“Why are we sitting here?” Mercy Frostfend asked in the Count and Seal. “Do we want to let them get all the way to the fence? Why not trick them the way we did before, and let the trees take them?”
All this had been talked around and about and through, and we had made the only choice we could. “When we met them before,” Catrin said, “they were less than twenty strong and still we almost come to disaster for all our tricks and cleverness. We don’t know how many are coming now, but it’s got to be a great many more than that. More than we got in the whole village, if every woman and man and child and stray cat was to fight. Once we’re out of gates, they can flank us and circle us and no tricks will avail. The fence is the best protection we got, and we should use it. We need to make them come to us.”
There was murmurs in the chamber, voices both for and against, but nobody had a better idea. So we waited, even though it was plain to see that waiting was taking its toll on all of us.
And still Half-Ax came before we looked for them.
On the fourth day, it was not the Frostfend cockerels that woke us, nor yet the tocsin bell. It was the great ghost-wail of Challenger’s alarm that sounded like someone screaming inside your blood and bones.
It wasn’t yet light. I tumbled out of bed and ran to the window, but there was nothing to see. The scream went on and on.
I dressed quickly and went downstairs. Catrin and Fer fell in along the way. Ban was already unlocking the door and drawing the three bolts one by one. She reached out her hands to take Vallen from me, but I shook my head. I had promised Jon to keep her safe. Not knowing what the danger was, I resolved to keep her with me.
On the gather-ground, where not long since we’d said our goodbyes to Rampart Knife, forty or fifty villagers freshly roused from their beds were standing all together. Some had spears in their hands. Others had grabbed up whatever they could, shovels and mattocks, hoes and hammers and kitchen knives. More were coming from all sides to join them.
“Find out what’s what,” Catrin told me. “And tell him to stop that screeching. It’s done its work.”
It stopped even as she said it, so I guess Challenger agreed.
“Will you come in with me?” I asked Catrin.
“I’m needed here.” She nodded towards the crowd.
“I’ll come,” Jemiu said, running up beside us.
“Good. We’ll leave it to you two then. Why’s that baby with you?”
“She must think she’s a Rampart,” I said.
“She’s not the onliest one,” Fer said, giving Jemiu a cold look.
Catrin stepped in before either of us could give her the answer she deserved. “Fer, let’s get some people up on the walls and on the roof of the Hold. Whatever’s coming, we need to be ready for it. Not standing around like sheep in a field waiting for a wolf to jump in among them.”
The two sisters went to the head of the crowd. I went the other way, and Jemiu followed me. The people stepped aside to let us pass, opening a clear path between us and Challenger. I was grateful that my first task was to climb inside the battle wagon. It was not fear that was working on me, think what you like – or not only that. I might be afraid of the fight to come but I knew now from the two fights I was in before that I wouldn’t freeze or falter when I came to it. Still, it was good to have a moment in the cool and the silence to gather myself. I felt like I was no more than a scatter of leaves right then, when a tight fist was what was needed.
The lights in the cockpit came on as I stepped down and took my seat. Jemiu came after me but stayed on her feet, one hand on the ladder. I think it frightened her somewhat to be inside the wagon in such a narrow space. She flinched when Challenger spoke up.
“Sergeant Tanhide. Permission to report.”
“Yes! What is it, Challenger? What’s happening?”
The magic mirror came to life in front of us. The green circle with its cluster of red dots was just as it always was, but the Half-Ax column was much closer now. It seemed like they had got to be less than two miles from our fence.
“They had been slowing,” Challenger said. “For much of yesterday, they seemed almost to be standing still. Then a short while ago they began this surge, moving forward at more than twice their previous marching speed.”
“So why did they stop?”
“My best guess is that they were clearing and possibly widening the paths in front of them to facilitate this rapid advance. They mean to catch you by surprise.”
I leaned in close and took a harder look at the Half-Ax line. At the nearer edge, where it was pointed at us, it seemed to be spreading out like the ravelled end of a string. I set my finger to the mirror, feeling the usual shudder go through me when I found there was nothing there I could touch. “Challenger, what’s happening here? They’re not coming on towards the fence, it seems like. They’re scattering.” It was more obvious now. The westward march was all but stopped. The two ends of the line were moving north and south, though they were bending inwards at the same time as if they meant to make the shape of a horseshoe.
“They may have been assigned multiple targets.”
“We only got but the one gate, and they got to know where it is. They should be turning north if that’s where they’re going.”
“Maybe they found the grass-grail,” Jemiu said. The grass-grail was a secret way into the village that was made for hunters to use in time of greatest need. It was not a gate, but a row of hand- and footholds set into the fence on the southern side, cunningly disguised by woodsmiths of old times so you could hardly see it even if you were standing right by it.
But after a moment’s dismay, I saw it could not be that. “The grass-grail would be a poor way for fighters to come,” I said. “They’d have to climb up hand over hand – and one at a time, with no way to hide or shield themselves.” It had to be something else that was happening, and whatever it was we needed to guess it quickly.
I looked into the mirror again and tried to measure the distances. The Half-Ax line thinning and spreading – spilling away to the north and to the south, but bending ever towards us as they did it. And away to the west, the little dot that was Rampart Knife coming home. Until now I’d been sure they would get here first. But that was a hope built on a foolish idea – that Half-Ax would keep the same pace and stay on the same line, coming straight at us until by and by they reached our fence and threw all they had against it.
“I think they mean to make a circle,” Jemiu said.
I saw it as soon as she said it, though I hadn’t guessed it before.
“We’ve got to go tell Catrin,” I said. “Challenger, keep watching. Sound your alarm again if anything changes.”
“Yes, sergeant.”
We climbed out and jumped down. Catrin was giving orders, sending people in twos and threes to the east side of the fence where they thought an attack was most likely to come.
She stopped as we ran up. Seeing our faces, she drew us both aside from the people that were still waiting to be told where to go. Fer broke from the crowd to join us.
“Make yourselves into threes and count from the gate,” Catrin shouted to all the people that still were there. “Three to each platform, and at least one with a bow. Move now, quick as you can.”