After three days in the front line, B Company retired to the reserve line, where one of their duties would be to send patrols into the Old Kingdom. On the second day, Captain Tindall summoned Horyse to his dugout. Horyse was not surprised to find Sergeant Curran there, poring over a map with Tindall. Horyse saluted and removed his steel helmet.
"Ah, Lieutenant Horyse. Come and have a look at this," Tindall said.
The map was quite unlike any that Horyse had seen before. True, the southern part was a standard military map, showing the Wall, the Perimeter and the countryside immediately behind the Perimeter. North of the Wall though, the map contained only the sketchiest of detail, most of it written in ink or pencil, in a variety of different hands.
"As you can see, our official map only extends to the Wall and not beyond," Tindall said.
"Are there no maps of the Old Kingdom, sir?" asked Horyse.
"We believe so, but we have never been able to get hold of one. The details you can see here are from information gathered by our patrols, and from patrols we meet from the guard post at Barhedrin Hill." Tindal pointed at a place on the map with the tip of a pencil.
"Sir, may I ask, if the Old Kingdom are patrolling the area north of the Wall, why do we need to as well?"
"We've always had regular patrols operating up to a mile or so north of the Wall, and we've maintained communications with Barhedrin. Over the last few years, the situation seems to have been deteriorating in the Old Kingdom. As far as I've been able to piece together, there hasn't been a king or queen in almost two hundred years. But until fairly recently, there was a pretty effective regency in place. We started to realise something was wrong, well, about two years ago, would you say, Sergeant?"
"That's about right, sir," Curran answered with a nod. "In the normal way of things, our patrols would meet up with Old Kingdom patrols pretty regularly. We'd exchange news, get a heads-up of any trouble coming our way, and so on. Then we started seeing fewer and fewer patrols. Those we did meet spoke about trouble in the interior. Villages being burned and the inhabitants massacred, only to be brought back as dead Hands. Guards being withdrawn from Barhedrin and other stations near the Wall and sent back to Bellisare."
"Then, about six months ago, a message came from Captain Karim at Barhedrin, asking for a meeting," Tindall continued. "Colonel McGovern was indisposed and never goes into the Old Kingdom if he can avoid it, so Major Nugent went. I accompanied him, so did Sergeant Curran. Long story short, Karim was asking for our help. The guard force at Barhedrin had been stripped back to a point where they could no longer effectively cover their whole patrol area, and they asked if we could assist. So, we agreed to patrol the region in front of, and to either side of, the Crossing Point." He pointed with his pencil at a small river, about ten miles to the north of the Wall. "This is the Southwater, which flows around the southern side of Barhedrin Hill and then turns north east, meeting the Rattelin just west of Orchyre, which is the nearest town of any size. We patrol the region between the Southwater and the Wall. The eastern limit of our area is a line due south from the foot of Barhedrin Hill to the Wall. This road here," he pointed at a road that ran alongside the Southwater for some distance before turning northward to pass around Barhedrin Hill. "This is the Wall Way, which runs more or less parallel to the Wall from east to west. Here," he indicated the map again, "is a ruined village. It was abandoned, or destroyed, some years ago, long before we began patrolling that area. The western limit of our patrols is a line running from the village, due south to meet the Wall." Tindall paused and looked at Curran, then at Horyse.
"I'm sending you out on an extended patrol, lieutenant, to get the lie of the land, so to speak." He gave Horyse a stern look, quite unlike his normal, easy-going demeanour. "Make no mistake, Lieutenant, Sergeant Curran is in command of this patrol. You are there to watch and learn. In the Old Kingdom, the slightest mistake can mean death, or worse. Is that understood?" He demanded.
"Yes, sir!" Horyse put every ounce of sincerity he had into his reply. He was beginning to understand just what the 'or worse' to which Tindall referred could mean.
"Very good, Lieutenant. If anything happens to the Sergeant, Corporal Lyons will take over. If Lyons goes down as well, you must get the patrol back as best you can. Sergeant," he turned to Curran, "as well as Lyons, I can give you Private Horrocks. That's all the Scouts I can spare. Pick another four to make the number up to eight."
"Anshye, sir," the sergeant said with a grin. "And I'll find a couple of others."
As the sun began to sink, Horyse and the rest of the patrol assembled in the forward trench. Curran had explained that due to the strange nature of time on either side of the Wall, sunset in Ancelstierre corresponded roughly with dawn in the Old Kingdom, meaning that they would have maximum daylight. Curran walked along the line, inspecting weapons and equipment. He inspected Horyse just as thoroughly as anyone else, testing the edge of his cutlass and nodding approval when it drew a small bead of blood. "You got a knife, sir? And a cosh? And any of those star things?"
In fact, Horyse felt more like a brigand, or a Frontier tribesman, than an officer of the Ancelstierran Army. Instead of an officer's breeches and riding boots, he wore the hobnailed combat boots and puttees of the Other Ranks. His tunic was covered by a thigh-length leather jerkin; the insignia of the Arquebusier Guards, of which he had once been so proud, were now blacked out with boot polish. His forage cap was covered by the shapeless woollen covering that the men referred to as a 'cap comforter', and he had a steel helmet slung beneath his pack. On Curran's advice, he had left his revolver in his dugout, and felt almost naked without the comforting feel of the holster against his right thigh, and the weight of a .303 rifle slung on his shoulder. But, instead of the revolver, he had a sturdy, broad-bladed dagger, and a round shield slung over his shoulder in place of the rifle; and the cutlass slung on his left side was wickedly sharp. His favourite fighting knife was tucked into one boot, with a smaller throwing knife in his sleeve. The pouches that would have carried ammunition held instead several of the wickedly sharp Korovian throwing stars. At last, Curran was satisfied.
"Let's go, lads, sir. Corporal Lyons, take point."
Captain Tindall, who had been watching nearby, stepped forward and blew his whistle.
"Crossing point party, on the double. One patrol of eight men to cross."
A corporal nearby wound the handle of the klaxon, and the men in the trenches and listening saps stood to, bayonets at the ready. A platoon-sized formation, composed entirely of Scouts, doubled away along a forward sap that Horyse had not noticed before, Tindall going with them. Curran nodded to Woods who moved off along the trench. Horyse himself was placed in the middle of the file of men, with the sergeant in front of him and Anshye behind. Private Horrocks, the other Scout, brought up the rear.
To Horyse's surprise, the sap began to rise towards ground level, emerging into no-man's land just in front of the Wall. A tunnel had opened in the Wall, though Horyse had seen no sign of any door or entry-way in that section. Tindall was standing in front of the opening, with a half-dozen or so of the Scouts.
"Patrol standing by to cross, sir," called Curran.
"Very good, Sergeant. On me," answered Tindall. The patrol followed him into the tunnel, with the Scouts falling in as a rear guard.
The tunnel was short, perhaps four or five meters in length and lined with blocks of grey stone. It seemed lighter than it should be inside, given that it was dusk outside, and none of the men were using flashlights. Horyse thought he could see strange symbols on the stones in his peripheral vision, but whenever he tried to focus on them, they shifted and moved away. Then he was through the tunnel and out into the other side, where two lines of Scouts, swords drawn, formed what almost seemed to be an honour guard, except that they were facing outwards.
Horyse halted in surprise. The balmy warmth of an unseasonably mild autumn night had been replaced with a penetrating cold and the unmistakable signs of a frost to come. The sky was cloudless, but the familiar stars had changed. Where was Polarion, the North Star, by which anyone, anywhere in Anclestierre could orient themselves? Instead, a baleful orange star glowed above the horizon in a direction Horyse estimated to be just west of north. He pulled out his compass and was somehow not surprised to see the needle spinning, uselessly.
"Come on, sir! We need to get away from the wall, fast. Before we attract attention." Curran's whispered order brought Horyse back to his senses, and he followed as the patrol moved off, swiftly and silently, into the Old Kingdom.