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Huddled back under the partial shelter of the huge maple, the nearly two dozen men pulled cloaks tight against the chill and settled in to wait. Everywhere in the hushed forest, boughs of pine and spruce hung heavy and wet, quietly dripping water to the sodden ground. Here and there the drooping branches of maple, oak, and elm lifted whenever a breath of breeze relieved them of their heavy load of water, making it appear as if the trees were gently waving. The humid air dampened what the drizzle didn’t reach, making everyone miserable.
Beyond the standing water, Richard crouched again, studying the ground. Nicci couldn’t imagine what he was looking for.
None of the men waiting back under the tree appeared at all interested in revisiting the site of the pitched battle or seeing the dead. They were content to wait back where they were. Killing was unnatural and difficult for these men. They fought for what was right and they did what they had to do, but they didn’t relish it. That in itself spoke to their values. They had buried three of their own dead, but they had not buried the bodies of close to a hundred soldiers who would have eagerly killed them had Richard not intervened.
Nicci remembered her surprise, the morning of the battle, coming upon Richard among all the dead and not at first understanding what had felled so many of them. Then she’d seen Richard slipping among those brutes, his sword moving with the fluid grace of a dance. It had been spellbinding to watch. With every thrust or slice, a man died. There had been a thick swarm of the soldiers—many bewildered by seeing so many of their fellows crashing to the ground. Most had been burly young men who always dominated because of their muscle—the type who enjoyed intimidating people. The soldiers moved in jerks and fits, chopping and lurching at Richard, but they always seemed to strike just after he had already gone. His flowing movement didn’t fit the blundering attack they were looking for. They began to fear that the spirits themselves had set upon them. In a way, perhaps they had.
Still, their numbers were too great for one man, even if that one man was Richard and he wielded the Sword of Truth. Just one of those ignorant, lumbering, brawny men connecting with a lucky swing of his axe would be all it took. Or one arrow finding its mark. Richard was neither invincible nor immortal.
Victor and the rest of his men had arrived just in time—a few moments before Nicci, too, made it to the scene. Victor’s men had flown into the fray, drawing the attention away from Richard. Once Nicci arrived, she had ended it in a blinding flash as she unleashed her power against the soldiers still standing.
Fearful of being exposed not only to the impending storm but, far more troubling, to potentially untold numbers of enemy soldiers who could appear on the scene at any moment, Nicci had instructed the men to carry Richard back through the woods to the secluded farmhouse. The most she had been able to do for him on that terrible race to cover had been to trickle a thread of her Han into him, hoping it would help keep him alive until she was able to do more. Nicci swallowed back the anguish of the ghastly memory.
From a distance, she watched as Richard continued his meticulous inspection of the scene of the battle, ignoring the fallen soldiers, for the most part, and paying particular attention to the surrounding area. She couldn’t imagine what he hoped to discover. As he searched, he had begun moving in a back-and-forth pattern, progressing steadily outward from the small clearing, circling the scene in ever-widening arcs. At times he inched along the ground on all fours.
By late in the morning Richard had vanished into the woods.
Victor finally tired of the silent vigil and marched through a bed of ferns nodding under the gentle fall of rain to where Nicci waited.
“What’s going on?” he asked her in a low voice.
“He’s looking for something.”
“I can see that. I mean what’s going on with this business about a wife?”
Nicci let out a tired sigh. “I don’t know.”
“But you have an idea.”
Nicci spotted Richard, briefly, moving among the trees some distance away. “He was seriously wounded. People in that state sometimes suffer delirium.”
“But he’s healed, now. He doesn’t look or act feverish. He sounds normal enough in everything else, not like a person suffering visions and such. I’ve never seen Richard behave like this.”
“Nor have I,” Nicci admitted. She knew that Victor would never voice to her such concerns about Richard unless he was deeply worried. “I would suggest we try to be as understanding as possible of what he’s gone through and see if he doesn’t soon start to get his thoughts sorted out. He was unconscious for days. He’s only been awake for a few hours. Let’s give him some time to clear his head.”
Victor considered her words before finally sighing and giving his nod of agreement. She was relieved that he didn’t ask what they would do if Richard didn’t soon get over his delirium.
She saw Richard, then, returning through the shadows and drizzle. Nicci and Victor crossed the field of battle to meet him. On the surface his face seemed to show only stony intensity, but, as well as she knew him, Nicci could read in his expression that something was seriously wrong.
Richard brushed leaves, moss, and twigs from the knees of his trousers as he finally reached them. “Victor, these soldiers weren’t coming to take back Altur’Rang.”
Victor’s eyebrows went up. “They weren’t?”
“No. They would need thousands of men for such a task—maybe tens of thousands. This many soldiers certainly weren’t going to accomplish any such thing. And besides, if that was their intent, then what would be the point to slogging through the bush this far away from Altur’Rang?”
Victor made a sour face in admission that it had to be that Richard was right. “Then what do you think they were doing?”
“It wasn’t yet dawn when they were out here moving through the woods. That suggests to me that they might have been reconnoitering.” Richard gestured off through the woods. “There’s a road in that direction. We’d been using it to travel up from the south. I had thought we would be camped far enough off it for the night to avoid trouble. Obviously, I was wrong.”
“We last heard that you were to the south,” Victor said. “The road makes for quicker traveling, so we were using the trails to cut cross-country so we could catch the road and take it south.”
“It’s an important road,” Nicci added. “It’s one of the main arteries—one of the first—that Jagang built. It allowed him to move soldiers swiftly. The roads he built enabled him to subdue all of the Old World under the rule of the Imperial Order.”
Richard gazed off in the direction of the road, almost as if he could see through the wall of trees and vines. “Such a well-made road also allows him to move supplies. I think that’s what was happening here. Being this close to Altur’Rang, and being well aware of the revolt that had taken place there, they were probably concerned about the possibility of an attack as they passed through the area. Since these soldiers weren’t massing for an attack on Altur’Rang, I’d guess they had something more important going on: watching over supplies moving north for Jagang’s army. He needs to crush the last of the resistance in the New World before the revolution at home burns his tail.”
Richard’s gaze returned to Victor. “I think these soldiers were reconnoitering—clearing the countryside in advance of a supply convoy. They were most likely scouting in the predawn in the hopes of catching any insurgents asleep.”
“As we were.” Victor folded his muscular arms in obvious discontent. “We never expected there would be any soldiers out here in these woods. We were sleeping like babies. If you hadn’t been here and intercepted them, they would have soon snuck up on us where we slept. Then we’d likely be the ones feeding the flies and ravens, instead of them.”
Everyone fell silent as they considered the might-have-been.
“Have you been hearing any news of supplies moving north?” Richard asked.
“Sure,” Victor said. “There’s a lot of talk about large qua
ntities of goods going north. Some convoys are accompanied by new troops being sent to the war. What you say about these men scouting for such a convoy makes sense.”
Richard squatted down and pointed. “See these tracks? These are a little more recent than the battle. It was a large contingent—most likely more soldiers who came looking for these dead men. This was as far as they came. These side ridges in the prints show where they turned around, here. It looks like they came in, spotted the dead soldiers, and left. You can see by their tracks as they left that they were in a hurry.”
Richard stood and rested his left hand on the pommel of his sword. “Had you not taken me away right after the battle, these soldiers would have been on us. Fortunately they went back rather than search the woods.”
“Why do you suppose that they would do that?” Victor asked. “Why would they see these men freshly killed and then leave?”
