“The fighters are coming out to practice.” Every morning the fighters had limbering and practice sessions before they ate. The fighters were mostly housed in the barns, though some of them had taken over the houses that those of higher rank didn’t want, cramming two and three times as many people into each dwelling as the houses had been intended to hold. But, from all Snowfire knew of their way of life, they were used to cramming themselves together like wolves in a winter den, and probably didn’t think they were suffering from overcrowding. After the practice sessions were over, and the morning meal distributed and eaten, the leaders would pick out men for hunting parties and fishing parties, and the rest would be drilled in formation-combat. That was quite unlike the barbarians Snowfire knew of, who fought as individuals rather than groups. This signified a new and disturbing development, and something that would have to be looked into when he had the time.
If I ever have the time. Well, he’d made notes on all of this, and if everything went wrong, Starfall would take those notes with him as he escaped to safety.
Daystorm collected more of an audience as the morning passed; after all the preparations, the Tayledras were on edge and eager to get into action. Ayshen had somehow found the time to bake more flatbread, and hertasi were passing around rounds of the stuff wrapped around bits of honeycomb. Snowfire took one and munched it without ever taking his eyes off Daystorm’s face.
She took one without ever opening her eyes, but then, she had always had an extra sense where sweets were concerned. “They’re calling the fighters in to eat. Still nothing from the Lutter house.”
“I wish we dared send a bird down to the roof to see if it could overhear anything,” Wintersky muttered to him. Snowfire nodded agreement; he would have given a great deal for a set of ears in - or on - that house.
In no way would he have ever endangered a bird by putting one there, however. Some of the barbarians knew what Tayledras birds looked like, for there had been conflict along the northern ranges with barbarians before this. Even if it somehow escaped notice that the bird in question was much larger than normal, well, bored barbarians with bows tended to make targets out of anything that moved.
Including each other - they seemed to find it howlingly funny to shoot blunted arrows at each other, with the intended target trying to dodge and the bowman trying to hit in an embarrassing and potentially excruciatingly painful place. Snowfire had spent a great deal of time in the past few days, watching their antics through Hweel’s eyes.
He had noted that they seemed to have done a pretty thorough job of looting the village, not that there was much to take. Clothing that didn’t fit or that was for a child or a female was either cut up or put to other purposes. Tools that weren’t needed for immediate field work had already gone to the forge, presumably to be remade into weapons. Food and drink were gone, of course, and there were rapid inroads being made on the ripe stuff in the fields; any objects of metal had been melted down, either to be made into ingots or into arrowheads. Livestock had either been eaten or would be soon, except for horses, which had been taken for the mounted fighters. Anything valuable was presumably in the hands of the leaders by now. There wouldn’t be a great deal for the villagers to salvage when this was over. Hopefully they would be grateful just to escape with their lives.
“Ah! We’re getting some activity!” Daystorm exclaimed. “The leaders are coming out of the house - now they’re heading for the fighters. They’re shouting orders. Most of the fighters are running back to the barns, except for a couple who are going to the houses. Oh, they’re coming back with the leaders’ armor, and here come the rest of the fighters with theirs. Everyone is getting into armor. No, that’s not quite right. Everyone except the mounted fighters is getting into armor - they’re getting ready to send out a raiding force. I think it’s working, Snowfire. He’s taking the bait.”
“Sounds to me that since your illusion only shows pack-animals, he’s keeping his mounted troops behind,” Rainwind observed shrewdly to Snowfire, leaning over and speaking in a low voice to avoid disturbing Daystorm.
“That would make sense,” Snowfire agreed. “It would be best not to risk them on this. He knows that his foot troops can easily overtake a pack-train, and why take the chance of losing a mounted fighter who is much more expensive to replace than a foot soldier? It’s what I’d do.”
“Right, they’re all getting into formation, strapping on their armor,” Daystorm reported. “And packs. They’re taking light overnight packs. So the mage has a pretty good idea of how far the target is likely to get before they reach it.”
Snowfire nodded with satisfaction. That was good; it meant that the mage wouldn’t think anything of it when his troops didn’t make it back by nightfall.
Daystorm continued to report on preparations, and then finally said the words he had been waiting for. “This is it. They’re moving out, and they’re taking the river road, exactly as we wanted them to.”
“Excellent!” he exclaimed. It was time for the next stage, but he didn’t have to tell the others that. Daystorm would leave her crows standing sentry at the village, but Wintersky’s bird would pick up the departing troops as they reached the river. Hweel had already passed word of the departure to Sunstone (or rather, Sunstone’s falcon); Sunstone was stationed at the bluff and would trigger the avalanche blocking the road. Wintersky would count them and pass the number on to Sunstone. Sunstone would wait until the last ranks were in view, then let the stone bluff fall. They had agreed that, although it would be a fine thing if they actually caught some of the enemy under the rock-fall, they wouldn’t actually try for anything more complicated than blocking the path behind them all. It would be a disaster to have even one of the enemy fighters left on the village side of the blockage, for he would return to get help, and the mage would detect the telltale traces of magic in the fallen stone.
So, the rock would fall, the enemy force would be whittled down. They would soon find that the riverside path that had been so easy to follow deteriorated into a hellish nightmare of washouts, slippery rockslides, and narrow ledges where only one man at a time could pass. The river itself was swift and deep there, and anyone who fell in would fall prey to Ayshen and his friends. Nor would bodies bob to the surface with obvious knife wounds, for Ayshen had weighted ropes to keep them on the river bottom. All that anyone above would know was that those who fell or jumped in were pulled under and never reappeared. That should thoroughly discourage would-be swimmers.
When a path leading inland appeared, it would be welcomed with relief, and the steep ravine with its derelict bridge would seem no great obstacle until the men tried to cross it. Only then would they learn that the sides of the ravine were crumbling clay and gravel, and the bottom was a morass of sticky muck as deep as a man was tall, or perhaps even deeper. It hadn’t always been that way, but ever since Snowfire opened up a spring at the bottom, it was. As difficult as it was to climb down, it was even harder to climb up. They probably wouldn’t lose any men to the climb, but they’d be wet, filthy, and exhausted before it was over.