Prophet of Moonshae - Douglas Niles [61]
Then silently a shower of arrows had fallen among them from the rim of the narrow chasm. A hundred missiles, or maybe more, sliced downward with random accuracy, slaying five of Brand's men and wounding a score more. The northmen caught only quick glimpses of the assailants, and Brandon's two dozen bowmen had barely gotten off one useless volley before the attackers faded back from the canyon's rim and vanished into the twisting maze of slopes, ridges, gorges, and peaks that made up the crest of the Fairheight Range.
Even as arrows still flew, the war chief of the northmen had sent parties of his men racing up the canyon in search of a route to the top. These men had not yet returned, as others of Brandon's warriors tended the wounded or kept lookout against the rock-edged wall above them. Three clerics, followers of Tempus the Foehammer, performed what healing magic they could, concentrating their powers upon those men who could be returned to battle-readiness with a minor spell.
"Prince Brandon! Up here!" a warrior called down from above. He had obviously discovered a route to the top. "The spoor of horses!"
"And this!" Another man came into sight beside the first. "One of them dropped a dagger as he fled. It bears the Royal Seal of Callidyrr!"
"Damned treachery!" spat Brandon, standing and pacing back and forth before his men. "We'll march with pickets on the heights to right and left."
He cursed himself for not thinking of this elementary precaution beforehand. Though the march would be grueling for those warriors elected to guard the flanks, it would prevent a similar ambush. Before this attack, however, he realized that he hadn't really believed the Ffolk intended to go to war with his people.
The dead were laid to rest in rock biers. On the return march, they would be carried to Gnarhelm for proper burial at sea. Two of the injured, leg-wounded and unable to march, remained behind to hobble as best they could back to the lowlands.
"Any Ffolk we see are to be treated as the enemy," Brandon announced, his grim voice underscoring the mood of his embittered warriors. "Now we march as warriors-warriors on the road to battle!"
No characteristic battle cheer erupted from his men at the prince's words. The campaign had begun in ignominy, and they would not voice their pride until the deaths of their comrades had been avenged.
Slowly now, the column resumed the climb up the long trail. For the men on the heights, the strain increased tenfold, since they had to work their way across rough terrain, often descending from one granite-topped crest merely to pass through a valley and ascend another. Nevertheless, they probed and explored, making certain that no further ambush could menace the column.
The sun drifted into the west, casting the trail in shadow by midafternoon, but the northmen marched grimly onward. Finally the steepness of the grade mitigated somewhat, and they came into a region of high, rolling meadows of heather, broken here and there by copses of cedars and pines.
Here Brandon's caution paid off as one of his scouts came loping back to the main column, having investigated a ridge just ahead.
"Four people coming," he reported. "Two men and two women. They're on horseback, and the men wear beards like the Ffolk. One of the women, the younger one, is a comely wench."
Brandon heard only the one word: "Ffolk." He digested the news and made his own decision. "Prepare an ambush. Slay the men and bring the women to me."
His men, war lust surging in their hearts, hastened to obey.
* * * * *
"All the gods curse this ill luck!" groaned Gwyeth, son of the Earl of Fairheight. He gritted his teeth against the pain as two of his men grasped the haft of the northman arrow that jutted from his shoulder. He couldn't avoid a brief gasp of pain as they pulled the missile free.
"Clumsy oafs! You wish to wound me further?" he demanded, struggling to clench his jaws against a