I stand behind Arthur in Thoren’s large meeting room. The broken table has been replaced by an identical one at Thoren’s orders. There hadn’t been enough chairs for everyone to have a seat and so it is only Thoren, Orrian, Arthur, and the other village leaders who sit whilst the rest of us line the walls. It is Thoren and Orrian who sit opposite each other at the heads of the table. Tarrin’s council had explicitly requested that only essential people attended the meeting, I had been touched when Orrian and Arthur had insisted that I was included in that group.
“Well what would you suggest then?” another voice asks.
“There’s no chance we’re getting through the gate.”
“Could we dig under it?”
“No, they said the walls were thick, they’ll notice us before we can get under. It’ll take too long.”
“What about a siege?”
“Are you kidding? They’ll just bring the battle to us and we’ll lose against them in the open.”
“Well they’re going to notice when we don’t send them our food, what if we try and starve them out?”
“No, they’ve got enough villages to get by, they’ll just come here, take our land, and give it to someone else.”
The discussions have been going on for a couple of hours already. A couple of rules have been laid down such as no hurting innocent civilians or accepting a surrender, but as soon as we started talking actual tactics, chaos had erupted.
Swords and spears clash outside. Whilst the villagers were fit and capable, many of them have no idea how to use a weapon outside hunting. Orrian therefore volunteered Jaq and Damaris’ services to help train them. Even from Thoren’s council room, a fair walk from the lake’s edge, the collisions of combat reach through our walls.
Almost every living soul remaining in Tarrin has joined the training session. I had watched them from the edge of the huts as they had approached in the first light of dawn, unaware of the gruelling session that the tribe’s head guard was about to put them through. Even Rhys had turned up to train, quickly becoming short of breath as they started with a run around the lake’s perimeter. I was pleased to see that Robyn had been one of the front runners.
I can just about make the pair of them out from the second story window I stand at. The new fighters have all been separated into their various disciplines. Jaq strides up and down the ranks of spearmen, teaching them various thrusts and parries and kicking their legs out from underneath them when their stance is too unstable. I watch as he swipes the legs out from an unnaturally round man that can only be Rhys. To his credit, he immediately hops straight back onto his feet and corrects his positioning.
Damaris has taken those with hunting knives and she forces them to roll and slash with stout branch ends before they begin using their real blades. The village people duck and dart as fast as they can but still, she easily dances around them, slashing at them with her imaginary blade to demonstrate how many times they would have died by now.
Robyn stands off to one side in a line of archers, I cannot help but stare at her for slightly too long as she notches and looses a quiver full of arrows. She is only a miniscule figure from this far away, but I could recognise her from any distance. Unlike some of her peers, each of Robyn’s movements flow gracefully into the next. I note how each fluid motion has a purpose and a certainty about it, the intense demands of the last few weeks seem to have already given her years’ worth of experience.
A familiar limping figure makes his way around the various groups shouting instructions, Randall had been adamant that he would not miss out on the fighting and had remained true to his word. Ryfon walks with him, handing out waterskins as they go. With Ida and the others at the mountain, he’s the last real medic we have left. Once he’s finished, he’ll return to the weapons stockpile, carefully coating each blade with some of the forest’s poison. He has already thinly scratched faint runes into each of the spears and bows.
As I had approached the meeting room, I had forced myself to look down upon the pile of weapons. I need to get over the mistake that claimed my father. At my feet was a stockpile of spears identical to the one that had taken my life. Our people are joined now, I need to force my personal quarrels aside. It was in that moment that I finally released the last of the grudge I have against the tribe. I forgive Orrian and his people, they are just more victims of the same enemy. As I had carried on down the road, I had left the last of my anger behind me.
“It needs to be him,” Thoren declares, bringing me back into the room. The warrior is nodding in Orrian’s direction. “We use him as bait.”
Orrian takes a moment, clearly unhappy with the prospect of this group of powerful strangers handing him back over to the enemy.
“I’ll do what I have to,” Orrian says through tight lips.
“Will it work?” a leader asks.
“We still have some colony armour, we could use that?” I say.
“I’m not sure, they might be expecting us to use the same trick again,” says Orrian.
“Say we somehow manage to get inside, what then?” says a man whose name I don’t know.
“We need to free my people. Each one of them is worth three of the colony’s men,” Orrian says with confidence. Some of the others might have once doubted him but all it would take is a quick look at Jaq and Damaris from my window and their apprehension would be put to rest. Or of course they could challenge the king himself, a considerably more painful approach but one with the same
