got to sleep sometime, and then what? Even if some fool went with you, and you took turns guarding and sleeping, still you're not likely to make it through. But if by chance you did get past the Drearwood, still there's the Grimwall, where Spawn abound. Moreover, those mountains are impassable in winter. Oh, no, Tip, instead of haring off into the jaws of peril with nought but a worthless pewter coin, recall, Beacontor burns, seeking aid, and things have to be dead serious for that to happen. Our duty lies there. We can't forgo the muster here in Twoforks and the march to that far hill.'
Tip shook his head and held his hands wide in appeal. 'Look, Beau, if six Kingsmen died trying to deliver this coin to Agron, then it must be something that desperately needs doing. It's not that I don't want to join the muster, but one more archer among many will mean little. But you, Beau, they'll need your healing skills. I think you'd best answer the call. As for me, though, I'm going east with the coin, and that's that.'
'But the coin may not mean a thing at all, except to the dead man,' objected Beau. 'And besides, we don't even know who or what an Agron is. I mean, to what or whom are you going to deliver it?'
Tip turned to Mayor Prell. 'Did anyone know aught of this Agron?'
'No, miller,' replied Prell, glancing at Tessa and Trake and Gaman. 'We all asked, and no one knows.'
'Well, then,' said Tip, 'I'll just have to find someone in the east who does know.'
Tessa looked toward Beau-'You have the right of it, wee one: traveling eastward is dangerous'-and then she turned to Tip-'Yet, as you say, Tipperton, this mission, it may desperately need doing. So why don't you each pull up a chair and we'll talk it over. And by the bye, could we see that coin?'
As Beau dragged two chairs to the table, Tip fished the thong out from under his jerkin and over his head and passed the token to Tessa. The buccen shed their cloaks and took seats, their feet dangling and swinging from the man-sized chairs, their chins just level with the tabletop. Tessa examined the disk, holding it close to her ruddy face. Finally she shrugged and passed the token to Gaman, who squinted at it awhile and then passed it on to Trake, who said, 'Humph. Doesn't look all that important to me.' Last to take the coin was Prell.
After a cursory glance, the mayor scratched his head, then said, 'It may be that you are right, Trake'-Prell looked up at Beau and cleared his throat-'harrum, and you as well, lad-the coin may not be important at all. But then again, the dead man and his slain comrades were riding High King's horses-perhaps on a task of import. In which case you might be right, too, miller, in that the token needs to be delivered. But as Gwyth said out to the mill, who's to know? Certainly not I.' Prell returned the coin to Tip. As the buccan slipped the thong back over his head, the mayor said, 'But as far as letting you miss the muster… well now, I've been thinking it over and I'm going to need runners in my Twoforks army-'
'Runners?' protested Beau. 'But I'm a healer, and Tip's as good an archer as any and better than most.'
'Well, as to that,' said Prell, 'I've got Garven and Finch to do any healing, and you and the miller here, well, you can serve me best as runners.'
Beau shook his head violently, amber fire in his eyes. 'Not me, mayor. I'm not going to be a runner. As I said, I'm a healer.'
Prell's jaw jutted out and he blustered, 'I'm ordering you as your commander-'
The door burst open and a tall youth came striding in, casting back his cloak hood to reveal flushed features below a shock of red hair.
'Arth!' cried Prell, leaping up from his chair and rushing to embrace the young man. Then he held him at arm's length. 'Where've you been, lad? We were fiercely worried that something ill had befallen you.'
Panting a bit, Arth pulled off his gloves, glancing at the council members and the two Warrows as he did so. 'The horse went lame on the way back, Father, up near the Crossland Road. Rolled her foot on an icy rock. I had to walk her the rest of the way.'
Tessa leapt up, her brown braid flying. 'Here, boy, you be seated while I mull you a good mug of dark wine.'
The young man nodded gratefully and shucked his cloak, then jerked a nearby chair to the table and sat alongside his sire.
'Well?' said Prell, raising an eyebrow.
'Wilderhill is taken and Beacontor destroyed, Father-'
'Destroyed!'
'The buildings, Father, all but three or four. The tower, itself-smashed to bits.'
'Who-?' snapped Gaman.
'Rucks and Hloks did it. Yesternight and day.'
' Yester?' blurted Beau. 'But the fire, the beacon, is it-?' While at the same time Trake demanded, 'What do you mean, Wilderhill is-?' and Gaman shouted, 'The damned Rucks ought to be-'
Wham! sounded a gavel on wood, and heads jerked about. 'Hush, everyone,' called Tessa, bung mallet in hand. 'Let the boy tell his tale.'
'She's right, lad,' said Prell, glancing at the 6thers. 'Go on. Tell us all. We'll hold our questions till you're done.'
'No, no,' called Tessa, now at the blazing hearth, pulling a glowing poker from the coals and flame, 'not yet, Arth. You wait till I'm there.'
Moments later, wreathed in spicy aroma, Tessa came to the table, bearing a trayful of mugs of mulled wine. Passing the mugs about, Tessa sat and took a cup for herself, then fixed Arth with an eye and said, 'Now. Tell us.'
Arth took a deep breath. 'Two nights past, a band of Foul Folk crept upon Beacontor. There were only two watchmen at the time-a man and his nephew…'-Arth frowned in concentration-'yes. Jorn and Aulf, those were their names, Aulf a year or two younger than me-sixteen summers or so. They were alone, there on the hill, them and a single mule, waiting for others to come all the way from Stonehill.
'Regardless, in the night, in the hours before dawn, the Spawn came sneaking, a great lot of them, forty or so. But the nephew heard them coming and he and the uncle-a veteran, they say, of the Jillians-they got away unscathed.
'They made their way across to Northtor and to the top and watched to see what the Foul Folk were up to. And in the moonlight the Rucks and such took sledgehammers and iron rods to the watchtower and began to break the walls. By mid-morn they brought it crashing down. Then they started on the cotes, ripping off thatch and breaking those walls as well, ' though they set three aside for their barracks and these they spared.' Arth turned to his sire. 'That's all that's left, Father: three cotes and the stables, and the low ringwall all 'round.'
Prell shook his head and glanced at the others, resignation and rue in his gaze. 'Go on, son.'
Arth paused to take a pull on his mulled wine, but none else at the table said aught. Setting his mug down, Arth continued:
'Jorn and Aulf then discovered that a beacon fire north was burning-not the next one at Wilderhill, but the one beyond that-the one on the Weiuncrest.
'They knew that none of us down here could see the muster call, and they knew that they needed somehow to recapture Beacontor and light the balefire-'
Beau's eyes flew wide. 'Two against forty?' he blurted, then clapped his hand across his mouth.
Arth nodded. 'Aye. Two against forty. They waited until nightfall and beyond, coming back to Beacontor and lying low until the wee hours. And then they slew the ones they found on watch, and crept into the cotes where the weary Rucks and Hloks now slept, and in the dark and in silence they began cutting throats, their hands held tight across mouths that might scream.'
Shuddering, Tip looked at grimacing Beau as Arth paused for another drink of spiced wine, and no one spoke a word.
Again Arth set his mug down. 'But before they were done with the slaughter, they were discovered by a sentry they had missed, and the few remaining Spawn came awake.
'The nephew was killed, as were the Spawn, but the man survived and lit the fire-a funeral pyre for Aulf, a balefire for us.' Arth looked at his sire. 'And, Father, war has come, and we're all to report to Stonehill, and then march to aid the High King.'
'Oh, my,' breathed Tessa.
'War?' barked Gaman. 'With who? Who's behind this bloody mess?'
'They didn't say,' replied Arth. 'Foul Folk, I suppose. Oh, they did find a standard of red on black.'
'Like this?' said Beau, fishing out the banner from 'neath his jerkin.
