Dugal MacGarhied, general of the Scotti forces in the first, or higher, rank, spurred his war pony further up the rocky, rough hill along which the rough, beaten trail led. He was angling at an angle that roughly ninety degrees, possibly a few less, to the track that was etched into the hill. As he was not the most caring – or thoughtful – of men, he did not attempt to navigate the relatively steep hill in a series of switchbacks, but by the simple expedient of squeezing his calves harder and increasingly harder on the barrel of his shaggy horse. Nor did he attempt this at a walk; instead driving the pace up to a slow canter, which, under normal circumstances, would not be too much, but uphill on broken ground was putting an unnecessary amount of strain on the animal's legs. It snorted in consternation, but Dugal ignored it. He was focused on reaching the top of the bluff. After several minutes of this, the two of them reached the summit and Dugal wrenched the reins cruelly back toward himself to halt the horse.

Many people who had met the general assumed that he was a cruel man at first. They had good reasons to think this, but the general himself would disagree with the popular opinion. He often objected and would alternately insist that while he was not cruel, he was simply uncaring. This was true of him in almost all aspects of his life. If there was an enemy, they were barely human. They would be killed without mercy unless they killed him first. Along with many, probably most, Scotti warriors he was blunt in his manner and had few table manners.

He shoved the thoughts out of his mind, berating himself for woolgathering, and looked at the plain spread below him to the southwest. At least fifty men lay dead in the scrubby, knee-high grass and brush that covered the battlefield. Over half, possibly thirty or thirty-five of them, were Araluen men-at-arms or knights. The rest of the bodies belonged to Sotti warriors, as could be seen by facepaint in some cases, such as when the people were lying faceup. The others were recognizable by their plaid tartan cloaks, checkered red and blue. Dugal was pleased to see that the vast majority of the dead were among the enemy, but he was outraged that even fifteen of his men had died. He blamed this unfortunate event on his third in command, as Dugal had left him in charge of this battle. The general knew – or, at least, he told himself – that he would not have let this happen if he had been in charge of this battle.

The scouting done, he turned his horse's head back down and set it at a slow trot down the hill. He had a lot to think about; but he eventually decided that once again he would order a raid on the enemy sleeping barracks. They had proven to be largely successful in the past, he thought. As he had been told numerous times in the past: if a method works, stick with it.

********

"Let's get them moving, Gael," Anthony suggested.

The old knight looked sideways at him. "That's what I was about to do," he pointed out, and Anthony nodded in understanding.

The small procession of men had pushed ahead to the barracks in which the men were living, just south of the battlefields of the border wars over the past two years. They were now addressing the men, telling them the plan of retreating. Anthony had been prompted to speak by the fact that none of the men seemed inclined to act on the orders of their superiors. In fact, some of them had laid back down on their bunks.

Gael now moved among the beds, rousing them. "Come on! Up, up, lazy layabouts! We told you we're moving! We meant NOW! Get out of bed, on your feet, and out the door. Form up in the clearing!"

Grumbling, the men obeyed him, and eventually they streamed out the door of the relatively small bunkhouse. Sir Gael was about to order the knights to mount and move out when Richard interrupted him quietly.

"Sir Gael, may I have a word?" the balding man asked in a low voice.

Gael shrugged, slightly annoyed but he knew by now that when this man spoke it was a wise idea to listen. "You seem to be doing that," he pointed out, which prompted a grin to appear on the other man's face.

"So we are," Richard said in a lighthearted tone, then became serious once more. "I was thinking; you said that you felt the Scotti would raid again tonight." He saw the taller man nod and continued. "Well, what if we responded to them? I know you've already tried to," he conceded, "but remember, you didn't have me and Tristan – or Anthony, for that matter – with you when you did. Say, leave twenty of your men here. That many can guard the building easily. Leave one of your knights here as well to be the commander that responds to me. I think that, together, we can put the fear of the devil into the Scotti. But, since you are the overall commander here, I thought I would defer to you first."

Sir Gael nodded enthusiastically. "That certainly seems – to me, anyway, – like a great idea. Wallace!" he called.

The shortest of the knights, but not the youngest, came forward as he heard his name. "Yes, Sir Gael?" He had been recruited from Coledale Fief and his slight northern accent would be pleasant to listen to, Sir Gael thought, if they were not currently preoccupied with wars.

The aging knight waved to indicate Richard. "Richard here will give you your special instructions," he told the young man.

Richard stepped forward. "Hello, young Wallace," he greeted the knight pleasantly. "You and twenty – no, fifteen – men will be staying here with myself and Tristan here, at the bunkhouse. Sir Gael thinks that the Scotti will try to raid again and cause havoc. What I have decided to do to counteract that is keep fifteen men here to surprise them. Tristan and I will be on the roof, shooting. But we will wait for the Scotti to barge in. What you and your men will be doing is lying in bed, pretending to be asleep. Pretending, you hear me?" he added with joking severity.

Wallace nodded solemnly, taking the shorter man seriously. "That makes sense," he said. "So when the Scotti come in, we jump off the bunks and kill them, right?" He grinned, enjoying the sensation and mental image of him killing a large number of the brutal and ruthless northern warriors.

Richard grinned as well, but shook his head and corrected a detail of the man's plan. "Not all of you will be in beds," he continued. "Three or four of the men with the heaviest builds will have clubs and be standing near the doorway. As soon as the Scotti get inside, those men will thump them to impede the men behind them that are trying to get in. That will be the signal for Tristan and me to start shooting. We'll take down as many as we can, but you and your men will have to take the brunt of the fighting."

Naturally, Prince Anthony was offended and rather indignant when he learned that he would not be one of the people staying to guard the bunkhouse. "But why?" he pleaded with Tristan, for the fourth time. "Give me a solid reason why I can't stay here."

Tristan pretended to think it over. "Okay, here you go. One, your archery isn't quite up to par yet, by Forester standards. We need to shoot to kill, not wound, and for you it won't be a guarantee of that. Two: you don't have the right build to wield a club effectively. You would be easy meat for a Scotti warrior if he was determined enough; I care about you too much to let you die in a small scuffle like this. Third, you are the Crown Prince of Araluen. If you were killed or captured – and it's far more likely to be the former – imagine how awkward it would be for me to explain this to Sir Gael or your father. Finally, Sir Gael and I told you both told you no. Even for princes, no means no."

Prince Anthony's shoulders sunk down into a dejected expression. "Fine. I know you're right, but that doesn't make it any easier. Stay alive for me, at least; promise me that."

Tristan nodded reassuringly to the young redhead and clapped him on the shoulder. "Now go annoy the hell out of Sir Gael like you have been doing to Richard and me for the past month."

Prince Anthony attempted a smile and walked away to the tree where his horse, along with half of the horses belonging to the small force, was tethered. He mounted and followed the group of walkers that had just gotten going on the road to the south.

Tristan leaned slowly, silently, out over the roof of the building. It had gotten cold as dusk fell, and his muscles protested as he used them again for the first time in five hours or so. He waited while they warmed up and became supple once more, then squinted into the darkness to find the source of the suspicious sound he had just heard.

As he had suspected, a party of armed, bronze-skinned, and face-painted men clothed in thick tartan streamed out of the trees. There were at least forty of them, he realized, with a flash of fear. Then he shrugged mentally, but he made sure not to move his actual body. He and Richard each had full quivers of twenty-four arrows, plus they had brought their spare arrow cases that held twenty arrows each. Together, that was eighty-eight bow shots with a comfortable amount of misses being allotted to each archer. Although he was tempted to respond to instinct and start shooting immediately, his training stopped him from following that rather rash path. He needed to wait until the Scotti broke inside, when the inevitable confusion and battle fog that enveloped all warriors took place.

Wallace, lying in one of the many bunks inside the building, listening to the muted thuds and whispering of the Scotti as they approached. He was tempted to lean up and look out the window near his head, but like Tristan, he resisted the instinctive urge. He turned his head to look at the two men holding clubs and crouching uncomfortably on top of one of the tables, that they had moved over to be beside the doorway. He gave them a thumbs-up gesture, then put a finger to his lips to make sure they stayed quiet. He swung quietly to a sitting position and stood up, drawing his sword and pacing silently – or, at least, as quietly as the young knight could manage – toward the doorway as well.

Dugal eased close to the door and suddenly thought that the door might be locked. Then he shrugged away the concern. It probably was not, as it seemed that the building had simply been a warehouse or storehouse before it had been converted to an army sleeping bunk, so a decent lock on it would be a surprise. However, if there was a lock, four of his men fought with axes so they could batter it down. He tried the latch, as quietly as he could manage. To his mild surprise, it was indeed locked. He shrugged again and beckoned to two of the axmen. "Cut it down," he hissed. "As quietly as possible."

The men stepped forward and with six muffled thumps, the door fell in shattered halves. The two men rushed in and Dugal watched in startled terror as both of them were struck in the head by clubs that seemed to have no wielders. The two men seemed to be unconscious, but he revised that estimate when a sword was thrust through each of their midriffs in quick succession.

This was not what he had expected. In the past, this bunkhouse had not been locked as well as simply filled with sleeping soldiers. Dugal was not expecting much resistance from the occupants of the building so the fact that at least three men were awake and alert surprised him. He shoved those thoughts out of his mind and focused on revenge for the men that had already died. He stepped to the doorway, leaning against the left door frame itself. Suddenly, he moved. He stabbed upward and left around the wall with his sword. He knew he hit something, judging from the cry of pain, and immediately ran inside the building – quickly, to avoid the clubs – and found himself facing a knight that was slightly taller than himself, and certainly younger. He grinned cruelly, but the expression was cut off as the men in the beds quickly stood up and moved to circle him, presenting a nearly impenetrable wall of locked shields. "Diagalhunti panochitas!" he screamed, the battle cry of the MacGarheid clan.

Richard drew, sighted, shot, and whispered a curse. The man he had picked as a target had moved and the arrow, instead of hitting his side under the left arm, slammed into the large oxhide shield he was carrying. The man barely noticed it and moved forward, only to meet another arrow – this one in his collar right below the collarbone. The man grunted, thankfully not screaming, and sank to the ground with the life draining quickly from his eyes.

Tristan followed suit. His shot was good and the man sank to the ground with a low-pitched, guttural noise of pain that was somewhere between a grunt and a gasp. He shot again and the result was the same. Together, the two men on the roof shot down at least a dozen of the tartan-wearing enemy before the ones still alive became aware of them.

Dugal had drawn two of his knives and was attempting to stab upward into the thighs and crotches of the defenders. Many of the men who had followed him in after hearing his war cry were doing the same, with less success. The general himself had only been mildly wounded by a few grazes of swords to his shoulders. In turn, he had doled out a fair amount of painful punishment. At least seven of the Araluen defenders had reeled back, too injured to continue fighting.

Dugal now stepped back from the battle line inside the room and gestured for one of his men to take his place. He leaned back outside to look at the rest of his men – trying to rally them forward, into the melee of the bunkhouse – and instead found them doing something odd. They had taken a tall horse from one of the trees and were now shoving it over to the wall of the building. They wedged it in place as he watched, stupefied. Then he saw what they were trying to do as one of the men leaped catlike onto its back and stood up precariously so that his head was roughly level with the top of the building. The man reached upward, gripped the corner of the flat roof and the rough clay wall, and heaved. He had gotten no further than halfway over when an arrow appeared in his throat with such force that he was sent flying through the air backward, landing with a whump that would have killed him even without the arrow in his neck. 

The general ran over to the knot of other men and saved his life by doing so. An arrow cleaved the air where he had been standing, followed almost immediately by an arrow in front of him, in the space he would be in two seconds or so, and each arrow buried itself into a leg of a Scotti warrior, his men. "What are you doing?" he hissed at his second in command. He made an abrupt hand gesture to ward off the obvious, unthinking reply of "Climbing the roof to nullify the archers" and continued talking. "Okay, I know what you're doing. You're trying to kill the archers. But it won't help if they kill you first! Half of the men here, get inside and kill the Araluens. The other half of you, get the other horses –" he waved a hand at the tree where four horses were tethered, including the horses belonging to Tristan and Richard, although Dugal had no way of knowing that – "and make three or four different points to get up the walls. You'll spread out that way, so the archers up there won't be able to shoot all of you at once."

The men nodded in understanding and half of them peeled off the group to come with him. The other half obligingly jogged over to the horses.

Tristan and Richard watched, slightly confused, as the group of Scotti ran over to the trees once more. The two of them quickly realized what they were doing as they saw the tartan-cloaked men reach the horses and untie them.

Tristan's brow darkened and he snapped off a shot; he had the fierce satisfaction of watching his target fall with an arrow in his back.

Richard laid a hand on his arm. "What are you doing?" the older Forester hissed.

Tristan glared at his former mentor. "I'm not letting them get Ranger!" he whispered back, as forcefully as he could at the reduced volume.

"Well, there's merit to that idea," Richard acceded. "But if the man you're using as a target moves, you might send an arrow through your horse. And you don't want that, do you?" He saw the blond man sigh in defeated acceptance and continued. "Besides, trust Ranger himself to get out of this. He'll kick, buck, rear, bite, or anything to anyone that isn't you. I know you trained him that way. I did the same thing with Patch over there. Let's wait and watch but by all means, if you can see that you won't be injuring a horse if you miss, feel free to take down the Scotti."

Tristan subsided and contented himself with shooting two more of the Scotti while he watched.

One of the horse-getting party among the Scotti flinched violently to the left as he saw an arrow cleave the night air, heading straight for him. It flashed past his shield instead, then buried its metal warhead in the upper calf of the man standing behind him. That man screamed in pain and faltered, but did not fall. As with all Scotti warriors, wounds would not keep him out of the fight, no matter how much it hurt. The two men – the original target of Tristan's arrow and the one it ended up hitting – moved together to untie the small buckskin horse. Unfortunately for them, the buckskin proved to be a good deal more volatile than the first horse that the Scotti had tried to use. He swung his head into the ribs of one of them, intentionally choosing to do this to the one that was already injured.

This time, the man stumbled. He fell backward and the arrow shaft shifted violently but stayed strong enough to hold in one piece, causing exponentially more damage to the wound. He tried to stand once more and sank back, defeated. He couldn't stand; his leg couldn't support weight. The uninjured man tried to help, but couldn't. Instead, he ignored his injured comrade and finished untying Ranger.

Ranger immediately felt the pressure of his reins on the tree loosen and used that advantage to yank his reins out of the hands of the Scotti. He twirled around, his reins whipping free, and kicked the man who had untied him right in the chest. The man felt no pain at first and instead listened, strangely calmly, to the high-pitched crunching of several of his ribs giving way. He sailed backward, losing his grip on the shield, and landed with a hard whump on his shoulder. His head whiplashed into the frozen ground and the life drained out of him immediately.

From the awkward sitting position he was forced into, the injured man spoke urgently to the remaining members of the Scotti raiding party. "Listen to me," he commanded harshly. The men glanced at him so he continued. "Take the horses and use them to get up that wall. Nullify the archers, no matter the cost. If the horses are too volatile, kill them and use their bodies. Speaking of which, kill the buckskin. He's caused too much trouble." He then sank back, exhausted from blood loss, and the men moved to circle the little horse.

Ranger, though, had no intentions to die that night. He watched under hooded eyes as the men moved to circle him. He halted, breathing hard, to pretend he was exhausted and bait them closer. It worked. The men moved in and three of them hefted their battleaxes, preparing for a cut to the pony's throat. Ranger waited an extra three or four seconds, then reared. The result was that the men, who had expected their blows to hit home, staggered and stumbled, making easy targets. Ranger kicked the temple of one man and whirled to crunch his front hooves and the weight of his body into the ribs of another. He was about to kick out at a third when an arrow took care of that man for him. Soon the air was alive with arrows as Tristan laid down a barrage, trusting his horse to evade capture.

The remaining uninjured men, only eight or so, rushed in close to the bunkhouse walls to join the group of fifteen with the first horse. At least, it had been fifteen originally. Like the second horse group, this knot of Scotti had been decimated as well, so only six of its number were completely unscathed. However, there were four injured men still standing, with arrows through minor parts of their bodies like non-dominant shoulders and grazes along their legs. Yet the light in their eyes gave truth to the common knowledge that a wound, any wound, apart from a mortal one would not keep a Scotti warrior out of a fight. "Circle the building," one of the men gasped. "Climb up without the horses if you have to. Spread the arrows out, and men, if you hear an arrow being shot away from you, climb and attack. They have to reload sometime, so while they're doing it is the best time to attack. Archers are always bad fighters when it comes to close combat," he added in a derogatory tone. The men spread out to obey him.

Inside the bunkhouse itself, the attackers were having a similar amount of success – meaning a total lack of it. For every Araluen taken down, three Scotti seemed to fall. Dugal was among the last men standing and watched calmly as one of his men, taken down by a club, drew the knife from his boot and stabbed upward into the buttocks of an Araluen. The general grinned cruelly at the expression of shock and pain on the man's face, and the amusement increased to a chuckle when the man screamed, sounding somewhat like a nanny goat searching for its kid.

Dugal moved to the gap that had been created and hacked left and right with his sword in one hand and a knife in the other. He widened the gap and one of his men moved to join him, but was quickly cut down by a sword wielded by one of the defenders. Dugal turned to face the sword holder and found himself facing the young knight once more. He narrowed his eyes and darted the sword out, quick as a viper, to stab into the man's thigh, but the shield moved – seemingly of its own volition – to block the thrust and Wallace sent a forehanded side cut to the Scotti general's collar. It struck home and Dugal fell facedown onto the man that had been killed by the same young knight, but not before he sent the knife spinning in a wrist throw to the knight's throat. He didn't see it, of course, as his face was buried in the rough floorboards, but Wallace swayed to one side and the knife missed him.

Wallace shook off the terror at facing that gleaming knifepoint and waved to two of the Araluen defenders. "Hold the wall of shields!" the young knight shouted. "Don't leave any Scotti alive!" His forces moved to obey him and ran forward with renewed vigor, sending the Scotti reeling toward the doorway. Soon, it was over. The sounds of battle inside the bunkhouse died away and every man that was still alive heaved a sigh of relief. Wallace caught himself mid-sigh and stopped to listen to something. There was noise on the roof, he realized, and his eyes flew wide open in fear. The archers!

Tristan whirled at a sound behind him, the bow in his hands coming to full draw automatically. He stopped awkwardly and let the string down as he realized it was just Richard shooting at an enemy that had appeared over the wall. "Let them get all the way onto the roof," Tristan suggested to his former mentor. Richard furrowed his brow in confusion, so Tristan explained his thinking. "We can see they aren't armed, apart from the knives they always carry. They aren't carrying shields. When they get up onto the roof –" he stopped, whirled around to face behind him, and snapped off a shot at a man that was halfway visible above the roof and watched as the arrow took him in the stomach "– they will make a better target that way," he continued without batting an eye. "Okay, never mind. But, as you told me earlier, don't shoot unless you know it will be a lethal shot instantly. These Scotti don't give up unless they have to."

Richard nodded his understanding. Then the two men turned so that the other man was directly behind them and together, they surveyed the roof for signs of Scotti about to breach it.

"There!" Tristan exclaimed.

Richard turned to face the cause of this outcry and saw, slightly surprised, that it wasn't a warning of danger in the form of a Scotti tribesman. Instead, the blond Forester was pointing to a knot of men that had come out of the bunkhouse. "It's Wallace," the balding man realized suddenly. "He and his men must've won the battle inside and now they're moving to finish the job."

"Then let's help!" Tristan called enthusiastically, a good deal louder than necessary. The volume was from the fact that he was relieved to see this good sign and was suddenly feeling fiercely optimistic. He moved closer to the edge of the roof and peered down, reassured by the sight that met his eyes. Every single one of the Scotti standing on the ground at the base of the wall below him had turned to meet the threat of the Araluens. He began a steady, deliberate arrow storm directly into their midst, and soon only half of the tartan-wearing men – now nine – were still standing.

Richard moved to join his former apprentice and accounted for four more. "Well, there seems to be some mopping up for Wallace and his men to do," he joked. "Let's see about the other walls."

The two men moved to the other points of the bunkhouse and doled out the same painful punishment. The ease at which the two of them were able to do this made Tristan wonder why the Scotti wore no armor. Then he shrugged. It was no concern of his anyway and the lack of armor made his and Richard's job incredibly easy.

The two of them were moving onto the fourth wall when Tristan noticed something. A flicker of movement that caught the low moonlight in such a way that only polished metal could. "Watch out!" he yelled to his mentor and yanked the older man's arm toward him without waiting for a reply.

Richard, for once, resisted and pulled away. The movement may well have spelled the end for him because the cause of the glint buried itself in his back, nearly up to the hilt, just below Richard's left shoulder blade. Richard gasped in shock and pain as he felt the knife's impact. He sank slowly down to his knees and spoke to his former apprentice, the person who had broken the crust on his grizzled, rough heart so quickly and had kept it that way since they met. "Finish the job for me," he said. "Win this war and spread our kind – Foresters – throughout Araluen. Please." His words were now mumbled and he sank back with a long sigh.

Tristan bowed his head and wept. He didn't know how long it had been when his tears finally dried – he had cried everything he had. He heard a sound from behind him and turned, preparing to shoot from a kneel, but Wallace held up his hands in a submissive gesture.

"Just me," the young knight said, essaying a modest grin in the Forester's direction. Then he caught a glimpse of the body behind the blond man. He was quiet, struck dumb, for several seconds. "Oh," he said finally. "I am so sorry."

Tristan turned his tear-stained, beseeching gaze on the younger man. "How?" he gasped. "It was an accident. How on earth is he – Richard, of all people – dead?" He took a shuddering breath and collapsed into the shoulder of the young knight.

Wallace was caught in an excruciatingly awkward position, standing on a table from the bunkhouse with a slightly older man crying on his shoulder. He attempted to console Tristan and, after a longer while, convinced him to come down from the roof.

Tristan, in a daze, walked over to the tree where the horses were tethered. He cradled Patch's head in his hand and stroked the nose of the pinto pony, crying softly once more. "I'm sorry, boy," he whispered hoarsely. "He's gone. I couldn't stop him."

Ranger trotted over to offer emotional support to his owner and his fellow equine and Tristan stood there, weeping once more, until dawn showed itself over the horizon.