‘Will there be more?’ asked Helen.
‘Undoubtedly,’ answered Roo, resting on the cave floor a minute. ‘I don’t know if they’re going to be heading this way, but it means we have to be wary of any riders or men on foot we spy until we know for a fact they’re Kingdom soldiers.’
He sighed and stood up. ‘I need to find those horses and see if they have anything useful on them.’ He also needed to bury Jason and the four dead men, but he thought it best not to speak of it.
Staggering down the hill, Roo saw that the wounded horse was only a few yards away, but the other three had wandered up the hillside and were trying to eat the small patches of grass that grew around a small clearing. Roo wasn’t the expert that Erik was when it came to horses, but one look at the deep wound in the horse’s flank told him he wouldn’t recover without a healer’s aid; there was bone exposed and the horse limped as if hobbled.
He walked as calmly as he could to where the three horses grazed, and made clicking sounds and talked softly. Two of the horses started to move away, but one remained close enough for him to get his hands on its bridle. Roo checked the bedroll and found a few items of worth inside, a silver candlestick and some coins.
Roo tied the first horse’s reins to a branch on a deadfall and got the second. It also had a few items of worth on it, but nothing else of use.
The third horse was more interested in playing keep-away than in eating, so after Roo had chased it for about fifty yards, he started throwing rocks at it, attempting to drive it away so that should anyone else come across the wandering mount, it wouldn’t lead them back to Roo’s location.
Roo found one of Luis’s daggers still stuck in one of the dead men, and he pulled it out. He quickly put down the lame horse, whose screams caused the two remaining horses to shy. But he had tied them well enough that they remained where he had left them. Then he turned to the grisly task of searching the corpses.
Like all former soldiers, he found the idea of rifling the dead was repugnant, yet he knew that anything of real worth would be on these men. He discovered three pouches of gold and one of gems. Roo put the valuables on one of the two remaining horses and stockpiled the weapons. He had five daggers, a long knife, and six swords.
He carried these to the cave and deposited them inside. He asked Helen, ‘How’s Luis?’
‘Not good,’ she said softly. She looked at Roo and shook her head slightly.
Roo had seen enough wounds to know that Luis might not live through the night. He turned and went down the hill. He decided he’d move the horses after he disposed of the dead.
He had no shovel, so digging a grave was out of the question, unless he wanted to try to do it with one of the swords. He found a small fissure in the middle of the dry creek and he rolled the dead into it. He hated the idea of burying Jason with the four deserters, but the safety of his family was more important than anything else.
He used the poorest of the six swords to dislodge dirt and cover the dead, then started carrying rocks to cover them. After an hour of this heavy labor, he was nearly exhausted and was on his knees piling up the rocks as best he could. He attempted to keep them below the lip of the fissure, so that when he sprinkled branches and leaves over it, anyone coming by might not notice the grave.
He was placing the last rock on the grave when something pushed him from behind.
Roo turned and was scrambling for the sword when he saw a curious horse looking him in the eye. The animal he had chased off had grown bored and returned, and had come down to see what he was doing. Finding the work uninteresting, the horse demanded Roo’s attention.
Roo reached out quickly and grabbed its reins. The horse shied, and pulled back, yanking Roo to his feet. He yanked once, cried, ‘Whoa!’ and let pressure off so the horse didn’t fly into a panic.
The animal responded and held its position. Roo led it to the others and tied it to the tree. He searched the blanket roll behind the horse’s saddle and found some more gold and a gem.
Roo looked around and tried to spot a better location to hide the horses, but couldn’t see one. If they were going to use them, he’d have to risk their being discovered.
Fatigue gripped him as he trudged up the hill. He thought it would be ironic in the extreme if he had gone to all the trouble of burying the five bodies only to have the three horses standing there give him away.
He looked at the dead horse and realized he’d have to attempt to cover it up before leaving, but decided he’d wait until the next day. Hiding the dead animal was pointless until he was ready to lead the living ones away.
He reached the cave mouth and found that Karli had distributed some more bread and pieces of cheese to the children. He took a hunk of each as it was handed to him and sat down. He couldn’t remember ever having been this tired.