Very early the following morning, well before it was light, a wagon loaded with hay left Woldsgard. It had a number of horses following it and a larger team than was usual for slow-moving wagons, but then, it moved a good deal faster than such wagons usually move. The men who drove it were dressed in ordinary Norland clothing, clothing that smelled very much of horse and hay, with some pig and chicken to season it. When the wagon reached Hives, the men driving the wagon switched horses and traded places with other men who had been hidden in the load. By dusk, the wagon had come within a mile or so of Riversmeet. The wagon turned purposefully off the road and was driven close to a haystack. The horses were picketed separately. The men burrowed in the hay and slept, one of their number keeping watch on the pinnacle behind Woldsgard.
Later in the night, the creature, returning home and scenting the wind between the dreadful pits on the eastern slope of Altamont and the site of the Old Dark House, smelled only horses, and hay, and pig, and chicken, and nothing of the Tingawan flesh beneath. The creature did not look for and did not see the fire atop the pinnacle, but the man on watch did. Something moved in front of the fire, dimming it. It dimmed and brightened twice. This meant the creature was moving on the road south of them. The watcher woke the next man on watch, who took his turn watching the pinnacle. Well before dawn, it dimmed and brightened once. After a pause, it dimmed and brightened once again. And a third time. The creature was well away from the road and had stopped moving.
Though it was not yet light, the horses were hitched, and the wagon moved briskly back to the Woldsroad, turning east onto the road leading to the Eastwatch Tower. It would be a long day for the horses, but the load was not exceedingly heavy and there were many more horses than were necessary. By the time true darkness fell, both wagon and horses were inside the walls of the fort. Well before dawn, the light on the pinnacle signaled again. The wagon left the fort and by early afternoon had reached the place it was intended to be. By evening, the campground beside the Pure Becomer village had a wagon lying upside down beside the road, one wheel missing, its back end pointing down the road, its other end surrounded by neatly stacked hay. The horses that had delivered it to that place were already back at the Eastwatch Tower—it had been a downhill canter all the way. The two men who had led the herd down the cliff had joined the troops manning the tower. The other men who had been in the wagon were somewhere else.
“Well,” said Precious Wind on receiving a message relayed from Eastwatch to the pinnacle by mirror flashes. “It worked. Let’s hope it works the next time.”
“The creature was all over that wagon last night,” said Abasio. “The little green light crawled around it a dozen times. It knew it hadn’t been there the night before.”
“The wagon was missing a wheel,” Orez commented. “I’m sure the creature assumed it was a wagon headed down that had lost a wheel and its driver left it there to get the wheel fixed.”
Precious Wind wished she were as sure. She asked the group to assemble in the tower, where they could be sure they were not overheard by anyone. Justinian sent word he had another matter to attend to, but everyone else involved was there.
“Our original plan was to set our trap in that way-halt, the one where the wagon is now. We had enlisted certain help from the people in the villages, a fact we never mentioned while using the far-talker. The creature expects us to go to that campground and pretend to camp there, while actually hiding out in the nearest house, which is on the same level. We’ve never mentioned sea eggs, so we don’t think the creature knows about them. If it did, it would want to destroy the sea eggs along with all Tingawans, including Xulai. The sea eggs were in the wagon that’s already there, and they are now in safekeeping in the next village uphill from the one we’re looking at.
“Our people who have watched the creature and studied how it works and how its fellows worked all those years ago believe it will go to the wayhalt in advance of our arrival, lie in wait, and attack the house when it has seen us arrive.
“Our new plan requires that we not reach the village. Our new plan requires that just at dusk we arrive below the village, meet a wagon coming down, get into a very difficult mixup, a messy wagon accident that entangles us with horses and yelling men. It should take advantage of that to attack us there. The three men here in the tower will not signal the pinnacle, they’ll use fireworks from here. It’s quicker, it’s visible, and we can signal red, blue, green, or white.
“Red means the thing is keeping to its usual pattern for that particular time of night. Whatever it usually does, it’s doing. Two reds means it’s sleeping, resting, whatever the hell it does when it’s not moving. Blue means it is getting ready to attack us as we think it planned to do, that is, moving toward the way-halt. Two blues, it’s moving toward the house at the south end of the village. Green means it is moving toward the place on the road where we wish to be attacked. White means they can’t see it, they don’t know where it is. If we see that, it’s every person for himself.
“We will time this to happen after dark. I was reminded there’s a high wall along the road on the uphill side, which is why
