shelter we can but we stay alert. That is what I suggest.’
Dennis sighed and slowly extended his hands in a gesture of submission. ‘So be it then if that is what all of you wish.’
Murmurs of agreement and relief swept through the ranks and the group broke apart, slowly streaming up the hill and into the forest. Dennis insisted on pushing them another half a mile until he found ground to his liking, a steep overhanging cliff that blocked the north wind which was ringed with ancient firs.
His men knew their assignments: a half dozen of the best stalkers and archers set out to hunt for game, another half dozen were detailed to spread out and stand watch while the others hurriedly started to gather in wood for fires.
Asayaga approached Dennis, vainly struggling to control the shivering of his muscles and the chattering of his teeth that had troubled him ever since the river crossing.
‘My men …’ he hesitated, “… we will trade our labour for the food your hunters bring in.’
Dennis looked over at the Tsurani and for the briefest of moments almost felt pity, the way one would pity a wolf that had fallen out of the pack and was near death. Their agony was evident, half a dozen were being held up by their comrades, several obviously had frost-bitten cheeks, noses, and fingers.
Tinuva said I’d need these men, Dennis thought. Hell, I could kill off half of them myself at this moment … and he pushed aside the temptation.
‘Go a little way back down the hill to the small pine trees, cut off the branches that are thick with needles. We’ll use that for ground cover and to build up windbreaks. Any men with axes, get them chopping wood, lots of it.’
Asayaga nodded, too weary to raise any objections, and withdrew. A moment later, his men scattered to their tasks.
The overhang of the cliff formed a shallow V, but it was nowhere big enough to hold over a hundred and twenty men. Dennis went over to join a squad of men who were dragging up fallen logs to be wedged between the rocks edging the overhang and the trees further out, thus forming a rough stockade.
Within minutes fires had been started, the stockade walls on either side of the overhang were rising. Tsurani troops swarmed in bearing armloads of pine branches which were layered over the logs on the inside, while on the outside those men carrying field shovels packed snow into the cracks. More branches were laid in under the rocky overhang and those men too far gone to labour were bundled in, while Brother Corwin piled snow into a camp kettle and set it into the fire, and then threw in a handful of tea leaves once the water started to boil.
The first hunter came back in with a small doe over his shoulder and several men set to butchering it, everything but the offal going into the fire. Corwin claimed the liver and heart for the sick and wounded. Another hunter came in with a couple of hares, and yet another with a heavy dark-plumed bird that weighed near to twenty pounds. The Tsurani gazed at in wonder, since it did not range down into the lands where the war was being fought.
Soon the tantalizing smell of roasting meat cooked over a sweet-scented fire filled the air, driving the men to pause in their frantic labours and move closer to the flames until either Sergeant Barry or Strike Leader Tasemu set the men back to bringing in more wood.
A near-frenzy started to seize the group as more and yet more wood was piled on to the three fires that now roared at the base of the cliff. Dennis, finished with helping to build the rough stockade which was now nearly chest-high, stopped to look at the sparks swirling up into the evening sky.
Gregory, breathing hard, came into the encampment and joined him.
‘A damned beacon,’ Dennis sighed. ‘A blind man will see its glow from five miles out and smell it a mile away.’
‘Let it burn like this for a little while, till the men get the chill out. By then it will be completely dark, then let it simmer down a bit.’
‘Anything up above?’
‘Just the old trail. It’s been long years since I’ve been up here, it’s hard to remember.’
‘Tinuva knows it, though.’
Gregory nodded.
‘Something’s really itching him,’ Dennis said.
‘You know who’s following us don’t you?’
‘A whole moredhel army.’
‘It’s Bovai.’
Dennis looked away for a moment. He didn’t want Gregory to sense the dread. Now he understood some of the strangeness in the way Tinuva had been acting, a feeling he had had that somehow the elven warrior was half-walking in another world.
‘If it’s Bovai and he knows who we are,’ Dennis hissed, ‘he’ll come on no matter what, even if he kills half his troops doing it.’
‘I know that, so do you.’
‘So why the hell did Tinuva sway the argument for us to stay here? He knows how much Bovai hates my family; my grandfather almost killed him, and my father drove him away in shame the last time he came to Valinar.’
For an instant, something played across Gregory’s face, as if he was going to say one thing, but then he said another. ‘Because we are played out, Dennis. Tinuva was right, it is your one great failing as a commander: you seem to think everyone else is made as you, is as driven as you.’
‘That is how I learned to stay alive,’ Dennis snapped.
‘Damn near every Tsurani would be dead by morning if we had pushed on.’
‘Good. It would save us the work of butchering them.’
‘I’m glad you feel that way, Hartraft.’
Startled, Dennis turned to see that Asayaga was standing behind him. ‘I prefer to kill a foe whom I know hates me,’ Asayaga continued, moving up to join them.
‘Remember, Asayaga, the truce is temporary.’
‘But for now we need you as much as you need us,’ Gregory interjected, staring straight at Dennis who reluctantly nodded an agreement.
‘I think your men were just as played out, Hartraft.’
‘We are,’ Gregory replied. ‘We were coming back in from patrol, the place where we met three days ago, we expected to rest there and wait out the storm. The men were already worn. They’re just as beat as yours.’
‘Do you think your men are just as exhausted?’ Asayaga asked, gaze locked on Dennis.
‘What is this? Some sort of game of pride?’
‘Yes, everything is a game,’ Asayaga replied and Dennis could sense a note of bitterness in the Tsurani’s voice. ‘You are worried about staying here aren’t you?’
‘The enemy we face bears a deep hatred for my family. It will compel him to press forward against us.’
‘Then we remain watchful and break camp before dawn.’
‘If he comes
