“Our birds just alerted us, Wolverine is on the way, in force,” he called out. “Whatever defensive plan you’ve got, you’d better put it in motion now. We’ve got until dawn before they get here, and dawn’s not far off.”
There was no more confusion; the men quickly sorted themselves into defensive groups and headed for the stored weapons; boys and some of the women went for hunting bows and arrows, while the rest began dragging tied bundles of thorny brush into a defensive barricade around the perimeter of the village.
Shandi pulled herself into the saddle and trotted Karles over to Darian. “What do you want us to do?” she asked; her voice trembled a little, and she was dead-white, but she seemed steady enough. In fact, Darian was just as glad to see her finally showing a little fear; it made him less worried that she would try to do something comprised of equal parts of bravery and foolishness.
“Stand by,” he told her. “You’re the only cavalry we’ve got; I just hope Wolverine doesn’t have any riders. One person can do a lot if she’s the only one on horseback.”
Karles stamped a hoof loudly.
“Or on whatever,” Darian added.
Hywel had grabbed a boar-spear and picked out a group of Raven warriors to stand with on his own; that was perfect. He knew how to fight alongside these people, in their style; Darian dismissed him from his mind. Steelmind and Winter sky retrieved their bows and every arrow they owned, then sent their birds out after Kuari. Kel lumbered back up into the air to perch on the rooftree of one of the log houses.
How long do we have? he wondered, and joined his mind to Kuari’s. Through Kuari’s eyes he looked down on the approaching throngs of warriors and recognized one of the slopes they had passed yesterday.
His stomach lurched. Not long enough.
Wolverine’s fighters would be within hearing distance in a few moments; he didn’t bother warning the rest, since they’d be catching the sounds of jingling harness and men trampling through brush in a moment. Wolverine was no longer making even a token attempt at slipping up unnoticed.
And just how did they know they don’t have surprise on us?
The answer to that was clear enough as the second rank came into Kuari’s view.
Striding alongside a guard of muscular fighters dressed identically in leather tunics ornamented with an eclipsed sun instead of a tribal or personal totem was an all-too-familiar-looking figure. Darian’s nightmares were sometimes haunted by a similar, dark figure out of his past.
The Shaman of the Eclipse. Mage and Shaman in one, this fellow was in his late twenties or early thirties, bearded, shaggy-haired, and fully as muscle-bound as his personal guards. Unlike the guards, he had only token armor; a helmet, shoulder plates, arm braces. He also wore robes of cloth, not a leather tunic; black cloth, with the corona of the eclipse painted in scarlet on the breast. He wore the same style medallion that the last such Shaman had worn - the Shaman who had led Blood Bear to attack and conquer Errold’s Grove.
A Shaman you killed yourself, with a lot fewer weapons and no training, he reminded himself, as the sight of the man sent atavistic chills down his back. He tried not to think about how huge a part luck had played on that long-ago night.
“Their mage is with them,” he told the others - which now included Keisha and his parents, who had joined Wintersky, Steelmind, and Shandi. “He must have followed my trail from the pass.” Too late now to chastise himself for using magic at all; he’d done what seemed right at the time.
“They’re coming!” someone shouted from the barricade, and as the first scarlet hint of the sun silhouetted the mountains to the east, an unexpected breeze blew off the mist. The clearing in front of the village sprang up as if conjured from the fog - and there they were.
Darian swallowed, his mouth gone dry. Even if every man, woman, and child of Raven took up a weapon, they would still be outnumbered two-to-one. The only slim advantage they had was that they were the defenders. Their opponents, though not as well-armed as Blood Bear had been when they descended upon Errold’s Grove, were still formidable; all of them were fit, tough, and looked to be seasoned warriors, armed with swords, knives, and throwing-spears, armored with hammered-metal helmets, shoulder- and breast-plates, with vambraces and greaves over their leather tunics and trews. Cold-eyed and wary, they didn’t seem impressed with the defenders.
His heart went cold and sank into the bottom of his stomach. His chest went tight as the warriors of Wolverine lined themselves up before the defenses of Raven, making a loose formation of two ranks. The ones in the second rank had bows instead of javelins.
Oh, gods. It’s not all Wolverine either. . . .
He should have expected this, but somehow it had never occurred to him that there would be fighters sporting the totem of Blood Bear allied with those of Wolverine. There they were - not the half-human, half-bestial things that their Shaman had created, but more than nasty-looking enough. And by the wicked snarls on their faces, they recognized the three Hawkbrothers, too - recognized them as coming from the same folk as the instrument of their defeat in the south, at any rate.
I’ve got a very bad feeling about this.
Shandi eased Karles over to Darian’s side, and nodded at the Blood Bear contingent, who made up nearly half of the left flank. “Is that who I think it is?” she asked, in a voice that cracked a little.
“It is.” He didn’t take his eyes off the Shaman. If there was a single person commanding this force, it was this Shaman, and his control was absolute. After the fighters arrayed themselves in two ranks, they remained in place, and when one or two stirred restlessly, the Shaman quelled them with a single spearing glance.
Only when all of his troops had settled into immobility did the Shaman send his gaze questing over the Raven defenders. When his eyes locked with Darian’s, it was clear enough who he had been looking for.
Darian returned his gaze somberly, determined not to show a hint of weakness or fear. You want to start a staring contest? Be my guest. I’d rather we tried to stare each other down than started flinging arrows at each other. He tried to judge the level of the mage’s power without actually probing him, for a probe could be turned against him; the other man was probably doing the same.
The flows of power around the Shaman told Darian quite a bit - more bad news, since the Shaman had accessed a ley-line four furlongs behind, which crossed the trail the army must have taken. It wasn’t the strongest line Darian had ever seen, nor the strongest in the area, but the fact that the mage was accessing it at all meant he was at least Darian’s equal. Higher than Apprentice and Journeyman. Master, at least. How experienced a Master? There was no telling, but Darian felt altogether too new and raw in his ranking at the moment. I am not ready for a contest of mage-against-mage - he thought, as he accessed another power line.