Archer of the Heathland: Intrigue

Archer of the Heathland: Intrigue (Part 1)

The night seethed with an energy and anticipation that brought the goose bumps to Weyland's arms. He reined his horse to a halt. Someone was out there. Something was going to happen. The foreboding heightened his senses. The smell of human sweat, urine, and wood smoke floated on the breeze that blew over from the camp. The fall of a boot ground pebbles and sand underfoot. A glint of moonlight flashed on steel. Weyland slipped from the saddle and slapped his horse into a walk. He shadowed the animal as it picked its way along the narrow wash leading to the army's encampment. He didn't want to be silhouetted on the back of a horse when someone was sneaking about the underbrush.

The path wound its way amid the high heather and the scattered bunches of oak and beech trees. Laro Forest loomed dark and impenetrable to the east. Weyland had finished his circuit of the archers from his company who were posted to guard the camp. The Duke of Saylen had chosen this ground for the coming battle and now waited for the Salassani to make the next move. The scattered canopy of oak, beech, and the occasional patch of serviceberry splintered the light of the full moon, casting fragmented and shifting shadows as the breeze played through the branches. Weyland was still inside the pickets where no enemy was supposed to be. Yet he had seen that flash of steel.

Harsh whispers followed by a grunt and a gasp disturbed the night. Something heavy crashed through the heather and rolled down the gentle slope into the wash. Weyland crouched low, hugging the shadows, listening to the sound of retreating footsteps. The scattered moonlight flashed across a striped surcoat for an instant before the undergrowth swallowed the shadowy figure.

Weyland crept toward the sound of ragged, labored breathing. It might be one of their own men who needed help. The man lay in a heap against the trunk of the oak tree that arrested his fall. Weyland recognized the crest of the Duke of Saylen stitched to the man's cloak—a stag set against a teardrop shield. Kneeling beside the dying man to see if there was anything he could do, he lifted the fold of the cloak.

A pale face with wide, dark eyes stared up at him. The man made a feeble attempt to defend himself until he realized that Weyland wasn't going to attack him. His eyes widened, and he snatched at Weyland's wrist with a vice-like grip.

"To the Duke," he said.

The words gurgled in his throat. Weyland recognized him as one of the lesser nobles attached to the Duke's household. But Weyland was a simple archer. He led a company of twenty bowmen, while his friend Neahl led a company of scouts. He was no one the Duke would recognize or even notice, let alone give him an audience. The man slipped a tiny, metal tube into Weyland's hand.

"Take it to the Duke," the man whispered. "Tell him to beware of Geric."

***

The Duke of Saylen appraised Weyland with a shrewdness beyond his years. He was a stout, young man with short-cropped, sandy-brown hair, and dark eyes. The Duke's father had died two years back, and the young Duke rapidly made a name for himself as a competent general and a dangerous opponent both on and off the battlefield. He couldn't be more than twenty-two years old—only three years older than Weyland.

Weyland knew little of the strife at court save the nasty, salacious stories the poor liked to spread about the ruling class. It was rumored that the Duke had taken a fancy to a Carpentini servant at his manor in the Taber Wood in the south, despite the fact that he was married. Still, Weyland was surprised the Duke agreed to see him. Nobles seldom gave any consequence to common soldiers like Weyland. He had been with the army for almost a year, and he had never spoken directly to the Duke.

But, like most of the soldiers in the Duke's army, Weyland respected him. The Duke didn't waste the lives of his men by sending them into hopeless, frontal assaults against prepared enemy positions.