“I’m glad you like it.”
Chapter Eleven
“Your timing couldn’t have been better,”Perry remarked.
Fallon observed the controlled chaos as hismen walked from revenant to revenant putting any that still drewbreath out of their misery. Men tended the injured, cleaningwounds, sewing them up, and in a few rare cases, setting bones.
Perry’s men had taken heavy damage. Few, ifany, were uninjured.
“For a minute there, I thought I’d be meetingmy ancestors,” Perry confided. “Little bastards are cunning.”
“They adapt quicker than expected,” Fallonsaid. “We’ll have to clear as many as possible from these hills, orthey’ll just breed more. Better to deal with them now while they’reweakened, than wait for them to regain their strength.”
“I’ll get my men right on it.”
“No. Let them rest. They deserve it. I’llhave Darius send a company to destroy any dens later. I need youand your men with me in the west.”
“Understood. Our mission?”
“A couple of the local villages have decidednot to meet their tithes. We’ll need to educate themotherwise.”
Perry sighed. “Stupid fools. I’d feel sorryfor them if they had even the tiniest pair of balls.”
Fallon grinned. It was a sentiment echoedoften among his men.
“We’ll just have to force them to gainsome.”
Perry’s expression soured. “That would belike trying to stuff a rain drop back into a cloud.”
“Surely not as difficult as that.”
“Not nearly as useful either, no doubt,” aman said crossly, coming to stand by Fallon’s side. He was a short,stocky man with a barrel chest. Half of his brown hair was pulledtightly back to tame the wild curls. The skin below the half ponytail was shaved. Unlike most of the other Trateri who had brownhair and eyes, his were a startling blue.
“Caden,” Perry said, nodding in respect.
“Perry.” The greeting was returned with thesame respect. “Your men acquitted themselves well.”
“We lost many, but all went down with swordin hand.”
“Sometimes that’s all you can ask for.”
There was a short silence in respect for thelives lost.
“When should I have my men ready to moveagain?” Perry asked. “We’ll have to send out a team to round up thehorses first. I had the men cut their strings when the revenantsent out its battle cry. Figured the horses running around might beenough of a distraction to get our men to the rendezvouspoint.”
“I can send a few of my men out to see howmany we can recover. We also brought a few extra mounts if we can’tround up all of the horses. We’ll stay the night here,” Fallonsaid. “You chose the place to make your stand well. It’s easilydefensible and will provide decent shelter from the night’scold.”
“Pure dumb luck we made it this far,” Perryadmitted. “One of the scouts you sent happened to have a littleknowledge of the area, which allowed us to make it far enough tofind a defensible position.”
“Oh?” Fallen asked.
“Damnedest thing,” Perry said. “Evidently thecreatures can’t see worth shit. They rely on their nose. If you canfool it, you can sneak past them.”
“Didn’t seem to help you here,” Caden said,looking at the fallen.
“If it hadn’t been for those berries, wewould have made our stand much sooner. Probably would have all diedtoo. We wouldn’t have stood a chance without decent cover at ourback. Whoever you send to get rid of these beasts should be warned.It might prevent death.”
“Agreed. Write up your observations, and I’llsend them along with my orders. Darius can pass it to his men.”
