The ring was not, as Luke had feared, battered and misshapen out of all recognition, though it had tarnished faster than wooden artefacts. Turning it over he examined the triangular indentation and noticed for the first time it had some detail in the drawing.
“Where did you find it? I wondered if it would just have been melted and used for something else.”
Commander Hunt paused before replying, then decided there was no one to overhear. “Commander Tivoli had it in safe keeping. He saw it was more valuable than its metal alone.”
“That man is close to Rah.”
“He is Rah’s cousin. Don’t cross him.”
He noticed his fingers had thickened as the ring now sat snugly on the fourth of his right hand. His own painted Sun Ring sat on the middle finger, an enemy could see two totems of his own death before facing the upward strike. Of sharpened metal now, though they had not yet had an opportunity to test the the new weapons in hand to hand combat or on wild animals. He still kept a full set of stone and wooden tools, with Elenean improvements - horn from the moons was hard and could be sharpened to a point making a good tip for a lance, which might need to be used several times in a single duel. Wood-hardening techniques too were far better in this country, and single-piece weapons such as throwing spears could cause a grievous wound in soft flesh. He had turned down the offer to form a rabble of opponents from the prisons for practice combats as he thought it would make his men decivilised. Not to mention that in his mind most of the prisoners were quite innocent and did not need to be used as targets. Luke felt confident as his party moved beyond the border to the land south of the mountains, in a way he never had with the Lodge. Then everyone had been permanently on edge, as if they might be attacked from any side, but now Luke thought their enemies would simply melt into the woods at their approach. The more likely problem being they would simply not see anyone.
He checked the security of his packs, particularly the one which contained his most precious order, guarded against rain in a waterproof skin. Without looking behind they headed away from the border, conspicuously taking the bare hill to the left of the stream rather than the woods to the right, where the horses would have less freedom of movement. They did not expect trouble in this part of the land, there was a squadron out on manoeuvres nearby in case they needed protection. The horses marched up the hill and out of sight of their own country, where they stopped at a freshet to drink.
It was a warm day, bearing the promise of a hot Spring to come, and the sun was nearly at its height for the time of year. The soldiers shared biscuits and drank water, wishing for a stronger brew.
"Which I have in my pack," said Leo. "Enough for one good evening at least."
"Well it had better be the evening we get back," said Luke. "The most likely time to be attacked is at night, and it won’t be so good if they find us all drunk out of our heads."
"Personally I'd much rather be drunk when I die," said Kai. "At least I'd die happy."
"Observe the cream of Rah's forces," said Luke to Peter. "All they want to do is get drunk and die. But I'll come back for their bodies just to get my rings back from them."
"Your rings? They have Rah's mark upon them." He laughed as he said it, all of them knowing their instinctive loyalties were to the leader of the Sun Ring.
"We're out of Elenea now," replied Luke, "and there is no king in these lands. Isn't that how you always wanted it?"
Peter made an involuntary movement at the shocking suggestion, but Kai put him right.
"When I was in prison I wanted nothing more than to be out of the country, away from all its stupid factions and politics. I would have run out many times if I had thought I could have got away from it safely. But now I'm here I look forward to being back. It was just a trick my mind played on me to keep me living in hope. Look, there's nothing out here. No civilisation, no women, no houses, no children playing. Even here so close to the border. Now its hill after hill as far as our eyes can see all the way to the icy white of Trantrith. Where are all the cows and goats? Where are the crops? It would be stupid to spend a lifetime out here. Besides, its hardly the fault of Rah. He's the one who's trying to put an end to it all."
Luke said nothing as they secured the packs and remounted. They knew the route for the first few miles so Peter led the group over the coarse soil of two hills. In the distance they saw a large hill with two small clumps of trees on top.
"There it is," announced Peter. "The Scarecrow."
"Good. At least we're accurate this far. Now it becomes a little more uncertain. We'll camp on the hill tonight as planned, we may as well make use of those trees to practise fighting in woodland without risk of ambush. Tomorrow we'll survey the country to the southern coast."
As the sun started to edge towards the horizon they gathered at the top. The horses were tethered in one of the clumps of trees and the men sat in the other. Peter dug a deep hole for the fire, with a narrow trench to allow air to reach its base.
"We'll have to wait till dusk to light the wood," he remarked to Luke. "Otherwise the smoke will be visible over half the world."
"Before that we have another task to do." Luke reached into his pack and withdrew the precious bundle. Removing the outer cover he spread a thick sheet of flax linen over the ground. "We have to mark out exactly where we've been today and all the physical and human features we've seen."
Peter had seen the map before, but it was still amazing to see the whole world spread out at their feet. Luke's fingers indicated the part they had crossed that day. Elenea was left blank on this map, except for a swathe about a league wide along the border. To the west and south there were a great number of details for about ten leagues, then fewer and fewer, with the western lands simply marked with the symbols of Trantrith, Hinderith and, in slightly more detail Athelea, the emblems being the mythical eagle, wolf and deer. Trantrith and the Hinderith were shaded and contained a triple mountain symbol, indicating "many". The coastline was marked all the way round but Luke had no way of knowing whether it was accurate or guesswork. Except for the long north eastern peninsula which he could see had been shortened to a rounded headland. One of Luke's tasks on the mission was to check and improve on the information on the map. He would stick to the southern coast, the borderlands and Trantrith.
"Well there was a cottage we came past just after lunch," said Kai.
"Yes. That's already there." Luke pointed to a mark on the map.
"No, there was another one. Up here, by the stream on the edge of the wood."
"Yes," agreed Leo. "That was where we were afraid the dogs would bark."
Luke took a stick from his pack. One end was filled with a reddish clay. Placing a flattened piece of wood under the map he made a red cottage symbol on the sheet, at the edge of the shaded region of trees.
"Now, where was that hill we didn't expect?"
"It's just back behind there." Peter pointed south of the cottage. "Between these two." Luke added another hill sign, slightly smaller than the ones to either side.
"Good. Let's see what we can identify from here now."
The view was good, but most was all already on the map. Of course, Luke realised, we are not the first people to visit The Scarecrow. But not many will have travelled further, especially since they would have to have been on foot. I wonder what we will see from High Nest, all the way over there. And then the mountains beyond, with their icy tops. There are so many of them. And each one has a small forest. Luke felt homesick for the first time since leaving prison, longing to know what had become of his family in the damaged land, in the north-west corner of the map. It was too far for this trip. Next time, maybe he could manage it.
*
They made no fire in the morning, eating cold bread and dried meat for breakfast and finishing the water they had fetched in skins from the stream the day before. Luke reflected on the change in their water requirements since they had started using the horses. Water had always been the bane of the traveller's life. Now they needed more but carried less. Except in the mountains they would never be more than an hour from flowing water. Even there he expected to get lucky. The burden of heavy waterbags, with their inevitable disasters, was something he was quite happy to put into the past. After packing their bags and scanning the hills for signs of human activity they took a detour back to the stream to fill up the horses.
“Do we need to examine their feet?” he asked Peter.
“These ones are fine. No sign of tiring or lameness. Not like the ones we had at Cedar.”
“In the field? I thought they were taken by the troops.”
Stolen story; please report.
“No. They could only force a few of them away. Most of them had rotten hoofs and only good for slaughter. The young ones were healthy. Keeping horses in a small field was a poor idea, no wonder we never realised the possibility of riding them. You were lucky to find the ones we first tamed. But these will be happy, they get several hours of open ranging each day and get to run as well. That keeps their toes in good condition.”
The morning sun warmed their backs as they headed for the range of hills that would reveal the coast beyond. Luke stopped the party and pointed into the air. A bird had soared up and they watched it settle back down to ground level.
"Who kicked your bush?" asked Luke softly. "I think we might go and kick his."
They fanned out and circled around the spot, about a league distant, where the bird had landed. It was not long before Luke heard a whistle and when they regrouped he found Kai holding a frightened boy, about ten years of age.
"OK, let go of him. He's not going to run away. What is your name?" he asked in the Elenean tongue.
"Riki," said the boy assertively. "Are you bandits?" The boy’s dialect was coarse and Luke had to get Peter to interpret some of his words.
"No," replied Luke carefully. "We're soldiers. We're looking for the bandits."
"Well how come you ride the tertens? Only bandits and gods can ride tertens."
"If we're going to hunt bandits we need to be able to catch them, don't we? Now, if you tell me where your family live maybe they can help us find the bandits and we'll make your home safe."
"I can tell you where the bandits are," said Riki. "Everyone knows that. They live on the coast in the great cliff. They live on fish and eggs and the animals that live in the hills and they take crops and animals from us each year. They come all over the land and take boys to steal things from houses in the flat lands. On Turtle Day they make us go to the Endland to pick them off the beach and we are allowed to keep one for every five we catch. Their chief is ten feet tall and has two heads and three arms and if you disobey orders they'll take you to him and he'll eat you alive."
On hearing the last Luke wondered about the accuracy of the rest. He had heard about the turtles, they came to the Hinderith too one day each year, in the Elenean part but that did not stop the few residents of the area crossing for the catch. "Have you ever seen this cave?"
"Oh yes. I went there on a secret mission with my brother. My parents would have gone mad if they'd known. It's about ten leagues up the coast. A path leads from the cliff top to their cave. We saw their secret tunnel too. A man came out of the ground and we legged off but we saw from the trees someone else coming out after him. I thought they must be demons but my brother worked out about the tunnel."
Luke gave the boy some food and opened the bag containing his weapons. Riki gasped on seeing the arsenal.
"Do the bandits use any of these?"
Riki pointed to the flint and wooden arrows and spears and the bow. "Those ones they make us steal. But these are different." He indicated the metal heads. "Are these the ones you will use to kill the bandits?"
Luke smiled. "Possibly."
They released the boy, after granting his request for a run on one of the horses. Luke approved that the boy had not told him where he lived. He would make a good soldier. He gathered his men after they had ridden off a discreet distance.
"These will be small-time bandits. Probably about eight or ten of them, perhaps ganging up with other nests from time to time. No horses and only the standard weapons."
"I thought he said they did have horses," said Kai.
"These bandits live in a cave. The boys saw no horses on their visit. There may well be more powerful bands in the mountains who do have horses. This Hartor, he definitely has some. When we deal with this lot we’ll find who the chiefs of the region are and we’ll soon discover the source of power in the land. And if we break a few of his eggs he’ll pay us a little more respect."
*
The cliff was easy to identify from a distance and they could see the cave opening near the top. Luke did not want to be seen, as he knew he would have to persuade the occupants into the open to fight, so he sent Peter on foot to scout. The young man was still possessed of a teenager's talent for entering places unobserved, but Luke cautioned against trying to enter the cave front.
“If you climb the rock from below they’ll spot you and throw boulders down to knock you off. Even if you approach from above someone could come out from the hidden entrance and cut off your escape. Your instructions are just to find out what the path from the top of the cliff is like and try to find the entrance to the tunnel.”
It was a long wait while Peter carried out the reconnaissance. The horses and men concealed themselves in the bushes where a steep valley descended to the shore, and passed the time talking about their lives before prison. Luke looked anxiously at the declining sun.
“We’ll give him until it touches the horizon then go up for him.” But they heard Peter’s bird-call in the distance and twenty minutes later he scrambled down the slope to join them.
“Sorry I took so long. I found the top path and their tunnel entrance. I watched the path from the trees for about an hour then saw a man appear from under a bush. Then six more came out and they all stood round talking so I couldn’t get away. Eventually I managed to sneak through a small ravine and get through while they were looking out over the cliff. They seemed to be breathing in smoke from something that smelt like burnt tangleweed.”
“That figures,” said Luke. “I learnt about that in prison. Kashi. It makes you more alert for a few hours but after you’ve slept you feel terrible. It doesn’t grow in Athelea, but some Eleneans say they have a few plants on their farms. How say we attack first thing tomorrow morning?”
“How are we going to attack them?” asked Kai.
“Their cave has two entrances. As the boy said, one open from the cliffside and the other concealed. My plan is we smoke them out by building a fire in the cliff entrance then pick them up once they’ve all left the cave.”
“The top path is extremely narrow,” said Peter. “If they charge us when we’re at the entrance we’ll be pushed off.”
“Right. We’ll have two men at the cave entrance - one building the fire and one to ward off any counterattack from above. They can rope the to the rocks in case they fall. The two horses will be left above the top of the cliff. The rest of us will be in hiding with our own horses and I’ll lead the charge when all the bandits are out. The pair down below can join in the attack when they’re ready.
“Kai and Leo will be the ones at the cave entrance. The rest of us will be in the attack. Remember, they don’t have any reason to suspect anyone is around, and when they discover us they won’t realise we know about the tunnel. So no main fire tonight, but we have to make some charcoal, so we can carry embers to light the fire for the attack without noise or smoke. No need for a lookout, we’re well concealed and the horses will wake us if anyone approaches. This place is about the safest we could be round here.”
Waking before dawn, Luke roused the men and made a small fire taking the opportunity to brew a drink from the herbs in the valley. He was sure the bandits would not be awake. They did not strike him as military men. He examined the wood they had all laboriously cut the previous evening. Spread out along the ground the leaves and branches were nicely dry.
The six of them took the horses and wood and carefully ferried some burning embers from the fire to a vantage point above the cave. After tying the horses they helped Kai and Leo stack the wood above the cave entrance. By this time it was getting fully light. They froze as a man emerged from the cave and urinated over the edge of the cliff. He shuddered in the morning cold and returned inside.
“Now I realise what that smell is,” said Leo. “Well at least we’ll do the world a favour by cleaning out their cave.”
Luke and Peter and the other two retreated to the horses as Kai carried the still glowing charcoal embers in his gloved hands and readied himself to start the flames close to the entrance, with Leo crouched above carrying a bundle of fresh branches stacked on his back and dagger in hand. He could find nowhere to secure a rope so just balanced on the path and tried not to look down. First laying the hot embers on a few branches he blew on them to make them glow then piled wood on as fast as possible. The long branches with leaves went on top of the pile. The smoke drifted away from the cave in the slight wind, but after a while the bark started to crackle so Kai took one of the smoking branches and thrust it deep into the cave aperture. Leo handed down his reserve pack of branches as they heard the shouts from the sleepers. Kai quickly pulled flaming brands from the fire with his gloves and threw them in and piled everything on top. He narrowly stopped himself from jumping back and off the cliff edge. He could hear the men in the cave, trying to get close so they could push the obstruction out of the entrance. They coughed and choked as they were forced to draw breath. He heard Leo on the path above, loosing an arrow at an acute angle into the cave mouth, then another arrow, no volley coming back in return. Then silence in the cave and after a short time the fearsome sound of hooves. Peter and Luke screaming at the bandits once they had emerged from the hidden entrance and were cut off from retreat. He ran up the slope to join Leo who had already mounted his horse.
The bandits split in several directions as they heard the horses. That way they thought at least some of them might have a chance of escape. The horses had no difficulty rounding them up, showing a spear to those who resisted. Luke was left facing just three live prisoners.
“Eleven left the cave,” said Leo. There are seven bodies. One is a woman. Do you want me to track the escaper?”
“He'll be holed up close by,” said Luke. “It will be no bad thing for him to take the news to his boss. Do you have any injuries?”
“Kai has a burn on his shoulder and I’ve taken two light grazes. Nothing serious. We can deal with these three first.”
Luke faced the three bandits. Two surly men in their thirties and a teenage boy. Luke drew his metal dagger.
“No,” cried the boy. “Me no bandit.” He knelt on the ground in front of Luke’s feet. The other two stared at the scene with disgust.
Luke showed his Sun Ring with Rah’s inscription. The boy could not help flashing a look at the other one, the metal ring with Hartor’s symbol. “Do you declare allegiance to Rah as a subject of Elenea?”
The boy nodded. Even in these parts Rah’s emblem was a potent symbol. Still kneeling he repeated the oath of obedience. The two men looked away.
Luke gave Sen his knife. “Despatch those two. I’ll prepare for the journey back to the border.”
The boy’s name was Toth, but Luke renamed him Thomas, to emphasise his new allegiance to Elenea. They set off to take him back to the border. At the first stop he enquired about Luke’s ring. His grasp of Elenean was poor, only as much as he had learnt from the bandits.
“Not that one. The Hartor ring. Stefan, he work for Hartor. He ride over on big black terten. He tell me I work for Hartor too. One day I ride big black terten. But these men, they very bad. Not Stefan. Now you come. They all dead and I ride terten for you. Until Stefan come, he take me away again.”
“Don’t worry about Stefan. Rah will protect you. Where does he come from, anyway?”
“Stefan, he come out Trantrith, very far away. He next come three day. He be angry when he see. He be very angry when he know I escape.”
“Where did they take you from?”
“I live before in Gat, near mountain. But my family kill by bandits. They take me prison, make me work in stinking fox den. Beat me when I escape. They say one day I ride terten for them but they lie. They make me into bandit. I learn language, I go on raid. I talk to boy. I tell him I one day escape and work for Rah. Then kill many bandit. He grinned with pleasure at the anticipated revenge. “Luke you very big man. You work for Rah and you work for Hartor.”
“Gat? You mean Gida? Esayi Atheleano?” To the boy’s open amazement Luke switched to his own language. “You can work for me when we return to civilisation. But first you’ll have to take military training. And I shall have to visit your previous master.”