Outside of the village of Rock Cross; Church of St. Peter and St. Paul
“We are on the right path,” Gaetan said as he dismounted his horse, speaking to his knights who were either on the ground resting or standing near the cold clear stream he’d left them by not an hour earlier. “The priest said that we are to continue up this road until we come to a larger road. The path to Tenebris will be to the east along that larger road, about half a mile. We will see the fortress on the rise through the trees.”
It had taken little more than half a day since leaving the Tertium village to come within a few miles of Kidderminster. They knew that Tenebris was nearby but without Ghislaine’s direction, they weren’t sure, exactly, where it was. They needed help. Passing a farmer on their way north, the farmer directed them to the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, a relatively new church as far as churches went, but the only one in the area other than a larger church in Kidderminster. Gaetan thanked the farmer, threw him a coin, and then continued on to the church as they’d been directed.
Coming up the road from the south, the block-steeple of the church came into view and Gaetan left his men by a stream in a thicket of trees and proceeded onward to ask the priests if they knew where Tenebris was located. His concern was that the priests might know of, or be loyal to, Alary and he didn’t want word to reach Alary that nine Norman knights had been seeking him.
One knight making an inquiry would seem far less threatening.
Therefore, Gaetan went on alone, forcing himself to keep his mind on his task when all he wanted to do was think of Ghislaine. It was strange how much he missed her, considering he’d only known the woman a matter of weeks. Now, he couldn’t even remember traveling without her. His arms ached to hold her but he comforted himself with the knowledge that the sooner they regain Kristoph, the sooner he would return to Ghislaine.
Under the guise of being an old friend of Alary of Mercia, Gaetan was able to extract a satisfactory answer from the solitary priest at the church and he had now returned to inform his men. Once he finished delivering the news, he brought his horse to the stream to drink, crouching down beside the animal to drink himself while his men began to gather their horses in preparation for departing.
“We shall make it to Tenebris easily before nightfall,” Téo said as he pulled his horse up from greedily eating thick wet grass. “Do you intend we should remain here tonight and set out in the morning?”
Gaetan shook his head. “Nay,” he said, standing up and shaking the water from his hands. “Even with the delays we have suffered, Alary was still traveling far slower than we were. We should be at least two days or more ahead of him, but we cannot be entirely certain. On the chance that he has made better time than we estimated, I will send Wellesbourne and St. Hèver into Kidderminster to watch for his party passing through. If Alary has two hundred men with him, then he will be easily spotted. Meanwhile, de Reyne and de Russe can ride head to scout out Tenebris. We need eyes on the place to see its strength and layout.”
Intelligence gathering was necessary in a situation such as this and everyone agreed, for the most part. “What is the plan of attack?” de Lara wanted to know. “If Alary is carrying two hundred men, we must have something precise planned so that when he comes, we are ready.”
Gaetan pulled his horse out of the stream and moved to mount the saddle. “That is what the rest of us will be doing,” he said. “We will be scouting the road between Kidderminster and Tenebris to determine the best place for an ambush. That is the only way we will be able to take on a greater number.”
“That is assuming Alary has not yet made it to Tenebris,” de Lara said quietly.
That was the key to all of this. If Alary had already made it to his fortress, then they would have to think of something else. There was something ominous in that thought. Gaetan vaulted into the saddle and gathered his reins as his men began to do the same.
“Exactly,” he said. “Let us get along with what must be done.”
With that, they tore out of the thicket and back onto the road again. Beneath clear skies and a rather lovely day, they reached the main road from Kidderminster in under an hour. Suddenly, they were right where they wanted to be, on the very road they had been seeking, and Gaetan found himself looking in the direction of the city even though he couldn’t see it. Still, they were here, ready to intercept Alary’s army, and the moment wasn’t lost on him.
They’d been waiting for it for the better part of several weeks.
Now, Gaetan’s focus was where it should be as thoughts of Ghislaine were tucked away. He was on the eve of a battle and thinking of the woman he adored would only be a distraction, and every knight knew that distraction was deadly. His thoughts shifted to Kristoph and what the man must have suffered these past weeks being the prisoner of a madman.
Kristoph was strong, he knew, but even the strong had a breaking point. This was the instant where he showed Kristoph just what brotherhood meant – it meant that men were not forgotten and that the bonds of warriors were stronger than the bonds of blood.
This was that moment.
With a lesser traveled road and a heavy forest of trees to their back, the knights looked to the west where Tenebris was located. The landscape was a little hilly, but none of the bigger hills and dales they had seen further south. For the most part, it was flat. Gaetan looked from east to west along the larger road, which was heavily traveled from the ruts in it. There were, however, thick lines of trees on both sides of the road to the east, but those trees dwindled the further west the road went. In fact, he could see the trees tapering off altogether not too far to the west. Beyond was the flat lands of meadows.
“Look to the trees,” he said, pointing off to the east where the trees came right up to the road. “That is where we shall make our stand, right here before the forest thins out too much. If we catch Alary and his army there, they will have nowhere to go.”
Téo, Aramis, and Luc were up alongside him, looking at the landscape. “If Alary is smart, he’ll have two hundred men in close quarters to protect one another while they are traveling,” Luc said. “If that is the case, we use crossbows as the weapon of choice – three of us in the front, three along the flanks, and then three in the rear. We can hold an entire army hostage that way and extract Kristoph.”