“Our chances are far better inside this wall than outside it,” Ralke said fervently.
“I will give you warning,” Gar said slowly. “It’s I the soldiers are chasing—or at least the Hawks are.”
“The Hawks?” Ralke stared. “What did you do to offend them?”
“Caught Torgi out in his mistranslating scheme. He hired the Hawks to assassinate me.”
Ralke grinned. “They haven’t done very well, have they?” Then he realized the implications. “But if Torgi sent them after you, he’ll probably send them after me, too!”
“You seem to have been wise in running for cover,” Gar told him. Ralke frowned. “Where did a mere steward find money enough to hire a whole company?”
“Yes,” Gar said. “That is an interesting question, isn’t it?”
He reported the information to Magda at the end of his watch, and she received it with indifference. “If they’re here for one of you, why not have them here for both?” But she was holding Dirk’s hand, and the glow in her face might have had more to do with her indifference to threat than logic did. For Dirk’s part, he could scarcely take his eyes off her, and Gar felt a stab of envy. “Where’s Cort?”
“Haven’t seen him much,” Dirk answered. “Kind of strange, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely,” Gar told him, poker faced.
Dirk managed to tear his eyes away from Magda. “Any ideas on how to save us all yet?”
“Aside from the obvious,” Gar said, pointing upward, “not much. A merchant just arrived tells me that two mercenary companies are marching toward us, as well as a boss with all his bullies.” Magda finally looked up, dismayed. “Those are great odds indeed!”
“Can’t you bring any other kind of force against them?” Dirk demanded.
Magda turned to frown at him. “How could he?” Gar sighed. “We’ve met a duke on our travels. He’s going to dream about a wizard tonight.”
“How will that help us?” Magda asked, then frowned. “There are no dukes in this land, only bosses.” Again, the implications hit her, and she stared, then exclaimed, “And how would you know what he’ll dream?”
The duke did dream. He usually slept without disturbance, but this night, he dreamed of a void, and a white spot appeared within it, a spot that grew and swelled, until he could see it was a face, a human face, with long, long white hair and a longer white beard that swirled about it. Closer it came and closer, until it stared him eye to eye and intoned, “Avaunt! Avoid the dark giant!”
“What giant?” the duke demanded in his dream. “Do you mean that loutish outlander who overtopped even the Fair Folk? If I never see him again, it will be too soon!”
“You lie,” the wizard intoned. “You plan to track him as the quarry of the Wild Hunt at Midsummer! But that will be too late, for the armies gather to besiege Quilichen and seize the outlander! They will put him to the torture, they will tear his knowledge from him!”
“Then we must capture him at once, and not wait upon them!” the duke declared in his dream. “Harm him not!” the face commanded, its voice echoing all about the duke.
The duke quailed within, but hid it well—after all, he knew the trick of the reverberating voice, had used it often enough himself. “I might have let him be, but not after you have come cawing to disturb my slumber. Who are you, anyway?”
But the face was receding, shrinking, too fast to catch even if the duke had had hands in his dream. The mystic voice echoed again, “Harm him not!”
“I shall harm him so that he wishes he’d never been born!” the duke roared. “Tell me your name!”
But the hair and beard swirled up to hide the face, and the wizard shrank to a dot, a point, and disappeared, leaving behind it one last echo: Harm him not!
The duke awoke, trembling, but covering his fear with rage. “Not harm him? I shall harm him most shrewdly, once I catch him—if for no other reason than to make him tell me how he has put this dream into my mind!”
The people of the farms and villages streamed into Quilichen, driving their cattle with them and carting their household goods and food stocks. There was amazingly little confusion.
Dirk stared down from the castle wall at the farmers driving their cattle into hastily built pens in the park at the town’s center. “And I thought you folk had just had the good sense to leave a large common for recreation!”
“We could not have justified so much space only for pleasure,” Magda said with a smile, holding onto his arm.
“But they’re all going right to the pens, then directly to a section of campground, without even asking!”
“They have done this before, haven’t they?” Gar asked. “And frequently, too, to judge by the smoothness of it all.”
Magda nodded. “At least once every three years, and sometimes more often than that.”
Dirk shuddered.
By the end of the second day, the farmers were all inside, setting up housekeeping at their campsites as though they had lived there for years, and the town was rancid with the smell of livestock. The next morning, the besiegers began to appear. By the afternoon of the fourth day, they had surrounded the city in five separate camps, with space for a sixth.
“Three bosses?” Gar asked, looking out at the banners.
Magda nodded. “I see the insignia of the Boss of Loutre; him alone I did not expect. But the other two are my neighbors, the Boss of Knockenburg and the Boss of Scurrilein. I knew they would come to pick the carcass—and be sure none others took the land.”
“Which means that if they defeat you, they’ll fall to fighting over the spoils,” Gar said grimly. “Even so,” Magda said. “It will be shrewd fighting indeed, for each has hired a mercenary company to protect his interests.” She pointed. “Behold the banners of the Hawk and the Bear!” Her fingers dug into Dirk’s arm. He winced and patted her hand.
“The Hawks were hired by the steward of the Boss of Loutre, and I’ve no doubt that boss is here on my account,” Gar said darkly, “though I would love to know how his steward persuaded him to march against you.”
That was code for Gar to be able to tell the results of his mind-spying publicly, and Dirk knew the response. “Make a guess.”
“I would conjecture that he has told the boss that I cheated him, and that rather badly,” Gar said, “perhaps even that I’m trying to persuade Quilichen to attack, and giving Lady Magda details of Loutre’s defenses.”
“Sounds probable,” Dirk allowed, then stiffened, staring out over the fields. “Who’s that coming?”
Drumbeats came faintly as a host of men came marching down the road toward the gap in the enemy lines.
“The missing ally,” Gar said.
All four strained to make out the symbol on the company’s banner that streamed over the heads of the marching men. Closer they came, closer and closer …
“The Blue Company!” Cort cried. “My own men to me!” He turned to Magda with a face twisted by anguish. “My lady, I can’t fight against my own company!”
“That you cannot,” she agreed, troubled. “Would they march on Quilichen if they knew one of their officers had been given sanctuary here?” Gar asked.
Cort stared at him, hope rising, then turned to gaze out at the approaching troops. “Most likely not! But how shall I tell Captain Devers?”
“Call for a parley,” Dirk suggested,“ and let Cort carry the flag of truce.”
So Cort rode out with a white flag and an honor guard of a dozen archers, their bows ostentatiously slung across their backs. They rode around the castle to the eastern quadrant where the Blue Company stood. Devers took one look at the blue livery under the pale banner and came riding.