Tracking down his partner took a bit longer.
Not that the soldiers were unprepared—six of them converged on his position, riding horses that had grown stiff with the cold. But the Guarder was shifty and elusive, darting and dodging then diving under a horse and through the line of six in a remarkable escape attempt.
That’s why there was another line of eight soldiers waiting in the shadows of the fort wall. The foot chase would have been comical in any other circumstance, Neeks considered later, but as he held his bleeding arm shouting instructions at the soldiers that slipped left and right trying to catch the infiltrator, there was nothing amusing about their attempts.
But in the end they succeeded, three soldiers piling on top of the Guarder when he slid on a patch of ice, and each one of the corporals plunging their long knives into him.
It wasn’t until Neeks got the word that the Guarder was dead that he finally sat down in the snow and allowed a surgeon’s assistant to wrap his arm with a bandage.
“We’ve got three so far tonight, Captain,” he cringed as the dressing was wrapped tightly to staunch the bleeding. “How many do you have?”
---
How did he get stabbed? Perrin wondered as he jogged towards the east again. That’s where they came from, which means they must have gone past him, but were now coming back. But why? Why not just head to the village?
Perrin wished he’d looked around the ground for an explanation for the chest wound. Perhaps the Guarder had his dagger drawn and fell on it. Maybe there was a sharp tree branch that he was impaled upon. Maybe—
But Perrin hadn’t seen any evidence, in the short shocked moments he stared in disbelief, of a weapon or bloodied branch. The snow underneath the man was wide and unbroken by anything except the pool of blood.
Someone had stabbed the Guarder.
Was it his companion, knowing he wouldn’t be able to escape? Perrin couldn’t remember seeing anything near the dead man, but perhaps his companion was sneaky.
Or maybe it was something—or someone—else.
---
“He doesn’t know how many are left,” one of the men in mottled white and gray whispered to his three companions as they jogged a safe distance behind the large man in white.
“He’s not quitting, not yet.”
“But someone has to get to—”
“Don’t worry, they are.”
“I just hope we brought enough,” another man whispered.
“Don’t worry,” one of the men repeated. “We know how to count to fourteen. That’s all that matters.”
---
Four more, Perrin thought to himself. Four more. Maybe a pair or two had made it out beyond the forest, or all of them were already accounted for, and he was wasting his time.
That’s why he was making his way to the edge, hoping to find good news. And the other quiver full of arrows he had Karna hide for him in a cavity of rock right inside the trees. He reached it in about five minutes, traded his empty quiver—most of the arrows had fallen out when he was wrestling the Guarder—and reminded himself that he still had four long knives. More than enough for four men.
At the border of the forest he whistled again, a short-four pattern. A moment later a sergeant came riding up to him, his eyes wide in surprise.
“You didn’t see me like this,” Captain Shin told him.
The sergeant nodded that he understood, then shook his head.
“Report!”
“We have three Guarders, sir. One that Karna brought down, another that wrestled with Neeks until he killed him—”
“Who killed who?!” Perrin demanded.
“Neeks killed the Guarder,” the sergeant clarified, still staring at the captain in white with red splatters on his rabbit fur that for some odd reason reminded the sergeant of butterflies. “He was injured, but will be fine. Caught the third man just outside the fort. He’s dead, sir.”
Perrin sighed. Two more, still out there. “Report to Karna. Tell him there are still two more, but I don’t know where. Two more!”
“Sir, how do you know there are two—”
But the captain had already vanished back into the trees.
---
“Are you sure he said two more?” Karna asked the sergeant.
“Positive, sir. Captain Shin was very specific.”
“Remember, sergeant: you didn’t see him.”
“But sir, I did! I saw—”
Lieutenant Karna’s groan told the sergeant that he couldn’t believe his eyes on a night like this.
“Ah. Sorry, sir. I already told the captain—that I didn’t see—that I did not see him.”
“That’s right,” Karna nodded. He looked up at the forest and rubbed his gloved hands together. “Two more. They could be anywhere. But at least we know where they’re headed.”