Tollard's Peak

2. Back In The Day

2

Back In The Day

Hinderbrook reined in his horse next to Raedrick and made a quick salute, his working uniform stained and dirty over top his mail and his cloak, torn in several places, billowing in the chill wind. The salute was not needed now - in truth, it never had been; Raedrick was no officer - but old habits die hard. Raedrick did not correct him; he just returned the salute.

“What news?”

Hinderbrook rested his hands on his saddle horn and leaned toward him, his normally cheerful eyes somber, troubled. “I think we’ve lost them. There’s been no sign since three days ago, and…”

“You can’t know that for certain. They could be just over the next ridge, lying in wait.” Tolburt piped up, interrupting the scout’s report, and no matter the breach in etiquette. What did such things matter now?

Hinderbrook snorted at the younger man’s statement - and Tolburt was young; only three months on the front with their unit, and before that he had enlisted at the earliest possible age - and cast a derisive eye his way. “Maybe when you get a little stubble on your chin, you’ll figure out how stupid that sounds. I’ve -“

Raedrick held up a hand and snapped, “Enough.”

Hinderbrook fell silent, and Tolburt shut his mouth before speaking the retort that had to have been building on his lips. Both men looked away from each other and focused on Raedrick. Everyone did. All around, the other half-dozen of what remained of Raedrick’s squad looked at him intently. Fear, shame, grim determination, but no hope, competed for dominance on their faces.

No hope.

Why should they have any hope? They had done the unthinkable: abandoned their posts, deserted their unit, and in the process killed several of their former comrades. And at least one officer. They could never go back; that would mean the gallows or worse. They could not go home; that would mean the same. Go over to the enemy? That did not even bear consideration. Even if they wouldn’t have been killed on sight, why would the enemy welcome them at all? They would certainly never trust them, or allow them to truly join their ranks.

So what could they do? Where could they go, now that they had cast their lot?

Already men had left Raedrick’s band. He had not tried to stop them. What right had he to dictate any man’s actions now, after what he had led them into? Frankly, he was amazed they all had not left. But men cling to what they know, and there was safety in numbers, especially for men such as they.

He drew a deep breath. “Peace, Tolburt. Let Hinderbrook finish his report.”

Hinderbrook nodded quickly, then resumed, Tolburt apparently forgotten. For now. But Raedrick had no doubt Hinderbrook would rib the younger man mercilessly later on. It was all in good fun, of course.

Fun. There was another thing that once had been easy to find, but now seemed lost for all time.

“As I said, no sign. Could be they’ve called off the hunt.”

“Small chance of that,” said Kilfer, from Raedrick’s right.

Raedrick shot Kilfer a hard look, and the sandy-haired man flashed an apologetic grin. He was right, though. The Army generally did not make it a policy to actively hunt deserters; they tended to show up sooner or later when they got in trouble again - those kinds of men always do - and then they could be taken into custody again easily.

Those kinds of men. His kind of men now.

Raedrick put that thought out of his head, focusing on the immediate problem. It was true that no pursuit was generally conducted, but never before had an entire unit deserted. Raedrick supposed that earned him - and his men - a bit more notoriety and thus more direct attention than the usual discontented riffraff or cowards who generally made up the ranks of deserters.

What he had done, he had done for a reason. A good reason.

It almost helped, telling himself that.

“How far back did you go?” Raedrick asked, turning his attention back to Hinderbrook.

Hinderbrook shrugged. “About a half-day’s ride.”

Raedrick frowned, considering.

“Maybe he’s right.” Shermyn murmured.

“Could be,” Raedrick replied. He turned to Laremy. “Get the map.”

Laremy nodded and opened his saddlebag. He rifled around in there for a few seconds, then pulled out a rolled up piece of parchment, which he brought over to Raedrick and unrolled onto a moderate-sized rock that protruded from the ground.

Raedrick squatted down, frowning at the map. It was no great piece of cartography; a squad leader does not rate those. Hand drawn, copied from the real maps kept by the general’s staff, it only showed the major features of the area immediately around the current area of operations. In this case, it extended only as far east as Ysoldor, the Kingdom’s western-most outpost, though it could hardly be said to reside within the Kingdom’s borders at all. The next city worthy of the title that the Kingdom claimed, and that the Kingdom truly held dominion over, lay a good two months’ ride further east.

The rest of the map’s features were less familiar. The great sea to the south, the mountains to the north, and the enemy’s strongholds and cities to the west and northeast. There were many places they could go, and a few that may offer the promise of refuge; they might be able to hire on to a ship at one of the ports along the sea and sail to some distant land where no one would know or care about what they had done.

All the same, Raedrick’s eyes kept drifting back to Ysoldor and beyond, to the east. Toward home.

But going that direction was madness.

“I think you’re right, Kilfer,” Raedrick said, earning a quirked eyebrow in response. He managed a wry grin. “The ships are our best bet.” He traced a line from the little X where Larmey had marked his best approximation of their current position to the nearest port city, a place called Qoramyr. “We ought to be able to make it in a week or less, if we ride hard.”

Kilfer smiled, the first genuine smile Raedrick had seen on his face in more days than he wanted to count.

“Thought you’d never see the light.”

Raedrick shrugged. “I wanted to be sure before…” He left the rest of the thought go unstated.

All around, his men nodded slowly, their faces solemn. Only Kilfer seemed to relish the notion of taking the ships. For the rest, taking that route would be as it was for Raedrick: a trip with no return, their homes forever lost to them. As long as they remained on the mainland, there was at least the slight hope that perhaps they could return someday. But if they left…

Raedrick sighed and stood from his crouch, pulling his vest down over his hips better. No sense dwelling on what could not be. They needed to get going if they had any hope of getting there without being caught.

“Saddle up,”

His men dispersed to their mounts. Within five minutes, they were gone, leaving no trace behind except tracks in the turf.

As they rode away, Raedrick looked back at the little hillock that had been his, and his men’s, home for the last several days. Professional pride over his people’s ability to remove all sign of their presence fell beneath a deep and abiding sadness. Would they ever again have a place to call home, where they could actually set down roots?

In the lands beyond the sea. If there was any hope at all, it lay there.

He straightened in his saddle and faced forward, then spurred his horse to greater speed, not daring to allow himself to believe in that hope, beckoning like a will o’ the wisp in the dark.

Ten minutes later, even that tiny shred of hope withered and died.

Raedrick and his men rounded a fair-sized hill - they road around its base instead of riding over it, to avoid standing out to any spying eyes - and found themselves face to face with a platoon of the Kingdom’s Elite Guards.

Fifty soldiers in mail and plate, their armor gleaming in the afternoon sunlight, their banners whipping gently in the breeze, sat mounted in a semicircle blocking the path ahead and avenues of escape to the sides.

Raedrick reined in, his heart in his throat, before the gruff voice of the Guards’ commander could order it. This the worst of all possible things that could have happened. The Guards, lying in wait for them. How?

He jerked on his reins, to turn his horse and gallop back the way they came, but no sooner did he get the animal’s head around than he saw a second platoon fanning out behind them, cutting off any retreat.

Laremy drew his sword. “We can cut through.” He voice trembled slightly, the only hint of nervousness in his demeanor; coming from him, that indicated absolute terror.

Raedrick reached for his saber. It was hopeless, but better to go out fighting, as a free man, than to await the end in the prison at Divisional Headquarters.

Cold steel, honed to a razor’s edge, came to rest upon his throat, stopping him. Raedrick turned his head, ever so slowly, to see his attacker, and all hope, all will to fight or even try any more, left him.

Tolburt swallowed, beads of sweat forming on his brow quickly, despite the afternoon’s relative coolness. What he did terrified the young man, but he did not lower the blade, nor did it tremble at all in his hand.

“I’m sorry, Corporal,” Tolburt said.

And then the Guards moved in.