Chapter 5

Most of them were setting up small tents and lean-tos, and building small cooking fires, but they were mostly just sitting around, talking, and scratching their asses.

Finally one of the men who had caught a horse was leading it back and snaking four small eight-foot logs. Shortly the other man left with the horse he'd caught, heading the same way with four more of the small short logs. Hell, they were more like post.

I hadn't noticed while I was watching the men in the woods and those leading the horses, but there were now two men working about a hundred and fifty yards from the camp area. They seemed to be digging holes but the shovels they were using looked almost like sharpshooters.

That was it, they were digging postholes and the logs were post. They had to be putting in post so they could picket all those damned horses for the night. I took a closer count and there were exactly one hundred of the draft horses. Eight posts would make for four picket lines and they'd handle twenty-five horses each.

I kept watching as things progressed and my guesses were correct. They put the post in, very deep considering they were digging the holes with sharpshooters, and then they tamped the hell out of the earth they put back in the holes after the post were set.

When they were satisfied with their work, they tied a rope between each pair of post, and were done. Looking closer I could see there were lead ropes about every four feet already attached to the picket lines.

All the work seemed over for a while and the men cooked and ate, individually or in small groups. About an hour before sunset, probably a hundred of them went out and caught the horses, put a halter on each of them and then led them to the picket lines and tied a lead rope to each halter, securing their stock for the night it seemed.

I watched as long as I could see, until the sun was fully down, and they never did send anyone out to watch over the horses, not even one man. I asked Chungi about it.

"Why would they need to watch the horses?" he asked.

"What if there are wolves nearby?" I asked.

"What are wolves?" he asked.

"Aren't there any animals that might attack the horses?"

"Not that I know of. Horses are very big and their hooves are hard. If it were sheep, a jackal might try to take one, but they wouldn't even try to bother a horse," he said.

Well, that settled that, and I was about to let King Frata's men know they really should post guards around their horses. Of course I didn't intend for them to have any to guard by morning.

Chungi and I climbed down and I asked him to find all of my original squad and have them meet me in Commander Junga's former office.

They all showed up within half an hour and I spelled it out for them.

"They have a hundred big draft horses tied out on picket lines, twenty-five to the line. They're over a hundred and fifty yards from the camp and there are no guards posted, none at all for any of the camp as best I could tell before the sun went down.

"I want all of you to dig out your night vision gear. Take a dozen or so men and go out and steal the horses. Circle far out around the camp and approach the horses from the rear. Don't try to be too quiet, since you don't want to surprise them and make them nervous.

"You don't want to alert the men, but you don't want to surprise the horses either. I think you should be able to just cut the picket lines from the post and have your flunkies lead them away.

"The fifteen of you should take M4s with your grenade launchers attached and loaded. It will be better if you never fire a shot because you know these horses haven't heard anything like it, and we don't want to spook them.

"Have some men waiting at the gate and watching for you so they can have it open by the time you get to it," I said.

"Won't a hundred more horses put a strain on even the giant haystack you had made?" Jorgenson asked.

"Maybe, but we don't have to use it yet. With the army gone those men out there won't be a problem trying to steal the horses back. They aren't even soldiers, they're more like combat engineers. I don't think there is even one archer," I said.

"They will really shit in the morning when they see we have their horses and we're grazing them in plain sight," Jorgenson said, and then laughed like hell, the others joined him.

They left through the tunnel and took the original exit, traveling most of the way around by the edge of the woods. They took special care crossing the cleared area near what passed for a road, but it was pointless really. I don't think even one of the kings men rolled over during the whole operation. I know they didn't discover the horses were gone until an hour after sunrise.

They were fit to be tied then though. They spent the next forty-five minutes yelling and screaming at each other and I even saw a couple of fistfights break out.

That was nothing though, compared to the confusion when our wranglers drove all the stock, including their horses, out to graze. We sent all the archers out with them this morning. They were mounted too, and each of them had four quivers tied onto their saddles.

I was watching from the wall with my binoculars and after another hour or so of arguing the construction crew got up their nerve, all of them strapping on swords or taking axes and they formed up roughly and began walking toward the horses and wranglers.

I didn't think they'd keep coming after the archers let fly a couple of times, but there were nearly four hundred of them and no sense in taking the chance. I'd already had two of the SAW crews' saddle horses and I sent them on out, with two extra flunkies to keep a tight grip on their mounts when the lead started flying.

They trotted out and set up in the construction gang's path, about three hundred yards in front of them. The SAWs were ready in no time and the flunkies had a firm grip on the lead ropes. My guys cut loose when the enemy, walking steadily, got to within probably a hundred yards.

Of course it was a bloodbath. Most of the poor bastards who were hit died before they realized they'd even been attacked. In thirty seconds or so about two hundred men were down, dead or dying.

It was the end of their courage and all those who could still move under their own power made a retreat which wasn't even nearly tactical. They carried their asses in a wild panic.

They might as well have, the rest of us from the original squad were mounted now too, and we came out of the gate screaming, with a good one-handed grip on our M4s. I hoped firing wouldn't make the horses kick up a fuss, but we intended to see if it did.

We were well within hip-shot range before they got back to their camp and we began peppering their asses. We didn't even let them slow down at their camp. We stayed hard on their heels, since it's much easier to kill retreating troops, especially in a panicked retreat. Not a one got away.

By now the wranglers had moved most of the horses back inside the walls, where others were waiting to hitch them to wagons or tie on packsaddles.

Within an hour we had nearly eight hundred people out gleaning the field. We didn't bother burying the bodies, I had them piled up where their camp had been after we'd removed every single thing they'd brought with them or had on them. I even had them stripped naked.

Some of them were still alive but their wounds would settle them later. I finished off about twenty or so who looked like they might be able to live over their wounds. The only things we didn't remove were the post they'd put up for the picket lines. King Frata, welcome to Quancho.

Merry old King Frata must not have found much excitement in Katahalana because his mighty army started showing up around two PM six days later. There was quite a bit of excitement now though.

I'm sure the fact no progress had been made on his siege engine was upsetting for him, but I didn't really give a shit. But surprising me seemed to be his greatest talent. He surprised me this time by spreading his camp out with the closest front portion no more than a thousand yards from our front gate. I could grow to like this type of surprise.