The cavalrymen moved down the road with both caution and boldness. They were fleeing their Hols pursuers, but their deep pride would not let them skulk along like lowly thieves. They still held their long spears high and gripped their shields, openly displaying the double-headed eagles on them to everyone around. They pushed ahead with a swaggering show of force.
The road was wide, but not wide enough for a massed charge. The cavalrymen kept a tight formation, ready to deal with any attack. Even if they could not drive their horses forward in a devastating charge that broke through everything, their intensive training from childhood and excellent equipment meant they feared no enemy.
Yet a gloomy mood hung over this fierce cavalry force. Tesolys knew very well why. Now that the joy of breaking out and the fury of their hatred had cooled, every man felt anger and grief at their terrible losses.
They were the most honored soldiers in the Empire. Supporting each man cost a full four hundred gold dinars a year. This time, however, they had lost more than half their number. Worse, their supposed supreme commander had abandoned them among the enemy. Nothing could have been more humiliating or infuriating.
But they also felt lost. They had broken free, and they talked of revenge. Yet that consul was among the most powerful men in the entire Empire. Could they really get what they wanted?...
Tesolys understood his cavalrymen's doubts and worries. He said nothing to lift their spirits. Instead, he quietly rode to the very front of the column alone. His face remained firm and calm throughout. Every cavalryman saw him. Silently, they tightened their reins and dressed their ranks, following the man at the front.
They were willing to follow their general into hell. What was there to worry about now?... However bad things got, they could never be as bad as when they had been surrounded...
* * *
Tesolys gently drew in the reins. The huge black warhorse stamped its hooves twice in irritation, then came to a firm halt. It kept tossing its head and snorting, impatient with the obstacle that had suddenly appeared before it.
All the cavalrymen came to a steady halt. As orders passed down the column, they kept their tight formation on the road.
A large tangle of trees blocked the way. They looked as though a flash flood had washed them down, with their whole root systems and great clumps of soil still attached. Several rocks the size of millstones lay in the middle of the road. The pile reached halfway up the trunks of the surrounding trees. Like a wall built by nature, it blocked their path completely.
Tesolys frowned at the unexpected obstacle. The trees seemed to have ended up here because of a natural disaster, and bad luck alone had brought the column to this blocked road. Yet he kept feeling that it was not so simple, especially when he saw how the wagon tracks suddenly tangled here among a jumble of footprints. He took his shield from beside the saddle, dismounted, and walked up to the tangled trunks.
Reaching out, Tesolys brushed a heavy clod of earth from the roots. He found what he had suspected: roots chopped through with axes, and marks left by digging with shovels...
A faint bowstring twang suddenly sounded. Almost by instinct, he raised his shield. A feathered arrow struck it squarely and stuck there, its fletching still trembling.
"We're under attack!!"
At an officer's shout, every shield went up. They overlapped like scales, forming an unbroken wall. Deadly, sharp spears thrust out one after another through the gaps between them. Two cavalrymen all but dragged Tesolys out of the area. Just as they raised their shields into place, a dense rain of arrows flew toward them.
It was almost as though the attackers were working with them, only loosing their arrows after the cavalrymen had closed their formation. But Tesolys knew it was because his men had moved so quickly. The moment that first arrow came, every soldier had raised his shield in perfect coordination, leaving the enemy no time to react.
Arrows pelted the shields like a downpour, their dull clunks and knocks as close together as raindrops. The soldiers silently sheltered behind their shields and gripped the blades and iron maces at their waists, ready to launch a devastating charge at any moment.
The shooting did not last long. Every arrow took work to make. Only a strong, prosperous country could supply an army with enough arrows for a dense, unbroken storm of them on the battlefield. These attackers clearly could not manage that.
Tesolys told the two cavalrymen holding shields over him to move aside. Then he saw the people who had ambushed them from both sides of the road...
Their clothes were thick but ragged. They wore roughly tanned animal skins, dark green checked shorts, and heavy hide boots. A very few had battered coats of mail. Every one of them, however, held a longbow with a thick-shafted arrow nocked.
Their faces were fierce, but Tesolys could plainly see their weakness. Though they looked strongly built, their faces had the sickly color of hunger. They looked ferocious, yet the sight of the cavalrymen's fine armor and weapons kept them from shouting. They could only glare savagely at them.
There were quite a few of these people. Judging by the area they occupied and the densely packed shadows among the trees, there were at least three or four hundred. Yet after that burst of arrows, they simply surrounded the cavalrymen in a show of force, not daring to take a single step closer. Even when Tesolys showed his head, the archers made no move to shoot him.
The crowd began to stir. After a few excited cheers, they opened a narrow path. A small, thin figure emerged from among them and stood before the cavalrymen...
"Leave the food in your wagons! Then we won't trouble you... Otherwise, you won't make it out of this forest."
The voice was husky yet clear. Some of these people were tall, powerfully built men, but they had chosen this small, thin person as their leader. That surprised Tesolys. Their aim surprised him even more. They seemed to have been after the food from the very start...
Looking at those fierce-faced men with their weak legs, Tesolys twitched his ears. His sharp hearing caught the cry of an infant behind them. He saw the hungry looks they could not help casting toward the wagons... And he understood what was happening.
These were starving displaced people. Or rather, displaced people whose hunger had driven them to become bandits... They were already close to madness from starvation. That was why they had dared to attack.
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