Return of the Temujai

The closer they came to the border fort, the narrower
the valley became. The steep, almost sheer walls towered
high above them, blotting out the sun although it
was only a few hours before noon. The floor of the
valley was in shadow, the sun only reaching it for a couple of hours
each day, which probably accounted for the snow that still lay thick
and deep on the ground, even though spring was only a few weeks
away.


In spite of the snow, the small party was making better time
now that they had reached the top of the steep climb that led to
the pass, and they were moving on level ground again.


There were two carts, each with a single pair of wheels and
pulled by a small, sturdy horse. They were stacked neatly with sawn
lumber, and as they were past the steep uphill climb, most of the
Heron brotherband rode on them, finding space among the stacks
of planks and beams that filled the cart trays.


Hal and Stig rode two saddle horses, leading the way for the
carts. It was a newly acquired skill for the two Heron leaders. Stig
had decided that they should learn to ride.


“After all,” he’d told his skirl, “we always find ourselves in
places where they expect us to ride. We might as well know how to
do it. It’ll save us a lot of walking.”


Hal had agreed and Stig had searched around and procured
two horses, rescuing them from a life where they would be destined
to pull carts, and instead turning them into saddle mounts. They
were stolid little creatures, quiet and unimaginative, nothing like a
fierce, thundering battlehorse or a speedy, slender-limbed Arridan
from the deserts to the south. But they carried the two riders
uncomplainingly—even Barney, the one tasked with bearing Stig’s
large frame. If need arose, both horses could be coaxed into a slow
canter or, in extreme situations, a clumsy gallop.


Once Stig had found them, Hal hired one of the Araluen archers,
who was familiar with horses, to teach them the rudimentary
points of riding. After suffering the inevitable tumbles, bruises and
minor injuries, both of them emerged as reasonably capable riders.
They were, after all, fit and agile young men, with a good sense of
balance and the rhythm necessary to match their movements to the
horses’ gait.


With one exception.


“I don’t like trotting,” Hal stated. “I always seem to be going
down when the horse is coming up. It’s an unnatural way to travel
and it’s painful.”


His Araluen teacher, who could sit to a trot instinctively and
so had no idea how to teach someone else to do so, took the easy
way out.


“Why bother?” he had told the young skirl. “If you’re in a
hurry, canter or gallop. If you’re not, just walk.”


That seemed reasonable to Hal, so he simply ignored the concept
of trotting from then on. Occasionally, when he saw Stig
managing to sit smoothly as Barney trotted beneath him, he felt a
pang of jealousy. He was tempted to ask Stig how he managed it
but refused to admit his own deficiency.


“I choose not to trot,” he would say, his jaw set stubbornly,
whenever the subject came up.


Thorn, on the other hand, chose not to ride at all, even though
Stig had offered to find a horse for him.


“I don’t trust horses,” Thorn said, glaring suspiciously at the
two stocky little mounts his friends rode. “Even the small ones
outweigh me by several hundred kilos. They have big teeth and
hooves as hard as clubs. And they’re shifty.”


“Shifty?” said Hal, stroking Jake’s silky soft nose affectionately.


“They’re perfectly trustworthy.”


“Maybe to you,” Thorn replied darkly. “But not to me. Those
big teeth could take off a few fingers—and I’ve only got one hand.”


And in fact, Barney and Jake seemed to sense his unease around
them and his antipathy toward them, and they reacted in kind. If
Thorn walked too close behind Barney, the horse would often lash
out, trying to kick him. And, several times, Jake had whipped his
head around and given Thorn a painful nip on the shoulder. But
with the cunning of their kind, the horses didn’t do so every time
came within range, allowing him to be lulled into a false sense
of security, whereupon they would kick or bite once more, without
warning.


Even now, as the old sea wolf trudged determinedly beside
them through the snow, Jake was tending to sidle closer to him,
measuring the distance between his teeth and the shabby, patched
sheepskin vest that covered Thorn’s shoulder—Jake’s favorite point
for biting. Knowing what his horse was planning, Hal twitched the
reins against his neck and pressed his right knee into the horse’s
side, urging him away from Thorn.


Thorn noticed the movement, and Jake’s indignant toss of his
head as his plans were thwarted.


“See?” he said. “I told you those beasts there cannot be trusted.”


Stig, sensing that Thorn might be about to launch into another
discourse on the evils of the equine species, hurried to redirect the
conversation.


“So, what’s got Erak up in a lather?” he asked Hal. “Is it something
serious or is he just getting clucky in his old age?”


Hal grinned. “Try saying that ‘old age’ thing around him. He’ll
likely brain you with that big silver-headed walking stick he carries.”


He paused, then answered the question. “No. He’s had word
that the Temujai have been nosing around the border.”


“They’re always doing that,” Stig said dismissively.


But Hal shook his head. “They’ve been doing it a lot more than
usual,” he said. “That’s why he wants Lydia to scout around across
the border while we check out the fort itself.”


With their ship laid up for repairs and maintenance during the
winter months, the Herons found themselves with time on their
hands. Erak, the Oberjarl of the Skandians, had summoned Hal to
his lodge in the center of Hallasholm. The young warrior was one
of Erak’s most trusted skirls. Hal led an elite group of fighters in
his crew, but Erak knew that Hal was more than just brave in
battle. He was smart, which a lot of wolfship captains weren’t. Hal
could observe a situation with a keen and intelligent eye, and that
was what Erak wanted in this case.


“Take a look at the border fort,” he instructed the younger
man. “See if it’s secure against attack. And see if there’s any way
you can make it more secure.”


Fort Ragnak defended Serpent Pass, a narrow pass at the junction
of the Skandian, Teutlandt and Temujai borders. The pass was
the only practical way to travel down from the mountains and
access Skandia’s flat coastal strip. Hal moved to the large map on
the wall of Erak’s lodge and studied the pass and the fort. The
walls of the pass were steep, he knew, and the fort was positioned
where they came close together, closing a gap of only twenty meters.


“You have archers here?” he asked.


Erak nodded. “Fifteen of them. I rotate them in and out every
three weeks, along with the rest of the garrison—thirty troops. It’s
too cold and miserable up there to leave them on site for much
longer—although in winter it’s sometimes hard to get men there to
relieve them.”


Since the Temujai attempt to invade years previously, Skandia
received a detachment of one hundred archers each year from their
ally, the Kingdom of Araluen. The archers tended to redress the
imbalance between Skandia’s own warriors, who were armed with
axes, spears and swords, and the mounted Temujai archers. It meant
that the Skandians could fight fire with fire, particularly when they
were ensconced in a secure position, like the border fort.


“I was thinking,” Hal said slowly, “maybe we could set up a
couple of manglers on the sides of the cliffs—here and here.” He
pointed to the cliff walls behind the fort and either side of the fort.


“That’d give the Temujai riders a nasty shock if they attacked.”


“Manglers?” Erak said. “You mean like that giant crossbow
you carry on the bow of your ship?”


Hal nodded. “We could build shooting platforms halfway up
the walls. Then we could sweep the approaches to the fort before
the Temujai got in range.”


“It’s a good idea,” Erak said, reflecting that this was why he had
chosen Hal for the task. The young man had an ability to come up
with new and unexpected ideas like this, and Erak could see how
two of those massive crossbows could make a powerful addition to
the fort’s defenses.


“I’ll get onto it straightaway,” Hal said, stepping back from the
map. “I’ll build them here, then break them down for transport,
and reassemble them once we have the platforms ready. I’ll need to
take lumber to build those as well.”


Erak shrugged. “Plenty of trees up there.”


But Hal shook his head. “It’ll take us time to cut and saw them
into posts and planks. Better if we take whatever we need. We
should be able to get a couple of horse-drawn carts up through the
pass. And we don’t want to give the Temujai too much notice that
we’re strengthening the defenses. If they are planning an attack,
they might decide to go early.”


“That’s true. Do it that way. And while I think of it, you might
get that girl of yours to scout across the border and see if the
Temujai have any troops gathering there.”


They both knew that Lydia, the only female member of the
Heron brotherband, was an expert scout. She could cross the
border and infiltrate Temujai land without being seen or heard by
the enemy. Hal had no qualms about agreeing to the suggestion.
“She’d rather do that than help build the platforms,” he said,
and left the lodge to start gathering tools and equipment.


“So, what do you think?” Stig asked. “Are the Temujai really getting
ready to invade again?”


The Temujai were a warlike, nomadic race from beyond the
mountains east of Skandia. They were committed to a path of
conquest and domination and had long cast jealous, hostile eyes
toward the wealthy countries of the west—Gallica, Teutlandt and
even Araluen. But before they could spread their influence so far,
they would need to conquer Skandia and gain control of its ships.
Some years previously, they had launched an all-out attack on the
Skandians, breaking through the mountain pass and down onto
the narrow coastal plain around Hallasholm. The Skandians, with
the help of a small Araluen force of hastily trained archers, had
repelled them. In more recent times, the Temujai had turned their
attention elsewhere, conquering and plundering the lands to the
east. But they constantly returned to the Skandian border, the site
of their only defeat, testing the strength of the defenses at Serpent
Pass, the scene of their previous incursion.


They were a cruel and pitiless enemy, small, hardy warriors
who were skilled riders and expert archers, shooting from
horseback with their short, curved bows. Their army was highly
mobile and their generals were skillful and cunning. All in all, they
were a formidable enemy.


The presence of the Temujai, and their longstanding threat to
the welfare of Skandia and its people, were a fact of life to Hal and
his companions. Hal’s generation had grown up all too aware of the
Temujai and their aggressive stance toward Skandia. It was something
to be guarded against and prepared for. They knew that the
threat could not be ignored. The Temujai, if they sensed any slackening
of the Skandians’ readiness or will to fight, would sweep
down from the high country like a malevolent flood. But Hal and
his fellow Skandians were well aware of their own ability and battle
skills. So long as Serpent Pass was kept secure and Fort Ragnak
maintained and garrisoned strongly, the Temujai were a problem
that could be dealt with. Constant vigilance was the answer to the
threat they posed. Danger would come if the Skandian nation ever
slackened that vigilance, or if the Temujai happened to find an
alternative, and undefended, route down from the high country to
the coastal plains.


So far, neither had happened. From time to time, the Temujai
probed the defenses at Fort Ragnak. When they did, they found
the garrison there ready and more than capable of repelling them.
Thorn had fought the Temujai many years before when they
had penetrated down to the coastal strip.


“They want access to the sea,” he replied to Stig’s question.


“They always have. And they want our ships. Their plan is to dominate
our part of the world.”


“Charming people,” Hal commented.


Thorn shrugged. “War and conquest is what they’re good at,”
he said. “It’s their reason for being. Their leaders know that if
they’re not conquering new territories, they’ll begin fighting among
themselves and the confederation of tribes will eventually be broken
up. They’re like a shark that has to keep moving to stay alive. They
have to keep moving, fighting and conquering.”


“Do they seriously think we’ll just let them walk in and use our
ships?” Hal asked.


Thorn shook his head. “I’d say they assume that if they invade
us and conquer us, we’ll do as we’re told.” He paused and smiled.


“Of course, first they have to invade us and conquer us.”


“And before they can do that, they have to break through the
border up here. Which is a tough nut to crack,” Stig said.


“And which we plan to make a whole lot tougher,” Hal agreed.


The three of them fell silent for a few seconds as they considered
the task ahead and its importance to the well-being of Skandia
and the other nations around them.


Thorn raised his hook in a warning gesture to Jake, who had
once again begun sidling closer to him.


“Just try it, you shaggy barrel,” he said. “I’ve eaten horsemeat
before. Next time, I might just bite back.”