women and children were among the several hundred people there.
For differing reasons Seuir Brock and Brother Candle each wanted a closer look at that camp.
Thurm said, 'That ground is too boggy for a decent camp. There's springs all over. You can sink in up to your hips some places. There's a million mosquitoes. If they stay there very long they'll all come down with dysentery or malaria or something.'
Brock replied, 'I only pray there's that much stupid among them.'
Brother Candle muttered, 'So do I.'
'God should take the stain from our souls before we smear it on ourselves?' Brock chuckled. 'Yes. I'm starting to see how your mind works.'
There was no opportunity to debate the rights and wrongs and costs, of defending today's Connec. How many times round the Wheel of Life would it take to expiate the evil that would happen here?
One of the scouts came scooting down the hillside. The needle-strewn slope was steep. 'Seuir, some people showed up at the Grolsacher camp. Better clothes, horses, twenty to twenty-five of them. At least eight are knights. Their pennons weren't recognizable.'
'Arnhanders,' Thurm said. Socia spat to her left like a man sealing a curse.
Brock said, 'I didn't expect them to turn up yet. What was that?'
A roar had come rolling down the valley.
'Just guessing,' Brother Candle said. 'The raiders have been turned loose.'
'All in a mob, you think?'
Socia said, 'The healthiest will be the first ones here. And the most dangerous.'
Brock was not pleased. 'The Arnhanders won't be part of the first rush.' Meaning the ambush could not be as successful as he wanted. He made a decision. 'Put the barricades up.' He had kept his men gathering brush and deadwood to create a barrier across the valley. It would not stop the invaders but would create a chokepoint where archers would be more effective.
The Grolsachers came in a racing flood. There were other foreigners among them. Cruel poverty was the commonality of the horde.
A dozen archers went to work. Ten men with shields and spears protected them. The archers seldom missed.
Those invaders who escaped climbed the steep far slope, then fled downstream. Very few broke through the barrier.
The other Connectens struck farther up the valley, hitting the tail-enders of the mob. They pushed downstream. Brother Candle and Socia Rault were tasked with guarding their backs.
There was but one incident involving the two. Brother Candle avoided getting blood on his hands or soul.
'Booga-booga?' Socia demanded in a mocking tone. 'What the hell was that?'
'He ran away, didn't he?'
'Right back to the meadow. Where he'll complain that he ran into a ferocious sorcerer.'
'Foo.'
'You think he'll admit he ran away from a Maysalean Perfect?'
'The thing is done. Don't!'
Too late. Socia had stabbed the moaning, wounded old woman. The lives of these desperate intruders meant no more to her than did those of roaches or rats.
'What?'
'Never mind.'
'We need to get back to Caron ande Lette. Fast.' Only women, children, and a few old men were there to defend the fortress.
Brock Rault had a different idea.
The butchery was over. The Sadew Valley was now a vale of the dead. Brother Candle knew the mind exaggerated horrors but still thought there were at least a hundred dead. Moans and whimpers came from hiding places in the undergrowth. Brock ignored them. After excusing six men who had been injured, he murmured, 'I'm going after the men behind this.'
'Oh. No,' Brother Candle muttered. 'That'll only make it worse.'
'Brother, nothing will make it worse. They mean to kill us, take everything we own, and make the Connec part of Arnhand. With no leftover heretics. Self-defense is not a sin. Your own Synod of St. Jeules so ruled.'
The Perfect bowed his head. That was true.
And he no longer deserved the title Perfect. His thinking had become dominated by emotion.
Rault continued. 'We aren't asking you to cut throats. Just get out of the way.' Irked.
'That I can do.' But he did not stay behind when the healthy and willing headed for the meadow camp.
The camp was a sprawl of pathetic shelters built of deadwood, brush, reeds, and ragged blankets. A nest for misery unimaginable.
The new arrivals were not alone. Scores of sick, elderly, women, children, and even healthy men had not joined the rush down the Sadew Valley. The camp was in an uproar.
Socia glared at Brother Candle. 'Booga booga.'
'What?' Brock asked.
'Private joke.'
Brock looked at her askance but addressed Thurm. 'You know this ground. Can mounted, armored men operate on it?'
'Not most places. Not well.'
After consultation, Brock chose a direction from which to attack the camp. He approached boldly. His archers launched fire arrows, starting several blazes. Some Grolsachers came out, angry. They accomplished nothing. Several got killed for their trouble.
Brock let fly a few more fire arrows, then began a slow withdrawal.
'Ah. Here they come.'
A parade of horsemen left the camp, spread out abreast. Knights, squires, and mounted sergeants, they numbered eighteen. Thurm said, 'They don't look much more prosperous than the Grolsachers.'
'Paid fighters,' Brock said.
'Most likely.' Meaning they would be clever and cruel.
Changes were going on in Arnhand and the Empire. Younger brothers with nothing to inherit traditionally went to the Holy Lands or joined the Grail Knights in their wars to convert the pagans of the east. But those journeys into a brief, brutal, lethal exile had lost their emotional appeal. Still, one had to make a living. Having been raised up to follow only one trade.
Thurm said, 'They plan to carve out chunks of the Connec for themselves.'
'Let's see if we can't disappoint them.'
The Connectens kept backing away. The day was near its end. The sun's lower limb settled into the pines behind them.
Brock had his archers launch a flight at the Arnhanders. Most of the shafts fell short. The few that did not miss or, in one instance, strike a shield, shifted to intercept it.
Socia complained, 'These damned mosquitoes are driving me crazy!'
Swallows ripped the air overhead. Soon bats would come, to the feast. But not ravens, Brother Candle hoped. Ravens lived on both sides of the boundary with the Night. Human faith had endowed the birds with vast symbolic and oracular power.
The horsemen began their advance. In no hurry. Measured. Which was not what Brock wanted. 'Loose another flight, then run for the trees. But watch where you put your feet down.'
The horsemen were closer. Most of the arrows reached. Only one found a living target, however, and that a horse when a shaft ricocheted off a shield.
Several Arnhanders spurred their mounts, knowing the odds were too dense for a successful pursuit there.
Others followed.
Within a minute two-thirds of the animals had bogged down in the narrow, sluggish streams meandering
