Winter in the Mountains Ch. 08

And then, we had a visitor. He came in with Whistle, who had gone down for dispatches. The trip had started taking longer, as the going got harder, but this time he'd been away for 5 days. I felt that visitor coming, and alerted the captain. In case of trouble, we had a prepared ambush – with me as the bait - but as soon as the captain saw Whistle's guest, he called it off, and stood at the camp entrance waiting. He gave the visitor a hearty welcome, but it seemed to me that he was less than thrilled to see him. He introduced him to us as Captain Oltan. The squad later told me that he was one of the best connected captain's in the regular army, and it was expected that he'd end up as commander in chief.

Over dinner, the Captain announced that we had new orders. There was a stunned silence. Our new orders, he said, were that the next party of thugs was to be allowed to cross the mountain unhindered, and they were to see no evidence that we were still alive. Then we were to close the mountain again, whatever the cost.

There were shouts of anger at this, the men were enraged. The captain let them express themselves, though I could see that the visitor thought this was most inappropriate. Eventually they calmed down, and discussed what the orders meant in detail. I could see that none of them, including the captain, were at all pleased. But he explained that the thugs who came through would be handed over to Captain Oltan to watch, and that we would obey orders, since high command must have some good reason they mightn't want to share with us.

They discussed handover, and agreed that Whistle would take the captain back down to the lowlands after a days rest. That night, I lay awake wondering about our new visitor. Would I be expected to service him too? I hadn't much liked the way he'd looked at me. But I guess that finding a woman here would have been unexpected, and he'd have been wondering what my role was. I decided that in the morning I would take the initiative and call him in, first, that way I'd be better able to control what I gave him. And as our guest, I felt that he was my guest too.

The next morning, I prepared the bath, and called our visitor in. But as I did so, I saw Scar look disapprovingly in my direction. I could see what he thought in his eyes, and it filled me with anger. Like I had any choice? I was keeping my vow, I'd do it well. To hell with him if he didn't like me. I hadn't meant to, but I was angry at Scar and the visiting captain was a keen participant, and not unskilled either, and I ended up giving him quite full service indeed, and making quite a bit of noise while I was at it.

Lunch that day was a silent affair. The men were clearly angry with me. I was surprised, but they clearly felt betrayed by what I had done. I was destroyed. How could I have done what I did? I had run a real risk of pox. It made me sick inside. I should've spoken with the Captain first, I was his to command. Instead, I had just acted. The whole point was so that I didn't actually make love to him, but instead, because of my emotions with Scar, I'd let the whole thing get right of hand. I remembered the captain asking me whether I was towed along by my emotions, or whether I sat on them, steering them in the direction I wanted to go.

I steeled myself, and took a difficult decision. Instead of running away from the problem, I looked at them all in the eye, one by one, and cast an apology their way, an image of myself hanging my head in shame and apology. To my surprise, each of them accepted it, I could see it in their eye's, though I guess it was a powerful way to say sorry. Last, I got to Scar. I didn't know what to say, and I could not cast to him. I said nothing.

For a week, I fretted. I wanted to speak to Scar about it, but I couldn't. I let him use me, but I couldn't speak to him about it. He didn't show his usual care and attention to me, he just took what he wanted from me, then rose and left without saying anything. In a way, it could've been worse. At least he was angry with me, but I still didn't know how to talk to him anymore. I missed him terribly.

One night I lay awake, listening to a great storm as it wound up itself up to a frenzy, looking at Scar. He still slept next to me, but he turned his back on me now. I often cried in the night now, when everyone else was asleep. How could I fix things up with Scar? Even if he didn't love me, I just wanted to be friends with him again.

That was a terrible storm. No one went out of the valley for the whole time. We hardly went outside at all, just to get supplies or check on the animals. It was the first time that a storm had lasted more than a day and it lasted for a week. It wasn't as cold as the others, but we'd had nothing like it before. The wind howled, and trees fell. When the storm finally broke, leaving the most snow we had seen, it was the end of winter, and we started to feel spring coming.

It was wonderful to see spring. We had survived winter with no causalities, not even any more lost toes or fingers. I watched their health improve, and my mood improved a little. Scar and I had come to an uneasy understanding during the storm. One night I had found myself in his arms as we all lay awake listening to the storm at its worst. After that we would actually talk, and we made love, but it wasn't the same, as if he was just putting up with me until we left the mountains.

A few weeks after the great storm, I sighted a party of thugs coming through the mountains, through the main pass. There was about ten of them, it was hard to count at a distance. The captain watched them through the falcon, and I felt them struggling up the path. These were not good mountain men, though they felt like very disciplined soldiers. Eventually, after the third night, they crossed the pass, and the captain sent a group under Scar to a hideout down he valley, to shadow the thugs once they got that far. I worried as I watched him go, though really, it was one of the least risky patrols they had done.

We watched as they passed Scar and then Scar tailed them out of the mountains. A couple of days later they returned and Scar reported that they had successfully handed shadowing the thugs over to Captain Oltan and his band.

A couple of weeks later, Whistle brought us a report of what had happened. As soon as the thugs had hit the plains, they'd gone on a spree of destruction aimed directly at the capital, killing and burning everything in their way. Captain Oltan and his men had challenged them in battle, and they had been destroyed. Eventually another unit of soldiers had been drawn by the column of smoke and killed the thugs, though that unit had nearly been wiped out. We were angry beyond measure. All our work thrown away for nothing, how could this happen?

The captain wasn't so much angry as afraid. As I lay in his arms the next day he told me that we had to be extra alert, there was no saying what would happen now that the enemy believed the mountain was open again.

Two weeks later, I told the captain that I felt as though there was a presence on the steppes, beyond where I could see it, but coming closer to the mountains. That morning he sent his falcon over the steppes, further than it had ever been before. The report he gave us left us shattered.

The enemy king, with his main army, several thousand soldiers, was making his way across the steppes towards the valley leading to the first pass.