Part 14 (1/2)

One thing we hadn't been able to bring from the long s.h.i.+p was food. My stomach was complaining already. It threatened to be a long night, and tomorrow didn't show much promise either.

Then Arno started back to spy out the hamlet, taking Michael with him because the Greek could speak Arabic. With them gone, there wasn't a man in camp that I could talk to or understand. I very definitely hoped they came back.

Even as tired as I was, it took me quite a while to fall asleep. Which was unusual. The Varangians had bedded down all packed together-for warmth I suppose. To me though, they smelled too bad for such close quarters, and I slept a little way off from them. I was cold and hungry, and my muscles were starting to stiffen up again. About the time it got dark, the moon came up, too little past full to tell the difference just by looking. When I did get to sleep, I kept waking up or half waking up from cold and the stony ground, but I only got up once, to relieve myself.

When it was daylight, nearly sunup, I awoke for good. I was really stiff again, from rowing, and maybe partly from hiking up hills and sleeping on the hard ground in the cold. For the first time, I really looked around. Four or five miles south was the sea, with no trace of wars.h.i.+ps, although I could make out a couple of what I supposed were fis.h.i.+ng boats. In every other direction were rugged hills, mostly bare.

Here and there were patches of scrub, and in some of the ravine bottoms there were trees. To the north, the hills rose to become mountains.

Arno and Michael were back, but they were still sleeping so there was no one to tell me what they'd found out. It looked as if something had happened, though; each was wrapped in a blanket. I limped down the hill to the brook and took a long drink, then limped back up, my stomach growling. Water didn't make much of a breakfast. By the time I'd gotten back to the top of the hill, I was warm again, and the worst of the soreness was gone. The sun was looking at us over the next ridge east, and Arno and Michael were both awake.

No one seemed in any hurry to get on the trail.

I went over to Arno. ”What did you find out?” I asked.

He grinned and, patting the rock next to him, invited me to sit. ”We went to the first house,” he said. ”I hid beneath a window and sent the Greek to the door with a piece of Saracen silver.” Arno hefted the purse at his belt, which held what might be the only money among us now. ”He'd lived in Messina when it was still Saracen-there are many Greeks there. He knows Saracan ways and language, and something of their religion-enough to pretend he is one of them, a convert. He told them he'd escaped Varangian priates. And while the Greek talked with them, the Saracans fed him. They'd seen the s.h.i.+p, they said, and later they'd seen the infidel dogs, perhaps a hundred of them, cross the wheat field. The commander of the tower garrison had sent men on horseback to Agrigento and Sciacca to inform the commanders there and ask them to send knights.

”They also told him that the Normans had captured Palermo, and that there is fighting in the west, and over east around Troina.”

”How did Michael get away?” I asked. ”Wouldn't it have seemed suspicious for him to leave, under the circ.u.mstances ?”

”It was no problem. They gave him a mat to sleep on and went back to bed themselves. After giving them time to go to sleep, I slipped inside and killed them. Then I ate my fill and we left.”

From a purse he hadn't had the day before, he took a few dates and gave them to me. I stared at them a moment before eating, and even as hungry as I was, they didn't go down easily. I could see why Arno might feel he had to kill them, but he'd said it as casually as if it meant nothing to him. And I suppose it hadn't; he was a Norman.

”When are we going to start hiking again?” I asked. ”Or aren't we?”

”Gunnlag sent archers out hunting. We'll need food. All Nors.e.m.e.n learn archery as boys, and they are used to hunting on foot. And these hills have many goats.” He pointed northward toward the mountains.

”That's the way to Norman territory, but it seems to be a long, hard march. We'll do better with meat in our bellies.”

It was on toward midday when we left. By then we'd eaten a half-grown goat. The shares were small, but they helped. Most of the others were footsore-Michael and Arno the worst of all. The ground was rocky, and I was the only one with stiff soles on his boots. In fact, I couldn't see how their soft-bottomed shoes could possibly last across the mountains. Maybe they could make some kind of shoes out of goatskin, I decided.

After the first half hour of hiking, I got loosened up enough that it didn't go badly at all, but by late afternoon I was bushed again, and hungrier than I could believe! So was everyone else, and we started taking quite a few breaks. Also, it got a lot colder as we got higher up. We'd come to several stone huts, but no one was staying in them. Arno said they might be for herdsmen-that sheep had probably been grazed in these mountains before the Norman invasion. I wondered what sheep ate here. By the looks of the bushes, something ate twigs-perhaps the goats.

Gunnlag had sent scout hunters ahead of us, and two of them shot a goat each. We cooked them for an early supper, or half cooked them, by a mountain brook, and ate one of them plus the head of the other.

The rest would be breakfast, I was appointed to carry it, in a smelly bag made of its own skin. Then we pushed on. By dusk, when we made camp, we'd pa.s.sed banks of crusty old snow on some north slopes, and I was prepared for a miserable night. Just about everyone but me was limping now from sore feet, though I didn't hear any complaints.

Before I lay down, I went a little way off. ”To pray,” I told Michael. ”Tell the Varangians I'm going off by myself to pray to the angel Deneen.” I went out on an outcrop and tried the communicator, but got no one. Just as I'd expected. Tomorrow night would be the sixth. I could reasonably hope to get her on the sixth night. If not, then maybe on the seventh.

After that I went ”to bed.” This time I didn't let smelly bodies bother me. I lay down against the jam of Varangians to share warmth. I suppose it helped, but it was the coldest, most miserable night I'd ever spent.

What can I say about the next day? Until late afternoon it was basically the same as the one before: hike up and down steep slopes and pick your way along ravines. The country was high and cold, and if a little less rugged, it was still tough going. We were still in luck with the weather, which was sunny without much breeze, but on the other hand, the scouts only killed one goat. One goat for eighty-one of us.

Gunnlag stopped early to camp, and a number of men with bows were sent hunting.

If they didn't have some luck, we'd be hungrier that night than the first.

While we lay around in the late sun, we heard a horn off to the south. I asked Arno what he thought it was. He said it sounded like a Saracen war trumpet, but they probably used them as hunting horns too. I asked him what they might be hunting in a time of war like this. He grinned at me. ”They're hunting just what you think they're hunting,” he replied, ”Us. And the horn means they've found our trail.”

He got to his swollen feet and, with only a slight limp, walked over to Gunnlag to talk with him about it.

By the way Gunnlag looked-standing, staring off toward the sound-he'd come to the same conclusion on his own. I went off to pray to the angel Deneen again. Maybe this time. If not ..

From what I understand about prayer, what I felt when I called Deneen that evening wasn't much different from what the Christians felt when they prayed to their G.o.d. Again I didn't get any answer. I began to wonder if, just possibly, my communicator wasn't working. Unlikely. Maybe ... I didn't like to think about it, but maybe something was wrong with the Rebel Javelin- something worse than fuel crystallization. No, I told myself, it's just a night too soon.

And tomorrow night could easily be a night too late. I decided it was time to turn on my remote again, in case she called me.

The hunters were back sooner than they might have been. They'd heard the horn too. Among them they'd gotten one goat. She'd been gutted, and given to me to carry because we weren't going to stay where we were. It didn't appeal to Gunnlag for a defensive stand. True, it was a high point on a ridge, but an enemy could charge along the crest at us from two sides with only a mild slope to ride up. While on the next major ridge north there was a rounded peak, sort of a k.n.o.b, that would be a lot easier to defend.

It was nearly dark when we reached it. By that time we'd heard horns twice more, the last sounding as if it came from the place we'd left two hours earlier. I wondered how many Saracens there were. The Varangians rolled and lugged the available large rocks into a crescent at each end of our position. Only the ends were attack able The rocks didn't make a wall at all; you could walk between them. But they'd give a little cover from arrows if you knelt behind them. Then we sat and squatted in little cl.u.s.ters at the top.

That's when I realized that someone wasn't with us.

”Where's Michael?” I murmured to Arno.

”I've sent him north,” he answered. ”To see if he can find some Norman force to relieve us. The Saracens will a.s.sume we've sent someone, but one man is hard to trail by night.”

”Can they track us at night?” I asked.

”Saracen knights are like Norman knights in their love of hunting. And the moon will rise before long, with light enough to track a force the size of ours.”

That seemed reasonable to me. Piet had taught us to track during our survival training, and we'd followed well-beaten animal trails by moonlight.

”How many of them do you think there are?” I asked.

Arno shrugged. ”They think we are a hundred, so they may well be twice that. Quite possibly more. And they are on horses; do not doubt it.”

It occurred to me to wonder what use I'd be up there on the hilltop. The Saracens had to be pretty smart about war, or they wouldn't be a power on Fanglith. And if they were smart, they wouldn't rush us. They'd sit down the hill and let us get good and thirsty. They might not even waste arrows on us.

And knowing the Varangians, when they got thirsty enough, after maybe a day without water, they'd go down after some. They wouldn't just wait to die. Then the Saracen archers and swordsmen would get a work-out. And whoever won-probably the Saracens-a lot of us would be dead when it was over.

Maybe all of us.

The last of the twilight had died, and moonrise was still an hour or two off. It was as dark as a night in open mountains can get without a good cloud layer. Which was pretty dark. ”Arno,” I said, getting to my feet, ”wish me luck.”

I unbuckled my belt and took my short sword off of it, then laid the sword by a boulder. My stunner and communicator I kept.

”What are you going to do?” Arno asked.

”I'm going hunting. We hunt on Evdash too, you know.” Then, after re buckling my belt, I slipped out through the partial crescent of boulders and started south down the mountain.

TWENTY-FOUR.