Asayaga was about to tell him to go to the devils of the underworld, but he held his tongue. He was trapped. A plan formed for a brief instant. He would order a retreat, hold Sugama back for a few minutes and slip a blade into his throat, thereby silencing him. He knew his men would never ask what had become of Sugama when he caught up with them, but others back at the headquarters camp were not of House Kodeko, and they would almost certainly assume treachery if Sugama were the only casualty.

Send Sugama forward? No, damn it. If indeed the battle had been a mutual slaughter, or there was even the remote chance that the Kingdom troops had retreated after the fight, the shame of letting Sugama take the fort would be unbearable to his house. It would appear as well that he was a coward, ordering someone else to take the risk rather than set the proper example by doing it himself.

What was even more enraging was the realization that Sugama was following the same process of reasoning and thus dictating the rules of the game now being played.

Asayaga looked once more at Tasemu, but there was no need to say anything. Of the eighty men in his command most were new recruits; little more than boys called to serve by their blood ties to House Kodeko. They would obey without question, but they were untested. Asayaga would rely on his old core of twenty veterans, led by Tasemu, who knew the ways of this war. The Strike Leader nodded, raised a hand and gestured, Vashemi and Tarku, the most senior Patrol Leader and the wiliest old veteran without rank, respectively, half-stood and started back down the trail, checking to the rear as he went forward.

Asayaga shot a withering gaze at Sugama. 'Stay here.'

Taking a deep breath, he stood up and stepped out of the forest and into the clearing. He strode forward, acting as if he was out for a morning walk along a road on his family's estate, rather than advancing alone, fully exposed, heading towards a deserted, smoking ruin.

He passed the pile of bodies and as he drew closer he felt his heart constrict. All were dead, most from arrows, but the shafts had been snapped off by someone who wished to obscure the identity of the attackers. But the manner of death for some made it all too obvious. More than one of the warriors had been wounded first; but if it had been by Kingdom troops, the final dispatching would have been done with a certain professional respect for a worthy foe. A warrior from either side would often give the doomed a moment for final prayer and then cut his throat cleanly and quickly. He had done it often enough himself, both to Kingdom soldiers too injured to be taken back as slaves, and more than once to one of his own men whom he was forced to leave behind.

The dying had been murdered cruelly. Several had been decapitated. He slowed for a second, looking down at a face he vaguely recognized, an officer he had seen at times in camp. The mutilation was ghastly, the one most feared by any man. The agonized expression frozen on the dead man's face was evidence enough that he had still been alive when the carving up had started.

Asayaga swallowed hard and kept going. The fort was now less than a hundred paces away: he was coming into easy arrowshot range. The gate was off its hinges, the inside of the compound visible, bodies littered the interior. Several vultures were perched on the expansive stomach of one of the dead.

Perhaps the fort was abandoned after all?

And yet…

He slowed. Something wasn't right. The vultures, they weren't eating, they had stopped and were looking not towards him but instead at something within the fort that he couldn't see.

He stopped, and his hand went to the hilt of his sword.

Two things happened at nearly the same instant. The vultures, startled by something he couldn't see inside the fort flapped their wings, croaking obscenely, struggling to lift into the air: and a shout of warning came from behind. It was Tasemu.

'It's a trap!' Asayaga roared.

For the first few seconds he thought to rush the fort, but even as the vultures lifted off he knew someone was inside and if there was someone inside the smoking ruins of the barracks it meant there was most likely many of them, ready to hold the gate and riddle a charge with arrows.

He turned and sprinted back towards his men. Tasemu was standing out in the open, arms up, pointing back up the trail they had just come down.

'Behind us!' Tasemu cried, 'The Forest Demons are coming!'

Asayaga stopped half-way between the fort and the edge of the clearing.

Damn them! We walked straight into it. It was clear what would happen. Already Sugama was ordering the men to rush the fort and take refuge.

No! That's what the enemy want! They'll block the gate: then we get caught in the open and shot full of arrows,

He had to think. He looked back at the fort. It had been but a dozen heartbeats since he had turned back from it. The vultures were barely clear of the gate, wings flapping. The shelter of it looked inviting: too inviting.

His men were streaming out of the woods, running hard, Sugama in the lead. Then one of the men, just barely out of the forest, collapsed, blood fountaining, an arrow driven through his throat.

Sugama came on quickly.

'Hundreds of them!' he shouted, his voice edged with panic.

In spite of the chaos Asayaga could not suppress a grin. They might all die in the next few minutes, but it was good to see Sugama get a taste of the reality of this world first.

Asayaga waved his sword it over his head as a rallying signal. When the men were less than ten yards off he pointed away from the fort to the northwest corner of the clearing.

'Not the fort! Trap! Follow me!'

Sugama slowed for an instant, startled, as an arrow slashed past him. Then he turned to follow Asayaga.

Asayaga set off at a run. He had barely gone a dozen paces when he heard the blast of a horn echoing from the woods to the south. It was answered by another from within the fort!

He ran. The gate was no longer in view, and the west wall of the fort was now to his right and a hundred paces off. He led his column straight up the clearing, trying to keep an equal distance between the fort in the centre and the woods. An arrow skimmed past, kicking up a slushy spray of snow. He spared a quick glance at the fort. Dark forms lined the wall, bows raised. It was the Forest Demons, their distinctive visage clearly visible. Never had he seen so many of them and as such close quarters; before it had always been a furtive glance, a half-seeing as they drifted nightmarelike through the woods.

Asayaga had scouted this place several times over the last year and knew its layout. At the northwest corner a trail entered the clearing, leading to a fort taken by his command in the spring. It was four leagues to that place.

It would most likely be covered but it had to be tried. The east was Kingdom territory and impenetrable marshy ground for several leagues, a death trap. Straight north was the route to the realm of the Forest Demons, rocky game trails through high passes, a death trap as well.

Asayaga headed for the trail that might be either a trap, or a path to safety and then he saw someone stagger out from the trail clutching his chest, blood pulsing from between his clutching fingers. Stunned, he slowed to a stop as the dying person looked at him with blank eyes and then collapsed.

He stopped, not sure for an instant what to do next. He looked to his left, directly into the woods. Perhaps it was better to go that way rather than take the trail, for obviously something was covering that trail.

He started to run again, and his men following. Within seconds they were closing on the edge of the clearing and then a shower of arrows snapped out from the treeline, dropping half a dozen of his men.