“Sleep, stableboy. Sleep.”
The last thing Tol saw was Grane dragging the chair away from the hearth, into the deep shadows behind the door. The Pakin lord sat down again and drew one of Ita’s rag quilts close around his shoulders. The shadows swallowed him completely; only his greaves were visible, and light from the guttering lamp glinted on their rivets.
As sleep claimed him, Tol heard-or thought he heard-the deep voice of Grane, chuckling.
Light roused Tol. He cracked one eyelid. Slim bands of sunlight came through cracks in the shutters. In the beams, silent cascades of dust danced. Tol opened his other eye. Recognition returned as he looked around. His family, the Pakin soldier Yarakin, and Lord Grane slumbered on.
Tol shifted slightly, easing his mother’s head from his arm. With his family at their mercy, the Pakins apparently didn’t consider Tol a threat, and he had not been tied. If he could snatch Yarakin’s spear before the warrior woke, he could perhaps hold him at bay until his father got free.
He listened hard, but heard no sounds from outside. Why hadn’t Egrin come to save them? He was certain the warden wouldn’t simply have ridden away, but he couldn’t risk wasting this opportunity. Yarakin was slumped by the hearth, snoring gratingly. Tol crept toward him. When his hand closed over the spear, he tugged…
The movement unbalanced Yarakin. The soldier slumped forward, and sunlight fell on his face. His eyes opened.
“Ha!” he shouted, taking firm hold of the shaft. He dealt Tol a sharp blow on the thigh, then another in the ribs. Tol went down, dazed with pain.
“My lord, awake!” Yarakin cried.
Deep in the shadowed chair, Lord Grane did not move. Tol’s family did. His father thrust away from wall and, despite his hobbles, butted the Pakin soldier in the stomach. Yarakin reeled back, stumbling over Tol, who was curled up on the floor in agony.
Tol’s mother wept with terror, but his father and two sisters lost no time in falling upon the soldier as soon as he went down.
Tol could hardly believe his sisters would attack so fearlessly. Zalay, the eldest, butted Yarakin’s face repeatedly with her head, and sturdy Nira sat on the hapless fellow’s stomach, lifting herself a short distance and dropping her whole weight on him over and over.
Tol heard noises outside, men’s voices, the ring of metal on metal. Swordplay! Still Lord Grane did not rise from his chair, speak, or assist in any way.
Seeing his father and sisters could handle Yarakin, Tol crept on hands and knees around the hearth, toward the motionless Grane. He took up a length of firewood. It was seasoned oak, and made a good club.
Tol abandoned stealth. He got up, let out a yell, and charged, firewood held high.
He brought it down hard, smashing into Grane’s left knee. The articulated armor plates took the blow, and Grane’s right boot fell to the floor. The quilt covering him fell away and, in a motion that scared Tol half to death, his armored sleeve fell from the chair arm, clanging against the floor. A dark powder streamed from the boot and Grane’s sleeve.
Tol cupped his hand under the stream, filling his palm with cold grit. Black sand. The armor slowly collapsed as the sand poured out. Tol flung back the visor in time to see the empty coif sinking into the suit’s neck. There was no one inside the richly gilded metal. Stunned, Tol stood there staring at the rapidly deflating suit of armor.
Yarakin broke free of his tormentors and made for the door, howling for help at the top of his lungs. He flung the door open and dashed outside. Immediately he gave an inarticulate yell and snatched the saber from his belt. Tol heard the clash of blades, backed by a chorus of neighing horses.
With Grane’s helmet in hand, Tol ran to the door. The second Pakin soldier, the filthy one who’d caught him last night, lay facedown in the yard. Blood was pooling beneath him. Yarakin was trading frenzied cuts with a man in red-trimmed scale-mail. Egrin!
Yarakin jabbed at Egrin desperately. With power born of desperation, he managed to rake the tip of his sword down Egrin’s left cheek. Blood flowed, and the warden of Juramona gave ground, backing toward Old Acorn, who stood by the pigpen fence.
Tol thought of lobbing the gilded helm at the Pakin, but he wasn’t sure of his aim. The last thing he wanted was to hit Egrin.
Clutching the helm and yelling encouragement, Tol was startled to see his father come charging out of the house with Yarakin’s spear in his hands. He caught the Pakin soldier from behind and drove the spear’s bronze head in. Yarakin whirled, slashing at Bakal. The farmer leaped back, tripped on his unwound leggings, and fell against the cistern.
Blood streaming from his lips, Yarakin brought his saber up, but he’d reached the end of his strength. The sword fell from his hands, and his knees buckled. He was dead by the time he hit the ground.
Freed of their bonds, Tol’s mother and sisters spilled out of the hut, all talking at once. They converged on Bakal. Fortunately, Yarakin’s saber had barely nicked the farmer, making a shallow cut across his windpipe. A hair deeper, and he would have been dead beside his attacker. Ita bound the cut with a strip torn from her skirt, clucking worriedly yet proudly all the while.
Egrin shoved his weapon back in its scabbard and caught Old Acorn’s reins. While the warden tied his horse to the sty, Tol held up Grane’s helmet and cried, “Come inside, sir! Lord Grane!”
Egrin’s hand went to his sword hilt. “Is he here?”
“Yes! No! Well, some of him is!”
Puzzled, the warden followed him into the hut. They examined the empty suit of armor from coif to boots. Every lacing was tied, every buckle fastened. Even the frog at the neck of Grane’s cloak was still hooked. All that remained of the man inside was two hundredweight of fine ebon sand, drifted now around his sabatons. It looked for all the world like Grane had wafted away, leaving behind his fine armor filled with dust.
“I wish Felryn were here,” Egrin said. With the blade of his dagger, he scooped up a small sample of the black sand into his belt pouch. “He might make sense of this.”
Tol told of the sleep spell Grane had cast. Egrin nodded grimly. He’d realized Tol’s peril fairly quickly the night before and had followed in after him, but just as he got close to the hut, he’d fallen into a strange sleep himself. The Pakin on sentry duty had been a victim of his master’s sleep spell too. Fortunately, the sentry dozed in the shade, while Egrin had been awakened as the first rays of the rising sun struck his upturned face.
Outside, Tol’s father had made a tidy pile of the two dead Pakins and their weapons. The dead men’s metal and horses would bring a pretty price at the next trader’s fair.
Egrin left the hut with Tol, and both regarded Grane’s fine gray horse, still tied with the other two. The warden scratched his bearded chin in puzzlement. Lord Odovar would have to be told of these doings, and word sent to the emperor himself.
At his mother’s urging, Tol introduced his family to the warden. Tol’s family were awed that their son knew the warden of Juramona by name.
“You’re Bakal, son of Boren?” Egrin said to Tol’s father. “Those sound like dwarvish names.”
The farmer shuffled his feet in the dirt. “Folks say that, but my father was a man like any other. We do come from the highlands near Thorin, but we had no dealing with dwarves.”
“And you, good lady?”
Her cheeks colored. “I’m Ita, daughter of Paktan and Meri.”
Tol’s sisters, openly admiring the valiant warden, fetched him food and water. While Egrin refreshed himself, Tol brought water and fodder for Old Acorn.
Ita praised Egrin profusely for his care of Tol and his help liberating the farm.
“It’s nothing, lady. Your son and I are comrades,” Egrin said good-naturedly, clapping the boy on the back. “Saved my life, Master Tol did.”
Still deferential, Bakal asked why the warden had come in the first place. Was he tracking the mysterious Lord Grane?
Egrin explained the proposal he’d made to Tol, that the boy return with him to Juramona and become his shield-bearer.
Ever plainspoken, Bakal asked, “Why, master? Why our Tol?”
Egrin held out his hand to the boy, who was holding a bucket of water for Old Acorn. “I’ve seen your son face
