A scout trotted his horse toward them, riding smoothly, proudly erect, sunlight glinting on plumed and polished helmet and black mail, upright lance tilted a correct ten degrees forward. Another orc detached himself from the small lead formation and galloped to meet him.
Kamal had been experiencing misgivings; something seemed to have gone wrong, perhaps seriously. Draco had not contacted him all of yesterday, either directly or by radio, which was disturbing in itself. As a consequence he’d had no information of the enemy in that time. Judging from the last report, he’d expected to meet the Northmen before noon today, and in fact before now. He’d even made camp early the day before, to help ensure they’d not meet in the evening.
Having decided the preceding evening that he could not rely on aerial reconnaissance, he’d sent scouts out before dawn to fan widely through the countryside ahead. With one of them returning now, his concern was replaced by hard-eyed attentiveness. His aide-de-camp rode back with the scout at heel.
“They’ve found where the Northmen were.”
“Were? So they learned about us and turned back! We’ll have to catch them then!”
The aide-de-camp turned to the scout and gestured for him to speak.
“They don’t seem to have turned back, my Lord,” the man said. “They split into two forces, one turning north, the other south. Yesterday, by the signs. We have riders following both groups.”
“Yesterday! How far ahead was this?”
“About seven kilometers.”
“How large a force? Their entire army?”
“I don’t know, my Lord. A large one, surely; the grass was widely trampled.”
So! And where was the high-flying Draco, the eye of the army? He wished now that Dov, in command of the City garrison, had been left a radio, but there were only three for the entire field army. He also wished for a few squads of horse barbarians, for scouts. They’d have told him how many Northmen had been there and when. It should have been fairly late in the day, for them to have gotten so far east, but one couldn’t be sure, especially with Northmen. If they’d broken camp before dawn yesterday, or forced the march . . . But why would they force their march? They were too smart to wear out their horses without good reason.
Now he had to decide in ignorance. He had the nasty feeling that the Northmen were in charge of the situation, maneuvering him into doing what they wanted; he’d had too much experience of them in the Ukraine. But how could they even know he was out here on the march? The sky chariot should have seen and killed any far-ranging Northman scouts or patrols.
And the sky chariot should have contacted him the evening before and again this morning.
He looked up as a rider approached at a canter, calling to him. “My Lord! Another scout is returning!”
Kamal squinted westward at the scout, still distant, and ordered out his aide-de-camp to meet him, while a trumpeter halted the army. Minutes later his aide galloped back hard, with something on his lance tip.
“My Lord!” he snapped, and held out a stinking severed head to his commander. “One of the scouts found the bodies of our Lord Draco and others near the place where the Northman army divided. He brought this as proof because the bodies had been stripped and there were no insignia.”
“And the sky chariot?”
“Not there.”
“Any sign of it?”
“He didn’t say.”
That was an answer of sorts. Had it been there, the scout would have told of it. But how else could Draco have gotten there? And yet, how could the Northmen have moved it? Surely they couldn’t fly it; it had taken training by the star men to enable Ahmed’s men to fly them, and the Northmen were barbarians.
The scout was trotting up to them. “Man!” Kamal shouted at him, “don’t you know anything except that they’re dead?”
“Yes, my Lord. Their bodies bore no wounds. They had no marks of arrow, sword, or knife, and they had not been scalped.”
Kamal swore, looking again at Draco’s discolored face. The hair was still there, and the Northmen always scalped anyone they killed. “How many bodies?”