{"id":1410,"date":"2011-12-31T00:19:46","date_gmt":"2011-12-31T06:19:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1410"},"modified":"2011-12-31T00:19:46","modified_gmt":"2011-12-31T06:19:46","slug":"christmas-present-snippet-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1410","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Present: Snippet #7"},"content":{"rendered":"

Episode 7 of Sergeant Vardan and her patrol during the Pargunese invasion.<\/em>\ufeff<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

By dawn they had reached the fire’s track, now dusted white with snow over the ash and showing no sign of travelers.\u00a0 The snow-capped body of a dead horse, and other lumps that might be corpses lay here and there.\u00a0 But even as Vardan wondered how far ahead the Pargunese were, a ranger stood up from a tangle of half-burnt branches and roots.<\/p>\n

“You’ve come back,” he said to Vardan.\u00a0 “We thought perhaps you’d gone straight to Chaya.”<\/p>\n

“I didn’t know the way,” Vardan said.<\/p>\n

“They’re moving slowly,” the ranger said, heading south along the fire track as if he knew they would follow.\u00a0 “We’re able to do that much, and we’ve killed a fair number, though we can’t stop them…I thought you had only three hands of troops.”<\/p>\n

“Found more,” Vardan said.\u00a0 “So–we can catch them?”<\/p>\n

“Oh, yes.\u00a0 And it’s safe to walk out here–smoother–until we’re closer to them.\u00a0 All we have to worry about is their horses, and that not much.\u00a0 How many bows have you?”<\/p>\n

“Five hands of longbows,” Vardan said. “Trained to volley fire, battlefield style.”\u00a0 She looked aside at the forest walls.\u00a0 “Any chance they’ll set an ambush?”<\/p>\n

“We keep them too busy,” the ranger said.\u00a0 He gestured to the mounds under the snow.\u00a0 “We haven’t counted, but they’re not as big as they were.”<\/p>\n

“We took two tensquads, back there,” Vardan said.\u00a0 “Half pikes, half crossbows.\u00a0 We left the pikes at your camp, but you see that some of our troops have crossbows now.”<\/p>\n

“Slow,” the ranger said.\u00a0 “But a good range, I’ll grant.”<\/p>\n

To the side, in the woods, someone moved; Vardan caught the movement from the corner of her eye; the ranger stopped and lifted a hand.<\/p>\n

“They’re not far ahead,” he said.\u00a0 “Will you join us on the flank or try to attack their rear?\u00a0 Half the horses are there.”<\/p>\n

Vardan looked around.\u00a0 On the open track, horses could move faster on the ash and snow than her troops…and yet an unexpected volley… “Do they have a rear guard?\u00a0 Alert, I mean?”<\/p>\n

“Yes, but they’re tired.\u00a0 And hungry, I think.\u00a0 We haven’t let them sleep easy.”<\/p>\n

“Two days ago they returned volley for volley–do they still?”<\/p>\n

“We don’t shoot by volley…we pick them off one at a time.\u00a0 But they seem to be conserving their bolts now.”<\/p>\n

Vardan sent the wounded off to the woods, and directed the rest to advance in file up either side of the track.\u00a0 Ahead, the track lifted gently over a rise; the enemy, the ranger reported, was just the other side.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Episode 7 of Sergeant Vardan and her patrol during the Pargunese invasion.\ufeff<\/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-1410","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\/1410"}],"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=1410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1411,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1410\/revisions\/1411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}