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Authors: David Drake, Tony Daniel
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Why would someone do such a thing?
I’d say they’re quite as bloodthirsty as their reputation makes them out to be, Raj said. But where they decide to drink that blood is another matter, isn’t it? Maybe the goods are an effort to persuade the Blaskoye to take their muskets and bows elsewhere. Somewhere like Treville District, where the protection geld doesn’t flow like honey.
As if to confirm Raj’s suspicion, Kruso nodded and muttered, “Dortgeld,” the Scoutish word for ill-gotten gains.
Because they were the two best pairs of eyes in the squad, Kruso and Abel had been put on lookout. The entire squad was on a rise in the desert. It was a rocky area, bare of Redlands vegetation. They’d left their dont mounts in the brush below. Near the highest point on the rise was an uptilted stone of darker basalt that Kruso and Abel had scrambled up to get the best view. It was from here they called down their report.
The trade route cut through the center of the rise north and south. The forbidding brush of the desert surrounded the rise in a thorny, dense thicket, whereas the bare hilltop with the path running along it provided a quarter league of prickle-free travel.
When they’d first arrived at the place, Captain Sharplett had remarked in Landish that it was “not the best place I’ve ever seen for an ambush, but it’ll do.” Sharplett, unlike Kruso, came from a better-off family from the lower Delta and, although he understood Scoutish well enough, spoke Landish with only a trace of downriver accent. But however educated and skillful he might be, he was still a Delta man. He was considered a lesser breed by the military Regulars, who were almost entirely upriver men—and, Abel had to admit, it was hard not to think of the squad commander as a bit of a marshland barbarian.
Abel and Kruso climbed down from the lookout. Sharplett had already sent the main body of six Scouts down the western side of the rise and into the brush. There the hardy, desert-bred donts were grazing on the thorny vegetation.
“Kruso, I want you and Himmel on the east in them bushes. Looks like there’s a couple of piss trails cut into the thicket over there that go a ways back. Use them for your retreat.”
The Redlanders, though they lived in a land with no trees and only limited concealment, were fanatics about not being seen when defecating or urinating. They had been the ones who had cut those offshoot trails. Abel reflected that this was one more fact about the enemy that you picked up from being around Scouts that you would never find out in the Regulars.
“You two’ll hit first, one shot, draw their fire and pull ’em east. When they hit the bushes, fire a second round—Himmel with your gun, and Kruso, use your bow. That’ll be our signal. We’ll ride out, hit ’em hard from the west.”
Kruso nodded and Himmel answered with a smart “Yes, sir.”
“And one more thing,” Sharplett added. “After that second round, you get lost in that brush, hear me? They’ll be madder than a carnadon mam with a raided nest, and they’ll be after you. Himmel, you reload and cover. And Kruso…”
“Captain?”
“Make use of that bow of yours after we turn ’em around.”
Kruso smiled a crooked smile. “Yes, sir. That I will.”
Kruso’s composite bow was a thing of beauty to Abel. He carried it over his back, left to right, with the bowstring securing it in front. The outside was carved from the thick, pliable river pufferwood that grew only in the Delta, and Kruso had told Abel he’d picked out the tree himself on an expedition. The wood was laminated by special glue made from the tuskhorn of a gigantic ocean-going creature called a grendel that Abel had never seen, but only heard about.
Kruso reached down to the quiver suspended from his belt and ran a finger along the fletching of one of his brace of arrows. Some were white fletched, some black. The feathers of the white arrows were notched once for tactile
I’d say they’re quite as bloodthirsty as their reputation makes them out to be, Raj said. But where they decide to drink that blood is another matter, isn’t it? Maybe the goods are an effort to persuade the Blaskoye to take their muskets and bows elsewhere. Somewhere like Treville District, where the protection geld doesn’t flow like honey.
As if to confirm Raj’s suspicion, Kruso nodded and muttered, “Dortgeld,” the Scoutish word for ill-gotten gains.
Because they were the two best pairs of eyes in the squad, Kruso and Abel had been put on lookout. The entire squad was on a rise in the desert. It was a rocky area, bare of Redlands vegetation. They’d left their dont mounts in the brush below. Near the highest point on the rise was an uptilted stone of darker basalt that Kruso and Abel had scrambled up to get the best view. It was from here they called down their report.
The trade route cut through the center of the rise north and south. The forbidding brush of the desert surrounded the rise in a thorny, dense thicket, whereas the bare hilltop with the path running along it provided a quarter league of prickle-free travel.
When they’d first arrived at the place, Captain Sharplett had remarked in Landish that it was “not the best place I’ve ever seen for an ambush, but it’ll do.” Sharplett, unlike Kruso, came from a better-off family from the lower Delta and, although he understood Scoutish well enough, spoke Landish with only a trace of downriver accent. But however educated and skillful he might be, he was still a Delta man. He was considered a lesser breed by the military Regulars, who were almost entirely upriver men—and, Abel had to admit, it was hard not to think of the squad commander as a bit of a marshland barbarian.
Abel and Kruso climbed down from the lookout. Sharplett had already sent the main body of six Scouts down the western side of the rise and into the brush. There the hardy, desert-bred donts were grazing on the thorny vegetation.
“Kruso, I want you and Himmel on the east in them bushes. Looks like there’s a couple of piss trails cut into the thicket over there that go a ways back. Use them for your retreat.”
The Redlanders, though they lived in a land with no trees and only limited concealment, were fanatics about not being seen when defecating or urinating. They had been the ones who had cut those offshoot trails. Abel reflected that this was one more fact about the enemy that you picked up from being around Scouts that you would never find out in the Regulars.
“You two’ll hit first, one shot, draw their fire and pull ’em east. When they hit the bushes, fire a second round—Himmel with your gun, and Kruso, use your bow. That’ll be our signal. We’ll ride out, hit ’em hard from the west.”
Kruso nodded and Himmel answered with a smart “Yes, sir.”
“And one more thing,” Sharplett added. “After that second round, you get lost in that brush, hear me? They’ll be madder than a carnadon mam with a raided nest, and they’ll be after you. Himmel, you reload and cover. And Kruso…”
“Captain?”
“Make use of that bow of yours after we turn ’em around.”
Kruso smiled a crooked smile. “Yes, sir. That I will.”
Kruso’s composite bow was a thing of beauty to Abel. He carried it over his back, left to right, with the bowstring securing it in front. The outside was carved from the thick, pliable river pufferwood that grew only in the Delta, and Kruso had told Abel he’d picked out the tree himself on an expedition. The wood was laminated by special glue made from the tuskhorn of a gigantic ocean-going creature called a grendel that Abel had never seen, but only heard about.
Kruso reached down to the quiver suspended from his belt and ran a finger along the fletching of one of his brace of arrows. Some were white fletched, some black. The feathers of the white arrows were notched once for tactile
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