.<\/p>\n

But whoever it was moved more quietly than she thought Pargunese would, never stumbling.\u00a0 Vardan touched Tarvol’s shoulder; she could just see Tarvol’s nod when he pointed to the sound.\u00a0 Tarvol nocked an arrow and Vardan stood up and spoke the password aloud.<\/p>\n

Silence, but for the wind and the distant sound of marching, a little closer now.\u00a0 Then the correct reply, and “Ranger–you?”<\/p>\n

“Halveric,” Vardan said.<\/p>\n

“Bless the Lady,” the ranger said.\u00a0 The ranger came within sight now, a shadow among shades.\u00a0 “How many of you?”<\/p>\n

“Three hands and one,” Vardan said.\u00a0 “The camp’s gone.”<\/p>\n

“More than that,” the ranger said.\u00a0 “Have you bows?”<\/p>\n

“Five,” Vardan said.\u00a0 “And plenty of arrows.”<\/p>\n

“Pargunese are coming,” the ranger said.\u00a0 “Many, some on foot and some with horses.”<\/p>\n

“I can hear,” Vardan said.<\/p>\n

“Rangers on both their flanks,” the ranger said.\u00a0 “We’ve picked off some already, but they have crossbowmen as well as pikes.”<\/p>\n

“Royal Archers?” Vardan asked.<\/p>\n

The ranger sniffed, a sniff eloquent of contempt.\u00a0 “Those next upstream say they were bade stay until ordered to go in case more Pargunese landed.\u00a0 Fifty of them–well, forty, because ten did come, to explain why the rest wouldn’t.”\u00a0 His voice warmed.\u00a0 “My pardon: I’m Veril.\u00a0 I was at the river; we could not prevent the landing.”<\/p>\n

“And I’m Vardan, a Halveric sergeant.”\u00a0 If the magical fire had struck Riverwash, she might be the only sergeant left for this cohort…if she could call sixteen a cohort.\u00a0 “We were coming back from a two day patrol–late, we kept getting stuck in the marsh–and almost to camp.”<\/p>\n

Now the Pargunese were close enough that Vardan could hear the sound of horses’ hooves as well as men’s feet.\u00a0 Her stomach tightened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continuing the story of Sergeant Vardan and her patrol.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[115],"tags":[28],"class_list":["post-1400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-snippet","tag-snippet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1401,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions\/1401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}