a woman who’d spent her life growing trees, Telhami did a credible job of marshalling her forces for what she, at least, had to know was going to be an all-out, to-the-last-survivor battle. His own confidence rose as he watched the farmers and lesser druids gather the long-handled tools that would serve as their weapons. Calmly determined, they laid the hoes, flails, scythes and rakes beside their stations along the waist-high dirt rampart that encircled Telhami’s hut.
In six days they had transformed the village from a cluster of comfortable dwellings and pantries to a bare ground clearing in which they had hastily created three trench-and-rampart rings. They’d hacked stakes from the sacrificed trees and homes and set the largest point-up in the outer bank of the first two ramparts to slow the enemies’ advance. Smaller stakes had become make-shift spears heaped in sheaves at each station of the innermost rampart.
The farmers and druids, everyone old enough to fling a stick or bind a length of cloth over a wound, would fight from behind the third ring’s rampart, while he and Yohan would add their skills wherever, whenever the circle threatened to break.
And while they were holding back the physical attack, inside the hut Akashia would be shaping and focusing the guardian’s power as Telhami combined druidry and the tricks of the Unseen Way to fend off whatever Escrissar sent at them.
And if they failed—if the circle broke and the enemy stormed Telhami’s hut, or Escrissar got around Telhami and; the guardian to flood them all with nightmare monsters… Well, every druid had wrought unique spellcraft to hide his or her grove. Escrissar would be hard-put to locate them all, and if he found them, the likelihood was that the zarneeka plants, and everything else the Quraite druids had nurtured for generations, would be dead.
It was as good a defense strategy as they’d collectively been able to devise. Pavek would have given all the gold stashed beneath Telhami’s hut for a few bows and the men to shoot them, but there was no sense longing for what they couldn’t have. Escrissar and his fifty allies would march undisturbed through the fields and the ring of trees and find an unpleasant surprise waiting for them.
Pavek only hoped the wheel of fate would give him just one opportunity to slip his sword between the interrogator’s ribs.
He felt a tug on his shirt and spun around.
“What about me, Pavek?”
Ruari, with his staff.
“You know your place.”
“Pavek, I can do better than that—”
“You can’t. Gather your weapons, your water, and the cloth for bandages. Take them and yourself to your place on the rampart and stay there!”
“I want to fight”
“You’re going to fight, scum. Now—Go!”
He and Ruari stared at each other, then Ruari stalked away. Pavek hoped-prayed to whatever nameless power might listen to a one-time templar, not-quite druid—that Ruari’s bile wouldn’t get him killed in the first assault wave. Quraite needed everyone, and Ruari was proficient with that staff of his; he set the standard for the farmers around him. They’d lose heart if Ruari went down in some fool’s burst of bravery.
He’d lose heart.
Except for Yohan, none of them were veterans, none of them had fought a pitched battle—including himself. Stalking Dovanne’s attacker or breaking the heads of petty criminals in his inspector days didn’t count. The closest he’d come to combat was skirmishes on the streets of Urik against the Tyrian hooligans years ago.
Inside, he was scared to the marrow and desperate to see another sunrise. He almost envied Ruari his blind anger and commitment.
Waiting was worse than he imagined it could be, knowing that the circle fighters were looking over their shoulders at him and curbing their fears because he looked calm. Yohan, sitting beside him on the stoop of Telhami’s hut, looked calm as he examined the edge of his obsidian sword.
But maybe, as Yohan’s eyes met his, not calm at all. Maybe Yohan’s panic went even deeper, because there was no one at all for him to turn to.
Then, without warning, the mind-bending began: a black fist thrusting through his mind. Everyone jerked backward; a few cried out in shock or terror before Telhami launched her counterattack, and the black fist became a memory.
“He knows we’re here, waiting for him.” Yohan got to his feet and stretched the dwarf-thick muscles of his arms and legs. “May Rkard guide your sword.” He held out his hand. “What do yellow-robe scum say to each other before the Lion sends them out to