The Dragon Hammer (Wulf's Saga Book 1) (42 page)

Chapter Fifty-Eight:
The Ambush

Cavalry approaching.

When the fox-man pickets came galloping in reporting a band of at least a hundred warriors on horses, Captain Max Jager at first didn’t believe them.

Earl Keiler had ordered the northern and eastern approaches garrisoned immediately. If there were reinforcements on the way from Krehennest, he wanted plenty of warning.

Jager’s Raufers had been given the job.

Then more reports came in to Jager, and he was forced to conclude there was a Sandhaven troop that had crossed the border and was riding west through Piedmont Duchy.

The Raufers’ job was to hold Dornstadt Pass. His garrison was important enough that it had nearly a hundred troops. But Jager knew he had the high ground. The road went through several sloping hills that were perfect for archers. Horsemen would not get off the road here. The woods were dense and cut through with stream gullies. It would be a hard passage for a horse.

No, they’d come through the pass. He had ridden east several times and had already picked out what he considered the perfect spot for an ambush. There were four bands of archers in his company, including one made up of bear-man longbowmen—eighty archers in all. And out here on the border an archer did double duty as a hand-to-hand fighter once the fight was going strong.

So, although Jager was understandably worried about taking on a force four times his size, he believed his chances to send them packing back to Sandhaven were good. At least he would bloody them terribly. He’d already sent riders west to alert the other forts and village garrisons along the Plank road. If they got through him, a large force of the mark would be gathering, waiting to take the enemy on.

He trusted his scouts, so he believed he was facing no more than five companies of horsemen. Whether it was the leading edge of a larger army marching west he’d worry about later.

One problem at a time, thought Jager.

It was two months since the Battle of Raukenrose Meadow—which was what the counterattack was starting to be called. Jager was still nineteen years old.

Despite his small form, the Tier he’d grown up with in his small village respected him. He’d gained the respect of the other troops in the company in the meadow outside Raukenrose by rallying his wavering company. He’d cut through the heel tendons of two frightened but dangerous buffalo men who had ignored his calls to stop and tried to bully their way past him to the rear. He’d left them wallowing on the ground, lamed for life.

That had set an example for everyone else.

You could either fight the Sandhaveners or face your insane bobcat-man captain, who was willing to saw through your legs if you decided to run.

Then, when they saw him fighting like mad alongside them, ordering water and arrows brought up, and intelligently directing them toward a weak spot in the Sandhavener line, their fear turned into respect.

After he’d seen to his wounded from the battle, he even sent a wise woman to stitch the stragglers’ tendons together. They might walk again, but their running days were over. He had, amazingly, ordered them back to duty in his company, giving them a chance to redeem themselves. He knew one of them hated him and might very well put a spear in his captain’s back if he got the chance. But Arkakeveri, the other, was happy for the chance.

It looked like he would get that chance today.

Jager watched as a dust cloud to the east announced that the cavalry troop was coming. The archers had already strung their bows. Jager, who was an expert bowman himself, checked his arrows. Most of his archers had done as he had and stuck five or six arrows in the ground in front of them so that they could shoot and then nock and let go another arrow quickly.

Then the Sandhaveners came into view, and Jager knew there would be no killing today. The front two riders carried large white flags. They seem to expect the pass would be guarded, so they stopped the horses behind them and waited.

Jager also waited a moment, worried this might be some kind of trick. But they had their swords and sabers sheathed and their shields slung around the backs of their horses, or on pack horses. This was not a group ready to fight.

“All right, curse it all to cold hell, I’m going down to see what those crab eaters want,” Jager told his bear-man second in command, Knudsson. “I want Spindler’s band to go with me. The rest are to stay put and be ready.”

Jager made his way out of cover and down the hill to the road. Ten buffalo men armed with wicked-looking spears went with him.

He strode up to one of the men bearing a white flag, looked up at the man on his horse, who stared down at Jager, an expression of amazement on his face.

“What’s the matter? You never seen a Tier before?” Jager said to him. “Who’s in charge?”

“I am,” said the man. He had evidently decided he had better speak to this rather terrifying-looking half-cat, half-man. He gave the reins to the man beside him and got down from his horse.

The man cautiously approached Jager. The buffalo men, who were led by a bear-man sergeant, lowered their spears in the ready position. Jager signaled for them to stand down.

“Now tell me what you want and be quick about it,” Jager said.

The man’s expression saddened, and he shook his head. He seemed to Jager to be a man in mourning, but Jager knew he was not the best at reading the expressions of men.

“We want refuge,” the man said. “I’ve got five hundred in my band, and another five hundred are following us.”

“Refuge?” Jager said. “From what?”

“Romans and their blood cake,” the man said. “Piedmont and Vall l’Obac have taken Krehennest. The Romans have control of the whole of the Chesapeake.”

“You mean to tell me that Sandhaven has fallen to the Empire?”

“With barely a whimper. King Siggi was one of those dirty blood eaters,” the man said. “They took us completely by surprise, and the home guard didn’t stand a chance.”

“That who you are?”

“No. They were killed to a man,” the other said. “We’re two battalions of Nestie cavalry. We had to fight our way out of the city.” The man sighed. “Sir, we have nowhere else to go. We have come begging for you to take us in.”

“You people just invaded our land and killed our heir.”

“I am aware of that,” the man said. “At least of Trigvi’s army coming to get the blood price.”

“So why in the name of the dragon would we let you through this pass?”

“I and all my men are prepared to swear allegiance to Duke Otto and the Mark of Shenandoah if you will take us in. The Romans moved fast. They’d been building up in Ore and planning this for a long time, looks like. We’re cut off to the north, and they’re behind us. They are going to be here at the border soon. Don’t know if they’ll stop.”

“We’ll stop them,” Jager said. “Don’t you worry about that.”

The other said nothing, but acknowledged Jager’s defiance with a bow of his head.

“Now, as for you,” Jager continued. “I’m going to have my men collect your swords and weapons. You can keep your shields.”

“But without our weapons, we won’t be any good to you.”

“I may or may not give them back to you. I’ll send for orders on that. But I’ll have your swords or you’ll not get through the pass alive.”

The man nodded agreement. “All right,” he said. “We will do it. I wish to thank you—”

“Don’t thank me yet. I may get orders to hang the lot of you, but until then . . .”

Jager took a good look at the horse troop gathered up behind the man in two columns. The horses were sweat-stained, and their riders looked hollow eyed and completely spent. Many were wounded and bloodstained.

“Until I get orders, we’ll let you camp outside the fort and we’ll get you some grub. We’re stocked with plenty of provisions, and we can share without too much trouble.”

“I thank you, sir…cat.”

“I ain’t ‘sir’ anybody. And I’m bobcat. There ain’t no cat people,” Jager replied. “And if what you say about the Romans is true, we’ll be ready for them. No matter how many of them there are, only a certain number of men can go through this pass at one time.”

“I promise you on my family’s honor that I’m speaking the truth,” the man replied. “I’m Lord Ekhard von Gurster of Tar.”

“I don’t know your family, so that don’t mean a thing to me,” Jager said. “All I know is that you are rotten Sandhaven scum fit for the vultures. But I’m taking your warning serious, and if it turns out to be right, then you’ll have my respect for that at least. Until then, drop your weapons and I’ll have my troops collect them.”

The other bowed and turned back to his men to give them the order. Jager called up the hill for Knudsson to send down a detail to collect the swords.

Blood and bones, Jager thought. Sandhaveners come begging. He never would have thought to see it. What was more disturbing was what had brought them.

Jager had paid attention to his lessons from the village schoolmaster. That was another reason he’d been elected captain. He was the only one of the volunteers who could read. Those lessons told him that the empire had been kept to the lower Chesapeake and the southern mountains for three hundred years. Before that, through war after war, the Kalte had been pushed north, but the Romans had been stopped in Sandhaven and Shenandoah.

Now, if what von Gurster said checked out, Shenandoah would be two-thirds surrounded by Roman slave-driving colonials. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what land the Romans would try to eat next.

He’d thought when the border was secure again, he would be able to go back to Bear Valley and take up where he’d left off three months ago when the call had come to assemble at Bear Hall. He’d been apprenticing with his uncle to learn the tanner trade.

Looks like it’s going to be a while before I scrape hides and lime the vats in Uncle Gus’s shop again, Jager thought. A long while.

Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Jager had wondered how he was going to go back to taking orders from his tyrant of an uncle after being in command of a hundred troops. Maybe he wouldn’t need to find that out.

If there was a long and bloody war coming, the mark was going to need him and his company. Their duty as vassal levies was for a year or, if there was a war, for the duration of the fighting.

We may be in it for the long haul, Jager thought. And despite the fear in the gut he felt at the thought of a Roman phalanx headed straight for him, he knew he wouldn’t run, and neither would his troops.

They’d proved that in the meadow outside Raukenrose. He would stand, and he would fight. For the mark. For his duke. And for the boy who was now heir.

He had saved Jager’s life. That was no small thing. And he had also led the troops into battle and to victory.

I trust him, Jager thought. Lord Wulf will see us through.