Robin Hood | Thief of Skandia

Chapter 6

Song: Feels in My Body by Icona Pop

'Wait here,' Halt said briefly. 'I'm going down for a closer look.'

'To hell with waiting here,' Erak told him. 'I'm coming with you.'

Great, Robin thought, he would be killed by the Temujai, sneaking for a man like that was impossible.

'I suppose it will make no difference if I point out I'm going to have to be as inconspicuous as possible?'

Erak shook his head. 'Not in the slightest. My reasoning hasn't changed. I'm not taking back a second-hand report to my Oberjarl. I want to get a closer look at these people, get some idea of what we're up against.'

'I can tell you what you're up against,' Halt said grimly.

'I'll see for myself,' the Jarl said stubbornly, and Halt shrugged, finally giving in.

'All right. But move carefully, and try not to make too much noise. The Temujai aren't idiots, you know. They'll have pickets out in the trees around the camp, as well as sentries on the perimeter.'

'Well, you just tell me where they are and I'll avoid them,' Erak replied, with a little heat. 'I can be inconspicuous when I need to.'

'Just like you can ride, I suppose,' Halt muttered to himself. The Skandian ignored the comment, continuing to glare stubbornly at him. At length, Halt shrugged. 'Well, let's get on with it.'

They tethered their horses on the reverse side of the crest, then began to work their way down through the trees to the valley below them. They had gone a few hundred metres when Halt turned to the Skandian.

'Are there bears in these mountains?' he asked.

His companion nodded. 'Of course. But it's a bit early in the year for them to be moving around. Why?'

Halt let go a long breath. 'Just a vague hope, really. There's a chance that when the Temujai hear you crashing around in the trees, they might think you're a bear.'

Erak smiled, with his mouth only. His eyes were as cold as the snow. Robin on the other hand grinned, trying not to laugh, not that they could see her.

'You're a very amusing fellow,' he told Halt. 'I'd like to brain you with my axe one of these days.'

'If you could manage to do it quietly, I'd almost welcome it,' Halt said. Then he turned away and continued to lead the way down the hill, ghosting between the trees, sliding from one patch of shadow to the next, barely disturbing a branch or a twig as he passed.

Erak tried, unsuccessfully, to match the Ranger's silent movement. With each slither of his feet in the snow, each whip of a branch as he passed, Halt's teeth went more and more on edge. He had just determined that he would have to leave the Skandian behind once they got within striking distance of the Temujai camp when he glimpsed something off to their left in the trees. Quickly, he held up his hand for Erak to stop. The big Skandian, not understanding the imperative nature of the gesture, kept moving till he was alongside Halt.

Robin followed them, her own footsteps masked in Erak's noise. She looked up to where the ranger was gesturing to, a listening post she realised.

It was a familiar Temujai technique: whenever a force camped for the night, they threw out a screen of concealed, two-man listening posts to give early warning of any attempt at a surprise attack. They had just passed such a post, so that it now lay to their left and slightly behind them. For a moment, Halt toyed with the idea of continuing down the hill, then he discarded it. The screen was usually deployed in depth. Just because they had all passed one post didn't mean there weren't others ahead of them.