Behind him, the bloodlusting cries of the moredhel echoed in the clearing and the forest.
The hunt was on.
ASAYAGA GASPED FOR BREATH.
‘Keep moving, keep moving, keep moving …’
The words were a chant, a prayer, blanking out his own agony.
One of his men was down, collapsed in the middle of the slushy trail. He slowed. Strike Leader Tasemu was standing over the man, struggling to pull him up.
‘Keep moving,’ Asayaga snapped, slapping the fallen warrior across the shoulder blades with the flat of his sword.
The warrior looked up. It was Sugama.
‘Damn you. You are an officer!’ Asayaga hissed at him so the men wouldn’t overhear. ‘Act like one. You were suppose to run lead with the scouts!’ As much as he despised the Tondora dog, he would not undermine his authority in front of the men. Not for the first time, Asayaga cursed this war in which officers not of his own house were sent to serve with his men.
Sugama staggered to his feet and lurched forward. Tasemu gazed at Asayaga and shook his head. Asayaga said nothing.
He looked back over his shoulder. His command was strung out on the trail behind them. Those who were not totally preoccupied with their own pain had seen the exchange, the humiliation of an officer from one House by another. They would of course say nothing, for the behaviour of their Force Commander made it clear it was to be ignored. Yet, they would think on it, and some might mention it quietly while on guard duty or around a cook-fire to those who had not witnessed it, and many of his men would dwell on one thing: that one whom they were expected to obey without question was obviously a flawed man, one who had been sent to the front for reasons having nothing to do with his competence as a soldier. He was either a man acting as a spy for the Minwanabi, an incompetent someone higher up in his clan wished to see conveniently dead, or both. That would give the men pause at critical moments, and Asayaga knew other men might die as a result.
If only there had been one more Kodeko officer left alive. Only one other Kodeko son remained on the homeworld, and should Asayaga be slain, the mantle of leadership would fall to his younger brother Tacumbe, but the last son of the House would never be sent here. Again he silently cursed a cruel destiny that left his house with no other competent officers at hand, and Minwanabi machinations that placed this fool at his right hand. If they survived this nightmare, he would name Tasemu his Force Leader, even though the man’s talents were better suited for his present role. He would return Sugama to his own family and let him deal with his shame. Fatalistically, Asayaga allowed himself the thought he couldn’t be more of an enemy to the House of Tondora than he already was. They can only kill me once, he thought as he again looked to see where his men were.
Motioning Sugama ahead he pressed on up the trail. Watching the back of the man as he hurried ahead, Asayaga wondered whether, if he fell, Tasemu would take commands from Sugama. Another very good reason not to get killed any time soon, he thought dryly.
The storm abated slightly as the day passed. As they turned a bend in the trail he could see a notch in the ridgeline ahead, the crests of the mountains to either side of the pass were concealed by the low grey clouds of the storm.
He paused for a moment, staring up the trail. He had never been this far north, for the ridgeline had always been a backdrop to his war, a distant mystery.
Hakaxa, his lead scout, was down on his knees, gasping for air, with Sugama bent double beside him. Hakaxa looked up as Asayaga approached.
‘Crest of trail just ahead.’
Tasemu grunted. ‘The crest. At the pass, they’ll have something there.’
Asayaga nodded. He looked back again. His men were staggering forward, pressing stoically up the steep incline.
‘Five minute rest here,’ Asayaga announced. ‘I’ll scout ahead.’
Tasemu cocked his head slightly, gazing at him with his one good eye. ‘No. Sugama with me.’
Tasemu gave him a bit of a hopeful gaze but Asayaga ignored it. No, there would be no knife in the back.
‘Sugama,’ Asayaga said quietly, and continued on. He could hear the ragged gasps for breath as Sugama struggled to stay up.
The storm was blowing straight into their faces from the north, and he could hear the moaning of the wind as it whistled through stunted trees in the pass just ahead.
He held his hand out, motioning for Sugama to stop, looked back and touched his nose, then flared his nostrils. Sugama stopped, looked at him curiously, and finally realized what Asayaga was signifying. He sniffed the air. His eyes grew wide.
Good, let him learn that he must use-all senses out here.
Asayaga drifted to the side of the trail and moved forward cautiously. The trail turned and his heart froze. Sugama slipped up to his side and a sigh of anguish escaped him.
Asayaga found himself staring intently at a stockade wall. The pass over the top of the mountains went through a notch, the walls of the pass sloping up nearly vertically for a hundred or more feet to either side. The passage was barricaded by a stone wall a dozen feet high, with a crude wooden gate in the centre. Beyond the wall he saw the roof of what must be a garrison house. He sighed inwardly at the thought of the comfort that must lie within.
He saw no one, but the smoke gave it all away. This far north the garrison had to be moredhel.
‘Can we go around it?’ Sugama asked, whispering.
Asayaga shook his head. ‘Not enough time. We don’t know how close the pursuit is – those Kingdom soldiers may have bought us time, but we don’t know how much. If we try to crawl our way over the mountain to either side, and the moredhel are still chasing us, we’ll be destroyed. They’ll go through the pass ahead, cut us off …’
‘But if we attack and those behind us, Kingdom or moredhel, come up, we’re doomed.’
Asayaga forced a grin. ‘We take it quickly and hold it. Then let the bastards from the Kingdom sit on the outside while the Dark Brothers come up and finish them. With forty good men I could hold it against three to four hundred. ‘And besides,’ he added, ‘it’s warm in there. We need rest, hot food, and a place to dry out.’
His words trailed off as he caught a glimpse of movement. A sentry, cloak pulled up over his head, peered over the top of the wall for a moment. Asayaga sensed that the sentry was looking straight at him, he froze. Long seconds passed and the head disappeared.
Asayaga crept back from the tree and started down the trail, Sugama following.
‘What you did back there, striking me,’ Sugama hissed, trying to force the words out through ragged gasps for breath.
Asayaga slowed, fixing him with his gaze. ‘If you are demanding a duel there’s no damn time now. No time for Tsurani honour, no time even for the Great Game, you Minwanabi lapdog. There is time only for survival. If we die, I can’t return home to see my younger brother grown, and you can’t serve your masters. Dead, neither of us serves. Do you understand?’
Sugama’s anger slowly subsided, and he looked around. Asayaga could almost see the comprehension dawning on the man as to just how alien this world was, how