Obviously they had made a last stand there, but against whom? Had the garrison been strong enough to sally forth and attack the Tsurani downhill, the walls and gates would still be standing and Hartraft's Marauders would be inside at this very moment eating a warm meal.
If Brendan's Stockade had fallen, where were the Tsurani? Dennis had been fighting them for the entire war, and they never left their dead to rot unless killed to the last man. Either way, the winners should now be putting out the fires and repairing the gate, for either side would hold this stockade once taken.
Nothing moved. It was a stockade of the dead.
'There's nothing right in this.'
Gregory had slipped up so silently that his whispered voice gave Dennis a start. Damn him, he enjoyed doing that, sneaking up and thus showing his skill, but Dennis didn't let his flash of anger show.
'Brendan and his lads are finished,' Gregory whispered, 'but so are the Tsurani.'
Dennis said nothing. In spite of the snow vultures were already circling in. A mile or more back he had noticed an absence of crows and ravens in the forest – inactive at night, they were usually noisy and busy first thing in the morning – now he knew where they were… enjoying a feast. A vulture dropped down inside the smoking ruins of the fort and did not come back out, yet another indicator that no one was left alive inside.
Could it be that the Tsurani had retreated at his approach?
No. If there were enough of them to take Brendan, they would stay and make a fight of it. The fall of this stockade, along with the Tsurani holding Mad Wayne's to the north-west, made a hole twenty miles wide in the picket chain that covered the northern front. Why take this crucial point only to abandon it?
Ambush?
He looked back over his shoulder. Gregory was carefully looking about as well, and Dennis realized that the Natalese scout had been scanning the woods to either side, looking for any indicators that a trap was closing in.
Nothing. The crows and ravens were all down in the clearing, feasting, so there was none of their noisy cackling in the forest. The other sounds were normal: the ice-covered trees creaking in the breeze, the tinkling sound of now-light rain, the calls of other birds, and nothing else.
There was no ambush: it would already have been sprung.
Their eyes met and both had reached the same conclusion.
'Dark Brothers,' Dennis whispered.
Gregory nodded an agreement. 'Unless the last Tsurani and the last Kingdom soldier conspired to kill one another at the same moment, that's my guess.'
What he saw started to fit together. A Tsurani force had besieged the fort. Ringing the edge of the clearing he could see where the snow had been trampled down, and the torn remains of a dozen of their tents littered the ground, bits of canvas sticking out of the icy slush. Their besieging camp was at the edge of the forest less than a hundred yards away. Cooking pots still hung over cold fire-pits, and a battle pennant leaned against a half-collapsed tent covered with ice.
He could even make out the spot where they had forged together their rough-hewn battering ram, for the stump of the freshly-cut tree was coated with melting ice.
Perhaps the Tsurani had just taken the fort, or were venturing an attack when the Dark Brothers had hit them, pressing right through to finish off Brendan's defenders as well. The pattern of bodies indicated that the Tsurani had tried to break out, heading towards the south-west corner of the clearing and the trail that ran straight back to territory they held. The piled-up knot of dead were stopped a good hundred yards short of the main trail which headed into the heart of Tsurani-held territory.
He stared at the trail for a moment, feeling a knot in his stomach. He had walked it often enough as a boy; it was the trail back to his family's estates… He forced his attention away from bitter memory and back to the present.
With fifty men in Brendan's garrison the Tsurani would not have ventured an attack with less than two hundred. If the Dark Brothers had come into the fray it meant there were at least three hundred of them, maybe more. They didn't risk a fight like this unless the odds were on their side. He had to know. With only sixty-five of his men left, four of the wounded having survived the night march and still needing to be carried, it was a deadly situation if the moredhel were still in the area.
He caught the scent of Tinuva. It was strange, there was something vaguely different about the scent of elves, not a perfume, but it seemed to carry a warmth, a vitality of life with it, like the first morning of spring. He felt the elf's breath.
'They're here. Moredhel,' Tinuva whispered, his voice drifting so gently it could not have been heard more than half a dozen feet away.
Dennis nodded. 'How many?'
Tinuva weighed the question for what seemed to Dennis a long time. The elves' sense of time was far more stately than humans'.
After a long while, he said, 'At least two hundred, maybe more.'
'Are you certain?' asked Dennis.
'No,' replied the elf. 'But do you see any moredhel bodies out there?'
'No,' conceded Dennis.
'Any dead or wounded they carried off. They would have had to come in numbers so overwhelming that the garrison and the Tsurani were quickly overrun, else we would see more sign of them. Look.'
Dennis looked to where the elf pointed and not understanding, finally asked, 'What am I looking for?'
There are no broken moredhel arrows. They have cleared this area of their passing. They don't want us to know they've been here.'
Gregory nodded. Pointing to the smoking char that had been the stockade, he said, 'That's sort of difficult to ignore, my friend.'
Tinuva said, 'But if you found it in the spring, might you not think the Tsurani had overrun the fort and left behind this memento?'
Dennis didn't hesitate. 'No, the Tsurani would have claimed this position. To the north is the abandoned mine road that leads into the mountains. To the east are the marshlands and mountains. With the Tsurani controlling Mad Wayne's and most of the land west of here…'
'From here they could raid south behind our lines until we drove them out.' Suddenly Dennis felt a stab of alarm. 'The Dark Brothers are still close by!' he hissed quietly.
'They're probably tending their wounded and waiting for the snow to stop before they return to dispose of the Tsurani dead,' Gregory said in a hoarse whisper. 'I don't think they know we are here though,' He glanced skyward as the snow slackened.
'Don't risk your life on that thought, my friend,' Tinuva said, again his voice was a drifting shimmer barely heard.
'Circle,' Dennis whispered.
Dennis slid back down from boulders. Spying Alwin, he gestured for him to remain in position, indicating that the three of them would circle around the fort and that moredhel were in the area. After nine years in the field, the Marauders had a sophisticated system of hand signals to cover most situations. Alwin signed that he understood and would comply.
Having approached the fort from the west, Dennis started north, following the direction of the low ridge. The realm of the moredhel was to the north, though it didn't necessarily mean that was the direction they had attacked from. Besides, the next major trail, the one that connected Brendan's Stockade and Mad Wayne's Fort, entered at the north-west corner of the clearing. Perhaps there would be signs there that could help unravel the mystery.
As he drifted along the ridge, staying low, he kept the remains of Brendan's Stockade in view. Yet another link to the past lost within the last day, he thought.
The stockade was one of a dozen such along the Yabon frontier, garrisoned out of Tyr-Sog. Unlike the mountains to the east, which were dominated by major passes guarded by the border barons – Ironpass, Northwarden, and Highcastle – the western mountains were shot through with trails and little passes. Smuggling in the west was common, but none of the passes was sufficient for any large-scale invasion southward. So the stockades had been constructed over the years.
Each was owned by a trader or innkeeper, who kept it repaired out of profits, while the Baron of Tyr-Sog and
