Echoes of Betrayal Read Online Free PDF Page B

fall asleep. But we don’t have enough troops—yet.”
    As the Squires rode away, Kieri considered what to do next. Fifty Royal Archers and a few Squires couldn’t meet the remaining Pargunese head-on any more than the rangers and Halveric remnants could—unless he could get them all collected, and that would take days.
    For a moment anger flared. This was the situation he’d hoped to avoid: little groups of defenders, disorganized, demoralized, uncoordinated, fumbling about in the forest while a well-trained force invaded. But anger now would do no good. What he needed now was a plan … a specific plan for this specific band of Pargunese. Break them into separate groups, each vulnerable to attack … yes, the obvious but perhaps not the only course of action.
    Short of supplies, the ranger had said. How short? What wouldthey do for a royal supply train? Would they be fool enough to attack the obvious?
    “I need to look at the maps again,” Kieri said. “We won’t try to move at night—” Difficult enough with experienced troops used to night maneuvers; these were at the limit of their ability in daylight. “—and it’s darkening. We’ll camp off the scathefire track and build a barricade.”
    It should not have taken as long as it did, but the camp was finally reasonably secure, though as the snow ended, the marks of their passage on the scathefire track were clear enough.
    Kieri was still awake, poring over the maps and his guesses about the location of the Pargunese, when he heard sentries outside his tent.
    “Come on,” he said to the Squires on duty. “Let’s go see what we have.”
    “Sir king, you must be careful—”
    “I am always careful,” Kieri said, wrapping his sword belt around his waist. He set his helmet on his head. “Don’t call me by name.”
    At the north side of the camp, he found the sentries—Royal Archers—bows drawn, arrows pointing at a group of soldiers in a curious mix of uniforms.
    “They say they’re Halverics,” one of the sentries said without looking away from his target. “But they could’ve stolen what Halveric gear they wear.”
    Kieri looked at the faces, indistinct as they were in the flickering torchlight. Glints of ornaments—Halverics wore none on duty—but he felt no menace through his taig-sense. He had seen all the Halveric cohort once, before they had left for the north—but these troops were clearly exhausted and cold and had come through hard fighting. “Who commands?” he asked.
    “I do, m’lord,” said the one in front. “Vardan, second sergeant.”
    The name was right, and her accent was pure Lyonyan, but her face was so streaked with ash and blood that Kieri didn’t recognize her, and she wore a wide neck ring over the leather gorget with the Halveric stamp. “What happened to your uniforms?” he asked.
    “Burned off, m’lord,” the woman said. “There was that fire—purple-white, it burned—”
    “Scathefire,” Kieri said. “And you
survived
?” He could scarcely believe it.
    “A few of us, sir. In a ditch of water, near our camp—coming back from patrol.”
    “That’s a Pargunese crossbow you carry,” Kieri said. “How did you come by that?”
    A flash of white teeth in the grimy face. “Surprised a patrol of Pargunese—killed ’em all. But m’lord, there’s a crowd of Pargunese on the fire’s track. We’ve been sniping at them—”
    “I’ll want your report,” Kieri said. “But first I’ll see you fed and warm. Good work, sentries, but these troops are what they claim.”
    Vardan went with her troops, as he expected, to see them fed and settled—however much they might get that night—and then came to Kieri’s tent. She had scrubbed the grime off her face and hands but still wore the neck ring. In the brighter light in his tent, he could see that the design looked foreign. Kieri recognized the woman now that her face was clean—she’d been a corporal in one of Aliam’s cohorts that last