Winter Be My Shield Read Free Page B

frozen hare dangled from his pack. Of the six snares he’d visited today, only one had been successful. The first had been buried beneath a snowdrift before it could catch anything and the others had all been raided, by foxes, wolves and, in one case, a leopard — a big one, judging from the tracks it left behind. That couldn’t be helped, but this one hadn’t been broken, nor was the prey dismembered within the noose. The wire had been deliberately untwisted and then left that way, with no attempt to set the snare again and perhaps replace the stolen catch. The prints around it left no doubt. Someone had raided his snare.
    â€˜Black Sun take you, you miserable bastard!’ Cam made a careful sweep of the hillsides through the narrow slit of his snow-goggles before he rested his bow against the sapling and crouched down with a muttered curse to undo the snare and recover the wire. He paid more attention to the silence at his back than the frosted steel. The armies gathered to the west were far too close for comfort. Perhaps it was foolish to run a trap-line out here, but they were near enough to starving as it was, and this way he might get at least a little warning when trouble began to head their way.
    When he picked up his bow again, Cam scowled at the prints. They were old, with the surface frozen hard and the edges rounded by the wind. It was the first sign of people he’d seen in weeks, apart from his ragged little band. The king’s army was perhaps as little as a few dozen miles away. The invaders from the western lands must be drawing near by now, but it had been weeks since he’d heard any word of the coming battles.
    After the gut-wrenching weeks following Isidro’s capture, Cam had barely given a thought to the brewing war. His mad, desperate scheme to ambush the guards taking Isidro south for his execution and then the days huddled by his brother’s bedside as he hovered near death had become Cam’s sole focus. It was only now that Isidro was past the worst and growing stronger that the greater threat snapped into sharp focus and Cam realised how much time had passed and how much the threat to the west must have grown while he was unaware.
    No honourable man would raid another’s snare, but there was more at stake than the matter of a stolen kill. Anyone desperate enough to steal so brazenly was a threat. It might be a deserter or another bandit kicked out of Charzic’s band, or a foraging party from the king’s camp. By the Black Sun, it might even be an Akharian scout, searching for a way past the king’s forces. Either way, he had to know. Keeping his camp safe and undiscovered was of the highest importance. His tiny band ought to move on from these hills as soon as possible, but for the moment Isidro was still too weak to be subjected to the hardships of winter travel.
    Cam followed the tracks away from the snare and around the thicket, where he found another surprise. The thief had tethered a horse there while he stole the kill — another worrying sign. The common folk of Ricalan rarely bothered with horses. Those who could afford a beast of burden preferred the yaka , which provided milk and fleece as well as strength for hauling and were hardier even than the native ponies; but most folk simply did without, packing their gear on a toboggan and hauling it themselves. Here in the north, only three sorts of folk kept horses — the ruling clans, the army and the Raiders who lived in the no-man’s-land between the settlers and the native folk. Having Charzic and his men find them would be just as bad as if the Mesentreians did, but Cam had seen no sign of them since Isidro was taken. They’d heard the talk of war as well and he suspected they’d retreated to the east, where the villages wouldn’t be full of soldiers itching for a fight.
    But there was only the one set of prints: if the thief was alone it would be a simple