A thick forest grew on the right-hand side of the valley as they descended. The second that the road began to run alongside it, the soldiers had grown considerably quieter. The thick pine trees of the woods created a green barrier that was impenetrable, even in the heart of winter as they were. It was the perfect spot for an ambush, if that was what the enemy wanted to do.
Even the horses were moving faster. The wagons were being driven at the very back of the marching men and Petyr had been relegated to joining them, though he seemed particularly nervous about doing so.
The soldiers had offered to take over the driving of his carriage in his place, at least until the battle was done, allowing him to stand somewhere more protected, but Petyr had reluctantly refused. Oliver had noted with amusement that the man had his own sort of honour, like a captain going down with his ship.
The men behind him paused as well. Those were his men, at first. Rofus' conversation came to a sudden halt as he saw that the man in front of him had stopped as well. A quiet fell over them, a quiet that rippled down the column of marching men.
The row after Oliver's men stopped. Then the row after that. Then the row after that. They'd all been staggered to a stop by Oliver's impulsive decision.
Northman had offered him the position at the front as a mark of begrudging respect. He'd mentioned that he'd want his strongest force to be at the front for the moment that they hit the trees, just in case someone was waiting for them there.
They'd hit the trees minutes before and they still hadn't repositioned. Had they been making proper use of their strongest force, then they likely should have been somewhere towards the middle by now, so they could quickly adapt to an attack, no matter what side it came from.
"What is it?" Rofus asked. He was the first of them to dare to do so. The rest of them remained quiet. Oliver himself wasn't sure what had made him stop. It was that feeling that he'd gotten in the corridor of the Yellow Castle just before his assassination, the feeling that something was off.
He couldn't quite point out what it was. The snow was still falling, light and steady and a quick glance into the forest determined that it was still dark and still, though they couldn't see much further than a few feet into it, with the denseness of the fur trees refusing to let the weak winter light penetrate.
In the growing silence, the sound of a grouse taking flight from a tree was like a thunderbolt. Every man along the column heard it squark. The lot of them were on edge. If there was reason enough for a grouse to take off in such a hurry, then there was likely reason enough for them to do the same.
"AMBUSSSHHHHHHHH!" The soldier nearest to Oliver shouted in a fright. Oliver was the first to draw his sword. The soldiers next to him readied their spears, but not a single man had seen anything yet, it was only that grouse that had warned them.
The grouse had set off in a panic nearest the middle of the column. That seemed the likeliest place to target and even if it wasn't, it was still the best place to be if they were under attack.
"Let's go," Oliver said to those men that he'd been entrusted with, his voice level. Rofus nodded seriously. They had no reason to disobey. They wouldn't ignore him out of pettiness, not when they too could see the best course of action.
"Let's get moving, fellas!" Rofus said loudly. "We're heading down towards the middle. Stay low now, you don't want to get punched through by an arrow."
Those words proved to be an ill prophecy. Further down the line, closer to the rear of the column, they saw another bird take flight, leaving its nest in quite a hurry.
Soon after, something of a different sort took to the air. The birds moved with a flapping of wings, whereas the arrows moved with a soft whistle and they landed with a dull thud. A horse's screams marked their destination, as a loud cry shook the air.
Oliver moved faster, half-jumping, half-sprinting as he tried to clear the deep snow and make it further down the column.
"PROTECT THE HORSES!" Northman shouted. Already, they'd lost one of their wagon horses. The arrow had pierced it straight through the flank. It was hard to tell whether it was the sort of wound a beast like that would die from, but it certainly wasn't in good condition as it wreathed on the ground, tossing snow and blood to and fro like rugby tears.
Another arrow followed the first. Another horse screamed.
Urgently, the soldiers were trying to unharness the horses and get them out of the way of the arrow fire, safely behind the thick walls of the wagons, where many of the soldiers themselves were already gathering.
Oliver glanced over his shoulder. The men were keeping up, just barely. "Any of you see the shooter?" He shouted back to them. From his time with Lombard's men, he'd learned that there always seemed to be one or two more eagle-eyed men amongst an army's number, capable of seeing further than the rest and picking an archer out of a tree. He tried his luck but didn't get a positive response in supply.
It seemed that none had.
Well, it mattered not, Oliver reasoned. The rough direction was easy enough to ascertain. He headed towards where he thought the archer to be, loping through the deep snow, leaving the others behind as he picked up the pace.
He ignored the shouts that came after him. They weren't quick enough to keep up and it didn't seem likely that the enemy had more than a few men hiding within the forest, given the amount of shots that they'd let off. In truth, Oliver wouldn't have been surprised if there was only one. That was all that they needed to target the supply wagons and make their advancement that much more difficult.