“They’re not friends,” said Jarter Shepherd. “We know that, Rampart, surely. What friends have we got in the west? Who do we know even that’s out there so far?”
“Nobody,” Catrin said. “You’re right. We don’t know anybody or anything that’s out there. We’re deep in the dark without a candle. But we got some time yet. Challenger measured how quick the Peacemaker’s army is coming, and they’re taking it slow – most likely because they’re feeling their way and checking the ground before they put their feet down. They don’t know how their first two sallies come to grief, or what traps we might of set for them. If they keep that speed, we still got four days at least before they reach our gates.
“It don’t matter if they take four years,” Asha Reedwright said. “We got no answer for them when they come. Not for a force that big.”
“What we got is who we are.” Catrin raised her voice to something like a shout. “And that’s been enough so far to turn whatever come against us. Anyone can see this is bad news. But as long as we’re yet living, I’m not minded to give up – and I’d be surprised if any wight here feels different. I say we should send runners to the west to scout out that other force and see what they’re up to. It may be we can strike a bargain with them. Or it may be that it’s Half-Ax they’re coming for. What have we got that would bring such a great power such a great way?”
“Who’d do the running though?” Evred Bell asked. “That’s a bloody long run, Rampart Fire.”
Catrin had been waiting for this too, and I admired her cleverness in holding the bad news back until she knew for sure she had some kind of answer to offer. “It is, Evred Bell. A bloody long run is right. But we got a team that’s ready to take it on. And what’s more, they got their own tech. Rampart Knife, let’s see you.”
Jon stood up in complete silence. He’d been sitting there all this while with his left hand folded over his right, keeping something hid in his lap. He still kept it hid as he stood.
I think the reason nobody spoke up right away was out of embarrassment or pity. They all knew that Jon had lost his name-tech and wasn’t a Rampart any more, no matter what was said at his testing. They didn’t want to offer him any insult for it, but they couldn’t meet his eye either. Each looked to other instead, and by and by a murmur rose up that was one half sorrowing and one half angry.
“Oh, Rampart Knife’s not me,” Jon said, smiling like it was funny they made that mistaking. “Veso. Athen. You better get up here with me before anyone thinks I’m vaunting myself over you.”
Athen Woodsmith stood and took a place at Jon’s left hand. Then Veso Shepherd came and stood on his right.
“Lari. Tam. Cora. Keverin. What you doing still sitting down?”
They each stood up when their name was spoken and took their places. So now there was a row of three with a row of four behind.
“This is Rampart Knife,” Jon said. “This that you’re looking at. We thought we’d share the name between the seven of us. And we shared some other things besides.”
The seven raised up their right hands all at once. They were wearing cutters. Jon had brought them up out of the Underhold with Catrin’s blessing. The sight of them had everyone else in the room on their feet in a second, some shouting questions and some just cheering. Jon waited for them to quiet. The other six watched him, looking for their moment the way musicians do when they’re all playing the same tune and want to come in together on the beat.
“Are these cutters waked?” Jon said. He said it like his mother, clear and loud so everyone could hear him. “Is that what you’re asking? No, they’re not.”
Sighs and cries and curses at that, but Jon spoke over them and they quickly fell into silence. “We don’t wear these cutters for the power that’s in them. We wear them to say who we are, and to warn anyone we come against who it is they’re facing. But cutters ain’t our name-tech. This is our name-tech.”
All seven put their hands to their belts. All seven drawed out daggers, thick and short and perfectly balanced.
All seven turned. And as they turned, they fell into line. Jon threw his knife the whole length of the room. It buried itself in one of the wooden beams that held up the roof.
Then he stepped to the left, and Veso threw. His knife landed just an inch below Jon’s – the best throw he ever made, I dare say, but he kept his face calm and cold as if it was something he did every day. He stepped to the right, and Athen threw, spinning as she did it like throwing a knife was a kind of a dance. Her blade hit the beam somewhat lower down.
Then Lari. And Keverin. And Cora. And Tam.
All seven knives hit the beam. It was a tight spread too, and could not have gone better. The other nicks in the beam and in the wall behind that they had made in their weeks and weeks of practising were hid by the dim light. I think Catrin had positioned the lamps to leave that part of the room halfway in shadow.
The cheers were like thunder indoors, and they went on for a long time. The seven shook each other’s hands and clapped each other’s shoulders, soaking in the joy of that praise, that being seen and loved.
“I put it to the vote,” Catrin said when there was quiet again. “Rampart Knife will go to the west, right now, and bring us back report of what’s out there. Then they’ll turn straightway and come back again before Half-Ax reaches the gates, for we’ll need them to lead our defence. Let’s see how the Peacemaker’s army fares against ours. Say if it will be so.”
This time there was no need to count the votes. Every hand rose up. Every voice too.
Jon caught my eye and smiled. I looked from him to his mother. Catrin was wearing a face of calm seriousness, a Rampart face, but we both knew what a hollow hope she was offering. She had mended the roof with a shoe instead of a shingle, as my father would have said. Rampart Knife would have to make their way through mile after mile of open country, with only their daggers to protect them – for with Half-Ax coming so close upon us, we couldn’t risk losing even a single one of the few pieces of tech we had. And what was our hope? That the force that was coming out of the west might have someone in it we could reason with, someone we could plead to for help, and not just another Peacemaker filled with dreams of blood and conquering.
This great show with the knives and the cutters was meant for one thing only. To hide the thinness of our plan and the dreadful narrowness of the strait we all were in. For me, it was even worse. I might lose my husband in this venture, and never even know where he had fallen.
But still I met Jon’s smile, and gave it back to him. Smiling in the face of horrors is a thing you can get better at. It was probably one of the first tricks our mothers’ mothers ever learned.
56
Rampart Knife set out just after dawn. There was a hill to the west of Mythen Rood, Dog Neck by name, that they could reach by sun-up. They aimed to camp there if the day was clear, then move on through the first patch of dense forest once evening came. It sounded so easy when Jon explained it to me. As if the forest was just a ditch they could jump over or a ladder they could climb. As if it had no branches to crush them with, and no roots to drink their blood.