32. An Unexpected Encounter.

Private Sovna found that she hated fish. Its taste, smell, and the slimy feeling one had to suffer when scaling, gutting and deboning it, they all revolted her. She was clearly not alone in this sentiment – fish rarely was a part of Salamandastron fare during the seasons she spent at the Mountain, despite having the sea right beyond their doors. But as old Sergeant Greeves said, a fighter on a campaign should be able to cook and eat everything that is both edible and does not ask her to stop.

Now Sovna, the only beast left to watch the camp while the rest of Gallopers fanned around scouting the dune country, was busy watching over a steaming pot of freshly boiled fish. Cooking it raised her hatred of camp duties to the new heights of passion, but there was no sense in arguing with the captain – the punishment was the punishment. The haremaid watched and listened for possible trouble with anxiety that owed more to pent-up anger than fear, almost hoping that some vermin will find the campsite and allow her to let loose. Maybe that will show Aldwin her worth beyond any doubt?

This time fate decided to satisfy her hidden desire. Like most hares, Sovna had good hearing, so she did not miss snow crunching under some cautious but all too heavy paws. Her rapier and small iron buckler were lying not far from her, so arming herself was a matter of moment.

As the haremaid turned to see him, Suran Longspear stopped. He remembered that the mountain they were searching for was inhabited by fighting hares, but their landfall point should have been pretty far away from it and he could not be sure from where this particular hare had come.

"Hey, no need to be so nervous, my dear! Just wanted to see who's camping here, you know." The fox waved the longsword in his left paw and tried to smile disarmingly, to distract his potential opponent's attention from the pebble held in the lowered right, just in case.

"As if!" Sovna glared at the vermin from above the buckler's rim. For a fox, this one might be considered handsome: tall, well-proportioned, with thick and luxurious albeit already graying rusty-red fur. But lack of the left ear, which left his head weirdly asymmetrical; clothes, once valuable, now worn and torn; gleaming toothy leer; and his whole manner gave him the appearance of a first-rate villain; as if being a fox and attempting to sneak up on her was not enough.

"Being mistrusted by such a pretty maiden sure hurts."

Sovna growled threateningly, her blood rising. She did not fear the fox – without a shield of his own, he was at a disadvantage here, despite being bigger and heavier, and she was confident in her skills. But this time she remembered that dead local vermin were of no use to their mission, so she had to make at least a token effort to take the fox alive. "You'll be hurting a lot worse, unless you drop your weapon, vermin."

"Oh, really?" Suran's eyes narrowed, his hackles rising, but his voice still smooth. "You have a nice voice, my pretty, but voice alone won't be enough to make my weapon drop."

"I won't ask that again!" Sovna moved slowly forward.

"But you just did, didn't you?"

As the haremaid gritted her teeth, clearly enraged by the fox' words and about to act, Suran acted first. He aimed the stone that Sovna failed to notice at her belly, but instead the weighty pebble connected with her right paw, clanging against the rapier's basket hilt. Sovna yelped in pain, the blade almost slipping from numbed fingers. She was lucky that the fox could not swing-up the stone properly and thus no bones were shattered but even so, the impact sent her reeling.

Suran gave her no chance to recover from shock. A mighty sword swing knocked the haremaid's buckler out of the way, staggering her. Sovna tried to protect herself with the rapier, but with her right paw feeling as if turned to clay, the rapier went flying after first blow. She jumped back and dove for a spear, left by one of the other Gallopers not far from the fire. Then searing pain slashed through her back, sending her to the ground.

For a few seconds Sovna thought that she is already dead. Certainly, the agony was fitting of a mortal wound in her mind. Then a heavy paw slammed between Sovna's shoulderblades, knocking the breath out of her, pressing her body into snow, and making her realize that she is still very much alive.

At the same time, a sharp blade pressed to the side of her neck reminded her that this can quickly change. "Oh dear, aren't you rude?"

Suran took a few breaths, and brought more of his weight upon the footpaw that was pinning Sovna when she tried to squirm. "Still, it would be a real shame to hurt such young and pretty hare, so I suggest to tell…"

The fox suddenly stopped mid-phrase and turned his head in the direction, from which he heard very suspicious sounds. Just in time to see another hare, bigger, armed and armored, with distinctive black ears protruding from under his shining helmet, sliding into the small hollow between dunes, where the Gallopers made their camp. For all his bragging, Suran was no fool. He knew that defeating a fully equipped and ready fighter of equal size with just a sword required a huge gap in skill and experience.

"Stop right there! One step, and I'll cut her throat!"

The hare indeed stopped. And Sovna too froze, feeling that the sword was already shaving her fur, about to slice into skin.

"That I won't advise." Captain Aldwin shrugged, as far as the breastplate allowed him to. "First, as you said, it will be a real shame. And second, what you'll do then, wot?"

Suran tried to scratch his lost ear, then spat angrily. "That we'll see. How about you drop your sword, if you don't want your sweetheart to bleed out before your eyes?"

Aldwin smiled in a way that made Suran feel the cold of winter more acutely. "You're mistaken on two bloomin' points. First, she is not my sweetheart, just a subordinate of not much value. And second, I'm just not dumb enough to drop my sword when standin' before a northlander fox."

While this dialogue was going, Sovna recovered enough to look for a way to free herself. Trouble was, with her head half-buried in the snow, she could not see well how exactly the fox stood.

The fox chuckled. "My bad, I guess I travelled softer lands for too long. But by the way of Northlands you won't leave me alive whatever I do, so why shouldn't I just cut her throat to spite you?"

The hare looked at him strangely. "Because you still hope to save your tail, that's why you're askin'. You know the Northlands way, but you're not really of the Northlands. And you're in luck, for the same can be bally well said about me. I'm Captain Aldwin Nightfur of Salamandastron, commander of the Gallopers, and on my honor as an officer of the Long Patrol, I swear that no harm will come to you if you let my soldier go and surrender your sword."

"Salamandaston?" Suran whistled. "Oh my. Listen, my sword is not leaving my side while I live, but if I let this cute soldier of yours go, will you believe that I have something important to tell you?"

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"What they're waiting for?" Lynne thought herself bold before, but now she couldn't contain anxiety. The foes were right there, watching their house from the dunes, as twilight fell, but making no move so far. This terrible anticipation, the need to remain calm while the foe watched her, as a raptor watches its prey from the sky, while her younger siblings wept in fear, made her feel worse than she ever felt in her short life.

Unexpectedly, it was Ewalt who decided to answer. "Sun setting. Knowing our number, I'd attack in the twilight, were I in their shoes."

"Why?"

Kethra, who was sharpening her old sword, chuckled dryly. "First, our kind's eyes dusk are better in the dusk than those of preyb… of your kind. And then, untested beasts panic when attacked in the dark."

"Yeah." Ewalt nodded. "Now remember, if they are not wholly idiotic, they'll try to breach the roof and drop down, so all of us need to be on guard, while Kethra and Selvathy defend the door."

The ferret and the otter were the biggest creatures within the house, and the only ones armored. Selvathy, by Ewalt's suggestion, donned Suran's heavy chainmail that the fox left when setting out to hunt and while it didn't fit her, being made for a different body shape, it offered far better protection than nothing. In terms of armor they probably had an edge over the whole vermin band, but lack of weapons bothered Ewalt. A number of shields and spears, those they had no time to pick up, went down with the longboat. To think of it, they only saved chainmails because Suran grabbed both his and Kethra's bags in time. If not for the wooden javelins Ewalt made yesterday, some beasts in the house would be armed with nothing better than small knives and their own teeth.

Smalltooth had much the same thoughts. Well, at least for him, being armed with nothing but a piece of sharpened wood was nothing new. As was being deathly afraid. The ermine tightly clenched a small javelin, so that his paws wouldn't shake.

Kethra noticed that. "Hey, Smalltooth."

"Yes?"

"Do you remember the story of my grand-grandfather, Kari the Fierce, and how he took revenge on the beasts of Seamew Mountain, for nearly burning him in his friend's house?"

"Yes, I do."

This surprised Kethra for a moment. She never paid real attention to Smalltooth before, so she didn't know that the little ermine had good memory and tried to learn and remember as many stories as he could – for a weak and timid beast being a good storyteller was one of the few ways to win a small measure of acceptance among a vermin crowd.

"Then do you remember how Greyclaw the stoat helped him?"

Smaltooth picked through the contents of his memory. "Yes."

"Then why won't you tell us."

Smalltooth didn't quite understood Kethra's intentions, but he was not about to disobey her. He cleared his throat, but fear still weighed heavily on his mind, so he could not concentrate to tell more than bare bones of the story. "Well, Greyclaw was a weak fighter. He agreed to go with Kari because he owed your grand-grandfather, for some gifts and help. And he was afraid of his mate's scorn, too. They went together to ambush eighteen beasts from Seamew Mountain. There Kari killed six beasts with his sword and spear and wounded several, and Greyclaw was protecting his back all the time, and Greyclaw wounded three, before the surviving cowards ran. That is how beasts told me the tale."

"Well," Kethra said, "if Greyclaw found enough guts to fight two against nearly a score just because of some gifts and a nagging mate, then surely you can do so for a beast who saved your life. If Kari and Greyclaw had nine foes for each of them, we have much less. I don't ask you to be a great and brave warrior. Just protect my back, and we'll repel the scum."

"Well said." Ewalt, who listened intently to the dialogue, could not help but admire the approach that Kethra used to inspire Smaltooth – and everybeast else. Maybe he was too hasty in thinking that the ferretmaid was a beast of simple mind.

Rowanbloom was one beast whose spirit refused to be lifted. The squirrel healer was showing no outwards signs of anxiety – except for the smell, thin but discernible for those with especially keen noses. Everybeast was in this peril because, in no small part, of her and her vague premonitions, and now she was unable to help at all until the battle is over.

A dark shape obscured the firelight, casting the squirrel into a darker shadow, and Rowanbloom raised her eyes to see Selvathy offering her another one of Ewalt's javelins with a rather forced smile. "Ye're hopeless, Rowanbloom. Again we're facin' battle, and again ye're without a weapon. For how long must I care about such things for a beast about twice my age?"

Rowanbloom wanted to say that she survived the Seacrag Castle just fine without raising a weapon in anger. Then she realized how egotistic that would sound. And that maybe she was able to help, after all.

"No longer." This time Rowanbloom's paw was firm, as she took the wooden shaft from Selvathy's paw.

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Unbeknownst to Ewalt and the rest, the vermin surrounding them were not about to attack in the twilight. Sargiss, an experienced warlord, knew how valuable his veteran warriors are and how to manage them. Knowing from interrogating Spikepelt that he is likely to face three great warriors, he was not about to throw his small horde into the fray right after almost a whole day of forced march. No, it was much better to give beasts a night's rest, while leaving their prey sleepless and nervous, awaiting their attack any second, then strike at early dawn.

There were a few more issues to deal with, before allowing himself some rest as well. Sargiss walked up to the fox who had been injured by Tezza's arrow. A weasel who passed as a healer in the remnants of their horde removed the arrow and tried to bandage the wound, but blood soaking the snow below the old fighter was showing futility of his unskilled efforts.

"Ye ain't gonna be marchin' tomorrow even if blood stops." Sargiss' tone was almost apologetic.

The fox nodded weakly. "If only I could taste some good old nettlebeer in the end…"

"Dream on. If I had any nettlebeer, I'd drink it meself."

The fox almost laughed. "That's our warlord. Then make it swift. And make sure to kill a few of 'em slow and proper for me."

"Ye can bet on it."

As the fox threw back his head, leaning against the frozen duneside, and closed his eyes, Sargiss swung the battleaxe that belonged to Kethra just a few hours ago. The ferret warlord was true to at least one part of his promise, it was swift.

Sargis' foul mood was obvious a couple of minutes later, when the ferret warlord stood before Spikepelt. The captured ferret still had his paws bound tightly behind his back. His glance raced fearfully between Sargiss' scowling face and the bloodied axeblade.

"Listen, ye little weevil!" Sargiss' swift paw seized Spikepelt's snout, forcing the weaker ferret to look straight into his eyes. "I'd rather make a kilt out of ye than make ye my hordebeast, were I not so short on hordebeasts. So I'll give ye just one chance to prove ye have more courage than a tadpole – I'll let ye be first to attack yer former bunch come mornin'. Or ye can die right here! What d'ye say, slimeback?"

Of course, the answer was just what Sargiss expected.