Soldier Undaunted -- Chapter 3.1

Three

Not moving, scarcely breathing, Arden and Argos crouched on the hillside waiting for the enemy they had just heard approaching. How many there were he did not yet know, but he had left six men, four horses, and two mountain wolves alive behind at the ford yesterday. All he surely knew now was that at least some of them were cautiously working their way down the hill towards them.

He doubted they were on horseback, since he had heard none of the sounds that horses make, no heavy footfall of hoof on dirt or stone, no snorting, no jingle of curb chain. Nor had he heard their riders’ spurs. Perhaps they had removed theirs as he had, to move more quickly and silently. The undergrowth was dense near the brook. And at close quarters that could make horses as much a hindrance as a help. But was it the whole party of six dismounted or only some of them? Until the river Arden’s horse and bow had been the great equalizers, allowing him to maneuver at speed and fight from a distance. Yet bow and horse were both lost to him yesterday at the river, though his quiver had already been empty by then.

There was at least one wolf. That he knew from the reaction of Argos, who always bared his teeth and snarled at the least scent of a wolf, as he did not at the scent of men, even the enemy. But while Argos’ nose might tell him if there was one wolf or two, that much he could not tell Arden.

However many of his enemy there were, they clearly knew he was somewhere nearby. Their slow stealth told the Ranger that. Though the trail he and the hound had left coming down the hill was now many hours old, the shifting breeze would have betrayed their presence to the wolves, whose senses were as keen as those of his wolfhound. Arden considered trying to work his way back up hill so he could get behind them and attack them from higher ground, but the hillside was uneven and covered with a full carpet of leaves. Not even he could move so silently through dry leaves that the wolves would not hear him. Several days ago, right after the rains, the leaves would have been wet enough and the brook loud enough to make that possible. But the level of the brook had already fallen and the hot first days of autumn had dried the leaves again. He could only wait for them, and hope that surprise and darkness would be his allies. Soon the night would be even darker, since some clouds had drifted out of the west with the sunset and were drawing near the bright moon.

His sword and dagger he had drawn some time ago, at the first hint of their coming. The weapons now lay crossed on the ground before his knees, his one hand by them, the other on Argos’ head. At times he heard the rustle of leaves and perhaps the sound of a low voice. Once, when the breeze was right he thought he could hear the snuffling of a wolf after a scent. Each time they were definitely closer, less than fifty yards away now. If slow and careful, as they had been thus far, they would cover that distance in less than twenty minutes, measured in a cautious pace or two followed by a long pause while their ears and eyes strained against the night and the wolves sniffed about.

Away behind him down the hill and across the valley, the farm dogs began barking again.

Once more Arden heard the exasperated shouting of the farmer and the slamming of the door. He paid it little heed. Argos’ ears twitched momentarily to listen, but quickly shifted back again, his attention scarcely distracted from the present threat. The clouds covered the moon and plunged the forest into an absolute gloom that would trouble even the eyes of an elf, if elves there still were in the world of the dragons.

Uphill a twig snapped. Arden’s mind came fully to bear on the sound. Not even a muttered curse followed. In the quiet of the night, only the breeze in the trees, the rattling of a few leaves on the ground, and the murmur of the brook could be heard. The troopers were being very cautious. And they were much closer now, twenty yards perhaps. Arden reached slowly down and grasped his weapons. Rising to one knee, he began to calm himself, to ready his body and mind for the sudden spring that would bring him upon his enemies. The chase would soon be over, for him or for them. Possibly for them all.

Again the farm dogs were barking, this time wildly, now joined by the neighing of horses and lowing of oxen. The animals sounded near panic. He heard the farmer shouting, too, but now other voices were added to his, shouting back. Something was very wrong at the farm. Then suddenly he saw it. A dull reddish glare tinged the woods before him, a glare that quickly grew brighter and paled to a lurid yellow. The light came from behind him. The dogs cried out one last time, in pain, and fell silent. Voices carried across the valley floor to him, voices strained with fear and anger, the farmer’s among them. Then it, too, was silenced. Arden glanced briefly over his shoulder, knowing that he dare not look for long, but knowing also that he must. There was fire in the fields, the year’s harvest burning bright and the flames spreading quickly far and wide. The pale grain that earlier in the evening waved in the silver moonlight, reminding him of long ago, now roiled with the yellow waves of a devouring flame. That, too, reminded him of long ago.

It was a trap of course, set to flush out a Ranger and exploit his desire to protect people from the tyranny of the dragon’s men. Arden had guessed wrong. The captain had indeed divided his men, after making just enough show of keeping them together during the pursuit to mislead him. The men above were meant to distract him and keep his attention long enough for the rest of the troopers to reach the valley, where, just as in Kinabra, they could create a situation to which Arden must respond. At the same time he could not simply turn his back on the enemy near him. For even if he could outrun the men, he could not also outrun the wolves. If he fell or if a wolf took him down, he would be finished.

Behind him in the valley voices were raised in screams of pain. No doubt it was the farmer’s family, made to suffer to force the Ranger’s hand. One choice lay before him.

“Go on, lad,” whispered Arden, loosing the hound who could find the enemy in an instant. Behind him rushed Arden, sword in his right hand and dagger in his left. Not twenty feet up the hill Argos collided head on with a wolf and the two fell to the ground in a snarling mass, rolling each other over and over. Almost too late Arden glimpsed the dark form of the second wolf rushing at him from the left. As it leaped high to knock him to the ground, he ducked and stabbed upward with his dagger. The blade found flesh, but the beast’s broad chest struck him in the shoulder as it passed over him, rolling him onto his side. The wolf was now behind him, but howling in pain. Before Arden could rise, there were footsteps quick above him. A shape loomed over him, dully red in the growing light of the burning fields. Arden slashed hard with his sword a foot above the ground, feeling his blade bite deep into bone and through it. The shadow fell screaming to the ground.

Arden rose and stepped over it. The light of the fire was bright enough now to show him a second man less than ten feet away. But he did not advance. He held his sword and dagger before him in a defensive position, waiting for the Ranger to attack him. Off to the right the battle between Argos and the wolf continued still, but Arden could not take his eyes off his opponent, who could swiftly change from defense to attack if his attention wavered. Arden could feel the man’s fear, left alone in the red twilight to face the Ranger who had already slain so many of his comrades, while the dog and the wolf snarled and bit and crashed through the underbrush beside them. Prize or no prize for the Ranger’s head, he had not bargained for this. Then in two quick passes of their blades, Arden’s sword had brought the man to his knees. In the flickering glow the Ranger looked at the troopers’ face as life left it. He was the rider Argos had mauled outside the inn.

A yelp from behind caused Arden to turn. Argos was losing. The wolf, large even for one of its kind, had Argos down on his back and he was weakly trying to fend the wolf’s jaws from his throat. Both glistened with blood.

“No.”

Arden shouted and sprang at them. The wolf glanced sidelong at him, but could not turn from the hound without also exposing himself. With a thrust Arden skewered the wolf through the ribs, the impact knocking him clear of the hound. As the Ranger withdrew his blade, the wolf struggled to rise, only to have Arden leap across Argos and strike his head from his shoulders.

Returning to the dog, Arden quickly checked for any sign of another enemy. He heard the first wolf still whimpering, but there seemed nothing else. He fell on his knees beside Argos.

“Argos, my friend, oh not you,” he cried. Desperately afraid, he held the dog and checked him for wounds. There was much blood.

“Not you, too,” he whispered to him, more quietly now.

It was hard to tell in the scarce light of the flames, but his hands could find no major wounds, no sign of an artery or major vein severed. The hound was covered in blood, but how much was his and how much the wolf’s Arden could not tell. Though no wound he could find seemed mortal, without attention they might prove so. The worst wound was in his right front leg near the chest. He hastened to cut a strip from his cloak to bind it.

In the valley the screaming from the farm began once more, piercing even the roaring of the flames. He looked grimly down toward the flames, and the dog tried to rise. Arden held him gently down.

“No, my friend, stay,” he said to him in a low voice, then muttered to himself, “Again this choice, Arden,” as he weighed his feelings and the needs of others, their lives and their deaths. Quickly he tied off the strip of cloth around the dog’s leg. He bent and kissed the dog’s head.

“I must go to them. Without your help, though, I may not return. Be safe here.”

He then rose and checked the bodies of his enemies. Both dead. The first wolf still breathed. A short thrust of his dagger ended its suffering. With a last look at the dog, he sheathed his weapons and began to run down the hill through the trees, then through the burning fields towards the screaming that grew louder and more shrill the closer he came.

Several hundred yards from the foot of the hill Arden emerged from the flames to find the farmhouse, the soldiers, and their victims. A woman and two young girls, twelve or thirteen years old, were all tied to the fence of the paddock. Their heads hung down, their hair covering their faces. Before them on the ground lay a man face down in a dark, shining pool. Doubtless the farmer. Scattered around the farm yard were the carcasses of animals, dogs, horses, cattle. Behind all blazed the farmhouse and the barn, towering in fire and pouring smoking darkness into the sky.

Silhouetted against the burning house and standing between him and the paddock stood three cloaked figures. Two faced him. The third was gazing into the flames, his back turned. But six men had followed him from the ford yesterday. Two lay dead on the hillside by the brook. Three were here in front of Arden. Where was the last? The Ranger stepped forward, drawing his sword and dagger. The two facing him responded in kind. At this the third figure turned, his hand resting on the hilt of his sheathed sword. He walked forward until the light of a burning hay wagon illuminated his face. It was the dragon captain.

“Ah, Ranger, there you are,” he said calmly, his voice low and gentle, his tone even. “We were curious about when you would join us. I must admit my men were beginning to think you would not come, though perhaps ‘hope’ would be the better word.”

He paused and smiled a brief smile.

“It seems, however, that you were merely detained. Yet what has become of that astounding dog of yours?”

Arden made no answer. Slowly he looked from side to side, peering into the darkness for any sign of the last soldier, straining his ears for the slightest sound of movement. The horns he had heard two days ago came into his mind again as well as the additional wolf back at the pass. Though he had only seen six troopers behind him at the pass and the river, the captain had deceived him before now. Had the captain dared to divide his forces again because he had still more men than those the Ranger knew about? How many men did the captain have left – one or more – and where were they?

Arden took several steps forward to test his enemies’ reaction. The captain merely looked down. His men raised their weapons to the ready but made no other move. Only the smoke and the flames seemed to move. At length the captain looked up again, another smile passing swiftly across his face.

“I can see that you are wondering where my other man is lurking. He is out there, I do assure you, and will intervene if required.”

Arden still made no answer, but noted to himself that the captain had spoken of only one man. Was that the truth or more deception? And what did he mean by “if required?” As if there could be any other end to this than death. Arden saw one of the girls move. She raised her head enough for him to catch the glint of her eyes, and he thought he could hear her whisper to her mother. The Ranger raised his weapons and started towards the nearer of his foes. Still they did not move. Instead the captain extended his right hand towards Arden, palm out in token of peace.

“Ranger, there really is no need for all this violence to go on. As I recall, it was you who loosed the first shot and broke the peace. We had no quarrel with you. It was rather that smith back in Kinabra who gave us trouble.”

“Tell me better lies than that, captain. He is your brother.”

“So he is. I see you know something of me and my ties there. But the law should not bow before the ties of blood, should it? It did not, as you know, in that fallen Republic you Rangers claim to uphold. Nor were Rangers held above the law then.”

Arden remained silent.

“Still,” the captain continued when he received no answer, “I am willing to put an end to the bloodshed of the last two days, and equally willing to forego any vengeance. I am not unreasonable. All that has happened so far, and all this, “ he gestured at the destruction around them, “has been quite distasteful to me. But I must uphold the dragon’s law and ask you to submit to me peacefully. Do so and no further harm will come to these people here, who dared to claim that they had no knowledge of you. Surrender and their suffering will end. You have my word.”

The more reasonable the captain sounded, the more lawful and merciful he claimed to be, the hotter Arden’s wrath became.

“You will kill them all the same if you can,” cried Arden, “whether I yield to you or not.”

“Do you doubt my word, Ranger?”

“I have no doubt of the value of your word, captain,” Arden hissed. “Like the dragon, your master, you speak only to deceive and bewitch.”

The captain sighed and stretched out his arms in a helpless shrug.

“Very well then,” he said, drawing his sword and turning to his men. “Kill the women.”

Even before he finished the sentence, Arden was moving swiftly towards the man nearest him, who poised himself to meet his attack. At the same time the captain also stepped forward. For an instant Arden heard a whirring sound from the shadows to his left.

“A slinger,” he thought as the sling-stone struck the side of his head. His knees buckled and he fell. He struggled to rise, but his sight was dimming under the intense pain. His consciousness began to ebb as he collapsed flat on the ground, fighting still against the pain and disorientation. He must get up.

Then he heard a cry of pain, he thought, from the direction of the unseen slinger. He tried to force his eyes to focus, to hold on to the waking world. To little avail. The world was slipping away from him. But even as the darkness lapped over him, the Ranger saw a figure rush into the farmyard. To Arden he seemed to move more swiftly than anyone could move, running towards the captain and his men. A sword gleaming red in the reflected flames shone in his hands, held high above his head. Almost before they could turn to meet the stranger, he was upon the first of the troopers. As quick as the flash of his sword, he was past the first trooper, who crumpled to the ground behind him, and on to the second – the one the captain had ordered to kill the women – who died just as quickly. As if their swords had no substance, neither trooper had been able to parry a single stroke.

The stranger was now between the women and the captain, who advanced cautiously to meet him. With dreamlike speed the sword swung in a red arc towards the captain. Their blades rang together once, twice, the captain giving ground at each pass, reeling backwards from the force of his opponent’s blows, struggling to keep his footing and balance. At the third pass, a direct thrust almost too sudden to see passed through the captain’s guard as if it were not there. The captain fell sprawling on his back, grasping at his throat. Then he was still.

With a last effort Arden again strove to rise, but his limbs were weighed down by the tide of unconsciousness flooding over him. He saw the stranger turn and look his way. Fire and shadow were all around him, and his eyes shone with a pale blue light. With a flick of his wrist he shook the blood from his sword, and slid it smoothly back into its sheath. Arden opened his mouth to ask him who he was, but the question slipped with him into the dreamless dark.

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Chapter 3.2

Soldier Undaunted -- Chapter 2.2

At first light, as he drew near the pass and the shapes of the hills around him gradually emerged from the night, Arden chose the place where he would await the enemy. The path was narrow here, and bordered on the east by a steep, uphill slope. Here old pines had dug their roots down into cracks riven into the rocky mountainside by upheavals long past. Water trickled in their depths. On the west was an even longer and more arduous slope. Not far ahead the road switched back south, bending around a huge boulder, and ascended quickly to the turn that led into the pass. Arden gazed up at that last stretch of road, and saw above him a large rock behind which he could take shelter and shoot down at the dragon’s men.

He nodded to himself and rode up as far as the foot of the pass, where he tethered his horse to an ancient, withered bush that grew in a circle at the last bend in the road. Returning, he sat down on the stone he had spied from below to look over the ground once more. From here he could command the lower road, only about thirty precipitous yards below him, for over a hundred yards until it went out of sight around the boulder. There would be time for perhaps a half dozen shots before he had to fall back. Then the race down to the river would begin.

As he rested and ate, sharing his food with the hound lying beside him, Arden checked his bow and counted the arrows in his quiver, examining each one carefully, smoothing its feathers. Ten remained. But there were nine or ten men behind him and two wolves. Even ten true shots could not kill them all. At least they would have to keep to the road. The hillside was quite steep, with little cover, and thick with old needles that dropped from the pines near the top and made footing unsure. That was something. For a moment Arden pondered the horn calls again. Were there other troopers that he did not know of? He shrugged. He still had only ten arrows.

He ran the feathers of the last arrow through his fingers and considered the deaths tallied by the arrows gone from his quiver. He thought of the ghosts that would haunt him. More and more ghosts as his days grew long. They should not haunt him, he told himself again. For, though the dragon’s men of the first years had mostly come from across the sea, now nearly all were men of Narinen. From cruelty, a hunger for power, or fear, they betrayed their own. They chose to be the greater slaves of the tyrant, winning their bread by destroying and humiliating the people from whom they were born. For this the troopers justly lost their lives. Yet within Arden there was now a place, one no longer buried as deeply as it had once been, where he regretted their deaths.

In his youth after the Fall, he had burned with a hatred that rejoiced in their deaths and took pleasure in slaying them. His thoughts were of blood, his deeds rash, his lust for vengeance unsated. More than once in those days his hatred had nearly cost him his life. His eyes mirrored a grief and rage beyond measure; and many a man took a step backward or glanced away when he saw them. But in the run of years a bitter weariness of this endless war smothered the flames within him. No victory in patience, no healing in slaughter. It came to him one day that, much against his will, the contempt he felt for those he hated had become pity; and his hatred of all but the dragons had grown cold.

And so their ghosts haunted him. They were men, too. They had wives, children, and parents who waited, not knowing that those they loved had lost the day of their homecoming. They would not return. Wives, children, and parents who even now slept and dreamed of them, or gazed out a window at this morning’s twilight and wondered when their men were coming home to them. Never.

This was the end of one hard tale, and the beginning of another more bitter. This was the dragon’s harvest, sown first at his coming, reaped alike by everyone, a harvest of sorrow that Arden forgot only in the timeless press of battle. Yet in that moment of necessity the crop was sown again.

“These were not supposed to be our lives, Argos,” he sighed as he stroked the dog’s head. “They have no more hope than we do.”

---

The rising sun found the two of them sitting side by side in the dust of the upper road. Its first rays quickly paled into the clean, golden light of an autumn morning. There had been no sign of the dragon’s men, leaving Arden with no idea of how far behind him they were. Were they hanging back in the hope that he would foolishly think he had escaped, and so lead them to Rangers’ hidden fortress? That tactic was not unheard of, but at the thought of it a sudden, sharp laugh burst from within Arden. Looking up in surprise, Argos shuffled a dubious tail upon the ground.

“They’ll grow old before we lead them home, lad,” Arden said with a wry smile, and rested his hand on Argos’ shoulders. His fingers grasped the thick, wiry coat, feeling the strength concealed beneath it. With a sigh and a final glance Argos lowered his head, and shut his eyes.

Three summers past and three long winters gone by Arden had ridden into the Valley of the Rangers with his apprentice, staying only long enough to report to the Masters, as was required, and declare her training ended. For a few he spared a greeting or a farewell, but most he answered curtly, with a nod and a not unfriendly look. By the time his apprentice left the Masters a half hour later, Arden was already gone. She did not need to ask where he was. He chose the wild seclusion of mountain and forest, and the limitless vistas of his memory. He did not see why he should ever turn back.

Now far away from that hidden fortress Arden and Argos slept by the roadside – the Ranger with his back against the stone, out of sight of the lower road, the hound curled into a tight ball – while the sun mounted the sky above them. The morning wore away. Noon was nearly at hand when Argos growled softly. In an instant Arden was awake and peering around the stone. No one was in sight yet. Getting to his knees, Arden drew out half his arrows and thrust them into the hard earth. He loosened his sword and dagger, though he did not expect the enemy to get that close.

He now made a decision he did not like. With only ten arrows, he could not risk an empty quiver and a half a dozen or more mounted men on his trail. Arden would begin killing their horses. If he could split the dragon’s men into two groups, one mounted, the other on foot, he stood a better chance against them. Even if some riders took their unhorsed comrades behind them, that would also serve him by slowing them all down, or forcing them to divide into two parties, the one swift, the other slow.

Down below a wolf trotted out of the trees to his left and moved cautiously along the road. He was favoring one of his hind legs. Two horsemen quickly followed. Arden waited for the rest of the party to come into the open. There were ten men and three wolves.

“Three wolves? So there is another squad somewhere,” Arden reflected, “but why is one of the wolves limping?”

When they were almost directly beneath him, the Ranger drew his bow. His arrow pierced the flank of the last horse in the line. It reared and threw its rider, then fell screaming to its knees. The horses directly ahead were startled and surged forward. Their riders struggled to control them, while the others turned to see what had happened. Arden heard a voice shouting an order. The two lead riders at once broke into a gallop, making for the turn ahead. The first wolf ran with them. Arden did not have long before they flanked him.

He loosed his second shot at a chestnut mare in the middle of the party and struck her in the neck. As the horse went down, the rider jumped clear. It was the captain. Arden’s third shot hit the haunch of another chestnut, already spooked, further back in the column. The wounded horse veered wildly into the one beside it. Both went off the western edge of the road, and with their riders vanished over the brink of the hill.

Arden now swung to his right to face the lead riders. They had rounded the boulder at the bend in the road and were galloping towards him, one sword in hand, the other drawing his bow. The Ranger’s fourth arrow killed the bowman; his fifth unhorsed the swordsman who flew forward over his dying mount’s head. He hit the ground face down, his sword flying from his grip. As the bowman’s horse raced by, Arden snatched at the quiver hanging from his saddle. His fingers caught the strap for a moment, but the horse was moving too fast for him to hold on. With a clatter of arrows the quiver landed several yards up the road. Arden ran out and tried to reach it, but arrows from the road below drove him back. He turned and dived behind the rock for cover.

Down the road, Argos dispatched the wolf that had come limping up the road at a trot behind the horsemen. The fallen swordsman was on his hands and knees, groggy from the impact, spitting dirt, and fumbling for his sword. Reaching it, he got to one knee.

“Better you had stayed down,” said Arden as he loosed his sixth arrow into the man’s chest. Again the trooper dropped his sword, only to grasp the arrow in his chest with both hands. Looking up, his eyes met Arden’s briefly before he died.

On the road below, three of the dragon’s men steadily plied their bows, striving to keep the Ranger pinned down behind the boulder, while two horsemen raced for the turn to flank him again. Their captain stood boldly in the open, directing his men’s archery, almost daring Arden to reveal himself by trying a shot at him.

“Time to go,” Arden thought and crawled for the far side of the road. There he rose and ran for his horse, keeping low to give the enemy little to aim at. Momentarily he swerved back towards the center of the road to pick up the trooper’s quiver, but a shot from below, well aimed or lucky, struck it from his hand. With arrows singing past him in the air and more riders rounding the turn behind him, it was too dangerous to turn back and try again.

“Come on, dog,” he shouted as he jumped onto his horse’s back. Argos came running, overtaking him before Night reached full speed. He rode up the last stretch of road for the gap at the top, the lead riders and their wolves only forty yards behind him. He could hear the captain below shouting commands to his other men to mount and follow.

In the middle of the pass, Arden reined in his horse and turned, drawing and loosing another arrow in a swift, fluid motion. Another mount fell from beneath its rider. Just then a horn sounded. The second rider suddenly veered, barely eluding Arden’s next shot, and retreated behind a huge old pine. The wolves stopped beside the fallen rider, who lay unmoving on the ground. The captain, it seemed, would not allow his forces to be divided again.

Arden urged Night through the pass. He had to hurry. Though further down the eastern face of the hills was not as steep as on the west, up near the pass the slopes between the winding loops of road were still forbidding. There was no safe way off the road for over a mile. The dragon’s men would soon have their turn at shooting down at him.

Several turns further on he slowed Night just long enough to take a good look back up the hillside. He could see the enemy – two men mounted singly and two double – coming down from the pass. That was a very long shot for them at a fast moving target. Arden doubted they could make it, but they had arrows to spare, far more than the two that rattled against each other in his quiver. So they might try a long shot and hope their luck would serve. In their place he would do no less.

As if reading Arden’s mind, the two nearest troopers raised their bows. Arden set his spurs to Night and moved on. From time to time an arrow or two fell near him, never too close, but never far enough away to be disregarded. He heard them cut through the air, to strike the dirt of the road with a thud, or fix themselves in a tree with a sharp, quivering sound. Finally Arden left the road and found cover beneath the trees. Before long the slopes grew gentler, and he rode faster. He pushed his horse as hard as he dared, knowing his pursuers would do the same. Once they reached the bottom of the valley they would do all they could to catch him on this side of the river.

For centuries a bridge had stood above the ford. The stonewrights of the Republic had built it to unite the lands on either side. Arden remembered it well from his early days here in the west, when he was a young apprentice himself on his first journey with his master. Hewn of stone with pillars set deep in the river bed and on either shore, the bridge spanned the water in two leaping arches of rare grace. All that now survived was the foundation of the central pillar, visible only in the heat of summer when the water was low. The rest had been torn down stone by stone. The moss grown blocks lay scattered along the banks, or jutted from the shallows nearby.

But the ford remained. The crossing was narrow, with deep water above and below and a stiff current, but for most of the year it could be made without too much trouble. Only in the early spring, when the river swelled with melting snow, was it impassable; some years the fall rains also drowned the ford completely, but autumn was only in its first days now, and the rains had not been heavy so far.

Down the hills dusted with falling leaves Arden rode for the river and the ford. He had miles to go yet, with pursuit not far behind him and two arrows to keep them at bay. If his horse threw a shoe, or came up lame, it would cost him his head. So he made haste slowly across the uneven, pathless slopes, uncertain how this race would end. Arden had hoped to do the enemy more harm this morning, but they had been more cautious today than yesterday. Clearly the dragon captain was no fool.

After an hour the heights where the pine and fir grew gave way to the lower slopes crowded with oak and maple. Their leaves, now golden, now red, danced around him in the cool air. At times Arden glimpsed the sparkle of the river miles ahead. Another hour returned him to the lowlands, and at last to the verge of the forest, where he stopped to get his bearings. He gazed out across the valley’s green bottom to the riverbank, and at the abrupt, stony ridge jutting up on the far side. Lines of alder and plane trees traced the course of the many streams that fled down from the hills to nourish the river.

Several hundred yards to the south the road emerged from the woods and curved towards the site of the old bridge directly east of him. Beside the road in the middle of the plain was a solitary cabin, which had stood empty far longer than the twenty five years Arden had known it. Every year less of it survived. Another hole appeared in the roof. A bit more wall crumbled away. What had been windows and doorways were now the gaping wounds of time. Beyond the cabin Arden could see the trees that marked the western bank of the ford a little more than a mile away. Off to his left a herd of deer grazed. They seemed to be enjoying the sun. High above them an eagle glided towards the river. For a minute or two Arden watched and listened, then shook the reins and nudged his horse to a quick trot.

Two arrows shrieked past from his right. A third glanced high off the shoulders of Argos, who yelped and sprang forward, blood glistening in his fur. Arden shouted to his horse and hound. Night answered with a burst of speed, and at a dead run they raced across the plain, south and east in a direct line for the ford. Argos was running full out beside them. Despite the blood, the wound across his shoulders was not deep. His long stride and speed were undiminished.

Somehow the dragon’s men had come down to the south of him and reached the edge of the woods almost as he did. That placed them slightly closer to the ford than he was. They burst from the forest spread out in a line thirty yards across, the better to herd him, the better to shoot him down. And the horsemen held their line as the chase wore on, at a distance from each other but still abreast. On the farthest horse he saw the dragon captain. Behind the riders two more troopers came running from the forest on foot. All the mounted men carried bows.

Soon their arrows filled the air, compelling Arden to push Night to the very limits of his strength and agility. By slight, almost constant, shifts in direction at full speed he sought to defeat their aim, but twice he felt the tug of an arrow snatching at him when it passed through the green cloak that flowed behind him. Once, as he was about to dart behind the cabin, he rose in his stirrups to shoot back at them. He missed his mark, he saw a moment later. All four riders appeared behind him again, flowing around the cabin as inevitably as the years that had left it behind.

But Night proved the swifter, thanks not only to that morning’s rest, but to his great heart and long training. For over a thousand years, back to the days before the Republic began and before the first dragons appeared, the horses of the Rangers had been bred for speed and endurance; and their five years of training before ever a Ranger received one as his mount, only increased the swiftness and stamina of their nature. Countless Rangers had they saved in those centuries, countless messages carried to win a war or save a peace.

In the last quarter mile between the cabin and the river Night drew steadily away, and Argos kept pace at the bay’s side, devouring the earth with his long legged stride. Over fifty yards lay between them and the dragon’s men as they approached the riverbank. The tall grass gave way to a steep shore of rock and mud. The ford was just below. Arden glanced back. In his right hand was his bow; in his left he held the reins and his last arrow, which he would spend as he entered the river, trying his luck before the water ruined his bowstring. That arrow he meant for the captain.

The water splashed around his horse’s knees, and the hound plunged in with a leap. Dropping the reins, Arden turned and loosed his arrow. The captain swerved aside, grinning at the Ranger as he rode. Water now mounted to Night’s breast and shoulders. It came foaming over his back. The current thrust them sideways towards the deeper water, but the horse kept his footing and forced his way ahead. Arden bent low beside his horse’s neck and grabbed Argos by the scruff to keep the river from sweeping him away.

Over his shoulder Arden saw the dragon’s men riding down to the water’s edge, raising their bows. Yet he was already in the deepest part of the ford. In a few seconds Night would reach the slope leading up to the farther shore. Arden strained to hear the sharp twang of their bowstrings, but the river was too loud. Night began to climb. Not two inches from where Arden’s cheek was pressed against the horse’s neck, the shaft of an arrow appeared, its point buried deep in the flesh. The horse screamed and reared, wrenching Argos from Arden’s grasp. Night toppled sideways into the deeper water.

As the river closed over him, Arden kicked free of his stirrups. Looking up through the green water, he saw the sun gleaming above, but the weight of his gear dragged him down into the silent twilight of the river bottom. He rolled over and began to swim. His lungs ached. The current drove him. Blurred green shapes, boulders, seemed to speed past, but he knew it was he who was moving. One loomed up and struck him hard, forcing the air from his lungs. He fought his way upwards. The light above grew brighter so slowly.

Then he broke the surface, gasping for air, and struck out for the shore. For a moment Arden lay flat on the eastern bank, staring at the sky, gulping air into his lungs. He waited for the hiss and pain of an arrow, but nothing happened. All he could hear was the river. Slowly he crawled behind some rocks. His side hurt. There was no sign of horse or hound. Nor did he see the dragon’s men. The current had carried him much further than he thought.

Arden rose and turned to the steep, rocky slope. As he began to scramble upward, Argos dashed up and jabbed his nose in Arden’s face. With a laugh, the Ranger threw an arm around him and hugged him to his side.

“Glad to see you, too,” he smiled, and together they began the long ascent of the ridge. Behind him Arden thought he heard a voice shouting above the din of the water, but he did not look back.

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Chapter 3.1

Soldier Undaunted -- Chapter 2.1

Two

Late in the afternoon two days earlier, six of the dragon’s men had entered the small town of Kinabra, where Arden was stopping for the afternoon. On the right breast of their black cloaks was embroidered the insignia of the red dragon who ruled this land. From the porch of the tavern he had seen them come riding down the street, a pair of mountain wolves trotting ahead of them, sniffing out whatever trouble they could make, running off the few dogs that had not taken to their heels the moment the scent of wolf first came down the wind. Seated in the deep shade at the back of the inn’s broad porch, Arden watched them, never lifting his head from the wall against which it rested. Argos, his head up and ears back, had his eyes on them, too, the wolves especially, as he lay on the top step of the porch.

Concealed by the low wooden wall that screened the porch from the street, Arden loosened his sword in its scabbard, leaned his war bow against the table, and slipped the quiver’s strap over his shoulder. The hound gathered his hind legs beneath him. Tethered to a rail in front of the inn, Arden’s horse, Night, tossed his head and snorted, not liking the sudden tension in the air, or the wolves. The sun was now right above the tavern’s roof. It would blind anyone looking up at him from the street.

“Good,” he thought. “Let it begin soon.”

The men of the dragon, four troopers, a lieutenant, and a captain, reined in outside a smithy about thirty yards up the street to his right. Their wolves came somewhat closer. When the captain and lieutenant dismounted, the others spread out slowly across the street, the two of them with bows turning to face back the way they had come. The troopers inspected the town with the eyes of men practiced at finding fault and dealing out punishment for the least breach of the dragon’s law. The few townsfolk still in the open averted their eyes and hurried by, searching for any shelter they could find. As the dragon captain led his horse towards the blacksmith’s, the lieutenant looped his horse’s reins over a rail and followed. He pretended not to be watching the Arden.

From his seat in the shade Arden studied them and waited. He could feel the trouble coming. He sipped the last of his water. To his left the tavern door opened, and the innkeeper peered out, taking in the scene on the dusty street. He and Arden exchanged looks. Arden nodded to him and slipped a half dozen old silver coins on the table. With a shrug and a frown the innkeeper pulled the door shut. Its bolt slid home. Arden could hear the innkeeper inside trying to hush his crowd of regular patrons. Better to attract no attention, was his idea. But the tavern was already under the eye of the dragon’s men, as the innkeeper and Arden both knew; and taverns were never quiet at the end of a long, hot day just before harvest time.

Someone in the town had alerted the dragon’s men to the arrival of a Ranger. Outlawed by the dragon along with all they stood for, the Rangers were all that remained of the old Republic. The wild lands and forests were their home, not the scattered towns or half-ruined cities they entered only at their peril. So many years had passed since the Republic fell that many people acted like they did not remember it, preferring a harsh survival to a cruel death, while others embraced the world of the dragon from fear, greed, or both. By now few enough were left who had truly seen the Republic, though in mockery of its traditions the dragon had retained the forms and names of its magistracies. In truth the Republic was nothing more than a ghost, and the Rangers its ghostly attendants. Yet the head of one of these servants on a pike brought in gold enough for an informer to live well for many, many years.

“Blacksmith, my horse has thrown a shoe,” the captain called out, but Arden could see that he had not.

Stepping from the forge within, the blacksmith answered, with a look of some hope on his face. For the captain had been born his brother.

“As you please, captain sir, but might I just finish repairing this scythe first? I’ve just got the fire hot enough.”

The heads of two of the mounted soldiers snapped around towards the shop. The others maintained their watch on the street, one looking each way. Halting a few feet from the smithy door, the captain addressed him.

“You presume too much, blacksmith, because we were once brothers,” he said coolly. “The dragon’s laws scorn all ties of blood. You should know that. You will comply.”

“Yes, captain,” muttered the smith, in a tone as disappointed and surly as the look in his eye, and took the reins of the captain’s horse.

“Fool,” the lieutenant growled, “I’ll teach you how to address the captain.”

Drawing his sword, he started forward, since the captain gave no sign to check him. He swept it up and back behind him to deliver a forehand stroke.

The thrum of the Ranger’s bowstring was heard only in the instant the arrow struck the lieutenant’s right shoulder, adding its impetus to the backward sweep of his arm. His sword slipped from his hand as he twisted round with a cry, his knees buckling. In that long moment before he spun to the ground, everyone began to move. The mounted troopers looking Arden’s way spurred their horses forward; the other two wheeled theirs and stood their ground, unslinging their bows. Argos leaped from the porch to meet the wolves as they sprang towards the inn. Already drawing his bow again, Arden crossed the porch to shelter behind the thick post which supported the corner of the roof. His bowstring sounded, and a second arrow found its mark in the side of the nearer wolf. It fell forward into the dust, choking on its own blood. The third arrow hit the other in the haunch just before Argos reached it. The long haired black hound, already a match for the wolf in size and speed, made short work of his injured opponent.

Two arrows from the stationary troopers stuck the wooden post in front of the Ranger. His reply struck the horse of the nearer one in the chest. It reared and fell over sideways, pinning its rider and breaking his leg. The first of the two charging riders had now reached the inn, but hesitated, fearing not only to climb the porch and be caught in his own bowman’s line of sight, but also to confront the Ranger alone if his bowman refrained from shooting. A costly doubt. The Ranger’s next arrow took him in the throat and toppled him from his horse.

The second rider knew no doubt and began to ride up the steps with sword drawn. But he forgot the dog in the street behind him until it struck him in the back. They fell to the ground together, but then the hound was on his chest, rending the trooper’s hands, arms, and face as he strove to fend the dog from his throat.

His cries and the dog’s snarling blended with the hoof beats of the last rider, who now charged straight down the street at Arden. Rising in the stirrups, he drew his bow. They loosed their arrows simultaneously. Arden’s nicked the ear of the rider’s horse as it passed, striking the rider himself in the groin; the trooper’s arrow hissed by, drawing blood from Arden’s left cheek and hitting the wall behind him. The rider fell backwards over his horse.

In all this the captain alone had made no movement. Thumbs hooked through his sword-belt, he stood silently observing. His brother, the blacksmith, stood near him dumbfounded. With the last rider down, Arden descended the front steps to the street. He called Argos off as he passed. The hound licked blood from his snout as he trotted over. The fallen rider was still alive, but badly mauled. Somehow he had kept Argos’ teeth from his throat, but the terror of them still worked on his mind. He held out his bloody hands and arms, warding off a threat that no longer existed. For now he was no danger.

Down the street, the captain patted the smith on the back and said something to him in a low voice. With a smile he pulled a bag of coins from his belt and tossed them at his brother’s feet. The blacksmith, startled, left the coins where they lay, and hurried back to his forge, casting an anxious look at Arden as he disappeared through the doors. True fear was on his face now. His brother had just betrayed him to the Ranger and to his neighbors, marking him for all his days as the dragon’s creature. The gold his brother had promised him for information was no kindness after all, but a trap set for his avarice. From now on the smith would stand alone. The other townsfolk would shun him now, most because they shrank from the servile reflection of themselves they saw in him, but a few – the old innkeeper for one – because they had not forgotten the world before the dragons came. And some day, or some night, another Ranger would come for him. The smith had never guessed the Ranger would survive the troopers’ first assault; or that his brother would play him so false.

The captain stood in the street, still unmoving. A cold smile almost lifted the corners of his mouth, as he saw the Ranger’s keen eyes take all this in before they shifted to meet his own. Arden walked slowly backwards the few paces to his horse, never glancing away from the dragon captain. His outstretched hand soothed and calmed his horse. Turning his back on the other man at last, he pulled the reins from the hitching rail and mounted. As he backed Night slowly away from the tavern, he looked once more at the captain, and urged his horse to a trot towards the northern end of the town. Argos briefly stared at the captain, then went running after his master.

As Arden rode on he considered those moments of action, few in reality though long in seeming. It struck him as odd that the captain had made no move, since he probably was the most formidable of the riders. Men did not become captains of the dragon through cowardice. This he knew well. Harsh, cruel, and treacherous they surely were, but they were also talented and brave. Nor were they fools. There was more yet to come. Of that Arden was now certain. For the captain had stood by and spent the lives of his men to discover the abilities of the Ranger. Had they killed him outright, as he no doubt hoped, so much the better. But if they did not, there had to be more men in reserve somewhere, to take him if flushed out, to storm any defensive position he might find. And when the outlaws they pursued were Rangers, the dragon’s men would know that they defended well any position they took and made their opponents pay dearly for their heads. So first came a test of strength and skill, then, if necessary, another squad or two would emerge to finish off the prey they had cornered or flushed.

“I would spring the trap just about now,” thought Arden when he approached the last building on the street, a storehouse of some size that could easily mask a squad of troopers. He spurred his horse to a run a second before the soldiers rode out from behind the building and turned to block the street. With a shout, he rode straight for the center of their line, surprising them. Arden had time for one arrow to find a man’s throat before he was upon them. Then grasping his bow with both hands he hit the man beside him hard across the face, and dashed between them. Now he was behind them and riding hard, his head down beside his horse’s neck, and the great hound running full out beside them.

He rode like the wind, and like the wind they followed. The sound of a great horn went up and echoed behind him. So there was at least one more squadron behind him, probably near the southern end of the town in case he had sought to escape that way. Of the troopers Arden had fought at the inn, all except the captain were dead or useless. They passed from his mind the moment he thought of them, but the terror of the trooper savaged by Argos stayed with him. Even as he rode the man’s face lingered in his mind, giving him a satisfaction he did not enjoy.

Again the horn sounded, and another, farther off, now answered its summons. An arrow hissed by him. Glancing back, Arden took stock. He had seventeen arrows left in his quiver; in his pack was enough food for three days, longer at need; and both Night and Argos were trained to run swiftly for many miles. Yet they could not do so forever. And the wolves, though not as swift, were relentless and strong. The dragon’s men had underestimated him at the inn, to be sure, but their captain would do not do so again. Arden had to make it to the forest, still two miles away on his left. Once there, the balance would shift.

Behind him gaps were appearing in the pursuit, as the faster riders outpaced the slower. The two closest to Arden were more than forty yards ahead of the next two, and the last of the five lagged even farther back than that. In all nearly a hundred yards separated the first of the horsemen from the last. Their captain never would have allowed that now that he had proven the quality of his foe. But the captain was not with them – he still trailed far behind, just emerging from Kinabra with the other squad of troopers. Arden was, and he meant to lessen the odds against him while the dragon’s men were still divided. For now at least the dragon’s men would answer to him for their errors.

Gradually Arden slowed down allowing the troopers to narrow the distance between them. Then he veered left towards the closest part of the forest, which brought the setting sun into their eyes. Pulling an arrow from his quiver, Arden rose in his stirrups, turned and shot at the nearest rider, who ducked and swerved away. But now his horse was broadside to the Ranger, whose second arrow pierced his thigh, pinning it to his horse. Both fell together.

Arden had only a glimpse of the second horseman’s bloody face before the man was upon him. It was the trooper he had struck in the face at the edge of town. Sword held high he rushed at Arden, who reined his horse hard to the right and let the rider shoot by him. His sword slashing the empty air beside the Ranger’s head. Arden spun immediately back to his left as the rider turned his own mount to meet him.

With his right hand Arden unsheathed his sword, while swinging his bow with his left. This time he struck the horse hard across the nose. The horse shied at the pain, disturbing his rider’s aim. Arden stabbed the man beneath his left arm. Spurring Night back to a full gallop, Arden could hear the agonized cries of the man and the neighing of the horse as he raced once more towards the forest, which was still over a mile away.

The others were much closer now. Hooves beat loudly on the turf, muffling the cries of the wounded men Arden had left behind him. The troopers’ arrows sang through the air around him, but with the sun glaring at them over the tree tops, the Ranger was little more than a swift shadow against the gloom of the forest. Again his horse gained ground. Four more times Arden stood in his saddle and turned, careful to wait for all of Night’s feet to be off the ground before loosing his arrows. Another trooper fell. One of the wolves yelped as he ran from a slight wound to his hind leg. Only two men remained when the Ranger reached the forest and plunged inside.

The sun had now set, and Arden quickly faded into the twilight beneath the trees. First the one rider, wounded slightly in the right arm, then the second, and slowest, rider halted at the edge. The wolves were already there, pacing impatiently along the line of trees, heads down and panting. The men looked at each other.

“Let’s wait out here for the captain and the others,” the first said. “The wolves can track him easily enough, and with two full squads we’ll run him to ground. The two of us alone are no match for him in there.”

“From what I saw, the six of us were no match for him out here either,” the second answered.

They stared at each other thoughtfully.

“Right, then,” said the first with a decisive nod. “We’ll send the wolves in after him. In you go, lads. Find him and that damned dog.”

The wolves vanished into the forest.

After several hundred yards Arden swung back to the northeast and began to weave in and out of the trees. Some miles ahead there lay a path, now narrow and overgrown, which was all that remained of the road which ran north from Kinabra. Once it had been broad and well tended, but the dragon and his minions neglected it, as they did all things but gold and power, and the wood had nearly reclaimed the road for its own. While there were still some merchants who traveled the roads, the old, regular traffic had withered away. Men found it safer to remain near home and mind their own business. Travelers were viewed with suspicion by the dragon’s men and the local people alike. Without a traveling pass, purchased for steep fees eked out with bribes, those whom the dragon’s men caught abroad found only trouble. The Rangers seldom used the roads. They kept to the still wilder paths of the forests, mountains, and empty lands. By the time Arden crossed this road, it would be fully dark.

For now the pursuit had cooled. The two surviving troopers had not followed him, though that would not keep their wolves from tracking him while they waited for the captain and the other squadron. Then they would follow the trail straight to him. About a mile into the forest, Arden stopped and dismounted. Directly in his path grew a strong, old oak, and to his left a dense thicket, impenetrable except near the ground. On its far side, he tethered Night, stroking his head gently to soothe and thank him. On his return he concealed Argos beneath the thicket’s lowest branches, and began climbing the tree. He settled into a fork between two large boughs about eight feet up.

In the failing twilight ten minutes later the wolves came, slow and stealthy. With their snouts pressed to the earth, they crossed and re-crossed the trail, but never strayed far from it. Between the oak and the thicket they stopped, as if sifting the thousand hints their senses brought them. Their heads swayed one way, then another, and their nostrils tested the air. This place was rich with the scent of man and horse and hound. They waited, knowing their prey was near.

After a few minutes one of them suddenly trotted some yards past the oak, but he returned immediately. There was something off about the trail. It led off around the thicket, then back again. The wolves began circling, reexamining every inch of ground, every bush and tree. Then the larger lifted his head as if he had found the answer he was looking for. Ears back, teeth bared, he lifted each foot with silent care and set it down again as he moved towards the thicket. The other sniffed among the roots of the oak again, and slowly looked up. A green glow lit his eyes from within as he sprang up at the man in the tree.

In the gloom Arden doubted his aim until that pale gaze met his own. An arrow flew from his bow. The wolf yelped in unexpected pain, and fell back. Arden leaped down after him, striking him with all his weight and knocking him to the ground. He tried to pin the wolf beneath him as he drew his dagger, but even wounded the beast was strong. Arden stabbed at the writhing, snapping, clawing shape until it lay still. Only when the wolf’s life ebbed away and Arden stood panting over him, did he hear the sounds of Argos’ battle with the other wolf.

He drew his sword and turned, but the night defeated his eyes. Two huge, indistinct shapes crashed through the bushes around them, rolling each other over and over, yelping, growling, snarling. Each sought a grip on the other’s throat. Arden did not know which was Argos. The two jumped apart, and crouched back, silently preparing to fight again. Even so Arden could not tell them apart, did not know which to strike at.

Then it was over. As the one lunged forward, the other sprang high in the air, twisting sideways, and came down next to him. His head darted in. His jaws snapped shut. One fell dead. The other stood over him briefly, making sure, then turned towards Arden, who gripped his sword more tightly and waited. After a moment he heard a low, guttural sound that was not quite a bark, a sound he knew. Arden lowered his sword, now realizing that he had been holding his breath. Argos trotted over, wagging his tail. Arden knelt and rubbed the wolfhound’s head and flanks. He found no serious wounds. Argos thrust his bloody snout up to Arden’s face.

“No, lad,” he said, laughing and gently pushing the hound away, “There’s enough blood on me already today. Let’s get moving.”

Together they walked around the thicket to his horse, and resumed their course to the northeast and the road, the ground rising as they made their way. Soon a shallow stream of cool, clear water crossed their path, running down to the lake that lay east of Kinabra. Here they paused, and after they had drunk their fill, Arden dipped his water skin beneath the surface to refill it. As he felt the current rush around his hand, he listened to the sweet music of the water coursing by in the darkness. Then he rose and mounted.

They splashed their way over to the far side, then headed southeast along the bank for several hundred yards before entering the stream once more and returning the way they had come, using the water to mask their trail and slow the pursuit. As they reached the spot where they had crossed the stream a few minutes earlier, a horn blew wild and dim in the far distance, then another, closer seemed to answer. Arden sped up, riding through the shallows until after about a half mile he came upon a stony shore, where he left the stream behind for good.

The meaning of the horns eluded him. Had the two troopers at the woods’ edge sounded their horn to guide the captain? But the wolves coming up with the captain had a plain trail strewn with bodies to follow. Or were the two men simply anxious that the Ranger they chased would return to kill them now that the sun was down? If so, silence would defend them better. Or were there even more soldiers they were trying to summon? And what of the desperate note the first horn had sounded? Had they encountered another Ranger by chance? Deer were abundant in these lands, and at times in the fall of the year Rangers came to hunt them for their winter’s food. That was why Arden was here now. He had entered Kinabra on an impulse. There were too many possibilities for Arden to sift. He spurred his horse.

When he arrived at the road an hour later, it seemed even more lonely than it had this morning. The moon still hung too low over the forest to shine down into the narrow gap between the trees on either side. Arden listened. Aside from the hiss of the wind through the turning leaves all he heard was a nightingale somewhere off to his right. For ten minutes there was no movement on the road. Finally he urged Night forward onto the road. A wolf howled.

“So they set a wolf to watch the road?” he muttered, nodding to himself. “Well, they would have tracked us this way anyway.”

Argos glanced up at him in the darkness as the woods closed around them once more.

They kept moving. The wolf kept howling.

Even in the dark Arden’s knowledge of the forest and woodland paths allowed them to move rapidly. And, unlike the dragon’s men, he knew where he was heading. They were ignorant of the woods – the troopers seldom entered places where the Rangers were at home – and their need to track him along the wandering course he followed would slow them down. Yet their captain was a local man of about Arden’s age. The forest at night would not be as mysterious and frightening to him as it was to his men. The voice of the wolf kept calling to them. Arden’s lead would be shorter than he hoped.

The ground rose steadily as they moved north and east. Before long pines began to replace the oaks and maples of the lower forest. It would take several hours to reach the next path he sought, which came up from the south through the part of the forest that lay east of the town, and wound its way upward into the old, worn mountains to the east. At their summit was a gap beyond which the hills descended to another valley and a river.

Along that wandering switch-backed trail, which was quite wide in some places, the undergrowth of the broad-leafed forest yielded entirely to the pines and the needle covered ground of the heights. Up near the pass he could set an ambush and shoot down at the dragon’s men from above, since the winding road and the incline of the hills would allow him to be within bowshot but high above them. But he would not approach the pass until the hours before dawn. Then, having lessened the odds again, he could ride through the gap in the hills and down to the river. Once across he could make another stand and make them pay dearly for their crossing.

“Of course, we may not have any arrows left by then, eh, Argos?” he said.

The dog, trotting beside his horse, looked up at him briefly.

For hours they continued on and up, stopping every now and then to listen for any sound of pursuit, and to steal a few precious minutes of rest. Where the slopes were steeper, Arden dismounted and led Night by the reins. The moon restored a cold memory of twilight among the trees. Its light was no friend of his tonight. Even such faint illumination could reveal him to the enemy once they were close enough. Arden wished the moon away – he needed to vanish utterly – but it did not go.

Of one thing he was sure. The dragon’s men would press on no matter what. Only their need not to lose his trail would limit their zeal. For troopers received a far richer reward for a Ranger’s head than an informer did. Renown came with it, and promotion, the choice of coveted assignments, and a lifetime of gold. To win this prize they relied on numbers and a relentless chase; and they accepted that the Ranger’s life would not come cheap. For no matter who dealt the Ranger his death blow, they all gained by it; and the fewer who lived to share the reward, the larger each survivor’s share would be. So Arden knew the dragon’s men were still behind him somewhere.

Several hours later he struck the path. The going was now easier for him, as it would be for the soldiers when they arrived. So now he pressed on the harder, still stopping to listen, but rarely to rest, and always climbing and climbing. They could rest when they reached the top.

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Chapter 2.2

Soldier Undaunted -- Chapter 1

One

With his back pressed against the alder, Arden watched the full moon rise beyond the mountains. His hands rested behind him on the cool, smooth bark and at times he thought he could almost feel the tree’s long, slow life pulsing faint and distant beneath his fingers. Above him the withered alder leaves rattled against each other at the touch of the night breeze, and all along the brook the trees whispered in answer. Leaves drifted down to settle beside the many others he had already seen fall today. Autumn was at hand.

A few caught the moonlight as they sailed and fluttered on the air. Their brief, pale flash in the darkness reminded Arden of the fireflies in long ago summers, but in the dry, western lands of his exile no such creatures lived to delight young eyes in the evening. Arden had not seen a firefly for many a year. So he watched the moon rise and listened to the quiet, downhill murmur of the water. It was the never-ending voice of the wood, around which all the other sounds he heard, of beast or bird, of wind or tree, were woven. To Arden's ears the voice seemed fair and peaceful, but still it was not the sea.

The breeze brushed his face and hair. The great, black hound curled at his feet lifted his muzzle to it, his nostrils flaring to catch the least scent of pursuit. Arden watched the dog as closely as he could in the darkness beneath the trees, knowing he would be the first to know they were no longer alone. After a while the hound looked up at him, sighed as if to say “nothing yet,” and lowered his head. Though the wolfhound’s eyes were closed, Arden knew he did not sleep. He was waiting for the sound or smell that would tell him that their time of rest, such as it was, had ended.

“Aye, Argos," Arden whispered, “nothing yet.”

Time passed. Man and dog kept their silent vigil. Arden raised his eyes to the moon again as it climbed completely over the shoulder of the distant mountain, miles away across the broad valley. Bright now at its full, the moon chased the night’s shadows with its own, drawing shades of silver and gray out of the hitherto unvarying blackness. Through the trees he could discern again the shapes of standing groves and farm houses, hillocks and barns, in the valley beneath him, shapes that had left his sight as soon as the sun had gone.

Time passed. It would not be long now, he thought, before they overtook him again. He had lost them yesterday afternoon at the ford. He had lost them, and his horse, struck in the neck by an arrow just after they had crossed the deepest part of the swollen river. Somehow he and Argos had survived the violent passage downstream. His sword and dagger he still had; his bow, its last arrow spent, was lost along with his horse and food. They had scrambled up the bare ridge which rose from the swift river’s bank, slipping and stumbling on the loose stones that rattled downhill behind them. Once over the top they turned north and hastened all that night and the following morning until they came down the ridge to the hill where they now rested and watched, twenty five miles and more north of the ford.

Yet the enemy still had horses, though fewer horses than men, along with mountain wolves to track and kill their prey. And they would not rest. Time passed and time was on their side. Once across the river, a hard crossing by foot or by horse, even the wolves would have a task before them to pick up the trail again amid the bare stones of the ridge, but in time they would find it and the chase would begin once more. So, to gain a respite before they had to fight again, Arden and the hound had pressed on without stopping, using the time the wolves would need to find their trail to put as much distance between them as possible. Two nights and two days of haste, flight, and combat might overmatch even the hardiest. So now, their respite won, man and hound watched, moved little, and took what sleep they could, but it was the sleep of those waiting for something to happen. It was the best they could manage. It was all they could risk.

A sudden, distant clamor arose in the valley below them. The hound stirred, moving nothing but his head, attention trained on the sound. Arden slipped his hand from behind him and reached inside his green cloak, to rest it on the hilt of his sword. Dogs were barking, a man shouting, his words unintelligible, but his tone was clearly recognizable: a man annoyed, shouting at his dogs to be quiet, so he could have some peace after a long day in the fields. A door slammed. No doubt a farmer eager for his bed. But what were the dogs roused at? Arden wondered. He waited but heard nothing more. At last he withdrew his hand from his sword. Had the wolves and men been there, no effort of the farmer would have silenced the dogs; and more shouting would have followed as his pursuers questioned the farmer about their quarry. But there was only silence again, and the memory of sounds heard from afar at night, magnified by darkness and a careworn mind.

Again he returned to watching the moon, high enough now for the grain in the fields to be dimly visible. It waved in the night air like ghostly waves making their way to the shore. As Arden stood gazing out from beneath the shelter of the trees, he thought of his youth in the days of the Republic. He remembered the red, summer moons, which used to rise from the eastern ocean as he sat on the beach at night with his friends. Those moons glowed with all the heat of the hopes and passions he had known as a boy; and as they rose above the hot, summer air and slowly brightened to a shining white, they promised growth and change and a glittering life that would make the stars themselves grow dim, just as even the most brilliant stars faded before a full, white moon.

For himself and for his friends, Arden had dreamed, life would soar upward to a zenith of successful hopes, each as they wished and worked for them. But surely they would come, whichever path they chose, whatever passions and ambitions moved them. And only when this had all come to be would they sink from their peak to old age and darkness, like the moon to its setting in the west. Yet their friends and children would not forget them. Such were the first hopes of his youth.

Of late Arden had pondered his memories of his friends and their youth together differently. Were they true as he remembered them, or did he, as men often did in after years, vary the hue and tenor of these memories to suit his longing for better days? Didn’t people always do that and think that life had been better when they were green and young? Didn’t they forget the bitter depths of old disappointments when it suited them, so their memories could yield a harvest of comfort for the failed crops of later days? Had it been really so good? Did he remember true? True enough, Arden decided, when comfort was needed. And so it was.

His first friend had been Hedále. They had met when Arden was fourteen and Hedále twelve. Too tall and too thin, laughter always in his eyes, as if he saw humor in the world that the world did not yet see, even as a boy Hedále had been blessed with many talents. One night he had simply picked up an instrument and begun to play it as if he had done so all his life. But he had never before touched one. More than this he had all the talents of a friend. He could talk when needed or listen and tell no one. Anyone could trust him completely and rely on his kindness and loyalty. Hedále’s home and Arden’s were the closest to each other, scarcely a quarter mile apart across the fields, and so they had always walked home together at the day’s or night’s end.

Loran and Cal were sister and brother, clever, funny, and true, schooled and interested in the nature of things, blue eyed and covered in freckles, knowing the ridiculous when they saw it as only the young and bright can. They fought, too, as only brothers and sisters of that age can fight: Loran, the younger and more cautious, always threatening to tell their mother but never telling, always going along in the end, sometimes even instigating the most outrageous mischief, like the night they pasted a false beard on the statue of Stochas, Narinen’s last king and the founder of the Republic; Cal, older, more reckless and suggestible, ready for anything that was likely to end in laughter, then all the more ready with clever words and the not quite plausible explanations that brought a smirk of incredulity to his father’s face.

The last of this group of friends was tall, her hair red gold, with skin tanned by the summer sun. Her eyes were green, the color of an ocean wave as it curls over and is illuminated from above by the sun in the moment of its breaking. The long years had not dimmed that color for Arden. Her thought was quick and lively, her heart wise for its years, both kind and strong. And Arden had loved her. She was the morning of summer. But she was also the promised of another, no matter what he might have seen or hoped he had seen in her glance. Hers was the first shadow to fall upon his heart.

Through discipline he had taught himself neither to speak nor think her name. Though he had not forgotten it, it lay interred in the crypt of his memory, sealed behind a door that must remain shut. For years afterward Arden had tried to tell himself that the love they had never declared was no more than friendship, no more than the exaltation of that age at which all friends are in love, but none who knew him, not even those who only saw her ghost in his eyes, ever believed him.

In the end neither could he. Their affection for each other was no indulgence of his fancy to be dismissed with a laugh or sigh, no half-willing misremembrance of a past that had never existed in fact. For his love of her hunted him down all the miles and decades of his life. In his heart he named her Sorrow, and she came to him unbidden in his dreams. Thus were all his falsehoods belied.

The last time they had all been together was the last day of the summer of Arden’s eighteenth year. As was their custom on that day, they met upon the shore before dawn to watch the sun rise, and there they remained until well after dark. Though they would see each other frequently throughout the year, they were together most often in the lazy summers along the eastern shore. Tomorrow would mark their childhood’s end. They would disperse across the wide Land of Narinen to begin their studies at different scholar’s towns, some quite far from the City and the sea which they loved.

The sun rose and blazed on through noon and on into the west. Long, reddish gray shadows stretched across the sands to touch the waves as they rolled in from the eastern ocean. All day they had baked in that sunlight and refreshed themselves in those cool waters, at times riding the curl of the breaking waves to the very edge of the sea. But mostly they talked and laughed, with serious subjects endlessly yielding to the absurd conversations of youth, and then, laughing again, they returned to speaking of serious matters.

In that late, last afternoon, that almost evening, as the sun rested for a moment on the western horizon and the land breeze came up to tousle the leaves on the trees beyond the sand, they lay there, still talking, still laughing, with the sunlight caught glistening in the beads of sea water on their tan skin. Today that moment lived for an hour, as if time itself had stopped the sun for their sake, so that youth and mirth and beauty might abide with them an hour longer. Their laughter rang across the empty beach and they looked at each other with a lifetime’s affection in their eyes. Arden turned his gaze to Sorrow and met hers, and there their eyes rested as if for another hour. Then the sun set and their moment ended. Twilight rose from the sea and they turned away.

“Where do you think they are now?” Loran asked abruptly, her voice full of concern as night came on.

“Our men, you mean,” Cal said. It was more a statement than a question. They all knew what she meant.

“Yes. Do I have to explain everything?”

“Well, you don’t make yourself very clear, Loran.”

“Even if they had a slow crossing, they would have sailed into Elashandra several weeks ago,” Arden replied, ignoring the budding argument between brother and sister. “By now, they could be hundreds of miles further east.”

“Has the battle with the dragons begun, do you think?” Sorrow said as she looked across the sea into the rising gloom.

“I don’t know. Perhaps,” said Arden. “But there’s no need to worry. The elves are strong, and with our men by their side they are stronger yet. The elves have defeated dragons before, you know.”

“Oh, those are just stories,” Loran interjected. “You can’t believe them.”

“Loran –” Cal warned.

“I believe them,” Arden interrupted. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“So do I,” said Hedále. “Arden’s right. Why shouldn’t we believe them?”

“But that was all over a thousand years ago,” Loran protested. “Elves and magic and dragons. They’re good stories. I love them, too, but that’s all they are.”

“Those stories have been handed down unchanged from singer to singer since before there was a Republic,” said Hedále, rather vehemently. His apprenticeship under Dorlas, one of the chief singers of Narinen, began the next day.

“But how do you know about the stories themselves? How do you know they haven’t changed? Have you ever seen a manuscript of the songs from a thousand years ago? And even if they are the same, that doesn’t mean they’re true. You can’t possibly believe they are!”

“But Loran, clearly there are elves and dragons,” said Cal. “And there are no manuscripts. You know that. The singers learn the songs by heart.”

“Yes, I know, Cal, but that doesn’t make the magic real, or the heroes that fought the dragons, or their victories against impossible odds. And without manuscripts we can’t know what the story was before. Tales grow in the telling, don’t you see? And magic is a lot of nonsense.”

“Our grandfather believes in it,” said Cal, who saw his grandfather as the font of all worldly and spiritual wisdom.

“I know that, Cal, but he’s old. Old men believe in myths. If that world ever existed, we don’t live in it any more.”

“Maybe there’s a good reason they believe,” said Hedále.

“Yes, maybe they know more than we do,” Sorrow said to Loran, “and do you two always have to quarrel?”

“Yes,” Cal answered, grinning.

“Oh, we do not,” Loran protested, but with a laugh quickly echoed by the others.

“What about our men across the sea?” Sorrow asked again after a moment.

The laughter ceased.

“I am sure all will be well,” Hedále said. “But I am worried about my father and brother. Even in the old songs not everyone came home.”

They grew quiet, thinking of the fathers, brothers, and friends they had watched sail off in the great fleet two months ago. Then they were all so certain of a swift victory and a glorious homecoming for their friends and family. Now, after nearly eight weeks without a word from the east, they were no longer so sure. Each dawn brought only the sunrise, and each sunrise only brought the day of conflict closer. Whatever the outcome, they knew, some would not return. And this made them anxious. For Hedále, Loran, Cal, and Sorrow had fathers and brothers with the army, and Arden a brother. His own father had been too old for the expedition. It embarrassed Arden that age kept his father safe while his friends’ fathers were all in peril, and at the same time denied him the deathless glory that would grace the victors the morning they sailed into Narinen.

“Yes, all will be well,” Arden muttered quietly, then began again more forcefully. “We will win. You’ll see. Magic or not. God will protect our men and we will win.”

“That’s right, “ said Hedále and Cal in near unison.

“I don’t know,” Sorrow said, looking at Arden. “God’s plans don’t always make sense to humans. I usually can’t even understand what my parents are thinking, let alone god.”

Arden looked down, trying to conceal his heart from her.

“I don’t think there is a god,” Loran added, almost desperately.

“Look at the beauty of the world, Loran, and the sea and the stars,” Arden protested. This was not the first time he had heard her say this. “How can there be such beauty without a god?”

“And how can there be this war and this evil and this suffering if there is? Even if we win, even if we destroy the dragons, thousands have already died, and more will die before the end. How could god allow that?”

“I don’t know,” said Hedále. “I just know that when I am playing and singing, it feels as if I could reach out and touch god. But then I see people suffer and I wonder.”

“Just because we don’t understand doesn’t prove anything,” Sorrow said.

“I know,” Hedále replied.

The twilight was ended now and more and more stars kindled into view. It was fully night, with the last lingering glow of sunset gone from the west. The sand grew cold. They quietly packed up and walked away from the sea that continued to wash the shore as if they had never been there. At the back of the beach, they climbed the long wooden stairs to the top of the bluff to the north, from which they could see the City of Narinen glowing softly in the darkness two miles away. There atop the bluff they made ready to part, reassuring each other with words and embraces, confident that despite their cares and the losses to come, all would be well in the end; and they would all meet here once again when the war was over and their first year of studies completed.

Sorrow and Loran and Cal walked ahead a little, while Arden and Hedále lingered a moment looking at the sea. Behind them Sorrow cast a long look back at Arden. She started to pause, to wait for him, but Loran put her arm around Sorrow’s shoulder and gently guided her onward and away from him. Cal pretended not to notice and began talking once more. Arden and Hedále were watching the moon rise blood red from the ocean as they had so many times before.

“I know that it is only the heat that makes the moon red,” Arden said in a low voice, “but tonight it bothers me. I am afraid Alairan, my brother, will never return. And I fear we will never stand here again.”

“It does seem redder than usual, and I don’t like the way the wind has suddenly come round out of the east,” Hedále answered. “That’s not normal. I feel as if the wind is bringing us something, ill news, or something, I don’t know what. And now there’s this moon, as red as blood. It scares me, too. I wonder where they are.”

“I imagine we’ll hear something soon,” Arden said, trying to sound confident, and together he and Hedále turned and followed the others, hurrying to overtake them for their last farewells.

Fallen leaves rustled in the woods nearby, though the wind had dropped to nothing. Arden opened his eyes, knowing now that he had been asleep, and dreaming rather than thinking. The hound was already up and moving stealthily towards this disturbance of the calm night. Silent as the hound, Arden shook his cloak back from his shoulders and followed. As he drew his sword and dagger, his thoughts strayed one last time to his friends, and he savored the warmth and even the pain which dreaming of that time brought to his heart.

But that was thirty years ago.

Before the dragons came.

They were all dead now.

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Chapter 2.1