Buy the full book at www.halcyonchronicles.com
Ravelin
Part 5
The full moon lit up a cloudy sky. A cool breeze sent light waves across the river as each galleass lowered a skiff to the water. Nine skiffs — each carrying a full squad of troops — detached from their transports and rowed away. Avoiding the pier, they landed several hundred meters downriver and waded ashore. Without a word or a signal to one other, the squads spread out along the shoreline and quietly entered the forest. Illuminated only by the moonlight, they sprinted up the steep hill that rose from the water’s edge. When they reached the top, the troops fanned out to form a wide defensive line while Duncan, Captain Muryn, and their two platoon lieutenants met in the middle. They pulled binoculars from their packs and formed a semicircle.
“Scan for the highest ground,” murmured Duncan.
“There,” pointed a lieutenant.
“Another to our south, directly ahead,” added Muryn.
“Lieutenant Salles?” asked Duncan.
“Nothing I can see to the east, sir.”
Duncan scanned the field of view. “Very well,” he concluded. “Captain Muryn, take your platoon to the rise on the west and establish your perimeter. I’ll lead my group south. Take your time and watch for trip wires. Follow your sappers. Move when they move, stop when they stop. You will protect them at all costs. And for all our sakes, keep it quiet.”
The marshal paused for a moment and cocked his head. He closed his eyes and absorbed his surroundings. The chirps of insects and the flaps of tiny wings were all around. His Teivan senses came alive.
“Do you hear all that?” he whispered. Now they were all listening intently, and the forest’s nighttime sounds seemed to amplify. “It’s when that goes quiet that we need to be really worried,” continued the marshal. “Dismissed.”
The officers nodded and headed off. Duncan and Salles returned to their platoon. At a few hand gestures from the marshal and the lieutenant, the squad sergeants redeployed their troops. Four of the strange soldiers that Jarren had noticed back in Valandov went to work. Using specialized lenses, they squatted down and moved ahead slowly, scanning the forest floor methodically. The Praetorians around them formed a tight defensive pattern — the ones in front with their swords in hand searched the woods ahead of them for signs of the enemy, while archers behind them scoured the treetops. The troops were alert, seeking all around them for signs of movement.
Before long, they had reached the top of the southern rise. From here, they saw that the forest leveled out before sloping down into a ravine. The ground then rose up into a small ridge before disappearing into the darkness. Duncan felt rather than heard Muryn’s platoon reach its destination. He motioned to his aide, who lit a small covered lantern.
“Corporal, report our status,” murmured Duncan.
Removing one side of the hood, the corporal flashed a series of signals to the adjacent hill. A series of flashes came back to them.
“They’re fine, Marshal. No enemy contact.”
Duncan nodded. “Good. What do they see?”
The corporal sent another series of flashes, then waited for the response. They communicated this way for several minutes before the corporal answered.
“They see the same ravine and ridge as we do. There doesn’t seem to be a way around.”
Duncan considered this. Unlike humans, who preferred to live up high where they could see their surroundings, grimals thrived in the deep ravines and crevasses of the Federate’s forests. The ravines were where the animals they hunted came to drink, and traversing these ravines was dangerous for humans during the daytime, let alone at night.
Most humans, Duncan corrected himself. Teivans knew how to avoid interaction with grimals. Duncan had done so hundreds of times as a child — his parents drilled it into him because they knew that his survival might one day depend it.
Maybe today, he mulled.
Then again, grimals didn’t live in every ravine...
*
Captain Eliss Blaine tugged her helmet off and ran a hand through red curls that were cropped short to the Praetorian standard. Her troops marched quickly and quietly south. It had been almost a full day since they debarked from the galleasses. In that time, there had been no signs of grimal activity. Their camp on the road last night also passed without incident. Yet, she felt a growing anxiety. They were getting close to the spot where Wallace’s battle group was ambushed all those months ago. Not that she could easily tell from her surroundings, she thought caustically. To her, every part of the forest looked like every other part. A whistle sounded from the front of her battle group’s formation, and the troops came to an immediate stop. Pulling her helmet on tight, she jogged ahead to the scouting team that had made the call.
Blaine’s troops marched in three separate units. Two platoons under Captain Lewellyn’s command had assumed scouting positions along the forest’s edge on either side of the main road, with the main force following thirty meters behind. The scouting groups were being directed by specialists using the same scanning tools as the ones traveling with Duncan. It was one of these specialists who had whistled the stop.
“Report.”
The platoon on the eastern side of the road opened its formation to allow Captain Blaine through. They immediately resumed their defensive posture, scanning the forest for signs of danger.
The scout who had raised the alarm was crouched on the ground by the forest’s edge. He beckoned to the captain.
“A tripwire, sir, cleverly hidden, just like Marshal Milius described.”
Blaine bent down to examine the thin, taut line of resin-coated bark that stretched virtually unseen across the roadway. The two platoons on scouting duty, she noted, had halted within meters of it.
“Any idea what it does?” she asked.
“No, sir, but you can see where it extends into those brambles. I suspect the mechanism to spring the trap is hidden in there.”
Blaine stared at it for a moment, and then something Duncan had once said about underbrush clicked in her memory.
“It’s the underbrush,” she murmured.
“Sir?”
“Our training with Marshal Milius. Remember what he said about this part of the forest? Mostly pines with minimal underbrush.”
The scout shook his head in amazement. “The grimms are using the brambles to cover the mechanisms for their traps. We need to stay on the alert for more of these signs. How does the Marshal know all this?”
Blaine shrugged. “He’s Teivan. They all do.”
“What do we do? With a group our size, someone’s bound to trip it.”
“Captain Blaine?”
“Yes, Sergeant?”
“The western scout unit reports that the other end of the tripwire is secured to a tree by the road. There appears to be no mechanism of any kind.”
“Ask Captain Lewellyn if they see any patches of brambles or other underbrush.”
“Sir?”
“Just do it.”
With a shrug, the sergeant hurried off.
Nodding her head toward the bramble patch, Blaine drew her sword and advanced into the forest with the scout following behind. The troops around her tensed and readied themselves, making sure to give a wide berth to the thin, dangerous line that stretched across the road.
“Don’t touch it,” warned the scout.
Nodding curtly, Blaine inched as close as she dared and peered into the brush. “I can see an apparatus of some sort,” she reported. “There’s a small crisscrossing network of lines that extends into a hole in the ground.”
She moved aside so the scout could take a look. After a moment, she asked, “What do you think? Can we cut it?”
The scout shook his head. “This is more intricate than I imagined. I don’t know what will happen if we tamper with it.”
Blaine smiled slightly. “That’s not exactly true. We do know one thing.”
The sergeant who had made the first report called in to her from the forest’s edge. “Sir, Captain Lewellyn reports no underbrush of any kind.”
Blaine and the scout exchanged glances. “I didn’t think they would. Order the two scouting parties into the forest, and tell our main force to stay back. We’re springing a trap.”
“Yes, sir.”
As the sergeant darted off, the scout asked, “Are you sure about this?”
Blaine nodded. “I don’t want it behind us if we have to fall back, and if we ever hope to reopen this road, we need to find these things and disarm them.”
The sergeant returned again. “The units are ready.”
The captain stood up and kicked at the wire.
Blaine and the others felt the ground tremble as a deep rumble sounded from the road. Several moments passed as the noise faded away and everyone tensed for the attack they were sure was coming.
Nothing.
Tentatively, the two scout groups returned to the road to find a wide pit several meters deep. Blaine shivered at the memory of the last time she saw something like this. Looking into it, she half-expected to find the rotted remains of her fallen comrades, but the pit was thankfully empty.
Captain Lewellyn approached her from the western scout group. “There’s no hint of grimal movement.”
Blaine gestured to the sprung trap. “Well, if they didn’t know we were here before, they probably know now.”
“We should redeploy the main force to move around it.”
“No,” objected Blaine. “Last time, they attacked right in the middle of our redeployment. They caught us out of position and off-balance. Not again. Break out some axes and take down a few trees. We’ll use the trunks as a makeshift bridge.”
“Yes, sir.”
The two commanders headed off to spread the order.
Stay tuned for the next chapter…
Buy Harbinger’s End: Herald in print or ebook for maps, extra material and a preview of Harbinger’s End: The Time of Meeting.
