Stillhawk rose from where he squatted, watching star reflections at play in the creek. He gave Zaranda a look, which she steadily returned. Then he jumped onto his horse and vanished into the dark.
I know you don't like it, my friend, Zaranda thought. But you're likeliest to get through to summon the others. They mustn't go astray, with Farlorn and Goldie inside the beast's belly.
She glanced back to the top of the rise, where Byador lay alone keeping watch on the castle. She fought the impulse to climb up and rejoin him. He would not gain self-confidence until he bore responsibility alone.
So she was left with her thoughts, and Shield and Chen, who would not be parted from her. She was glad for the great orc's presence. His eyes saw farther at night than any human's, and if trouble found them she could ask for no better blade, or pair of blades, at her back.
Willy-nilly, she had come to trust him as she trusted Stillhawk, though the ranger still hated the orog.
Not that trouble was likely. That very morning Zaranda and her tiny band had watched the heavy wooden gates swing open and half Baron Lutwill's complement of soldiers march forth to begin collecting the increased taxes the posted parchments had announced. With forces much reduced the soi-disant baron had also perforce decreased his patrols, which were in any event predictable, throughout the countryside. And the people of Masamont tended to keep behind heavily barred doors by night, for fear of chance meetings with the baron's men, which seldom went to the towsfolks' advantage.
Still, there remained the small and gnawing chance that they had been seen and betrayed, or espied by magic, or that a tax-collecting band, returning for some reason unforeseen, might stumble across their covert. Just such random events had altered the outcome of half a hundred conflicts, from duels to the meeting of great armies. That was why Zaranda put so little faith in plans drawn elaborately up before the fact.
She sighed and sat down. Chen looked up at her and smiled, her pale, freckled face seeming lightly self- luminous in the last lingering light of day.
'Will you let me go with you?' the girl asked.
'No. We've talked this out before. You've not yet learned enough.' Though the girl had been trying, painfully hard. It was as irksome to her quicksilver nature to toil laboriously to learn as it was natural for Shield. Yet she had done so with no less dedication than the orog.
'But how will I ever become a mage if I never put what I know into practice?' Chen wailed.
'That's a fair question. You cannot. And still-the time isn't now.'
Chen expelled a huffing breath and turned away. Zaranda laid a hand upon her shoulder. 'Now, come. Let's review what you've learned of the incantation that sends your foes to sleep. It's not infallible, and won't work at all against foes who are very powerful or mighty in magic. Yet, day in and out, it's one of the likeliest to save your life…'
Half an hour after midnight-by which time Zaranda's nerves were drawn as taut as fiddle strings and scraped as by a bow, for fear the signal would arrive before her forces-the horses in the wood lot raised their heads and pricked their ears. They uttered no giveaway whinnies of greeting; their muzzles were wrapped in soft cloth, another trick Zaranda had learned from the Tuigan horse-barbarians.
Shield said nothing, but stood up with scimitars star-gleaming suddenly in his hands. Zaranda lifted up Crackletongue in its scabbard, which she had unbelted, and stood up more slowly.
The assault group picked its way carefully if not noiselessly through the brush. They were Protective Company volunteers and Balmeric's mercenaries, numbering fifty in all-half Zaranda's cadre-in-training among them. All had volunteered, but she didn't want to risk losing many of her best pupils; even victory could cost dearly. They had drawn lots for the honor of accompanying her.
It nearly broke her heart. They had no idea what they were getting into, not down in their guts where it counted. Many of them had by now seen combat with marauding bands, been wounded, seen comrades die. But battle against trained soldiers, even barracks sweepings such as would accept service with the likes of Baron Lutwill… she hoped the survivors did not look back in bitterness on their eager naivete.
The company dismounted and muzzled and hobbled the horses. Zaranda had as yet no true cavalry beyond herself. But after facing the horse-borne Tuigans, she mounted her own troops for mobility's sake, though they fought afoot.
Stillhawk was somewhere out in the night, prowling round the castle walls, alert for unforeseen events. He was nearly as unseeable, wrapped in his elven cloak and mastery of stealth, as if he'd had a spell of invisibility cast upon him. With nothing more to do, Zaranda wrapped her own cloak about her and settled in to sleep.
The air was cool and heavily still. The only sounds, besides the muted drumming of hooves, were the trill of field crickets and the distant spectral voicings of an owl. The moon had set before midnight-fortuitous that Lutwill had picked yesterday for sending forth his tax collectors.
Since her troops could not rival Stillhawk in stealth, Zaranda had decided on a rapid approach, rather than trying to creep across six hundred yards of open ground. Her riders had muffled their mounts' hooves, but there was a limit to how quietly fifty horses could trot.
As they neared the walls, Zaranda's skin felt as if it were bunching at the nape of her neck in expectation of a sudden shout of discovery, or perhaps the deadly compound hiss of a volley of crossbow quarrels. But they reached the gate without incident. As she dismounted and crossed the wooden bridge on foot, a knotted rope slithered down the wall's stone face. She climbed quickly up.
Farlorn reached a hand to help her over the top. 'Forgive the lateness of the hour, milady,' he said, swaying slightly. He was still got up in wig, hat, false mustachios, and ludicrous coat. 'Mine host is a true hero where reveling is concerned.'
With soft thumps, rag-wrapped ladders were laid against the walls. The assault group began to clamber up. The seldom-oiled gate hinges were too loud to risk opening until after the alarm was raised.
'You're drunk!' Zaranda said in a startled whisper.
'The good baron took it in mind to put to the test certain tales concerning the capacity of bards for-excuse me-drink. I could hardly disappoint the man, now, could I?'
He leaned so far back he threatened to topple into the courtyard. Zaranda grabbed his sleeve. 'Are you in any condition to fight?' she asked.
He nodded down the catwalk. A figure lay sprawled amidst a dark patch spreading on stone. 'I'm fit enough to murder,' he said. 'Two, in fact: all the sentries our arrogant Baron Loot-well thought needful to guard his walls by night. And drunk or sober, few men can match steel with Farlorn Half-Elven.'
The raiders were beginning to filter into the yard down stone stairways. Just let me get a few more of my people inside, Zaranda prayed to unspecified gods, and it won't matter that they lack experience or even preponderance of numbers-
And perhaps Armenides of Zazesspur was right and Ao had taken up an active interest in the world. As if in instant negation of her prayers, there rang a shout of, 'Ho! Intruders!'
The thrum-thump of a releasing crossbow sounded, followed by a stomach-clutching thunk. And a youthful volunteer pitched screaming from the top of the wall.
21
Across the courtyard, a single man stood in the opened door of a long, low stone building, evidently a barracks. No lights shone from within, but startled cries emerged as men struggled out of sleep to grope for weapons.
Zaranda's lips moved, near-noiselessly. As the man bent down to try to recock his bow by hand, she flicked a tiny pellet from her fingertips. It sped over his back with unnatural accuracy and exploded into the red hell-glare of a fireball spell.
The blast hurled him into the middle of the courtyard. Behind him, screams.
A giant shadow loomed beside her: Shield, scimitars in hand. 'Take a detachment and try to block the barracks exits,' she told him. Though a fireball spell did its deadliest work confined by walls, she dared not hope to have killed or incapacitated everyone inside.
For two heartbeats his eyes held hers, aglow with the fires flickering inside the barracks. He hated to leave
